Backlands (5 page)

 

March 3:
Moreira César dies. Retreat. More jeers and catcalls. Captain Salomão da Rocha and Colonel Tamarindo are killed in action.

 

April 5:
General Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães writes the plan of the day and organizes the fourth expedition: six brigades in two columns under Generals João da Silva Barbosa and Cláudio do Amaral Savaget.

 

June 16:
The Savaget column (2,350 men) leaves Jeremoabo.

 

June 19:
General Oscar Guimarães leaves Monte Santo with the First and Third brigades (1,933 men).

 

June 22:
The brigades of the first column assemble in Juá at night.

 

June 23:
First column proceeds to Aracati.

 

June 24:
First column moves on to Juetê.

 

June 25:
The Savaget column arrives at Cocorobó. First battle: 178 casualties, 27 killed. General Savaget is wounded.

 

June 26:
Troops move from Cocorobó to Macambira. Second battle: 148 casualties, 40 dead.

 

June 27:
First column arrives at Mount Favela with General Oscar Guimarães: seventy-five casualties. The Savaget column arrives in Canudos.

 

June 28:
Battle and cannon fire: 524 casualties.

 

July 1:
Jagunços
attack the camp.

 

July 13:
Provisions arrive.

 

July 18:
Troops assault the settlement: 947 casualties.

 

July 31:
Girard Brigade assembles in Queimadas with 1,042 men and 68 officers.

 

August 3:
Girard Brigade leaves Queimadas, under the command of a colonel.

 

August 10:
Troops leave Monte Santo for Canudos, led by Major Henrique José de Magalhães.

 

August 14:
Arrival at Juetê.

 

August 15:
Attack on Vicar’s Farm: ninety-one cattle killed. Two more brigades arrive in Bahia in a division under the command of Brigadier General Carlos Eugenio de Andrade Guimarães.

 

August 24:
Bombardment of the churches of Canudos by the Whitworth 32. Church bell falls.

 

September 6:
Towers of the new church fall.

 

September 7:
Old Ranch House is captured. Trench marking gain named for this date. Calumbi road is taken.

 

September 15:
Battle of Coxomongó. Two trenches and thirteen pack animals are captured from th
e jagunços.

 

September 22:
Antônio Conselheiro dies.

 

September 24:
The siege line around Canudos is completed to Mount Cambaio. First prisoners.

 

September 26:
Four violent night attacks by the
jagunços.

 

September 27:
Eighteen night attacks by the
jagunços.

 

September 28:
No response from the
jagunços
to morning and afternoon cannon fire. Insurgent fire from 6:00 P.M. until 5:00 A.M. of September 29.

 

October 1:
Final assault. Ninety dynamite bombs are set off in Canudos. Lieutenant Colonel Antônio Tupy Ferreira Caldas is killed. Military casualties number 567.

 

October 2:
Three hundred prisoners surrender: women, children, and elders.

 

October 5:
Last four defenders of Canudos die.

 

October 6:
Exhumation of Antônio Conselheiro.

A Note on the Text

This English translation of Euclides da Cunha’s
Os sertões
is based on the Brazilian didactic edition by Alfredo Bosi (São Paulo: Editora Cultrix, 1973).

Aside from modernizing spelling and punctuation, Bosi makes few changes. He incorporates edits made by the author to the 1905 edition of the book and offers a detailed list of features of his edition in the categories of phonetics, morphology, and syntax. Many of these have to do with the historical evolution of Brazilian Portuguese (such as the conjugation of verbs ending in -
ear
or -
iar
, variations in word forms, and spelling) and are of no relevance to the English translation.

In contrast, the preservation of the author’s propensity for heavily latinized vocabulary is crucial, as is the conscious preservation of certain features of syntax and punctuation. Bosi comments on how da Cunha’s work relies heavily on the comma, which he employs somewhat idiosyncratically. For example, he sometimes separates the verb from its subject by a comma: “But this train, did not exist.” Indeed, Bosi believes that da Cunha’s oratorical style demands this kind of pause between subject and predicate, as they are “two sentence fragments, two force fields.” This translation seeks to preserve the unique and sometimes abrupt syntactical cadence of the original while striving for readability and relevance. In fact, the syntax marks the wide emotional range of the text, which encompasses honesty, anguish, sarcasm, anger, compassion, and love. The flow and rhythm of the text capture the lifeblood of the backlands and its people.

