The Lantern and Pretty Mary – Brazil’s Bandit King and Queen Lampiao and Maria Bonita

19. Different Flavors of Brazilian Banditry

There were three different kinds of cangaçeiros, or rural bandits. First, were those who provided specific services to the landowners of Northeast Brazil. Then there were those known as satisfatorios, who essentially served as the private militia and muscle of the wealthiest landowners. Finally, there were the independent cangaceiros, who were pretty much out and out bandit groups. It is the last group upon which this article is focused. The region in which they operated, the hinterland of Northeast Brazil, is known as the Caatinga. It is a land of semi-arid tropical vegetation, full of shrubs and thorn forests. It was the perfect environment for bandit groups like the cangaceiros, who knew the Caatinga well. That familiarity helped them escape and hide from pursuit by the authorities in the inhospitable terrain. A hallmark of cangaceiros was their adaptability and ability to thrive in a forbidding environment.

Like violent Boy Scouts, cangaçeiros were always prepared. They knew medicinal plants, water sources, places with food, escape routes, and places that were difficult for pursuing police and soldiers to access. The first known cangaçeiro band was that of Jesuíno Alves de Melo Calado, nicknamed Jesuíno Brilhante. They operated around 1870, near the city of Patu and between the borders of the Brazilian states of Rio Grande do Norte and Paraíba. Some scholars, however, believe that the first cangaçeiro was Lucas Evangelista, who formed an independent bandit group on the outskirts of Feira de Santana in the state of Bahia, in 1828. He and his gang were finally captured in 1848, and charged with sundry crime visited upon the local population. Evangelista was convicted, sentenced to death, and hanged the following year. The last famous cangaçeiros were those of Corisco (Cristino Gomes da Silva Cleto), killed on May 25^th, 1940.

18. Origins of the Brazilian Rural Bandit Phenomenon

The first proto-cangaçeiro was Jose Gomes, nicknamed Cabeleira. Born in 1751 in Glória do Goitá, in the hinterland of Pernambuco state, he terrorized the region for years. However, it was not until the nineteenth century that the cangaço banditry phenomenon exploded, propelled by powerful leaders such as Antonio Silvino, Lampiao and Corisco. From the mid-nineteenth through the early twentieth century, Northeast Brazil was terrorized by cangaçeiro bandit groups that spread violence wherever they went. They embraced the nomadic and irregular life of criminals for a variety of reasons, from poverty, the lack of opportunity, or the desire to avenge themselves upon powerful people who had wronged them. In 1877, as the region suffered a severe drought, a cangaceiro named João Calangro led a formidable gang that in the south of Ceará state. He was part of a loose bandit confederation that had the support and protection of a local judge.

Calangro, who bragged that he had killed 32 people, frequently clashed with authorities. He finally fled to the state of Piauí, after which he disappears from the documentary record. In the 1910s, female bandit Anésia Cauaçu led a cangaceiro group in the backlands of Bahia that bore her name as Bando dos Cauaçus. The group included more than 100 armed men and women who fought under her command. Well-armed and well-dressed in leather clothes and hats, the typical attire of the region’s cowboys and country folk, and with intimate knowledge of the local terrain, they proved formidable foes to the authorities. The Cauaçus gang mostly consisted of farmers and country folk outraged by the murder of a local by a bandit known as Zezinho dos Laços. When the government failed to deliver justice, Anésia Cauaçu took justice into her own hands, and formed her own cangaceiro group.

17. A Beautiful and Ferocious Bandit Leader, and Seven Ears

Bandit leader Anésia Cauaçu was reportedly strikingly beautiful. She was tall, blue eyed, with long, dark hair, and silky skin. She was also incredibly courageous. Mounted on a horse, clad in leather clothes, with a leather hat, and a distinguishing scarf, she was skilled with a rifle, and always ready to fight. Her greatest feat of marksmanship was to shoot off from a considerable distance the index finger of a police commander, as he pointed out to his men where to position themselves during a firefight with her band. Her cangaceiros dominated their local outback for years, until 1916, when Cauaçu decided to give up the bandit life. She went to live with her family, under the promise of protection of a powerful land baron indebted to her for past services. However, he betrayed and handed her over to the police, after which point her fate is unknown.

