1

South Atlantic Wars: The Episode of Palmares1

Luiz Felipe de Alencastro

Translated by Ana Lucia Araújo

In Portuguese Studies Review, Vol. 19, No. 1 & 2 Fall, 2011, p.35+

Most of the historiography of the Brazilian colonial context confines its analysis within the

borders of the modern national space. Such an approach presumes that Portuguese America’s factories

and villages advanced under the premonition of the modern nation. This territorial reductionism also had

an impact on the archival organization.

In fact, after the Independence of Brazil in 1822, the demand for historical documents related to

the provinces of the nineteenth-century Empire, and later to the States of the federal republic, led the

Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, in Lisbon to classify its documents based on the political geography of

the nineteenth century. This cataloging generated subdivisions that arbitrarily ranked earlier minor and

major Brazilian captaincies at the same level with larger and more influential ones. Eventually, the South

Atlantic data were scattered through a new cataloguing in boxes concerning Portugal and its African and

Asian possessions. This modern distribution introduced a fragmented vision of the past and a misleading

perception of the present.

As a result, documents about the quilombos of Palmares in modern Alagoas in northeastern

Brazil—and many “Brasílicos”2 and other Brazilian topics—can be found in boxes of documents labeled

“Angola,” as well as in boxes ostensibly focused on other African and Asian possessions. And yet, dozens

1
A longer version of this text was published in Portuguese in Flávio Gomes (ed.), Mocambos de Palmares. História,
historiografia e fontes (Rio de Janeiro: 7Letras Editora, 2010, pp. 61-89). I am very grateful to Ana Lúcia Araújo for
her translation of the original text.
2
I define as “Brasílicos” the settlers of the Portuguese Americas, even those who were born in Portugal, who
manifested a regional identity but who did not have yet the sense of belonging to a broader protonational entity. In his
celebrated book Francisco de Brito Freyre, uses the word Brasílico to designate the things and the colonists of Brazil
see Nova Lusitânia, história da guerra brasílica (1675), (São Paulo: Beca Produções Culturais, 2001). The word
Brazilian (brasileiro), in its modern day meaning appeared only in 1696 or later in 1706. See note 70.
 2

of ordens régias (“royal orders”) sent to Brazilian general government in Bahia remark: “it was written

this way for Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, Maranhão and Angola.” In other words, the documents

themselves constantly emphasize that the history now narrowed to modern Brazil is an artificial segment

of a historical process that operated in the South Atlantic on a trans-oceanic scale.

Despite that separation, the Atlantic dimension and the African significance of Palmares have

always been underlined in the modern historiography, usually by seeing these settlements of slaves who

had fled the sugar plantations of Pernambuco as “African kingdoms”. However, few authors have

observed the further trans-Atlantic dimension of the story that many of the troops who fought the

Palmares War in Brazil were familiar with warfare in Angola and with African cultures.3 In other words,

the African experience in the Palmares wars was not just inside the palisades of the quilombo: it also

infused the anti-Palmarista militias of the planters and local authorities of Brazil.4

In fact, during the second quarter of the 17th century two major regional armed forces

emerged in Portuguese America: the bandeirantes, or paulistas, generally mestizo militias from

São Paulo captaincy in the south, who launched slave hunting expeditions against the southern

Indian tribes, and the Pernambuco and Paraiba volunteer forces who fought the Dutch occupation

of Northeast Brazil from 1630 to 1654. In Africa, the main Portuguese military activity centered

in Angola, a region successively connected to Rio de Janeiro, Bahia and Pernambuco. A bilateral

trade across the southern Atlantic linked plantation enclaves in Brazil to slaving wars in Angola,

and later – though more commercially in tone – to the ports of the Gulf of Guinea, generating a

3
Although the Palmares maroons’ villages had been attacked by colonists since their early development, in the
beginning of the 17th century, the Palmares War commonly refers to the last decades of the century, when the
expeditions against the quilombolas became more frequent. During the 1694 attack, led by the Paulista troops of
Domingos Jorge Velho, the quilombos of Palmares were destroyed. Their leader, Zumbí, escaped but was killed a
year later. A small group of combatants, led by Camoanga, Zumbí’s brother, pursued the fight until their defeat in
1700, For new researches and historiographical debate on Palmares see Flávio Gomes (ed.), Mocambos de
Palmares.
4
“Palmarista” were the inhabitants of Palmares, as this word appears in the documents of the period, see “Relação
das guerras feitas aos Palmares de Pernambuco no tempo do governador D. Pedro de Almeida, de 1675 a 1678,”
c.1680,” Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro, n° 22 (1859), pp. 303-29: 312.
 3

colonial spatial matrix in the South Atlantic that lasted until 1850, at the end of the slave traffic.

Seventeenth-century colonists of both shores of the South Atlantic shared military experiences in

the African and American wars, a unique phenomenon in the greater Atlantic System. Aside

from the exports of Brazilian products like cowries (zimbos), manioc flour, jeribita (sugarcane

spirits, or cachaça), troops, horses, and militiamen left Brazil to expand colonial domination and

slave trade networks in West-Central Africa.

“Live War” and “Coata-coata War”5

Unlike the Portuguese conflicts in Morocco or Asia, sometimes exalted in Lisbon as stages of a

global and glorious war against Islam, the battles against the natives at both sides of the South Atlantic

were often deprecated. Albeit situated at a level lower than Portugal’s frontier battles with Spain during

the War of Restoration (1640-1668),6 the campaign against the Dutch in Brazil – also known as the

Brasilica War (1630-1654) –was considered a “live war” (guerra viva, or active combat in modern

English), entitling combatants in it to privileges from the Crown. 7 Thus João Fernandes Vieira and André

de Vidal Negreiros, commanders of the Brazilian rebellion against the Dutch, emerged from the ranks of

the irregular troops to head governments in Brazil and Angola, an exceptional rise to the honorable

positions of captains-general in the overseas. They also received military distinctions from the Crown.8

5
Coata-coata = kuata-kuata, means “catch-catch” from the Kimbundu verb kikuata = to catch; see Antônio de
Oliveira de Cadornega. História geral das guerras angolanas (1680) (3 vols., Lisbon: Agência-Geral do Ultramar,
1972), vol. 2, pp. 105–06, note 2.
6
The armed struggle in which Portugal broke free from the Union of the Two (Iberian) Crowns established in 1580
after the death of the king Sebastião and end of the ruling House of Avis. The dynastic union brought Angola and
Brazil into the ongoing conflict between Dutch rebels and their Hapsburg rulers in Spain.
7
Tengwall defines “guerra viva” merely as ‘combat experience’. As we will see bellow, there were different ways to
reward and evaluate the combat experience; David Tengwall, “A Study in Military Leadership: The Sargento Mor in
the Portuguese South Atlantic Empire”, The Americas 40 (1) (1983), pp. 73-94.
8
. Mafalda Soares da Cunha and Nuno G. F. Monteiro, “Governadores e capitães-mores do império atlântico
portugues nos séculos XVII e XVIII”, in Optima Pars-Elites Ibero-americanas do Antigo Regime, eds. Mafalda Soares
da Cunha, Nuno G. F. Monteiro, and Pedro Cardim (Lisbon: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 2005), pp.191–252. No
other military action in Portuguese America was so prestigious as the “guerra viva” against the Dutch.
 4

Nevertheless, the Crown underplayed the role of the captains in other, less noble Brazilian fronts.

