The weekly Anglo-African., 1860-02-11


Bastion" still remains--their only visible
memorial Two commissioners had charge
of them, one being the redoubtable Colonel
QUARREL, and twenty-five thousand pounds
were appropriated for their temporary sup
port. Of course they did not prosper;
pensioned colonists never do, for they are
not compelled into habits of industry
After their delicious life in the mountains
of Jamaica, it seemed rather monotonousto
dwell upon that barren soil-for theirs was
such that two previous colonies had de-
serted it--and in climate where winter
lasts seven months in the year. They had
school-master, and he was also a preach
er; but they did not seem to appreciate
that luxury of education utterly refusing,
on grounds of conscience, to forsake polyg-
amy, and, on grounds of personal comfort,
to listen to the doctrinal dscourses of their
pastor, who was an ardent Sandemanian.
They smoked their pipes during service
time, and left Old Montagu, who still sur
vived, to lend vicarious attention to the
sermon. One discourse he briefly report
ed as follows, very much to the point
"Massa parson say no mus tief, no mus
meddle wild somebody wife, no mus quar-
rel, mus set down softly" So they Eat
down softly, and showed an extreme un-
willingness 10 get up again. But, not be-
ing naturally an idle race, (at least, in
Jamaica the objection lay on the other
side,) they soon grew tired of this instinc-
ton. Distrustful of those about them, ,sus-
picious of all attempts to scatter them
among the community at large, frozen by
the climate, and constantly petitioning for
removal to milder one, they finally
wearied out all patience. A long dispute
ensued between the authorities of Nova
Scotia and Jamaica, as to which was
properly responsible for their support; and
thus the heroic race, that for century and
half had sustained themselves in freedom
in Jamaica, were reduced to the position
of troublesome and impracticable paupers,
shuttlecocks between two selfish parishes.
SO passed their unfortunate lives, until, in
1900, their reduced population was trans-
ported to Sierra Leone, at cost of six
thousand pounds, since which they disap-
pear from history.
1t was judged best not to interfere with
those bodies of Maroons which had kept
aloof from the late outbreak, as the Ac-
compong settlement, and others. They
continued to preserve qualified indepen-
dence, and retain it even now. In 1885,
two years after the abolition of slavery in
Jamaica, there were reported sixty families
of Maroons as residing at Accompong
Town, eighty families at Moore Town,
one hundred and ten families at Charles
Town, and twenty families at Scott Hall,
making two hundred and seventy families
Ein all each station being, as of old, under
the charge of a superintendent, But there
can be little doubt, that, under the infu-
Fences of freedom, they are rapidly inter-
mingling with the mass of colored popula-
ton in Jamaica.
The story of the exiled Maroons attract
ed attention in high quarters, in its time; /;
the wrongs done to them were denounced
in Parliament by Sheridan and mourned
by Wilberforce; while the employment Of
bloodhounds against them was vindicated
by Dundas, and the whole conduct of the
Colonial Government defended, through
thick and thin, by Bryan Edwards. This
thorough partisan even had the assurance
to tell Mr.. Wilberforee, in Parliament, that
he know the Maroons, from personal know
ledge, to be cannibals, and that, if mis-
sionary were sent among them in Nova
Scotia, they would Immediately cat him;
charge so absurd that he did not venture
to repeat it in his history of the West Indies,
though his injustice to the Maroons is even
there SO glaring as to provoke the indigna-
ton of the more moderate Dallas. But, in
spite of Mr.. Edwards, the public indigna-
ton ran quite high, in England, against
the bloodhounds and their employers, so
that the home ministry found it necessary
to send severe reproof to the Colonial
government For few years the tales of
the Maroons thus emerged from mere col
onial annals, and found their way into An
nual Registers and Parliamentary Debates
but they have vanished from popular
memory now. Their record still retains
its interest, however. as that of ono of the
heroic races of the world and all the more,
because it was with their kindred this ma.
ton had to deal, in solving the tremendous
problem of Incorporating their liberties
with our own. We must remember the
story of the Maroons, because we cannot
afford to ignore single hostoric fact which
bears upon question SO momentous.