The Afro-Brazilian religion Candomble has long been recognised as a resource of African tradition, values, and identity among its adherents in Bahia, Brazil. This book describes development of religion as an "alternative" space in which subjugated and enslaved blacks were able to cultivate a sense of individual.

ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction1. Slavery, Africanos Libertos and the Question of Black Presence in Nineteenth-Century Brazil2. Salvador: The Urban Environment3. The Bolsa de Mandinga and Calundu: Afro-Brazilian Religion as Fetish and Fetiçaria 4. "Dis Continuity," Context and Documentation: Origins and Interpretations of the Religion5. The Nineteenth-Century Development of Candomblé6. Healing and Cultivating Axé: Profiles of Candomblé Leaders and Communities7. Networks of Support, Spaces of Resistance: Alternative Orientations of Black Life in Nineteenth-Century Bahia8. Candomblé as Feitiço: Reterritorialization, Embodiment and the Alchemy of History in an Afro-Brazilian ReligionCoda: Abolition, Freedom and Candomblé as Alternative Cidadania in Brazil.GlossaryAppendix: Selected Documents from the Arquivo Público do Estado da BahiaNotesBibliography