San Basilio de Palenque or Palenque de San Basilio, often referred to by the locals simply as Palenke, is a Palenque village and

corregimiento ''Corregimiento'' (; ca, Corregiment, ) is a Spanish term used for country subdivisions for royal administrative purposes, ensuring districts were under crown control as opposed to local elites. A ''corregimiento'' was usually headed by a '' corr ...

in the Municipality of Mahates, Bolivar in northern

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

. Palenque was the first free African town in the Americas, and in 2005 was declared a

Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity The Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity was made by the Director-General of UNESCO starting in 2001 to raise awareness of intangible cultural heritage and encourage local communities to protect them and th ...

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

History

Spaniards introduced kidnapped

enslaved Africans The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...

in South America through the

Magdalena River Valley The Magdalena River Valley ( es, Valle del Río Magdalena) is a valley in Colombia located within the Colombian Andes. The valley is specifically situated between the Central and Eastern Ranges and crossed by the river of the same name, the Magdale ...

. Its mouth is close to the important port of

Cartagena de Indias Cartagena ( , also ), known since the colonial era as Cartagena de Indias (), is a city and one of the major ports on the northern coast of Colombia in the Caribbean Coast Region, bordering the Caribbean sea. Cartagena's past role as a link ...

where ships full of Africans arrived. Some Africans escaped and set up Palenque de San Basilio, a town close to Cartagena. This community began in 1619, when Domingo Biohó led a group of about 30 runaways into the forests, and defeated attempts to subdue them. Biohó declared himself King Benkos, and his palenque of San Basilio attracted large numbers of runaways to join his community. His

Maroons Maroons are descendants of African diaspora in the Americas, Africans in the Americas who escaped from slavery and formed their own settlements. They often mixed with indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous peoples, eventually ethnogenesi ...

defeated the first expedition sent against them, killing their leader Juan Gómez. The Spanish arrived at terms with Biohó, but later they captured him, accused him of plotting against the Spanish, and had him hanged. They tried to free all enslaved Africans arriving at Cartagena and were quite successful. Therefore, the Spanish Crown issued a Royal Decree (1691), guaranteeing freedom to the Palenque de San Basilio Africans if they stopped welcoming new escapees. But runaways continued to escape to freedom in San Basilio. In 1696, the colonial authorities subdued another rebellion there, and between 1713-7. Eventually, the Spanish agreed to peace terms with the palenque of San Basilio, and in 1772, this community of maroons was included within the Mahates district, as long they no longer accepted any further runaways.

The Village

The village of Palenque de San Basilio has a population of about 3,500 inhabitants and is located in the foothills of the Montes de María, southeast of the regional capital, Cartagena.UNESCO. "Proclamation 2005: "The Cultural Space of Palenque de San Basilio."
/ref> The word "palenque" means "walled city" and the Palenque de San Basilio is only one of many walled communities that were founded by escaped slaves as a refuge in the seventeenth century. Of the many palenques of escaped enslaved Africans that existed previously San Basilio is the only one that survives. Many of the oral and musical traditions have roots in Palenque's African past. Africans were dispatched to

Spanish America Spanish America refers to the Spanish territories in the Americas during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The term "Spanish America" was specifically used during the territories' Spanish Empire, imperial era between 15th century, 15th ...

under the

asiento The () was a monopoly contract between the Spanish Crown and various merchants for the right to provide African slaves to colonies in the Spanish Americas. The Spanish Empire rarely engaged in the trans-Atlantic slave trade directly from Afri ...

system. The village of San Basilio is inhabited mainly by

Afro-Colombian Afro-Colombians or African-Colombians ( es, afrocolombianos, links=no) are Colombians of full or partial sub-Saharan African descent (Blacks, Mulattoes, Pardos, and Zambos). History Africans were enslaved in the early 16th Century in Colombi ...

s which are direct descendants of

brought by the Europeans during the

Colonization of the Americas During the Age of Discovery, a large scale European colonization of the Americas took place between about 1492 and 1800. Although the Norse had explored and colonized areas of the North Atlantic, colonizing Greenland and creating a short ter ...

and have preserved their ancestral traditions and have developed also their own language;

Palenquero Palenquero (sometimes spelled Palenkero) or Palenque ( pln, Lengua) is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in Colombia. It is believed to be a mixture of Kikongo (a language spoken in central Africa in the current countries of Congo, DRC, Gab ...

. In 2005 the Palenque de San Basilio village was proclaimed

. In the village of Palenque de San Basilio most of its inhabitants are

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...

and still preserve customs and language from their

African African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...

ancestors. In recent years people of indigenous ancestry have settled at the borders of Palenque, being displaced earlier by the Colombian civil war. The village was established by Benkos Bioho sometime in the 16th century. One of the first anthropological studies of the inhabitants of Palenque de San Basilio was published by anthropologist Nina de Friedemann and photographer Richard Cross in 1979 entitled ''Ma Ngombe: guerreros y ganaderos en Palenque''.

Palenquero language

Spanish-based creole language A Spanish creole, or Spanish-based creole language, is a creole language (contact language with native speakers) for which Spanish serves as its substantial ''lexifier''. A number of creole languages are influenced to varying degrees by the Spa ...

known as Palenquero originates in this community. ''The New York Times'' reported on October 18, 2007 that the language spoken in Palenque is thought to be the only Spanish-based creole language spoken in Latin America. Being a creole language, its grammar differs substantially from Spanish making the language unintelligible to Spanish speakers. Palenquero was influenced by the

Kikongo Kongo or Kikongo is one of the Bantu languages spoken by the Kongo people living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Gabon and Angola. It is a tonal language. It was spoken by many of those who were taken from th ...

language of Congo and Angola, and also by Portuguese, the language of the slave traders who brought enslaved Africans to South America in the 17th century. Exact information on the different roots of Palenquero is still lacking, and there are different theories of its origin. Today fewer than half of the community's 3,000 residents still speak Palenquero.Simon Romero
"A Language, Not Quite Spanish, With African Echoes"
''The New York Times'', October 18, 2007. A linguist born in Palenquero is compiling a lexicon for the language and others are assembling a dictionary of Palenquero. The defenders of Palenquero continue working to keep the language alive.

Notable residents

Benkos Biohó Benkos Biohó (late 16th century — 1621), also known as Domingo Biohó was a Mandinka and South American leader who escaped from the slave port of Cartagena with ten others and founded San Basilio de Palenque, then known as the "village of th ...

Antonio Cervantes Antonio Cervantes (born December 23, 1945) is a Colombian boxing trainer and former professional boxer who competed from 1961 to 1983. He held the WBA and ''The Ring'' light welterweight title twice between 1972 and 1980. In 2002, Cervantes ...

Evaristo Márquez Evaristo Márquez (August 23, 1939 – June 15, 2013), was a Colombian actor and herdsman best known for his role as José Dolores in the film ''Burn!'', acting alongside Marlon Brando under the direction of Gillo Pontecorvo. Biography Before h ...

* Ricardo Cardona *

Prudencio Cardona Prudencio Cardona (December 22, 1951 – August 4, 2019) was a Colombian professional boxer who was world flyweight champion. He represented his native country at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany. He is the older brother of forme ...

References

External links

UNESCO: The Cultural Space of Palenque de San Basilio
*

* ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgzOlTAze3Q CNN videobr>NYTIMES:A Language, Not Quite Spanish, With African Echoes