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Hello everyone. This is Carmen and Christina and this is
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Etoria's Unknown, a podcaster. We talk about Latin American history.
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Sometimes it's horrible and deals with heavy topics like racism, corruption,
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and genocide, but more than that, it's talks about resistance,
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power and community. Also, before we get started, just quick apologies.
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I am extra listy today because I switched in busineline
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aligners and I don't know, I just feel I just
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feel like I'mina and you sound like it's being in English. Yeah.
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Actually my mouth sounds very dry too. I took my
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ADHD meds and so I apologize for sounding like, you know,
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those nasty mouth sounds. Okay. Anyway, Happy Black History Month.
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On this month we try and find black Latino history.
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Sometimes it kind of like gets past the time, you know,
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and we miss it, but we try, we try, and
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we're going to try and continue this this month. But
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finding black Latin history to highlight that's what we're doing today.
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Oh right, I am telling you about Chica many Congo.
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Oh have you ever heard of this person? No? Okay, Well,
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before we talk about Chica many Congo, we had to
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talk about the slave trade in Brazil because I feel
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like us and maybe a lot of our listeners too
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might be more familiar with the slave trade in the US,
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yeah than anywhere else, especially like Brazil. I feel like
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that's like the Latin American country that I know the
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least about. Oh yeah, definitely one of them, one of them. Yeah.
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And so years before the North American slave trade began,
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the Portuguese for trafficking Africans in great numbers to Brazil.
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Slavery was the backbone of the Brazilian economy for three
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hundred and fifty years. Historian Emilia Vioti da Costa has
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stayed that forty percent of the ten million enslaved Africans
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brought to the New World ended up in Brazil. Forty
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percent of the ten million. Wow, a huge number. I knew,
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it was huge, Yeah, And some of this sounds familiar
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to me. So I don't know, but okay, I think,
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you know, I remember when we did an episode on
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one of the revolts of enslaved people in Cuba, and
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I think in that episode, because Cuba it was like
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the Spaniard like slave trade, and I think it was
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tied with like Portugal, yes, And I think that's why
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some of that sounds familiar to me. Brazil ran on
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the free labor of the enslaves. And just to illustrate this,
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here's a quote from German educator named the Ina Aina,
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She's German, you know, one being said Aina von Binzer,
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who lived in Brazil in the late eighteen hundreds. Quote.
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In this country, the blacks occupy the main role. They
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are responsible for all the labor and produce all the
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wealth in this land. The white Brazilian just doesn't work
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end quote. Oh my god, that sounds so familiar from
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when we did the Border Patrol series about how the
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Texan ranchers talked about the Mexicans like, oh, we don't
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work around here. The Mexican's still our jobs, I mean
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ah yeah. Yeah. And Brazil abolished slavery on May third,
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eighteen eighty eight, and before that there had been steps
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to abolish it, like things would just happen like in
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the one. Yeah, It's like was a gradual thing. Yes.
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In eighteen seventy one, the Brazilian parliament passed the Free
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Womb Law, which stated all children born to enslaved women
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would be free. Okay, I feel like they could have
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maybe found another name for that. Yeah, though, whatever, but
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children still had to work for their parents and slavers
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until they were adults to compensate the owners. Yeah, it's like, like,
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what was the point of this law? Yeah, this lam
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means nothing basically. H In eighteen eighty four, there was
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another law that stated any enslaved person over sixty would
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be freed. And again, it sounds good on paper, but
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in reality, that's allowed enslavers to abandon the person they
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had enslaved once they were less productive. I can see them. Yeah,
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it sounds like it would be a good thing, but
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it's like, no, this just means they get to not
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be responsible for this person, absolve themselves, who now has
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to fend for themselves in their elder age and they
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probably don't have the same ability to work, yes, exactly.
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And to add to that, it was super rare for
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an enslaved person to even make it to their sixtieth birthday.
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The Catholic Church stopped supporting slavery in eighteen eighty seven,
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and the following year, Imperial Law hundred and fifty three
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abolished slavery and seven hundred thousand enslaved people were freed.
