Post by kaya on Nov 5, 2007 18:42:57 GMT -5
Jamaica's Maroons remember the fight against slavery
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
Steep hills, towering cliffs and a dense limestone forest shroud this remote mountain village, born out of the decades-long struggle between English colonizers and runaway slaves.
Back then, the drums of resistance could be heard across the rugged terrain as bands of freed and escaped slaves outwitted and ambushed their enemy.
In 1739, the British empire sued for peace and signed a historic treaty giving the once-enslaved Africans autonomy and recognition as free people -- 68 years ahead of Britain's ban of the brutal trading in enslaved Africans across the Atlantic.
While the English-speaking Caribbean is this year commemorating the 200th anniversary of the end of the British transatlantic slave trade, communities like Accompong Town, made up of descendants of runaway slaves known as Maroons, stand as living reminders of the vicious yet empowering anti-slavery struggle.
''We are over 268 years old,'' said Mark Wright, 40, a descendant of the Maroons. ``The Maroons were on the front burner of the abolition of slavery. The Maroons are the people who set the trend, and the wider community in Jamaica followed.''
The town also is a living reminder of slaves' contributions to their own freedom, a fact often overlooked by abolition narratives that tend to credit white abolitionists like William Wilberforce, the subject of the film Amazing Grace, released this year to commemorate the bicentenary.
Several Caribbean historians argue that while Wilberforce supported the end of the transatlantic slave trade, he did not support the abolition of slavery itself. It was the fear generated by Haiti's slave revolt and independence in 1804, and the slave uprisings in Jamaica, that eventually forced the British Parliament to ban all slave trading in 1807, they argue. Slavery wasn't completely abolished until 1838.
''The dominant discourse has been that the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade came about because of the activism of white English abolitionists,'' said Verene Shepherd, a professor of social history at the University of West Indies in Kingston. ``There were lots of enslaved people, lots of Africans from the moment of capture, who struggled to end this trade.''
FREED SLAVES
The Maroons, initially slaves freed by the Spanish to fight against the British in the 17th century, eventually formed autonomous societies in the mountains of Jamaica following the British capture of the island from Spain in 1655. They were later joined by runaways from sugar plantations. Maroons have maintained a separate culture and governing system that is still recognized by post-colonial Jamaica.
But the Maroon legacy in this western Jamaican village and three other runaway slave settlements remains controversial, because their peace treaty with the British obliged them to return new runaway slaves and suppress resistance to London's rule.
These days, Jamaica is challenging all of its citizens to celebrate their African ancestors, even the Maroons.
'We're saying, `Look, the Maroons' descendants live among us now. This is a different time. We cannot go on forward in this fractured state, so we should try and reconcile,' '' said Shepherd, who as chairwoman of the government-created Jamaica National Bicentenary Committee is sponsoring a conference here and in Montego Bay next month to recognize the significance of the Maroon communities.
''We are searching this year for a way forward, to let this bicentenary count for something and not [maintain] this division in our society. We need to understand Maroon history,'' she said. ``We have to forgive and move on.''
Frank Lumsden, a spokesman for the Maroon Secretariat, which oversees the four Maroon settlements, said they welcome the opportunity to sit down with fellow Jamaicans and others and ``clear up the misconceptions.''
''The Maroons, by their daily struggle for freedom, forged for themselves an identity according to which they judge themselves,'' Lumsden said. ``If you don't understand that struggle, then you cannot judge. This is an opportunity for the Maroons to really tell their story.''
That story can be seen here vividly in thingypit Country, the haven of isolation that the Accompong Maroons carved out for themselves. Amid humble wooden and cinder-block shacks, their descendants practice the ways of their African ancestors, handed down from generation to generation.
With regular jobs scarce, they live off the land and by crafting traditional talisman and musical instruments.
''This is the goombay drum, the talking drum. In Africa, it is played with the feet; in Jamaica, with the hands,'' Gorge Huggins, a village elder, said one afternoon, showing off his assortment of carved, square-framed goatskin drums and an abeng, a sacred horn used by his ancestors to communicate.
PROUD OF HERITAGE
Huggins, with his lean muscles and untamed salt-and-pepper beard, tells the story of how his ancestors played the goombay drum to relay secret messages.
And in that moment, his face lights and his chest swells with pride.
No matter how many years have passed, Huggins said, the ``spirit of our ancestors is still here in the voice and the sounds.''
The moment of pride is fleeting, however, as a fellow villager drops by to discuss the struggle to preserve their vanishing culture.
''Less people want to learn the traditions,'' said James Chambers, 71, a ''bush doctor'' who says fewer and fewer people in this dwindling community of 2,000 call on him for his medicines, made from rare plants found in the nearby jungles.
With their knowledge of the bush and rituals dating back hundreds of years, the Maroon community professes a close tie to Africa.
LAYERS OF HISTORY
Today, Accompong Town survives partly off the tourists who come to walk along the narrow red dirt roads exploring the many layers of black Caribbean history.
Every January, the Maroon descendants pay homage to their ancestors with a festival and visit to the Kindah One Family Tree, an ancient mango tree on a lush hillside where the Maroons once strategized resistance against the British.
This year, the celebration took on an added significance as the Maroon descendants, having already lost the language of their ancestors, now stand in danger of losing their land to a proposed bauxite mining project in the nearby forest of thingypit Country, considered one the most biologically diverse regions in the Caribbean.
Community leaders have vowed to keep development out.
In the meantime, they hope this year's bicentenary produces something the Maroons have been sorely lacking -- unity between them and the rest of Jamaica's predominantly black society.
