“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.”
by Julian Cola
Article Reprint
African resistance to slavery in Brazil gave birth to Candomblé. While their ancestral religious belief, Yoruba, was forbidden by law, Portuguese slave traders and missionaries obliged their field laborers and servants to adopt Catholicism. Discontented with the imposition of colonial rule that went as far as preventing the expression of their religious worldview, Africans substituted the names of their Orixás (Yoruba deities) to Catholic Saints. The binary syncretism of these religious practices insured safety amongst the enslaved Africans by disguising their veneration.