RBG | We the Maroon People

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We the Maroon People

description

Maroons (from the Spanish word cimarrón: "fugitive, runaway", lit. "living on mountaintops"; from Spanish cima: "top, summit") were runaway slaves in the West Indies, Central America, South America, and North America, who formed independent settlements together. The same designation has also become a derivation for the verb to maroon.

Transcript of RBG | We the Maroon People

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We the Maroon People

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View a Lecture on Maroonage:

Dr. Greg Carr, Associate Professor Howard University, Afro-

American Studies Department

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Maroon (people) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Body of Ndyuka Maroon child brought before a shaman, Suriname 1955

Maroons (from the Spanish word cimarrón: "fugitive, runaway", lit. "living on mountaintops";

from Spanish cima: "top, summit") were runaway slaves in the West Indies, Central America,

South America, and North America, who formed independent settlements together. The same

designation has also become a derivation for the verb to maroon.

History

In the New World, as early as 1512, black slaves had escaped from Spanish and Portuguese

captors and either joined indigenous peoples or eked out a living on their own.[1]

Sir Francis

Drake enlisted several "cimaroons" during his raids on the Spanish.[2]

As early as 1655, runaway

slaves had formed their own communities in inland Jamaica, and by the 18th century, Nanny

Town and other villages began to fight for independent recognition.[3]

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Body of Maroon child brought before medicine man, 1955

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Ndyuka Maroon women with washing. Suriname River. 1955

When runaway slaves banded together and subsisted independently they were called Maroons.

On the Caribbean islands, runaway slaves formed bands and on some islands formed armed

camps. Maroon communities faced great odds to survive against white attackers, obtain food for

subsistence living, and to reproduce and increase their numbers. As the planters took over more

land for crops, the Maroons began to vanish on the small islands. Only on some of the larger

islands were organized Maroon communities able to thrive by growing crops and hunting. Here

they grew in number as more slaves escaped from plantations and joined their bands. Seeking to

separate themselves from whites, the Maroons gained in power and amid increasing hostilities,

they raided and pillaged plantations and harassed planters until the planters began to fear a mass

slave revolt.[4]

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The early Maroon communities were usually displaced. By 1700, Maroons had disappeared from

the smaller islands. Survival was always difficult as the Maroons had to fight off attackers as

well as attempt to grow food.[4]

One of the most influential Maroons was François Mackandal, a

houngan, or voodoo priest, who led a six-year rebellion against the white plantation owners in

Haiti that preceded the Haitian Revolution.[5]

In Cuba, there were maroon communities in the mountains, where escaped slaves had joined

refugee Taínos.[6]

Before roads were built into the mountains of Puerto Rico, heavy brush kept

many escaped maroons hidden in the southwestern hills where many also intermarried with the

natives. Escaped Africans sought refuge away from the coastal plantations of Ponce.[7]

Remnants

of these communities remain to this day (2006) for example in Viñales, Cuba,[8]

and Adjuntas,

Puerto Rico.

Maroon communities emerged in many places in the Caribbean (St Vincent and Dominica, for

example), but none were seen as such a great threat to the British as the Jamaican Maroons.[9]

A

British governor signed a treaty promising the Maroons 2500 acres (10 km²) in two locations,

because they presented a threat to the British. Also, some Maroons kept their freedom by

agreeing to capture runaway slaves. They were paid two dollars for each slave returned.[10]

Beginning in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Jamaican Maroons fought British colonists to

a draw and eventually signed treaties in the 18th century that effectively freed them over 50

years before the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. To this day, the Jamaican Maroons are to a

significant extent autonomous and separate from Jamaican society. The physical isolation used to

their advantage by their ancestors has today led to their communities remaining among the most

inaccessible on the island. In their largest town, Accompong, in the parish of St. Elizabeth, the

Leeward Maroons still possess a vibrant community of about 600. Tours of the village are

offered to foreigners and a large festival is put on every January 6 to commemorate the signing

of the peace treaty with the British after the First Maroon War.[3][11]

In Suriname, which the Dutch took over in 1667, runaway slaves revolted and started to build

their own villages from the end of the 17th century. As most of the plantations existed in the

eastern part of the country, near the Commewijne and Marowijne rivers, the "Marronage"

(literally: running away) took place along the river borders and sometimes across the borders of

French Guyana. By 1740, Maroons had formed clans and felt strong enough to challenge the

