Dialogues in Cuban Archaeology

9 / Subsistence of Cimarrones
An Archaeological Study
Gabino La Rosa Corzo
In the western region of the island of Cuba, two mountain ranges of relative
low elevation extend from east to west between the provinces of Havana and
Matanzas. 1 The one to the north is named Alturas del Norte de La Habana-
Matanzas and the one on the south Alturas del Centro de La Habana-Matanzas.
The archaeological sites that are the focus of this investigation are located in
the ¤rst of these ranges (Figure 9.1). The plains and rolling hills that surround
these mountain ranges served as a geographic base for a slave-based plantation
economy that began to expand and intensify in the early nineteenth century. 2
In the study area, this process of expansion peaked in the second and third
decades of the century, greatly altering the landscape by covering the plains
almost entirely with new economic units. Despite this economic “boom,” the
higher elevations of the nearby mountain ranges remained uninhabited.
These depopulated mountain regions de¤ned the margins of agricultural
expansion and the settlements of a rapidly increasing slave population. 3 Because
of their inhospitable environment, the mountains were not incorporated
in a direct way into the productive process. They remained mostly covered
with forest and practically unknown. These uncultivated spaces attracted
slaves who saw in them the possibility of temporary refuge and the chance to
alleviate themselves of the severe regime of servitude to which they were subjected.
The work presented here is part of a larger project that examines the system
of resistance of escaped slaves sheltered in numerous regions in these high-