Brazil

by Errol Lincoln Uys

  “Wherefore this tribunal condemns the defendant André Vaz da Silva to banishment for ten years to Mozambique, and to the forfeiture of all your goods to the treasury and royal chamber. Should you return to the dominions of America at any time before expiration of your period of exile, you will end your natural life on the gallows.”

  Fernandes da Rocha Soares was sentenced to ten years’ exile in Angola. Ten other accused were also condemned to be transported to Africa, some of them to perpetual banishment, among the latter, Judge Tomás Antônio Gonzaga. Four accused were acquitted for lack of evidence against them.

  Alferes Joaquim José da Silva Xavier and ten others, including Colonel Alvarenga Peixoto, Lieutenant-Colonel Freire de Andrade, and Dr. José Alvares Maciel, were condemned to death.

  Silva Xavier’s plea that he alone be held responsible was rejected.

  “The criminal Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, known as the Tooth-Puller, is condemned to be paraded with hangman’s noose through the streets of Rio de Janeiro to the gallows, where he will be executed by hanging. When the criminal is dead, his head will be cut off and his body divided into quarters. The head is to be transported to the city of Vila Rica, where it will be fastened to a tall pole in the most public place to remain there until consumed by time. The legs will be attached to poles along the road to Minas Gerais at Varginha and Cebolas; the arms will be exhibited at other places where the criminal sowed the seeds of revolution.”

  Silva Xavier accepted the sentence with quiet dignity, not the slightest trace of fear in his uncompromising blue eyes.

  The men condemned to death were separated from those who were to suffer banishment, and André was taken back to the dungeon of Fort Conceição. He was there, late on April 20, when a guard came shouting the news: “The tribunal has announced that they are to be spared!”

  “God be praised!” André shouted.

  The guard tramped along the passageway, making this announcement, and as he walked back past André’s cell, he added, “All have been granted the queen’s mercy, but one. His infamy was too great. The Tooth-Puller will hang.”

  Since taking up his post as viceroy of Brazil, Dom José de Castro, the conde de Resende, had lived with the disconcerting awareness that on the Ilha das Cobras within sight of his palace were men who had plotted the downfall of fidalgos like himself.

  As the conde and his aides had hoped, the announcement that Queen Maria had commuted the sentences of ten conspirators caused a public outpouring of devotion for Her Majesty. Special masses were to be said throughout Rio de Janeiro in gratitude for the sovereign’s clemency. And prayers, too, for the queen’s health, since Maria was known to be ailing.

  Maria’s consort and uncle, Pedro, had died in 1786, and just three years later, the queen was smitten by further tragedy: Her firstborn son, a daughter, a son-in-law, and a grandson were all carried off by smallpox. Her beloved confessor, the inquisitor-general also died. Dona Maria saw these deaths as heaven’s punishment for her subjects’ irreligious behavior under the rule of the Marquis of Pombal. She had become locked in a mighty battle with horned demons, swarming in the corridors and chambers of her palace. Those who witnessed her ravings knew that Maria I was incurably insane. Her ministers and nobles pledged their loyalty to her gentle, corpulent son, eighteen-year-old João — “John the Goat,” some called him — who himself had a fondness for browsing in the great monastery of Mafra and a good ear for sacred music.

  Shortly before 9.00 A.M. on Saturday morning, April 21, 1792, the conde de Resende stood at an upper window of his palace watching a troop of soldiers form up at the top of the Largo de Paço. The conde had left Europe on the eve of the French Revolution and was determined that the punishment of Silva Xavier be an example to others infected with the plague of revolutionary zeal. Much to His Excellency’s pleasure, it was a bright, sunny morning, which would encourage a multitude to the field of Santo Domingos, where an outsize scaffold had been erected during the night. Already here in the Largo do Paço a crowd was gathering to see the Tooth-Puller being led out of the public jail behind the palace.

  A few minutes after nine, the conde leaned forward at the open window as an agitated murmur rose from the crowd. He saw the condemned man walking toward the waiting soldiers, the escort forming up around him. The officers gave the order to march, and the escort started toward the rua da Cadeia, which led off the square. When they were out of sight, the conde de Resende turned away from the window. He made the sign of the Cross. “Lord have mercy on his soul.”

