Zumbi

Zumbi (1655 – November 20, 1695), also known as Zumbi dos

Palmares (Portuguese pronunciation: [zũˈbi dus pɐwˈmaɾis]), was a
Zumbi dos Palmares
Brazilian of Kongo origin and a quilombola leader, being one of the
pioneers of resistance to slavery of Africans by the Portuguese in
Brazil. He was also the last of the kings of the Quilombo dos
Palmares, a settlement of Afro-Brazilian people who had liberated
themselves from enslavement in that same settlement, in the present-
day state of Alagoas, Brazil. Zumbi today is revered in Afro-Brazilian
culture as a powerful symbol of resistance against the enslavement of
Africans in the colony of Brazil.[1] He was married to the queen and
also great warrior Dandara.

Contents
Quilombos
Bronze head of Zumbi in Brasília,
Origins Brazil
Early life King of Quilombo dos Palmares
King of the Quilombo dos Palmares Reign 1680–1695

Part of Afro-Brazilian folklore Predecessor Ganga Zumba

Importance today Successor Camuanga (de jure)

of the resistance,
Tributes
kingdom destroyed.
See also
Footnotes Born Francisco Nzumbi
1655
References
Serra da Barriga,
External links Captaincy of
Pernambuco,
Portuguese Colony
Quilombos of Brazil (present-day
União dos Palmares,
Quilombos were communities in Brazil founded by individuals of
Alagoas, Brazil)
African descent who escaped slavery (these escaped slaves are
commonly referred to as Maroons[2]). Members of quilombos often Died 20 November 1695
returned to plantations or towns to encourage their former fellow (aged 39–40)
Africans to flee and join the quilombos. If necessary, they brought Serra Dois Irmãos,
others by force and sabotaged plantations. Anyone who came to Captaincy of
quilombos on their own were considered free, but those who were
Pernambuco,
captured and brought by force were considered slaves and continued
Portuguese Colony
to be so in the new settlements. They could be considered free if they
were to bring another captive to the settlement. Women were also of Brazil (present-day
targets of capture, including black, white, Indian and mulatas (women Viçosa, Alagoas, Brazil)
of mixed African and European ancestry), who were forcibly Spouse Dandara
relocated to Palmares.[3] Some women, however, fled voluntarily to Palmares to escape abusive spouses
and/or masters.[3] Since small in numbers, men were also recruited to join Palmares and even Portuguese
soldiers fleeing forced recruitment were sought out.[3]

Palmares was established around 1605 by 40 enslaved central Africans who fled to the heavily forested hills
that parallel the northern coast of Brazil.[4] Portuguese authorities called this area Palmares, due to its many
palm trees, and were locked in deadly clashes with it for much of the 17th century.[4]

Quilombo dos Palmares was a self-sustaining kingdom of Maroons escaped from the Portuguese settlements in
Brazil, "a region perhaps the size of Portugal in the hinterland of Pernambuco".[5] At its height, Palmares had
a population of more than 30,000. Palmares developed into a confederation of 11 towns, spanning rugged
mountainous terrain in frontier zones across the present day states of Alagoas and Pernambuco.[3] Palmares
was an autonomous state based on African political and religious customs that supported itself though means
of agriculture, fishing, hunting, gathering, trading, and raiding nearby Brazilian plantations and settlements.[3]

Origins
Zumbi's mother Sabina was a sister of Ganga Zumba, who is said to have been the son of princess Aqualtune,
daughter of an unknown King of Kongo. It is unknown if Zumbi's mother was also daughter of the princess,
but this still makes him related to the Kongo nobility. Zumbi and his relatives are of Central African descent.
They were brought to the Americas after the Battle of Mbwila. The Portuguese won the battle eventually,
killing 5,000 men, and captured the king, his two sons, his two nephews, four governors, various court
officials, 95 title holders and 400 other nobles who were put on ships and sold as slaves in the Americas. It is
very probable that Ganga and Sabina were among these nobles. The whereabouts of the rest of the individuals
captured after the Battle of Mbwila is unknown. Some are believed to have been sent to Spanish America, but
Ganga Zumba, his brother Zona and Sabina were made slaves at the plantation of Santa Rita in the Captaincy
of Pernambuco in what is now northeast Brazil. From there, they escaped to Palmares.

Early life
Zumbi was born free in Palmares in 1655, believed to be descended from the Congo.[6] He was captured by
the Portuguese and given to a missionary, Father António Melo, when he was approximately six years old.
Father António Melo baptized Zumbi and gave him the name of Francisco. Zumbi was taught the sacraments,
learned Portuguese and Latin and built a Kongo kingdom in Palmares. Despite attempts to subjugate him,
Zumbi escaped in 1670 and, at the age of 15, returned to his birthplace. Zumbi became known for his physical
prowess and cunning in battle and he was a respected military strategist by the time he was in his early
twenties.

