2023: 1930 Chronology: Appendix 19: Assault on Precinct 13

Appendix 19

Assault on Precinct 13

Assault on Precinct 13 is a 1976 American action thriller film written, directed, scored, and edited by John Carpenter.  Austin Stoker stars as a police officer who defends a defunct precinct against a relentless criminal gang, along with Darwin Joston as a convicted murderer who helps him.  Laurie Zimmer, Tony Burton, Martin West and Nancy Kyes co-star as other defenders of the precinct.

Carpenter was approached by producer J. Stein Kaplan to make a low-budget exploitation film for under $100,000, on the condition that Carpenter would have total creative control. Carpenter's script, originally titled The Anderson Alamo, was inspired by the Howard Hawks Western film Rio Bravo and the George A. Romero horror film Night of the Living Dead.  Despite controversy with the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) over a scene involving the violent killing of a young girl, the film received an R rating and opened in the United States on November 5, 1976.

Assault on Precinct 13 was initially met with mixed reviews and unimpressive box-office returns in the United States, but when the film premiered in the 1977 London Film Festival, it received an ecstatic review by festival director Ken Wlaschin that led to critical acclaim first in Britain and then throughout Europe. It garnered a cult following and reappraisal from critics, with many evaluating the film as one of the best action films of its era and of Carpenter's career. 

A remake was released in 2005, directed by Jean-Francois Richet  and starring Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne. 

2023: 1930 Chronology: Appendix 18: The Blues

Appendix 18

The Blues

Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the call and response pattern, the blues scale, and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove.

One of the first wholly American styles of music to gain traction and recognition across the world was blues music, developed in the American South by African slaves, many of whom were Muslim.  An estimated thirty percent (30%) of African slaves brought to America were Muslim. Blues music is heavily influenced by "field holler" songs, songs sung by the slaves as they worked in the fields. The Muslim slaves added their own flair to their field holler songs with the way they sang words that seem to quiver and shake being very reminiscent of the Adhan, or the Islamic call to prayer.

Blues, as a genre, is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation.  Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the AAB pattern, consisting of a line sung over the four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over the last bars. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the racial discrimination and other challenges experienced by African Americans.

Many elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa.  The origins of the blues are also closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community, the spirituals. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery and, later, the development of juke joints -- African American drinking, dancing and gambling establishments.  Blues is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century. The first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a wide variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, such as Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues and West Coast blues.  World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues rock developed, which blended blues styles with rock music. 

The term 'Blues' may have originated from "blue devils", meaning melancholy and sadness. An early use of the term in this sense is in George Colman's one-act farce Blue Devils (1798). The phrase 'blue devils' may also have been derived from a British usage of the 1600s referring to the "intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal". As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils and came to mean a state of agitation or depression. By the 1800s, in the United States, the term "blues" was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase "blue law", which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday.

In 1827, it was in the sense of a sad state of mind that John James Audubon wrote to his wife that he "had the blues". The phrase "the blues" was written by Charlotte Forten, then aged 25, in her diary on December 14, 1862. She was a free-born black woman from Pennsylvania who was working as a schoolteacher in South Carolina, instructing both slaves and freedmen, and wrote that she "came home with the blues" because she felt lonesome and pitied herself. She overcame her depression and later noted a number of songs, such as "Poor Rosy", that were popular among the slaves. Although she admitted being unable to describe the manner of singing she heard, Forten wrote that the songs "can't be sung without a full heart and a troubled spirit", conditions that have inspired countless blues songs.

Though the use of the phrase in African American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, when Hart Wand's "Dallas Blues" became the first copyrighted blues composition. In lyrics, the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood.

2023: 1930 Chronology: Appendix 17: Black Rednecks and White Liberals

Appendix 17

Black Rednecks and White Liberals

Black Rednecks and White Liberals is a collection of six essays by Thomas Sowell.  The collection, published in 2005, explores various aspects of race and culture, both in the United States and abroad. The first essay, the book's namesake, traces the origins of the "ghetto" African-American culture to the culture of Scotch-Irish Americans in the Antebellum South.  The second essay, "Are Jews Generic?", discusses middleman minorities.  The third essay, "The Real History of Slavery," discusses the timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom. The last three essays discuss the history of Germany, African American education, and a criticism of multiculturalism. 

