THE MAROON WAR IN JAMAICA, 1795
[Sidenote: 1795.]
The year 1795, as will presently be told when we speak of the services
of the Seventeenth in Grenada, was marked by a simultaneous revolt of
almost all the possessions of the British in the West Indies. Amid
all this trouble the large and important island of Jamaica remained
untouched. This was remarkable, for from its wealth it offered a
tempting prey to the French, and, from its proximity to St. Domingo, it
was easy of access to French agents of sedition and revolt, who could
pass into it without suspicion among the hundreds of refugees that had
fled from that unhappy island. Moreover, the garrison had been reduced
to great weakness by the constant drain of reinforcements for St.
Domingo. Still, in spite of some awkward symptoms, the Jamaica planters
remained careless and supine; and no one but the governor, Lord
Balcarres, a veteran of the American War, felt the slightest anxiety.
Such was the state of affairs when the squadron of the Seventeenth
arrived at Port Royal in July, and was sent on board ship again. Three
days later the Maroons were up in rebellion.
The history of these Maroons is curious, and must be told at some
length if the relation of the war is to be rightly understood. Jamaica
was originally gained for the English by an expedition despatched by
Cromwell in 1655; but it was not until 1658 that the Spaniards, after
a last vain struggle to expel the British garrison, were finally
driven from the island. On their departure their slaves fled to the
mountains, and there for some years they lived by the massacre and
plunder of British settlers. [Sidenote: 1795.] They seem to have
scattered themselves over a large extent of country, and to have kept
themselves in at least two distinct bodies, those in the north holding
no communication with those in the south. These latter, in their
district of Clarendon, being disagreeably near the seat of Government,
the British authorities contrived to conciliate and disperse; but
their fastnesses had not long been deserted by the Maroons when they
were occupied (1690) by a band of revolted slaves. These last soon
became extremely formidable and troublesome, their ravages compelling
the planters to convert every estate-building into a fortress; and at
last the burden of this brigandage became so insupportable that the
Government determined to put it down with a strong hand.
At the outset the attacks of the whites on these marauding gangs met
with some success; but soon came a new departure. A man of genius arose
from among these revolted slaves, one Cudjoe by name, by whose efforts
the various wandering bands were welded into a single body, organised
on a quasi-military footing, and made twice as formidable as before.
Nor was this all. The Maroons of the north, who from the beginning
had never left their strongholds nor ceased their depredations, heard
the fame of Cudjoe, joined him in large numbers, and enlisted under
his banner. Yet another tribe of negroes, distinct in race from both
the others, likewise flocked to him; and the whole mass thus united
by his genius grew, about the year 1730, to be comprehended, though
inaccurately, by the whites under the name of Maroons (hog-hunters).
Cudjoe now introduced a very skilful and successful system of warfare,
which became traditional among all Maroon chiefs. The grand object
was to take up a central position in a “cockpit,” _i.e._ a glen
enclosed by perpendicular rocks, and accessible only through a narrow
defile. A chain of such cockpits runs through the mountains from
east to west, communicating by more or less practicable passes one
with another. These glens run also in parallel lines from north to
south, but the sides are so steep as to be impassable to any but a
Maroon. [Sidenote: 1795.] Such were the natural fortresses of these
black mountaineers, in a country known to none but themselves. To
preserve communication among themselves they had contrived a system of
horn-signals so perfect that there was a distinct call by which every
individual man could be hailed and summoned. The outlets from these
cockpits were so few that the white men could always find a well-beaten
track which led them to the mouth of a defile; but beyond the mouth
they could not go. A deep fissure, from two hundred to eight hundred
yards long, and impassable except in single file, was easily guarded.
Warned by the horns of the scouts that an enemy was approaching, the
Maroons hid themselves in ambush behind rocks and trees, selected each
his man, shot him down, and then vanished to some fresh position. Turn
whither he might, the unlucky pursuer was met always by a fresh volley
from an invisible foe, who never fired in vain.
Nevertheless the white men were sufficiently persistent in their
pursuit of Cudjoe to force him to abandon the Clarendon district;
but this only made matters worse, inasmuch as it drove him to an
impregnable fastness, whence there was no hope of dislodging him,
in the Trelawney district farther to the north-west. This cockpit
contained seven acres of fertile land and a spring of water. Its
entrance was a defile half a mile long; its rear was barred by a
succession of other cockpits, its flanks protected by lofty precipices.
