COCKPIT COUNTRY—THE MAROONS
If there is one thing more interesting to the unbiassed traveller
than others, it is to hear and analyse the various opinions expressed
upon the subject he or she is attempting to master in the spirit of
disinterestedness and liberal judgment, by those whose lives are being
lived in that particular spot of the globe temporarily under review.
“England has treated Jamaica abominably,” I frequently heard. She had
insisted on the liberation of the slaves, then inadequately compensated
their owners, and when their emancipation upset all prevailing conditions
of labour, instead of protecting sugar, the chief industry of her West
Indian colonies, and fostering its growth, she fairly knocked it on the
head by the introduction of free trade. When beetroot-sugar first arrived
in Jamaica the nails were driven into its coffin. Annexation to the
United States was not desirable, it was declared, but, so far as business
was concerned, America would make things hum.
The negroes were emancipated too soon, thought certain of the grumblers.
Had the Jamaican blacks been as well educated as their brothers in the
States at the time they became freed, they would have a different race
of peasants in the island to-day. “They will never make citizens,” I was
told. They have no idea of the responsibilities of a civilised community;
even those who had voting powers on local questions were too lazy or
too callous to record their votes. If a white man suggested to them
how better to cultivate their patch of land, or if the coffee-curers
and shippers, for instance, advised them to bring their coffee when
picked straight to their mills where they had the proper apparatus for
curing the beans, the blacks would immediately suspect the white man had
“something up his sleeve,” and was going to get the better of them in
some underhand way.
Things, no doubt, are difficult in Jamaica under the very best of
circumstances. The negro is unquestionably a low type of humanity,
naturally unintelligent and lazy. People forget, however, he has, in the
first place, only recently discovered that he has a soul as well as the
white man, and, in the second place, but just learnt, the other day as it
were, to call that soul his own.
Nearly two centuries of abject slavery, with its accompaniments of forced
labour and hard usage, have passed over his head, since, as a free
savage, he roamed the African forests, a fetich-worshipper, the victim of
the lowest superstitions, and practising every vice known to humanity.
Evangelising efforts were spasmodically made here and there to ameliorate
the condition of the plantation slaves by those whose conscience was
in advance of their times; but when in 1834 the yoke of slavery was
removed with such an ancestry, such a history behind them, what could a
reasonable person expect of the sons and daughters of Ham! The planters
had regarded them as the necessary machinery for producing their princely
incomes when the wealth of the West Indian merchant was a known quantity.
To improve the breed the physically-fittest were, like cattle, carefully
selected, and the women told off for this purpose given especially
lighter work to perform. This practice alone might account for much of
the indiscriminate living which called forth the blazing indignation and
burning words of one of the Keswick delegates, whose work is mentioned on
a former page.
The injustice of his wholesale indictment against the character of the
women of this island is still felt by many.
One clergyman, of over thirty years’ experience in Jamaica, and whose
church numbers 1300 communicants, expressed to me his strong disapproval
of the way in which this island was held up as a “plague spot” for its
wickedness, by persons who had no practical knowledge either of its
history or its inhabitants.
If in the year 1902, 62 per cent. of the children born are illegitimate,
in 1834, had a census been taken, probably there would have been over 90
per cent. Of the present 62 per cent., given by the latest returns, I was
assured that fifty out of that number would represent the children of
persons living together in faithful, though unwedded union.
It is a matter of history that white overseers on the estates were
dismissed on their marriage for obvious reasons. Every obstacle was
placed upon the marriage of slaves; I believe on many estates it was
forbidden. Then the example set by the whites has been most shameful
throughout the history of Jamaica in this respect. Considering these
circumstances, and the very recent growth of any sort of moral standard,
one is not surprised to hear many persons speak indignantly of the
Keswick delegates and the superficial nature of their work.
