A claimed African king led early slave revolts in Cartagena, Colombia

Evidence

The most vigorous insurrectionist movement on the Caribbean coast of Colombia occurred in Cartagena de Indias at the beginning of the seventeenth century during the administration of Jeronimo de Sanzo Casarola… . The fiery and daring Domingo Bioho was the first slave to revolt publicly. Claiming to have been king of an African state, he plunged himself with thirty Negro men and women into the forests and the marshy areas of Matuna (south of the town of Tolu)… . Domingo, now known as “King Benkos” … put an end to the period of colonial tranquility in Cartagena, Tolu, Mompos, Tenerife, and so forth, by assaulting and robbing plantations, cattle ranches, cultivated farms … even canoes carrying fellow Negroes who had been sent to fell large trees for lumber. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 684

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces King Benkos and the early palenque tradition of claiming African royal lineage as a foundation of resistance.