Jamaican Maroons descend from maroons, Africans who escaped from slavery on the Colony of Jamaica and established free communities in the mountainous interior, primarily in the eastern parishes. This last clause in the treaty caused tension between the maroons and the enslaved black population, although from time to time runaways from the plantations still found their way into maroon settlements. The origin of the Spanish word cimarrón is unknown. West India Regiment mutinied at Fort Augusta killing two officers. In 1655, the English invaded Jamaica, defeating the Spanish colonists. She has been immortalised in songs and legends. They spoke several languages – the most common was called Kramanti, which was similar to the Twi language of the Asante people of Ghana. [19], After much fighting, the British took and destroyed Nanny Town in 1734, but most of the Windward Maroons simply dispersed and formed new settlements. 1815 - Jamaica. After that, the colonial authorities had no use for the maroons, and they passed the Maroon Allotments Act in 1842, and abolished the post of superintendent in the 1850s. In Jamaica, the Maroons occupied a mountainous region known as the "Cockpit," creating crude fortresses and a culture derived from African and European traditions. As the children grew older, they helped to clear the land for cultivation and were responsible for feeding the poultry. The knowledge of the herbal doctor was passed down from the ancestors, who the Maroons believed were wiser and greater than they were and was always around them and in easy reach. Fyfe was called up once more to lead a combination of Moore Town Maroons, including some who resided in Hayfield and Bath, and they committed a number of atrocities before they captured Bogle. Those who remained in Sierra Leone formed the new Creole ethnic group of Sierra Leone which established diaspora communities along the West African shores from Sierra Leone to the Gambia to Fernando Pó. Others may have coalesced to form the nucleus of what would later be called the Windward Maroons. [40] Meanwhile, maroon attempts to recruit plantation slaves met with a mixed response, though large numbers of runaway slaves gained their freedom by fighting for Trelawny Town. The Maroons were free well before the British entered the island. 'An extensive and destructive insurrection' broke out in the Western District. Other arson attacks on plantations followed. The importance of the Maroons to the colonial authorities declined after slavery was abolished in 1838. The Spanish enslaved the native Arawaks, who quickly died out from the depridations of slave life and the diseases brought by the European conquerers. [56][57], In 1865, poor free blacks, led by Paul Bogle, rose in revolt against the colonial authorities in the Morant Bay Rebellion. By 1600, the Arawak tribes were extinct. [25], Not all the maroons accepted the treaties. Trelawny Town had objected to the official recently assigned to them and eventually expelled him. 21 were transported. Queen Nanny, also known as Granny Nanny (died c. 1750s), is the only woman honored as one of Jamaica's National Heroes. The Great House and sugar works at Kensington Estate in St. James were set on fire. The Superintendents-General of all maroon towns were as follows: The Second Maroon War began in 1795 against the background of the British-Jamaican planters panicked by the excesses of the French Revolution, and by the corresponding start of a slave revolt in neighboring Saint-Domingue, which ended with the independence of Haiti in 1804. Edwards, Bryan (1796), "Observations on the disposition, character, manners, and habits of life, of the Maroon negroes of the island of Jamaica; and a detail of the origin, progress, and termination of the late war between those people and the white inhabitants", in Edwards, Bryan (1801), Slavery in the Spanish New World colonies, Slavery in the British and French Caribbean, Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, "Seminole – Origin and meaning of Seminole by Online Etymology Dictionary", "Jamaican Ministry of Education, Youth & Culture: Jamaica's National Heroes", Common Medicinal Plants of Portland, Jamaica, Video Accompong – Black freedom fighters in Jamaica (1992), Council of Wise Men of the plain of Murcia, Brotherhood of the Holy Spirit of the Congos of Villa Mella, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jamaican_Maroons&oldid=983542351, All Wikipedia articles written in Jamaican English, Articles needing expert attention with no reason or talk parameter, Articles needing expert attention from February 2009, Ethnic groups articles needing expert attention, "Related ethnic groups" needing confirmation, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2019, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. 50 involuntary slave recruits of the 2nd. Rebellions occurred in maroon communities in the years that followed. They incorporated outsiders only after newcomers had satisfied a strict probationary period. The community of Me-no-Sen-You-no-Come also resisted attempts by the Accompong Maroons and the colonial militias to disperse them in the 1820s. The Blue Mountains of Jamaica are really blue, sometimes bluer than the sky and sometimes when their bases are lost in the heat haze their summits appear enskyed, distant, remote, removed. [12] The leader of the Eastern Maroons when they agreed to peace was Quao. They saw the signs of things to come and acted speedily to get away from it. Conspiracy discovered in Hanover and suppressed by a large military force. [39] This new general suffered more setbacks, until he eventually opted to besiege the Cockpit Country on a massive scale, surrounding it with watchposts, firing in shells from a long distance, and