Maroon Leader
Dublin Core
Title
Maroon Leader
Subject
In the early modern Caribbean, maroons and pirates both prized their freedom above everything else. By the 16th century, cimarrón was a term for Africans who fled to the remote, wild places behind Spanish coastal colonies. Maroon first appeared in 1666 when John Davies, translating a history of Barbados, wrote that slaves would “run away and get into the Mountains and Forests...". Interestingly enough, Native Americans sometimes helped these "maroons". Siouan tribes or Yuchi Indians living on South Carolina’s coast helped the first maroons on the soil of what is today the United States. In 1526, five hundred Spanish with one hundred African slaves settled near the mouth of the Pee Dee River.
Description
The mountains of Jamaica, the jungles of Suriname, and the swamps of Carolina were dangerous. These places terrified the escaped slaves as they would terrify anyone. However, they embraced the danger in desperation, preferring them to the dangers and degradations of being kept in slavery. They were loyal to each other and formed communities according to their own liking, and above all else upheld the principle of freedom.
Creator
Leonard Parkinson
Publisher
Wikimedia Commons
Date
1796
Files
Collection
Citation
Leonard Parkinson, “Maroon Leader,” The Transatlantic Story, accessed May 13, 2024, https://transatlanticstory.omeka.net/items/show/27.