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A quilombo (; from the Kimbundu word kilombo, ) is a Brazilian hinterland town founded by people of Afro-Brazilians, and others sometimes called Carabali. Most of the inhabitants of quilombos, called quilombolas, were maroons, a term for escaped slaves.
Documentation about refugee slave communities typically uses the term mocambo for settlements, which is an Ambundu word meaning "war camp". A mocambo is typically much smaller than a quilombo. Quilombo was not used until the 1670s, primarily in the more southerly parts of Brazil.Stuart Schwartz, The Mocambo: Slave Resistance in Colonial Bahia, in "Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas", ed. by Richard Price (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 205.
In the Spanish language countries of Latin America, such villages or camps were called palenques. Its inhabitants are palenqueros. They spoke various Spanish language-African-based such as Palenquero.
Quilombos are classified as one of the three basic forms of active resistance by enslaved Africans. They also regularly attempted to seize power and conducted armed insurrections at plantations to gain amelioration of conditions. Typically, quilombos were a "pre–19th century phenomenon". In the first half of the 19th century in Brazil, enslaved people typically took armed action as part of their resistance. The colony was undergoing both political transition, as it fought for independence from Portugal, and new tensions associated with an increased slave trade, which brought in many more native-born Africans who resisted slavery.
It is widely believed that the term quilombo establishes a link between settlements and the culture of West Central Africa from where the majority of slaves were forcibly brought to Brazil. During the era of slave trafficking, natives in present-day central Angola, called Imbangala, had created an institution called a kilombo that united various tribes of diverse lineage into a community designed for military resistance.
During the sugar boom period (1570–1670), the sugar plantations in Brazil presented hellish conditions, including the personal brutality of enslavers and the whip-wielding overseers in their employ. Physical torture was common for minor infractions. There was high physical exertion on workers, especially during harvest season. In addition, enslaved people were held to nearly-impossible daily production quotas while having to contend with lack of rest and food. Economically, in sugar plantations, it was cheaper for owners of enslaved Africans to work them to death and get new replacement slaves. Conditions were so bad that even the Crown intervened on at least two occasions, forcing plantation owners to provide the people they enslaved with sufficient food.
Settlements were formed by enslaved Africans who escaped from plantations. Some enslavers, such as Friedrich von Weech, regarded the first escape attempt as a part of the "breaking in" process for new slaves. The first escape attempt would be punished severely as a deterrent for future escapes. Enslaved people who tried to escape a second time would be sent to slave prisons, and those who tried a third time would be sold. In general, slaves who were caught running away were also required to wear an iron collar around their necks at all times, in addition to the punishment they received.
Not all those who escaped slavery formed settlements in Brazil. Escaping from a life of slavery was a matter of opportunity. Settlements were formed in areas with dense populations of formerly enslaved people, like Pernambuco, where the biggest collection of mocambos formed the quilombo that became Palmares. While many quilombos were formed in rural areas such as Palmares, some were formed inside of cities, such as the Quilombo do Leblon inside of Rio de Janeiro. Some, among them Mahommah G. Baquaqua, escaped to New York because his multiple attempts at escape and suicide led to him being sold to a ship's captain.
Many quilombos were near Portuguese plantations and settlements. To keep their freedom, they were active both in defending against capitães do mato and being commissioned to recapture other runaway slaves. At the same time, they facilitated the escape of even more enslaved persons. For this reason, they were targets of the Dutch people, then Portuguese colonial authorities and, later, of the Brazilian state and enslavers.
People of the quilombos would form a working government, and the community did not just consist of Africans but also of Native South Americans and even whites who were fleeing society or the law.
Despite the atmosphere of cooperation between some quilombos and the surrounding Portuguese settlements, they were almost always eventually destroyed. Seven of ten major quilombos in colonial Brazil were terminated within two years of formation. Some mocambos that were farther from Portuguese settlements and the later Brazilian cities were tolerated and still exist as today, with their dwellers speaking Portuguese creole languages.
One quilombo, in Minas Gerais, lasted from 1712 to 1719. Another, the "Carlota" of Mato Grosso, was wiped out after existing for 25 years, from 1770 to 1795.RK Kent, Palmares: An African State in Brazil, in "Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas", ed. by Richard Price (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 172.
There were also a number of smaller quilombos or mocambos. The first reported quilombo was in 1575 in Bahia. Another quilombo in Bahia was reported at the start of the seventeenth century. Between 1737 and 1787, a small quilombo thrived in the vicinity of Sao Paulo.Roger Bastide, The Other Quilombos, in "Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas", ed. by Richard Price (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 191–2.
