A Saudade in Brazil: Reflections on the Quilombo Slave Society of Palmares

A Saudade in Brazil: Reflections on the Quilombo Slave Society of Palmares

Ryan Persadie

Persadie 1

In 1992, popular Cape Verdean singer Cesária Évora released one of what would become her

most prized and successful songs to span her career: Sodade. Évora was a singer of a melancholic,

national genre of Portuguese folk music known to the global Lusitanic population as Fado or the

"Portuguese blues". In this translated verse from Sodade, she sings: "Who showed you this distant way?/

Longing, longing, longing for this land of mine,/ If you forget me, I will forget you,/ Until the day you

come back." To the ordinary North American listener and audience, this genre of Portuguese folk music

may seem quite depressing and as a result, bizarre. In reality, it is treasured as a staple of Iberian cultural

identity however, being one of thousands of extant fados that is continually used in performance; it is a

classic example of the emotion of saudade.

Emotions as described in foreign languages often do not have direct English translations. In this

case, saudade is a classic example. Dr. Zuzanna Silva at the Australian National University provides a

good description of what this term has come to mean. She states saudade is "...a memory that was

pleasant but is distant in terms of time or space...a feeling of sadness [due to] losing something that one

had strong affection for."1 In general, saudade has come to mean a longing for something that is no more

or no longer exists; this desire for whatever has been lost may produce bittersweet emotions or feelings of

depression, anguish and extreme sorrow. The ultimate reality with saudade is that whatever has

disappeared can never be returned or regained. This concept of saudade has become a descriptor for the

Portuguese and Lusitanic name and international identity. For this reason, it would not have been a

foreign concept to any individual of Portuguese descent. In terms of whether it be in the coastal islands

such as Cape Verde, São Tomé, the Açores, Madeira, mainland Portugal itself or its colonies found in

Africa such as Mozambique, and Angola or its largest product of colonization, Brazil, saudade was a

crucial emotional instinct and reoccurring feeling that streamed through the consciousness and thoughts

of all members of Portuguese society.

1 Zuzanna B. Silva, "Saudade: A Key Portuguese Emotion," Emotion Review 4 (April 2013): 205.

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The famous seventeenth century Portuguese poet, Francisco Manuel de Mello (1608 - 1666)

stated that "love and absence are the mother and father of saudade...where you can find lots of love and

long-lasting absence, there the saudade will certainly be."2 Regardless of a positive or negative

connotation, saudade was consistently present in the Lusitanico's life and within Fado, it confronted all

aspects of Portuguese society where it commented on war, aggression, religion, adversity, depression,

politics, etc. While Fado as a recognized art form did not exist until the early 1820's, saudade as an

emotional instinct was always alive. Throughout its evolution, the music of Fado has taken an

international journey, much like that of many African slaves that would become bound to the cruelties of

the New World. These slaves, mostly of West African origin, would develop what modern society now

understands of as "Brazil". It has been said by many fadistas3 that in the music's birth and evolution, Fado

travelled from the Portuguese colonies in Angola to Brazil and back to Lisbon again in a term identified

as the "Lusophone Triangle." Mariza, a modern internationally-renowned fadista further acknowledges

this tri-force of Portuguese culture by stating that the triangle of Fado consists of African slave music,

Portuguese music and Africans in Brazil. Essentially, one cannot understand the history of Brazil without

understanding its dominant parent Portugal who only gained such success from Africa through its

development of the Transatlantic slave trade.

The analogy of saudade is vital to understanding Brazil in particular, because to contextualize

perspective in history, one must understand its people. For the majority of Brazilian historiography,

history has been written and documented by the rich and elite and therefore created the bias that historical

documentation only records the lives of the privileged, mainly being the literate, free and wealthy. As a

result, those who are poor, enslaved, illiterate or hold a middle to low socio-economic class are not

represented equitably and accurately in the historical record. For this reason, Palmares has become a very

important historical society, group and experience; the reason being that the world had never before

witnessed a society solely established by slaves to the multitude and success of Palmares.

2 Zuzanna B. Silva, "Saudade: A Key Portuguese Emotion," Emotion Review 4 (April 2013): 205.

3 A fadista is either a male or female singer of Fado.

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In the country's awakening as a colonialist, economic powerhouse, a society came to form in

seventeenth century Northeastern Brazil that was purely conceived by the lowest class in the social

hegemony, the slaves. These slaves would come to dominate colonial Portuguese affairs and resistance

for almost an entire century. Palmares became one of the first instances of a documented, successful slave

rebellion since the efforts of Spartacus in classical antiquity. What made this society so marvelling to

visualize is that it took numerous attempts by the Portuguese and Dutch colonial forces to dismantle. How

is it possible that such systematically powerful and imperialist European colonizing forces such as

Holland and Portugal could not control the enslaved, stolen from Africa, when in their Eurocentric ideals,

they were clearly superior?

Saudade in its clearest form came to exist in the lives of the enslaved in Brazil. Slaves had been

stripped from their African homelands, carried over the Atlantic through the middle passage and became

denied of everything they had ever known in attempt to gain profit for their European masters. This

longing for their lost homes must have lived in the cries and torments of millions of slaves throughout

Brazil and Latin America. However, in an area known as Palmares, many runaway slaves or maroons

would establish mocambos or, specifically as Palmares is known, a quilombo, or a collection of

mocambos, which became a safe haven and free kingdom for the enslaved who chose to control the future

of their lives from Portuguese hands. Their goal in Palmares was to make their saudade a reality.

This paper will argue that while saudade was one of the largest contributing factors to the success

of Palmares, it was not the aim of the Palmaristas4 to re-create a new Africa. What is to be argued is that

the multicultural populace of Palmares was bound on a common pursuit for saudade that integrated not

just African slaves but also included Europeans and indigenous populations. Furthermore, the question

that modern historians continue to ask is how this quilombo ever came to be so difficult to diminish? How

was it so important and successful among the maroons? While some answers have been provided

throughout recent scholarship, due to the lack of primary sources and missing first-hand documentation of

Palmares, much of it largely remains in speculation that is continually being unfolded. Again, this stems

4A Palmarista was one of the terms used to describe the members of the quilombo's of Palmares.

