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From the middle of the 20th Century,the investigations intended to revealthe history of slavery in America, and

especially in the Caribbean environs, have

tions are revealed of the economic, social andideological structures".2

For the past ten years much has beenadvanced, especially on the basis of histori-

The spacesof

slave resistancein Cuba

Dr. Gabino La Rosa CorzoProfessor and researcher. Havana

Histo

ry

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cal archaeology, in the knowledge of the liv-ing conditions of the enslaved masses and ofthe African components, as part of the studyof the slave-labor plantations and industrialcapitalism in America.

However, a historiographical vacuum ofsome weight presents itself when the studiestransfer from the slave-labor plantations andhaciendas toward the secret and hidden vil-lages erected by communities of Africans andtheir descendants born in America (quilom-bos or palenques); although these, as spacesof the active slave resistance, essentially typi-fy the space of the marginals in a good partof Caribbean societies.

Cuba, the largest of the West Indies,where the slave-labor plantation economyreached its greatest development between1790 and 1860 and which was one of the lastbastions of slavery and colonialism in thecontinent, treasures in its archives thousandsof documents which allow investigating thehistorical process the slavery of the Africanand his descendants on the Island wentthrough, as well as studying the differentmedia through which he expressed his discon-tent, be it in an open and direct way, throughconspiracy or rebellion, or by way of resist-ance, with the palisading, the maroonageindividually or in groups, and even in a pas-sive way through, among others, abortion,suicide, breakage of equipment and resist-ance to work.

But this documentation, it so happens,may illustrate about the frequency of theescapes, the places which served as haven orsettlement, the number of their inhabitants,the types of crops, the number of dwellings,but it does not illuminate about the dailylives of these communities. It does not offerus the possibility of accessing the knowledgeof the material culture through which theAfrican roots are expressed and the transcul-

turation process3 which must have risen as areflection of the variations occurred in life,behavior, knowledge and habits of theenslaved groups as a consequence of theirintroduction in American lands.

For this reason numerous anthropolo-gists have searched in historical archaeologyfor a medium of access to the understandingof the material culture of the palenque,since, as happens with all historical docu-mentation, the documents about the margin-als originated from the center, their materialculture, instead, was recreated in its originsand responded to its own vision, mission andresources. In this field the studies carried outin the United States, the DominicanRepublic, Brazil and Cuba, among others,have stood out.4

As an immediate consequence of thistrend in the American anthropological andarchaeological studies, since the decade ofthe ’80's of the 20th Century archaeology inCuba has displayed important field work inthe search for material evidence, throughwhich the ethnohistorical reconstruction islaunched of the villages founded by the fugi-tive slaves.

The slave-labor plantation as social his-torical space and the marginal spaces

The slave-labor society in the island ofCuba, as in the rest of America, was a socio-spatial phenomenon, not only because it dis-tributed and exploited the existing geo-graphical spaces, but also because it createdand modified the spaces, and built the socialrelations in them.

The production of sugar and coffeedemanded the best lands and they weregranted specific productive and social func-tions, while the tall mountains and theswampy areas were left aside, until produc-tive expansion demanded it, as marginal orexcluded areas. These would be, precisely, the

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spaces temporarily available to the fugitiveslave, but their use would be subject tonumerous factors. Let us see some of them.

On the basis of the wide historical doc-umentation existing on the Island, it waspossible to establish, initially in the nature ofa hypothesis, the presence of regional differ-ences in the ways the slave resistance mani-fested itself. The field work and the study ofthe material evidence allowed the discoverythat the palisading or construction of hid-den villages, in effect, prevailed in the moun-tainous areas of the eastern region of theIsland as the main form of slave resistance,although the figure of slave population in itwas lower than that concentrated in the west-ern region.

The last region, where the highestnumbers of slaves concentrated, had amountain range of low altitude and limitedphysical space, named Habana-MatanzasHeights, and a narrow strip of swampy ter-rain on the south coast. Given the high con-centration of slave-labor plantations in thewestern plains, these two areas constitutedthe only marginal space or means of escapefor the fugitive slaves, but construction ofstable villages in which crops could begrown and community life reestablished,was a very risky enterprise, hence that whatprevailed were temporary havens or hidingplaces in caves and rocky shelters.

These differences in the forms the slaveresistance adopted determined variations inthe persecution and extermination systems.While in the eastern region large expedi-tions were organized for two or threemonths a year with troops of up to 150men, persecution in the areas of theHabana-Matanzas region relied on smallparties made up of barely six hut-plunder-ers who raked the territory on a permanentbasis.

It has been verified through field workthat in the eastern areas the construction ofvillages (palenques) on the skirts of the tallmountains was frequent as a defensive tacti-cal resort. The maroon towns in Cuba werenot generally raised either on the tops or onthe low parts or mouths of brooks. The for-mer would have made them visible from fardistances and the latter would have been agreat tactical defensive error. For this rea-son, the skirts were chosen and, to make thespace habitable, artificial taluses were builton which their ranches and dwellings wereerected.

