Social geographies, the practice of marronage and the archaeology of absence in colonial Mexico

Abstract

Drawing from colonial documents and archaeological evidence, this article challenges our conceptions of the Maroon colonial social category. The article focuses on Maroon testimonies recorded by colonial officials and the archaeological record of a Maroon group that settled Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de los Morenos de Amapa, from 18th-century Spanish colonial Mexico. By reconstructing how Maroons practised and altered Spanish colonial social and geographic landscapes, this article demonstrates that Maroons were not constrained to the ‘inaccessible’ areas that colonial officials attached them to and that present-day studies of Maroons have habituated. Amapa's absent archaeological record and the complaints waged against the Maroons concerning the absence of civility in the newly established town also challenge straightforward notions of Maroons and space.