In 1656, Pereira de Azevedo, a leader among the bandeirante raiders of Sao Paulo, who fought against the

Dutch and was later the second-in-command of the famous and wide-ranging “bandeira de limites”

(1648–1651), a wide-ranging raid to the borders of Spanish Peru led by Raposo Tavares, petitioned for

appointment to a royal office in Brazil. Eventually, he obtained the position. However, Salvador de Sá, an

influential member of the Overseas Council (the Conselho Ultramarino, the council advisory to the king

in Lisbon on matters overseas), objected. For him, Azevedo deserved the position only because he fought

the Brasílica War, as his role as a bandeira commander brought him neither “merit nor entitlement”.9

Yet, Lisbon’s views on the battles in the Brazilian backlands became less dismissive. Indeed,

during the Thirty Years War (1618-48) the losses in the overseas—including the Dutch occupation of

Angola and Pernambuco, the definitive loss of São Jorge da Mina on the Gold Coast in 1637, as well as

the fall of the key trading fortress at Malacca in southeast Asia in 1641, and Colombo (Ceylon, modern

Sri Lanka) in 1656—left Lisbon’s global strategy concentrated in the southern Atlantic. From then on, it

was necessary to prevent native communities in Brazil or Angola from making alliances with European

rivals.10 Truces were negotiated with native Americans of Amazonia and Bahia, and in Angola also with

their long-time nemesis, Queen Njinga of Matamba. In other places, Portuguese forces simply decimated

native communities. With the support of the Paulista bandeirantes from southern Brazil and militiamen

from the North recruited by the planters and ranchers, a front was opened through the remote hinterland

of the northeast from Bahia north to Pará. These campaigns, known as the “Barbarian Wars” (1651–

1704), marked a rupture: for the first time; the colonial offensive aimed at the extermination rather than

enslavement of the Indians in the region.

9
Jaime Cortesão (ed. ), Pauliceae lusitana monumenta histórica (2 vols., Lisbon: Publicações do Real Gabinete
Português de Leitura do Rio de Janeiro, 1956-1961), vol. 2, pp. 520–21.
10
The Jesuit Bettendorf, a skillful observer of the Portuguese Amazon, summarized this shift: “Since the war against
the Dutch (1657–1661) was announced, it was intended to make the peace with all these [native] nations or to
engage the State forces to destroy them, given the risk that any rival [European] nation join these barbarians to take
possession of these captaincies.” João Felipe Bettendorf, Crônica dos padres da Companhia de Jesus no Estado do
Maranhão (Belém: Fundação Cultural do Pará, 1990), p. 91.
 5

An instruction from Matias da Cunha, governor general of Brazil (1687–1688), to Abreu

Soares—captain-major of a troop of Pernambucans who joined the Paulistas of Domingos Jorge Velho

against the native Americans of Rio Grande – stated that all captured adult males should be decapitated.

Only the women and children of the Tapuia were to be spared for enslavement.11

The Paulistas and other militia groups dramatically increased the violence of the anti-native

offensive in the region, providing the campaign against Palmares with experienced fighters. The

anonymous author of the Relação das guerras feitas says that the “bravery and the experience” of the

Paulista captain-major Fernão Carrilho, in battles against the Tapuia tribes and quilombolas (maroons) in

Bahia, led the governor of Pernambuco to appoint him to command the troops sent against Palmares in

1686, an extension of this general campaign to clear the interior regions (sertões, or backlands) of the

coastal captaincies.12 Despite the opposition of the Jesuits and the prohibition in the Regimento das

Missões (1686) forbidding attacks against Indians north to Ceará, Lisbon started to endorse the raids of

the “Barbarian Wars”.

The reasoning behind two decisions of the Overseas Council illustrated this new orientation. The

first was a petition of 1673, from the priest Antônio da Costa da Cruz, who lived in Brazil. Cruz requested

the Habit of Christ (the primary decoration of nobility in Portugal) and appointment as canon of the

cathedral in São Salvador in Kongo, claiming his knowledge of the languages of the Congo. He also

reminded the king of his services in the expeditions against Indians and quilombos in Bahia, and he cited

the precedent that the Habit of Christ had already been granted to Matheus Dias, captain of the Mulattos’

regiment in those wars, and to Diogo Pinheiro Camarão, “governor” of the regiment of Native Americans.

Councilor Feliciano Dourado voted against Cruz’s petition, stating that the captains cited had been

qualified only as veterans “of a ‘live war’ like the War of Pernambuco” against the Dutch. He disqualified

11
“You must not consent the adult barbarians to be spared from decapitation just to enslave them, only women and
children must be spared, as there is no danger of them to escape or rebel.” Pedro Puntoni, A guerra dos bárbaros –
povos indígenas e a colonização do sertão nordeste do Brasil 1650–1720 (São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de
São Paulo, 2000), pp.136–37.
12
‘“Relação das guerras feitas”, pp. 312–13.
 6

Cruz’s service against mere natives and the quilombolas. But Salvador de Sá supported the request,

arguing that Cruz would help to keep Kongo under Luanda’s authority. For him, the usefulness of the

priest in Central Africa was more important than doubts about his military merits in Brazil. The majority

of the Council followed Salvador de Sá. 13 In 1696, the Council further honored the informal Paulista

militia in a vote to grant the Habit of Christ to the Paulista field-coronel Moraes Navarro, who had fought

in Palmares and against Rio Grande Indians.14

Aware of the royal support for the wars against the natives in northern Brazil, Domingos Jorge,

during his final siege operations at Palmares, pledged the rehabilitation of the bandeiras led in the South

by his ancestors and companions of São Paulo.15 The victory over Palmares (1694), the extension of cattle

ranching into the backlands, and the “Barbarian Wars” against the Indians thus showed the convergence

of the interests of the settlers and the metropolitan authorities.

The status of the military campaigns in Africa was also elevated. The alliances of Queen Njinga

and the King of Kongo Garcia II with the Dutch in the 1640s made them targets of Salvador de Sá,

governor of the colony retaken from the Dutch in 1648. With the temporary cessation of hostilities against

Njinga’s Matamba in 1657, Kongo became the main enemy. An army of European Portuguese,

Angolistas, Angolan and Brasílico troops sent from Luanda by the governor Vidal de Negreiros, defeated

the Kongo army and killed the King Antônio I in the Battle of Mbwila in 1665. The commander of the

13
Doc. 09/12/1673, Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino – Lisbon (hereafter AHU), Angola, cx. 10/135.
14
“Consulta do Conselho Ultramarino”, December 15, 1696, Barão Studart, “Documentos para a história do Brasil e
especialmente a do Ceará”, Revista Trimensal do Instituto do Ceará (hereafter RTIC) 36 (1922), pp. 67-68.
15
“The troops with whom we went to conquer the brave heathen of this vast backcountry are neither registered in the
books of Your Majesty, nor do they receive a pay or bread of munitions. They are gathered by us, [...] not to enslave,
as some hypochondriacs want to make Your Majesty believe, but to acquire the brave heathen Tapuias (Indians),
who eat human flesh, to reduce them to the knowledge of the urban humanity and human society, … in order to allow
them … a great help, teaching them to cultivate, to sow, to harvest and work for their livelihood,” Autographed letter
from D. Jorge Velho, 15/7/1694, in Ernesto Ennes, Os Palmares: Subsídios para a sua história (São Paulo:
Companhia Editora Nacional, 1938),pp. 66–69.
 7

Luanda troops, who became the most famous Angolista captain, was Luís Lopes Sequeira, a Luso-

Ambundu mulatto.16

The dangerous alliance between African chiefdoms and the Portugal’s European rivals

materialized again in 1670 in the battle of Kitombo, when the Count of Soyo, a strategic coastal province

of Kongo, empowered by trade with the Dutch at the port of Mpinda, defeated an army sent from Luanda.

