San Basilio de Palenque
human settlement
San Basilio de Palenque or Palenque de San Basilio, often referred to by the locals simply as Palenke, is a Palenque village and corregimiento in the Municipality of Mahates, Bolivar in northern Colombia. Palenque was the first free African town in the Americas, and in 2005 was declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.
It's located close to the Canal del Dique, around 50 kilometres from Cartagenas de Indias.
History
Portuguese enslaved Africans in South America through the Magdalena River Valley. Its mouth is close to the important port of Cartagena de Indias where ships full of Africans arrived. In 1599 some 30 slave runaways escaped into the forest under the leadership of Captain Benkos Biohó. The group of Maroons defeated the first expedition of 20 armed men sent against them, killing the expedition leader Juan Gómez. Some years after they escaped, they had wandered between the Matuna swamp and the Dique channel. In one of his raids to the south, Benkos Biohó found a piece of land that offered ideal conditions for establishing a settlement. King Benkos-Bioho founded his dynasty along with his wife Queen Wiwa at Matuna around 1600. Since they barricaded the place with palisades, the place was also called Palenque (Spanish for palisade, wooden fence).
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “San Basilio de Palenque” as human settlement. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as human settlement. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q692174. VIAF identifies the subject as 127839912. The Library of Congress control number is n80076121. Authority coordinates are 10.103, -75.199. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2005, 1599 and 1600.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “San Basilio de Palenque”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow San Basilio de Palenque primary sources, San Basilio de Palenque archive and Basilio research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “San Basilio de Palenque”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “San Basilio de Palenque” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.