Here Cudjoe made his headquarters and laughed at the white men. The
Maroons lived in indolent savagery while their provisions lasted, and
in active brigandage when their wants forced them to go and plunder.
They were fond of blood and barbarity, as is the nature of savages,
and never spared a prisoner, black or white. After nine or ten years
of successful warfare Cudjoe fairly compelled the whites to make
terms with him; and accordingly, in the year 1738, a solemn treaty
was concluded between Captains Cudjoe, Johnny, Accompong, Cuffee,
Quaco, and the Maroons of Trelawney town on the one part, and George
the Second, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France, and
Ireland, and of Jamaica Lord, on the other. [Sidenote: 1795.] The terms
of the treaty granted the Maroons amnesty, fifteen hundred acres of
land, and certain hunting rights; also absolute freedom, independence,
and self-government among themselves--the jurisdiction of the chiefs
being limited only in respect of the penalty of death, and of disputes
in which a white man was concerned. On their part the Maroons undertook
to give up runaway slaves, to aid the king against all enemies,
domestic and foreign, and to admit two white residents to live with
them perpetually. A similar treaty was concluded with another body of
Maroons that had not followed Cudjoe to Trelawney from the windward end
of the island; and thus the Maroon question for the present was settled.
From 1738 till 1795 Maroons gave little or no trouble. They remained
dispersed in five settlements, three of them to windward, but the
two of most importance to leeward, in Trelawney district. They lived
in a state midway between civilisation and barbarism, retaining the
religion--a religion without worship or ceremony--which their fathers
had brought from Africa, cultivating their provision grounds regularly,
if in rather a primitive fashion, breeding horses, cattle, and fowls,
hunting wild swine and fugitive slaves, and conducting themselves
generally in a harmless and not unprofitable manner. Their vices were
those of the white man, drinking and gambling, which of course gave
rise to quarrels; but they were ruled with a strong hand by their
chiefs, and kept well within bounds. Owing to the climate in which
they lived, some thousands of feet above the sea, and the free, active
life which they led, they were physically a splendid race--tall and
muscular, and far superior to the negro slaves whom, from this cause as
well as in virtue of their own freedom, they held in great contempt.
Moreover, the fact that they were employed to hunt down runaway slaves
helped greatly to make them friendly to the whites and hostile to the
blacks. In fact they held an untenable position, being bound to the
whites by treaty, and fighting in alliance with them both against
insurgent negroes, as in 1760, and white invaders, as in 1779–80, and
yet bound by affinity of race and colour to the very negroes that they
helped to keep in servitude. [Sidenote: 1795.] Meanwhile they grew
rapidly in numbers and consideration. Certain restrictions to which
they had been subjected by Acts of the Jamaica Assembly at the time of
the treaty fell into disuse, and became a dead letter. They began to
leave their own district and wander at large about the plantations,
making love to the female slaves, becoming fathers of many children by
them, and thus gradually breaking down the barrier between themselves
and their fellow-blacks. Simultaneously the internal discipline of the
Maroons became seriously relaxed. Cudjoe and his immediate successors
had ruled them with a rod of iron; but at a distance of two generations
the authority of the chiefs, though they still bore the titles of
Colonel and Captain, had sunk to a mere name. For a time the Colonel’s
power in Trelawney was transferred to one of the white residents, a
Major James, who had been brought up among the Maroons, could beat the
best of them at their feats of activity and skill, and was considered
to be almost one of themselves. Of great physical strength and utterly
fearless, he would interpose in the thick of a Maroon quarrel, heedless
of the whirling cutlasses, knock down those that withstood him, and
clap the rebellious in irons without a moment’s hesitation. Naturally
so strong a man was a great favourite with the Maroons, who, while he
remained among them, were kept well in hand. But it so happened that
James succeeded to the possession of an estate which obliged him to
spend most of his time away from the Maroon town; and as a resident
who does not reside could be satisfactory neither to his subjects at
Trelawney nor his masters at Kingston, he was deprived of his post.
