Maroons and Metropolitan Officials: The Imperial Legacies of the 1730s Maroon Wars in Jamaica

In 1739, Jamaica’s Maroons, escaped slaves and their descendants who lived in independent communities in the island’s interior, signed treaties with colonial officials, bringing to an end a decade-long conflict that had impeded and indeed imperiled British settlement in Jamaica. In return for recognition of their autonomy and freedom, the Maroons agreed to secure the island against its domestic and foreign enemies, a duty they fulfilled throughout the eighteenth century. Historians have long acknowledged the role the Maroons played in policing Jamaica’s enslaved population. Yet to be explored, however, are the repercussions of the Maroons’ martial exploits, first as enemies and then as upholders of the colonial order, beyond the boundaries of Jamaica.

This paper contends that British officials in London were well aware of the Maroons’ martial prowess and the fact that British regulars, militiamen, and seamen proved unable to subjugate them. Colonial officials’ reports of the 1730s and beyond underscored the agility, alacrity, and cunning of the Maroons and convinced metropolitan officials that they, and black warriors in general, were better suited than European troops to wage war in the West Indies. In persuading British officials of the martial adeptness of black men, the Maroon Wars lay the groundwork for Britain’s deployment of black soldiers to defend and extend its Atlantic empire, a development that culminated in the establishment in the 1790s of the British West India Regiments, regular companies staffed by enslaved black soldiers. While the Maroon Wars forced British officials to acknowledge and respect black men’s competence and courage, they also solidified the perception that black men could withstand arduous labor in tropical climates. The Maroon Wars, and the contributions of black soldiers to the British Empire that were their legacy, thus served at once to undermine and reify the racial assumptions that undergirded Atlantic slavery.