First Essay: "Black Rednecks and White Liberals"

The title essay states Sowell's thesis about the origins of the "black ghetto" culture.

Sowell argues that the black ghetto culture originates in the dysfunctional white southern redneck culture which was prominent in the antebellum South. That culture came, in turn, from the "Cracker culture" of Welsh, Highland Scots, Ulster Scots, and border English or "North Britons," who emigrated from the more lawless border regions of Britain in the eighteenth century.

Second Essay: "Are Jews Generic?"

In the collection's second essay, Sowell explores the origins of anti-Semitism among those harboring jealousy toward Jews for their financial and entrepreneurial successes. According to Sowell, among other historically-persecuted "middlemen minorities" were Lebanese and Chinese immigrant merchants.  Sowell posits that the resentment against such "middlemen minorities" is from a perceived "lack of added value" that the middlemen provide, as such added value is not easily observable.

Third Essay: "The Real History of Slavery"

In the collection's third essay, Sowell reviews the history of slavery. Contrary to popular impression, which blames Western society and white people as the culprits, Sowell argues that slavery was a universal institution accepted and embraced by nearly all human societies. The world's trade in slaves and then slavery itself, was abolished by the British in the 19th century, against opposition in Africa and Asia, where it was considered normal. The economic effects of slavery are also misunderstood since slaves were often a luxury item whose upkeep was a drain on the rich, and the availability of cheap slave labor nowhere resulted in wealthy societies.

Fourth Essay: "Germans and History"

The fourth essay features Sowell's argument that Germany should not be defined solely by the 12-year (1933 to 1945) regime of Adolf Hitler. Sowell further argues that Hitler was highly inconsistent in his views on a unified Germany since he strenuously argued for the annexation of the German-dominated Sudetenland, but German-dominated portions of Italy such as Tyrol were ignored in preference for an alliance with Benito Mussolini. 

Fifth Essay: "Black Education: Achievements, Myths, and Tragedies"

The fifth essay features Sowell's discussion of the early days of Dunbar High School in Washington, DC, and its eventual deterioration from its place of prominence in early black education, which Sowell argues to be a direct consequence of the famed Brown v. Board of Education decision of the United States Supreme Court.  Sowell also argues that although W. E. B. Du Bois was more activist in his attempts to end Jim Crow laws and other forms of legal discrimination, Booker T. Washington, despite holding a more accommodating position, at times secretly funded and supported efforts to end Jim Crow laws.

Sixth Essay: "History Versus Visions"

The final essay features Sowell's criticism of the advantages that multiculturalism is supposed to confer to the society in which it is present.

2023: 1930 Chronology: Appendix 16: Samba

APPENDIX 16

SAMBA

Samba, is a name or prefix used for several rhythmic variants, such as samba urbano carioca (urban Carioca samba) and samba de roda (sometimes also called rural samba).  Samba is recognized as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. Samba is a broad term for many of the rhythms that compose the better known Brazilian music genres that originated in the Afro-Brazilian communities of Bahia in the late 19th century and early 20th century, having continued its development on the communities of Rio de Janeiro in the early 20th century.  Having its roots in the Afro-Brazilian Candomble, as well as other Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous folk traditions, such as the traditional Samba de Caboclo, Samba is considered one of the most important cultural phenomena in Brazil and one of the country's symbols.  Present in the Portuguese language at least since the 19th century, the word "samba" was originally used to designate a "popular dance". Over time, its meaning has been extended to a "batuque-like circle dance", a dance style, and also to a "music genre". This process of establishing itself as a musical genre began in the 1910s and it had its inaugural landmark in the song "Pelo Telefone", launched in 1917.  Despite being identified by its creators, the public, and the Brazilian music industry as "samba", this pioneering style was much more connected from the rhythmic and instrumental point of view to the maxixe than to the samba itself.

The maxixe, occasionally known as the Brazilian tango, is a dance, with its accompanying music (often played as a subgenre of choro), that originated in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro in 1868, at about the same time as the tango was developing in neighboring Argentina and Uruguay. It is a dance developed from Afro-Brazilian dances (mainly the lundu) and from European dances (mainly the polka).

