Urbans Quilombos in Salvador
Text sent to the group list "3° Setor" on May, 13th, 2005.

History
Land of Resistance

The quilombos were areas of freedom carved out by runaway black slaves, in a challenge to the reining authority. Their legacy today is generally considered to be rural. But they exist also in large urban centers like Salvador. Boca do Rio and Curuzu, for example, perpetuate the model of resistance and solidarity typical of quilombos.

Cleidiana Ramos

When Princess Isabel, as regent of the Brazilian government, signed the Áurea Law, slavery officially ended in Brazil. This was on May 13, 1888. But since 1595 there were quilombos, places where Africans brought over as slaves and soon their descendants lived as free men, clandestinely, because they were a threat to the social order.

The most famous of them – Palmares – fell in 1694, but the history of these settlements didn’t stop there. On the contrary, they survive to this day, including in urban centers like Salvador. Boca do Rio and Curuzu are examples of surviving quilombos in urban space.

To understand this historical continuity, it’s worth delving deeper into the concept of quilombo. It includes territoriality, of course, but also a history of resistance and continuance of African culture that was not immune to local nuances, forming a rich stew currently called the Afro-Brazilian heritage.

“Starting with Decree 4887, signed by the President on November 20, 2003, modern quilombos can be considered as communities with a tradition of resistance by the black population. It’s a mainly cultural notion of quilombo that also includes the idea of territoriality as a space and a genetic and cultural continuity,” explains doctor of history and president of the Palmares Foundation, Ubiratan Castro. Until now, for an area to be recognized as a modern quilombo, it was necessary to have a report from an archaeologist.

The broader concept is slowly gaining recognition. Of the areas of Salvador that can fit under this classification, none yet have the title in fact. But Curuzu is already defined officially as an Afro-Brazilian Cultural Territory.

“We understand quilombos also as moveable areas, which regrouped afterward, but maintained very singular characteristics, such as black identity and solidarity,” adds Castro.

These characteristics closely approximate that experienced in the locales where the Afro-Brazilian religion of Candomblé is practiced. “The religious organization called Candomblé has a historical tradition that welcomes all arrivals. The very community organization of these places, gathering several generations of family, harks back to the constitution of quilombos, whence we can gain clues to the past history of these territories,” he says.

After Abolition, the term quilombo began to refer exclusively to rural areas, generally remote. Their recognition as modern quilombo legacies for their occupants was even recognized in the Federal Constitution of 1988, the 100th anniversary of Isabel’s signing of the Emancipation Law.

URBAN CENTERS – The first notice about quilombos we have, according to Professor Ubiritan Castro, goes back to 1595. It’s the famous Palmares, commanded by Zumbi, one of the greatest icons for the Brazilian black movement.

João Reis, also a doctor of history, explains that the denomination quilombo has had a rich and varied meaning over time. “Quilombos were originally an organization of ethnic groups of the region that is today Angola. They gathered Africans uprooted by internal warfare. All indications are they were a type of organization with military aspects, whose format wound up being brought to Brazil,” the professor stresses.

From the experience of Palmares, the concept of quilombo came to be applied to any group of runaway slaves in a determined territory, which they defended militarily. This was only natural. After all, this was the largest such area of which we know in the Americas. Many scholars affirm that its population reached 20 thousand.

But not all quilombos were isolated from cities or contained large numbers of people. The word was used in various situations. “There are old records where quilombo is understood as a gathering of four to six Negroes living in a secluded place. But this same word came to be used in other situations, as I’ve found in a study I’m doing in Itacaré, where there was a community of black farmers who had black laborers working for them, even slaves,” adds Professor Reis.

According to him, often the groupings of houses of blacks in urban areas were called quilombos. “There’s a variation of meanings for the expression quilombo, so it’s not out of bounds to apply this definition to areas that hold some of its historical characteristics,” he completes.

Furthermore, quilombos close to urban areas were quite common. Salvador, at the time encircled by forest, had various quilombos in its environs, mainly in the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries.

“In 1826 there was the revolt of the Urubu Quilombo, which was located roughly where today’s Pirajá district is,” says Reis. He explains that the quilombo residents used to trade their produce in the cities. Of course, it was a clandestine trade. João Reis recounts that there is even a map showing the Buraco do Tatu Quilombo, which was located in today’s Itapuã.

In Salvador’s urban area, districts such as Saúde, Barroquinha, Engomadeira, Beiru (now called Tancredo Neves) and Mata Escura, among others, were neighborhoods that concentrated a significant portion of the black population. A dynamic legacy of African culture was perpetuated there, to the extent we can construct a present that renews itself for the future. They are marked by resistance, translated into experiences like those described below.