Black Renaissance Media

'Palmares: The Only African Kingdom That Thrived In The Americas'

In Brazil, Palmares is one of the most respected historic sites among the Afro-Brazilian community. The famous kingdom was the largest enslaved runaway community in the history of the Atlantic world.

Palmares, the first and only African kingdom in the Americas, which lasted 100 years, is a historic symbol for the African Diaspora.

“Palmares was quite ethnically homogeneous, most of its people coming from Angola. After considerable growth during the Dutch occupation of Pernambuco (1630-1654), a Portuguese colonial settlement back then, Palmares started to be shaped as a state, with leadership and social stratification,” said John K. Thornton, professor of history at Boston University and author of many books on the African Diaspora and African History.

This African kingdom was created in the early 1600s, when slaves fleeing the sugar mills of Pernambuco, crossed the mountainous region now called Serra da Barriga— to form their own communities. Soon, they built villages called mocambos, which means refugee camp in kimbundu, a Bantu idiom.

SOURCE: Travel Noire

https://travelnoire.com/palmares-african-kingdom-americas