Choro (Portuguese for "cry" or "lament"), also popularly called chorinho ("little cry" or "little lament"), is an instrumental Brazilian popular music genre which originated in 19th century Rio de Janeiro. Despite its name, the music often has a fast and happy rhythm. It is characterized by virtuosity, improvisation and subtle modulations, and is full of syncopation and counterpoint. Choro is considered the first characteristically Brazilian genre of urban popular music. The serenaders who play choros are known as chorões.

Samba was modernly structured as a musical genre only in the late 1920s from the neighborhood of Estacio and soon extended to Oswaldo Cruz and other parts of Rio through its commuter rail. Today synonymous with the rhythm of samba, this new samba brought innovations in rhythm, melody and also in thematic aspects. Its rhythmic change based on a new percussive instrumental pattern resulted in a more "batucado" and syncopated style – as opposed to the inaugural "samba-maxixe" – notably characterized by a faster tempo, longer notes and a characterized cadence far beyond the simple ones palms used so far. Also the "Estácio paradigm" innovated in the formatting of samba as a song, with its musical organization in first and second parts in both melody and lyrics.  In this way, the sambistas of Estácio created, structured and redefined the urban Carioca samba as a genre in a modern and finished way.

In this process of establishment as an urban and modern musical expression, the Carioca samba had the decisive role in the creation of samba schools, responsible for defining and legitimizing definitively the aesthetic bases of rhythm, and radio broadcasting, which greatly contributed to the diffusion and popularization of the samba genre and the samba song singers. Thus, samba achieved major projection throughout Brazil and became one of the main symbols of Brazilian national identity.  Once criminalized and rejected for its Afro-Brazilian origins, and definitely working-class music in its mythic origins, the genre has also received support from members of Brazil's upper classes and the country's cultural elite.

At the same time that it established itself as the genesis of samba, the "Estácio paradigm" paved the way for its fragmentation into new sub-genres and styles of composition and interpretation throughout the 20th century. Mainly from the so-called "golden age" of Brazilian music, samba received abundant categorizations, some of which denote solid and well-accepted derivative strands – such as bossa nova, pagode, partido alto, samba de breque, samba-cancao, samba de enredo and samba de terreiro – while other nomenclatures were somewhat more imprecise – such as samba do barulho (literally "noise samba"), samba epistolar ("epistolary samba") ou samba fonético ("phonetic samba") – and some merely derogatory – such as sambalada, sambolero or sambão joia.

In 2005, UNESCO declared Samba de Roda part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, and in 2007, the Brazilian National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage declared Carioca samba and three of its matrices – samba de terreiro, partido-alto and samba de enredo – as cultural heritage in Brazil. Also, in 2018, the prefecture of Salvador proclaimed Samba Junino, also known as Samba Duro, an urban variation of Samba to be another part of Brazil's Cultural Heritage. 

2023: 1930 Chronology: Appendix 15: The Night of Counting the Years

 

APPENDIX 15

THE NIGHT OF COUNTING THE YEARS

The Night of Counting the Years was released in 1969. The story is based upon the true story of the discovery of 40 Royal Mummies in 1881 in Thebes, the capital of the Pharaonic Empire. In the movie, for over three thousand years, the mummies had lain undisturbed, until some archaeologists from the Antiquities Department in Cairo noticed that several objects bearing royal names from the 21st dynasty were constantly appearing on the antique black market. They surmised that somewhere in Thebes, someone knows the location of the missing tombs. It happened that this secret had been kept from generation to generation by the chief's descendants among the Horabat mountain tribe. These people had always considered the Royal Cache to be a private source of income on which to draw at times of need. The money had then been divided among the members of the tribe. When the archaeologists arrived to find the tombs, the two sons of the dead tribal chief are thrown into moral chaos, not knowing whether to reveal the secret or preserve what the tribesmen consider to be their natural heritage. The younger son, Waniss, becomes the central figure in the story film.

The Night of Counting the Years, also released in Arabic as The Mummy (Arabic: Al-Mummia), is a 1969 Egyptian film and the only feature film directed by Shadi Abdel Salam.  The film was selected as the Egyptian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 43rd Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. It is ranked as 3rd on the list of Top 100 Egyptian Films. 

