Speaker 1: Happy Saturday, Everybody coming up soon. On the show, we
Speaker 1: have an episode that mentions the Jamaican Maroons who were
Speaker 1: sent first to Nova Scotia and then to Sierra Leone
Speaker 1: after a war with Jamaica's British colonial government. And it's
Speaker 1: been a few years since we talked about that on
Speaker 1: the show, so we thought this might be a good
Speaker 1: time to re air this episode. It originally came out
Speaker 1: in February of This episode does contain one of the
Speaker 1: more sweeping errors we have made on the show. That's
Speaker 1: specifically an error I made when I wrote it. There
Speaker 1: has been a lot of writing about the Caribbean that
Speaker 1: describes the indigenous Tino people as having been driven to
Speaker 1: extinction by Europeans. We repeated that in this episode, and
Speaker 1: it is not correct. It is true that as much
Speaker 1: as nine of the Caribbean's indigenous population was killed after
Speaker 1: the arrival of Europeans, but that is not at all
Speaker 1: the same as extinction. People living in the Caribbean and
Speaker 1: elsewhere today trace their ancestry back to the Chino and
Speaker 1: other indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, and there's been an
Speaker 1: active and growing Tino movement over the last few decades,
Speaker 1: so we apologize for that error. So when you get
Speaker 1: to that part of today's episode, just replace it with
Speaker 1: this correction in your mind. Otherwise, enjoy Welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Today we
Speaker 1: are headed to Jamaica, which, yeah, no a place who
Speaker 1: talked that much about on the show. Even in the
Speaker 1: past archive not a whole lot about Jamaica. So we're
Speaker 1: headed to Jamaica to talk about a pair of wars
Speaker 1: between the Jamaican Maroons and the British colonial government. For
Speaker 1: listeners who are not familiar with that term, Maroons are
Speaker 1: Africans and people of African ancestry who escaped enslavement and
Speaker 1: established communities, usually in remote and hard to access parts
Speaker 1: of the caribbe In and some of the America's sometimes
Speaker 1: also intermarrying with the local indigenous population. The term probably
Speaker 1: comes from the Spanish cimarron for wild or untamed, or
Speaker 1: maybe the French my horn which meant brown uh and
Speaker 1: although particularly sammarron was initially used to describe wild animals
Speaker 1: and escaped livestock. It's one that Maroon communities still in
Speaker 1: existence today used to describe themselves. In Jamaica specifically, the
Speaker 1: word maroon came into use around sixteen seventy. Some of
Speaker 1: the Maroon communities during the days of the trans Atlantic
Speaker 1: slave trade didn't survive very long due to disease and
Speaker 1: starvation and the efforts of slave catchers and others to
Speaker 1: find and capture and destroy. But places that had a
Speaker 1: combination of an enslaved labor pool and remote inaccessible territory
Speaker 1: were likely to become home to a marine settlement, and
Speaker 1: that settlement was typically heavily influenced by the African and
Speaker 1: indigenous cultures of the people living there. There were, and
Speaker 1: in some cases still are Maroon communities all over the Caribbean,
Speaker 1: as well as parts of North, central and South America,
Speaker 1: anywhere that the terrain was difficult. So this included the
Speaker 1: Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and North Carolina, the Bayous
Speaker 1: of the Deep South, uh Surinamas Jungles, and the mountains
Speaker 1: and ravines of Jamaica, which is where we are talking
Speaker 1: about today. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Jamaica was
Speaker 1: inhabited by the Taino people, who were also called the
Speaker 1: Area Walkins. These indigenous people lived through a combination of
Speaker 1: agriculture and fishing, and also inhabited other parts of the
Speaker 1: Caribbean besides just Jamaica. We really don't have a thorough
Speaker 1: sense of their history or culture in Jamaica. Though Christopher
Speaker 1: Columbus arrived in Jamaica on May five, four during his
Speaker 1: second voyage to the West Indies, the first permanent Spanish
Speaker 1: settlement followed in Jamaica fifty years later. The Spanish quickly
Speaker 1: enslaved the Chino people, who did not survive long thanks
Speaker 1: to smallpox and other introduced diseases, warfare, and essentially being
Speaker 1: worked to death. Even as the Chino population was driven
Speaker 1: to extinction, the Spanish population in Jamaica didn't grow particularly quickly.
