Bolas, in the St. John district of St. Catherine, round which hill the
Maroons were scattered in Doyley’s time; but de Bolas in time
surrendered to the English, and was made colonel of the black regiment,
and trouble ceased for the moment. The next Maroon chief of whom we read
is Cudjoe. In 1690 there was an insurrection, in the parish of
Clarendon, of negro slaves who found a secure retreat in the interior of
the country, contenting themselves for a time with predatory excursions
against neighbouring estates. When later an armed force was sent against
them, they elected as their chief Cudjoe, who appointed his brothers,
Accompong, whose name still lives in =Accompong= in St. Elizabeth
(Akjampong was the name of an Ashantee chief who figured in the Ashantee
War of 1872) and Johnny, as leaders under him, the greater part of his
men being Coromantees. He was, in about 1730, joined by a party of
Cottawood negroes from St. George (now merged in Portland), and later by
a party from St. Elizabeth. From the similarity of their mode of life,
Cudjoe and his followers about this time became known as Maroons, the
same as the original Spanish runaway slaves. Up to this time forty-four
Acts of the Assembly, Long tells us, had been passed, and £240,000
expended for the suppression of the Maroons. On the commencement of
hostilities against them, their mere wish for plunder became a desire
for revenge. In 1733 the Government resolved to establish advanced posts
to hold the Maroons in check, one at Cave Valley being intended to guard
Cudjoe. These posts were garrisoned by independent companies,
confidential negroes (termed black shot), mulattoes, and some two
hundred Indians specially imported from the Mosquito Coast, who,
fighting the Maroons with their own weapons, destroyed their provision
grounds. Dogs, provided by the churchwardens of the parishes, were also
used for defence and for tracking purposes. Realising that his quarters
were accessible to the rangers, Cudjoe removed into Trelawny, on the
north-west side of the Cockpits. Finding them difficult to subdue, and
fearful of the risk of defeat of an organised attack on them, the
Governor, Edward Trelawny, was persuaded—at a time when, though he was
ignorant of it, the Maroons were prepared to surrender—to offer terms of
peace to the Maroons, the offer being made through Colonel Guthrie, of
the militia, and Captain Sadler, of the regulars, who had been placed in
command of the troops it had originally been intended to send against
them. Dr. Russell was selected as delegate to represent the English. In
order to placate Cudjoe he exchanged hats with him. Later, Colonel
Guthrie came forward, and under Cudjoe’s tree in Guthrie’s defile were
concluded “Articles of Pacification with the Maroons of Trelawny Town,
March 1, 1738,” by which the Maroons received full pardon, with
privilege to possess for ever 1500 acres between =Trelawny Town=, which
was then so called after the Governor, Edward Trelawny, and the
Cockpits, with right to hunt; the Maroons on their side undertaking to
take part in any action of the Government against rebels, and to hand
over runaway slaves to their masters. A similar treaty was made with
Quao and the Windward Maroons in July 1739, and the five Maroon
settlements of Jamaica were established—Trelawny Town, Accompong,
Scott’s Hall, Charles Town and Moore Town, the last three being in the
eastern part of the island. Later, some of the land was alienated from
Trelawny Town, and 1000 acres were attached to Accompong. It was really
this treaty, which kept the bodies of Maroons as a distinct tribe in the
strongest parts of the country, instead of encouraging their being
merged in the general negro population, that was the cause of all the
subsequent trouble.
We next in the history of the Maroons come to the rebellion in 1795, by
the Trelawny Town Maroons—sometimes spoken of as the Maroon War—when
James Montague was their leading chief. Their neighbours at Accompong
sided with the Government.
