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The Quilombo of Palmares: A New Overview of a Maroon State in Seventeenth-Century Brazil*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Abstract

This article offers a new perspective on the history of the maroon state of Palmares in Northeastern Brazil. It adds information and interpretation to R. K. Kent's ground-breaking article ‘Palmares: An African State in Brazil’ published in 1965. The present essay gives an historical narrative summary with commentary on the historiography, describing Afro—razilian aspects of the history of Palmares. The purpose is to review and expand upon the historical, linguistic, and cultural context of Palmares and on the sources for the emerging epic material of Zumbi of Palmares.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 Xuxu (Edson Carvalho), ‘Negros de luz’, in Aiyê, Ilê (ed.), América negra: ‘0 sonho africano’ (Salvador, 1995), p. 28.Google Scholar

2 Bujão (Raimundo Goncalves dos Santos), personal communication. Full discussion of the mythification of Zumbi or its representation in artistic production is beyond the Robert Nelson Anderson is Visiting Assistant Professor in Romance Languages at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. scope of this essay. See Robert Nelson Anderson, ‘The Muses of Chaos and Destruction of Arena conta Zumbi’, Latin American Theatre Review, vol. 29, no. 2 (forthcoming 1996); ‘O mito de Zumbi: Implicações culturais para o Brasil e para a Di´spora Africana’, Afro-Ásia, no. 17 (forthcoming 1996).Google Scholar

3 Originally called Zumbi Day. See Andrews, George Reid, Black and Whites in São Paulo, Brazil, 1888–1988 (Madison, 1991), pp. 216–18Google Scholar; Nascimento, Abdias do and Nascimento, ElisaLarkin do, ‘Pan-Africanism, Negritude, and the African Experience in Brazil’, in Africans in Brazil: A Pan-African Perspective (Trenton, N.J., 1992), pp. 81117.Google Scholar

4 E.g.: Gryzinski, Vilma, ‘O mais novo herói do Brasil’, Veja, 22 Nov. 1995, pp. 6480Google Scholar; articles in Folha de São Paulo, 12 11 1995, sec. 5 [‘Mais!’Google ScholarBrooke, James, ‘Brazil Seeks to Return Ancestral Lands to Descendants of Runaway Slaves,’ New York Times, 15 Aug. 1993, sec. A, p. 12; ‘From Brazil's Misty Past, a Black Hero Emerges,’ New York Times, 23 Nov. 1994, sec. A, p. 4.Google Scholar

5 On Richard M. Morse's translations of documents about the destruction of Palmares see note 11 below.

6 Neto, Ricardo Bonalume, ‘O pequeno Brasil de Palmares’, Folha de São Paulo, 4 June 1995, sec. 5 [‘Mais!’], p. 16.Google Scholar

7 Kent, R. K., ‘Palmares: An African State in Brazil’ in Price, Richard (ed.), Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas, 1st ed. (Garden City, N.Y., 1973), 2nd ed. (Baltimore, 1979), pp. 170–90.Google Scholar Originally published in Journal of African History, no. 6 (1965), pp. 161–75.

8 Kent, , ‘Palmares’, p. 188.Google Scholar

9 Schwartz, Stuart B., Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels: Reconsidering Brazilian Slavery (Urbana, Ill., 1992), p. 134Google Scholar, n. 65. The English translation of Roger Bastide's Les Religions Afro-Brésiliennes includes a short section on Palmares. The historical summary uses the same sources as Kent, and the text concentrates on ethnological interpretation, much of which is interesting. However, as with Kent, some of the linguistic arguments are weak. See Bastide, Roger, The African Religions of Brazil: Towards a Sociological Interpretation of Civilisations, Sebba, Helen (trans.), (Baltimore, 1978), pp. 8390. Originally published in Paris in 1960.Google Scholar

