CLÁUSULAS ABUSIVAS QUE VIOLAN EL DEBER DE INFORMACIÓN EN EL NEGOCIO FIDUCIARIO

The arrival of African slaves in the Americas was immediately followed by the

foundation of maroon societies. African captives taken to North America found opportunities to take advantage of gaps in both the surveillances and security measures that British colonialists established to ensure their subjugation. The maroon societies that they founded after securing their freedom will be primary investigative focus of this chapter. The traceable elements of African ethnicity will be used here to draw conclusions about the possible identity and ethnic composition of the Great Dismal swamp maroons. However, both presenting and tracing ethnicity present specific and difficult challenges to historians evaluating the events of the Atlantic slave trade, and subsequent institutions of the Antebellum south. These challenges include establishing ethnicity, indentifying the traceable aspects of ethnicity, and grappling with the ethnogenesis of African captives transplanted to the New World.10

Ethnicity and identity in the African context were usually determined according to kinship ties, occupation (e.g. blacksmithing, farming), location, spiritual affiliation, and age groups. These were complex systems that affected the identities of individuals in numerous ways. For instance, Balanta blufos would often abduct small children along with cattle from other Balanta villages, as well as other ethnic groups.11 These children would then be integrated

into the Balanta age-grade system as an ethnic Balanta. How to categorize such individuals complicates the question of ethnicity. This is especially true because slave traders often labeled the captives they took based on their relation to them. Therefore, their port of departure,

language, and perceived ethnic affiliation were taken as declaratives of identity by slavers and traffickers. Additionally, the trauma of capture and trafficking of enslaved Africans through the Middle Passage alongside numerous, often unfamiliar, ethnic groups placed the identity of captives in flux. New arrivals from the West African coast were therefore dislocated from the influences that originally enabled them to crystallize their own self-determined ethnic identity, triggering the ethnogenesis of new identities.12

However, the investigation of African slave identities is still important to consider

because the internalized culture of those populations found expression in the resistance efforts of escaped slaves. Slave resistance was influenced by the cultural habitude of African captives of diverse ethnic origins.13 However, specific cultural attributes were key to the expression of resistance in the Antebellum South, characteristics which were echoed throughout the slave- holding Americas. The militarism of the cultures from which incoming African slaves were sourced became a key issue. African slaves who were formerly professional soldiers or experienced members of warrior cultures were a threat to slave holding society. Often, they resisted slavery reusing tactics from culturally specific settings. Therefore their identity, occupation, and former location were all relevant to how they chose to react to slavery.

The Stono Rebellion remains a strong example of how Africanisms persisted and affected the political events of the North American coast. The influence of Angolan military culture, especially their war-dances was especially evident in South Carolina during the Stono

that informed resistance in the Antebellum South. This was true to the extent that colonial officials began to enact legal prohibitions against the practice of traditional African religions. Greater attempts were also made to induct African populations into the Christian Church. These attempts were met with moderate success, especially before the turn of the 19th century when the importation of native-born African captives was still considerable. Finally, African runaways’ ability to execute farming techniques capable of sustaining a substantial community must be examined, along with the resources they would have had at their disposal. Farming in lowland areas or wetlands is not easily. The hazards of dangerous flora and fauna make being exposed for prolonged periods amid crops undesirable. Soil acidity and floodwater would threaten any crop yield cultivated in a swampland area, such as the Great Dismal Swamp. Therefore, specialized knowledge would be needed to cope with life there on a long-term basis. Such knowledge of farming culture makes it likely that the GDSM were heavily influenced by the West African stateless societies of the Guinea Coast.

American maroonage is theorized to have begun after 1619 when the first historically recognized African bondsmen were brought to Jamestown.15 The Great Dismal Swamp existed as a 2,000 acre obstacle to colonial economic ambition during the years of early American settlement. However, the political economy of the swamp and its surrounding lands were quite active. Native American activity is reported to have included the Chesapeake tribe, Powhatan Empire, Recehecrians, Meherrins, and Nansemonds. However, English colonial expansion severely marginalized Native American power by edifying itself along strategic costal positions in Norfolk and Williamsburg. Colonialism had solidified its hegemonic control of the coastal area by the end of the 17th _{century, however, throughout that time period Native Americans and}

The presence of the Great Dismal Swamp Maroons (GDSM) was a perpetual nuisance to colonial authorities. The swamp was a physical barrier to colonial expansion and constituted a security threat. Nominal colonial authority was not established over North Carolina until the early 18th century. The territory that later became North Carolina was settled by groups of white former indentured servants, Native American groups, and fugitive slaves.16 The North Carolina woodland is not easily traversed and was difficult to project military power into, this was especially the case for wetlands near the Great Dismal Swamp. These were the environmental circumstances that African runaways found themselves in when they escaped to the Great Dismal Swamp.

