Africans in Brazil: Zumbi dos Palmares

Zumbi dos Palmares

(born: 1655 - died: 1694)

Zumbi dos Palmares was born free in the Palmares region of Brazil in the year 1655, the last of the military leaders of the Quilombo (Kimbundu word: "kilombo," of the North Mbundu Bantu language in Angola, meaning "warrior village or settlement") of Palmares. The Quilombo dos Palmares were a free society (free born, maroons, or refugee slave), an old South American republic, which included the present day Brazilian coastal state of Alagoas, Brazil. Today, Zumbi is known as one of the great historic leaders of Brazil.

 

Brazilian Coastal State of Alagoas

At approximately 6 years old, Zumbi was captured from the Palmares region by the Portuguese and given as a slave to a Portuguese priest, António Melo. Baptized Francisco, Zumbi was taught Latin, the Portuguese religion and language, and assigned to serve the Catholic mass. In 1670, at 15 years old, Zumbi escaped and returned to his birthplace where he soon became known as a Capoërae / Capoiera master in the roda (wheel or circle) of Palmares' practioners of this African martial art. By his early twenties, he became a respected military strategist.

Quilombo dos Palmares Republic

Quilombo dos Palmares was a self-sustaining republic of maroons located in "a region perhaps the size of Portugal in the hinterland of Bahia" (Braudel 1984). The Bahia - Alagoas region of Brazil is where this free African settlement was located. At its height in the early 1600s, Palmares had a population of over 30,000. By 1630, it was described by the commentators as "the Promised Land" for escaped African slaves. King Ganga Zumba of Palmares offered emancipation for slaves entering its territories.

In 1644, the Dutch invaded the northeastern region but, as the Portuguese had failed before, the European  insurrections failed to penetrate Palmares.

Quilombos of Palmares

By 1654, the Portuguese expelled the Dutch from the region, many of whom relocated to Suriname. The Palmares military were expert in the Capoeira self defense, often described as the art of escape. They were forced to defend against repeated attacks by Portuguese colonizers seeking free labor for growing sugar plantations. Many of the escaping Africans from the Portuguese colony originated from the Angolan region in south-central Africa, then under Portuguese colonization.

"Jogar Capoërae - Danse de la guerre (Playing Capoiera - Dance of war)"

was painted by German painter Johann Moritz Rugendas in 1835.

A 21st Century painting of Brazilian Capoeira

By 1678, Pedro Almeida, the weary governor of Pernambuco approached the Palmares leader King Ganga Zumba for negotiations. Almeida agreed to concede all runaway slaves residing in the Palmares regions if Palmares would submit to Portuguese rule. King Ganga Zumba favored the compromise but Zumbi did not because the Portuguese would not agree to free all the human slaves in the Portuguese colonial region.

Before King Ganga Zumba's death, Zumbi commanded the leadership of the independent Quilombos dos Palmares, becoming the commander-in-chief of its resistence. Fifteen years after Zumbi assumed military leadership of Palmares, Portuguese colonial military commanders from the São Paulo region -- Domingos Jorge Velho and Bernardo Vieira de Melo -- mounted a military assault against Palmares. By 1680, Zumbi of Palmares reigned against the Portuguese.

Quilombo de San Gonçalo 1769 (National Library of Brazil).

The Quilombo settlements were designed within a circle, as was

the dance/martial-art of Capoiera.

The Capoiera circle is called the Roda.

Zumbi Leads the Quilombo Resistance

Zumbi eluded the Portuguese and continued the Quilombo resistance. Commentators have written that he was betrayed by a captured Quilombo who led the Portugese of São Paulo (Paulistas) to Zumbi's hideout. In any case, led by Domingos Jorge Velho and Vieira de Mello, on February 6, 1694, after 67 years military conflict with Palmares, the Portuguese eventually destroyed the Palmares compound Cerca do Macaco ("monkey enclosure"). While the Quilombo remained in the Palmares region, Zumbi was captured and killed on November 20, 1695. His head is said to have been shipped to Recife, Brazil where it was displayed in the central praça as proof that Zumbi was not immortal and as a warning to other African resistance fighters.

November 20 has been celebrated in Brazil as Black Awareness Day (or Black Conscious Day, portuegese: Dia Nacional da Consciência Negra) since the 1960s. The day has special meaning in honor of Zumbi -- a black hero and freedom fighter. Additionally, Brazil officially abolished slavery May 13, 1888. 

