The slave trade to the Americas, which consumed the lives of at least 12 million African men and women, represented one of the most important commercial and cultural ventures in the formation of the modern world and a fundamental element in the creation of a socioeconomic world system. It is estimated that 40 percent of the Africans imported to the Americas ended up in Brazil. Despite the intensive use of the indigenous (Amerindian) labor force, Africans and their descendants made up the economic backbone of Brazil for the first four centuries of its history, beginning with Portuguese occupation in the 16(th) century. African slavery penetrated each and every aspect of life in Brazil. Besides setting in motion plantations, farms, ranches, mines, cities, factories, kitchens, and dining rooms, slaves left their imprint on other aspects of the material and spiritual culture of the country -- its agriculture, cuisine, religion, language, music, arts, and architecture.

Wherever slavery flourished, so did resistance. Even under the threat of the whip, slaves tried to carve spaces of autonomy through negotiation and open or disguised rebellion, whether individual or collective. Though the list of forms of resistance is long, one was ubiquitous -- flight and the formation of runaway slave communities, known in Brazil as quilombos or mocambos. Slave flight, to be sure, did not always lead to the formation of quilombos. Fugitives often escaped individually or in small groups and disguised themselves as free or freed blacks or mestizos, especially in larger urban settlements located in or near mining and plantation regions. Our focus here, however, is on the flight from slavery that resulted in the creation of quilombos.

A quilombo is a Brazilian hinterland settlement founded by people of African origin including the Quilombolas, or Maroons. Most of the inhabitants of quilombos were escaped slaves and, in some cases, later these escaped African slaves would help provide shelter and homes to other minorities of marginalised Portuguese, Brazilian aboriginals, Jews and Arabs, and/or other non-black, non-slave Brazilians who experienced oppression during colonization. However, the documentation on runaway slave communities typically uses the term mocambo to describe the settlements. "Mocambo" is an Ambundu word that means "hideout", and is typically much smaller than a quilombo. Quilombo was not used until the 1670s and then primarily in more southerly parts of Brazil. A similar settlement exists in other Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America, and is called a palenque. Its inhabitants are palenqueros who speak various Spanish-African-based creole languages. Quilombos are identified as one of three basic forms of active resistance by slaves. The other two are attempts to seize power and armed insurrections for amelioration. Typically, quilombos are a "pre-19th century phenomenon". The prevalence of the last two increased in the first half of 19th century Brazil, which was undergoing both political transition and increased slave trade at the time.

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