The geographical conditions of the talleastern mountains and the absence of nearbypopulation nuclei favored the development ofthis particular form of resistence, whichtook on very relevant characteristics in thearea studied. The place selected by theescaped slave to settle must fulfill, above all,the most elementary requirements to be ableto face a subsistence under constant harass-ment: distance, that is, the greatest isolationpossible from any nucleus of colonial popu-lation, as well as from any communicationroute; inaccessibility, by that it is understoodplaces of difficult or little access by a farmer,forester or passer-by, and with few probabili-ties of being discovered, and camouflage, aplace which had topographic and vegetationcharacteristics that offered protection for thevillage. These three conditions, though theymight be confused, in reality respond to dif-ferent spatial levels, even though relatedamong themselves.

This question becomes obvious on aninsular scale and makes it possible to explainthe fact that while the palisading appearedthroughout the whole territory of theIsland, it was precisely in the eastern regionwhere it took on importance, since this wasthe area best favored by the three require-

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gotten gradually closer to the ethno-histori-cal reconstruction of the object of study,which has allowed entering the economic-social motives in the slave-labor process andthe historic-cultural consequences of the sys-tem, almost always in the interest of point-ing out the contemporary relevance of theissue.1 But much is still not known of theculture and the contributions of the enslavedgroups, even though modern historiographyhas acknowledged that "through the speech-es and practices of the marginality and theexclusion, the most fundamental transforma-

ments listed above. This does not operate in away independent from other factors such aslarge groups of slaves submitted to an inten-sive exploitation, which is really the base forall which unchains afterwards.

In the years 1985, 1987 and 1993 expe-ditions were carried out to the Cuchillas deToa and, through the elements offered by theoral tradition, the local toponymy and thepresence of evidence of the material cultureof this type of settlement, the area occupiedby the Kalunga palenque was located.5 Sincetheir dwellings had each been built on an

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artificial talus, its topographic survey couldbe made and the reconstruction of the partof the settlement on a plat. The plants of 14of the 26 dwellings it had were located. Thepresence of rudimentary stoves made up ofthree stones in the low part of some of thetaluses and the different dimensions these lat-ter had, prove the existence of rooms of dif-ferent sizes, as well as the fact that cookingwas done outside the dwellings.

Another of the plans, raised throughidentical processes, is the one correspondingto the palenque Todos Tenemos. In this case,

the assault description offered by the partythat carried out the operation in the year1848 also served as a basis for the field work.

The plans prove the concentration ofdwellings in a relatively limited area in aspace of difficult access. This is the basic dis-tinctive characteristic of this type of humansettlement. In this way, each palenque or vil-lage was integrated to a spatial conceptdefined by the harassed survival.

The palisading, as a form of the slaves’active resistance, from the social point ofview represents a higher level with relation tothe single maroonage or maroonage introops or bands, since the palisading meant,not only evasion, freedom and unity in smallgroups, but also the possibility of living incommunities, building dwellings, procreat-ing and, in short, reproducing family life.

Since this type of community raisedbehind the law and persecuted represented asocially superior goal, this resort demandedinterests and possibilities from the associateswhich exceeded the maroons’ objectives. Thepalisading, by its very essence as a form ofslave resistance, implied the respect of defi-nite defensive principles different from thosewhich ruled for the simple fugitives, as well asthe establishment of certain resources whichwere its own.

A settlement which guaranteed life infreedom for a marginalized and persecutedhuman group, in that historical insularspace, must necessarily be based on the devel-opment of a subsistence economy. If notbeing found was important for the singlemaroon or the maroon troop, and hence theirconstant mobility, for the palisaded this tookon a primary importance, since his resourcesdiffered from the former because his interestwas staying in the place selected.

The experience accumulated prior to theescape and the knowledge acquired in the life

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of continuous persecution to which theywere subjected in Cuba, took the palisaded tothe constant search for the most remote andinhospitable areas. In this way the selectedplace was first an isolated refuge and shortlyafter a settlement which grew in members astime elapsed and it was not the object ofattack. Thus, the palisaded respected themost elementary principles of a harassedsubsistence. For this reason, they based theirsurvival on sedentariness in very remote areasof difficult access, and on the degree of igno-rance which the local authorities might haveabout their village.

On the other hand, in the western regionof the Island the marginal spaces of theplantations were more physically reducedand vulnerable, limited to the Habana-Matanzas Heights, a small mountain rangebasically defined by the conic shape withsteep but not too tall elevations and the smallswampy strips of the south coast. For thesereasons, the main form of slave resistance inthe area would be the maroonage and not thepalisading.

Cuba’s colonial documentation identi-fied as a single maroon the fugitive ruralslave whose escape had an individual andtemporary character. This form of resist-ance was a resort much utilized by theslaves to escape the hard daily labor andthe cruel punishments inflicted on them. Inthis case, the fugitive slave, generally witha very limited vision of the place where hewas and almost always with no relatives orfriends in other places, guaranteed his sub-sistence in a more effectual manner whenmaking his scape if he roamed the environsof the properties where he had beenexploited. The concept maroon appliedonly to escaped slaves, be they from what-ever property they might be, who wan-dered in the forest. This was one of the

social problems which most occupied thecolonial authorities.

