Part 1 of My Top Ten Black History Events explored how I define Black history and where I believe that story truly begins. For me, Black history is the comprehensive study and documentation of the experiences, contributions, resistance, achievements, and cultural productions of people of African descent worldwide. In Part 2, I’ll share the first four powerful Black History istwa (stories) that have left a lasting impression on me.
Palmares, also known as Quilombo dos Palmares, was the largest and most enduring community of freedom seekers in colonial Brazil. Also known as Ngola Janga (“Little Angola”), it was established in the early seventeenth century in the forested Serra da Barriga highlands, in what is now Alagoas and Pernambuco. Palmares began with approximately forty African-born individuals, whose ancestral home may have been Angola. Portuguese sources indicate that between 1575 and 1578, fifty thousand people were forcibly transported from Angola to Brazil.
These founders liberated themselves from Portuguese captivity and established a confederation of roughly nine main settlements, unified by shared political and military systems. At its height, Palmares is estimated to have been the home for at least 10,000—and possibly up to 20,000—people. The name “Palmares” comes from the wild palm trees that flourished in the region, providing essential food and shelter, as well as resources for trade with nearby coastal communities.
Palmares retained strong Central African cultural and political influences. Local leaders (equivalent to sobas in Ndongo/Angola) chose Ganga Zumba as the principal ruler, giving him the ultimate authority in wartime. Although Palmares was an African settlement, it was also remarkably diverse, providing a home to people of non-African descent, including Indigenous allies, poor Europeans, and others escaping colonial oppression.
For more than eight decades, Palmares resisted repeated Dutch and Portuguese military offensives by combining Indigenous knowledge of the landscape with African military strategies. Through guerrilla warfare and ambushes in dense forests, swamps, and ravines, Palmares was not destroyed until 1694.
Read more:
Zumbi dos Palmares: Hero of Brazil
Dandara of Palmares: The Warrior Spirit of Afrikan Resistance in Brazil
The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804)
One of the first major uprisings in the istwa of the Maafa occurred in late December 1521 (the date is given as 25 or 26 December), on the island now shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The rebellion began on a sugar estate owned by Diego Colón, son of Christopher Columbus and then the principal oppressor (governor) of Hispaniola. Nearly three centuries later, the western part of the island became the scene of the “crowning achievement” of resistance movements in the Americas.
The Haitian Revolution, which destroyed the Maafa in an entire society, began on August 22, 1791. At that time, Saint-Domingue’s population was divided into three main groups: Europeans or “Blancs”; “Affranchis,” composed of free Africans and mixed-race people (known as gens de couleur); and African people (Ayitians) held in bondage, numbering approximately half a million. The Blancs demanded independence from France, while the Affranchis sought civil and political rights. The colony itself was divided into three provinces: North, West, and South. The revolution erupted in the North and, over the next twelve years, swept across the entire island.
It began when Ayitians set cane fields and buildings ablaze and killed their oppressors. The revolution swept like wildfire across the Northern Province, and within the first months, the combatants destroyed approximately 180 sugar estates, as well as many coffee and indigo plantations. Beginning with around 1,500 participants, it grew to 3,000 within days. By the end of August, they numbered 20,000 and divided into three armed groups. By late September, there were 50,000 Ayitian fighters, and by late November, over 80,000 men and women were in arms. Several women fighters became known for their courage and fierce resistance to the French. The Haitian troops advanced to the rhythms of African martial music, filling the air with powerful war cries and piercing screeches to intimidate and confuse their enemies.
The early leaders of the revolution included Boukman Dutty, Jean Francois, and Biassou. Toussaint Louverture, who would eventually become the supreme leader, joined a month after the uprising began. Boukman was killed in November 1791. This may explain why the remaining leaders tried to negotiate a peace treaty with the French. When war broke out in 1792 between the French and neighboring Spanish Santo Domingo, the revolutionaries threw their lot in with the Spanish. This dangerous alliance pushed French Commissioner Léger-Félicité Sonthonax to take a bold step: on August 29, 1793, he ended the Maafa on his own authority, hoping to win the support of the revolutionary leaders. Of those leaders, only Louverture switched his allegiance. On February 4, 1794, the French Assembly in Paris officially abolished the Maafa.