''I would like to see that,'' Huggins said.
SOURCE:www.miamiherald.com
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
Steep hills, towering cliffs and a dense limestone forest shroud this remote mountain village, born out of the decades-long struggle between English colonizers and runaway slaves.
Back then, the drums of resistance could be heard across the rugged terrain as bands of freed and escaped slaves outwitted and ambushed their enemy.
In 1739, the British empire sued for peace and signed a historic treaty giving the once-enslaved Africans autonomy and recognition as free people -- 68 years ahead of Britain's ban of the brutal trading in enslaved Africans across the Atlantic.
While the English-speaking Caribbean is this year commemorating the 200th anniversary of the end of the British transatlantic slave trade, communities like Accompong Town, made up of descendants of runaway slaves known as Maroons, stand as living reminders of the vicious yet empowering anti-slavery struggle.
''We are over 268 years old,'' said Mark Wright, 40, a descendant of the Maroons. ``The Maroons were on the front burner of the abolition of slavery. The Maroons are the people who set the trend, and the wider community in Jamaica followed.''
The town also is a living reminder of slaves' contributions to their own freedom, a fact often overlooked by abolition narratives that tend to credit white abolitionists like William Wilberforce, the subject of the film Amazing Grace, released this year to commemorate the bicentenary.
Several Caribbean historians argue that while Wilberforce supported the end of the transatlantic slave trade, he did not support the abolition of slavery itself. It was the fear generated by Haiti's slave revolt and independence in 1804, and the slave uprisings in Jamaica, that eventually forced the British Parliament to ban all slave trading in 1807, they argue. Slavery wasn't completely abolished until 1838.
''The dominant discourse has been that the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade came about because of the activism of white English abolitionists,'' said Verene Shepherd, a professor of social history at the University of West Indies in Kingston. ``There were lots of enslaved people, lots of Africans from the moment of capture, who struggled to end this trade.''
FREED SLAVES
The Maroons, initially slaves freed by the Spanish to fight against the British in the 17th century, eventually formed autonomous societies in the mountains of Jamaica following the British capture of the island from Spain in 1655. They were later joined by runaways from sugar plantations. Maroons have maintained a separate culture and governing system that is still recognized by post-colonial Jamaica.
But the Maroon legacy in this western Jamaican village and three other runaway slave settlements remains controversial, because their peace treaty with the British obliged them to return new runaway slaves and suppress resistance to London's rule.
These days, Jamaica is challenging all of its citizens to celebrate their African ancestors, even the Maroons.
'We're saying, `Look, the Maroons' descendants live among us now. This is a different time. We cannot go on forward in this fractured state, so we should try and reconcile,' '' said Shepherd, who as chairwoman of the government-created Jamaica National Bicentenary Committee is sponsoring a conference here and in Montego Bay next month to recognize the significance of the Maroon communities.
''We are searching this year for a way forward, to let this bicentenary count for something and not [maintain] this division in our society. We need to understand Maroon history,'' she said. ``We have to forgive and move on.''
Frank Lumsden, a spokesman for the Maroon Secretariat, which oversees the four Maroon settlements, said they welcome the opportunity to sit down with fellow Jamaicans and others and ``clear up the misconceptions.''
''The Maroons, by their daily struggle for freedom, forged for themselves an identity according to which they judge themselves,'' Lumsden said. ``If you don't understand that struggle, then you cannot judge. This is an opportunity for the Maroons to really tell their story.''
That story can be seen here vividly in thingypit Country, the haven of isolation that the Accompong Maroons carved out for themselves. Amid humble wooden and cinder-block shacks, their descendants practice the ways of their African ancestors, handed down from generation to generation.
With regular jobs scarce, they live off the land and by crafting traditional talisman and musical instruments.
''This is the goombay drum, the talking drum. In Africa, it is played with the feet; in Jamaica, with the hands,'' Gorge Huggins, a village elder, said one afternoon, showing off his assortment of carved, square-framed goatskin drums and an abeng, a sacred horn used by his ancestors to communicate.
PROUD OF HERITAGE
Huggins, with his lean muscles and untamed salt-and-pepper beard, tells the story of how his ancestors played the goombay drum to relay secret messages.
And in that moment, his face lights and his chest swells with pride.
No matter how many years have passed, Huggins said, the ``spirit of our ancestors is still here in the voice and the sounds.''
The moment of pride is fleeting, however, as a fellow villager drops by to discuss the struggle to preserve their vanishing culture.
''Less people want to learn the traditions,'' said James Chambers, 71, a ''bush doctor'' who says fewer and fewer people in this dwindling community of 2,000 call on him for his medicines, made from rare plants found in the nearby jungles.
With their knowledge of the bush and rituals dating back hundreds of years, the Maroon community professes a close tie to Africa.
LAYERS OF HISTORY
Today, Accompong Town survives partly off the tourists who come to walk along the narrow red dirt roads exploring the many layers of black Caribbean history.
Every January, the Maroon descendants pay homage to their ancestors with a festival and visit to the Kindah One Family Tree, an ancient mango tree on a lush hillside where the Maroons once strategized resistance against the British.
This year, the celebration took on an added significance as the Maroon descendants, having already lost the language of their ancestors, now stand in danger of losing their land to a proposed bauxite mining project in the nearby forest of thingypit Country, considered one the most biologically diverse regions in the Caribbean.
Community leaders have vowed to keep development out.
In the meantime, they hope this year's bicentenary produces something the Maroons have been sorely lacking -- unity between them and the rest of Jamaica's predominantly black society.
''I would like to see that,'' Huggins said.
SOURCE:www.miamiherald.com