Blackwell Reference Online

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[iii] A Maroon is a runaway slave, or, nowadays, one born from runaway stock. Marronage refers to the varying states involved in flight and survival. The name comes from the Spanish cimarron and was originally used of the cattle which escaped into the hills of the island of Hispaniola. Later the meaning transferred to slaves who escaped into the interior of Hispaniola. The first of these runaways was recorded in 1502, when an African-American slave escaped successfully. The vicious system of slavery, based on coercion, saved its fiercest punishments for runaway slaves; these punishments, encapsulated in law, included castration and roasting alive. Such treatment varied from country to country. Slaves were not docile, defeated and resigned to a state of submissive obedience. They could co-operate, assimilating those features which they found profitable, or they could reject slavery; the Maroons belonged to this latter tradition of evasion or escape. This did not mean that they had no contact with majority religions, because they were never totally exclusive communities. For instance, they were always dependent for some goods, and trade brought them into direct contact with other islanders.Maroon groups were found throughout plantation America, Brazil and the Caribbean, and occurred both in tiny bands and in great ‘nations’, as in Jamaica. They had responded directly to the pain of ... log in or subscribe to read full text