From
music to politics, descendants of slaves assert themselves after years on the
sidelines. Even the venerable tango shows their footsteps through history and
culture of region.
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay--On Sunday nights, the drummers of Barrio Sur assemble
by firelight at an intersection in the historic black neighborhood in a
tranquil corner of South America.
Flames dance in a gutter bonfire lighted to tone the hides of the drums.
Bottles of red wine change hands. Children cavort. Rows of drummers pound
down the street in a blur of muscle, sweat and sound, filling the night with
an African-derived rhythm known as candombe.
"The drummers live here, or they used to live here--and on Sundays
they come back," says Ruben Rada, a heavyset musician and television
personality who watches with the reserve of an elder statesman. "James
Brown is different than Chuck Berry, right? Well, it's the same with the
drums. Every neighborhood has a different beat."
The street-corner ritual is part of a neglected chapter of the African
diaspora. The drums tell a story of the profound impact that African culture
has had in Uruguay and elsewhere in Latin America. In fact, Afro-Uruguayans
celebrate an often-ignored piece of history: The tango, a dance that was
born in Uruguay and neighboring Argentina and is a centerpiece of South
American culture, is believed to have African roots.
Throughout Latin America, black communities are asserting themselves after
years of marginalization and seeming invisibility. In Brazil, where black
and mixed-race people make up more than half the population, two
breakthroughs are symptomatic: the election last year of the first black
mayor of Sao Paulo and the appointment of Pele, the beloved former soccer
star, as minister of sports.
Blacks in other nations are making their presence felt. Voters in Colombia
recently elected to Congress politicians who emphasize their African
heritage rather than deny it, as in the past. Blacks from Costa Rica to Peru
to Uruguay are increasingly active in politics and new organizations that
promote black culture.
"There is a reemerging Afro-Latin consciousness," said James
Early, director of cultural studies and communication at the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington. "Past movements were based mainly on
identity politics, a kind of archeology of identity. Now there is more of a
move toward political and educational access, protest of racism, access to
capital."
The rise in activism results partly from economic and political stability,
which allows societies to concern themselves with the disadvantaged and the
disadvantaged to press their demands. The progress of African Americans in
the United States also has exerted an influence on Afro-Latins via the mass
media, Early said.
"There is so much from U.S. music, sociological images, e-mail, fax,
CNN. There is a movement toward knowing each other," he said.
In one of the few regional studies of its kind, the Inter-American
Development Bank published a report in 1996 estimating that as many as 150
million Latin Americans, about a third of the region's population, are
descendants of African slaves. Other estimates are lower because many people
of mixed race do not define themselves as black, according to the report.
Influence Is Strong in Cuba and Brazil
Beginning in the 1500s, the slave trade brought as many as 6 million
Africans to Latin America. After the abolishment of slavery in the 19th
century, African cultural influence remained especially strong in countries
such as Cuba and Brazil.
But many nations have yet to acknowledge the plight and contributions of
blacks in the way they have recognized oppressed indigenous cultures.
"While the [500th anniversary] of Columbus' encounter resuscitated
the Indian as mythic, there has been marked silence on the issue of
blacks," the 1996 study concluded. "The silence on black
communities in Latin America is reflected in the disappearance of blacks
from the pages of history in virtually every Latin American nation."
That void exists in Uruguay and Argentina, nations so similar that Uruguay
has been described as a province of its larger neighbor to the west and
south. The populations of both countries are descended mostly from Southern
European, Jewish and Middle Eastern immigrants and once included
considerable numbers of Africans.
Argentina's black population all but disappeared, decimated in the 1800s
by yellow fever, intermarriage and massive military recruitment of blacks,
who then died in wars. In Uruguay, people of African descent accounted for
about half the population two centuries ago; they now number about 189,000
in a nation of 3.2 million.
Awakening Interest in Recent Years
Traditionally, Afro-Uruguayan culture received little attention--inside or
outside the country--except during Carnaval, the festival this month when
costumed candombe drummers and dancers take to the streets.
Recent years, however, have brought an awakening. Books and academic
conferences on racial themes proliferate. An outspoken black leader--a
former maid who has become a writer and activist--ran for Congress in 1996
on the ruling Colorado Party ticket. This year, Rada, a musician and
television star who still hangs out with the drummers in Barrio Sur, became
the first black actor in memory with a prominent role in a prime time
television series here.
And in a gesture of recognition, Montevideo, the capital, erected a
waterfront statue of Yemanja, the goddess of the sea in the African-based
Umbanda religion, which has adherents from across the ethnic spectrum.
"There are more and more institutions devoted to African culture,
some younger and with international connections and others that are more
traditional and conservative," said Ruben Galloza, 71, a painter and
candombe composer in Barrio Sur. "They are not always united--they pull
in different directions."
Organizations such as Afro-Mundo, in which Galloza is active, have
established bonds with other black communities in Latin America and the
United States. In turn, the region has become a fertile field of study for
U.S. experts on African American culture. Although many Americans know very
little about Uruguay, African American scholars have shown a keen interest,
organizing academic conferences and specializing in themes such as the work
of Afro-Uruguayan literary figures.
In contrast to Argentina, where dark-skinned people often are referred to
insultingly as negros (blacks), little Uruguay--known as the Switzerland of
South America- prides itself on a history of prosperity, social welfare and
tolerance. Unlike its conservatively Roman Catholic and class-stratified
neighbors, Uruguay legalized divorce long ago, welcomes political refugees
and offers accessible quality education to all.
