¹ This story exists throughout Minas Gerais, and differs in specifics, but not in general form, from one region to the next. The regional variations usually hinge around which groups go to the shore and in which order. What groups appear in the story always correspond to the groups that participate in the festival in that particular location. Nonagendrin Dona Maria Geralda Ferreira told me the story in a taped interview, but I also heard several different versions in casual conversations throughout the period of fieldwork. Dona Maria Geralda Ferreira, matriarch of the festival in Jatobá, interview with the author, Itaipu, Belo Horizonte, MG, 17 August 1995.

² The black and mulatto brotherhoods in Minas Gerais in the colonial period were dedicated to: Our Lady of the Rosary, Saint Benedict, Saint Benedict and Saint Iphigenia, Our Lady of Mercies, Our Lady of Good Death, Good Jesus, and the Cord of São Francisco. Mulvey, Patricia, “The Black Lay Brotherhoods of Colonial Brazil: A History,” (Ph.D. diss., City College of New York, 1976), p. 307.Google Scholar

³ As in the rest of Brazil, the death rate among slaves in Minas Gerais was very high, thus creating many opportunities, albeit sad ones, for the members of the rosary confraternities to gather together. Martinho de Mendoça, after engaging in a study of conditions in Minas in 1734, commented that the owners of slaves did not expect slaves bought as young men to last more than twelve years. Boxer, C.R., The Golden Age of Brazil, Growing Pains of a Colonial Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962), p. 174.Google Scholar

⁴ Although many scholars have pointed out that brotherhoods of the rosary also served as emancipation societies, there was no evidence of this in any of the three dozen rosary brotherhoods I examined in Minas Gerais.

⁵ According to Caío César Boschi, they accounted for almost twenty percent of the fifty-two different types of brotherhoods in Minas Gerais in the colonial period. The figures are considered low, however, because many books have not survived to the present, or remain in individual parishes. Boschi, Caio César, Os leigos e o poder: irmandades leigos e política colonizadora em Minas Gerais (São Paulo: Editora Ática, 1986), pp. 189–90Google Scholar.

⁶ In other regions of Brazil, some of the other black brotherhoods elected kings and queens. For instance, the brotherhoods of Saint Balthasar in Rio de Janeiro elected kings and queens beginning in the mid-eighteenth century. See Filho, Melo Moráis, Festas e tradições populares do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: F. Briguiet & Cia., 1946), pp. 381–86Google Scholar. In the city of São Paulo there are also records of the coronation of kings and queens in the brotherhood of Saint Benedict by the mid-nineteenth century. Compromisso da Irmandade do Glorioso São Benedicto nesta Imperial Cidade de Sao Paulo, 23 de Outubro de 1855 (São Paulo: Typographia Dous de Dezembro, 1855).

⁷ DaMatta, Roberto, Carnivals, Rogues, and Heroes, An Interpretation of the Brazilian Dilemma, Drury, John, trans. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

⁸ See Harris, Marvin, “Race Relations in Minas Velhas, A Community in the Mountain Region of Central Brazil,” in Race and Class in Rural Brazil: A UNESCO Study (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963)Google Scholar; Skidmore, Thomas E, Black Into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Degler, Carl, Neither Black Nor White, Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1971).Google Scholar

⁹ Weber, Max, “Ethnic Groups,” New Tribalismi: The Resurgence of Race and Ethnicity, Hughey, Michael W., ed. (New York: New York University Press, 1998), p. 17.Google Scholar

¹⁰ On secondary ethnicities see Fried, Morton H., The Notion of Tribe (Menlo Park: Cummings Publishing Company, 1975), pp. 99–114 Google Scholar; and on ethnicity in general see Barth, Fredrik, ed., Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, The Social Organization of Culture Difference (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1969), pp. 9–38.Google Scholar

