The Uprising of Bela Cruz

In 1833, in the Carrancas region of Minas Gerais, a group of enslaved people rebelled against their masters. Led by Ventura Mina, the uprising left ten members of the Baron of Alfenas’s family dead—including women and children—and sixteen enslaved people. Sparsely documented, the revolt bears signs of the involvement of a political opponent of the Baron, accused of inciting the massacre, and it influenced laws that shaped the country during the Empire.

This is an important, almost unknown (erased) chapter in the history of Black resistance, discussed by notable researchers such as Marcos Ferreira de Andrade, Hélio Menezes, Sidneia Santos, and Maria Eunice Natalino, with paintings by Dalton Paula, illustrations and animations by Sérgio Luz, and appearances by musicians Tizumba and Sérgio Pererê.