Speaker 1: By sixteen fifty five, there were about fifteen hundred Spanish
Speaker 1: people living on Jamaica, and they had an enslaved workforce
Speaker 1: of between five hundred and fifteen hundred people. The estimates
Speaker 1: on that number vary, which is why it's so wide,
Speaker 1: and about one hundred of those enslaved were Chinos, who
Speaker 1: were by this point the last of their people. At
Speaker 1: least the last of their people in Jamaican. They basically
Speaker 1: were driven to extinction all over the Caribbean, but the
Speaker 1: timing varies from one island to another. In addition to
Speaker 1: the eradication of the indigenous population, Spain did not make
Speaker 1: particularly good use of Jamaica. They had hoped to find
Speaker 1: gold on the island but didn't, and once they gave
Speaker 1: up on the goldmine idea, they basically approached Jamaica as
Speaker 1: something they were occupying so nobody else could have it,
Speaker 1: not as an actual valuable resource to exploit. Consequently, that
Speaker 1: same year, which was six when an English fleet arrived
Speaker 1: off the coast of Spanish Town. The island had very
Speaker 1: little in the way of defenses. The fleet, commanded by
Speaker 1: Admiral Sir William penn in General Robert Venables, had been
Speaker 1: directed by Oliver Cromwell to uproot Spain's presence in the Caribbean.
Speaker 1: Even though they had close to forty ships and eight
Speaker 1: thousand men, the fleet had just failed to drive the
Speaker 1: Spanish out of San Domingo. Jamaica still kind of cobbled
Speaker 1: together and poorly defended. After almost a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: years of Spanish occupation really seemed like a much easier target,
Speaker 1: and it was Spanish colonists. Many of them immediately fled
Speaker 1: north to Cuba, leaving their enslaved workforce behind. The Spanish
Speaker 1: colonists who stayed withdrew from Spanish Town and other settlement
Speaker 1: that were under immediate threat from the English, and they
Speaker 1: fled to more remote outposts or in some cases hid
Speaker 1: in less hospitable parts of the island's interior. The enslaved
Speaker 1: people who had been left behind, some of them explicitly
Speaker 1: set free, but others essentially abandoned, armed themselves and retreated
Speaker 1: deeper into Jamaica's interior, where they would form the first
Speaker 1: permanent Maroon communities on the island. They hunted and began
Speaker 1: at least some crop cultivation, but they also survived through
Speaker 1: harassing and raiding the English plantations and settlements. The Maroons
Speaker 1: organized themselves in these earliest years into three bands, one
Speaker 1: of them we really don't know much at all about,
Speaker 1: but the other two each had their own leaders who
Speaker 1: made their way into the historical record. There was Lubolo
Speaker 1: a k a. Wand Lubol or sometimes Wanda Bullis. He
Speaker 1: was the head of one faction and then Wanda Sarah's
Speaker 1: was head of the other Don. Christopher A. Saucy, the
Speaker 1: last Spanish governor in Jamaica, attempted to mount a resistance
Speaker 1: to the English invasion, and he looked to the Maroons
Speaker 1: under Lebolo for aid. The Maroons were at this point
Speaker 1: a much bigger threat to the English than the Spanish were.
Speaker 1: There were more of them, they were better armed, and
Speaker 1: they were increasingly far more familiar with the island's more
Speaker 1: mountainous territory, and they were becoming adept at guerrilla warfare.
