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202 Flight to Freedom
tribute to the Church (Pereira 1994, 104). Similarly, the Maroons of the
Dismal Swamp in the United States preferred trade to plunder, engaging in
regular but illegal exchange with the White inhabitants of the neighbourhood
(Aptheker 1979, 152).
The Mandinga (later called Amapa) settlement, which was established in
the Mazatiopa Mountains in Mexico around 1735 as a result of a series of
servile revolts, changed within a relatively short time from hostile to peaceful
dialogue with the neighbouring White communities, which found their services
quite useful. They carried on fairly open trade with members of all ethnic
groups. Don Andrés Fernández de Otañes, a merchant and senior magistrate
of Teutila, used them as agents in dealing with the Indians who were involved
in the vanilla trade, and they guarded the district’s cotton warehouse. Carlos
Ribadenyra, another wealthy man, employed them to drive away a group of
Indians whose right to a certain piece of land close to his hacienda had been
confirmed by the Audiencia. In 1762 the viceroy accepted their offer of assistance
to repel an anticipated British attack and declared them free, though
the slaveholders contested that freedom until 1769 (Carroll 1977, 494–98;
Naveda Chávez-Hita 1987, 143).
The prevailing view, however, is that most Maroon communities were
geared for aggressive warfare and took the fight to their enemies. Indeed, a
few of them seem to have been fully dedicated to destroying the White settlements.
Thus Ortiz (1975, 362) asserts that the Cuban Maroons dedicated
themselves to acts of pillage in the countryside, compromising the security
and property of many people. Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán (1958, 12) declared
that those in Mexico possessed a violent and aggressive ideology. Davidson
(1979, 94–95) observes of the Cofre de Perote Maroons that “The settlement
was by necessity a war camp, with its internal structure oriented to the needs
of self-defense and retaliation.” This observation might be applied to most of
the settlements, in both their defensive and aggressive postures.
The Aluku Maroons in Suriname showed contempt for the White mercenary
soldiers who had been recruited by the colonial state to wipe them out,
sardonically referring to them as White “slaves” (Stedman 1988, 408–9; see
chapter 9). As noted earlier, according to one interpretation, Yanga, leader of
the Cofre de Perote Maroons, sent a defiant message to the Spanish government.
After cutting to pieces several captured members of an expedition sent
against him, sparing only one of them to bear the message, he explained that
he and his followers had retreated to the Zongolica Mountains to escape