The immediate cause of (or rather excuse for) the rebellion was the
flogging at the workhouse at Montego Bay by a runaway negro (whom the
Maroons themselves had captured) of two Maroons who had been convicted
of stealing pigs. Previous to this the Maroons had become discontented
through the removal of their superintendent, which removal they
themselves had helped to bring about, and disapproval of his successor;
and they also desired new land in place of that allotted to them, which
they said was both worn out and insufficient. But Balcarres, the
Governor, always held that the origin of the war lay “in French
principles and the unjustifiable mode of warfare adopted in these
islands by the ruling power in France.”
At the first outbreak the whole island was put under martial law, and
the Governor himself, a veteran of the American war, went to the seat of
war and took command—his headquarters being first at Vaughan’s Field and
later at Montego Bay and Castle Wemyss—only leaving the scene of
operations to meet the Assembly from time to time in Spanish Town. Of a
nature prone to show his military prowess, and moved by fear of the
influence of the rebellion taking place in Haiti hard by, and the
presence of a number of questionable immigrants in Jamaica from that
island, as well as by his prejudice against the _imperium in imperio_
which the Maroons possessed under the treaty of 1738, he gave the
rebels, the Maroons of Trelawny Town (1660 in number all told) only four
days in which to surrender. Thirty-eight did so; but on August 12
hostilities commenced by a detachment of dragoons falling into an
ambuscade, five officers and thirty men being killed. It is said by some
that the Maroons chose their time for rising when they did, as they knew
that with the departure of the July fleet but few troops would be left
in the island; and it was only by the prompt action on the part of the
Governor in stopping the _Halifax_ packet for three weeks and in
detaining a convoy of troops on its way from England to St. Domingo
(where it was sadly needed), which had actually sailed from Port Royal,
that forces were available to meet the rebels. These forces numbered
some four hundred men of the 13th, 14th, 17th, and 18th Light Dragoons,
the 83rd Foot, and the recently raised 130th Foot. A tiresome campaign
then followed, in which twenty actions were fought, the seat of the
struggle being the wild Cockpit country. By another ambuscade Colonel
Fitch and two other officers lost their lives.
At the time of the meeting of the Assembly in September the rebellion
was not so near quelled as the Governor had hoped.
Lieutenant-Colonel Walpole, of the 13th Light Dragoons, who on the death
of Colonel Fitch had succeeded to the command of the forces, and was
made a major-general by Balcarres and given very full powers, altered
the whole plan of campaign, teaching the troopers of the 17th Light
Dragoons, who had had experience in colonial warfare with Tarleton in
America, to fight on foot and to work in twos, so that each could hold
the arms of the other while climbing had to be done—and by fighting the
Maroons in their own way paved the way for their surrender. But the
difficulty of the operation may be judged by the fact that Walpole,
after months of experience, wrote to Balcarres that there was “little
chance of any but a Maroon discovering a Maroon.”
When “cultivation was suspended, the courts at law had long been shut
up, and the Island seemed more like a garrison under the power of the
martial law than a country of agriculture and commerce,” one hundred
bloodhounds and forty chasseurs were imported from Cuba to aid in
tracking the Maroons. The news of the arrival (on December 14) of the
hounds had such an effect that without seeing them the Maroons sued for
peace a week or so later, only stipulating that they should not be
executed or transported. The treaty was ratified on December 28, but
they were only given till January 1 to come in and deliver up the
runaways. In the end they were transported on the grounds that they had
not surrendered by the date named (the last did not come in until March
21) and that they had not surrendered up the runaway slaves that had
joined them; and Walpole, considering that the Governor and House of
Assembly had broken faith with the Maroons, whom he had promised should
not be expatriated, refused a sword of honour offered him by that body
and resigned his commission in the army, which, however, he had
contemplated selling before the trouble with Balcarres began. That being
so, it is odd to read in the “Account of Expenses incurred in the late
Martial Law” “Present of swords to Lord Balcarres and General Walpole,
£1950.” The regard one feels for Walpole’s indignation at what he terms
“this guilt and infamy,” and his skill in quelling the rebellion, is
marred when one learns that he Wrote to Balcarres on December 24, 1795:
“Two Maroons (Smith and Dunbar) have come in from Johnstone’s party, to
beg the King’s mercy, and the whole are to be here on Saturday, to
construct their huts within our posts. I have allotted them a spot
between Cudjoe Town and the Old Town; there they are to remain until the
Legislature shall dispose of them. If I might give you an opinion, it
should be that they should be settled near Spanish Town, or some other
of the large towns in the lowlands; the access to spirits will soon
decrease their numbers, and destroy that hardy constitution which is
nourished by a healthy mountainous situation.” It is evident that his
indignation was aroused by the false position in which he had been
placed, and not by any humanitarian feeling towards the Maroons. It is
also evident that Balcarres was satisfied in his own conscience that his
action was right.
