Frontiers Beyond Abolition: The Legacy of Quilombos After Slavery in Pará and Maranhão, Brazil

• In Event: Creando el sujeto colonial: Visiones del Pasado

Abstract

The quilombo – the name commonly used to describe fugitive slave settlements in Brazil – is firmly ensconced in Brazilian historical memory, but we have seen that this memory is still an active force in contemporary rural Afro-Brazilian movements. Abreu’s objective is to respond to the question: How did the quilombo endure after abolition and how did it influence Afro-descendant communities in northern Brazil during the twentieth century?

Abreu will address the spatial and social legacy of quilombos after abolition as a means of understanding the link between these radical formations and contemporary black rural movements, focusing on the northern Brazilian states of Pará and Maranhão. This paper will address the question from a historical perspective, beginning with the proliferation of quilombos in the two states during the late-imperial period (1850-1888).

Abreu argues for a reevaluation of quilombos in Brazilian history, stressing that the question of whether they were revolutionary or simply a safety valve for the enslaved requires an exploration of how quilombos influenced moments of rural resistance and black territoriality after abolition. Afro-Brazilian communities in possession of their own land after abolition maintained communal forms of land stewardship and rejected strict forms of private property, even as outside landowners used the force of law and the force of arms in various attempts to nullify this situation.

In order to understand this historical tension, Abreu will frame the issue with reference to Edward Said’s concept of “imagined geography” as well as Raymond Craib’s concept of “fugitive landscapes.”

Author

• Johnathan A Abreu, University of Califorina/San Diego