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Maroons and Revolutionary Struggle
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same land hunger that targeted Canada at that time, though the objective
was later expanded to include securing the frontier against Maroon settlements
and activities. Having taken formal possession of the Spanish territory
in 1821 (following a treaty of cession signed in 1819), the American government
moved fairly quickly to expel the Maroons by a policy of persuasion
and coercion. In 1823, under pressure from the American government, the
Seminole Indian leaders signed a treaty agreeing to the removal of their people
from the fertile northern areas to an area below Tampa. Mulroy (1993, 27)
informs us that most of the projected area for the reservation was uncultivable
swampland, and that during the next few years many Maroons and
Indians became wanderers, stealing cattle from White settlers in order to
survive. Others refused to abide by the treaty and remained on the “ceded”
land. The result was continued friction between Seminoles and White
Americans, with further attempts by the latter to herd the Indians and
Maroons into reservations in Indian Territory west of the Mississippi, and
further resistance by the oppressed. This gradually set the stage for the
Second Seminole War (Porter 1943, 390–421; chapter 4).
The situation relating to the fertile lands around Le Maniel was resolved
in a somewhat different manner. The colonial authorities reached an initial
agreement with the Maroon leaders in 1785, in many ways similar to the earlier
Jamaican treaties, but with the important proviso that they would shift
their settlement from their present location to another spot that the French
would allocate to them. The French wanted to remove the Maroons because
of concern that they would not be controllable in their present habitat, and
that the Spanish settlers, who carried on a lucrative business with the
Maroons, might influence them against the French. Debbasch asserts that
this is exactly what happened, and that it led to the Maroons’ refusal, in the
following year, to relocate. However, although the Maroons rejected the proposed
treaty, they declared that they would cease attacks on the French and
return runaways to their overlords for a bounty. They kept their word, at least
in regard to attacks against the colonists. In fact, the French considered their
word to be so good that requests for land grants in the area multiplied rapidly.
Debbasch (1979, 148) considered this as tantamount to a coup on the
part of the French, since they were able to resolve the Maroon problem
“without having to undergo the humiliation of a formal treaty”.
Whites both opposed and supported treaties, because they could exploit
the situation for their own benefit. Two examples illustrate this point. Several