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from the lack of recorded evidence due to the illiteracy and social disvalue that slave populations were

oppressed and stigmatized by among colonial forces. Fortunately, this is also the same question that will

be addressed in this essay. Evidence to prove this argument will draw upon existing primary sources from

colonial Portugal, the narratives and research conducted on slavery and runaway slaves in seventeenth

century Brazil and the saudade it created in Palmares.

According to modern historical scholarship on the imperialist expansion of Portugal, the

Portuguese who became the initial world leaders of European slavery and colonization, engaged in the

Atlantic slave trade in four different phrases. The primary, initial stage of enslavement commenced in

1441 and lasted until 1518/1521. During this time, historians suggest that as many as 156,000 slaves were

imported from the West African coast to Iberia in transition to the Atlantic islands.5 The Portuguese used

captured slaves as labourers to meet their economic needs and gain profit on islands such as Madeira and

São Tomé. Portugal had established connections with Western and Central African nations for much of its

colonial history and naturally, like many other European nations, Portugal turned to Africa to aid its

expansion. It is estimated that forty percent of all Africans imported to the Americas were transported to

Brazil and as a result began to penetrate every aspect of life.6 Brazil was consistently fueled with settlers

throughout this era due to the economic growth Brazil was providing to Portugal and it began to gain a

very rewarding and advantageous appeal to incoming Portuguese colonialists.

From the incorporation of slavery into Portuguese society, Iberian observers began to notice an

injustice occurring in the practise of enslavement. What they witnessed was the misfortuned longing, of

the newly enslaved, for a time of liberation and freedom from oppressive colonial masters; they were

experiencing the soon-to-be-known 'Palmarian saudade'. Fifteenth century Portuguese historian Gomes

Eannes de Azurara documents this saudade through the words of a captured Moor on the Island of Herons

5James H. Sweet, Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441 - 1770

(Chapel Hill: the University of North Carolina Press), 15. 6 Joao Jose Reis and Flavio dos Santos Gomes, "Quilombo: Brazilian Maroons during slavery," Cultural Survival

Quarterly 25, (January 2002): 2.

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or Ilha das Garças which describes quite mildly what future slaves would come to experience for decades

more. In his account, he states:

"Oh powerful destiny, doing and undoing with your turning wheels, arranging the

things of this world as you please! do you even disclose to those miserable people

some knowledge of what is to become of them, so that they may receive some

consolation in the midst of their tremendous sorrow?"7

Evidently, even from its beginnings, Portuguese officials such as de Azurara noticed the psychological

and traumatic effects of slavery on its victims.

The second phase of slavery began in 1518 and lasted until the 1580s when a shift occurred in

transporting slaves between Africa and Europe and between the Atlantic islands to the Americas. During

this time, slaves from Senegambia and the Upper Guinea coast continued to be prominent in the slave

populations of the Portuguese world however, by the last final decades of the sixteenth century, Central

Africa had overtaken Upper Guinea as the primary source of Portuguese slave labour especially in

Brazil.8 Slaves were collected through many means in Africa some of which led to disapproval and

discontent in the Portuguese empire. The term tangosmãos was given to slave traders with "loose morals

with no concern other than their own interests, commonly carrying out their raiding expeditions up the

rivers and in the remote interior far from these areas that are frequented by the Portuguese."9 These

groups of traders acted in thief-like manners collecting as many pieces or peças as they could through

deception, violence, ambushes and raids or razzias. The system of slavery was also very important to

African slave traders who engaged in treachery to ensure slaves were steadily available for purchase.

Indigenous groups were said to have hunted each other upon the sight of Portuguese ships so that they

would have a body to sell to the incoming masters. In addition, African slave traders were noted to have

threatened to eat slaves if they were not bought by the Portuguese (presumably as an incentive for the

enslaved to enforce their best behaviour). In another example, within Guinea and in the land of Kaffirs,

slaves were condemned to servitude for trifling reasons or if the King was displeased of him/her for

7 Robert Edgar Conrad, Children of God's Fire, A Documentary History of Black Slavery (Princeton: Princeton

University Press), 10. 8 Ibid., 10.

9 Ibid., 12.

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varying reasons. The punishment for this charge was banishment from court, an attack on their freedom

and the enslavement of their entire families.10

This harshly demonstrates that slavery was already a

driving force in the economic success of many African communities as they handed over their own people

to the whips of European slave owners, sometimes through deception and trickery.

The third phase continued in the 1580s and lasted until the 1690s in which the Portuguese slave

trade was dominated by Central Africans who largely contributed to the slave demographic of Brazil.

Warfare produced a large body pool for enslavement as prisoners of war became forced into a life of

servitude or limited to face the consequences of death. One example is reflected in the large waves of

slave exports that resulted from the defeat of Angola in the Portuguese battles against the Ndongo from

1517 to 1580.11

It was during this time that Brazil emerged as the world's largest sugar producer.

Sugar became the staple product of this land which implemented a new type of commodity

production not seen very commonly in the Western hemisphere thus far.12

Brazil had come to be seen as a

profitable piece of land for development and economic growth much like earlier Portuguese possessions

had been valued such as Madeira and São Tomé. The indigenous populations of Brazil were among the

first group of people to be manipulated by the Portuguese for manual labour but they soon became

diminished due to disease, and overworking. Initially, the Portuguese attempted to persuade native groups

to sell themselves into slavery in return for valuable goods such as a cotton jackets or breeches. 13

This

usually was successful because they were unaware of the stakes being involved. It is also known that

within many of these native groups, once aware of their enslavement, Brazilian aboriginals would choose

to flee their work stations and the sugar mills, known as engenhos, and relocate to forest terrain

surrounding the area. This worked well for many indigenous populations as they had lived in this area

long enough to understand how to survive in these harsh tropical regions. The Portuguese colonial

10

Robert Edgar Conrad, Children of God's Fire, A Documentary History of Black Slavery (Princeton: Princeton

University Press), 12. 11

Ibid., 12. 12

Aline Vieira de Carvalho, "Archaelogical Perspectives of Palmares: A Maroon Settlement in 17th Century

Brazil," The African Diaspora Archaeology Network (March 2007): 1. 13

Robert Edgar Conrad, Children of God's Fire, A Documentary History of Black Slavery (Princeton: Princeton

University Press), 12.

