110 Oruno D. LaraThe dramatic consequences of the 'Negro shortage' (1625-50), which
disturbed the market for a long time, must also be noted.
Taking advantage of the fact that the colonists were in a constant state
of war, fighting furiously to combat Dutch competition and occupation, the
Negroes broke camp and when the opportunity arose fled to the forest, which
always offered protection.
During the first phase of the entradas, the Negroes rebelled and lived
' in hiding in the forest, concealed by the winding paths of the serras shielded
by the darkly-massed palm-trees'. To begin with, they lived by robbing and
pillaging nearby plantations and sacking the fazendeiros, then they settled down
to farming themselves. The runaway slaves cleared, planted and cultivated the
land which they occupied for a time. As they became better organized, they
abandoned their primitive life of pillage and theft and started trading and
bartering their produce with the fazendeiros and their neighbours, who needed
farm tools and weapons.
For several years they lived peacefully enough with their fields, cattle
and crops and attracting very little attention until more and more Negroes
joined them as engenhos and plantations were abandoned, the Dutch invasion
having forced the senhores to take up arms to defend the Portuguese colony
in an epic resistance.
The rebels seized the opportunity to seek refuge in Palmares where a
bountiful nature offered a fertile soil and rivers, swamps and woods favourable
to hunting, fishing and fruit-picking. They were not the only ones to find a safe
refuge in Palmares; E. Ennes assures us that in these times of war, free Negroes,
mulattos, indios mensos, or 'civilized' Indians, and even white criminals and
deserters availed themselves of it.
This was how the famous Palmares Confederation developed. The con-
federation, in which some saw a strong organized republic and others just
another slave revolt, lasted throughout the eighteenth century.
The runaway slaves left many quilombos in their wake, but Palmares was
the most important among them. The first quilombo was founded in the six-
teenth century, probably when the slave trade was just beginning. It was
destroyed by Luis Brito de Almeida. A number of these camps were formed
near Bahia over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the colonists
greatly feared them. One such, in 1601, cut the route from Bahia to Alagoâs
at Itapicum. In 1650, Captain Mancel Jourdan da Silva destroyed quilombos
near Rio de Janeiro with difficulty. There is a reference to another quilombo in
Alagoâs in 1671.
Several military expeditions were sent to Palmares in the seventeenth
century : the figure of thirty-five entradas has been established beyond doubt.
They include the following: Bartolomeu Bezerra, between 1602 and 1608;
Rodolfo Baro, 1644, and Jan Blaer, 1645 (Dutch expeditions); Fernäo Carrilho,