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

190 Flight to Freedom
sketches of life in the forest there, including the obstacles that the fighters
had to negotiate in order to engage the Maroons in combat. He (1988, 84)
described the clever fortification that the Aluku Maroons had erected.
According to him, it was “strong” because it resembled an island that was
naturally surrounded by a broad, unfordable marsh or swamp, which cut off
all communication with it except by underwater paths known only to the
Maroons. In front of the swamp, Baron, one of the leaders, had placed loaded
swivel guns that he had seized from the neighbouring plantations. The
settlement was further fortified by thousands of palisades on all sides that
made it “no contemptible fortification”. 14 Stedman (1988, 405) recorded an
encounter with some Maroons in which their strategy entailed surrounding
the field with large trunks and the roots of fallen trees, which were also placed
at random on the field itself. These impediments considerably slowed down
the progress of the intruders and placed them in great danger, since the
Maroons lay hidden behind the fortifications, firing upon them from fairly
safe positions. Stedman considered this strategy “excellent generalship”.
The Cuban Maroons often dug trenches on the steep slopes and placed
stakes and spikes in them at intervals, as was the case with the Arroyo del
Fango palenque (La Rosa Corzo 2003, 126, 127, 165, 181). Pérez de la Riva
(1979, 52) states that the Maroons in that country were accustomed to creating
false accesses to their palenques, which they spiked with very sharp stakes
of cuaba wood. Each stake was incised so that the top would separate from
the rest of it whenever anyone pricked himself with it. It was embedded in
the ground in such a way that it could not be removed except with a tool.
Elsewhere (ibid., 57), he describes the defences as consisting of “pits full of
forked poles of hard wood with very sharp points placed at short distances
from each other”.
Such fortifications must have entailed considerable skill, energy and commitment
to the defence of the settlements. Antonio de León, military leader
of an expedition against a group in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba
in 1830, described some of the difficulties that he encountered against the
combination of natural and manmade hazards:
I found myself in a ditch full of pointed sticks. However, we overcame this first
obstacle without being heard. The second obstacle seemed insuperable: this was
the climbing of a steep, rugged hill, covered with tibisí, which had two very narrow,
winding paths that we followed endlessly. We had already climbed a good