[A morphology of 'quilombos' in the Americas, sixteenth-nineteenth centuries].

The article begins with the finding that studies on 'quilombos' in slave societies in the Americas have been relatively anodyne, not rarely placing in one sole category ('quilombos', 'cumbes', 'palenques', 'mainels', etc.) structures that might encompass anywhere from less than ten runaways, and last just weeks or months, or - as in the case of Palmares - bring together up to 11,000 'quilombolas' and endure for nearly a century. A similar conceptual anomaly is evident in the absence of taxonomies, which envision 'quilombos' as effectively historical structures, which might have been restricted merely to loose groups or have developed into self-sustaining communities capable of reproducing themselves economically and demographically for long periods in the Americas.