The sea coast of Colombia is home to one of America's greatest colonial cities.

One that recalls a history of international intrigue.

They brought slaves here to be bought and sold.

It is now a source of pride to Colombians.

And to former slaves who escaped, And have founded their own way of life.

Funding for In the Americas David Yetman was provided by Agnese Haury.

music Colombia is the most ecologically diverse nation in all of South America.

It has mountains, volcanoes, forests, jungles, and cities on both the Caribbean, and the Pacific.

The city of Cartagena is one of the oldest cities in all of the Americas.

It was founded by Spaniards who came from Cartagena in Spain, hence its name.

My friend, anthropologist Marcela Vasquez-Leon grew up in Bogota, the capital of Colombia, in the cool mountains, but she spent many days in Cartagena with relatives while she was growing up.

She knows the city, its people, and its secrets.

It was a great place where riches were stored by the Spaniards and a place where it was, there was easy access to the center of the country through both the Magdalena and the Sinú River.

Colombia is a country that is very rich, and it's very diverse.

Um, it is, I think it is one of the most diverse countries in Latin America.

It is transversed by the Andean mountains that divide into three cordilleras and they create these very fertile valleys, at the same time there are volcanoes that, you know, provide rich soils, very fertile agriculture.

Colombia also has two coasts, the Pacific and the Atlantic, and about one third of the country is the Amazon.

All that diversity has created an amazing diversity of cultures, dances, music, artists.

Even though Colombia has had a very violent history, at the same time you see great ingenuity in culture, and people who really have a willingness to live and to create, and to be part of UNESCO also recognized the grandeur of Cartagena, and in 1984 it was designated a world heritage site.

Dave- This is a truly massive structure, and that says to me that the crown thought it was worth investing in.

Bill- The crown had a wonderful plan to create a defensive network to protect its empire, and its riches in the Caribbean.

Built on the cornerstones of four cities: Havana, Veracruz, Puerto Bello in Panama, and Cartagena.

The keystone in the whole operation was right here in Cartagena with this structure.

The crown was completely changing Europe with the price revolution with the amount of gold and silver that it brought from the Americas.

The crown wanted to defend this city, the gateway to its South American riches and to many Caribbean riches.

In order to do that it used forced labor.

A combination of indigenous peoples and African slaves.

The crown was particularly concerned because they had twice seen this city conquered by pirates who looted it.

Sir Francis Drake was the most notorious, but there were others as well and the crown wanted to prevent that from happening.

Bill- So this is where it all began 7 kilometers of wall built after Drake's successful raid to make sure it didn't happen again.

This is probably the largest public works project in the 300 years of colonial imperialism in the Caribbean region.

There are other, other forts but nothing to rival this.

Dave- Locally, they told me the mortar, and there have been thousands and thousands of pounds of mortar, were made out of sand, lyme, lime juice, and ox blood and if they didn't have enough ox blood, the blood of slaves.

Bill- So, how much blood... Dave- That's the story... Bill- So, how much blood do you think had to be used?

Dave- A lot of oxen, and I suppose a lot of dying slaves.

Bill- I imagine.

But it may have only been for bravery, or, or for the human element in the wall.

Dave- It could have been symbolic.

Bill- Look at this, Dave.

Dave- Alright.

Bill- This just looks like musicians.

Dave- Street art.

Bill- Yeah.

Dave- You have an accordion, hats, uh what else, a conga drums... Bill- But this is Vallenato the music... Dave- From other parts of Colombia, they're bringing it in.

Bill- Yeah, exactly.

Dave- This is what gets my eye.

These are the mochila, the backpacks, and I got a, I, I have a weakness for backpacks.

Bill- We really have to look closely here to see the quality.

Dave- Yeah... Bill- And I know, to make sure you're getting exactly what you're looking for.

Dave- We know they are all good.

These are all handmade.

These are wool.

And I'm not sure whether I want cotton or wool.

Bill- Right... Dave- But they are very, very fine.

Boy you can feel that.

Dave- Well, yes .

They want us to call these backpacks, I guess because you wear them over like this, and they don't have the cardboard in them.

Or you could put the cardboard in them so you could sell eggs Bill- Yeah, you can take the cardboard with them.

Look at the quality here, to see Dave- Yeah, you can Bill- Close, yeah, to see how the weaving is... Dave- And you also stretch it Bill- Yeah, Dave- You stretch it to see, Bill- Absolutely, to see Dave- Boy, that's tight Bill- Yeah, you can't see any space... Dave- Yeah Bill- and when you pull this out.

These are really finely done.

Really woven tightly and the patterns are even, so that way we know they're really giving a lot of tension.

Dave- The owner told me that no two are alike because the women who make them, and these are made by Indian women, toward the coast of eastern Colombia, they have a policy of never making the same one twice so, and each one is different in her own house, then each one of them from her neighbors, so each one is distinct.

