Xica Manicongo

0:15 Hello everyone. This is Carmen and Christina and this is Etoria's Unknown, a podcaster. We talk about Latin American history. Sometimes it's horrible and deals with heavy topics like racism, corruption, and genocide, but more than that, it's talks about resistance, power and community. Also, before we get started, just quick apologies. I am extra listy today because I switched in busineline aligners and I don't know, I just feel I just feel like I'mina and you sound like it's being in English. Yeah. Actually my mouth sounds very dry too. I took my ADHD meds and so I apologize for sounding like, you know, those nasty mouth sounds. Okay. Anyway, Happy Black History Month.

0:57 On this month we try and find black Latino history. Sometimes it kind of like gets past the time, you know, and we miss it, but we try, we try, and we're going to try and continue this this month. But finding black Latin history to highlight that's what we're doing today. Oh right, I am telling you about Chica many Congo. Oh have you ever heard of this person? No? Okay, Well, before we talk about Chica many Congo, we had to talk about the slave trade in Brazil because I feel like us and maybe a lot of our listeners too might be more familiar with the slave trade in the US, yeah than anywhere else, especially like Brazil. I feel like that's like the Latin American country that I know the least about. Oh yeah, definitely one of them, one of them. Yeah.

1:44 And so years before the North American slave trade began, the Portuguese for trafficking Africans in great numbers to Brazil. Slavery was the backbone of the Brazilian economy for three hundred and fifty years. Historian Emilia Vioti da Costa has stayed that forty percent of the ten million enslaved Africans brought to the New World ended up in Brazil. Forty percent of the ten million. Wow, a huge number. I knew, it was huge, Yeah, And some of this sounds familiar to me. So I don't know, but okay, I think, you know, I remember when we did an episode on one of the revolts of enslaved people in Cuba, and I think in that episode, because Cuba it was like the Spaniard like slave trade, and I think it was tied with like Portugal, yes, And I think that's why some of that sounds familiar to me. Brazil ran on the free labor of the enslaves. And just to illustrate this, here's a quote from German educator named the Ina Aina, She's German, you know, one being said Aina von Binzer, who lived in Brazil in the late eighteen hundreds. Quote.

2:54 In this country, the blacks occupy the main role. They are responsible for all the labor and produce all the wealth in this land. The white Brazilian just doesn't work end quote. Oh my god, that sounds so familiar from when we did the Border Patrol series about how the Texan ranchers talked about the Mexicans like, oh, we don't work around here. The Mexican's still our jobs, I mean ah yeah. Yeah. And Brazil abolished slavery on May third, eighteen eighty eight, and before that there had been steps to abolish it, like things would just happen like in the one. Yeah, It's like was a gradual thing. Yes. In eighteen seventy one, the Brazilian parliament passed the Free Womb Law, which stated all children born to enslaved women would be free. Okay, I feel like they could have maybe found another name for that. Yeah, though, whatever, but children still had to work for their parents and slavers until they were adults to compensate the owners. Yeah, it's like, like, what was the point of this law? Yeah, this lam means nothing basically. H In eighteen eighty four, there was another law that stated any enslaved person over sixty would be freed. And again, it sounds good on paper, but in reality, that's allowed enslavers to abandon the person they had enslaved once they were less productive. I can see them. Yeah, it sounds like it would be a good thing, but it's like, no, this just means they get to not be responsible for this person, absolve themselves, who now has to fend for themselves in their elder age and they probably don't have the same ability to work, yes, exactly.

4:21 And to add to that, it was super rare for an enslaved person to even make it to their sixtieth birthday. The Catholic Church stopped supporting slavery in eighteen eighty seven, and the following year, Imperial Law hundred and fifty three abolished slavery and seven hundred thousand enslaved people were freed. It's also important to note that the elite didn't just hand over this freedom of course. Of course, this is a movement centuries and the making, dating back to the sixteen hundreds with abolitionists demanding the freedom of enslaved indigenous There were mass escapes, revolts, uprisings, and protests over the years. Women also played a huge role in the movement, especially the Avliver Society. You know, I learned about them from this book I was reading. Really what book was a book called? It was about lace makers who and it had like two timelines back in the day, like eighteen hundreds, like maybe it might have been soon I remember, and how they basically escaped like their oppression as women because they were lace makers and able to support themselves. And they talked about fascinating the society Ave Liberta society who helped them escape basically oh wow, yeah. Anyway, it was a group founded in Pernambuco and led by women. In their first year they achieved the al furia of two hundred enslaved people. That's like what freedom? Yeah, that translates to manumission in English, which means the formal act of freeing and enslaved person. Okay, And of course, as we

5:51 have noticed tends to happen, there's still work to be done. People don't suddenly get freed and then everything's okay. After abolition, there was there were no peas in place to ease integration or to assist the former enslaved to become full citizens, no plans for access to education for them, no access to land or to employment. Instead, the opposite was done, and the government installed the policy of brancamiento whiting. This was the state sponsored policy to improve the bloodline through immigration. And what does it sound like? It sounds like the United States. I was gonna say Mexico and mexicake, but yeah, oh yeah it does. Yeah, it's more like it. It's the same thing just over there. It was called camiento.

