hi yar har har my friends I've been approached by youtuber saint Andrew to do a topic on
Caribbean history which you know that means piracy privateers sailors breaking the law and of course
adventure and feel-good times oh oh no no no okay so we're talking about the depressing opposition
of black and indigenous people of colour and a war to save themselves from oppression well
this costume suddenly got very inappropriate so let's just change that up a little bit oh
i have to save that for a future video so the topic of today's video is actually about groups
called maroons which existed pretty much all over uh the americas wherever the transatlantic slave
trade was practiced specifically we're going to talk about Queen Nanny Captain Cudjoe and
the maroons of jamaica a story about mutual aid and solidarity in the face of white oppression
so let's just dig in shall we but before we get into such happy topics i'm going to talk about
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now back to the video so our story takes place in jamaica in the late 17th century jamaica like many
places and the caribbean was a location where cash crops were being produced in huge numbers
on the backs of oppressed enslaved humans this point in history it was a spanish colony these
places were kind of nightmarish at this point indigenous people were still being driven from
their ancestral lands to build plantations where enslaved people worked around the clock to produce
cash crops like sugar a very labor-intensive and very dangerous crop to grow on top of that
the tropical climate invited a lot of disease so anybody coming to this island was suffering from
numerous deadly diseases it's kind of gross to the point where there was actually something called
seasoning where if they wanted to send a slave tay to the american south or what would become
the american south they would send them to the caribbean first so that you'd find out which would
survive the tropical diseases because there are tropical diseases in the american south too
and those who built an immunity or who were strong enough to survive it could then be resold
at a premium to mainland america to grow rice or tobacco history's really sad and unfortunately
with the system the way it was enslaved people couldn't just vote for joe biden to make all
of their problems go away you know no amount of enslaved people petitioning to their government
asking please pretty please don't enslave us was going to make any difference they were necessary
in the process of making a very valuable commodity and when it comes to money versus human rights
money always wins so the sugar plantations kept being made slaves kept being captured and imported
into the caribbean including jamaica and any place we find slavery being practiced we find
people fighting back escaping and building new communities in order to live a peaceful
life away from oppression or to fight back and win back the freedom of all their people
and these people who escaped slavery to build new communities in remote locations are typically
called maroons although in jamaica they go by the name of cormontes but for the sake of this
video because of the larger picture i'm going to refer to them as maroons but what is a maroon what
were maroon communities in the greater context of the transatlantic slave trade and to answer this
i actually have tapped youtuber saint andrew to give an explanation the maroons is a catch-all
tomb for a variety of people of all sorts of backgrounds and conditions though predominantly
african who resisted their oppression across the colonial era as early as 1503 two years
after permission was granted to import slaves into hispaniola europe's first colony in the
americas enslaved africans were already resisting and that resistance resisted all over the americas
for hundreds of years first dubbed semano the american spanish word for wild or untamed
maroons fled spanish and portuguese ships and plantations to the safety and cover of the
rainforests and mountains the americas by the way they didn't usually call themselves moons
they gave themselves titles like nyan kipong pikibu which means children of the almighty
in tui a west african language most commonly spoken in ghana the maroons would collaborate
with indigenous peoples sometimes allying and sometimes assimilating they'd even occasionally
trade with isolated white settlers whatever it took to survive maroon life was challenging
but they still endured they sustained themselves by farming foraging and hunting
despite being stuck in difficult but necessarily defensible terrain like canyons mountains swamps
and jungles they were armed to the teeth and did whatever it took to prevent discovery or recapture
maroons used disguised pathways false trails booby traps underwater paths quagmires and quicksand
to protect their settlements if they were captured punishments were brutal slave masters would remove
their achilles tendon amputate a leg castrate them or roast them to death a strong military culture
was essential for their very survival and they would use guerrilla tactics fortified dwellings
and raids to maintain themselves in their raids they would destroy crops kill slave masters steal
livestock and tools and invite or capture the enslaved to join their communities after all
maroon communities were mostly male as female maroons had less opportunities to run away and
face their own challenges if recaptured security and loyalty were also vital which meant deserters
