Jamaican Maroons in Sierra Leone

The Jamaican Maroons in Sierra Leone were a group of about 600 Jamaican Maroons from Trelawny Town (one of the five Maroon towns in Jamaica) who were deported by British forces following the Second Maroon War in 1796, first to Nova Scotia. Several years later in 1800, they were transported to Sierra Leone.

The Sierra Leone Company had established the settlement of Freetown and the Colony of Sierra Leone in 1792 for the resettlement of the African Americans who arrived via Nova Scotia after they had been evacuated as freedmen from the United States after the American Revolutionary War. Some Jamaican Maroons eventually returned to Jamaica, but most became part of the larger Creole or Creole people and culture made up of freemen and liberated slaves who joined them in the first half-century of the colony. For a long period, they dominated government and the economy of what developed into Sierra Leone.

History

Following their rebellion and surrender to the colonial government in the Second Maroon War of 1796, about 600 Jamaican Maroons from Trelawny Town were deported to Nova Scotia.[1] Tired of the cost of maintaining order, the Jamaican government had decided to rid themselves of "the problem". Immediate actions were put in place for the removal of one group of Maroons (Trelawney) to Lower Canada (Quebec); Upper Canada (Ontario) had also been suggested as a suitable place. The British decided to send this group to Halifax, Nova Scotia, until any further instructions were received from England. Two gentlemen, Messrs Quarrell and Octerloney, were sent from Jamaica with the Maroons as Commissioners.

On 26 June 1796, the ships Dover, Mary, and Anne sailed from Port Royal Harbour, Jamaica to Halifax. One arrived in Halifax on 21 July, the other two followed two days later, carrying a total of 568 men, women and children.[2] The Duke of Kent and Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in North America, impressed with the proud bearing and other characteristics of the Maroons, employed the group to work on the new fortifications at the Citadel Hill in Halifax. The Lieutenant-Governor Sir John Wentworth believed that the Maroons would be good settlers. He received orders from the Duke of Portland to settle them in Nova Scotia.

Following this the two commissioners responsible with credit of 25,000 Jamaican pounds from the government of Jamaica, expended £3,000 on 5,000 acres (20 km2) of land and built the community of Preston. Governor Wentworth was granted an allowance of £240 annually from England to provide religious instruction and schooling for the community. After the first winter, the Maroons, raised in an independent culture and warmer climate, and not impressed with what they considered the servile aspects of subsistence agriculture, became less tolerant of the conditions in which they were living.

The Sierra Leone Company decided to send the Maroons to its new colony of Freetown in present-day Sierra Leone (West Africa), which had been established for the Nova Scotian Settlers. The Maroon survivors from Nova Scotia were transported to Freetown in 1800, in the early years of the colony.

The final leg of their journey was aboard HMS Asia. She arrived at Halifax on 31 May 1800, presumably still under her captain from 1796, Robert Murray, to pick up the Maroons, sailed again with them on 8 August, and arrived in Sierra Leone on 30 September that year.[3]

In 1841, some of the Maroons returned to Jamaica to work for Jamaican sugar planters, who desperately needed workers following the abolition of slavery. Many freedmen wanted to cultivate their own plots rather than work on plantations.[4]

The Jamaican Maroons who remained in Sierra Leone gradually merged with the developing Creole community. This was made up of immigrants and the descendants of various groups of freed slaves who arrived in Freetown between 1792 and about 1855. After abolishing the Atlantic slave trade, the British navy posted ships off Africa to intercept slavers, and would deposit liberated slaves at Freetown. Some modern Creoles (or "Krio") still proudly claim descent from the Maroons.

The Creole congregation of Freetown's St. John's Maroon Church, which was built by the Maroons in 1822[5] on what is now the city's main street, have especially emphasized their descent from the Jamaican exiles. The Maroons brought their ceremonial music and dances to Sierra Leone. The ceremonial music gradually became a popular Creole music genre and became known as Gumbe music and dance (named after the drum). It has survived to the 21st century and influences popular music. It has become identified with the broader Creole population.[6]

References

  1. ↑ Grant, John. Black Nova Scotians. Nova Scotia: The Nova Scotia Museum, 1980.
  2. ↑ Grant, John N. (2002). The Maroons in Nova Scotia. Halifax: Formac. pp. 20–33.
  3. ↑ Grant, John N (2002). The Maroons in Nova Scotia (Softcover). Formac. p. 203. ISBN 978-0887805691.
  4. ↑ Fortin (2006), p. 23.
  5. ↑ "St. John's Maron (sic) Church". Monuments and Relics Commission.
  6. ↑ Robert Baron and Ana C. Cara, Creolization as Cultural Creativity, University Press of Mississippi, 2011; accessed 12 July 2016, available online through Project MUSE


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