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Amphibious Flight and Transboundary Water Politics: Runaway Slaves in the Lower Orinoco River Basin in the Eighteenth Century

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Book cover Resistance and Colonialism

Part of the book series: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies ((CIPCSS))

Abstract

In the eighteenth century, Dutch and British planters imported thousands of enslaved persons into the colonies of Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice (Guyana today). As colonial records reveal, many of these unfree laborers escaped the confines of slavery and fled north toward the Spanish provinces of Guayana and Cumaná. Hundreds of runaways traversed the lower Orinoco and attempted to secure their freedom shrewdly. This chapter presents this episode of trans-imperial marronage as a liminal yet critical form of resistance: one that operated betwixt and between formal and informal politics as it interfered with interimperial rivalries, influenced colonial policy-making, and defied the oppressive structures of slavery.

So long as we … stand well with the Indians (and I shall always try to remain so) … we need to have no fear, for every possible precaution has been taken along the sea-coast, and no negroes can get away unless the Indians connive at their escape or unless they go over to the Spaniards. … It is some consolation, however, that those who do go to the Spaniards cannot do us any harm.

Storm Van’s Gravesande

Governor of Essequibo & Demerara

February, 1762

Public Records Office, London. Colonial Office Transmissions, No. 471, Document 60, in C. A. Harris and J. A. J de Villiers, comps. Storm Van’s Gravesande: The Rise of British Guiana, Compiled from his Despatches, 2 vols. (London: The Hakluyt Society, 1911), pp. 397–401 (hereafter cited as P.R.O #/Doc, in Harris and Villiers, Storm Van’s Gravesande, pp. #s.).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    On politics and infrapolitics, see James C. Scott, Domination and the Art of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), pp. 19 & 183–201; Guillaume Marche, “Why Infrapolitics Matter,” Revue Francaise D’Etudes Americaines, no. 131 (2012); James C. Scott, “Infrapolitics and Mobilizations,” Revue Francaise D’Etudes Americaines, no. 131 (2012); and Stellan Vinthagen and Anna Johansson, “‘Everyday Resistance’: Exploration of a Concept and its Theories,” Resistance Studies Magazine, no. 1 (2013).

  2. 2.

    Literature on maroons and rebellions is vast. On rebellions, see Manuel Vicente Magallanes, Luchas e insurreciones en la Venezuela colonial (Caracas: Editorial Tiempo Nuevo, 1972); Emilia Viotti da Costa, Crowns of Glory, Tears of Blood: The Demerara Slave Rebellion of 1823 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Jean-Pierre Tardieu, Andresote. Le dessein d’un esclave rebelle. Venezuela (1730–1733) (Paris: Les Indes Savantes, 2016); and Marjoleine Kars, “Dodging Rebellion: Politics and Gender in the Berbice Slave Uprising of 1763,” American Historical Review, 121, no. 1 (February 2016). On maroons, see Richard Price (ed.), Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973); Jesús Garcia, Esclavos negros, cimarrones y cumbes en Barlovento (Caracas: Lagoven, 1984); and Richard Price, Alabi’s World (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990).

  3. 3.

    Berta Perez, “The Journey to Freedom: Maroon Forebears in Southern Venezuela,” Ethnohistory, 47, no. 3–4 (2011); Linda Rupert, “‘Seeking the Water of Baptism’ Fugitive Slaves and Imperial Jurisdiction in the Early Modern Caribbean,” in Lauren Benton and Richard J. Ross (eds.), Legal Pluralism and Empires, 1500–1850 (New York: New York University Press, 2013), pp. 199–231; Jane Landers, “Cimarrones africanos e indios en la frontera española con los Estados Unidos. El caso de los Seminoles negros en La Florida,” Memoria e Sociedad, Diásporas Afroamericana, 7 (November 2003), 25–36; Matthew J. Clavin, Aiming for Pensacola: Fugitive Slaves on the Atlantic and Southern Frontiers (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2015); and Alvin O. Thompson, Flight to Freedom: African Runaways and Maroons in the Americas (Kingston, Jamaica: University of West Indies Press, 2006).

  4. 4.

    Two seminal essays that theorize this merger and trace its scholarly trajectory in the context of the Americas are Jeremy Adelman and Stephen Aron, “From Borderlands to Borders: Empires, Nation-States, and the Peoples in Between in North American History,” The American Historical Review, 104, no. 3 (1999), 814–841 and Pekka Hämäläinen and Samuel Truett, “On Borderlands,” The Journal of American History, 98, no. 2 (2011), 338–361.

