Robert C. Schwaller, "African Maroons in Sixteenth-Century Panama: A History in Documents" (U Oklahoma Press, 2021)

New Books in African American Studies · Oct 8, 2021 · 1h 19m

From the 1520s through the 1580s, thousands of African slaves fled captivity in Spanish Panama and formed their own communities in the interior of the isthmus. African Maroons in Sixteenth-Century Panama (U Oklahoma Press, 2021), a primary source reader, edited by Robert C. Schwaller, documents this marronage in the context of five decades of African resistance to slavery. The self-sufficiency of the Maroons, along with their periodic raids against Spanish settlements, sparked armed conflict as Spaniards sought to conquer the maroon communities and kill or re-enslave their populations. After…