Cimarrón
Cimarrón (plural: Cimarrones ) generally refers to a wild animal in Latin American Spanish , but is primarily used for a runaway pet (also used as an adjective). In the Gran Chaco , the Pampas and in Patagonia one speaks of Cimarrones when feral cattle (ganado cimarron) and horses (caballos cimarrones) are meant.
In the context of slavery , this term was applied as Negro Cimarrón to runaway slaves (of African origin) who were legally equal to domestic animals. The English name Maroon is derived from Spanish.
Negro cimarrón
In Cuba and the rest of the Caribbean there are many myths and legends about the cimarrones in the sense of runaway slaves , which are still effective today. The reason for this lies in the little information that is available about them. The escape of slaves was punished with terrible punishments, if repeated usually with public execution by torture as a deterrent for the other slaves. Specially trained search parties with trained dogs chased the Cimarrones and, if successful, received high rewards that by far exceeded the “material value” of the slaves. It was particularly important to the slave-holding sugar plantation owners of the Industrial Revolution to demonstrate the futility of any attempt to escape.
Survival after a successful escape was also by no means assured. Cimarrones had to stay away from any settlement, as there were high rewards for their capture. They could only vegetate more than live in the dense primeval forests. Despite the associated risk, they had to venture into the vicinity of settlements again and again in order to steal essentials. For the white population of Cuba, cimarrones were a "dark" danger that frightened disobedient children. For the black population they symbolized the hope of still being able to escape the lot of slavery, so that the Cimarrón also plays an important role in the syncretistic religion of the Santería .
According to tradition, in 1502 an African slave who had been abducted to the New World by the human trafficker Nicolás de Ovando fled into the interior of the country in 1502 and thus became the first Cimarrón . Seventy years later, according to Spanish estimates, there were 7,000 Cimarrones who roamed the forests of South America and later even founded their own villages. Standing in constant conflict with their former masters, they formed a tight-knit community that was subject to strict laws. In individual cases, Cimarrones attacked Spanish settlements or let themselves be recruited by expeditions of other European nations that were at war with Spain, for example when Francis Drake sacked a Spanish silver caravan in 1573 .
See also
literature
- Miguel Barnet : The Cimarrón. The life story of an escaped Negro slave from Cuba, told by himself. Frankfurt / M. 1969
- RC Dallas: Historia de los Cimarrones. Havana 1980
Individual evidence
- ↑ Herbert Wilhelmy u. Wilhelm Rohmeder (ed.): The La Plata countries. Westermann 1963. pp. 187, 190.