¹¹ On black brotherhoods in Brazil see Russell-Wood, A. J. R, “Black and Mulatto Brotherhoods in Colonial Brazil: A Study in Collective Behavior,” Hispanic-American Historical Review 54:4 (1974), 567–602 Google Scholar; Scarano, Julita, “Black Brotherhoods: Integration or Contradiction?” Luso-Brazilian Review 16:1 (Summer 1979), 1–17 Google Scholar; Mulvey, Patricia, “Black Brothers and Sisters: Lay Membership in the Black Lay Brotherhoods of Colonial Brazil,” Luso-Brazilian Review 17:2 (1980), 253–79Google Scholar. On brotherhoods of blacks specifically in Minas Gerais see Scarano, Julita, Devoção e escravidão: a Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos no distrito diamantino no século XVIII (São Paulo: Nacional, 1976)Google Scholar; Borges, Célia, “Irmandades do Rosário: Participação e dinàmica social em Minas no séc. XVIII,” Anais Universitarios: Ciencias Sociais e Humanas 6 (1995), 239–253 Google Scholar; Kiddy, Elizabeth W., “Brotherhoods of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Blacks, Community and Devotion in Minas Gerais, Brazil,” (Ph.D. diss., University of New Mexico, 1998)Google Scholar.

¹² See especially Boschi, , Os Leigos e o poder, p. 156 Google Scholar, where he comments “… ao contrario dos quilombos, as irmandades acabaram se tornando urna forma de manifestação adesista, passiva e conformista de carnadas inferiores, onde não se formou urna consciência de classe e, por conseguinte, onde inexistiu urna consciência política.” In addition, despite Donald Ramos’ discussion of the ability of the blacks to join together as a race, he argues that the brotherhoods were primarily places where the Church succeeded in acculturating the blacks. See Ramos, Donald, “Community, Control and Acculturation: A Case Study of Slavery in Eighteenth Century Brazil,” The Americas 42 (April, 1986), 419–449.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹³ Russell-Wood, A. J. R., The Black Man in Slavery and Freedom in Colonial Brazil (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982), pp. 154–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁴ See Karasch, Mary, “Queens and Judges: Afro-Brazilian Women in the Lay Brotherhoods of Central Brazil, 1772–1840,” (paper delivered at the 1998 meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Chicago, IL, 24 September 1998)Google Scholar; and Nishida, Mieko, “From Ethnicity to Race and Gender: Transformations of Black Lay Sodalities in Salvador, Brazil,” Journal of Social History 32:2 (Winter 1998), 329–348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁵ See especially Gomez, Michael A., Exchanging Our Country Marks, The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Meyers, Albert, “The Religious Brotherhoods in Latin America,” Manipulating the Saints: Reli-gious Brotherhoods and Social Integration in Postconquest Latin America, Meyers, A., and Hopkins, Diane, eds. (Hamburg: Wayasbah, 1988), p. 4.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Meyers, , “The Religious Brotherhoods,” p. 5.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Meyers, , “The Religious Brotherhoods,” p. 29.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Winston, Anne, “Tracing the Origins of the Rosary: German Vernacular Texts,” Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 68 (July 1993): 630 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Women, for example, who had been excluded from many other lay religious societies, were welcomed into the brotherhood of the rosary. Black, Christopher F., Italian Confraternities in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 38–39 Google Scholar and 103. Anne Winston points out that in Germany women were often invited to join the rosary confraternities. Winston, “Tracing the Origins,” p. 634n54.

²⁰ Winston, “Tracing the Origins,” pp. 630–31.Google Scholar

²¹ Winston-Allen, Anne, Stories of the Rose, The Making of the Rosary in the Middle Ages (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), p. 111.Google Scholar

²² Padre António Brásio, C.S.S p., Os Pretos em Portugal (Lisboa: Pelo Império, 1944), pp. 73–104. See also Saunders, A.C. de C.M., A Social History of Black Slaves and Freedmen in Portugal, 1441–1555 (Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 150–156.Google Scholar

²³ Serafim Leite, S.J., História da companhia de Jesus no Brasil, 10 Vol. (Lisbon: Livraria Portugáliae and Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1938–1950), Vol. 2, pp. 340–41.Google Scholar

²⁴ Mulvey, , “The Black Lay Brotherhoods,” pp. 289–90Google Scholar, and Leite, , História, Vol. 2, p. 324n3.Google Scholar

²⁵ For some of the signature works on this discussion see Herskovitz, Melville, The Myth of the Negro Past (New York: Harper and Bros., 1941)Google Scholar; and Frazier, E. Franklin, The Negro in the United States (New York: McMillan and Co., 1957)Google Scholar; Mintz, Sidney W., and Price, Richard, “An Anthropological Approach to the Afro-American Past: A Caribbean Perspective,” ISHI Occasional Papers for Social Change No. 2 (Philadelphia, Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1976)Google Scholar; Patterson, Orlando, Slavery and Social Death, A Comparative Study (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982).Google Scholar

