Palmares and Zumbi
In the hills of the northeast, people who escaped slavery build Palmares, a community of thousands that resists colonial armies for most of a century until its last leader, Zumbi, is killed.
- The Quilombo of Palmares: A New Overview of a Maroon State in Seventeenth-Century Brazil — Robert Nelson Anderson, Journal of Latin American Studies 28(3) (1996)
- Brazil: A Biography — Lilia M. Schwarcz and Heloisa M. Starling, Allen Lane (2018)
- Slavery in Brazil — Herbert S. Klein and Francisco Vidal Luna, Cambridge University Press (2010)
- Lei nº 14.759, de 21 de dezembro de 2023 (Dia Nacional de Zumbi e da Consciência Negra) — Presidência da República (2023)
From around the beginning of the seventeenth century, people fleeing the sugar plantations of Pernambuco gathered in the forested Serra da Barriga, in today’s Alagoas. Over the following decades their settlements grew into a confederation of villages known as Palmares, with farms, craftsmen and a king, Ganga Zumba. It traded with nearby settlers, took in Indigenous people and poor whites, and beat off repeated Dutch and Portuguese expeditions.
- The Quilombo of Palmares: A New Overview of a Maroon State in Seventeenth-Century Brazil — Robert Nelson Anderson, Journal of Latin American Studies 28(3) (1996)
- Brazil: A Biography — Lilia M. Schwarcz and Heloisa M. Starling, Allen Lane (2018)
In 1678 Ganga Zumba accepted a peace offer from the governor of Pernambuco: freedom for those born in Palmares in exchange for returning newer runaways. Many rejected it. His nephew Zumbi took over the leadership and fought on. In 1694 an army led by the bandeirante Domingos Jorge Velho stormed the main stronghold, Macaco. Zumbi escaped but was betrayed and killed on 20 November 1695; his head was displayed in Recife to disprove rumours that he was immortal.
- The Quilombo of Palmares: A New Overview of a Maroon State in Seventeenth-Century Brazil — Robert Nelson Anderson, Journal of Latin American Studies 28(3) (1996)
- Brazil: A Biography — Lilia M. Schwarcz and Heloisa M. Starling, Allen Lane (2018)
Palmares lasted for most of the seventeenth century, longer than any other quilombo in Brazil, and its legacy has grown rather than faded. Thousands of quilombola communities, descended from runaway and freed slaves, today claim land rights under the 1988 constitution (the 2022 census counted about 1.3 million quilombolas), and in 2023 the Day of Zumbi and Black Consciousness became a national holiday.
- Lei nº 14.759, de 21 de dezembro de 2023 (Dia Nacional de Zumbi e da Consciência Negra) — Presidência da República (2023)
- Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil de 1988 — Assembleia Nacional Constituinte (1988)
Palmares was a free African kingdom in the Americas and Zumbi a hero who refused any deal that left others in chains. From the 1970s the Black movement made him the counter-symbol to the story of abolition as a gift from above.
- Brazil: A Biography — Lilia M. Schwarcz and Heloisa M. Starling, Allen Lane (2018)
- The Quilombo of Palmares: A New Overview of a Maroon State in Seventeenth-Century Brazil — Robert Nelson Anderson, Journal of Latin American Studies 28(3) (1996)
Almost everything we know comes from the Portuguese and Dutch who attacked Palmares, so its size and politics are uncertain. Population estimates run from about 11,000 to 30,000, and some scholars think even 20,000 is too high. Like many African and maroon societies of its time, Palmares may itself have held captives.
- The Quilombo of Palmares: A New Overview of a Maroon State in Seventeenth-Century Brazil — Robert Nelson Anderson, Journal of Latin American Studies 28(3) (1996)
- Slavery in Brazil — Herbert S. Klein and Francisco Vidal Luna, Cambridge University Press (2010)
Why it matters today
Zumbi is Brazil's great symbol of Black resistance. The day of his death, 20 November, is the Day of Zumbi and Black Consciousness, a national holiday since 2023, and is chosen deliberately over 13 May, the date of abolition, which honours a princess's signature rather than Black struggle.