Parkinson was one of the last to surrender, about three months after the
date fixed. He and Palmer, who had both surrendered on August 11, 1795,
had been sent to the Maroons to try and persuade them to come in.
Instead, they had rejoined their companies. That General Walpole had a
high opinion of them as leaders is evident. He says in a letter to Lord
Balcarres, “If Palmer or Parkinson should refuse the terms, which I
think they will, you will never conquer them.”
In addition to the regular foot soldiers and militia employed, the 13th,
14th, 17th, 18th and 20th Light Dragoons and the York Hussars, as we
have seen, took part in the struggle, and =Horse-guards= in St. James’s
probably owes its name to their having been quartered there. Of the
Dragoons, the 20th (or Jamaica) were raised in the West Indies. On the
whole about 1520 chosen European troops, aided by twice that number of
colonial militia, were opposed to less than three hundred undisciplined
Maroons, who were, however, physically brave men, and fighting under
conditions very favourable to themselves and most unfavourable to their
adversaries. They had a system of horn-signals so perfect that there was
a distinct call by which every individual man could be hailed. The cost
of the war was about £350,000 sterling. In addition £49,400 was voted to
defray the expatriation expenses.
Under date December 22, 1795, General Walpole wrote to Lord Balcarres as
follows:
I have the honour to enclose to your Lordship the proposals of the
Maroons to which I have acceded.
The whole detachment behaved to their credit. I must not omit to
mention to your Lordship, that to the impression made in the action by
the undaunted bravery of the 17th Dragoons who were more particularly
engaged on the 15th, we owe the submission of the rebels: The Maroons
speak of them with astonishment. Mr. Werge was particularly signalized
with the advance guard; and the sergeant-major of that regiment is
strongly recommended, for his spirit and activity, by the commanding
officer Mr. Edwards, who is every way deserving your Lordship’s good
opinion.
On February 11, 1796, General Walpole wrote to Lord Balcarres as
follows:—
... I am preparing to move the 13th Dragoons through the cockpits,
from One-Eye.
On February 20 Lord Balcarres wrote to General Walpole:
... I think it will take a considerable force to guard the Maroon
prisoners. The 17th Light Dragoons and the 62nd Regiment may occupy
Montego-Bay, Falmouth and St. Ann’s.
The 17th are to hold themselves in readiness to embark for St.
Domingo, when they send shipping to receive them; of which no
requisition is as yet made.
I should be glad to know your wish as to the quartering of the 13th
Light Dragoons on their arrival.
The 14th regiment of Light Dragoons are not to remain in this country
if quiet is restored. If, however, the banditti of runaway slaves have
gone down to Old Woman Savanna, they must occupy posts in that
neighbourhood; the country that lies behind it I believe never was
explored.
The “XX (or Jamaica) Regiment of Light Dragoons” was formed in 1792 and
is last mentioned in the year 1802, when it was transferred to the
English establishment.
