A Maroon State in Brazil

The Quilombo of Palmares: A New Overview of a Maroon State in Seventeenth-Century Brazil
Author(s): Robert Nelson Anderson

Source: Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 28, No. 3, Brazil: History and Society (Oct.,
1996), pp. 545-566
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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The
Quilombo
of Palmares: A New
Overview of a Maroon State in
Seventeenth-Century
Brazil*
ROBERT NELSON ANDERSON
Abstract. This article offers a new
perspective
on the
history
of the maroon state
of Palmares in Northeastern Brazil. It adds information and
interpretation
to
R. K. Kent's
ground-breaking
article 'Palmares: An African State in Brazil'
published
in
I965.
The
present essay gives
an historical narrative
summary
with
commentary
on the
historiography, describing
Afro-Brazilian
aspects
of the
history
of Palmares. The
purpose
is to review and
expand upon
the
historical,
linguistic,
and cultural context of Palmares and on the sources for the
emerging
epic
material of Zumbi of Palmares.
A
epopdia negra hoje
e narrada1
The twentieth of November
1995
marked the
tercentenary
of the death of
Zumbi,
the last leader of the maroon state - or
quilombo
- of Palmares in
Northeastern Brazil. This date has loomed
large
in the
popular
imagination,
since for
many
Brazilians,
especially
those of African
descent,
Zumbi embodies the
strongest
resistance to the slave-based colonial
regime,
and,
consequently,
the
struggle
for economic and
political justice
today.
The last leader of Palmares has
enjoyed
an
apotheosis
as an ethnic
hero. The term
'apotheosis'
is not
simply metaphorical
here. More than
a secular
hero,
Zumbi is viewed as an
ancestor,
antecedent in what the
outsider
might
see as a fictive
lineage. According
to this
view,
which is
African in
origin,
his
spirit
is
inherently
divine and
immortal,
and is thus
worthy
of
respect
from those who consider themselves his descendants.
This belief is such that the
tercentenary
celebrated three hundred
years
of
Zumbi's
immortality.2
*
This work was made
possible
in
part by
funds from the Tinker
Foundation,
the Mellon
Foundation,
and the US
Department
of Education Title
VI,
administered
by
the Duke-
University
of North Carolina
Program
in Latin American Studies. I am
grateful
to
John
Charles Chasteen and two
anonymous
referees for their comments on earlier
versions of this article.
1
Xuxu
(Edson Carvalho), 'Negros
de
luz',
in
I1e
Aiye (ed.),
America
negra:
'o sonho
africano' (Salvador, i993),
p. 28.
2
Bujao
(Raimundo
Goncalves dos
Santos), personal
communication. Full discussion of
the
mythification
of Zumbi or its
representation
in artistic
production
is
beyond
the
Robert Nelson Anderson is
Visiting
Assistant Professor in Romance
Languages
at the
University
of North Carolina at
Chapel
Hill.
J.
Lat. Amer. Stud.
28, 545-566 Copyright
?
I996 Cambridge University
Press
545
546
Robert Nelson Anderson
Since the establishment of 20 November as National Black Con-
sciousness
Day
in
1978, popular
discourse has
increasingly
treated Zumbi
not
only
as the
premier
Afro-Brazilian hero but also as the
exemplar
of
antiracist and anticolonial
dogma
and
praxis.3
The
importance
of the
tercentenary
is
widely recognised
- seen in the fact that
Salvador,
the
capital
of the northeastern state of
Bahia,
'capital'
of
Afro-Brazil,
and
oreo enlorged
Recife
OL
0o
o : Cuca6u
, : P E R-N A M B U C O
^9. * *D5V ! - 7 Porto Calvo
A....
';.
, Macaco
Atlantic Ocean
Maceio
N
Alagoas
km 0 10 20 30 40 50
Map
i. Palmares and
Vicinity
scope
of this
essay.
See Robert Nelson
Anderson,
'The Muses of Chaos and
Destruction of Arena conta Zumbi', Latin American Theatre
Review,
vol.
29,
no. 2
(forthcoming 1996);
'O mito de Zumbi:
Implicacoes
culturais
para
o Brasil e
para
a
Diaspora
Africana',
Afro-Asia,
no.
17 (forthcoming I996).
3
Originally
called Zumbi
Day.
See
George
Reid
Andrews,
Black and Whites in Sao Paulo,
Brazil, i888-1988 (Madison, 1991), pp.
2I6-I8;
Abdias do Nascimento and Elisa Larkin
do
Nascimento, 'Pan-Africanism, Negritude,
and the African
Experience
in
Brazil',
in
Africans
in
Brazil:
A
Pan-African Perspective (Trenton, N.J., 1992), pp. 81-117.
The
Quilombo of
Palmares
547
currently
host to the world's
largest pre-Lenten
festival in terms of
numbers of
tourists,
chose Zumbi as the theme for the
I995
carnaval. In
November
I995
events were held around the
country, including
a
pilgrimage
to the site of Palmares in the state of
Alagoas,
with Brazil's
President Fernando
Henrique
Cardoso
speaking
in the
Municipal
Hall in
Uniao dos
Palmares,
the
Congresso
Continental dos Povos
Negros
das
Americas in Sao
Paulo,
and the Movimento
Negro
Unificado's march on
Brasilia. These events have underscored the
mythic
status of Zumbi of
Palmares. The
significance
of this
anniversary
has also
captured
the
attention of the national and international
press.4
Scholars interested in Palmares
have, however,
struggled
with a dearth
of
sources,
either
primary
or
secondary.
The situation is acute for the
English-speaking public:
of the few
primary
and
major secondary
sources
published
in
Portuguese,
Dutch,
or
Latin,
almost none have been
translated into
English.5
The Palmares Excavation
Project,
led
by
Pedro
Paulo A. Funari of the State
University
of
Campinas
and Charles E.
Orser,
Jr.,
of Illinois State
University
have conducted
preliminary
excavations at
the site of Palmares. This
project promises
to illuminate our
understanding
of the
quilombo,
and
presumably
its
findings
will be
published
in
English.6
However,
since R. K. Kent's
1965
article 'Palmares: An African State in
Brazil',
no
synopsis
of what is known of Palmares has been
published
in
English.7
Kent's article was
groundbreaking
in that it was the first
scholarly
overview of what was known about Palmares available to the
English-reading public. Working
from
primary
and
secondary
sources
published
in
Portuguese
or
Dutch,
Kent summarised information about
Palmares. His contribution was to
argue,
based on historical and
linguistic
evidence,
that Palmares was a successful
adaptation
of several models of
Central African statecraft to the Brazilian context. Kent stated in his
conclusion:
[T]he
most
apparent significance
of Palmares to African
history
is that an African
political system
could be transferred to a different
content;
that it could come to
4
E.g.:
Vilma
Gryzinski,
'O mais novo her6i do
Brasil', Veja,
22 Nov.
I995,
pp. 64-80;
articles in Folha de Sao
Paulo, 12
Nov.
I995,
sec.
5 ['Mais!']; James Brooke,
'Brazil
Seeks to Return Ancestral Lands to Descendants of
Runaway
Slaves,' New York
Times,
15 Aug. 1993,
sec.
A,
p.
I2;
'From Brazil's
Misty
Past,
a Black Hero
Emerges,'
New
York
Times, 23
Nov.
1994,
sec.
A, p. 4.
5
On Richard M. Morse's translations of documents about the destruction of Palmares
see note 1 below.
6
Ricardo Bonalume
Neto,
'O
pequeno
Brasil de
Palmares',
Folha de Sao
Paulo, 4 June
I995,
sec.
5 ['Mais!'], p.
i6.
7
R. K.
Kent,
'Palmares: An African State in
Brazil,'
in Richard Price
(ed.),
Maroon
Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the
Americas,
ist ed.
(Garden City, N.Y.,
1973),
2nd
ed.
(Baltimore, 1979),
pp.
70-90. Originally published
in
Journal of African History,
no.
6
(I965),
pp. 16I-75.
548
govern
not
only
individuals from a
variety
of ethnic
groups
from
Africa,
but also
those born in
Brazil,
pitch
black or almost
white,
latinized or close to Amerindian
roots;
and that it could endure for almost a full
century against
two
European
powers,
Holland and
Portugal.8
Kent's article was and still is an
important starting point
for the reader
without access to the sources
published
in
Portuguese.
It nevertheless
contains numerous
flaws;
as Stuart Schwartz
reports,
'his translations and
ethnographic
discussions can not
always
be trusted'.9 Schwartz's 'Re-
thinking
Palmares' offers new and useful
interpretations, especially
regarding
the
etymology
of the term
'quilombo', tracing
the word and the
institution back to their
Angolan origins.?1
The
present essay augments
Kent's article with further
linguistic,
historical,
and
ethnological
interpretation,
and corrects several
faulty
translations. This article also
incorporates
Schwartz's
analysis, adding
to the narrative
history
and
linguistic interpretations.
It elaborates several issues raised
by
Schwartz,
further
describing
the Afro-Brazilian character of Palmares. It is
hoped
that this new
exposition
will
give
a firmer foundation for
assessing
the
modern
significance
of Palmares.
