Blankenship 1

Kyle Blankenship
The Critical Years, 1700-1738: Maroon Communities, the Jamaican Government and the Slaves
in Between
At one time the crown jewel of the British colonial empire, the island of Jamaica has a
long and conflicted relationship with the institutionalized enslavement and forced labor of
hundreds of thousands of captured Native Americans and Africans. After the failure of a native
source of labor to feed the blossoming Caribbean plantation economy, most European nations
actively participated in a transatlantic slave trade that brought massive numbers of captive
Africans from their native home to a Caribbean society that enslaved them and coerced their
labor through a brutal system of terror, violence and repression. Jamaica, an originally Spanish
colony captured by the English Commonwealth in a 1655 military invasion, was not unique in its
economic structure: a minority of white, landholding Europeans dominated a vast majority of
creole and African slaves, with small groups of free blacks at society's margins, in order to meet
labor demands in a dominant export market. In a system that utterly revolved around the
negotiations of power between master and slave, there existed groups of runaway slaves, or
maroons, whose interactions with the white Jamaican government both challenged and
reinforced the institution of slavery under which many of these men and women had suffered.
From their earliest beginnings, and through their treaties and conflicts with the Jamaican slave
society, marronage, and the formation of powerful runaway communities, challenged the
authority of the slaveholding class which had lasting effects, both positive and negative, upon the
conditions of those still trapped in slavery and the viability of the plantation system as a whole.
By examining the momentous period between 1700 and the signing and aftermath of the two
maroon Treaties of 1737 in Jamaica, this study investigates the often contradictory history of

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maroon communities in Jamaica, focusing on their relationship with the still-enslaved, their late
cooperation with the slaveholding government, and the challenges and difficulties they presented
to the personal and institutional negotiation of power between master and slave.
Marronage, or the group or individual flight of enslaved peoples, has a long history in the
Caribbean; an ubiquitous feature of every slave society in the region. From Jamaica's earliest
colonization by the Spanish after the discovery of the island by Christopher Columbus in 1494,
to its eventual capture by the English Commonwealth, maroon communities were slow to
develop due to a small slave population. However, from slavery's earliest beginnings on the
island, slaves were constantly poised for and undertook dangerous and unprecedented flights into
the undiscovered Jamaican wilderness. These earliest maroons, or the Spanish cimarrones
designating runaway cattle, often stayed in small, fluid groups that reflected both their immediate
living necessities and their inability to sustain larger communities due to Spanish attempts at
regaining their lost slaves. These slave-catchers, or rancheadores1, were vigilant in their
attempts to not only reclaim their lost property, but maintain constant watch over a slave
population that in 1655 may have numbered between twelve and fifteen hundred; a one-to-one
ratio of black to white2. With the British conquest of 1655, Spanish slaves, who vigilantly
watched for opportunities to escape the violent domination under which they lived, fled in large
numbers to the mountains, climes previously uninhabited and inaccessible.
From the moment that England demanded the concession of all Spanish holdings on the
island, maroon communities of Spanish origin became functional and firmly entrenched bodies.
More importantly, maroons of formidable skill in guerilla warfare and thievery became more
than minor annoyances to the still fledgling English colony. As early as 1656, there were signs
1

Campbell, Mavis. The Maroons of Jamaica 1655-1796: A History of Resistance, Collaboration & Betrayal.
(Granby, MT.: Bergin & Garvey Publishers, 1988):2.
2
Ibid., 15.

