So, have you ever heard of the 1994 film Quilombo directed by Carlos Diegues? It’s a fascinating movie that depicts historical events that took place in Brazil during the 17th century. In this blog post, we’re going to explore the real-life history behind the film, using sources from academic journals, books, and even Wikipedia!
So, let’s get started. The story centers around a massive Quilombo settlement called Palmares, which was located in Serra da Barriga, Alagoas, Brazil. This place was home to around 30,000 escaped slaves for over 90 years! Despite facing attacks from Portuguese and Dutch colonizers, Palmares remained resilient.
The Quilombos survived by living off the land and forming alliances with Indigenous peoples and criminal mulattoes. They carried out raids on the Paulista lands to obtain guns, ammunition, and other necessities. Historical and linguistic evidence suggests that Palmares was “a successful adaptation of several models of Central African statecraft to the Brazilian context.”
The most prominent leader of the Palmares was an African named Ganga Zumba. He was regarded as the first political leader of the community of the regions that surrounded Palmares. He was treated with all of the respect of a King and the honors of a God. Despite the cultural and ethnic differences, the Palmares found a way to organize themselves, and this posed a great threat to the Portuguese because of the population growth and the level of organization they achieved in a relatively short period of time.
The Portuguese were committed to eradicating the Quilombos and enforcing slavery by any means necessary. To achieve this goal, the Governor of Pernambuco, Joao do Cunha Sotto Mayor, aligned with the Paulistas to destroy and wipe out completely the Africans of the Palmares. They charged taxes on the seized spoils of war, captured Africans, and land. In addition, the governor promised rich payments for each African captured and brought back to their slave master.
Between 1672-1694, Palmares withstood on average one Portuguese expedition nearly every year. Two battles stand out as being crucial in the history of the region. The first battle was a really devastating attack by Captain Fernão Carrilho in 1676. Although Zumba won the battle, he was wounded, and Carrilho captured some of his children and grandchildren. Eventually, Ganga Zumba negotiated with the Portuguese colonial authorities to secure a treaty that would grant his community autonomy and freedom in exchange for peace. However, not all of Ganga Zumba’s followers agreed with the treaty. Some believed that it was a trap by the Portuguese to re-enslave them, and they preferred to continue fighting for their freedom.
The treaty demanded that weapons be surrendered in exchange for the distribution of lands and freedom to the quilombolas. The agreement limited trade between the black men from quilombos with nearby villages. Another clause in the treaty stipulated that freedom be granted solely to black men who were born in Palmares and demanded that any outsiders be returned to captivity. However, the treaty was broken, and by 1676, the Portuguese were again battling the Quilombos, this time under the leadership of the infamous Portuguese military commanders Domingos Jorge Velho and Bernardo Vieira de Melo.
In the end, Palmares was destroyed, but its legacy lives on. It’s important to understand the power and presence of Palmares and the threat it imposed on colonial conquest. The story of Palmares shows us that an African political system could be transferred to a different context and that it could endure for almost a full century against
