“Wild” Natures and “Infamous” People. A “Replica of Hell” Located in the Province of Cartagena (1700-1810)

Abstract

This article addresses the province of Cartagena (the Sinú River and its surrounding ecosystems) in the late colonial period from a new perspective of inquiry, focusing on the natural environment as a specific historical actor, which was decisive – for better or worse – for the Bourbon reformers interested in adding these landscapes, resources, and inhabitants to the course of renewal of the Spanish Empire. But it also explores the largely unexplored capacity for agency over nature developed by Indigenous people, slaves, Maroons, and ‘free’ people, particularly in areas such as knowledge about their food and utility alternatives and the establishment of circuits for the exchange of surpluses, which allowed them to create relatively autonomous ways of life through which they played creatively to remain independent and, at the same time, within the margins of the colonial system.