Recognizing the danger, the governor of Angola, Francisco de Távora, requested support directly from

authorities in Recife, Pernambuco, and Salvador da Bahia. In Recife, the committee called to examine the

matter consulted commanders experienced in South Atlantic warfare. Among them there were two former

governors of Angola, João Fernandes Vieira (1658-1661) and André Vidal de Negreiros (1661-1666);

also present were Cristóvão de Barros Rego, a former governor of São Tomé; Zenóbio Acióli de

Vasconcelos, and Antônio Jácome Bezerra. All five of these honored soldiers were veterans of the war

against the Dutch in Brazil. Vasconcelos and Bezerra, colonels in Recife and Olinda (the old capital and

seat of the Catholic diocese in Pernambuco), later became commanders also in the campaign against

Palmares.17 Vidal de Negreiros, in addition of his governorship in Angola, was former governor of

Maranhão (1654–1656), where he had directed attacks against the Indians, as well as twice former

governor of Pernambuco (1657–1661, and between January and June 1667). In these gubernatorial

activities, he also dealt with the War of Palmares. Fernandes Vieira, besides his responsibilities in

Angola, had been former governor of Paraíba (1655–1657). Later, João Fernandes Vieira wrote at least

two reports about Palmares to the Overseas Council, in Lisbon.18

Following the Battle of Kitombo (1670), Távora wrote to the Court in Lisbon that, before any

royal order, the governor of Pernambuco and João Fernandes Vieira, with “his own resources,” had sent

16
Following José Mathias Delgado, I call ‘Angolistas’ the Luso-African settlers in Angola, to differentiate them from
the natives, the Angolans, and to emphasize their own interests with regard to the Portuguese Europeans and the
Brasílicos.” See Cadornega. História Geral, vol. 1, pp. 322–24, note 1.
17
Pereira da Costa, Anais Pernambucanos (10 vols., Recife: Arquivo Público, 1951–1966), vol. 4, pp. 44–45;
“Relação das guerras feitas”, pp. 309–310; D. Loreto do Couto, “Desagravos do Brazil e Glórias de Pernambuco,”
Annaes da Bibliotheca Nacional, n° 25 (Rio de Janeiro, 1905), pp. 87–88.
18
In 1677, Document dated of 28/06/1677, Biblioteca Nacional de Lisbon, Seção de Manuscritos, Cod. II–33, 4, 32,
and in 1679, Pernambuco, 20/08/1679, AHU, ACL,C.U. 015, cx. 12, doc. 1150.
 8

400 men and horses from Brazil in four frigates to support the troops in Angola.19 Fernandes Vieira was

rewarded with appointment as director of royal fortifications at the North of Brazil. Sustained by the

Brasílico platoons, the Portuguese and Angolan troops in Angola were successful in 1671 in taking

control of Pungo-Andongo, the last independent capital of the Kingdom of Ndongo, dominant in the

region at the arrival of Portuguese forces a century previous.

These African battles were appreciated in Portugal in diverse ways. After the victory at Mbwila,

Vidal de Negreiros attempted to obtain royal subsidies of 400 escudos to compensate his corporals. The

Overseas Council considered the requeste amount excessive for victories on the Angolan front. As one

counselor stated, their “[participation] in the war of Angola was not worth 400 escudos of remuneration ...

.” Despite the favorable votes on the request by counselor Feliciano Dourado—a native of Paraíba (like

Negreiros) and constant defender in Lisbon of Brasílico commanders—and by the President of the

Council, Jorge de Albuquerque—a veteran of the Ceylon wars—the Crown reduced the compensation to

50 escudos, paid only five years later.20

By that time, Souza de Macedo had published an account on the battle of Mbwila in the July 1666

issue of the Lisbon newspaper Mercúrio Portuguez. The reportage described the “Miraculous victory”

obtained against Kongo forces. Confirming the preemptive character of this war, Macedo interpreted the

death of the King of Kongo and the destruction of his large army as revenge against the Spanish

maneuvers to incite a Kongo uprising against the Portuguese.21

That issue of the Mercúrio also headlined a successful Portuguese counter-offensive against the

Spanish in the Restoration War in Iberia. Hence, the newspaper associated the Mbwila victory with the

19
“Carta de Fco. de Távora a el-rei”, Luanda, 27.7.1671, AHU, Angola, cx. 10/43; J. A. Gonsalves de Mello. João
Fernandes Vieira 1613-1681 (2 vols., Recife: Universidade do. Recife, 1967), vol. 2, p. 226; Stuart B. Schwartz, A
Governor and his Image in Baroque Brazil: The Funeral Eulogy of Afonso Furtado de Castro do Rio de Mendonça by
Juan Lopes Sierra (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1979), p. 44.
20
AHU, Angola, cx. 9/55, doc. de 10/10/1666; Antônio Brásio, ed., Monumenta Missionária Africana. 1a sér. (África
Ocidental central) (15 vols., Lisbon: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1953-1988) (hereafter MMA¹), vol. 13, pp. 44–45.
21
The Mercúrio was the Portugal’s first printed periodical of political propaganda, “Milagrosa victoria que as armas
portuguesas alcançaram nas partes de Angola, do poderoso rey do Congo, que foy morto em huma batalha,”
Mercúrio Portuguez, Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa, Res., 111-112 (V), MMA, v.12, 575-581, p. 581
 9

patriotic war against Spain. The qualifier “miraculous” was related to the numerical advantage of the

Kongo troops, alleged to have involved colossal numbers. While Vidal de Negreiros mentioned “100.000

enemy archers” in Mbwila, an unlikely number, the missionary Diogini Carli, at the time in Angola,

referred to 400 Portuguese soldiers who crushed “900,000” Kongo warriors.22 On the one hand, hundreds

of African combatants in the “guerra preta”, or African auxiliaries who reinforced the Portuguese troops,

were excluded from this count. On the other hand, the astronomical figure attributed to the soldiers of the

enemy was a clear, and extreme, exaggeration.

The “miraculous victory” also referred to protection offered by Our Lady of Nazareth. Negreiros

had been devoted to this saint since the Brasílica War and built a church dedicated to her at Luanda beach

in 1664. In this church, still today well preserved, the head of King Antônio I was stuffed into a wall. As

Negreiros’ protector the saint became the protector of all Angolistas during the Brasílica War. The

eighteenth-century decorative tiles (azulejos) displayed in the church depict the saint hovering over the

field of battle at Mbwila. Prefiguring a representation used later in other paintings of European battles in

Africa, the tiles show a horde of African warriors encircling one of the few lines of Portuguese soldiers,

well drawn up in a tight square: the African chaos besieges the European order, with futility.

The 1671 conquest of Pungo Andongo was celebrated in another account, the Relaçam do felice

successo (1672).23 The text narrates the thirteen-month siege of the “almost impregnable” mountainous

capital of the Ndongo kingdom, led by Portuguese, Brasílico, and Angolan troops. It also describes the

brave death of the king of Ndongo, João Hary. Captured by a chief allied with Luanda, he closed his eyes,

refusing to look at the Portuguese, and asked to be decapitated so as not to fall prisoner to them. The

account narrates the combat in the black stone outcroppings of Pungo Andongo in terms similar to the

saga of events in Palmares: the siege to the Macaco palisade, Zumbí’s resistance, and the final battle in

22
Michelangelo Guattini and Diogini Carli, La mission au Kongo des pères Michelangelo Guattini et Dionigi Carli:
1668 (Preface: John K. Thornton) (Paris: Chandeigne, 2006), 129. Friar Carli, who wrote this section of the book,
states that he talked with the Portuguese soldier who cut off the head of the king of Kongo at Mbwila.
23
“Relaçam do Felice successo, que conseguirão as armas ... governadas por Francisco de Távora, Governador, e
Capitão General do Reyno de Angola contra a Rebellião de Dom João Rey das Pedras & Dongo no mez de
Dezembro de 1671”, Lisbon, n/d but printed in 1672, MMA, vol. 13, pp. 143–52.
 10

