Selling Black Brazil: Race, Nation, and Visual Culture in Salvador, Bahia

349 Pages·2022·20.178 MB·English

by  Anadelia Romo

Selling Black Brazil

Selling Black Brazil
Race, Nation, and Visual Culture
in Salvador, Bahia
Anadelia A. Romo
University of Texas Press Austin
Copyright © 2022 by the University of Texas Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First edition, 2022
Publication of this book was made possible in part by support from the Pachita
Tennant Pike Fund for Latin American Studies.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Romo, Anadelia A., author.
Title: Selling Black Brazil : race, nation, and visual culture in Salvador, Bahia /
Anadelia A. Romo.
Description: First edition. | Austin : University of Texas Press, 2022. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifi ers:
LCCN 2021020084
ISBN 978-1-4773-2419-6 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-4773-2420-2 (PDF)
ISBN 978-1-4773-2421-9 (ePub)
Subjects: LCSH: Culture and tourism—Brazil—Salvador—History—20th
century. | Tourism and art—Brazil—Salvador—History—20th century—
Pictorial works. | City promotion—Brazil—Salvador—History—20th
century. | National characteristics, Brazilian. | Blacks—Brazil—Social
conditions. | Indigenous peoples—Brazil—Social conditions. | Salvador
(Brazil)—Guidebooks—History—20th century—Pictorial works. | Salvador
(Brazil)—Guidebooks—History—20th century.
Classifi cation: LCC G155.B6 R66 2022 | DDC 338.4/7918142—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021020084
doi:10.7560/324196
For Lily and Emmett

Contents
Preface ix
Glossary xiii
Introduction: Race, Identity, and Visual Culture
in the Americas 1
1. Precedents and Backdrops: Racial Types and Modern Ports 22
2. Colonial Churches and the Rise of the Quintessential
Black City: Modernism, Travel, and the Pathbreaking Guide
of Jorge Amado 58
3. Pierre Verger and the Construction of a Black Folk,
1946–1951 93
4. Festive Streets: Carybé and Bahian Modernism 138
5. “Human and Picturesque”: Consolidation in the Bahian
Tourist Guides of the 1950s 183
6. All Roads Lead to Black Rome: How the Religion of “Secrets”
Became a Tourist Attraction 210
Epilogue: Refl ection and Refraction 253
Acknowledgments 262
Appendix 267
Notes 268
Bibliography 299
Index 318

Preface
This book began its life as a very specialized study of one capital city
in Brazil’s Northeast: São Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos, more
commonly known as Salvador or, simply, Bahia. As I began to write,
however, I soon realized that my initial framing was far too limited:
this was not just a story of Bahian identity or regionalism in Brazil,
two well-respected themes in Brazilian history to which I had intended
to contribute. It was, rather, a story familiar across the Americas, even
the United States. It was a story of making the local national and of
using native elements to build a larger national identity. And it was a
story familiar across the diaspora, one that spoke to the deep power
of racial stereotypes and the diffi cult trajectory of Afro–Latin Ameri-
cans in the larger visual register. I have written, therefore, a book that
I hope speaks to these broader concerns, and a book that I believe
expresses the larger trajectory of the Americas rather than of Brazil
alone.
I have also written the type of book I like to teach. I place Bahia
and Brazil fi rmly within the trajectory of Latin America, rather than
as regions best treated apart. I show that ideas of race permeate every-
thing, and I make Blackness, not just Indigeneity, a part of the con-
versation. I use a close case study to bring texture and life to larger
regional trends, with vibrant images as primary sources. And I have
tried throughout to write concisely in a language free from jargon
and unnecessary complications so that students as well as specialized
scholars may follow along.
Equally important to this book is my treatment of images as central
to the argument itself. This too came gradually. I started off interested
in the many tourist guides written within Salvador, works that I had