Major-Gen. Robert R. Gillespie, who was one of the first lieutenants
appointed when the regiment was raised in 1792, entered the army in
1783. When in the following year the French planters in San Domingo
applied to Jamaica for aid, he volunteered for service with the
infantry, and in the campaign there distinguished himself for bravery,
returning home at the fall of Port-au-Prince. On being appointed in 1795
major of brigade to General Wilford, he accompanied him to San Domingo,
and soon afterwards, though small in stature, killed six men single
handed. Returning to Jamaica, he assumed command of the regiment, and in
1799 was recommended by the lieutenant-governor and House of Assembly
for the rank of lieutenant-colonel and was so gazetted. He was offered
by Lord Hugh Seymour the military command at Curaçoa; but Lord Balcarres
said he could not spare him. At the Peace of Amiens in 1802, when the
20th Light Dragoons were transferred to the English establishment,
Gillespie returned home in command, and the House of Assembly, glad to
be rid of the regiment, voted one hundred pounds for a sword of honour
for him. He subsequently had a brilliant career in the East, and in 1812
he received the thanks of the commander-in-chief in India, Sir George
Nugent, for services in connection with the Palimbang expedition.
With regard to the unfairness to them in expatriating them, it is only
just to those who did it to add that those few Maroons to whom was
offered liberty to stay in Jamaica elected to go with the rest, on the
grounds that “they feared they could never live in security and quiet
with the free people of colour and negroes in this island.” Balcarres
was severely attacked in England for the use he made of the dogs from
Cuba; but he, it would seem, fully justified his action in that matter.
On June 6, 1796, the Maroons left Port Royal in three ships with the
96th Regiment as guard, and under convoy of H.M.S. _Africa_. The arrival
of the exiles in Halifax is thus described in “Maroons of Jamaica and
Nova Scotia, by J. C. Hamilton, LL.B.” in “Proceedings of the Canadian
Institute, April 1890”: “Four years after this (_i.e._ in 1796) three
ships entered the harbour of Halifax, laden with the most extraordinary
cargoes that ever entered that port. Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, then
in command at Halifax, boarded the _Dover_, was met by Colonel W. D.
Quarrell, commissary-general of Jamaica, with whom Mr. Alexander
Ouchterlony was associated, and a detachment of the 96th Regiment drawn
up on board to receive him. Black men of good proportions, with many
women and children, all in neat uniform attire, were mustered in lines.
Other transports, the _Mary_ and _Anne_, were, his Highness was
informed, about to follow, and the main cargo was six hundred Maroons
exiled from Jamaica, with soldiers to guard them and meet any attacks
from French vessels on the voyage.
“The Prince was struck with the fine appearance of the black men, but
the citizens had heard of how Jamaica had been harried by its black
banditti, and were unwilling at first to have them added to their
population.”
They worked at the fortifications that were being erected to meet the
threatened attack of the French fleet under Richery; and Maroon Hill,
near Halifax, still bears their name. But the settlement of the Maroons
in Nova Scotia was ill-conceived and ill-controlled, and they, being
themselves unwilling to work, and both Jamaica and Nova Scotia unwilling
to keep them in idleness, followed in 1800 those “loyal negroes” of the
United States who had migrated first to Canada and then to Sierra Leone.
In the transport _Asia_ 550 of them reached Sierra Leone, where, as no
particular place could be secured for their location, efforts to obtain
an island having failed, they were allotted a place in Granville Town,
under a superintendent, Lieutenant Odburn. The “Settlers’ Rising” was in
progress when they arrived, and they assisted in quelling it.
Soon after the Trelawny Town Maroons were transported from Jamaica,
barracks were erected on the site of their old town, and regiments of
British troops were maintained there until the middle of the nineteenth
century, when they were withdrawn at the time of the Crimean war.
Trelawny Town was for a time the headquarters of the troops stationed in
the county of Cornwall, but it later was superseded by Falmouth. The
barracks at Trelawny Town have fallen into ruins, but the evidence of
the residents in the neighbourhood of a number of white soldiers in the
past exists in some of the peasantry there to-day.
In 1839 Maroon Town was made the site of a sanatorium for European
troops, and huts were erected there for the purpose, and the 68th
Regiment was stationed there.
