Quilombo da Família Silva: "Before, we had no rights, they were always trying to take us away from here."

Brazil of Fact - "It's time to form new quilombos, wherever we are, and may the future days come. The quilombola mystique persists, affirming: 'freedom is a constant struggle'."
Conceição Evaristo.

In one of Porto Alegre's most expensive neighborhoods per square meter lies the first officially recognized urban quilombo in Brazil: the Quilombo da Família Silva. Located between Nilo Peçanha and Carlos Gomes Avenues, on a 6,5 m² plot of land on João Caetano Street, the territory is now home to approximately 70 people. The first signs of its formation date back to the 1940s, when the family patriarchs arrived in the capital.

Naura Borges da Silva and Alípio Marques do Santos came from São Francisco de Paula to find a place where they could perpetuate their way of life. And so they did. Naura and Alípio are the maternal grandparents of Lígia Maria da Silva, 66, the current community leader. “My grandfather used to say that this was all wilderness. They lived off the land. They planted corn, peanuts, strawberries. My grandfather raised pigs, chickens, we had a cow. We got all our sustenance from the land; it was very easy to live here,” recalls Lígia. 

According to the Atlas of Quilombola Presence in Porto Alegre/RSAt that time, the eastern zone of the capital of Rio Grande do Sul was not densely populated, being considered a rural area until the end of the 20th century. When my grandparents arrived, the neighborhood was still called Chácara das Três Figueiras (Three Fig Trees Farm). Originally, the place housed farms occupied by freed slaves, who built their houses with very little infrastructure. 

Starting in the 1980s, with the expansion of Avenida Carlos Gomes and the construction of the Iguatemi shopping mall, the neighborhood began to transform. This urban expansion brought with it an elitization of the region. And as happened with other territories, the Black communities that lived in the area began to suffer threats from real estate speculation.

Occupying one of the most expensive square meters in the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, currently costing around R$ 11.159, the history of the Quilombo da Família Silva (Silva Family Quilombo) has been marked by a strong struggle against speculators. This is a common reality for other quilombos, such as the Quilombo Kédi, neighboring the Silva family. Nowadays, the Silva territory is surrounded by luxury condominiums intended for the upper and upper-middle classes. The Três Figueiras neighborhood is considered one of the 20 richest neighborhoods in Brazil. 

Title was obtained in 2009.

Despite threats from real estate speculation, the Silva family resisted and received the title deed in 2009 from then-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). “Thank God we received the title, so the matter stopped, but before, someone would come all the time claiming to own the land. Even a gypsy showed up saying he owned this land,” says Lígia.

Before this recognition, the quilombo went through an intense struggle for the right to exist in the location. The first attempt at adverse possession occurred in the mid-1970s. The second attempt was made in 1990 and a third in 2001. “My grandfather had already lost the adverse possession case, and he lost because the lawyers were selling out along the way. Things weren't going smoothly…” 

During the pilgrimage to regularize the land situation, Lígia mentions that they met a lawyer who promised to help them. Taking advantage of having the same last name as the family, the lawyer pretended to be the older brother and managed to sell a strip of land without consulting anyone from the quilombo. Lígia recounts that the lawyer bought a guesthouse on the beach, two cars, and built a two-story retirement home. A condominium that was beginning construction just above the quilombo at the time gained space for a swimming pool, a party hall, and another house.

A plot of land in Morro Santana was offered to them for R$ 10. "We went there to see it with only enough money for the round trip. I didn't have any coins," he recalls. 

The struggle for housing led the family to contact representatives of the state's Black movement, including the Quilombola Front. And from 2002 onwards, the Silva family began to claim the status of quilombola descendants. In 2004, the Palmares Cultural Foundation (FCP) issued the Certificate of Self-Recognition to the Silva family. 

However, in 2005, a Repossession Action was filed in the 13th Civil Court of the Porto Alegre District. It was in this year that the community went through the most violent and prolonged eviction action. “We suffered several threats, every December we had an eviction. The last one happened in June 2005. It lasted 15 days, with rain and cold,” recalls Lígia. 

When the eviction began, she was at work. Her sister, Preta, called her to warn her that they were going to try to evict them from their home. Lígia says she left a note for her employer saying: “Mrs. Lia, I’m leaving because there’s an eviction at my house.” 

“It was very difficult, I had lost all hope, because I had witnessed an eviction in the village. They break everything you own. I had already packed all my things in garbage bags, wrapped up the dishes. We thanked God when six o'clock arrived and there couldn't be any more evictions that day,” she recalls. 

For 15 days, the community built a barricade with tires and set them on fire to prevent the police from approaching. Residents from other quilombos in the capital began to arrive to help in the resistance, as well as religious and political representatives, and other movements and entities from inside and outside the state. "There were people like that, like ants on that land."