He, rather unreasonably, felt himself much aggrieved by the Government
in consequence; and the Maroons, who had been annoyed at his former
neglect, became positively angry at his involuntary removal. In plain
truth, the Maroons through indiscipline had got what is called “above
themselves,” and were ripe for any mischief.
[Sidenote: 1795.]
It was not long before matters came to a crisis. The new resident
appointed in place of James, though in character irreproachable, was
not a man to dominate the Maroons by personal ascendancy and courage.
A trifling dispute sprang up in the middle of July; the Trelawney
Maroons drove him from the town, and on the 18th sent a message to the
magistrates to say that they desired nothing but battle, and that if
the white men would not come to them and make terms, then they would
come down to the white men. With that they called in all their people,
and sent the women into the bush--nay, report said that they proposed
to kill their cattle and also such of their children as were likely to
prove an encumbrance to them.
Lord Balcarres, when the news reached him, was not a little troubled.
At ordinary times it might have been politic to temporise and
conciliate, but now that the greater number of the islands were
aflame such policy seemed impossible. Here was a race of black men in
insurrection, who had successfully resisted the whites two generations
before, and now held an independent position in virtue of a solemn
treaty. The bare existence of such a community was a standing menace
at such a time. There was evidence that French agents were at work in
Jamaica; and it was remarkable that just at this time the negroes on
nine plantations, where the managers were known to be men of unusual
clemency, showed symptoms of unrest and discontent. It is evident from
Balcarres’s despatches that he had negro insurrection, so to speak, on
the brain, and it is certain that he was ambitious of military glory;
but he cannot be blamed at such a time for acting forcibly and swiftly.
For a fortnight endeavours were made to smoothe matters over, and with
some slight success, for six of the chiefs surrendered. But the main
body still held aloof; and Balcarres without further ado proclaimed
martial law. He took pains to obtain information as to every path and
track that led into the Maroon district, his plan being to seize these
and thus blockade the whole of it, though he admits that it would be a
difficult manœuvre to do so effectually “on a circle of forty square
miles of the most difficult and mountainous country in the universe.”
[Sidenote: 1795.] On the 9th August the preparations were complete, and
the passes were seized; whereupon thirty-eight of the older and less
warlike Maroons surrendered, and were carried away under a guard and
kept in strict confinement. Seeing this the remainder at once set fire
to their towns (the old and the new town, as the two groups of shanties
half a mile apart were named), an action which was not misinterpreted
as “a signal of inveterate violence and hostility.” It was now clear
that the matter would have to be fought out.
The force at Balcarres’s disposal was not great. The garrison consisted
of the 16th and 62nd Foot, both so weak as to number but 150 men
apiece fit for duty, and the 20th or Jamaica Light Dragoons. Besides
these there were the stray detachments of the 13th, 14th, 17th, and
18th Light Dragoons, and of the 83rd Foot, some of them very weak,
and probably amounting in all to little more than 400 men. Also there
was a fair force of local militia, with several local Major-Generals.
The Maroons of Trelawney numbered 660 men, women, and children; and
there were at least as many more in the other Maroon settlements,
which latter, though they never rose, were greatly distrusted by the
Governor. Balcarres resolved to surround the whole of the Trelawney
Maroon district, and made his dispositions thus:--Colonel Sandford,
with the 16th Foot and 20th Dragoons, covered one outlet to the north;
Colonel Hull, with 170 men of the 62nd Foot and of the Seventeenth,
another; Colonel Walpole, with 150 of the 13th and 14th Dragoons,
barred one approach from the south; and Balcarres himself, with the
83rd, took post to the south-west. The Seventeenth was represented by
one troop only, the other being on board ship on its way to St. Domingo.