On a visit made to the Cockpit country in 1905 by the present writer and
a friend, on entering the neighbourhood of Trelawny Town, or Maroon Town
as it is now called, we came across the remains of a block-house which
had loopholed chambers at three corners and evidently had had an upper
storey, now disappeared, for dwelling purposes. Being now in the heart
of the Cockpit country we could study its formation in detail. At one
time it gave the impression of a number of stunted cones rising from a
plain; at another the feeling was one of a number of basins like the
Devil’s Punch-bowls of England; at all times, except where there was a
clearing for corn, bananas or bread-kind, it appeared thickly
wooded—mahogany, cedar, mahoe, Santa Maria, and broadleaf being
prominent; and mosquito wood and red shingle wood, and other lesser
known woods, being pointed out by our guide. As the bridle path now runs
at some distance from the rocks, which here and there crop out of the
overhanging foliage and assume the form of solid masonry, tending to
deceive one into thinking that one is in front of the ruin of some fort,
it cannot be by it that the troops travelled when the Maroons hurled
stones on them from above. As one rides along these defiles the mournful
note of the solitaire, suggests the nervousness which might have fallen
on the soldiers marching through a thickly wooded, rocky, unknown
country, every crag of which might conceal a foe, to whose foot such
mountain paths were familiar. At Maroon Town itself we found a clearing
on which cattle were grazing, and a police station (just abandoned)
built on the site of the officers’ quarters of half a century ago. Near
by was the well which supplied the settlement with water, and a
barracks, some 130 ft. long by 30 ft. broad, which had once possessed an
upper storey of wood, little now remaining of the stoutly built lower
walls of limestone quarried in the neighbourhood. There also were the
powder-house and the cells, the hospital and the kitchens and the
mess-house, which, placed on an immense rock open to the sea breeze from
the east, commanded a view over Trelawny to the sea by Falmouth miles
away. It was once a substantial building of three storeys, the solid
steps leading up to the second floor being still usable. Opposite the
mess-house rise two large conical hills calling to mind the twin Pitons
of St. Lucia—the one called Gun Hill (because a gun had been placed in
position there, possibly the howitzer with which Walpole did great
execution), the other Garrison Hill. Then we saw the tank some thirty
feet long, fed by a clear stream in which the soldiers were wont to
bathe; then, saddest of all, a few tombs—one recalling the death in 1840
of a coloured sergeant of the 68th (or Durham) Regiment, another to the
wife of a quartermaster of the 38th Regiment who died in 1846, and a
third to the paymaster of the 101st Regiment who died in 1810; while a
nameless tomb, the oldest inhabitant told us, belonged to a Colonel
Skeate, who, being ill when his regiment left, was buried by the
incoming regiment. The wood behind the police station was, we were told,
almost impassable. For miles the thick woods lie untrodden by man,
except when a few Maroons or other negroes go hunting the wild hogs
which abound, or “fowling,” _i.e._ shooting pigeons.
After leaving Maroon Town we visited the chief settlement of the Maroons
in the west end of the island, Accompong, and experienced rough
travelling. In places there was nothing but the bare limestone rock for
yards, without a scrap of earth. Nothing but a pony bred in the district
could have negotiated it successfully. But once on the main path riding
was easy. One was struck by the amount of cultivation on either hand;
here and there a patch of bananas, here and there yams, and so on. On
reaching the town of Accompong we saw a number of houses scattered about
and a small church nearing completion. Across a “pit” stood the
“Colonel’s” house on the opposite side. There was a schoolhouse,
presided over by a teacher trained in the elementary school at
Retirement hard by; but the Maroons apparently did not set much store by
education, and only about a fourth of their children attended school.
The “Colonel’s” brother told us he knew more of their old language
(Coromantyn) than any one else, but all we could get out of them was pig
= bracho, bull = aboukani, cow = aboukress. From a philological point of
view one views them with suspicion, although the late Major J. W.
