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Best Blog on the Net: Black History Heroes

http://blackhistoryheroes.blogspot.com/2010/02/african-maroon-societies-in-americas.html

Jamaican Maroons wait to ambush an approaching
British military settlement
(Image: cir. 1795, picture by J. Bourgoin, courtesy
of The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities)

African Maroon or Black Maroon societies are historically known throughout the Americas: from the Carolina islands and Florida peninsula of the United States, the mountains of Jamaica, to the jungles of Suriname (Dutch Guiana).

The Maroons were enslaved Africans brought as plantation laborers from Africa to various parts of the New World but through revolt became fugitive slaves or refugee black communities that developed separate from European settlers in the New World. The oldest known Maroons were from Suriname (Dutch Guiana) in northeastern South America, starting in the last half of the seventeenth century.

This historical documentary was shot in 1933 in Dutch Guiana (Suriname), cir. 1933 by TravelTalks: Voice of the Globe, by James A. Fitzpatricks and provides a snapshot of the life of a group of West Africans who chose to flee Dutch society in South America for complete autonomy from European culture.

The first, modern anthropological field research with any Black tribe in the New World started among the Djuka in 1961 with the work of Kobben, Thoden van Velzen, and van Wetering. These Dutch scholars have now published the standard ethnographic sources on the Djuka.

Additionally, general ethnographic research among the Saramaka was conducted by Richard and Sally Price in 1966, 1967-68, and briefly in 1974 and 1975. Part of their data has been published, and other works are inpreparation. Other anthropologists have recently done field research with the Paramaka, Matawai, and Kwinti. A discussion of all of this research, and the relevant citations, may be found in Price’s invaluable historical and bibliographical introduction to the so-called Bush Negroes (1976), which contains 1,330 entries dating from 1667 to 1975.

Map of Suriname in South America

After a half century of guerrilla warfare against colonial and European troops, the Black Maroon society signed treaties with the Dutch colonial government in the 1760s, enabling them to live a virtually independent existence until the past few decades. Their numbers increased markedly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries so that the modern population is generally estimated to be somewhere between 25,000 and 47,000, probably closer to the latter figure.

For the most part, they live along the rivers of the interior of Surinam. However, growing numbers are now living in and around Paramaribo, the capitol of Suriname, and they also seem to be expanding eastward into adjacent French Guiana (cf. Herskovits and Herskovits 1934: vii; Hurault 1959: 2; Kobben 1967: 35; Price 1972: 83; and Price 1976: 3-4, 21). See also Journey Man Pictures’ YouTube video documentary/commentary, Defending the Secret Slave State – Suriname: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeeSi2mu9vc&NR=1&feature=fvwp

According to the 1976 study by Price, there were six Black Maroon tribes in Suriname. He divides them into two main groups on the basis of cultural and linguistic differences, as well as location: (1) the Eastern Tribes, consisting of the Djuka (Aucaner, Awka), the Aluku (Aluku nenge, Boni), and the Paramaka (Paramacca); and (2) the Central Tribes, consisting of the Saramaka (Saramacca), the Matawai, and the Kwinti (cf. the tribal distribution map in Price 1976: 5). The Djuka and Saramaka are the largest tribes, with estimated populations of 15,000 to 20,000 each. The Aluku, Matawai, and Paramaka are much smaller, with estimated populations of around 2,000 each. The smallest tribe is the Kwinti, with fewer than 500 people.

Further studies and reading about African maroon culture in the Americas:
Herskovits, Melville Jean, and Herskovits, Frances S., “Rebel destiny: among the Bush Negroes of Dutch Guiana, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1934. 366 p. illus., maps.
Hurault, Jean, “Etude demographique comparee des Indiens Oayana et des noirs refugies Boni du Haut-Maroni” (Guyane Francaise) [Comparative demographic study of the Oyana Indians and the Boni refugee Blacks of the Upper Maroni (French Guiana). Population, 14 (1959): p. 509-534.
Kobben, Andre J. F, “Participation and quantification; field work among the Djuka (Bush Negroes of Surinam).” In D. G. Jongmans and P.C. W. Gutkind, eds. Anthropologists in the Field. Assen, Van Gorcum, 1967.
Kobben, Andre J. F. Review of Jean Hurault 1961, “Les Noirs Refugies Boni de la Guyane Francaise. Caribbean Studies,” (1965): p. 63-65.
Price, Richard, “The Guiana Maroons: a historical and bibliographical introduction.” Baltimore and London, the Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.

 

One response to “Best Blog on the Net: Black History Heroes”

  1. Anon

    February 23, 2011 at 10:28 am

    Portrait Of The 1985 Handsworth Riots – Pogus Caesar – BBC1 TV . Inside Out.

    Broadcast 25 Oct 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey7ijaXv6UQ

    Birmingham film maker and photographer Pogus Caesar knows Handsworth well. He found himself in the centre of the 1985 riots and spent two days capturing a series of startling images. Caesar kept them hidden for 20 years. Why? And how does he see Handsworth now?.

    The stark black and white photographs featured in the film provide a rare, valuable and historical record of the raw emotion, heartbreak and violence that unfolded during those dark and fateful days in September 1985.

    Reply
     

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