60199616-flight-to-freedom-african-runaways-and-maroons-in-the-americas

118 Flight to Freedom
Jamaica provides another outstanding (and earlier) example of the triumph
of Maroon societies against the odds. The origins of large-scale
marronage in that country have been traced directly to the British onslaught
against the Spanish in 1655, encouraged in part by the Spanish, who sought
to use the enslaved persons as military allies to rebuff the alien invasion.
However, many of the enslaved persons had the foresight to opt out of the
system altogether, and were not quieted until about three-quarters of a century
later, when the British made peace with them.
Throughout the late seventeenth century and until 1739, various Maroon
groups wrought havoc on the White settlements. The most famous of these
were the Juan de Bolas, Karmahaly, Leeward and Windward groups.
Numerous expeditions dispatched against them failed to do any significant
material or bodily damage to them, while a number of trained soldiers and
civilians suffered deaths and wounds at their hands. Sir Thomas Modyford,
governor of the colony, actually drew up Articles of War in 1665. 7 In 1687 the
government was bewailing the creeping mortality of certain parishes and outlying
settlements as a result of Maroon depredations. In that year the legislature
noted that the settlements in St George were among the most vulnerable
nodes, and that unless financial assistance came from the parish vestries to
maintain a standing expeditionary force, most of the settlements in that
parish would be taken over by the Maroons and adjacent settlements threatened.
Further, the whole area was likely to prove a great attraction to prospective
runaways, thus endangering the welfare of the colonists in the island
(Campbell 1990, 41, 55). 8 The penury of the island’s treasury was a frequent
complaint of the governors and colonial legislature. 9 The British eventually
signed treaties with Juan de Bolas in the late 1660s, and with the Leewards
and Windwards in 1739.
Cuba was different from Mexico, Venezuela and other Spanish territories,
for although marronage commenced from the early days of enslavement the
colony did not witness large Maroon settlements before the nineteenth century.
It also had most of its early problems with small groups of so-called
vagabond runaways and bandits who lived largely by brigandage. According
to La Rosa Corzo (2003, 42), it was only in 1747 that the first known expedition
against a Maroon settlement took place, against El Portillo (Cabo Cruz,
El Masio), which had snuggled undisturbed for twenty years in the Sierra
Maestra massifs. The settlement consisted of only nineteen adults and two
children at that time. The inhabitants deserted the settlement on the