Powell, of the Bureau of Ethnology of the United States, assured the
writer that when he visited these Maroons a year or two ago, he had
discovered them talking their native language. Bryan Edwards tells us
that in his day their language was “a barbarous dissonance of the
African dialects with a mixture of Spanish and broken English.”
To the ordinary observer there is little or nothing to differentiate the
Maroons from the ordinary “bush-negroes,” although they seem to possess
more than an ordinary share of suspiciousness—a suspiciousness which was
engendered by the treatment which their brothers of Trelawny Town
received from Balcarres, and has been kept alive at odd times by
subsequent actions. This curious group of people numbering about 800
dwelt, each family in its own house, in the centre of their 1200 acres,
which they hold in common.
The following technical description of the Cockpit country, wherein
Maroon Town and Accompong are situated, is taken from Mr. F. C.
Nicholas’s paper on the subject in the “Journal of the Institute of
Jamaica,” 1897.
A marked feature of the geology of the West Indies is found in the
extensive deposits of massive white limestone common to all this part
of the world. This formation, though hard and compact, disintegrates
freely; tall cliffs and broken rocks are honeycombed with openings and
pit-marks, presenting a rough jagged surface, which is sometimes
almost impassable.
The Cockpit country where this formation is typical is situated in the
west central part of Jamaica, and comprises an area some ten by
fifteen miles in extent, and for the greater part one vast labyrinth
of glades among rough cliffs, with here and there patches of smoother
ground, and at other places, coming one after the other, a general
collection of impassable sink-holes, called cockpits.
The impression one gets in first visiting this region is that it is of
little interest; just a path between a few not very high cliffs. There
is such a sameness about it all that one is constantly expecting the
next turn to lead out into the open country, or to a cultivated
estate. After a few hours’ hard scrambling one realises that here in
truth there is a wilderness of rocks.
A large part of the Cockpit country has never been explored, nor is it
probable that it ever will be, because the land is useless. One can
cross the district from north to south, and east to west, and go all
round it; sufficient to show that there is nothing to compensate for
the effort, and that one part is quite similar to all the others. The
elevations averaged from 1400 ft. to 1500 ft. In the glades I noted
aneroid readings as low as 800 ft.; while on some of the ridges which
cross this district N.E. and S.W., bending at times N. and S., I took
readings as high as 2300 ft. These are the extremes, the average
variation is about 200 ft.; but these elevations are abrupt and almost
precipitous over nearly all the region.
In 1898 there arose, owing to a not unfrequent source, disputes about
land, some slight trouble amongst the Maroons of Charles Town, which
was, however, effectually suppressed by the prompt action of the general
commanding the forces. It, however, gave to the late Phil Robinson, who
was in the island at the time, an opportunity to write an article for
the “Contemporary Review,” entitled “A Dress Rehearsal of Rebellion
among the Maroons at Annotto Bay, Jamaica.”
In 1796 “The Proceedings of the Honourable House of Assembly relative to
the Maroons; including the correspondence between the Right Honourable
Earl Balcarres and the Honourable Major-General Walpole, during the
Maroon rebellion; with the report of the Joint Special Secret Committee,
to whom those papers were referred,” edited by Bryan Edwards, was
published at St. Jago de la Vega; while in the same year was published
in London “The Proceedings of the Governor and Assembly of Jamaica, in
regard to the Maroon negroes: published by order of the Assembly. To
which is prefixed an introductory account, containing observations on
the disposition, character, manners, and habits of life, of the Maroons,
and a detail of the origin, progress and termination of the late war
between those people and the white inhabitants.” This was published in
great measure as an answer to the attack made by Fox in the House of
Commons on the action of the Assembly of Jamaica with regard to the
Maroons. The same “Account of the Maroon Negroes in the Island of
Jamaica” was included in Bryan Edwards’ “Historical Survey of the Island
of St. Domingo,” published in 1801.