10 In Schwartz, Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels, pp. 122–36.

11 Information from the Lintz and Baro expeditions was compiled by Caspar Barlaeus (Gaspar Barleus) and translated into Portuguese by Brandão, Cláudio as Histo'ria dos feitos recentemente praticados durante oito anos no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, 1940).Google Scholar Originally published as Rerum per octenium in Brasilia (1647). The account of the Blaer-Reijmbach expedition was translated from the Dutch and published by Alfredo de Carvalho under the title ‘Diário da viagem do Capitão João Blaer aos Palmares’ in the Revista do lnstituto Arqueoloógico Pernambucano and reprinted in Edison Carneiro, O quilombo dos Palmares, 1630–1695, 1st ed. (São Paulo, 1947), pp. 231–9. Documents from the second Livro de Vereaçcōes da Câmara de Alagôas, providing additional information about the Carrilho campaign and Zumbi's revolt, are in Carneiro under the title ‘Os sucessos de 1668 a 1680’, pp. 207–30, originally published in Revista do lnstituto Histo'rico Alagoano (1875). The ‘Relação das guerras feitas aos Palmares de Pernambuco no tempo do Governador d. Pedro de Almeida, de 1675 a 1678’ is from the Torre do Tombo in Lisbon, reprinted in Carneiro, pp. 187–206, originally published in Revista do lnstituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro, vol. 22 (1959), pp. p.29Google Scholar. The first edition and the second edition (São Paulo, 1958) of O quilombo dos Palmares reproduce the primary sources as an appendix. The third edition (Rio de Janeiro, 1966) is a version of the edition in Spanish, , Guerra de los Palmares (Mexico, 1946)Google Scholar, neither of which includes the appendix. All citations from Carneiro are from the first edition, including references to the documents published therein. Ernesto Ennes published documents spanning 1684 to 1697, dealing with Zumbi's rebellion against Ganga-Zumba and the Portuguese Governor, the destruction of Palmares by Velho, Domingos Jorge, and the death of Zumbi in As guerras nos Palmares: Subsidies para a sua história, vol. 1, Domingos Jorge Velho e a ‘Tróia negra’ 1687–1700 (São Paulo, 1938).Google Scholar On the verso of the title page of this edition a second volume is promised, titled ‘Os primeiros quilombos' to my knowledge it was never published. Five of the documents in the Ennes collection appear in English translation under the title ‘The Conquest of Palmares’, in Morse, Richard M. (ed.), The Bandeirantes: The Historical Role of the Brazilian Pathfinders (New York, 1965), pp. 114–26. In citing these and all other sources, the orthography of the published source is maintained.Google Scholar

12 Notable among these secondary sources are Sebastião da Rocha Pitta, Historia da América Portuguese desde O anno de mil e quinhentos do seu descobrimento até o de mil e setecentos e vinte e quatro, 2nd ed. (Lisbon, 1880)Google Scholar, originally published in Lisbon (1730), book 8, paragraphs 257ndash;40; Joaquim Pedro de Oliveira Martins, o Brazile as colonias portuguezas, 3rd ed (Lisbon, 1920)Google Scholar, originally published in Lisbon (1880), pp. 63–6; Raimundo Nina Rodrigues, Os africanosno Brasil, 2nd ed. (São Paulo, 1935), pp. 115–50Google Scholar; Ernesto Ennes, ‘As guerras nos Palmares’, the introduction to his collection of documents; Carneiro, o quilombo dos Palmares; Moura, Clóvis, Rebeliões da senzala: Quilombos, insurreiçõoes e guerrilhas (Rio de Janeiro, 1972), pp. 179–90Google Scholar; Joel Rufino dos Santos, Zumbi (São Paulo, 1985); Freitas, Décio, Palmares: a guerra dos escravos, 5th ed. (Rio de Janeiro, 1982)Google Scholar; Péret, Benjamin, O Quilombo de Palmares: Cro'nica da ‘República dos Escravos’, Brasil, 1640–1695 (Lisbon, 1988)Google Scholar, originally published as ‘O que foi o Quilombo de Palmares?’ in Anhembi (April and May 1956). Forthcoming are Joã o José Reis and Flávio dos Santos Gomes (eds.), História do quilombo no Brasil, as well as Gomes's new documentary history of Palmares. Both Freitas and Gomes have used archival material from the Torre do Tombo, bringing this primary material to a wider public.

