User talk:The ed17/Sandbox/Revolta da Chibata

One of the themes in some of the Portuguese sites--and one I can understand better after a re-acquaintance with Salvador in 2007 and the Quilombo dos Palmares Memorial Park last year--is that the traditional naval flogging was very much seen as a continuation of the pelourinho of slavery. The central historic district in Salvador is named the Pelourinho because a central feature was the whipping post, physically and in memory. So that was probably the real driver in the mutiny and the general mistreatment was pretty much secondary. The problem for Wikipedia is that those references do not cite anything and are the author's views, well based probably, but not "authority" as such. (Same problem I have here with lots of ship stuff. I've done the digging in Archives and records and have been tapped by authors and other researchers but have to find easily cited things before adding to anything here.) I think this aspect should be worked into the article so I will look into that particular aspect more closely. Slavery in Brasil was not quite as pernicious as here and formal racial discrimination never as bad with much better potential mobility. There was lots more intermarriage for example. Still, the "blacker" one was the greater by far was one's chances of being poor and underclass. That was certainly the case then and still an issue, though the feeling I got on the matter in Salvador was almost refreshing as there seemed real celebration of the role of African culture in Brasil by all. In 1910 some of those sailors had fist hand experience with slavery and its effects so I think "the whip" was indeed the driver of the whole movement as it was the brutal symbol that these particular Brasilians were still treated as slaves. Any ideas of working that aspect in without anything more than "personal opinion" of sites there? Palmeira (talk) 14:25, 13 January 2010 (UTC)