The Rosary Temples Of The Black Brotherhoods

demarcated territories of resistance

Abstract

The article presents a study of the Books of Commitment of the Brotherhoods of Our Lady of the Rosary of Black Men in the Captaincy of Minas Gerais, aiming to bear witness to the protagonism of African and Afro-descendant communities converted to Christianity during the colonial period. These statutes, considered fundamental historical sources, reveal the struggle for autonomy, for the freedom of the enslaved, and for the preservation of the cultural and religious diversity of these peoples within the context of slavery. The brotherhoods built and decorated their own temples, where they established networks of solidarity and forms of sociability that came to be configured as demarcated territories of resistance — peaceful and nonviolent — against colonial domination. Thus, we seek to identify the strategies adopted by the Black brothers and sisters of the Rosary to achieve their autonomy and freedom, with an emphasis on the social, cultural, and spiritual aspects involved in their devotional practices. As a consequence, we believe that this investigation will contribute to the understanding of the works of art produced in honor of the Virgin of the Rosary, as well as the appropriations and iconographic interpretations that replaced the representations of the Dominican saints with the saints of Black Catholicism in Brazil, which should be understood as a form of resistance through images.