The circuit in the port area is already rival with more traditional postcards, such as Christ the Redeemer, in the rescue movement of the history of a region that was the largest entry point of the African slaves in Brazil. For decades, millions of Africans black slaves have landed in inhuman conditions in the ancient port area of Valongo, Rio de Janeiro. It was the end of a degrading transatlantic journey and the beginning of the ordeal that would have been legally abolished at the end of the nineteenth century.
But they were also the initial chapters of a story that has Samba, Feijoada and Batuque, in the region that is now known as Piccola Africa and is consolidated on the Rio tourism route.
The stage of so many contradictions, the tour is not always easy for emotions. It describes the details of a tragedy that still leaves economic, social and urban scars in Brazil. Also so, the tour attracted a growing contingent of tourists interested in the rescue of memories that have been buried for a long time.
Outside the axis of the famous beaches of the south or green area of the Tijuca forest, the historic territory already divides the spotlight with more traditional postcards in the city.
The circuit entered the list of the ten places of Rio most visited by tourists in the first half of last year, according to the most updated data of the Municipal Secretary of Tourism (Smur-rio). There were 354,810 visits in the period, which gave the area the ninth place in the ranking, in front of Sugar Loaf (12th), Botanical Garden (14th) and Christ the Redentore (17th).
The movement acquired strength after Unesco recognized Cais Do Valongo as a world heritage site in 2017. Since then, the region has become one of the main exponents of the infrotourism, which promotes a dip in the roots of black history.
“Cradla of Brazilian and darkness”
Created in 2011 by the Municipal Decree, the African hereditary circuit covers Valongo Quay and other focal points of the slave economy.
A state law of 2018 has expanded the scope of little Africa to include, among others, the residue of the house where Machado de Assis was born in Morro do livramento. There was also the addition of Dom Pedro II docks, designed by the black architect André Rebouças in 1871.
Along the way, the tourist finds the trendy bars of Largo Do San Francisco, Samba from Pedra Do Sal and typical restaurants of Brazilian cuisine.
“It is one of the cuisine of the Brazilian and our darkness,” says the historic Luana Ferreira, describing the reasons behind the growing dissemination of little Africa.
For seven years, Ferreira is one of the tourist guides that help change the panorama of the port area. He receives groups from various origins that seek more information on the black experience in Brazil. Many companies also look for the tour as a tool to promote internal diversity programs.
To the slopes and asphalt of the neighborhood neighborhoods, Gamboa and Santo Christ, the excursion promotes a sort of radiography of the inheritance of slavery. Ferreira recognizes that the theme is difficult, but it strives to demonstrate that there is much more than suffering in Afro -Brazilian culture.
“I don’t want visitors to go here depressed, just as I don’t want to romantic the situation,” he says. “It is a walk that shines, but from a place of lightness and albacie.”
For this reason, the central aspects of Brazilian identity also travels, such as Capoeira, religiosity and black intellectuality. All these elements had a point of effervescence in this area of the city, which crossed generations mainly from the oral relationship.
A buried story
The material signs of this memory, on the other hand, were subsequently misrepresented by the evolution of the urban fabric. At the beginning of the last century, the reforms of the then mayor of Rio, Pereira Passos, landed the pier of Imperatriz, who had emerged years earlier to replace the Cais valongo.
It was only in 2011, as part of the revitalization project of the Port Zone, that the anchors were rediscovered in a excavation coordinated by the anthropologist Tania Andrade de Lima, by the National Museum.
The rescue of Porto reported the largest material trace of slave trafficking in America. The quay began to be built in 1811, by order of Dom John 6th, who had moved to Brazil together with the whole royal family three years earlier.
The works dragged until 1821, when the region is established as the main nucleus of the slave trade in the passage of Brazil to independence. The most accepted estimates indicate that about 1 million reduced Africans have landed on the scene.
But it is difficult to estimate how much this contingent has gone through the pier because of the lack of formal registers, says the historian Claudio De Paula Honorato, post -laurea coordinator at the Pretos Novos Institute. In many cases, they arrived near the beaches and were already sold, without having to move through the structure. “The quay alone is not much, but within this wider Valongo complex, it is the symbolic representation of all this process of slaves that occurs in that region,” he explains.