Dave- I believe we're not in New Orleans here Bill- We are not in New Orleans but in a tropical city, that, with all the beauty... Dave- Well all of this is laid out according to the laws to the Indies Bill- Exactly Dave- They, they didn't just come in and say we'll put a street here and there, very strict conformants to specific laws as to how wide the streets would be, how high the houses could be, where the windows had to be.

Bill- This is the law of 1573 that spelled out the layout of towns in every part of the Spanish empire.

Dave- Even more so than in Spain.

They said, okay we screwed up in Spain but you in the new world, you're going to have things done right.

Bill- But it worked so well.

Dave- Look back here, look Bill, look how perfectly that works out.

Dave- You know you and I have experienced the grito of independence of Mexico in 1810, the same thing happened here.

Bill- Yes, right behind us is where Pedro Romero, a Cuban who had come to live in Cartagena, in 1810 gave a grito calling for independence... Dave- The cry... Bill- The cry for lower taxes and better government.

Exactly like the call in Mexico.

And it was the first one in Colombia, before Bogotá.

Dave- Well, what happens is that Colombians don't even know this is the case.

They believe it started in Bogotá, but the reality is that it didn't even reach there until six months after.

So this was the real heroic center of the war of independence for Colombia.

There's not much difference in humidity between night and day, so we can visit important places knowing that it will be, well, close, as old timers in my country used to say.

Even an open plaza is tolerable in daylight.

Dave- So we're standing here in what they call the Plaza de la Aduana, the customs plaza.

It was an odd customs plaza because basically they brought slaves here to be bought and sold.

Bill- The Spanish were afraid they wouldn't be able to control trade and so they had two ports, Veracruz and Cartagena, that were allowed to import slaves.

We don't have an exact number for the number of slaves who came here, but somebody has calculated at a minimum two thousand a month from 1533 until 1821, slaves were imported here.

There were a huge number and they didn't just stay here, they also went all over South America.

Dave- So this was the embarkation for the slave trade.

Bill- This was the emporium for the slave trade.

Slaves would be brought in directly from the port, and this is the entrance they would use.

Here you have the biggest slave markets in, in the Americas and this is, you know, Spain was holding monopoly of slave trade here in Cartagena and in Veracruz.

So the slaves would be coming after a long, long trip from Africa.

Already weary, tired, ill, and some of them had already died on the way here.

They would come here and they would be sold straight away.

So many of them were in very bad condition.

These slaves would go then south into probably mostly the Andean region, to be used as labor to maintain the empire, the Spanish empire.

So those slaves then would be the labor used to extract gold and silver from many of the mines south of Cartagena.

Dave- The slaves had a hero who I understand has since been beautified, a San Pedro de Claver.

Bill- Yes, Pedro Claver came from Spain to Cartagena because he wanted to become the slave of slaves.

He wanted to devote his life to helping these really poor people who had had a horrible experience and to show them Christian virtue.

And in that way give them some hope during this lifetime and a great afterlife.

And as a result of that the Jesuits pushed him forward, he was a Jesuit, pushed him forward and he became a saint.

Dave- And we're looking up at the dome of the church named after him.

Not all the slaves were auctioned at the market, a few of them were able to escape.

And those who escaped formed palenques.

Palenques are areas of refuge, which later on became towns.

One of the most famous palenques near Cartagena is San Basilia de Palenque where slaves were far enough that they would not be chased and brought back to Cartagena.

And in these places they were able to rebuild their societies, bringing and making a lot of the cultural traditions that they were bringing from Africa, flourish.

Some of these traditions in music, art, and dance are still very much a part of the department of Bolivar, and Cartagena, as well as the areas around it.

I have an anthropologist friend of Marcela's who is taking us to a real dance troop.

Could be 10 miles away from the tourists but its right in the middle of town.

This is real stuff.

Not touristy stuff.

This group is called Ekobios, and Ekobios has been dancing for about 15 years.

They've travelled all over Colombia, and they are very proud to show their African roots in dances like the Mapalé.

It requires a lot of skill and it brings about the African culture that has stayed alive thanks to this type of groups.

Dave- How do they learn about the original dances to recreate them?

Marcela- Well these dances have been passed on from one generation to another, so these traditional dances has been, have been danced in Colombia since the 1600s, 1700s.

Dave- So they actually they go to the neighborhoods, the homes where people do them, and learn them, and then bring them here?

Marcela- Well they have teachers, they have teachers that have learned from other teachers.

Marcela- But the root is African.

So these are afro-, this is what is called Afro-Colombian folkloric.

And the Caribbean is the site where this type of folklore has developed and continues to thrive.

Marcela- Many of these communities have been marginalized, and dance is a form of expression that shows their importance on the national level.