Most of what we know about Palmares comes from accounts of the
Dutch and
Portuguese campaigns against
the
quilombo, including
those of
Bartholomeus Lintz
(I640)
and Roelox Baro
(or Rodolpho
Bareo, I643).1
8
Kent, 'Palmares',
p.
188.
9
Stuart B.
Schwartz, Slaves, Peasants,
and Rebels:
Reconsidering
Brazilian
Slavery (Urbana,
Ill.,
1992),
p. 134,
n.
65.
The
English
translation of
Roger
Bastide's Les
Religions Afro-
Bresiliennes includes a short section on Palmares. The historical
summary
uses the same
sources as
Kent,
and the text concentrates on
ethnological interpretation,
much of
which is
interesting.
However,
as with
Kent,
some of the
linguistic arguments
are
weak. See
Roger Bastide,
The
African Religions of
Bragil:
Towards a
Sociological
Interpretation of
Civilizations,
Helen Sebba
(trans.), (Baltimore, 1978), pp. 83-90.
Originally published
in Paris in 1960.
10 In
and
Rebels, pp. 122-36.
1
Information from the Lintz and Baro
expeditions
was
compiled by Caspar
Barlaeus
(Gaspar Barleus)
and translated into
Portuguese by
Claudio Brandao as Historia dos
feitos
recentemente
praticados
durante oito anos no Brasil
(Rio
de
Janeiro, 1940). Originally
published
as Rerum
per
octenium in Brasilia
(I647).
The account of the
Blaer-Reijmbach
expedition
was translated from the Dutch and
published by
Alfredo de Carvalho under
the title 'Diario da
viagem
do
Capitao Joao
Blaer aos Palmares' in the Revista do
Instituto
Arqueologico
Pernambucano and
reprinted
in Edison
Carneiro, O
quilombo
dos
Palmares,
I6Jo-I69y,
Ist ed.
(Sao Paulo, 1947),
pp.
231-9.
Documents from the second
Livro de Vereafoes da Camara de
Alagoas, providing
additional information about the
Carrilho
campaign
and Zumbi's
revolt,
are in Carneiro under the title 'Os sucessos de
I668
a
1680',
pp. 207-30, originally published
in Revista do Instituto Histdrico
Alagoano
(1875).
The 'Relacao das
guerras
feitas aos Palmares de Pernambuco no
tempo
do
Governador d. Pedro de
Almeida,
de
I675
a
I678'
is from the Torre do Tombo in
Lisbon,
reprinted
in
Carneiro, pp. 187-206, originally published
in Revista do Instituto
Historico e
Geogrdfico
Brasileiro,
vol. 22
(I959), pp.
303-29.
The first edition and the
second edition
(Sao Paulo, I958)
of
O quilombo
dos Palmares
reproduce
the
primary
sources as an
appendix.
The third edition
(Rio
de
Janeiro, 1966)
is a version of the
The
Quilombo of
Palmares
5 49
In
I645 Captain Johan (or Joao)
Blaer led an
expedition against
the
quilombo,
chronicled
by
his Lieutenent
Jiirgens Reijmbach,
who took over
the
expedition
when Blaer became ill. The Fernao Carrilho
expeditions
of
1676-77
and
contemporary
events
generated
documents from the town
council of
Alagoas
and the
captaincy government.
The final
campaigns
against
Palmares,
including
those of
Domingos Jorge
Velho
(I692-94),
have also
provided
information.
One or other combination of these official documents and
eyewitness
accounts
by
would-be invaders are the basis for
subsequent
Brazilian
historiography
and
ethnography,
each in turn informed
by
the
ideology
and intellectual biases of its time.12 It is worth
noting
that,
in a tentative
way,
Zumbi has become a national hero. While
primary
sources
by
colonial officials and
secondary
sources from Rocha Pitta to the
present
day
have tended to see Palmares as a threat to
Portuguese
colonial
sovereignty,
and the
quilombo's
defeat as
basically
a
patriotic victory,
even
white commentators have lionised the Afro-Brazilian state on occasion.
The colonial Rocha Pitta himself refers to Palmares as 'a rustic
republic,
in its
way,
well-ordered',
drawing
classical
parallels
and
speaking
of the
edition in
Spanish,
Guerra de los Palmares
(Mexico, 946),
neither of which includes the
appendix.
All citations from Carneiro are from the first
edition,
including
references to
the documents
published
therein. Ernesto Ennes
published
documents
spanning
I684
to
1697, dealing
with Zumbi's rebellion
against Ganga-Zumba
and the
Portuguese
Governor,
the destruction of Palmares
by Domingos Jorge
Velho,
and the death of
Zumbi in
Asguerras
nos Palmares:
Subs'diospara
a sua
historia,
vol. i,
Domingos Jorge
Velho
e a 'Trdia
negra,' i687-I7oo (Sao Paulo, 1938).
On the verso of the title
page
of this
edition a second volume is
promised,
titled 'Os
primeiros quilombos';
to
my
knowledge
it was never
published.
Five of the documents in the Ennes collection
appear
in
English
translation under the title 'The
Conquest
of
Palmares',
in Richard
M. Morse
(ed.),
The Bandeirantes: The Historical Role
of
the
Brazilian Pathfinders (New
York, I965), pp. 14-26.
In
citing
these and all other
sources,
the
orthography
of the
published
source is maintained.
12 Notable
among
these
secondary
sources are Sebastiao da Rocha
Pitta,
Historia da
America
Portuguega
desde o anno de mil e
quinhentos
do seu descobrimento ate o de mil e setecentos
e vinte e
quatro,
2nd ed.
(Lisbon, i88o), originally published
in Lisbon
(I730),
book
8,
paragraphs 25-40; Joaquim
Pedro de Oliveira
Martins, O
Brazil
e as colonias
portugue.as,
3rd
ed
(Lisbon, 1920), originally published
in Lisbon
(1880), pp. 63-6;
Raimundo Nina
Rodrigues,
Os
africanos
no
Brasil,
2nd ed.
(Sao Paulo, I93 5),
pp. 1
5-50;
Ernesto
Ennes,
'As
guerras
nos
Palmares',
the introduction to his collection of
documents; Carneiro,
O
quilombo
dos Palmares; C16vis Moura,
Rebelioes da
senzala: Quilombos,
insurreifoes e
guerrilhas (Rio
de
Janeiro, I972),
pp.
I79-90;
Joel
Rufino dos
Santos,
Zumbi
(Sao Paulo,
I985);
Decio
Freitas,
Palmares: a
guerra
dos
escravos, 5th
ed.
(Rio
de
Janeiro, i982);
Benjamin Peret, O Quilombo
de Palmares: Cronica da
'Reptblica
dos Escravos', Brasil,
I640-s69 (Lisbon, 1988), originally published
as 'O
que
foi o
Quilombo
de Palmares?'
in Anhembi
(April
and
May 1956). Forthcoming
are
Joao Jose
Reis and Flavio dos
Santos Gomes
(eds.),
Historia do
quilombo
no
Brasil,
as well as Gomes's new
documentary
history
of Palmares. Both Freitas and Gomes have used archival material from the
Torre do
Tombo,
bringing
this
primary
material to a wider
public.
55o
election of its
'prince',
Zumbi.l3
Taking
his cue from Rocha
Pitta,
Oliveira Martins waxed
poetic
with
republican
fervour,
expanding
the
classical
analogies,
as in the
following passage:
'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.'14
Thus,
a revisionist view
crept
into the elite
discourse,
culminating
with
Freitas,
as
suggested by
this
quote
from his conclusion: 'These rustic black
republics
reveal the dream
of a social order founded on fraternal
equality,
and for this reason are
incorporated
into the
revolutionary
tradition of the Brazilian
people.'15
As for the other commentators on
Palmares,
one
may
refer to Afonso
de
Escragnolle Taunay's
Preface to Ennes:
If one were to collect all that our
historiographers,
ancient,
modern and
contemporary,
have written about
Palmares,
there would be material
comparable
in volume to an
encyclopedia
of
exceeding
dimensions. But the vast
majority
of
these
very copious pages
is no more than
repetition,
often most
inelegant,
on the
part
of the
authors,
professionals
at
taking advantage
of the work of others or
mere candidates for remuneration of so much
per page.16
Carneiro,
nine
years later,
put
it more
succinctly:
'Historians in
general...
have limited themselves to
repeating
the errors of Sebastiao da
Rocha Pitta.'17 It is safe to
say
that,
aside from the contributions of the
authors mentioned
above,
very
little new has been said about the
history
of Palmares since the middle of the twentieth
century.
While
seeking
to
avoid the faults identified
by Taunay
and
Carneiro,
the
synopsis
that
follows
brings
some of this material
together.
From the earliest time in which Africans were
brought forcibly
to the
New World
they
resisted
bondage by flight,
or
marronage.1l
It seems that
from the earliest arrival of Africans in the
captaincies
of
Alagoas
and
13
Rocha
Pitta,
Historia da America
PortugueZa, paragraphs
28-9.
All translations are mine.
