JUDAH the Cimarron Palenqueros……

The Cimarrons in Panama were enslaved Africans who had escaped from their Spanish masters and lived together as maroons. In the 1570s, they allied with Francis Drake of England to defeat the Spanish conquest. In Sir Francis Drake Revived (1572), Drake describes the Cimarrons as “a black people which about eighty years past fled from the Spaniards their masters, by reason of their cruelty, (thats about 1492) and are since grown to a nation, under two kings of their own. The one inhabiteth to the west, the other to the east of the way from Nombre de Dios”.[1]

Some African slaves used the isolated nature of transporting goods as an opportunity to escape slavery. Many people of African descent escaped into the sparsely settled terrain and formed Cimarroneras, or marooned societies. These ex-slaves were known as Cimarrones. Cimarrones would mount attacks on transport caravans so often that the attacks became very disruptive to trade by the 1550s.

Felipillo (d. 1551), was the leader of runaway slaves in Colonial Panama.
Felipillo was a Spanish-speaking (Black Ladino) slave who managed a boat for the pearl fisheries on the Pearl Islands in the Gulf of Panama. In 1549, he led a revolt in which slaves fled the islands as well as cattle ranches on the mainland, and then fled up into the mountains. From their base, Felipillo and his followers raided Spanish ranches and travelers until 1551 when he and 30 of his followers were surprised and captured by Captain Francisco Carreño. Felipillo was subsequently executed and the remainder of his followers sold back into slavery

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES…..

The most famous of these Cimarrones was Bayano.

King Bayano’s forces numbered between four and twelve hundred Cimarrons, depending upon different sources, and set up a palenque known as Ronconcholon near modern-day Chepo River, also known as Rio Bayano. They fought their guerrilla war for over five years while

In 1570, all Maroons were pardoned to stop the raiding. Famous Cimarrones proceeded to found Cimarroneras. Luis de Mozambique founded Santiago del Principe Cimarronera and Antón de Mandinga founded Santa la Real.