Zumbi dos Palmares International Airport in Maceió, Alagoas, Brasil

Zumbi dos Palmares International Airport (IATA: MCZ, ICAO: SBMO)

is an international airport serving Maceió in Brazil. This modern airport

connects Maceió with various Brazilian cities and also operates international flights.

Beaches of Maceió, Alagoas, Brazil

Further research: A 1984 film directed by Carlos Diegues tells the story of Quilombo dos Palmares. Its star actors are Antonio Pomeu, Zezé Motta, Tony Tornado, and Vera Fischer.

Black Suriname: African Maroon Societies in South America

Maroon communities in the so-called New World were free Africans, mostly from 

Western Africa, who managed to escape European enslavement. This picture depicts 

Jamaican Maroons waiting to ambush an approaching British military settlement

(Image: cir. 1795, picture by J. Bourgoin, courtesy

of The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities)

African Maroon or Black Maroon societies are historically known to have existed throughout the Americas: from the Carolina islands of the U.S. to the Florida peninsula of the United States, to the mountains of Jamaica into the Suriname (fka Dutch Guiana) jungles. Maroon communities also existed in Brazil and Mexico. The Maroons were enslaved Africans captured by European slavers for forced plantation work in the New World.

Through revolt, the enslaved African became fugitive slaves and banded into refugee African communities throughout the Americas and Caribbean, developing separate from European settlers. Among the oldest known Maroons were from the region now called Suriname in northeastern South America. African Maroon societies developed in Suriname as early as the 17th Century.

Photo of Ndyuka tribes men of Suriname

Africans of Suriname: Djuka and Saramaka

The historical documentary below was shot in what was then known as Dutch Guiana by James A. Fitzpatricks for TravelTalks: Voice of the Globe. It provides a snapshot of the life of a group of kidnapped and purchased West Africans who chose to flee Dutch plantation slavery in South America. A 1976 study by Richard Price states that there were six African Maroon groups in Suriname, dividing them into two main groups on the basis of cultural and linguistic differences, as well as location: (1) the Eastern Tribes, consisting of the Ndyuka (Aucaner, Awka), the Aluku (Aluku nenge, Boni), and the Paramaka (Paramacca); and (2) the Central Tribes, consisting of the Saramaka (Saramacca), the Matawai, and the Kwinti (cf. the tribal distribution map in Price 1976: 5). The Djuka and Saramaka are the largest African family groups. The Aluku, Matawai, and Paramaka are much smaller in number. The smallest tribe is the Kwinti, with fewer than 500 people.

Among the early anthropological field studies of New World African tribes were among the Djuka. In 1961, Dutch historians published substantial ethnographic resources. Additionally, general ethnographic research among the Saramaka family group was conducted by Richard and Sally Price in 1966-68, and briefly in 1974-75.

Map of Suriname in South America

For the most part, the Djuka live along the interior rivers Suriname. After a half century of guerrilla warfare against colonial and European troops, Maroons of Suriname signed treaties with the Dutch colonial government in the 1760s, enabling them to live independently. Some commentators state that the policy of autonomy has changed in the past few decades. The Djuka population increased markedly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Growing numbers are now living in and around Paramaribo, the capitol of Suriname, and they also seem to be expanding eastward into adjacent French Guiana. See also Journey Man Pictures' YouTube video documentary/commentary, Defending the Secret Slave State - Suriname.

For further reading about African Maroon cultures in the Americas: 

• More from BHH Blog: Africans in Brazil: Zumbi dos Palmares ~ Zumbi Leads the Quilombo Resistance
• Herskovits, Melville Jean, and Herskovits, Frances S., “Rebel destiny: among the Bush Negroes of Dutch Guiana, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1934. 366 p. illus., maps.
• Hurault, Jean, “Etude demographique comparee des Indiens Oayana et des noirs refugies Boni du Haut-Maroni” (Guyane Francaise) [Comparative demographic study of the Oyana Indians and the Boni refugee Blacks of the Upper Maroni (French Guiana). Population, 14 (1959): p. 509-534.
• Kobben, Andre J. F, “Participation and quantification; field work among the Djuka (Bush Negroes of Surinam).” In D. G. Jongmans and P.C. W. Gutkind, eds. Anthropologists in the Field. Assen, Van Gorcum, 1967.
• Kobben, Andre J. F. Review of Jean Hurault 1961, “Les Noirs Refugies Boni de la Guyane Francaise. Caribbean Studies,” (1965): p. 63-65.
• Price, Richard, “The Guiana Maroons: a historical and bibliographical introduction.” Baltimore and London, the Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.