Zumbi dos Palmares is one of the great names in the history of Brazil. He was one of the leaders of the Quilombo dos Palmares , the largest and longest-lived quilombo in the history of our country. Zumbi assumed the leadership of the quilombo, in 1678, and resisted, for almost 20 years, against the onslaughts of the Portuguese.
He was killed after his hiding place was denounced, on the 20th of November, 1695. Zombie is currently one of the great symbols of the struggle of blacks and Africans against slavery in Brazil. His memory is also used, nowadays, as a symbol of the struggle of blacks against racism present in Brazilian society.
Contextualizing Quilombo dos Palmares
It is impossible to dissociate the life of Zumbi from Quilombo dos Palmares, after all he was one of the leaders of this quilombo and died defending this place. Quilombo dos Palmares appeared at the end of the 16th century and was named for the large number of palm trees that existed in the place where it was developed:the Serra da Barriga .
Palmares was a junction of mocambos, small villages that runaway slaves formed. There were about eighteen mocambos that spread through territories that today correspond to Alagoas and Pernambuco . The main mocambo was called Cerca Real do Macaco , or just Mocambo do Macaco, and reached up to 6 thousand people. The group of mocambos that formed Palmares had up to 20 thousand inhabitants .
It is believed that Palmares was formed, at first, by a few dozen fugitive slaves from the mills installed in Pernambuco. Over time, they developed and convinced other slaves to run away and settle there. Throughout its existence, Palmares resisted expeditions sent by Dutch and Portuguese .
Historians know very little about Palmares, due to the lack of sources about this quilombo. An aggravating factor is the fact that all existing sources about Palmares were written by Europeans . Therefore, these documents help to reconstruct only a small part of the entirety of Palmares' history.
From the 1630s onwards, Palmares experienced great growth due to conflicts between the Dutch and Portuguese in the Northeast. When the Portuguese reconquered the region, new expeditions were being organized and with increasing frequency. The decline of the quilombo started in the 1680s.
The expedition that put an end to the quilombo was that of the pioneer Domingos Jorge Velho , hired to destroy Palmares. The pioneer received the right to keep part of the captured blacks and some land in the Serra da Barriga region. The Mocambo do Macaco was eventually destroyed in 1694, and the survivors fled and resisted until the beginning of the 18th century.
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Who was Zumbi dos Palmares?
One of the great characters of Quilombo dos Palmares was Zumbi. He became known for being one of the leaders of the quilombo and ended up paying with his life for it. Very little is known about Zumbi's life and some of the conclusions that were considered consolidated truths until a certain time are currently questioned by some historians.
Up until a certain time, there was a certain story that Zumbi had been kidnapped in his childhood, during an attack on Palmares, and had been raised by a priest who named him Francisco and literate. Zumbi would have fled as a teenager, returned to Palmares and assumed a leadership position there. This version, however, has been questioned by the lack of evidence that sustain it.
This contestation happens because the author of this work used letters that only he had access to and that he never made available to anyone else. A mention of Zumbi is made by the king of Portugal d. Pedro II, in a letter in which the Portuguese king proposes pardon for Zumbi if he accepts to live as a subject of Portugal. This letter makes mention of a wife and children de Zumbi, and despite this, historians cannot say whether he actually had a wife and children.
Another problem regarding Zombie is the fact whether he was a person or that term was a title . Some historians believe in both cases and, therefore, Zumbi, the leader who resisted and died, in 1695, existed, but that the term “zombie” could also be an existing title in Palmares. An indication of this is given by the historian and researcher Felipe Aguiar Damasceno, who points out that Dutch documents from the 1640s mentioned an authority in Palmares who was recorded by them as “Dambij ”|1| . The similarity of “Dambij” and “Zumbi” suggests a direct relationship between the character and a position of authority and the use of the term as a title.
Some certainties about Zumbi are that, in 1678, he had a disagreement with the then leader of the quilombo, Ganga Zumba . This happened because Ganga Zumba had received a peace offer from the Portuguese authorities. In that offer, Ganga Zumba agreed to move to a village stipulated by the Portuguese, and the blacks born in Palmares would remain free, but the fugitives would be sent back into slavery.
Ganga Zumba accepted the Portuguese offer because he was being blackmailed by the Portuguese. Some of his relatives had been kidnapped and ended up being used as a bargaining chip to force the quilombo leader to accept the peace offer. Ganga Zumba oil divided Palmares and part of the quilombolas turned against him – including Zumbi himself.
Ganga Zumba was eventually killed – it is unknown if he was killed by the Portuguese or by the Maroons themselves, and Zumbi became a leader . Zumbi also clashed with Ganga Zumba's brother named Gana Zona, but ultimately prevailed. In 1678 he became leader of Palmares and led the Palmarine resistance in recent years.
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Death of Zumbi de Palmares
After Domingos Jorge Velho's expedition destroyed the Mocambo do Macaco, Zumbi and other survivors fled and hid in the woods of the Serra Dois Irmãos . For a year and a half, they resisted deep in the bush. This information was obtained by new studies that demystified the idea that Zumbi had committed suicide in 1694.
Zombie was killed, on November 20, 1695 , after one of his companions named Antônio Soares revealed under torture Zumbi's hiding place. A pioneer named André Furtado de Mendonça organized an ambush who located Zombie. After being killed, his head was severed and exposed in Recife.
Image credits
[1] hades00 and Shutterstock
Note
|1| DAMASCENO, Felipe Aguiar. The occupation of the lands of Palmares de Pernambuco (17th and 18th centuries). Thesis (Doctorate in Social History). Institute of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. 2015, p. 39.