For the first time, the Brazilian census included questionnaires about quilombolas — citizens from communities originally formed by runaway slaves in the last country in the West to abolish slavery. Brazil has 1.3 million quilombolas, spread across all regions and almost all states — except Roraima and Acre, according to data released today by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
Until now, public policies aimed at these communities were based only on estimates from social programs and the public health system — which didn’t allow for a broader view of the population’s needs.
“Knowing the number of quilombolas and how they are distributed throughout the country, at the municipal level, will guide public policies for housing, occupation, work, income generation, and land tenure regularization,” said Marta Antunes, who heads the IBGE’s traditional communities department.
Nearly 70 percent of the quilombola population is concentrated in Brazil’s Northeast, with half living in Bahia and Maranhão, states that received millions of enslaved people until abolition in 1888. Of the 5,568 municipalities in Brazil, 1,696 have quilombola residents.
One of the most important pieces of information from the study is that less than 13 percent of quilombolas currently live in territories officially constituted for them. There are 494 officially demarcated quilombola territories and 4,859 communities outside these lands.
Insecurity of land tenure fosters conflict between residents and others who seek to exploit the areas for economic gain.
In April, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights began hearing a case involving the Alcântara quilombo in Maranhão, where a rocket launching base for the Brazilian Air Force was built in the 1980s, leading to the removal of more than 300 families during the military dictatorship.
The Brazilian government admitted responsibility for violating the rights of Alcantara’s quilombola communities and apologized.Former President Jair Bolsonaro openly opposed the titling of quilombola land. His administration had the lowest rate of land titling since 1995. He also agreed to allow the U.S. to use the Alcântara base to launch satellites, even offering it to billionaire Elon Musk’s company.
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