Brasília, 11/21/2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Yesterday was celebrated in Brazil as the country's National Day of Negro Awareness (Dia Nacional da Consciência Negra). November 20, 1695, was when Zumbi dos Palmares, a leader of escaped slaves, died fighting for Negro freedom against slave owners.

Palmares is the name of the most famous of a number of outposts established by runaway slaves in Brazil (those locations are known as "quilombos;" the word is Angolan in origin; it referred to "walled hiding places where escaped slaves lived," or "an association of warriors"). The Brazilian quilombo, Palmares, was located in the backlands of what is now the state of Alagoas and, at its height in the 17th century, covered some 27,000 square kilometers and was home to an estimated 30,000 escaped slaves.

Zumbi was born around 1665 in Palmares and is reputed to have been a descendent of Angolan warriors. While still a child he was abducted and given to a priest, father Antonio de Melo. He was baptized as Francisco and learned to read and write in classes in church. When he was 15, Francisco decided to return to Palmares where he became a warrior leader.

The quilombos were organized along the lines of African communities and became symbols of Negro resistance to white Portuguese colonial rule and opposition to the imposition of European life styles.

The quilombos were frequently attacked by whites seeking to destroy them and recapture the inhabitants. In a such a battle, in November 1695, Palmares was destroyed and Zumbi, as Francisco was now called, was killed. Almost three hundred years later, the date of his death became the country's National Negro Awareness Day as part of a movement spearheaded by the Unified Negro Movement which pointed out that total rights for Brazil's Black population remain to be conquered.

Another result of the movement was to get the government to recognize the remaining quilombos in Brazil as historical landmarks and provide their inhabitants with protection and assistance. The Brazilian Anthropological Association defines a quilombo as, "a rural Negro community inhabited by descendents of slaves... who have strong cultural ties to their past." A Negro cultural organization, the Palmares Cultural Foundation, is working to obtain land deeds for the inhabitants of today's quilombos. At the moment there are 743 quilombos in Brazil, but only 39 of them have received titles to their property, which were guaranteed in the 1988 constitution. (AB)