Negroes from Guaporé: the slave system and specific territorialities

Abstract

The black territories of Guaporé were established by distinct processes of territorialization. Such processes can be connected to the so called “colonial situation” and the pioneer expansion of the countries border in the search for wealth. Rebellions, runaways, illnesses and mines exhaustion constitute conditions for the formation of quilombos (maroon communities) in the Guaporé. Before that fugitive slaves and free black population living in the quilombos were severely persecuted by the provincial government of Mato Grosso State. After the abandon of the area by slave owners, the fugitive slaves and those slaves who were not fugitives began to populate the Guaporé valley and to establish autonomous family units. More recently, as a result of a new frontier expansion, these territories began to be threatened once again: first by the rubber plantation owners, then by the cattle farmers and the State itself. It is within this context in which the quilombola village of Forte Príncipe da Beira is found.