# Quilombos  
While quilombos could be small or large, temporary or permanent, isolated or near populated areas, revolts could be sparked by the desire for timely changes or definitive freedom, either for specific groups or slaves in general. Apart from these wider questions were others relative to the historical context most conducive to the emergence of quilombos and revolts, the profile of the participants and leaders and their motivation and inspiration. Such are the subjects of interest to this essay.  
The formation of groups of fugitive slaves occurred throughout all of the areas of the New World home to slavery. Although rare, such groups in Brazil sometimes numbered into their hundreds, and even thousands. This was the case in Palmares, a confederation of quilombos which survived for most of the seventeenth century. Its population was not, however, merely composed of fugitive slaves, but also outlaws, adventurers and traders, as well as indigenous peoples pressured by the European advance across their land. Africans and their descendants were the main inhabitants, however. Palmares was destroyed in 1694 after dozens of military campaigns (Ennes, 1938; Carneiro, 1988; Freitas, 1984; Alves Filho, 1988; Gomes, 2005).  
In the aftermath of such a defeat, the enslaved found themselves unable to replicate anything which came close to that large quilombo in Brazil. In order to avoid such developments, the colonial authorities developed efficient control strategies, the most efficacious being the creation of the post of capitão-domato (bush captain), a militia specialized in tracking down fugitive slaves and destroying quilombos (Lara, 1996, pp. 81-109). Another measure was to define a quilombo as the grouping of five or more fugitive slaves settled in an empty  
area. This would raise the alert of a potential danger and consequently increase the dose of repression.