Quilombola Community of Abacatal
GENERAL OVERVIEW
The Quilombola Territory of Abacatal is located in the metropolitan region of Belém, on the south side of the municipality of Ananindeua, 12 km from the road BR-316. It has its origin in 1710 and in 2020 it completed 310 years. It is a territory of inheritance: the owner was a Portuguese earl named Coma Melo, who had an area of land where he produced various crops such as, among others, sugar cane and cocoa. The land was inherited by the 3 daughters he had with the house slave, Olimpia. Today our community on the banks of the Uriboquinha River and on the mainland has 152 families, with approximately 520 inhabitants. We have a small elementary school in the territory, an access point to public health, but we lack basic sanitation and security. The community is in the periurban area of Ananindeua, but it is still a rural area located approximately 10 or 12 km from the center of the mentioned municipality.
CENTRAL TOPIC
The relationship of the project with the communities is in the alternatives of decolonial development that come with the proposal to elaborate a counter-cartography of the traditional urban territories. The community can point out the changes over time and how it influences it differently. We can point out in this project how ithe community relates to these changes and how this process can be. Sometimes it can be a violent one, therefore it is important to understand also how the community sees it, and makes the timeline of these changes. Finally, the counter-cartography project is important, because we can create a new cartography of these territories, of these communities, in which the community giving a testimony can find and work. This is the fundamental point in this new cartography.
PERSONAL TESTIMONY
Manoel da Vera Cruz
Leadership in the Quilombola Community of Abacatal, Manuel In his testimony mentioned various capital pressures around the territory. These pressures were mentioned in 1998/1999, and even after 20 years, there are problems that are recurrent and appear on the community's agenda, such as the increased violence, climate change, among other situations that the urban environment brought to the rural. These spatial changes are perceived by the community.