Speaker 1: While Lubolo's men were not at all willing to go
Speaker 1: back to being enslaved, they did think that it would
Speaker 1: be better if the Spanish retook control of Jamaica rather
Speaker 1: than staying in the hands of the English, because, to
Speaker 1: use the basic figure of speech, the Spanish where the
Speaker 1: devil they knew. Over the next five years, Spain made
Speaker 1: several attacks on British plantations and settlements. In all the
Speaker 1: ones that have made their way into the historical record,
Speaker 1: Maroons were present as well, and in addition to aiding
Speaker 1: with the attacks on the British, the Maroons were also
Speaker 1: acting as guides and guards to the Spanish in the
Speaker 1: Jamaican back country, in some cases even supplying their food food.
Speaker 1: By sixteen fifty eight, English Governor Edward Doyley was fed
Speaker 1: up with the perpetual skirmishes with the lingering Spanish presence
Speaker 1: in Jamaica, so he went to Lubolo himself, offering him
Speaker 1: and his people freedom and self governance if they switched sides.
Speaker 1: The Belo, recognizing the fighting was starting to jeopardize the
Speaker 1: crops that had become the island's primary food source, and
Speaker 1: really finding it appealing that he would officially have self government,
Speaker 1: self governance, and liberty, agreed. Although the Spanish presence in
Speaker 1: Jamaica ended by sixteen sixty after the English and the
Speaker 1: Marines teamed up against them, the island would not be
Speaker 1: formally ceded to English. To the English for another decade,
Speaker 1: Lobolo and his people were given their promised freedom and
Speaker 1: thirty acres of land a peace, with Lobolo named magistrate
Speaker 1: and his fighting force becoming known as the Black Militia.
Speaker 1: He worked with the English for roughly three years, at
Speaker 1: which someone possibly wand to Sarah's, killed him, viewing his
Speaker 1: shift of allegiance from Spain to England, as a betrayal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I found one source that said definitely that's who it was,
Speaker 1: and then I found another source that had all this
Speaker 1: information about Wanda Sara's and did made no mention of
Speaker 1: it at all, which seems like a huge thing to
Speaker 1: leave out if it's that's if that's how it went down.
Speaker 1: The First Maroon War in Jamaica grew out of England's
Speaker 1: efforts to establish its governance once it had gotten rid
Speaker 1: of the Spanish, as well as shifts in the island's
Speaker 1: use of enslaved labor, and we will talk about that
Speaker 1: after a quick sponsor break in sixteen sixty two, after
Speaker 1: Jamaica was free of the last of the Spanish stragglers
Speaker 1: and England was attempting to establish a colonial government, it
Speaker 1: was obvious that there needed to be some kind of
Speaker 1: consideration and of the Maroon population. They were certainly not
Speaker 1: going to return to being enslaved, but their presence was
Speaker 1: also outside the bounds of English society. Eventually, instructions to
Speaker 1: this newly created English government read quote, give encouragements as
Speaker 1: as securely you may to such Negroes, natives and others
Speaker 1: as shall submit to live peaceable under his Majesty's obedience
Speaker 1: and in due submission to the government of the island.
Speaker 1: The peace between the English and the Maroons didn't last though.
Speaker 1: By sixteen seventy Wanda Sara's and his band had been
Speaker 1: outlawed and placed under a thirty pound bounty apiece. And
Speaker 1: at the same time, England took a completely different approach
Speaker 1: to the island than Spain had. It moved towards establishing
Speaker 1: huge sugar plantations and importing enslaved Africans as labor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there were lots and lots of enslaved people who were
Speaker 1: imported into Jamaica as a result of this decision, which,
Speaker 1: uh basically England was like, man, we can grow so
Speaker 1: much sugar here and make so much money, whereas Spain
Speaker 1: had sort of been like, if we have this, no
Speaker 1: one else can have it, and it would do a
Speaker 1: lot at all. For the next few decades, as these
Speaker 1: plantations grew and their enslaved labor forces grew as well,
Speaker 1: Jamaica saw a huge series of uprisings by the people
Speaker 1: who were enslaved on the sugar plantations. In sixteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: two hundred enslaved people rose up against a planter killed
Speaker 1: him and several other white people, plundered surrounding plantations and
Speaker 1: then retreated into the mountains. More revolts followed in sixteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight, sixteen eighty five, sixteen six, sixteen nine, and
Speaker 1: sixteen ninety six. It was basically an ongoing series of
Speaker 1: uprisings on the plantations simultaneously the Maroon population both through
Speaker 1: the survivors of successful revolts and people who just managed
Speaker 1: to escape in the chaos, and it grew further in
Speaker 1: sixteen sixty nine or sixteen seventy when a slave ship
Speaker 1: wrecked off the coast of Jamaica, and the people whom
Speaker 1: were able to make it to the shore mostly wound
Speaker 1: up moving into the interior and taking refuge with the Maroons.