²⁶ See Miller, Joseph C., Way of Death, Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730–1830 (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1988)Google Scholar; and for Brazil see Conrad, Robert Edgar, World of Sorrow, The African Slave Trade to Brazil (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986).Google Scholar

²⁷ Gomez, , Exchanging Our Country MarL•, p. 158.Google Scholar

²⁸ Goulart, Mauricio, A escravidào africana no Brazil, das orígens à extinção do tráfico (São Paulo: Editora Alfa-Ômega, 1975), pp. 149–50.Google Scholar

²⁹ Boxer, , The Golden Age, p. 45.Google Scholar

³⁰ Antonil, André João, (pseud.). Cultura e opulencia do Brazil por suas drogas e minas (São Paulo: Companhia Melhoramentos de São Paulo, 1923), pp. 215–16.Google Scholar

³¹ See Antonil’s early eighteenth century description of the overland journey from Rio de Janeiro to the mines and from Bahia to the mines. Antonil, , Cultura e opulência, pp. 242–247.Google Scholar

³² Goulart, , A escravidão, pp. 154 Google Scholar and 164–66; see also Florentino, Manolo Garcia, Em Costas Negras: Uma História do Tráfico Atlântico de Escravos entre a África e o Rio de Janeiro (Séculos XVIII e XIX) (Rio de Janeiro: Arquivo Nacional, 1995), p. 45.Google Scholar

³³ See Russell-Wood, , The Black Man, p. 104 Google Scholar; and Higgins, Kathleen, “Master and Slaves in a Mining Society: A Study of Eighteenth-Century Sabará, Minas Gerais,” Slavery and Abolition 11:1 (1990), 62–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁴ Kopytoff, Igor, and Miers, Suzanne, “African ‘Slavery’ as an Institution of Marginality,” in Slavery in Africa, Historical and Anthropological Perspectives, Miers, Suzanne, and Kopytoff, Igor, eds. (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1977), p. 53 Google Scholar. Despite their autonomy relative to other regions of Brazil, there is no lack of evidence that some masters brutally mistreated their slaves. See Boxer, , The Golden Age, pp. 173–175 Google Scholar and Russell-Wood, , The Black Man, pp. 4–6.Google Scholar

³⁵ Kopytoff, and Miers, , “African ‘Slavery,’” p. 7.Google Scholar

³⁶ Russell-Wood, , The Black Man, p. 128.Google Scholar

³⁷ See Scarano, , Devoção e escravidào, pp. 12–20.Google Scholar

³⁸ For examples, see the letter from Dom Bráz Baltazar da Silveira to the King, Dom João V, 4 May 1715, Arquivo Publico Mineiro (hereafter APM) SC04,402; and the letter from town of São João del Rei to the King, Dom João V (no name), 22 August 1719, APM SC04, 693–97. In addition, the Revista do Arguivo Publico Mineiro (hereafter RAPM) from 1911 summarizes fifty royal letters, orders, and notices from the Portuguese monarchs to the governors of Minas Gerais between 1710 and 1767 articulating their concern about the clergy. “Religioens, clérigos e mater.^as Eclesiásticas,” RAPM 16 (1911), pp. 393–403.

³⁹ On brotherhoods in Brazil in general see Cardozo, Manoel S., “The Lay Brotherhoods of Colonial Bahia,” Catholic Historical Review 33:1 (1947), 12–30 Google Scholar; Russell-Wood, A. J. R., Fidalgos and Philanthropists, The Santa Casa da Misericórdia of Bahia, 1550–1755 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968)Google Scholar; Russell-Wood, A.J.R., “Prestige, Power, and Piety in Colonial Brazil: The Third Orders of Salvador,” Hispanic-American Historical Review 69:1 (1989), 61–89 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For brotherhoods in general in Minas Gerais see de Salles, Fritz Teixeira, Associações religiosas no ciclo do ouro (Belo Horizonte: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, 1963)Google Scholar and Boschi, Os leigos.

