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Military Expeditions and Judicial Terror
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proportion to their impatience the figure was brought nearer, though yet out of
their reach, and their food decreased till, at the last extremity of desperation, the
keeper resigned the figure, well charged with the nauseous food before described,
to their wishes. While they gorged themselves with the dreadful meat, he and
his colleagues caressed and encouraged them. By these means the whites ingratiated
themselves so much with the animals, as to produce an effect directly opposite
to that perceivable in them towards the black figure; and, when they were
employed in the pursuit for which they were intended, afforded the protection
so necessary to their employers.
Runaways adopted various strategies to reduce the effectiveness of bloodhounds
as trackers, including bathing or rubbing themselves with certain
plants and using copious amounts of pepper (Zips 1999, 77–83). The Maroons
generally preferred to elude the dogs, but when they were in groups they
often stood their ground and attacked the animals fiercely, sometimes killing
or wounding them severely (Franco 1973, 81; Villaverde 1982, 46, 56–57, 86). If
the evidence from the diary of Estévez is typical, these animals had a high
mortality rate as a result of Maroon retaliation and the strain of long treks,
climbing hills and going without food for long periods (Villaverde 1982, 46,
71, 82, 93, 97 passim). Estévez certainly did not display much greater pity for
his own dogs than for the Maroons whom he brutally hunted down.
Military expeditions sometimes reported that the mortality rates suffered
by their adversaries were much higher than those of their own forces, and not
infrequently that they had raided and destroyed the Maroons’ dwellings and
provision fields. But equally often they returned defeated, harassed, and
drained in spirit and body. 12 Few of them wanted to revisit the scene of such
unfamiliar warfare, in which the vast majority of their opponents managed to
escape, returned to their previous locations and rebuilt their wrecked settlements.
Maroons were often physically but only occasionally psychologically
wounded, for they understood that they had to pay a high price for their freedom.
Like the spider, when their web was destroyed they knew they had to
rebuild it again swiftly. While Maroons might suffer heavily from the periodic
expeditions, they were able to carry the war to their enemies by destroying
whole plantations, killing some or all of the Whites found there and
seizing booty. Maroon attacks were facilitated by the fact that their numbers
often included members who once belonged to these plantations and knew
their strengths and weaknesses well. They also had friends and relatives on
the plantations who often assisted them secretly.