Maroons - Justice Le Tran Alexander

 

The term "Maroon" may invoke images of the unique punishments maritime criminals might've faced during the early days of the colonization of the America's. This is misleading as there is a rich history of this term from the perspective of enslaved Africans. Maroon culture has deep roots in the communities of escaped slaves. Most notable are the maroons of Jamaica who participated in the Maroon wars of the 1700s. However, maroon communities sprung up independently all across the Americas, in many cases Black Maroons were integrated into fragmented Indigenous American communities. One such encounter being the Black Seminoles of Florida. The Black Seminoles found the sparsely populated and hard to traverse marshes of Florida to be the best places to hide. As discussed in class on Monday, Maroon communities also sprung up in Virginia and North Carolina's Dismal Swamp.



I take the history of maroon communities to be a great example of how Environmental Studies and African American Studies intersect. The way we view and interact with our environment change due to circumstance, utility, and predisposition. There are clear reasons European settlers and slave owners chose to stick to coastal, urban, and arrogated areas as there was an ease of access to water, imports, and land. Enslaved individuals and native who were targeted were forced to live in less than desirable areas with limited access to resources and clean drinking water. But the ability to live as free individuals made this the more desirable option despite the clear obstacles to a bearable standard of living. 


Native knowledge cannot be understated in the role that it played in helping these communities survive. In Florida, Black Seminoles came from a mixed cultural background. The enslaved Africans which comprise a portion of their ancestry, were culturally and historically knowledgable about living in the sub-tropical climate. Coupled with the knowledge provided by the Seminole and other displaced native tribes, these groups were able to stake claims in the wilderness of the, at the time, underpopulated Spanish colony. Maroon communities like the ones found in Jamaica and Florida were notorious for staging ambushes on colonial and imperial forces/civilians. 


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