“crags and precipices” of Serra da Barriga.24 Another version, registered in the 19th century, gives an

epical dimension to the suicide of João Hary by stating that the king of Ndongo “jumped off the cliff”

when he saw himself defeated. 25 The story brings the narrative closer to the legend of the suicide of

Zumbí and his warriors.26

Besides, the Crown worried about connections between Palmares and the Ndongo wars. When the

captured family of João Hary was sent to Maranhão in slavery, the Overseas Council stated that their

deportation to Pernambuco should be avoided. They reasoned that not only was it easier to escape to

Angola from there but also because in Pernambuco the Ndongo royal family could flee to join, and

doubtless incite, the nearby “Blacks of Palmares.”27

Nevertheless, the Relaçam do Felice successo expands the rhetorical scope of the African wars,

underlining the courage of African enemies in Kitombo (1670) and their ability, allegedly acquired from

the Dutch, to use four pieces of field artillery on the battlefield.28 By the same token, the Relação das

guerras against Palmares mentions the “singular value, the great courage and rare constancy” of Zambi,

Palmares’ artillery commander, whereas the Rellação verdadeyra says that Camuanga, a Palmarista

commander, was a “brave captain.” The emphasis on the enemy’s courage highlighted the bravery of the

commanders of the Portuguese troops.29

Unlike the “Barbarian Wars,” in which captured adult male Indians had been decapitated, in the

Angolan Wars the human trophies of the battlefield (presas) were shared among the governor, as

24
See “Rellação verdadeyra da guerra que se fez aos negros leuantados do Palmar, governando estas Capitanias
de Pernambuco o senhor Gouernador e Capitam-Geral Cayetano de Mello de Castro no anno de 1694: da felliz
vitoria que vontra o ditto jnimigo de alcanssou,” edited and commented by Maria Leda Oliveira, “A primeira Rellação
do último assalto a Palmares”, Afro-Ásia, 33 (2005), pp. 251-324, p.318.
25
. Miguel E. Lobo de Bulhões, Les colonies portugaises (Lisbon: Imprimerie nationale, 1878), p. 19.
26
As Maria Leda Oliveira states, the Luso-Brazilian historian Rocha Pitta in his História da América Portuguesa
(1730) spread the erroneous notice that Zumbí and his warriors committed suicide, jumping off the cliffs of Palmares
in 1694, to avoid their capture and enslavement, “A primeira ‘Rellação””, p. 262.
27
. “Consulta do Conselho Ultramarino, July 18, 1679,” MMA, vol. 13, pp. 507–08.
28
. “Relaçam do Felice successo”, MMA¹, vol. 13, pp. 143–152
29
“Relação das guerras feitas”, p. 312, and “Rellação verdadeyra”, p. 305.
 11

commander, and the corporals leading his companies. They were then sold to slave merchants in Luanda,

taxed by the Crown, and put on the ships plying the southern Atlantic. Previously, the capture and sale of

the few “prizes” taken at Mbwila had led to the putsch that expelled the governor and commander, Tristão

da Cunha, from Luanda in 1667.30 The militias surrounding Palmares, where the distribution of prisoners

of war was also foreseen, were involved in a similar incident. After the final attack in 1694, some troops

rebelled, asking for their “immediate share” of the captured Palmaristas. The veteran Paulista commander,

Jorge Velho, calmed his soldiers down without acceding to their demand. As we will see, his main goal

was the cultivable lands around Palmares and not the enslavement of the Palmaristas. 31

Typically, the colonial victories in Africa were less well known than their Brazilian counterparts,

and rewarded much less richly than military service in Asia. It was because of this discrimination that the

Angolan veteran António de Oliveira Cadornega decided to write his famous three-volume História

(1680) of the Angolan wars. In the prologue, he explains that he wanted to give the importance accorded

the overseas great episodes to the Angolan Wars, and in particular, to the battles of the Brasílicos against

the Dutch in Pernambuco. As is known, the Luso-Dutch conflict in Brazil generated historical narratives

that shaped the Pernambucano identity.32 Similarly, Cadornega defines an Angolista identity in a “general

history” associating the Atlantic slave trade to the Angolistas’ patriotic exploits against the Dutch and the

Africans.

The Paulista commander Jorge Velho pointed to the Amerindians as cannibals to legitimate the

slaving bandeiras that saved them from savagery and brought them to the blessings of colonial society

and Christianity, if also at the personal expense of enslavement. Cadornega referred similarly to the

alleged cannibalism of Africans in Angola to justify their enslavement. Knowing the interests involved in

30
L. F. de Alencastro, O Trato dos viventes: Formação do Brasil no Atlântico Sul, séculos XVI e XVII (São Paulo:
Companhia das Letras, 2000), pp. 297–300.
31
“Rellação verdadeyra”, pp. 321–22.
32
. See for instance, Manuel Calado, O valeroso Lucideno (1648) (2 vols., São Paulo: Editora Itatiaia, 1987), Brito
Freyre, Nova Lusitânia. For a discussion on the Pernambucano regional identity and the war against the Dutch, see
Evaldo Cabral de Mello, Olinda restaurada, 2nd ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Toopbooks, 1998), and Cabral de Mello, Rubro
Veio: o imaginário da Restauração pernambucana, 2nd ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Toopbooks, 1996).
 12

enslaving Africans, which, unlike the local trade in enslaved Amerindians, generated a chain of trans-

Atlantic exchanges endorsed and taxed by the Crown, Cadornega underlined the mercantile gains of that

trade: the “rescue of the ‘pieces’ [slaves] used for the trade, and with these rescues we avoid the existence

of so many slaughterhouses of human flesh. Instructed in the Faith of Our Lord Jesus Christ, they are

baptized and evangelized to be embarked to Brazil or to other Catholic places.”

Agreeing that the traffic in slaves was the main objective of the military campaigns in Angola,

Cadornega praises “the war of the Luso-Angolan people (gente portuguesa angolana), which some

people contemptuously also call “war of Blacks,” and of coata-coata [“catch-catch”], but this is because

they have not seen or experienced it. Indeed, these wars are more arduous and of greater risk than other

wars in the world [...] .”33

Searching for benefits from the court, the colonists and the regional authorities also promoted the

military honor to be won in plundering expeditions. Just after Mbwila, the municipal council of Luanda

wrote to the Portuguese King Afonso VI to report: “The great success that the weapons of Your Majesty

had against the king of Kongo ... , serves … also to terrorize the whole of Mauritania,” referring to the

longstanding, sacred crusades against dangerous North African Muslims.34

“Mauritania” stands for North Africa, where Portugal had suffered the traumatic defeat of

Alcácer-Quibir (1578) and the death of their revered King Sebastião. In other words, the Luanda

municipal council celebrated the victory of Mbwila also as suitable as revenge for Alcácer-Quibir. At the

other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the governor of Pernambuco, Caetano de Melo e Castro ennobled wars

in the southern Atlantic similarly. In a letter sent to the Crown in 1694, he compared the victory in

Palmares to the expulsion of the Dutch from Pernambuco, accomplished forty years earlier.35

33
Cadornega, Historia Geral, vol. I, pp. 8-14, and vol. 2, pp. 105–06, note 2. In my knowledge, this is the first time an
author in Angola defined the local colonists as “gente portuguesa angolana“, giving the same importance to both
nationalities.
34
AHU, Angola, cx. 8/128, “Carta da câmara de Luanda,” December 7,1665.
35
“Rellação verdadeyra”, p. 268, and note 47.
 13

Out of Zumbi’s Palisade: The African Experiences of the Militias’ Captains

The documents also reveal frequent movements of the government’s troops in the southern

