AnastÁcia

c. 1740s
unknown

There are numerous variations of Anastácia's life story, but the most detailed goes as follows: On April 9, 1740, the slave ship Madalena arrived in Bahia from Angola with 112 slaves on board. Among these newly arrived Africans was a woman named Delminda. Some years after her arrival, Delminda's master raped her, and upon discovering that she was pregnant, sold her away to the town of Pompeu in Minas Gerais. Delminda's daughter, Anastácia, was born with blue eyes and was widely recognized as beautiful. As Anastácia grew up, her master's son made numerous sexual overtures toward her, even offering her money to sleep with him.

After steadfastly refusing the boy's advances and fighting him off on several occasions, Anastácia was outfitted with an iron collar and a leather mask in order to make her acquiescent. This mask and iron collar were a common form of punishment in Brazil, particularly for runaway slaves. The mask was also utilized to prevent slaves from eating dirt, a common response to nutritional deficiency. Anastácia was tortured and raped, and the mask was removed only when it was time for her to eat. Suffering great pain and infection from the iron collar digging into her flesh, Anastácia maintained a quiet dignity throughout her ordeals. Eventually she was carried to Rio de Janeiro, where she died in agony on an uncertain date, still wearing the mask. Supposedly, she was buried in Igreja do Rosário in Rio de Janeiro, but her remains disappeared when the church was destroyed by fire.

In his ethnographic study of devotion to Anastácia, John Burdick has shown that veneration of a masked, collared female slave dates back until at least the 1940s, especially in Minas Gerais. The legend of Anastácia, which apparently was passed down through oral history in the years following her death, was exposed to a broader Brazilian audience beginning in the early 1970s. In 1968, the Museum of the Negro, an annex of the Igreja do Rosário in Rio de Janeiro, opened an exposition commemorating the eightieth anniversary of abolition. In order to illustrate methods of slave torture, an etching by the French traveler and artist Jacques Arago was included in the exposition. The exposition received little notice until 1971, when the remains of Princess Isabel, the "great liberator" of Brazil's slaves, were brought from Portugal. Before being taken to Petrópolis for burial, Isabel's coffin was put on display at the Museum of the Negro. Thousands arrived at the museum to pay their respects. Upon seeing the Arago etching, people immediately associated it with the Anastácia of oral tradition. Ironically, Arago's original drawing was intended to depict a young man punished for running away from his enslavement. Arago's intentions aside, Brazilians were inspired by what they interpreted as a visual representation of the mythical Anastácia.

The oral tradition was quickly transcribed and published by a vanity press. The Brazilian media also eagerly consumed her story. As newspapers, radio, and television presented versions of Anastácia's life history, spiritual devotion to her spread throughout the country. By the mid-1980s, Anastácia claimed thousands of adherents who publicly recited her miracles. In 1984 her supporters circumvented official channels and appealed directly to the pope for Anastácia's canonization. Alarmed by Anastácia's growing popularity, Brazilian cardinal Dom Eugênio hired a historian to research whether Anastácia ever truly existed. After two years of research, the Church's historian determined that there was no evidence to support the existence of Anastácia. As a result of this ruling, Cardinal Dom Eugênio ruled that all objects related to the devotion of Anastácia must be removed from the Igreja do Rosário. Thus, the cardinal squashed any hopes that Anastácia would be accepted into church orthodoxy.

Despite the church's denial of Anastácia's historical existence, her adherents, especially black women, continue to maintain their devotion to her. The majority of these women believe that Anastácia was not of mixed ancestry but rather was a beautiful African woman. As a symbol of black phenotypical beauty, resistance to white and male power, and ultimate forgiveness, Anastácia represents a node of historical familiarity and temporal strength for Brazil's black women. By the mid-1990s there were four pilgrimage sites in Rio de Janeiro that attracted hundreds of people daily. Moreover, images and icons of Anastácia are widely available, thereby facilitating individual devotion. Some estimates claim that she has as many as twenty-eight million adherents.

See also Slavery

Bibliography

Burdick, John. Blessed Anastácia: Women, Race, and Popular Christianity in Brazil. New York: Routledge, 1998.

Handler, Jerome S., and Michael L. Tuite, Jr. "The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record." Available from <http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery/details.php?filename=NW0191>.

Oliveira, Eduardo de, ed. "Escravo Anastácia." In Quem é quem na negritude brasileira, biografias, vol. 1. São Paulo: Congresso Nacional Afro-Brasileiro, 1998, pp. 102–103.

james h. sweet (2005)