Masquerading Africa in the Carnival of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil 1895–1905

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the ways in which black carnival clubs in Salvador, Bahia strategically used African themes and representations to negotiate social, political, and cultural space just after abolition in Brazil, which also coincided with the first years of the Republic. Contemporary newspaper accounts reveal a distinctly Bahian perspective on emerging black cosmopolitanism and pan-Africanism that deepens our understanding of this era in African diaspora history. The pioneer clubs Embaixada Africana (African Embassy) and the Pândegos da África (African Merrymakers) referenced high African civilization, royalty, and divinity in their themes at a time when Africans were being stereotyped as backwards and antithetical to national progress. In so doing, their carnival masquerades became a form of political speech and cultural contestation that was formally banned in 1905, but which laid the foundation for Afro-Bahian carnival expressions for the rest of the twentieth century.