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

Physical Organization of Maroon Communities
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third of the way, when at a turn of the path we encountered a Negro who, armed
with a machete, attacked the first man in line. The latter having already loaded
his gun, fired a shot, whose report was heard throughout the rocky area. . . . The
sound of the shot caused the other Negroes on the hill to disperse. These then
fled to the opposite side of the hill overcoming cliffs that have to be seen to be
believed. (Franco 1979, 45–46)
There were several territories whose remote terrain was either flat or only
slightly undulating and lacked dense forests or extensive bush cover. Coastal
Peru, Barbados and the Danish West Indies are examples of territories without
an abundance of good natural facilities. Nevertheless, Maroon communities
developed in some of them and gave the slaveholders a good deal of
bother. In coastal Peru, where the vast majority of the country’s enslaved population
resided, the runaways made the best use of what little bush cover was
available and created quite a stir. From as early as 1544 they were said to be
killing men and robbing farms just outside Lima and Trujillo (Bowser 1974,
187–88; Lockhart 1968, 189; Guillot 1961, 254–55).
Swamps or marshlands offered short-term shelter for small groups, but
usually could not accommodate large ones, important exceptions being those
in the United States, Peru and Cuba. Swamps sometimes presented serious
problems for Maroon-hunting expeditions to negotiate. At one time, elevated
spots in the 2,500-square-mile Dismal Swamp between Virginia and
North Carolina were believed to offer sanctuary to about two thousand runaways
(Aptheker 1979, 152). On the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, runaways
mingled with poor free(d) persons in shanties erected along the Aterrado,
which once ran through a large, unhealthy swamp (Karasch 1987, 310). In
1545 in Peru, two hundred Maroons were living in the marshlands near
Huara and so well fortified that a strong Spanish force had a very difficult
time penetrating the settlement (Bowser 1974, 187–88; Lockhart 1968, 189).
Another group, located in the mangrove swamps of Bahía Honda in Cuba,
proved equally difficult to overpower. According to one observer, it housed
seventeen runaways and was erected on piles over mangrove swamps and
cattails, at a site that was so impassable that dogs could not reach it (La Rosa
Corzo 2003, 246).
Individuals and small groups often lived in the numerous caves that are
located throughout the Americas (Martin 1957, 120–24; La Rosa Corzo 2003,
101–2; Handler 2002, 5). Research by Alan Fincham and his colleagues, both