Speaker 1: Soon Jamaica was home to two broad groups of Maroons,
Speaker 1: the Windward Maroons, who lived on the eastern part of
Speaker 1: the island, and the Leeward Maroons, who lived in the
Speaker 1: northwest part of the island. In spite of malaria, tropical illness, heat,
Speaker 1: a devastating earthquake and tsunami in sixteen ninety two, and
Speaker 1: being constantly harassed by the French, the Maroons and pirates
Speaker 1: congregating in Port Royal. The English presence in Jamaica continued
Speaker 1: to grow. However, the white population was progressively more outnumbered
Speaker 1: by its enslaved workforce. By seventeen oh three, there were
Speaker 1: about forty five thousand enslaved Africans on Jamaica. Only about
Speaker 1: ten percent of the people in Jamaica were white, and
Speaker 1: in some places the ratio was twenty five to one.
Speaker 1: By seventeen twenty two, English sugar plantations had spread over
Speaker 1: most of the arable land in Jamaica. They had started
Speaker 1: to cut off the scattered Maroons settlements from one another,
Speaker 1: disrupting trade lines and lines of communication. And because the
Speaker 1: British planters and slave owners had become increasingly prosperous, most
Speaker 1: of them had started sending their children back to England
Speaker 1: to be educated, and then they followed themselves. So Jamaica
Speaker 1: basically became a nation of absentee landlords, with plantations that
Speaker 1: were run by agents and attorneys, under the rule of
Speaker 1: a governor who was really the Crowns representative on the island,
Speaker 1: and a system of laws that either ignored or disadvantaged
Speaker 1: the Maroon population. According to Maroon oral history, the uprising
Speaker 1: skirmishes and raids on plantations we've already talked about. We're
Speaker 1: all part of their first war against England, which they
Speaker 1: waged for eighty years, But from the British point of view,
Speaker 1: it was a lot narrower, starting only in the late
Speaker 1: seventeen twenties when they started making a more orchestrated effort
Speaker 1: to find Maroon settlements and conquer the people in them.
Speaker 1: In this more orchestrated effort, the British had a lot
Speaker 1: working against them because they were so vastly outnumbered by
Speaker 1: their enslaved workforce, and they didn't have like an official
Speaker 1: military support provided by the Crown to help them in
Speaker 1: this effort. They had to train enslaved men as gunners
Speaker 1: and also used their enslaved workforce as porters when searching
Speaker 1: and fighting against the Maroons. Unsurprisingly, a lot of these
Speaker 1: men abandoned their posts, taking their weapons and their to
Speaker 1: cargo with them to join the Maroons. So there was
Speaker 1: like a lot of desertion that also robbed the English
Speaker 1: of their supplies and weapons. In my head, this plays
Speaker 1: out as such like a Benny Hill sor of confused,
Speaker 1: you know, just cannot get anything organized and like to
Speaker 1: go according to planned situation. Yeah, there's a there are.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons that I wanted to do this
Speaker 1: episode is that there's kind of a perception that that
Speaker 1: during slavery there was not a lot of resistance against
Speaker 1: slave owners. This is an example of how that was false, uh,
Speaker 1: and how the British were just continually, like constantly being
Speaker 1: rated and constantly losing. Uh. You know that the people
Speaker 1: they had trained to be soldiers in this context and
Speaker 1: like just being harassed and uh and bothered continually by
Speaker 1: the Marion population. And another disadvantage that they had was
Speaker 1: that by this point, the Maroons were living in some
Speaker 1: of Jamaica's most inaccessible areas, and they were deeply familiar
Speaker 1: with the terrain. They combined this knowledge with guerilla warfare techniques,
Speaker 1: including the use of camouflage, ambushes, catching people in crossfire,
Speaker 1: communication through horns and drums, and extensive espionage work, including
Speaker 1: among enslaved people on the plantations themselves. One of the
Speaker 1: maroons key strategists was a woman known as Nanny, also
Speaker 1: Queen Nanny or Granny Nanny. She was from the Windward Maroons. Uh.
