Los hilos de la memoria: los derechos colectivos a la luz de la Historia

Abstract

Afro-descendants were of great importance for the economic and social development of the Brazilian northeast. These individuals had as forms and spaces of resistance, the maroons and the black brotherhoods where they perpetuated their practices and knowledge. In the Serido there is a record of the presence of these brotherhoods since the mid-nineteenth century, however, over the years, the official historiography concealed these individuals and portrayed them in a way that would alleviate their suffering and hide them. rights violated. Here we present some elements that reveal the constitutive processes of a generalized amnesia when talking about the time of captivity and we show the paths taken to recover a story that was not told. In this sense, collective memory and cultural tradition help us in this exercise of evocation of the past, justifying recent searches for territorial rights by these ethnic minorities. The example of the Maroon community of Boa Vista, which rediscovers its past is of great importance, because it illustrates the difficult awareness of a silenced memory, as well as providing these groups with new paths in the search for collective rights.