November 20 has been National Black Awareness Day (Dia Nacional da Consciência Negra) in Brazil since 1978 when the country’s Unified black Movement obtained official approval to make the date a national holiday to celebrate the anniversary of the death of Zumbi.
Zumbi was a black leader who fought slavery and became a symbol of black resistance. He died in 1695. In 1995, Brazil celebrated the 300th anniversary of the death of the black hero with great fanfare.
The Palmares Cultural Foundation, which is named after the maroon settlement in the backlands of the state of Pernambuco that served as a refuge for escaped Brazilian slaves during most of the 17th century, is at the forefront of the modern black movement in Brazil.
The director of the foundation, Zulu Araújo, points out that today there are 80 million blacks in Brazil, around 45% of the population.
He goes on to say that November 20 is an occasion for making people aware of the problems the country’s black population faces.
“On this day we raise our voices in a cry for an end to racism in Brazil,” he says.
Palmares, known as the Quilombo (an Angolan word for a male military society or camp) dos Palmares, because of the wild palm trees that grew there, was founded in Pernambuco in 1597 by some 40 slaves who escaped from a local sugar plantation.
By the middle of the 17th century the fortress had an estimated population of 30,000, with ex-slaves from all over the country living there in freedom.
Zumbi was born in 1655 and while still a small boy was captured by slave hunters. He was given to a priest who baptized him Francisco and sent him to school.
At the age of 15, he escaped and returned to the Quilombo dos Palmares, shucked off his white man’s name and took the name Zumbi.
After showing pronounced leadership qualities and great valor in various battles against slave hunters, Zumbi became leader upon the death of Ganga Zumba, the first leader of the Quilombo dos Palmares.
In 1695, he was betrayed by some of his bodyguards, captured and killed. His head was chopped off and exposed in public as a warning to those who opposed slavery.
The final destruction of the Quilombo dos Palmares occurred shortly after the death of Zumbi, but only after it was attacked numerous times by an invading force of over ten thousand men.
The importance of the Palmares slave revolt is second in Latin America only to that in Haiti where slaves actually expelled the slaveholders, took over the country and established the first ever black republic.
Agência Brasil
Translator: Allen Bennett
Show Comments (6)
Guest
princehusayn
Powerful and inspiring. I Love the spirit of revolution I can smell the blood. I hear the cries and feel everyones pain of dying and loosing. Loss for everyone like fire spares no grass. They all become fuel. Theold must go to bring the new. I long for mother Africa I long to re unite with our History. I enjoyed this write I coild hear the drums.
Guest
Uduma Kalu
Slaves that became kings
For Toussaint L’Ouverture, Jaja of Opobo, Zumbi
We are searching for Ozumba
Ozumba they called Zumbi
His spirit is our force
His force is spirit of our presence.
Ozumba, kind hearted Ozumba,
His spirit is our force
Ozumba, stout hearted Igbo
Brother of Toussaint, cousin to Jaja
Ozumba, you that led Igbo in Brazil
Did you hear from Ojukwu,
Ojukwu who called the men in Georgia?
When Nzeogwu shot his bullet?
Ironsi remembered Congo
Uwazurike was not there.
Toussaint was in Haiti
And Jaja held Opobo
Memories come and go
And spilled blood dry on earth
Like ink on paper, they restore our lives to us.
It’s like yesterday,
And today:
We denounce
We protest,
We resist.
Racial democracy in Brazil
Our continued slavery in Brazil
Second class in Brazil
Black chains in Brazil
Colonial Brazil rejected period,
Republic of Brazil rejects us
We are fifty per cent, Brazil
Seventy per cent live at your margin, Brazil
We denounce
We protest,
We resist.
Spirit of Zumbi return to us
Your spirit is our force
Guest
Not here
You won’t get any answer here. If you want to ask questions use the forum at http://www.brazzilforum.com
Guest
Re: zumbi
i meant zumbi not zuni. his real name was ozumba. do you have real information on him? i mean to pay homage him, along with other igbo like the haitian revolution leader, achebe, zik, emeagwali. Uduma Kalu
Guest
uduma kalu
i am doing a poetry book on igbo contribution to the world, and just discovered that zuni was igbo man. do you know that?
Uduma Kalu, a Nigerian poet and journalist.
Guest