Draft:Maroon Flag



The Jamaican Maroons are descendants of Africans who liberated themselves from slavery in the Colony of Jamaica and formed communities of free black individuals in the mountainous regions of the island, primarily in the eastern parishes. It is believed that Africans who were enslaved during the Spanish rule over Jamaica from 1493 to 1655 may have been the first to establish these refugee communities.

After the English invasion of the island in 1655, the importation of enslaved Africans continued to support the sugar-cane plantations. However, many Africans in Jamaica resisted enslavement and managed to free themselves, joining the ranks of the Maroons. These revolts disrupted the sugar economy and reduced its profitability. The frequency of uprisings decreased after the British colonial authorities signed treaties with the Leeward Maroons in 1739 and the Windward Maroons in 1740, which obligated them to support the institution of slavery. As a result, the significance of the Maroons to the colonial authorities declined after the abolition of slavery in 1838.

During the First Maroon War (approximately 1728 to 1740), the Windward Maroons and those from the Cockpit Country resisted conquest. The colonial government ended the war in 1739–1740 by entering into treaties that granted lands and recognized maroon autonomy in exchange for peace and assistance to the colonial militia if necessary against external enemies. The tension between Governor Alexander Lindsay and the majority of the Leeward Maroons led to the Second Maroon War from 1795 to 1796. Although the governor initially promised leniency if the maroons surrendered, he later betrayed them. With the support of the Assembly, he insisted on deporting nearly 600 Maroons to British settlements in Nova Scotia, where escaped African Americans from the United States were also resettled. However, the deported Maroons were dissatisfied with the conditions in Nova Scotia, and in 1800, the majority of them left and obtained passage to Freetown, a British colony established by the Sierra Leone Company in West Africa (present-day Sierra Leone), where they formed the Sierra Leone Creole ethnic group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaican_Maroons/ref> The flag shows the symbolysm of freedom of the :Nyan-Ko-Pong: Maroons in Jamaica.