Quisqueya La Bella 100-150

Summary:
The Cimarrones were escaped runaway slaves who escaped from plantation oppression on the island of Hispaniola. The Cimarrones or the maroons escaped into the remote mountains in 1503. Cimarrone communities were very ordered and stabilized. Their goal was to imitate and revive their villages and former communities in Africa before the transatlantic slave trade. The most prominent fugitive slave community was Maniel. The Dominican term "maniel" refers to the mountains located in the north of the Neiba Valley. By the 1580's, Spaniards feared the slave insurrections on the island. The first full and successful insurrection took place in 1522 where more than 20 African slaves at a sugar plantation destroyed everything they could find. African slaves or Cimarrones had three tactics to rebel. The first was to run away and hide close to the plantation they worked at until they were captured. Another tactic was to flee to a particular hiding place and become members of the group or area located there. The last formula was to escape into the mountains which was what most runaway slaves did. The earliest African population was made up of groups called negros ladinos. These Africans were born in Lisbon, Madrid, Sevilla and other cities in the Iberian peninsula. These Africans arrived on the island with spanish explorers like Chistopher Columbus. The first African ladinos came in Columbus' ship La Nina in 1492. At the beginning of African arrival in Hispaniola, only Ladinos were permitted on the island because they were Christians and had assimilated to Spanish customs. The Spanish discriminated against any other faith and forbid them from residing on the island.

Quote:
"The Spanish regarded all Moors who were naturally of the Islamic faith, other sub Saharan Africans, Jews, gypsies, and any other so- called Christian (converts), as a suffering from a distinct moral disability"(Cambeira 100).

Reaction:
This quote brings no surprise to me; I had learned before that Dominicans and Spaniards immensely discriminated against people of darker skin and distinct religion. It would be an abomination to call a Dominican black, for they right away feel inferior and insulted. Connecting with what we have been learning in Othello with Othello,  discrimination against Moors has been around for a very long time. The separation of we and they is a technique used by many cultures to alienate themselves from individuals who are different from them. Trujillo, a Dominican dictator, murdered thousands of Hatians because he felt they were uncivilized particularly on the basis of their skin color and religion. In other words, separation of race and religion have been factors that date hundreds of years back but still surround us today.