  “Lord have mercy on my soul! Jesus, Mary, Joseph — be merciful!”

  Silva Xavier wore the garb of a penitent, a plain white robe of coarse cloth that reached his ankles. A length of heavy rope was wound round his neck and tied in a knot above his chest, with the two ends trailing almost to the ground. His hands were bound behind his back. He walked barefooted, having given his boots to a jailer.

  Infantrymen with fixed bayonets were posted along the streets of the gallows procession. By order of the tribunal, a crier strode in front of Silva Xavier shouting aloud the crimes of which he was guilty and the sentence he must suffer.

  Some who watched the procession laughed at the tall robed prisoner. They taunted him with remarks about his grand canal at Rio de Janeiro and his lost republic at Minas Gerais. “Traitor!” some cried. “Judas!”

  But the majority were silent and solemn. On most street corners were posts supporting boxes with holy images revered by those who lived or worked nearby; many turned to these oratories now to offer appeals for the condemned man.

  Silva Xavier bore himself with great poise, his shoulders straight. He looked tired as he moved his lips in a ceaseless recitation of prayer. He paid no attention to the taunts and jibes.

  Just before ten o’clock, Silva Xavier and his escort reached the field of Santo Domingos. The conde de Resende’s son, Dom Luiz de Castro, and his officers had positioned the six regiments and cavalrymen in a great triangle around the high scaffold. The executioner was a black man, and he waited with four valets who were to assist him in dismembering the corpse.

  An enormous crowd congregated behind the cordon of troops on the level ground and on the slopes of a nearby hill. Many people had started toward the field of Santo Domingos soon after dawn, and as the hours passed, a holiday atmosphere prevailed. But the sight of the distant white-robed figure standing so calmly on the platform beside a Franciscan friar, with his head bowed and the symbolic rope wound round his neck — this reminded them that death was close now, and thousands raised their faces gloomily toward the scaffold. When lay brothers of the Santa Casa do Misericórdia moved through the throng appealing for donations to pay for Masses for the soul of the sinner, all but the very poor offered alms.

  Shortly before eleven o’clock, the hangman took up his place at the gallows. A mulatto valet went to Silva Xavier and gestured that he wanted to remove the rope tied round his neck. He came closer and with trembling hands undid the knot.

  “Calma,” Silva Xavier whispered.

  “Joaquim,” the Franciscan said, taking one step toward the gallows.

  Silva Xavier nodded but did not take his eyes off the great assembly as he crossed over to the hangman.

  The Franciscan said gently, “Let us pray.”

  Together they recited the Creed.

  The Franciscan said farewell and stepped back from the gallows.

  Then, in that final moment, Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, whom they mocked as the Tooth-Puller, made one last glorious confession:

  “I have kept my word. I die for liberty!”

  THE ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO BRAZIL - REPUBLICANS AND SINNERS

  BOOK FIVE: Sons of the Empire

  XVII

  August 1855 - January 1856

  Antônio Paciência, “Patient Anthony,” was eight years old on a day in August 1855 when he learned a terrible lesson. Until then, the dark-skinned mulatto boy had known no shame at being naked and often raced bare-bottome
d to the Riacho Jurema to swim in the creek.

  That August morning, a stranger came to Antônio Paciência, who stood naked with four others, and examined him with the thoroughness the boy had seen with vaqueiros inspecting cattle. His head, shoulders, arms, hands, trunk, legs, and feet were inspected. He was made to open his mouth wide to permit an examination of his teeth. The boy’s private parts were searched. When his genitals were touched, Antônio Paciência uttered an involuntary cry, which made the stranger laugh and give the boy’s testicles a vicious squeeze.

  “As he grows older, senhor, he’ll be a good worker.”

  Antônio Paciência stood with two older boys, a young man, and a girl. They were on the dusty open ground thirty feet away from the main house of Fazenda da Jurema.

  After a while, Antônio Paciência raised his head slightly. He saw the senhor capitão sitting on the veranda, fanning himself with his hat. The senhor capitão’s son was here, walking with the stranger as he inspected those selected to stand before him. Antônio Paciência’s gaze shifted nervously from the senhor capitão to some women gathered off to the left between the house and a storeroom. He looked at the black slave Mãe Mônica — Mother Mônica,” the senhor capitão fondly called her — who stood at the front of the group.