intending to destroy or cut off all maroon provision grounds. In all, about 600 maroons came to terms with the British authorities through these two treaties. This local planter and militia officer was known to and respected by the maroons. Boys aged 14 and above went with the men to hunt wild hog. The Leeward and Windward Treaties of 1739 ended the Maroon-British wars. Governor Charles Knowles re-established control over the uprising with the help of other maroons. Cudjoe rejected suggestions of a treaty in 1734 and 1736, but by 1738 he agreed to parley with John Guthrie. The Spanish called these free slaves "Maroons," a word derived from "Cimarron," which means "fierce" or "unruly.". Singing, dancing, drum-playing, and preparation of traditional foods form a central part of most gatherings. The growing number of runaway slaves, however, later expanded the Maroon groups across the island. However, slaves originating from other regions of West Africa joined the Maroons in their escapes. [41][42] Other maroon communities maintained neutrality, but Accompong Town, however, fought on the side of the colonial militias against Trelawny Town. English military commanders whose forces invaded this Spanish colony reported. It was to their vastness, to their hidden secret valleys and remote plateaus that men and women, in pursuit of freedom, fled to be marooned. When the pig slowed down from exhaustion, it was speared in the heart. Their attempts to break up the maroon communal land, while partially successful in Charles Town and Scott's Hall, met with maroon resistance in Accompong Town and Moore Town. The Maroons In Jamaica, the first Maroons were the indigenous Tainos, a group of Arawak people that migrated from South and Central America. [18], Disturbed by plantation raiding, the colonial authorities of Jamaica wanted to eradicate the maroon communities in order to promote British settlement. Peace came only when a treaty was made with them in 1739. The runaway slaves were called Maroons from the Spanish word 'cimmarron' meaning "wild" or "untamed." 1806 - Jamaica. [65][66], Moore Town, located between the Blue Mountains and John Crow Mountains in Portland Parish, was relisted on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008 for its maroon heritage, particularly music. [54], The maroons played a significant role in helping the colonial authorities to suppress the Samuel Sharpe revolt in 1831–32, under the leadership of white superintendents such as Alexander Fyfe (Fyffe). 56–77. [16], By about 1720, a stronger Windward community had developed around the culturally Africanised group of three villages known as Nanny Town, under the spiritual leadership of Queen Nanny, an Ashanti woman, sometimes in allegiance and sometimes in competition with other Windward groups. [23], In addition, a British superintendent was to be assigned to live in each maroon town. Tours of the village are offered to foreigners. 1803 - Jamaica. The Maroons mainly consisted of people from the Akan region of West Africa. The pig was then deboned, salted, and seasoned with pimento, pepper and herbs before jerked on pimento wood for up to six hours. In practice, the Maroon troops’ command of the territory and skill in guerrilla warfare gave them a strong advantage over colonial forces. 1798 - Jamaica. The descendants of the Returned Maroons live in Flagstaff today (see Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town)). When Sharpe was waiting to be executed (May, 23rd, 1832) he said, "I would rather die upon yonder gallows than live in slavery!". Columbus's discovery of Jamaica in 1494 began two centuries of Spanish rule. The governor called out the Moore Town Maroons one last time to put down the rebellion. [5][6] During the first decade of British rule, these groups were active on behalf of the Spanish. After Tacky's War, the governor appointed a separate superintendent for each of the five maroon towns. This puts the treaty in a clear context. The Jamaican Maroons are descended from runaway slaves who established free communities in the mountains of Jamaica during the era of slavery on the island. The Arawaks led quiet and peaceful lives until they were destroyed by the Spaniards some years after Christopher Columbus discovered the island in 1494. They ordered raids on the Maroon settlements in 1686 and 1702, to little effect. [28], The maroon population grew from 664 in 1739 to 1,288 in 1796, at a time when both the slave population and the white settler communities were ravaged by disease. Why would they consent to give up their freedom to a slave-holding state? The remarkable document recognised them as a free people and handed over to them 1, 500 acres of land. Now the Spanish people already had African people as slaves who they called the Cimarons,so when they decided to leave for Jamaica, they gather up all their possessions including their African slaves and sailed away to Jamaica. Like among the Tainos, age was respected among the Maroons. British slavery in the Carribean, however, lasted for another century and the Maroons were obligated to return runaway slaves to the British, thus making them reluctant participants in the very system they had fought so long to escape. . Hunter died in 1734, and within five years the British decided that the conflict would have to be resolved through negotiation. One of the leaders said that the revolt had not been subdued but that "the war had only just begun. The island Assembly then agreed to the transportation of the maroons involved. The maroons agreed to ally themselves with the government of Jamaica against any invader, such as the French from nearby Haiti or the Spaniards from Cuba as well as to hand over any runaway slaves.

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