A HISTÓRIA DA PRIMEIRA FAVELA DO BRASIL | EDUARDO BUENO

Things have a name and we need to name them right, like calling a spade a spade. So the name is Favela! Favela!

Repeat after me! Favela! Vela!

Vela! Light a candle to our first favela You don't know what a favela is? Do you?

Of course you do. Favela is a tree, man. It's a 3 to fie meters tall tree from the euphorbiaceae family The same family of the rubber tree.

It's a family that contains honey combs. These honey combs are like warts, and these warts are very spiky, and these spikes are caustic, and when they get to your skin, they have a sort of latex, which burns horrendously, but worse! These spikes get into your skin because they are moving spikes that move and some say that it gets to the heart and this is how we get to the heart of the matter, man.

How did the favelas start? Why does "favela" mean community, which means the shacks on the hills? It's simple, man, because it all started on the Favela Hill Where is the Favela Hill, silly?

You didn't watch the episode on Canudos last week? Watch it, go there and click! Canudos!

But I didn't talk about the Favela Hill. I Did! Very quickly though, about Favela Hill.

Favela Hill was in countryside Bahia, at Arraial de Canudos. Was on top of this hill that the Brazilian army put a cannon called "matadeira" and aimed exactly on the Canudos church. A final attack that ended up crushing that evangelical camp led by Antonio Conselheiro.

That hill was covered with a tree called 'favela'. The Brazilian soldiers were called up, some of them a bit forcibly to fight the miserables of Canudos in 1897, came back to Rio de Janeiro and one of the reasons for their enlisting, or kind of being led, conducted to participate in this massacre is that they had been promised that they would receive a house as soon as they came back from this dispute. They went there, killed 25 000 locals, got their hands dirty with blood, returned to the port in Rio and waited for their property, and go to the Army Ministry, in the same place where still exists today a bit army building, at the end of Presidente Vargas Av, by the hill that was called then Providence Hill, as nothing was provided by the army and the guys ended up going up this hill and some say that even the big wooden boxes where the Krupp cannons, bought from the German arms manufacturer Krupp, that still exists were there and with those boxes.

Maybe it's a rumor, but at least it makes sense. Those boxes. They went up and built their shacks on the hill that until then was called Providence Hill.

The thing is that there were shacks already. That happened in 1897/1998. In reality it was already 1898.

The question is that this Providence Hill, which by the way is million years old, right? It's a granite hill, that exists for probably 800 million years, therefore ir was already here when the city of Rio de Janeiro was founded in 1565, and the city was born there in the port , started expanding called New City, today still called New City, but was baptised New City in Dom Joao VI times because it was close to Quinta da Boa Vista which was the palace where Dom Joao lived, where Dom Pedro I, where Dom Pedro II lived. And this hill was called Paulo Caieiro Hill, it was already called this way in 1600 and afterwards it was called Morro da Formiga, then Morro do Livramento, still called like that in some part of it because in reality is a kind of mountain range, right?

It's got various names, do Valongo. It begins on Morro da Conceicao, goes through Morro do Valongo, follows to Morro do Livramento and gets to the hill that then ended up being called Morro da Providencia. Providence in the sense of the Almighty, God's providence, but still has a play on words that some say that it ended up called Providence Hill because the army wouldn't take any action to provide the houses they had promised to the soldiers in Canudos.

It's not true, but at least the play on words makes sense. Another play on words that makes sense is that the fighters of Canudo, especially the ones called vivandeiras, they were the women that accompanied these troops to Canudos, some of them were wives, or lovers, some were nothing. They sold food, they were women who provided, warmed, cooked the food to the army when the army was there in Canudos These vivandeiras not only came back to Rio with them, from where they probably originated, but went up the hill, and not only went up the hill as it's told that they managed to get a cross that belonged to the church of Antonio Conselheiro, in Canudos.

They erected an oratory and a bell tower on top of Providence Hill. It still exists! Still exists!

The proble is that to get there is not easy. I've got there once, but it's hard to get there and this cross would be there. Moreoer, it became national historical heritage in the 70's this bell tower.

