Quilombos, spaces of resistance: Do you know what Quilombismo is?

I always liked history classes in high school. Even before considering journalism, I even thought about doing history. But I wanted to know more about the history of Brazil. That’s because one of the classes that bothered me the most was the ones that talked about slavery. The thesis presented by the professors about the slavery period was too simplistic: “Blacks came from Africa, became slaves here, suffered, were mistreated, Princess Isabel went there and signed the Golden Law, abolished slavery and the END”. End?! I never bought the simplistic (and racist) theory that black people accepted everything with their heads down. Didn’t you have resistance? Is this ticket true?!

Last year, during a visit to Quilombo do Cafundó, located in the interior of São Paulo, I had a transforming conversation with Solange Barbosa, creator of the Rota da Liberdade that takes tourists to discover quilombola communities. Years after my questions in History classes, I got the answer I always wanted (and already knew): enslaved blacks resisted a lot. And the quilombos were the great places of resistance of the black people, who came together to resist slavery, transform slave relations and leave the condition of supporting and being a protagonist in this historical process.

“Quilombo” means resistance camp. It is a word of origin from the Kimbundu language, an African language of the Bantu people, spoken by the people who lived in the region where Angola is today. Here in Brazil, quilombos and mocambos were groups of black people who resisted slavery through flight and created a community environment for their own survival. Quilombo dos Palmares, led by Zumbi, is the best known of them and lasted over 100 years.

Yes, the black people enslaved in Brazil did have to resist a lot in order to exist and survive. Former senator and activist of the Brazilian black struggle, Abdias do Nascimento, defined it well: “ Quilombos are one of the first experiences of freedom in the Americas” . Nascimento was also responsible for giving birth to the name of this movement: Quilombismo. For him, Quilombismo is a legacy and a proposal for the political mobilization of the Afro-descendant population in the Americas based on their own historical and cultural experience. A political-social alternative to combat racism and build a new society inspired by the historical experience of Brazilian quilombos, he said.

Resistance is the main ingredient that runs through the veins of black Brazilian people. If we are here today, it is because many of our ancestors fought many struggles and revolts to get us here. Resistance experienced by the Malês, the people of the balaiada and the Bahian conjuration – just some of the revolts that enslaved people waged during centuries of slavery.

Despite the simplistic explanation of the classroom, the living memory of this story remains. But, only now (many years later) do we know for the first time how many and where the quilombolas live in Brazil are – 35 years after the Federal Constitution recognized the right to collective ownership of lands occupied by the remnants of quilombo communities: 1.3 million quilombolas live in more than 1696 Brazilian municipalities. After years of a certain “invisibility”, the people who live in these communities appear in the statistics and help us to ratify the history of resistance of the black people.

“Each head is a quilombo”, said Abdias do Nascimento. For this reason, to take up a position of resistance is to assume a position of resistance. And, to resist racism and get out of the target of the bullets that kill us every day, it is necessary to resist and get rid of it.

See more: Quilombo is resistance and organization; and that’s why it bothers

Quilombo is resistance and organization; and why it bothers | CNN BRAZIL