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Maroons and Revolutionary Struggle
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escapees from jail who had sought refuge in the cathedral in Lima but were
apprehended there and hanged on the orders of the Audiencia. In a second
incident an enslaved person, condemned for the murder of another enslaved
person, sought asylum in the cathedral, and again the secular authorities
entered the cathedral and dragged the accused away to prison. A major row
ensued over the right of the secular authorities to enter holy ground and seize
people without the permission of the religious authorities. The matter was
referred to the Crown’s attorney in the colony, and, though temporarily settled
in favour of the secular authorities, similar cases continued to be a bone
of contention between the two parties (Bowser 1974, 168–71). In 1585 the
Audiencia of Peru expelled fifteen Dominican friars accused of wresting from
state custody two Blacks being held for murder and robbery and spiriting
them away to the Lima monastery (Bowser 1974, 169). Similarly, in Haiti the
colonial authorities thought that the Jesuits were in collusion with Maroons
and other insurgents and expelled them from the colony in 1764 (Leyburn
1941, 116).
Despite these conflicts, the priesthood in all jurisdictions generally
upheld slavery, and the “established” churches in all of them – Catholic,
Anglican, Lutheran and Dutch Reformed – owned plantations and other
institutions that employed enslaved persons in large numbers. 6 They
preached salvation from spiritual, not physical, bondage 7 until the late eighteenth
century, when the dissenting (new evangelical) churches emerged, first
in the British and then the other colonies, preaching against the evils of
slavery as an institution.
Return of Runaways
Several writers have indicted Maroon leaders on two specific charges relating
to their treaty arrangements with the slaveholders: that they agreed to apprehend
and return runaways, and that the treaties confirmed their lack of interest
in attempting to overthrow the slavery system as a whole. These writers
question the designation of Maroons as “freedom fighters”. There can be no
doubt that the return of runaways is by far the most contentious issue in the
historiography of marronage in the Americas. Eugene Genovese (1981, 52–53)
finds their actions with respect to the apprehension of runaways “maddeningly
ambiguous”. Campbell (1990, 13) dismisses the idea that “slave-