# San Basilio de Palenque San Basilio de Palenque, in Colombia, is the first free territory established by enslaved Africans in the Americas — not after Haiti, but more than a century before it. It was founded in the late 16th century by Benkos Biohó, an enslaved African king who escaped the port of Cartagena in 1599 and organized an autonomous community in the Montes de María mountains. The Spanish Crown formally recognized its freedom in 1691. The community still preserves Palenquero, the only Spanish-based creole language in South America, and African-rooted communal governance structures called kuagros. --- ## Entries XX