Atlantic between Brazil and Angola. From the second quarter of the seventeenth century until the first

decades of the eighteenth century, about 4,000 soldiers crossed the ocean, bringing their experiences in

South America’s wars to expand the raiding for slaves in Central Africa. In the opposite direction, the

great majority of these military and militiamen returned to Brazil more skilled in attacking the quilombos

of escaped slaves there and the Indians of the backlands.36

Moreover, those troops were decisive in winning some Angolan battles, such as the 1648

reconquest of Luanda from the Dutch, the 1665 defeat of Kongo at Mbwila, and the final elimination of

the Ngola a Kiluanuje at Pungo Andongo in 1671. It is also noteworthy that the imports of horses from

Brazil expanded Luso-Brasílica slaving in Angola.37 In the same way, tactics and strategies from colonial

Brazil strengthened the Portuguese domination in Central Africa. Hence, the use of the manioc flour –

which the Tupi-Guarani tribes called ui-antã, “war flour” – as troop’s rations in Portuguese America –

was introduced by the Brasilicos in Angola under a designation in Portuguese – farinha da guerra – that

was a direct translation, fostering their mobility in Central African. The “cotton armor” (“armadura de

36
In April 1645, troops were embarked in Bahia to Angola. The troops included 200 Portuguese; some Angolistas,
who were refugees in Bahia, and Brasílicos, among them 32 musketeers from Henrique Dias’ famous regiment of
Mulattos and Blacks in Brazil. Three hundred soldiers and some dozens of Indians were embarked to Angola from
Rio de Janeiro in May 1645; in 1648, 1,000 soldiers from Portugal and another 750 from Rio de Janeiro embarked
from there with Salvador de Sá; in 1657, 200 veterans of the Dutch Wars in Pernambuco were embarked from Recife
for Angola with Fernandes Vieira; in 1660, 200 veterans left with Vidal de Negreiros from Recife; in 1664 and 1665,
rescue troops were sent from Bahia and Pernambuco; in 1667, an unknown number of soldiers were embarked in
Rio; in 1671, 400 soldiers left Bahia and Pernambuco; troops were sent again from Pernambuco in 1674; in 1681,
two vessels with soldiers from Bahia and Pernambuco; in 1690, 50 soldiers from Bahia took to the sea en route to
Angola; in 1703, 100 soldiers from Pernambuco; in 1704, 195 privates from Pernambuco were embarked as well.
Dispatches of smaller contingents continued in the first decades of the eighteenth century, when a royal order
determined the embarkation of 8 to 10 recruits in each ship leaving Pernambuco for Angola; Alencastro, O Trato dos
viventes, pp. 262–306, 338–40, 369–70; Roquinaldo Ferreira, “O Brasil e a arte da guerra em Angola (sécs. XVII e
XVIII)”, Estudos Históricos 39 (2007): 1–24.
37
Although most soldiers settled in Luanda could ride a horse, not all of them adapted to Brazil’s horses, which were
accustomed to be mounted without saddles or horseshoes, as in Brazil horseshoes started being employed only
during the eighteenth century. After that, the knights of Pernambuco and Bahia gained importance in Angola. The
regular trade of horses in exchange for slaves never worked because only the government military forces in Angola
could ride horses. With so few eligible, demand was not comparable to the demand for slaves in Brazil. See also
Ferreira, “O Brasil e a arte da guerra”, especially p. 7.
 14

algodão”, commonly known as “gibão”), doublets light in weight and resistant to the Amerindians’

arrows, made and worn by the Paulistas in their bandeiras, were imported from São Paulo by the Angola

governors from 1612 onwards.38 The doublets seemed effective: Luís Mendes de Vasconcelos, an

important military writer and an aggressive Angola governor (1617-1621), went as far as stating to the

Crown that the general use of the “cotton armor” by the American Portuguese rendered the conquest of

Brazil easier than that of Angola.39

Along with the dispatch of troops from Brazil, some royal decrees reoriented the flows of

degredados (convicts and others sentenced to penal transportation) to Angola, because of the “lack of

people there.”40 As Ferreira observes, Portuguese military raiding in Central Africa declined in the

eighteenth century. At the same time, the absence of European military threats in Africa diminished the

transfers of military personnel from Brazil to Luanda and to Benguela.

Except for Henrique Dias’ regiment—whose companies fought several times in Palmares, in

Benguela in 1645 and at Mbwila in 1665—there are no indications of regular units operating on both

sides of the South Atlantic. Usually the troops were irregulars, “volunteered” to fight in Angola to escape

punishments elsewhere. However, officers were also posted to Angola, as well royal officials and even

churchmen experienced in South American battles against the Dutch, the Indians, and the quilombolas.

The careers of four individuals illustrate the trans-oceanic mobility of military life in the southern

Atlantic.

Paulo Pereira was an Afro-Brasílico who was captain of the musketeers in Henrique Dias’

regiment. He belonged to the contingent of 200 soldiers sent from Bahia to Angola in 1645. Eventually he

escaped from the slaughter of the Portuguese troops by the “Jagas,” close to the Kikombo River south of

38
Commissioned by Governor Cerveira in 1612 for the conquest of Benguela, and by governor Vasconcelos in 1616,
MMA, vol. I, pp. 78 and 267. The São Paulo doublets were exported again to Angola at least twice again, in 1684 and
1688, AHU, Angola, códice 545, fl. 28, and cx. 13/84.
39
Letter to the King, Doc. of November 1, 1617, AHU, Angola, cx. 1/50.
40
Royal decrees of: June 21, 1675; July 10, 1675; March 10, 1680; March 16, 1680; February 2, 1684; February 26,
1684; March 22, 1688; March 7, 1691; January 26, 1694. See José Justino de Andrade e Silva, Collecção
chronologica da legislação portugueza (Lisbon: Imprensa de J. J. A. Silva, 1854–59).
 15

Luanda.41 In 1648, Salvador de Sá, leading the expedition closing in on the Dutch at Luanda, designated

Paulo Pereira sergeant-major of the African auxiliaries of Benguela. In Pernambuco he had commanded

Afro-Brasílicos and Africans, and in Benguela he commanded Afro-Brasílicos and Angolans. This

Pernambucan, a legendary character of the African Wars, died in the savanna fighting a lion.42

Bento Correa de Figueiredo served between 1656 and 1683 in various military capacities on three

continents. Enlisted in Ceará, he was sent to Portugal and in 1658 participated in the unsuccessful siege of

Badajoz. Returning to Recife, he then traveled to Luanda in 1661 with Vidal de Negreiros. There he was

promoted as captain of the governor’s guards and fought at sea as well against a Dutch corsair. Later, he

returned to Pernambuco, where he commanded a company in the attack on Palmares. In 1687, he became

captain-major of Ceará, renowned for “destroying the Tapuia who disobeyed.”43

Jorge de Barros Leite, a native of Portugal, participated in the battle of Ameixial (1663), an

important victory for Lisbon in the Restoration War. In 1676, he traveled to Angola, where he received a

commission as captain-major of Pungo Andongo after its conquest in 1671 and helped to transform it into

the most easterly Portuguese military outpost in Angola. Later he went to Brazil to become captain in

Bahia and captain-major in Sergipe. Then, he became lieutenant of the militia and fought against the

