In Serra da Barriga¹, on the eastern hill, for seventy-seven years lived the free black people from Palmares². They had runaway from several farms, mills, towns, and villages, grouping around the chiefs, founding an administration, an autonomous state, defended by the warriors who - in times of peace - were small farm growers, and livestock farmers. 

 

They permanently elected a Zumbi, the Lord of military force and traditional law. 

 

There are no rich nor poor people, neither thievery or injustices. Three wooden fences, in a triple palisade³, surrounded the old houses of thousands and thousands of men. 

 

Initially, for living, armed black man walked down, robbing, depredating, taking the butim⁴ to the watchtowers in their impervious stone fortress.

 

Then, the government was raised, and with it came the order; the steady production made easier peaceful communication on selling and buying in the border villages; the family was constituted and the first Palmarino citizens were born.

 

The planting in between fences, watched by two hundred guards, with a shine lance, long swords, and few fire guns. In the central courtyard, as in an African aringa⁵, lived Zumbi, the King in that black community, the first free government in all the American lands.

 

There, Zumbi provided justice, trained troops, hosted parties, and joined the worship, spontaneous beliefs, Catholicism acculturation with rituals from the black continent.

 

They were attacked, twenty times, during their existence, with sort of luck, Palmares resisted, spreading them out, disseminating them, attracting the hope of all slaves whipped in plantations of Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe, and Bahia⁶.

 

The Palmarina community disorders slavery work all around. Day by day new soldiers fled, future soldiers of Zumbi, wearing a cloak, his sword, and a royal lance.

 

Lastly after massive attacks, in 1695, seven thousand veteran men, commanded by warlords, marched over Palmares. Zumbi, in vain, led his forces into combat, repelling and winning. The enemy pulled itself back, receiving lives and munitions, while blacks were besieged of fury and revenge.

 

In one morning, the whole army attacked at the same time, for all sides. The palisades were collapsed, shattered by axes, soaking the floor in despair with blood from the black warriors.

 

Domingos Jorge Velho from São Paulo⁷ and Bernardo Vieira de Melo with Olinda's troops; Sebastião Dias⁸ with the reinforcement men - went forward and paying dearly every inch the sword gained. 

 

Screaming and dying, the winners always got up, shattering the resistances, spilling out like impetuous rivers, between the huts, burning, trapping and slaughtering. 

 

When the last fence crashed, Zumbi ran to the highest point of the mountain, where the overview of the looted kingdom was complete and alive. Then, with his partners he looked to the end of the battle.

 

Paulistas and Olindenses⁹ started a human hunt, going through huts, winning the last persistent. 

 

From the top of the mountain, Zumbi brandished the mirroring lance and jumped into the abyss. 

 

As fidelity to the king and the vanquished kingdom, his generals accompanied him. 

 

In some parts of the mountain are still visible the black stones from the fortresses.

 

The memory of the last Zumbi still lives, King of Palmares, the warrior who lived in death his right of freedom and heroism...

 

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Zumbi dos Palmares was a Brazilian of Kongo/Angola origin and a quilombola leader, being one of the pioneers of resistance to slavery of Africans by the Portuguese in Brazil.

 

¹Serra da Barriga it is located in the municipality of União dos Palmares, in the Brazilian state of Alagoas. 

 

²Palmares is the city in northeastern Brazil, in the state of Pernambuco. Its main activity is the combined field of agriculture and livestock. It received its name from the Portuguese people who named it that due to the number of palm trees in the area where run-away slaves had created approximately 16 quilombos, led by Zumbi.

 

³Palisade is a fence of wooden stakes or iron railings fixed in the ground, forming an enclosure or defense.

 

⁴Butim is a plunder of material goods taken from an enemy in time of war.

 

⁵Aringa is an African fortified field.

 

⁶Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe, and Bahia are states of Northeast Region of Brazil, this region was the first to be discovered and colonized by the Portuguese and other European people, playing a crucial role in the country's history. 

 

⁷Domingos Jorge Velho was one of the most effective flag-carrier, explorer, and fortune hunter Portuguese. He was born in Santana de Parnaíba, the captaincy of São Paulo. He was responsible for the repression of several nations in Bahia which he is reputed to have been the first colonist to explore and conquer Palmares.

 

⁸Bernardo Vieira de Melo was governor and captain-general of the captaincy of Rio Grande do Norte. At that time, he helped Captain Fernão Carrilho in the war in Palmares, where he had outstanding performance causing an enormous killing of more than four hundred black prisoners sharing the command with Sebastião Dias. He took  an active position in Mascates War or War of the Peddlers that was characterized by a class struggle: that of the Portuguese traders or merchants – known as ‘mascates’ – residents of what was then the city of Recife, and the plantation barons or nobles of Olinda’s city – the “pés rapados” (bare feet) - as the peddlers called them.

 

⁹Paulistas are the inhabitants of the state of São Paulo and Olindenses from the city of Olinda, state of Pernambuco, both located in Brazil.