Nagos

The word Nagos derives from the word anago, a term that the Fon-speaking people used to describe Yoruba-speaking people residing in the kingdom of Ketu.[1] The term Nagos is used to refer to all Brazilian Yoruba, their African descendants, Yoruba myth, ritual, and cosmological patterns.

Toward the end of the slave trade, the Nagos stood out as the African group most often shipped to Brazil. The Nagos were important to the slave trade at that particular time of the 19th century, where Brazil requested more slaves as demand for products from this region grew, and because the harsh conditions on plantations entailed a high turnover.[1]

This particular group of people from Africa currently comprise the largest ethnic group in Brazil, with much influence since it was the last immigrating group to come to Brazil. Brazil, with its economy aided by Brazilian-African slaves, has long suffered various problems as a country and a recognizable power.

The high demand on labor for the extensive work in plantation life Brazil called upon the Nagos tribe, in order to develop a thriving economy based upon labor and business. In colonial times, the Brazilian slaves, given their low status and bleak prospects, could expect only to work until they died.

However, the attributes of African culture, passed on through religion and strong cultural practices, have influenced Brazil's many different races that have come together through history. The Nagos were forced to occupy the lowest status ranking in Latin America, yet they adapted and became great. One of the most important cultural aspects to be discovered in Brazil is the religion called Yoruba. This African religion has survived over the years since slavery, so that today a large portion of Brazil's population still practices and upholds it.

Brazilian slavery life

Slaves coming from Africa were cheaper than those from Europe, which may explain why the Portuguese used African slaves to fuel the new economies in Latin America.[2] The level of respect the common slave receive was minimum which didn't give them distinguished features from those that were outside of the superior class of society. The understanding between master and slave had far less cost in reciprocal obligations than any other labor group in society.[3] Unfortunately, this created a schism or struggle for resources and how they could benefit one in social exchange. Slaves were not in control over their lives as the average citizen of the higher class. Furthermore, what distinguished slaves from all other classes throughout society was kinship, family, and community duties.[3]

There were 4.8 million slaves that were brought to Brazil.[4] African people distributed across the world had no limit to the place or region. The work that created a high demand on the Latin America economy for heavy labor duties were the main source of growing wealth in that region. Throughout Latin America the culture of the African people taken there began to have a right in the new system of different races and helped shape the colonies of plantations to industrial communities.[5] Furthermore, the African slave trade was not a new practice that started in Latin America, but was adopted in Europe in 1455, by Pope Nicolas V who gave the right to reduce to slavery, inhabitants of the southern coast of Africa who resisted Christianity. The Portuguese created a slavery trade out of west Africa which was responsible for exporting slaves to Iberian cities, such as Seville and Lisbon.[5] African slavery met a steady but limited demand in Europe.[6] The European explorers viewed African countries as sovereign lands and sought to make cultural and political alliance with these countries. Furthermore, the Brazilian native people could not take up the work demand by the plantation economy, as a direct result the labor force swelled with African slaves that were exported from west Africa.

Influence in Latin America is made up of many fascinating outlooks that started in colonial times. Slaves were victims of the demand on there physical strength and durability to perform tasks in extreme climates. The life of an average slave varied due to the restraints in society that disabled them sociably. These struggles that the slaves endured were personal pleasures that normal societies offer in exchange and in business or sociable living. Slaves had a time resisting the institutional structure that broke their spirit and demanded labor to an untimely death. Slaves fought their masters in many ways through suicide, escape, sabotage and defiance of laws and social conduct or religion . Moreover, influence religiously came in the form of practicing their own culture in a self-preserving way that they could accommodate to the new social and cultural order.[7] Slaves were not independent to roam around in Latin America similarly to the slave relations between slave masters and slaves in North America. Slaves where giving rules or laws depending on their location or region of Brazil and the overall Spanish and Portuguese controlled Latin America. Importantly, the enforcement of the laws of marriage and other important slave issues depended on regional and local considerations rather than abstract laws or codes of conduct.

