Mestre Baleado

Baleado was a Bahian angoleiro who was among the wave of capoeiristas who migrated from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro in the 1950s. His story is intertwined with the founding of one of Rio's most important early capoeira groups and the legendary Roda da Central.

By the time Onça Preta arrived in Rio in the late 1950s, Baleado was already established in the city, part of a small community of Bahian capoeiristas who had preceded the larger migration. On July 21, 1960, he joined forces with five other Bahian angoleiros - Mucungê, Dois de Ouro, Onça Preta, Imagem do Cão, and Roque - to co-found Grupo Filhos de Angola (Sons of Angola). This group became pioneers in teaching capoeira in Rio de Janeiro, particularly in the Southern Zone.

Baleado was a regular at the famous Roda da Central, a legendary street roda that took place during carnival in Rio de Janeiro from the 1950s until the construction of the Sambódromo in 1983. The roda formed spontaneously between the official samba parade route on Avenida Presidente Vargas and the Central do Brasil train station. It ran continuously for 24 hours over the three days and nights of carnival - described as "a roda more dangerous than any that ever existed in Rio de Janeiro", a gathering of bambas where the games were often hard and violent.

Mestre Roque recalled the names that populated this legendary roda: "Na Central? Era Inglês, Mucungê, Onça Preta, Baleado, Vavá Moleque, Reginaldo... Seu Menezes, Lamartine, Paraná..." Baleado's name appears among these giants of Rio capoeira history, his reputation having earned him a place on the banner of Roque's academy in São João de Meriti, alongside the other bambas of the era.

Like many of the Bahian migrants who brought capoeira angola to Rio, Baleado remains a figure whose life details are largely undocumented. His full name, birth and death dates, and specific training lineage have been lost to history. What survives is his connection to a transformative moment in capoeira history - when Bahian angoleiros established the roots of what would become contemporary capoeira in Rio de Janeiro.