A Brief History Of The Maroons
A Brief History Of The Maroons. The term “maroon” itself refers to enslaved Africans who had escaped slavery to live as free men and women in self-governing societies away from plantations. Maroon communities sprang up throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America, and the United States. In colonial Brazil, runaway slaves formed Quilombo dos Palmares – housing some 20,000 African men, women and children. While in Colombia, maroons formed San Basilio de Palenque - the first officially free town for Africans in the Americas. But neither History nor memory can disregard the legacy of the Jamaican Maroons.
Maroon Inception
The transatlantic slave trade witnessed the largest trafficking of enslaved human cargo across the Atlantic Ocean. As more slaves were imported from Africa to labour on sugar plantations, the population of enslaved Africans grew exponentially, giving rise to clusters of maroons who would spearhead resistance across the Caribbean.
The Maroons of Jamaica
In the mountainous highlands, Jamaican maroons carved out new areas of geopolitical influence across the island in Charles Town, Moore Town, Accompong Town, Trelawney Town and Scott’s Hall. Three groups populated these maroon societies: runaway slaves of African descent, Amerindians and freedmen.
Some maroons were African persons who had managed to immediately escape upon their arrival to the New World from the West African coast, while others, who had been sold into slavery, took flight during the expulsion of the Spanish and British occupation of Jamaica in 1655. But plantation life was rife with oppression and it was not uncommon for a small minority of Creole slaves to also flee from the excessive brutality of their (plantation) owners.
Altogether, their mere existence of Maroons posed a direct threat to the legitimacy of slavery, colonial regimes, and the authority of plantation owners. To suppress the growing maroon population, Maroons were classed as fugitives. The colonial government also responded by passing new legislation to govern the slave population and deter slave resistance in British West Indian colonies. In some cases, Tainos and freedmen who subsisted independently from slavery, either allied themselves with the regime or participated in catching maroons.
Charles Town maroon-warriors, John Reeder, Little Quaco and Samuel Grant, made a career out of pursuing runaway slaves. In 1781, the trio infamously led a militia from Charles Town to capture Jack Mansong (aka Three Fingered Jack), outlaw and leader of a band of runaway slaves.
The militia tried Mansong along with his deputies, sentencing the former to death and the latter to be resold into slavery, but were ultimately unable to catch the Maroon community, which continued to live and thrive in the Blue Mountains. But Jamaican maroons persisted and fought hard to defend their freedom.
Under their leaders, maroons employed guerrilla warfare to thwart the constant danger of being recaptured or killed by allied maroons and slave owners. By the early eighteenth century, the maroon communities within the region controlled much of the eastern part of the island.
Accordingly, Jamaican maroons under the leadership of highly mobile and militarised ex-slaves, would wage the most slave rebellions in the Caribbean. Between the 17th and 18th Centuries, there were several major slave uprisings waged by Queen Nanny and Captain Cudjoe.
Nanny, the Akan priestess, and strategist was the religious, military, and cultural leader of the Windward Maroons from 1725 to 1740. After the sacking of Nanny Town in 1734, Nanny and Quao deployed guerrilla warfare tactics against British regiments. While Captain Cudjoe and the Leeward maroons engaged in plantation raids and military campaigns against government forces.
After the First Maroon War Captain Cudjoe, the Coromantee (Koromanti) leader of the Trelawny Town was able to secure a peace agreement that granted freedom to the maroons-turned-militia in 1739. But the acme of Nanny’s career would see her undertake successful raids to liberate slaves held on plantations. Her war efforts in support of slave emancipation led to several peace treaties between Maroons and British forces, while her contributed to the escape of almost 1,000 slaves over her lifetime. Nanny has since been recognised as a National Hero in Jamaica.
In the 21st century, maroons hold a revered place within Caribbean history and society. The Government of Jamaica still honours centuries-old maroon treaties with the British. It does not collect taxes on communally held maroon land, rather it funds infrastructure—roads, bridges, schools, clinics—the four official surviving maroon settlements still in existence.
Maroons of today
The cultural traditions of maroons are still commonly practised in Jamaica. In Moore Town, the inhabitants use the abeng, a cow horn blown of Akan origins. As part of their heritage, the horn serves as a means of long-distance communication, and had functioned as a means of relaying coded messages during the maroon wars between 1720-1739.
Religion is also a bedrock of maroon culture: hailing from West and Central Africa, Myal, Obeah and Koromanti play is commonly practised by elders through incantations, dances, songs and drumming styles to invoke ancestral spirits. The ceremonies are conducted in Koromanti, an English-based creole with Akan inflections, belonging to the Fante dialect of the Central Region of Ghana.
In 2015, the Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park became a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the music of Moore Town has since been recognised by UNESCO as a "Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage". Today, Jamaican maroons are heralded as freedom fighters, which left an incredible cultural legacy as the forerunners of independence.
Fun fact: Marcus Garvey, the pioneer of Black Nationalism, and Claude McKay, the renowned poet of the Harlem Renaissance era, are both direct descendants of Jamaican maroons. But fame aside, the history of the maroons demonstrates the fortitude of enslaved persons in the on-going struggle against imperialism, colonialism, and Eurocentrism.
