Afro-descendants in the countryside have historically tried to control their labor through various forms of self-employment, including farming, fishing, shellfish collection, and extraction of natural resources. These economic activities, however, were usually combined with wage labor and off-farm employment for subsistence and reproduction. Rural off-farm employment included casual wage labor (including working on other people’s farms) and nonagricultural self-employment in rural communities, as well as permanent wage work in nearby towns. Today, quilombolas’ livelihoods in Bahia and São Paulo are threatened with reduced opportunities of wage employment, disenfranchisement of land, and restricted access to natural resources.