The single maroons or maroon troops,basing their survival on burglary and swap,were forced almost always to move in areasrelatively close to the haciendas or nuclei ofpopulation and in order to reduce the riskthat this implied, they resorted to a constantmobility.

So much so, that of the 35 archaeologi-cal sites corresponding to this historical phe-nomenon located in the Habana-MatanzasHeights, they all correspond with smallstops/havens, always rocky shelters and caves.Many are linked among themselves, each ofthem with a specific function within thedefensive tactics, since there were refuges nearthe plantations which served as lookouts,while the rest, in a scaled way, offered shelterto a gradually larger number of individuals.

In the study of these havens specialinterest was paid to the spatial distributionof the alimentary evidences, which con-firmed a similar behavior pattern in all ofthem as far as the sources, preparation andconsumption of the food. The stoves turnedout to be the areas in the domestic spacesrichest in evidence of every type.

It can be maintained that the maroons asalimentary resorts consumed poultry, rep-tiles and mammals which were obtainedthrough hunting in the forest areas, but inthe havens of the Habana-Matanzas Heightsthe remains prevailed of domestic fowl, cowsand horses, which were poached from thenearby plantations. It is unquestionable thatthe subsistence character of these marginals’economy took them to the indiscriminate useof everything which might serve as a sourceof food, since there are several sites in whichremains of domestic dogs have been identi-fied in the stoves of these havens, with evi-dence of their consumption as food.6

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The high consumption of sugar as anenergetic resort was a habit acquired by theslave in the sugar plantation, which is evi-denced by the abundance of pieces of claymolds of those which were used for the man-ufacture of this product in the mills in themaroons’havens, especially those found nearthe plantations.

The maroons and palisaded utilized allthe material resources they could obtain inthe plantations, for which reason the pres-ence is common of containers of liquid, suchas jugs and demijohns, and vessels for thepreparation of food, such as cast iron pots(trivets) and clay pots. But the verificationhas proved highly significative that themaroons sheltered in the Habana-MatanzasHeights built clay utensils, among which are

found pipes to smoke and pots to cook food,some of which were decorated with motifswhich remind of African patterns.7

In summation, archaeology offers thepossibility of reconstruction of the materialculture of the havens of the maroons and thepalenques as a space of the marginality andcomplete with it the historical vision of thatsociety, since the social history of theCaribbean will reveal itself fully in the samemeasure in which it includes the marginals’space within its object, since a culture sub-sisted in it with its proper signs and functionswhich reveal the deepest transformationswhich arose in the societies of the America ofpast centuries and to which present Americais not alien.

NOTES AND REFERENCE:

1. Lockhart, J. and S. Schwartz (1984): Early LatinAmerica: A History of Colonial Spanish Americaand Brazil, Cambridge University Press, London;Klein, H. (1986): Feudalism, Capitalism and theWorld System in the Perspective of Latin Americaand the Caribbean". American Historical Review93, No.4, 1988: 829-72.

2. Schmitt, J.C.: La historia de los marginales. In: LaHistoria y el oficio del historiador. Editorial deCiencias Sociales, La Habana, 1996, pages 255 to281.

3. I use the transculturation concept in the same sensein which Cuban ethnologist Fernando Ortiz pro-posed it and Bronislaw Malinowski accepted itwhen saying that transculturation "is a process inwhich something is always given in exchange ofwhat is received... in which both parties are modi-fied... in which a new reality emerges composed andcomplex... original and independent..." (Ortiz,1963: XIII).

4. LaRosa, G. (1992): Los palenques del oriente deCuba. Editorial Academia, La Habana; _____

(1996): Rescate de Olórum (Estudio de arqueologíaafroamericana). América Negra, Bogotá, No. 12,pages 39 to 57; _____ (1999): La huella africanaen el ajuar cimarrón. Una contribución arqueológ-ica. El Caribe arqueológico, Santiago de Cuba, No.3, pages 109 a 115; _____ (2002): La subsistenciadel cimarrón: Estudio arqueológico. Entry submit-ted at the 67th Annual Meeting of the SAA,Denver, Colorado, 2002.

5. This palenque was assaulted on March 9, 1848 andit was made up of 26 "houses" (A.N.C. GobiernoSuperior Civil, Leg. 625, No. 19877). During thetopographic survey several tobacco pipes, pieces ofmachetes, knives, fragments of ceramic pots werecollected, and a rustic wooden trough was located.

6. LaRosa, G.: La subsistencia del cimarrón: EstudioArqueológico. Entry submitted at the 67th AnnualMeeting of the SAA, Denver, Colorado, 2002.

7. LaRosa, G.: La huella africana en el ajuar delcimarrón. Una contribución arqueológica. ElCaribe arqueológico, Santiago de Cuba, No. 3,1999, pages 109 to 115.