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authorities however were strangers to this new land, had trouble locating fugitive indigenous slaves and

encampments and therefore, could not depend on this rebellious work force.

While the Portuguese had "discovered" Brazil, it was also seized by the Dutch in 1630 in

response to the Iberian Unification of Spain and Portugal under one entity. This also acted as a reaction to

the ruling of Phillip II which forbade Holland from engaging in commerce with Brazil. 14

The Dutch

however were expelled from Brazil in 1654 by solely Portuguese powers. The Iberian Union ceased to

exist after 1640 and therefore Portuguese powers could contain and control all of Brazil from any other

potential European rivals.15

During the fourth phase of the Portuguese slave trade, scholars begin to see an "Africanization" of

Brazil. This occurred in the second half of the seventeenth century in which significant numbers of slaves

were brought to Costa da Mina, in present-day Bahia to initiate the trade in tobacco.16

In this era of

Brazilian slavery, a lingua frança was developed, implementing the Kimbundu language of Angola which

laid the foundation for a "Bantu proto-nation" to emerge in the slave populations of Brazil.17

Through the

incorporation of language, slaves in Brazil began to engage in a creolization of society. Prior to this,

slaves had consisted of a number of different ethnic and cultural groups which made it quite difficult for

social interaction to occur. As generations developed, a community also formed which allowed for

members of this oppressed society to collaborate with each other and fuel the fire for the common notion

of a saudade. While Africans sought and recalled memories of a distant Africa, there would have been

members of many native groups that would have reflected on a Brazil, or whatever they had labelled the

land mass of Brazil, before European expansion.

Throughout all slave societies, the question of resistance and rebellion is always a constant fear in

the minds of slave owners. As can be seen throughout some colonies in the Caribbean, notably Haiti or

14



Ibid., 3. 16

James H. Sweet, Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship and Relgiion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441 - 1770

(Chapel Hill: the University of North Carolina Press), 18. . 17

Ibid., 18.

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Saint Domingue, once power is lost, violence and chaos ensues. This threat of violence was a very

possible reality. In some European colonies (excluding areas North of the Chesapeake in British North

America), slaves outnumbered white populations in huge numbers and therefore, lingered the fear that the

enslaved would rise up to regain their lost freedom. This type of hybrid society where the white populace

was the minority was almost entirely new and shocking for almost all planters and slave owners. As

Henry Koster, an English planter who spent many years in Brazil, states "...in none of these districts

which I saw, do I conceive that the slaves outnumbered the free people in a greater proportion than three

to one."18

Fear of slave revolt and the emerging problem of fugitive slaves plagued colonists and colonial

administrators due to the numerous activities a slave could engage in to sabotage their master. Slaves

could act through recalcitrance, slow downs, sabotage, self-destruction through suicide, infanticide, or

overt attempts at vengeance which were seen as the most extreme.19

The worst fears of the Portuguese

would become actualized quite early in the seventeenth century, as by 1612, colonial leaders in Brazil

would come to acknowledge the presence of Palmares and send their first military raid, razzia or entrada

against it.20

The site of Palmares which eventually became a collection of mocambos or small villages

composed of runaway slaves which would become a kingdom in itself to house the oppressed and

enslaved. Palmares as a whole would serve as a major obstacle to the economic and military aims of its

mother country, Portugal.

Scholars are unclear to the exact origin date of Palmares but many are convinced it was first

founded and established in 1605/1606. It was located in the interior of Alagoas in the regional area known

as Pernambuco. In fact, early writers attributed the birth of Palmares to Portuguese-Dutch struggles for

Pernambuco, whereby slaves profited by escaping in groups.21

The conception of the name Palmares has

18

Carl N. Degler, Neither Black Nor White: Slave and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States (New York:

the Macmillan Company, 1971), 4. 19

Stuart B. Schwartz, Slave, Peasants and Rebels: Reconsidering Brazilian Slavery (Chicago: the University of

Illinois Press, 1992), 104 20

Charles E. Orser Jr., A Historical Archaeology of the Modern World (New York: Plenum Press, 1996), 42. 21

R. K. Kent, "Palmares: An African State in Brazil," Journal of African History (1965): 163.

Persadie 9

been attributed to the Portuguese term which indicated an abundance of palm trees described for the

region. However, this explanation is problematic in that the Portuguese referred to the whole land mass of

Brazil as 'Palmares'. Ultimately, this could mean that the term actually reflected a whole land mass of

small maroon settlements and causes confusion between the general area seized by fugitive slaves and the

literal site of the slave community of Palmares. In actuality, Palmares as a specific quilombo22

may not

have encompassed that much land whereas the collection of quilombos throughout Brazil may have been

quite vast.

The act of flight as a form of resistance was not a new idea for this time period as the earliest

record of the slave trade suggests that Africans resisted bondage by flight and marronage into the interior

of Brazil forming Palmares. As mentioned before, when native groups wanted to escape the Portuguese

they began to migrate to the central regions and forests of Brazil. What is known about Palmares is that it

was a federation of maroon communities whose population was estimated by contemporary sources,

variously, to be 11,000, 16,000, 20,000 and even reaching 30,000 people.23

All of which were numbers

inconceivable for Portuguese colonial government systems to comprehend at the time. To understand the

complexity of this settlement, one must also think of Palmares as a non-isolated, multicultural society.

The quilombo is engrained in a set of ideals surrounding independence and individualism from

their colonial masters however, in actuality Palmares would not have existed as a completely isolated

state. It was a diversely multicultural society that thrived on the incorporation of different cultural groups

to aid in its long survival. While it was comprised of many African runaways as the majority group, it

also contained indigenous peoples who shared common feelings of resistance against the Portuguese as

well as African Muslims, and oppressed Europeans such as Portuguese settlers known as moradors.

