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

186 Flight to Freedom
Among Stedman’s descriptions of military warfare against these forestdwellers
are his observations on the non-human but equally formidable hazards
that the expeditions encountered in the Guiana jungles, and what the
retreat to the White settlement areas entailed after months of desultory
fighting (Stedman 1988, 136, 138, 229, 392–93). The main microparasites
included mosquitoes – particularly one species that he claimed almost
devoured him alive – chigoes, sand flies, horseflies, ringworm, lice, wild bees,
bats, spiders, scorpions and centipedes. Other dangers were serpents, alligators,
tigers, and thorns and briars – all of which he called “cursed company”. 12
Infection of one kind or another often resulted in dry gripes, fevers, the
bloody flux and dropsy. He opined that the slightest scratch immediately
turned into a running sore, and scratching became a daily preoccupation. Of
the retreat to base, he (ibid., 157) wrote:
[W]e continued our march till 8 o’clock when we arrived at the Society
[Suriname government] Post Soribo in Pirica, in a most shocking condition, having
waddled through water and mire above our hipps [sic], climb’d over heaps of
fallen trees, creep’d underneath them on our bellies – scratched and tore [sic] by
the thorns or macas that are here of many kinds, stung all over by Patat or
Scrapat lice, ants, and wassy-wassy or wild bees, fatigued to death by marching
in a burning sun, and the last 2 hours in hells [sic] darkness, holding each other
by the hand, and having left 10 men behind, some with agues, some stung blind,
and some with their feet full of chigoes.
According to Stedman (ibid., 230), after three months’ campaign in the
bush he and some others returned to base, leaving behind fellow soldiers who
resembled “a gang of scarcrows [sic], as could have disgraced the garden or
fields of any farmer in England”. 13 Many who started out as soldiers of fortune
ended up as soldiers of misfortune.
The military expeditions sent into the Cockpit Country and other
Maroon areas in Jamaica often reported similar kinds of casualties. In 1730,
for example, a party of over one hundred riflemen and baggage carriers was
sent against the Windward Maroons of San Antonio, but was soundly
defeated by a combination of environmental factors and their own ineptitude.
According to the governor, they had become lost in the woods, and
some of them had suffered badly from hunger, while others had drowned
while attempting to cross the rivers and many had died from sickness, so
about one-fourth of the expedition perished (Campbell 1990, 66).