Indians and the maroon communities in the region. In 1699, he was promoted to captain-major on Ceará’s

anti-Indian front, replacing Fernão Carrilho, the anti-Palmarista who was promoted lieutenant to the

governor in Maranhão.44

41
MMA, vol. 9, pp.335-37 and vol. 15, p. 517. Following Joseph C. Miller’s pioneer work, I consider that the “Jaga”
were Imbangala warriors. However, I continue using “Jaga” to define the nomad combatants warriors designated as
such in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For Cadornega, “Jaga” was not a people but rather a “profession”
of nomadic raiders; História Geral, vol. 2, p. 179. Silva Correa confirms a century later “The Jaga ... warriors and
nomads comprise various nations, under the same name one finds the governors and the subjects that form this
body.”, Elias Alexandre da Silva Correa, História de Angola (1782) (2 vols., Lisbon: Editorial Ática, 1937), vol.2, p. 50.
42
Arquivos de Angola, 2nd serie, vol. I (3–6) (1943–1944), pp. 136–37, 193–94; and Carlos Dias Coimbra, Livro de
patentes do tempo do senhor Salvador Correia de Sá e Benevides (Luanda: Arquivo Histórico de Angola, 1969), p.
95.
43
. Studart, “Documentos”, docs. of June 15 and September 26, 1684, RTIC, vol. 42 (1928), pp.103-105.
44
Studart, “Documentos”, RTIC, 37 (1923), pp.134-36.
 16

Finally, there is the case of Manoel de Inojosa (Hinojosa or Nojoza). As a soldier, Inojosa

embarked from Recife to Luanda in 1661. On his way back to Pernambuco in 1662, he stopped in Bahia

and participated in the war of that year against the maroon communities in the region. From 1671 to 1673,

he joined the Paulista Baião Parente in a raid that destroyed Indians’ villages in the Paraguaçú valley in

the far south. In 1673, he received appointment as “captain of the conquest of the barbaric heathens” of

Santo Antônio da Conquista (Bahia). With orders to settle those lands with Portuguese, he formed another

company to expel the Tapuia there. In 1676, he traveled to Lisbon to ask for renewal of his patent as

captain. 45 An officer from Bahia endorsed this request, specifying that Inojosa’s company was “very

important in conquering the natives and the blacks of the maroon communities.” The Overseas Council

approved the captain’s promotion, not only because of his valor in fighting the Indians of Bahia but also

because “of his value and experience” that “will be necessary for Pernambuco’s Palmares.”46 He may

have presented to the Overseas Council his alleged report about Palmares, containing information

obtained by one of his slaves who had infiltrated among the quilombolas.47

Inojosa participated in expeditions sent against Palmares in 1679, 1680 and 1681 as corporal. In

1680, he killed Majojo, one of the Palmares commanders. 48 And in 1681, he claimed to have killed

Zumbí himself. In 1682, he brought assistance and provisions to the troops besieging the Palmaristas.49 In

45
“Consulta do Conselho Ultramarino sobre Manoel de Inojosa”, September 18, 1677; AHU, ACL,N,BAHIA, doc.
34576, Conselho Ultramarino, códice 245 (1675–1695), doc. 52, November 17, 1677.
46
Borges da Fonseca wrongly wrote that Manoel Inojosa was the grand-grandson of Sargento-Mor Jerônimo de
Inojosa, AHU,ACL,N, BAHIA, doc. 34576, Conselho Ultramarino, Códice 245, doc. 52, November 17, 1677, and
AHU,ACL,CU,015, cx. 13, doc. 1312, September 7, 1684; A. J. V. Borges da Fonseca, “Nobiliarchia pernambucana
(1748)”, Annaes da Bibliotheca Nacional 47 (1935), vol. 1, p. 80.
47
Doc. of June 28, 1677, Biblioteca Nacional, Lisbon, Manuscritos, códice II–33, 4, 32.
48
Studart, “Documentos”, RTIC, 36 (1922), pp. 112–13; Loreto do Couto, “Desagravos do Brazil,” pp. 107-08.
Assuming that this is the correct spelling, Majojo is an intriguing name. In Mozambique there is a city designated
“Majojo,” and “mujojo” or “majojo”,was the name given to the Muslim slave traders from Comoro Islands. Although is
improbable that there were people in Palmares from East Africa, it is not impossible. At least three slaves ships
arrived from Mozambique in Bahia: one in 1620, one in 1643, and another in 1644; Alencastro, O Trato dos viventes,
p. 198, note 60. Large vessels coming from India that sometimes called at Bahia could also have brought Africans
from Mozambique or from the Indian Ocean’s islands
49
In fact, in 1681, Inojosa might have killed a chief thought to be Zumbi. Indeed, Loureto do Couto, mentions the
death of Zumbi on three different dates, the first in 1680 and the second in 1681. The third date is not precise, but the
 17

1683, he was back in Lisbon, where he presented his candidacy for captain-major of Ceará.50 This petition

was rejected, but he was promoted to captain-major of Benguela from 1685 to 1687.51 There is also a

report of his presence in a later raid against Palmares, dated 1689.52

Inojosa’s replacement in Benguela was João Pereira Lago, who had also fought in Bahia and

Palmares and who probably had been his predecessor’s militia companion on both sides of the Atlantic.53

After Lago, the position was awarded to Angelo da Cruz, who had been transferred to Angola in 1667

with the troops sent from Rio de Janeiro.54 Therefore, in this crucial period in Central Africa, two, or

perhaps three, of the Portuguese captains-major came from Rio de Janeiro and Pernambuco. Ultimately,

the Benguela slave trade route was dominated by slave merchants from Rio de Janeiro and Pernambuco:

up to 1850, 500.000 individuals were deported from Benguela to Brazil.55 In addition to Inojosa’s

participation in the battles of Angola and Brazil, he made two trips to Lisbon, where he made reports

about Palmares and shared information with many veterans of South Atlantic battles. In three decades, he

met Vidal de Negreiros’ officers experienced in the Dutch Wars; the Paulistas familiar with raids against

facts coincide with the death of Zumbi in 1695, Couto, “Desagravos do Brazil”, pp. 98–99, 106, 108. These claims
contributed to spread the idea that Zumbi had several lifes. For a discussion about the name Zumbí, see Robert N.
Anderson,” The Quilombo of Palmares: A New Overview of a Maroon State in Seventeenth-Century Brazil”, Journal
of Latin American Studies 28, 3 (1996): 545–566, especially pages 560–62.
50
Studart, “Documentos”, RTIC 36 (1922), pp. 112–13.
51
AHU, Angola, cx. 13/3 and cx. 14/27, doc. January 26, 1685 and July 18, 1690.
52
The report of 1677 was published by Décio Freitas, República de Palmares: Pesquisa e comentários em
documentos históricos do século XVI (Maceió Editora da Universidade Federal de Alagoas, 2004), and was
transcribed among others by John K. Thornton, “Les États de l’Angola et la formation de Palmares (Brésil),” Annales.
Histoire, Sciences Sociales 63 (2008), n. 4, pp. 776-78. The only reference to the report of 1689 is an article
published in the Brazilian on line edition of the newspaper Folha de São Paulo,
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fol/brasil500/zumbi_15.htm. Apparently, this document was not yet fully transcribed.
53
Consulta do Conselho Ultramarino em 22 de março de 1688, AHU, códice 18, fls. 135-135v. I am grateful to
Roquinaldo Ferreira for this reference.
54
Angelo Cruz arrived in Luanda with the troops brought from Rio de Janeiro by Antônio Juzarte de Almeida. He
participated in the battles in the Angolan backlands with Luís Lopes Siqueira and was captain-major of Pungo
Andongo. AHU, Angola, cx. 10/67, doc. May 13, 1672 and cx. 14/27, doc. July, 1690.
55
See José C. Curto, “Luso-Brazilian Alcohol and the Legal Slave Trade at Benguela and its Hinterland, c. 1617-
1830,” in Négoce Blanc en Afrique Noire: L’évolution du 18e au 20e siècles, eds. H. Bonin and M. Cahen (Paris:
Publications de la Société Française d’Histoire d’Outre-Mer, 2001), 351–69; Mariana P. Cândido, “Enslaving
Frontiers: Slavery, Trade and Identity in Benguela, 1780–1850”, PhD diss., York University, 2006.
 18

Indians in the South; the Africans, Angolistas, Brasílicos, and Portuguese captains with whom he had

lived and fought in Luanda and Benguela.

