Cuba In Cuba, escaped slaves joined refugee Taínos in the mountains to form maroon communities. In 1538, runaways helped the French to sack the city of Havana. In 1731, slaves rose up in revolt at the Cobre mines, and set up an independent community at Sierra del Cobre, which existed untroubled until 1781, when the self-freed population had increased to over 1,000. In 1781, the Spanish colonial authorities agreed to recognise the freedom of the people of this community. In 1797, one of the captured leaders of a palenque near Jaruco was an Indian from the Yucatán. In the 1810s, Ventura Sanchez, also known as Coba, was in charge of a palenque of several hundred maroons in the mountains not far from Santiago de Cuba. Sanchez was tricked into going to Santiago de Cuba, where he committed suicide rather than be captured and returned to slavery. The leadership of the palenque then passed to Manuel Grinan, also known as Gallo. The palenque of Bumba was so well organised that they even sent maroons in small boats to Jamaica and Santo Domingo to trade. In 1830, the Spanish colonial authorities carried out military expeditions against the palenques of Bumba and Maluala. Antonio de Leon eventually succeeded in destroying the palenque of Bumba. In the 1830s, palenques of maroon communities thrived in western Cuba, in particular the areas surrounding San Diego de Nunez. The Office of the Capture of Maroons reported that between 1797 and 1846, there were thousands of runaways living in these palenques. However, the eastern mountains harboured the longer lasting palenques, in particular those of Moa and Maluala, where the maroons thrived until the First War of Independence in 1868, when large numbers of maroons joined the Cuban Liberation Army. There are 28 identified archaeological sites in the Viñales Valley related to runaway African slaves or maroons of the early 19th century; the material evidence of their presence is found in caves of the region, where groups settled for various lengths of time. Oral tradition tells that maroons took refuge on the slopes of the mogotes and in the caves; the Viñales Municipal Museum has archaeological exhibits that depict the life of runaway slaves, as deduced through archeological research. Cultural traditions reenacted during the Semana de la Cultura (Week of Culture) celebrate the town's founding in 1607. Dominica, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent Similar maroon communities developed on islands