⁴⁰ Donald Ramos argues that the church was one of the main institutions responsible for the transmission of values in eighteenth century Minas Gerais. See Ramos, , “Community, Control,” pp. 433–45.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Boschi, , Os leigos, pp. 214–224 Google Scholar. The formation of brotherhoods predated the formation of the first collative parishes (parishes linked to a diocese with a parish priest) which were established by a royal letter in 1724. The establishment of the organized church did have an effect on the brotherhoods because the accounting and entrance books of the brotherhoods began in 1724, even though they incorporated before that date. Carrato, José Ferreira, As Minas Gerais e o primordios do Caraça (São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1963), p. 106.Google Scholar

⁴² Compromisso da Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário novamente Erecta na Igreja Matris de Nossa Senhora da Nazareth do lugar da Caxueira no distrito das Minas … o anno de 1713. Arquivo Eclesiástico da Arquidiocese de Mariana (hereafter AEAM) A22, 8.

⁴³ One untitled compromisso that I suspect is a copy of the compromisso from Alto da Cruz in Ouro Preto read “Toda a pessoa preta ou branca, de um e outro sexo, de qualquer nação que seja …,” APM SP PP 1/35 Cx. 02 doc. 44, Capítulo 1. Another compromisso from 1782 from Calambao, near Mariana, said that “homem, mulher, preto, cativo e forro, tambem qualquer pessoa parda ou branca de qualquer qualidade.” Compromisso da Irmandade de NSR, Calambao (filial de Guaraprianga), 1782, AEAM Livros das Irmandades 25.

⁴⁴ Assentos de Irmãos, Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário, 1750–1886, Mariana, AEAM P28.

⁴⁵ These numbers reflect similar population distribution as the overall population of Mariana at the time. See Bergad, Laird W., “After the Mining Boom: Demographic and Economic Aspects of Slavery in Mariana, Minas Gerais, 1750–1808,” Latin American Research Review 31:1 (1996), 67–97.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Forty of the 181 members that signed up between 1750 and 1753 were listed as having held a leadership position previously in the brotherhood. The earliest was Cristóvão Damião, an Angolan slave who had been a judge in 1727. An addendum to the book added that he died in 1757. Assentos de Irmãos, Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário, 1750–1886, Mariana, AEAM P28.

⁴⁷ Entradas dos Irmãos, Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos, São João del Rei 17471806, Arquivo da Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário (hereafter AINSR).

⁴⁸ Cabra, literally meaning she-goat in Portuguese, signified a person that racially was a mixture of pardo and black.

⁴⁹ Verger, Pierre, Trade Relations Between the Bight of Benin and Bahia from the 17th to 19th Century, Crawford, Evelyn, trans. (Ibadan: Ibadan University Press, 1976), p. 11 Google Scholar; Curtin, Philip D., The Atlantic Slave Trade, A Census (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), p. 208 Google Scholar; Boxer, , The Golden Age, p. 176.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Barbot, Jean, Barbot on Guinea, The Writings of Jean Barbot on West Africa 1678–1712, Vol. 2, P.E.H. Hair, Jones, Adam, Law, Robin, eds. (London: The Hakluyt Society, 1992), pp. 665 and 667n2.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Verger, Trade Relations, 176n29. See also Mott, Luiz, Rosa Egipcíaca, urna santa africana no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Bertrand Brasil S.A., 1993), p. 14.Google Scholar

⁵² Reis, João José, Slave Rebellion in Brazil, the Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia, Brakel, Arthur, trans. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), p. 154.Google Scholar

⁵³ Brandon, George, Santería from Africa to the New World, the Dead Sell Memories (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), pp. 9–10.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Boxer, , The Golden Age, p. 175.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Des Marchais, the French slaver, identified twenty nationalities of slaves being sold at the port at Whydah, including “Minois.” Robin Law asserts that these were peoples who had migrated east from the gold coast to the region known as Little Popo (just west of Grand Popo). Despite this, the Portuguese called this entire region the Mina Coast, so it is unlikely that all of the many slaves identified as Minas in the Brazilian slave roles referred to this single particular group of slaves. Law, Robin, The Slave Coast of West Africa, 1550–1750, The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on an African Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), p. 189.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ In the years between 1754 and 1760, West African members comprised 62 percent of the listed members, from 1760 to 1770 only 23 percent, and from 1770 to 1780 only four percent. Assentos de Irmãos, Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário, 1750–1886, Mariana, AEAM P28.

