In Blacks of the Rosary Elizabeth Kiddy makes a most welcome addition to the history of the African Diaspora in the New World. She skillfully connects the lives, ceremonies, and celebrations of Afro-Brazilians in colonial Minas Gerais to those of their modern urban descendants in the still racially identified communities of present-day Belo Horizonte. She carefully traces the evolution and development of the brotherhoods and congados from their origins to the present and illuminates a fascinating process of negotiation and adaptation through which Afro-Brazilians sought to establish and define their own community identities.”
—Kathleen J. Higgins,California State University, Sacramento
“This well-researched, thoroughly grounded study on the black Rosary brotherhoods of Minas Gerais is a pleasure to read. . . . Few of the many recent works on black Brazil working within the established historiography have explored such an original theme. . . . Overall this is a welcome read, with excellent maps, out of fashion but convenient footnotes, and a readable font.”
—J. Rosenthal Choice
“This fresh and insightful endeavor is of interest to confraternity scholars first and foremost because of its focus on sodalities for non-whites—something that, to my knowledge, is very scarce in scholarship in this field.”
—Vanessa McCarthy Confraternitas
“While her analysis of the twentieth century is less detailed, she raises critical questions for scholars studying the Afro-Brazilian community during these important decades. In general, Blacks of the Rosary is an important book for scholars working on the African Diaspora, the history of Afro-Brazilians, and religious practices.”
—Angela Vergara Canadian Journal of History
“This is an important story, and Kiddy does a fine job of presenting it to an English readership. The range of the book—from early eighteenth century to the present—provides an evolving lens through which the nature of the traditions and the communities that practiced them unfold. Given the importance of lay religious cultural contribution of Central Africans in the Americas, this book is highly recommended to students and scholars of Latin American history.”
—Alida C. Metcalf The Americas
“A challenging and rewarding read, the book offers scholars a valuable resource for the understanding of the development of social and religious organization of ‘blacks’ in the African Diaspora.”
—Carole Myscofski American Historical Review
