Black Combat Arts Institute.
EPISTEMOLOGY · METHOD
The Three Biggest Capoeira Groups Were Founded by White Men
6 MIN READ
Senzala, Abadá-Capoeira and Capoeira Brasil — the three largest groups in the world — were founded in Rio by white men. What follows from that? Less than a dichotomy assumes.
WHY THIS ARTICLE
A dichotomous reading would make white founders the erasers of African culture. Following Vassallo, the thesis warns against exactly this reductive, colour-prejudiced analysis.
An uncomfortable fact
The three largest capoeira groups in the world — Senzala, Abadá-Capoeira and Capoeira Brasil — were founded in Rio de Janeiro by white men. Should one conclude, from their pigmentation, that these propagators of capoeira across the globe are racists working to erase African culture from its ranks? Their actions and their discourse suppose the contrary.
A warning against a lazy grid
Simone Pondé Vassallo, in her 2001 thesis, warned researchers against this dichotomous and reductive kind of analysis. Alongside the absence of any return to primary sources through an open questioning, and the presence of a colour-prejudice against actors identified as white, it also rests on a duality between Rio and Salvador that does more to comfort a thesis than to test it.
Why it matters
The colour of a founder is not an argument. To read the field through a Black/White dichotomy, without primary sources and open questions, is to substitute a moral reflex for history.
SOURCES
La capoeira et les arts de combat noirs : histoire effacée, techniques invisibles (1905–1984), thèse de doctorat, Université des Antilles, 2020 (Part I/III, following S. P. Vassallo, Ethnicité, tradition et pouvoir : le jeu de la capoeira à Rio de Janeiro et à Paris, 2001).
IN THE CORPUS
→ The Genetics That Undid the Purity of Origins
→ The Prohibition That Wasn't
HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE
MALO, Olivier. The Three Biggest Capoeira Groups Were Founded by White Men. In: Black Combat Arts Institute — Articles [online]. No. 59. 2026 [accessed date]. Available from: https://www.blackcombatarts.com/articles/the-three-biggest-capoeira-groups-were-founded-by-white-men. Adapted from the author's doctoral thesis, Université des Antilles, 2020.