Another notable bandit was Januário Garcia Leal, known as Sete Orelhas (Seven Ears), who operated in Southeast Brazil in the early nineteenth century. Initially a law-abiding landowner, things changed when his brother was captured and skinned alive by seven siblings from a rival family. The colonial justice system proved indifferent and made no attempt to apprehend and prosecute the perpetrators, so Garcia Leal took justice into his own hands. He formed a private militia, and went after his brother’s murderers. He eventually killed all seven perpetrators, and severed an ear from each. He strung them in a macabre necklace that was eventually decorated with seven ears – hence, the nickname. Garcia Leal’s legacy has been controversial ever since. To some, Leal was an honorable vigilante who pursued justice that the government failed to deliver. To others, he was merely a bandit who led a vicious group of cangaceiros.

16. From Private Militias to Bandit Groups

At the root of bandit groups formed in the hinterland by hitherto respectable figures like Garcia Leal was a traditional patron-client relationship. Landowners like Leal were close to the cowboys who tended their herds. Loyal cowboys were expected to defend, weapons in hand, the interests of their boss. Due to rivalries between powerful families, wealthy land barons often surrounded themselves with armed supporters: de facto private militias or armies. Eventually, some of those armed bands slipped from the control of their patrons, and turned to banditry. In some regions, the powerful magnates, commonly known as colonels, kept those proto-cangaceiros in check. Elsewhere, the bandits ran riot. Some, such as Lampião, captured the popular imagination and were likened to Robin Hoods, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Others were seen as pre-revolutionary figures, who challenged and subverted the oppressive social order of their time and region.

The rural bandit group phenomenon could not have occurred or lasted for as long as it did without significant support from some locals. Known as coiteiros, they helped the cangaceiros with food and shelter. They often did so because they were relatives, friends, former neighbors of the bandits, out of self-interest, or from fear. Pitted against the bandits were small units of soldiers, usually twenty to sixty men, known volantes. Recruited from throughout the Brazilian federation, they were armed and trained as paramilitaries and sent out to seek out and destroy the cangaceiros. The bandits referred to them as monkeys, because of their brown uniforms and their willingness to obey orders. Some volantes were armed with the then-modern Hotchkiss machine guns, which the bandits grew to fear, and were quite eager to steal or purchase from corrupt volantes for their own use.

15. Cangaceiro Style

Cangaceiros had a sartorial style all their own. Out in the outback, there were no tailors or sewing machines, but fortunately for the bandits, most of them knew how to sew. In Northeastern Brazil’s arid badlands, they were often surrounded by dry and thorny bushes. Despite the soaring daytime heat, cangaceiro went about clad in leather clothes – as a stylistic choice and for protection from the thorns and jagged rocks and stones with which the region abounded – that were decorated with colored ribbons and metal pieces. They typically wore leather hats, with a wide folded brim. Cangaceiros also wore leather gloves with coins and other metal pieces sewn into them, almost like armor. They carried daggers, rifles such as Winchester 44s, and up to forty pounds of ammunitions. Their canteens contained water, but often were filled with cachaça, a sugarcane liquor.

Their knapsacks or bags usually contained medicines, tobacco, and often, hair gels. A scarf to protect against dust was standard, as were sturdy shirts with long sleeves to ward off the sun. Between the heat and dearth of water for regular bathing, the bandits often reeked. So some cangaceiros, such as Lampiao, were quite fond of perfumes, including expensive French ones looted from rich people’s homes. They were often armed with revolvers, shotguns and the parabelo, a Portuguese corruption of the Latin parabellum, the official name of the Luger P08 pistol. Cangaceiros were also notorious for their use of a thin, long and very sharp knife called a peixeira. Originally designed and intended to clean and fillet fish, the bandits put it to use as an all-purpose knife, often used to torture and kill their enemies.