6:34 But yeah they did it here too, when they said they only wanted Northern Europeans to emm crate here. Oh true, true, My bad MESSI sache was the force like reading to whiten the indigenous, not immigration. So you know, it wasn't the same thing as bringing only one in Northern European immigrants, and it was it was different. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, it's like a deliberate white ning of getting rid of a people through introducing I guess European white immigrants. Yes, yeah, Brazil only accepted white European or Asian immigrants. At the same time, the now free to formerly enslaved population had no opportunity for new jobs or education, and so many ended up in some sort of slavery. Still, they ended up working for their former enslavers in exchange for food and shelter, not for pay.

7:29 And this sounds like the South here in the States too. Yeah, so on paper things were different, but in reality the status quo remained. And like we said in other episodes like our Coca Cola one and maybe the Coffee one, but this can still be seen today in Brazil. Fifty three percent of the population in Brazil identifies as Afro Brazilian, and yet they make up two thirds of the imprisoned population, as they make up seventy eight percent of the lowest income class in the country. Okay, and so yeah, now that we have that very brief information on slavery in Brazil, let's talk about Chica Manicongo. She was one of the first to be targeted by the Brazilian inquisition and a trans woman. Some even say the first trans woman, the first black trans woman to be known in history in Brazil.

8:19 Oh wow, around one was this, Well, if you'll find out, okay, fifteen hundred, oh wow, I don't know when she was trafficked from Congo to Brazil. Won't you look at that? Trans people have always existed. That's right, that's right, at least today, if she's viewed as a transwoman. Looking back into history and what Chica Manicongo was like. She's also known as Francisco or Francisca. She was kidnapped from Congo and traffic to Salvador, which today is a municipality in the Brazilian state of Baia as well as the capital city of Baia. It's in the northeast region of Brazil and is known today as the center of Afro Brazilian culture, the Hub if you will. Back then, it was the first capital of Brazil, which was a colony of Portugal, and Chica was trafficked into Baiya in the sixteenth century and renamed Francisca. Her real name has been lost to history and many Gongo comes from Onene Gongo, which translates to lord of Congo, and this was a title used for like the royalty of the Kingdom of Congo, but it's not known if she was like of royalty herself, because of Portuguese used this as a last name for all the enslaved that they stole from Congo. Of course they did, yeah, because they don't care. They did this everywhere. Yeah, like rename indigenous people rename. So yeah, like all the names we have today for indigenous tribes in the United States, it's not their actual like exactly. And the same applies to Mexico, where now people are like using the real terms,

9:53 but the Spanish renamed all of them. And so this is the same thing where now there are everyone's money. Congo' are the same everywhere, right right. And she was enslaved by a shoemaker named Antonio Perees, and she ran his errands. She also did shoemaking herself, and so she walked around the city running his errands, wearing a long fabric tide with a front knot, so like a dress. She lived her life as a woman, dressing in what would have been traditional women's wear back in Congo. It's also important to note that gender norms were not as strict at that time in Congo, and so she was living the way she had always lived, and she of course should have had the right to do this, to be her true self right. And despite her enslavement, Chika found joy where she could, as throughout history people always have, and so she found joy in her clothes. She found joy in her romantic life. She was known to have many lovers. I love that for her. And she was just living her life and bothered an old white Christian man named Matthias Moreta Matthias, mind your business. Yeah, but whenever he saw her walking about, he would go up to her and tell her to start wearing men's clothes, and Chikai refused. She kept on doing her doing her thing, and Matthias was so bothered he reported her to the church, and so the inquisition came. They took her. They accused

11:23 her of sodomy, a crime that applied to not only the gays the queer back then, but also to hetero couples. You can't go done. You can do this. Let people sodomize if they want to sodomize. I'm sorry, what is it to you? No, exactly what is there a sodomization have to do with you? Yeah, but no, and this was a crime against the crown and the punishment was to be burned alive. I'm sorry, I mean, I know we're talking about the inquisition, but this is like beyond the level. First of all, she didn't have been a crime at all, but then for the punishment to be born alive. Yeah, and then on top of that, perpetrators of this and we're using that word like very loosely because this isn't not a real crime, right anyway, perpetrators of this crime what have their belonging confiscated by the church, and infamy would fall upon their descendants from up to three generations. That was part of the punishment, which I don't know how you do that, but that's part of it. Yeah, okay.

