Dialogues in Cuban Archaeology

Subsistence of Cimarrones / 179
study of the use of other food resources such as fruits, vegetables, and seeds
should not be based on documentary information alone but should also be
expanded using interdisciplinary methods. A hearth found in a site not included
in this study has produced evidence for the presence of corncobs, indicating
that modern techniques of paleobotany have much to contribute to
this topic. Slave diet, especially that of the cimarrones, constitutes a controversial
and unique territory in which archaeology can achieve ¤rmer inferences
than historical studies, ®esh out the nature of the problem, and rectify
some earlier generalizations.
NOTES
1. From west to east, the highest elevations are Sierra del Esperón at 250 m above
sea level, Loma del Grillo at 321 m, Loma Palenque at 327 m, and El Pan de Matanzas
at 381 m.
2. According to a plan consulted in the Fondo de Mapas y Planos del Archivo
General de Indias (Archivo de Indias, Mapas y Planos, Santo Domingo, 335), the
sugar factories existing in 1766 were concentrated on the plains of southern Havana.
But in the ¤rst decades of the nineteenth century, the development of the sugar and
coffee plantations demanded the clearing of new territories. The extensive character
of exploitation under this system produced a rapid depletion of nutrients in the soil
and of wood (used as fuel) from the forests. In the last decade of the eighteenth
century, the collapse of Haitian production caused an increase in the demand for
sugar and coffee on the international market, resulting in the eastward expansion of
plantations in Cuba. This expansion began in all of the plains from the western end
of Havana up to Colón, in Matanzas. Almost immediately, the expansion reached the
valleys of the central region.
3. In the year 1841, during one of the decades of pronounced development in slave
plantation agriculture, the western region had 321,274 slaves (representing 73.6 percent
of the total number of slaves of the island), 650 ingenios or sugar factories (representing
53.15 percent), and 1,141 coffee plantations (representing 62 percent of those
in operation that year) (Comisión de Estadísticas 1842). In 1857, sugar produced by
the ingenios of Matanzas, Cardenas, and Colón represented 55.56 percent of the exports,
or 436,030 metric tons that year (Moreno Fraginals 1986:141).
4. Similar studies were undertaken in the Cuchillas del Toa, in the eastern region
of the island, leading to the identi¤cation of numerous remains of villages established
by fugitive slaves. These villages are known in Cuba as palenques (La Rosa Corzo
1991b, 2003b).
5. The occupation phases of the shelters were established from their association
with chronological frameworks based on the production and use of tools such as