Overview

Freedom by a Thread: The History of Quilombos in Brazil brings together some of the best scholars in the world working on the history of quilombos (maroon societies) in Brazil from a variety of perspectives and approaches. Over 40 percent of the total volume of captive Africans arrived in Brazil during a 400-year period of legal and contraband transatlantic slaving. If slavery penetrated every aspect of Brazilian life, so did resistance--and co-existence with it--in the form of small to large-scale quilombos. Palmares and the other quilombos built an exciting history of freedom. Yet, it is a history filled with traps and surprises, advances and setbacks, conflict and commitments, while advancing their immediate interests and more ambitious projects of liberty. These events and many others are part of the history told in this book.

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9781937306311

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This exceptional book brings together the recent scholarship... on quilombos (runaway slave communities) in Brazil.... [T]his is a major contribution to the study of slave resistance in the Americas. -journal of Latin American Studies Taken together, these studies provide the best and most complete account available on this topic in any language. The studies... all contribute to a richer understanding of African experiences of freedom in Brazil. -The Americas Taken as a whole, these essays clearly demonstrate the profoundly contradictory nature of the quilombos. An integral and in some ways functional part of the slave-owning order, they were simultaneously a profound threat to that order.... [T]hey existed within the world of slavery, while offering a radical alternative to that world. In providing such a path-breaking and broadly inclusive survey of the quilombo experience, this volume performs an immense service to students of the Brazilian past and of the slave past throughout the New World. -Journal of Social History This collection of essays represents a sharp and largely successful break with the fairly simple image of runaways presented [thus far].... This collection is generally distinguished by work of a very high quality. The quantity of primary documentation brought to bear is impressive.... This is an important contribution to the literature on Brazilian slavery and runaways that can be fruitfully read by scholars interested in similar themes in other areas. -The American Historical Review The research presented in [this book] offers abundant information on quilombos.... This [is an] important volume.... -The Hispanic American Historical Review

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