History of capoeira

The history of capoeira explores the origins and development of capoeira, a Brazilian martial art and game that combines dance, acrobatics, fighting, and music.

Capoeira first appeared among Africans in Brazil, during the early colonial period of the 18th century. There is a substantial debate about whether capoeira was created in its essence in West Africa, or whether it only became fully formed in Brazil. According to the old capoeira mestres and tradition within the community, capoeira originates from Angola, likely from the Mbundu people of the Kingdom of Ndongo. Ndondo was controlled by a formal military, in which Mbundu soldiers were trained professionally for combat. Therefore, these combat abilities would have been brought to Brazil with Mbundu people enslaved in the Atlantic Slave Trade. However, the exact of capoeira is not entirely clear, many studies have supported the oral tradition, identifying engolo as an ancestral art and locating the Cunene region as its birthplace. At the core of capoeira we find techniques developed in engolo, including crescent kicks, push kicks, sweeps, handstands, cartwheels, evasions and even the iconic meia lua de compasso, scorpion kick and L-kick. Some authors believe there were other ancestors and influences besides engolo.

Rio de Janeiro, the epicenter of capoeira in the 19th century, saw the development of an extremely violent style of capoeira carioca associated with gangs or maltas. This style included head-butts, kicking, punching, and knife-fighting, much of which entailed new innovations. That violent version of capoeira is now generally extinct.

In the early 1930s, Mestre Bimba reformed capoeira and developed the capoeira regional style. The government came to see capoeira as a socially acceptable sport. In 1941, Mestre Pastinha later founded his school where he cultivated the traditional capoeira Angola, distinguishing it from Mestre Bimba's reforms and the "national sport" approach. Despite their significant differences, both masters introduced major innovations – they moved training and rodas from the streets indoors, instituted the academia, prescribed uniforms, started to teach women, and presented capoeira to a broader audiences. In the 1970s, capoeira became more broadly accepted across Brazil and exported to the United States and other countries. In the 1980s, there was a revival of interest in its African roots.