On the 12th August the Maroons opened the war by attacking a militia
post, and killing and wounding a few men. On the same day Lord
Balcarres ordered Colonel Sandford to attack and carry the new town
from his side, and having done so, to halt and cut off the retreat
of the Maroons, while he himself attacked the old town from his own
side. [Sidenote: 1795.] Off started Colonel Sandford, accordingly, with
forty-five of the 18th Dragoons, mounted, a body of militia infantry,
and a number of volunteers--the latter men of property in the country,
and “all generals,” as Balcarres sarcastically remarked. In spite of
the steepness and difficulty of the ground the little column advanced
rapidly with great keenness. [Sidenote: 12th Aug.] The Maroons on their
approach quietly evacuated the site of the new town, and withdrew
into a deep defile, three-quarters of a mile long, which formed their
communication with the old town. Presently up came Sandford, and to
his great joy carried the new town without opposition. Flushed with
success he started off, in disobedience to orders, to take the old
town, pressing on with his mounted men, dragoons, and volunteers, at
such a pace that the militia could not keep up with him. Thus hurrying
into the trap laid for him, he plunged into the defile. The column,
which was half as long as the defile, had passed two-thirds of the way
through it, when a tremendous volley was poured into its whole length.
Not a Maroon was to be seen, and the column continued its advance. A
second volley followed: Colonel Sandford fell dead; and then the column
began to run. The officer of the 18th, seeing that retreat through the
defile would be fatal, dashed straight forward at a small party of
Maroons which he saw ahead, broke through them, and galloping headlong
through a breakneck country, brought the remains of his detachment
safely to Lord Balcarres’s camp. Two officers and thirty-five men
were killed, and many more wounded in this little affair; and the
militia (who had not been under fire) were so far demoralised that they
evacuated the new town and retired. That night (though Balcarres knew
it not) every Maroon warrior got blind drunk. Sixty of them were so
helpless even on the following afternoon that they had to be carried
into the cockpit by the women.
[Sidenote: 1795.]
Though the Seventeenth was not engaged in this affair, it has been
necessary to describe it at length in order to show how formidable an
enemy these Maroons were. [Sidenote: 14th Aug.] Two days after the
engagement the second troop of the regiment was disembarked from the
transport in Montego Bay, and moved up to the front. British dragoons
have rarely been better mounted than these detachments in Jamaica. The
island is famous for its horses; and every trooper rode a thoroughbred.
Mortified by his failure, Balcarres hurried up reinforcements of
militia and stores, the conveyance of the latter proving, from the
difficulty of the country, to be a frightful task. On the 18th August
he reoccupied the new town, unopposed, and on the 23rd moved with
three columns under Colonels Fitch, Incledon, and Hull, against the
old town. The march was made at daybreak and in profound silence;
and the old town was duly captured, as Balcarres fondly imagined, by
surprise. The real fact was that the Maroons, disliking the insecurity
of the towns, had evacuated them a week before and withdrawn into
the cockpits, leaving only a small alarm-post outside. These Maroon
sentries fired a few shots and wounded three men, two of them troopers
of the Seventeenth, and quietly retired upon their main body. Balcarres
then established a post and a block-house on the site of the new town,
occupied every approach, and set himself to destroy all the Maroon
provision grounds, with the idea of cooping them up and starving them
out. He might as well have tried to pen a swarm of mosquitoes in a
lion’s cage. The Maroons quietly passed out and burnt and plundered an
estate house six miles in rear of Balcarres’s headquarters.
At the end of August the rainy season set in, and transport became
a matter of extreme difficulty. Balcarres himself returned to Port
Royal, and left to Colonel Fitch the duty of completing the cordon
round the Maroon district. Fresh obstacles cropped up at every moment.
The principal planters to the south-west of the Maroon district, by
which side access to it was easiest, were relations of Major James,
who took up his grievances warmly and laid themselves out to thwart
the Governor. [Sidenote: 1795.] One of these, a local Major-General,
eighty years of age, and recently married to a wife of twenty, took
offence because Balcarres appointed a regular Major-General to command
the field force over his head. Another local Major-General suddenly
abandoned operations with his militia in the middle of a concerted
movement, on the remarkable ground that he had promised his wife to
return to her in a week, and had already been absent ten days. It was
only with the greatest difficulty that the troops, exposed to most
arduous service and every possible hardship, could be kept supplied
with food. Frequently they passed the whole day without a morsel to
eat. To discourage them still further, the militia went home and left
the regulars to do all the work; and, finally, the climax came when the
commanding officer, Colonel Fitch himself, [Sidenote: 12th Sept.] was
caught in an ambuscade, and with two other officers shot dead.