Speaker 1: Nanny described herself as coramancy, which was the English word
Speaker 1: for people from the Ashanti Empire and what's now Ghana.
Speaker 1: Although there's not a lot conclusively known about her biography,
Speaker 1: she's credited with having masterminded the strategy for the Windward
Speaker 1: Maroons resistance during the First Maroon War. In addition to
Speaker 1: her strategic work, Nanny was also an obia woman. Obia
Speaker 1: is a belief system that involves the influence of spirits
Speaker 1: in daily life, as well as medicine and healing, ritual
Speaker 1: and magic. Today, she is the only female nest hero
Speaker 1: of Jamaica, and her image is on the Jamaican five
Speaker 1: hundred dollar note. In seventeen thirty two, the British took
Speaker 1: Nanny Town, which was named, of course for Nanny. The
Speaker 1: Windward Maroons recaptured it in seventeen thirty three, and the
Speaker 1: English conquered it once again in seventeen thirty four after
Speaker 1: a massive five day battle. Nanny herself was rumored to
Speaker 1: have been killed in seventeen thirty three, but she was
Speaker 1: at this point actually still living. She wasn't when it
Speaker 1: came to making negotiations with the Windward Maroons uh It.
Speaker 1: Those generally happened with um male captains in the In
Speaker 1: the Maroon society, but Nanny was the person that had
Speaker 1: like the absolute respect uh and influence in terms of
Speaker 1: how they were doing the fighting. After the fall of Nannytown,
Speaker 1: the survivor split up. About three hundred of them, including children,
Speaker 1: made a one hundred mile march to try to meet
Speaker 1: up with the Leeward Maroons to a town under the
Speaker 1: leadership of a man named kud Joe. But the British
Speaker 1: tried to attack and disperse the column before they reached
Speaker 1: that town, but they failed, and they became worried of
Speaker 1: what would happen once they had joined forces with the
Speaker 1: Leeward Maroons. However, the refugees from Nannytown weren't welcome in
Speaker 1: the Leeward settlement, partly because there wasn't enough food to
Speaker 1: support that many newcomers. Additionally, though cud Joe, while he
Speaker 1: had a reputation for being fierce, also had a reputation
Speaker 1: of being somewhat ambivalent about the British. He was definitely
Speaker 1: willing to raid British plantations when it suited him, and
Speaker 1: to fight back against the British incursions into his territory,
Speaker 1: but he was a little more pragmatic as far as
Speaker 1: thinking it was probably not going to be possible to
Speaker 1: completely drive the British off of Jamaica, which is what
Speaker 1: some of the Windward Maroons seemed to really want to do.
