In the early nineteenth century public officials in Rio de Janeiro viewed capoeira merely as a game (jogo) played by black slaves. Although contemporary travelers’ accounts and engravings initially portrayed it as a warlike dance that embodied certain African rituals and martial art traditions, by the end of the century they described it as a tool that enabled slaves to commit offences and criminal acts against their masters. The capoeiras (participants), who were by then mostly natives of Brazil, were characterized as cold-blooded murderers who were unruly and undermined the foundations of the local society. In other words, within a few decades, references to capoeira changed dramatically: the “game” became “dangerous criminal act.”
Capoeira in Rio de Janeiro never lost its character as a play and contained all the ingredients of a “game of life,” as perceived by the descendants of the West Central African slaves, even as...