  5. 5.

    Steve Pile and Michale Keith, Geographies of Resistance (London: Routledge, 1997).

  6. 6.

    On indigenous trading networks, see Neil Whitehead, Lords of the Tiger Spirit: A History of the Caribs in Colonial Venezuela and Guyana, 1498–1820 (Dordrecht, Holland: Foris Publications, 1988) and Nelly Arvelo-Jiménez and Horacio Biord Castillo, “The Impact of Conquest on Contemporary Indigenous Peoples of the Guiana Shield: The System of Orinoco Regional Interdependence,” in Anna C. Roosevelt (ed.), Amazonian Indians from Prehistory to the Present: Anthropological Perspectives (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1994).

  7. 7.

    Raymond T. Smith, British Guiana (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1962), pp. 14–22 and James Rodway, History of British Guiana, from the Year 1668 to the Present Time, 2 Vols., 1668–1781 (Georgetown, Demerara: J. Thomson, 1891), pp. 101–105.

  8. 8.

    Neil Whitehead, “Carib Ethnic Soldiering in Venezuela, The Guianas, and the Antilles, 1492–1820,” Ethnohistory, 37, no. 4 (Autumn, 1990), 362–364 and Rodway, History of British Guiana, p. 76.

  9. 9.

    Whitehead, Lords of the Tiger Spirit, pp. 184–188.

  10. 10.

    Alvin O. Thompson, Colonialism and Underdevelopment in Guyana, 1580–1803 (Bridgetown, Barbados: Carib Research and Publications, 1987), pp. 90–106.

  11. 11.

    On the Dutch West Indies Company, see P.R.O. 467/80; 469/104; 469/196; 470/129; 471/19; and 475/166, in Harris and Villiers, Storm Van’s Gravesande, pp. 160–163; 212 & 213; 299–302; 347 & 348; 361; 381; 636; and 655. On the imports from Surinam, St. Eustatius, Barbados and Antigua, see Rodway, History of British Guiana, pp. 80 & 110 and P.R.O. 469/37; 469/65; and 473/71, in Harris and Villiers, Storm Van’s Gravesande, pp. 281; 288 & 289; and 549. On contraband, see Rodway, History of British Guiana, p. 111. Also, registers produced by Guayana’s Real Hacienda include contraband slaves confiscated between the Orinoco and Essequibo deltas in the 1700s. Archivo General de Indias (hereafter cited as AGI), Caracas 675; Caracas 676; and Caracas 683.

  12. 12.

    Thompson, Colonialism and Underdevelopment in Guyana, p. 82.

  13. 13.

    Harris and Villiers, Storm Van’s Gravesande, pp. 398–400.

  14. 14.

    British National Archives, Colonial Office, 111/3, folio 97.

  15. 15.

    P.R.O. 467/80; 468/118; 468/151; 468/202; and “Report” (1750) in Harris and Villiers, Storm Van’s Gravesande, pp. 205–213; 227 & 228; 238–241; 245–246; and 252–276.

  16. 16.

    Walter Rodney, A History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881–1905 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), pp. 1–30 and Rodway, History of British Guiana, pp. 66–68.

  17. 17.

    P.R.O. 468/118 in Harris and Villiers, Storm Van’s Gravesande, pp. 229 & 230.

  18. 18.

    P.R.O. 467/124 in Harris and Villiers, Storm Van’s Gravesande, p. 214.

  19. 19.

    P.R.O. 471/60 in Harris and Villiers, Storm Van’s Gravesande, pp. 475–478.

  20. 20.

    Whitehead, Lords of the Tiger Spirit, pp. 151–172.

  21. 21.

    P.R.O. 417/3; 471/215; and 472/63 in Harris and Villiers, Storm Van’s Gravesande, pp. 375–378; 428–438; and 460–473.

  22. 22.

    P.R.O. 472/152; 472/169; 473/23; 473/37; 473/50; 473/90; and 474/1 in Harris and Villiers, Storm Van’s Gravesande, pp. 494–500 and 528–561.

  23. 23.

    P. Buenaventura de Carrocera, Misión de los Capuchinos en Guayana, Libro I, Introducción, Resumen Histórico y Documentos, 1682–1758 (Caracas: Academia de la Historia, 1979), pp. XXV–XXVI.

  24. 24.

    AGI, Caracas 258, “Auto de Procedimiento” (14/11/1761).