The Night of Counting the Years remains one of the best examples of neo-realism in Egyptian cinema. Other notable examples include Youssef Chahine's Al Ard  (The Earth, 1968) and Al Usfur (The Sparrow, 1972) as well as Tewfik 

Saleh's The Dupes (Al Makhdu'un, 1973).

Produced by Roberto Rossellini, who was instrumental in encouraging Abdel Salam to make the film, The Night of Counting the Years tells a story set among the grave robbers of Kurna in Upper Egypt.

Shadi Abdel Salam's The Mummy was the forerunner of what was to become the hallmark of the new realism, namely, the preoccupation with the search for identity and the relationship between heritage and character.

The relationship between contemporary and Ancient Egypt is dealt with allegorically in the film. The static images of landscape and the rigid expressions of the main characters reflect those of the statues and reliefs found in Ancient Egypt. The use of classical Arabic, not Egyptian dialect which is normally used in Egyptian cinema, reinforces the impression of monumentalism.

The unrestrained sacking of the tombs is represented as a danger, threatening moral decline by inviting greed and sex to undermine the dignity of the tribe and its traditions, replacing the order of the world with chaos.

Shadi Abdel Salam has said that his task was to remind Egyptians of their own history: "I think that the people of my country are ignorant of our history and I feel that it is my mission to make them know some of it. I regard cinema not as a consumerist art, but as a historical document for the next generations."

Although he went on to direct short fiction and documentaries, The Night of Counting the Years remains Abdel Salam's only full length feature film.  This film is set in 1881, when Egypt was under the failing rule of the Ottoman Khedives, themselves overseen by the Anglo-French Caisse de la Dette, and a year before the start of British colonial rule. The film is based on the true story of the Abd el-Rassuls, an Upper-Egyptian clan that is stealing piecemeal a cache of mummies they have discovered at a tomb (known to modern Egyptologists as DB320) near the village of Kurna, and selling the artifacts on the black market. 

The film begins with Wanis (Ahmed Marei) and his older brother (Ahmed Hegazy) watching the funeral of their father Selim. The brothers have become the heads of the Horabat tribe, and their uncle shows them its dark secret – the tribe has been living off the treasures of the ancient pharaohs buried in tombs within the mountain on which they live. The brothers are shocked on seeing their uncle beheading a mummy to obtain a gold necklace. They feel their life is built on a lie. The older brother complains to the family, who kill him and throw his body into the Nile. The secret thus falls solely onto the shoulders of Wanis, who struggles to reconcile his conscience with his loyalty to his people.

The city people (effendis), wealthy Egyptian archeologists, come - unusually in the hot summer - to try to identify the source of unexplained artifacts which have been found on the black market, following a meeting with French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero. The trading has been led by Ayoub (Shafiq Noureddin), via Murad (Mohamed Babih), who also runs a brothel.

Wanis tells Ayoub that the tribe will not trade with him again. Murad then tells Wanis that his uncle arranged for his brother to be killed.  Murad says that Ayoub has sent him to repair the relationship with Wanis and acquire the remaining treasure. Wanis refuses, and walks to the steamboat carrying the effendi leadership. A team of archaeologists and soldiers are sent to the tomb, and the tomb is emptied of all the sarcophagi, which are loaded onto the boat.

2023: 1930 Chronology: Appendix 14: The Revolution of 1930

 Appendix 14

The Revolution of 1930

The Revolution of 1930 (Portuguese: Revolução de 1930) was an armed insurrection across Brazil that ended the Old Republic. The revolution replaced incumbent President Washington Luis with defeated presidential candidate and revolutionary leader Getulio Vargas, concluding the political hegemony of a four-decade-old oligarchy and beginning the Vargas Era.

For most of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Brazilian politics had been controlled by an alliance between the states of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais. The presidency had largely alternated between the two states every election until 1929, when incumbent President Washington Luís declared his successor to be Julio Prestes, both of them from Sao Paulo. In response to the betrayal of the oligarchy, Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul, and Paraíba formed a "Liberal Alliance," backing the opposition candidate Getulio Vargas, president of Rio Grande do Sul.

