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.
