A quilombo (; from the Kimbundu word , ) is a Brazilian hinterland settlement founded by people of African origin, and others sometimes called Carabali. Most of the inhabitants of quilombos, called quilombolas, were maroons, a term for escaped slaves. Documentation about refugee slave communities typically uses the term mocambo for settlements, which is an Ambundu word meaning "war camp". A mocambo is typically much smaller than a quilombo. Quilombo was not used until the 1670s, primarily in the more southerly parts of Brazil.Stuart Schwartz, The Mocambo: Slave Resistance in Colonial Bahia, in "Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas", ed. by Richard Price (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 205. In Colombia, such villages or camps were called . Its inhabitants are . They spoke various Spanish-African-based creole languages such as Palenquero.
Quilombos are classified as one of the three basic forms of active resistance by enslaved Africans. They also regularly attempted to seize power and conducted armed insurrections at plantations to gain amelioration of conditions. Typically, quilombos were a "pre–19th century phenomenon". In the first half of the 19th century in Brazil, enslaved people typically took armed action as part of their resistance. The colony was undergoing both political transition, as it fought for independence from Portugal, and new tensions associated with an increased slave trade, which brought in many more native-born Africans who resisted slavery.
Etymology
The word quilombo originates from African languages of the Bantu language family, specifically the terms kilombo (from Kimbundu) and ochilombo (from Umbundu), spoken by peoples of south-central Africa in areas corresponding to the present-day territory of Angola. In pre-colonial Africa, these terms generally referred to temporary camps, resting places, or settlements associated with collective migrations, commercial activities, and warfare.
The kilombo, a fortified town surrounded by a wooden palisade, appeared among Imbangala warriors, which would soon be used in Brazil by freed Angolan slaves.
Historical and anthropological studies indicate that, in certain contexts, the term kilombo also referred to military associations or initiatory societies composed of young warriors, particularly among the Umbundu people and groups known in historiography as Imbangalas or jagas, which were characterized by strict internal discipline and collective organization. It is therefore widely believed that the term establishes a link between settlements and the culture of West Central Africa from where the majority of slaves were forcibly brought to Brazil. This African concept did not, however, correspond to a fixed form of territorial organization, but rather to flexible social arrangements adapted to specific situations of war, migration, or trade.
In the context of Portuguese America, beginning in the 16th century, the term was redefined by colonial authorities to refer to communities formed by escaped enslaved Africans and their descendants, thereby taking on a legal and administrative meaning associated with repression and social control. Over time, the word acquired its own meaning in Brazil, distinct from its original African connotations, becoming a historically situated term linked to experiences of resistance, territorialization, and social organization within the colonial slave system.
Other meaning in Spanish In South American Spanish of the Southern Cone, the word quilombo has come to mean brothel; in Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras, Paraguay, and Uruguay, a mess, noise or disorder; in Venezuela, a remote or out-of-the-way place.Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, "quilombo", senses 1, 2 and 3, respectively.
History
Background: Slavery in Brazil
Legal slavery was present in Brazil for approximately three centuries, with the earliest known landing of enslaved Africans taking place 52 years after the Portuguese were the first Europeans to set foot in Brazil in 1500. The demand for enslaved Africans continued to increase through the 18th century, even as the Brazilian sugar economy ceased to dominate the world economy. In its place, commodity crops such as tobacco increased in prominence.
During the sugar boom period (1570–1670), the sugar plantations in Brazil presented hellish conditions, including the personal brutality of enslavers and the whip-wielding overseers in their employ. Physical torture was common for minor infractions. There was high physical exertion on workers, especially during harvest season. In addition, enslaved people were held to nearly-impossible daily production quotas while having to contend with lack of rest and food. Economically, in sugar plantations, it was cheaper for owners of enslaved Africans to work them to death and get new replacement slaves. Conditions were so bad that even the Crown intervened on at least two occasions, forcing plantation owners to provide the people they enslaved with sufficient food.
Quilombo in the early modern period See Atlantic slave trade for a comprehensive presentation of slavery in Brazil.
Settlements were formed by enslaved Africans who escaped from plantations. Some enslavers, such as Friedrich von Weech, regarded the first escape attempt as a part of the "breaking in" process for new slaves. The first escape attempt would be punished severely as a deterrent for future escapes. Enslaved people who tried to escape a second time would be sent to slave prisons, and those who tried a third time would be sold. In general, slaves who were caught running away were also required to wear an iron collar around their necks at all times, in addition to the punishment they received.