14. The Decline and Disappearance of the Cangaco

The cangaço was one of the last armed movements by Brazil’s poor. It impacted all economic classes, and the spirit of freedom exhibited by the cangaceiros challenged the era’s rigid hierarchy. Many cangaceiros played up the image of fighters against exploitation of the poor to depict themselves as instruments of social justice, and to justify their crimes. The reality was often quite different, as many bandits were motivated by simple greed, and would just as readily rob the poor as loot the rich. However, their challenge to an oppressive social structure ensured the cangaceiros enough popular support to enable their survival for generations. Things changed when some parts of Brazil experienced an economic boom, with a resultant demand for labor. Migration to such regions gave many in the hardscrabble Northeast better options than a precarious bandit life in the outback. That reduced the pool of potential cangaceiro recruits and supporters.

Advances in communications and transportation also made it easier for the authorities to more efficiently track down and concentrate forces against cangaceiros. Between changes in economic conditions, and improvements in the government’s ability to act, the rural bandit phenomenon finally died out. The last surviving cangaceiro died in 2014, aged 97. Nonetheless, the cangaceiro legacy, mostly malign, endures to this day. Cangaceiros introduced kidnapping on a large scale in Brazil. They seized hostages for ransom to finance new crimes, and tortured and killed the victims if they were not paid. Extortion was another source of income. That can still be seen in practices adopted by criminals in many Brazilian favelas, and militias in many poor neighborhoods. Cangaceiros corrupted military officers and civil authorities, from whom they bought weapons and ammunition. As a result, they were often better armed than the troops sent to fight them.

13. The Lantern and Pretty Mary

Virgulino Ferreira da Silva, AKA Lampiao, AKA Senhor (Lord) do Sertão and O Rei (The King) do Cangaço, was Brazil’s most famous – or infamous – cangaceiro. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, he and his bandit group crisscrossed Northeastern Brazil, and he was nicknamed Lampiao (Lantern) because of his speed with a rifle. As described by a contemporary: “He fired so rapidly, that the muzzle flashes of his rifle seemed like a lit lantern in the dark night of Caatinga [outback]“. In the eyes of authority figures and the well-heeled, Lampiao was a mere bandit, and the embodiment of a brutal social cancer that had to be removed. In the eyes of many of the poor and downtrodden in Northeast Brazil, he was a popular hero, and a courageous man of honor who dared to stand up and defy the oppressive and corrupt powers that be.

A layer of romance was added to the legend of Lampiao when he met Maria Gomes de Oliveira, also known as Maria de Déa and better known as Maria Bonita (Pretty Mary). The wife of a shoemaker named Zé de Nenê, whom she abandoned to take up the bandit life at Lampiao’s side, she became his lover and constant companion, and fought at his side to the bitter end. The duo’s bandit career – and the cangaço phenomenon as a whole – came to an end when Brazil’s Old Republic was overthrown, to be replaced by a new regime known as the Estado Novo (New State). The new regime’s leader, President Getúlio Vargas, set out to eliminate all sources of disorder throughout Brazil. Lampiao and his cangaceiros were high on the list of disorderly forces, and word came down from on high to kill all bandits who did not turn themselves in.

12. The Birth of a Bandit

Lampiao was born Virgulino Ferreira da Silva in the semi-arid state of Pernambuco, sometime around 1900. The third son of José Ferreira dos Santos and Maria Sucena da Purificação, he worked as a craftsman until age twenty one. Two things stood out about him where he grew up: he was literate, and wore reading glasses. Family feuds were common at the time, and Lampiao’s family often fought with neighboring ones, and sometimes with the police, who were readily bribed to act as muscle for the highest bidder. In one such confrontation with police, Lampiao’s father was killed in 1919, and he vowed revenge. Along with two brothers, he joined the bandit group of a cangaceiro named Sinho Perreira. He took to the outlaw life like a duck to water, and when Sinhô Pereira retired from the cangaço in 1922, he handed over the reins of leadership to Lampião.

Lampiao’s first act as bandit leader was to invade the city of Belmonte, Pernambuco, where he murdered a leading merchant who held sway over the region. He then crossed the border into the neighboring state of Alagoas, and for nearly two decades afterwards, crisscrossed Northeastern Brazil. Within a year, the reach of his band expanded to the states of Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte, and Ceará. He caused so much panic and disorder, that the police chiefs of various Northeastern states met in early 1923 to create a joint task force aimed at combating the cangaço. That did not stop Lampião and his men from returning to Pernambuco in June, 1923, to attack the town of Belém de São Francisco, which they thoroughly looted. They also besieged the nearby town of Salgueiro, killing off its trade and cutting it off from supplies.