The
original
text follows: 'uma
repdblica
ristica,
a sua
maneira,
bem ordenada'.
14 Oliveira
Martins, O Brazil e as colonias
portuguegas;
p.
64.
'[D]e
todos os
exemplos
hist6ricos do
protesto
de
escravo,
Palmares e o mais
bello,
o mais heroico. B uma
Troya negra,
e a sua hist6ria e uma Illiada.'
15
Freitas, Palmares,
p.
z2o. 'Estas rusticas
repiiblicas negras
desvendam o sonho de uma
ordem social alicercada na
igualdade
fraternal e estao
por
isso
incorporadas
a tradicao
revolucionaria do
povo
brasileiro.'
16
Taunay, Preface,
in
Ennes,
As
guerras
nos
Palmares,
pp.
I-2. 'Se se coletasse tudo
que
os nossos
histori6grafos antigos,
modernos e
contemporaneos
escreveram sobre
Palmares haveria material
comparavel, pelo
volume,
a uma
enciclop6dia
de
avantajadas
dimens6es. Mas e
que
a imensa maioria dessas
paginas copiosissimas
nao
passa
de
repetiico, frequentemente
a mais
deselegante, por parte
de seus
autores,
profissionais
do
aproveitamento
de alheio
esf6rgo
ou meros candidatos a
remuneragao
a tanto
por
pagina.'
17
Carneiro, O
quilombo
dos
Palmares,
p.
I82.
'Os historiadores em
geral...se
limitaram a
repetir
os errores de Sebastiao da Rocha Pita.'
18
Price, Introduction,
in Maroon
Societies, p.
i.
The
Quilombo of
Palmares
551
Pernambuco in
Portuguese
America slaves had fled to the interior.19
Towards the end of the sixteenth
century, according
to
Freitas,
but no
later than
I606,
according
to
Kent,
a trickle of
runaway
slaves had made
their
way
to the interior and there established a
mocambo,
or maroon
settlement,
of some
reputation.20
The area of settlement straddled a
mountainous area of the coastal forest zone some
30
to
90
kilometres from
the coast of
present-day
northern
Alagoas
and southern Pernambuco. The
region
came to be known as 'Palmares' due to the
preponderance
of wild
palms
there.21
In the
I63os
the Palmares
region
received a
greater
number of
fugitive
slaves thanks in
part
to the Dutch invasion of northeastern Brazil.22
During
the Dutch dominion and after the
Portuguese reconquest
of
Pernambuco,
completed
in
I654,
there were occasional incursions into
Palmares,
without
great
success. Of
special
interest are the
expeditions
that
generated
the documents mentioned above. At the time of the Lintz
expedition,
there were two
large
mocambos and
any
number of smaller
ones.23
By
the time of the
Blaer-Reijmbach expedition
of
I645
there was
at least one
large
mocambo; another
large
mocambo had been abandoned
three
years
earlier. The
diary
of the
expedition
describes the
large
'Palmares': It was surrounded
by
a double
palisade
with a
spike-lined
trough
inside. This 'Palmares' was half a mile
long,
its street six feet wide.
There was a
swamp
on the north side and
large
felled trees on the south.
There were 220
buildings
in the middle of which stood a
church,
four
smithies,
and a council house.24 From
captives, they
learned
something
of
the ruler of that
place:
Their
king
ruled them with severe
justice,
not
permitting
sorcerers
among
his
people,
and when some blacks would
flee,
he would send natives
[native blacks]
on their
trail,
and when
they
were
caught, they
would be
killed,
such that fear
19
Carneiro, O
quilombo
dos
Palmares,
p.
188.
20
Freitas, Palmares,
p. 5; Kent, 'Palmares',
p. 175.
On mocambo vs.
quilombo,
see below.
21
Carneiro,
0
quilombo
dos
Palmares,
p.
i88. Palmar means
'palm grove'
in
Portuguese;
plural palmares.
22
Ibid., pp. 33-4.
23
Kent, 'Palmares',
p. 177. Notwithstanding
the
etymology
of Palmares
given
above,
the
early
chronicles
appear
to use the term
'palmar(es)'
to
signify
'mocambo'. It is
intriguing
to
speculate
how this
usage
came to
be, given
that 'Palmares' in the
early
literature also
refers to the
palm-covered region.
In
fact,
Nieuhof states that there were two
forests,
one called 'Palmares
pequenos,'
with some 6,ooo black
inhabitants,
and the
other,
'Palmares
grandes',
with some
5,000
scattered black inhabitants.
Johan Nieuhof,
Memordvel
Viagem
maritima e terrestre ao
Brasil,
Moacir N. Vasconcelos
(trans.), Jose
Hon6rio
Rogrigues (ed.) (Sao Paulo,
1942),
pp.
I8-19.
Translated from the
English
and reconciled with the
original
Dutch
Gedenkweerdige
Brasiliaense Zee- en
Lant-Reize
(Amsterdam, I682).
24
Carneiro,
O
quilombo
dos
Palmares, pp. 235-6.
Kent's translation
(p. 177) neglects
to
mention that the trees to the south were
felled,
suggesting clearing
for cultivation or
defence.
55
2 Robert Nelson Anderson
reigned among
them,
especially
the blacks from
Angola.
The
king
also has a
house two miles
away,
with a
very
abundant farm. He had this house built
upon
learning
of our
coming....
We asked the blacks how
many
of their
people
were
there,
to which
they responded
that there were
50o men,
in addition to the
women and children. We
presume
that there are some
1,5oo inhabitants,
according
to what we heard from them.25
The narrative also includes
description
of farms and
foodstuffs,
uses
made of the
palm,
and crafts such as work in
straw,
gourds,
and ceramic.
As was so often the case in the
long history
of wars
against
Palmares,
the
soldiers found the settlement
virtually
abandoned when
they
arrived;
the
Palmarinos would receive advance word of
expeditions
from their
spies
in
the colonial towns and
sugar plantations,
or
engenhos.26
The external
history
of Palmares from the
expulsion
of the Dutch in
I654
to the destruction of Palmares in
1694
is one of
frequent Portuguese
incursions - sometimes more than one a
year
- and Palmarino
reprisals
and raids.
Although
the 'Relacao das
guerras
feitas aos
Palmares',
from
the term of Governor d. Pedro de
Almeida,
is a troublesome
document,
as Carneiro
states,
it is clear from it that in the
period I654
to
I678
there
were at least 20
expeditions against
Palmares -
hardly
the
'twenty-seven
years
of relative
peace'
referred to
by
Kent.27 In the internecine
peace,
Palmarinos traded with their
Portuguese neighbours, exchanging
food-
stuffs and crafts for
arms, munitions,
and salt.28 The trade with Palmares
was such that
many
colonials
opposed
war with the
Palmarinos,
and in the
I67os
there was
widespread opinion
that
establishing peace
with Palmares
was the best
way
to achieve
stability
in the
colony.29
Nevertheless,
many
local
planters
feared the
predatory
raids
by
Palmarinos,
real or
potential.
They
also wished to eliminate the lure of
escape
that Palmares
constantly
represented
to the
plantation
slaves. In
spite
of much
vacillation,
colonial
25
Carneiro, O quilombo
dos
Palmares, p. 236. '[S]eu
rei os
governava
com severa
justiSa
nao
permitindo
feiticeiros entre a sua
gente
e,
quando alguns negros fugiam,
mandava-
Ihes creoulos no encal(o
e,
uma vez
pegados,
eram
mortos,
de sorte
que
entre eles
reinava o
temor,
principalmente
os
negros
de
Angola;
o rei tambem ter uma casa
distante dali duas
milhas,
com uma rosa muito
abundante,
casa
que
fez construir ao
saber da nossa vinda....
[P]erguntamos
aos
negros qual
o numero da sua
gente,
ao
que
nos
responderam
haver
5oo homens,
alem das mulheres e
crianSas; presumimos que
uns
pelos
outros hia
.500 habitantes, segundo
deles ouvimos.' For reasons that are not
clear,
Kent leaves
many
words untranslated and
unglossed,
not to mention
mistranscribed. Some of
these,
such as
grandes [sic] (p. I78)
would be evident to the
general
reader,
but others
(feticeiros [sic],
crioulos
[sic], ibid.)
would not. Carvalho
probably
followed colonial
usage
in
using 'creoulo'/'crioulo'
to refer
broadly
to
'native',
and more
narrowly
to 'Brazilian-born black'. Without the Dutch
original
it
is
impossible
to determine the exact sense in the context of Palmares. Kent's translation
also errs in not
stating
that the Palmarinos
reported
their number to be
500 men,
not
including
children and women. 26
Ibid.,
p. 236
27
Ibid., pp. 81-93; Kent, p. I78.
28
Freitas, Palmares,
p. 73.
29
Ibid., pp. 73-5; I05-6.
The
Quilombo of
Palmares
55 3
leaders
opted again
for the destruction of the
quilombo
and sent militia
captain
Fernao Carrilho
against
them. Carrilho's
campaign
of
1676-7
was
not
only
one of the more
devastating,
but it also
gave
us the most
substantial
descriptions
of Palmares.