Dr. Lathan A. Windley compiled a mass of runaway slave advertisements drawn from the Virginia Gazette, South Carolina Gazette, North Carolina Gazette, and American Advertiser between years 1730-1790. The periodicals do not always reference ethnicity in the displayed articles. Some advertisements simply reference “country marks”, the identification scars utilized by many West African cultures to convey ethnic affiliation and status through ritual scarification. Runaway slave advertisements extracted from the Virginia Gazette give some indication of which demographic populations were represented among escaped members of slave populations. Several escaped slaves were indicated as having origins stemming from the Rice Coast (Guinea) or parts of Senegambia.17 Igbo advertisements were also published for the Virginia area.18 South Carolina advertisements also cite escapees of Igbo origin,19 as well as numerous references to fugitives who were “Gambia negroes” or of Senegambian origin.20

The advertisements illuminate several key points that can be used to add context to some of the subtler issues surrounding ethnicity, and marronage. The first interesting point is that the ethnic backgrounds of Guinean, Igbo, Gambian, and Mandinka are often repeated in the

advertisements referencing fugitive slaves. Also, prolific are the references to Angolan fugitive slaves,21 _{however, this is much more pronounced in South Carolina and Georgia, than near the}

Great Dismal Swamp. This reporting of slave escapes is also accompanied by a detailed awareness of African ritual scarification and tooth filing, highlighting African otherness. It is obvious based on some of the accounts offered that a slave’s country of birth mattered

significantly when it came to their assessed value, and the effort planters were willing to expend recovering them. Mulatto slaves with a skill set such as blacksmithing or tailoring were

considered especially valuable. However, slave masters were very particular about differentiating between African-born runaways and American-born fugitives. While it is difficult to understand the motive for the differentiation being made in every advertisement, it may be posited that recovering Africa-born slaves, from particular ethnics, was considered especially dangerous.

Another theme which emerges from analyzing the runaway slave advertisements is that many mulatto runaways are ascribed Native American backgrounds, with references being made to them possessing “Indian marks”.22 This corroborates the assumption that Native-American and escaped African fugitives had begun to build partnerships and aggregated societies.23 This was especially true of areas near the Great Dismal Swamp which settlers refused to enter either due to fear, or knowledge of the local maroon presence. These partnerships were not a

universally synchronistic phenomenon and depended heavily on the nature of local politics. Native American search parties were often employed to track and recover fugitive slaves.24 However, amiable relations between former indentured servants, Tuscaroras Indians, and African escapees formed quickly in the Great Dismal Swamp. The habitation of the swamp increased exponentially after the Tuscarora War ended in 1714, ceding control of the disputed North

driving maroons into the Great Dismal Swamp. Following the loss of the war, Tuscarora and Africa runaways sought refuge in the swamp, and founded what was arguably the longest lived rebel community in the Antebellum South.

Another consideration that emerges from reviewing slave advertisements in periodicals from the Antebellum Era is that populations from Senegambia and Biafra can be easily placed in the regions near the Great Dismal Swamp.26 Beyond this they are cited as constituting a

significant portion of the fugitive slave population from which the Great Dismal Swamp could have sourced inhabitants. The counties near the Great Dismal Swamp showed a large amount of runaway activity, which would seem to indicate the region was a haven for slave resistance.27 This steady influx of escaped slaves from the surrounding area undoubtedly changed the political economy of the GDSM. African runaways had been a notable portion of the population of the swamp well before the 18th _{century, but did not come to preeminence in the area until after 1730.}

The exit of the Tuscarora Indian population fifteen years after the conclusion of the Tuscarora War meant that by 1730, African-descended fugitive slaves comprised the majority population of the swamp.