In After Palmares, Marc A. Hertzman tells the rise, fall, and afterlives of Palmares, one of history’s largest and longest-lasting maroon societies. Forged during the seventeenth century by formerly enslaved Africans in what would become northeast Brazil, Palmares stood for a century, withstanding sustained attacks from two European powers. In 1695, colonial forces assassinated its most famous leader, Zumbi. Hertzman examines the remarkable ways that Palmares and its inhabitants lived on after Zumbi’s death, creating vivid portraits of those whose lives and voices scholars have often assumed are inaccessible. With an innovative approach to African languages, and paying close attention to place as well as African and diasporic spiritual beliefs, Hertzman reshapes our understanding of Palmares and Zumbi and advances a new framework for studying fugitive slave communities and marronage in the African diaspora.

"“After Palmares is a beautifully written and stunning work of historical scholarship. With its publication, Marc A. Hertzman will widely be recognized as one of the most important and original scholars working on Brazil and the African diaspora.”" - The Color of Modernity: São Paulo and the Making of Race and Nation in Brazil

"“After Palmares is a beautifully crafted and breathtaking history of the long afterlives of the legendary runaway slave community. With the rhythm of an analytical epic, Marc A. Hertzman reckons with what he brilliantly calls the inheritances and trajectories of the post-Palmares world that came to be after its defeat in 1695. This tremendous book is interdisciplinary work at its finest.”" - Freedom’s Captives: Slavery and Gradual Emancipation on the Colombian Black Pacific