The 'Relacao'
reported
that
campaign, mentioning
several mocambos
that constituted Palmares:
Zambi,
Acotirene or
Arotirene, Tabocas,
Dambrabanga, Subupira,
the
royal compound
of
Macaco,
Osenga,
Amaro,
and
Andalaquituche.30
The
Portuguese,
as was their
wont,
named
at least some of these towns for the title-holders
living
there: Zambi
(probably Zumbi), Andalaquituche,
brother of
'Zambi',
and
Aqualtune,
the mother of the
king.31 Subupira
was the mocambo of
Gana-Zona,
brother of the
king,
a 'valorous black
man,
recognised among
those
brutes as
king
as well'.32 Part of the
description
is worth
citing
extensively:
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 who come from the outside. He has a
palace,
houses for his
family,
and is attended
by guards
and officials that
royal
houses
usually
have. He is treated with all of the
respect
of a
king
and with all
of the honours of a lord. Those that come into his
presence put
their knees to the
ground
and
clap
their hands as a
sign
of
recognition
and
protestation
of his
excellence.
They
address him as
Majesty
and
obey
him out of admiration. He
dwells in his
royal town,
which
they
call Macaco
['Monkey'],
a name derived
from the death dealt to one of these animals in that
place.
This is the
principal
town
among
the
remaining
towns and settlements. It is
wholly
fortified
by
a
palisade
with embrasures from which
they
could
safely
attack combatants. All
around the outside was sewn with iron
caltrops
and such
cunning pitfalls
that it
had
imperilled
our
greatest vigilance.
This town
occupies
a broad
area;
it is made
up
of more than
, 5
oo houses. There is
among
them a Minister of
Justice
for the
necessary
actions,
and all of the
trapping
of
any republic
is found
among
them.
And
although
these barbarians have so
forgotten subjugation, they
have not
wholly
lost
recognition
of the Church. In this town
they
have a
chapel
to which
they
resort in their
need,
and statues to whom
they
commend their
petitions.
When this
chapel
was
entered,
there was found a
quite
well-made statue of the
infant
Jesus,
another of Our
Lady
of the
Conception,
and another of Saint Blaise.
They
choose one of their most ladinos whom
they
venerate as
pastor,
who
baptises
30
dos
Palmares,
pp.
88.
'Subupira'
and
'Macaco',
not
'Subupuira'
and
'Macoco',
as in
Kent, 'Palmares',
p. 178.
Kent
attempts
to construct
etymologies
for these
place
names,
seeking
Bantu and
indigenous
American roots for them
(pp.
80-8
i).
His
etymologies, though,
are unscientific and
uncorroborated,
and in the cases
of Macaco
(in fact,
Portuguese
for
'monkey')
and Amaro
(the
name of the mocambo's
chief), clearly wrong.
Such a task is difficult at
best,
and should not lead to
hasty
conclusions. Yeda Pessoa de Castro affirms that some Palmarino
place
names,
including
Osenga,
are of Bantu
origin.
Castro,
'Dimensao dos
aportes
africanos no
Brasil',
Afro-
Asia,
no.
I6
(1995),
p. 28. I have not
yet
seen the sources in which she
explains
their
etymologies.
31
dos
Palmares,
p. I97.
32
Ibid., p.
202.
'[N]egro valoroso,
e reconhecido
daqueles
brutos como rei tambem.'
5 54
them and marries them. The
baptism,
however,
is without the form
prescribed
by
the
Church,
and their
weddings
are without the
particulars required by
natural
law. Their
appetite
is the rule of their choice. Each one has the wives he wants.
They
are
taught
some Christian
prayers,
and the
precepts
of the faith are observed
which are within their
capacity.
The
king
who resided in this town was
living
with three
wives,
one mulatto and two native
[black]
women.
By
the first he had
many children, by
the others none. The
way
of dress
among
them is the same as
is observed
among
us
-
more or less clothed as the
possibilities
allow.
This is the main town of Palmares. This is the
king
who rules them. The other
towns are in the
charge
of
potentates
and chiefs who
govern
and reside in
them.... The second town is called
Subupira.
In this one
governs
the
king's
brother, who is called Zona. It is all fortified with wood and stones
[and]
comprises
more than 8oo houses. It
occupies
an area of nearly one
league
in
length.
It is well-watered because the
Cachingy
River flows
through
it. This was
the
place
where the blacks
prepared
for the combat
against
our assaults. It was
wholly
circled with
pitfalls
and to block
(in
the
way
of) our
thrusts,
it was sewn
with
caltrops.33
33
Ibid.,
pp. i89-90. '[R]econhecem-se
todos obedientes a um
que
se chama o
Ganga-
Zumba,
que quer
dizer Senhor Grande; a este tem
por
seu rei e senhor todos os mais,
assim naturais dos Palmares, como vindos de f6ra; tern
palacio,
casas da sua familia,
e assistido de
guardas
e oficiais
que
costumam ter as casas reais. E tratado corn todos
os
respeitos
de rei e corn todas as honras de senhor. Os
que
chegam
a sua
presenca p6em
os joelhos no chao e batem as
palmas
das maos em sinal de reconhecimento e
protesta9ao
de sua excelencia; falam-lhe
por Majestade,
obedecem-lhe
por
admiracao.
Habita a sua cidade
real,
que
chamam o Macaco, nome sortido da morte
que naquele
lugar
se deu a um animal destes. Esta e a
metr6pole
entre as mais cidades e
povoac6es;
esti fortificada toda em uma cerca de
pau
a
pique
com treneiras
[sic]
abertas
para
ofenderem a seu salvo os combatentes; e
pela
parte
de f6ra toda se semea de
estrepes
de ferro e de
fojos
tao cavilosos
que
perigara
neles a maior
vigilancia; ocupa
esta cidade
dilatado
espaco,
f6rma-se de mais de
1.5
00 casas. Ha entre eles Ministros de
Justica para
as execu6ces necessarias e todos os arrem&dos de
qualquer Republica
se acham entre
eles.
E corn serem estes barbaros tao
esquecidos
de toda
sujeitao,
nao
perderam
de todo o
reconhecimento da
Igreja.
Nesta cidade tem
capela
a
que
recorrem nos seus
apertos
e
imagens
a
quem
recomendam suas tenyoes.
Quando
se entrou nesta
capela
achou-se
uma
imagem
do Menino
Jesus
muito
perfeita;
outra de N. S. da
ConceiKao,
outra de
Sao Braz. Escolhem um dos mais ladinos,
a
quem
veneram como
paroco,
que
os batisa
o os casa. 0 batismo
porem,
e sem a f6rma determinada
pela
Igreja
e os casamentos sem
as
singularidades
que
pede
ainda a lei da naturesa. 0 seu
apetite
e a
regra
da sua eleicao.
Cada um tern as mulheres
que quer.
Ensinam-se entre eles
algumas
oracoes cristas,
observam-se os documentos da fe
que
cabem na sua
capacidade.
0 rei
que
nesta cidade
assistia estava acomodado corn tres mulheres,
uma mulata e duas creoulas. Da
primeira
teve muitos
filhos,
das outras nenhum. 0 modo de vestir entre si e o mesmo
que
observam entre n6s. Mais ou menos
enroupados
conforme as
possibilidades.
Esta e a
principal
cidade dos
Palmares,
este e o rei
que
os domina; as mais cidades estao
a
cargo
de
potentados
e cabos m6res
que
as
governam
e assistem nelas.... A
segunda
cidade chama-se
Subupira.
Nesta assiste o irmao do rei
que
se chama Zona. E
fortificada toda de madeira e
pedras,
compreende
mais de 8oo casas.
Ocupa
o vao de
perto
duma
legua
de
comprido.
E abundante de
aguas
porque
corre
por
ela o rio
Cachingy.
Esta era a estancia onde se
preparavam
os
negros
para
o combate de nossos
assaltos. Era toda cercada de
fojos
e
por
todas as
partes, por
obviar
(vias aos)
aos nossos
impulsos,
estava semeada de
estrepes.'
The
Quilombo of
Palmares
555
This
excerpt
is cited at
length,
not
only
for the wealth of information
it
contains,
but because the translation in Kent is riddled with errors and
omissions that obscure the
meaning
of the text.
Therefore,
Kent's
translation should be
carefully
re-read in
light
of the
present
version.34
First,
the architecture of Macaco and
Subupira suggests
that Palmares was
on a constant
war-footing.
Both towns were surrounded
by
trenches or
pitfalls
and
caltrops, Subupira
had a wood and stone
battery,
and Macaco
had
palisades
with embrasures. D. Pedro de Almeida's chronicler does
not, however,
state that the
parapets
had
caltrops.35 Subupira
was a site
of
military training,
but the chronicle makes no mention of arms
being
forged
there.36 Macaco's fortifications seem to have
employed
features of
both the Buraco de Tatu mocambo and the
Angolan palisaded
quilombo
which Schwartz contrasts in his article on Bahian mocambos.37 That
is,
the
Palmarino
capital
made use of the
pitfalls
and
caltrops
found in Buraco de
Tatu as well as the
palisades
found in
Angola.38
The
religion
of the
polity
was
probably
a
syncretism
of Christian and
African belief and
practice,
and this is
conveyed
in Kent's
translation,
despite
its
shortcomings.
