With the rebellion repressed by Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, the resistance would only be maintained with the military support given by Cosme Bento and the more than 3,000 people he commanded.
Imprisoned for helping enslaved people rise up, he was executed in September 1842, hanged in front of Itapecuru public prison, now the Casa da Cultura Professor João Silveira.
The cause of the revolt, then, primarily was due to the imprisonment of vaqueiro Raimundo Gomes' brother, also known as Cara Preta, after an accusation made by the vice-mayor of Vila da Manga,[8] José Egito, a conservative.
He conceded himself the title of "Dom Cosme Bento das Chagas, Tutor e Imperador da Liberdade Bem-Te-Vi", establishing his headquarters at Lagoa Amarela, in the Comarca do Brejo, next to the Munim and Mearim rivers, in the Itapecuru valley.
[3] Cosme extended help and fraternity to all those who supported his fight against slavery and the suffering caused by it, at times seeking to enshrine his leadership through elements of populist Catholicism.
In November of that year, his reputation as a defender of freedom was already known among the populace, bringing with him thousands of enslaved people to the banks of the Itapecuru River, reorganizing the quilombo in Lagoa Amarela, on the grounds of Tocanguira plantation.
[11] To that end, he developed an internal hierarchy in the quilombo with the intent of empowering the population, as well as teaching them to read and write, which at that time was a privileged that was only reserved for the children of rich landowners in the provinces.
[13] Two years after the start of the revolt, between February and September 1840, with his power and military apparatus, colonel Luis Alves de Lima e Silva, the future Duke of Caxias, had practically defeated all the rebels led by Raimundo Gomes.
He was the first leader to establish an alliance between the free and enslaved rebels, so as to gather the support of the bem-te-vis, in the case that the Balaiada would succeed, and still secure freedom for his people.
[4] He was executed in September 1842, at the Praça do Mercado, in front of the public prison of Itapecuru, which today is the Casa da Cultura Professor João Silveira.
[17] One such example is the Center of Black Culture of Maranhão (CCN-MA), which has the text "traz o texto "The epic of the Balaios warriors, in the version of the oppressed", by Magno José Cruz, in cordel style.
The following is an excerpt:[16] Foi em mil e oitocentos / No ano de trinta e oito / Quando explodiu a Balaiada / Com muitos cabras afoitos / Pra agarrar a burguesada /E (ó) cortar-lhe o pescoço.
A Província naquela época / Tinha problemas sociais / Sofriam caboclos e negros / Com os preconceitos raciais / Fome, "pega", desemprego / Tudo consta nos anais.
Esses negros organizados / Chamados de quilombolas / Viram na Balaiada / Que era chegada a hora / Da liberdade sonhada /Renascer naquela aurora.
Cosme Bento das Chagas / Logo então se destacou / E lá de Lagoa Amarela / Três mil negros libertou / E com tal valentia cega /A Balaiada engrossou.
Ali Negro Cosme implantou / Uma conceituada escola / Para ensinar ler e escrever / À toda massa quilombola / Queria o líder dizer: / “Façamos nossa história”.
Na história que tem nos livros / Escritos pela burguesia / Cosme é o grande bandido / (Ora vejam, quem diria!)
/ E Luís, racista assumido / É o herói duque de Caxias.Like with the leaders and participants of the Búzios Revolt in Salvador in 1798, and other such insurgents, Cosme Bento had been hanged in public to make an example out of him to other enslaved Black people.
It is also worthwhile to mention that Negro Cosme was the founder of the first school of a democratic nature in Maranhão, where he took advantage of the moment to create topics about militancy among the quilombolas.