According to Brazilian archaeologist Pedro Paulo Abreu Funari, the quilombo was a place where people

of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds would have lived together. The Palmaristas established

22

The word 'quilombo' as a term only differs from 'mocambo' in that of its size; quilombo's were bigger settlements

that consisted of a collection of mocambos in one area. 23

Joao Jose Reis and Flavio dos Santos Gomes, "Quilombo: Brazilian Maroons during slavery," Cultural Survival

Quarterly 25, (January 2002): 2

Persadie 10

themselves in a region where there were aboriginal peoples, dwellers of the colonial villages, farmers,

Dutch peoples, and other groups who were frequently outcast.24

In addition, Edison Carneiro, a leading

twentieth century scholar on Palmares writes in his Guerras de los Palmares that Palmarian society

included mulattoes, Moors and numerous captive white women as well which provided them with many

interactions with neighbouring white settlers.25

Therefore, while Palmares paints a picture of isolationism

with its palisades and guarded walls, it did not survive through solely enslaved efforts. However, what is

true is that slavery and oppression had brought people together. The very last scenario the Portuguese and

Dutch could have ever wanted had begun to unfold: a unification of enslaved and out casted people who

had escalated their cause through a drive to battle their experience of injustice.

In hoping to understand the engagements between Native groups, the Europeans and the

Palmaristas that occurred throughout the lifespan of Palmares, it is important to consider the internal

structures and dynamics that were in place in Palmares at the time. As mentioned previously, slave

societies were created through a shift in the third phase of the slave trade between the transportation of

Africans to the Atlantic islands and finally to the Americas. As large segments of the indigenous labour

pool were obliterated by European diseases, the Portuguese began to perceive Africans as superior

workers.26

As Africans became the dominant force in Brazil, they began to work on typical olarias or

brick making facilities, on engenhocas or small sugar mills (in addition to the regular engenhos or mills)

producing aguardente or rum and they also worked in fabrica de rede or hammock/net manufacturing to

name a few general slave occupations.27

Moreover, by the second half of the 1600s, the majority of slaves on Jesuit properties were

Brazilian-born creoles. As a result, the ladino people, being acculturated Africans who largely identified

with Brazil over their African motherlands emerged. This in itself demonstrates a Brazilian identity being

24



Harold E. Davis, review of Guerras de los Palmares, by Edison Carneiro, The Hispanic American Historical

Review 28, no 1 (February 1948): 113. 26


(Chapel Hill: the University of North Carolina Press), 22. 27

Ibid., 24.

Persadie 11

formed and shaped that no longer has slaves associating themselves with Africa. This notion also leans

itself the newly significant contrast between the experience of Africans in Africa who escaped

enslavement and those were pushed into slavery. Also, Brazilian creoles were never nurtured in an

African environment and therefore, only began to identify themselves with their birth country, Brazil.

However, the saudade of Africa largely would have been kept alive in their minds, songs and oral

traditions passed down from their parents. This connection to Africa would also be maintained through

the continual transportation of African slaves who were consistently being transported over to the New

World.

Once runaways escaped, maroon settlements were not isolated and for good reason. They were

placed near white urban centers so communication would not be too far out of reach. In his work,

Carneiro observed that economic decline, was in his opinion, the immediate cause of slave flight and so

maroon societies were formed in the "recesses of the forests" to be far enough to govern their own land

mass but close enough to still have the opportunity to engage in contact if needed.28

In addition, natural

geography such as swamps, mountains, forests and jungles provided natural defenses against slave

hunters. It was largely due to their physical land boundaries and complex social and political systems

which aided them in their fight for survival.

Palmares has been reported to have had extensively irrigated fields, villages containing 220 to

2000 houses, churches, iron forges, and a training village for a standing army to attest to its permanence.29

The presence of extensive agriculture demonstrates that Palmaristas were engaged with harvesting and

could sustain for themselves through the skills they acquired through previous slave labour. Brazilian

historians have outlined that runaway societies were divided in terms of their function: they were either

sustained by mining or agriculture. In this case, Carneiro would agree with the statement that Palmares

28

Thomas Flory, "Fugitive Slaves and Free Society: The Case of Brazil," The Journal of Negro History 64, no. 2

(Spring 1979): 118. 29

Scott Joseph Allen, "A 'Cultural Mosiac' At Palmares? Grapplin with the Historical Archarology of a Seventeenth

Century Brazilian Quilombo," in Cultura material e arqueologia historíca, ed. P. P. Funari (Funari. Instituto de

Filosofia e Ciências Humanas, Universidade Estadual de Campinas: Brazil), 143.

Persadie 12

was a agriculturally-based quilombo due to the fact that he believed one of the main reasons why

Palmares thrived was "... beyond the white frontier [for] the discovery of new sources of wealth."30

Within Palmares itself, scholars such as Décio Freitas applied the concept of a "cultural mosaic"

to Palmares to reflect the multicultural society which existed there. A system of so-called "syncretism"

also existed in which there was a fusion of cultural elements from various sources which were then

symbolically renegotiated into various cultural systems.31

In this, African culture was not created but an

infusion of cultural elements was bonded to create a new culture which had its roots in a combined

saudade to meet their current needs. L. Ferguson describes this notion of the fusion of cultures into one

with the example of the American South however, its implications are relevant for the study of Palmares.

