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{{Short description|Fugitive slaves who lived in hidden communities}}
{{other uses|Maroons (disambiguation)|Maroon (disambiguation)}}
{{Lead too short|date=June 2025}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2025}}
{{Infobox ethnic group
| image            = Leonard Parkinson, Maroon Leader, Jamaica, 1796.jpg
| caption          = 18th-century illustration of a Maroon
| pop              = 
| regions          = North and South America, Jamaica, Mauritius
| langs            = [[English-based creole languages]], [[French-based creole languages]]
| rels             = [[Afro-American religion|African diasporic religions]], [[Christianity]]
| related          = '''Maroon peoples'''<br />
[[Black Seminoles]], [[Bushinengue]], [[Jamaican Maroons]], [[Mauritian Maroons]], [[Kalungas]], [[Machapunga]], [[Palenqueros]], [[Quilombola]]<br />
'''Historical groups'''<br />
[[Cimarron people (Panama)|Cimarron people]]<br />[[Great Dismal Swamp maroons]]
| group            = 
| native_name      = 
| native_name_lang = 
}}
[[African diaspora in the Americas|Africans in the Americas]] and islands of the Indian Ocean who escaped from [[slavery]], through flight or [[manumission]], and lived in independent settlements,<ref name=exiles>{{Cite book|title=Slavery's Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons|last=Diouf|first=Sylviane A.|publisher=NYU|year=2016|isbn=978-0-8147-2449-1|location=New York|pages=81, 171–177, 215, 309|oclc=864551110}}</ref> were referred to as '''maroons''' in English, and as '''''cimarrones''''' in [[Spanish America]].<ref>{{cite book |last=O'Reggio |first=Trevor |date=2006 |title= Between Alienation and Citizenship The Evolution of Black West Indian Society in Panama, 1914D1964
|url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Between_Alienation_and_Citizenship/oPOKzH36UdEC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=slave+%22cimarrones%22&pg=PA28&printsec=frontcover |location= |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |page= 28 |isbn=9780761832379 |access-date=}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last= |first= |date= 2003 |title=African Caribbeans A Reference Guide
 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/African_Caribbeans/dnzDEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=slave+maron+%22cimarrones%22&pg=PA74&printsec=frontcover |location= |publisher= ABC-CLIO |page=74 |isbn=9780313039348 |access-date=}}</ref> The English word "maroon" itself likely derives from the Spanish word "''cimarron''".<ref name="Spitzer1938"></ref>

Maroon communities were a constant threat to plantation societies. It was difficult for colonial authorities to eradicate Maroon communities, because they were often hidden in remote environments. Maroons also frequently utilized guerrilla warfare to defend their settlements. This created a constant state of conflict with authorities, where Maroons would sometimes be used as allies by enemies attacking a colony. Sometimes, Maroons would also function as trading partners with remote settlers or Natives.<ref name=":0" /> 

Maroon settlements often created unique cultures, separate from greater society. Communities sometimes developed [[Creole language]]s by mixing European tongues with African languages, creating languages like [[Saramaccan language|Saramaccan]] in Suriname. On other occasions, Maroons would adopt creolized variations of a local European language  as a common tongue.<ref name="Price"></ref>
Sometimes maroons mixed with [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Indigenous peoples]], eventually [[ethnogenesis|evolving into]] separate [[creole culture]]s such as peoples like the [[Garifuna]] and the [[Mascogos]].<ref name=exiles></ref>

[[File:Wikibruz23.jpg|thumb|upright|''Maroons surprised by dogs'' (1893) (Brussels) by [[Louis Samain]].]]

== Etymology ==

''Maroon'' entered English around the 1590s, from the French adjective {{Lang|fr|marron}}, meaning 'feral' or 'fugitive', itself possibly from the American Spanish word {{Lang|es|cimarrón}}, meaning 'wild, unruly' or 'runaway slave'.<ref name="OED">{{Cite OED|maroon}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Maroon definition and meaning |url=https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/maroon |website=Collins Dictionary |access-date=16 December 2019 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Campbell2000">{{cite book|author-link=Lyle Campbell|last=Campbell|first=Lyle|title=American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i3g8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA400|year=2000|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-514050-7|page=400}}</ref> In the early 1570s, Sir [[Francis Drake]]'s [[Francis Drake's expedition of 1572–1573|raids on the Spanish in Panama]] were aided by "''Symerons''", a likely misspelling of ''{{Lang|es|cimarrón}}''.<ref name="OED" /> The linguist [[Leo Spitzer]], writing in the journal ''[[Language (journal)|Language]]'', says, "If there is a connection between Eng. ''maroon'', Fr. ''{{Lang|fr|marron}}'', and Sp. ''{{Lang|es|cimarrón}}'', Spain (or Spanish America) probably gave the word directly to England (or English America)."<ref name="Spitzer1938">{{cite journal|author-link=Leo Spitzer|last=Spitzer|first=Leo|title=Spanish cimarrón|journal=Language|date=1938|volume=14|issue=2|pages=145–147|doi=10.2307/408879|jstor=408879|publisher=Linguistic Society of America"|quote=The Shorter Oxford Dictionary explains maroon 'fugitive negro slave' as from 'Fr. marron, said to be a corruption of Sp. ''cimarrón'', wild, untamed'. But Eng. ''maroon'' is attested earlier (1666) than Fr. ''marron'' 'fugitive slave' (1701, in Furetière). If there is a connection between Eng. ''maroon'', Fr. ''marron'', and Sp. ''cimarrón'', Spain (or Spanish America) probably gave the word directly to England (or English America).}}</ref>

Alternatively, the Cuban [[Philology|philologist]] [[José Juan Arrom]] has traced the origins of the word ''maroon'' further than the Spanish ''cimarrón'', used first in [[Hispaniola]] to refer to [[feral]] cattle, then to Indian slaves who escaped to the hills, and by the early 1530s to African slaves who did the same. He proposes that the American Spanish word derives ultimately from the Arawakan root word {{Lang|awd|simarabo}}, construed as 'fugitive', in the [[Arawakan languages|Arawakan language]] spoken by the [[Taíno]] people native to the island.<ref name="Arrom1983">{{cite journal |author-link=José Juan Arrom |last=Arrom |first=José Juan |title=Cimarrón: Apuntes sobre sus primeras documentaciones y su probable origen|language=es |trans-title=Cimarrón: Notes on its first documentation and probable origin |journal=Revista Española de Antropología Americana |date=1983 |volume=XII |url=https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/REAA/article/viewFile/REAA8383110047A/25067 |publisher=Universidad Complutense |location=Madrid |quote={{langx|es|Y si prestamos atención al testimonio de Oviedo cuando, después de haber vivido en la Española por muchos años, asevera que cimarrón «quiere decir, en la lengua desta isla, fugitivos», quedaría demostrado que nos hallamos, en efecto, ante un temprano préstamo de la lengua taina.»|link=no}} English: And if we pay attention to the testimony of Oviedo when, after having lived in Hispaniola for many years, he asserts that cimarrón "means, in the language of this island, fugitives", it would be demonstrated that we are, in fact, before an early loan of the Taíno language. |page=10}}</ref><ref name="ArromArévalo1986">{{cite book |author-link=José Juan Arrom |last1=Arrom |first1=José Juan |first2=Manuel Antonio |last2=García Arévalo |title=Cimarrón |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ij5IAAAAYAAJ&q=%22cimarr%C3%B3n%20es%20un%20indigenismo%22 |year=1986 |publisher=Ediciones Fundación García-Arévalo |page=30 |quote={{langx|es|En resumen, los informes que aquí aporto confirman que cimarrón es un indigenismo de origen antillano, que se usaba ya en el primer tercio de siglo xvi, y que ha venido a resultar otro de los numerosos antillanismos que la conquista extendió por todo el ámbito del continente e hizo refluir sobre la propia metrópoli. |link=no}} English: In short, the reports that I am contributing here confirm that ''cimarrón'' is an Indian word of Antillean origin, which was already used in the first third of the sixteenth century, and which has come to be another of the many Antillanisms that the conquest extended throughout the breadth of the continent and made to reflect on the metropolis itself.}}</ref><ref name="Price1996">{{cite book |first=Richard |last=Price |title=Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas |url=https://archive.org/details/maroonsocieties00rich |url-access=registration |date=1996 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |isbn=978-0-8018-5496-5 |pages=xi–xii}}</ref><ref name="Arrom2000">{{cite book |author-link=José Juan Arrom |first=José Juan |last=Arrom |title=Estudios de lexicología antillana |language=es |trans-title=Antillean Lexicology Studies |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fr4uAAAAYAAJ |date=1 January 2000 |publisher=Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico|isbn=978-0-8477-0374-6|page=128}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Tardieu |first1=Jean-Pierre |title=Cimarrôn–Maroon–Marron, note épistémologique|language=fr|trans-title=Cimarrôn–Maroon–Marron, epistemological note |journal=Outre-Mers. Revue d'histoire |date=2006 |volume=93 |issue=350 |pages=237–247 |doi=10.3406/outre.2006.4201 |url=https://www.persee.fr/doc/outre_1631-0438_2006_num_93_350_4201}}</ref>

== History ==

=== Colonial era ===
In the [[New World]], as early as 1512, African slaves escaped from Spanish captors and either joined Indigenous peoples or eked out a living on their own.<ref name="Drake1">{{cite book|title=Voyages and Travels: Ancient and Modern|last=Drake|first=Frances|author-link=Frances Drake|url=http://www.bartleby.com/33/34.html|publisher=The Harvard Classics|date=1909–1914|at=para. 21|via=Bartleby Great Books Online}}</ref> When runaway slaves and [[Amerindians]] banded together and subsisted independently they were called "Maroons". On the [[Caribbean islands]], they formed bands and on some islands, armed camps.<ref name="Dinnerstein 1975">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZnAKAQAAMAAJ |title=American Vistas: 1607–1877 |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1975 |editor1-last=Dinnerstein |editor1-first=Leonard |edition=2nd |page=64 |editor2-last=Jackson |editor2-first=Kenneth T.}}</ref>