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that developed maroon communities could realistically challenge the British government. Bryan
Edwards wrote, "The army gained some trifling success against them; but this was immediately
afterwards severely retaliated by the slaughter of forty soldiers, cut off as they were carelessly
rambling from their quarters."3 These sorts of military confrontations, which often turned
against the English parties, presented a constant challenge to the British, whose fear of maroon
"barbaries and outrages intimidated the whites from venturing to any considerable distance from
the sea coast."4 The British, in attempts to bolster their fledgling economy with constant
attempts to attack or treat with the often antagonistic maroons, realized the island's potential for
sugar cultivation soon after conquest5. The Jamaican government's almost complete failure to
conciliate with the maroons, excepting the treaty and cooperation of a band under the leadership
of Lubolo in 16626, created an island with two divergent societies forming in constant conflict
with one another. For the British, who lived in the island's lowland coastal areas, the
development of a plantation-centered sugar economy necessitated the constant import of
enslaved Africans, whom they dominated with terror and violence. In the inaccessible reaches of
the John Crow and Blue Mountains, various maroon communities existed, often separate and
without larger political and social cooperation as the century came to its close. Although these
societies were in continuous struggle over land and goods, the maroons maintained a secrecy and
mystery that struck a deep fear into the European community. More importantly, at the
immediate intersection of these two communities were the Jamaican slaves whose possession
and control would become the focal contest between white and maroon.

Edwards, Bryan comp. Proceedings in Regard to the Maroon Negroes. (Westport, CT: Negro University Press,
1970) : 7.
4
Ibid., 8.
5
Campbell. The Maroons of Jamaica 1655-1796: A History of Resistance, Collaboration & Betrayal. 21.
6
Ibid., 25.

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Despite their origins in slavery, Jamaica's maroons had a conflicted relationship with the
still-enslaved. As early as the 1670's, Spanish maroon communities showed an open antagonism
towards new runaway slaves, or bozales, often chasing them away from established communities
and employing violence as a deterrent for individuals or gangs7. Reinforcing this maroon
resistance was the Slave Act of 1696, which defined the status of runaway slaves as those who
had been in flight for over three years8. In function, this Act created an avenue by which
runaways could return to their plantations without fear of death and without persecution by
Spanish maroons. Although the odds were greatly against the successful flight and autonomy of
every slave, many turn of the century bozales formed their own small communities, maintaining
a tenable position away from their former masters and other maroons. With the number of
runaways rising in the highland areas, and a need for concentrated resistance to white incursion,
one of the developments of maroon society in the early decades of the 18th century was the
consolidation of many of these small communities, creating two major bodies of maroons with
different political structures and interactions with white planters, alongside a small, fluid number
of mobile runaway gangs. These two larger communities, the Windwards and Leewards, were
vastly different in their organization, with the Leewards having a centralized political system and
society under the leadership of the autocratic Cudjoe, and the Windwards living in a loose
confederation of towns without central leadership9. The rise of these powerful polities, with their
open antagonism towards the white plantocracy, created a landscape of fear and retribution in
Jamaica that saw a rise in successful maroon raids, followed by often unsuccessful white militia
attempts to capture guerilla fighters and reclaim lost slaves. This new tendency of maroon
communities to capture slaves in raids shows the greater need for women within these groups.
7

Ibid., 34.
Ibid., 34.
9
Ibid., 49.
8

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Early communities, mainly due to the sexual imbalance of a transatlantic slave trade that dealt
male Africans in much large numbers, had a great gender imbalance. These attempts to capture
women, in turn, were undoubtedly an attempt to even this balance and source a growing maroon
population10. In this way, the maroon question became one of growing importance to
slaveholders, whose slaves were now being granted new avenues to autonomy. In spite of the
growing strength of the Jamaican sugar economy, and the steadily rising number of imported
Africans, marronage had reached its newest peak.
Surrounding the maroon conflict was an air of secrecy and mysticism that baffled
European Jamaicans, and attracted slaves to traditions of African origin. Out of this period rose
the great leaders Cudjoe, of the Leeward maroons, and the mysterious Nanny of the Windward
community. Although both leaders occupied opposite sides of the island, their legends often
travelled across borders. Nanny, whose history is largely undocumented and obscured by
modern mythology, was considered a women of considerable spiritual and physical strength,
with many stories of her "Science" overcoming white opposition11. In historical investigation,
many of Nanny's legends are unfounded, while some have been tentatively investigated. Nanny's
Pot, a steaming and frothing pot whose legend has carried into modern Jamaican folklore, may in
fact have been a particular dangerous section of river that resembled a boiling pot12; many
legends, however, remain unexplained. Unlike Nanny, Cudjoe's life has been far better
documented, a former slave who became a powerful, authoritarian leader over his Leeward
community, imposing the mandatory speaking of English, banishment of various African
languages and traditions, and a strong military structure13. These leaders, Cudjoe of Akan-

