Honoring Dona Dalva Damiana de Freitas: A Member of the Sisterhood of Our Lady of the Good Death and Titan of Samba de Roda
Photo of Dona Dalva Damiana de Freitas by Sedrick Miles. Photo taken at Dona Dalva’s Samba de Roda in Cachoeira, Bahia, Brazil. July 2026.
By Jaimee A. Swift
As a part of “On Sisterhood and Sobreviver”, our latest archival project honoring Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte (Sisterhood of Our Lady of the Good Death), a Bahia, Brazil-based confraternity led by Black women that has existed for over 200 years, we celebrate the life and leadership of Dalva Damiana de Freitas, a member of the Sisterhood and a titan of samba de roda.
At 99-years old, Dalva Damiana de Freitas––more popularly known as Dona Dalva––is a testament to the power of sobreviver (survival in Brazilian Portuguese), sisterhood, strength, and solidarity. An activist, singer, composer, samba dancer, and member of the Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte (Sisterhood of Our Lady of the Good Death)––an early 19th century secret abolitionist confraternity led by elderly African women who freed themselves and others from slavery founded in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil and based in Cachoeira, Bahia, Brazil––Dona Dalva has dedicated her life to the racial, cultural, spiritual, and political uplift of her community. Moreover, Dona Dalva is the Provedora (Leader) of the 2026 Festa da Boa Morte (Festival of the Good Death), which has been observed annually in August in Cachoeira by the Sisterhood of Our Lady of the Good Death for over 200 years.
Dona Dalva was born on September 27, 1927 in Cachoeira, Brazil to Antônio José de Freitas, a factory worker, and Maria São Pedro de Freitas, a shoemaker. However, Dona Dalva was primarily raised by her grandmother, Vicência Ribeiro da Costa, who was also a member of the Sisterhood of Our Lady of the Good Death. At the age of 14, Dona Dalva began working as a cigar maker at the Suerdieck cigar factory, which was established in Maragogipe, a municipality near Cachoeira, at the end of the 19th century.
Working at the cigar factory for decades, it was there Dona Dalva and her colleagues founded Samba de Roda Suerdieck in 1958. The name derives from the samba circle Dona Dalva and her colleagues would make in the back of the cigar factory after they finished work. Today, the samba circle is affectionately known as Samba de Roda de Dona Dalva and has a physical location in Cachoeira. Pioneering in scope, Dona Dalva’s Samba de Roda is one of the most revered and respected samba groups in Cachoeira, and in 2004, it was named by Brazil’s National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage (Iphan) as “an oral and intangible heritage of humanity”.
Holding an honorary doctorate from the Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia (UFRB), Dona Dalva’s exemplary leadership of her samba group and as a steward of the Afro-Brazilian tradition of Candomblé is recognized all over the world. In 2017, activist and scholar Angela Davis visited Dona Dalva’s Samba de Roda and spent time with other members of the Sisterhood of Our Lady of the Good Death in Cachoeira.
In July 2026, Black Women Radicals traveled to Dona Dalva’s Samba de Roda in Cachoeira, Brazil to interview Dona Dalva about the radical legacy of the Sisterhood of Our Lady of the Good Death and her Samba de Roda, and to interview her daughter, Ana Olga Freitas, and her granddaughter, Any Manuela Freitas, about what Dona Dalva has taught them about love, survival, and care.
Credits & Acknowledgments
Director and Executive Producer: Jaimee A. Swift, Founder & Executive Director, Black Women Radicals.
Videographer: Sedrick Miles, Founder & Executive Director, Atlantic Archives.
Photos: Jaimee A. Swift and Sedrick Miles.
Translator (in Cachoeira, Brazil): Janete Magno.
Translator (Video subtitles): Évelin da Luz Rodrigues.
Special thank you to the Sisterhood of Our Lady of the Good Death, especially Dalva Damiana de Freitas, Antônia Pereira, Ana Maria da Conceição, Jordânia Freitas, Neci Leite, Cleuza Maria Santana Santos, Adeilde Ferreira, Nilza Prado, and Nice Espíndola. Thank you to Mayor Eliana Gonzaga de Jesus––the first Black woman mayor of Cachoeira––for welcoming us. Special thank you to Dona Alzira Costa Silva, Kami Jones, Any Manuela Freitas, Ana Olga Freitas, Antônio Leonardo Marques, Valmir Pereira dos Santos, and Antonio Moraes Ribeiro, for your guidance, care, and facilitation.
Photos
Photo of Dona Dalva Damiana de Freitas by Jaimee A. Swift. Photo taken at Dona Dalva’s Samba de Roda in Cachoeira, Bahia, Brazil. July 2026.
Photo of Dona Dalva Damiana de Freitas by Jaimee A. Swift. Photo taken at Dona Dalva’s Samba de Roda in Cachoeira, Bahia, Brazil. July 2026.
Photo: Ana Olga Freitas (left) and Any Manuela Freitas (right), the daughter and granddaughter of Dona Dalva Damiana de Freitas (middle). Photograph by Sedrick Miles.
Photo: Ana Olga Freitas (left) and Any Manuela Freitas (right), the daughter and granddaughter of Dona Dalva Damiana de Freitas (middle). Photograph by Jaimee A. Swift.