It is not inconceivable that the forefathers of these gentlemen, who
were so incredibly shocked at the immorality of Jamaica, might have been
planters themselves in distant times; and if their lot were cast in such
homes as house the peasantry of Jamaica they might not escape that fall
which seems the common lot of unregenerated humanity. Let the ardent
reformers who advertised the island as a “plague spot,” and who would
dragoon this childish race into a code of morality, remember that a great
deal is attributable to the cupidity of the white man who violated the
principles of humanity to procure the “foul tissue of terrestrial gold.”
The very handsome marble monuments sent out from England, erected to the
memory of many of these, adorn the walls of the island churches, and
speak from their sacred precincts to the silent observer. Here other than
the poetic-minded may gather as he wanders
“Wisdom from the central deep,
And, listening to the inner flow of things,
Speak to the age out of eternity.”
Now, it appears to my limited range of vision that from brute animalism
both Church and State, working into each other’s hands, are making the
race into useful men and women. They know now something of the sacredness
of marriage and family life, as well as of the arts of civilisation.
In an interesting article entitled “Among the Jamaican Negroes,” by an
American lady, Mrs K. J. Hall, published in the October issue 1902 of a
magazine known as _The World To-day_, the situation is admirably summed
up in these words: “Deceitfulness and untruthfulness are the besetting
sins of the race, though the educated are bravely struggling with their
less enlightened kinsmen. Each year witnesses some forward step taken by
these people so lately freed from bondage.”
It was with regret that I took leave of my kind friends at N——, and
prepared to extend my journey to the extreme limit of the railway, which
ends at Montego Bay, a port on the northern coast. I had first, however,
to traverse that part of the island known as the Cockpit Country, parts
of which being remarkably beautiful. From an agricultural standpoint,
this mountainous stretch is practically useless. Isolated peaks
covered with tropical foliage form a background to a vast labyrinth of
glades and valleys separating precipitous cliffs. Here and there a few
smoother tracts occur, and at other places a whole series of impassable
sink-holes, called cockpits, prevent further progress. At the bottom
of these deep valleys the inhabitants grow a banana-patch, and very
sparsely over this hilly country-side does one catch glimpses of the
wattled huts of the blacks. I believe the country has never yet been
thoroughly explored; it offers first-rate facilities for a traveller to
lose himself in. At the present day it is the home of the Maroons, but
these latter have no distinguishing facial characteristics by which to
recognise them, the negro type being everywhere predominant. There is
very little water in these parts, for the rain is carried off directly
by numerous crevices. Springs, long distances apart, form underground
water-courses, and, coming to the surface, disappear again. These are
sink-holes; they are generally to be found deep down in some valley. The
character of the ground around them plainly indicates their existence;
but occasionally such openings are to be met with on more level ground,
where nothing whatever gives a sign of danger, grass and brush growing
over the edge of the aperture and concealing it from observation, until
the unwary victim steps unconsciously over the brink of the treacherous
chasm, and disappears, to be seen no more. Persons have been known to
drop out of life thus into a deep unfathomable grave.
In the south-western part of St Ann’s Parish, which for its exquisite
beauty has been called the “Garden of Jamaica,” there is an opening into
the subterranean passages amongst the mountains, associated with the most
shocking tragedies attended by circumstances of unusual horror. This
sink-hole is called “Hutchinson’s Hole.” Near by is the ruined home of
the monster, who was at length brought to justice for a whole catalogue
of atrocities; it is still known by the name of “Hutchinson’s Tower.”
Travellers who sought hospitality at this house, which was miles away
from any other habitation, obtained it, but they invariably met with
the cruel fate which their host had in reserve for all who approached
his domain, their bodies afterwards being thrown down “Hutchinson’s
Hole.” At length, being discovered, he fled; the whole country rose up
in pursuit. At Old Harbour Hutchinson found a boat, and put off to sea.
Lord Rodney was then in command of the fleet at Port Royal; hearing of
the miscreant’s flight from justice, he set sail in his own ship, and
speedily overhauled the merchantman which had taken the fugitive on
board, captured him, and he was afterwards hung at Spanish Town.