However, this was only the beginning of a new phase in the revolution. Louverture had to battle the Spanish, the British, and the gens de couleur. After securing victories against these groups, he faced the French military itself. In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte took power in France. Determined to restore French domination in Saint-Domingue and reinstate bondage, Bonaparte dispatched one of the largest military expeditions ever sent from France. The revolution concluded with the decisive Battle of Vertières against the French army on November 18, 1803. By then, Louverture had been captured, exiled, and imprisoned. Jean-Jacques Dessalines renamed the island Haiti and declared it independent on January 1, 1804.
From its outset, the Haitian Revolution’s impact was immediate and far-reaching. News of the uprising quickly spread along maritime trade routes, carried by sailors and refugees across the Atlantic world. Within a month, people in Jamaica were singing songs about the revolution. The 1805 Constitution of Haiti provided automatic freedom and citizenship to any Black person who arrived in the country, prompting many still in bondage elsewhere to seek refuge in Haiti. Even free Black communities in Martinique and Guadeloupe emigrated to the land of freedom between 1804 and 1848, making Haiti a powerful symbol of freedom and liberation throughout the Atlantic world.
Three major Maafa uprisings erupted in the Caribbean in the early 19th century. The first took place in Barbados in 1816. The flames of the uprising were put out within three days. Then in 1823 in Demerara, the fire of revolution burned again for two days. The fires roared for roughly ten days in Jamaica in 1831, destroying several hundred sugar works and properties. It was said that “the sky became a sheet of flame, as if the whole country had become a vast furnace.” Taken together, the Barbados, Demerara, and Jamaica Risings formed a fifteen-year period of sustained African warfare across the Caribbean to what was essentially a crime against humanity.
Barbados, with a high proportion of resident landowners, was considered the nearest equivalent in the Caribbean to the racist society of the southern United States. Demerara was thought of as a “terrifying death hole.” The work regime was harsh and deadly, with soggy, waterlogged valleys, plains, and swamplands. Jamaica, which had received almost 900,000 people from Africa under British oppression since 1655, was a slaughterhouse. Only about 311,000 people in Jamaica were alive to receive emancipation on 1 August 1838.
Bussa-led war: Barbados was considered the “safest” of Britain’s strangleholds because it had not experienced a major protest in the eighteenth century when the Bussa’s Rebellion was lit, sparking the largest uprising in the island’s history. On Easter Sunday, 14 April, the first arson attacks began around 8 p.m., signaling the start of an uprising carefully planned across plantations. More than half the island was rapidly engulfed. Its leadership included Bussa, head ranger at Bayley’s plantation; King Wiltshire, a carpenter; Jackey, a driver; and Nanny Grigg, a literate domestic worker. Approximately 4,000 combatants were involved in the fight to take “the island belonged to them and not to the [European] men whom they proposed to destroy.” The uprising spread from the south-eastern parish of St Philip into the southern and central districts before the Barbadian militia and imperial forces prevented it from spreading further. However, twenty-five percent of the year’s sugar-cane crop was burnt. About 50 combatants died in fighting, 70 were sentenced to death, 144 were executed, and 123 were deported. However, an anonymous author wrote that he estimated that just under 1000 were killed in battle or executed by “Law.”
Quamina-led war: The Demerara uprising of August 1823 lasted only two days and was concentrated along a twenty-five-mile coastal strip of sixty-five plantations east of the Demerara River. Yet more than 10,000 women, men, and children rose against captivity. It took place against a backdrop of intensified abolitionist activity in London and widespread discussion of parliamentary reform. As in Barbados, many believed Britain had granted freedom, but planters were withholding it. The principal leader was Quamina, a carpenter and church deacon, who was shot and killed in September after refusing to surrender. His son, Jack Gladstone, was also a central organizer. Arson and property destruction were more limited than in Barbados or Jamaica. Violence against Europeans was largely confined to placing them in stocks and using whips; only a small number were killed. Colonial forces, however, killed several hundred combatants, and courts-martial subsequently executed 27 more.