Dutch colonists, forcing them to sign peace treaties. On October 10, 1760, the Ndyuka signed

such a treaty forged by Adyáko Benti Basiton of Boston, a former Jamaican slave who had

learned to read and write and knew about the Jamaican treaty. The treaty is still important, as it

defines the territorial rights of the Maroons in the gold-rich inlands of Suriname.[12]

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Culture

Maroon village, Suriname River, 1955

Slaves escaped frequently within the first generation of their arrival from Africa and often

preserved their African languages and much of their culture and religion. African traditions

include such things as the use of medicinal herbs together with special drums and dances when

the herbs are administered to a sick person. Other African healing traditions and rites have

survived through the centuries — see, for example, the accompanying photos of a medicine man

and a protective charm from Suriname.

The jungles around the Caribbean Sea offered food, shelter and isolation for the escaped slaves.

Maroons survived by growing vegetables and hunting. They also originally raided plantations.

During these attacks, the maroons would burn crops, steal livestock and tools, kill slavemasters,

and invite other slaves to join their communities. Individual groups of Maroons often allied

themselves with the local indigenous tribes and occasionally assimilated into these populations.

Maroons/Marokons played an important role in the histories of Brazil, Suriname, Puerto Rico,

Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Jamaica.

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There is much variety among Maroon cultural groups because of differences in history,

geography, African nationality, and the culture of indigenous people throughout the Western

hemisphere.

Maroon/Marokon settlements often possessed a clannish, outsider identity. They sometimes

developed Creole languages by mixing European tongues with their original African languages.

One such Maroon Creole language, in Suriname, is Saramaccan. Other times the Maroons would

adopt the local European language as a common tongue, for members of the community

frequently spoke a variety of mother tongues.

The Maroons/Marokons created their own independent communities which in some cases have

survived for centuries and until recently remained separate from mainstream society. In the 19th

and 20th centuries, Maroon/Marokon communities began to disappear as forests were razed,

although some countries, such as Guyana and Suriname, still have large Maroon populations

living in the forests. Recently, many Maroons/Marokons have moved to cities and towns as the

process of urbanization accelerates.

Geographical distribution

North America

Florida

The Black Seminoles who allied with Seminole Indians in Florida, were one of the largest and

most successful Maroon communities in the United States.

Louisiana

Until the Mid-1760s, Maroon colonies lined the shores of Lake Borgne, just downriver of New

Orleans. These fugitive slaves controlled many of the canals and back-country passages from

Lake Pontchartrain to the Gulf, including the Rigolets. These colonies were finally eradicated by

militia of Spanish-controlled New Orleans. Free people of color and slaves aided in the capture

of these fugitives.

North Carolina and Virginia

A large settlement of the Great Dismal Swamp maroons lived in oppressive conditions in the

marshlands of today's North Carolina and Virginia.

Nova Scotia Main article: Sierra Leone Creole people#Maroons and other transatlantic immigrants

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Briefly, from 1796 to 1800, around 550 maroons, who had been deported from Jamaica after the

Second Maroon War, lived in Nova Scotia. In 1800 they were sent to Sierra Leone. (See Black

Nova Scotians)

Mexico

See Gaspar Yanga, Afro-Latin, Afro-Mexican.

Asian

Maroon communities were formed amongst the Afro Asians that resisted slavery.[13]

These

communities of maroons still inhabit the South Asian countries.

Central America

Panama Main article: Cimarron people (Panama)

A recently arrived slave, Bayano, led a rebellion in 1552 against the Spanish in Panama, and he

and his followers escaped to found villages in the lowlands. Later these people, known as

cimarrons, assisted Sir Francis Drake against the Spanish.

Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua

The Gulf of Honduras produced several types of maroon societies. Some of these were found in

the interior of modern day Honduras along the trade routes by which silver mined in the Pacific

side of the isthmus was carried down to coastal towns such as Trujillo or Puerto Caballos to be

shipped to Europe. The English bishop of Guatemala, Thomas Gage, reported active bands of

maroons numbering in the hundreds along these routes in 1648.

A second group that could be classified as maroons were the Miskito Sambu, who formed from

revolted slaves on a Portuguese ship around 1640 who wrecked the vessel on the coast of

Honduras-Nicaragua and blended in with the indigenous people over the next half century. They

eventually rose to leadership of the Mosquito Coast, and led extensive slave raids against

Spanish held territories in the first half of the eighteenth century.