10

Bilby, Kenneth M. True Born Maroons. (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2005): 148.
Ibid., 189.
12
Ibid., 202.
13
Campbell. The Maroons of Jamaica 1655-1796: A History of Resistance, Collaboration & Betrayal, 48.
11

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speaking origin and Nanny unknown, were powerful symbols of the Africanness of the maroon
communities, despite policies that sometimes contradicted this, which repulsed Europeans and
attracted slaves. The maroons quickly recognized the usefulness of recent runaways who had an
intimate knowledge of plantation organization, owner habits and lodgings and the amount of
food, weaponry and other goods susceptible to seizure14. Because many slaves were often from
dispersed areas, and often spoke different languages, maroon leaders enforced strict discipline
and self-reliability alongside constant and rigorous military training.
The defining characteristic of pre-Treaty maroon life was undoubtedly warfare, with
either the conduction or preparation for war constantly undertaken. The art of guerrilla warfare,
or the unconventional method of avoiding open conflict by staging various small attacks and
retreating quickly, presented a unique challenge to a Jamaican government unaccustomed to this
style of conflict. The maroons, by 1730, had mastered a raid and retreat methodology that
baffled ill-equipped and overmatched Jamaican "flying" parties to confront them. Bryan
Edwards, discussing maroon tactics at this time, writes, "By night, they seized the favourable
opportunity that darkness gave them, of stealing into the settlements, where they set fire to cane
fields and out-houses. . . and carried slaves into captivity. . . without exposing their own persons
to danger, for they always cautiously avoided fighting."15 This method was supported by
ingenious acts of ambush that so thoroughly befuddled white militias that many fled without
having seen the maroons they pursued. This formidable military strength bolstered maroon
morale, while convincing many slaves of the viability of flight to these secretive communities.

14

15

Ibid., 59.
Edwards. Proceedings in Regard to the Maroon Negroes, 8.

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Though there is no documentation of slave opinions towards these maroons at this time, many
planters shared a widespread fear of slave revolt using the maroon model16.
As maroon communities became more formidable in military and political strength, the
Jamaican government of the 1730's became less able to control their slave property, often fearing
the revolt of slaves who vastly outnumbered the small white population. The maroons, who met
and often routed white militias, had more freedom than ever before to plantations and
marketplaces, often infiltrating coastal markets to sell produce and buy goods17. Compounding
this was a network of maroon-slave interaction and runaway trails, leading to a increasingly fluid
slave institution. As tensions reached new heights, and losses became increasingly one-sided, a
state of crisis gripped the island, with government members frequently petitioning the English
government for military reinforcement. Governor Robert Hunter, who was placed in office in
1729, was called upon not only to unify an increasingly factionalized Jamaican legislature, but
provide a lasting and expansive solution to the increasingly destructive maroon incursions18. His
two earliest solutions were the building of fortifications along the maroon frontier and the
expansion of plantation construction in areas previously uncultivated. The first effort proved
marginally successful, with a series of small military successes against the Windward
communities, but the second was largely unproductive, and often gave maroons nearby sources
of goods and captives19. The situation worsened rapidly, with drunkenness and apathy rampant
among the largely unfunded and undersupplied militia units20, leaving Hunter with few options
for an economy under constant threat. In 1730, against the independent and autonomous white

