Brazil Palmares, Where Slaves Ruled

Quilombo dos Palmares – "liberté, égalité, fraternité", in the backlands of Brazil

The Black Consciousness Day is celebrated in Brazil on November 20th. The date was chosen to remember the death of “Zumbi dos Palmares”, one of the main black leaders of the country’s history. His moniker makes reference to Quilombo dos Palmares, the largest area of slave resistance, a refuge of the Maroons (mostly from Bahia and Pernambuco sugarcane farms and mills) that lasted for almost a century (1597 to 1694) in the colonial Brazil. Palmares was located in the captaincy of Pernambuco, in what is today the state of Alagoas. Its headquarters was called “Macaco” and was built inside a fortification located in the Serra da Barriga Hill. Apart from the long lifespan, another characteristic that sets Palmares apart from other quilombos, is that Palmares was home to not only escaped enslaved Africans, but also to mulatos (Brazilian born blacks), caboclos (mix of Indians and whites), Indians and renegade whites, especially Marranos trying to escape religious persecution.

Lots have been written about Palmares to date. Yet reports from its own people, who might had come in contact directly or indirectly with Zumbi or any of Maroons is practically nonexistent. Historians had to painstakingly rely on documents written by outsiders – usually biased, as they were from those charged with destroying the refuge. Information such as the size of Palmares’ population, varies from 11,000 to 30,000, as much as the size of the area it covered (from 10 miles² to 200 miles²) and its exact geographical location are still to be confirmed by archeologists. Nevertheless, its own life span, spawning almost one century and its resilience that withstood over seventy incursions, serve as a testament to its strong organisation and military power. The population of Palmares grew from both, natural reproduction and the incorporation of newcomers. Between 1630 to 1654, when the Dutch occupied large swathes of Pernambuco, Palmares benefitted from becoming low-priority, that is, Portugal had channelled most of their resources and efforts into the expelling the intruders, rather than chasing the Maroons.

Ganga Zumba, Rei dos Palmares

Actor Antônio Pompêo, played Ganga Zumba in the Brazilian film "Ganga Zumba, Rei dos Palmares", produced in 1963. The film was not released until 1972 because of the military coup in Brazil of 1964. Films about revolutions, even those taking place in the 17th century, were considered politically dangerous. The film was based on João Felício dos Santo's novel, and focuses on a black slave who ends up in Palmares. The film was about black liberation and keeps a black racial perspective.

Palmares was organised into “mocambos”, which were equivalent to villages, usually of 2,000~3,000 inhabitants on average. The council members of the mocambos were chosen by assemblies of people, who met once a year. The mocambos were the pillar of a form of government close to a republic. Political decisions were made by discussions between the villagers and the leaders of the mocambos, who in their turn, represented the interests of the villagers at a sort of parliament, which was controlled by a king. The king was elected by the mocambos’ leaders and was responsible for the allocation of lands, tasks and appointment of officials. This position of command had been occupied by Aqualtune, succeeded by Ganga Zumba, her son and, later, by Zumbi, her grandson. The land that was ploughed and planted didn’t belong to anyone. Each Palmarian contributed in accordance with their abilities and received in accordance with their needs. With regard to affective relationships, Palmares was a polyandrous society, in which women could have relationships with several men, because of the scarcity of the former. It was an efficient way to establish marriage and sexual morality. The unions were not governed by religious edicts, rather by necessity. The escapees lived in wooden huts roofed by palm leaves. Some huts had hidden exits, allowing them to escape into the jungle in case of an ambush. The furniture and household items were utensils made by local craftsmen or stolen from neighbouring farms. Many wells to store water had been dug, and sheds without walls were built to serve as market stalls or workshops for artisans and blacksmiths who made weapons and agricultural tools. The religion practiced in the Palmares was Catholicism mixed with Bantu faiths. In the chapel of the Cerca Real do Macaco, images of São Brás (Saint Blaise), Jesus and Our Lady were found sharing the altar with statues of African deities.

The vegetation that abounded in the area of the quilombo gives away the clue to its name. Although there are claims that Palmares was also known by the name “Angola Janga”, as most of its initial founders had hailed from the African area, known today as Angola, the multitude of palm trees of the region benefited enormously Palmares. The content of its fruits abated the hunger and thirst. The cooks used the palm milk to make butter and wine. The palm oil was used in cooking and in lamps. They made varied dishes with the tender white core of young trees and the fruit shells were used as bowls and cups. With the leaves, the artisans wove mats and baskets and the carpenter made roofs for the houses; and with the bark, the seamstresses made clothes by spinning fibers into textiles. The land was also blessed with the hematite impregnated in the soil, which were extracted by miners, from which the blacksmiths forged hoes, machetes, hatchets and arrowheads, supplying weapons that were fully deployed by their soldiers to fight the whites who tried to destroy Palmares.