Sam Sharpe-led war: The 1833 Abolition Act emerged from the convergence of several social and political forces in Britain, but its most immediate catalyst was the massive uprising that erupted in Jamaica in December 1831. Known as “the Baptist War” or the “Christmas Rebellion”, it was the largest uprising in the British Caribbean.
The uprising, involving 60,000 captives, was led by Samuel Sharpe, a Baptist deacon and preacher, who “lived virtually as a freedman, with practical license to travel and preach at will” across Jamaica’s western parishes. As in Barbados and Demerara, the uprising’s origins are believed to stem from rumors that circulated throughout Jamaica in 1831: “brown already free, black soon.” That year, free mixed-race people received full legal equality. Therefore, people in captivity believed it was their turn next and that they would be freed by the end of the year. If they did not receive their freedom, they believed the time had come to “tek force wid force.”
Sharpe and other organizers initially planned a mass work stoppage: captive people would refuse to labor after Christmas unless they received wages and freedom. Their objective was not simply better treatment, but the ending of the Maafa itself. When plantation owners and colonials rejected these demands and responded with violence, the protest developed into warfare. Beginning with the burning of Kensington Estate on 27 December, tens of thousands of people--over roughly ten days—burned several hundred sugar works and properties. It resulted in the death of 540 combatants and fourteen Europeans. Sharpe was captured, tried, and hanged at Montego Bay in May 1832. Estimates placed property losses at around £1.5 million. This scale of destruction underscored the significant economic and military costs associated with preserving the Maafa.
The impact of the three rebellions: The uprisings were well-organized freedom movements, uniting thousands who recognized the injustice of captivity and acted collectively to abolish it. They made clear that African people wanted their freedom without delay. Barbados demonstrated that even the most rigid and closely monitored sugar stranglehold could not suppress the desire for freedom. Demerara showed that the captive population had followed news of abolitionism in Britain and developed ideas about their rights that they were not prepared to surrender. Jamaica, with the largest population of all the British strangleholds, showed that the system could not be sustained. The Sam Sharpe-led war laid bare the economic and military costs of preserving the Maafa. These uprisings had far-reaching effects. Britain not only abolished the Maafa in 1838, but it also pressured other European nations to end it.
1888
On 13 May 1888, Brazil declared immediate emancipation for all who remained in captivity. The Lei Áurea, or Golden Law, was strikingly brief—just two articles that abolished the Maafa and dismantled the legal framework that had sustained it.
Among the societies in the Americas affected by the Maafa, Brazil received the largest number of Africans and maintained the longest-lasting system of captivity. Approximately 4.8 million Africans arrived on its shores. While sugarcane was introduced as early as 1510, large-scale production began only after Brazil was divided into Proprietary Captaincies. Sugar plantations were first established in northeastern Brazil, particularly in Pernambuco and Bahia. Between 1540 and 1570, Indigenous peoples were the primary coerced labor force on sugar mills (engenhos). Even those considered “free” were often encouraged to work for wages, effectively binding them to the engenhos and blurring the distinction between free and unfree labor. In the 1560s, at the height of their captivity, a devastating smallpox epidemic erupted. Around thirty thousand Indigenous people, subjected to Portuguese oppression, died from the disease on the engenhos or in Jesuit villages.
This crisis marked the beginning of the mass importation of Africans to Brazil. By 1600, the country had nearly 200 sugar mills and about 50,000 Africans held in captivity. Over time, the expansion of sugar production, the gold rush that began in 1693 with the discovery of rich deposits in Minas Gerais, and the later coffee boom all contributed to the forced migration of millions of Africans to Brazil.
