Walking Cuba: El Camino del Cimarron

Palmira

The museum of Palmira is a welcoming place. I walk in, drop the back pack and head through the beautiful 19thCentury building to the cozy and verdant central courtyard. The director comes out through one of the doors, big smile on her tall dark frame. After the perfunctory peck on the cheek, she gives me a tour, explaining the exhibits, while an assistant hovers nearby in case she needed support.

The museum contains exhibit of the cruel hardware that deformed the bodies and identity of the slaves during the 19th Century. Manacles, cruel collars with spikes, unforgiving shackles for the ankles. These are the torture tools which awaited Esteban after his apprehension the first time he escaped.

A document dating from 19th Century lists the cimarrones who had escaped from the regional sugar mills laid encased in glass. It manifests the engineering-like efficiency of those in charge of keeping track of the human property which made the mills work. Neat rows and columns listed the name, the owner and the ethnicity of the runaway slave.

Some were identified as Lukumis, others as Congo, others just as Negros. Two chinos made the…