Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas by Richard Price

Author:Richard Price [Price, Richard & Price, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Politics & Social Sciences, Sociology, Race Relations, Discrimination & Racism
ISBN: 9780307820471
Amazon: B00G1IVAKY
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 2013-10-30T05:00:00+00:00

Figure 2: The Buraco de Tatú (“Armadillo’s Hole”).

Entry into the mocambo was made difficult by an extensive defensive network. The rear was protected by a swampy dike about the height of a man. Three sides of the village were protected by a maze of sharpened spikes (L) driven into the ground and covered to prevent detection by an unsuspecting intruder. This defense was augmented by a series of twenty-one pits (D) filled with sharp stakes and disguised by brush and grass. Leading into the mocambo was a false road especially well protected by the spikes and camouflaged traps. Only when the watchman (N) placed planks (C, O, M) over some of the obstacles did entry and exit become possible. The Portuguese noted the effectiveness of this defensive system and took special pains to point out to the Crown the difficulties created by it. It was a defense quite unlike that of the palisaded Angolan quilombo described by Father Cavazzi in 1680 (see Fig. 3) (Cavazzi da Montecuccolo 1687:205–7). On the other hand, covered traps and sharpened stakes were used for village protection in Africa from Nigeria southward to the old kingdom of the Kongo and were also used to protect the Afro-Brazilian encampment of Palmares (Balandier 1964:114; van Wing 1921:148; Denam et al. 1826; and Kent 1965:168).

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