Vyssotsky
1) Canudos was not founded in 1893; when Antonio Conselheiro and his followers came to settle, there were already perhaps 500 people living there.
2) Conselheiro did not die early in the siege, but shortly before the end of the siege.
3) The government moved against Canudos not because it was causing "labor shortages", but because along with the pious majority of the population there were a number of violent backwoodsmen who were causing destruction locally and fear as far away as Juazeiro.
4) Whether the peak population of Canudos was 30,000 is not clear; people came and went, and there was never an enumeration.
5) There were very many survivors of the siege. The Brazilian army did indeed kill all the rebel fighters and many civilians, but large numbers of noncombatants escaped before the siege lines were closed, and the army accepted the surrender of many women and children toward the end of the siege. It is not clear how many fighters the rebels had; my own estimate is about 2000 from beginning to end, but not that many at any one time.
6) The rebels were able to resist as effectively as they did because when the 3rd (Moreira Cesar) expedition against them broke and fled, the rebels acquired many modern rifles, much ammunition, four Krupp artillery pieces and some ammunition for the artillery, that the retreating army forces abandoned.
7) The length of the Canudos campaign and the number of casualties on both sides was due to incompetence of various Brazilian army officers and some state and local officials.
With better leadership and organization, the town could have been taken and the rebellion suppressed by perhaps 500 to 1000 soldiers, with minimal casualties in the army and no more than perhaps 1000 casualties among the residents of Canudos. The situation was no more difficult than the Red River rebellions in Canada some years earlier, which the Canadian government suppressed with great efficiency and very few casualties.
2) Conselheiro did not die early in the siege, but shortly before the end of the siege.
3) The government moved against Canudos not because it was causing "labor shortages", but because along with the pious majority of the population there were a number of violent backwoodsmen who were causing destruction locally and fear as far away as Juazeiro.
4) Whether the peak population of Canudos was 30,000 is not clear; people came and went, and there was never an enumeration.
5) There were very many survivors of the siege. The Brazilian army did indeed kill all the rebel fighters and many civilians, but large numbers of noncombatants escaped before the siege lines were closed, and the army accepted the surrender of many women and children toward the end of the siege. It is not clear how many fighters the rebels had; my own estimate is about 2000 from beginning to end, but not that many at any one time.
6) The rebels were able to resist as effectively as they did because when the 3rd (Moreira Cesar) expedition against them broke and fled, the rebels acquired many modern rifles, much ammunition, four Krupp artillery pieces and some ammunition for the artillery, that the retreating army forces abandoned.
7) The length of the Canudos campaign and the number of casualties on both sides was due to incompetence of various Brazilian army officers and some state and local officials.
With better leadership and organization, the town could have been taken and the rebellion suppressed by perhaps 500 to 1000 soldiers, with minimal casualties in the army and no more than perhaps 1000 casualties among the residents of Canudos. The situation was no more difficult than the Red River rebellions in Canada some years earlier, which the Canadian government suppressed with great efficiency and very few casualties.