Palmares after 1695: The Historical Afterlife of a Runaway Slave Community in Northeastern Brazil and Zumbi, its Leader

FAIN: FT-278462-21

Marc A. Hertzman
Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois (Champaign, IL 61801-3620)

Research and writing of a book on the destruction of the Quilombo dos Palmares, a large community of runaway slaves in northeastern Brazil, and its legacy.

On November 20, 1695, the Black Brazilian maroon Zumbi died defending Palmares, one of history’s largest fugitive slave settlements. Most histories of Palmares conclude here. My book, however, treats Zumbi’s death and the destruction of Palmares as a starting point for new diasporas and forms of inheritance. By studying African and Afro-Brazilian religious beliefs and practices, place names, and oral traditions alongside previously overlooked colonial documents, I show how memories of Zumbi and Palmares survived in multiple forms in the aftermath of 1695. And I show that a full reckoning with slavery’s legacies and a truly comprehensive system of reparations are impossible without accounting for lineages and histories that derive from other, less commonly recognized forms of inheritance. This book project transforms how we think about fugitive slave communities and diaspora and reshapes conversations about reparations, not just in Brazil but across the Americas.