Inojosa did not occupy a key command in Brazil. He had no official appointment in Lisbon, and

we don’t know much about his activities in Angola. His wide-ranging importance in the building of the

South Atlantic system can be evaluated only when the documents of Portuguese, Angolan, and Brazilian

archives are read together. In fact, the growth of the Atlantic slave trade reduced the importance of

enslaved Indians in the Brazilian captaincies connected to the Atlantic networks. But it favored

extermination of the Natives living in the pioneer zones of the ranching and plantation captaincies of the

Brazilian northeast: the plundering of the African villages accelerated the extinction of the Indians. This

process repopulated the São Francisco River valley and the backlands of Ceará with cattle, colonists,

mestizos and enslaved Africans.

Although not all combatants travelling in the South Atlantic participated in these varied battles,

they all contributed to disseminate strategies and tactics of war in the tropics. They also helped to

popularize the Amerindian-Brasílico ration, composed of manioc, corn, and sugarcane rum, or cachaça,

as well as slave trading practices and the cultural customs that became the heart of the formation of

Brazil.

Within the Palisade: The Emergence of Palmaristas Families

During the period 1670-1680, the Overseas Council in Lisbon decided to eliminate the large

maroon colony at Palmares, insisting “on extinguishing those Blacks at once.” It was then planned to give

the command of the operations against Palmares to João Fernandes Vieira, the veteran commander with

long experience on the front lines of the era on both sides of the Atlantic.56 The example of Palmares

56
Recognizing João Fernandes Vieira’s “experience and possibilities,” the Council decided to grant him the command
of a great expedition against Palmares. Eventually, because of the conflicts between Fernandes Vieira and the
governor of Pernambuco, Pedro de Almeida, he did not execute the comission. Doc. of June 28, 1677, Biblioteca
Nacional, Lisbon, Seção de Manuscritos, Codice II-33, 4, 32. The conflict between Vieira and the governor is
described in “Consulta do Conselho Ultramarino, October 19, 1677,” AHU, ACL,CU,015, cx. 11, doc.1093.
 19

made restive the slave populations of the entire Northeast, where the disturbances of the Brasílica War

against the Dutch still resounded. A letter from the wary Crown, dated 1683, asked for information about

the Catholic lay brotherhood of Nossa Senhora de Guadalupe dos Homens Pardos (Mulattos of the Our

Lady of Guadalupe), of Olinda, which collected donations to manumit all mulatto men and women who

“could not bear their enslavement” because their fathers were veterans who had fought against the Dutch.

Those mulattos, sons of “honored men” of the Brasilica War and of enslaved women, revolted. The letter

explains: “because their masters did not allow them to be free, although they (the members of the

brotherhood) had the means to rescue them, many escaped to join the blacks of Palmares ..., and recently

one killed himself with his own hands.”57

In a collective petition for freedom based on the unfulfilled promises made during the Dutch War,

the free and freed mulattos threatened that if they did not obtain a favorable response, they had only two

alternatives: suicide or escape to Palmares. On the horizon was the prospect of subversion of the slavers’

discipline. As the Relação das guerras stated, Palmares created “two monstrosities ... : first, an uprising

of enslaved blacks, who dominated the best captaincies of Pernambuco; second, the slaves’ domination of

their own masters.”

In fact, after the expulsion of the Dutch from northeastern Brazil (1654), the quilombos of the

region were transformed from temporary camps to permanent settlements. It is known that the maroons

were initially predominantly male, and they commonly mounted raids on the plantations to kidnap

women. By then, Pernambucan colonists complained about “the hostilities, deaths and kidnappings of

women by the black rebels.”58 Rocha Pita even drew an analogy with the kidnapping of the Sabine

women at the foundation of Rome.59

57
AHU, Conselho Ultramarino, códice 256, Letter to the governor of Pernambuco of November 17, 1683.
58
Carta para a câmara da capitania do Rio Grande, March 24, 1681, in “Dezenove documentos sobre os Palmares
pertencentes à Colleção Studart”, RTIC 20 (1906), p. 270.
59
Sebastião da Rocha Pita, História da América Portuguesa (1730) (São Paulo: Edusp/Itatiaia. 1976), pp. 213–19.
 20

Also, the Dutch attacks on Pernambuco and the flight of colonists’ there to Bahia left the

Pernambuco area disorganized, facilitating the slaves’ escapes to Palmares. In its first paragraphs, the

Relação das guerras indicates the shift: “When the Netherlands occupied these regions, that number (of

Palmaristas) increased, because the masters’ troubles made it easy for the slaves to run away.”60 Females

and slave families were able to flee to Palmares, generating greater demographic growth among the

quilombolas. Accordingly, the strengthening of the kinship ties and the presence of more women and

children later made retreats and tactical displacements more difficult during the attacks of the colonists.

Brito Freyre, former governor of Pernambuco (1661-1664), stated that the raids against Palmares captured

mainly “women and children, less capable of following [the men] in their retreat.”61 In fact, the expulsion

of the Dutch from Pernambuco (1654) made more colonial troops available to attack the quilombolas: at

least 25 raids were launched against Palmares between 1654 and 1678. One of the most important of these

expeditions, including 1400 men, was ordered by the Pernambuco’s governor Bernardo de Miranda

Henriques (1667-70), a former captain who fought aside the Brasilicos in Angola in the 1650s.62

These events forced the Palmaristas to agree on a pact with the Pernambuco governor in 1677

after capture of the family of Gangazumba, the leader of the maroons, and of the families of other

quilombola chiefs.63 Emphasizing kinship relations among the quilombola commanders, the Relação das

guerras mentions the names of Zumbi’s mother, brother, son, and nephews. Indeed, the agreement

proposed to Gangazumba by the governor Souza de Castro in 1678 guaranteed freedom to individuals

born in Palmares and the manumission of the Palmaristas’ chiefs and families who moved to the Cucaú

60
“Relação das guerras feitas,” 305. Thornton underlines also the massive escapes during the Dutch occupation;
“Les États de l’Angola et la formation de Palmares (Brésil)”, p. 775.
61
Brito Freyre, Nova Lusitânia, .p. 284.
62
Bernardo de Miranda Henriques was captain in Luanda when his uncle Rodrigo de Miranda Henriques succeeded
Salvador de Sá as governor of Angola (1652-1653). Rodrigo de Miranda Henriques was close to the Salvador de Sá
family and had been also governor of Rio de Janeiro (1633-1637); Alencastro, O Trato dos viventes, pp. 270 and
343.
63
See Silvia Hunod Lara, “Palmares & Cucaú, o aprendizado da dominação”, dissertation for promotion to full
professor in the discipline of History of Brazil, UNICAMP, São Paulo, 2008, pp. 41–64.
 21

region.64 Two years later, in the attempt to remove Zumbí and his followers to Cucaú, along with

Gangazumba, the same governor promised protection and freedom to the “captain Zumbí,” but also “to all

his family.”65

During the siege, the displacement of the leading families revealed to the Paulista troops the

points where the quilombolas concentrated their forces.66 Later, the Rellação verdadeyra indicates that the

families hindered the combatants and Zumbí himself during the final attack in February 1694.67

The Count of Ericeira and the Soldier Zebedeu

The book Portugal restaurado (1679) by the Count of Ericeira became the reference work on the

restoration of the Portuguese monarchy from Spanish control during the Union of the Two Crowns (1580-

1640). Emphasizing battles and achievements in both Europe and in the overseas, Ericeira cites the North

African enclaves such as Tangier and Mazagão, but he refers to sub-Saharan Africa only when he narrates

the reconquest of Angola from the Dutch in 1648. Inscribed in the context of the global war against the

Netherlands, this expedition of Salvador de Sá was presented as a praiseworthy answer to several

challenges: regaining control of the slave trade, putting down “the heresy sowed” by the Dutch, and

finally insuring Lisbon’s domination of Angola and Kongo. Ericeira also mentions Njinga, who at the

time was one of the most important African curiosities in Europe, because of the “extravagancy of her

life.” But he did not refer to the battle of Mbwila, to which the Mercúrio thirteen years earlier had given

prominence.68

Ericeira preferred to emphasize the Angolan feats of Salvador de Sá and Francisco de Távora, an

aristocrat with whom he was friendly and alongside whom he had fought the Alentejo War.