got the death penalty snitches got stitches new members would often have to go through a
period of servitude before they could even join the ranks as equals despite ethnic diversity in
maroon communities cultural commonalities in sex rules warfare familial arrangements and attitude
towards hierarchy took precedence and were pivotal to resistance maroons developed creole tongues
borrowing from african and european languages in order to facilitate internal communication
since they usually had a wide variety of mother languages most pivotal to their resistance was
religion as their spiritual beliefs were rallying point to mobilize motivate inspire and design
strategies maroon leaders were supposed to be imbued with transcendental knowledge
before war maroons and haiti would invoke laws of power and violence like bosu in the
marine interactions leading up to the haitian revolution a voldemort priest named francois
macandal would be divinely inspired slaughter thousands of white settlers in hispaniola in
1758 decades later in 1791 another vote in priest named pokemon would be inspired to do the same
both were executed by french authorities yet the haitian revolution was anyway colonial governments
would do whatever it took to destroy ruins they would burn forests declare wars pass legislation
for their capture even rewarding slaves of freedom if they caught or killed the maroon and they'd
spend millions of pounds in dollars in attempts to conquer them the spaniards sent bloodhounds
and hunting parties as the spanish inquisition saw runaways as apostates while the portuguese set up
capitao tomato to capture runaways for a handsome fee despite the perpetual state of hatred between
maroon communities and colonial governments they still occasionally traded or fought in
the same side of battle maroon communities would often play interest groups off of one another
sometimes they'd ally with english pirates other times they'd work with fugitive french republicans
occasionally maroon communities would sign peace treaties with colonial governments
they didn't always last every maroon community across the americas had a unique relationship
with the enslaved peoples the indigenous peoples the environment and the european powers that they
faced maroons in brazil formed powerful nations like palmares a community of some thirty thousand
free people meanwhile in cuba and puerto rico ruins joined the tynos in the mountains in
dominica they work with the kalinago in the forests in mexico gasparianga negotiated to
maintain self-rule of his maroon community in the veracruz highlands in trinidad maroons would often
flee off the western coast of the island and escape into the dense jungles of south america
the garifuna maroon community formed a complex diaspora due to their unique relationship with
their origins and saint vincent and their forced deportation to honduras guatemala and belize
in panama the simaron community collaborated with sir francis drake of england in its invasion
of the country in the 1570s maroon communities controlled the canals of louisiana and the great
dismal swamp of virginia north carolina in florida maroons joined the seminole nation in ecuador
shipwreck survivors created maroon communities and mingled with the indigenous peoples in the guyanas
ruins formed six nations the saramaca the paramaka dinduka the quinti the aluku and the
matawai even today in suriname maroons account for 15 of the population and have maintained
their political and cultural autonomy since 1690. that's all i'll say for now i'll leave tristan to
explore the underrated history of the iconic maroon communities in the mountains of jamaica
thank you st andrew on point as usual so specifically in jamaica the maroons would
escape into the interior of the island so if you look at a map of jamaica they would go into the
interior because it's very hilly and has a lot of places where you can set up a community out
of the way of the maine society and on top of that easily defend yourself and in 1655
the political dynamic of jamaica would change in a really big way that would allow for those trying
to escape slavery to really make their break for it as i mentioned jamaica was a spanish colony
but in 1655 that changed and the english invaded and it was a pretty decisive victory on the part
of the english the maroons took the opportunity during this period of warfare and political chaos
to go on these large campaigns to go to those plantations and try to free as many slaves as they
could as the english started to take over spanish plantations these spanish slave owners would free
their slaves as a way to sort of undermine the english attempt to take the island or at least
make it less valuable and hopefully try to push for an english retreat and together a lot of
these escaped slaves from this period of history founded a community known as the windward maroons
as well as soon as the english conquest of jamaica was complete then began the first maroon war which
was a long campaign by the windward maroons to try and free as many slaves as possible while also
defending their own communities from english attacks these communities became a rallying point
for anybody who dreamed of freedom and was willing to take the risk their life to try and make a run
for it these escaped enslaved people would rally into a fighting force two fighting forces in fact
one that we've already said the wayward maroons but also the leeward maroons which was led by
a legendary warrior by the name of captain cujo and the wayward maroons would be led
