ENCYCLOPAEDIA of Rebellions

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Maroon rebellion in Santiago del Cobre 1677

Synopsis
In 1677 the governors of Santiago de Cuba were commissioned to find out the situation of the mines of Santiago del Prado or del Cobre, which had been almost abandoned since the middle of the century. They should either proceed with a new concession or sell the assets and the 275 slaves allocated there, in order to compensate for the losses suffered by the Royal Treasury due to the company's poor management. Meanwhile, it was decided to use part of these slaves in the fortification works of La Habana and in the restoration of the fortress of San Pedro de la Roca, destroyed by the English in 1662. Such measures were openly rejected by an imprecise but important number of that slave contingent, who opted for marronage, fleeing to the mountains, causing disturbances, and establishing a palenque, with which they managed to keep the status of practical freedom that the disorganization of the mining business had given them in previous decades. This episode is part of a history of resistance and marronage that includes other less-known previous cases and that would continue in the following decades until culminating in the great uprising of 1731, all of them motivated by the worsening of working conditions in mining activity.
Additional info

Starting date: . Ending: . Duration: 2 months. Name in sources: Palenque. Location: El Cobre Country (current): Cuba. Monarchy: Spanish. Main participants: Enslaved, Maroons. Number of participants: 100-250. Main reasons & motivations: Freedom, Labour conditions, Maroon resistance. Leadership: Unknown. Relevance: low.

Further reading
FRANCO, José Luciano (1975). Las minas de Santiago del Prado y la rebelión de los cobreros, 1530-1800. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales. PORTUONDO ZÚÑIGA, Olga (1996). “Métodos y tecnologías en el beneficio colonial del cobre cubano (1599-1800)”, Estudios de Historia Social y Económica de América, 13: 355-378. PRICE, Richard (comp) (1981). Sociedades cimarronas. Comunidades esclavas rebeldes en las Américas. México: Siglo XXI.
Cite this entry

(2023) "Maroon rebellion in Santiago del Cobre 1677", in J. V. Serrão and M. S. Cunha (coord), Rebellions in the Early Modern Iberian World. (accessed on ).