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Maroon Economy
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time-consuming processes (Price 1991, 111, 117). Knowledge of how to prepare
cassava would have been acquired from contact with the Indians, whereas
that of making oil would have been derived largely from West African societies,
such as Igboland, Yorubaland, Dahomey and Asante, where palm oil
(and palm wine) had been processed for centuries before the transatlantic
slave trade.
The Maroons produced mortars to separate the rice grains from the husks,
sieves for sifting grain, giant clay pots for cooking, clay jugs and pans for preserving
water and wine, and ceramic cups, bottles, basins, dishes and other
utensils. They also made candles from local wax, powder horns from calabashes
(gourds), blowing horns from conch shells, and drums. Maroons
often carved the calabash surface with intricate motifs, again indicating
African influence. 20
In Jamaica, Maroon women were the main pioneers of bark-lace and barkcloth
production. Steeve Buckridge (2004, 51, 52) explains that in that country
lace-bark forests were found mainly in Maroon areas, and noted that the
product resembled fine lace but could be mistaken for linen or gauze. 21 In
time these products became widespread in Jamaica, among both enslaved and
free persons. Since the laghetto or lace-bark tree was native to Jamaica,
Hispaniola and Cuba, and since the cloth production was derived from West
African precedents (Buckridge 2004, 50–52), it is logical to assume that production
of bark-lace and bark-cloth was also quite common in these other
Caribbean islands.
In the André settlement the women spun cotton, while the men wove it.
They made skirts and loincloths, but it is not known whether the men or
women did this task. They obviously used the small spindle common in West
Africa at the time, since the Maroon Louis testified that the cotton material
was woven in small pieces and then put together. According to him, it was
“decorated with Siamese cotton thread”, which could mean that the thread
was acquired by barter or spun according to a Siamese pattern (Louis 1979,
317). Sally and Richard Price (1980, 54) have concluded that, among the
Ndjukas, “although weaving has never been highly developed by Maroons,
their textile arts form one of the richest and most varied areas of their material
culture”.
Maroons in the Amazon Valley of Brazil manufactured charcoal, canoes
and other sailing vessels (Conrad 1983, 390). This last activity must have been
fairly widespread, especially among Maroons who lived close to rivers or the