Speaker 1: He was more interested in securing freedom and autonomy for
Speaker 1: himself and his people, even if that meant that the
Speaker 1: British were still on the islands. He didn't entirely agree
Speaker 1: with the Windward Maroons more aggressive and continual attacks on
Speaker 1: the British. As the Windward Maroons, who hadn't fled to
Speaker 1: Cudjo's people regrouped and Cudjo's men took a cautious but
Speaker 1: less aggressive stance, there was a brief lull in fighting
Speaker 1: in seventeen thirty six. In seventeen thirty seven, the Windward
Speaker 1: refugees went back towards Nanny Town, feeling both unwelcomed by
Speaker 1: the Leeward Maroons and anxious to return to the fight
Speaker 1: with the British. When the British tried to put a
Speaker 1: stop to this conflict in seventeen thirty nine, they, perhaps
Speaker 1: unsurprisingly given his previous behavior, started with Cudjo and the
Speaker 1: Leeward Maroons, not with Nanny and her captains and the
Speaker 1: Windward Maroons, we'll talk about how the first war came
Speaker 1: to an end and then also wound up leading to
Speaker 1: the second one. After another quick sponsor break. In late
Speaker 1: March of seventeen thirty nine, Governor Edward Trelawney commissioned Colonel
Speaker 1: John Guthrie to negotiate a peace treaty to end the
Speaker 1: Maroon War. Guthrie started with Captain's Cudjoe and Acampong of
Speaker 1: the Leeward Maroons. Trelawney himself was eager enough to get
Speaker 1: this over with that instead of just staying in town
Speaker 1: to wait for a treaty to be brought to him,
Speaker 1: he hiked out to a vantage point near the negotiations
Speaker 1: so he could be on hand to sign the treaty
Speaker 1: as soon as it was finalized. Cudjoe signed the fifteen
Speaker 1: point Treaty on March one of seventeen thirty nine. The
Speaker 1: treaty put an end to hostilities between the British and
Speaker 1: the Leeward Maroons, and it granted them freedom and liberty,
Speaker 1: along with fifteen hundred acres of land in northwest Jamaica,
Speaker 1: Stretching out from Trelawney Town, the main Lyward Settlement through
Speaker 1: what's known as cockpit country. The Leeward Maroons had the
Speaker 1: right to hunt on the island as long as it
Speaker 1: was not within three miles of a white settlement, and
Speaker 1: they also had the right to plant crops and raise
Speaker 1: livestock and sell what they grew and raised at the
Speaker 1: market as long as they had a license to do it.
Speaker 1: The treaty also offered the Leeward Maroons some legal protections
Speaker 1: and assigned them some obligations. The Maroons had the right
Speaker 1: to petition officers and magistrates for justice in the event
Speaker 1: that a white person did them harm. The Leeward Maroons
Speaker 1: could also handle justice for crimes that their own people committed,
Speaker 1: as long as those crimes were not severe enough to
Speaker 1: warrant the death penalty, in which case that was supposed
Speaker 1: to be handed over to the British court. They had
Speaker 1: to have an annual meeting with Jamaica's Commander in chief,
Speaker 1: who was British, and to white people, whose roles were
Speaker 1: not really defined in this treaty, were to live with
Speaker 1: the Maroons in Trelawney Town. I'm imagining that these were
Speaker 1: almost like ambassadors who were living but they did it
Speaker 1: didn't really specify what they were supposed to be doing.
Speaker 1: In this treaty. It was also up to the Leeward
Speaker 1: Maroons to maintain roads between their settlements and the British towns.