13 Pitta, Rocha, Historia da America Portugueza, paragraphs 28–9. All translations are mine. The original text follows: ‘uma republica riistka, a sua maneira, bem ordenada’.Google Scholar

14 Martins, Oliveira, o Brazil e as colonias Portugueses; p. 64. ‘[D]e todos os exemplos históricos do protesto de escravo, Palmares é o mais bello, o mais heroico. É uma Troya negra, e a sua história é uma Illiada.’Google Scholar

15 Freitas, , Palmares, p. 210. ‘Estas rústicas repúblicas negras desvendam o sonho de uma ordem social alicerçada na igualdade fraternal e estão por isso incorporadas à tradição revolucionária do povo brasileiro.’Google Scholar

16 Preface, Taunay, in Ennes, As guerras nos Palmares, pp. 12. ‘Se se coletasse tudo que os nossos historiógrafos antigos, modernos e contemporâneos escreveram sobre Palmares haveria material comparàvel, pélo volume, a uma enciclopédia de avantajadas dimensões. Mas é que a imensa maioria dessas páginas copiosíssimas não passa de repetição, frequentemente a mais deselegante, por parte de seus autores, profissionais do aproveitamento de alheio esfôrço ou meros candidatos a remuneração a tanto por página.’Google Scholar

17 Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, p. 182. ‘Os historiadores em geral…se limitaram a repetir os errores de Sebastião da Rocha Pita.’Google Scholar

18 Price, , Introduction, in Maroon Societies, p. 1.Google Scholar

19 Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, p. 188.Google Scholar

20 Freitas, , Palmares, p. 15Google Scholar; Kent, , ‘Palmares’, p. 175. On mocambo vs. quilombo, see below.Google Scholar

21 Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, p. 188. Palmar means ‘palm grove’ in Portuguese; plural palmares.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., pp. 33–4.

23 Kent, , ‘Palmares’, p. 177.Google Scholar Notwithstanding the etymology of Palmares given above, the early chronicles appear to use the term ‘palmar(es)’ to signify ‘mocambo’. It is intriguing to speculate how this usage came to be, given that ‘Palmares’ in the early literature also refers to the palm-covered region. In fact, Nieuhof states that there were two forests, one called ‘Palmares pequenos’ with some 6,000 black inhabitants, and the other, ‘Palmares grandes’, with some 5,000 scattered black inhabitants. Nieuhof, Johan, Memorável Viagem maritima e terrestre ao Brasil, Vasconcelos, Moacir N. (trans.), José Rogrigues, Honório (ed.) (São Paulo, 1942), pp. 1819. Translated from the English and reconciled with the original Dutch Gedenkweerdige Brasiliaense Zee- en Lant-Reize (Amsterdam, 1682).Google Scholar

24 Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, pp. 235–6. Kent's translation (p. 177) neglects to mention that the trees to the south were felled, suggesting clearing for cultivation or defence.Google Scholar

25 Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, p. 236.Google Scholar ‘[S]eu rei os governava com severa justica nao permitindo feiticeiros entre a sua gente e, quando alguns negros fugiam, mandavalhes creoulos no encalço e, uma vê pegados, eram mortos, de sorte que entre eles reinava o temor, principalmente os negros de Angola; o rei também tem uma casa distante dali duas milhas, com uma roça muito abundante, casa que fez construir ao saber da nossa vinda [Perguntamos aos negros qual o nümero da sua gente, ao que nos responderam haver 500 homens, além das mulheres e criancas; presumimos que uns pelos outros há 1.500 habitantes, segundo dêles ouvimos.’ For reasons that are not clear, Kent leaves many words untranslated and unglossed, not to mention mistranscribed. Some of these, such as grandes [sic] (p. 178) would be evident to the general reader, but others (feticeiros [sic], crioulos [sic], ibid.) would not. Carvalho probably followed colonial usage in using ‘creoulo’/‘crioulo’ to refer broadly to ‘native’, and more narrowly to ‘Brazilian-born black‘. Without the Dutch original it is impossible to determine the exact sense in the context of Palmares. Kent's translation also errs in not stating that the Palmarinos reported their number to be 500 men, not including children and women.

26 Ibid., p. 236.

27 Ibid., pp. 81–93; Kent, p. 178.

28 Freitas, , Palmares, p. 73.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., pp. 73–5; 105–6.

30 Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, pp. 188Google Scholar. ‘Subupira’ and ‘Macaco’, not ‘Subupuira’ and ‘Macoco’, as in Kent, , ‘Palmares’, p. 178.Google Scholar Kent attempts to construct etymologies for these place names, seeking Bantu and indigenous American roots for them (pp. 180–81). His etymologies, though, are unscientific and uncorroborated, and in the cases of Macaco (in fact, Portuguese for ‘monkey’) and Amaro (the name of the mocambo's chief), clearly wrong. Such a task is difficult at best, and should not lead to hasty conclusions. Yeda Pessoa de Castro affirms that some Palmarino place names, including Osenga, are of Bantu origin. Castro, ‘Dimensão dos aportes africanos no Brasil’, Afro-Asia, no. 16 (1995), p. 28. I have not yet seen the sources in which she explains their etymologies.