Lígia also recounts that they went to Brasília several times, occupying the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) several times, in order to be recognized as a quilombola community and have their right to this land recognized. "We were only recognized thanks to President Lula," she states, recalling the two times the then-president visited Rio Grande do Sul. 

The first time, in Porto Alegre, Lígia couldn't get close to the president and wrote on a piece of paper, "Quilombo Silva asks for help." On that occasion, the note was passed from hand to hand until it reached Lula. He read the paper but said nothing. The next time, in Sapucaia do Sul, Lígia's sisters went with a banner asking for the land title for the Silva Family Quilombo. At the end of the event, Lula said: "I will grant your request because I am also a Silva." That same night, INCRA employees signed the title," she recalls.

Tradition and family 

Lígia, daughter of Anna Maria and Euclides José da Silva. “My father left Porto Alegre to go to a dance in São Francisco de Paula, and my mother was at this dance. She was 19 years old and my father was 40. My father came to Porto Alegre and asked my grandparents for my mother's hand in marriage. The civil wedding was on this land, near the rubber tree, and the religious ceremony was at the Auxiliadora church,” she recounts. The couple had 11 children. Among them, Lígia, the eldest daughter, and Lorivaldino Silva, known as Lorico, who passed away in 2021. Seven of the siblings currently live in the quilombo.

He was the one who maintained the tradition of teas and beverages passed down by his ancestors. “Even today we have the trees that Lorico planted; since my grandparents' time, he made camphor, which he made with alcohol, rue, guinea pepper, basil, and various other plants. He would make this infusion and give it to us when we had a pain, to help it go away. It's a way of maintaining the tradition of the elders. Lorico also gave us teas made with seven herbs to ward off envy; he did everything. For every person who came here, Lorico gave them a small pot of seven herbs. Lorico's daughter and son-in-law continue to take care of the garden he maintained.” 

From the time of her grandparents, a well built by Lígia's grandfather also remained in the territory, which supplied the community and other families with water until 1998.

The racism 

In 2010, Lígia recounts that her brother, Lorivaldino Silva, known as Lorico, was approached by military police officers while playing in the square with his grandson. Paulo Ricardo Dutra Pacheco, Lorico's brother-in-law, intervened, asking for respect for the quilombola community. From then on, he was pursued and assaulted by the soldiers. On that occasion, the Captain Zaniol, of the 11th Battalion of the Military PoliceHe said that Paulo had disrespected and disobeyed authority, as well as resisted arrest, which justified pursuing him into his home, where Paulo was handcuffed and forcibly removed in front of his wife and children. 

The case was reported to the State Public Prosecutor's Office, the Citizenship and Human Rights Commission of the Legislative Assembly, and the Committee to Combat Torture. In 2016, the Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region recognized the Collective Moral Damage suffered by the Quilombo da Família Silva, as a result of violence perpetrated by the Military Police in 2010.

When discussing the contrast between the community and its surroundings, Lígia points out that for a long time the residents in the area did not have individual bathrooms. The 12 families who lived there used a communal bathroom. “When the machines came to clear the way, for Emater to bring in the materials to build our bathrooms, the condominium owners shouted from their balconies: 'Ah, they're going to take the Black people away! They're going to take the Black people away!' They thought it was an eviction.” However, as she emphasizes, other neighbors respect the community.

Recognition as a synonym for protection

When asked what it means to be a quilombola, Lígia emphasizes the importance of the recognition of land rights: “Before, we didn’t have rights to these lands because they were always trying to take us away from here. Now that we have the title, thank God nobody bothers us anymore. Because this is where my grandparents came many years ago, and I was born here in the quilombo, my daughters are here.” She has two daughters who were born and live in the quilombo.

For Lígia's daughter, who also bears her mother's name, being a quilombola is synonymous with resistance. "Being a quilombola is the continuation of my ancestors who, through much struggle, as now, have given us the continuation of the fight for what they tried to do in the past," affirms Lígia Leticia Silva de Oliveira.  

“The Quilombo da Família Silva, by bringing the territorial claim of Black and Quilombola people into the urban context, based on Civilizational references of African origin, has disrupted the tranquility of coloniality,” states lawyer and member of the Quilombola Front of Rio Grande do Sul, Onir Araújo.

“Those 12 families, despite everything they went through, paved the way for the other 10 Quilombola Territories in Porto Alegre, and perhaps for millions living in the peripheries of the country's urban centers. Memory and ancestry are alive within us, and the Quilombo dos Silva demonstrates the power they possess when they territorialize themselves for well-being and the necessary construction of a 'world' that encompasses all 'worlds',” concludes Onir. 

Life told 

The story of resistance of the Quilombo da Família Silva is documented in a film produced by Coletivo Catarse, Inverso Coletivo and Ponto de Cultura Teia Viva, released in 2012.