Prior to this, the only English version available of
Os sertões
was by Samuel Putnam. In his translator’s introduction, Putnam observes that “in making the acquaintance of Euclides da Cunha, the North American has an experience awaiting him which is comparable in quality to that of the European of the last century listening for the first time to Walt Whitman’s ‘barbaric yawp.’” He hoped that his translation would contribute to the cause of hemispheric understanding and bring readers an essential Brazilian work. Afrânio Peixoto, in his own introduction to the Putnam translation, opined that the narrative was deserving of “appearing in a language that is broader, more universal in its appeal (than Portuguese).”

Anthony Burgess once claimed that “translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.” While it is daunting to follow in Putnam’s footsteps, the hope is that this rendition injects new life into
Os sertões,
bringing it to a new generation of English readers interested in how Brazil became a modern nation and curious about the role of journalism during times of war.

The timetable for the Canudos campaign comes from the contemporary edition that is the most complete in terms of critical apparatus,
Os sertões: Campanha de Canudos
(São Paulo: Editora Martin Claret, 2007), pages 607-609, and is based on the sixteenth corrected edition (Rio de Janerio: Editora Francisco Alves, 1942). Putnam based his translation on the same Brazilian edition and used the same list of principal military events.

Suggested Further Reading

The following list includes primary sources, among them the various Brazilian editions of Euclides da Cunha’s
Os sertões
. It also contains secondary sources about Brazil’s flora and fauna, the historical context, academic studies related to the book, and literary works that use it as inspiration.

 

 

Anonymous.
Canudos
[photographic essay]. São Paulo: Instituto Moreira Salles, 2002.

Brandão, Adelino.
A sociologia d
’Os sertões. Rio de Janeiro: Artium Editora, 1996.

Burns, E. Bradford.
A History of Brazil
. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.

Calasans, José.
Canudos na literatura de cordel.
São Paulo: Editora Atica, 1984.

Chapman, Grover.
O episódio de Canudos
. Edited by Luís Viana Filho. Rio de Janeiro: Salamandra, 1978.

Chiavenato, Júlio José.
As meninas do Belo Monte
. São Paulo: Scritta Editorial, 1993.

Cunha, Euclides da.
Os sertões
. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd eds. Rio de Janeiro: Editores Laemmert & Cía., 1902, 1903, 1905. 4th ed. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Francisco Alves, 1911. Sixteenth corrected ed. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Francisco Alves, 1942.
Os sertões, edição didática.
Edited by Alfredo Bosi. São Paulo: Editora Cultrix, 1973. Contemporary edition with critical apparatus:
Os sertões: Campanha de Canudos
. São Paulo: Editora Martin Claret, 2007. In Spanish:
Los sertones
. Translated by Estela dos Santos. Prologue, notes, and chronology by Walnice Nogueira Galvão. Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1980. In English:
Rebellion in the Backlands
. Translated by Samuel Putnam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944.

———.
À margem da história
. Lisbon: Aillaud & Lellos, 1946. Subsequent critical edition by Rolando Morel Pinto. São Paulo: Editora Cultrix, 1975.

———.
Correspondência de Euclides da Cunha
. Edited by Walnice Nogueira Galvão and Oswaldo Galotti. São Paulo: Edusp, 1997.

———.
Canudos: Diário de uma expedição
. Edited by Walnice Nogueira Galvão. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2000.

———.
Obra completa
. Edited by Afrânio Coutinho. Rio de Janeiro: José Aguilar Editora, 1966.

———.
Perú versus Bolívia
. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Francisco Alvez, 1907.

———.
The Amazon: Land without History
. Translated by Ronald Sousa. Edited with introduction and notes by Lúcia Sá. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Della Cava, Ralph. “Brazilian Messianism and National Institutions: A Reappraisal of Canudos and Joaseiro.”
Hispanic American Historical Review
48, no. 3 (1970): 402-420.

