{{short description|Kongo royal and Colombian slave rebel}} {{more citations needed|date=August 2012}} {{Infobox person | name = Benkos Biohó | image = Parque apolo 3.JPG | caption = Statue of Benkos Biohó | other_names = King of Arcabuco | birth_date = | birth_place = Bissagos Islands, Guinea Bissau | death_date = 16 March 1621 | death_place = Cartagena, New Kingdom of Granada, Spanish Empire | occupation = }} thumb|Benkos Biohó by Herbert De Paz thumb|right|300px|Statue of Benkos Biohó
'''Benkos Biohó''' (late 16th century — 1621), also known as '''Domingo Biohó,''' was a semi-legendary<ref>{{Cite book |last=Autores |first=Varios |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QO42EQAAQBAJ&dq=Benkos+Bioh%C3%B3+historia&pg=PA269 |title=Tras las huellas de Manuel Zapata Olivella. Tomo 1 y 2 |date=2024-11-29 |publisher=Universidad del Valle |isbn=978-958-507-252-7 |pages=280 |language=es}}</ref> historical figure, considered a Mandinka leader, described in literature as having escaped from the slave port of Cartagena with ten other enslaved people.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Curzytek |first=Barbara |date=6 June 2024 |title=Representaciones identitarias en la poesía afrocolombiana contemporánea de Palenque de San Basilio |url=https://bip.amu.edu.pl/__data/assets/pdf_file/0027/553680/Curzytek-Barbara_rozprawa-doktorska.pdf |journal=Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu / Za w Poznaniu Wydział Neofilologii / Instytut Języków i Literatur Romańskich |pages=37}}</ref>
While there is no direct relationship between him and the municipality of San Basilio de Palenque, contemporary literary culture has led to the belief that he was the founder of the town, though this is inaccurate.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Curzytek |first=Barbara |date=6 June 2024 |title=Representaciones identitarias en la poesía afrocolombiana contemporánea de Palenque de San Basilio |url=https://bip.amu.edu.pl/__data/assets/pdf_file/0027/553680/Curzytek-Barbara_rozprawa-doktorska.pdf |journal=Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu / Za w Poznaniu Wydział Neofilologii / Instytut Języków i Literatur Romańskich |pages=38}}</ref>
In 1713 San Basilio de Palenque became the first free village in the Americas by decree from the King of Spain, when he gave up sending his troops on ineffectual missions to attack the fortified mountain hideaway.<ref name="Ozy-1">{{Cite news |last=Tomaselli |first=Wesley |date=November 20, 2017 |title=The Colonial Betrayal that Haunts Colombian Peace |url=http://www.ozy.com/flashback/the-colonial-betrayal-that-haunts-colombian-peace/82022 |access-date=November 20, 2017 |work=Ozy}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2018-05-18 |title=How this runaway slave founded San Basilio de Palenque, first free town in the Americas |url=https://face2faceafrica.com/article/how-this-runaway-slave-founded-san-basilio-de-palenque-first-free-town-in-the-americas |access-date=2020-08-31 |website=Face2Face Africa |language=en}}</ref>
== Biography ==
Biohó was born into a royal family in Guinea Bissau. He was of Mandinka origin.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-03-03 |title=Benkos Bioho's Life Mattered! And Here's the Proof! |url=https://africanamericanheritagemuseumandculturalcenter.org/2021/03/03/benkos-biohos-life-mattered-and-heres-the-proof/ |access-date=2022-09-29 |website=The African American Heritage Museum & Cultural Center |language=en}}</ref> He was seized by the Portuguese slave trader, Pedro Gomes Reinel, sold to businessman Juan Palacios, and later, after transportation to what is now Colombia in South America, sold again to the Spaniard Alonso del Campo in 1596, in Cartagena de Indias. He made his first escape when the boat that was transporting him down the Magdalena River sank. He was recaptured but escaped again in 1599 into the marshy lands southeast of Cartagena. He organized an army that came to dominate all of the Montes de María region. He also formed an intelligence network and used the information collected to help organize more escapes and to guide the runaway slaves into the liberated territory, known as settlement.{{clarify|date=February 2025}} He used the title "king of Arcabuco".
