Cimarronaje en Panamá

Two centuries before George Washington or Simon Bolivar dreamed of liberation from European tyranny, there were Africans in the Americas who had fought for and won their independence. Throughout the New World, enslaved Africans resisted their subjugation in a variety of ways, from quiet acts of sabotage to armed uprisings. Many escaped into the forests where they reclaimed their freedom and

started communities of their own. The Spanish called these fugitives from slavery "cimarrones," from the Taino term for “flight of an arrow.”

Where possible, these Africans sought the company of others like themselves who spoke their language and shared their customs. This led to the formation of communities based on common homelands and ethnicities. In effect, cimarrones recreated African societies in the Americas. Prioritizing their mutual survival, the various palenques cooperated with each other against their common enemy, the European enslavers.

In the mid-16th century, the confederation of cimarrones had become so powerful that Spanish colonists lived in fear of an African takeover.