I must confess that when we picked up a car in Salvador, on the coast of the Brazilian state of Bahia, to drive towards the city of Canudos, I didn’t really know what I would find. I knew about the eight hours of road that awaited me to the northwest, the tropical landscape that would gradually become arid, and the cacti that wouldreplace the coconut trees along the way, but not much else. I knew, however, that those lands had been the stage of one of the most important historical events in 19th-centuryBrazil and that it was there that I had to go.

But the Canudos War—or rather the Canudos massacre—as the city’s inhabitants prefer to say when referring to the conflict between the then-recently declared Republic of Brazil and the followers of Antônio Conselheiro, also overflows history, inhabiting the field of 20th-centuryliterature and of the arts. It is found in canonical works with direct or indirect references to the combat such as Ossertões [Rebellion in the Backlands], published in 1902 by Euclides da Cunha, Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol[Black God, White Devil], Glauber Rocha’s 1964 film, and La guerra del fin del mundo [The War of the End of the World], by Mario Vargas Llosa, from 1981. And, as a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, it is in this porous point where history, literature, and territory meet that my research takes place.

So, instead of meticulously planning my field trip, I decided to take a somewhat literary risk—and, why not?, ajournalistic one, honoring my undergraduate degree in this discipline—and let chance become part of the methodology. Whoever and whatever I found there would guide my visit, like some sort of archaeological work of subjectivity, I told myself. It is true, however, that decisions such as not booking a hotel beforehand go beyond the romanticism of giving myself almost blindly to the experience; the few accommodations in the city do not have online booking, and I had no choice but to travel analogously. That’s how I ended up at Pousada Pôr do Sol, or Sunset Inn, at nightfall, precisely. At that hour, the few streets in the city were deserted. The light but constant breeze imbued them with a certain mystical air, I told myself. The inn also seemed deserted, except for a statue of Antônio Conselheiro facing the horizon in the well-kept garden. I knocked on the door, once, twice, with no response. Until someone showed up.

It was a woman of about 75 years old. Her expression was a mix of annoyance, surprise and familiarity. She directed me to the reception, which looked more like a living room— a television was playing a 6 p.m. soap opera in the background, the likely reason for the annoyance of interruption – and pulled out a large record book from a drawer. She took my name, showed me the room, and said I was lucky to have found the best hotel in the city, with some surprise.

Familiarity, in turn, was demonstrated shortly afterwardwhen she asked my wife if she were English. Faced with the negative response, she said, “Ah. The other day, an Englishman stayed here. He was writing a book about the sertão. You guys look a lot alike.” The next morning, we discovered that she was indeed used to people writing about there: it was in the hotel her parents owned that Mario Vargas Llosa had stayed more than 40 years before. We learned her name during breakfast: Joselina Guerra, a descendant of the few conselheiristas who survived. I say that my last name is also Guerra and that my family is from the state that borders Bahia, but she immediately cuts me off: “That wasn’t a last name. We began to be called that after what happened here.”

The Canudos War occurred between 1896 and 1897 in this region, in the backlands of Bahia. It was an armed conflict between the Army and the aforementioned conselheiristas, devotees of the messianic figure of Antônio Conselheiro, an extremely religious man who brought together peasants, indigenous and former enslaved people on the unproductive lands of a farm that was called Belo Monte, or Beautiful Hill. The farm ended up becoming a real city of about 20,000 inhabitants: Canudos. But Canudos, in addition to being a kind of religious utopia, was also—and perhaps mainly—a social movement that fought against the inequalities so evident in a Brazil that had justabolished slavery without providing any assistance to the population.

The sociologist and historian Clóvis Moura, in “Political sociology of the Canudos peasant war: From the destruction of Belo Monte to the emergence of the MST,” for example, draws a direct link between the struggle of Conselheiro and his followers and the outset of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra [Landless Workers’ Movement], the MST, one of the leading groups in Brazil. To this day, in fact, agendas such as land reform and the fight against hunger occupy a central place alongside the historical references of Canudos. At the Instituto Popular Memorial de Canudos, IPMC, for example, one can find, alongside posters, paintings and references to the populated area, the MST flag itself, among others of a political nature.