16

Campbell. The Maroons of Jamaica 1655-1796: A History of Resistance, Collaboration & Betrayal, 54.
Ibid., 57.
18
Ibid., 58.
19
Thompson, Alvin O. Flight to Freedom. (Kingston, Jamaica: University of West Indies Press, 2006): 137.
20
Campbell. The Maroons of Jamaica 1655-1796: A History of Resistance, Collaboration & Betrayal, 69.
17

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community's wishes, Hunter made a formal application for English military aid, ushering in a
new phase of conflict.
When two English regiments from Gibraltar arrived in January 1731, they found an
island unprepared for and unsupportive of a foreign military presence. Despite the real threat
that the maroons presented to the frontier plantations, many English soldiers found no real
regular opposition, and were convinced that the Jamaican government had imported them in an
insidious attempt to recruit a new pool of planters21. Despite their limited mobility and high
mortality rate, the government believed these troops had an appreciable effect upon the island's
slave population. By their powerful military presence, some having been posted and barracked
on larger plantations, the soldiers acted as a deterrent to slaves who had previously become
unafraid of their masters22. Maroon incursions slowed considerably as well, with many of these
communities going into a period of silence and avoiding any form of open confrontation with the
well trained regiments. These gains, however, were short-lived as the troops were recalled after
only six months of posting and little appreciable military success. As the regiments were
shipped out, Governor Hunter took stock of the situation, as Campbell writes, "The slaves in
rebellion were animated by their successes, and those on plantations were ready to join them at
the first favorable opportunity; the militia was insignificant and inept, and indeed constituted in
itself a security problem."23 Thus, the crisis was two-fold. As maroon success continued
unabated, the slaves felt considerably more able to escape slavery's bind. By attacking the
Jamaican economy at its heart, the owning and coercion of slaves, the maroons posed an active
threat to the entire system's viability. The crisis had reached its most feverish, and while the
maroons prospered, the Jamaican government began to form a new plan.
21

Ibid., 64.
Ibid., 64.
23
Ibid., 65.
22

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The period of 1729-1737, known as the First Maroon War, encompassed the first viable
threat of maroon and slave revolt over European slaveholders. Between the departure of the
Gibraltar regiments and the death of Hunter in 1734, maroons ran rampant over outlying
plantations, taking goods and captives along with them, and making headway into previously
untouched plantation regions along the coast. As slaves fled in record numbers and more began
to chafe under the flagging control their masters held, the foundation of Jamaican sugar
production showed noticeable cracks. With Hunter's death, one of the first government officials
to show any interest in treating with the maroons rather than fighting them, the island's future
hung in the balance. As militias flagged and large parties, including the "Grand Party" of 1733,
fell apart, the need for a foreign military invention arose once again24. These troops arrived in
1734 in much larger numbers, and a quick succession of Jamaican governors used them to stem
the rising tide of maroon raiding, while extending tentative offers of peace and reconciliation to
the maroons. However, these early accords had very little success. Campbell, quoting a letter to
Governor Ayscough by Beville Granville, writes, "'I met with a party of the Wild Negroes the
5th of this month [February], one of them was so ingenious, as to tell me that some small parties
were determined to kill me if they mett me, that my business was well known, But that they were
determined never to believe a Baccara [white person]."25 This sentiment underscores the belief
amongst the maroons that they stood at an advantageous position over the government, a
reasonable assumption up to that point. But, due to a prescient decision by the government to
institute martial law in 1737, the maroon position began to slowly erode.
Bryan Edwards writes, on the decision to institute martial law, "This arrangement was the
most judicious hitherto contrived for their effectual reduction; for so many fortresses . . . gave

24
25

Ibid., 76.
Ibid., 102.