Around the citadel there were many fields of plantation. The most important crop was mandioca (manioc), but they also cultivated beans, bananas, sweet potatoes, cassava and sugarcane. The diet was also supplemented with wild fruits from nearby forests and animals like chicken and pigs, they reared in the backyard. The community structure was organised in four streets, each with just over two metres wide and two kilometres long. Along the streets, were lined up about two thousand huts, where eight thousand fugitives lived. They spoke Portuguese and Bantu dialects mixed with indigenous words. The capital of the quilombo – Cerca Real do Macaco (Royal Fence of Monkeys) was surrounded by three wooden fences, reinforced with stones and guarded by armed sentries. Access was made via fortified wooden gates. The defence lines stretched for over five kilometres, with watchtowers placed in every two metres gap. Dozens of holes of few metres deep and camouflaged with foliage surrounded Macaco. Sharp wooden spikes and iron spears measuring more than one metre were placed upwards in these holes to impale and kill those who fell in the ditches. Only the Maroons knew how to avoid these pitfalls.

Although it is often argued that the inhabitants of Palmares defended themselves using the martial art form called capoeira, there is no documentary evidence that the residents of Palmares actually used this method of fighting. Most accounts describe them as armed with spears, bows, arrows and guns. They were able to acquire guns by trading with the Portuguese and by allowing small-holding cattle raisers to use their land.

Zumbi, Forever and Ever

“By the turn of the 18th century, Pernambuco became a forgotten backland. Gold, silver and diamond had been found in Minas Gerais and the Brazilian sugar industry, unable to compete with Dutch and French plantations in the Caribbean, was all but dead. Had Zumbi held out another year or two, Palmares might have survived by default.”
Despite the fact that today, nothing identifiably Palmarian remains, not one bullet, no trifle of art, no shard of pottery, not even a bone; the existence of its last leader – Zumbi, seems to be undisputable. The reports on his life trajectory are also congruent, yet one doesn’t know if they come from different sources, or are copy and paste of a single reference. Regardless, Zumbi was related to Aqualtune, as she was the mother of Sabina, his own mother. He was born in ~1655, free in Palmares and was possibly seized by the invaders when he was 5 or 6 years old. He was then handed to a Catholic priest – Father Antônio Melo and brought up in a church (Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Apresentação), where he got the education of a white child and was taught the Bible and dogmas of Christianity.

He left his clerical father and went back to Palmares after about 10 years. Whether he always knew, he belonged to Palmares, or was told so, this information is shady, but it seems Palmares had accepted him back without much ado. Much has been written that whilst growing up in the the city of Porto Calvo, Zumbi, or Francisco, as Father Antônio had baptised him, had witnessed too much cruelty applied to his people by the whites (slave flogging in public place was a common entertainment); therefore, he had decided to go back to Palmares and fight for their cause. How a youngster, who had not shared most of his growing up years with the other members of Palmares, eventually became the leader of the Maroons is not clear either, but as anthropologists state, we are half nature, half nurture, Zumbi had a good education (regardless if it was from the whites, what was only available at that time). His brain had been stimulated, challenged, pushed for creativity and memorisation, which might had shaped his leadership skills and endorsed his power of persuasion and inspiration. At the time Zumbi returned to Palmares, Ganga Zumba (it is disputed whether this is a proper name or a title that means “Great Lord”) was its leader. Despite steering Palmares to the greatness we know today, in 1678, Ganga Zumba accepted a peace truce with the governor of Pernambuco, João da Cunha Souto Maior and the King of Portugal, Pedro II. It seemed, the Palmarian king was tired of being on the run and shaken by the devastating incursion by Fernão Carrilho one year prior, who had finally obtained some degree of success by destroying part of Palmares and imprisoning many Maroons, particularly members of Ganga Zumba’s family.

Ganga Zumba and his people (only about 1,000 followed the former king. The rest stayed back in Palmares. It is said, this figure represented only about 10% of the total population) were given lands to form a reserve at the Cucaú Valley, with the proviso that he was no longer going to accommodate Maroons and the slaves not born in Palmares should be returned to their rightful owners. In a short time, Zumbi had organized a rebellion against Ganga Zumba and poisoned him (though this is not proven). By 1679 the Portuguese were again sending military expeditions against Zumbi. Meanwhile, the sugar planters reneged on the agreement and re-enslaved many of Ganga Zumba’s followers who had moved closer to the coast. Cucaú soon came to its knee and the treaty signed between Ganga Zumba and the Portuguese proved not to be worth the paper it was written on. From 1680 to 1694, the Portuguese and Zumbi, now the new king of Palmares, waged an almost constant war of greater or lesser violence. The Portuguese government finally brought in the famed Portuguese military commanders Domingos Jorge Velho and Bernardo Vieira de Melo, who had made their reputation fighting Indigenous peoples in São Paulo and in the São Francisco valley. The final assault against Palmares occurred in January 1694. Cerca do Macaco, the main settlement, fell; and Zumbi was wounded. He eluded the Portuguese, but was betrayed, finally captured, and beheaded on November 20, 1695.

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