Slavery & Abolition (open access)
In this article, I reassess the transimperial flight of enslaved Afro-Curaçaoans from the Dutch island of Curaçao to the Spanish mainland of Tierra Firme, particularly Coro, during the eighteenth century. Owing to Spain’s policy of royal asylum, enslaved Afro-Curaçaoans could obtain freedom upon entering Spanish territory. Drawing on a detailed 1775 runaway register and colonial correspondence, the article reconstructs who fled, how they escaped, and why they undertook the maritime crossing. The evidence shows that flight was often collective and strongly gendered, with groups of men organizing sea crossings in small vessels to reach the Venezuelan coast. The article argues that these movements were motivated not only by the pursuit of freedom but also the prospect of improved civic status within the Spanish colonial system. In Tierra Firme, Afro-Curaçaoans could acquire land, access colonial courts, formalize marriages and kinship ties and participate in institutions like free black militias. Many were integrated into Afro-descendant communities in places such as Curiepe and Santa María de la Chapa. These dynamics challenge interpretations of marronage as the creation of isolated inland settlements. Instead, Afro-Curaçaoan fugitives practiced maritime marronage that relied on mobility, jurisdictional boundaries and integration into another imperial framework where forms of citizenship were attainable.
Read the article here (open access).
See also the related published dataset: Ramona Negrón, ‘Enslaved Runaways from Curaçao to Coro, 1729-1775’, DataVerseNL (2026).
