Quilombola Communities in Bahia

The Quilombo Rio dos Macacos, located on the border between Salvador and Simões Filho, is more than just a territory: it is a living symbol of black and quilombo resistance. For over two hundred years, its families have carried the marks of the slave era on their skin and in their memories, but also the legacy of struggle, culture and dignity. Even after the decline of the sugar mills, the families remained on the land, surviving on agriculture, livestock, fishing and ancestral knowledge. For decades, the community cultivated crops, fruits and animals, selling surpluses at fairs, while maintaining traditions such as handicrafts in licuri and vines, the work of midwives and prayer women.

The biggest conflict arose in the 1960s, when the Salvador City Council donated the area to the Navy. In 1971, Vila Naval, a military housing complex, was built along with a dam on the river that gives the community its name: Rio dos Macacos. Since then, the quilombo has resisted through mobilisations, legal actions and complaints, in the face of restrictions and threats of expulsion.

The Rio dos Macacos Quilombo faces serious challenges. Without schools, health centres or community workers, until recently the community had no territorial reference point for healthcare. The territory, which once covered more than 900 hectares, now has only 98 registered owners – without rivers, without water sources and without the basic conditions for a full life. Precarious sanitation, unfinished roads and promised but undelivered housing persist. In addition, the presence of the Navy fragments the space and imposes control over bodies and trajectories.

The struggle of Quilombo Rio dos Macacos is not only for land. It is for the right to exist, for the dignity of living, for the memory that refuses to be erased. It is for the preservation of quilombo ways of life, reaffirming their essential contribution to Brazilian history and culture, sustained by memory, struggle, and ancestral strength that cannot be extinguished.