The Amazon as Refuge

Charles Mann and Susanna Hecht wrote this article for National Geographic describing maroon communities in the Amazon: places where escaped slaves, native Americans, and their children created settlements and societies outside of the reach of colonial society. In another part of the world, James Scott writes about places where groups of people escape the reach of various states (from China, from Southeast Asia, from South Asia) and create their own social order. Some of his strongest arguments are that political institutions, farming practices, social organization, even literacy might be part of strategies for living without the state, or in opposition to the state. In Southeast Asia, mountains and forests are the kinds of terrain that make the region remote. In the Amazon, it would be the forest and the swamp. Whether it fits with a global model, maroon communities are a significant part of the 17^th, 18^th, 19^th and 20^th century Amazon. Could there have been pre-Columbian analogies to modern maroon communities?

Online excerpt from Mann's 1491

image from backissues.com

If you are not sure about whether or not to buy a copy of 1491, the book by Charles Mann that presents a new and updated view of pre-Columbian America, why not see this excerpt at one of his webpages. I am not sure how long it will be available, because the larger doesn't seem to cover his more recent work. Mann is a gifted writer and does the important job of making archaeology more accessible to all readers. The illustration above is from the March 2002 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, where the introduction was first published.

1491, by Charles Mann

Charles Mann's 1491 is a very readable and wide ranging introduction to many of the big issues raised by archaeological research in the New World. And it begins with the example of eastern Bolivia. Mann spent time with Clark Erickson, seeing firsthand the extent and complexity of the pre-Columbian earthworks in the Llanos de Mojos. He wrote a cover article for the Atlantic magazine, and then developed it into a full-length book. This is a new way of looking at one of the most important moments in modern history, and 1491 deserves to be read by anyone who is interested in the archaeology, history, geography, and modern societies of the Americas.