Benkos Biohó (born late 16th century – 1621) was said to have been born in the region of Bioho, Guinea Bissau, West Africa where he was seized by the Portuguese Pedro Gomez Reynel, the dealer, sold to businessman Juan Palacios and resold as a slave to the Spaniard Alonso del Campo in 1596, in Cartagena de Indias. He established the maroon community of San Basilio de Palenque some time in the 16th century. He was betrayed and hanged by the governor of Cartagena in 1619. The former African king escaped from the slave port of Cartagena with ten others and founded San Basilio de Palenque, the legendary village of the Cimarróns. In 1713 it became the first free village in the Americas by decree from the King of Spain, when he gave up sending his troops on futile missions to attack their fortified mountain hideaway. He is the great-great-great-great-grandfather of the late Afro-Colombian singer, composer and drummer, Paulino Salgado Valdez (Batata). Also known as Domingo Bioho, he made his first escape when the boat that was transporting him down the Magdalena River sank. He was recaptured, but escaped again in 1599 into the marshy lands southeast of Cartagena. He organized an army that came to dominate all of the Montes de Maria region. He also formed an intelligence network that and used the information collected to help organize more escapes and to guide the runaway slaves into the liberated territory, known as settlement. He used the title king of Arcabuco. Benkos name corresponds to a place east of the Senegal River. Unable to defeat the Maroons, on July 18, 1605, the Governor of Cartagena, Gerónimo de Suazo y Casasola, offered a peace treaty to Benkos Bioho, recognizing the autonomy of the Palenque Matuna Bioho and accepting his entrance into the city armed and dressed in Spanish fashion, while the palenque promised to stop receiving more runaway slaves, cease their aid in escape attempts and stop addressing Biohó as king. Peace will only be finalized in 1612 under the governorship of Diego Fernandez de Velasco. The treaty was violated by the Spaniards in 1619 when they captured Bioho as he was walking carelessly into the city. He was hanged and quartered on 16 March 1621. Governor Garcia Giron who ordered the execution, argued bitterly that it was a dangerous the respect Bioho generated in the population and that his lies and enchantment would drive the nations of Guinea away from the city. By the end of the seventeenth century in the area of Montes de Maria had over 600 Maroons, under the command of Domingo Padilla, who claimed for himself the title of captain while his wife Jane adopted that of viceroy, and successfully challenged further attempts at sovereignty from the colonial authorities. Historian Maria del Carmen Borrego Pla, using two subsets of the Archive of the Indies in Spain published a study on runaway blacks in Cartagena in the late seventeenth century, bordered on three geographic areas as well: the north in the Sierra Luruaco composed of black Creoles and known by the names of Betancur and Matubere; the center in the Montes de Maria, with people longstanding Maroon, arranged in four runaway, but only mentioned two of them, San Miguel and the Arenal, the south in the mountains of San Lucas, between the rivers Magdalena and Nechí, known as the palisades of Norosi and Cimarron, formed by black Creoles. San Basilio de Palenque was declared Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005.[1] At about 50 miles east of Cartagena, on hills of strategic value were used as lookout posts, still hear the names of the runaway Neighborhood: Sincerin, Mahates, Gambot.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 21:43:56 +0000
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