King of the Quilombo dos Palmares

By 1678, the governor of the captaincy of Pernambuco, Pedro Almeida, weary of the longstanding conflict
with Palmares, approached its king Ganga Zumba with an olive branch. Almeida offered freedom for all
runaway slaves if Palmares would submit to Portuguese authority, a proposal which Ganga Zumba favored.
But Zumbi – who became the commander-in-chief of the Kingdom's forces in 1675 - was distrustful of the
Portuguese. Further, he refused to accept freedom for the people of Palmares while other Africans remained
enslaved. He rejected Almeida's overture and challenged Ganga Zumba's kingship. In 1678 Zumbi killed his
uncle Ganga Zumba. Zumbi sought to implement a far more aggressive stance against the Portuguese[4]
Vowing to continue the resistance to Portuguese oppression, Zumbi became the new king of Palmares.
Zumbi's determination and heroic efforts to fight for
Palmares' independence increased his prestige.
Predictably, when Zumbi gained authority, tensions with
the Portuguese quickly escalated. In 1694, fifteen years
after Zumbi assumed kingship of Palmares, the
Portuguese colonists under the military commanders
Domingos Jorge Velho and Bernardo Vieira de Melo
launched an assault on the Palmares. They made use of
artillery as well as a fierce force of Brazilian Indian
fighters, which took 42 days to defeat the kingdom.[4]
On February 6, 1694, after 67 years of ceaseless conflict
with the cafuzos, or Maroons, of Palmares, the
Capoeira or the Dance of War by Johann Moritz
Portuguese succeeded in destroying Cerca do Macaco,
Rugendas, 1835
the kingdom's central settlement. Some resistance
continued, but on November 20, 1695 Zumbi was killed
and decapitated, his head displayed on a pike to dispel
any legends of his immortality.

Although it was eventually crushed, the success of Palmares through most of the 17th century greatly
challenged colonial authority and would stand as a beacon of slave resistance in the times to come.[3]

Part of Afro-Brazilian folklore

His contemporary slaves believed him to be a demigod. it was believed throughout the country by slaves that
his strength and courage were due to the fact that he was possessed by Orixas, African spirits, and was
therefore half-man, half-god. Others thought that he was the son of Ogum.

Importance today
November 20 is celebrated, chiefly in Brazil, as a day of Afro-
Brazilian consciousness. The day has special meaning for those
Brazilians of African descent who honour Zumbi as a hero, freedom
fighter, and symbol of freedom. Zumbi has become a hero of the 20th-
century Afro-Brazilian political movement, as well as a national hero
in Brazil. Today, Zumbi is considered a hero of great magnitude
amongst Afro-Brazilians who celebrate his courage, leadership
qualities, and heroic resistance to Portuguese colonial rule.[3]

Tributes
Zumbi dos Palmares International Airport is the name of
the airport serving Maceió, Brazil.
Subject of the 1974 Jorge Ben song "Zumbi".
Gilberto Gil released a CD called Z300 Anos de Zumbi.
Quilombo, 1985, film by Carlos Diegues about Palmares, Zumbi (1927) by Antônio Parreiras
ASIN B0009WIE8E
The band name Chico Science & Nação Zumbi (later just
Nação Zumbi after the death of frontman Chico Science)
Soulfly has the song titled "Zumbi", and mentioned in various lyrics as well.
Mentioned in the Sepultura song "Ratamahatta."
 His name is given to a fighter in the Macromedia Flash game Capoeira Fighter 2 & 3.
On March 21, 1997, his name and biography were entered into the Book of Steel of the
Tancredo Neves Pantheon of the Fatherland and Freedom, a monument dedicated to the honor
Brazil's national heroes.
Arena Conta Zumbí (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52y7Kyd1Ewc), a 1964 play about
Zumbí by the 20th-century Brazilian dramatists Gianfrancesco Guarnieri and Augusto Boal,
with music by Edu Lobo.[7]

See also
Atlantic slave trade
Cafuzo
Capoeira
Garifuna people
Palmares (quilombo)
Quilombo
Slavery
Triangular trade
Zambo
List of slaves

Footnotes
1. Araujo, Ana Lucia (2012). "Zumbi and the Voices of the Emergent Public Memory of Slavery
and Resistance in Brazil". Comparativ: Leipziger Beiträge zur Universalgeschichte und
Vergleichenden Gesellschaftsforschung. 22: 95–111.
2. Price, R. ed., 1996. Maroon societies: Rebel slave communities in the Americas. JHU Press.
3. The human tradition in colonial Latin America (https://archive.org/details/humantraditionin00ke
nn). Andrien, Kenneth J., 1951- (2nd ed.). Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. 2013.
ISBN 9781442212992. OCLC 839678886 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/839678886).
4. FAGAN, BRIAN (1993). "Timelines: Brazil's Little Angola". Archaeology. 46 (4): 14–19.
JSTOR 41771048 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/41771048).
5. Braudel (1984), p. 390.
6. Rodriguez (2006), p. 587.
7. Augusto Boal, Theater of the Oppressed, pp. 143–153 © Pluto Press,
http://www.plutobooks.com (https://www.plutobooks.com/search/?keyword=Boal)

References
Braudel, Fernand, The Perspective of the World, vol. III of Civilization and Capitalism, 1984 (in
French 1979).
Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion. Westport,
Connecticut: Greenwood, 2006.
Diggs, Irene, "Zumbi and the Republic of Os Palmares", vol. 14 of Phylon (1940–65)
Chapman, Charles E., "Palmares: The Negro Numantia", vol. 3 of The Journal of Negro History
(January 1918).
Kent, R. K., "Palmares: An African State in Brazil", vol. 6 of The Journal of African History
(1965).
External links
The Slave King (https://web.archive.org/web/20050404002021/http://www.brazil-brasil.com/cvr
oct95.htm)
300 Years of Zumbi (http://www.mltranslations.org/Brazil/Zumbi.htm)
Taiguara performing the song composed in Zumbi's honour (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=bE8HX1yotfo)

Preceded by King of Palmares Succeeded by

Ganga Zumba 1680–1695 None

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