Quilombo dos Palmares

Brazil's Lost Nation of Fugitive Slaves

For almost a hundred years, a nation of fugitive Africans, Indians, whites, and mixed races fought off the world’s most powerful empires in a struggle to survive in freedom.

Over the span of the 17th century, the Quilombo dos Palmares melded several cultures to form its own language, religion, government, values, and way of life. Its population may have exceeded 20,000. Its last king is believed to have been an educated descendant of slaves. He took the name Zumbi—Lord of War—and built a citadel fortress on a mountain in northeast Brazil. There Palmares made its last stand. 

Glenn Alan Cheney’s comprehensive history of Palmares and the colonial captaincy of Pernambuco, Brazil, explores the origins and cruelties of slavery, the warfare between Palmares, Portugal, and Holland, life in the rebel nation, and the siege that wiped Palmares off the map. 

Quilombos — isolated societies of fugitive slaves — still exist in Brazil, and the struggle for their land continues. Palmares and Zumbi have grown to become myths and symbols of resistance to racism, tyranny, capitalism, and national pride. Cheney does not let Palmares die in 1694. He brings it to life in modern Brazil.