A LOOK AT BRAZIL.

There is a television series called Black in Latin America where Afro American Professor Henry Louis Gates explores the known and not so well known African Latin American of the Americas, to find out more about the ‘black experience ‘in those parts of the world.

Professor Henry Louis Gates

In the episode below,’ Brazil: A racial paradise?’ Professor Gates explores the society that was once the largest slave economy in the world and now has the biggest black population in the world outside of Africa.

 Take note in the beginning he says something very important about carnival and Brazils’ African slaves and the roots of Brazils Carnival especially in Bahia where most of the enslaved West African were taken.

'The Slaves who came to South America did not sail alone they brought their religion, they brought their gods and they brought their music'

 Basically they brought their culture and with it the root of their carnival traditions. They did not copy their masters like his-storians claim happened in Trinidad, in fact the opposite happened like their brothers in south America the enslaved in Trinidad as well as the rest of the Caribbean practiced their traditions in secrete for years only to unleash it on emancipation day...

The documentary is not about carnival Brazil like all other plantation nations has issues of race and colour that dominates its society even today. Enjoy.

Watch Brazil: A Racial Paradise? on PBS. See more from Black in Latin America.