The geological explanation is that the foundation of the limestone hills
is probably coral reef, the rough country lying between these reefs
a formation caused by the sedimentary deposit produced by the action
of the sea. After the volcanic upheaval of Jamaica it is thought that
these limestone basins gradually found drainage under the surrounding
mountains, and this, through successive ages of disintegration, has
brought these districts to their present rough almost impassable
structure. The railway affords most beautiful views as it curves round
the mountains after having skirted, for some miles, the Black River on
the level country. After crossing the third bridge, it commences to
ascend into this wild and picturesque region. Some of the gradients are
very steep, and the curves very sharp; but the views to be obtained from
apparently perilous heights into the deep valleys below are well worth
the journey.
[Illustration]
I have mentioned that this is the home of the Maroons, and I cannot
do better at this part of my travels than sketch the events which led
to their segregation in these mountains. This involves a dip into the
origin of modern slavery. Since the fall of the Roman Empire, and the
rise of Christendom, slavery was almost unknown in Europe excepting in
the serfdom of Moscovy until, in 1442, the Portuguese explorer, Prince
Henry, whilst sailing down the African coast, compelled Antony Gonsalez,
his countryman, to restore some Moors to their home whom he had seized
as prisoners, some two years previously, in the neighbourhood of Cape
Bojador. The wily Gonsalez obeyed the prince, but received in exchange
ten blacks and some gold dust, which he took back to Lisbon. His friends
and acquaintances evidently thought to do a roaring trade in following
his footsteps, so they fitted out thirty ships to pursue this traffic.
In 1481 the Portuguese built three forts, one on the Gold Coast, one on
an adjacent island, the other at Loango—their king assuming the title
of Lord of Guinea! From this date the western continent, so recently
discovered, was furnished with slaves. In 1502 the Spaniards employed
them to work in the mines of Hispaniola, but we read that the governor
forbade the traffic, as the negroes taught the Indians knowledge of their
evil ways. But the latter becoming scarcer, owing to the cruelty of their
conquerors, the Emperor, Charles V., granted a patent to certain persons
giving them the monopoly of supplying four thousand negroes annually to
Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica, and Porto Rico. Herrera, the Spanish historian
of those days, tells us that this patent was assigned to Genoese
merchants. From that time the slave trade was an established and regular
business.
Nor have we, nationally speaking, clean hands in this respect. Sir John
Hawkins Knight, commander of Queen Elizabeth’s navy, found, says Hakluyt,
“that negroes were very good merchandise, and that stores of negroes
might easily be had on the coast of Guiney”; he resolved to make trial
thereof, and communicated that device with his worshipful friends of
London. He sailed to Sierra Leone in 1562. Two hundred years later, so
great a trade had this become, that a list was prepared by the Liverpool
merchants for the Privy Council 1772. In it we find in one year 74,000
slaves were exported. The British headed the list with 38,000, the French
followed with 20,000, the Dutch 4000, Danes 2000, and the Portuguese
10,000. They were captured from Gambia, Sierra Leone, Cape Palmas, Gold
Coast, Whydah, Lagos, and Benin, Bonny, and New Calabar, the Cameroons,
Loango and Benguela principally.
It was Homer who said: “The day which makes a man a slave takes away half
his worth,” and in the nature of things it must be so.
Surely our complicity and share in these dark days is being atoned for
in the efforts to benefit the black race. The stings of the national
conscience have been severe, but the growth in grace of our legislators a
certainty.
Cheap cotton fabrics, specially manufactured to clothe their dusky limbs,
come from Manchester. Food of the best and of the cheapest is within
their reach; and I was even told by a landowner not long since, that it
was no good going to law for the petty thieving which is so irritating,
because “the judges favoured the blacks”!
The Maroons, who inhabit the Cockpit Country as well as a town called
Moore Town, near Port Antonio, on the north coast, are still known by
that name, although there is practically nothing in their appearance to
differentiate them from the rest of the black and coloured races. The
word is derived from the Spanish _marrano_, signifying, “a young pig.”
The hardy-looking mountaineers one sees from the carriage window of the
train, clad in the very sketchiest of clothing, are the descendants of
fierce and warlike slaves of mixed African and Indian blood who, on the
conquest of Jamaica by the Cromwellian troops, escaped to the hills, and
defied the new possessors of the island to conquer them.
