From the analysis of archival material about small farming communities, in the northern region of the State of Rio de Janeiro, during slavery and in the period immediately post?emancipation, this article revisits the intersection of race and class by showing how slaves, indigeneous peoples, and freed men and women have been an integral part of the constitution of this country's rural classes. By identifying a variety of socio?economic and cultural ties between communities of runaway slaves, quilombos (maroon settlements), slave and freed peasants and slaves' autonomous economic activities in the plantation, this article departs from tradition historiography of Brazilian peasantry and shows how its history cannot be separated from of the history of the black Brazilian peasantry. More importantly, it describes how black historical experiences in Brazil has been constitutive of a complex peasant economic sector.; From the analysis of archival material about small farming communities, in the northern region of the State of Rio de Janeiro, during slavery and in the period immediately post?emancipation, this article revisits the intersection of race and class by showing how slaves, indigeneous peoples, and freed men and women have been an integral part of the constitution of this country's rural classes. By identifying a variety of socio?economic and cultural ties between communities of runaway slaves, quilombos (maroon settlements), slave and freed peasants and slaves' autonomous economic activities in the plantation, this article departs from tradition historiography of Brazilian peasantry and shows how its history cannot be separated from of the history of the black Brazilian peasantry. More importantly, it describes how black historical experiences in Brazil has been constitutive of a complex peasant economic sector.
