"A study of quilombos near Iguaçu and Vassouras, Rio de Janeiro, seeks to understand internal organization of escaped slave settlements and their relations with their neighbors, and to show how their existence affected slavery and slave relations in the area. Quilombos were not necessarily isolated or marginalized; rather, they commonly interacted with their free peasant neighbors and even with slaves, even as the authorities persisted in attempts to destroy them"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.