The Afterlife of Revolution - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 41

The sertanejos captured the artillery and thus effectively supplied Canudos with the
most modern weaponry. The 16 million bullets aimed at the town had come to no avail.
This expedition “had vanished utterly.” The jagunços collected the bodies, placed the
skulls facing the road at regular intervals, and festooned the thorn scrub with military
regalia: “The barren, withered caatinga now blossomed forth with an extravagant flora:
the bright red of officer stripes, the pale blue of the dolmans, the brilliant gleam of sol-
dier straps, and the swaying stirrups.”
. . .
DaCunhafollowedthebacklandwarandthenwrotethetractthatwouldchangehisdes-
tinybyframingCanudos(andbyextension,thenewRepublic)intheidiomoftheFrench
Revolution. From the highlands of São Paulo, his battle cry A Nossa Vendéia— Our
Vendée — was based on Victor Hugo's essay about Catholic royalist millenarian resisters
to the French Revolution in Bretagne from 1793 to 1795, who were later massacred by
Jacobins. 14
A Nossa Vendéia was written before da Cunha had ever stepped foot in Bahia's back-
lands,buthehadstudiedwithtremendousdetailthephysicalandbioticgeographyofthe
region and had been carefully guided in this by his friend the geographer Teodoro Sam-
paio. 15 His essay evoked the dangerousness of the landscape itself and the lethal tactics
of guerrilla warfare in such an environment: “The soil of these outposts is covered, es-
pecially in the dry season, with a sparse and diminished vegetation; this, perhaps more
than the fanatic hordes that follow Antonio Conselheiro, is the most serious foe of the
Republican forces.”
Da Cunha spoke of the “religious fanaticism catching hold of innocent and simple
souls, and easily manipulated by the propagandists of the empire. The same barbaric
courage,thesameimpracticalterraincomplementeachother.. . .Thesamemorbidhero-
ism is as diffused and disordered as the impulsive chaos of the mesmerized.” Likening
the Brazilian military to the Roman legions pacifying the barbarians, he saw the civiliz-
ing Republic as a distant echo of the glories of the Pax Romana. “The Republic will tri-
umphinthisnexttest.Wearecondemnedtocivilization.” 16 This“condemnation”would
come to haunt him when he actually stepped off the train and into the landscape of his
Iliad.
The insight and impact of this essay were great, and da Cunha's editor arranged for
himtotraveltoBahiaduringthefinalassaultonCanudosasanaide-de-camptoGeneral
Bittencourt.