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

Forms of Marronage
61
the birds and trees. He apparently had washed himself regularly but did not
bother to shave. He recalled that he had become so hairy that his beard hung
down in ringlets, a sight that would generate fear (ibid., 47, 50). Because of
this, he had apparently aged significantly in appearance, though not in
chronological time. When later he left the forest and a barber cut off his
dreadlocks, he seemed rejuvenated and “looked like a thoroughbred” (ibid.,
50–51). He left the forest in 1880, around age twenty-two, after the declaration
abolishing slavery in Cuba. Whenever people asked him what he had
done as a runaway, he replied, “Nothing” (ibid., 51).
Whether Montejo’s life in the forest was typical for Maroons who chose
to live alone is a matter of debate. What his life clearly reveals is his overriding
concern with maintaining his freedom, though this entailed at times
extreme hardships, especially in the early months. His narrative also indicates
that he never disturbed the peace among the small farmers and that most
likely they did not sense his presence close to their dwellings. He claimed
that he did nothing that would leave a lasting impression on the stage of life
or the pages of history. Yet he leaps out of the pages of history through his
biography, which has evoked intense interest and has been published in several
languages (Spanish, English, Portuguese, Italian, German, Dutch and
French). 2 What gives strength to his narrative is not a corpus of heroic deeds
but the simple heroism and humanism of his struggle for freedom, and the
fact that he beat the odds against long-term survival in an environment in
which he was pitted against nature, wild animals, hunting dogs, military
expeditions and bounty hunters. Writers view him as a symbol of the personal
freedom that most humans hold as inalienable. The same might be said
of all Maroons who chose to live singly rather than in communities.
Frederick Douglass, the Coloured American runaway who later became
an international figure and a fervent spokesperson for the abolitionist cause,
had a somewhat different story to tell. Born in Talbot County, Maryland, he
first became aware of his situation as an enslaved person at about twelve,
through reading the book The Columbian Orator (Douglass 1973, 41). His initial
desire for freedom slowly became a passion. He wrote about the perpetual
thoughts of his servile status that tormented him and pressed upon him
through everyday objects, animate and inanimate (ibid., 43). These thoughts
were reinforced by an encounter with two Irishmen who told him that he
could be free if he could find his way to New York, which, along with the other
northern states, had abolished slavery several decades earlier. From then on he