The remains were taken to the US during a slave revolt and held in a Harvard museum after racist studiesIn January 1835, wearing religious robes and carrying amulets inscribed with prayers and passages from the Qur’an, hundreds of African Muslims staged the most significant urban slave revolt in the more than 350 years of slavery in Brazil.About 600 Malês – as Muslims of Yoruba origin were known – attempted to seize control of Salvador, the capital of the Bahia state and then the country’s second most important city, but were ultimately defeated by the police, who killed 70 rebels. Continue reading...
Brazil is seeking the repatriation of a skull, believed to be from a leader of the 1835 Malê revolt (a Muslim slave uprising), from Harvard University's Peabody Museum. The skull was taken to the US after the revolt and used in eugenics studies. Harvard has admitted the remains were used for racist purposes and recommended repatriation, but has allegedly delayed negotiations. The Brazilian government has joined the effort to reclaim the skull, alongside the skull of another unknown individual exhumed from Rio de Janeiro.