⁵⁷ See, for instance, the contemporary documents on the subject printed in Vallejos, Julio Pinto, “Slave Control and Slave Resistance in Colonial Minas Gerais, 1700–1750,” Journal of Latin American Studies 17 (1985), pp. 32–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁸ Verger, , Trade Relations, p. 12.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Donald Ramos, in his examination of the tax rolls in Vila Rica from 1716 to 1718 found that 34.4 percent of the slaves were identified as Minas, and 38.5 percent from the combined regions of Benguela, Angola, and the Congo. Less than one hundred years later the 1804 census for the same city identified only 5.4 percent from Mina, and the areas from Western Central Africa as being again 38.9 percent of the total. The large increase occurred in the Brazilian-born population of slaves that jumped from 2.5 percent in 1716–18 to over fifty percent of the total slave population. Ramos, Donald, “A Social History of Ouro Preto: Stresses of Dynamic Urbanization in Colonial Brazil 1695–1726” (Ph.D. diss., University of Florida, 1972), 195.Google Scholar For summary of the activity along the slave coast at the end of the eighteenth century see Curtin, Philip, et al., African History From Earliest Times to Independence, 2ed (London: Longman,1995), pp. 203–08.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Karasch, Mary, Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1850 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 18–19 Google Scholar. For a seventeenth century account of the various kingdoms of Western Central Africa see António Cavazzi, Padre João, Descrição histórica dos três reinos do Congo, Matamba e Angola, Vol. I (Lisbon: Junta de Investigções do Ultramar, 1965), pp. 15–34.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Miller, Joseph C., “The paradoxes of impoverishment in the Atlantic zone,” in History of Central Africa, Vol. I, Birmingham, David, and Martin, Phyllis M., eds. (London: Longman, 1983), p. 124.Google Scholar

⁶² Wheeler, Douglas L., and Pélissier, René, Angola (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1978), p. 25.Google Scholar

⁶³ Miller, , “The paradoxes,” pp. 149–50.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Miller, , “The paradoxes,” pp. 149–50.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Mary Karasch points out that the slave owners in nineteenth century Rio considered the Congo slaves some of their best slaves. They were thought to be proud, that they preserved their traditions, “celebrated the old Kingdom of Kongo in their songs, honored the Wise Man Balthasar as King of Congo, and crowned their own kings and queens.” Karasch, , Slave Life, p. 19 Google Scholar. When the compromissos from the colonial Mineiran brotherhoods mentioned a king and queen they did not use the term King of the Congo, but the term King of the Congo surfaced incidentally in some of the other books. For instance, in the entrance books for São João del Rei in 1773 the slave Brizida was identified as the “Queen of the Congos.” Twenty years later the same book listed Thereza de Sobral e Souza, a freed black, as the wife of the King of the Congo. Livro de Entradas dos Irmãos, Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos, São João del Rei, AINSR, 6 January 1773 and 6 January 1793. The first appearance of a King of Congo on election lists occurred in the Arraial de Bacalhau (near Mariana) where in 1830 the list identified the slave José Congo as the King of the Congo (Rei Congo). Livro de Termos de Meza, Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário, Arraial de Bacalhau, Freguesia de Nossa Senhora da Conceição de Guara-piranga, 1758–1893, AEAM Y12.

⁶⁶ Koster, Henry, Travels in Brazil, Gardiner, C. Harvey, ed. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1966), p. 182.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ See Gomez’ argument for the United States, Gomez, , Exchanging Our Country Marks, pp. 190–195.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ There was a ten-year period from 1778-1789 during which the elections were not listed due to a conflict within the brotherhood.

⁶⁹ Livro de Termos de Meza, Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário, Arraial de Bacalhau, Fregue-sia de Nossa Senhora da Conceição de Guarapiranga, 1758–1893, AEAM Y12.

⁷⁰ It cannot be assumed that the members in the list without descriptors were white, which was a common assumption made for early nineteenth century censuses, because many of those members were listed as slaves and some as black officers. The list only reflects those descriptors that were used in the list itself.

⁷¹ Mieko Nishida came to similar conclusions for Bahia in Nishida, “From Ethnicity to Race,” pp. 331–32.Google Scholar

⁷² Livro de Termos de Meza, Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário, Arraial de Bacalhau, Freguesia de Nossa Senhora da Conceição de Guarapiranga, 1758–1893, AEAM Y12.