The earliest Maroon communities of the Americas formed in what is now the [[Dominican Republic]], following the first [[slave rebellion]] on 26 December 1522, on the sugar plantations of Admiral [[Diego Columbus]].<ref name="Franco1996">{{cite book |last=Franco |first=José |title=Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas |date=1996 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |editor-last=Price |editor-first=Richard |location=Baltimore |chapter=Maroons and Slave Rebellions in the Spanish Territories}}</ref>{{Rp|35}} A typical Maroon community in the early stages usually consisted of three types of people:<ref name="Price" />

* Most of them were slaves who ran away directly after they got off the ships. They refused to surrender their freedom and often tried to find ways to go back to Africa.<ref name="Price" />
*The second group were slaves who had been working on plantations for a while. Those slaves were usually somewhat adjusted to the slave system but had been abused by the plantation owners – often with excessive brutality. Others ran away when they were being sold suddenly to a new owner.<ref name="Price" />
*The last group of Maroons were usually skilled slaves with particularly strong opposition to the slave system.<ref name="Price" />
Maroon communities faced great odds in surviving the attacks by hostile colonists, obtaining food for subsistence living, as well as reproducing and increasing their numbers.<ref name="Dinnerstein 1975" /><ref name="Ohadike2002">{{cite book |last=Ohadike |first=Don C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P_u_6ZA8BYUC |title=Pan-African Culture of Resistance: A History of Liberation Struggles in Africa and the Diaspora |date=1 January 2002 |publisher=Global Publications, Binghamton University |isbn=978-1-58684-175-1 |page=22}}</ref> As the planters took over more land for crops, the Maroons began to lose ground on the small islands. Only on some of the larger islands were organised Maroon communities able to thrive by growing crops and hunting. Here, they grew in number as more slaves escaped from [[plantation]]s and joined their bands. Seeking to separate themselves from colonisers, the Maroons gained in power amid increasing hostilities. They raided and pillaged plantations and harassed planters until the planters began to fear a massive revolt of the black slaves.<ref name="brief">{{cite book |last=Rogozinski |first=Jan |url=https://archive.org/details/briefhistoryofca00rogo_0/page/155 |title=A Brief History of the Caribbean |publisher=Facts on File Inc. |year=1999 |isbn=0-8160-3811-2 |edition=revised |location=New York |pages=155–168 |via=Internet Archive}}</ref>

By 1700, many early Maroon communities had disappeared or were displaced from the smaller islands. Survival was always difficult, as the Maroons had to fight off attackers as well as grow food.<ref name="brief" />

==== Relationship to colonial authorities ====

''Marronage'' ({{Literal translation|running away}}) was a constant threat to New World [[slavocracy|slavocracies]]. Punishments for recaptured Maroons were severe, like removing the [[Achilles tendon]], amputating a leg, [[castration]], and being roasted to death.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Price |first=Richard |title=Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |year=1979 |isbn=0-8018-2247-5 |location=Baltimore |pages=1–30}}</ref> Maroon communities had to be inaccessible and located in inhospitable environments to be sustainable. For example, Maroon communities were established in remote swamps in the [[southern United States]]; in deep canyons with sinkholes but little water or fertile soil in Jamaica; and in the deep jungles of [[the Guianas]].<ref name=":0" /> Maroon communities turned the severity of their environments to their advantage to hide and defend their communities. Disguised pathways, false trails, booby traps, underwater paths, quagmires and quicksand, and natural features were all used to conceal Maroon villages.<ref name=":0" />[[File:SR245u (92) Een optocht van boschneger.jpg|thumb|Maroons in Suriname in the 19th century]]Maroons utilised exemplary guerrilla warfare skills to fight their European enemies. [[Nanny of the Maroons|Nanny]], the famous [[Jamaican Maroons|Jamaican Maroon]], used [[guerrilla warfare]] tactics that are also used today by many militaries around the world. European troops used strict and established strategies while Maroons attacked and retracted quickly, used ambush tactics, and fought when and where they wanted to.<ref name=":0" /> Even though colonial governments were in a perpetual state of conflict with the Maroon communities, individuals in the colonial system traded goods and services with them.<ref name=":0" /> Maroons also traded with isolated white settlers and Native American communities. Maroon communities played interest groups off of one another.<ref name=":0" /> At the same time, Maroon communities were also used as pawns when colonial powers clashed.<ref name=":0" />

Absolute secrecy and loyalty of members were crucial to the survival of Maroon communities. To ensure this loyalty, Maroon communities used severe methods to protect against desertion and spies. New members were brought to communities by way of detours so they could not find their way back and served probationary periods, often as slaves. Crimes such as desertion and adultery were punishable by death.<ref name=":0" />[[File:The Maroons In Ambush On The Dromilly Estate In The Parish Of Trelawney, Jamaica in 1795.jpg|thumb|1801 [[aquatint]] of a Maroon raid on the Dromilly estate, Jamaica, during the Second Maroon War of 1795–1796.]]

==== The Maroon Wars ====
Maroon communities emerged in many places in the Caribbean ([[Saint Vincent (island)|St&nbsp;Vincent]] and [[Dominica]], for example), but none were seen as such a great threat to the British as the [[Jamaican Maroons]].<ref name="autogenerated2">{{cite book|last=Edwards|first=Bryan|date=1801|title=Historical Survey of the Island of Saint Domingo|location=London|publisher=J. Stockdale}}</ref> Beginning in the late 17th century, Jamaican Maroons consistently fought British colonists, leading to the [[First Maroon War]] (1728–1740). In 1739 and 1740, the British governor of the [[Colony of Jamaica]], [[Edward Trelawny (colonial administrator)|Edward Trelawny]], signed treaties promising the Jamaican Maroons {{convert|2500|acres|0|abbr=on}} in two locations, at [[Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town)]] in western Jamaica and [[Crawford's Town]] in eastern Jamaica, to bring an end to the warfare between the communities. In exchange, they were to agree to capture other escaped slaves. They were initially paid a bounty of two dollars for each African returned.<ref name="Colonies">{{cite book|last=Taylor|first=Alan|date=2001|title=American Colonies: The Settling of North America|location=New York|publisher=Penguin Books}}</ref><ref name="Siva2018">{{cite thesis |first=Michael |last=Siva |title=After the Treaties: A Social, Economic and Demographic History of Maroon Society in Jamaica, 1739–1842 |type=PhD |location=Southampton, England |publisher=Southampton University |date=2018 |url=https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/423482/ }}</ref>{{Rp|31–46}} The treaties effectively freed the Maroons a century before the [[Slavery Abolition Act 1833]], which came into effect in 1838.

The [[Second Maroon War]] of 1795–1796 was an eight-month conflict between the [[Jamaican Maroons|Maroons]] of [[Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town)]], a Maroon settlement later renamed after Governor [[Edward Trelawny (governor)|Edward Trelawny]] at the end of [[First Maroon War]], located near [[Trelawny Parish, Jamaica]] in the [[Saint James Parish, Jamaica|St James Parish]], and the British colonials who controlled the island. The Windward communities of [[Jamaican Maroons]] remained neutral during this rebellion and their treaty with the British still remains in force. [[Accompong]] Town, however, sided with the colonial militias, and fought against Trelawny Town.<ref>Mavis Campbell, ''The Maroons of Jamaica'' (Massachusetts: Bergin & Garvey, 1988), pp. 209–49.</ref>

=== Modern era ===
[[File:Body of Maroon child brought before medicine man, 1955.jpg|thumb|[[Ndyuka people|Ndyuka]] man bringing the body of a child before a [[shaman]]. Suriname, 1955]]
Remnants of Maroon communities in the former Spanish Caribbean remain as of 2006, for example in [[Viñales]], Cuba.<ref name="autogenerated1">{{cite web |last=Sartorio |first=Blanchie |date=13 March 2004 |title=El Templo de los Cimarrónes |trans-title=The Temple of the Maroons |url=http://www.guerrillero.co.cu/pinardelrio/2004/marzo/eltemplo.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080508202938/http://www.guerrillero.co.cu/pinardelrio/2004/marzo/eltemplo.htm |archive-date=8 May 2008 |website=Guerrillero: Pinar del Río |language=es}}</ref> To this day, the Jamaican Maroons are to a significant extent autonomous and separate from Jamaican society. The physical isolation used to their advantage by their ancestors has today led to their communities remaining among the most inaccessible on the island. In their largest town, [[Accompong]], in the [[Saint Elizabeth Parish, Jamaica|parish of St&nbsp;Elizabeth]], the Leeward Maroons still possess a vibrant community of about 600. Tours of the village are offered to foreigners and a large festival is put on every 6 January to commemorate the signing of the peace treaty with the British after the First Maroon War.<ref name="Campbell">{{cite book |last=Campbell |first=Mavis Christine |title=The Maroons of Jamaica, 1655–1796: A History of Resistance, Collaboration & Betrayal |date=1988 |publisher=Bergin & Garvey |isbn=0-89789-148-1 |location=Granby, Massachusetts}}.</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Edwards |first=Bryan |title=Historical Survey of the Island of Saint Domingo |date=1801 |publisher=J. Stockdale |location=London |pages=303–360 |chapter=Observations on the disposition, character, manners, and habits of life, of the Maroons of the island of Jamaica; and a detail of the origin, progress, and termination of the late war between those people and the white inhabitants |orig-date=1796}}</ref>