  “Oh, Senhor Capitão, Antônio Paciência is a good child!” Mãe Mônica pleaded when she saw that her son had been chosen for the stranger. “Antônio will grow to be a man who faithfully serves the senhor capitão. As God sees me, I raise him with nothing but respect for the senhor and his family. Oh, my Master, for the love of Little Jesus of the Children, please, I beg for my Antônio!”

  But the senhor capitão and the sinhazinha and the senhor capitão’s son all ignored her.

  Antônio Paciência’s gaze moved to a group of vaqueiros in the shade of some trees beyond the storeroom. Several of his playmates were there, including his good friend Chico TicoTico, a scrawny, bowlegged caboclo. TicoTico, “The Sparrow,” was twelve, a devil who led the gang of boys at the fazenda.

  Antônio Paciência turned his head stiffly to the right and saw the stranger examining the boy next to him.

  The stranger was a Portuguese from São Paulo. He had come to the fazenda late yesterday leading a great caravan through the caatinga. Antônio Paciência and his friends had run to greet them, expecting peddlers or horse dealers. But there were no mules with merchandise or ponies for sale, and instead, the boys of Fazenda da Jurema beheld a sight they had never before seen:

  The Portuguese had come riding up front on a black horse. Behind him, strung out for a great distance, a file of people walked across the white-hot sands. Most were as black as Mãe Mônica, but a few were mulattoes and three or four almost white — some so young they were carried on their mothers’ backs. Other mounted men rode up and down the column calling for the human beasts to step up their pace.

  Antônio Paciência had never seen people as miserable as those shuffling past him. Most unhappy-looking of all were black men whose necks were encircled with iron hoops and who were linked together with chains that swayed and clinked as they trod forward.

  “Escravos,” Chico TicoTico explained.

  Antônio Paciência knew they were slaves. Mãe Mônica was a slave in the house of the senhor capitão. There were seven other adult slaves at the fazenda, blacks and mulattoes, and their sixteen children. Though Antônio Paciência belonged to the house of Mãe Mônica, he had not yet come to understand the nature of servitude, since he was accepted as friend and playmate of the vaqueiros’ sons and the grandsons of the senhor capitão.

  “Where are they taking them?” Antônio Paciência asked Chico TicoTico. “South to the lands of coffee.”

  “Beyond those hills?”

  Chico TicoTico laughed. “Far beyond! They must walk for months to reach São Paulo. If they’re lucky, they may ride a balsa up the Rio São Francisco.”

  The Portuguese had halted the slave column near the houses and huts and gone alone to the senhor capitão’s house. Half an hour later, the slaves had been taken to the jurema trees at the creek, where the column broke up as they rushed forward to the water’s edge. Many women and children too spent to cover the last steps to the riacho had lain down at the trees calling for water, but it was a long time before they received any attention.

  Hurrying away from the jurema trees, Antônio Paciência had run to Mãe Mônica at the clay ovens behind the fazenda. “Stay away from them, child,” she warned. “This Portuguese is a devil who comes to catch little boys like Antônio Paciência!” Mãe Mônica had pulled a face and laughed loudly as she had had no cause for concern then.

  Senhor João Montes Ferreira, the senhor capitão’s son, who stood with the Portuguese, remembered a night some eight years ago when he had raped Mãe Mônica, there on the hot earth beside the clay ovens at the fazenda. Senhor João Montes knew that the mulatto boy Antônio being inspected by the slaver was his son.

  Senhor Capitão Heitor Baptista Ferreira was also aware of the bastard’s parentage, but was not moved to compassion for Antônio Paciência. José Montes had five sons: three with his wife, Adelia Veras, and two acknowledged bastards with a vaqueiro’s daughter. João Montes had not shown the slightest affection for Mãe Mônica’s child and the senhor capitão saw no reason to keep Antônio, especially with the Portuguese offering to pay grandly for healthy purchases.

  João Montes had suggested that Mãe Mônica also be sold, a proposal strongly endorsed by his wife. She disliked Mãe Mônica, whom she knew to have given herself to her husband.

