After the treaties: a social, economic and demographic history of Maroon society in Jamaica, 1739-1842

Abstract

This study is built on an investigation of a large number of archival sources, but in particular the Journals and Votes of the House of the Assembly of Jamaica, drawn from resources in Britain and Jamaica. Using data drawn from these primary sources, I assess how the Maroons of Jamaica forged an identity for themselves in the century under slavery following the peace treaties of 1739 and 1740. I will argue that the story of the Maroons of Jamaica is more complicated than previously thought.

First, I analyse the origins of the Maroons, and the circumstances that led to them signing peace treaties with the colonial authorities. Second, I consider how the white superintendents usurped the authority of the Maroons in five official towns. Third, I scrutinize the Maroon response to the requirements of the treaties concerning suppressing slave revolts and hunting runaway slaves. Fourth, I examine the relationship between Trelawny Town and the colonial authorities. This allows me to demonstrate that while the colonial elite made concessions over land disputes with other Maroon towns, their reluctance to do so with Trelawny Town eventually culminated in the Second Maroon War of 1795-6. Fifth, I consider the relationship between Trelawny Town and runaway slaves, and the effect it had on the rise in runaway communities in western Jamaica in the nineteenth century. Finally, I explore the changing relationship between the Maroons remaining in Jamaica and the colonial authorities in the aftermath of the Second Maroon War.

As a whole, my PhD challenges the simplistic view of the Maroons as collaborators, and argues that their story was a complex one of divisions between Maroon towns, a lack of coherence, and they were often inefficient hunters of runaways. The Maroons sometimes collaborated with the colonial authorities, and then assisted runaways to escape during the Second Maroon War.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Christer Petley: orcid.org/0000-0002-0616-1871

ORCID for Helen Paul: orcid.org/0000-0002-4786-7192

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