For Brazil’s historic slave communities, the future is uncertain

“This decision messes with our lives,” says Denilson Rodrigues. “It could put to rest our entire history, our entire identity.”

Rodrigues has spent his entire life in Ivaporunduva, the oldest quilombo community in São Paulo’s pristine Vale do Ribeira. Unlike the vast majority of Brazil’s quilombos – secretive communities formed by runaway slaves in the West’s last country to abolish slavery – Rodrigues’s community has a land title. But Rodrigues, now a coordinator at National Coordination of Articulation of Quilombolas Rural Black Communities (CONAQ), is concerned that even the fate of his community hangs in the balance.

In August this year, Brazil’s Supreme Court was set to judge on a Direct Action of Unconstitutionality (ADI), known as ADI 3239/04. The decision, postponed in August and delayed for a second time this week, is now due to return to the Supreme Court in November. The measure, Rodrigues argues, has the potential to effectively revoke the quilombo land rights that are protected by Brazil’s Constitution.

“Quilombos are a symbol of resistance to slavery in Brazil,” he says. “It would be a huge step backwards for us; we would be going back more than a hundred years.”

Brazil has 220 titled quilombo communities, with the highest concentration in Bahia, according to the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA). A further 1,536 communities throughout the country are waiting to receive their titles. But those numbers could be much higher: cultural quilombo institution Fundação Palmares has so far certified more than 2,600 communities eligible for titling, while CONAQ estimates there are approximately 6,000 in existence.

Without titles, communities are vulnerable to violent threats

But before any quilombo can receive a legal land title, it must first be ‘regularized.’ ADI 3239/04 argues that the regularization process is unconstitutional, and if approved would lead to immediate suspension of regularization processes.

“If it is considered unconstitutional, this would mean that procedures underway, and those still awaiting recognition and titling, will stagnate,” explains Rebeca Campos...