  25. 25.

    AGI, Caracas 258, “Declaración” (15/11/1761).

  26. 26.

    Joanna Gyory, Arthur J. Mariano and Edward H. Ryan, “The Guiana Current,” Ocean Surface Currents, available at http://oceancurrents.rsmas.miami.edu/atlantic/guiana.html.

  27. 27.

    For Dutch fishing in the Orinoco, see P.R.O. 468/82 and 468/130 in Harris and Villiers, Storm Van’s Gravesande, pp. 224–228 and 231. For the letter to Yturriaga, see AGI, Caracas 258.

  28. 28.

    AGI, Caracas 258, and Archivo del Museo Naval (hereafter cited as AMN), Box 0285, Manuscript 0564, Document 015.

  29. 29.

    Whitehead, Lords of the Tiger Spirit, p. 108.

  30. 30.

    AGI, Caracas 258, “Declaración” (15/11/1761).

  31. 31.

    AGI, Caracas 258, “Auto Operado Sobre la aprehensión de un Negro nombrado Moderboro.”

  32. 32.

    AGI, Caracas 258, “Autos operados … sobre la formal averiguación de … seis Negros esclavos fugitivos de la Colonia de Esquivo …”

  33. 33.

    AGI, Caracas 258, “Autos operados … sobre la formal averiguación de … seis Negros esclavos fugitivos de la Colonia de Esquivo ….”

  34. 34.

    AGI, Caracas 258, “Carta” (29/12/1763).

  35. 35.

    A Spanish official estimated the journey between eight and ten days. “Interesante informe de D. Eugenio de Alvarado …” in Carrocera, Misión de los Capuchinos, pp. 351–355.

  36. 36.

    In his diary (1770), José Felipe de Inciarte described members of an Arawak community who wanted to purchase a large boat from local Capuchin Missionaries to rescue Indians from plantations in Essequibo. AMN, Box 0285, Manuscript 0564, Document 015.

  37. 37.

    Thompson, Flight to Freedom, pp. 272–278 and Rupert, “Seeking the Water of Baptism.”

  38. 38.

    Rupert, “‘Seeking the Water of Baptism,’” pp. 199–231.

  39. 39.

    AGI, Caracas 258, “8 de Octubre de 1757.”

  40. 40.

    AGI, Caracas 675.

  41. 41.

    Ibid.

  42. 42.

    AGI, Caracas 139.

  43. 43.

    AGI, Caracas 139.

  44. 44.

    AGI, Caracas 922, and Caracas 923, “Expediente.”

  45. 45.

    Archivo de la Corona de Aragón (hereafter cited as ACA), Monacales, Universidad, Legajo 57, Tomo 4.

  46. 46.

    ACA, Monacales, Universidad, Legajo 57, Tomo 5.

  47. 47.

    Universidad de Barcelona, Biblioteca Reserva, Manuscrito 1808, folios 79–84.

  48. 48.

    Archivo Provincial de los Capuchinos de Cataluña, Correspondencia Diversa: 1731–1770, “Carta de Joachín María de Martorel” (16/4/1770).

  49. 49.

    Rupert, “Seeking the Waters of Baptism.”

  50. 50.

    AGI, Caracas 139, “Oficios.”

  51. 51.

    AGI, Caracas 136, “Oficio 15” (15/1/1787).

  52. 52.

    AGI, Caracas 136, “1788: ‘Relación Corográfico-mixta de … Guayana’,” and Caracas 139, “Carta de Miguel de Marmión” (15/1/1787).

  53. 53.

    AGI, Caracas 20; Caracas 136; and Caracas 139.

  54. 54.

    Various of the documents containing mention of runaway slaves from Essequibo and Demerara are labeled duplicados (duplicates). These duplicate documents demonstrate that multiple copies of these records were sent to and collected at various audiencias (administrative centers) throughout the Spanish Empire. For example, all documents in AGI, Caracas 136 and Caracas 139 are duplicate documents.

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  1. Kalamazoo, MI, USA

    Matthew Nielsen

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  1. Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Nuno Domingos  & Ricardo Roque  & 

  2. Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo

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Nielsen, M. (2019). Amphibious Flight and Transboundary Water Politics: Runaway Slaves in the Lower Orinoco River Basin in the Eighteenth Century. In: Domingos, N., Jerónimo, M.B., Roque, R. (eds) Resistance and Colonialism. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19167-2_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19167-2_8

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