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Zumbi Dos Palmares
300 YEARS OF THE DEATH OF
THE HERO "ZUMBI DOS PALMARES"
Between the half of the
16th and the end of the 19th centuries, slavery
of Africans and their descendants in America and
the Americas has been one of the saddest
episodes of Humankind history. However, against
all this cruelty that depopulated Africa and
victimized million of its best children emerges
a model of admirable resistance: the "quilombos."
In the pre-colonial Angola
these myths of military hamlets and housing and
commercial nuclei open to African of any ethnic
composition already performed a political and
economic role of fundamental importance.
Transplanted to the Americas, the institution
(called "cumbe" or "palanque" in the Spanish
America) consolidated its importance in the
resistance against slavery.
Of all the American "quilombosn
certainly the most important was the Palmares
confederation, created around 1590 by slaves
from a sugar-mill in the state of Pernambuco who
after a bloody rebellion took refuge in the
UBarrigan hill in the today State of Alagoas,
and there established the base of an annoying
"free Staten within an absolute colonial Brazil.
Until the destruction of
its main redoubt in 1694 (one hundred years
later!) Palmares was actually a real autonomous
State, nailed down in the "Capitation of
Pernambuco: at the height of its productive
existence its relations with the neighboring
communities reached moments of a rich and
organized economic exchange. And that autonomy,
shaking the colonial authority, gave way to a
never seen repression.
From 1596 to 1716, year of
the destruction of its last redoubt, the people
from Palmares suffered the attacks of 66
military expeditions and have hit back 31 times.
During all this fight stands out the figure of
the great leader "Zumbi." Military strategist
comparable to the great generals of occidental
History such as Cyrus, Anibal, Alexander and
Napoleon, "Zumbi dos Palmares treacherously
killed on November 20, 1695, at the age of 40,
today is seen as the major leader of the
anti-slavery resistance in the Americas. The
tercentenary of his "admission to History that
is commemorated now, is the final redemption of
one of the greatest heroes of Humankind.
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