The Ndyuka treaty remains important to relations between the Ndyuka and the modern Surinamese government, as it defines the territorial rights of the Maroons in the [[gold]]-rich inlands of Suriname.<ref>{{cite book |last=van Stipriaan |first=Alex |title=Surinaams Contrast. Roofbouw en Overleven in een Caraïbische Plantagekolonie, 1750–1863 |date=1995 |publisher=KITLV Uitgeverij |isbn=90-6718-052-1 |location=Leiden, Netherlands |language=nl |trans-title=Surinamese Contrast. Robbery and Survival in a Caribbean Plantation Colony, 1750–1863}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Buddingh' |first=Hans |url=https://www.onlinebibliotheek.nl/catalogus/376317221/de-geschiedenis-van-suriname-hans-buddingh- |title=Geschiedenis van Suriname |date=2012 |publisher=Nieuw Amsterdam |isbn=978-90-468-1172-6 |location=Amsterdam, Netherlands |language=nl |trans-title=The History of Suriname}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Kunst van Overleven. Marroncultuur uit Suriname |date=2009 |publisher=KIT Publishers |isbn=978-94-6022-040-1 |editor1-last=van Stipriaan |editor1-first=Alex |location=Amsterdam, Netherlands |language=nl |trans-title=Art of Survival. Maroon culture from Suriname |editor2-last=Polimé |editor2-first=Thomas}}</ref>

== Culture ==

{{see also|Afro-American religion}}
[[File:Maroon flag outside St John’s Church, Freetown.jpg|thumb|Maroon flag in [[Freetown]], Sierra Leone]]
[[File:Maroon village, Suriname River, 1955.jpg|thumb|Maroon village, [[Suriname River]], 1955]]

There is much variety among Maroon [[culture|cultural]] groups because of differences in history, geography, African nationality, and the culture of Indigenous people throughout the [[Western Hemisphere]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kopytoff |first=Barbara |date=1 June 1976 |title=The Development of Jamaican Maroon Ethnicity |journal=Caribbean Quarterly |volume=22 |issue=2–3 |pages=33–50 (37–46) |doi=10.1080/00086495.1976.11671900 |ref={{harvid|Kopytoff|1976}}}}</ref> Outside of the plantation system, Maroons were also freer to share, retain and adapt various African, European and Indigenous traditions and cultures, resulting in diverse Maroon identities.{{sfn|Kopytoff|1976|p=37}} The Jamaican Maroons, for example, have been recorded using the [[Coromantee]] language for ceremonial purpose,<ref>{{cite thesis |first1=Milton |last1=Cohen |date=1973 |title=Medical beliefs and practices of the Maroons of Moore Town: A study in acculturation |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/28c25d1668b6d45352e7139b3f47e84e/1 |pages=36–7 |ref={{harvid|Milton|1973}}}}</ref> and retain certain herbal medicine practices similar to West African traditions.<ref>For more about Maroon medical practices, see:{{pb}}{{cite book |doi=10.4324/9781003140597 |title=Social Aspects of Health, Medicine and Disease in the Colonial and Post-colonial Era |date=2020 |isbn=978-1-003-14059-7 |editor-last1=Menke |editor-last2=Buckingham |editor-last3=Gounder |editor-last4=Kumar |editor-last5=Hassankhan |editor-first1=Henk |editor-first2=Jane |editor-first3=Farzana |editor-first4=Ashutosh |editor-first5=Maurits S. |first1=Sahiensha |last1=Ramdas |chapter=Seeking Health in Multiple Ways }}{{pb}}{{Cite journal |last1=van't Klooster |first1=Charlotte |last2=van Andel |first2=Tinde |last3=Reis |first3=Ria |date=2 August 2016 |title=Patterns in medicinal plant knowledge and use in a Maroon village in Suriname |journal=Journal of Ethnopharmacology |volume=189 |pages=319–330 |doi=10.1016/j.jep.2016.05.048 |pmid=27215681 }}{{pb}}{{harvnb|Milton|1973|pp=93–100}}</ref>{{sfn|Kopytoff|1976|pp=33–50}}

The [[jungle]]s around the [[Caribbean Sea]] offered food, shelter, and isolation for the escaped slaves. Maroons sustained themselves by growing vegetables and hunting. Their survival depended upon their cultures, and their military abilities, using guerrilla tactics and heavily fortified dwellings involving traps and diversions. Some defined leaving the community as desertion and therefore punishable by death.<ref name="Price"/> They also originally raided plantations. During these attacks, the Maroons would burn crops, steal livestock and tools, kill slave masters, and invite other slaves to join their communities. Individual groups of Maroons often allied themselves with the local [[Amerindian|Indigenous tribes]] and occasionally assimilated into these populations. Maroons played an important role in the histories of [[History of Brazil|Brazil]], [[History of Suriname|Suriname]], [[History of Puerto Rico|Puerto Rico]], [[History of Haiti|Haiti]], [[History of the Dominican Republic|Dominican Republic]], [[History of Cuba|Cuba]], and [[History of Jamaica|Jamaica]].{{citation needed|date=May 2025}}

Maroon settlements often possessed a clannish, outsider identity. They sometimes developed [[Creole language]]s by mixing European tongues with their original African languages. One such Maroon [[creole language]], in Suriname, is [[Saramaccan language|Saramaccan]]. At other times, the Maroons would adopt variations of a local European language ([[creolization]]) as a common tongue, for members of the community frequently spoke a variety of mother tongues.<ref name="Price">{{cite book |title=Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas |publisher=Anchor Press |author=Price, Richard |year=1973 |location=Garden City, New York |page=25 |isbn=0-385-06508-6|oclc = 805137}}</ref>

The Maroons created their own independent communities, which in some cases have survived for centuries, and until recently remained separate from mainstream society. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Maroon communities began to disappear as forests were razed, although some countries, such as [[Guyana]] and Suriname, still have large Maroon populations living in the forests. Recently, many of them moved to cities and towns as the process of [[urbanization]] accelerates.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=St.-Hilaire |first=Aonghas |date=26 February 2000 |title=Global Incorporation and Cultural Survival: The Surinamese Maroons at the Margins of the World-System |url=https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/view/232 |journal=Journal of World-Systems Research |language=en |pages=101–131 |doi=10.5195/jwsr.2000.232 |issn=1076-156X|doi-access=free }}</ref>

== Geographical distribution ==

=== Africa ===

==== Mauritius ====

{{Main|Mauritian Maroons}}

Under governor [[Adriaan van der Stel]] in 1642, the early Dutch settlers of the [[Dutch East India Company]] brought 105 slaves from Madagascar and parts of Asia to work for them in [[Dutch Mauritius]]. However, 50 of these first slaves, including women, escaped in the wilderness of [[Dutch Mauritius]]. Only 18 of these escapees were caught. On 18 June 1695, a gang of Maroons of Indonesian and Chinese origins, including Aaron d'Amboine, Antoni (Bamboes) and Paul de Batavia, as well as female escapees Anna du Bengale and Espérance, set fire to the Dutch settlers' Fort Frederick Hendryk ([[Vieux Grand Port]]) in an attempt to take over control of the island. They were all caught and decapitated.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Carter |first1=Marina |last2=Ng Foong Kwong |first2=James |title=Abacus and Mah Jong: Sino-Mauritian Settlement and Economic Consolidation |date=2009 |publisher=Brill |location=Leiden, Netherlands |isbn=978-90-04-17572-3 |page=21 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SN53oTMjAyMC&q=fort+hendryck+mauritius}}</ref> In February 1706 another revolt was organised by the remaining Maroons as well as disgruntled slaves. When the Dutch abandoned [[Dutch Mauritius]] in 1710 the Maroons stayed behind.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}

When representatives of the [[Louis XIV's East India Company|French East India Company]] landed on the island in 1715 they also had to face attacks by the Mauritian Maroons. Significant events were the 1724 assault on a military outpost in Savannah district, as well as the attack on a military barrack in 1732 at Poste de Flacq. Several deaths resulted from such attacks. Soon after his arrival in 1735, [[Bertrand-François Mahé de La Bourdonnais|Mahé de La Bourdonnais]] assembled and equipped French militia groups made of both civilians and soldiers to fight against the Maroons. In 1739, Maroon leader Sans Souci was captured near Flacq and was burnt alive by the French settlers. A few years later, a group of French settlers gave chase to Barbe Blanche, another Maroon leader, but lost track of him at [[Le Morne Brabant|Le Morne]]. Other Maroons included Diamamouve and Madame Françoise.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Peerthum |first1=Satyendra |title=Histoires du marronage: Les combattants de la liberté |url=https://defimedia.info/histoires-du-marronage-les-combattants-de-la-liberte |publisher=Defimedia |access-date=24 February 2019|language=fr|trans-title=Marronage Stories: The Freedom Fighters}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Histoire du marronage|language=fr|trans-title=History of Maroonage |date=6 February 2018 |url=https://histoiresmauriciennes.com/histoires-marronage-marrons-symboles-de-lutte-contre-loppression/ |publisher=Histoires Mauriciennes |access-date=6 February 2018}}</ref>