There seems every reason to believe that when Columbus first discovered
Jamaica it was thickly populated by the Arawaks.
Bartholomew de las Casas, Bishop of Chiapa, compares the aboriginal
Indians to “ants on an ant-hill”; probably this referred to the
inhabitants of the lowlands and savannahs on the coasts.
This Spanish prelate, who figured in history as the protector and
advocate of the Indians, gave, however, his episcopal consent to the
patent issued by Charles V., granting to the merchants of Genoa the
monopoly of the slave trade with the Indies. A writer, noting the
inconsistency of character in the man who, in order to preserve and
protect one of the most interesting aboriginal races of the world,
concurred in the subjugation and slavery of another, says of him: “While
he contended for the liberty of the people born in one quarter of the
globe, he laboured to enslave the inhabitants of another region, and in
the warmth of his zeal to save the Americans from the yoke, pronounced
it to be lawful and expedient to impose one still heavier upon the
Africans.” Such are the extraordinary contradictions the page of history
reveals to us. It is equally curious to read of a plantation with its
complement of slaves in Barbadoes having been left to The Society in
Great Britain for the Propagation of the Gospel, by a certain Colonel
Codrington, which, says Bryan Edwards, “had to continue the disagreeable
necessity of supporting slavery bequeathed to than, still more to
occasionally purchase more slaves to keep up the stock.” It would
scarcely be profitable or edifying, possibly, in these days, to search
too closely as to how certain moneys left to charitable institutions were
first obtained, but the idea of funds devoted to the lofty and elevating
purposes of extending a knowledge of the Bible amongst the heathen coming
from West Indian slave plantations, appears to me of unique interest.
The way in which the Spaniards treated the harmless and inoffensive
Indians is well known, and has never been better described than by
Charles Kingsley in “Westward Ho!” To the rough-and-ready sailor of the
days of Queen Bess, to fight the Spaniard and to fight the devil were
one and the same thing. Nor, so far as their character for cruelty goes,
is the modern Spaniard one whit better than his ancestors. The writer
of these pages spent a few weeks travelling in Spain, in the spring of
1902, and was impressed by the national bloodthirstiness, as exhibited
in the great ardour and passionate enthusiasm displayed over everything
connected with the peninsular pastime of bull-fighting. The callousness
to suffering, and the innate love of cruelty, shown by the labouring
classes and by the aristocracy of Spain, as when looking round the
crowded amphitheatre to escape from the disgusting sights and sounds
of the arena, one noted the expression of absorbed interest over every
gory detail of the fight, were painfully apparent. Old women pawn their
beds, and girls sell their tresses of hair, to be able, at least once a
year, to attend a bull-fight. The Pope has expressed his abhorrence of
it, whilst, it is well known, Queen Christina equally detests it; but
such is the force of the national love of the sport, that any dynasty
endeavouring to suppress it might count its days as numbered. It is
no matter of surprise to read amongst the island chronicles that in
Jamaica and the adjacent islands the Spaniards destroyed, within less
than twenty years, more than 1,200,000 of the native Indians, when one
rightly appreciates the devilry of the Spaniard. It was on account of
the disappearance of these aborigines that African labour was first
brought across the Atlantic, and owing to the gradual extermination
of the Indians in Hispaniola, and in the Spanish-American possessions
generally, slavery became a systematised traffic. Naturally these
persons, who had so inhumanly treated the poor Arawaks—and they seem
to have been a mild and gentle type of savage, very different from the
Caribs, who were cannibals, and who confined their attentions to the
eastern islands of the Caribbean Sea—could not be expected to treat the
African with greater consideration. When one thinks of the blood-curdling
stories of the atrocities committed by the subjects of the Spanish Crown,
both on Indians and Africans alike, and then of the ferocity and native
savagery of the negro in his reprisals—for when the blacks got the upper
hand their uprisings against and massacres of their white masters are
amongst the most horrible in the history of the world—one shudders at the
thought of what, if they could speak, the mountain fastnesses, the waving
cane-fields, could tell!