⁷³ Letter from the Conde de Assumar to the King, Dom João V, 20 April 1719, RAPM 3 (1898): 263–64; in English in Conrad, Robert Edgar, Children of God’s Fire, A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 394–97.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Smith, E. Valerie, “The Sisterhood of Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte and the Brotherhood of Nossa Senhora do Rosário: African-Brazilian Cultural Adaptations to Antebellum Restrictions” Afro-Hispanic Review 11 (1992), 63 Google Scholar; Bastide, Roger, The African Religions of Brazil, trans. Helen Sebba (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), p. 119 Google Scholar; and on Rio see Karasch, , Slave Life, p. 272.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Roger Bastide cites a case in the brotherhood in Diamantina in the northern diamond mining district in which a group of pardos tried to break off from the brotherhood to form their own. Bastide, The African Religions, p. 431n31. Julita Scarano, who studied and wrote a monograph on the brotherhood of the rosary in Diamantina during the colonial period, does not discuss the case that Bastide cites between the pardos and the slaves in the brotherhood. In fact, she agrees that the brotherhoods were a place where the slaves could abandon their old rivalries in an attempt to overcome the present situation. Scarano, , Devoção e escravidão, p. 149.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Compromisso da Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário novamente Erecta na Igreja Matris de Nossa Senhora da Nazareth do lugar da Caxueira no distrito das Minas … oannode 1713, AEAMAA22, Capítulo 1.

⁷⁷ Pretinho is a diminutive of preto, or black. Pretinho, however, never means “little black” but rather, like many diminutives in Portuguese, is a term of affection, but when used today is often considered (by the blacks) to be patronizing.

⁷⁸ “Devem advertir os pretinhos que os irmãos brancos sendo da mesa não devem ter voto nesta … e querem os brancos dominar aos pobres pretos em a sua Irmandade …” Compromisso da Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário novamente Erecta na Igreja Matris de Nossa Senhora da Nazareth do lugar da Caxueira no distrito das Minas … o anno de 1713, AEAM AA22, Capítulo 7.

⁷⁹ Entradas de Irmãos, Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário, Cachoeira do Campo, 1720–1780, AEAM AA25 and AA26.

⁸⁰ “… pedindo mais a V. E.xa Rv.ma nos conceda faculdade se não podermos servir do altar da Irmandade do Rosário dos Brancos que nos ajudamos a erigir para fazermos as nossas festas e louvar-mos a Nossa Senhora do Rosário sem que encontrem estas com a dos brancos nos dias de seo compromisso nem os ditos o contarião como já do nosso Reverendo Vigário V. E.^xa se tem informado.” Compromisso dos Pretos devotos de N. Senhora do Rosário da freguesia do Campo dos Carijós para se governarem por eles, 1743, Capítulo 1, APM SP 959–1743.

⁸¹ Compromisso dos Pretos devotos de N. Senhora do Rosário da freguesia do Campo dos Carijós para se governarem por eles, 1743, Capítulo 1, APM SP 959–1743.

⁸² Compromisso da Irmandade de NS do Rozario dos Pretos denominada do Alto da Cruz …, António Dias, 1733, CC Paróquia de Nossa Senhora da Conceição de Antônio Dias Rol 58.

⁸³ “… conformando-se com os Irmãos pretos em tudo o que for justo e de razão.” Compromisso da Irmandade de NS do Rozario dos Pretos denominada do Alto da Cruz …, Antônio Dias, 1733, CC Paróquia de Nossa Senhora da Conceição de Antônio Dias Rol 58, Capítulo 22.

⁸⁴ Of the black officers, the king was from Angola and the others listed as Mina. Of the board members, eleven were from Angola, nine from Mina, six from Benguela, one crioulo (Brazilian-born black), and one listed with no place of origin. Termo de Meza, 2 January 1782, in the Compromisso of Calambao (filial de Guarapiranga), 1782, AEAM Livras das Irmandades 25.

⁸⁵ Compromisso da Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rozário na Freguezia da Conceyção da Villa do Principe do Serro do Frio no Anno de 1.728 (Serro, MG: Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário, 1979), p. 2.

⁸⁶ Compromisso dos Pretos devotos de N. Senhora do Rosário da freguesia do Campo dos Carijós para se governarem por eles, 1743, APM – SP 959–1743.

⁸⁷ Quoted in Ramos, , “Community, Control,” p. 437.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ de Lima, Augusto Júnior, História de Nossa Senhora em Minas Gerais (Belo Horizonte: Imprensa Oficial, 1956), p. 60.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ “… sera suprido por qualquer irmao ou zelador homem branco …” Compromisso da Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos pretos da freguesia de Sao Caetano, 1762, AEAM Livro das Irman-dades 22, Capítulo 4.

⁹⁰ Compromisso da Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos pretos da freguesia de Sao Caetano, 1762, AEAM Livro das Irmandades 22, Capítulo 7.