There were also reports of mocambos in 1591 in Jaguaripe, in 1629 in Rio Vermelho, in 1636 in Itapicuru, in 1640 in Rio Real, in 1663 in Cairu, in 1723 in Camamu, in 1741 in Santo Amaro, in 1763 in Itapao, and 1797 in Cachoeira. All of these mocambos were in the Bahia region.Stuart Schwartz, The Mocambo: Slave Resistance in Colonial Bahia, in "Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas", ed. by Richard Price (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 209–210. The Buraco de Tatu mocambo thrived for 20 years between 1743 and 1763. It was located between Salvador and Itapoa until it was eventually destroyed by a force led by Joaquim da Costa Cardozo.Stuart Schwartz, The Mocambo: Slave Resistance in Colonial Bahia, in "Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas", ed. by Richard Price (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 218–222.
The region of Campo Grande and São Francisco was often populated with quilombos. In 1741, Jean Ferreira organised an expedition against a quilombo, but many runaways escaped capture. In 1746, a subsequent expedition captured 120 members of the quilombo. In 1752, an expedition led by Pere Marcos was attacked by quilimbo fighters, resulting in significant loss of life.Roger Bastide, The Other Quilombos, in "Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas", ed. by Richard Price (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 193.
Quilombos continued to form in the 19th century. In 1810, a quilombo was discovered at Linhares in Sao Paulo. A decade later, another was found in Minas. In 1828, another quilombo was discovered at Cahuca, near Recife, and a year later, an expedition was mounted against another at Corcovado, near Rio. In 1855, the Maravilha quilombo in Amazonia was destroyed.Roger Bastide, The Other Quilombos, in "Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas", ed. by Richard Price (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 195.
Part of the reason for the massive size of the quilombo at Palmares was because of its location in Brazil, at the median point between the Atlantic Ocean and Guinea, an important area of the African slave trade . Quilombo dos Palmares was an autonomous community of escaped enslaved people from the Portuguese settlements in Brazil, "a region perhaps the size of Portugal in the hinterland of Bahia".Braudel, Fernand, The Perspective of the World, vol. III of Civilization and Capitalism, 1984, p. 390.
In 1612, the Portuguese tried in vain to take Palmares in an expedition that proved to be very costly.RK Kent, Palmares: An African State in Brazil, in "Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas", ed. by Richard Price (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 175. Palmares thrived in the years of peace that followed the 1640s.RK Kent, Palmares: An African State in Brazil, in "Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas", ed. by Richard Price (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 180. In 1640, a Dutch scouting mission found that the self-freed community of Palmares was spread over two settlements, with about 6,000 living in one location, and another 5,000 in another. Dutch expeditions against Palmares in the 1640s were similarly unsuccessful.RK Kent, Palmares: An African State in Brazil, in "Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas", ed. by Richard Price (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 177–9.
At its height, Palmares had a population of over 30,000. In the 1670s, when the Portuguese tried to take control of half of Palmares, it was estimated that the palmarista population of that half was between 15,000 and 20,000.RK Kent, Palmares: An African State in Brazil, in "Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas", ed. by Richard Price (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 185. Between 1672 and 1694, Palmares withstood, on average, one Portuguese expedition nearly every year.RK Kent, Palmares: An African State in Brazil, in "Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas", ed. by Richard Price (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 172.
Ganga Zumba and Zumbi are the two best-known warrior-leaders of Palmares which, after a history of conflict with first Dutch Brazil and then Colonial Brazil colonialism authorities, finally fell to a Portuguese artillery assault in 1694.RK Kent, Palmares: An African State in Brazil, in "Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas", ed. by Richard Price (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 186–7.
Forced to defend against repeated attacks by Portuguese colonists, the warriors of Palmares were experts in capoeira, a dance and martial art form. Portuguese soldiers sometimes stated it took more than one dragoon to capture a quilombo warrior since they would defend themselves with a strangely moving fighting technique (capoeira). The governor from that province declared that "it is harder to defeat a quilombo than the Dutch invaders".
In Brazil, both men are now honored as heroes and symbols of black pride, freedom, and democracy. As his birthday is unknown, Zumbi's execution date, November 20, is observed as Dia da Consciência Negra or "Black Awareness Day" in the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, and his image has appeared on postage stamps, banknotes, and coins.
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