When Prestes won the March 1930 presidential election, the Liberal Alliance denounced his victory as fraudulent, though no revolutionary fervor persisted until late July when Vargas's running mate, Joao Pessoa, was assassinated. Though the assassination was largely the result of a personal feud, Pessoa became a martyr for the revolutionary cause. On October 3, 1930, Rio Grande do Sul, under the leadership of Vargas and Goís Monteiro, broke out in rebellion. By the next day, the revolution had reached the North and Northeast under Juarez Tavora, and Minas Gerais formally declared allegiance to the revolution within a week of its start despite minor resistance.

Chief military officers, acting independently of either the government or the revolutionaries, and worried about the potential for a protracted civil war in the country, swiftly led a military coup to depose Washington Luis in Rio de Janeiro, the capital, on October 24. Hoping to deter further bloodshed, three higher military officers, Generals Augusto Tasso Fragoso, Joao de Deus Mena Barreto, and Admiral Isaias de Noronha formed a military junta and briefly ruled the country for less than two weeks. After negotiations between the revolutionaries and the junta, Getulio Vargas arrived in Rio de Janeiro, taking power from the junta on November 3. For the next seven years, Vargas would perform an unprecedented consolidation of power through transitory governments until proclaiming his Estado Novo dictatorship in 1937 via a military coup. Vargas was only forced out of office in 1945.

By 1900, Brazil was producing seventy-five percent (75%) of the world's coffee supply. However, the price of coffee had dropped since then, and in 1906, the states of Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and Sao Paulo, the largest coffee-producing states, signed an agreement to limit exports and production to manipulate the price of coffee. The attempt to raise the price of coffee failed but prevented it from declining even further.

Brazil had seen high inflation after World War I, but its economy saw great improvements in the 1920s. Although still dependent on coffee exports, the world prices for Brazil's coffee had more than doubled by 1925, with slight decline afterward. The economy saw turmoil with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and coffee prices declined sharply as the economy failed. The mobilization of industrial workers throughout that period was another leading cause of the revolution.

The political life of the First Republic (1889–1930) was dominated by an alliance between the states of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais. An oligarchic practice known as coffee with milk politics combined coffee producers in Sao Paulo with the dairy industry that dominated Minas Gerais. Taking advantage of their economic power and influence, it allowed the two states to alternate the presidency between each other.

The paulista Washington Luis won the 1926 Brazilian presidential election with ninety-eight percent (98%) of the vote, and his administration was an unusual period of prosperity, domestic peace, and tranquility.  In accordance with the coffee with milk tradition, the designated presidential candidate for the 1930 election should have been Antonio Carlos Ribeiro, the Governor of Minas Gerais.  However, Ribeiro's backing for mandatory religious instruction in state public schools, coupled with the close relationship between Washington Luis and Julio Prestes, the Governor of Sao Paulo, led the Paulista Republican Party to support Prestes instead.

The Prestes nomination created an anti-Prestes opposition, mainly in Minas Gerais, Paraiba, and Rio Grande do Sul. The three states formed a "Liberal Alliance" backing Getulio Vargas, the Governor of Rio Grande do Sul, as President of Brazil. Joao Pessoa, a politician from Paraíba, was selected as Vargas' running mate. 

Dissent in the Brazilian military led to an ideology of tenentism. The movement consisted of young officers (tenentes, meaning lieutenants) opposed to the oligarchic federal system of coffee and milk politics. In 1922, the first of several military revolts by members of tenentism took place at Fort Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro and cost the lives of 16 young officers who were part of the movement. The tenentes would later back Vargas' nomination for the presidency and assist in the revolution.

The presidential elections were held on March 1, 1930 and gave the victory to Prestes, who received 1,091,709 votes against 742,794 given to Vargas. Notoriously, Vargas had almost one hundred percent (100%) of the votes in Rio Grande do Sul, 287,321 to Prestes's 789.

The Liberal Alliance refused to accept the validity of the elections claiming that Prestes' victory had been due to fraud. In reality, both sides had manipulated the electorate. That led to a conspiracy based in Rio Grande do Sul and Minas Gerais. 

On July 26, 1930, Joao Pessoa, Vargas' running mate in the 1930 election, was assassinated by Joao Dantas in Recife for political and personal reasons. The assassination of Pessoa became the flashpoint for armed mobilization, and anarchy ensued in the capital of Paraiba as a result of the murder.  Paraíba's capital was also renamed João Pessoa in his honor. Pessoa's murder contributed to creating a favorable climate for revolution and promoted social change, as the government was deemed responsible for his murder.

