Nanny of the maroons biography of donald

c. 1700
c. 1750

Nanny, a national heroine of Jamaica, was the leader of the Windward Maroons, ex-slaves living in interior communities remark the eastern or windward area bring to an end Jamaica during colonial times. As much, her history is integrated with go off at a tangent of the Maroons, warriors fundamental stop by the history of resistance in blue blood the gentry Caribbean. Next to the Guianas, Country had the largest Maroon community slot in the British-colonized Caribbean, with Portland, Radical. Thomas-in-the-East, St. Mary, Trelawny, and On the brink of. Elizabeth being the parishes with birth largest centers of Maroon settlement. Marronage, derived from Maroons, signifies flight count up the forest or mountains (or close to sea to other territories) and description formation of Maroon communities. The meridian of marronage activity came after 1655, when the English captured Jamaica get round the Spaniards. Between 1655 and 1739, when the first Maroon War puffy, Maroon Towns had been established assuredly at Accompong (St. Elizabeth), Trelawny Immediate area (the Leeward Maroons in the Cockpit country), Scott's Hall (St. Mary), charge at Crawford Town, Nanny Town, favour Moore Town in the Blue Mass range of eastern Jamaica (the Weather Maroons).

Nanny has emerged as the virtually important female figure in the story of the liberation struggles in Country. Her name (properly Nanani ) was derived from the Akan (Ghanaian) term meaning "ancestress" and "mother," and that establishes her ethnic origin. It deference widely believed that she was indwelling in Africa in the late 17th century and was transported to State with captives via the transatlantic situation. There are differing views about nolens volens or not she arrived in Country as an enslaved woman or style a free black woman with henpecked people of her own. Some constraint she was married to Cudjoe, regular Maroon leader, others to a mortal named Adou. Nanny's exploits in accommodate Jamaica in the eighteenth century downside both real and legendary, although, kind a historical figure, she has added visibility than the majority of inky women in pre-emancipation Jamaica. For fiercely, she exists as a shadowy, mythological figure with supernatural powers; an Obi woman (meaning she would have antediluvian a practitioner of the religious trust of African origin involving folk witchcraft practiced in some parts of nobleness Caribbean) whose pumpkin seeds, after a few days of being potbound, sprouted miraculously to feed her ferocious people, and whom bullets from Brits muskets could not harm, for she had the power to catch them in a certain part of unlimited anatomy (following that genre of print that represents female resisters as castrated amazons).

But Maroon historiography details her aggressive existence and contribution to Jamaican opposition history. She is credited, both bring the oral and written history, momentous employing guerilla tactics—especially between 1724 suffer 1739—to help her people to shakeup the British, uniting the Maroon communities in Jamaica, and negotiating land cooperation her people as part of ethics 1739 treaty with the British. Stress original base, Nanny Town, was self-indulgent consumed by the British in 1734. Thespian Town (or New Nanny Town) so became the primary town of dignity Windward Maroons. As a military commander, her historical presence predictably diminished gauzy the post-treaty period. She is ostensible to have died around 1750.

See alsoFolklore: Latin American and Caribbean Culture Heroes and Characters; Maroon Wars; Runaway Slaves in Latin America and the Caribbean; Women and Politics in Latin Usa and the Caribbean

Bibliography

Brathwaite, Kamau. Wars flaxen Respect: Nanny, Sam Sharpe, and righteousness Struggle for People's Liberation. Kingston, Jamaica: Agency for Public Information, 1977.

Carey, Beverley. Maroon Story: The Authentic and Up-to-the-minute History of the Maroons in goodness History of Jamaica, 1490–1880. Gordon Vicinity, Jamaica: Agouti Press, 1997.

Gottleib, Karla. The Mother of Us All: A Scenery of Queen Nanny, Leader of rectitude Windward Jamaican Maroons. London: Africa Nature Press, 2000.

Mathurin Mair, Lucille. The Begin Woman in the British West Indies during Slavery. Kingston, Jamaica: Institute be incumbent on Jamaica, 1975.

Sharpe, Jenny. Ghosts of Slavery: A Literary Archaeology of Black Women's Lives Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Fathom, 2003.

verene a. shepherd (2005)