Quilombo

Quilombo, a refuge for runaway slaves (quilombolas or calhambolas) in Brazil. Quilombos ranged from small hideouts in which several slaves concealed themselves from their masters to vast, organized communities that housed and protected thousands of runaway captives. Quilombos typically were located in isolated, inaccessible places, but they also existed at the edges of plantations and towns where runaways relied on the occasional theft of food and weapons, on trade, and on alliances with sympathetic free people or other slaves.

Whether they were the quilombos or mocambos of Brazil, the Palenques of Spanish America, or the Maroon villages of the British Caribbean, runaway communities represented a vital means of collective slave resistance and a persistent feature of slave societies. In Brazil they appeared in the late sixteenth century and remained a constant irritation to authorities until slavery was abolished in 1888. Their presence was a visible reminder of the brutality of the slave regime, a factor that contributed to the army's unceasing efforts to hunt and destroy them.

While many quilombos fell to the superior firepower of the military, some survived for decades and others were never destroyed. The larger ones developed a range of strategies to deal with constant embattlement, including guerrilla tactics, spying networks, and even occasional cooperation with authorities—agreeing to return new runaways to the army, for example—to ensure continued existence. Some long-established settlements developed into sophisticated fortresses capable of withstanding attack, and these protected not only the runaways but the crops and livestock necessary to sustain the community.

Quilombo organization depended on successful cooperation among members, a task which was sometimes complicated by the diverse cultural backgrounds of the runaways. Many who fled captive life were African but of different "nations," while others were crioulos (Brazilian-born slaves of African parentage) or of African-European descent. Adding occasionally to this mixture were free people, including whites and Amerindians. While some runaways seized the chance to express aspects of their African heritage, the variety of backgrounds among the members meant that adaptation and innovation marked cultural life in the quilombos much as they did elsewhere in Brazilian society.

See alsoPalmares; Slavery: Brazil.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The best source on runaway slave societies throughout the Americas is Richard Price, ed., Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas, 2d ed. (1979). See especially the three articles on the Brazilian quilombos by R. K. Kent, Roger Bastide, and Stuart B. Schwartz, on pp. 169-226. Katia M. De Queirós Mattoso also discusses quilombos in her To Be a Slave in Brazil, 1550–1888, translated by Arthur Goldhammer (1986), which provides a brief history of several of the well-known runaway settlements in Northeastern Brazil. See also Waldemar De Almeida Barbosa, Negros y quilombos em Minas Gerais (1972).

Additional Bibliography

Gomes, Flávio dos Santos. A hidra e os pântanos: Mocambos, quilombos e comunidades de fugitivos no Brasil (séculos XVII-XIX). São Paulo: UNESP, 2005.

Reis, João José and Flávio dos Santos Gomes. Liberdade por um fio: História dos quilombos no Brasil. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1996.

                                          Judith L. Allen