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Today we are going to present a genre of text little known outside Brazil: Cordel. Cordéis are small leaflets containing popular poems, they are displayed for sale hanging from ropes or strings, being written with rhymes and some containing woodcut illustrations. I came to present a Cordel about the Peasant Leagues, a movement active between 1940 and the mid-1980s. The text talks about João Pedro Teixeira, one of the Leagues' activists who was shot to death by landowner gunmen. The following text is called "The story of João Pedro Teixeira, his wife Elisabete and the Sapé-PB Peasant League" and was written by Francisco Diniz.
I will tell a story
That occurred in the Northeast,
In the lands of Paraíba
That's where it happened
The struggle of a poor people
And of a leader who died.
In the year 59, (1959)
In the city of Sapé,
On the soil of Paraíba,
Land of people of faith,
A Peasant League emerged,
Pay attention if you can:
It was João Pedro Teixeira
The creator,
Who dreamed of a world
Where love reigns
With abundance and justice
For the worker.
Registered at a notary's office,
Civil society
And Private Law
Because here in Brazil
A rural union,
At the time it didn't work...
To take care of interests
Of all workers
That's why it was founded
The Farmers Association
And Agricultural Workers
Who welcomed the suffering.
01
But this association
She was really known
As Peasant League
That gave hope to life,
Only legal means
Of those suffering people.
The emergence of that
Strong Peasant League,
As well as any other,
It was certainly due to
There are 4 reasons
Which makes me sad when I remember.
First: the increase in forum,
The annual rent,
Given to landowners,
Because it is disproportionate,
The loss was unfair
From the rural worker;
Mandatory work
And also without payment
It was the 2nd reason
To cause the gathering
From the people around the League
At that given moment;
The humiliating eviction
And without compensation
For all the benefits
And all over the plantation
It was the 3rd reason
Uniting the population;
02
The fourth and final reason:
The use of violence
From landowners
That they used vehemently
Jagunços and even the police
Who never had mercy
And much less prudence,
They acted cowardly
Against the workers
They simply wanted
Respect for your rights
To stop being needy.
To face this oppression
João Pedro Teixeira
Sowed unity
Of all the foreign people
From the Sapé region,
But always in an orderly way.
Thus, the aforementioned League
In the Northeast it was the largest,
Around 7 thousand members,
No one felt alone
And as an organization
It can not be better.
This for the latifundium
It bothered me too much,
Who used violence
Explicit and persistent
Robbing the worker
Your life or your peace.
03
Never João Pedro Teixeira
Came to be intimidated,
Faced the threats,
Never let yourself go
Who wanted to buy it
So he can shut up.
He didn't shut up, quite the opposite,
The peasant defended;
He fought for justice
I did what I could:
Order that the latiundium
Pay what he owed.
He also preached
The expropriation
From the lands, so that the humble
Get out of submission
What was that life
Almost slavery.
The power reacted quickly
Without pity and without mercy,
He had João Pedro killed,
Great bad action,
Exterminating a man
Who only spoke of kindness.
*Paraíba:Brazilian state located in the northeast region. This was the place where Joao Pedro Teixeira was born and lived
*Sapé:City in Paraíba, close to the capital João Pessoa
If you want to read the rest of the text, click here!
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