Santiago del Principe (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tomas Mendizabal. Jordi Tresserras. Javier Laviña. Ricardo Piqueras. Marta Hidalgo.

The first free African peoples of the Americas were the inhabitants of the town of La Villa de Santiago del Príncipe, founded in 1579 when Don Luis de Mozambique and his followers became the first group of cimarrones (escaped slaves) to negotiate a peace with the Spanish Crown, after decades of what came to be known as the "Cimarron wars". These were a conflict in which cimarrones would predate upon Spanish isthmian trade routes and even support foreign attacks on the mainland. Weary of the...