The Afro origins of Montevidean tango (Uruguay) First part 1790-1830

The word "tango" was used since the beginning of the 19th century in Montevideo to designate the dances of blacks that were performed both inside the walled city and outside the walls.

They were dances with a ceremonial and religious content that replicated African ritual traditions.
These dances continued to change their form, their rhythms and adding melodies incorporated from Creole society, giving rise to dances of linked couples. These dances that were also called candombes lost their religious character, they incorporated the rhythm of the habanera,
which, to a large extent, had also had Afro-Cuban origin, syncretizing it in a new type of dance that continued to be called tango and spread first to Buenos Aires, and then to the rest of the world. In this video we present the first part of that musical, cultural and dance evolution. In a second part we will address the continuation of this process.
Starting in 1778, the Spanish crown enabled the port of Montevideo for free trade with other ports (not only Spanish on the peninsula, but also with other colonial ports or neutral third countries). It seems logical to think, and there are several documents from the time that tend to confirm it, that from this moment on the entry of African slaves must have multiplied rapidly.
To speed up the process, the Spanish government in a Royal Decree of 1791 decided to especially favor "ships of any flag that introduced slavery in the colonies" (Isidoro de María, op.cit.), which further accelerated said entry. In the three years following 1791, 2,689 slaves were introduced through the port of Montevideo alone.
The Africans who arrived in Montevideo came from various regions of Africa, but based on the references collected, it would seem that they came mainly from the Portuguese colonies: Congos, Bengueles, Luandas, Melombos, Obertoches, Mozambiques, and Cabindas.
The black population of Montevideo at the beginning of the 19th century (including the population outside the walls), exceeded 50% of the population. Most authors tend to underestimate the demographic weight of the black population, which seems to be the result of an attempt (unconscious?) to whiten the history of Montevideo at the time. However, Isidoro de María notes that the mass of Montevideo slaves... "because of the rigor of the masters, or encouraged by the large number that they formed, they began (sic) to rebel, fleeing a part of them to the countryside and even committing some attacks..."
In their book "Artigas, Tierra y Revolución", L. Sala, de la Torre and J. Rodríguez (1974)[1] point out that "according to the Cabildo, blacks formed the majority of the population of Montevideo...they showed enormous rebellion ..." which led a group of them to flee "towards the mountains of the Negro River, to form a republic of free men, a movement that was cruelly repressed".
De María tries to minimize the rebellion of the Montevideo slaves of 1803, which gave rise to apparently quite bloody battles in which the mutineers were reduced and some executed on a gallows that the town hall had erected in the square. It is highly likely that a certain number of rebels ended up taking refuge among the Charrúa and Minuane tolderías and in the gaucho bands of the eastern pampas[2].

In 1807, the dances of blacks are mentioned in a public document of the Cabildo of November 26, 1807, which reads as follows: ""About the Tambos dances of blacks" ... "What about the fact that the dances of blacks are for all reasons harmful, be absolutely prohibited inside and outside the city, and impose a month's punishment on public works"[3]. The following year, in 1808, the residents raised a petition to the City Council to demand greater in the repression of "black tangos" because they cause damage "to the masters because for that reason the servants relax completely, failing to fulfill their obligations, commit various disorders and robberies of the masters themselves to pay for the house where they do the dances and if they are not allowed to go to that harmful entertainment they live uncomfortably, they do not serve willingly and they then ask for bills of sale" (L. Ayestarán, op. cited, p.161). In 1809 the word " tango" applied to b aile de los negroes in a council police regulation (P.Blanco Acevedo, op.cit. p.224).
The blacks of Montevideo celebrated the siege of Montevideo by the artiguista forces as Francisco Acuña de Figueroa points out in 1813: "As long as you looked; the house of the blacks that shone; with bonfires and lights, and you heard; there in their camps; of martial music the harmony; and the rumor of their shouts of joy; notorious demonstration; of the happy news of a victory"[4].
A few years later, in 1816, a proclamation from the Cabildo established: "Bailes known by the name of Tangos are prohibited within the City, and they are only allowed outside the walls on the afternoons of holidays, until sunset; in which, nor on any other day may Blacks carry weapons, sticks or batons, under penalty of suffering eight days in prison cleaning the citadel"[5].
An important part of the black population of the eastern band joined the artiguista army. According to Bartolomé Laguardia's report to the Paraguayan Governing Board (Archivo Artigas, Volume VII), describing the artiguista army, he states: "the army is made up of 4,000 men armed with rifles...and even the division of Pardos that has been added and It consists of 300 places and 200 that have been set up for this same destination"[6].
During the eastern control of Montevideo, the city's slaves were enrolled in the artiguista army by order of Fernando Otorgués and although some later returned to the city during the Portuguese occupation, many ended up joining the artiguista army in the north.
In the last years of the artiguista decade (1811-1820), the patriot army was made up of a considerable body of several hundred (perhaps more than a thousand) blacks and browns who, when the time came for defeat, accompanied the leader to Paraguay and they ended up camped at a site near Asunción called "Loma Campamento" (Loma Camp). The descendants of this group of artists remain in that place to this day.
It should be noted that the dances of the blacks that are mentioned in almost all the documents of the time (generally receiving the name of "tangos" until 1830 and from then on "candombes") were much more than simple dances. Through later references we know that "the black dances" were religious ceremonies as Marcelino Bottaro, an Afro-Uruguayan writer from Montevideo, describes them in a work published by Nancy Cunard in London: "The representation of their rites, more commonly called Ceremonies, is very simple and far from all supernaturalism.The rites can be reduced to... invocations, prayers, supplications, offered in perfect good faith to the primitive gods and sometimes mixed with slow war songs, recalling the life of the tribes These songs and prayers were always accompanied by contortions and cries of admiration or surprise...". There were many groups such as the Magises[7], the Congos, etc..."all the meetings observed the same rituals in their ceremonies, that is, songs, dances, etc, with the obligatory beating of drums"
I have already described this topic in my book Uruguaypirí and for a rigorous update I recommend the research of the musicologist Professor Gustavo Goldman