12:24 Chica was also accused of being a member of a gang of Sodomite sorcerers. Even back then they were making up conspiracies which hunts and gangs of Yeah, this is outrageous. I can't believe that people haven't grown out of that conspiratorial mentality of I don't know, like associating queer people with yeah, Satanism, which I think I said already, and then this sodomization always gets tied to pedophilia when reality, the most pedophilic people are straight men. Yeah, and so yeah, being accused of being a member of a gang of satome sorcerers is the worst than just like a regular autonomy.

13:10 And before continuing with this, let me just say there's another source I read that stated that the punishment for this it was not being burned alive, but being exiled for three years for men and two years for women, plus a fine that was to be paid to whoever reported them. And so in this case it would have been Matthias Morreda. She would have had to pay a fine that's ridiculous. Obviously not as bad as being ProLife, but it's still ridiculous. Yes, and so Chica was saved from whatever punishment she would have faced because she stopped dressing like a woman. She stopped living her life as a woman, and she began to wear traditional men's clothing. And so she wasn't killed by an inquisition, but she couldn't be herself anymore. And this is where her life fades into history. I don't know what became of her, but like hopefully she lived a full life, even though it wasn't like a true content one because she couldn't be herself. How long did think position lasts? Like, did you think she lived in or no? No? Right, hundreds of years so long? Yeah, yeah, that sucks because then that means you probably never got to be herself again, right, And that's horrible, sad. Yeah, And even in death, she was referred to as Francis Scho her Christian name for decades.

14:22 That's you know what. Sorry, It's like on top of you have your obviously your own life in Congo, and then you're taken, trafficked into enslavement, and then you can't keep your original name, like that's your name, your identity, and then they gave you a Christian name of a man when that's not who you are. And it's like how many times your life and your identity, you know, trampled over and taken I can't. Yeah, And for centuries even she was referred to as a man under that name Francisco. And it wasn't until the early two thousands when black transactivists Marjorie Marchi gave her the name Chica Mani Congo. Marjorie was the president and founder of the Rio de Canado Travestize and Trans People's Association also called Astra Rio, and this renaming was like a reclaiming of Chica Mani Congo and to be embraced by her people.

15:19 And about the renaming and all that, Marjorie Marchi, who passed away in twenty sixteen, said, quote, to be aware of who we are, we need memory, We need knowledge about our history and where we came from, about what our people have struggled with and died first, so that we could have the bare minimum rights we enjoyed today. End quote. Oh my god, Marjorie was so on point about this. Yes. Yes. She also created the Chica Mani Congo Award, which aimed to recognize initiatives related to human rights and the promotion of citizenship for transvestites and transgender people. And these are their words, this is how they identify. I'm not just like calling people transvestites. I just want to make it clear. Last year, the Samba School Paraiso the Tuiti honored her during their Rio de Hanado carnival performance.

16:08 Thirty black trans women from low income backgrounds participated, and they did this dance in front of like this insane audience because like thousands and maybe one thousands. Yeah, I gathered for this and they had the trans flag up there. It was it was beautiful. And in this performance they also honored Eloina dos Lopardos, who became the first trans woman to lead a samba school percussion in nineteen seventy six. Wow. And also in twenty twenty one, a kilombo was named after Chika Manicongo and for those who during. A kilombo is a community or settlement established in the sixteenth century by enslaved Africans and their descendants as resistance to the slave system. So they escaped, they created a community, and others were able to escape and join this community. And they're still around, and one of them was renamed after many Gongo. That's amazing, Yes, and that's it. That's come many Gongo for you. Wow. I mean sharp, but sweet.

17:13 I really enjoyed learning about Chica. Obviously sad story as many of our stories are, but still important. And I thought that quote from Marjorie was just one point for where we're always Yeah, and this brings us to the end of the episode. I think, all right, well, I guess if anyone's interested, I guess, let me promote ourselves for a second. Here we have an episode where we yap about the horse that are happening in our world. Sometimes we have fun and talk about in a drama cultural topics, I guess, But most of the time it's about the horse and we cry, we scream. Yeah, So I don't know, yap alongside with us if there's anything you want to yap about, let us know, well, yep about it. Yes, and that's a patron Yes, And part of those proceeds from Patreon do go to different immigrant rights organizations lately we've been doing. It's in the show notes.

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