==== Réunion ====

The most important Maroons on [[Réunion]] were Cimendef, Cotte, Dimitile and Maffate.<ref>{{cite book|title=The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean|chapter=From French Slaves to French Citizens: The African Diaspora in Réunion Island|last=Hintjens|first=Helen|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mdpcgy_aopwC&pg=PA99 |page=99|editor1-last=Jayasuriya|editor1-first=Shihan de S.|editor2-first=Richard|editor2-last=Pankhurst|publisher=Africa World Press Inc.|location=Trenton, New Jersey|date=2003|isbn=0-86543-980-X}}</ref> In the 18th century, Dimitile rebelled and found asylum in [[Dimitile|the region of the island]] to which he gave his name.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Payet |first=Marie-Ange |title=Women fugitives in Reunion Island |url=https://www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr/en/documentaires/slavery/resistance-to-slavery/women-fugitives-in-reunion/ |access-date=11 June 2025 |website=Plantation Society, History and Memory of Slavery in Reunion Island}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Vergès |first=Françoise |title=Domination and Emancipation: Remaking Critique |date=November 2021 |publisher=Bloomsbury |isbn=978-1-78660-701-0 |editor-last=Benson |editor-first=Daniel |language=en |chapter=Like a Riot: The Politics of Forgetfulness, Relearning the South, and the Island of Dr. Moreau |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cLpHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA166}}</ref> In 1743, Dimitile and his companions are said to have freed Jeanneton, a slave from Mozambique, from the hands of her owner Pierre Hibon.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ève |first=Prosper |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RQbTlYslfo4C&pg=PA268 |title=Les esclaves de Bourbon: la mer et la montagne |date=1 January 2003 |publisher=Karthala |isbn=978-2-84586-456-6 |language=fr}}</ref>

==== Sierra Leone ====
{{Main|Jamaican Maroons in Sierra Leone}}
A group of just under 600 [[Jamaican Maroons]] from [[Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town)|Cudjoe's Town]], the largest of the five Jamaican maroon towns, were deported by the [[Colony of Jamaica|British authorities in Jamaica]] following the [[Second Maroon War]] in 1796, first to [[Nova Scotia]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hamilton |first=James Cleland |url=https://archive.org/details/cihm_05348 |title=The African in Canada ; The Maroons of Jamaica and Nova Scotia [microform] |date=1890 |publisher=S.l. : s.n. |others=Canadiana.org |isbn=978-0-665-05348-1}}</ref> Four years later in 1800, they were transported to [[Sierra Leone]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Taylor |first=Bankole Kamara |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I__jAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA68 |title=Sierra Leone: The Land, Its People and History |date=2014 |publisher=New Africa Pres |isbn=978-9987-16-038-9 |language=en}}</ref><ref>Grant, John N (2002). ''The Maroons in Nova Scotia'' (Softcover). Formac. p. 203. {{ISBN|978-0887805691}}.</ref><ref>James Walker, ''The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone 1783-1870'' (London: Longman, 1976), pp. 240-3.

Michael Sivapragasam, "The Returned Maroons of Trelawny Town", ''Navigating Crosscurrents: Trans-linguality, Trans-culturality and Trans-identification in the Dutch Caribbean and Beyond'', ed. by Nicholas Faraclas, etc (Curacao/Puerto Rico: University of Curacao, 2020), p. 17.

Simon Schama, ''Rough Crossings'' (London: BBC Books, 2002), p. 382.

Mavis Campbell, ''Back to Africa: George Ross and the Maroons'' (Trenton: Africa World Press, 1993), p. 48.</ref>

The [[Sierra Leone Company]] had established the settlement of [[Freetown]] and the [[Sierra Leone Colony and Protectorate|Colony of Sierra Leone]] in 1792 for the resettlement of the [[African Americans]] who arrived via [[Nova Scotia]] after they had been evacuated as freedmen from the [[United States]] after the [[American Revolutionary War]].<ref>Siva, Michael (Winter 2021). "Why Did the Black Poor of London Not Support the Sierra Leone Resettlement Scheme?". ''History Matters Journal''. '''1''' (2): 25–47.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Birchtown Plaque - 'The Black Loyalists at Birchtown' (1997) |url=http://nsgna.ednet.ns.ca/shelburne/main/BirchtownPlaque.php |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20161108180429/http://nsgna.ednet.ns.ca/shelburne/main/BirchtownPlaque.php/ |archive-date=8 November 2016 |access-date=22 May 2025 |website=nsgna.ednet.ns.ca}}</ref> Some Jamaican Maroons eventually returned to Jamaica, but most became part of the larger [[Sierra Leone Creole people]] and culture made up of freemen and liberated slaves who joined them in the first half-century of the colony.<ref>James Walker, ''The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone 1783-1870'' (London: Longman, 1976), pp. 240-3.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Schama |first=Simon |url= |title=Rough crossings: Britain, the slaves, and the American Revolution |date=2005 |publisher=BBC Books |isbn=978-0-06-053916-0 |location=London |pages=380–383}}</ref><ref>Michael Sivapragasam, "The Returned Maroons of Trelawny Town", ''Navigating Crosscurrents: Trans-linguality, Trans-culturality and Trans-identification in the Dutch Caribbean and Beyond'', ed. by Nicholas Faraclas, etc (Curacao/Puerto Rico: University of Curacao, 2020), pp. 13, 18.</ref>

=== North America ===

==== Canada ====

===== Nova Scotia =====

{{See|Jamaican Maroons in Sierra Leone}}

In the 1790s, about 600 [[Jamaican Maroons]] were deported to British settlements in [[Nova Scotia]], where [[Slavery in the United States|American slaves]] who had escaped from the United States were also resettled. Being unhappy with conditions, in 1800, a majority emigrated to [[Freetown|Freetown, West Africa]] where they identified as the [[Sierra Leone Creoles]].<ref>[https://muse.jhu.edu/book/15655 Robert Baron and Ana C. Cara, ''Creolization as Cultural Creativity''], University Press of Mississippi, 2011; accessed 12 July 2016, available online through Project MUSE</ref>

==== Caribbean ====

===== Cuba =====

In [[Cuba]], there were Maroon communities in the mountains, where African refugees had escaped the brutality of slavery and joined [[Taíno people|Taíno]]s.<ref name="Aimes">{{cite book |last=Aimes |first=Hubert H. S. |title=A History of Slavery in Cuba, 1511 to 1868 |date=1967 |publisher=Octagon Books |location=New York}}</ref> In 1538, runaways helped the French to sack the city of [[Havana]].<ref name="Franco1996" />{{rp|41}}

In 1731, slaves rose up in revolt at the Cobre mines, and set up an independent community at Sierra del Cobre, which existed untroubled until 1781, when the self-freed population had increased to over 1,000. In 1781, the Spanish colonial authorities agreed to recognise the freedom of the people of this community.<ref name="Franco1996" />{{Rp|41}}<ref name="delaRiva1996">{{cite book|first=Francisco|last=Perez de la Riva|chapter=Cuban Palenques|editor-last=Price|editor-first=Richard|title=Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas|location=Baltimore|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|date=1996}}</ref>{{Rp|54–55}} In 1797, one of the captured leaders of a [[Palenque (village)|''palenque'']] near [[Jaruco]] was an Indian from the [[Yucatán Peninsula|Yucatán]].<ref name="delaRiva1996" />{{Rp|57}}

In the 1810s, Ventura Sanchez, also known as Coba, was in charge of a ''palenque'' of several hundred Maroons in the mountains not far from [[Santiago de Cuba]]. Sanchez was tricked into going to Santiago de Cuba, where he committed suicide rather than be captured and returned to slavery. The leadership of the palenque then passed to Manuel Grinan, also known as Gallo.<ref name="Franco1996"/>{{Rp|42–43}}

The ''palenque'' of Bumba was so well organised that they even sent Maroons in small boats to Jamaica and Santo Domingo to trade. In 1830, the Spanish colonial authorities carried out military expeditions against the ''palenques'' of Bumba and Maluala. Antonio de Leon eventually succeeded in destroying the ''palenque'' of Bumba.<ref name="delaRiva1996"/>{{Rp|55}}

In the 1830s, ''palenques'' of Maroon communities thrived in western Cuba, in particular the areas surrounding San Diego de Nunez. The Office of the Capture of Maroons reported that between 1797 and 1846, there were thousands of runaways living in these ''palenques''. However, the eastern mountains harboured the longer lasting ''palenques'', in particular those of Moa and Maluala, where the Maroons thrived until the [[Ten Years' War|First War of Independence]] in 1868, when large numbers of Maroons joined the Cuban Liberation Army.<ref name="Franco1996"/>{{Rp|47–48}}<ref name="delaRiva1996"/>{{Rp|51}}

There are 28 identified archaeological sites in the [[Viñales Valley]] related to runaway African slaves or Maroons of the early 19th century; the material evidence of their presence is found in caves of the region, where groups settled for various lengths of time. [[Oral tradition]] tells that Maroons took refuge on the slopes of the [[mogote]]s and in the caves; the [[Viñales Municipal Museum]] has archaeological exhibits that depict the life of runaway slaves, as deduced through archeological research. Cultural traditions reenacted during the ''Semana de la Cultura'' (Week of Culture) celebrate the town's founding in 1607.<ref name="Unesco2019">{{cite web |title=Cuba|website=Places of Memory of the Slave Route in the Latin Caribbean |url=http://www.lacult.unesco.org/sitios_memoria/Sitios.php?nav=idpais&value=2&lan=en |first1=Jesús|last1=Guanche|first2=Nilson|last2=Acosta|date=2006–2007|access-date=21 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190904052106/http://www.lacult.unesco.org/sitios_memoria/Sitios.php?nav=idpais&value=2&lan=en |archive-date=4 September 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Guerrillero2019">{{cite news |first=Loraine |last=Morales Pino |title=Viñales celebra semana de la Cultura|language=es|trans-title=Viñales celebrates Culture Week |url=http://www.guerrillero.cu/cultura/3703-vinales-celebra-semana-de-la-cultura.html |access-date=21 December 2019 |work=Periódico Guerrillero  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191202031329/http://www.guerrillero.cu/cultura/3703-vinales-celebra-semana-de-la-cultura.html |archive-date=2 December 2019}}</ref>