31 Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, p. 197.Google Scholar

32 Ibid., p. 202. ‘[N]egro valoroso, e reconhecido daquêles brutos como rei também.’

33 Ibid., pp. 189–90. ‘ [R]econhecem-se todos obedientes a um que se chama o Ganga-Zumba, que quer dizer Senhor Grande; a este têm por seu rei e senhor todos os mais, assim naturais dos Palmares, como vindos de fóra; tem palácio, casas da sua família, é assistido de guardas e oficiais que costumam ter as casas reais. É tratado com todos os respeitos de rei e com todas as honras de senhor. Os que chegam à sua presença pōem os joêlhos no chão e batem as palmas das mãos em sinal de reconhecimento e protestação de sua excelência; falam-lhe por Majestade, obedecem-lhe por admiração. Habita a sua cidade real, que chamam o Macaco, nome sortido da morte que naquêle lugar se deu a um animal destes. Esta é a metropóle entre as mais cidades e povoaçōes; está fortificada toda em uma cerca de pau a pique com treneiras [sic] abertas para ofenderem a seu salvo os combatentes; e pela parte de fóra toda se semêa de estrepes de ferro e de fojos tão cavilosos que perigara nêles a maior vigilância; ocupa esta cidade dilatado espaço, fórma-se de mais de 1.500 casas. Há entre êles Ministros de Justiça para as execuções necessárias e todos os arremêdos de qualquer República se acham entre êles.

E com serem estes bárbaros tão esquecidos de toda sujeição, não perderam de todo o reconhecimento da Igreja. Nesta cidade têm capela a que recorrem nos seus apertos e imagens a quern recomendam suas tençōoes. Quando se entrou nesta capela achou-se uma imagem do Menino Jesús muito perfeita; outra de N. S. da Conceição, outra de São Braz. Escolhem um dos mais ladinos, a quern veneram como pároco, que os batisa o os casa. O batismo porém, é sem a fórma determinada pela Igreja e os casamentos sem as singularidades que pede ainda a lei da naturesa. O seu apetite é a regra da sua eleicao. Cada um tem as mulheres que quer. Ensinam-se entre êles algumas oraçōes cristãs, observam-se os documentos da fé que cabem na sua capacidade. O rei que nesta cidade assistia estava acomodado com três mulheres, uma mulata e duas creoulas. Da primeira teve muitos filhos, das outras nenhum. O modo de vestir entre si é o mesmo que observam entre nós. Mais ou menos enroupados conforme as possibilidades.

Esta é a principal cidade dos Palmares, este é o rei que os domina; as mais cidades estão a cargo de potentados e cabos móres que as governam e assistem nelas…. A segunda cidade chama-se Subupira. Nesta assiste o irmão do rei que se chama Zona. É fortificada toda de madeira e pedras, compreende mais de 800 casas. Ocupa o vão de perto duma legua de comprido. É abundante de águas porque corre por ela o rio Cachingy. Esta era a estância onde se preparavam os negros para o combate de nossos assaltos. Era toda cercada de fojos e por todas as partes, por obviar (vias aos) aos nossos impulsos, estava semeada de estrepes.’

34 See Kent, , ‘Palmares’, pp. 179–80.Google Scholar

35 See also Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, p. 197.Google Scholar

36 See ibid.

37 Schwartz, , ‘The Mocambo: Slave Resistance in Colonial Bahia’, in Price, Maroon Societies, pp. 202–26. Originally published in Journal of Social History, no. 3 (1970), pp. 313–33.Google Scholar

