mountains and relapsed into barbarism, if they had
ever been lifted out of it. Some of the many thousands
brought from Africa by the slave ships escaped
and joined these “ maroons.” Many of them were
unreclaimed pagans from the Guinea coast, from
Koromanti and the Cameroons, and they established
savage communities in their stronghold and made
raids for murder and plunder upon the white settlers.
About 1730, united under a chief called Cudjo, they
became such a terror to the colonists, who were
numerous only in their slave property, that two
regiments were added to the military force in the
island for the special purpose of subduing them.
A n irregular war was carried on for several years,
marked by barbarous atrocities on both sides. One
method of fighting the maroons was to track them
with bloodhounds, and each military barrack had a
pack of dogs, ‘ ‘ provided by the churchwardens of
the respective parishes.” T h e Mosquito Indians
were also employed in hunting down the negroes.
Finally, in 1739, Governor Trelawney brought
about a pacification, and regular articles were signed.
Two reservations of land, one of 1000 and one of
1500 acres, were granted to the maroons and their
descendants in perpetuity, upon which they could
maintain complete independence on certain conditions.
T h e y were to refrain from depredations
upon the whites, and they agreed to surrender runaway
slaves, receiving a premium of fifteen dollars
in each case for capturing them, while there was to
be a severe penalty for harbouring fugitives. This
naturally produced antagonism between the free
Africans and the slaves, as was intended. T h e maroons
had the superstitious and savage instincts and
pagan practices of their ancestors, and nothing was
done to rescue them from barbarism, while the
slaves on the plantations were so inhumanly treated
that there were repeated attempts at insurrection.
One of these, near Port Maria on the northern
coast, in 1760, resulted in an attack upon the fort,
the killing of the sentinel, and the seizing of arms
and ammunition, with which the negroes began an
indiscriminate slaughter of the whites. T h e colonists
banded together for self-defence, with the aid
of the military and some help from the maroons,
who were bound by their treaty to render it in such
an emergency, and put down the revolted bondmen
with burnings, hangings, and massacres, and such
horrors of torture as it is sickening to relate.
In 1795, there was another serious trouble with
the maroons, growing out of the whipping of two of
those of Trelawney Town for stealing a pig. T h e y
would have put up with any reasonable punishment
for such an offence, but public whipping by the
hangman, who was a negro, was an “ indignity ” to
the whole maroon community on the Trelawney
Reservation. T h e y had already been exasperated
by a law which gave validity to negro testimony
against them, though it would not be received to
support any charge against a white man ; and la tterly
they had been strictly confined to their limits,
though formerly allowed to wander at will so long
as they did not violate the laws to which they had
agreed to submit. A fte r the incident of the stolen