In Brazil, Palmares is one of the most respected historic sites among the Afro-Brazilian community. The famous kingdom was the largest enslaved runaway community in the history of the Atlantic world. It was the first and only African kingdom in the Americas— which lasted 100 years— and it is now a remarkable historic symbol for the African Diaspora. This African kingdom was created in the early 1600s, when slaves fleeing the sugar mills of Pernambuco, crossed the mountainous region now called Serra da Barriga— to form their own communities. Soon, they built villages called mocambos, which means refugee camp in kimbundu, a Bantu idiom. Today, Palmares is an archeological site named Quilombo dos Palmares Memoral Park. It is situated in the state of Alagoas, Brazil’s northeast. People can visit and see some remaining structures from when the kingdom was established and flourished in the 1600s.
SOURCE: TRAVEL NOIRE