A third group were the Garifuna, who were actually maroons on the island of Saint Vincent

deported to the coast of Honduras in 1797. From their original landing place in Roatan Island,

the Garifuna moved to Trujillo, and then groups of them spread south into the Mosquito

Kingdom and north into Belize. See main article Garifuna.

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Caribbean islands

Jamaica Main article: Jamaican Maroons

Escaped slaves during the Spanish occupation of the island of Jamaica fled to the rugged interior

and joined with the Taínos living there. Additional numbers fled during the confusion

surrounding the 1655 British invasion. Runaway slaves continued to join them until the abolition

of slavery. The main British complaint was that they occasionally raided plantations, and made

expansion into the interior more difficult. These conflicts led to the First Maroon War in 1731

and the Second Maroon War in 1795. After which, approximately 600 maroons were deported to

Nova Scotia, and later in 1800 removed to Sierra Leone. The only maroon settlement that

remained after the Second Maroon War was Accompong, which had abided by its 1739 treaty

with the British.

Haïti

See Mawon.

Dominican Republic

See History of the Dominican Republic.

St. Vincent and Dominica

Similar Maroon communities emerged elsewhere in the Caribbean (St Vincent and Dominica for

example).

Cuba

In Cuba, there were maroon communities in the mountains, where escaped slaves had joined

refugee Taínos.[6]

Remnants of these communities remain to this day (2006) for example in

Viñales.[8]

Puerto Rico

In Puerto Rico, Taíno families from neighboring Utuado were found living in the Southwestern

mountain ranges, along with the escaped Africans who intermarried with the Taíno. DNA

genetic evidence shows that many Africans fled up the Camino Real into the mountains to

escape the sugar plantations of Ponce. The Mandinka, Wolof and Fulani mtDNA African

haplotype, L1b, is present here.[14]

Taíno haplogroups A & C can also be found in this area.

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South America

French Guiana and Suriname

Maroon men in Suriname, picture taken between 1910–1935

Main article: History of Suriname#Slavery and emancipation

Escaped slaves in French Guiana and Suriname fled to the interior and joined with indigenous

peoples and created several independent tribes, among them the Saramaka, the Paramaka, the

Ndyuka (Aukan), the Kwinti, the Aluku (Boni), and the Matawai. By the 1990s the maroons in

Suriname had begun to fight for their land rights.[15]

Brazil Main article: Quilombo

One of the best-known quilombos (maroon settlements) in Brazil was Palmares (the Palm

Nation) which was founded in the early 17th century. At its height, it had a population of over

30,000 free people and was ruled by king Zumbi. Palmares maintained its independent existence

for almost a hundred years until it was conquered by the Portuguese in 1694.

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Colombia

Escaped slaves established independent communities along the remote Pacific coast, outside of

the reach of the colonial administration. In Colombia the Caribbean coast still sees maroon

communities like San Basilio de Palenque, where the creole Palenquero language is spoken.

Ecuador

In addition to escaped slaves, survivors of a ship wreck formed independent communities along

rivers of the northern coast and probably mingled with indigenous communities in areas beyond

the reach of the colonial administration. Separate communities can be distingeshed form the

cantones Limones, Esmeraldas, Cojimies y Tababuela.

See also

Afro-Latin American

Black Indians

Black Seminoles

Capoeira

Cimarron people (Panama)

Gaspar Yanga

Jamaican Maroons

Marie-Elena John

Maroon music

Quilombo

Saramaka

Sranan Tongo

Zambo

Notes

1. "Sir Francis Drake Revived" in Voyages and Travels: Ancient and Modern. The Harvard

Classics. 1909–14 paragraph 21.

2. "Sir Francis Drake Revived" in Voyages and Travels: Ancient and Modern. The Harvard

Classics. 1909–14 paragraph 101.

3. Campbell, Mavis Christine (1988), The Maroons of Jamaica, 1655–1796: A History of

Resistance, Collaboration & Betrayal, Granby, MA: Bergin & Garvey. ISBN 0-89789-

148-1.

4. Rogozinski, Jan (1999). A Brief History of the Caribbean (Revised ed.). New York: Facts

on File, Inc.. pp. 155–68. ISBN 0-8160-3811-2.

