Introduction

In 1893 an itinerant preacher called Antônio Conselheiro led poor farmers, herdsmen and freed slaves of the north-eastern backlands of Brazil to found a 'holy city' in a remote river valley called Canudos, whose population at one time reached twenty or thirty thousand. The newly founded Republic regarded them as rebels plotting to restore the monarchy and sent four military expeditions against them; the first three were routed. For the fourth the government mustered more than ten thousand soldiers with artillery, and after a siege of several months Canudos fell in October 1897; its last defenders, an old man, two grown men and a child, fought to the death. The men taken prisoner were almost all executed by having their throats cut, and the town was razed to the ground. The book has three parts: 'The Land' describes the geology, climate and droughts of the backlands; 'Man' describes the race, character and life of the backlanders; 'The Struggle' recounts the course of the war. At once a work of science and an epic, it has been called 'the Bible of Brazil'.