11. The Road to Banditry

Lampiao’s path to banditry started with petty stuff, then snowballed. In 1916, when he was still Virgulino Ferreira da Silva, not yet the famous or infamous Lampiao, he and three of his brothers were accused of goat theft, and were forced to financially compensate the accuser. Shortly thereafter, two cowbells belonging to a local named Ze Saturnino were found on cows from the Ferreira family herd. In retaliation, Saturnino seized three cowbells from the Ferreira herd, and put them on his own cows. In response, a young Virgulino seized one of Saturnino’s donkeys. Saturnino accused the Ferreiras of being a family of theives, which offended Virgulino. He told Saturnino to come fetch his donkey from the Ferreira’s yard, and while he was doing that, Virgulino snuck off to kill nine of Saturnino’s cattle while their owner was absent.

Saturnino spoke with Virgulino’s father, and warned him not to let his sons herd cattle anymore. The Ferreira brothers ignored the warning, and were ambushed by Saturnino, in a clash during which Virgulino’s older brother was injured. Virgulino’s father sought justice from the authorities, but no action was taken. Efforts by other locals to mediate the dispute failed, so in 1917, in an attempt to avoid further conflict, Virgulino’s father sold his land and moved the family to another farm near the village of Nazare do Pico, Pernambuco. Saturnino promised not to go anywhere near the Ferreira’s new residence, but in 1918 he broke that promise to fetch some money owed him in Nazare. There, he was ambushed by Virgulino and a cousin, but got away. Saturnino returned the next day, with fifteen men, and surrounded the Ferreira’s farm. In a clash that followed, one of Saturnino’s men was shot.

10. Tragedy Strikes Lampiao’s Family

In 1919, Nazaré do Pico was invaded by a bandit named Jacinto Alves de Carvalho, but was defended by Virgulino Ferreira da Silva, now known as Lampiao. Soon thereafter, Lampiao ambushed an uncle of his family’s longtime rival, Ze Saturnino. Virgulino’s godfather, Joao Flor, rushed to the sound of gunfire, thinking it was Jacinto once again attacking the village. He was revolted to find out it was his godson committing murder. A new feud then began, between the Flor and Ferreira families. Lampiao’s brother, Levino, took a shot at one of the Flors, initiating a firefight in which Levino was wounded. He was taken to a farm, where he was eventually arrested. Upon his release, the Ferreiras once again upped stakes, and moved to Agua Branca, in the neighboring state of Alagoas.

In 1920, Lampiao joined the cangaceiro band of an Antonio Matilde, and began to raid Saturnino’s farms. To protect his cattle and farms, Saturnino turned to his uncle, a cangaceiro named Cassimiro Honório. The bandit leader took several of his men to defend his nephew’s property, and several battles were fought between the two bandit groups. In the meantime, back in Alagoas, Lampiao’s father sent his son João Ferreira to buy medicine for a sick nephew. The local police arrested João Ferreira, as bait to try and lure Lampiao and his other fugitive brothers. Their mother grew worried, decided to leave the region, but between the stress and fear, she fell ill and died. Eighteen days after her death, Lampiao’s father was killed by police. Having become motherless and fatherless within just a few weeks, Lampiao and his brothers decided to turn to banditry and the cangaceiro life full time.

9. A Bandit at a Wedding

In 1921, Lampiao and his brothers joined Sebastião Pereira e Silva, known as Sinhô Pereira, a famous Pernambuco cangaceiro. Under Pereira’s command, they fought numerous battles with police, winning some, and losing others. In 1922, Lampiao robbed the farm of a noblewoman, the Baronesa de Água Branca, in the state of Alagoas. It netted him a fortune, and he began to lead his own band for the first time. Later that year, Lampiao invaded São José do Belmonte, Pernambuco. There, he killed a wealthy merchant and political leader, at the behest of one of his political enemies. In 1923, Lampiao descended upon his old village of Nazare do Pico, to stop the wedding of a former childhood sweetheart. He was talked out of it by the local priest and agreed to leave and let the wedding continue, but imposed an arbitrary condition: that nobody dance at the wedding.

