{"id":909,"date":"2024-11-23T03:33:40","date_gmt":"2024-11-23T03:33:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aquilombos.org\/?page_id=909"},"modified":"2025-06-25T00:35:47","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T00:35:47","slug":"history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/aquilombos.org\/pt\/history\/","title":{"rendered":"Hist\u00f3ria"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The Fight for Collective Title<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The Brazilian government has recognized our right as Quilombola communities to collectively occupy our territories close to 40 years ago through Article 68 of the Transitory Dispositions of the 1988 Federal Constitution. And yet, as Quilombola peoples, we continue to face significant barriers in our efforts to obtain collective title to our lands. We, the Quilombos of Alc\u00e2ntara, are no strangers to this stark reality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

With a pending lawsuit decision in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights – a consequence of the forced displacement of 32 of our Quilombola communities in 1986 by the construction of a Space Launch Center in the region\u00a0 – our struggle continues!<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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The Alc\u00e2ntara Space Launch Center, Alc\u00e2ntara, Maranh\u00e3o \u00a9 2024 Getty Images <\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Collective Titling: An Unfulfilled Promise<\/span><\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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According to a Terra de Direitos factsheet, titled <\/span>\u201c<\/span>Quilombola Titling<\/u><\/a>\u201d (2024), if the Brazilian government continues at its current pace of granting titles to Quilombola territories, it will take 2,708 years to \u201ctitle all the territories of the 1,857 quilombos with open processes at the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform\u201d (or Instituto Nacional de Coloniza\u00e7\u00e3o e Reforma Agr\u00e1ria), also known as INCRA, the federal body responsible for Quilombola land regularization. By 2024, only 57 territories had been either partially or totally titled by INCRA since the property rights of traditional Quilombola people was formally recognized by the 1988 Federal Constitution. Of the 54 territories that have been granted title, 33 received a partial title, meaning that the title only applies to one area of the territory to which the filing Quilombola community actually has full right to. In short, \u201conly 24 have titles for 100% of the area\u201d. The factsheet explains that, \u201cThe estimate does not include quilombola land regularization processes managed by states and municipalities, nor does it account for communities that have not been certified by the Palmares Foundation (FCP)\u00a0 [a federally-financed body that promotes Afro-Brazilian culture, including certifying quilombola territories] and, therefore, have not begun the administrative process with Incra\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Many obstacles have been getting in the way of Quilombola communities obtaining rightful access to their collective land titles. For instance, the numerous stages to the land titling, notably certifying the territory, identifying and delineating it, recognizing it, declaring its social interest and finally, titling it, make it a long-drawn, unpredictable, and bureaucratic endeavor. Furthermore, the generations of institutional racism rooted in Brazil\u2019s colonial and slaveholding history, make land ownership structures between non-white and white inhabitants of Brazil inherently unequal.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\u00a9 2024 Terra de Direitos <\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Recent Developments<\/span><\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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In a historic decision on September of 2024, the Brazilian government and Quilombola entities have reached an agreement pertaining to the use of the Alc\u00e2ntara Space Base (CLA) and the protection of the rights of local communities, that is 152 remaining Quilombola communities in Alc\u00e2ntara, Maranh\u00e3o, who have been directly impacted by the establishment CLA in the 1980s. <\/span><\/p>\n

The pact was announced on September 19th in Maranh\u00e3o, alongside President Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva. Its goal is to put an end to the 40 years of ongoing disputes between the Brazilian state (the Brazilian Air Force and the Ministry of Defense), who claimed the need to preserve land in Alc\u00e2ntara for the potential expansion of Brazil\u2019s aerospace program and Quilombola communities of Alc\u00e2ntara, who have claimed historic ties to the land on which they depend for their subsistence and community health <\/span>[<\/span>source<\/u><\/a>].<\/span><\/p>\n

You can learn more about the intricacies of this agreement in the Timeline StoryMap below.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\u00a9 2024 Terra de Direitos <\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\u201cWhen the state found us, we lived from the collective title. We lived in harmony. . . For that, society, youth, need to participate. Because the future will only be uncertain when you don’t know what to do. . . . We, the Alc\u00e2ntarans, are a resilient people, we know how to wait.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u2013 Inaldo Faustino Silva Diniz, S\u00e3o Raimundo (displaced to Agrovilla Marund\u00e1) – Community Leader & Elder<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Forty Years of Resistance to Land Dispossession: A Deep-Rooted Colonial Legacy<\/span><\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The region of Alc\u00e2ntara located in the Northeastern state of Maranh\u00e3o, Brazil, which was formerly inhabited by the Tupinamb\u00e1s 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, Alc\u00e2ntara 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Known for our land-based collectivist cultures and ways of life, we, the Quilombos of Alc\u00e2ntara, 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 Alc\u00e2ntara (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<\/u><\/a>].These 502 displaced people were resettled to areas near the CLA called \u201cAgrovilas\u201d to live in military-built homes where growing their food and fishing became near-impossible.\u00a0<\/p>

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\u00a0 peoples, while in 2003 President Lula enacted Decree 4.88 of 2003<\/u><\/a> 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.\u00a0<\/p>

In 2020, the Brazilian government announced in a decree<\/u><\/a> 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<\/u><\/a>]. A case at the Inter American Court of Human Rights concerning the human rights violations committed by the government on Quilombola Communities of Alc\u00e2ntara has been pending for a decision since 2023. The precedent-setting decision shall be taken in 2024.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Alc\u00e2ntara Quilombola leaders bring a historic case against Brazil to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Chile in 2023 \u00a9 2023 International Court of Justice Multimedia Galleries<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Quilombolas discussing ILO Convention 169 in Alc\u00e2ntara, Maranh\u00e3o \u00a9 2024 Davi Pereira J\u00fanior<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Brazilian Ministers paying the Quilombos of Alc\u00e2ntara a visit in Canelatiua Quilombo, Alc\u00e2ntara, Maranh\u00e3o\u00a0\u00a9 2024 Cat Diggs<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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The Alc\u00e2ntara Space Launch Center, Alc\u00e2ntara, Maranh\u00e3o \u00a9 2021 <\/span>Brazilian Space Agency<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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About the Alc\u00e2ntara Space Launch Center (CLA)<\/span><\/h5>

Although the Alc\u00e2ntara Space Launch Center, or CLA, was initiated in 1986, a space agency in Brazil had been established years before during the country\u2019s military dictatorship, which formally ended in 1985. Land clearance for the CLA began in 1980, six years before the construction of the facility, leading to a first wave of mass displacements among Quilombola communities of Alc\u00e2ntara. Alc\u00e2ntara’s proximity to the equator and to the ocean makes it an ideal and cost-effective location for space launches, both domestic and international, prompting the Brazilian government to develop numerous strategies for removing Quilombola communities from our lands, rather than honoring our constitutional rights to traditionally occupy our territories.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Wreckage at the Alc\u00e2ntara Launch Center following the 2003 VLS-1 V03 explosion, Alc\u00e2ntara, Maranh\u00e3o\u00a0 \u00a9 2024 Ag\u00eancia Brasil <\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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