by a woman by the name of nani and a man named kwau now captain cujo is a legendary warrior and
still revered in jamaica today he has a holiday named after him the description of him
is also quite something of legend he's described as wearing a jacket with a sword and a gun
as well as shorts uh all of them really roughed up and also a big feathered hat and uh no boots as
well captain cujo's exploits involved absolutely remarkable campaigns against the english the use
of knowledge of their home terrain the use of guerrilla warfare and raids as well as living
in territory that was extremely hard to get to gave him an edge and the english failed to really
make a lot of progress during the first maroon war now queen nanny who's on the jamaican money
has a origin wrapped in myth and mystery there are several conflicting stories about her origin
some have said that she was an african princess who came some say that she was a person captured
and was going to be sold into slavery but jumped off the ship as it was in the harbor important in
all these stories is that she came to jamaica a free person and was never in a state of bondage
she was also claimed to have several mystical powers that are sort of built out of the religious
tradition of the country of suriname and much of the caribbean today she was claimed to be
able to catch bullets shot at her and throw them back at her enemies that kind of stuff there's
also a legend that if a white person ever goes to the remains of her original home nannytown
that they'll be cursed and they will die there i mentioned that they had several successful tactics
they were also masters of stealth and camouflage to the point where there was even a legend amongst
the english that the trees themselves had sided with nanny and were attacking from the darkness
so this wasn't your typical 17th century war with pitch battles and bright colors and cannons
this was guerrilla warfare in the forest shooting at each other from the shadows a fight that as the
americans would learn uh british not so good at doing the base of operations for queen nanny was
nannytown it was constantly under siege by the english but they were never able to hold it for
more than a few days because the territory it was based on was extremely hard to get to essentially
to get to this like hilltop town you had to go up this path that according to the accounts i read
two people could not walk side by side up the path so you can imagine very hard to invade and
this fighting would last for an entire decade at one point nanny town was at least conquered or
too hard to hold so they left and formed a new nanny town after 10 years of warfare
the english had made little to no progress fighting the maroons to the point where they
eventually cried uncle the leeward maroons signed a treaty with the english
essentially giving them independence though this peace treaty did come with a bit of a cost
specifically the english made them promise to not harbor fugitive slaves and captain cujo agreed to
it there was an uprising of his own people against him because of this and captain cujo successfully
put that revolt down the windward maroons nanny's people had a much worse deal a separate piece was
signed with cudjoe and he was given the town of crawford's town and the land where nanny town
was was handed over by the british to nanny they were all freed they were given a 500 acre plot of
land to live on given on the condition that if other european powers tried to invade jamaica
they would join the english in fighting them off now nanny likely died sometime in the 1760s
accounts aren't super strong on that especially because nanny is sort of a honorific title and so
it's hard to tell which nanny is the nanny you know but there's likely nothing very remarkable
she probably died of natural causes so that's what happened but what can we take away about
the maroons around the entire atlantic world this point well to make the final point on it i'm going
to go back but to make the final point on it let's go back to saint andrew say andrew take it home
unlike the communities of suriname and jamaica many maroons did not maintain their autonomy for
long yet their legacies would live on in leaders like sumidos palmares of brazil gasparianga of
mexico banquo spiojo colombia boheli fuboni of surinam and john hoss of florida and mexico
what does this mean for us in the 21st century the maroons exemplify the key principles of resilience
and solidarity that every modern revolutionary must hold it despite living one of the most brutal
periods of human history they took on the most radical of actions in order to survive and resist
in foreign lands they worked across barriers in language ethnicity and culture to reject
colonization in a cornucopia of creative ways the maroons demonstrated that there are many modes and
channels of resistance and they used whatever was available to them improvise adapt overcome most
vitally they show that we don't need to wait for freedom the first maroons of hispaniola in 1603
didn't wait for spain to abolish slavery in 1811 or for france to abolish and then reinstitute and
then abolished again in 1848 they collaborated to seize their freedom even today the maroon
spirit is an inspiration to me to resist all forms of oppression by any means necessary
will you do the same peace thank you so much for watching be sure to subscribe to saint andrew and
click for a video he released just now on carnaval so check it out don't be here anymore go now