Sentencing Canudos: Subalternity in the Backlands of Brazil

236 Pages·2010·2.823 MB·English

by  Adriana Michele Campos Johnson

Sentencing Canudos
IllumInatIons: Cultural FormatIons oF the amerICas
John Beverley and Sara Castro-Klarén, Editors
sentenCIng Canudos
Subalternity in the Backlands of Brazil
adrIana mIChéle Campos Johnson
University of Pittsburgh Press
Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15260
Copyright © 2010, University of Pittsburgh Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Johnson, Adriana Michéle Campos, 1972-
Sentencing Canudos : subalternity in the backlands of Brazil / Adriana Michéle Campos Johnson.
p. cm. — (Illuminations: cultural formations of the Americas)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8229-6123-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8229-6123-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Brazil—History—Canudos Campaign, 1893-1897—Historiography. 2. Cunha, Euclides da, 1866-
1909. Sertões. 3. Canudos (Euclides da Cunha, Brazil)—Historiography. 4. Canudos (Euclides da
Cunha, Brazil)—In literature. I. Title.
F2537.J65 2010
981'.05—dc22 2010031531
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
IntroduCtIon 1
Chapter One the VoICe oF others 12
Chapter Two a prose oF CounterInsurgenCy 45
Chapter Three the eVent and the eVeryday 78
Chapter Four os sertões Nationalism by Elimination 105
Chapter Five another Canudos 138
aFterlIVes 163
Notes 175
Bibliography 207
Index 223
v

aCknowledgments
I want to thank, first, Alberto Moreiras for the rigor and generosity of his
mentorship and for pushing me to take intellectual risks. Thank you to John
French, who asked the tough questions that put my work on da Cunha on this
track and for alerting me to the Quebra-Quilos revolts. This project would not
be what it is if it were not for Antonio Olavo, who opened up a different vi-
sion of Canudos for me by pointing me in the direction of texts I needed to
read and people I needed to talk to. I’m also extremely grateful to all those
who took the time and trouble to talk to me in Salvador: José Carlos Pinheiros,
Renato Ferraz, Oleone Coelho Fontes, Lizir Arcanjo Alves, and Manoel Neto,
to whom I’m particularly indebted for showing me present-day Canudos. I
want to thank the staff at the Núcleo Sertão (UFBA) for allowing me to ac-
cess the material there, Duke’s Romance studies department and UCI’s Latin
American studies program for funding research trips to Salvador, and my com-
parative literature colleagues for making UCI such a wonderful place to work.
My thanks to the members of the Subaltern-Popular Workshop for an intel-
lectual home for five years. Thank you to the two anonymous reviewers of the
manuscript for invaluable critique and suggestions and to Devin Fromm and
Joshua Shanholtzer at University of Pittsburgh Press. Thank you to my mother
for everything and always. I am indebted, finally to Patricio, Diego, and now
Anaís for bearing with me during the birthing of this book and to Horacio,
without whom none of this would be possible.
This book is dedicated to the memory of my father, Walter Johnson, who
was still here when I began this project many years ago.
vii

Sentencing Canudos