Searching for Zumbi

The Portuguese colonisation and the Atlantic Slave Trade are the historical reasons at the bases of the presence of black African people in Brazil. From the XVI century, African black people — mostly from the Western African region — where captured and deported to Brazil to work as slaves in the plantations and the mines.

The Quilombos are Brazilian settlement founded by people of African origin; most of the founders of these communities were escaped slaves. Especially with President Lula da Silva, the rights of the Quilombolas (ownership of the lands and right of been recognised as communities) were finally recognised, but ,today, this process stopped and several Quilombo communities are suffering again discrimination.

Zumbi (1655 – November 20, 1695), also known as Zumbi dos Palmares was an important warrior figure in Brazilian history, being one of the pioneers of resistance to slavery. Zumbi today is revered in Afro-Brazilian culture as a powerful symbol of anti-slave and anti-colonial resistance.

In Brazil it is said that there is a institutionalised racism, heritage of the colonial period; the slavery Brazilian period is often forgotten or hidden and the Quilombola’s communities that are the living proof of that period live the consequences of this discrimination.