In 1639, devotees of Our Lady of the Rosary founded a brotherhood which existed at the same time as that of Saint Benedict, which were both founded by black men – free and enslaved – who were prohibited from going to the same churches as white people.
According to a study by Anderson Ribeiro, member of the Black Men’s Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary and St. Benedict and student of history at the University Estácio de Sá, the initial success of the brotherhoods among slaves was based on the desire for a decent burial. Belonging to a brotherhood removed the possibility of being thrown in the trash or into a common grave at Santa Casa da Misericórdia, which is what happened to the majority of slaves. The Irmandade dos Homens Pretos (“Brotherhood of Black Men”) was one of the most active centers of the Abolitionist Movement, and, in 1822, its Consistory officially asked Prince Regent Dom Pedro to stay in Brazil.
“The black brotherhoods tended to multiply around the various ‘nations,’ which corresponded to the great slave-trafficking regions in Africa. Slaves’ baptism certificates included their ‘nation,’ or, for the ‘crioulos’ born in Brazil, that of their mothers. In the 18th century, there were a dozen active black cultural associations in the immediate periphery of Rio, especially around the Lampadosa and Santana Churches. The Brotherhoods, although they were aimed at their own carefully described populations, had more or less similar purposes; but for the slaves, freed blacks, and mixed-race people, they represented a rare, legal occasion to meet amongst each other, and they represented a privileged space for the construction of an identity, which revolved around the ‘nations’ or ‘ethnicities,’ which were often forged during the age of slavery,” tells Anderson Ribeiro.