revised Agust 20, 2006
www.capoeira-palmares.fr
Association de capoeira PALMARES de Paris.
Frederico Guilherme Briggs, a young artist born in Rio de Janeiro in 1813, publishes about 1832 in this city a series of small lithographies showing street characters. In Negros que vão levar açoutes (Negroes going to be whipped), one of the convicts carries a sign reading capoeira.
Negros que vão levar açoutes
Briggs del. Litho. R.B. Rua do Ouvidor nº 118.
Source:
Biblioteca Nacional, collection of prints about slavery.
At age 19, young Frederico Guilherme Briggs entered into a partnership with french painter and art teacher Édouard Philippe Rivière, who had been settled in Rio for six years, to launch a lithographic printing enterprise. This technique was used to reproduce labels, music scores and drawings. As it was still a rather new branch of industry in Rio, one could think that it could yield good profit; so one may guess that Briggs' father, who had been doing business in Brazil since 1809, gave the initial funds. Rivière made a living selling paintings and portraits, but presumably his most regular income was from classes taught in private schools. He brought his experience as a professional artist. It may be him who proposed a series of leaflets describing street characters, particularily peddlars with their typical calls, in the guise of the very classical Cris de Paris, sold with success in France since the 16.th century.
Whatever the case, the series has
Negro de ganho (negro for rent) with his creole chant
Gambu fara cua Rinoua Rinoua de Balenco Cusoa muita aprender Lé, Lé, Lé, Landasa uhe
,
Negro comprador (buyer negro),
Negro fujão (negro accostumed to run away) with his iron collar,
Negro tocando marimba (negro playing thumb-piano),
Quitandeira (foodseller) carrying her tray on her head,
Carroça d'Alfandega (Customs charriot),
Marinheiro (sailor),
Huma simplicia (such a simple thing) showing a white woman in fancy dress with two negro retainers,
Negros que vão levar açoutes (negroes going to be whipped),
which is the one we are at, and several other without any title, showing a procission, a woman fruit seller,
a man wearing a grass raincoat, another carrying a swine.
Several artists have pictured the public whipping of slaves in Rio de Janeiro. Debret 1835:II pl. 45 tells that the torturer was a negro convict, and shows him chained in the same way as the last of the three negroes in Briggs'drawing. Rugendas 1827-34 d.4 pl.15, Earle and Landseer are more dramatic and omit these chains; for the last named, the torturer is a white man in the ample gown that Brazilians used when they did not care to dress up. None of these authors mention the cause for punishment. We are somewhat puzzled by the inscription 'capoeira' on the sign. Who was meant to read that? Slaves were not supposed to read. But Debret 1835:III pl. 21 picture an inscription adressed to street people, on one of the Judas puppets that were burned on Easter eve. The Regency, during imperor Pedro II's minority, from the forced abdication of his father, in 1831, to 1840, was a rather restless and riotous time. In these circumstances, the political debate could make an issue of the repression of disorders caused by negroes. In this interpretation, the sign is meant to be read by electors, that is, men with a sufficient declared income; the political factions of the White do not care about the motives and interests of the turbulent "negros capoeiras". All agree on their repression; they discord upon the organization of the police, the armed forces, the State. May be the different uniforms of the soldiers in the background, one a municipal guard, the other a national guard or a line trooper, mean to reflect the alternatives in the armed forces.
Briggs' lithography, intended for a wide public, proves that the term 'capoeira', used by the police as an incrimination, was understood by Brazilians, although no law defined precisely its meaning. The drawing links this infraction to slaves, as free people, except sailors on board of ships, were not liable to be whipped. But it hardly helps us to understand what kind of disorder was that 'capoeira', the prevention of which the Minister of Justice asks for more men for in his 1833 report:
para previnir roubos, assassinios, desordens de negros capoeiras, e outras malfeitorias [...]
to prevent assaults, assassinations, disorders by negroes capoeiras, and other misdeeds [...]
Coutinho, Aureliano de Souza e Oliveira, Relatorio do Ministro da Justiça, Maio de 1834, pp.13-14, Brazilian Government Document Digitization Project.
We rest assured that 'capoeira' as an incrimination is different from assault, assassination, neither relates to political or slaves' insurrections, as these appear in other parts of the report. Otherwise we are not further informed.
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Frederico Guilherme [Frederick William] Briggs, brazilian painter, draughtsman and lithographer born in Rio de Janeiro in 1813, dead in the same city in 1870.
The son of a British tradesman settled in Rio as early as 1809, he began his art studies in the
Academia Imperial das Belas Artes,
taking the architecture class under Grandjean de Montigny (1776 - 1850) and the landscape painting class under
Félix Taunay (1795 - 1881); he showed works in the Expositions of this institution in 1829 and 1830
(Debret 1835:III-100..101). In 1832, he associated with the French artist
Edouard Philippe Rivière to create the Lithographie Rivière et Briggs
.
In 1836, he left to London to better his knowledge of lithography at Day & Haghe's, where in the next year
he drew the
Panorama of the City of Rio de Janeiro
and the Folhinha Nacional Brasileira para o Ano de 1837.
Then he returned to Rio de Janeiro, where he came to direct, in 1839, the publication of the periodical
Caricaturista, illustrated by Porto Alegre (1806 - 1879). On the next year, Briggs
printed a series of caricatures attributed to Rafael Mendes de Carvalho (1817 - 1870),
and another, of 50 illustrations which might be by Joaquim Lopes de Barros Cabral. These works show out
by the reproduction, under various angles, of the city of Rio de Janeiro. They are grouped in an
album titled Costumes Brasileiros (Brazilian customs) published in 1840.
In 1843, Briggs associated to prussian lithographer Peter Ludwig (ca.1814 - 1876) in "Lithographie du Commerce de Ludwig et Briggs". In 1845 Briggs drew a few pages for the periodical Ostensor Brazileiro: Jornal Literário e Pictorial and published the album The Brazilian Souvenir: a Selection of the Most Peculiar Costumes of the Brazil en 1846. Some of the pictures of this work are found in Brazil and the Brazilians Portrayed in Historical and Descriptive Sketches, Philadelphie (USA), 1857.
Works: see the digital showcase of the Biblioteca National in Rio de Janeiro: prints and drawings.
Leite de pedra: Litogravuras de Briggs registram o Brasil do século 19, Problemas Brasileiros 362, mar/abr 2004. [
http://www.sescsp.org.br/sesc/revistas_sesc/pb/].Back to capoeira in police reports.
Back to historical documents timeline.
Lucia Palmares & Pol Briand