Well, the fact is that there were at least a 100 shacks in Providence Hill before the Canudo fighters occupied and re-baptized it with the name Morro da Favela. These shacks belonged to people who were expelled from what was the first Brazilian slum, because it wasn't called a favela it was called a slum and that wonderful book that you were forced to read for the 'vestibular' from Aluisio de Azevedo, O Cortico, and because you were forced thought it was boring but it's not boring. It's wonderful!

If I were you, I'd go back there and read 'O Cortico' de Aluisio de Azevedo again It tells the story of a slum called 'Pig's Head', that was exactly there in that area close to what is Campo de Santana, Campo da Aclamacao, Central Station and in this place that used to be the Army Ministry, because that slum was said to belong to Conde D'Eu, Pedro II's son in law, Princesa Isabel's husband. The fact is that this slum was destroyed by the mayor Barata Ribeiro, in 1893. He told them to empty the slum because Carlos Sampaio the engineer was going to build a tunnel there in that area and urbanise whatever, whatever.

And Angelo Augustinho, who was a journalist and above all an amazing graphic artist, who had a satyrical newspaper wrote "Who would know that a roach would be capable of devouring a pig? ", and devoured because in January 1893 they attacked. The police attacked and devastated the slum, expelling 4 000 people from there.

And why was it called 'Pig's Head'? And from there became a name almost a synonym for slum, pig's head, but originally it was because the rich would put a lion at the entrance of their land, that's where the expression 'Land's lion' comes from! What a wonderful video.

You are always learning. Moreover we should have a sticker here: "Dying and learning with Eduardo Bueno" 'Land's lion' comes from there because they would make gates with lions and then the people put what? They put a pig's head.

In the beginning it was a real pig's head, right? Afterwards they made a clay sculpture of a pig's head there. The place was called Pig's Head.

It was devastated, the place, put down and some of the refugees went up Providence Hill, of Ant's Hill or Morro do Livramento building there those shacks. And in 1898 these shacks grew largely in number and the soldiers said: "Look! It looks like Favela Hill and it became Favela Hill, my friend.

And the favela has grown, especially because when there was the "Bota-abaixo", about what we'll talk about in this programme in a following episode The bota-abaixo to give origin to Av Central, today called Avenida Rio Branco, in Rio de Janeiro, also mayor Pereira Passos had lots of slums put down that were in the central area of Rio de Janeiro, around Candelaria Church especially, more than 500 properties were put down and these people without a place to live and expelled by the Federal government, the state government, the city government of Rio de Janeiro moved where? Providence Hill, Favela Hill, giving origin to the favela. And nowadays Brasil is like this: "We have problems with the favelas, Look how many favelas!

The hill is going to invade the city. By the way, I said that the favela would come down to the city here in the episode about the Vaccine Revolt and a lot of people, because there are these people that comment. I don't want comments on Youtube.

I'm not interested in your opinion. Let me calm down, take my medication. That's it man, it's a metaphor.

The hills coming down to the tarmac is a metaphor. Don't think I'm in favour of the city or in favour of the hills. And more, I'm against everything and everybody.

Everybody but you who is going to give a like on this episode. And before being interrupted abruptly, what was I talking about? I was talking about Favela Hill, the original favela that started to become a problem.

A problem created, evidently by Brazil itself, by the Brazilian government, but the favela kept growing, the favela kept developing and the favela ended up becoming art, my brother. Becoming art! Because in 1935, the great filmmaker Humberto Mauro made a movie called 'Favela of my Love', filmed there.

Then there was Black Orpheus, which was also a play written by Vinicius de Moraes, and it became a movie by Marcel Cami Then there was the movie 'Five Times Favela', spectacular. At a favela, on Providence Hill, samba had great moments, great samba composers, great carioca rascals. A lot of Brazilian culture started at Favela Hill, Providence Hill and the hill is still there, and Rio de Janeiro is still beautiful and is still full of problems and Brasil still has problems to live together with its communities, they say that we can't call it a favela anymore, we need to call them communities So that's fine, I''ll call it a community because you already know that favela is a tree, a spiky tree that when it gets to your blood circulation.

Well, that's the thing, man the people that doesn't know their history is condemned to repeat it You'll have 500 more same years gone unless you're saved by Buenas Ideias Channel and by the program Not a Subject for Enem Thanks a lot, see you again What you've just watched is broad and simplistic, but the general idea is this Now if you want to know how things really were, then you'll have to read.