He writes: "African Americans did not disappear into the so-called American melting pot but used their

African inheritance together with newly encountered things and ideas to create a distinct creolized

African American culture."32

In addition, Palmarian multiculturalism generated a language that would be used in Palmares as

common speech. As Richard Price argues, the language Palmaristas spoke was a dialect of Portuguese

mixed with African forms but sufficiently different so that other Brazilians could not understand it.33

Language can prove to be a powerful tool especially when faced with a fight against power. With a

common vernacular serving the people, members of the community were now no longer separated by

speech or lost in translation to engage with each other, they had the power to spread ideas and discuss

battle tactics in the thousands. As well, in doing so, Palmaristas became unified under the common notion

that regardless of upbringing and past culture, a new cultural group had emerged that encapsulated a large

essence of Portuguese slavery into a common unit of resistance and source of resilience against

30


(Spring 1979): 122. 31

Scott Joseph Allen, "A 'Cultural Mosiac' At Palmares? Grapplin with the Historical Archarology of a Seventeenth

Century Brazilian Quilombo," in Cultura material e arqueologia historíca, ed. P. P. Funari (Funari. Instituto de

Filosofia e Ciências Humanas, Universidade Estadual de Campinas: Brazil), 162. 32

Ibid., 170. 33

Richard Price, "Refiguring Plamares," Tipití 1, no. 2 (2003): 217.

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imperialism. The "creolization-while-in-a-state-of-war" as termed by Price was directly in effect as a

group identity was formed and was becoming gradually more threatening to the Portuguese authorities.

Palmares, also a product of slavery, had slaves itself that were collected from raids and

local sugar plantations and mills. Their society was based on social stratification in

which a monarch ruled through government systems very similar to those seen in

Africa and it also made sense to the Portuguese and Dutch. As Fernão Carrilho

accounts in his expedition and report entitled Relação from 1676 - 1677: "...they

acknowledge themselves to be obedient to one called Ganga Zumba, which means

Great Lord. This one is held to be king and master by all of the rest, both natives of

Palmares as well as those from the outside...He has a palace, houses for his family,

and is attended by guards and officials that royal houses usually have. They address

him as majesty and obey him out of admiration."34

Through this expression of a complex society the enslaved revive their saudade and can rehabilitate what

was lost when they were removed from Africa.

African societies before enslavement had complex hierarchies which were very similar in

function to that of Europe and so in establishing this government system, Palmaristas have a sense of

order and organization once again. In this way, Palmares serves as a revitalization of a homeland that

many slaves knew they could never return to. This must have appealed to a great mass of people because

word of the vastly increasing numbers of mocambo numbers within Brazil had now reached the ears of

the Portuguese authorities. Concern for personal safety became a large problem for the governor in the

early 1670's. He expresses his worry in the following excerpt from a letter he wrote to the King of

Portugal. On June 1, 1670, governor Fernão de Sousa Coutinho writes:

The example and permanence of the mocambos each day induces the other Negroes to

flee and escape from the rigorous captivity with they suffer and to find freedom amid

fertile land and the security of their own dwellings...from there [when talking about

waging war], using bodies of men that will continually relieve each other, I will order

roads opened to the above Palmares by means of which their settlements can be

besieged and razed consecutively until all are destroyed and this captaincy is left free

of the misfortune which so severely threatens it.35

Evidently, it can be observed here that Palmares was no longer seen as just a "thorn" at the side of the

Portuguese empire. Coutinho is speaking of a fully-fledged attack in which he hopes to destroy all of

34

Robert Nelson Anderson, "The Quilombo of Palmares: A New Overview of a Maroon State in Seventeenth-

Century Brazil," Journal of Latin American Studies 28, (October 1996): 553. 35

Ennes Ernesto, "The Conquest of Palmares," Coleção Brasiliana 127, (1938): 116.

Persadie 14

Palmares. This directly demonstrates the impact the existence of this quilombo presented to Portuguese

colonialism. Moreover, this was not the first expedition planned to terminate the existence of this maroon

settlement. There were over twenty campaigns executed by both the Portuguese and Dutch to put an end

to Palmares with no success or avail until 1694 in which Domingos Jorge Velho, a bandeirante or person

of Native descent who was allied with the Portuguese, was hired to annihilate Palmares at the request of

Lisbon.36

This again brings up the reoccurring question of how Palmares maintained its success and

survival for as long as it did.

There is no one sole answer as to why Palmares survived as long as it did but it is the argument of

this essay that it was due to multiple causes. Largely Palmares was able to thrive because of their

accelerated drive for a physical saudade past the visual image that would have been seen in their

collective imaginations. Moreover, it was only successful because of the combined efforts and assistance

of European settlers such as the moradors and indigenous groups found among Brazil. In addition,

African traditional customs and practices in fusion with tactics and survival techniques learned from the

Europeans allowed for a creolization that defended Palmares against their colonial oppressors for almost

one hundred years. As previously before, Palmares was a multicultural nation and if not for the collective

effort and cultural binding of all groups, Palmares would most notably have ceased to exist long before

1694.

One of the causes for slaves to break from the rule of the masters most definitely occurred due to

the saudade of their lost African heritage. Many aspects of "Palmarian" society can be traced to African

roots which contributed to the success of their settlement. As mentioned before, Palmares maintained a

kingship and in doing so, a royal lineage. Customs such as ceremonial postures and demonstrations of

obedience required in the King's presence all point to forms of African kingship.37

The Palmaristas would

never have been exposed to any other form of monarch (during this time) outside of Africa as they never

36

Velho was of mixed Portuguese and Native descent and so largely throughout historiography has been deemed as

a banderiante or Paulista as they are also known. 37

Stuart B. Schwartz, Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels, Reconsidering Brazilian Slavery (Chicago: University of

Illinois Press,) 124.

Persadie 15

came into direct contact with European leaders. Therefore, the only way they could establish themselves

in this hierarchical manner would be due to prior social structures they would have been accustomed to in

Africa.

Another instance of African influence is in Palmarian speech. In Palmares, people called each

other malungo or comrade, a term of adoptive kinship also used among slaves who had arrived together

on the same slave ship.38

This is another example of how slaves bonded together to create the strong

connections that Palmares was founded on but also, demonstrates the power of language in Palmarian

society. This is very important because as Ganga Zumba, the second last leader of Palmares assumed his

role in history, it is clearly definite and evident that a royal family existed. This is known because many

subsequent villages in Palmares were named after members of the royal family such as Andalaquitche

who was the nephew of Ganga Zumba and brother to Zumbi (the last king of Palmares) and Aqualtune,

who was Ganga Zumba's mother.39

The transfer of African kingship (ex. forms of obedience to King)

combined with the enslaved's knowledge of European divinely sanctioned monarchy (ex. titleships in a

European monarchy) and lineage created a new system of social stratification that strengthened and

intensified the integral core of Palmares and made their society even more resilient to the Portuguese.

