Rio dos Macacos, home to 67 families, is one of Brazil's quilombos - communities started by former slaves before forced labour was prohibited in Brazil in 1888.
According to Fundacao Palmares, a government-funded cultural organisation, there are more than 2,400 quilombos across the country. Quilombos were mainly formed by runaway slaves who went to live in hiding, surviving as best as they could by working the land. But even after slavery was abolished, elders say their ancestors had few rights. For a long time, they continued to work the sugarcane fields not for pay, but in return for food and housing.
It was only after the local farms went into decline, that the quilombolas - as quilombo residents are known - were allowed to harvest some of the fields and keep the proceeds for themselves. But no land was ever formally given to them - an omission which is at the root of at their current problems.
Brazil's constitution - signed in 1988, 100 years after slavery was abolished - ruled that quilombolas were entitled to the land they had historically occupied. But this has not always been the case in practice. Since 1988, only 207 quilombos have been issued with property titles. More than 1,200 requests have still to be dealt with, according to figures from the Fundacao Palmares. It is a long and complicated legal process, which often pitches the quilombos, generally very poor communities, against big landowners.
Rio dos Macacos has become one of the most emblematic cases of the battle of quilombolas for land, with the community embroiled in a lengthy and tense dispute with the navy. The navy built a naval base in the area in the 1950, and as the base grew, the area where quilombolas lived shrank. "They kicked lots of people out and now they want the rest of us to leave. But I want to stay until I die," Maria de Souza Oliveira says.
The government has offered the community 28 hectares (70 acres) of land in the area, on a plot some way away from where their houses currently stand. But the government authority in charge of overseeing quilombo land applications, the National Institute of Colonisation and Agrarian Reform (Incra), says the families are entitled to 10 times as much land. The case was taken from Incra's hands.
Community leader Rosimeire dos Santos Silva says the residents are coming under increasing pressure and have even been intimidated by navy personnel.
“They harass our children on their way to school. And if we try to work the soil, we're beaten up, they don't let us. It's like we're still living in a slave house. It's like we're still living in a slave house” Rosimeire dos explains Santos Silva, Community leader.
According to Fundacao Palmares, a government-funded cultural organisation, there are more than 2,400 quilombos across the country. Quilombos were mainly formed by runaway slaves who went to live in hiding, surviving as best as they could by working the land. But even after slavery was abolished, elders say their ancestors had few rights. For a long time, they continued to work the sugarcane fields not for pay, but in return for food and housing.
It was only after the local farms went into decline, that the quilombolas - as quilombo residents are known - were allowed to harvest some of the fields and keep the proceeds for themselves. But no land was ever formally given to them - an omission which is at the root of at their current problems.
Brazil's constitution - signed in 1988, 100 years after slavery was abolished - ruled that quilombolas were entitled to the land they had historically occupied. But this has not always been the case in practice. Since 1988, only 207 quilombos have been issued with property titles. More than 1,200 requests have still to be dealt with, according to figures from the Fundacao Palmares. It is a long and complicated legal process, which often pitches the quilombos, generally very poor communities, against big landowners.
Rio dos Macacos has become one of the most emblematic cases of the battle of quilombolas for land, with the community embroiled in a lengthy and tense dispute with the navy. The navy built a naval base in the area in the 1950, and as the base grew, the area where quilombolas lived shrank. "They kicked lots of people out and now they want the rest of us to leave. But I want to stay until I die," Maria de Souza Oliveira says.
The government has offered the community 28 hectares (70 acres) of land in the area, on a plot some way away from where their houses currently stand. But the government authority in charge of overseeing quilombo land applications, the National Institute of Colonisation and Agrarian Reform (Incra), says the families are entitled to 10 times as much land. The case was taken from Incra's hands.
Community leader Rosimeire dos Santos Silva says the residents are coming under increasing pressure and have even been intimidated by navy personnel.
“They harass our children on their way to school. And if we try to work the soil, we're beaten up, they don't let us. It's like we're still living in a slave house. It's like we're still living in a slave house” Rosimeire dos explains Santos Silva, Community leader.
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