"The testimony of Esteban Montejo has been described by its foremost interpreter as "the first personal and detailed account of a Maroon [escaped] slave in Cuban and Spanish American literature and a valuable document to historians and students of slavery" (Luis, p. 200). This essay will explore how testimonial literature can help us better to understand past events. It will also examine problems inherent in interpreting personal testimony based on memories of events that occurred several decades in the past. Esteban Mesa Montejo discussed his past with the Cuban ethnologist Miguel Barnet in taped interviews carried out in 1963. At the age of 103, most likely Esteban Montejo understood that he was the sole living runaway slave on the island and that his words and memories might be considered important enough to be published. For that reason, he delved into topics of particular interest to himself and to the interviewer Barnet. These included forms of African religious expression and Montejo's recollections of life as a fugitive slave hiding for several years in the forests of Cuba. The book includes what appear to be actual quotes from Montejo along with sentences and paragraphs shaped by Barnet to provide a readable account of the life of a black man in Cuba during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century".

Referencia bibliográfica según el manual de estilo de APA (6th ed.): Montejo, E. (1968). The autobiography of a runaway slave. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

Translation of: Biografía de un cimarrón.