Esperidião

Esperidião was one of the capoeiristas of Santo Amaro da Purificação in the Recôncavo Baiano who taught Mestre Cobrinha Verde during the early twentieth century. His name appears in Cobrinha Verde's autobiographical testimony listing the mestres from whom he learned after the death of his primary teacher, Besouro Mangangá, in 1924.

In his autobiography, Cobrinha Verde stated: "I learned from many mestres in Santo Amaro. I will give their names one by one: Maitá (who even had a samba song named after him), Licurí, Joité, Dendê, Gasolina, Siri de Mangue, Doze Homens, Esperidião, Juvêncio Grosso, Espinho Remoso, Neco Canário Pardo."

Santo Amaro da Purificação, in Cobrinha Verde's own words, was "the birthplace of Bahian capoeira." Esperidião was part of the generation that made it so. He belonged to an era when capoeira was practiced informally in streets, docks, and festivals—before the establishment of formal academies. These proto-mestres passed down the art through lived experience rather than structured curriculum, training the next generation amid police persecution and the daily struggle of working-class life in the Recôncavo.

Nothing more is currently known about Esperidião—his full name, his profession, his life story have not survived in documented sources. He remains one of the shadowy figures of capoeira's oral history: known to have existed, known to have taught one of the great mestres of the twentieth century, but preserved only in the memory of those who came after.