[1][2] The event began in 1773, when the members of the Devotion of Our Lord of Bonfim, composed of lay devotees, forced the enslaved to wash and decorate the church as part of the preparations for the feast.

During the traditional washing, the doors of the church remain closed and the baianas pour scented water on the steps and in the churchyard to the sound of Afro-religious songs and chants (although the ritual now has an ecumenical aspect).

[1][2] Teodósio Rodrigues de Farias, an officer in the Portuguese Navy, brought from Lisbon an image of Christ which, in 1745, was taken with great fanfare to the Basilica Sanctuary of Our Lady of Penha, in Itapagipe, in the city of Salvador.

In July 1754, the image was transferred in procession to its own church on the Colina Sagrada, where the attribution of miraculous powers made Our Lord of Bonfim an object of popular devotion and a center of mystical and syncretic pilgrimage.

[3][4] On the Sunday after the washing, the devotees gather at the Church of Our Lady of the Seas for the procession of the Three Requests, which runs along the Largo de Roma towards Bonfim.