As Brazil’s top tourist attraction approaches its 100th anniversary, Christ the Redeemer remains secretly tied to a racist disgrace worse even than the US’s history of slavery.
Few people know this iconic statue was originally meant to be a memorial to how almost 5 million Africans were trafficked into Brazil, 12 times the number sent to the US.
Each February, visitors to this mountaintop statue peer down at the busy beaches of Rio de Janeiro, where countless flowers are left to drift into the Atlantic Ocean. Tens of thousands of white-clothed worshippers complete this floral custom at beaches across Brazil as part of its annual Iemanja festival.
But the beauty of this ritual belies a ghastly past. Because floating alongside those blossoms is a 500-year-old tale of human trafficking, a supernatural African goddess, and a Brazilian princess’ bid to end her nation’s crimes against humanity.
This shocking history is also rooted, rather anonymously, in the giant statue of Jesus which stands astride Rio. Christ the Redeemer, which began construction in 1926, is globally recognised as a towering symbol of the devotion of Brazil’s 175 million Christians. It is also the most-visited attraction in Rio, Brazil’s main tourist city.
Rio owns an astonishing location. Home to 16 million people, this megalopolis in Brazil’s south is scattered through a cluster of forested ridges, and laced along 83km of sandy beaches. Such as Copacabana, a glorious, 4km-long beach where tourists sunbathe, swim, and drink rum cocktails.
Looming in the distance, above Copacabana, is the even more famous Christ the Redeemer. Christianity is a binding force in massive Brazil, which covers more land than Australia and has a population of 218 million. This population is a diverse blend of people with European, African, Indigenous Brazilian, and mixed-race ancestry. Almost 80 per cent of whom identify as Christian, making this the planet’s second-most populous Christian nation, after the US.
All of which is explained at another of Rio’s top attractions, the National Historical Museum. Housed in a stately colonial building, this facility also details how, from the 1530s to the 1880s, almost 5 million Africans were trafficked into Brazil. More than 10 times the number of slaves sent to the US, some historians estimate.
Deep into the 1800s, Brazil was the only Western nation that hadn’t yet banned the slave trade. Finally, in 1888, this horrendous era ended, partly due to the bold acts of a royal woman, who has a little-known link to Christ the Redeemer.
Princess Isabel was the daughter of Brazil’s Emperor, Pedro II, and the heir to his throne. Pedro II was opposed to human trafficking and had emancipated his own slaves in 1840, when he began his 49-year reign. Yet, for decades, he failed to ban this abhorrent practice, largely because Brazil’s economy was built upon it.
Isabel could not accept this. As a princess, she could have chosen a life of luxurious ease, but instead took matters into her own Royal grip. From the 1870s onwards, Isabel had three brief stints in charge of Brazil, acting as its Regent while her father was travelling abroad. Each time, she used her new, elevated power to try to abolish slavery. This bold move placed her in the crosshairs of many influential enemies, whose fortunes relied on forced labour.
Finally, in 1888, Isabel succeeded. As Brazil’s Regent, she signed the Golden Law, which prohibited slavery in Brazil.
Christ the Redeemer’s mountaintop site was not originally intended to host the statue of Jesus that stands there today.
Rather, the plan was to build a monument celebrating Princess Isabel’s campaign against slavery. She declined, and requested a Christian sculpture be erected. The result was Christ the Redeemer, a glorious monument, but one which does not address the country’s darkest chapter.
Tourists will find that this grim topic isn’t sidestepped at some other Rio attractions. Including the raw, confronting Cemetery of the New Blacks. Unearthed by accident, in 1996, this is the Americas’ largest slave graveyard. Up to 30,000 enslaved Africans had their corpses dumped here in the 1800s. It resembled a human landfill, with bodies piled and burned until all that remained were anonymous bones.
Among those callously discarded at this site were many people connected to Iemanja, that aforementioned African sea goddess. She is considered a maternal deity of the Yoruba people, who offer this goddess bouquets at Brazilian beaches during the Iemanja festival.
At least 20 million Yoruba people still live in the southwest of Nigeria, and nearby Benin and Togo. But thousands of Yoruba were trafficked to Brazil, from the 1700s. In an effort to maintain their proud cultural heritage, these Yoruba slaves continued to venerate Iemanja, as they do to this day. Tourists with impeccable timing can witness this trans-Atlantic legacy at Copacabana each February, when the Atlantic brims with blossoms.
These vivid gifts then drift towards Africa. This is not just a symbolic reversal of the journey forced upon millions of Africans, and a concerted effort to maintain proud Yoruba heritage. But also a potent reminder of how the slave trade still stains every inch of Brazil, even Rio’s tourist landmarks like Christ the Redeemer.