38 See description and figures, ibid., pp. 220–1.

39 The notion of ‘syncretism’ has an ancient history in the scholarship on religion and more recently scholars have sought to give the term more rigour. See Colpe, Carsen, ‘Syncretism’, in Eliade, Mircea (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion, 16 vols. (New York, 1987), vol. 14, pp. 218–27.Google Scholar For the Brazilian context, see Bastide, The African Religions of Brazil, passim. Recently, Leslie Gérald Desmangles used Bastide's categories, renaming the phenomena ‘symbiosis’ by way of describing the nature of Haitian syncretism. Desmangles, , Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1992), pp. 711. There are modes of syncretism, related to the social processes that engender it. For example, syncretism may arise when the hegemonic religious tradition is a protective façade, in which case the metaphor of ‘veneer’ is appropriate. Often, however, the juxtaposed religious traditions are complementary avenues to power and experience, both temporal and metaphysical, as has often been the case in Brazil and Haiti. Finally, there are cases of genuine fusion - the operative metaphor here is amalgam - which have arisen historically. What is sometimes missing in the debates on sociology of religion is that a community may be multimodal in its syncretism. Given the difficulty of interpreting the artifacts of belief and practice from a distant time, which affects research of the prehistory of Afro-Brazilian religions, ‘syncretism’ affords the elasticity necessary to describe the data without speculating recklessly on the particularities of the phenomena.Google Scholar

40 See Bastide, , The African Religions of Brazil, pp. 8590.Google Scholar

41 Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, p. 203.Google Scholar

42 Karasch, Mary, Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro, 1800–1850 (Princeton, 1987), passimGoogle Scholar; Levine, Robert (prod.), Faces of Slavery (Miami, 1990). Videocassette.Google Scholar

43 ‘Sob o signo da cor: Trajes femininos e relaçōes raciais nas cidades de Salvador e Rio de Janeiro’, paper delivered at the meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Washington, D.C., Sept. 1995.

44 Kent, , ‘Palmares’, p. 179.Google Scholar

45 Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, p. 203.Google Scholar

46 Cascudo’, Luís da Câmara ‘A saudacao africana’, in Made in Africa: Pesquisas e notas (Rio de Janeiro, 1965), pp. 82-9. Carneiro noted the existence of a hand-snapping gesture in West Africa as a sign of vassalage that was also used in the cult of Xangô. Carneiro, p. 43, n. 2.Google Scholar

47 Kent, , ‘Palmares’, p. 188.Google Scholar

48 Ibid., p. 187. Emphasis added.

49 Ibid., p. 188.

50 Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, p. 189, cited above. This phrase is very loosely translated by Kent as ‘their office is duplicated elsewhere’.Google Scholar

51 See Bastide, , The African Religions of Brazil, p. 87.Google Scholar

52 Rodrigues, Nina, Os africanos no Brasil, pp. 120–1.Google Scholar

53 Schwartz, , Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels, pp. 122–36.Google Scholar

54 Kings and Kinsmen: Early Mbundu States in Angola (Oxford, 1976).Google Scholar

55 Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da, Dicionário etimológico Nova Fronteira da língua portuguesa (Rio de Janeiro, 1982), p. 526.Google Scholar

56 Schwartz, , Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels, p. 125.Google Scholar Although as Schwartz points out, colonial choniclers used the phrase ‘kingdom and quilombo’ to refer to Matamba and other Imbangala-influenced polities in seventeenth-century Angola, such that‘ [q]uilombo was becoming a synonym for a kingdom of a particular type in Angola’ (ibid., p. 128).

57 Schwartz, , Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels, pp. 125–7; Miller, passim.Google Scholar

58 Bastide, , The African Religions of Brazil, pp. 84–5Google Scholar; Schwartz, , Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels, p. 125.Google Scholar

59 Ennes, , As guerras nos Palmares, doc. 54, article II. I have been unable to confirm the sense of janga as ‘little’ in KiKongo or KiMbundu. My best hypothesis is that Angola Janga is from KiMbundu ngola iadianga, ‘first Angola’.Google Scholar

60 Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, p. 189Google Scholar; Kent, , ‘Palmares’, p. 180.Google Scholar

61 Freitas, , Palmares, pp. 182, 185.Google Scholar

62 Funari, , quoted in ‘Neto’.Google Scholar

63 Miller, , pp. 254–5Google Scholar; Schwartz, , Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels, p. 127. KiMbundu nganga, ‘priest’ nzumbi, ‘ancestor spirit’.Google Scholar

64 Freitas, , Palmares, p. 102. Freitas, however, does not give the source of this information.Google Scholar

65 Ibid., pp. 125–7.

66 Biancarelli, Aureliano and Banner, Jair, ‘Pistas dispersas: Milhares de documentos aguardam catalogação’, Folha de São Paulo, 12 Nov. 1995, sec. 5 [‘Mais!’], p. 6Google Scholar; ‘Arquivo revela que Zumbi sabia latim’, ibid., p. 7, initialled ‘B.A.’, presumably Aureliano Biancarelli as well.

