Robert M. Levine

From 1893 to 1897, the newly-formed (1888) and fragile Brasilian republic waged 4 military campaigns against the millenarian community of Canudos, located in the sertão (backlands) of the northeast state of Bahia, and led by charismatic Catholic lay preacher Antonio Conselheiro. After three decisive defeats by Cnudenses wielding, at first, scythes, axes and old-fashioned blunderbusses against troops equipped with modern weapons, the 4th campaign finally defeated the stubborn resistance of the sertanjos residents; at least 15,000 of the residents were slaughtered, most of them after the defeat and surrender; no males were left alive--they were rounded up and their throats slit. Conselherio had died just before the final assault; his body was disinterred, decaptitated, and his head brought to the coast and publicly displayed.

This brutal episode in Brasilian history was popularized by Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel, The War of the End of the World, which presented a somewhat romanticized but historically accurate account of the struggle. While recounting the tale of the conflict itself and the personality of Antonio Conselheiro, Vargas Llosa did not pay much attention to the reasons why Canudos came into existence in the first place.

Originally, Brasilian historians explained the remarkable phenomenon of tens of thousands of people uprooting themselves and their families from all over the huge area of northeast Brasil to live in a remote, austere community to religious fanaticism and inferior mentality due to miscegenation; the event was treated as an exception, an anomaly in the history of the region. Robert Levine, a respected historian, took a fresh look at the historical record of what is definitely known of Antonio Conselherio and Canudos, the socioeconomic conditions of the area from earliest times through the monarchy and into the fledgling republic, the very different world views of the elitist coastal areas and the south of Brasil and the rural backlands, and the political realities of Brasil. His conclusion: Canudos was not an isolated incident. On the contrary, there were others, and had their basis in the conservatism of the people and resistance to change in what were already desperately poor lives. In particular, the exile of the emperor, Dom Pedro II, a father figure to most poor Brasilians in a culture steeped in paternalism and male authority figures, replaced by a republic that then took away large chunks of authority from the Catholic Church (such as requiring civil registrations for marriages, births, deaths) in a move that was widely seen as hostile to the Church, laid the groundwork for the popularity of Conselheiro, who preached that the republic was evil. Millenarian communities and movements—the search for salvation collectively rather than as individuals—were common in that area; one, Jazueiro, not far from Canudos and led by Padre Cícero, existed successfully into the 20th century until Padre Cícero died. Canudos was exceptional only in the numbers of people involved and the viciousness of the repression.
Levine makes a good case for his conclusions. The book is well-written and easily accessible for those who have already read The War at the End of The World and/or are interested in that aspect of Brasilian history.

But there are some problems. For one thing, the index is not that good. Some terms go unexplained, such as Sebastianism. And finally, the book could have been about 20% shorter than the 243 pages in my University of California Press edition (1995 for the paperback). Levine has at least two sections at the end of the book that do nothing more than summarize, the re-summarize his main thesis, putting his arguments in slightly different form each time but essentially saying nothing new. They add very little to the book, unless you count the benefit of “Tell them what you are going to tell them, then tell them, and then tell them what you just told them” approach to teaching; it’s effective but it does add to the reading.

All in all, a book well worth reading if you really want to understand why the war of the end of the world happened.… (more)