===== Dominica, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent =====

Similar Maroon communities developed on islands across the Caribbean, such as those of the [[Garifuna people]] on [[Saint Vincent (Antilles)|Saint Vincent]]. Many of the Garifuna were deported to the American mainland, where some eventually settled along the [[Mosquito Coast]] or in [[Belize]]. From their original landing place in [[Roatan Island]] off the coast of [[Honduras]], the Maroons moved to [[Trujillo, Honduras|Trujillo]]. Gradually groups migrated south into the [[Miskito Kingdom]] and north into Belize.<ref name="Roessingh2001">{{cite book|first=Carel|last=Henning Roessingh|title=The Belizean Garifuna: Organization of Identity in an Ethnic Community in Central America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dAIjAQAAIAAJ|date=2001|publisher=Rozenberg|isbn=978-90-5170-574-4|page=71}}</ref> In [[Dominica]], escaped slaves joined Indigenous [[Kalinago]] in the island's densely forested interior to create Maroon communities, which were constantly in conflict with the British colonial authorities throughout the period of formal chattel slavery.<ref>{{cite podcast |host=Alejandra Bronfman |title=Lennox Honychurch, In the Forests of Freedom: The Fighting Maroons of Dominica |website=New Books in Caribbean Studies |publisher=New Books Network |date=12 December 2019 |url=https://newbooksnetwork.com/lennox-honychurch-in-the-forests-of-freedom-the-fighting-maroons-of-dominica-up-mississippi-2017/}}</ref>

In the French colony of [[Saint Lucia]], Maroons and fugitive [[French Revolutionary Army]] soldiers formed the so-called {{langx|fr|Armée Française dans les bois|translation=French army in the woods}}, which comprised about 6,000 men who fought the First Brigand War against the British who had recently occupied the island.<ref name="Helg2019">{{cite book|first1=Aline|last1=Helg|translator-first=Lara|translator-last=Vergnaud|title=Slave No More: Self-Liberation before Abolitionism in the Americas|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HeaGDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA170|date=2019|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|location=Chapel Hill, North Carolina|isbn=978-1-4696-4963-4|page=170|chapter=The Shock Waves of the Haitian Revolution}}</ref> Led by the French Commissioner, Gaspard Goyrand,<ref name="Howard2015">{{cite book|first=Martin|last=Howard|title=Death Before Glory: The British Soldier in the West Indies in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars 1793–1815|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g7LjCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA21|date=2015|publisher=Pen and Sword|isbn=978-1-4738-7152-6|page=21}}</ref> they succeeded in taking back control of most of the island from the British, but on 26 May 1796, their forces defending the fort at [[Morne Fortune]], about 2,000 men surrendered to a British division under the command of General John Moore.<ref name="Breen1844">{{cite book|first=Henry|last=Hegart Breen|title=St. Lucia: Historical, Statistical, and Descriptive|url=https://archive.org/details/stluciahistoric00breegoog|year=1844|publisher=Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans|page=96|via=Internet Archive}}</ref><ref name="Stark1893">{{cite book|first=James Henry|last=Stark|title=Stark's History and Guide to Barbados and the Caribbee Islands: Containing a Description of Everything on Or about These Islands of which the Visitor Or Resident May Desire Information ... Fully Illustrated with Maps, Engravings and Photo-prints|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AkM6AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA55|year=1893|publisher=Photo-Electrotype Company|page=55}}</ref> After the capitulation, over 2,500 French and Afro-Caribbean prisoners of war as well as ninety-nine women and children, were transported from St. Lucia to [[Portchester Castle]]. They were eventually sent to France in a [[prisoner exchange]]; some remained in Europe while others returned to France.<ref name="EnglishHeritage2018">{{cite web |title=Black prisoners at Portchester Castle |url=https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/portchester-castle/history-and-stories/black-prisoners-at-portchester/ |website=English Heritage |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190724125623/https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/portchester-castle/history-and-stories/black-prisoners-at-portchester/ |archive-date=24 July 2019}}</ref><ref name="Brown2019">{{cite news |first1=Mark|last1=Brown |title=Hidden story of 2,000 African-Caribbean PoWs in a medieval castle |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/jul/18/hidden-story-of-2000-african-caribbean-pows-in-a-medieval-castle |access-date=20 December 2019 |work=The Guardian |date=18 July 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190520211634/https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/jul/18/hidden-story-of-2000-african-caribbean-pows-in-a-medieval-castle |archive-date=20 May 2019}}</ref>

===== Dominican Republic =====

{{Further|History of the Dominican Republic}}

American ''marronage'' began in Spain's colony on the island of [[Hispaniola]]. Governor [[Nicolás de Ovando]] was already complaining of escaped slaves and their interactions with the [[Taíno|Taíno Indians]] by 1503. The first slave rebellion occurred in Hispaniola on the sugar plantations owned by Admiral [[Diego Columbus]], on 26 December 1522, and was brutally crushed by the Admiral.<ref name="Franco1996"/>{{Rp|35}} Though the Admiral crushed the revolt, many of the slaves were able to escape. The [[People of the Dominican Republic|Dominican]] Maroons went on to lead the first Maroon activities of the Americas. [[Sebastián Lemba]], born in Africa, successfully rebelled against the Spaniards in 1532, and banded together with other Africans in his 15-year struggle against the Spanish colonists. Lemba was eventually joined by other Maroons such as Juan Vaquero, Diego del Guzmán, Fernando Montoro, Juan Criollo and [[Diego del Ocampo]] in the struggle against slavery. As the Maroons threatened Spanish commerce and trade, Spanish officials began to fear a Maroon takeover of the island.<ref name="Schwaller 2018">{{cite journal |last1=Schwaller |first1=Robert C. |date=2018 |title=Contested Conquests: African Maroons and the Incomplete Conquest of Hispaniola, 1519–1620 |journal=The Americas |language=en |volume=75 |issue=4 |pages=609–638 |doi=10.1017/tam.2018.3 |hdl-access=free |hdl=1808/29355}}</ref>

Maroons joined the natives in their wars against the Spanish and hid with the rebel chieftain Enriquillo in the [[Baoruco Mountain Range|Bahoruco Mountains]].<ref name="Heywood2002">{{cite book|first=Jane|last=Landers|editor=Linda M. Heywood|title=Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EKd-q4oVHOsC&pg=PA234|year=2002|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-00278-3|page=234|chapter=The Central African Presence in Spanish Maroon Communities}}</ref><ref name="BrownMorgan2008">{{cite book|first=Jane|last=Landers|editor1-first=Christopher Leslie|editor1-last=Brown|editor2-first=Philip D.|editor2-last=Morgan |title=Arming Slaves: From Classical Times to the Modern Age|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T-COzq-pz0oC&pg=PA139|date=2008|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-13485-8|page=139, note 17|chapter=Transforming Bondsmen into Vassals }}</ref><ref name="Franco1996"/>{{Rp|38}} By the 1540s, Maroons had already controlled the interior portions of the island, although areas in the east, north, and western parts of the island were also to fall under Maroon control. Maroon bands would venture out throughout the island, usually in large groups, attacking villages they encountered, burning down plantations, killing and ransacking the Spaniards, and liberating the slaves. Roadways had become so open to attack, the Spaniards felt it was necessary to only navigate in groups.<ref name="Schwaller 2018" /> When Archdeacon Alonso de Castro toured Hispaniola in 1542, he estimated the Maroon population at 2,000–3,000 persons.<ref name="Heywood2002" /><ref name="BrownMorgan2008" /><ref name="Franco1996" />{{Rp|38}}

In the 1570s, Sir [[Francis Drake]] enlisted several ''cimarrones'' during his raids on the Spanish.<ref name="Drake2">{{cite book |last=Drake |first=Frances |author-link=Frances Drake |url=http://www.bartleby.com/33/35.html |title=Voyages and Travels: Ancient and Modern |date=1909–1914 |publisher=The Harvard Classics |at=para. 101 |via=Bartleby Great Books Online}}</ref><ref name="Laviña2020">{{cite book |last1=Laviña |first1=Javier |title=Atlantic Transformations: Empire, Politics, and Slavery during the Nineteenth Century |date=2020 |publisher=State University of New York Press |isbn=978-1438477862 |editor1-last=Tomich |editor1-first=Dale W. |pages=183–184 |chapter=Atlantization and the First Failed Slavery: Panama from the Sixteenth to the Seventeenth Century |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BO_cDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA183}}</ref><ref name="Schwaller2021">{{cite book |last1=Schwaller |first1=Robert C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZlkmEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA103 |title=African Maroons in Sixteenth-Century Panama: A History in Documents |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |year=2021 |isbn=978-0806176765 |editor1-last=Schwaller |editor1-first=Robert C. |page=103}}</ref> Dominican Maroons would be present throughout the island until the mid 17th century.<ref>{{Cite book |last=López de Cerrato |first=Alonso |title=The Dominican Republic Reader |date=2014 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-5688-2 |pages=66–67 |chapter=Lemba and the Maroons of Hispaniola |doi=10.1215/9780822376521-015}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |author=Deive, Carlos Esteban |title=Los guerrilleros negros: esclavos fugitivos y cimarrones en Santo Domingo |date=1997 |publisher=Fundación Cultural Dominicana |oclc=44735015}}</ref>