That atmosphere has kept race conflict to a minimum. Many Afro-Uruguayans
see no need for racial politics or alliances. A U.S. diplomat who organized
a luncheon here for black female professionals, a minority within a
minority, discovered to her surprise that many had never met.
But there are few black university graduates or government officials in
Uruguay. Poor health, housing and job conditions are the result of
paternalistic racism, according to Galloza.
'We Allow Ourselves to Be Dominated'
"The racism is not direct like it was in the United States, where
black people, upon being rejected, organized and became strong,"
Galloza said. "Blacks in the United States fought and demanded. In
contrast, in Uruguay, we don't demand. We are dominated and allow ourselves
to be dominated."
African slaves and their descendants figured prominently in the founding
of Uruguay and Argentina. In the late 1700s, Montevideo became a major
arrival port for slaves, most brought from Portuguese colonies of Africa and
bound for Spanish colonies of the New World: the mines of Peru and Bolivia
and the fields and cities of Argentina and Uruguay.
In the 1800s, when Uruguay joined other colonies in fighting for
independence from Spain, Uruguayan national hero Jose Artigas led an elite
division of black troops against the colonists. One of his top advisors was
Joaquin Lezina, known as Ansina, a freed slave who composed musical odes
about his commander's exploits and is regarded by Afro Uruguayans as an
unheralded father of the nation.
By 1834, when Uruguay abolished slavery, documents described African dance
rituals in Montevideo and the countryside known as tangos, with the accent
on the second syllable. The word referred variously to the drums, the dances
and the places where the religious rituals were held. Therein lies an
intriguing musicological tale about the obscure origins of the tango, one of
the best-known Latin American musical genres.
The tango developed simultaneously in Montevideo and Buenos Aires.
Although typically regarded as the creation of Italian and Spanish
immigrants, the tango's music and the dance movements associated with it
were deeply influenced by African dance and music, according to experts.
The modern tango is an offshoot of African dances, the experts say. The
new form shed the drums in favor of the guitar and the bandonion, a type of
accordion, and melded with immigrant musical influences: habaneras brought
by Cuban sailors; Andalusian melodies from Spain; and nostalgic Italian folk
songs. The sound and lyrics of the hybrid product combine driving rhythms
and blues-like lament.
The beat and the roots remain African, according to Galloza and others.
"The rhythm of the tango, more than the tango itself, was, is and
will be black," Galloza said. "It evolved with the lyrics and
everything, but the base is black."
Despite the lack of definitive documentation, most Argentine scholars
agree on the African origins of the word and the fundamental role of African
dances. In the Buenos Aires of the late 19th century, African-derived dances
survived in the remnants of black communities in old port neighborhoods.
Curious new immigrants from Europe and gauchos from the countryside
frequented the dances. Later, they simultaneously imitated and mocked the
black dancers, creating a style of their own in waterfront dives and music
halls.
"In the brothels, they imitated the dances they had seen," said
Eduardo Rafael, a Buenos Aires journalist who is an authority on the tango.
"The form of the dance has a very strong African influence."
Nonetheless, the emphasis by white and black Uruguayan connoisseurs on the
tango's African aspects has caused a spirited dispute in Montevideo's
cultural circles. Galloza accuses critics of trying to "whiten"
history.
"There is a lot of debate about this issue of the tango. There are
those who say it's reverse racism," he said. "But let those who
disagree tell me where it's from. The word is black. It's like saying that
the word 'tarantella' is not Italian."
When Galloza was born, in 1926, Uruguay was flourishing economically
thanks to wheat and beef exports, and politically thanks to Jose Batlle y
Ordonez, a visionary president who constructed an orderly welfare-state
democracy inspired by the Swiss model.
Blacks benefited along with everyone else, but they were relegated largely
to domestic and menial jobs. As a young man, Galloza endured incidents of
discrimination, such as being turned away from movie theaters. He says his
18-year-old son and his friends have trouble getting job interviews.
Art Flowers in Heart of Two Tenements
The heart of Galloza's community was once two tenements that are abandoned
ruins today: Ansina (named after the historical figure) and Medio Mundo. The
tenements were squalid but vibrant, a center for candombe performances known
as llamadas (drum calls)--a direct offshoot of the slave dances.
Another artist, Carlos Paez Vilaro, produced his first paintings in the
1950s when he rented a room in Medio Mundo and depicted scenes of tenement
life. Paez, a jet-setting Uruguayan of European descent, has concentrated on
African themes ever since and is now Uruguay's best-known visual artist.
Unlike Paez, Galloza lived in the neighborhood because of necessity. The
son of a black domestic servant and an Italian father whom he never met,
Galloza worked as a golf caddy, messenger and museum guard while pursuing a
career as a self-taught painter.
Today, he makes a living from his art, which has been promoted by the
Uruguayan Foreign Ministry and exhibited in Germany, Spain, South Africa,
Brazil and Argentina. The engaging, stocky artist paints scenes of
Afro-Uruguayan culture that are bright and exuberant but tinged with
melancholy--Barrio Sur, candombe and tango musicians, Carnaval characters
such as the granillero, a kind of shaman.
"I am doing pretty well now," Galloza said. "But it took a
lot of effort. I have painted for 40 years, but I had to demand my place. I
don't wait to be called--I go. Because internationally, many people do not
even know that there are blacks in Uruguay."
