Brazilian historical writing reproduced colonial stereotypes of docile versus rebellious Africans

Evidence

Writing in the mid-1960s, Jose Rodrigues appears to have confused Brazilian lore and reality: “Despite the variety of tribes represented in Brazil, the Bantus were always preferred because they were less independent, more submissive, more reserved in behavior and loquacious in speech, and more adaptable. They accepted the religion, Christianity, and the social forms imposed upon them. The most characteristic Bantu type was the Angolan. Taller than other Negroes, less robust, they were communicative, talkative, and cordial. Less conformable were the Dahomeyan tribes (Jejes), the most important of which was the Nago, and the Mohammedans, who came mostly from northern Nigeria and were called Males. The least submissive Negroes in Brazil were the Hausas.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2034

Categorization

• XREF: Robinson flagging that even mid-20th-century historians recycled colonial characterology - relevant to how scholarship itself participated in obscuring the radical tradition.