Serving as religious resistance to the dictates of slavery, Candomblé empowered newly formed, autonomous communities known as quilombos. Albeit an African-based syncretic religion, Candomblé practitioners welcomed Tupi-Guarani and other indigenous groups, as well as people of mixed-race heritage and poor European immigrants, into their ranks.
The religious manifestation of Candomblé is not unique to Africans who were abducted and enslaved in Brazil. The syncretic fusion of African deities and Catholic Saints occurred in Haiti, Cuba, the southern region of the United States, and other parts of the Americas. The practice became known as Santeria in Cuba. In Haiti and New Orleans it became known as Voodoo (or Hoodoo). Although they originated in different geographical regions, subjugated by different European colonial powers, the essential aspect of their historical formation and divine worldview are intertwined.
“The binary syncretism of these religious practices insured safety amongst the enslaved Africans by disguising their veneration.”
That Candomblé continues to be such an important aspect of religious life in Brazil is a testament to the resistance of African-descendants in the country. Although its mother religion, Yoruba, underwent changes to guarantee its survival, the fundamental message of its belief system never wavered. John Mbiti, author of African Religions and Philosophy, emphasizes that:
“According to African peoples, man lives in a religious universe, so that natural phenomena and objects are intimately associated with God. They not only originate from Him but also bear witness to Him.” (MBITI, 1969: 48)
Despite a milieu of oppressive forces that has lasted for over five centuries in Brazil, enslaved Africans, and their descendants, have maintained their ancestral divine worldview alive through the practice of Candomblé. If a praxis for liberation theology emerged in the late 1950s and early 60s, it certainly had a long, glorious history of resistance in Brazil and other countries in the Americas. Empowering the poor from internal religious interpretation based upon practical day-to-day knowledge is not a new concept. What makes liberation theology unique is that it was the first time that a cohesive group of Catholic priests in Latin America utilized Catholicism as a basis to effectuate change from the bottom-up. This revolutionary surge had been espoused by African-diaspora communities in the western hemisphere for centuries. In order to grasp the full implications of this argument we must explore how African religiosity offered resistance to legalized oppression and, in doing so, empowered the oppressed.