Dr. Silvia Lara demonstrates and summarizes this crossing over of African custom to Brazil very

well when she states that "in crossing the Atlantic, Africans brought with them a political grammar...a

manner of creating societies and of organizing them [that] could certainly accompany the men and

women of the diaspora."40

Many Palmaristas did not call their home Palmares at all but preferred to use

"Angola janga" meaning 'little Angola'. They had hoped to create a representation of what was left behind

in Angola by bringing in cultural norms and ideas into Palmares through transfer to the New World. In

fact, many slaves shipped out of Angola were brought over to Brazil as war captives and so these

38

Stuart B. Schwartz, Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels, Reconsidering Brazilian Slavery (Chicago: University of

Illinois Press,) 124. 39

Charles E. Orser Jr., A Historical Archaeology of the Modern World (New York: Plenum Press), 45. 40

Silvia Hunold Lara, "Palmares and Cucaú: Political Dimensions of a Maroon Community in Late Seventeenth-

Century Brazil," (paped presented at 12th Annual Gilder Lehrman Center International Conference at Yale

University, New Haven, Connecticut, October 29, 2010) 18.

Persadie 16

prisoners of war ultimately carried over many violent tendencies towards Europeans and in doing so,

joined the rebels at Palmares. While this indicates the African area from which many Palmaristas

originated from, it also provides implication again that the saudade of the former enslavedwas intentional.

It is also reiterates that Portugal was feeding the growth of Palmares by continually transferring over

Africans whose lives were entrenched in war. These prisoners of war were engrained in a lifestyle that

thrived on violence and aggression. It would only be natural that this mentality and attitude towards

authority, especially one that which is stealing one from one's homeland, would be reawakened in Brazil.

There has been much scholarship in the more recent years of historiography of Brazil concerning

the implication of the Angolan "ki-lombo" in comparison to the quilombo of Palmares. The Angolan ki-

lombo was a term the Angolan Kimbundu used for "house" and referred to as an organization of men

brought together in comradeship and ritual observance largely as a rite of passage camp for young men.41

Earlier historians such as R. K. Kent in his groundbreaking article "Palmares: An African State in Brazil"

written in 1965 argued that the ki-lombo was a Jaga war camp. He questions whether a historico-

linguistic link between Palmares in a formative stage and the Jaga ki-lombo may have existed.42

On the

contrary, in response to Kent, Robert Nelson Anderson argues that the ki-lombo was originally a male

initiation camp and by extension a male military society.43

He argues that in Angola people lived

according to a lineageless community and as a result, existed in a society engulfed in military conflict and

political upheaval where the ki-lombo became a unifying structure suitable for a populace under constant

military alert.44

This is reflected in the formation of Palmares itself. It was created with the intent of

defence and under the constant threat of colonial violence which may have been linked to ki-lombos

which were the basis of male society in Angola which many enslaved came from.

In addition, this drive for violence may also have fueled the notions and attitudes of the leaders

who rose up to dominate Palmares. A document received by the Conselho Ultramarino speaks of

41


R. K. Kent, "Palmares: An African State in Brazil," Journal of African History (1965): 164. 43



Ibid., 550.

Persadie 17

resistance in Palmares in which "military practise made warlike in the discipline and general, Zambi, who

made them very handy in use of all arms, of which they have many and in great quantity - firearms, as

well as swords, lances, and arrows."45

Palmaristas were heavily active in protection of their realized

saudade and have been shown to engage in the violence and aggression invested in themselves from their

lives in Angola to be revived in their new lives in Angola janga. By the end of Palmare's existence in

1694, many of the Palmaristas may have been crioulas or native-born to Brazil but the fire for warfare

was still alive, instilled in them from their Angolan ancestors.

Europeans also played a pivotful role in the length and duration of survival of Palmares in the

seventeenth century. A large aspect of Palmarian society originated with raids to local European colonial

villages in capturing slaves and women to populate their newly found kingdom. In a sense, Palmares was

conceived much like Ancient Rome. A comparison can be made between the story of the founding of

Rome with Romulus and Remus to the Palmaristas. As discussed, Palmares was a diverse, and

multicultural society that was founded on the notion of collective defense against the Portuguese. The

Palmares quilombo was structured as proof that the quilombos in America were born with the objective of

defending a cohesive identity, formed by the mixing of other identities, such as those of Native and

African heritage, against the cultural threats of colonial society.46

However, even with all of this cultural

fusion, with no women to support families and carry children, this dream and saudade of an Angola janga

would have been decimated pretty quickly.

There was a great sex imbalance in Brazil that made it very difficult on plantations to survive and

populate the area. As James Sweet discusses, many African slaves came from African centers where

women were increasingly dominant in the population. If a sex imbalance existed in Angola, men would

fix this by engaging in polygamy however, this was not an acceptable solution in Brazil because there

were no women to marry at all and therefore, children could not be produced. The sex imbalance stifled

45




Brazil," The African Diaspora Archaeology Network (March 2007): 11.

Persadie 18

the prospects of creating new natal lineages in Brazil and reinforced the Africans' sense of having

suffered a "social death."47

In addition, this would have created disturbed memories of home and

contributed to the longing for saudade in Palmares and Brazil when the life that one once knew and

engaged in was suddenly unattainable. It has even been observed that African slaves began to engage in

homosexual relations to seek emotional sustenance under the conditions of extreme social dislocation

which was to seek out intimate relationships with men.48

This was a cultural norm of the time in places

such as Angola and therefore, homosexuality may not have been as shocking to Africans as it would have

been to colonial, Catholic Portuguese authorities. However, Christianity placed a massive role in the

colonization of the Portuguese empire and it can only be imagined how the Portuguese would have

reacted once they were informed their slaves were engaging in same-sex practices. It can be seen to only

motivate slaves to escape to Palmares to either seek out women to marry or be able to practise

homosexuality without scrutiny and punishment.