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the Maroons a constant and vigorous annoyance, and in short became the chief means of
bringing on that treat which afterwards put an end to the tiresome war."26 The decision to put
Jamaica in a state of emergency was always counter-intuitive to the functioning of a strong
economy, yet the island had undoubtedly reached its boiling point. Through martial law, the
militias experienced a new level of planter involvement with more stringent regulations on
alcoholism and desertion. Until this point militias, who employed a large number of black
baggage carriers and soldiers, experienced massive desertion rates by enslaved and free blacks,
who supplied the maroons with important military information27. Through martial law, the
government had a way to control these desertion rates and limit new maroon influx. With
participation rising and growing information on maroon locations and tactics, the Jamaican
forces showed much greater success, often with the paid service of Moskito Indians from
Honduras who were skilled in "bush-fighting."28 By challenging the maroons on their grounds,
using guides skilled in their tactics, the Jamaican government was able to destabilize the maroon
communities to the point that leaders of the Windwards and Leewards became amenable to
treating with a government that had them on their heels.
As Edward Trelawney ended his voyage in 1738 to become the newest Governor of
Jamaica, following the death of John Cunningham in 1737, the maroon communities were ripe
for compromise. After a series of military setbacks and removal from many of their most
secluded strongholds, most maroons were severely malnourished, unarmed and susceptible to
attack. Despite the Jamaican government's best attempts to destroy the maroon communities, it
had become obvious through years of conflict that the most realistic strategy was to incorporate
their native foes. Trelawney, in an attempt to solve the maroon question almost immediately
26

Edwards. Proceedings in Regard to the Maroon Negroes, 12.

Campbell. The Maroons of Jamaica 1655-1796: A History of Resistance, Collaboration & Betrayal, 99.
28
Edwards. Proceedings in Regard to the Maroon Negroes, 13.
27

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after arrival, sent a Colonel Guthrie and Lieutenant Sadler to treat with the Leeward maroons.29
Colonel Guthrie, a veteran of many maroon skirmishes, had established an espionage network
amongst free blacks and militia members that gave him an approximate location of Cudjoe and
his community. When the two military men proposed the terms of treaty, Cudjoe appeared
gracious30 and agreed after a series of negotiations to the government's terms. This treaty in
1738, closely followed by the treaty accepted by a delegation of Windward maroons a few
months later, were not the first treaties signed between a colonial government and a maroon
community31, but were the most expansive and set a new standard for incorporating maroons as
allies of the slaveholding government.
Amongst the many stipulations of the treaties, including the assistance of maroons in
foreign and domestic conflict and the enclosing of maroon lands and constant white surveillance,
both maroon communities agreed to aid in the recapturing and tracking of runaway slaves at a set
price. While this measure, which apparently hadn't been argued over too intensely32, appears
contradictory and conciliatory, there was evidence of a previously widening gulf between free
maroons and enslaved blacks, with the former accusing the latter of keeping themselves in
slavery and refusing to resist33. Compounding this was a belief among maroons that they were
the autochthons of their mountain strongholds, fighting for their ownership under any means
necessary and often at the expense of enslaved blacks. Regardless of the reasoning behind this
concession, the maroon treaties marked a new frontier of maroon-slave relations. In return for
autonomy and recognized freedom, the maroons were more than willing to support Jamaican
planters, bolstering a Jamaican government that was only just unifying. The signing of a treaty
29

Campbell. The Maroons of Jamaica 1655-1796: A History of Resistance, Collaboration & Betrayal, 108.
Edwards. Proceedings in Regard to the Maroon Negroes, 14.
31
Thompson. Flight to Freedom, 289.
32
Campbell. The Maroons of Jamaica 1655-1796: A History of Resistance, Collaboration & Betrayal, 131.
33
Ibid., 131.
30