One of the punishments which existed among the Spaniards was, that a
slave failing to fulfil the task assigned to him, was liable to be buried
up to his neck, and to be left to be devoured by insects!
Historians have unanimously declared the Arawaks to have been a simple,
quiet folk, neither ferocious nor treacherous, their government
patriarchal and dignified. They smoked tobacco from a quaint sort of
pipe, consisting of a straight tube branching off into two others, which
they inserted up their nostrils. Why, indeed, so kindly and so superior
a race should, in the foreknowledge of Providence, have been permitted
to be superseded in this island by the unintelligent and degraded black
of tropical Africa is an inscrutable problem to human ken. The Arawak
was an enlightened savage. He mixed very little superstition with his
theology. He believed in the existence of a Supreme Being, all-powerful
and invisible, whom he worshipped under the name of Iocahuna; besides,
he venerated a lower order of household and other gods. One reads that
these people had peculiar ideas of the creation of the world, and I have
already alluded to the veneration in which they held the cotton-tree as
the throne of the Creator, also that they, in common with many aboriginal
races, had traditions about a deluge. They believed in a future state
of existence which, if it differed from the happy hunting-ground of the
North-American Indian’s paradise, was to be a place of perfect happiness.
To the limited faculties of the Arawak, that would be represented by
sensual enjoyments more than anything else.
An anecdote, giving an idea of the estimation in which the Spaniards
were held by the native Indians, is related by the Rev. J. B. Ellis:
“A cacique or chief fled to Cuba, to escape his European tormentors,
having in his possession a valuable casket of gold. When pursued by
the Spaniards, he conceived the idea of propitiating the Spanish
Deity. ‘Behold,’ he said, pointing to the golden box, ‘the God of the
Europeans’; and summoning his friends and attendants, he held a mighty
feast in honour of this deity, offering sacrifices, and singing and
dancing around the precious box. Still the Spaniards approached in their
pursuit; and Hatuey, the cacique, told his companions that they must be
rid entirely of the God of the Spaniards before they could hope to be
free from their persecuting presence. Accordingly, the golden casket
was solemnly buried in the sea. Nevertheless, Hatuey was captured, and
promptly condemned to be burned alive. While the necessary preparations
for his execution were being made, a friar attempted to convert and
baptise the unhappy cacique, enlarging much on the happiness of a future
heaven. ‘In this heaven of yours,’ asked the condemned man, ‘are there
any Spaniards?’ ‘Certainly,’ answered the friar, ‘but they are all good
Spaniards.’ ‘The best of them are good for nothing,’ retorted Hatuey,
‘and I will not go where I am likely to meet one of that awful tribe.’”
Let us return to our Maroons, who retreated into the hills before the
English conquerors of the island. In after years, runaway slaves and
disaffected persons fled to them, thus making them, for over a century
and a half, a formidable antagonist to the colonist in the lower-lying
plains near the coast. From the mountain fastnesses they harassed the
English soldiery. Those who carelessly rambled from camps, or from the
protection of their companions, were mercilessly slaughtered with that
refinement of cruelty, in most cases, which makes the annals of the
history of this island written, as it were, in human blood. How they
intimidated the peaceful dwellers by their incessant and bloody raids,
their burnings, and their hideous slaughtering, it can do no good to
describe. To be “marooned” was a fate too horrible to contemplate, even
in those days when life was of not so much account as we estimate it
to-day. Their dialect was a barbarous mixture of African and Spanish.
They practised polygamy; the women did what labour was requisite, and
Obeah-worship was the only religion they knew. They had been a thorn in
the side of the English military occupation for many years. At last, in
1734, Captain Stoddart attacked them in the Blue Mountains so skilfully
and so successfully that for a time they could do no more mischief in
those parts; but the snake was only “scotched,” not exterminated. Again
it raised its hydra-head, and in 1736, a formidable movement under a
leader named Cudgoe had to be suppressed. After this there seems to have
been a desultory guerilla warfare, the enemy never appearing in the open,
but sneaking round the plantations; many whites were killed in this way.