As raids became more frequent, complaints began to rise to the surface of the Portuguese colonial

regime and reach the ears of Lusitanic authorities. Among the complaints most frequently heard were loss

of field hands and domestic servants, loss of settler lives, kidnapping and rape of white women. As

mentioned, women were a rarity in Palmares and were actively sought during razzias.49

However, while

violence continued throughout this area, the common settlers, or the moradors seemed to exist untouched

and spared by the Palmaristas. As Kent describes, after a close examination of documents in the Ennes

and Camara de Alagoas collections - 117 in all - [there is a failure] to reveal a single substantiated case of

a morador killed in palmarista raids.50

This is because the moradors were crucial to the Palmaristas.

Without many of them, the maroon state would have vanished under pressure from the Portuguese and

Dutch attacks. It is because of trade and cultural exchange with the settlers that Palmares could thrive.

The moradors provided products and goods such as firearms for gold and silver taken in razzias by the

47


(Chapel Hill: the University of North Carolina Press), 39. 48

Ibid.,39. 49


Ibid, 170.

Persadie 19

Palmaristas. They also traded their sugar cane, bananas and beans for articles in exchange such as

utensils, arms and ammunition. The trade of information was also known to have occurred in which

moradors would act as double agents to the Portuguese empire providing useful information of upcoming

and incoming attacks to Palmares so that the Palmaristas could defend accordingly.51

For the moradors,

this was largely a business transaction. An act of trade between two agents who were trying to ultimately

survive however, the Portuguese empire did not take too kindly to this. The Europeans may have had

power-hungry motives for cooperating with the maroons as well. Carneiro believes that expropriation, or

transfer of property from one to another was the primary goal of the entradas that attacked the

quilombo.52

This would also explain why moradores never joined forces with the Portuguese armies to

destroy Palmares. They sought a value in the land Palmares offered and may have thought if they allowed

Palmares to thrive and befriended its inhabitants that they would achieve a piece of its treasure once the

Portuguese had lost ambition in trying to seek it.

In addition, archaeology conducted on Palmares by Orser Jr. and Funari has yielded material

finds that also point to ties with the moradors. Ceramics founds at Palmares are evident of a European

style with four varieties of lead-glazed, coarse earthenware in use which were not dissimilar from the

contemporary Portuguese and Dutch wares at the time which suggest relations with different

colonialists.53

Furthermore, the wares were utilitarian in nature indicating that they were intended for non-

elites living on the coast of Brazil. If this is true, then this indicates contact and communication between

maroon residents and non-elite European colonials which almost for certain allowed for Palmares to

thrive for as long as it did.

51



(Spring 1979): 126., the term entrada refers to the multiple attacks and sieges of Palmares by the Portuguese and

the Dutch. 53

Charles E. Orser Jr. and Pedro P. A. Funari, "Archaeology and Slave Reisistance and Rebellion," World

Archaeology 33, no. 1 (June 2001): 67.

Persadie 20

By 1687, the state of Pernambuco empowered a Paulista, Colonel-of-Foot to imprison moradors

merely suspected of relations with Palmares, 'irrespective of their station.'54

The paranoia and extreme

worry is expressed in the previous quotation as it shows Portugal taking dire action as to imprison their

own people for actions against the government. The growing size and depth of Palmares must have been

apparent in this time period and the Portuguese by the 1680s had led almost twenty campaigns against

Palmares only to achieve nothing but the death of countless Portuguese men and militia against the

quilombo. As twentieth century Portuguese historian Edison Carneiro wrote in 1956, "the Negroes had

good relations with moradors, as long as the latter kept their slave huts and plantations away from the free

lands of Palmares."55

Overall, the answer to the question of why the moradors helped the Portuguese at all

is a common one. They were oppressed as well.

In the 1600s, Portuguese society was split into four classes: men of letters (homogenous classes

of educated scholars), nobility, (knights, squires, so-called wealthy men), the clergy, and the citizens

(farmers, merchants, serfs and others).56

Merchants, artisans and rich men saw the greatest profit from

global exploration and colonization because they had the greatest opportunity to become sugar planters

and reap the rewards. It was a fact in Iberian society that a well-off, young, educated, well-connected

gentlemen from Portugal could go to Brazil, establish a sugar plantation, and soon become a millionaire

based on the labour of the African slaves.57

However, in Brazil, ordinary citizens such as soldiers, sailors,

and frontline settlers such as the moradors were bitter about their inability to reap the benefits of

colonization as everyone else had been doing for the past two hundred years.58

Therefore, it may not come

as any surprise at all to know that many moradors might have given up on Portugal and sided with the

Palmaristas. They were linked through their distaste for the Portuguese empire and the system by which it

governed itself and its colonies and quite frequently moradors may have felt more obligated and

connected to Palmares and therefore engaged in trade. Overall, if not for this common battle against

54


Ibid, 171. 56


Ibid., 43. 58

Ibid., 47.

Persadie 21

Portugal and trade that evidently resulted, Palmares would not have succeeded in the duration of its

history.

Native populations acted as a double-edged sword to Palmares serving as both their allies and

enemies throughout its history. Brazil was populated with several indigenous groups, each of which

carried their own separate cultural identity and alignment. Initial European explorers who discovered the

Brazilian coast in the 1500s often applied the name "Tupinamba" to all Native men, women and children

who spoke the Tupi-Guarani language and who lived along the Atlantic from the mouth of the Amazon to

São Paulo.59

Those who would become known as the Tupinamba would largely serve as the allies to the

Palmaristas while another group known as the Tupuya would assist in the demise of Palmares. In

addition, archaeological digs at Palmares found direct links between maroons at Palmares and the Tupi.

