Sertão

In a context of hunger, poverty, social injustice and with the police in the pay of wealthy landowners, some peasants, tired of oppression and abuse, took to the hills and became bandits. This is how the cangaçeiros gangs came into being, wreaking havoc in the vast territory in north-eastern Brazil known as the Sertão. Lampiao and Corisco were the most famous, daring and sometimes cruel cangaçeiros. In the end, they were betrayed and massacred by government forces, their heads cut off and displayed for over twenty years for all to see. With the death of Corisco in 1940, the epic of the cangaçeiros came to an end. Their deeds became legendary and were sung about in the markets of the distant and remote villages of the Sertão…