===== Haiti =====
The French encountered many forms of slave resistance during the 17th and 18th centuries, in [[Saint Domingue]], which later came to be called [[Haiti]]. Formerly enslaved Africans who fled to remote mountainous areas were called ''marron'' ([[French language|French]]) or ''mawon'' ([[Haitian Creole]]), meaning 'escaped slave'. The Maroons formed close-knit communities that practised [[small-scale agriculture]] and hunting. They were known to return to plantations to free family members and friends. On a few occasions, they also joined the [[Taíno people|Taíno]] settlements, who had escaped the Spanish in the 17th century.<ref name="StMery1996" />{{Rp|135–136}}

In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, there were a large number of Maroons living in the [[Baoruco Mountain Range|Bahoruco mountains]]. In 1702, a French expedition against them killed three Maroons and captured 11, but over 30 evaded capture, and retreated further into the mountainous forests. Further expeditions were carried out against them with limited success, though they did succeed in capturing one of their leaders, Michel, in 1719. In subsequent expeditions, in 1728 and 1733, French forces captured 46 and 32 Maroons respectively. No matter how many detachments were sent against these Maroons, they continued to attract runaways. Expeditions in 1740, 1742, 1746, 1757 and 1761 had minor successes against these Maroons, but failed to destroy their hideaways.<ref name="StMery1996">{{cite book|author-link=Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry|first=Médéric Louis Élie|last=Moreau de Saint-Mery|chapter=The Border Maroons of Saint Domingue|editor-last=Price|editor-first=Richard|title=Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas|location=Baltimore|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|date=1996}}</ref>{{Rp|135–136}}

In 1776–1777, a joint French–Spanish expedition ventured into the border regions of the Bahoruco mountains, with the intention of destroying the Maroon settlements there. However, the Maroons had been alerted of their coming, and had abandoned their villages and caves, retreating further into the mountainous forests where they could not be found. The detachment eventually returned, unsuccessful and having lost many soldiers to illness and desertion. In the years that followed, the Maroons attacked a number of settlements, including Fond-Parisien, for food, weapons, gunpowder and women. It was on one of these excursions that one of the Maroon leaders, Kebinda, who had been born in freedom in the mountains, was captured. He later died in captivity.<ref name="StMery1996"/>{{Rp|136–138}}

In 1782, de Saint-Larry decided to offer peace terms to one of the Maroon leaders, Santiago, granting them freedom in return for which they would hunt all further runaways and return them to their owners. Eventually, at the end of 1785, terms were agreed, and the more than 100 Maroons under Santiago's command stopped making incursions into French colonial territory.<ref name="StMery1996"/>{{Rp|139–142}}

Other slave resistance efforts against the French plantation system were more direct. One of the most influential Maroons was [[François Mackandal]], a [[houngan]] or [[Haitian Vodou|voodoo]] priest, who led a six-year rebellion against the white plantation owners in [[Haiti]] that preceded the [[Haitian Revolution]].<ref>{{cite web |title=The History of Haiti and the Haitian Revolution |url=http://www.ci.miami.fl.us/haiti2004/history.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070826170155/http://www.ci.miami.fl.us/haiti2004/history.htm |archive-date=26 August 2007 |access-date=16 August 2007 |publisher=The City of Miami}}</ref> Mackandal led a movement to poison the drinking water of the plantation owners in the 1750s.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Haitian Revolution of 1791–1803, An Historical Essay in Four Parts |first=Bob |last=Corbett |url=http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/history/revolution/revolution1.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190914191846/http://faculty.webster.edu/corbetre/haiti/history/revolution/revolution1.htm |archive-date=14 September 2019}}</ref> [[Boukman]] declared war on the French plantation owners in 1791, setting off the [[Haitian Revolution]]. A statue called the ''[[Le Nègre Marron]]'' or the ''Nèg Mawon'' is an iconic bronze bust that was erected in the heart of [[Port-au-Prince]] to commemorate the role of Maroons in Haitian independence.<ref name="LA Times">{{cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-apr-27-me-passings27.2-story.html |title=Albert Mangones, 85; His Bronze Sculpture Became Haitian Symbol |author=<!--no byline-->|date=27 April 2002 |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |access-date=9 March 2016}}</ref>

===== Jamaica =====

{{Main|Jamaican Maroons}}

People who escaped from slavery during the Spanish occupation of the island of Jamaica fled to the interior and joined the [[Taíno]] living there, forming refugee communities. Later, many of them gained freedom during the confusion surrounding the 1655 English [[Invasion of Jamaica]].<ref name="Saunders2005">{{cite book|first=Nicholas J.|last=Saunders|title=The Peoples of the Caribbean: An Encyclopedia of Archaeology and Traditional Culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XNbqUR_IoOMC&pg=PA145|year=2005|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-57607-701-6|page=145}}</ref> Some refugee slaves continued to join them through the decades until the abolition of slavery in 1838, but in the main, after the signing of the treaties of 1739 and 1740, the Maroons hunted runaway slaves in return for payment from the British colonial authorities.<ref name="Siva2018"/>{{Rp|45–47}}

During the late 17th and 18th centuries, the British tried to capture the Maroons because they occasionally raided [[plantation]]s, and made expansion into the interior more difficult.<ref name="Genovese1992" /> By the 18th century, [[Nanny Town]] and other Jamaican Maroon villages began to fight for independent recognition.<ref name="Campbell" /> An increase in armed confrontations over decades led to the [[First Maroon War]] in the 1730s, but the British were unable to defeat the Maroons. They finally settled with the groups by treaty in 1739 and 1740, allowing them to have autonomy in their communities in exchange for agreeing to be called to military service with the colonists if needed. Certain Maroon factions became so formidable that they made treaties with local colonial authorities,<ref name="Genovese1992">{{cite book|author=Eugene D. Genovese|title=From Rebellion to Revolution: Afro-American Slave Revolts in the Making of the Modern World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d62zVrIQa2QC&pg=PT65|date=1 January 1992|publisher=LSU Press|isbn=978-0-8071-4813-6|page=65|quote=Some maroon communities became powerful enough to force the European powers into formal peace treaties designed to pacify the interior while recognizing the freedom and autonomy of the rebels. Jamaica and Surinam provided the most famous of these cases, which had counterparts in Mexico...}}</ref> sometimes negotiating their independence in exchange for helping to hunt down other slaves who escaped.<ref name="AccilienAdams2006">{{cite book|first1=Cécile|last1=Accilien|first2=Jessica|last2=Adams|first3=Elmide|last3=Méléance|title=Revolutionary Freedoms: A History of Survival, Strength and Imagination in Haiti|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O-p7qRKl_G0C&pg=PA81|year=2006|publisher=Educa Vision Inc.|isbn=978-1-58432-293-1|page=81}}</ref>

Due to tensions and repeated conflicts with Maroons from [[Trelawny Town]], the [[Second Maroon War]] erupted in 1795. After the governor tricked the Trelawny Maroons into surrendering, the colonial government deported approximately 600 captive Maroons to [[Nova Scotia]]. Due to their difficulties and those of [[Black Loyalists]] settled at Nova Scotia and England after the American Revolution, Great Britain established a colony in [[West Africa]], [[Sierra Leone]]. It offered ethnic Africans a chance to set up their community there, beginning in 1792. Around 1800, several hundred [[Jamaican Maroons in Sierra Leone|Jamaican Maroons]] were transported to [[Freetown]], the first settlement of [[Sierra Leone]]. Eventually, in the 1840s, about 200 Trelawny Maroons returned to Jamaica, and settled in the village of Flagstaff in the [[Saint James Parish, Jamaica|parish of St James]], not far from Trelawny Town, which is now named [[Maroon Town, Jamaica]].<ref>{{cite book|first=Michael|last=Sivapragasam|chapter=The Returned Maroons of Trelawny Town|title=Navigating Crosscurrents: Trans-linguality, Trans-culturality and Trans-identification in the Dutch Caribbean and Beyond|editor1-first=Nicholas|editor1-last=Faraclas|display-editors=etal|location=Curaçao|publisher=University of Curaçao|year=2020|pages=18–19}}</ref>

The only Leeward Maroon settlement that retained formal autonomy in Jamaica after the Second Maroon War was [[Accompong]], in [[Saint Elizabeth Parish]], whose people had abided by their 1739 treaty with the British. A Windward Maroon community is also located at [[Charles Town, Jamaica]], on [[Buff Bay River]] in [[Portland Parish]]. Another is at [[Moore Town, Jamaica|Moore Town]] (formerly Nanny Town), also in the parish of Portland. In 2005, the music of the Moore Town Maroons was declared by [[UNESCO]] as a 'Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.'<ref name="Gleaner2004">{{cite news |first=Tanya|last=Batson-Savage |title=A Maroon masterpiece |url=http://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20040613/ent/ent1.html |access-date=23 December 2019 |work=Jamaica Gleaner |date=13 June 2004 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191223053323/http://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20040613/ent/ent1.html |archive-date=23 December 2019}}</ref> A fourth community is at [[Scott's Hall, Jamaica]], in the parish of St Mary.<ref name="JIS2015">{{cite web |author1=Garfield L. Angus |title=Scott's Hall Maroons Looking to Develop Area as Major Attraction |url=https://jis.gov.jm/scotts-hall-maroons-looking-to-develop-area-as-major-attraction/ |website=Jamaica Information Service |access-date=23 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190426111051/https://jis.gov.jm/scotts-hall-maroons-looking-to-develop-area-as-major-attraction/ |archive-date=26 April 2019 |date=17 July 2015}}</ref> Accompong's autonomy was ratified by the government of Jamaica when the island gained independence in 1962.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}