In 1923, Lampiao returned to Nazare do Pico, and was driven off after a fierce gunfight with the locals, led by his godfather Joao Flor. Afterwards, Joao Flor and his clan joined a paramilitary force formed by Pernambuco state to combat banditry. The unit from Nazare do Pico, led by Joao Flor, became Lampiao’s fiercest foes and most determined pursuers. They were brave men, as their quarry’s reputation grew ever more fearsome. In 1924, Lampiao attacked a village that sheltered some rival bandits, captured their leader, chopped up his body, and scattered the bloody pieces on the streets. Later that year, he suffered a serious foot injury, and while receiving treatment, a priest talked him into abandoning banditry and turning himself. Lampiao almost went through with it, but at the last moment, changed his mind and decided to continue on as a cangaceiro.

8. Wild Goose Chases Across the Brazilian Outback

In 1925, Lampiao crossed the border into neighboring Ceara state, where he enjoyed some political support. After a brief rest, he invaded the state of Alagoas, and looted several farms and ranches. Initially, the authorities sent men to each reported Lampiao sighting, but he was always long gone by the time government forces arrived. In the meantime, the forces sent to capture him had been formed by stripping several small towns of their garrisons. That made them ripe pickings for Lampiao’s bandits. He actively misled police via false telegraph messages reporting his presence near certain towns. When the authorities mobilized and sent large contingents to the reported sightings, Lampiao’s gang fell upon less guarded towns far away. Eventually, the authorities wised up, and the governments of various states created mobile police forces popularly known as volantes, that were authorized to cross into neighboring states in pursuit of Lampiao’s band.

In July, 1925, a flying column of twenty men tracked down fifteen of Lampião’s gang, and killed one of his brothers in a firefight. In addition to his main group, Lampiao also commanded several subgroups, and assigned other cangaceiros to lead them in his name. For nearly two decades, Lampiao roamed on horseback with his men, all clad in leather clothes, hats, sandals, coats, ammunition belts and pants. To protect the “captain”, as Lampiao’s men called him, and raid farms, ranches, towns and cities, all went about heavily armed and amply supplied with ammunition. In 1930, Lampiao was featured in the New York Times. That same year, he met and fell passionately in love with Maria Bonita, who became his lover and companion. In 1936, Lampiao’s daily life was photographed and filmed by Benjamin Abrahão Botto.

7. Widespread Fear of Bandits Coexisted With Significant Public Support for Bandit Bands

There was no significant firearms trade in Brazil at the time, so Lampiao and his men lacked access to readily purchased weapons. Nonetheless, they were well armed – sometimes better armed than the policemen and soldiers sent after them. They secured many firearms either by theft from police and paramilitary units, or purchase from corrupt security officials. Mauser rifles and various types of pistols and revolvers were also collected from fallen or captured security personnel after successful clashes. The gang’s most commonly used weapon was the Winchester 44 rifle. Thus armed, they attacked farms and towns in seven states. It is perhaps a mistake to romanticize them too much: they rustled cattle, looted, kidnapped, murdered, tortured, mutilated, and committed all kinds of assaults, including sexual. Lampiao came to be seen as a heroic figure in later years, but at the time, his passage through any region caused widespread terror.

As indignant press reports put it: “Isn’t it a shame what is happening or rather continues to happen in the Brazilian northeast? And the public authorities, what guarantee do they offer to the unfortunate country people hit by all the calamities? Even magistrates no longer escape Lampeão’s attacks. (…) This is why inhabitants always have expressions of disbelief on their lips when promised measures to disinfect the backlands from the hordes of horrible bandits who make the region the most unhappy in the world“. Nonetheless, Lampiao and his band were often protected by supporters known as coiteiros: small farmers, workers, and even some local authorities who offered shelter and food to the cangaceiros within their lands. That facilitated the bandits’ movement throughout Northeast Brazil, and helped them evade pursuing government forces.

