4. A Brief Switching of Sides
In 1924, Lampiao sent his brothers, at the head of 84 cangaceiros, to attack the city of Sousa, in Pernambuco. They captured and thoroughly looted the city, and publicly humiliated the local judge in the town square. Lampiao was big on humiliating foes, as evinced by a 1925 attack on a farm, whose owner, Ze Calu, had angered Lampiao. So he had his men serially violate him. He was also into depriving his foes of useful information whenever possible. When Lampiao’s brother and two comrades were killed in a firefight, their bodies had to be left behind. Lampiao ordered their heads cut off, so the police could not identify them. For a short while in 1926, Lampiao allied with the government to help combat an armed revolutionary militia of angry workers that alarmed Brazil’s wealthy even more so than did the bandits.
Lampiao was given copious arms and munitions, along with orders to fight the revolutionaries. He kept the gifts, and resumed banditry. On November 25th, 1926, he fought the biggest battle between cangaceiros and the government, and successfully beat back 400 policemen, killing and wounding dozens of lawmen, at the cost of only one wounded bandit. In 1927, Lampiao suffered his greatest defeat, in a failed attack on the city of Mossoro, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte. In 1929, he captured the town of Pombal, in Bahia, took its garrison of soldiers prisoner, executed them, and freed all prisoners held in the local jail. He continued in such vein for years, terrorizing the region – including a 1932 attack on the town of Cannide, Sergipe state, where several girls were violated. Northeastern Brazil breathed a sigh of relief in 1938, when justice finally caught up with Lampiao.
