60199616-flight-to-freedom-african-runaways-and-maroons-in-the-americas

92 Flight to Freedom
went off quietly to make a life on their own or participated in the wars in
return for the promise of freedom by either side. Many Blacks lost their lives
in these wars and commonly suffered discrimination after victory was
achieved, even from those with whom they had allied. Nevertheless, many of
them achieved physical freedom and clothed themselves in glory by their
courage, martial abilities and sometimes the medals and citations that they
earned.
During the so-called abolition era in the nineteenth century, the number
of runaways increased appreciably. Among the contributing circumstances
were the example of actual revolution in Haiti; agitation by abolitionists; the
enslaved persons’ conviction that the imperial authorities had abolished slavery
and the enslavers were maintaining the system illegally; a rising incidence
of armed servile unrest in many parts of the Americas (closely linked to
desertion); the increasing reluctance of the state authorities to sanction
Maroon-hunting expeditions; and the spur that abolition in one territory
gave to enslaved persons in other territories to agitate for freedom. In the last
years of slavery in the Americas, thousands of enslaved people in Venezuela,
Puerto Rico, the United States, Cuba and Brazil simply deserted their overlords
and declared themselves free.
In extreme instances the desperate desire for freedom drove enslaved persons
to commit suicide. According to Fernando Ortiz (1975, 359), this was the
supreme recourse of all oppressed peoples. He goes on to state that the practice
had become so common in Cuba that it was invested with the character
of an epidemic, and that in that country between 1855 and 1857 there were
almost twice as many suicides as homicides – at least one-third of the total
carried out by enslaved persons (and another third by Chinese indentured
immigrants).
Suicide often became an act of war, intended to deprive the enslaver of a
valuable labour resource; at the same time it was believed that committing
suicide would facilitate quick return to Africa (Ortiz 1975, 360; Oldendorp
1987, 199; Bastide 1978, 81–82; Pérez 2005, 34–53). The records contain several
cases of individual suicide and a few of mass suicide. When Palmares was
eventually destroyed in 1695 by a military expedition sent against it, as many
as two hundred of its inhabitants are said to have committed suicide by hurling
themselves from a high rock rather than returning to slavery (Kent 1979,
187; Freyre 1963, 39n5). 2 Many Bahian quilombolas (calhambolas or Maroons)
and other insurgents committed suicide rather than be apprehended follow-