Palmares, or Quilombo dos Palmares, was a settlement of fugitive slaves established gradually from the early 1600s to 1694, about 60k inland from the northeast coast of Brazil around the regions of Pernambuco and Alagoas. Estimates indicated that 10,000 to 20,000 fugitive slaves, native Brazilians, and various outcast groups (such as Jews and Muslims) inhabited Palmares throughout the period.
Portuguese colonization, particularly from 1570, brought sugar cane plantations to the northeast coast of Brazil, utilizing, as labor, enslaved Africans and native peoples. Some of the slaves and native Americans resisted and established small settlements or quilombos in the area of Pernambuco, where palm trees abounded (thus the name Palmares).
Illustrative of its complexity, Quilombo dos Palmares in 1640 was described as comprising several separate settlements which pledged their loyalty to one leader (chief). Two of the settlements were mostly of Indigenous origin (Subupira e Tabocas); one of the Portuguese colonists who joined the quilombo (Amaro), and seven Bantos, that is, settlements of fugitive slaves (Andalaquituche, Macaco, Aqualtene, Ambrabanga, Tabocas, Zumbi, Arotiene). With its capital in Macaco, Palmares possessed a complex social structure, replicating, in many instances, African political systems.
When the Portuguese lost control of the region to the Dutch in the 1630s, the new colonial rulers continued the military campaign of the earlier Portuguese to bring Palmares under control. They were no more successful than their predecessors, and the quilombo continued to grow. In 1654, when Portugal regained control of the area, it resumed its attempts to conquer Palmares.
Portuguese military forces and mill owners in the region attempted to regain control over the quilombo for the next forty years. Ganga-Zumba, the Palmares chief during the latter part of this period, tried to negotiate an agreement with the Portuguese where the quilombo would no longer accept fugitive slaves or fight the Portuguese in exchange for permanent recognition of their land and freedom for those born in Palmares. However, Zumbi, the settlement’s military leader, chose resistance to the Portuguese. The Portuguese never accepted Ganga-Zumbi’s proposal and continued to attack the quilombo. Finally, in 1694, Palmares was conquered and destroyed by a military force under the command of Domingos Jorge Velho. Zumbi was killed one year later in 1695.
Palmares was a multifaceted quasi-state that lasted for most of the 17th Century, resisting attack by two European powers. Known for challenging Dutch and Portuguese sovereignty in Brazil, Palmares was a symbol of resistance to colonialism and the possibility of multicultural coexistence.
However, the destruction of Palmares failed to stem the emergence of hundreds, perhaps thousands of smaller quilombos throughout Brazil. Nor did it prevent countless other acts of resistance that undermined planter domination even after the abolition of slavery in 1888. Cheney describes how the legend of the Quilombo dos Palmares inspired a 1988 constitutional amendment that extended land rights to the descendants of fugitive slaves. Thousands of “modern quilombos” have petitioned for government recognition while organizing mass movement in the countryside that has won concessions from local landowners and pressured elected officials to implement affirmative action policies in other areas. In 2015, the specter of Palmares looms large over Brazil.
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Just finished reading Ender’s Game with a kid I tutor
Wild to me how a conservative like Orson Scott Card was a diligent enough writer to write his way out of the narrow bounds of American conservative thought, seemingly by accident, and then scramble at the end to justify why this enemy (the aliens) is actually fine to kill even though the ethos behind every previous chapter seemed to be about Ender learning why competition and victory robs you of your humanity and happiness by forcing you to kill what you come to know best, even love: your opponent.
Edit: In retrospect it’s a similar experience to when I read that book On Killing by that psycho David Grossman. He spends so much time giving good examples and reasons for why killing is in so many ways an act that we are naturally revolted by, painting this picture of man as a creature that would rather collaborate than make war, only to say at the end “but there are some bad hombres out there and you’ll have to fight against all this human programming to do what needs to be done.”
There’s no escaping reactionary thought through exploration alone, it seems
I’m pretty sure he ret-conned the whole series years and years after it became popular.
Phew, just wait until later in the series when Peter is made the Adult in the Room for humanity
I just read a pretty good critical review of Ender’s Game that addressed my frustrations very succinctly: it argued that the book is concerned with creating a guiltless genocide. The fact that the two sequels are called “speaker for the dead” and “xenocide” does tell me that on some level Card was still trying to convince himself that he had.
I had read most of the series years ago when I was more interested in trying to separate the art from the artist, and you made me curious enough to refresh my memory on Speaker and Xenocide
You’re right on the money - both of them explore the relationship between human colonists on a planet and other sentient lifeforms, but they do it through a lens of fundamental incompatibilities. The native lifeforms are dependent on a virus for their life cycle which is deadly to humans, and they accidentally torture and kill humans under the impression that it honors them. Ender the Xenocide, as he’s known to humanity, places the hive queen egg on this planet to attone for said genocide and the hive queen is eventually enlisted as a mediator between the humans and the native lifeforms after the humans do a pogrom
Also there’s more cuckolding-talk than I’m used to in other fiction, not to mention a weirdly paternal and flirty relationship with an AI that was born out of Ender’s brain interfacing with tech iirc. That’s not related to your frustrations but it stands out in my memory
I’m a little biased because I happen to have written 440 pages of fiction from a perspective inspired by colonial/eusocial animals but I have often felt that the “hive mind” as a trope is often used as a pernicious way to do a more “intellectual” kind of dehumanization. It’s a way to recognize that humans are social animals, and the “hive mind” boils down the outsider into an evil individual whose “people” are more like neurons in a brain than members of a society. It dodges all of the quandaries that must be addressed in a story about waging war with another sentient species in science fiction.