o introduce
Negro slavery into Europe, did not long delay in carrying the
institution to their colony of Brazil. It was in 1574 that the first
slave ship reached there. Thereafter, great numbers of Negroes were
brought, especially to northern Brazil, in the equatorial belt, to
work in the profitable sugar fields. No region of the Americas was so
accessible to the slave trade, for the Brazilian coast juts out into
the Atlantic Ocean directly opposite the Gulf of Guinea in Africa,
whence most of the slaves were procured. It is profitless here to go
into the question of the treatment of the slaves by their Portuguese
masters. Some were badly treated, and took the chance of flight to the
interior forest lands, rather than submit any longer. Various causes
prompted yet others to escape from the colonial plantations. Thus many
a _quilombo_, or Negro village of the forest, was formed. By far the
most famous of these was the _quilombo_ of Palmares, whose history is
the subject of this article.

In 1650, forty determined Negroes of the province of Pernambuco, all
of them natives of Guinea, rose against their masters, taking as much
as they could in the way of arms and provisions, and fled to the
neighboring forest. There they founded a _quilombo_ on the site of a
well-known Negro village of earlier days, which the Dutch had
destroyed. The tale of their escape was told throughout the province,
with the result that it was not long before the population of the new
_quilombo_ was greatly increased. Slaves and freemen were eager to
join their brethren in the forest. It seemed prudent, however, to go
farther away from the white settlements, lest the very strength of the
Negro town should invite annihilation or re-enslavement by the
planters. Thus it was that the inland site of Palmares, not far from
present-day Anadia, was chosen. A town was founded, and all seemed
well except for one thing--an essential to permanence was lacking, for
there were no women. A detachment of Negroes was sent on the romantic
mission of procuring wives for the colony. This party marched to the
nearest plantations, and, without stopping to discriminate, took all
the women it could find, black, mulatto, and white. Palmares was now
on a secure footing indeed.

At first, the inhabitants lived by a species of banditry, robbing the
whites whenever they could. Gradually, a more settled type of life
developed. The Negroes began to engage in agriculture, and at le