The 1930 revolution was planned to have begun on August 26, but the date was delayed to allow the Brigada Militar of Rio Grande do Sul to participate in the movement. Vargas, now in charge of picking a date for the revolution, decided to begin the uprising at 5:30 p.m. on October 3 in Rio Grande do Sul.

Vargas lured General Gil de Almeida, who was in charge of the Brazilian third military region, into a false sense of security at Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul. Then, by 10:00 p.m. on October 3, the revolutionaries claimed the city of Porto Alegre and had defeated Almeida and his gaucho troops, at a cost of 20 people dead.

Aranha and Flores da Cunha led an attack on the military headquarters with 50 men and captured the headquarters and its commander. Joao Alberto led a movement with members of the Brigada that successfully captured an arms store on the Menino Deus hill. On October 8, the Ministry of War continued to report the military forces in Rio Grande do Sul were still loyal to the government. However, the revolutionaries controlled the entire state by October 10. 

At Sao Borja, a small resistance was formed, but the besieged regiment fled across the River Uruguay to Argentina.

The revolution proceeded relatively smoothly in the state of Santa Catarina. At the coastal capital of the state, Florianopolis, however, Admiral Heraclito Belford refused Aranha's request to come into the capital and fired on revolutionaries approaching the town although the revolution had control of most of the state. Belford, with five destroyers, a scout vessel, and a cruiser, delayed movement into the capital and remained until October 24, when electricity was cut off.

On October 5, in the state of Parana, General Plinio Tourinho advised Vargas that it would be safe for him to establish his headquarters in what was now the frontlines of the revolution. In the Southeast of the country, the new state President of Minas Gerais, Olegario Maciel, delivered a revolutionary proclamation to all of the state's local administrators, with the state police arresting and rounding up federal officers. The well-supplied 12th infantry regiment, however, defended itself in the state capital until October 8.

In the Northeast of the country, the revolution was slow to gain movement, mainly because of a quarrel between Aranha and Captain Juarez Tavora.  Tavora insisted the revolution should begin at dawn on October 4, instead of October 3, when it began in the south. What resulted was federal officers in the northeast being warned about the revolution before the revolutionaries had been prepared to fight.  In the state of Pernambuco, the pro-federal state President and former Vice-President of the country, Estacio Coimbra, and revolutionaries quickly formed hostilities. With the strategic leadership of Carlos Lima Cavalcanti, civilians began wrecking the telephone station. A former Pernambuco police officer attacked a munitions dump at Soledade, Paraiba, a state of the Liberal Alliance that had joined the cause, alongside 16 men, and weapons were handed out to the public.

Tavora and his men entered and captured the state capital, Recife, which was already being controlled by Cavalcanti. The capture of Recife resulted in 38 deaths and 120 wounded, and Tavora continued throughout the Northeast, where state governments continued to collapse to the revolutionaries.

The state of Bahia was now being invaded by Juraci Magalhaes, where a counter-revolution attempt occurred. The former President of Maranhao and Senator Magalhaes de Almeida volunteered to recover his state from revolutionaries and to restore it to Luis. Luis allowed Almeida to recover his state if he also supported the pro–federal loyalists in the state of Para.  Magalhaes, now aboard a ship dually-armed with cannon, planned to bombard the capital of Maranhao from the sea but halted his expedition as the governing junta in the state planned to execute pro-federal prisoners if the senator were to take any action. The counterrevolution ended, and Magalhaes was arrested.

On October 19, the popular Cardinal Sebastiao Leme, the archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, arrived in the capital from Rome. Two days earlier, he had been convinced by Cavalcanti that in the interest of peace, he should procure Luis' resignation. When Leme tried to discuss this with Luis, the President replied, "What! Then Your Eminence doubts the loyalty of my generals!"

Many generals believed that the President's continued stubbornness was useless, and they feared a civil war.  One such general was Augusto Tasso Fragoso, the former Army Chief of Staff, who earlier told the former Rio Grande do Sul deputy Lindolfo Collor that he might join the revolution if it turned nationwide.  After attending Mass for a general who had been killed in Paraiba, Tasso Fragoso told General Joao de Deus Mena Barreto that a rebellion in Rio seemed imminent. Mena Barreto was being urged by his Chief of Staff, Colonel Bertoldo Klinger, on behalf of a group of young officers, to intervene to end the hostilities in a military coup favorable to revolutionaries. Concerned about the military hierarchy, Mena Barreto suggested Tasso Fragoso, the most senior officer, head the movement. On the morning of October 23, however, one of Mena Barreto's sons convinced Tasso Fragoso to head the movement.

