Maroon societies have become a fascination to me. Obviously by the time of the Jamaican and Haitian slave/maroon revolts, these groups had become a serious thorn in the side of the colonial powers. My question is how prolific were these groups in the century prior (1600-1700)?
Were these communities only large in Jamaica and Hispaniola, or did all Caribbean colonies deal with serious rogue slave factions? Did the mother government choose not to put them down with military force out of apathy/cost, or did they fear the strength of these communities?
Great question. Actually, they were surprisingly common. Pretty much any where there were African slaves some escaped and became maroons.
The First Maroon War of Jamaica took place in the 1730s, but even those maroon communities began some time in the years after the English conquest of Jamaica in the 1650s. By this point there had been maroons across Spanish America for over 100 years.
The first major maroon movement in the Americas began on the island of Hispaniola when an indigenous cacique named Enrique revolted against his Spanish encomendero in 1519. That movement was precipitated by Spanish abuses of their indigenous laborers. In 1521, a revolt by African slaves owned by Diego Colon (Columbus's son) augmented Enrique's movement. For over a decade, Enrique resisted the Spanish from a mountainous region known as the Bahoruco. In 1533, the Spanish negotiated a peace with Enrique in which he and his indigenous followers were allowed to settle their own community independent of their former encomendero. The treaty did not apply to the African runaways who remained at large, many continuing to live in the Bahoruco.
Sugar cultivation and plantations continued to proliferate on the island through the mid century and more and more slaves rejected their enslavement by running away. For all of the sixteenth century, Hispaniola had various maroon communities scatter across its hinterlands. By the end of the century these communities even began to trade with English, Dutch, and French traders. They specialized in hunting the wild livestock that inhabited the island selling salted meat and hides to traders.
Similar contraband trade by Spanish settlers eventually led the Spanish authorities to forcibly destroy all the settlements in the west and north of the island to prevent further illicit activity in the early 1600s. The prevalence of maroons across the island further influenced the decision (although critics at the time rightly pointed out that abandoning settlements only gave maroons more territory). Maroons remained in those areas and runaways continued to plague Spanish slaveowners into the 17th c. Eventually, as Saint-Domingue developed runaways from the French colony exacerbated relations between the two empires.
The most significant maroon communities of the early colonial period developed in Panama during the 1500s. Panama was important to the Spanish empire because it represented the primary route for trading with Peru. All goods going to Peru and all the precious metals coming from Peru traveled across Panama (eventually a route to Buenos Aires would offer an alternative). Spanish Panama was really two cities Nombre de Dios and Panama City and a road/riverway connecting the two. The rest of the isthmus lacked Spanish settlement (the first settlement of Santa Maria had been abandoned by the 1530s). A brutal conquest during the 1510s and 20s had almost completely eradicated indigenous people from the isthmus and depopulated most of the territory. African Slaves represented a major source of labor for every industry from ship/port work, transport, ranching, construction, domestic service, farming, etc.
Beginning in the 1520s runaway slaves began to occupy part of the interior. By the 1550s, the maroon presence was large enough to support a maroon kingdom led by an man named Bayano. His people occupied at least two major settlements and numbered in the hundreds. They practiced agriculture cultivating many native plants likely using knowledge gained from the scattered indigenous communities that had remained hidden from Spanish conquest campaigns.
The Spanish launched a major military expedition in the mid 1550s to subdue Bayano. The cost of previous campaigns led the commander, Pedro de Ursua to attempt an alternate solution. He convinced King Bayano to entreat over a possible peace agreement that would have freed the maroons and allowed them to establish their own legitimate settlement. At the feast celebrating the negotiation, Ursua drugged the wine given to the maroons and captured Bayano and many of his people. Numerous maroons escaped and eventually reformed communities in the region, which came to be known as the Bayano.
Within 15 years, numerous communities existed across the isthmus. English interlopers including sir Francis Drake forged alliances with the maroons to attempt to raid the Spanish trade route, especially the bullion shipments. In 1577, a raid by John Oxenham aided by maroons succeeded in reaching the Pacific, capturing a ship from Peru, and raiding the pearl islands off the coast. This precipitated a five year war between the Spanish and the maroons. Eventually, the cost of war led both groups to negotiate a peace. By 1582, former maroons had established two legitimate towns on the isthmus. These were the first free-black towns in the Americas.
Mexico and Colombia also saw significant maroon movements that began in the 1500s and increased in intensity in the 1600s. In Mexico, a major maroon leader named Yanga threatened Spanish interests along the trade route between Veracruz and Mexico City. As in Panama, he was able to negotiate a peace that secured freedom and a free-black town. In Colombia, maroon communities formed in various regions but never resulted in a peace or the creation of free-black towns at least prior to the 18th century.
In areas where maroons secured peace, the terms of those peace agreements looked very similar to those made between the British and the maroons of Jamaica. In fact, the English authorities who chose to negotiate knew of the prior Spanish example of Panama and specifically referenced it in their formulation of the policy.
References in reply.