The Permanence of the Quilombola Landscape: Trails, Archaeological Sites, Social Relationships, and Quilombola Resistance in Tinharé Island, Bahia, Brazil

Abstract

Historical documents from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries mention the presence of numerous quilombos on the Tinharé island, on the coast of the state of Bahia, in Brazil. However, the white men who wrote the documents did not know the exact locations and generically called them forests. Currently, the island has three self-recognized quilombola communities, but the places where those quilombola communities are currently located do not necessarily correspond to the settlements in the past. Therefore, identifying these archeological sites poses a challenge involving theoretical and epistemological debates. From the archaeological and ethnographic work carried out in partnership with residents of the quilombola community of Galeão, in Tinharé Island, some of the settlements in the interior of the island were found and excavated. Through community-based archeological research, this article shows the work developed together with members of the quilombola community to find these sites, understand the present materiality, and the pattern of the places chosen by their ancestors to form remote settlements in the insular forest. The landscape is modeled as a structure of resistance to keep the quilombola territory safe over time.