On 18 July 1605, the Governor of Cartagena, Gerónimo de Suazo y Casasola, unable to defeat the Maroons, offered a peace treaty to Biohó, recognising the autonomy of the Matuna Bioho Palenque and accepting his entrance into the city armed and dressed in Spanish fashion, while the palenque promised to stop receiving more runaway slaves, cease their aid in escape attempts, and stop addressing Biohó as "king". Peace was finalized in 1612 under the governorship of {{ill|Diego Fernández de Velasco (governor)|es|Diego Fernández de Velasco (gobernador)}}. The treaty was violated by the Spaniards in 1619 when they captured Biohó as he was walking carelessly into the city. He was hanged and quartered on 16 March 1621. Governor García Girón, who ordered the execution, argued bitterly that "it was dangerous the extent to which Biohó was respected in the population" and that "his lies and enchantment would drive the nations of Guinea away from the city."<ref>Aquiles Escalante, ''Palenques in Colombia'', in "Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas", ed. by Richard Price (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 77-9.</ref>
The betrayal contributed to the history of distrust of Colombia's government.<ref name="Ozy-1" />
By the end of the seventeenth century, Montes de María had over 600 maroons, under the command of Domingo Padilla, who claimed for himself the title of captain while his wife Jane adopted that of viceroy, and successfully challenged further attempts at sovereignty from the colonial authorities.
San Basilio de Palenque was declared Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005.<ref>{{Citation |title=Cultural Space of Palenque de San Basilio |date=15 May 2010 |url=http://www.unesco.org/archives/multimedia/index.php?s=films_details&id_page=33&id_film=619 |access-date=2018-06-12 |publisher=Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Colombia |language=Palenquero<!--not recognized by Mediawiki, causes a CS1 error; no solution for now-->}}</ref> At about {{convert|50|mi|km|order=flip}} east of Cartagena, hills of strategic value, used as lookout posts, still bear the names of the runaway neighborhood: Sincerin, Mahates, Gambote.
==References== {{reflist}}
==Further reading== * Djemâa Chraïti Benkos Biohò L'esclave libre ou le roi de la Matuna [https://editions-sydney-laurent.fr/brand/djemaa-chraiti/ chraitihttps://editions-sydney-laurent.fr/brand/djemaa-/]{{Citation |last=Prada Fortul |first=Antonio |title=Benkos Biohó: las alas de un cimarrón |date=2001 |place=Barranquilla |publisher=Antillas |isbn=9789588152189}}
==External links== *[https://web.archive.org/web/20110516180239/http://www.ncat.edu/iajs/research/Africans_in_Americas_Volume2/Ch1_Colombia.pdf Africans in Americas] *{{Cite book |title=Central Africans and cultural transformations in the American diaspora |publisher=Cambridge Univ. Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-521-00278-3 |editor-last=Heywood |editor-first=Linda Marinda |location=Cambridge}} *{{Cite book |title=Africa and the Americas: interconnections during the slave trade |publisher=Africa World Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-1-59221-272-9 |editor-last=Curto |editor-first=José C. |location=Trenton, NJ |editor-last2=Soulodre-LaFrance |editor-first2=Renée}} *{{Cite book |last1=Appiah |first1=Kwame Anthony |title=Africana: the encyclopedia of the African and African American experience |last2=Gates |first2=Henry Louis |date=1999 |publisher=Basic Civitas Books |isbn=978-0-465-00071-5 |location=New York}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bioho, Benkos}} Category:16th-century births Category:Year of birth uncertain Category:1621 deaths Category:Maroons (people) Category:Rebel slaves Category:Slaves in the Viceroyalty of Peru Category:Legendary people Category:17th-century slaves Category:17th-century rebels