64
Doc. February 4, 1678, Doc. June 22, 1678 and Doc. July 19, 1678, transcription in Lara, “Palmares & Cucaú,” pp.
237-39. I am grateful to Paul Lovejoy and José Curto for the discussion we had about this topic in April 2009, when I
was Visiting Professor at the Harriet Tubman Institute at York University in Toronto.
65
Doc. March 26, 1680, “Dezenove documentos”, pp. 268-69.
66
Letter of November 27, 1692, “Dezenove documentos”, pp. 284–86.
67
“Rellação verdadeyra”, p. 318.
68
Conde da Ericeira, História de Portugal restaurado (1679–1698), 1a parte (Lisbon, 1751), pp. 295–96.
 22

On the other side of the Atlantic, and on a lower plane of the literary art, a poem of a poor

Brasílico soldier also claimed his part of the glory to be gained in the overseas wars. The poem describes

the petition addressed to the Overseas Council by a lower ranking soldier who fought as private in the

final attack against Palmares.69 The poem is a variant of the décima espinela, a literary form of the Iberian

baroque. Hence, the décima gives to the poem the tone of a picaresque complaint that in Pernambuco

could have been read, recited, or chanted, giving a large reach to the verses.

In the poem Zebedeu, a name of Biblical origin that became legendary in Pernambuco and

elsewhere, “son of Braz Vitorino” (to rime with Conselho Ultramarino), does not refer here to a precise

person but instead to poor soldiers neglected by the distribution of spoils and prizes after the fall of

Palmares. The poet portrays the private recruited when “almost a boy,” dispatched ill equipped and

barefoot to the cold climate of Serra da Barriga (also mentioned in Relação das guerras). Another verse

about the flight of the “boaster” Félix José refers to the Azorean peasants who were victims of forced

recruitment and inexperienced in overseas combat. Instead, Zebedeu and his companions went to the

front, fighting ferociously against the Palmaristas, “vile slaves” whom they treated as animals as they

deserved (not “as human beings”). With no rewards from the Crown, these “Zebedeus” asked the

protection of Saint Anthony, whose medal they had brought and who was officially declared patron and

paid member of the troops who attacked Palmares.70 At the end, the poem addresses the claim: Zebedeu

wanted to be a captain, a title that should give him the approval of the Crown to gather armed men to

plunder Indians and quilombolas. As ranchers’ mercenaries in South America or as militiamen in Africa,

69
Pereira da Costa published the poem in his Anais Pernambucanos but indicated neither from where it was taken
nor if there were any documents attached to it. He transcribes the poem separating the verses without stanza breaks.
See, Anais Pernambucanos, vol. 4, 27–30. Unlike Mott and Moura, I think that the poem parodies a petition and is
certainly not a “request” to the Overseas Council. See Luiz Mott, “Santo Antônio, o Divino Capitão do Mato,” in
Liberdade por um fio: história dos quilombos no Brasil, ed. João José Reis and Flávio dos Santos Gomes (São
Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1996), 110–38, and Clóvis Moura, Dicionário da escravidão negra no Brasil (São
Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, 2004), pp.423–424.
70
Following the order of September 13, 1685, from the governor of Pernambuco, João da Cunha Souto Maior, a
position of private was officially given to Saint Anthony in order to bring him to the War of Palmares. The pay and the
uniform of the “soldier” Saint Anthony was regularly delivered at the convent of São Francisco in Olinda. Pereira da
Costa, Anais Pernambucanos, vol. 4, 27–30. Saint Anthony was also the saint patron of the bandeirantes militias and
the militia led by Manoel de Inojosa that massacred the natives of the river Paraguaçú.
 23

such irregular combatants – captains, corporals, and other “zebedeus” – offered their talents as hunters of

Indians and slaves on both sides of the South Atlantic.

Eventually, the documents show the exchanges of experience among these tricontinental and

multiethnic troops – a “New Colonial Army” – whose common feature was the trans-oceanic culture of

the South Atlantic and not either Brazil or Angola alone. In the European expansion overseas there is no

other example of military units of this diverse composition and with this vast range of battlefield

experience. It is possible that militiamen from Bahia and Pernambuco fought in East Africa as well, as

their presence there had been requested. In fact, describing the disastrous state of Portuguese interests in

Mozambique, Friar Antonio da Conceição states in his Tratado dos Rios de Cuama (1696) that the

solution to dominate that colony was to bring a governor or captain general along “with three hundred

European or Brazilian soldiers, gunpowder and bullets ... .” Most likely, this description of these soldiers

from Brazil was the first time that the word “Brazilian” appeared with the clear meaning of “native of

Brazil,” in contrast to the word “European”, i.e. European Portuguese. The independent collective identity

of the lusophone colonists in South America thus comes to light first in connection with their military

expertise.71

Except for pernambucanos and paulistas, names based on regions were barely used to designate

the colonists of the Brazilian captaincies. Yet, in the seventeen pages of Rellação verdadeyra (ca. 1694) –

the first narrative of the final attack against Palmares – the words “Paulista” and “Paulistas” appear thirty-

nine times. In this regard, it is interesting to note an incident that occurred in the beginning of 1691, when

the Paulistas were approaching the Serra da Barriga to join in the assault on Palmares. At that moment,

Jorge Velho raised concerns about the plans of some militiamen who were in favor of reaching a pact

with the quilombolas. Velho feared that an agreement could lead to Palmares’ peaceful surrender,

depriving him and his men of the booty they had come there to claim. He warned the governor: “If the

71
Frei Antonio da Conceição, “Tratado dos Rios de Cuama (1696),” in O Chronista de Tissuary, ed. J. H. da Cunha
Rivara (Nova Goa, 1867), 84. According to the Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa, the first time the word
brasileiro, or “Brazilian,” appeared in Lisbon with its modern day meaning was 1706.
 24

Blacks ask or if they will ask peace, it is just because of their terror of the Paulistas. So, I will occupy

Palmares and will settle there.”72

The depiction of the Paulistas in Brazil and in Paraguay derives from their rapacious violence, put

into practice perfectly here by Jorge Velho.73 In this same perspective, the Marquis of Montalvão,

governor of Pernambuco, also expressed the anger against the Palmaristas that dominated the time.

Referring to Palmares, he wrote to Jorge Velho: “ ... I have the genuine hope that you will make ... a

service so particular and important, that is to devour and extinguish (“devorar e extinguir”) these

barbarians ... ”.74 As previously observed, the discourse and the practice of violence present in the

Barbarian Wars extended to the War of Palmares.

[ 6782 wds, 10,058 w/notes ]

72
Letter of November 10, 1691, “Dezenove documentos”, pp. 273–75.
73
Still today in Paraguay, the word “bandeirante” is a synonym for bandit.
74
Letter of December 19, 1691, “Dezenove documentos”, pp. 278–80.