⁹¹ Compromisso da Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos pretos da freguesia de Sao Cae-tano, 1762, AEAM Livro das Irmandades 22, Capítulo 1.

⁹² Compromisso da Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário, Calambao (filial de Guarapiranga) 1782, AEAM Livro das Irmandades 25, Capítulo 2.

⁹³ “… p.r não terem os Pretos a inteligencia necessària para os mesmos cargos…” Compromisso da Irmandade do Rozario dos Pretos, Arraial de Santa Rita da Freguezia de Santo António do Rio Asima na Comarca de Sabará, 1782, Arquivo Borba Gato, Sabará (hereafter ABG).

⁹⁴ “… e por isso para estes empregos devem ser eleitos pretos, ou crioulos libertos, e de abono, e reconhecida verdade, pois destes claviculónos pende a economia total, e todo o progresso da Irmandade, e poderão livremente convocar algum homem branco para lhes fazer as contas e lançalas quando nào sejão aptos por si mesmos.” Compromisso de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos da Arraial de Nossa Senhor do Monte do Carmo da Freguesia de Nossa Senhora da Conceição de Pouso Alto, Bispado de Mariana—1820, APM, SP 959.

⁹⁵ Some slaves, however, even in the eighteenth century learned to write. On rare occasions slaves would sign their names in the entrance books. In Mariana, one slave member, João Mina, in 1762 “corrected” his entrance into the brotherhood. This correction read, “Claro que este dito irmam retifica o seu assento assinando hoje com seu nome por saber escrever.” (Clearly this brother corrects his entrance, signing his name today because he knows how to write.) Entradas dos Irmãos, Mariana, 26 December 1762, AEAM P28.

⁹⁶ The record of the problem began in Termos de Meza, Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos, Piranga (Guarapiranga) Arraial de Bacalhau, 1758–1893, AEAM Y12, pp. 30v–48.

⁹⁷ Termos de Meza, Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos, Piranga (Guarapiranga) Arraial de Bacalhau, 1758–1893, AEAM Y12, pp. 30v–48.

⁹⁸ De Craemer, Willy, Vansina, Jan, Fox, Renée C., “Religious Movements in Central Africa: A Theoretical Study,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 18:4 (October 1976), 475 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Janzen, John M., “The Tradition of Renewal in Kongo Religion,” African Religions: A Symposium, Booth, Newell S. Jr. ed. (New York: NOK Publishers, 1976), p. 69 Google Scholar; Karasch, Mary, “Central African Religious Tradition in Rio de Janeiro,” Journal of Latin American Lore 5 (1979), 233–253 Google Scholar; Thornton, John K., Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1680 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 235–71.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Kiddy, Elizabeth W., “Congados, Calunga, Candombe: Our Lady of the Rosary in Minas Gerais, Brazil,” Luso-Brazilian Review (forthcoming).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ See Kiddy, , “Brotherhoods of Our Lady,” pp. 82–95.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ “O novo Rei dos negros recebeu oficialmente a visita de um enviado estrangeiro à córte do Congo (a denominada congada).” Karl von Martius quoted in Luís da Câmara Cascudo, Antologia do folclore brasileiro (São Paulo: Livraria Martins Editora, 1965), p. 94.

¹⁰² … apresentando tão bizarro espetáculo, que se imaginava estar diante de um bando de macacos.” Cascudo, , Antologia, p. 95.Google Scholar

¹⁰³ “… esmolas dos folguedos da Praya p^ra ajuda das despezas;” and “… os folguedos dos Pretos dos Domingos…” and “…esmola na porta da igreja os folguedos dos tambores das naçõens. …” Livro de Receitas e Despezas da Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário, São João del Rei, 1805–1831, AINSR.

¹⁰⁴ The presence of Mozambiques collecting alms when that nation did not appear in the admissions lists leaves a question as to whether the name was symbolic, or if it represented Africans from that nation. Compromisso da Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário do Arraial de Nossa Senhora do Monte do Carmo, Freguesia de Nossa Senhora da Conceição de Pouso Alto, Bispado de Mariana, 1820, APM SP 959, Capítulo 20.

¹⁰⁵ Evidence of the congados became much more frequent in the nineteenth century, both in the accounting books and in eyewitness accounts. See Kiddy, , “Brotherhoods of Our Lady,” pp. 223–30.Google Scholar