Brazilian pottery was excavated known as the 'Tupinamba vessels' which are very reminiscent to native

styles as well as Ovimbundu pottery styles which probably indicates a convergence of African and

Native traditions.60

Orser Jr. and Funari further argue that this Brazilian pottery is exemplary of the South

American style probably because it was made by female native Brazilians who were married to maroon

residents and the escaped Africans may have felt comfortable with the Tupinamba pottery specifically

because it did resemble that made in their native homeland.61

It can be seen that this would have been

very important to ex-enslaved residents of Palmares. While they did not want to re-create a new Africa in

Brazil, remnants of the old Africa continually found its way into Brazilian society and created

connections between the saudade of what once was and what their lives currently consisted of.

Evidently, Palmares carried strong Native ties as three of their villages were given Tupi names in

addition to villages named after members of the royal family. These Tupi names were: Arotirene,

Tabocas, and Subupira.62

It should also be known that Subupira grew to be the second most important

village to Palmares headed by Ganga Zumba's brother, Zumbi who became an icon as a heroic symbol of

59


Charles E. Orser Jr. and Pedro P. A. Funari, "Archaeology and Slave Reisistance and Rebellion," World

Archaeology 33, no. 1 (June 2001): 67. 61

Ibid., 67. 62

Charles E. Orser Jr., A Historical Archaeology of the Modern World (New York: Plenum Press), 49.

Persadie 22

resistance against colonial oppression, racism and injustice. A symbol who is celebrated in Brazil to this

day. The fact that Palmaristas chose to name their cities after Native groups gives indication of the latter's

importance to the Palmarian mindset, attitude and society. As Africans had fled their masters' homes to

gain a sense of a better life, the same must have existed for the Native groups. As an example, when the

quilombo of Carlota was attacked in Mata Grosso in 1795, a hundred years after the death of Palmares,

the colonial authorities found both Natives and mixed descendants of blacks and Natives living together.63

This is largely demonstrated a continuation of what had started with Palmares in 1605: an expression of

the multicultural society Palmares thrived upon. While the Native populations might not have any notion

of memories of a homeland that Africans may have sought, indigenous groups may have and probably did

recall and long for a time when their land was not plagued by European colonization, disease and

expansion. In this, they were again much like the moradors, connected to Palmares by their resistance

towards the Portuguese who had destroyed the world they once knew, and now creating a saudade out of

it. Seen continuously, the Portuguese through their vigorous aims of expansion escalated the discontent

felt towards them and engaged the masses by bringing vast amounts of people to Palmares.

On the other side of the spectrum, the Tupuya largely contributed to the destruction of Palmares

in 1674. During Dutch occupation, Native soldiers had been used for decades as a fighting force against

Palmares to no success however. For example, the Dutch used Native warriors in the expeditions of

Rodolfo Baro in 1644, and Jurgens Reijmbach in 1645.64

The Portuguese would soon follow in their

footsteps. After countless attempts to destroy Palmares, Lisbon finally sought to seek out other methods

for annihilation. In March of 1687, the new governor of Pernambuco, Sotto-Maior informed Lisbon that

he had accepted the services of bandeirantes from São Paulo known as the Paulistas. The Paulistas were a

Portuguese-Amerindian métis group of people and set of transfrontiersmen who were renowned in Brazil

for their special skills in jungle warfare.65

This set of skills ultimately brought down the settlement known

63

R Joao Jose Reis and Flavio dos Santos Gomes, "Quilombo: Brazilian Maroons during slavery," Cultural Survival

Quarterly 25, (January 2002): 4. 64


R. K. Kent, "Palmares: An African State in Brazil," Journal of African History (1965): 174.

Persadie 23

as Palmares in 1694. A breakthrough occurred in battle, which had been ongoing from 1670 until 1694, in

February of 1694. Starting in 1692, Velho began to break down the defences of Palmares for two years

with the aid of local troops and allies. In the final battle in 1694, 200 fugitives were killed, 500 were

captured and 200 committed suicide once surrender appeared to be the only option.66

The society that had

escalated to such a point of greatness in 1605 had been reduced to nothing by the eve of the eighteenth

century.

Portuguese politician and social scientist Joaquim Pedro de Oliviera Martins (1845 - 1894) said:

"Of all of the historical examples of slave protest, Palmares is the most beautiful, the most heroic. It is a

black Troy, and its story is an Iliad."67

Whether African, enslaved, mestiço (mixed race), crioulo (creolo

or Brazilian-born), mulatto, Native, and/or Portuguese, Palmares became the ultimate haven for survival

for countless oppressed individuals in Brazil throughout the 1600s. It is absolutely fascinating to imagine

a society that rose so greatly from a people that had been stripped of everything and everyone they had

ever known. Palmares became a community created by those of the lowest class and worth in Portuguese

society and yet grew to become the greatest threat to Portuguese sovereignty, imperialism and

colonialism. Based around the interaction of enslaved Africans with Europeans, Natives and their

creolization of a European and African ideology, they created a world that successfully engaged in over

twenty campaigns by both the Portuguese and Dutch authorities. A number of factors and contributions

explain why Palmares has been the only successful maroon society that lasted for almost as long as a

century and it is due to this saudade, this notion for a longing of a life lost so long ago that connected and

bound all enslaved and oppressed peoples of Brazil for a common cause. Again, Palmaristas were not

determined to create a new Africa or one that was a clone of the lives they had lived before enslavement.

Instead, the sorrow and nostalgia in their longing for a home created a determination and passion for

survival that bonded the multicultural peoples of the Atlantic slave trade into pursuing the everlasting

66

Stuart B. Schwartz, Slave, Peasants and Rebels: Reconsidering Brazilian Slavery (Chicago: the University of

Illinois Press, 1992), 123. 67

Robert Nelson Anderson, "The Quilombo of Palmres: A New Overview of a Maroon State in Seventeenth-Century

Brazil," Journal of Latin American Studies 28, (October 1996): 550.

Persadie 24

fight for Palmares. Palmares was not indigenous, nor European, nor African, it was a society forged to

fight oppression, to fight injustice and to fight for the right of survival and to thrive.

Persadie 25

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A Saudade in Brazil: Reflections on the Quilombo Slave Society of Palmares

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