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Maroon, which can have a more general sense of being abandoned without resources, entered English around the 1590s, from the French adjective marron, [2] meaning 'feral' or 'fugitive'. Despite the same spelling, the meaning of 'reddish brown' for maroon did not appear until the late 1700s, perhaps influenced by the idea of maroon peoples. [3] [4]
This word usually referred to self-liberated Africans who escaped enslavement and is ultimately derived from the word for "thicket" in Old Spanish. [13] At the beginning of the 18th century, maroons came to live in the Great Dismal Swamp. [14] [15] Most settled on mesic islands, the high and dry parts of the swamp.
The Windward Maroons and those from the Cockpit Country resisted conquest in the First Maroon War (c. 1728 to 1740), which the colonial government ended in 1739–1740 by making treaties, to grant lands and to respect maroon autonomy, in exchange for peace and aiding the colonial militia if needed against external enemies.
The easternmost Maroon town, Moore Town is located in the eastern end of the parish. [2] Formerly known as New Nanny Town, Moore Town was founded in 1740 when the Peace Treaty was signed between the British colonial authorities and the Windward Maroons. [3] This treaty allotted the Moore Town Maroons 1000 acres, but Moore Town only received 500.
There was at least one other group of Spanish Maroons who did not agree to terms with the English authorities, led by a Maroon named Juan de Serras. The English called this group the Karmahaly Maroons, because they came from Los Vermejales. The English colonial authorities then used de Bolas and his "Black Militia" to hunt de Serras and his ...
The English term Maroon is derived from the Spanish word cimarrón, meaning "wild" or "untamed". This word initially referred to cattle and animals that had gone astray, particularly in the early Caribbean. By the 1520s, it had begun to be applied to people including Indigenous people and Africans who fled Spanish servitude. [2]
Surinamese Maroons (also Marrons, Businenge or Bushinengue, meaning black people of the forest) are the descendants of enslaved Africans that escaped from the plantations and settled in the inland of Suriname. The Surinamese Maroon culture is one of the best-preserved pieces of cultural heritage outside of Africa. Colonial warfare, land grabs ...
Cimarrón in turn may be derived from the Taino word símaran (“wild”) (like a stray arrow), from símara (“arrow”). The practice was a penalty for crewmen, or for captains at the hands of a crew in cases of mutiny. Generally, a marooned man was set on a deserted island, often no more than a sand bar at low tide. [3]