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It's also important to note that the elite didn't just
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hand over this freedom of course. Of course, this is
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a movement centuries and the making, dating back to the
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sixteen hundreds with abolitionists demanding the freedom of enslaved indigenous
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There were mass escapes, revolts, uprisings, and protests over the years.
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Women also played a huge role in the movement, especially
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the Avliver Society. You know, I learned about them from
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this book I was reading. Really what book was a
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book called? It was about lace makers who and it
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had like two timelines back in the day, like eighteen hundreds,
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like maybe it might have been soon I remember, and
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how they basically escaped like their oppression as women because
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they were lace makers and able to support themselves. And
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they talked about fascinating the society Ave Liberta society who
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helped them escape basically oh wow, yeah. Anyway, it was
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a group founded in Pernambuco and led by women. In
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their first year they achieved the al furia of two
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hundred enslaved people. That's like what freedom? Yeah, that translates
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to manumission in English, which means the formal act of
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freeing and enslaved person. Okay, And of course, as we
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have noticed tends to happen, there's still work to be done.
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People don't suddenly get freed and then everything's okay. After abolition,
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there was there were no peas in place to ease
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integration or to assist the former enslaved to become full citizens,
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no plans for access to education for them, no access
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to land or to employment. Instead, the opposite was done,
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and the government installed the policy of brancamiento whiting. This
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was the state sponsored policy to improve the bloodline through immigration.
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And what does it sound like? It sounds like the
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United States. I was gonna say Mexico and mexicake, but yeah,
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oh yeah it does. Yeah, it's more like it. It's
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the same thing just over there. It was called camiento.
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But yeah they did it here too, when they said
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they only wanted Northern Europeans to emm crate here. Oh true, true,
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My bad MESSI sache was the force like reading to
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whiten the indigenous, not immigration. So you know, it wasn't
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the same thing as bringing only one in Northern European immigrants,
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and it was it was different. Yeah, I see what
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you're saying. Yeah, yeah, it's like a deliberate white ning
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of getting rid of a people through introducing I guess
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European white immigrants. Yes, yeah, Brazil only accepted white European
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or Asian immigrants. At the same time, the now free
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to formerly enslaved population had no opportunity for new jobs
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or education, and so many ended up in some sort
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of slavery. Still, they ended up working for their former
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enslavers in exchange for food and shelter, not for pay.
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And this sounds like the South here in the States too. Yeah,
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so on paper things were different, but in reality the
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status quo remained. And like we said in other episodes
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like our Coca Cola one and maybe the Coffee one,
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but this can still be seen today in Brazil. Fifty
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three percent of the population in Brazil identifies as Afro Brazilian,
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and yet they make up two thirds of the imprisoned population,
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as they make up seventy eight percent of the lowest
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income class in the country. Okay, and so yeah, now
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that we have that very brief information on slavery in Brazil,
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let's talk about Chica Manicongo. She was one of the
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first to be targeted by the Brazilian inquisition and a
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trans woman. Some even say the first trans woman, the
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first black trans woman to be known in history in Brazil.
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Oh wow, around one was this, Well, if you'll find out, okay,
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fifteen hundred, oh wow, I don't know when she was
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trafficked from Congo to Brazil. Won't you look at that?
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Trans people have always existed. That's right, that's right, at
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least today, if she's viewed as a transwoman. Looking back
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into history and what Chica Manicongo was like. She's also
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known as Francisco or Francisca. She was kidnapped from Congo
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and traffic to Salvador, which today is a municipality in
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the Brazilian state of Baia as well as the capital
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city of Baia. It's in the northeast region of Brazil
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and is known today as the center of Afro Brazilian culture,
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the Hub if you will. Back then, it was the
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first capital of Brazil, which was a colony of Portugal,
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and Chica was trafficked into Baiya in the sixteenth century
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and renamed Francisca. Her real name has been lost to
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history and many Gongo comes from Onene Gongo, which translates
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to lord of Congo, and this was a title used
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for like the royalty of the Kingdom of Congo, but
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it's not known if she was like of royalty herself,
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because of Portuguese used this as a last name for
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all the enslaved that they stole from Congo. Of course
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they did, yeah, because they don't care. They did this everywhere. Yeah,
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like rename indigenous people rename. So yeah, like all the
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names we have today for indigenous tribes in the United States,
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it's not their actual like exactly. And the same applies
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to Mexico, where now people are like using the real terms,
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but the Spanish renamed all of them. And so this
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is the same thing where now there are everyone's money.