However, in 1738, Governor Trelawny made a treaty with them, assigning
them certain lands to live in.
If I have depicted the mildness of character of the extinct Arawak, I
will here mention what Bryan Edwards says of the West African black:—
“The distinguishing features of the Gold Coast negroes are firmness of
mind and body, ferocious dispositions, but, withal, activity, courage,
and stubbornness, which prompt them to enterprises of difficulty and
danger, enabling them to meet death, in its most horrible shape, with
fortitude or indifference.” This, he goes on to relate, was shown in
the rebellion of 1760. A negro, who had been a chief of his tribe in
Guinea, was imported with a hundred of his countrymen into Jamaica, and
sold together to the owner of a plantation, on the frontier of St Mary’s
Parish. At his instigation, although they had received no ill-treatment
since their arrival, they revolted. Gathering themselves together in a
body they proceeded at midnight to Port Maria, where they slaughtered the
sentinel, and went off with all the arms and ammunition they could lay
hands on. Here they were joined by many runaway slaves, and, retreating
to the interior of the island, they killed everybody they met, leaving
desolation in their track.
At a plantation called Bellard’s Valley they surrounded the overseer’s
house at four in the morning, butchered every soul on the place with the
utmost savagery, and actually drank the blood of their victims mixed with
rum. Wherever they went the same ghastly tragedies took place. In one
morning they murdered forty whites and mulattoes.
At length Tacky, the chief, was fortunately killed in the woods; some of
the principal ringleaders were taken at the same time, but, as there was
every appearance of a general insurrection breaking out in the various
adjacent plantations, the authorities decided to make a few terrible
examples of the most guilty.
However horrible the details are, one feels that no more blame can be
attached to those who framed such sentences than to those officers in
the Indian rebellion of 1858 who condemned Sepoys to be blown from the
cannon. One of these Guinea slaves was condemned to be burnt, two others
to be hung up in irons and left to perish. The former was compelled to
sit upon the ground, his body being chained to an iron stake.
One wonders if he had such a thing as a nervous system at all, for he
complacently looked on as the fire was first lighted at his feet, and
without a groan saw his legs reduced to ashes, after which, says Bryan
Edwards, “one of his arms getting loose he flung a brand from the fire
into the face of the executioner.” The two which were hung up alive
were indulged, at their own request, with a hearty meal just before
being suspended on a gibbet which was put up in the parade of Kingston.
From the time they were first placed there until the time they died,
not a word of complaint did they utter, excepting to remark upon the
chilliness of the night. All day long they amused themselves in talking
to their brother Africans, who were permitted by the authorities, “very
improperly to surround the gibbet. On the seventh day,” says Edwards,
whose description is that of an eye-witness, “a notion prevailed amongst
the spectators that one of them wished to communicate an important secret
to his master, my dear relative, who, being in St Mary’s Parish, the
commanding officer sent for me. I endeavoured by means of an interpreter
to let him know I was present, but I could not understand what he said
in return. I remember that both he and his fellow-sufferer laughed
immoderately at something that occurred—I know not what. The next morning
one of them silently expired, as did the other on the morning of the
ninth day.”
In the Museum which is attached to the Institute and Library of Kingston
a gruesome relic is exhibited. It represents an iron cage, and was
unearthed some years ago in the parish of St Andrews. It encloses the
bones of a woman, and is constructed so as to fit the human body with
bands around the neck, breast, and loins; there are bars to confine the
legs, and stirrups for the feet, which have sharp pikes to press into the
soles of the occupant’s feet. There is a ring at the top of the structure
to suspend it gibbet-wise. One can well understand the reluctance and
the dread with which the sugar-planters regarded the passing of the
Emancipation Bill.
To be overrun by a newly-liberated race of semi-savages was not an
exhilarating thing to contemplate. Their standpoint was a very different
one in all its bearings than that of the benevolent aristocrats in
England, who discussed the measure at their ease, mutually congratulating
themselves and the nation that at last they had obeyed the promptings of
conscience.