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

294 Flight to Freedom
slaveholding states. In 1556 the colonial government of Panama agreed to recognize
the freedom of a group of Maroons in Nombre de Dios, and required
them to send a number of “hostages” to ensure that all members of the community
agreed to the terms of the “capitulation”. However, the officials
shipped off the Maroon leader, who was one of the hostages, to Spain, where
he lived out the rest of his days (Marcano Jiménez 2001, 18–19). A somewhat
similar event occurred in the Dominican Republic in 1611, when a Maroon
leader and several of his followers were sold out of the country, contrary to
the stipulations of the agreement endorsed by the governor (Esteban Deive
1989, 70–71; see chapter 10).
In 1728 a small group of Maroons in the Chocó area of Colombia were
duped into believing that the colonial government was willing to discuss their
grievances under a flag of truce, but four of their leaders were ambushed and
executed, and the group apparently never posed any serious threat afterward.
In 1819 an outstanding case of breach of faith involved Ventura Sánchez,
leader of the Bumba Maroons in Cuba, who was to learn a mortal lesson on
this score. Trusting the colonial authorities who had approached him through
the intermediary of a priest, he journeyed to Santiago de Cuba to negotiate
the terms of the agreement but was ambushed by a group of Maroon-catchers.
He committed suicide instead of falling victim to his enemies, and his
head was taken to Baracoa and put on public display in an iron cage at the
entrance to the city. Brigadier Escudero, who had sought the assistance of
the priest, couched his perfidy in the language of a victorious military officer,
declaring to the governor of the island that he had destroyed the main
Maroon leader (Franco 1979, 42–43). 30 However, Bumba survived this act of
treachery, and under new leaders joined with its sister communities of
Maluala and El Frijol (Moa) in striking fear into the Whites.