QUILOMBOS AND THEIR INFLUENCE
ON AFRO-BRAZILIAN CULTURAL INTERPENETRATION
An anthropological approach
María Laura Bergel – April 2006
laurabergel@yahoo.com.ar
For centuries, black African people were brought to the Americas as slaves, in order to perform inhumane tasks without the enjoyment of any form of rights.
These groups, once they arrived in Brazil, were scattered throughout the 22 Brazilian states. Quilombos were a hiding and shelter place for black runaway slaves in rural areas, where they first started to develop very isolated community forms, which later experienced important gradual exchanges. They represented a major issue from the early African pockets of resistance to colonial slavery, re-emerging at the moment of the Brazilian Republic with the Brazilian Negro Front (1930/1940) and returning to the political scene at the end of the 1970s, during the country’s redemocratization process.
The analysis of quilombos in Brazil is a way of giving visibility to the impact of European colonization, its magnitude and the extent of its effects upon, in this particular case, the peoples of Africa and the Americas. Texts below are in pdf format.
CONTENTS
-->> Summary and Introduction
-->> Analysis
- The quilombo in Brazil’s history and culture
- The revolt (“quilombagem”)
- Historic social situation and ethnographic features
- Ethnic groups that arrived in Brazil
- Creation and early times of Palmares. History and culture of the region.
- Coffee and the decline of slavery
-->> Cultural interpenetration- Impact of African culture in Brazil
- Present-day situation
-->> Conclusion and bibliography
-->> Annex
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CHOIKE RELATED INFORMATION
-->> The right to land and housing of Afro-descendant communities
Talking to Josilene Brandâo, leader of the National Coordination of Quilombos Communities - CONAQ. World Social Forum - Porto Alegre January 27, 2005.
-->> Brazil: land dispute against african-descendent rights
Quilombola land area was recognized by the government in 2000 but it was not until recently that work to gain back the land was restarted.
-->> Brazil: waiting for their land of freedom
by Marlinelza B de Oliveira. November 20, 2005
Versión
en español