Speaker 1: Some of the treaty's terms instantly earned the Leeward Maroons
Speaker 1: a lot of enemies. They had to quote take, kill,
Speaker 1: suppress or destroy rebels on the island, which usually meant
Speaker 1: other Maroons, but more controversially, quote if any Negroes shall
Speaker 1: hereafter run away from their master or owners and fall
Speaker 1: into Captain Cudjo's hands, they shall immediately be sent back
Speaker 1: to the chief magistrate of the next parish where they
Speaker 1: are taken, and those that bring them are to be
Speaker 1: satisfied for their trouble, as legislatures shall appoint. In other words,
Speaker 1: following the signing of this treaty, if people escaped enslavement
Speaker 1: and made their way to Cudjo and the Leeward Maroons,
Speaker 1: the Maroons would send them back. This made Jamaica's enslaved
Speaker 1: population incredibly angry, and this was the case for some
Speaker 1: of Kujo's own people to one faction attempt at a
Speaker 1: last minute coup to keep the treaty from going into effect,
Speaker 1: but when Ko heard about it, he arrested four of
Speaker 1: the ringleaders and turned them over to the governor. Especially
Speaker 1: considering how much Maroons survival until this point had evolved
Speaker 1: had involved rating plantations and liberating people who were enslaved there,
Speaker 1: people saw this as a huge betrayal, quite understandably, and
Speaker 1: like that continues still today. The Governor, recognizing that the
Speaker 1: deep anger stemming from these provisions had the potential to
Speaker 1: make the situation on the plantations worse instead of better,
Speaker 1: sent troops to one of the plantations where descent had
Speaker 1: been the loudest, severely punished the people enslave there and
Speaker 1: executed many of them. For the most part, the Windward
Speaker 1: Maroons did not even know that these negotiations had happened
Speaker 1: once those treaties were signed, But once they learned about it,
Speaker 1: they realized that between the British and the Leeward Maroons
Speaker 1: they were vastly outnumbered, so under drest they signed their
Speaker 1: own very similar treaty on December three. The captain from
Speaker 1: the Windward Maroons who I signed this was a man
Speaker 1: named Klow. Things were relatively peaceful between the British and
Speaker 1: the Maroons for more than fifty years, but the British
Speaker 1: population on Jamaica as before, continued to grow, including taking
Speaker 1: over land that was supposed to be allotted to the Maroons.
Speaker 1: Uh skirmishes started to flare up again, and the Maroons
Speaker 1: stopped returning escape east from the plantations, and they started
Speaker 1: raiding those plantations again. Then two Maroons were convicted of
Speaker 1: stealing pigs and they were publicly flogged. This punishment was
Speaker 1: carried out by the foreman of the prison in Montego Bay,
Speaker 1: who was black, and it was done in front of
Speaker 1: some people who had escaped from enslavement, who the Maroons
Speaker 1: had returned, and watching from the prison. These returned escape
Speaker 1: ease taunted and jeered the two men as they were
Speaker 1: being punished. The Maroons anger over this incident was twofold.
Speaker 1: They felt number one under the terms of the previous
Speaker 1: treaty they should have been able to handle doling out
Speaker 1: their own punishments, and the way the punishment had been
Speaker 1: carried out was also particularly humiliating. This time, the conflict
Speaker 1: was much shorter. It lasted only about a year. Governor
Speaker 1: Alexander Lindsay ordered the Maroons to stand down by August twelfth,
Speaker 1: but nearly all of them refused, he extended the deadline
Speaker 1: to December twenty one, and then to January one of
Speaker 1: the following year. Finally, it took the recruitment of additional
Speaker 1: forces and a shipment of hunting dogs brought in from
Speaker 1: Cuba to finally get the Maroons to surrender. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: previous conflict had been a lot, lot, lot longer, but
Speaker 1: this one was a lot more vicious um and that
Speaker 1: surrender finally happy and in March of seventeen ninety six,
Speaker 1: although many of the Maroons didn't actually lay down their
Speaker 1: arms until a little later. Even when the fighting was over,
Speaker 1: Governor Lindsay considered the situation way too precarious to allow
Speaker 1: the Maroons to return home. He was particularly worried about
Speaker 1: the ones from uh Trelawney Town, which was the largest
Speaker 1: Maroons settlement in Jamaica, so he boarded five hundred Trelawney
Speaker 1: Town Maroons onto two transport vessels that were waiting in
Speaker 1: the harbor by Port Royal, with the plan of deporting
Speaker 1: them in this he had no destination in mind, no plan,
Speaker 1: and no authority from the British government or the Crown.
Speaker 1: Eventually he decided on Nova Scotia, where after the Revolutionary War,
Speaker 1: enslaved Africans who had fought for the British had been sent.