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5. "The History of Haiti and the Haitian Revolution". The City of Miami. Retrieved 2007-

08-16.

6. Aimes, Hubert H. S. (1967), A History of Slavery in Cuba, 1511 to 1868, New York:

Octagon Books.

7. The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 66, No. 2 (May 1986), pp. 381–82.

8. "El Templo de los Cimarrones" Guerrillero:Pinar del Río in Spanish

9. Edwards, Bryan (1801), Historical Survey of the Island of Saint Domingo, London: J.

Stockdale.

10. Taylor, Alan (2001), American Colonies: The Settling of North America, New York:

Penguin Books.

11. 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), Historical Survey of the Island of Saint Domingo, London: J.

Stockdale, pp. 303–360.

12. Alex van Stipriaan, Surinaams contrast (1995); Hans Buddingh', Geschiedenis van

Suriname (1995/1999); Alex van Stipriaan/Thomas Polimé, Kunst van overleven (KIT,

2009).

13. Oka, R., & Kusimba, C. (2007). "Siddi as Mercenary or as African Success Story on the

West Coast of India". In J. C. Hawley, India in Africa Africa in India: Indian Ocean

Cosmopolitans (pp. 203–224). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

14. African DNA Project mtDNA Haplogroup L1b African DNA Project, archived May 8,

2008 from the original

15. Case of the Saramaka People v. Suriname, Judgment of November 28, 2007, Inter-

American Court of Human Rights (La Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos),

accessed 21 May 2009.

References

Daughters of the Dust (1991), film by Julie Dash taking place in 1902 off the coast of

South Carolina and Georgia. It shows how, on an isolated island, a group of people

manages to hold on to their Ibo customs and traditions. ISBN 0-525-94109-6

Ganga Zumba (1963), film by Carlos Diegues

Quilombo (1985), film by Carlos Diegues about Palmares, ASIN B0009WIE8E

Hoogbergen, Wim S. M. Brill (1997), The Boni Maroon Wars in Suriname, Academic

Publishers. ISBN 90-04-09303-6

Corzo, Gabino La Rosa (2003), Runaway Slave Settlements in Cuba: Resistance and

Repression (translated by Mary Todd), Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

ISBN 0-8078-2803-3

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De Granada, Germán (1970), Cimarronismo, palenques y Hablas “Criollas” en

Hispanoamérica Instituto Caro y Cuero, Santa Fe de Bogotá, Colombia, OCLC

37821053 (in Spanish)

van Velzen, H.U.E. Thoden and van Wetering, Wilhelmina (2004), In the Shadow of the

Oracle: Religion as Politics in a Suriname Maroon Society, Long Grove, Illinois:

Waveland Press. ISBN 1-57766-323-3

Price, Richard (ed.) (1973), Maroon Societies: rebel slave communities in the Americas,

Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books. ISBN 0-385-06508-6

Honychurch, Lennox (1995), The Dominica Story, London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-

62776-8 (Includes extensive chapters on the Maroons of Dominica)

Thompson, Alvin O. (2006), Flight to Freedom: African runaways and maroons in the

Americas University of West Indies Press, Kingston, Jamaica, ISBN 976-640-180-2

Learning, Hugo Prosper (1995), Hidden Americans: Maroons of Virginia and the

Carolinas Garland Publishing, New York, ISBN 0-8153-1543-0

Campbell, Mavis Christine (1988), The Maroons of Jamaica, 1655–1796: a history of

resistance, collaboration & betrayal, Granby, Mass.: Bergin & Garvey. ISBN 0-89789-

148-1

Dallas, R. C. The History of the Maroons, from Their Origin to the Establishment of

Their Chief Tribe at Sierra Leone. 2 vols. London: Longman. 1803.

Sergey Slepchenko (2009), Nations of Latin America, Phoenix, Rostov-on-Don, ISBm

92-86-36414-2

Further reading

Johnson, Brian D. "The Land of Look Behind", Equinox Magazine, September–October

1983, pp. 49–65. A detailed article with many superb photos.

External links

Maroon music and teaching methods

Creativity and Resistance: Maroon Cultures in the Americas

A good short history of the "Bush Negroes" of Suriname

The Maroons, Hindustanis and others of Surinam

"The Maroon Culture of Endurance by Helen Reidell". A history of Jamaican Maroons.

Also available in Américas Magazine, Vol. 42, January–February 1990, pp. 46–49.