A fugitive slave leader negotiated formal state recognition for his free town

Evidence

The terms of the truce, as preserved in the archives, included eleven conditions stipulated by Yanga upon which he and his people would cease their raiding. The African demanded that all of his people who had fled before September of the past year (1608) be freed and promised that those who had escaped slavery after that date would be returned to their masters. He further stipulated that the palenque be given the status of a free town and that it have its own cabildo and a justicia mayor who was to be a Spanish layman. No other Spaniards were to live in the town, although they could visit on market days… . In return Yanga promised that for a fee the town would aid the viceroy in capturing fugitive slaves. The Negroes, he said, would aid the crown in case of an external attack on Mexico. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 655

Categorization

• XREF: Yanga’s negotiated autonomy — internal self-rule under a Spanish magistrate, mutual aid obligations — resembles the clientelist arrangement of maroon communities and later Black towns elsewhere.