The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America - autonomous ...

Slave Religion and Rise of the Free Peasantry 47
The country was vast, its inhabitants few, and effective control of
runaways difficult. During the late eighteenth century, escapes and
uprisings became a major social force along with the growing restlessness
of free blacks and a general wave of discontent throughout
the colony, which culminated in the war of the comuneros in 1781.
In the Cauca Valley, plots were uncovered for large revolts, some of
which included alliances with the Indians, and secret societies of
slave cabildos were discovered also (Jaramillo Uribe, 1968:68-71).
In the very southern part of the valley, near the Arboledas' domain,
a mine owner and his son were killed by their slaves in 1761
(Arboleda, 1956, 2:306-7). Ensconced securely in a palenque deep
in the woods along the Palo River bordering the Arboledas' vast estates,
escaped slaves began cultivating high-grade tobacco during the
last quarter of the eighteenth century and continued till abolition.
Living as outlaws, they clandestinely produced about one-twelfth of
the valley's entire crop. Police did not dare to enter the area. The
runaways had amicable relations with the dissolute friars of the
nearby monastery, who were said to be living with mulatto women,
and worked with bands of tobacco smugglers in constant conflict
with the government and its tobacco monopoly (Harrison, 1951:33-
40, 132-40, 200-2).
Colonel J. P. Hamilton, who traveled through the Cauca Valley as
an observer for the British government in the mid-18205, stayed in
the largest of the Arboledas' haciendas, Japio. He thought that their
slaves were physically superior and healthier than those in other
haciendas and mines in the valley, and noted with approval that
the priest held confession. "If any conspiracy is plotting among the
Blacks, the priest will, in all probability, find it out in the confessional
chair" (1827, 2:130). His surmise proved incorrect. In the
early 18405, slaves from the Arboledas' haciendas joined the rebel
army of Obando, who was sweeping southwestern Colombia with
the promise of immediate abolition, and they sacked these estates.
Obando's titles included "Protector of Christ Crucified," and he
raised the standard of revolt to the cry of "Federalism and Religion."
In 1841 he decreed that all slaves who joined his forces would be
freed and their owners recompensed from the government's manumission
fund or from his own resources if those proved insufficient.
But the revolt failed.
In 1843 the provincial government estimated 400,000 pesos as the
loss occasioned by the escape or death of slaves and the confiscation
of cattle. The slave owners feared a recurrence of race war and attempted
to pass a vicious penal code for blacks in 1843 (Helguera,