I want to
clarify
the character of this
syncretism.39
Macaco had a
chapel
to which the Palmarinos resorted when
in
need,
containing
statues of
apparently
Christian
figures
before which
they brought petitions.
The Palmarinos did not
go
to church 'whenever
time
allow[ed]'
as Kent
states,
nor does the chronicler
say
that the statues
were
worshipped
as such. The
pastor
was
probably
ladino in the sense that
34
See
Kent, 'Palmares',
pp. 179-80.
35
See also
dos
Palmares,
p. 197.
36 See ibid.
37
Schwartz,
'The Mocambo: Slave Resistance in Colonial
Bahia',
in
Price,
Maroon
Societies,
pp.
202-26.
Originally published
in
Journal of
Social
History,
no.
3 (1970),
pp.
313-33.
38
See
description
and
figures,
ibid.,
pp.
220-I.
39
The notion of
'syncretism'
has an ancient
history
in the
scholarship
on
religion
and
more
recently
scholars have
sought
to
give
the term more
rigour.
See Carsen
Colpe,
'Syncretism',
in Mircea Eliade
(ed.),
The
Encyclopedia of Religion,
i6 vols.
(New York,
1987),
vol.
14, pp. 218-27.
For the Brazilian
context,
see
Bastide,
The
African
Religions
of
Brazil,
passim. Recently,
Leslie Gerald
Desmangles
used Bastide's
categories,
renaming
the
phenomena 'symbiosis' by way
of
describing
the nature of Haitian
syncretism. Desmangles,
Faces
of
the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti
(Chapel
Hill, N.C., I992), pp. 7-Ii.
There are modes of
syncretism,
related to the social
processes
that
engender
it. For
example, syncretism may
arise when the
hegemonic
religious
tradition is a
protective facade,
in which case the
metaphor
of 'veneer' is
appropriate.
Often, however,
the
juxtaposed religious
traditions are
complementary
avenues to
power
and
experience,
both
temporal
and
metaphysical,
as has often been
the case in Brazil and Haiti.
Finally,
there are cases of
genuine
fusion
-
the
operative
metaphor
here is
amalgam
- which have arisen
historically.
What is sometimes
missing
in the debates on
sociology
of
religion
is that a
community may
be multimodal in its
syncretism.
Given the
difficulty
of
interpreting
the artifacts of belief and
practice
from
a distant
time,
which affects research of the
prehistory
of Afro-Brazilian
religions,
'syncretism'
affords the
elasticity necessary
to describe the data without
speculating
recklessly
on the
particularities
of the
phenomena.
5 5
he was at least
nominally
Catholic,
spoke Portuguese, perhaps
knew
prayers,
and was otherwise 'acculturated'. He
may
or
may
not have been
'crafty',
as Kent renders. The
description
of the
practice
of
polygamy
certainly
did not conform to
Portuguese
norms.
However,
for Kent to
state that it was
'singularly
close to the laws of nature' rather than
'without the
particulars required by
natural law' misses an
important
theological point, i.e.,
that natural
law,
as understood
by
the
Church,.
ordains
monogamy,
sanctioned
by
sacramental
marriage.
The other
particulars
of belief and
practice
of African
origin
that must have been
present
are not stated. Their
presence
must be inferred from the sense of
distortion or
imperfection
of Catholic
practice
sensed and
relayed by
the
chronicler.40 It is indeed a reasonable
hypothesis
that Palmares was a
diverse and
dynamic community
as
regards religion.
The
religious
evidence of a creolised Afro-American culture is
reinforced
by
a
parallel phenomenon
in
dress,
according
to the chronicle:
the Palmarinos dressed more or less like the
colonials,
within their
capacity
to do so. The
description
of the
royal
Palmarino
envoy
to D.
Pedro de Almeida mentions 'barbarians'
wearing
both animal skins and
cloth,
with various hair
styles, including
braids,
bearing
both bows and
arrows and firearms.41
Despite
the chronicler
describing
this as 'usual'
dress,
it is reasonable to assume that on such an occasion the Palmarinos
would be in their most festive and martial attire. Fuller details of
Palmarino dress and its
significance
can
only
be
glimpsed
and
compared
with better studied
periods
and
places
in Brazil.
Engravings
and
photographs
from as late as the nineteenth
century
reveal a mix of African
and
European
dress
among
Brazilian slaves.42
Recently
Silvia Hunold
Lara has
begun analysing
the
complex significance
of female dress and
adornment in colonial
Brazil,
concluding
that this visual
language,
which
signified
racial and
power
relations to the white slave
owning
class,
had
other cultural
meanings
for the African.43
As
regards government,
the
'RelaSao'
clearly
refers to
Ganga-Zumba
as ' rei'
('king')
and to his residence as a
'palacio' ('palace');
the
'guards
and officials' are those
customary
for a
'royal
house',
not
having 'by
custom,
casas which
approach
those of
royalty'.44
The
point
here is that
Kent's translation
mitigates
the
perception
held
by
the
Portuguese,
not to
mention the
Palmarinos,
that the leaders of Palmares were viewed in some
40
See Bastide, The African Religions
of
Brazil,
pp. 83-90.
4
Carneiro,
0
quilombo
dos
Palmares, p. 203.
42
Mary
Karasch,
Slave
Life
in Rio de
Janeiro, 80oo-I8yo (Princeton, I987), passim;
Robert
Levine
(prod.),
Faces
of
Slavery (Miami,
I990).
Videocassette.
43
'Sob o
signo
da cor:
Trajes
femininos e
relaSoes
raciais nas cidades de Salvador e Rio
de
Janeiro', paper
delivered at the
meeting
of the Latin American Studies
Association,
Washington,
D.C.,
Sept. I995.
4 Kent, 'Palmares',
p. I79.
The
Quilombo of
Palmares
5 57
sense as
royalty,
even if that sense was more African than
European.
In
a
gesture
of
respect
towards
royalty
Palmarinos knelt and
clapped
hands.
They
did not beat
palm
leaves,
as Kent states. This
gesture
was
repeated
by
the Palmarino
envoy
in Recife.45 Luis da Camara Cascudo has
commented on
praise greeting by prostration
and hand
clapping
in
Africa.46 It would also
appear
that the
principal
town of Palmares was
christened
by
and on the occasion of the sacrifice of a
monkey.
Kent
mentions 'site initiation with animal blood' in
passing
in his
conclusion,
but in no
way
connects it with the name of the
capital
town.47
Thus,
a
number of errors in
transcription
and translation muddle
intriguing
data
about what
appear
to be
non-European
civil and
religious practices.
More
seriously, though,
the flaws in this translation seem to have
affected the nuance of Kent's
interesting
conclusion,
that 'Palmares was a
centralized
kingdom
with an elected ruler' and that
'Ganga-Zumba
delegated
territorial
power
and
appointed
to
offce'.48 Admittedly
there is
nothing
in Kent's evidence or
analysis
that is inconsistent with a view of
Palmares as a
paramount
chiefdom or
kingdom along
Central African
lines,
as he has
argued.
In
fact,
Kent's assertion that 'the
political system
[of Palmares]
did not derive from a
particular
Central African
model,
but
from several'
prefigures
Schwartz's later
inquiry.49
What is
troubling
is
that the
Portuguese
version of the
'RelaSao'
suggests
a
political
organisation
more
complex,
even more
contradictory
than a 'centralised'
state with
'delegated' power imagined by
Kent. The
'potentates
and
chiefs' of the other
towns,
did not
govern
'in
[Ganga-Zumba's]
name',
as Kent
renders;
the chronicle
says
no such
thing.
In
fact,
the chronicle
suggests
confederation and
tributary
relations
among
the Palmarino
towns,
reinforced
by
what also
appear
to be
lineage
or
family
relations.
The 'Relacao' states that Palmares had 'all the
trappings
of
any
Republic'.
5
Yet the
descriptions
of Palmares as a
republic
with an elective
kingship,
as
though
chosen
by general suffrage,
found in Rocha
Pitta,
Oliveira
Martins, Santos,
and
Freitas,
have scant foundation in the
primary
sources.51
Perhaps 'republic'
should be taken to mean
'state',
as
Nina
Rodrigues suggested,52
and the election of the
king
could derive
45
dos
Palmares,
p. 203.
46
Luis da Camara
Cascudo,
'A
saudaSao africana',
in Made in
Africa:
Pesquisas
e notas
(Rio
de
Janeiro, I965), pp.
82-9.
Carneiro noted the existence of a
hand-snapping gesture
in West Africa as a
sign
of
vassalage
that was also used in the cult of
Xang6.
Carneiro,
p.
43,
n. 2.
47
Kent, 'Palmares',
p.
i88.
48
Ibid.,
p.
I87.
Emphasis
added.
49
Ibid.,
p.
i88.
50
dos
Palmares,
p.
