How Did Candombe Become a National Cultural Form?

It was during the second half of the nineteenth century that changes came to this cultural form as well as to the Montevidean carnival that had long been celebrated. Due to the heavy European immigration to Uruguay and a heavy influx of tourists (mainly from Argentina), pressure for a more civilized carnival arose. Many regulations were incorporated, such as a ban on water throwing during the parades, to make the carnival more civil (McCleary 2013, 110). Part of the modernization process of the carnival became the incorporation of “African-based music, song, and dance as central and ever more popular elements of the annual festivities” since African cultural practices were in the center of carnival festivities (Andrews 50). This led to a major change of the old Candombe of the African nations. What was considered an African cultural form before, now came to be considered a popular cultural form. The first step in improving the carnival and the music was to improve the comparsas (the groups performing in the carnival). During the second half of the nineteenth century the number of comparsas had quadrupled including comparsas de negros (black comparsas), who became quite popular (51). Different to the former family groups, these more professional comparsas were led by certain rules and a director ordering them around and adjusting to the new modernized carnival (Alfaro 1998, 63 ff.). It was during this time that the celebrations at the salas de nación declined. This could have been for various reasons. Since the mid-nineteenth century Montevideo had expanded its city limits including the area where the African nations had built their headquarters in the past. This area now became known as Barrio Sur. Between 1870 and 1890 a transition began that led to the demise of the African nations that partly had to do with the death of the last generation of people born in Africa (Chirimini 264). Additionally, the city began to be flooded by European immigrants and the city needed living space for the growing number of inhabitants, most of whom were lower-class. It can be assumed that this led to the construction of the ‘conventillos’ (large tenement buildings) leading to what we could call a segregation of classes since solely people of lower-class lived there. The first one was the conventillo Medio Mundo situated in Barrio Sur. Most descendants of African slaves that had lived in the neighborhood before, now lived in the conventillos, creating cultural spaces for their traditions, their music and dances there (Andrews 62).