Every year, the Romaria de Canudos event is organized, which in October 2023 will reach its 36th edition and honor the 130th anniversary of the establishment of Belo Monte. One of the highlights of the event is an approximately 12-hour walk along the so-called Veredasda Resistência [Paths of Resistance], between the CanudosState Park and the city of Uauá, where Antônio Conselheiro was ambushed by the Brazilian army for the first time. But it was only after three other attacks and Conselheiro’s death that the population of Canudos was defeated and the city and its inhabitants annihilated. The few who survived, says Joselina, like her grandmother and great-grandmother, had gone out to look for food before the city was invaded and were unable to return.

It is through the ancestors of these conselheiros who escaped that memory also survives. A memory that, more than once throughout the 20th century, tried to be erased: in reality, the lands on which the thousands of houses in Canudos were built are today completely submerged. After a second Canudos rose from the ashes, almost literally, in the 1910s, a dam designed by former presidentGetúlio Vargas during the New State dictatorship, but only concluded in 1968—the first of the “lead years” of the Brazilian military dictatorship that started four years before—was built exactly in that location. This is how the third Canudos came into being. And let’s talk about resistance.

The Cocorobó dam, where the first Canudos was located.

Joselina introduced us to another descendant of survivors: Paullo, from the Régis family, a symbol of the preservation of the memory of that first Canudos. He was the one who took us to the IPMC and to the little church next to the institute where the only relic of Antônio Conselheiro is located, a large wooden cross, surrounded by several beams also made of wood. There, we met avery elderly lady. Paullo called her Dona Zefinha, and her grandparents, like Joselina’s, survived the massacre. Afterwards, he told us: “You were lucky. It’s not often that Dona Zefinha is here.” She explained to us about the cross and the beams, which were a kind of trigger for the start of the war. She said that Conselheiro had ordered wood from the city of Juazeiro, some 120 miles away, to construct a new, bigger church, one that could fit properly the rising number of conselheiristas that was coming to the city. The beams were never delivered, and a tour for their resumption was organized. It was at the beginning of this journey towards Juazeiro that the Brazilian army carried out the first attack. Almost a century later, the beams were returned to the population of Canudos by a family from that city. When I read the donation terms, to my surprise, I discovered that the person who donated the beams was a relative of my grandmother on my mother’s side, who was also from Bahia.

Paullo at the Canudos State Park.

Canudos State Park.

Paullo’s family is the only one allowed to live in CanudosState Park. Administered by Uneb, the State University of Bahia, the park is a historical and archaeological site of the battles. It’s been a while since there have been archaeological excavations there due to lack of money, a chronic problem in Brazilian public universities. It is also the house’s backyard where Paullo, one of the few accredited guides, spent his childhood: “I grew up playing in this place, finding bullets, buttons, pieces of uniform, bones.” All of this can still be found as we walk through the dry land of the caatinga. But Paullo, to prevent visitors from pocketing the various remains of the war that we see on the ground, resorts to mysticism and tells the story of a man who, after a few years, returned to Canudos only to return a cartridge after his life began to fall apart. He also says that when he was a child, it was normal to see strange things around the park. I sincerely believe him. I don’t take a photo of the human bones we see in the soldiers’ cemetery, called Death Valley, as he requests, out of respect.

Bullets and cartridges at the Canudos State Park.

The visit ends at the Casa de Vó Izabel Museum, an initiative by Paullo and also managed by him. Grandma Izabel was the daughter of survivors of the massacre, andbuilt a cross on the hill called Alto da Favela—which, yes, has to do with poor urban communities in Brazil and especially Rio de Janeiro—in honor of the population of Canudos. The museum, part of Paullo’s house, is limited to a room measuring less than 100 square ft, but which contains more than a century of memory. Side by side with those objects that he and his brothers collected from the land when they were children and others that Paullo had purchased over the years, such as weapons from the period, I see a garment hanging on the wall that catches my attention. I ask if it was something that was used back then. “No it’s not,” he replies. “This outfit belonged to my father. That man in the picture.” Then, I understood once and for all. The history of Canudos did not end when the Brazilian government massacred its inhabitants; it started. And it continues to be built by each one of those who are still there. Like Paullo, with his father’s leather jacket heldfirmly in his hands.