Original version

BBC World Service Australasia

The Forum

Documentaries

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

The programme that explains the present by exploring the past

The programme that explains the present by exploring the past.

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service East Asia

The Forum: Brazil's Palmares: A beacon of freedom

Monument to Zumbi, leader of Palmares, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

01/09/2022 GMT

Brazil's Palmares: A beacon of freedom

BBC World Service - The Forum, Brazil's Palmares: A beacon of freedom

An inspirational settlement of people seeking freedom from slavery

Why this 17th-century community of people escaping slavery remains iconic to this day.

As Brazil celebrates 200 years of independence from Portugal, we look at the 17th-century community of people seeking freedom from slavery in the north-east of the country known as Palmares. It lasted longer and was larger than other settlements of this type and it withstood repeated attempts by European colonialists to destroy it. 

So how did Palmares keep going for over a century when so many other communities like it in Latin America vanished after a few years?
Who were the inhabitants? And what do we really know about them when there is no reliable history of the settlements: almost all the surviving documents are from people intent on destroying Palmares.

To help us sift through what we do know about Palmares, Bridget Kendall is joined by archaeologist Professor Pedro Paulo Funari from the University of Campinas in Brazil;  Dr. José Lingna Nafafé, Senior Lecturer in Portuguese and Lusophone Studies at Bristol University; and Dr. Maria Fernanda Escallon, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon. The reader is Natan Barreto.

(Photo: The monument to Zumbi, leader of Palmares, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Credit: Yasuyoshi Chiba/Getty Images)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Forum

Brazil's Palmares: A beacon of freedom

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service Australasia

About BBC World Service