I89,
cited above. This
phrase
is
very loosely
translated
by
Kent as 'their office is
duplicated
elsewhere'.
51 See
Bastide,
The
African
Religions
of Brazil, p. 87.
52
Nina
Rodrigues,
Os
africanos
no
Brasil,
pp.
I20-I.
55
from
descriptions
of
chiefly
and bureaucratic checks on the
power
of the
king
and the lack of
hereditary
succession,
all of which
might
look
'republican'
to the Euro-Brazilian observer.
Nothing
in this
supposition,
however,
precludes
the
possibility
that the
principal
chief was elected
by
the chiefs of the constituent
villages
or even
by popular
acclaim,
as
among
the
Imbangala
of
seventeenth-century Angola.
It was Schwartz who noted the connection between the
quilombo
of
Brazil and the institution
by
the same name in
Angola (KiMbundu
kilombo).53
He
synthesised
his
knowledge
of maroons in colonial Brazil
with the
history
of state formation in
seventeenth-century Angola
as
related
by Joseph
C. Miller.54 While the more
general
word for maroon
settlement in colonial Brazil is mocambo
(Kimbundu
mukambo,
'hide-
out'),55
the word
quilombo, referring
to the same
thing, gains currency
only
in the late seventeenth
century,
and then
only
at first in connection
with Palmares.56 Kent is
right
to
point
out that
quilombo
is not the usual
designation
for 'maroon settlement' until the
present century.
That the
term
quilombo
is
rarely applied
to maroon settlements other than Palmares
prior
to this
century
has
implications
for the
arguments concerning
African structure of the
polity
of Palmares
proposed by
Kent and
subsequent
scholars.
In
Angola
the kilombo was
originally
a male initiation
camp
and,
by
extension,
a male
military society. During
the seventeenth
century
the
territory
the
Portuguese
called
Angola
was
disrupted by
factors that
included the
pressure
of the
Portuguese
slave trade and
occupation
of the
coast,
by
the
collapse
of states such as the
Kingdom
of the
Kongo
to the
north,
and
by
invasions
principally
from the northeast. The
people
of
central
Angola responded by coalescing
under the name
'Imbangala'.
In
contrast to
prior
states in the
area,
which
crystallised
around a
royal
lineage
of divine
kings,
the nascent
Imbangala
states
gathered together
diverse
peoples
in a
lineageless community.
Since these communities
existed in conditions of
military
conflict and
political upheaval they
found
in the institution of the kilombo a
unifying
structure suitable for a
people
under constant
military
alert.57 It is clear that the wars in
Angola
were
feeding
the slave trade to the Northeast of
Brazil,
a market that
expanded
53
and
Rebels,
pp. 122-36.
54
Kings
and Kinsmen:
Early
Mbundu States in
Angola (Oxford, 1976).
55 Antonio Geraldo da Cunha, Diciondrio etimologico Nova Fronteira da
lingua portuguesa (Rio
de
Janeiro, 1982),
p. 526.
56
and
Rebels,
p.
12
5.
Although
as Schwartz
points
out,
colonial
choniclers used the
phrase 'kingdom
and
quilombo'
to refer to Matamba and other
Imbangala-influenced polities
in
seventeenth-century Angola,
such that
'[q]uilombo
was
becoming
a
synonym
for a
kingdom
of a
particular type
in
Angola'
(ibid.,
p. 128).
57
and
Rebels,
pp. 25-7; Miller, passim.
The
Quilombo of
Palmares
5 9
to
recoup
the losses
during
the Dutch
occupation.
It is reasonable to
assume that
many,
if not
most,
of the Palmarinos were the descendants of
slaves from
Angola,
and
many may
have been recent arrivals from
among
the
Imbangala.58
Indeed,
the residents of Palmares called it
Angola Janga,
supposedly
'Little
Angola'.59
Yet,
whatever the Central African
presence
in
Palmares, by
the second
half of the seventeenth
century
it was
clearly
a multiethnic and
mostly
creole
community.
The
population
of Palmares in the
I67os appears
to
have been
largely
native-born and of African descent.60 The balance of the
population
would have been
runaway
slaves,
slaves and free
persons
captured
in
raids,
colonials who had suffered
political
reversals as a
consequence
of the
Portuguese reconquest
of
Pernambuco,
and
poor
free
immigrants
of all racial
backgrounds.61 Preliminary
results of the Palmares
Excavation
project
also confirm a
strong indigenous
American
presence,
presumably among
the women.62
During
this time the
paramount
chief of Palmares was
Ganga-Zumba,
probably
a title rather than a
proper
name. As Schwartz and Miller have
noted
nganga
a
nIumbi
was a
religious
title
among
the
Imbangala,
one
whose
responsibilities
included
relieving sufferings
caused
by
an
unhappy
spirit
of a
lineage
ancestor.63 In a
fundamentally lineageless society
like the
Imbangala-
or the colonial maroon- this official would have
great
importance,
as it would fall to him to
appease
those ancestral
spirits
who
had been cut loose from their descendants and had therefore been
deprived
of
family propitiation.
Schwartz
speculates
that
Ganga-Zumba
of Palmares
held such an office.
Despite
the title and
apparent
official function of Bantu
origin,
the
Ganga-Zumba
known to
history may
have been a native
Palmarino of the Ardra
nation,
identifiable with the
Ewe-speaking
Allada
state on the Slave Coast.64
Zumbi was the war commander of Palmares under
Ganga-Zumba.
Freitas
gives
a
biographical portrait
of Zumbi which has often been
repeated
as
fact,
while
raising
doubts
among
scholars about its
veracity.65
The
suspicion
is
justifiable: although
Freitas cites numerous
published
58
Bastide,
The
African Religions of Brazil, pp. 84-5; Schwartz, Slaves, Peasants,
and
Rebels,
p. I25.
59
Ennes,
As
guerras
nos
Palmares,
doc.
54,
article I. I have been unable to confirm the
sense
ofjanga
as 'little' in
KiKongo
or KiMbundu.
My
best
hypothesis
is that
Angola
Janga
is from KiMbundu
ngola iadianga,
'first
Angola'.
60
Carneiro,
0
quilombo
dos
Palmares,
p.
I89; Kent, 'Palmares',
p.
180.
61
Freitas, Palmares,
pp.
182,
I85.
62
Funari,
quoted
in 'Neto'.
63
Miller,
pp. 254-5; Schwartz, Slaves, Peasants,
and
Rebels,
p.
I27.
KiMbundu
nganga,
'priest'; ngumbi,
'ancestor
spirit'.
64
Freitas, Palmares, p.
Ioz. Freitas, however,
does not
give
the source of this information.
65
Ibid.,
pp. 125-7.
560
and
manuscript
sources in his
bibliography,
there is little
rigour
in citation
of sources in the narrative. For
example,
Freitas works from 'various
letters' written
by
Priest Antonio
Melo,
without
giving
the
disposition
of
those letters.
However,
journalists reporting
from
Portugal
for the Folha
de Sao Paulo
tentatively
corroborate the existence of Father Melo's letters:
one in the
Arquivo
Historfco Ultramarino and several in the
possession
of
Graziela de
Cadaval,
Countess of
Schonborn,
not seen
by
the
reporters
but
copied
with
permission by
Freitas.66 Freitas writes that Zumbi was born in
65 5.
That same
year
Bras da Rocha Cardoso led the first
Portuguese
attack
on Palmares after the
expulsion
of the Dutch.
During
that otherwise
ineffective and unremarkable
attack,
a
baby boy,
native to
Palmares,
was
captured
and later
given
to Father Melo in the Coastal town of Porto
Calvo. The
boy, baptised
Francisco
by
the
priest,
was raised as the
priest's
protege
and instructed in
Portuguese,
Latin,
and other
subjects.
At the
age
of
fifteen,
in
I670,
the
youth
ran
away
to
Palmares,
although
he later
continued to
pay
the
priest
secret visits.
Francisco
reemerges
in Governor d. Pedro de Almeida's chronicle as
'Zambi', the
'general
das armas' of Palmares.67
During
the
campaign
led
by Sergeant-Major
Manuel
Lopes (Galvao)
in
I675-76,
'Zambi' suffered
a
leg
wound that left him with a
limp.68
He is described as a 'black man
of
singular
valour,
great spirit,
and rare
constancy.
He is the overseer of
the
rest,
because his
industry, judgement,
and
strength
to our
people
serve
as an
obstacle;
to
his,
as an
example'.69
A document received
by
the
Conselho
Ultramarino,
partially
cited in
Freitas,
attributes Palmares's
resistance to
'military practice
made warlike in the
discipline
of their
captain
and
general,
Zumbi,
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'.70
The historical record has
helped
to confuse the issue of
proper
names
at Palmares. It is uncertain whether 'Zumbi' was a
proper
name, title,
epithet,
or
praise
name. Freitas advances the idea that it was not a title but
a
given
name or even
nickname,
since there is
only
one
person
known to
history
as
Zumbi,
and his name occurs in the record
only
between
I675
66
Aureliano Biancarelli and
Jair Battner,
'Pistas
dispersas:
Milhares de documentos
aguardam catalogaao',
Folha de Sao
Paulo, I2
Nov.
