Portrait of José Martins (Mandingueiros)

José Martins, Mateus Pereira Machado, Luiz Pereira Almeida and João da Silva were free and freed men persecuted due to religious intolerance. They lived in a gold mining region in Jacobina, in hinterland Bahia. The major charges against them were that they carried talismans and “mandinga (charm) bags.” They believed these instruments gave them luck, protection and wealth, in addition to curing harms and diseases afflicting the soul and the body. Many of the so-called mandingueiros ended up being arrested, flogged in public squares and incarcerated in the prisons of the Inquisition of Bahia.