Biography of a runaway slave analysis
The biography recounts Montejo's life as a slave, runaway, plantation worker, and rebel soldier in the Cuban War of Independence....
The book inspired other authors to condemn the institution of slavery as it existed in Cuba.
Given there are few written testimonies by enslaved people anywhere, this, “the first personal and detailed account of an escaped slave in Cuban and Spanish American literature”, first published in , is an incredibly valuable document on the history of slavery in Cuba.
It is the testimony of Esteban Montejo, a former “Cimarrón”, runaway slave, as told to and written by celebrated Cuban writer and ethnologist Miguel Barnet.
Montejo, who was born a slave in to parents who had been transported as slaves from Africa, discussed his past with Barnet in taped interviews carried out in He was , but Montejo must have understood that he was the sole living runaway slave in Cuba and that his words and memories were considered important enough to be published.
These included African religious expressions, practices and culture, examples of resistance to the slave regime, Montejo’s recollections of life as a fugitive in hiding, his memories of the Wars of Independence and the later presence