The old one was flooded by the waters of the Cocorobó dam, built in the 1950s. But in the city of Canudos (405 km from Salvador), erected next to the Vaza-Barris River dam, the memories of the massacre that occurred in the late 19th century remain.
The Canudos War, a conflict between OE residents of Arraial, completes 130 years of beginning in 2026 and is expected to return to the center of a dispute that involves memory and reparation.
A group of six citizens of the city filed a popular action against the Union asking for reparation for the massacre that decreased the village, leaving between 20 thousand and 25 thousand killed in the region. They require a formal apology to the population and claim compensation of R $ 300 million for the municipality.
Among the plaintiffs are Mayor Jilson Cardoso () and five other residents of the municipality, part of them descendants of massacre survivors to the village after four army expeditions in 1896 and 1897.
“Canudos was destroyed by the army forces. It was one of the greatest villages of Bahia at that time and was simply decimated,” summarizes Cardoso. He argues that the Union recognizes its responsibility in the conflict and help the municipality develop.
The War of Canudos put the army and the villagers on opposite sides. The region faced an economic and social crisis, the result of drought, and sertanejos came together under the leadership of Blessed Antonio Conselheiro.
The climate of agitation bothered the local elites, and rumors were spread that the group would attack neighboring cities and set off for the capital to testify the republican government and install a monarchy again. The army was sent to Canudos, but was defeated in the first three expeditions.
The fourth expedition was a massacre: houses were burned down, whole families murdered, and women raped by the prudent government troops.
Canudos has been destroyed and rebuilt twice by the survivors of the massacre. The first time was during the conflict, closed in 1897 with and the death of Antonio Conselheiro and the capitulation of the country. It was rebuilt on the rubble of the village and remained there until it was flooded by the new dam.
The village became a city in 1985, when it was dismembered from Euclides da Cunha, thus baptized in the 1930s in honor of the book “Os Sertões”. Irrigated agriculture is the economic pillar of the municipality, which has 2,500 hectares of banana plantations on the banks of Vaza-Barris.
The lawsuit, signed by lawyers Paulo Menezes and Claudiane Reis, classifies the straw massacre as a genocide, points out that the crimes are imprescriptible and that the effects of damage caused by the conflict are continuous, reaching successive generations of residents.
They claim that the war left deep marks in the collective memory of the local population. And they point out that the destruction of the village resulted in the loss of subsistence means, leaving the population “in the most absolute misery”.
The violence of summary executions is also cited as a collective trauma that reverberates to the present day. “Subsequent generations have grown under the weight of a history of massacre and injustice,” they say.
The judge responsible for the case summoned the plaintiffs to justify the choice for a popular action, a means used to annul acts harmful to public assets. Sought, (Advocacy -General of the Union) reported that it has not yet been summoned in the process.
In addition to the indemnity, which would be intended for municipal coffers, residents require public policies for memory valorization, with the creation of museums and educational programs that report on straw events, ensuring that future generations and reflect on this historical tragedy.
They also ask for a regional development program with the perilization of the Vaza-Barris River, the expansion of the irrigated perimeter, basic sanitation and even the construction of a replica of the old Canudos focused on tourism.
“You don’t have to have a direct appeal to the city, we want investment. Canudos has a huge potential that needs to be explored,” says the mayor, who organizes an act in memory of the victims of the war for October 5.
The resumption of Canudos is an old dream of the community and mobilized even the dramaturgo José Celso Martinez Corrêa. In 2007, when he led to Canudos the assembly of “Os Sertões”, from the Workshop Theater, Zé Celso wrote a manifesto in which he defended the region’s “deforestation”, with investments in infrastructure and rescue of historical memory.
One of the signatories of the lawsuit, Professor Edmilson Ferreira, 50, is a great -grandson of Pedro Calixto de Oliveira, Pedrão, one of the most outstanding counselists, as the followers of Antonio Conselheiro were called.
He was one of those responsible for raising donations to the village and survived after fleeing shortly before the army’s straw. He would die in 1958, at the age of 88, becoming one of the few survivors of the former village buried in the New Canudos Cemetery.
Edmilson defends the creation of a memorial to Canudos Martyrs as a rescue of history and reverence for its protagonists.
“My grandfather always said that Canudos died in a cruel way. But our people have always shown the desire to overcome difficulties. Now we want to bring back hope in the form of repair and recognize the struggle of our ancestors,” he says.
