Liberated areas
In all the American colonies there were areas of flight and resistance. In Brazil and the Río de la Plata they were called "quilombos", while in other areas of the continent they were known as "palenques". Other names adopted by the rebellious slaves were mambices, cumbes and ladeiras.
The most famous refuge from colonialism in Latin America was the Quilombo de los Palmares, in Brazil (Portuguese colony). It had a population of more or less 15,000 rebellious slaves and remained for almost the entire century. The royal Portuguese troops used 6,000 soldiers and it took them two years to surrender it.
Starting in the 1980s, a process of historical justice began, with the historical territories occupied by the communities and their inhabitants being recognized and delimited as quilombos. Some fifteen thousand quilombola communities have been counted, dispersed in 16 states of Brazilian territory.[6].
The Spanish colonists introduced into South America the black slaves kidnapped in the Gulf of Guinea through the valley of the Magdalena River, which flows near Cartagena de Indias, where the African slaves were disembarked. Some of these Africans escaped and founded their own towns or palenques in the swamps near the Canal del Dique. These Africans were a constant threat to the ships loaded with slaves that arrived in Cartagena, as they attacked them and freed as many Africans as they could. The Spanish Crown, pressured by the governors of Cartagena, signed a Royal Decree in 1691, which granted freedom to the Africans of Palenque de San Basilio, whose inhabitants became the first free African community in America, long before those of Haiti or other places in America, and before Colombia achieved independence from Spain in 1819.[7].
The most famous palenque in present-day Colombia was that of San Basilio, near Cartagena de Indias. Benkos Biohó, the king of Arcabuco—also known as Domingo Biohó—gave the first cry for freedom in America. Other important palenques were those of El Limón and Arenal in the north of the department of Bolívar "Bolívar (Colombia)"); Betancur and Matubere, in the department of Atlántico "Atlántico (Colombia)"); and those of Norosí and Cimarrón, in the South of Bolívar.
The group of Africans led by Alonso de Illescas and Francisco Arobe and their descendants established the Kingdom of the Zambos of Esmeraldas, after the shipwreck of their ship from Panama in 1553, where they established a policy of compadrazgo and marriage with the Indians and complex negotiation relations with the Royal Court of Quito from which they had official recognition and autonomy until the middle of the century.
In Jamaica, before the establishment of the British colony of Jamaica (1655) there were already runaway slaves, fleeing from their Spanish masters, hiding in the mountains. During the English era and due to the slavery system in the English Caribbean, there was a massive importation of African slave labor. In the 19th century, one of their leaders, Captain Cudjoe, insisted that all his followers speak English (replacing their original languages, such as Akan, from Ghana). In the century the Jamaican Maroons waged the Maroon Wars against the English. Today, more than 90% of Jamaicans are of African descent.
Gaspar Yanga became the leader of a band of freedom slaves in a town in Veracruz, around 1570. Escaping to the difficult-to-access mountains, he and his people built the first free colony in America which they called San Lorenzo de los Negros "Yanga (Veracruz)").
In viceregal Panama, the marronage of black slaves began with the first batches of slaves on the isthmus, in the 1520s. The rebellious blacks did not hide from the Spanish troops, few and poorly armed, but attacked the caravans that crossed the isthmus and interfered with all commercial traffic.
In 1548, an escape of black slaves took place, who organized a government and recognized a slave called Bayano "Bayano (rebel)" as king. In the same way, another group in 1549, which was headed by Felipillo, was organized in the Gulf of San Miguel.
The best-known groups were on the Costa Arriba of the current Province of Colón, in Portobelo "Portobelo (city)"), Nombre de Dios "Name of God (Colón)"), Palenque and other Afro-Panamanian towns east of the current transisthmian canal. There are other old palenques on the Costa Abajo de Colón, west of the canal.
By the time of the founding of Portobelo "Portobelo (city)"), the majority of blacks who traveled through Portobelo followed other paths. However, the town had a considerable number of black residents, who worked on the pier and in the fairs. As a consequence of that, neighborhoods that constituted slaveries and Afrocolonial nuclei were formed, such as the Guinea neighborhood, which still exists, as well as the Malambo neighborhood.
Another population was the town called Palenque (a few kilometers from the current village of the same name), which was a typical maroon community: it had a hundred fugitive blacks, who lived in huts scattered throughout the tropical forest.
