The Jamaican Maroons of the 17th and 18th centuries: Survivalists of the New World

Abstract

The Jamaican Maroons, in the beginning, served as fugitive slaves avoiding captivity and liberating other enslaved people. To stop the Maroons from liberating other enslaved people, the British granting them freedom on the condition that they stop freeing slaves and even return runaways. Historians portray the Maroons as either freedom fighters or collaborators, sometimes even both. I argue that both narratives were a part of Maroon history, but I want to introduce them as survivalists. My research\u27s significance is that I am exploring how the Maroons transitioned from freedom fighters to collaborators through notions of cultural identity. This project aims to help people understand how identity is a social construct that can change over time