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318 Flight to Freedom
an important factor in the involvement of the masses in the national independence
war. To him, Brito Figueroa, García and a few others, that link
became (or should have become) evident when, shortly after the war began
in 1810, numerous Maroon communities joined the other forces of national
liberation.
A similar observation might be made in respect of the Mexican Maroons
who joined the independence movement that began in 1810 and, after a long
and intense struggle, ended in victory for the freedom fighters in 1821 and the
abolition of slavery eight years later (Pereira 1994, 103; Naveda Chávez-Hita
1987, 154–56). Likewise, in Cuba many Maroons in the eastern region threw
in their lot with the Liberation Army in the island’s first war of independence
from Spain (1868–78), the army leaders having recognized them as free
persons (Franco 1979, 48; La Rosa Corzo 2003, 12). In all these cases the
struggle for independence benefited both directly and indirectly from
Maroon manpower, bravery and experience in guerrilla warfare. In the confused
atmosphere of the times, it was difficult to distinguish clearly between
actual Maroons and insurgents. It is useful to recall Patterson’s (1979, 279)
observation that marronage and armed revolt were inextricably linked in the
history of the Americas.
The United States stands virtually alone in not recognizing the role that
Maroons, and enslaved persons generally, played in the war of national liberation.
Many slaveholders joined the revolutionary vanguard and never
thought of liberating their enslaved charges. A few enslaved persons who
fought on the winning side in the war received their freedom (Franklin 1980,
157; Quarles 1969, 56), but the slavery system actually expanded and intensified
in the southern states in the postwar years. It is therefore not surprising
that, up to the present, Maroons are not viewed as freedom fighters in the
country that continues to honour slaveholders like George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson, and Indian-killers like Andrew Jackson, as national
heroes.
The wars of independence fuelled the cause of the enslaved population by
giving new sharpness to their ideology of freedom, and by placing large quantities
of firearms at their disposal that they could use after the wars were over.
Most authorities seem to agree that the problem of marronage became more
large-scale and urgent in the post-independence phase of the slaveholding
state’s history. In most jurisdictions, the wars had resulted in many enslaved
person taking advantage of the dislocation, and sometimes chaos, that