At the height of the operations, the surrounding environment of the anchoring had a vast support infrastructure for slave architecture. The terraced houses and the barracks worked as shops and sold slaveized shops and torture products. In Gamboa, a building housed Lazarento, where Africans affected by the disease were a quarantine in unhealthy conditions.
“The richest families in Brazil controlled this market. They had money to produce or rent ships, check insurance companies and dry and humid markets,” says Honorato.
For English to see
In 1831, the edition of the Feijó law forbids the transatlantic flow of pressure slavered by England. However, trade – now smuggling – continues to bring Africans to Brazil and gives rise to the expression “for the English see”. Only in 1850 the law of Eusébio de Queirós began applying the rule in a more rigorous way.
At that point, Valongo Cais had already been replaced by the pier of the empress, renewed to receive the wife of the emperor Dom Pedro 2 °, Princess Teresa Cristina, in 1843.
In the following decades, the region is stigmatized in the press, which opens the way to the grounding of the dock during the Pereira passos reforms. The apartments are destroyed and the poorest people are forced to look for more underestimated land. It is during this period that the first Brazilian favela, Morro da Providência, near Porto, emerges.
For the samba battery, the hits of Capoeira and the songs of Umbanda and Candomblé, however, the region can resist as a sort of mechanics of black culture. “There has been an attempt to insulation and invisibility of this area, but because of this same process, the Region has preserved its history and its memory,” says Honorato. “Public power and society in general are not aware of this story, but little Africa has always lived in the memory of the African descent community”.
A saved story
Tourmologist Emily Borges and the historic Bruna Cordeiro have created an opportunity to save this story and transform them into business in global discussions on racial equity. They are partners of Ethnicas Turismo and Culture, with a team of 20 guides that lead a script of four hours throughout the region.
The starting point is Largo de Santa Rita, where the first black slave cemetery of Rio was installed. From there, the participants travel a path that includes the Molo di Valongo and the history and culture of the Afrobrasileira Museum.
At the Pretos Novos Institute, visitors know the archaeological results of another cemetery who have received remains from the blacks from Africa. It also stops to discuss the events of the vaccine revolt, a wave of protests against the obligation of the vaccine against smallpox decreed in 1904.
“I can’t tell the story of every color person who has taken a step on that place, but every time I tell a story, I try to bring them a little more dignity,” says Cordeiro.
The partners claim to have observed a significant increase in the interest of tourists in the region. Cariocas are often surprised by historical cancellation in such a central area of the city, they say.
Among foreigners, Americans represent most of the public. “They always comment that, after all, the story is the same, but they are shocked because we have the Afro -Brazilian culture so rooted in all the segments of society”, reports Borges.
Old challenges persist
Those who work in little Africa tourism recognize that there were public investments to improve the attractions of the region. The renovation works for the 2016 Olympics knocked down the old perimeter range and built a public tour.
Last month, the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BDES) issued a notice to finance three projects led by black architects or urban planners who develop urban interventions in the cultural district of little Africa.
However, the rise of tourist hub comes across old problems. As part of the Cais Do Valongo candidacy for the title of world heritage, the government has committed itself to building a center of interpretation in the Dom Pedro 2nd Dock building, but the project did not leave the document.
Last year, the Federal Court established that the National Historical and Artistic Heritage Institute (Iphan) and the Palmares Cultural Foundation should begin the works within 180 days. Research, Iphan and the Palmares Foundation did not respond to the report reports.
In the surroundings there is also the problem of public security. It is common to see the homeless and there are reports of drug circulation, according to the tourist guides who spoke to DW. Since 2022, the city has created more than 2,000 convulsions in the small Africa area, including fragments and materials intended for the use of drugs. For the report, the municipal secretariat of public order (Seop) said to perform daily planning actions, equation of public and welcoming areas for the homeless, together with the secretariat of social assistance.
Emily Borges, by Ethnicas Tourism and Culture, also sees a gentrification process that expels the traditional populations that occupied that space. “There are more and more real estate developments that bring the local population from there and throw them back, as they have always done throughout history,” he says.
These are challenges that repeat themselves in Brazilian history and make it difficult to preserve memory. But the Tourist Guide Luana Ferreira is confident of the potential of little Africa to continue resisting. “Africans have civil Brazil and the river is the great distributor of this culture. The port region is the basis of this,” he says.
Source: Terra
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