HISTORY DEPARTMENT:

                           #1 Nanny Town                                                                #2 Cudjoe, revolutionary leader of the
                                                                                                                       Maroons

Maroon communities formed in secrecy. They lived as outlaws in a foreign land. Captured and brought to the Caribbean and the Americas as slaves, they were able to escape, living like nomads and roaming the mountainous terrain and far away places where militias could not find them. They waged war against the plantations and brought the slave-based economy to its knees.

The works of several scholars bring to light the revolutionary battles fought by renegade slaves and the crushing effects these battles had on the big plantations.  These works debunk the narrative that emancipation was brought on by the work of religious evangelicals.

 

The traditional view holds that emancipation of slaves was initiated by Enlightenment values. British evangelists, the history books tell us, declared slavery immoral and the trade in human flesh was soon abolished.

 

But there is clear evidence demonstrating the plantation/mercantilist structure was on the verge of economic collapse. This was due in large part not to evangelism but to sabotage carried out by renegade slaves.

 

Throughout the Americas, as early as the 1500s when the Spanish conquistadors first arrived, renegade slaves systematically plundered the plantations. By the 1700s the war intensified. Bands of usually forty to fifty men and women would raid plantations, pillage crops, steal guns and ammunition, and liberate female slaves.

 

Successful raids inspired further revolts against the plantation elite until the 19th century when the slave-based economy was no longer viable in the Caribbean and Latin America. 

 

Further Reading:

 
The Early Political Development of Jamaican Maroon Societies
Kopytoff, B.; William and Mary Quarterly 1978

Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas     
Ed. Price, Richard; Johns Hopkins University Press 1996

The Haitian Maroons: Liberty Or Death
Fouchard, Jean;  Edward W Blyden Press 1981

 

Pictures:

#1

Located on the northeastern part of Jamaica called the Blue Mountains, Nanny Town was the base for Granny Nanny, the spiritual and military leader of the Windward Maroons. Granny was from Ghana, Africa, of Ashanti heritage. She helped to free many slaves.

 
#2

Nanny's brother was Cudjoe, the captain of the Leeward Maroons. His base was located in the Southern area of Jamaica called Cockpit County. Cudjoe's organization skills brought great fear to the British plantations, which were constantly under attack from Maroons. Cudjoe led the first Maroon war in 1731 with his sister.