Ganga Zumba is remembered by historians as the warrior, Black hero and freedom fighter
who was central to the history and modern-day struggle of the Brazilian Black Movement,
having led an alliance of “independent settlements”– Quilombo dos Palmares. Located
between the states of Alagoas and Pernambuco, in northeastern Brazil, Quilombo dos
Palmares was founded by early Brazilian Africans in the late 16th century as resistance to
European colonizers and enslavers.
It is one of the first places, in the Americas, where Black people, who were brought to the
New World enslaved, found freedom. For almost a hundred years, Black people in Quilombo
fought against their enslavers, particularly the Portuguese who attempted to colonize
Brazil.
Zumba, as king of Quilombo in the 1670s, led these attacks against the enslavers, and
despite repeated threats from the colonial authorities, Quilombo thrived as fugitive slaves
set up a collective economy based upon subsistence agriculture, trade, and communal land
ownership, according to accounts. And all these were largely thanks to the leadership of
Zumba.
Believed to have been a Kongo royal, Zumba was the son of Princess Aqualtune Ezgondidu
Mahamud da Silva Santos (daughter of a king of Kongo) and was likely captured following
the Battle of Mbwila when Portugal defeated the Kingdom of Kongo. The Portuguese sold
Zumba, his siblings and many other nobles captured following the battle to Santa Rita
Plantation in Portugal’s colony of Pernambuco (Northeast Brazil).
being an African royal, Zumba, after a few years, rejected being made a slave and
escaped to Palmares with his family. Palmares, which was then a mocambo (village-sized
communities of runaway slaves in colonial Brazil) grew in size alongside other mocambos
as slaves continued to escape. These mocambos then formed what has been described
as “a confederation of settlements” which became known as Quilombo dos Palmares.
Zumba was then made king over the alliance and given the title of “Ganga Zumba” which
means “Great Lord” in Kimbundu, a Bantu language.
Based in Cerro dos Macacos, with his men as chiefs of other settlements, Zumba made
Macaco a hub for the governance of the alliance that was formed. According to sources,
Macaco, by the 1670s, had a palace and 1,500 houses which provided accommodation for
Zumba’s armed guards, ministers, devoted subjects and family, including his three wives.
In subsequent years, Zumba and his armies would help rescue other enslaved Africans from
the plantations and bring them to Palmares territory all the while fighting off attacks from
the Europeans.
But in 1677, during one such battle, two of Zumba’s children were taken prisoner while
another was killed. Zumba himself was wounded in the attack and was therefore
compelled to accept a peace treaty offered by the governor of Pernambuco. That peace
treaty included relocating his Palmares alliance to the Cucaú Valley.
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