From the early 16th century and on into the 20th century, an estimated 12 million people were forcibly deported from West Africa and forced to work in the Americas. What this figure does not reflect are the countless lives lost during the violent kidnappings, the gruelling captivity in dungeons before the crossing, and especially during the crossing itself. The number of people abducted in Africa as part of the transatlantic slave trade was therefore much higher. Resistance to enslavement was as diverse as the people who were subjected to it. The examples are inexhaustible. As they are still far too rarely discussed, I would like to use this article to draw attention to three popular and, at the same time, very different examples from Brazil.
The Quilombo dos Palmares existed from around 1600 to 1694. It was the largest, and remains the best-known, of the quilombos in Brazil. Quilombos were fortified settlements founded by people who had escaped enslavement. In addition to those who had been abducted from Africa and freed from slavery in Brazil, people of Arab and European origin also lived in these communities. What they shared was their resistance to the colonial powers. From the beginning of the 17th century, the number of these settlements in the Palmares region in the north of Brazil grew. From the 1640s onwards, individual quilombos there joined together more and more frequently; a good twenty years later, the first sources describe a centralised administration and leadership based on the West African model. Palmares was by then a fortified settlement with a population of up to 20,000 people. From the founding of the first settlements, the inhabitants of Palmares resisted capture by Portuguese and Dutch colonisers for almost a century.
The history of Palmares is linked to the biographies of some legendary personalities. The Congolese princess Aqualtune Ezgondidu Mahamud da Silva Santos had already fought the Portuguese in Africa before being taken as a prisoner to Pernambuco in northern Brazil after being defeated in the Battle of Ambuila (29 October 1665). She is considered one of the founders of Palmares and became an important figure there after escaping enslavement. Her son Nganga Nzumbi, better known as Ganga Zumba, became the first king of the united quilombos.
Zumbi and Dandra dos Palmares led the settlement’s resistance against the colonial powers as the royal couple of Palmares from 1665-1695. They were defeated in the last battle in defence of the quilombos against the Portuguese. Dandara took her own life on 6 February 1694; Zumbi was beheaded in 1695. The anniversary of his death is the date of the most important Afro-Brazilian holiday: every year on 20 November, the Dia da Consciência Negra in Brazil, monuments to Zumbi are ceremonially cleaned and decorated with flowers, accompanied by singing and dancing.
Revolta dos Malês. In addition to the establishment of fortified settlements, revolts regularly occurred throughout the Americas from the early 16th century onwards, with African Muslims enslaved in the Americas often being the central protagonists. The Revolta dos Malês in the province of Bahia gained a legendary status in Brazil. At that time, Muslims in Bahia were called malês, derived from imale, the self-designation of Muslim Yoruba. On the night of 24 to 25 January 1835, hundreds of people abducted from Africa and enslaved in Brazil rebelled in the streets of Salvador, Bahia. For hours, they fought both the police and armed civilians. Entire streets were blockaded. The revolt failed. Almost 70 of its supporters died and, according to sources, several hundred were sentenced to death, prison sentences, lashing, or banishment. Nevertheless, the Revolta dos Malês generated immense resonance within Brazilian society, to which the sheer volume of documents from parliamentary and court hearings bears witness. It was followed by a tightening of surveillance of free and enslaved Africans throughout the republic, as it was feared that others would follow their example. The Haitian Revolution of 1791 had shown that not all resistance could be broken.
Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua. The last of the three examples is a tale of individual rebellion. Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua was abducted from what is now Bénin and brought to Brazil between the ages of 15 and 25. He lived enslaved in Brazil for two years, first in Olinda, then in Rio de Janeiro. There, he was forced to work for a captain on a ship. When the ship docked in New York harbour in June 1847, he and two other people managed to escape with the support of New York abolitionists. Although the enslavement of people was already officially prohibited in the northern states of the USA at that time, he was imprisoned and forced to return to the ship. When he managed to escape again, he travelled on to Haiti. There, Baquaqua met a Baptist pastor who taught him French and English and introduced him to a network of Baptist abolitionists in the USA. Baquaqua, who had grown up in a Muslim family, converted to Christianity. In 1849, two years after his arrival in Haiti, he moved to the USA. Supported by abolitionists, he studied at New York Central College in MacGrawville for three years. Even during his time in Haiti, Baquaqua harboured the desire to return to Africa. Among the Baptist abolitionists, it was assumed that he would go on to work as a Christian missionary in Africa. However, he initially moved from the USA to Western Canada in 1854, and later lived in Liverpool. Historical sources lose his trail in 1857, after a years-long odyssey.
Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua left behind his life story in the form of an autobiography, which he probably wrote during his student years. The autobiography was published by the Unitarian Samuel Downing Moore in Detroit in 1854. It remains the only slave narrative written by a person enslaved in Brazil available to date.
