The Bandeirantes of Freedom

The Prestes Column and the Myth of Brazil's Interior

Bibliographic Data

ID2841010
AuthorsJacob Blanc (0000-0002-9095-9551, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume101
Issue1
Pages101-132
Publication date2021-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHispanic American Historical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2168 • E-ISSN: 1527-1900
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00182168-8796484
OpenAlexW3015073166
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited22

The Prestes Column rebellion is among the most mythologized events in modern Brazil: from 1924 to 1927, a group of junior army officers marched nearly 15,000 miles through Brazil's vast interior regions. This Homeric epic into the so-called backlands launched the careers of some of Brazil's most important figures, and for nearly a century it has attained a mythic status in folklore and political history. Seeking to both explain and intervene in this legend, I argue that the myth of the Prestes Column emerged from and remained tethered to the stigmatized image of the interior. As a corrective to the column's dominant narrative and intervening in scholarship on myths more generally, this article reimagines the interior as both a place and an idea. The enduring symbolism of the backlands shows that exclusion, rather than a byproduct of national mythologies, is the pillar on which the ideas of inclusionary myths are based

Art · Art history · Column (typography) · EPIC · Folklore · Legend · Literature · Mythology · Narrative · Pillar · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Engineering · History · Law · Philippine History and Culture

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