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A Narrative of Escape: Self Liberation by Sea and the Mental Worlds of the Enslaved

2021; Frank Cass & Co.; Volume: 42; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/0144039x.2021.1927508

1743-9523

Elena A. Schneider,

Caribbean history, culture, and politics

This article investigates a singular case of maritime marronage from Jamaica to Cuba in the 1760s to explore the possibilities that archives present to reconstruct the mental worlds of enslaved Africans and the multilingual, transimperial Caribbean underground created by their voyages of escape. Reading Spanish/Cuban and British/Jamaican archives together, the article contextualizes the testimony of a Kongolese man who escaped one of the plantations where Tacky’s Revolt broke out in Jamaica and made his way to Trinidad, Cuba, by sea. There he claimed freedom as an indentured servant whose term of service was up, using a West African mnemonic device as evidence to do so before a Spanish colonial tribunal. As this man’s testimony illustrates, maritime marronage constituted just one part of an escapee’s ongoing struggle not only for freedom but also autonomy and refuge.