The government has tried to encourage the survival of the other Maroon settlements. The Jamaican government and the Maroon communities organised the Annual International Maroon Conference, initially to be held at rotating communities around the island, but the conference has been held at Charles Town since 2009.<ref name="CharlesTownMaroons2019">{{cite web |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->|title=11th Annual International Maroon Conference & Festival Magazine 2019 |url=https://www.maroons-jamaica.com/conference-festival-magazine-2019/ |website=Charles Town Maroons |access-date=23 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191223061457/http://www.maroons-jamaica.com/conference-festival-magazine-2019/ |archive-date=23 December 2019}}</ref> Maroons from other Caribbean, Central, and South America nations are invited. In 2016, Accompong's colonel and a delegation traveled to the [[Ashanti Empire|Kingdom of Ashanti]] in [[Ghana]] to renew ties with the [[Akan people|Akan]] and Asante people of their ancestors.<ref name="ghana">[https://www.modernghana.com/newsthread/689367/378154#showcomments "Historical Meeting Between The Kingdom Of Ashanti And The Accompong Maroons In Jamaica"], ''Modern Ghana,'' 2 May 2016</ref>

===== Puerto Rico =====

In [[Puerto Rico]], [[Taíno people|Taíno]] families from [[Utuado]] moved into the southwestern mountain ranges, along with escaped African slaves who intermarried with them. Before roads were built into the mountains, heavy [[Shrubland|brush]] kept many escaped Maroons hidden in the southwestern hills. Escaped slaves sought refuge away from the coastal plantations of [[Ponce, Puerto Rico|Ponce]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Knight |first=Franklin W. |date=May 1986 |title=Review of Benjamin Nistal-Moret, ''Esclavos prófugos y cimarrones: Puerto Rico, 1770–1870'' |journal=Hispanic American Historical Review |volume=66 |issue=2 |pages=381–382 |jstor=2515149}}</ref>

===== Martinique =====

In [[Martinique]], The escaped African slaves had fled to the Maroon settlement in the northern woods to escape the French plantation system as well as the overseers along with white settlers, during the [[French Revolution]], the [[Igbo people|Igbo]] slaves fought for freedom of which the [[National Convention|French National Convention]] abolished [[Law of 4 February 1794|slavery]] in 1794. But it was not until 1848, where the last slave uprising was occurred, which became the first French overseas territory to abolish slavery along with other French colonies.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}

==== Central America ====

===== Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua =====

Several different Maroon societies developed around the [[Gulf of Honduras]]. Some were found in the interior of modern-day [[Honduras]], along the trade routes by which [[silver]] mined on the Pacific side of the [[isthmus]] was carried by slaves down to coastal towns such as [[Trujillo, Honduras|Trujillo]] or [[Puerto Cortés|Puerto Caballos]] to be shipped to Europe. When slaves escaped, they went to the mountains for safety. In 1548, in what is now Honduras, slaves in San Pedro rebelled, led by a self-freed slave named Miguel, who set up his own capital. The Spaniards had to send in reinforcements to put down the revolt.<ref name="Franco1996"/>{{Rp|36}}

In 1648, the English bishop of Guatemala, [[Thomas Gage (priest)|Thomas Gage]], reported active bands of Maroons numbering in the hundreds along these routes. The [[Miskito Sambu]] were a Maroon group who formed from slaves who revolted on a Portuguese ship around 1640, wrecking the vessel on the coast of Honduras-Nicaragua and escaping into the interior. They intermarried with the Indigenous people over the next half-century. They eventually rose to leadership of the [[Mosquito Coast]] and led extensive slave raids against Spanish-held territories in the first half of the 18th century.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cwik |first=Christian |chapter=Displaced Minorities: The Wayuu and Miskito People |date=1 January 2019 |title=The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity |chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/76859732 |pages=1593–1609 |doi=10.1007/978-981-13-2898-5_117|isbn=978-981-13-2897-8 }}</ref>

The [[Garifuna people|Garifuna]] are descendants of Maroon communities that developed on the island of [[Saint Vincent and the Grenadines|Saint Vincent]]. They were deported to the coast of Honduras in 1797.<ref name="Roessingh2001" />

===== Panama =====

{{Main|Cimarron people (Panama)}}

[[Bayano]], a [[Mandinka people|Mandinka]] man who had been enslaved and taken to Panama in 1552, led a rebellion that year against the [[Viceroyalty of New Spain|Spanish]] in Panama. He and his followers escaped to found villages in the lowlands. Viceroy Canete felt unable to subdue these Maroons, so he offered them terms that entailed a recognition of their freedom, provided they refused to admit any newcomers and returned runaways to their owners.<ref name="Franco1996"/>{{Rp|41}}

Later these people, known as the ''[[Cimarron people (Panama)|Cimarrón]]'', assisted Sir [[Francis Drake]] in fighting against the Spanish.<ref name="Drake1" /><ref name="Drake2" />

==== Mexico ====

[[Gaspar Yanga]] was an African leader of a Maroon colony in the [[Veracruz]] highlands in what is now [[Mexico]]. It is believed Yanga had been a fugitive since the early 1570s, and was the leader of a formidable group of Maroons.<ref name="Davidson1996">{{Cite book|first=David|last=Davidson|chapter=Negro Slave Control and Resistance in Colonial Mexico, 1519–1650|editor-last=Price|editor-first=Richard|title=Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas|location=Baltimore|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|date=1996}}</ref>{{Rp|93–94}}

In 1609, Captain Pedro Gonzalo de Herrera lad an expedition against Yanga and his Maroons, but despite severe casualties on both sides, neither emerged the victor. Instead, Yanga negotiated with the Spanish colonists to establish a self-ruled Maroon settlement called San Lorenzo de los Negros (later renamed [[Yanga, Veracruz|Yanga]]). Yanga secured recognition of the freedom of his Maroons, and his ''[[Palenque (village)|palenque]]'' was accorded the status of a free town. In return, Yanga was required to return any further runaways to the Spanish colonial authorities.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Jimenez Roman |first1=Miriam |title=Africa's Legacy |url=http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/migrations/legacy/almmx.html |website=www.smithsonianeducation.org |access-date=21 December 2019}}</ref><ref name="Davidson1996"/>{{Rp|94–97}}

The [[Costa Chica of Guerrero]] and [[Costa Region|of Oaxaca]] include many hard-to-access areas that also provided refuge for slaves escaping Spanish ranches and estates on the Pacific coast.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Agorsalt |first=E. Kofi |title=Archaeology of Atlantic Africa and the African Diaspora |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-253-34919-4 |editor1-last=Ogundiran |editor1-first=Akinwumi |editor2-last=Falola |editor2-first=Toyin |location=Bloomington, Indiana |page=340 |oclc=87082740}}</ref> Evidence of these communities can be found in the [[Afro-Mexicans|Afro-Mexican]] population of the region.<ref name="ccvaughn">{{cite web |url= http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/1937-the-costa-chica-of-guerrero-and-oaxaca |title= Mexico's Black heritage: the Costa Chica of Guerrero and Oaxaca |first=Bobby |last=Vaughn |date= 1 September 1998 |publisher=Mexconnect newsletter |issn=1028-9089  |access-date=27 April 2012 }}</ref> Other Afro-Mexican communities descended from people who escaped slavery are found in Veracruz and in Northern Mexico; some of the later communities were populated by people who escaped slavery in the United States via the [[Underground Railroad#South to Florida and Mexico|Southern Underground Railroad]].<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Grant |first=Richard |date=July–August 2022 |title=The Southbound Underground Railroad Brought Thousands of Enslaved Americans to Mexico |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/southbound-underground-railroad-brought-thousands-enslaved-americans-mexico-180980328/ |magazine=Smithsonian Magazine |access-date=19 August 2022}}</ref>

==== United States ====
{{See also|List of freedmen's towns}}

===== Florida =====

{{Main|Black Seminoles}}

Maroons who escaped from the [[Thirteen Colonies]] and allied with [[Seminole Indians]] were one of the largest and most successful Maroon communities in what is now Florida due to more rights and freedoms extracted from the Spanish Empire. Some intermarried and were culturally Seminole; others maintained a more African culture. Descendants of those who were removed with the Seminole to [[Indian Territory]] in the 1830s are recognized as [[Black Seminoles]]. Many were formerly part of the [[Seminole Nation of Oklahoma]], but have been excluded since the late 20th century by new membership rules that require proving Native American descent from historic documents.<ref name="Jennison2012">{{cite book|author=Watson W. Jennison|title=Cultivating Race: The Expansion of Slavery in Georgia, 1750-1860|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ImNeFi-wt6IC&pg=PA132|date=18 January 2012|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|isbn=978-0-8131-4021-6|page=132}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Robertson |first1=Ray Von |title=Estelusti Marginality: A Qualitative Examination of the Black Seminole |journal=The Journal of Pan African Studies |date=2008 |volume=2 |issue=4 |pages=60, 65–69 |url=https://www.jpanafrican.org/docs/vol2no4/2.4_Estelusti_Marginality.pdf |access-date=6 April 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Robertson |first1=Ray Von |title=A Pan-Africanist Analysis of Black Seminole Perceptions of Racism, Discrimination, and Exclusion |journal=The Journal of Pan African Studies |date=2011 |volume=4 |issue=5 |pages=102–121 |url=https://www.jpanafrican.org/docs/vol4no5/4.5APan-Africanist.pdf |access-date=6 April 2024}}</ref>

===== Georgia =====
In the late 18th century, two Maroon settlements were established on Abercorn Island (then called Belleisle), situated upriver from [[Savannah, Georgia|Savannah]] along the [[Savannah River]], in modern-day [[Effingham County, Georgia|Effingham County]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Dawers |first=Bill |date=27 October 2022 |title=The story of the maroons is another gap in Savannah's history. Let's find ways to tell it. |url=https://www.savannahnow.com/story/opinion/2022/10/27/city-talk-history-savannah-georgia-maroon-communities-deserves-more-attention/10594799002/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240304175825/https://www.savannahnow.com/story/opinion/2022/10/27/city-talk-history-savannah-georgia-maroon-communities-deserves-more-attention/10594799002/ |archive-date=4 March 2024 |access-date=16 November 2024 |website=[[Savannah Morning News]] |publisher=[[Gannett]] |issn=1047-028X |oclc=51656980}}</ref> In 1787, these settlements were destroyed by a local militia.<ref name=":1" /> Afterwards, the Maroons established another settlement at Bear Creek, though this settlement was also raided and its leader was killed.<ref name=":1" />

