The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-07-10
y Relic Of
Spanish Rule
The Jamaica Msroops and Their singular
History.

The Spanish settlers who occupied the
fury and a half. left behind them very
few races when a band of English adj
v~enturers drove them out in the year
1855. Half a dozen or so of names on
the map of Jamaica are obviously Span
ism. and one. Bog Walk which looks
and sounds like a wantonly unpoetical
name for one of the most gorgeous bits
of nature in the tropics. is in reality a
corruption of "Boca de Aqua There is
to this day a peculiarly exclusive and
proud group of Jewish families in the
island who boast themselves "Sephar-
dim" and trace their descent 20 Spanish
and Portuguese Jews permitted by the
Catholic kings of the sixteenth and sew
enteenth centuries to settle in Jamaica.
When the English seized the island they
drove out the ''papist' Spaniards with
out exception. but suffered the Spanish
Jews to remain. But. on the whole,
the most interesting relics of Spanish
occupation in that island are the Ma
rooms.
Some say that the name has reference
to the chestnut color of these semi
savages; the name has also been traced
to the Spanish word "simaran." mean
ing ape. and again to "cimaron, as
meaning the people of the ''cimas' or
mountain tops \ more probable origin
connects the Spanish word anglicized
maroon" with a word meaning pig.
But whatever may have been the origin
of the name, the people themselves are
the descendants of negro slaves who es-
capped from their Spanish masters. At
the time of the conquest in 1855 the
Spanish inha bitant of the island were
doing very little in the way of agricult-
ure and had few slaves. 1t is estimated
that the number was about 1000. when
their owners got the worst of the night
ing these ran away into the wooded
hills that cover the interior of the island,
where no doubt they found A certain
remnan of the Carib aborigines with a
prinkli of negroes, whose progeni-
tors had escaped slavery in preceding
generations. In those days there was
plenty of wild pigs in the mountains OF
Jamaica, and this wild, mixed race or
fugitives became hunters of wild pigs
by occupation.
II was not Ions before the hog hunt
ers." as the new white settlers called
them, began to make themselves a ter
ror to the isolated settlements. They
stole and murdered so frequently that
the Legislative assembly OF the island
was kept busy passing acts for their
suppression through two whole genera
tions at the end of the seventeenth and
the beginning of the eighteenth cen
fury. In 1880 the famous Maroon CHIEF
Cudioe began to make himself felt. His
name still lives in the legends OF ia
maica and in the repertoire OF Jamaica
nurses. who find II ~expedient to fright
en- children. An enormous cotton tree
not far from Kingston, the hollow
trunk of which would hold at least a
dozen men, used to be pointed out as
the tree i'm which Cudjoe held councils
of war with his l~ieutenants. For o
eight years Cudjoe kept the govern
ment busy with his guerrilla war. and
then two commissioners. representing
his majesty, George H., made a solemn
pact with him and his followers. The
Articles 81 Pacification' are as curl
Gus a documen as can be found in the
| historical archives of any colonial gov
| eminent. They recite the names OF
captain Cudjoe, Captain Accompons,
Captain Johnny, Captain Cuffee. Cap
| tain Quaco and several other negroes, -
| and their provisions place the Jamaica
Maroons in the legal status of military
tenants under the British crown.
BY these Articles of 1888 the Ma
rooms subject to the aforesaid Cap
tain received a large tract of land.
for themselves and their heirs forever,
free of taxes. They on their part prom