1995,
sec.
5 ['Mais!'], p.
6;
'Arquivo
revela
que
Zumbi sabia
latim', ibid., p. 7,
initialled
'B.A.', presumably
Aureliano Biancarelli as well. 67
Carneiro, O
quilombo
dos
Palmares,
p.
I93.
68
Freitas, Palmares,
p.
Ioo; Carneiro,
O
quilombo
dos
Palmares,
p. 193.
69
Ibid., pp.
193-4. '[N]egro
de
singular
valor,
grande
animo e constancia rara. Este e o
espectador
dos
mais,
porque
a sua
industria, juizo
e fortalesa aos nossos serve de
embara9o,
aos seus de
exemplo.'
70
Freitas, Palmares,
p.
i i.
'[P]ratica
militar
aguerrida
na
disciplina
do seu
capitao
e
general Zumbi,
que
os fez destrissimos no uso de todas as
armas,
de
que
tem muitas e
em
quantidade
assim de
fogo
como de
espadas,
lanSas
e flechas'.
The
Quilombo of
Palmares
5
61
and
695.71
This is
notwithstanding
the account of the Carrilho
expedition
which mentions the
capture
of a
'Zambi',
'a son of the
king',
who was
patently
not the
general
'Zambi' wounded two
years
earlier.72
However,
there could be confusion here with one Matias Dambi mentioned
later,
referred to somewhat
ambiguously
as
Ganga-Zumba's
father-in-law.73
The
question
arises as to whether or not we are
dealing
in fact with a
family
name or
title,
especially
where the notorious
difficulty
of
translating
kinship
terms and titles could have muddled the historical record. In the
official
documents,
the name
appears variously
as
'Zumbi', 'Zambi',
'Zombi',
and
'Zomby'.
Earlier
orthography
did not indicate stress
consistently,
so it is
possible
that the name was stressed on the
penultimate
syllable,
as in
KiMbundu,
rather than the
last,
as is
customary today.
The
seemingly petty uncertainty
about the vowel and stress reveals a
tangle
of
uncertainty
about the
significance
of the name.
NZambi
is the
usual KiMbundu name for the
Supreme Being.
In
KiKongo
nzambi
means
'spirit',
and is
qualified
when
referring
to the
Supreme Being
as
Nzambi
Mpungo
or
'Highest Spirit'.74
The Brazilian forms of both names Zambi
and
Zambiampungo
occur to this
day
in the Bantu-influenced
religions
of
Brazil.75 Therefore,
deification of Zumbi would
appear
to be set in motion
by
his
very
name. But the situation is more
complex yet.
In
KiMbundu,
while
NZambi
refers
narrowly
to the
Supreme Being,
the word nwumbi
means 'ancestral
spirit',
as noted in connection with the
religious
title
nganga
a
nzumbi
above. The
nZumbi
is
similar,
if not
identical,
to the
category
of
spirit
that the
BaKongo
call in the
singular
n'kulu.76 In Central
African culture a
ngumbi
demands
special propitiatory
attention,
lest it
disturb its descendants. Often
European
observers have
only partially
understood the nature of this
spirit.
For
example,
Albino Alves
gives
the
following
definition of
'ndjumbi': 'spirit
of a
person
who,
murdered
without
blame,
later enters the
body
of the children of the murderer and
kills
them,
until it is
placated by
a sacrifice'.77 For this
reason,
the
KiMbundu
nZumbi
has often been mistranslated as 'evil
spirit'.
It is this
sense that is
usually
meant in Brazil
by Zumbi.78 Colloquially
in Brazil
zumbi
also refers to someone with nocturnal inclinations.79 We could also
71
Ibid.,
p.
126.
72
dos
Palmares, p.
I99.
73
Ibid., p.
201.
74
Wyatt MacGaffey,
Religion
and
Society
in Central
Africa:
The
BaKongo of
Lower Zaire
(Chicago, 1986),
p. 78.
75
Bastide,
The
African Religions of Brazil, pp. 194-5,
201-2.
76
MacGaffey, Religion
and
Society,
pp. 63-5.
Plural
bakulu,
'ancestors'.
77
Albino
Alves,
Diciondrio
etimologico bundo-portugues (Lisbon, i95
i), p. 865. Espirito
de
pessoa que,
assassinada sem
culpa,
entra
depois
no
corpo
dos filhos do assassino e os
mata, enquanto
nao 6
aplacado
com um sacrificio.'
78 Lufs da Camara
Cascudo,
'Noticia do
Zumbi',
in Made in
Africa, p. 13.
79
Ibid.
562
compare
the
etymology
of the word to the
cognate
Haitian
Zombi
and all
of the
meanings
and connotations that 'zombie' has
acquired
in
English.80
It is a matter of
speculation
how Zumbi came to receive his
name,
but
there can be little doubt that his
compatriots
viewed the name within the
paradigm
of the cult of ancestors.
Perhaps,
if Freitas's
biography
is
accurate, Francisco/Zumbi
had
figuratively
returned from the dead when
he returned to Palmares. To the
sugar plantation
owners and colonial
officials, however,
Zumbi was
surely
the 'evil
spirit'
of
folklore,
descending
at
night
to wreak havoc on their
patrimony.
This
polysemy
of
the name
Zumbi,
born of cultural
difference,
continues to the
present.
A similar confusion surrounds the name
'Ganga-Zumba'.
While this is
probably
the
Imbangala religious
title
nganga
a
ntumbi,
as stated
above,
'Ganga-Zumba'
is
usually
rendered
incorrectly
in the
Portuguese
sources
as 'Great Lord'.s8 The KiMbundu title for
respectful
address is
ngana,
approximately
'sir', 'lord',
or
nowadays,
'mister'. It is not clear however
how 'Zumba' could translate
'great'.
A KiMbundu
epithet
for the
Supreme Being
is
Ngana
Nrambi,
the Christian translation of which is
'Lord God'
(cf.
Nfambi
above).
Heli Chatelain records a
story
in which
the character
Ngana
Fenda Maria is accosted
by
a voice from the
sky
while
travelling,
to whom she
replies, 'inga
u
mutu,
inga
u
nzumbi,
inga
eie
Ngana
Nzambi,
ngaiola (Whether
thou be a
person,
whether thou be a
ghost [sic],
whether thou be the Lord
God,
I am
going').82
The
similarity
between these names
might
lead one to
equate Ngana
Nzambi with
Ganga-Zumba.
In
fact,
sources
occasionally give
the Palmarino
king's
name as
'Ganga-Zumbi',
thus
utterly confusing
the names
(or titles)
of
the
only
two leaders of Palmares known to
history.
In
any
case,
confusion
of these two names with names for the
Supreme Being
and other
supernatural beings
of the Central African ethos have contributed to the
apotheosis
of
Ganga-Zumba
and Zumbi in much of the
subsequent
cultural
production
of an
epic
or heroic nature.
Ganga-Zumba
was wounded in an attack on the mocambo of Amaro in
November
1677,
and a number of his
sons,
nephews,
and
grandchildren
were
captured.83
The destruction
wrought by
Carrilho must have had an
effect. In
1678, Ganga-Zumba,
tired of
war,
accepted
terms of
peace
from
80
Wade Davis
agrees
with
Wyatt MacGaffey
in
deriving Zombi
from
KiKongo nzambi.
Davis,
Passage of
Darkness: The
Ethnobiology of
the Haitian Zombi
(Chapel Hill, N.C.,
I988),
p.
57.
There is no reason to discount several
cognate
Bantu sources for the
Haitian word. Haitians
distinguish
the
corporeal
Zombi (Davis's zombi
corps cadavre)
and
the
spirit Zombi (Davis's Zombi
astral or
zombi
ti bon
ange), ibid.,
pp. 183,
I
90-3.
See also
Alfred
Metraux,
Voodoo in
Haiti,
Hugo
Charteris
(trans.), (London, 1959), pp. 258,
281-5.
81
Carneiro,
O
quilombo
dos
Palmares, p.
I89.
82
Folk-tales of Angola
(Boston, I894),
p.
33.
83
Carneiro,
0
quilombo
dos
Palmares,
p.
199.
The
Quilombo of
Palmares
563
the
governor
of
Pernambuco,
which affirmed his
sovereignty
over his
people
on the condition that he return
any fugitive
slaves and move his
people
from Palmares to the Cucai
Valley.84
Sometime
thereafter,
Ganga-
Zumba and his followers relocated to the Cucati
Valley,
closer to the
watchful
eye
of the colonial
government.
However,
Ganga-Zumba's treaty
did not
gain peace.
An
opposition
faction
preferred
resistance to removal. A bann from
Sergeant-Major
Manuel
Lopes,
dated
i680,
called on
'Captain
Zumbi' and other rebels to
cease their
uprising,
to adhere to the terms of the
treaty,
and to
join
his
uncle,
Gana-Zona.85 The document also affirms that in
1680
Zumbi or his
partisans
had
poisoned
their
king
'Ganazumba'. Kent viewed this last act
as a
'palace
revolt'.86
Clearly, Ganga-Zumba's
concessions had
provoked
a rift in
Palmares,
but the death
may
also be viewed as the
widespread
African
practice
of sanctioned
regicide,
the severest
penalty
for
royal
weakness or abuse of
power.
