The weekly Anglo-African., 1860-02-04

employed against them consisted of two
regiments of regular troops and the whole
militia of the island, and the Assembly said
that "the Maroons had within few years
greatly increased, notwithstanding all the
measures that had been concerted for their
suppression" "to the great terror of his
Maiesty's subjects" and "to the manifest
weakening and preventing the further in
crease of the strength and inhabitants of
the island"
The special affair in progress, at the
time of these statements, was called Cud-
ioe's War. Cudjoe was a gentleman of
extreme brevity and blaekness, whose full
length portrait can hardly be said to grace
Dallas's History; but he was as formidable
a. guerrilla as Marion Under his leader
ship, the various bodies of fugitives were
consolidated into one force and thoroughly
organized. Cudjoe, like Schamyl, was
religious as we'll as military head of his
people; by Obeah influence he established
through freemasonry among both slaves
and insurgents; no party could be sent
forth by the government but he knew it in
time to lay an ambush, or descend with
fire and sword on the region unprotected.
He was thus always supplied with arms
and ammunition; and as his men were per-
| feet marksmen, never wasted shot and
never risked battle, his forces naturally
increased while those of his opponents
were decimated. His men were never
captured, and never took prisoner; it
was impossible to tell when they were de-
feated; in dealing with them, as Pelissier
said of the Arabs, "peace was not purchas-
ed by victory" and the only men who
could obtain the slightest advantage against
them were the imported Mosquito Indians,
or the "Black Shot," company of govern
ment negroes. For nine full years this
particular war continued unchecked, Gen
eral Williamson ruling Jamaica by day
and Cudjoe by night.
The rebels had every typographical ad-
vantage, for they held possession of the
"Cockpits." Those highlands are furrow-
ed through and through, as by an earth
quake, with a series of gaps and ravines,
resembling the California canons, or those
lantic States, known to local fame either
POLITICALLY as ice-glens, or symbolically as
purgatories. These chasms vary from
two hundred yards to mile in length; the
rocky walls are fifty or a hundred feet
high, and often absolutely inaccessible,
while the passes at each end admit butone
man at time. They are thickly wooded,
wherever trees can grow; water flows
within them; and they often communicate
with one another, forming series of traps
for an invading force Tired and thirsty
with climbing, the weary soldiers toll on,
in single file, without seeing or hearing an
enemy; up the steep and winding path
they traverse one cockpit" then enter
another. Suddenly shot is fired from
the dense and sloping forest on the right,
then another and another, each dropping
its man; the startled troops face hastily in
that direction, when more murderous vol
ley is poured from the other side; the
heights above fash with musketry, while
the precipitous path by which they came
seems to close in fire behind them. BY
the time the troops have formed in some
attempt at military order. the woods around
them are empty, and their agile and noise
!
bush again, further up the defle, ready for
second attack, if needed. But one is
usually sufficient; ;-disordered, exhausted,
bearing their wounded with them, the sol
diers retreat in panic, r permitted to es-
cape at all, and carry fresh dismay to the
barracks, the plantations, and the Govern
ment House.
1t is not strange then, that high military
authorities, at that period, should have pro-
nounced the subjugation of the Maroons
thing more difficult than to obtain victory
over any army in Europe. Moreover,
these people were fighting for their liberty,
with which aim no form of warfare could
be unjustifable; and the description given
by Lafayette of the American Revolution,
was true of this One-"The grandest of
causes, won by contests of sentinels and
outposts." The utmost hope of British
officer, ordered against the Maroons, was
to lay waste provision ground or cut them
off from water. But there was little salts
faction in this; the wild pine-leaves and the
grapevine .withes supplied the rebels with
water, and their plantation-grounds were
the wild pineapple and the plantain groves,
and the forests, where the wild boars har-
bored and the ringdoves were as easily
shot as if they were militia-men. Nothing
but sheer WEAKNESS of fighting seems to
have brought about truce at last, and
then treaty, between those high contract
ing parties, Cudjoe and General William
son. ..
But how to execute treaty between
these wild Children of the Mist and respec-
table Englshmen2 To establish any off
cial relations without the medium of pre-
liminary bullet required some engenuity of
maneuvring. Cudjoe was willing, but in
conveniently cautious; he would not come
halfway to meet any one; nothing would
content him but an interview in his own
chosen cockpit So he selected one of the
most difficult passes, posting in the forests
series of outlaying parties, to signal with
their horns, one by one, the approach of
the plenipotentlaries, and then to retire in
the main body. Through this line of peril
| o,,s ,;rno1O tbnrafora Colonal Guthrio ond