Zumbi: The last king of Palmares - Marc Adam Hertzman & Flavio dos Santos Gomes
During the 1600s, an expansive autonomous
settlement called Palmares
reached its height in northeastern Brazil.
It was founded and led by people escaping
from slavery, also called maroons.
In fact, it was one of the world’s
largest maroon communities,
its population reaching beyond 10,000.
And its citizens were at constant war
with colonial forces.
The records we have about Palmares
mainly come from biased
Dutch and Portuguese sources,
but historians have managed
to piece much of its story together.
During the Trans-Atlantic slave trade,
which began in the 1500s,
nearly half of all enslaved African people
were sent
to Portugal’s American colony: Brazil.
Some escaped and sought
shelter in Brazil’s interior regions,
where they formed settlements
called mocambos or quilombos.
Fugitives from slavery probably arrived
in the northeast in the late 1500s.
By the 1660s, their camps
had consolidated
into a powerful confederation known today
as the Quilombo of Palmares.
It consisted of a central capital
linking dozens of villages,
which specialized in particular
agricultural goods
or served as military training grounds.
Citizens of Palmares, or Palmaristas,
were governed by a king
and defended by an organized military.
African people and Brazilian-born
Black and Indigenous people
all came seeking refuge.
They collectively fished, hunted,
raised livestock,
planted orchards, and grew crops
like cassava, corn, and sugarcane.
They also made use of the abundant
palm trees for which Palmares was named,
turning palm products
into butter, wine, and light.
Palmaristas crafted palm husks into pipes
and leaves into mats and baskets.
They traded some of these goods
with Portuguese settlers
for products like gunpowder and salt.
In turn, settlers avoided Palmares’ raids
during which they’d seize weapons
and take captives.
The Portuguese were concerned
with other invading imperialists,
but regarded Indigenous
uprisings and Palmares
as their internal threats.
Palmares endangered the very
institution of slavery—
the foundation of Brazil's economy.
During the 1670s, the Portuguese
escalated their attacks.
By this time, Ganga-Zumba
was Palmares’ leader.
He ruled from the Macaco,
which functioned as the capital.
His allies and family members
governed the other villages—
with women playing crucial roles
in operation and defense.
As they fought the Portuguese, Palmaristas
used the landscape to their advantage.
Camouflaged and built in high places,
their mocambos offered superior lookouts.
They constructed hidden ditches lined
with sharp stakes
that swallowed unsuspecting soldiers
and false roads that led to ambushes.
They launched counterattacks
under the cover of night
and were constantly abandoning
and building settlements
to elude the Portuguese.
In 1678, after years of failed attacks,
the Portuguese offered to negotiate
a peace treaty with Ganga-Zumba.
The terms they agreed upon recognized
Palmares’ independence
and the freedom of anyone born there.
However, the treaty demanded that Palmares
pledge loyalty to the crown
and return all past and future
fugitives from slavery.
Many Palmaristas dissented,
among them Zumbi— Ganga-Zumba’s nephew—
a rising leader himself.
Before long, Ganga-Zumba was killed,
likely by a group affiliated
with his nephew.
As Palmares’ new leader,
Zumbi rejected the treaty
and resumed resistance
for another 15 years.
But in February of 1694,
the Portuguese captured the capital
after a devastating siege.
Zumbi escaped, but they eventually
found and ambushed him.
And on November 20th, 1695,
Portuguese forces killed Zumbi.
His death was not the end of Palmares,
but it was a crushing blow.
After years of warfare,
there were far fewer rebels in the area.
Those who remained rallied around new
leaders and maintained a presence,
however small, through the 1760s.
Though, Palmares is no more thousands
of other quilombos persist to this day.
November 20th, the day of Zumbi’s death,
is celebrated across Brazil
as the Day of Black Consciousness.
But Zumbi was just one
of many Palmaristas.
We only know some of their names,
but their fight for freedom
echoes centuries later.
