Capoeira developed as a result of more than three hundred years of slavery in Brazil. Enslaved Africans were taken by Portuguese colonists from various cultures in Africa. In Brazil, generations of enslaved African people shared the cultural customs, dances, rituals, and fighting techniques that would combine to become capoeira. Slaves used capoeira to fight to escape and resist capture, but concealed its combative purpose through music, song, and dance. Fueled by the burning desire for freedom. It soon became widely practiced on the plantations as a means of breaking the bonds of slavery, both physically and mentally. During this time, the art was considered a social infirmity and officially prohibited by the Brazilian Penal Code. Between 1500 and 1815, Brazil was a colony of the Portuguese Crown—an empire sustained by slave labor. The enslaved resisted in various forms: armed revolt, poisoning their owners, abortion and escape. The vastness of the Brazilian inlands made it possible for individuals on the run to hide. Some escaped and formed clandestine communities in the backlands of the rainforest, independent villages known as quilombos. Here, the Africans and their descendants developed an autonomous socio-cultural system in which they could sustain various expressions of African culture. The basic aesthetic elements of capoeira were brought to Brazil by enslaved people, primarily from west and west-central Africa. These elements were recombined and reinterpreted within the diverse enslaved community of Brazil to create a unique means of self defense, both driven and disguised—as merely a dance—by its musical accompaniment. Slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888, but capoeira continued to flourish within the Afro-Brazilian population, particularly in the northeastern state of Bahia. The government, however, recognizing the physical and spiritual potency of the art form and considering it a threat to society, continued to outlaw the practice until the early 20th century. Real hater sh*t right there.