Frank, Waldo.
South American Journey.
New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1943.

Freyre, Gilberto.
A atualidade de Euclides da Cunha
. Rio de Janeiro: Edição da Casa do Estudante do Brasil, 1941.

———.
Brazil: An Interpretation
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945.

———.
The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization
. Translated by Samuel Putnam. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946.

———.
New World in the Tropics: The Culture of Modern Brazil
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959.

———.
The Mansions and the Shanties: The Making of Modern Brazil
. Translated by Harriet de Onís. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963.

_____. “Euclides da Cunha: Revelador da Realidade Brasileira.” In
Euclides da Cunha, Obra completa
, edited by Afrânio Coutinho. Rio de Janeiro: José Aguilar Editora, 1966.

———.
The Gilberto Freyre Reader
. Translated by Barbara Shelby. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974.

Galvão, Walnice Nogueira.
O império do Belo Monte: Vida e morte de Canudos
. São Paulo: Editora Fundação Perseu Abramo, 2001.

Gárate, Miriam V.
Civilização e barbárie n’os sertões: Entre Domingo Faustino Sarmiento e Euclides da Cunha
. São Paulo: Fapesp; Campinas: Mercado de Letras, 2001.

Hobsbawm, Eric J.
Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
. New York: W. W. Norton, 1959.

Levine, Robert M.
Vale of Tears: Revisiting the Canudos Massacre in Northeastern Brazil, 1893-1897
. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.

Marcondes, Ayrton.
Canudos: As memórias de Frei João Evangelista de Monte Marciano
. São Paulo: Editora Best Seller, Círculo do Livro, 1997.

Marotti, Giorgio.
Canudos: Storia di una guerra
. Roma: Bulzoni, 1978.

Mee, Margaret.
Flowers of the Brazilian Forests
. London: Tryon Gallery, 1968.

Moniz, Edmundo.
Canudos: A guerra social.
1978. 2nd expanded ed. Rio de Janeiro: Elo Editora e Distribuidora, 1987.

Moura, Clóvis.
Introdução ao pensamento de Euclides da Cunha
. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1964.

Nogueira, Ataliba J. C.
Antônio Conselheiro e Canudos
. São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1974.

Sampaio, Consuelo Novais, ed.
Canudos: Cartas para o barão.
São Paulo: EDUSP-Imprensa Oficial, 1999.

Sampaio Neto, José Augusto Vaz, et al.
Canudos: Subsídios para a sua reavaliação histórica
. Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Casa de Rui Barbosa-Monteiro Aranha, 1986.

Sánchez-Sáez, Braulio. “Euclides da Cunha: Constructor de nacionalidad.”
Agonía
(Buenos Aires), no. 4 (October-December, 1939): 5-56.

Santana, José Carlos Barreto de. “Natural Science and Brazilian Nationality:
Os sertões
by Euclides da Cunha.”
Science in Context
18, no. 2 (2005): 225-47.

Souza Andrade, Olímpio de.
História e interpretação de
Os sertões. São Paulo: Ed. EDART, 1966.

Stavans, Ilan, ed.
The Oxford Book of Latin American Essays
. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Vargas Llosa, Mario.
La guerra del fin del mundo
. Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1981. In English:
The War of the End of the World
. Translated by Helen R. Lane. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1984.

Veiga, José J.
A casca da serpente
. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil, 1989.

Villa, Marco Antônio.
Canudos: O povo da terra.
São Paulo: Editora Ática, 1995.

Villela Júnior, Marcos Evangelista da Costa.
Canudos: Memórias de um combatente
. São Paulo: Marco Zero, 1988.

Zweig, Stefan.
Brazil: Land of the Future
. New York: Viking Press, 1942.

A Preliminary Note

First written during those rare moments of leisure that an active and fatiguing life has to offer, this book was meant to be the story of the Canudos campaign. It has lost some of its timeliness because, for reasons I shall not go into here, its publication was delayed. We have put it together, therefore, in a different form. The theme that had been the main one at the start and was to give the work its inspiration is now but one of the many dealt with here.