Gillo Pontecorvo’s movie Queimada(Burn!), set in the fictions island of Queimada, which is located in the lesser Antilles and is under the control of Portugal, is about the black slave populations struggle for freedom in the face of foreign control over their land.
The main character is Sir William Walker, who is sent by the British crown to the island to instigate an insurrection of the peasants and slaves against the Portuguese and establish a government friendly to british interests. He decides to arm the peasant Jose Dolores, whom he helps in robbing the Bank of Portugal and leading the insurgents to victory over the Portuguese. Dolores is caught by surprise when Teddy Sanchez, a local bourgouise is inserted as new leader of Queimada. For …show more content…
Pontecorvo does a great job of portraying the intricate politics and different interests vested in colonies around the world in the 18th and early 19th century. Slave revolts were a very real fear at the time and the idea of one nation inspiring a revolt in another nations colony to assume control was not to distant. The movie shows a striking similarity between Queimada and St. Domingue. The two islands resemble each other in many ways. For one the main industrial focus of St. Domingue and Queimada was sugar, which was fueled by slave labor and peasants with little to no rights. On both islands the power lay not in the hands of the locals but in the hands of wealthy foreigners. The slave population clearly outnumbers the bourgeoise in the movie, and it is a known fact that the slaves outnumbered all others in St. Domingue by at least 10:1. There is a continuous struggle between and against these outside influences: Both Great Britain and Portugal are interested in the resources Queimada offers and indirectly fight for control through the first revolution, and later on the people of Queimada themselves rise up to expel these foreign powers. St. Domingue’s struggles to overcome the mixed interests of Spain,France and Great Britain. Furthermore in both cases a slave revolt was violently put down and there was fear that the revolutionist spark would spread from the island to other areas. Jose Dolores himself can be compared with Toussainte Louverture, the famed leader of the Haitian Revolution: Louverture, who had been a slave himself until he was freed at the age of 33 later rose to lead the slave population of St. Domingue to revolt, fighting first for Spain, then for France and later for St. Domingue itself against the French empire. Dolores is selected by Walker to lead the revolution in Queimada and fights first for the interests of the British empire, expelling the Portuguese. Later however he has
The main character is Sir William Walker, who is sent by the British crown to the island to instigate an insurrection of the peasants and slaves against the Portuguese and establish a government friendly to british interests. He decides to arm the peasant Jose Dolores, whom he helps in robbing the Bank of Portugal and leading the insurgents to victory over the Portuguese. Dolores is caught by surprise when Teddy Sanchez, a local bourgouise is inserted as new leader of Queimada. For …show more content…
Pontecorvo does a great job of portraying the intricate politics and different interests vested in colonies around the world in the 18th and early 19th century. Slave revolts were a very real fear at the time and the idea of one nation inspiring a revolt in another nations colony to assume control was not to distant. The movie shows a striking similarity between Queimada and St. Domingue. The two islands resemble each other in many ways. For one the main industrial focus of St. Domingue and Queimada was sugar, which was fueled by slave labor and peasants with little to no rights. On both islands the power lay not in the hands of the locals but in the hands of wealthy foreigners. The slave population clearly outnumbers the bourgeoise in the movie, and it is a known fact that the slaves outnumbered all others in St. Domingue by at least 10:1. There is a continuous struggle between and against these outside influences: Both Great Britain and Portugal are interested in the resources Queimada offers and indirectly fight for control through the first revolution, and later on the people of Queimada themselves rise up to expel these foreign powers. St. Domingue’s struggles to overcome the mixed interests of Spain,France and Great Britain. Furthermore in both cases a slave revolt was violently put down and there was fear that the revolutionist spark would spread from the island to other areas. Jose Dolores himself can be compared with Toussainte Louverture, the famed leader of the Haitian Revolution: Louverture, who had been a slave himself until he was freed at the age of 33 later rose to lead the slave population of St. Domingue to revolt, fighting first for Spain, then for France and later for St. Domingue itself against the French empire. Dolores is selected by Walker to lead the revolution in Queimada and fights first for the interests of the British empire, expelling the Portuguese. Later however he has