The control of the operations was now entrusted to Colonel Walpole,
who at once hastened to Trelawney with all speed. He found the troops
sickly and dispirited, and worn out with incessant duty. It was
pretty clear that the idea of confining the Maroons by a cordon was
an absurdity, and that the destruction of their provision ground only
drove them oftener afield to massacre, plunder, and destroy. After
weeks of hard work the small British force had lost two field officers
and seventy men killed in action alone, to say nothing of wounded,
and men dead from sickness and fatigue, while not a single Maroon
was certainly known to have been killed. The situation was becoming
serious: the negroes had begun to join the Maroons; the French might
come at any moment; and then there would be every likelihood of a
general revolt of the blacks against the whites, such as had already
taken place in the Windward Islands. Walpole soon altered the whole
plan of operations. He began by redistributing his posts, so as to
command the mouths of the cockpits, employing negroes to clear away the
jungle from the approaches and from the heights above them. [Sidenote:
1795.] He then set to work to train some of his men in the tactics of
Maroon warfare, the essence of which was that men should work together
in pairs or groups, one man taking charge of another’s arms when he
required both hands for climbing, and that above all they should take
advantage of cover. Walpole had three infantry regiments with him; but
the men that he chose for this work were the 17th Light Dragoons, and
he did not regret his choice. So the two troops of the Seventeenth were
dismounted and turned into mountaineer marksmen.
Colonel Walpole soon put his men into good heart by playing off the
Maroon trick of ambuscades against themselves; for he lay in wait for
one of their foraging parties, cut it off, and destroyed it to a man. A
week later he sent a party of the Seventeenth along the right crest of
the main cockpit in order to try and discover some fresh entrance into
it. The party soon encountered the Maroons and became hotly engaged.
The whole force of the Seventeenth numbered but forty men, of whom
a fourth had been left in reserve under the command of a sergeant.
Unfortunately, when called up in support, this sergeant led his handful
of men straight into the mouth of the cockpit, where, of course, there
was a bullet ready for every one of them. The main body, however,
kept together, and was brought off in good order when compelled to
retire by want of ammunition. Of the forty men one sergeant and three
men were killed, and nine men wounded--a pretty heavy loss. None the
less the Maroons were considerably dismayed by this bold attack, for
hitherto they had been accustomed to lie hidden while the white men
poured harmless volleys into the unresisting mountains. Still more
dismayed were they when Walpole, having cleared the heights of jungle,
managed by hook or by crook to get a howitzer in position and began to
drop shells into the cockpit. In a very short time the Maroons were
driven out of this favourite position, and compelled to withdraw to
the adjoining cockpit. This was a serious matter for them, for the
abandoned cockpit contained a spring of water. Walpole at once followed
them up with the howitzer and drove them out of their second retreat.
[Sidenote: 1795.] The Maroons then withdrew to a stupendous height
so as to be out of reach of the shells. But a young cornet of the
Seventeenth, Oswald Werge by name, saw one of the Maroon women leave
the height to draw water, followed her unseen, and thus discovered the
one path that led to the Maroon position. By this path the Seventeenth
advanced, and again drove out the Maroons, who now retired down a very
steep precipice into a third cockpit, where there was a spring of
water. The Seventeenth occupied the abandoned height, and a detachment
of the 62nd Foot under Colonel Hull marched into the virgin fortress of
Cudjoe. They were the first white men who had ever penetrated into it,
but they could never have entered it if the Seventeenth had not cleared
the way.
What time was occupied by these operations, and with what loss to the
Seventeenth, I have unfortunately been unable exactly to determine.
There seems to have been a critical action on the 15th December, to
which General Walpole makes allusion, but whereof no account can
be found. All that is known is that thirty men of the Seventeenth,
together with ten of another regiment (probably the 62nd) were
posted so as to intercept the Maroons in one of Walpole’s concerted
movements, the whole detachment being under the command of a subaltern,
who was not of the Seventeenth. The Maroons, however, managed to
surprise this party, and shot down a certain number, including the
officer, who, being disabled by his wound, made over the command to
Sergeant-Major Stephenson of the Seventeenth. Stephenson was quite
equal to the occasion. Far from being dismayed, he rallied his men and
made a counter attack on the Maroons with a vigour that astonished
them. Such conduct would have been creditable at any time, but it
becomes particularly conspicuous when we think of the scare that had
been created in Jamaica by the reputation and first successes of the
Maroons. Stephenson was offered a commission in the infantry for his
gallantry on this occasion, but stuck to his own regiment, in the hope
of gaining a commission in the Seventeenth.