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between maroons and the master class spawned a mutual antagonism between slave and maroon
that would deeply affect the future of slave resistance and the Second Maroon War of 1796.34
More importantly, the antagonism underscored an important change amongst maroon leaders
away from inclusion and further towards secrecy and conciliation. Cudjoe, who might have
signed a large part of the treaty without understanding all of its stipulations35, undoubtedly
understood the repercussions upon the still-enslaved and took the terms, creating an even wider
gap between free and slave.
With the signing of the 1738 treaties, the golden age of maroon communities came to a
quiet and peaceful end. Despite a history of resistance to the Jamaican government and an
accommodating attitude toward runaway slaves, the Windward and Leeward maroons were
ultimately willing to reverse course in order to secure their own autonomy and community. For
slaves that sought a life of freedom and family, these actions are not without value. Although the
results of the treaties were undeniably detrimental to the slave population whose prospects of
freedom had suddenly become dimmer, the maroons had secured for themselves a lifestyle and
freedom that slaves could only imagine. In the period of 1700 to 1738, as Jamaica was slowly
expanding into a global economic giant, the domestic cost of success was shared by both slave
and free, maroon and European. The cost of the maroon conflict can be felt not only in human
lives but economic cost. Through their constant intrusions into plantation life and open arms for
runaway slaves, the growth of the Jamaican maroon communities cost the government an
incalculable amount of capital. By attacking the plantation system at its core, the slaves, the
maroons presented the greatest challenge to a slaveholding society in its fledgling state. Through

34

Wilson, Kathleen. "The Performance of Freedom: Maroons and the Colonial Order in Eighteenth-Century
Jamaica and the Atlantic Sound." William & Mary Quarterly 66, no. 1 (2009): 69.
35
Campbell. The Maroons of Jamaica 1655-1796: A History of Resistance, Collaboration & Betrayal, 130.

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military strength and cultural autonomy, these mysterious and secretive people challenged a
European master class whose monolithic culture thrived on the capture, domination and coercion
of a huge number of African men and women whose journey for freedom and family led to the
creation and expansion of these powerful runaway communities. Despite the antagonism
between slave and maroon that developed after the signing of the 1738 treaties, the history of
cooperation between these two populations would influence the future of Jamaica, in both its
independence and its eventual acceptance of abolition. By examining these momentous four
decades, and its often contradictory history, the future events and current state of Jamaica can be
more clearly examined and understood.

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Selected Bibliography

Bilby, Kenneth M. True Born Maroons. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press,
2005.
Burnard, Trevor. Mastery, Tyranny & Desire. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North
Carolina Press, 2004.
Campbell, Mavis. The Maroons of Jamaica 1655-1796: A History of Resistance,
Collaboration & Betrayal. Granby, MT.: Bergin & Garvey Publishers, 1988.
Edwards, Bryan comp. Proceedings in Regard to the Maroon Negroes. Westport, CT:
Negro University Press, 1970.
Geggus, David. "The Enigma of Jamaica in the 1790s: New Light on the Causes of Slave
Rebellions." William & Mary Quarterly 44, no. 2 (1987): 274-299.
Gottlieb, Karla L. The Mother of Us All: A History of Queen Nanny Leader of the
Windward Jamaican Maroons. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2000.
Pieterse, Jan Nederveen. "Slavery and the Triangle of Emancipation." Race & Class 30,
no. 2 (1980): 1-18.
Rupert, Linda M. "Marronage, Manumission and Maritime Trade in the Early Modern
Caribbean." Slavery & Abolition 30, no. 3 (2009): 361-382
Sheridan, Richard B. 1985. "The Maroons of Jamaica, 1730-1830: Livelihood,
Demography and Health." Slavery & Abolition 6, no. 3: 152-172.
Thompson, Alvin O. Flight to Freedom. Kingston, Jamaica: University of West Indies
Press, 2006.

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White, Elain. "The Maroon Warriors of Jamaica and Their Successful Resistance to
Enslavement." Pan-African Journal 6, no. 3 (1973): 297-312.
Wilson, Kathleen. "The Performance of Freedom: Maroons and the Colonial Order in
Eighteenth-Century Jamaica and the Atlantic Sound." William & Mary Quarterly 66, no. 1
(2009): 45-86.