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

8 Flight to Freedom
ancestors won by their sweat and blood. One school of thought holds that no
historical, scholarly or political work should be consciously didactic.
However, it is a truism that unless we learn from the past we are likely to
repeat our mistakes.
The originality of this study is based on two primary factors: its reassessment
of several of the views and interpretations that have informed discourse
on marronage, and its pan-American scope. The bibliography is evidence that
a large and growing number of works exist on various aspects of the subject.
Some of these are quite good, but few of them focus on the Americas as a
whole or provide the panoramic view of the subject that is critical to understanding
the role of marronage in the region’s struggle for freedom and dignity.
In many instances, our only source is a faint voice from the past in the
midst of deep troughs of silence, but archaeological work is helping to fill
the gap. Much of what has survived in contemporary written records is
enmeshed in myths, legends and biased contemporary views. Despite the
obvious difficulties that the modern researcher and writer face in unravelling
this skein of largely negative contemporary thought concerning Maroons, I
have attempted, through careful use of some of the best contemporary and
modern works on the subject and reference to the African continent from
which the enslaved persons came, to challenge and modify the perspective.
For instance, I have tried to provide new insights into the despotism of
Maroon leaders, the large-scale abduction of women from the plantations,
and Maroon enslavement of others in their communities. I have also
attempted to offer more detailed and careful analyses of Maroon economy
and ethnicity.
Nonetheless, this study is not a comprehensive one on Maroon societies in
the Americas, nor does it provide a detailed chronological framework of marronage
in different territories. Rather, it is an interpretive work based on
selected issues relating to the struggle for freedom. Because of space constraints,
I have focused largely on the main Maroon states and colonies in the
Americas. Other colonies, such as Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Chile and
Ecuador, are given only very brief mention, and a few are not mentioned at
all. For the same reason I have not dealt, except in passing, with the social
and cultural dynamics of Maroon life, though I have examined those aspects
of religion that reinforced the political and governmental apparatus, and had
a direct and powerful impact upon both the defensive and aggressive aspects
of Maroon polities.