Esteban Montejo
Esteban Montejo | |
---|---|
Born | c. 1868 Cuban |
Occupations |
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Parent(s) | Emilia Montejo and Nazario |
Esteban Mesa Montejo (c. 1868 – February 10, 1973) was a
After being featured in a newspaper article, Montejo had been contacted in 1963 by Cuban
Biography
Esteban Mesa Montejo was born into slavery in 1860[contradictory] on a sugar-cane plantation in Cuba. He grew up with the Afro-Cuban religion Santería, which combined Catholicism and elements of Yoruba religion.
As a young man he was determined to be free and escaped from the plantation. He fled to the mountains, where there were communities of other
After that, he worked mostly on farms and plantations, which made up most of the Cuban economy. During the war of independence in 1898, he fought for an independent Cuba. In his last years, he lived in a Veterans' Home.
1962–1963 to 1970
In 1962 Montejo was one of two people featured in a newspaper article about Cubans who were more than a century old. Both were former slaves. He was contacted by ethnologist
Barnet edited the transcripts and published an account of Montejo's life in 1966, as Biografía de un cimarrón. Montejo and Barnet's book includes descriptions of Afro-Cuban religious expression and of Montejo's life as a
An English translation was published in 1966 in the United Kingdom and Australia as The Autobiography of a Runaway Slave.[3] Years later, it was published in English in the United States, as Biography of a Runaway Slave.[4]
See also
- Miguel Barnet
References
- ^ Michael Zeuske. (1997). "The Cimarrón in the archives: a re-reading of Miguel Barnets biography of Esteban Montejo" In: New West Indian Guide/ Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 71 (1997), no: 3/4, Leiden, 265-279. Muñoz, Juliana Fillies Testa. (2021). "Rethinking the Independence of Cuba from Miguel Barnet’s Biography of a Runaway Slave. Cuadernos Inter.c.a.mbio sobre Centroamérica y el Caribe, 18(1), e45606. doi: https://doi.org/10.15517/c.a..v18i1.45606
- ^ a b Review of Biography of a Runaway Slave, H-Net
- ISBN 9780370004495.
- ISBN 978-1-880684-18-4.
External links (Montejo's book)
- Montejo, Esteban; ISBN 0333535073.
- ISBN 842042143X.