Mena Barreto told Klinger to write an ultimatum to the president. Many were reluctant to sign it, but Klinger received approval from key members of the Army's general staff. What was being proposed was a "pacification coup." Tasso Fragoso reworded Klinger's document to make it seem like more of an appeal to the president. Tasso Fragoso, Mena Barreto, and their associates convened on the night of October  23 at Fort Copacabana to make plans for the ousting and received favorable news from the Military Police and the outlying barracks at Vila Militar.

The operation to depose the president was initiated on the morning of October 24.  Before dawn, the Minister of War and commander of the 1st Military Region came to talk with Luis, and it became clear the situation was unsustainable and irreversible. Shortly before 9 a.m., Leme called to speak with Minister of Foreign Affairs Otavio Mangabeira that he had been told Fort Copacabana ordered the President to leave by 11 a.m., and, as a warning, they would begin shooting dry powder after 9 a.m. Luis determined that his wife and other ladies in the Guanabara Palace, Luis's residence, would evacuate and seek shelter in their friends' house in Cosme Velho. Shots of dry powder began as they left, which scared the entire population of Rio.

Klinger's appeal, signed by the generals, appeared early in the press. Consequently, mobs were soon enthusiastically setting fire to pro-government newspapers. Meanwhile, rebel troops were moved from the regiment at Praia Vermelha to the Guanabara Palace. The movement was hindered only by crowds of armed civilians hoping to join the march. The president gathered those present and allowed them to leave, but none did so, and all stuck by his side. Though the president was told that he could count on 2,600 soldiers, the police brigade defending the Guanabara Palace chose not to resist. Tasso Fragoso and Mena Barreto, as well as Alfredo Malan d'Angrogne, entered. They found the president, who got up to speak with them, sitting solemnly in a small gloomy room and surrounded by his cabinet, sons, a few friends, and congressmen. In the distance were taunting cries from the crowd outside.

President Luis remained every inch the proud man who would fulfill his duty as he saw it. "Only in pieces I leave here," the president said to his ministers. He said that there were still soldiers to defend his government. He was completely mistaken, and Tasso Fragoso later explained, "No one wanted his son to put on a uniform and die fighting a man frankly divorced from the common interest." After bowing, Tasso Fragoso offered Luis his life to which the president proclaimed, in a firm and dry tone, "The last thing I cherish at a time like this is my life. My blood will soak the soil so that a better Brazil may emerge, a true national regeneration." After Luís refused to resign, and tensions climaxed, the general replied, "Your Excellency will be responsible for the consequences," and Luís accepted. Bowing again, Tasso Fragoso left.

That afternoon, Cardinal Leme, calling on the president at Tasso Fragoso's request, told him that the generals had established their provisional government on the first floor of the Guanabara Palace. He used his influence with Luis to ease him out of office in safety.

 Noting the ugly mood of the crowd, Leme said that Fort Copacabana would be the safest place for the President, and got the generals to agree that he would be allowed to set sail for Europe without delay. Those who were by his side concurred, and at 5 p.m., he agreed and was driven to Fort Copacabana. In the presidential limousine with Luis were Leme, Tasso Fragoso, and several others. The president explained to Leme, "Since this morning, I have been a prisoner in this room, with the palace and gardens invaded by troops. I leave, bowing to violence."

In the aftermath of the coup, the president had been replaced by a three-man provisional governing "pacifying junta" composed of Tasso Fragoso, Mena Barreto, and Admiral Isaias de Noronha.  Appointing officials and informing the fighting fronts of what was happening in Rio, they did not imply that they would transfer power to those who had initiated the revolution on October 3. Their intentions became more unclear after Klinger, the new police chief of Rio de Janeiro, promised to subdue any popular manifestations in the capital promoting the revolution. Though anti-revolutionary forces laid down their arms, and the battle at Itarare never happened, Tavora claimed that he did not recognize the junta and so he continued marching his troops toward Salvador, the capital of Bahia. Mobs caused chaos in Rio while the transfer of government to Vargas was being worked out.

