Runaway Slave Settlements in Cuba

“A notable effort. . . . Addresses relatively unknown aspects of slavery with a refined, complete, and interdisciplinary methodology that combines the tools of history, anthropology, archaeology, and contributes new knowledge to all three. . . . An excellent and important study.” — H-Atlantic

“Contributes to scholarly understanding of not only the nature of slavery, but the ethnic identity of those slaves who lived in these settlements.” — CHOICE

“This is a detailed and well-informed study that helpfully contributes to the understanding of slave resistance and marronage.” — American Historical Review

“Culling a wealth of information from 28 slave hunters' diaries . . . the author . . . offers new insights into escaped slave communities as a form of resistance. . . . The rich analysis and detailed descriptions make this book an invaluable contribution for understanding nineteenth-century Cuba.” — Americas

“This is a solidly researched and original work that makes an important contribution to the study of resistance to slavery. Although focusing on the peculiar features of resistance and repression in Cuba’s Oriente province, Gabino La Rosa Corzo sketches in a cogent new overview of the chronology and trajectory of Cuban slave resistance that offers a useful critique of previous writing and carries the subject to a new level. He combines archaeology, oral history, and hitherto unused diaries of slavecatchers to explain the evolution and demise of cimarronaje and its interaction with government repression. It is a dramatic story of the increasingly relentless hunt through difficult terrain of people seeking freedom and surviving by their wits.” — David Geggus, University of Florida

“This book provides uniquely rich information on the social structure, demography, geography, and housing patterns as well as the variety of agricultural activities of the maroon communities of eastern Cuba. Comprehensively detailed and solidly substantiated, it is a powerful model of excellent research and clear writing.” — Franklin W. Knight, Johns Hopkins University