Everyone in Colombia recognizes that the Afro-Colombian rhythms and dances are, are a very important part of who we are as Colombians.

The dancing continued long after we said goodbye to the inner city.

Early the next morning we set out from Cartagena to the countryside, and a distant colony founded by escaped slaves.

[Singing] Colombia has its periods.

Violent conflict throughout its history.

More recent since perhaps 20 or 30 years, the paramilitary groups have displaced populations and today Colombia has about five million people that have been displaced.

In San Basilio Palenque there are about 70 families who were displaced in 2001.

The paramilitaries arrived and without much notice, in fact it was the primary school that sent letters to the families, saying that they had 24 hours to leave the region because the paramilitaries were coming in, so they had to take everything and leave.

They had to abandon their houses and their land.

And they moved to the core of San Basilio.

So most of the families in San Basilio that have been displaced are getting their lands back through a plan of the present government that is giving land back to displaced populations.

So apparently that policy has had a positive impact in the past few years.

But most of the displaced, or all of them lost their land for about 8 years.

What is ironic is that they're being displaced by the same economic forces that would have enslaved them 300 years ago.

San Basilio Palenque is a town a couple of hours away from Cartagena.

More than a million slaves passed through Cartagena, some of them escaped and founded this town.

The town is so different from others that it has been recognized by UNESCO as a place of intangible heritage.

Some of the older people in town still remember the old ways and carry on the heritage.

One of them is my escort, Rafael.

The town of San Basilio Palenque originated with Benkos Biohó who was the founder.

Benkos Biohó.

Well Benkos arrived here because the Spaniards went to Africa to look for black people to work in Cartagena.

And they brought Benkos and his people.

Benkos was brought with his family and his companions.

He was the leader of this group but they were very unhappy with labor conditions in Cartagena.

So he spoke with his mates and he told them, me and women, here we are treated miserably, prepare yourselves because we are leaving at dawn.

Gather what you have so we can leave at daybreak when it is quiet.

In the wee hours before dawn they gathered their belongings and while everyone in Cartagena was sleeping they left looking for the path to this place.

So they left and when they arrived here they went past the hill.

When they arrived to the site where we have the plaza with the statue, he told them, we can make our settlement here, and they started clearing the forest, getting wood to make houses and they began to settle.

The Spaniards went out looking for them, they looked everywhere but couldn't find them.

Much later after Benkos and his people were well settled and never went out again, the Spaniards found out where they were and started looking for them.

They remained hidden for many years.

I cannot tell you how many, it was many years.

They told Queen Elizabeth they were going to kill them all.

The queen, who was the one in command in Spain, told them that they could not be killed, because the ones that run away at some point obey.

So they should bring them food instead of looking for them to kill them.

So food was brought and little by little Benkos relaxed, thinking that he was not going to be harmed.

So he went to Cartagena and their in a meeting, Benkos was murdered.

Nations throughout the Americas like to commemorate the dates in which they legally abolished slavery.

In Colombia, in 1851, the United States, 1865, and Brazil in the late 1870s, but as this statue shows, the reality was that the slaves broke their own chains and made themselves free.

This language was Benkos's, the language he brought from Africa, from Guinea.

We have a lot of natural medicine.

A lot of medicinal plants that almost everyone here knows about, since these plants have been here since Benkos found the place.

The Tabalá Sexteto started here in 1930.

Of course this is the culture that Benkos gave us, that culture that we have, the culture was brought by Benkos, the founder, that is our culture that we have.

The first music that arrived here was Benkos's lumbalú, after that came the bullerengue later on, after the bullerengue, came the gaita, after the gaita in the 1930's came the Tabalá Sexteto in San Basilio Palenque.

The guys here they asked a local carpenter to make them a marimba, the bongos were cut out of wood, and they were covered with goat skin, the same as the timba.

The maracas were made out of tumo.

The guacharaca is made out of tin, that metal over there, tin.

And they formed the group.

6 there is such a culture as great as that from San Basilio Palenque.

The heritage of slavery and the heroics of escaped slaves continues in the countryside.

Back in Cartagena we can now appreciate more the connection of the monumental construction of the city, and the million or so slaves who built it, and whose suffering made life easier for the wealthy Spaniards.

Today, Colombians of African descent are proud of their history, and their new contributions can be seen everywhere.

Join us next time In the Americas with me, David Yetman The tropical mountains of southern Mexico seem like another world.

But the region is home to an annual transformation, an explosion of human creativity, based on indigenous culture and its native language and tradition.

I couldn't resist stopping by this house.

It's the home of the most famous Colombian in world for the past few decades.

The Nobel Prize winning novelist, Gabriela Garcia Marquez.

Funding for In the Americas with David Yetman was provided by Agnese Haury.

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