Monday, March 6, 2017

Struggle

A few hours from Cartagena (on the Caribbean coast of Colombia) lies the community of San Basilio de Palenque, Escaped African slaves founded this community and were so successful in freeing other slaves and fighting off the Spanish that in 1691 the Spanish Crown declared the community free, the first free Africans in the Americas. This statue in the community  is of Benkos Bioho, an African King from Angola, he was enslaved by the Portuguese ,escaped from the city of Cartagena, and founded the Palenque de San Basilio.
Photo by Curtis.