Speaker 1: The governor got a deportation law passed by Jamaica's House
Speaker 1: of Assembly on May one of seventeen ninety six. Even
Speaker 1: though this plan sounds very bizarre in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: he was completely certain that the government was going to
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, you do that, because this is a
Speaker 1: bad situation. Meanwhile, the Trelawnee Town Maroons from the transport
Speaker 1: petitioned to be released under the grounds that they had
Speaker 1: laden down their arms under the condition that they would
Speaker 1: not be deported at first, they suggested that they be
Speaker 1: given some other territory besides Trelawney Town that would be
Speaker 1: further removed from British settlements, such as deep into the
Speaker 1: Blue Mountains. When that failed, they instead requested deportation to
Speaker 1: another Caribbean island instead. The Transports set sail for Nova
Speaker 1: Scotia on May eight. The Governor wrote to Sir John Wentworth,
Speaker 1: Governor of Nova Scotia, on June three, to inform him
Speaker 1: of the incoming five hundred deportees. The transports landed in
Speaker 1: Halifax on July twenty and twenty three, Lindsay's letter to
Speaker 1: Wentworth arrived in August. Of course, having had no notice
Speaker 1: that any of this was about to happen, there was
Speaker 1: not a lot that Governor Wentworth could do about it.
Speaker 1: Once these two surprise transports of Jamaican maroons arrived in Halifax,
Speaker 1: Nova Scotia, and that first winter after their arrival in
Speaker 1: Halifax was particularly brutal. Even if it had not been
Speaker 1: particularly brutal, the the comparison of winter in Halifax, Nova
Speaker 1: Scotia to literally any season in Jamaica could almost not
Speaker 1: be more opposite. Yeah, it would have been brutal to them,
Speaker 1: even if it had been Nova Scotia's mildest winter on record.
Speaker 1: So they wound up petitioning to be relocated to somewhere
Speaker 1: with a more familiar climate, and those petitions were ongoing
Speaker 1: for three and a half years. They were finally sent
Speaker 1: to Freetown, Sierra Leone, which was by then home to
Speaker 1: many of the enslaved Africans that the British had freed
Speaker 1: during the Revolutionary War, who had also previously been sent
Speaker 1: to Nova Scotia. This whole Nova Scotia plan is so
Speaker 1: bizarre to me. Yes, that's all I am and Sierra
Speaker 1: Leone is a whole other story in and of itself,
Speaker 1: so we're not gonna dig into that. But now, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a whole tale that could be its own episode
Speaker 1: or episodes. Yeah, this is one of those things where
Speaker 1: we have to stop the story somewhere. Uh. Sierra Leone
Speaker 1: and its settlement by previously enslaved people did become the
Speaker 1: model for later attempts to settle Liberia. UM. So there
Speaker 1: is some similar history elsewhere in our archive about that,
Speaker 1: And as we noted at the top of the show,
Speaker 1: there are still multiple marine settlements in Jamaica today and
Speaker 1: the people living there generally continue to observe a culture
Speaker 1: and traditions that have roots in Africa, particularly the Acon
Speaker 1: people in what used to be known as the Gold
Speaker 1: Coast and is now Ghana. And there are also influences
Speaker 1: from what's now Togo, benein Nigeria and my A Gascar. So,
Speaker 1: as we uh sort of referenced earlier in the show,
Speaker 1: this is an example of how uh we don't hear
Speaker 1: about it as much in history classes, but there was
Speaker 1: ongoing resistance to the institution of slavery for a long
Speaker 1: time in places um that it was practiced in the
Speaker 1: America's and the Caribbean um, especially before the signing of
Speaker 1: that treaty that so many people viewed as a betrayal.
Speaker 1: I watched an interview as I was preparing for this
Speaker 1: UM with some of the Jamaican Maroons living today, and
Speaker 1: I don't remember which African nation their interviewer was from,
Speaker 1: but he asked very pointing questions about that part of
Speaker 1: the treaty um about like whether they agreed that having
Speaker 1: peace with the English was worth than saying that they
Speaker 1: were going to return people who escaped from the plantations,
Speaker 1: and then also whether if that were happening today, they
Speaker 1: would have made the same decisions. He was very direct
Speaker 1: in his his questions about that. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us today for this Saturday classic. If you
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Speaker 1: that might be obsolete. It might be doubly obsolete because
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