Not all those who escaped slavery formed settlements in Brazil. Escaping from a life of slavery was a matter of opportunity. Settlements were formed in areas with dense populations of formerly enslaved people, like Pernambuco, where the biggest collection of mocambos formed the quilombo that became Palmares. While many quilombos were formed in rural areas such as Palmares, some were formed inside of cities, such as the Quilombo do Leblon inside of Rio de Janeiro. Some, among them Mahommah G. Baquaqua, escaped to New York because his multiple attempts at escape and suicide led to him being sold to a ship's captain.
Many quilombos were near Portuguese plantations and settlements. To keep their freedom, they were active both in defending against capitães do mato and being commissioned to recapture other runaway slaves. At the same time, they facilitated the escape of even more enslaved persons. For this reason, they were targets of the Dutch, then Portuguese colonial authorities and, later, of the Brazilian state and enslavers.
People of the quilombos would form a working government, and the community did not just consist of Africans but also of Native South Americans and even whites who were fleeing society or the law.
Despite the atmosphere of cooperation between some quilombos and the surrounding Portuguese settlements, they were almost always eventually destroyed. Seven of ten major quilombos in colonial Brazil were terminated within two years of formation. Some mocambos that were farther from Portuguese settlements and the later Brazilian cities were tolerated and still exist as towns today, with their dwellers speaking Portuguese creole languages.
Constitution of Brazil Article 68 of the 1988 Constitution of Brazil granted the remaining quilombos the collective ownership of the lands they had occupied since colonial times. As of 2016, 294 villages have applied to be recognized as quilombos, because they were founded by escaped enslaved people and are mainly inhabited by their descendants. The certification process thus far has been slow, and 152 villages have been recognized as quilombos.
Similar phenomena in other locations
The quilombos constituted a social phenomenon embedded in the broader context of the slave-holding Atlantic world, manifesting themselves in different regions of the Americas under various names, such as palenques and cimarrones in areas of Spanish colonization, maroons in the English-speaking Caribbean, and marrons in Haiti. Despite regional differences, these communities shared structural characteristics, such as their formation from enslaved African populations and their descendants, the pursuit of territorial autonomy, and the development of their own forms of social organization in interaction—often conflictual—with colonial societies.
Social organization
The formation of quilombos in colonial Brazil occurred through multiple channels and was not limited exclusively to the collective escape of enslaved Africans. Historiography has shown that these communities also emerged through the purchase of land by freed people, the occupation of abandoned areas, the settlement on former rural estates in decline, and the incorporation of socially marginalized groups, such as Indigenous peoples, poor whites, and enslaved people belonging to different owners. This diversity of origins resulted in equally varied forms of social and territorial organization.
In the case of the Quilombo dos Palmares, its formation was strongly associated with large-scale escape and the gradual aggregation of African and Afro-descendant populations throughout the 17th century. Palmares was structured as a confederation of population centers—often called mocambos—organized under relatively centralized forms of political authority.
In contrast, the Quilombo do Campo Grande, formed in Minas Gerais throughout the 18th century, developed from a more decentralized and geographically dispersed organizational structure, held together by networks of kinship, neighborhood ties, and shared interests—particularly the refusal to comply with the per capita tax system.
From an economic standpoint, both Palmares and Campo Grande based their livelihoods on agriculture, gathering, hunting, and trade with the surrounding society. While Palmares had a more concentrated territorial base, which favored continuous agricultural production, Campo Grande combined agricultural practices with strategies of mobility and reoccupation of the territory, adapted to the instability caused by colonial repression.
In both cases, the land was predominantly used collectively, organized according to criteria of kinship, solidarity, and reciprocity, although there were internal distinctions regarding access to resources, political authority, and productive responsibilities.
More recent historiographical studies have highlighted that some quilombos exhibited internal forms of social hierarchy and mechanisms of coercion related to the organization of labor. In certain contexts, there are records of individuals subjected to relationships of dependence or captivity within quilombo communities, a phenomenon that has been interpreted in various ways by historians.
These relationships did not constitute a direct and systematic reproduction of the colonial slave system, but must be understood within the context of societies formed under extreme external pressure, marked by the need for territorial defense, internal discipline, and the maintenance of social cohesion. The existence of hierarchies and forms of compulsory labor in some quilombos reveals the complexity of these historical experiences, refuting interpretations that view them as homogeneous or fully egalitarian societies.
A comparison between Palmares and Campo Grande shows that there was no single model of quilombo organization. These experiences represent historically situated responses to distinct economic, political, and territorial contexts, demonstrating the diversity and adaptability of quilombo populations within the colonial slave system.
Quilombos