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

164 Flight to Freedom
tyranny as a form of social control and a barbarity unworthy of persons who
professed Christianity (Boxer 1962, 171–73). Though the enslavers intended
branding with special marks or letters to be a sign of dishonour – punishment,
identification and humiliation – runaways in Brazil wore their brands
as emblems of honour, visible testimony that they had asserted their right to
be free (ibid., 172).
The city council of Lima, Peru, promulgated perhaps the most draconian
laws. In 1535 it decreed that any male who had deserted for six days would be
castrated, and anyone staying away for longer would be executed (Bowser
1974, 196). The punishments emphasized how gravely the enslavers perceived
even simple or petit marronage. In 1539 the Peruvian authorities underlined
their view of the runaway as a criminal by offering a reward of ten pesos for
anyone who was apprehended after a day’s absence (Bowser 1974, 197). About
a decade later, they lightened the punishments only slightly. It is not known
whether the drastic measures were costing too many labour hands or the governor
(whom they consulted) influenced their judgement. Whatever the reason(s),
the council now decreed that any deserter who had not returned
within ten days should forfeit his genitals to the administrator of (in)justice if
he had absconded to tryst with a Black or Indian woman; otherwise he would
lose a foot, in addition to further punishments if he should be found guilty of
other “crimes”. If he absconded a second time for less than ten days, similar
punishments would apply, and if he did so a third time, he would be executed
automatically – that is, without recourse to a trial. If a first-time deserter did
not return within twenty days, he too would be subject to automatic execution.
The council also prescribed punishments for people who harboured
deserters, the harshest being imposed on enslaved persons: one hundred
lashes for the first offence, castration for the second and death for the third.
The council empowered every White person in the city to capture runaways
and to kill those who resisted arrest. In either event they were entitled to specific
bounties. This was very rough justice, if it can be called justice at all
(Bowser 1974, 197–98, 200, 397n27).
Castration, or “gelding”, as one Louisiana jailer put it, was not unique to
Peru; it existed in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Barbados, Louisiana, Virginia,
the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Antigua, Bermuda and elsewhere. 21
In 1590 the viceroy of Mexico decreed that some Maroons who were troubling
the inhabitants of Panuco and the large plantations of Chicimecas,
Almeria and Tlalcotalpa should be apprehended and castrated (Palmer 1976,