(excerpted from "Jamaica's Freedom Fighters", by Earthwatch Project Results, at http://www.earthwatch.org/g/Gagorsah.html)

"The maroons are one of the many communities of people who had to fight to protect their identities and freedom in the New World. Because much of their history has been preserved in documents written and compiled by their principal oppressors, knowledge of their achievements has been largely limited to their activities as 'rebels,' 'rogues,' and 'fugitives.' "

Professor Dr. E. Kofi Agorsah, Portland State University

Societies of Maroons, or "runaways," make up the core of communities that have preserved their identities as the pioneer freedom fighters of the New World. The colonies of escaped slaves who inhabited Jamaica's interior 200-300 years ago (17th and 18th centuries) are for many Jamaicans a symbol of nationalism. In a new, harsh and mostly hostile environment, hunted own without mercy by colonial forces, these Maroons faced nothing less than a lifetime of fighting to retain freedom and a new society. Their experience is African as well as North American, and gives a good example for understanding New World history.

The Spanish were the first Europeans known to have settled Jamaica, following the arrival of Columbus in 1494. In 1655, England captured the island from Spain during a war. During the confusion, 1500 African slaves on the island escaped and hid out in the forests and mountains of the interior of Jamaica. For the next 150 years, according to an English officer, these ex-slave communities, "proved to a thorn in the side of the British".

The word "Maroon" comes from a Spanish word "cimarron," which means wild or savage. The Maroon villages were well organized military strongholds, sometimes having to fight off attacks by the British army, sometimes making up treaties with the colonial government. In exchange for peace, Maroon villages would promise to help defend Jamaica from attack and to help put down other slave rebellions.

Probably the most famous of the Maroon leaders was a woman, Grandy Nanny. She was both an effective political organizer and military leader, defeating the British in many battles. Despite repeated attacks from the British soldiers on Jamaica, Grandy Nanny's settlement, called Nanny Town, remained under Maroon control for many years. One of her borthers was Cudjoe, leader of a slave rebellion in 1738. Grandy Nanny's history is mostly known from folk stories or history books written by her enemies, but a recent archaeological dig at Nanny Town, is filling in some of the gaps of how she and her people survived day-to-day.

Nanny Town is located in one of the highest and most difficult to reach sites in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. The town was more easily defended than most other Maroon settlements.

According to Dr. Agorsah, "Possibly the most exciting discovery during the 1993 expedition was that Nanny Town had pre-African habitation." Although the Spanish thought they had wiped out the native Arawak people, these findings of pots, beads and flint artifacts show at least some Arawaks escaped enslavement and death and set up new villages in the remote mountains. Escaped African slaves later arrived and joined the Arawak to make a new and unique Maroon community.

Maroon artifacts recovered from Nanny Town include both military items and things used in everyday life. A list of items found so far include: imported porcelain from Holland, wine bottles, glass medicine jars, gun barrels and musket balls, nails, knives, spearheads, door hinges, clay pipes, grinding stones, coins, and many different kinds of beads and buttons.