67 Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, p. 193.Google Scholar

68 Freitas, , Palmares, p. 100Google Scholar; Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, p. 193.Google Scholar

69 Ibid., pp. 193–4. ‘[N]egro de singular valor, grande animo e constancia rara. Este é o espectador dos mais, porque a sua indústria, juizo e fortalesa aos nossos serve de embaraço, aos seus de exemplo.’

70 Freitas, , Palmares, p. 111. ‘[P]ratica militar aguerrida na disciplina do seu capitão e general Zumbi, que os fez destníssimos no uso de todas as armas, de que têm muitas e em quantidade assim de fogo como de espadas, lanças e flechas’.Google Scholar

71 Ibid., p. 126.

72 Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, p. 199.Google Scholar

73 Ibid., p. 201.

74 MacGaffey, Wyatt, Religion and Society in Central Africa: The BaKongo of homer Zaire (Chicago, 1986), p. 78.Google Scholar

75 Bastide, , The African Religions of Brazil, pp. 194–5;, 201–2.Google Scholar

76 MacGaffey, , Religion and Society, pp. 63–5. Plural bakulu, ‘ancestors’.Google Scholar

77 Alves, Albino, Dicionário etimológico bundo-português (Lisbon, 1951), p. 86;. Espírito de pessoa que, assassinada sem culpa, entra depois no corpo dos filhos do assassino e os mata, enquanto não é aplacado com urn sacrifício.’Google Scholar

78 Cascudo, Luís da Câmara, ‘Noticia do Zumbi’, in Made in Africa, p. 113.Google Scholar

80 Wade Davis agrees with Wyatt MacGaffey in deriving zombi from KiKongo nzambi. Davis, , Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombi (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1988), p. 57.Google Scholar There is no reason to discount several cognate Bantu sources for the Haitian word. Haitians distinguish the corporeal zombi (Davis's zombi corps cadavre) and the spirit zombi (Davis's zopmbi astral or zombi ti bon ange), ibid., pp. 183, 190–5. See also Métraux, Alfred, Voodoo in Haiti, Charteris, Hugo (trans.), (London, 1959), pp. 258, 281–5.Google Scholar

81 Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, p. 189.Google Scholar

82 Folk-tales of Angola (Boston, 1894), p. 33.Google Scholar

83 Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, p. 199.Google Scholar

84 Ibid., pp. 203–5; Kent, , ‘Palmares’, pp. 183–6Google Scholar; Freitas, , pp. 118–21.Google Scholar

85 Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, pp. 228–9.Google Scholar

86 Kent, , ‘Palmares’, p. 186.Google Scholar

87 Freitas, , Palmares, p. 124.Google Scholar

88 ‘Capitão-do-mato’, a field commander charged with fighting Indians and capturing runaway slaves. For a discussion of this office, see Schwartz, , ‘The Mocambo’, pp. 212–3.Google Scholar

89 For drawings of how these opposing fortifications may have looked, see Joel Rufino dos Santos, pp. 44–5. After visiting the site of Macaco on the Serra da Barriga or ‘Belly Ridge’, it is my opinion that Jorge Velho's diagonal wall was built to protect the cannons and troops in their difficult ascent of the flank of the ridge; it was not built on level ground, as the pictures suggest.

90 Accounts of the destruction of Palmares are found in Freitas, , Palmares, 169–8Google Scholar; Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, 140–6Google Scholar; Ennes, , As guerras nos Palmares, docs. 24, 26, 9295.Google Scholar

91 Ibid., doc. 38. See also Morse, , The Bandeirantes, p. 121.Google Scholar

92 Carneiro, , O quilombo dos Palmares, pp. 150–1.Google Scholar

93 Ramos, Arthur, O folclore negro do Brasil: demopsicologia e psicanálise, 2nd ed. (Rio de Janeiro, 1954), pp. 60–7.Google Scholar

94 Jesus, Carolina Maria de, Diário de Bitita (Rio de Janeiro, 1986), p. 58.Google Scholar

95 Crowley, Daniel J., African Myth and Black Reality in Bahian Camaval (Los Angeles, 1984), pp. 23, 29.Google Scholar

96 For the general conceptual framework on which these conclusions are based, see Mintz, Sidney W. and Price, Richard, The Birth of African American Culture: An Anthropological Perspective (Boston, 1992).Google Scholar