6. A Religious Bandit, and the Bonnie to Lampiao’s Clyde

Lampiao was surprisingly religious, and was particularly devoted to the teachings of a priest named Father Cícero, who was famous in Northeast Brazil at the time. Not so devoted, though, as to heed Father’s Cicero’s advice, when he met him in 1926, to quit banditry. Lampiao’s tale is commonly linked with his companion, Maria Gomes de Oliveira (1910 – 1938), AKA Maria Bonita (Pretty Mary). She joined the gang in 1930 as its first female member, and had a daughter with Lampiao in 1932. Maria was born and raised in a humble family, in a small village in the backlands of Bahia. When she was fifteen, she was hitched in an arranged marriage to a cousin, a shoemaker named Ze de Nenem. It was an unhappy union, with an unfaithful and alcoholic husband who frequently beat Maria whenever she protested his adultery.

So Maria paid back her husband in kind, by cheating on him with several men. The marriage came to a definitive end when Maria met Lampiao in 1929, and fell in love with him. So she ran away to join him, and fully embraced the cangaceiro life. She lived with Lampiao for nine years as his wife, and became known among the gang as Maria do Capitao (The Captain’s [one of Lampiao’s nicknames] Maria). Known for her beauty and strong personality, Maria, unlike many women in bandit bands, was never abused by the cangaceiros. She went about in looted silk dresses, floral print gloves, sandals and ankle boots. She also wore expensive jewelry, brooches, carried silver coins, and gold ornaments decorated her hair. On her neck and wrists, she dabbed the same expensive French perfume used by Lampiao.

5. Pretty Mary

Maria Bonita’s new husband was no more faithful than her ex had been. But at least he was not an alcoholic who routinely beat her. And the bandit life with the dashing Lampiao was more exciting than her previous existence as an alcoholic shoemaker’s wife in a small village. So despite several outbursts of jealous rage at Lampiao’s affairs with other women, she stayed. Maria fought at Lampiao’s side, and when on the battlefield, she gave up the silk dresses for leather boots and rough cotton clothes. In 1931, at Maria’s insistence, the duo spent time at a farm, as an improvised honeymoon. It was not enough for Maria, however, and she eventually repaid Lampiao’s unfaithfulness by carrying on an affair with a merchant, who showered her with expensive shoes, clothes and other gifts. Luckily for both, Lampiao never suspected that he was being cuckolded.

On September 13^th, 1931, Maria bore Lampiao a daughter, Expedita Ferreira Nunes. In accordance with cangaço custom, the baby was given friends to be raised. Although she became famous in later years as Maria Bonita, or Pretty Mary, neither Lampiao nor his relatives and gang had ever called her that. It was a nickname that only became common after her death. There are some versions about the nickname’s origin. One is that it was an invention of Rio de Janeiro newspaper reporters, possibly inspired by a then-popular Brazilian movie, Maria Bonita, released in 1937. Another theory is that it was a nickname giver her by soldiers, impressed by the beauty of the cangaceira when she was killed in 1938.

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 25^th, 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.

3. The End of the Road for the Lantern and Pretty Mary

On July 27^th, 1938, Lampiao’s band camped on a farm in the outback of Sergipe state. It rained that night, and the entire gang slept snugly in their tents – their location believed to be especially secure. A paramilitary force snuck up so quietly, that not even the dogs noticed. Around 5:00 am on the 28^th, the cangaceiros awoke and began their daily routine of morning prayers followed by coffee, when one of them raised the alarm. It was too late, and the bandits were caught completely off guard. A police force led by a Lieutenant João Bezerra da Silva and a Sergeant Aniceto Rodrigues da Silva opened fire with machine guns, and the cangaceiros had no time to organize a defense. Within minutes, out of thirty four bandits present, eleven were killed, the first of whom was Lampiao. Soon afterwards, Maria Bonita was seriously injured. Some cangaceiros managed to escape.

Flush with victory, the police seized the camp’s contents, including significant amounts of money, gold and jewelry, and mutilated the dead. Per custom, they cut off the heads of Lampiao and his fallen comrades. Maria Bonita was badly injured, but still alive, when she, too, was beheaded, along with other wounded who also had their heads severed while still alive. One police officer, in a frenzy of rage, bashed in Lampiao’s head with a rifle butt, deforming and rendering it nearly unrecognizable. That helped birth a later legend that Lampiao had survived and escaped. The severed heads were salted, placed in kerosene cans full of brandy and lime to help preserve them, and carried off. The bodies were left behind in the open for the vultures. The authorities then took the severed heads on a tour of several Brazilian states, to demonstrate the end of Lampiao and his gang.