A remnant of this phenomenon is currently the "Congo" dialect, which consists of speaking like black muzzles and speaking Spanish "backwards." However, the existence of regular processes of morphosyntactic and phonological modification, as well as a nuclear lexicon that does not belong to world Spanish, indicate that a large part of the Congo language is indeed a coherent linguistic code. Likewise, the Afrocolonial Congo dance, which consists of a dramatized representation of historical events, of a singular nature, or prototypical events in the life of African slaves in the imperial era. These events include the uprising of black slaves, individually and in groups, the cruelty of their colonial masters, and the formation of maroon societies governed by African-patterned laws.
At the end of the century and beginning of the 20th century, some rancherías were formed around the city of Lima, such as Huachipa, Carabayllo, Monte Zambrano, etc. They were made by slaves who, in search of their freedom, had preferred to flee and rebel against the Spanish administration.
These rancherías were located, whenever possible, in less traveled areas, with forests to hide from possible pursuers.
Around the year 1710, these rancherías evolved into palenques.
In the middle of the century in Peru there was the uprising of Gonzalo Pizarro and the Encomenderos. In this context of crisis, a group of 200 African slaves escaped from the Peruvian capital. The slaves settled on the outskirts of the city of Los Reyes (Lima).
The maroons established a palenque in Huaura and from among them they chose the one with the most noble lineage to become their King. This monarch proclaimed the freedom of his people and planned the capture of Los Reyes to take control of the Viceroyalty of Peru.
The Captain General of Los Reyes sent Captain Juan de Barbarán and 120 soldiers to thwart the plans of the maroons. There were some fights between the Spanish and the Maroons on the outskirts of the capital that culminated in the death of all the Africans. The King of Palenque de Huaura died in the confrontation, as well as Captain Barbarán.
In Venezuela, King Miguel de Buría and the zambo "Zambo (caste)") Andresote were famous. According to Angelina Pollack-Eltz,[8] there were three types of organizations of maroons or fugitive slaves beginning in the century, these were the cumbes, the rochelas and the palenques. It was punishable to establish any type of communication with the maroons. The towns most removed from Creole or Spanish rule are known as Cumbe in Río Chico "Río Chico (Venezuela)") (which has been founded for more than two hundred years), and Birongo in Barlovento. Other strong cumbes were established in the Tuy Valleys, also in the plains of Barcelona, and others near Curiepe. The first palenque was recorded in 1552 and was formed after the rebellion led by Negro Miguel accompanied by indigenous people.
Starting in 1813 in the coastal towns between the state of Miranda and Vargas, the maroons reached a high level of organization to such an extent that, when the First Venezuelan Republic fell), after the declaration of independence in 1811, the emancipated populations promoted the capitulation in Caracas of the insurgent Mantuans to the peninsular patriots, which, although it was not a contribution to the total independence of Venezuela from the Kingdom of Spain, It meant a demonstration of strength and organizational capacity for the fight for the abolition of slavery that would take place a few years later. The most emblematic towns of these Afro-descendant organizations were Barlovento, Ocoyta) and Guayabal (Guayabal (Venezuela)).
In Montevideo and other cities with a marked presence of slaves, such as Colonia and Durazno "Durazno (Uruguay)"), from the mid-18th century to the mid-19th century, slaves and freedmen met on the outskirts of the city, in Montevideo that area outside the walls was at the foot of the wall and given that in times of slavery, the working conditions were not too arduous or demanding, being mostly dedicated to domestic work, these meetings were frequent and permitted.
It is for this same reason that attempted escapes and revolts were infrequent, and other means of gaining freedom were also permitted, either through purchases obtained through independent work or by being recruited into the army as payment. In the event that such escapes occurred, the fugitive black, like the matrero and the gaucho, used to take refuge in indigenous tolderías where he was welcomed and would occasionally cause trouble or simply wander the countryside, becoming one more member of the gauchaje.
As for the meetings outside the walls, these meeting centers were known as enclosures or quilombos and in them dances and rituals of African origin took place that were mixed and incorporated with the local culture, forming part of the cultural mix and religious syncretism that gave rise to tango and candombe and also led to the set of religious and syncretic beliefs that are known as quimbanda, umbanda and candomblé, and that traditionally They were included in popular culture under the derogatory name of macumba.
In Montevideo, these quilombos took place on the outskirts of the citadel, where after slavery was abolished the new freedmen would go to live, just like their name, free but without means of earning a living. This area that occupied part of the current center "Centro (Montevideo)") and Barrio Sur "Barrio Sur (Montevideo)") and was known as "the lower" and would later house the immigrant and the dispossessed of the campaign. In such marginality, vice and prostitution abounded, and this is probably why the word "quilombo" took on the meaning of our days.