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Congo' are the same everywhere, right right. And she was
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enslaved by a shoemaker named Antonio Perees, and she ran
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his errands. She also did shoemaking herself, and so she
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walked around the city running his errands, wearing a long
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fabric tide with a front knot, so like a dress.
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She lived her life as a woman, dressing in what
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would have been traditional women's wear back in Congo. It's
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also important to note that gender norms were not as
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strict at that time in Congo, and so she was
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living the way she had always lived, and she of
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course should have had the right to do this, to
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be her true self right. And despite her enslavement, Chika
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found joy where she could, as throughout history people always have,
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and so she found joy in her clothes. She found
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joy in her romantic life. She was known to have
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many lovers. I love that for her. And she was
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just living her life and bothered an old white Christian
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man named Matthias Moreta Matthias, mind your business. Yeah, but
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whenever he saw her walking about, he would go up
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to her and tell her to start wearing men's clothes,
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and Chikai refused. She kept on doing her doing her thing,
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and Matthias was so bothered he reported her to the church,
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and so the inquisition came. They took her. They accused
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her of sodomy, a crime that applied to not only
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the gays the queer back then, but also to hetero couples.
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You can't go done. You can do this. Let people
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sodomize if they want to sodomize. I'm sorry, what is
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it to you? No, exactly what is there a sodomization
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have to do with you? Yeah, but no, and this
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was a crime against the crown and the punishment was
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to be burned alive. I'm sorry, I mean, I know
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we're talking about the inquisition, but this is like beyond
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the level. First of all, she didn't have been a
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crime at all, but then for the punishment to be
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born alive. Yeah, and then on top of that, perpetrators
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of this and we're using that word like very loosely
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because this isn't not a real crime, right anyway, perpetrators
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of this crime what have their belonging confiscated by the church,
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and infamy would fall upon their descendants from up to
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three generations. That was part of the punishment, which I
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don't know how you do that, but that's part of it. Yeah, okay.
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Chica was also accused of being a member of a
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gang of Sodomite sorcerers. Even back then they were making
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up conspiracies which hunts and gangs of Yeah, this is outrageous.
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I can't believe that people haven't grown out of that
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conspiratorial mentality of I don't know, like associating queer people
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with yeah, Satanism, which I think I said already, and
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then this sodomization always gets tied to pedophilia when reality,
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the most pedophilic people are straight men. Yeah, and so yeah,
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being accused of being a member of a gang of
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satome sorcerers is the worst than just like a regular autonomy.
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And before continuing with this, let me just say there's
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another source I read that stated that the punishment for
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this it was not being burned alive, but being exiled
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for three years for men and two years for women,
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plus a fine that was to be paid to whoever
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reported them. And so in this case it would have
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been Matthias Morreda. She would have had to pay a
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fine that's ridiculous. Obviously not as bad as being ProLife,
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but it's still ridiculous. Yes, and so Chica was saved
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from whatever punishment she would have faced because she stopped
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dressing like a woman. She stopped living her life as
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a woman, and she began to wear traditional men's clothing.
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And so she wasn't killed by an inquisition, but she
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couldn't be herself anymore. And this is where her life
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fades into history. I don't know what became of her,
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but like hopefully she lived a full life, even though
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it wasn't like a true content one because she couldn't
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be herself. How long did think position lasts? Like, did
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you think she lived in or no? No? Right, hundreds
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of years so long? Yeah, yeah, that sucks because then
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that means you probably never got to be herself again, right,
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And that's horrible, sad. Yeah, And even in death, she
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was referred to as Francis Scho her Christian name for decades.