Brazil, with its open frontier, was an ideal place to create permanent settlements known as Quilombos. More than eighty of these communities were discovered between 1734 and 1816 in the regions of Maranhão and Grão-Pará. In the mining district of Minas Gerais, about 160 known quilombos existed in the eighteenth century. Mato Grosso had one of the largest quilombos in the nineteenth century. Known as Vila Maria, or the quilombo of Septuba, it is believed to have existed for at least 100 years. Records show that quilombos existed in all regions and at all times. Therefore, a separate military organization existed everywhere in Brazil to capture people who had liberated themselves.
The most outstanding revolutionary movements in Brazil were the series of Islamic uprisings in Bahia from 1808 to 1835. A plot in Bahia in 1807 and a major attack by three hundred quilombolas against the town of Nazareth das Farinhas in 1809 were repressed with much bloodshed. In 1810, an uprising of Muslims captives took place on a plantation, followed by an uprising of coastal fishermen in 1814. Five other uprisings took place between 1816 and 1835, in both the countryside and the city. In 1830, twenty armed captives attacked a market selling people and freed one hundred newly arrived Africans. Most important was the well-organized uprising of 1835. There were numerous deaths, and the destruction of property was quite extensive. More than one hundred Muslims captives were executed.
Brazil had a powerful history of resistance preceding the abolition movement.
Direct Portuguese rule in Brazil ended in 1822, though Portugal did not formally recognize Brazilian independence until 1825. In 1826, under the Anglo-Brazilian Treaty, Brazil gave Britain the right to search ships suspected of carrying captive people. The treaty included a three-year grace period, after which Brazilian involvement in the transatlantic trafficking would be considered piracy. Brazil’s own law of November 7, 1831, prohibited the importation of Africans and declared all those trafficked after this date to be free. Despite these laws, little changed until 1850, when it officially ended under intense British pressure.
In September 1871, Brazil passed the Free Birth Law, granting freedom to all children born to captive mothers after its passage. In practice, however, this freedom was limited. Newborns were required to remain under the control of their mother’s captor until the age of eight, before being handed over to the state in exchange for compensation or forced to serve as apprentices until age 21, when they received full freedom.
In the 1880s, Brazil saw a powerful abolitionist movement led by prominent Black and mixed-race figures. Notable leaders included engineer André Rebouças, pharmacist José do Patrocínio, and politician Luiz Gama, as well as Quintino Lacerda, head of a 10,000-strong quilombo in the port city of Santos. The abolitionist movement also included large numbers of free Black workers on the docks and in the railroad who refused to transport captive people and assisted freedom seekers.
In 1884, abolitionists achieved a major victory by declaring the northeastern state of Ceará free from captivity. This milestone came after boatmen blockaded the port, demanding that captive people aboard a steamer be brought ashore and spared from being sold and transported south. Soon after, the neighboring province of Amazonas also abolished the system. The rapid liberation of people in Ceará and Amazonas energized the abolitionist movement nationwide. An active underground railroad began in which free individuals helped freedom seekers reach Ceará and other free states.
Captors retaliated, and in September 1885, a harsh fugitive law was passed that severely punished anyone who aided freedom seekers. However, the new law radicalized the abolitionist movement and intensified pressure for change. Each year, more cities declared themselves free states. In November 1886, strikes led by free workers—many of them Black—compelled the city of Santos to proclaim emancipation. Once the army and police refused to return freedom seekers, mass flights from plantations became common. With so many cities proclaiming freedom, those fleeing bondage now found safe havens with relative ease. By 1887, the captive population had reduced from 1.1 million to 723,000, and continued to decline
Thus, 1888 marks the final year that descendants of Africa endured captivity in the Americas, with approximately 700,000 people gaining their freedom. Accounts describe days of jubilant public celebration—music, parades, flowers, banners, and pageants—on a scale never before witnessed in the Black Atlantic World.
“May those who died rest in peace; may those who return find their roots; may humanity never again perpetuate such injustice against humanity. We the living vow to uphold this.”
Words on a plaque on the wall of the entrance to the male dungeon at Cape Coast Castle, in Ghana.
Thank you for reading,
Meserette Kentake