  But his father would not hear of it. “The bastard can go, since you have no interest in him, but not Mãe Mônica.” He had reminded his son of the slave’s unmatched skills in the kitchen. “She stays!” Senhor Heitor had said, with a hand pressed to his barrel-like belly.

  Heitor Baptista Ferreira’s attitude toward the human livestock he was putting up for sale was typical of this poderoso do sertão, a great man of the earth whose grandfather, Militão Cariri Ferreira, a Paulista, had bought the fazenda from the Cavalcantis of Santo Tomás in 1781. Graciliano Cavalcanti had returned to Fazenda da Jurema after slaying Black Peter and avenging Paulo Cavalcanti’s murder. But two years later, when his father, Bartolomeu Rodrigues Cavalcanti, died, Graciliano had gone back to oversee the engenho until Paulo’s son, Carlos Maria, reached his majority.

  When Graciliano left Fazenda da Jurema in 1768, he had deserted Januária Adorno Ribeiro, whom he had never married, and the children he had had with her. After reestablishing himself at Santo Tomás, Graciliano had married the daughter of a judge, fathering three girls with her. He had returned only once to the fazenda in 1779, to witness the effects of a two-year drought during which the forced slaughter or death by starvation of cattle had reduced the herd from eight thousand to less than one thousand animals. At the time, depressed sugar prices had made it impossible for the Cavalcantis to restock the ranch. When Militão Cariri Ferreira, who owned land north of the Riacho Jurema, had offered to buy the fazenda, Graciliano, who had inherited the ranch, had sold him the 180-square-mile property.

  Senhor Heitor Baptista Ferreira was the acknowledged chieftain of a vast clan whose lands, encompassing the original Fazenda da Jurema and seven other ranches, amounted to a total of three hundred square miles. The Ferreira clan embraced not only relatives but also vaqueiros, rent-paying tenants, and agregados. The agregados, or associates, were permitted to live on Ferreira lands through ties of friendship with Senhor Heitor and other Ferreira elders, service as gunmen in conflicts with Ferreira enemies, and long, uninterrupted squatting during which they had always behaved themselves. Whites, mulattoes, caboclos, freed blacks — the agregados were the majority of occupants of Ferreira lands and were subject to immediate eviction if they offended the fazendeiro.

  Fazenda da Jurema had been subdivided since Militão Ferreira’s day, and the portion owned by Senhor Heitor covered eighty square miles, including the original settlement at the jurema trees n
ear the confluence of the Riacho Jurema and the Rio Pajéu, an influent of the Rio São Francisco sixty-five miles to the south. Senhor Heitor’s house was a big, bare, ugly structure with walls of unplastered rubble and a tiled roof. Nearby stood the slave huts and the vaqueiros’ houses, one-storied, one-windowed hovels of wickerwork plastered with mud. A five-foot-high fence of upright stakes thickly interwoven with thin tree limbs and brush marked the perimeter of the settlement. The most striking aspect of the fazenda was how little it had changed since the time Paulo Cavalcanti and Padre Eugênio Viana had visited the ranch in 1756.

  On the Ferreira lands, there were several families of Cavalcantes. The slight alteration in the last letter of the name — the “i” to an “e” — had first appeared in the documents of a criminal case involving Quintino Adorno Cavalcante, one of three bastard sons of Graciliano. The change assumed significance in differentiating between these improvident sertanejos, men of the sertão, and the senhores de engenho who, in this year 1855, still held fast to the lovely valley of Santo Tomás 220 miles to the east.

  The boy Chico TicoTico — Francisco Cavalcante — and his father, Modesto Cavalcante, a vaqueiro at Fazenda da Jurema, were direct descendants of Quintino Adorno Cavalcante. Through three generations since Quintino’s time, not one family of the Ribeiro-Cavalcante line had obtained possession of a single acre of land. Some Cavalcantes had served as vaqueiros with the Ferreiras and other fazendeiros; some had rented small sites in the district, where they grew subsistence crops; some had become nomadic, wandering far into the sertão in neighboring Ceará and south, too, down the valley of the Rio São Francisco. One family, who had fled the backlands after the 1845 drought, were living in a shack on the outskirts of Recife, with the father and two sons working as harvesters of blue crabs in mud flats near the city.