In Brazil Africans demonstrated cultural strength more so than others preserving their culture despite the oppressive impact of slavery. For an example, the Republic of Palmares which stands as a testimony of Afro-Brazilians that escape from slavery to form a settlement of blacks of about 20,000 governed by West African customs and cultural elements drawn from the Portuguese slave Society from which they had fled.[7]

Mixing

The African culture was one in which had to adapt to new challenging problems in the new world being minorities without any power sociably to survive they needed help from any source. Miscegenation, or commingling of races what was a direct effect of colonization in Brazil and the overall Latin America on African slaves. Africans created a mixed people and that facilitated a distinct new world culture through mestizaje, or the combining of elements of distinct cultures. The Portuguese called the mixed Africans and native people cafuzos.

Extensive mixing forced Spanish authority to create a legal category for this new racial group that now dominated lots of areas of Latin America which they called zambos. Mexico also was an area in Latin America that was affected by the mixing of Africans and natives to the effect where authorities there outlawed interracial marriages. In addition, the Portuguese and Spanish authorities often promoted miscegenation as a population policy and underpopulated regions. The effect of slavery for the afro-Brazilian society is similar to blacks coming into society of post-slavery North America. The stress on Africans to populate with the natives in Latin America place them into the border of the mestizaje, or a racially mixed Society.

As a result, there was a negative effect upon afro-Brazilians to climb the caste system that had emerged based on color, which blacks occupied the lowest of racist based upon their economic class. African cultural experienced racism and oppression in its attempt to climb the social ladder in Latin America. Reforms and social movements for rights throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century proof to pave the way for Africans in Latin America.

Current day analyst, social scientist, policy makers, and activists point to the increasing debate in Brazil's racial identity stating that it is Brazil's essential description to be a mixed country.[8] In addition, black movements in Brazil during the 90’shas resulted in great change in the 21st century that can be noted through affirmative action policies which rapidly introduced and institutionalized in various governmental spheres throughout Brazil,[9]

Nagos-Brazilian

The Nagos religion in Brazil is currently active and has notoriety for its unique expression. This was possible because the practice in Brazil was unlike that in North America in which slave masters directly controlled every aspect of slaves' lives from social organization to religious and cultural development and practices.[1] Moreover, the Brazilian slaves were able to bring rich culture from Africa.

Yoruba Religion

The beliefs of Yoruba ritual practices such as singing, dancing, drumming, spirit possession and ritual healing in respect for ancestors in the divination is what the Yoruba religion consist of. The Yoruba religion is a ritual negotiation with the spirits of the Dead. Yoruba religion was created in Nigeria where the Nagos people originated from. Specifically the southern part of Nigeria where this particular religion mix with Christianity is practice. This religion has blossomed into a great source of African culture that has been transmitted from Africa diaspora to the Brazilian country.[1] The structure that has been created in society and classes through education has been distributed through the Brazilian culture and country.

References

1. Matory, J. Lorand (2005). Black Atlantic religion: Tradition, transnationalism, and matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé (Princeton University Press ed.). p. 38.
2. Klein, Herbert S (2010). Slavery In Brazil. Cambridge. p. 15.
3. Klein, Herbert S (2010). Slavery In Brazil. Cambridge. p. 1.
4. Klein, Herbert S (2010). Slavery In Brazil. Cambridge. p. 14.
5. Davis, Darién J (2004). Black Atlantic religion: Tradition, transnationalism, and matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé. Humanity Books. p. xi.
6. Davis, Darién J (2004). Black Atlantic religion: Tradition, transnationalism, and matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé. Humanity Books. p. xii.
7. Davis, Darién J (2004). Black Atlantic religion: Tradition, transnationalism, and matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé. Humanity Books. p. xiii.
8. Loveman, Mara (2012). "Brazil in black and white? Race categories, the census, and the study of inequality". Ethnic and Racial Studies. 35: 1466–1483. doi:10.1080/01419870.2011.607503.
9. Loveman, Mara (2012). "Brazil in black and white? Race categories, the census, and the study of inequality". Ethnic and Racial Studies. 35: 1466–1483. doi:10.1080/01419870.2011.607503.