[Sidenote: 18th Dec.]
Three days after, Colonel Hull, still following up the Maroons with
his little force of the Seventeenth and 62nd, fell in with them
strongly posted on a precipitous hillside. [Sidenote: 1795.] The
British halted on the acclivity over against them; and both sides
opened a heavy fire. After about a dozen of the Maroons had fallen they
ceased firing and began to blow their horns, as if desirous of seeking
a parley. Thereupon the English fire was checked, and the Maroons were
then told that the Colonel would grant them peace. [Sidenote: 18th
Dec.] For a long time they refused to believe it until Mr. Oswald
Werge, of the Seventeenth, coolly threw down his arms, scrambled
down to the valley below, and invited the Maroons to come and shake
hands. It was an act of uncommon courage, for both sides, true to
Maroon tactics, kept themselves carefully under cover; and therefore
the first man to show himself, however pacific his intention, stood
a good chance of being shot down. Werge’s coolness, however, saved
him. The Maroons took courage. One of them came down and shook hands
with him, and presently exchanged hats with him, which was the Maroon
symbol of perfect friendship. Thereupon it was agreed that hostilities
should cease, and that Colonel Walpole should be sent for; and it was
stipulated that neither British nor Maroons should advance until his
arrival. Still neither force trusted the other; and, accordingly, the
two tiny armies lay on their arms, weary, and worn and thirsty, to
glare at each other through the livelong night. In the valley between
them was a well; but in order that neither force should take an unfair
advantage, it was agreed that British and Maroons alike should post
two sentries over it. At length, however, the Maroons, unable longer
to endure the agony of thirst, begged that the British sentries might
be withdrawn while they drank, and engaged to withdraw their own in
turn that the British too might drink. So both sides came down to the
well and drank; and then the guard was posted again, and the rest
returned to their arms. It must have been a strange scene, this of
the rival sentries over the spring in that savage rocky glen--on the
one side the wild negro of the mountain, his splendid athletic form
barely concealed by a few foul rags, on the other the trooper of the
Seventeenth, [Sidenote: 1795.] bronzed, and lean, and haggard after
months of harassing work, with his blue jacket faded, his white facings
weeks soiled, his white breeches and Hessian boots sadly the worse for
wear; but always erect and alert, and proud in the consciousness that
he had beaten the dreaded Maroons on their own ground. There must have
been good discipline in these sixty-four men of the Seventeenth and
the fifty of the 62nd, seeing that with all the burden of a tropical
climate on their backs they had outstayed the native mountaineers in
the deliberate endurance of thirst within sight of water.
This action ended the war. The Maroons surrendered to Walpole, and
submitted to beg His Majesty’s pardon on their knees, while Walpole
on his side promised that they should not be sent out of the island.
This promise was violated by the Jamaica Government, whereat Walpole
was so disgusted that he not only refused a sword of honour from the
Jamaica Parliament, but resigned his commission. Thus the Seventeenth
never had a chance of fighting under this gallant officer again. When
he took charge of the operations the Jamaica Government was in such
despair of quelling the Maroons that it actually imported a hundred
bloodhounds from Cuba to hunt them down. When the hounds arrived the
war was virtually over; and Walpole, in a letter to Lord Balcarres, has
recorded to whom the credit was due:--
I must not omit to mention to your Lordship that it is to the
impression made by the undaunted bravery of the 17th Light
Dragoons, who were more particularly engaged on the 15th
December, that we owe the submission of the rebels. The Maroons
speak of them with astonishment. Mr. Werge was particularly
signalised with the advanced guard, and the sergeant-major
of that regiment is strongly recommended for his spirit and
activity by the Commanding Officer, Mr. Edwards, who is in every
way deserving of your Lordship’s opinion.
[Illustration:
_G. Salisbury._ OFFICER. Review Order.
PRIVATE. Field-day Order. OFFICER. Stable Dress.
1817–1823.]