Eventually, an agreement was made by Oswaldo Aranha and Collor,  Vargas' emissaries, and Tasso Fragoso on October 28. The former had sent a message to the junta a few days earlier that stated that the revolutionaries "cannot stop in the middle of the road." After Getulio Vargas arrived in Rio on October 31, the acclaim was tumultuous. 

The junta gave up power to Getulio Vargas on November 3, a month after the revolution had broken out. The transfer of power to Vargas started a fifteen-year long presidency.  About a week later, on November 11, he issued a decree granting himself dictatorial powers.  A few ministers appointed from the junta were retained, such as the junta member Noronha, who became navy minister.

After Vargas had assumed control as interim president, three revolts broke out in Brazil throughout his reign. The first was the 1932 Constitutionalist Revolution, led by Sao Paulo. The revolution led to a new constitution on July 16, 1934, which resulted in Vargas being elected by delegates in the 1934 Brazilian presidential election. 

A communist revolution broke out in 1935, but it, like the 1932 revolution, was effectively suppressed.  However, a fascist revolution in 1938 led to a political crisis. Vargas, in the name of law and order, repealed the constitution, abolished political parties, canceled the 1938 presidential elections, and pronounced a new Constitution: the 1937 Estado Novo Constitution. Vargas' powers were expanded exponentially.  He abolished the legislative assembly and replaced most state governors with men whom he approved, which led to a lack of any check on his powers and started the Third Brazilian Republic, better known as the Estado Novo, in which Vargas essentially became a dictator with unlimited powers from 1937 to 1945.

*****

2023: 1930 Chronology: Appendix 13: Rastafari

Appendix 13

Rastafari

Rastafari, also spelled Ras Tafari, is a religious and political movement, begun in Jamaica in the 1930s and adopted by many groups around the globe, that combines Protestant Christianity, mysticism, and a pan-African political consciousness. 

Rastas, as members of the movement are called, see their past, present, and future in a distinct way. Drawing from Old Testament stories, especially that of Exodus, they “overstand” (rather than understand) people of African descent in the Americas and around the world to be “exiles in Babylon.” They believe that they are being tested by Jah (God) through slavery and the existence of economic injustice and racial “downpression” (rather than oppression). Looking to the New Testament book of Revelation. Rastas await their deliverance from captivity and their return to Zion, the symbolic name for Africa drawn from the biblical tradition. Ethiopia, the site of a dynastic power, is the ultimate home of all Africans and the seat of Jah, and repatriation is one goal of the movement. Many (though not all) Rastas believe that the Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie I, crowned in 1930, was the Second Coming of Christ who returned to redeem all Black people. The movement takes its name from the emperor’s pre-coronation name, Ras (Prince) Tafari.

Jamaican Rastas are descendants of African slaves who were converted to Christianity in Jamaica by missionaries using the text of the King James Version of the Bible.  Rastas maintain that the King James Version is a corrupted account of the true word of God, since English slave owners promoted incorrect readings of the Bible in order to better control slaves. Rastas believe that they can come to know the true meanings of biblical scriptures by cultivating a mystical consciousness of oneself with Jah, called “I-and-I.” Rastas read the Bible selectively, however, emphasizing passages from Leviticus that admonish the cutting of hair and beard and the eating of certain foods, and that prescribe rituals of prayer and meditation. Based on their reading of the Old Testament, many Rasta men uphold patriarchal values, and the movement is often charged with sexism by both insiders and outsiders. “Iyaric,” or “Dread-talk,” is the linguistic style of many Rastas, who substitute the sound of “I” for certain syllables.

Rastafari “livity,” or the principle of balanced lifestyle, includes the wearing of long hair locked in its natural, uncombed state, dressing in the colors of red, green, gold, and black (which symbolize the life force of blood, herbs, royalty, and Africanness), and eating an “I-tal” (natural, vegetarian) diet. Religious rituals include prayer services, the smoking of ganja (marijuana) to achieve better “itation” (meditation) with Jah, and “bingis” (all-night drumming ceremonies). Reggae music grew out of the Rastafari movement and was made popular throughout the world by the Jamaican singer and songwriter Bob Marley.