In Rio Grande do Sul at the beginning of the 1970s, Grupo Palmares, a cultural group that also discussed racial and social issues, concluded that the existence of the Palmares Quilombo was the most important moment in the history of black people in Brazil.

Located in the municipality of Palmares (Joaquim Nabuco), it was founded between 1888 and 1889 with the name Usina Central Bom Gosto (Central Good Taste Sugarcane Factory) by the sugar baron José Alves da Silva, on the site of the old central sugarcane plantation of the same name.

​​​​​​​The Quilombo dos Palmares was begun by runaway slaves, mainly from the Pernambuco sugarcane plantations, who initially gathered together about 70 kilometres west of the Pernambuco coastline, in Serra da Barriga (Belly Range), a place of dense palm tree forests.

Quilombolas are the current habitants of Black rural communities made by the descendants of African-American slaves, who lived, in their majority, from subsistence agriculture in donated, bought, or long-occupied lands.

Descendent of the imbamgala or jagas warriors of Angola, Zumbi was probably born at the beginning of 1655 in one of the villages of the Palmares ‘quilombo’.