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114 Flight to Freedom
majority escaped. At Sandoval’s death in 1623, the Maroon “problem” in that
area still remained unresolved (Esteban Deive 1989, 74–75).
For much of the eighteenth century the Bahoruco Maroons, consisting
mainly of deserters from the French colony, struck such fear into the hearts
of the planters in Haiti and the Dominican Republic that eventually the
French and Spanish colonial authorities decided to send a joint expedition
against them. The expedition comprised at least 180 French fighting men
and an undisclosed number of Spanish. The French later sent further reinforcements,
but after spending some three months chasing after the Maroons
through very difficult terrain, and at one time being forced to drink their own
urine, the members of the expedition decided to retreat, with a much reduced
complement of only eighty men. The cost of the expedition was estimated at
80,000 livres. The “border Maroons” (130 of them) were only quieted in 1785
through an entente between them and the Spanish government, which the
French government in Haiti supported (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1979, 136–40;
chapter 9). 3
In Panama, especially during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a
large number of palenques emerged along the Charges River and in the dense
forest that surrounded the main Spanish towns. The best-known palenques
were Quita Fantasia, Matachín, Puerto Faisán, Pacora, Barbacoas, San Juan
de Pequení, Palenque de Bayano and Gorgona. King Bayano (Bayamo), as he
is often called, was the most celebrated Maroon leader in the country. He
became the scourge of the White colonists in the mid-sixteenth century.
He attacked the Spanish caravans that travelled to Nombre de Dios loaded
with gold, silver and precious stones for shipment to Spain. The Spanish
commander, Pedro de Orsua, experienced great difficulty in subduing him.
Eventually, the government reached an accord with him and recognized his
settlement as an autonomous unit (La Guardia 1977, 85–91). As noted previously,
sometimes the Panamanian Maroons allied with French and British
interlopers to rob the Spanish of their wealth, just as the Spanish were robbing
the Indians. They used the forests to make pursuit difficult, especially
for European forces untrained in fighting in such terrain (Díez Castillo 1981,
31–43; Campbell 1990, 8; Andrews 1978, 140).
In Cartagena province, by the late sixteenth century a number of Maroon
settlements had emerged in the northern, central and southern massifs.
Among the most well known were San Miguel, Matudere, Arenal, Palenque
Cimarrón, and Palenque del Norosí. In the early seventeenth century the