Brazil's African soul — Pelourinho, Candomblé, Carnaval, and acarajé
Salvador da Bahia is the capital of Bahia state and the heart of Afro-Brazilian culture — the first city in the Americas to receive enslaved Africans and the place where Yoruba, Fon, and Bantu cultures fused with Portuguese colonialism to create Candomblé (Brazil's most important African-derived religion), the berimbau, capoeira, and the extraordinary cuisine of Bahia (acarajé, moqueca, vatapá). The Pelourinho (Historic Centre) — a UNESCO World Heritage Site of richly coloured baroque churches and colonial mansions on a hillside above the bay — is Salvador's most photographed corner, but the…
Salvador was Brazil's first capital (1549–1763) — established by the Portuguese as the administrative centre of their New World empire. The Recôncavo region behind the city became the centre of Brazil's sugar economy, driving the transatlantic slave trade that brought over 1.5 million enslaved Africans to the port — more than came to any other city in the Americas. The Quilombo dos Palmares (a free African settlement in the interior led by Zumbi, who resisted Portuguese armies for 65 years) became the most important symbol of African resistance in Brazilian history. The slave trade was abolis…