2. A Grisly Tour

Police Colonel Joao Bezerra da Silva, in command of the operation that killed Lampiao, took the gang’s severed heads on a tour. The grisly trophies – decomposing despite efforts at preservation – attracted crowds wherever they were displayed. In Piranhas, Alagoas State, they were carefully arranged on the city hall’s steps, along with their weapons and equipment, and photographed. Afterwards, they were taken to Maceió and southeast Brazil. Doctors at the country’s main medical institute measured, weighed, and examined the bandits’ heads. The results led them to abandon a then-prevalent theory that a good man could not become a bandit, absent some physical abnormalities. The severed heads showed no signs of physical degeneration or anomalies, and were completely normal. The heads then went to Salvador, where they remained for six years at a university’s dentistry faculty. Eventually, the remains ended up in an anthropology museum, where they were exhibited for decades.

The fate of Lampiao and his comrades proved an effective salutary lesson. The leaders of many other bandit gangs rushed to turn themselves in, to avoid a similar fate, and the cangaceiro phenomenon sputtered to an end soon thereafter. For years, the families of Lampiao, Maria Bonita, and their fallen comrades, fought to give their relatives a dignified burial. A public pressure campaign to end the macabre public exhibit finally bore fruit with the enactment of a law in 1965 to bury the bandits’ remains. It met with fierce opposition: the grave of one of the campaign leaders’ father was dug up, the corpse’s head severed, and displayed in the same museum that exhibited the heads of Lampiao and his companions. The heads of Lampião and Maria Bonita were finally buried on February 6^th, 1969, and those of the rest of the gang were interred a week later.

1. Could the Lantern and Pretty Mary Have Survived and Lived Happily Ever After?

Lampiao and Maria Bonita entered the realm of folklore, and as often happens with folk tales, many demand that the story end with the hero riding off into the sunset, and living happily ever after. Over the years, many legends have cropped up to the effect that the Lantern and Pretty Mary had survived the 1938 surprise attack on their camp. Faking death had occurred frequently in the cangaço, and key cancageiros had done so. It was even reported that one of Lampiao’s brothers had done just that in 1926, to get out of the bandit life. Lampiao had amassed a huge fortune, which some historians estimate to have been as much as one billion Brazilian reais. With that, some theorize that he paid off officials to enable his escape and disappearance.

There is evidence that, before the 1938 attack, Lampiao had grown weary of the bandit life. New police tactics and advances in radio and transportation enabled the authorities to steadily tighten the net around him, and Lampiao had expressed interest in an escape to the state of Minas Gerais. Moreover, at least one of the soldiers who had participated in the 1938 attack that destroyed the famous bandits gang disputed the official version, and did not believe that Lampiao had died in that engagement. In 1996, a journalist requested the exhumation of a corpse buried in Buritis in 1993, suspecting that it was that of the infamous cangaceiro. Lampiao’s own daughter shared that suspicion, and agreed to take a DNA test to compare it with the buried body’s. However, the request to exhume the body was denied by the judiciary.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Adventures in History – The Saga of Anesia Cauacu (Portuguese)

Adventures in History – The Relationship of Lampiao and Maria Bonita in 5 Facts (Portuguese)

Aguiar, Jose Gerlaldo – Lampiao the Invincible: Two Lives and Two Deaths (2017 – Portuguese)

Chandler, Billy Jaynes – The Bandit King: Lampiao of Brazil (1978)

History Collection – Mysterious Slayings and Crimes of the Victorian Era

Folha de Sao Paulo, March 8^th, 2023 – Highlighting the Diversity of Women in Our History Means Fighting Against Violence (Portuguese)

Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1 (May, 1975) – Political Structure and Social Banditry in Northeast Brazil

Lima, Joao de Souza – The Warrior Trajectory of Maria Bonita, The Queen of the Cangaco (1989 – Portuguese)

Maciel, Frederico Bezerra – Lampiao: His Times and His Realm (1979 – Portuguese)

Miranda, Marcos Paulo de Souza – Jurisdiction of the Captains: A History of Januario Garcia Leal, Seven Ears (2001 – Portuguese)