The region of Alcântara located in the Northeastern state of Maranhão, Brazil, which was formerly inhabited by the Tupinambás Peoples, has a history of European settler colonialism dating back to the 17th century. From a booming slave-run economy in the 18th century, to a declining plantation market in the 19th century, Alcântara experienced Portuguese White flight in the late 19th century. This phenomenon led to the formation of multiple autonomous social groups, today known as Quilombos, who had been left behind by plantation lords. 

Known for our land-based collectivist cultures and ways of life, we, the Quilombos of Alcântara, lived removed from the intervention or support of the government until the 1970s when the Brazilian military started to lay claim to parts of the territory, thus displacing many of our Quilombola communities from their homes. In 1980, the Space Launch Center of Alcântara (CLA) was approved for construction in the region without prior consultation or consent from our local communities, leading in 1986 to its construction and to the forcible displacement of 32 of our Quilombola communities (more than 300 families), under the guise of a national security rhetoric. The CLA location was chosen due to the predictable weather, open ocean, and its 169 mile-distance from the equator – where the Earth rotates at a higher speed [source].These 502 displaced people were resettled to areas near the CLA called “Agrovilas” to live in military-built homes where growing their food and fishing became near-impossible. 

In response to these human rights violations, social movements began to form, all the while the 1988 Federal Constitution guaranteed the right of collective titles of Quilombo territories across the country. In 1989, the International Labor Organization Resolution 169 recognized the territorial rights of Indigenous and tribal  peoples, while in 2003 President Lula enacted Decree 4.88 of 2003 to establish procedures leading to the granting of the collective title. It is, however, not until 2020 that ILO acknowledged that the right of Quilombola communities to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent had been violated through the approval and construction of the CLA. 

In 2020, the Brazilian government announced in a decree its plan to expand the CLA by over 30,000 acres, which could lead to the displacement of over 2,100 peoples from communities in the regions, which have been founded hundreds of years ago by their escaped enslaved and freed ancestors [source]. A case at the Inter American Court of Human Rights concerning the human rights violations committed by the government on Quilombola Communities of Alcântara has been pending for a decision since 2023. The precedent-setting decision shall be taken in 2024.