Zumbi,
until then a chief and
military
commander,
occupied
the
capital
and was
proclaimed supreme
chief. He
immediately
set about
prosecuting
the defensive war
against
the
Portuguese, ruling
Palmares with dictatorial
authority.87
Zumbi thus
ruled Palmares from the time of
Ganga-Zumba's
move to Cucau to the
destruction of Palmares in
I694.
The broken
peace eventually precipitated
the enlistment of the aid of
the 'Bush
Captain' Domingos Jorge
Velho.88 This bandeirante- or
wilderness tamer - from Sao
Paulo,
and his
irregulars joined
fores raised
in the Northeast for an assault on Palmares in
1692.
In late
1693,
after the
defeat the
year
before,
a new combined
expeditionary
force
gathered
in
Porto Calvo. When
they
reached the
heavy
fortification of the
royal
compound
of
Macaco,
they
laid
siege
for 22
days.
The attackers were
building
a counter-fortification in order to move their canon within
range
of the
compound palisade
when the Palmarinos
began abandoning
their
positions,
either to attack from the rear or in order to flee
through
a break
in the
opposing
fortification.89 In the
ensuing
battle on
5-6 February
1994, Jorge
Velho took some
400
prisoners.
Another
3oo00
died in
battle,
while some 200 hurled themselves or were forced from the
precipice
at the
84
Ibid.,
pp. 203-5;
Kent, 'Palmares',
pp.
183-6; Freitas,
pp.
118-21.
85
dos
Palmares,
pp. 228-9.
86
Kent, 'Palmares', p.
i86.
87
Freitas, Palmares,
p.
I
24.
88
'Capitio-do-mato',
a field commander
charged
with
fighting
Indians and
capturing
runaway
slaves. For a discussion of this
office,
see
Schwartz,
'The Mocambo',
pp.
2
2-3.
89
For
drawings
of how these
opposing
fortifications
may
have
looked,
see
Joel
Rufino
dos
Santos, pp. 44-5.
After
visiting
the site of Macaco on the Serra da
Barriga
or
'Belly
Ridge',
it is
my opinion
that
Jorge
Velho's
diagonal
wall was built to
protect
the
cannons and
troops
in their difficult ascent of the flank of the
ridge;
it was not built
on level
ground,
as the
pictures suggest.
564
rear of the
compound.
In
all,
some
5oo
Palmarinos were killed and over
500
total were taken
prisoner
in the
campaign.90
Zumbi had
escaped
this fatal battle. He continued to skirmish with the
Portuguese
for over a
year,
until one of his aides revealed his location.
There Zumbi and a small band of followers were ambushed and killed.
His mutilated
body
was identified in Porto Calvo. Then his head was
taken to
Recife,
the
capital
of
Pernambuco,
and
displayed
as
proof against
claims of his
immortality.91
Jorge
Velho fixed the date of Zumbi's death
at 20 November
I695.92
These events recorded and
republished
in the historical record over the
last four centuries
provide
the
epic
material of Zumbi of Palmares. Since
the seventeenth
century
later accretions and variants have been
incorporated
into the textual tradition. A case in
point
is the alternate
version of Zumbi's
death,
in which Zumbi
allegedly
hurled himself from
the
precipice during
the final assault on Macaco to avoid
capture.
The
story
was committed to
history by
Rocha
Pitta,
who claimed to have
learned it from a survivor. This romantic
episode
has been
repeated by
several
secondary
sources,
and has been
incorporated
into some artistic
works on Palmares. The version has its basis in the statements
by
eyewitnesses
that a number of Zumbi's
compatriots
met a similar fate.
While the
secondary
sources coincide in
great
measure of their
detail, they
also contain internal contradictions and
ambiguities. Together
the
primary
and
secondary
sources have woven the text that became the authorised
history
of
Palmares,
at times
describing
the state in ahistorical terms that
obscure the fact that
quilombos
existed in the Palmares
region
for at least
50o years.
This ahistorical conflation of detail has contributed in effect to
the
mythification
of Palmares.
The
historiography
of Palmares is
necessarily
elite
historiography.
We
do not know of
any surviving
accounts of Palmares
by
Palmarinos. The
record of
popular
oral
history
is scant
although
it
certainly
exists. Notable
is a
report by
Arthur Ramos on a
popular pageant performed
in
Pilar,
Alagoas,
as late as the
I93os.93
Also Carolina Maria de
Jesus
recalls her
unschooled
grandfather telling
her of Zumbi's battle
against slavery.94
The Bahian
afoxes
of the turn of the
century
celebrated Zumbi as a hero.95
90
Accounts of the destruction of Palmares are found in
Freitas, Palmares, I69-8;
dos
Palmares, I40-6; Ennes,
As
guerras
nos
Palmares,
docs.
24, 26,
92-95.
91
Ibid.,
doc.
38.
See also
Morse,
The
Bandeirantes,
p.
12I.
92
dos
Palmares,
pp. I5o-1.
93
Arthur
Ramos, O
folclore negro
do Brasil:
demopsicologia
e
psicandlise,
2nd ed.
(Rio
de
Janeiro, 1954),
pp. 60-7.
94
Carolina Maria de
Jesus,
Didrio de Bitita
(Rio
de
Janeiro, I986),
p.
58.
95
Daniel
J. Crowley, African Myth
and Black
Reality
in Bahian Carnaval
(Los Angeles,
I984), pp. 23, 29.
The
Quilombo of
Palmares
565
In the absence of more
information, however,
it is
impossible
to
say
how
much the
existing
works about Palmares owe to oral literature uninformed
by
erudite
scholarship.
These
historiographic
facts mean that
nowadays
activists, artists,
and scholars desirous of
avoiding
Eurocentric accounts
have had to
rely
on documents written
by
outsiders. This has not
prevented
them from
appropriating
that elite
discourse,
and
doing
so
frequently.
One could
argue
that
they
have little choice in the
matter,
and
that such a
strategy
is nevertheless subversive.
However,
I would add that the historical record offers
ample
evidence
within a small
corpus
that at least
suggests
creole Brazilian
alternatives,
many ultimately
of African
origins.
While
subsequent generations
have
added
interpretations
and
mythic
accretions to this
record,
they
have not
necessarily
contradicted the Afro-Brazilian character of the
community
that was Palmares. It would
appear
then that in mature Palmares Central
African titles and
political
and
public
ritual
practices prevailed among
a
heterogeneous
creole
population.
This
seeming incongruity
is
explained
by
the
very continuity
of the
kilombo/quilombo
discussed
by
Schwartz. The
flexibility
of the institution of the Kilombo as a mechanism for
integrating
a
lineageless community engaged
in warfare and
self-defence,
as was
Palmares,
explains why
some
adaptation
of the
Imbangala
institution
would thrive in
Brazil,
even if
only
a
minority
of Palmares's inhabitants
were
actually Imbangala.
It has been
faulty logic
to assume that because
Bantu evidence exists in
titles,
toponymy,
and cultural
practices,
that
Central African-born Bantus
necessarily predominated
in
Palmares,
and
that Palmares was
conservatively
Central African. Whatever the ethnic
composition
of Palmares at
any given
time,
one can make the case that
certain African cultural forms and
practices
lent themselves to
adaptation
to the
problematic
of the New World. In this
instance,
the Central African
solution of the
quilombo
served the Brazilian
maroons,
uniting malungos,
or
comrades,
from diverse ethnic
backgrounds,
not on the basis of
lineage,
but for the
purposes
of
commodity production, raiding,
and self-defence.
The
persistence
and
adaptation
of African cultural elements such as the
quilombo
to the Afro-Brazilian creole
context,
in
fact,
demonstrates the
continuity
of African and African
Diasporic
cultures in the
process
of
New World transculturation.96
Such has been the
grist
for the mills of
historians,
ethnographers,
artists,
and
activists,
regardless
of their
ideological
formations and
pragmatic
aims. Better
descriptions
of the
continuity
and elaboration of
Central African cultural forms in the Brazilian
quilombo
depend
on future
96
For the
general conceptual
framework on which these conclusions are
based,
see
Sidney
W. Mintz and Richard
Price,
The Birth
of African
American Culture: An
Anthropological Perspective (Boston, I992).
566
primary
research on Palmares and other Brazilian maroons. Doubtless we
all stand to learn much from the efforts of those in
disciplines
such as
folklore,
oral
history,
and
archaeology.
Archives in
Brazil,
Portugal,
and
Angola
have a wealth of information
yet
to
yield.
In the
meantime,
activists, artists,
and intellectuals concerned with the
experience
of the
African in Brazil have made a
bounty
of a
poor
man's
charity.
Appropriating
the historical record
they
have undertaken to fashion the
epic
of Zumbi of Palmares.

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The Quilombo of Palmares: A New Overview of a Maroon State in Seventeenth-Century Brazil

Author(s): Robert Nelson Anderson

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