===== Illinois =====

{{Main|Lakeview, Illinois}}

Lakeview was established as a [[Freedmen's town]] by a group of African-American [[Runaway Slave|runaway slaves]] and [[Freedman|freedmen]] who immigrated from [[North Carolina]] shortly after the [[War of 1812]]. They arrived between 1818 and 1820. This area was ideal for the remaining [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]] who lived, hunted, fished, and farmed this region and the black community integrated with the Amerindians.<ref>"Memories of Lakeview, Jewell Cofield, 1976</ref>

===== Louisiana =====

Until the mid-1760s, Maroon colonies lined the shores of [[Lake Borgne]], just downriver of [[New Orleans]], Louisiana. These escaped, enslaved people controlled many of the [[canal]]s and back-country passages from [[Lake Pontchartrain]] to [[Gulf of Mexico|the Gulf]], including the [[Rigolets]]. The San Malo community was a long-thriving autonomous community.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Monuments |first1=Paper |last2=Frisbie-Calder |first2=Pippin |last3=artist |last4=Hall |first4=Gwendolyn Midlo |last5=narrative |title=San Malo Maroons |url=https://neworleanshistorical.org/items/show/1403 |access-date=28 January 2023 |website=New Orleans Historical |language=en}}</ref> These colonies were eventually eradicated by militia from Spanish-controlled New Orleans led by [[Francisco Bouligny]]. [[Free people of color]] aided in their capture.<ref>{{cite book |last1 = Din |first1 = Gilbert C. |title = Spaniards, Planters, and enslaved people: The Spanish Regulation of Slavery in Louisiana, 1763–1803 |publisher = Texas A&M University Press |year = 1999 |isbn = 0-89096-904-3}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1 = Hall |first1 = Gwendolyn Midlo |author-link = Gwendolyn Midlo Hall |title = Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century |publisher = Louisiana State University Press |year = 1995 |isbn = 0-8071-1999-7}}</ref>

People who escaped enslavement in ante-bellum America continued to find refuge and freedom in rural Louisiana, including in areas around New Orleans.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Beaver |first1=Jessica |last2=Gillette |first2=Jessica |last3=Mason |first3=Kate |last4=O'Dwyer |first4=Kathryn |title=Maroons in Antebellum New Orleans: Independence at Any Cost - Stop 8 of 9 on the Urban Slavery and Everyday Resistance tour |url=https://neworleanshistorical.org/items/show/1371 |access-date=28 January 2023 |website=New Orleans Historical |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=More Than A Runaway: Maroons in Louisiana |url=https://www.wwno.org/podcast/tripod-new-orleans-at-300/2015-12-10/more-than-a-runaway-maroons-in-louisiana |access-date=28 January 2023 |website=WWNO |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Diouf |first=Sylviane A. |title=Slavery's Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons |date=2014 |publisher=NYU Press |jstor=j.ctt9qfc3r |isbn=978-0-8147-2437-8 }}{{pn|date=June 2025}}</ref>

===== North Carolina and Virginia =====

{{Main|Great Dismal Swamp maroons}}

The [[Great Dismal Swamp maroons]] inhabited the marshlands of the [[Great Dismal Swamp]] in [[Virginia]] and [[North Carolina]]. Although conditions were harsh, research suggests that thousands lived there between about 1700 and the 1860s.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Maris-Wolf |first1=Ted |title=Hidden in Plain Sight: Maroon Life and Labor in Virginia's Dismal Swamp |journal=Slavery & Abolition |date=September 2013 |volume=34 |issue=3 |pages=446–464 |doi=10.1080/0144039X.2012.734090 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=15 August 2017 |title=The Great Dismal Swamp |url=https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/great-dismal-swamp/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210121121204/https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/great-dismal-swamp/ |archive-date=21 January 2021 |access-date=22 May 2025 |website=99% Invisible |language=en-US}}</ref>

=== South America ===

==== Brazil ====

{{Main|Quilombo|Quilombola}}

One of the best-known ''[[quilombo]]s'' (Maroon settlements) in [[Brazil]] was [[Palmares (quilombo)|Palmares]] (the Palm Nation) near [[Recife]], which was established around 1600. ''Quilombo dos Palmares'' was a self-sustaining community of escaped slaves from the Portuguese settlements in Brazil, "a region perhaps the size of Portugal in the hinterland of Bahia". Part of the reason for the massive size of Palmares was due to its location at the median point between the Atlantic Ocean and Guinea, an important area of the [[African slave trade]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Braudel |first=Fernand |title=Civilization and Capitalism |date=1984 |volume=III |page=390 |chapter=The Perspective of the World}}</ref> At its height, it had a population of over 30,000 free people and was ruled by King [[Zumbi]].{{sfn|Kent|1996|p=185}}<ref name=":2">{{cite book|last=Décio|first=Freitas|title=Palmares: A Guerra dos Escravos|trans-title=Palmares: The Slave War|edition=4|language=pt-br|location=Rio de Janeiro, Brazil|publisher=Graal|date=1982|pages=123–132}}</ref> Zumbi and [[Ganga Zumba]] are the two best-known warrior-leaders of Palmares who fended off first [[Dutch Brazil|Dutch]] and then [[Colonial Brazil|Portuguese]] [[colonialism|colonial]] authorities.{{sfn|Kent|1996|pp=186–187}}

In 1612, the Portuguese tried in vain to take Palmares in an expedition that proved to be very costly.{{sfn|Kent|1996|p=175}} In 1640, a Dutch scouting mission found that the self-freed community of Palmares was spread over two settlements, with about 6,000 living in one location and another 5,000 in another. Dutch expeditions against Palmares in the 1640s were similarly unsuccessful.{{sfn|Kent|1996|pp=177–179}} Between 1672 and 1694, Palmares withstood, on average, one Portuguese expedition nearly every year.{{sfn|Kent|1996|p=172}}  After maintaining its independent existence for almost a hundred years, it was finally conquered by the Portuguese in 1694.{{sfn|Kent|1996|p=185}}<ref name=":2" />

Of the 10 major ''quilombos'' in colonial Brazil, seven were destroyed within two years of being formed. Four fell in the state of Bahia in 1632, 1636, 1646 and 1796. The other three met the same fate in Rio in 1650, Parahyba in 1731, and Piumhy in 1758.<ref>{{cite book|first=R. K.|last=Kent|chapter=Palmares: An African State in Brazil|title=Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas|editor-first=Richard|editor-last=Price|location=Baltimore, Maryland|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|date=1996|page=172}}</ref> One ''quilombo'' in Minas Gerais lasted from 1712–1719. Another, the "Carlota" of Mato Grosso, was wiped out after existing for 25 years, from 1770–1795.{{sfn|Kent|1996|p=172}} There were also a number of smaller ''quilombos''. The first reported ''quilombo'' was in 1575 in Bahia. Another ''quilombo'' in Bahia was reported at the start of the 17th century. Between 1737 and 1787, a small ''quilombo'' thrived in the vicinity of São Paulo.<ref>{{cite book|first=Roger|last=Bastide|chapter=The Other Quilombos|title=Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas|editor-first=Richard|editor-last=Price|location=Baltimore, Maryland|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|date=1996|pages=191–192}}</ref> The region of Campo Grande and São Francisco was often populated with ''quilombos''. In 1741, Jean Ferreira organised an expedition against a ''quilombo'', but many runaways escaped capture. In 1746, a subsequent expedition captured 120 members of the ''quilombo''. In 1752, an expedition led by Pere Marcos was attacked by ''quilombo'' fighters, resulting in significant loss of life.{{sfn|Bastide|1996|p=193}}

''Quilombos'' continued to form in the 19th century. In 1810, a ''quilombo'' was discovered at Linhares in the state of São Paulo. A decade later, another was found in Minas. In 1828, another ''quilombo'' was discovered at Cahuca, near Recife, and a year later an expedition was mounted against yet another at [[Corcovado]], near Rio de Janeiro. In 1855, the Maravilha ''quilombo'' in Amazonas was destroyed.{{sfn|Bastide|1996|p=195}} Numerous descendants of Quilombo residents, or [[Quilombola]]s, continue to live in historic quilombo settlements post-emancipation. Their status as a "[[Traditional peoples in Brazil|traditional people]]" was recognized in the [[Constitution of Brazil|1988 Constitution of Brazil]], although they continue to campaign for land rights and protections from violence.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}

==== Colombia ====
{{One source section
| date = May 2025
}}{{Main|San Basilio de Palenque}}

In 1529, in what is now Colombia, rebel slaves destroyed [[Santa Marta]].<ref name="Franco1996"/>{{Rp|35}} Escaped slaves established independent communities along the remote Pacific coast, outside of the reach of the colonial administration. At the start of the 17th century, a group of runaways had established a ''palenque'' on the outskirts of the [[Magdalena River]]. Eventually, in 1654, the governor of [[Cartagena de Indias|Cartegena de Indias]], Don Pedro Zapata, defeated and subdued this community of runaway Maroons.<ref name="Escalante1996">{{cite book|first=Aquiles|last=Escalante|chapter=Palenques in Colombia|editor-last=Price|editor-first=Richard|title=Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas|location=Baltimore|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|date=1996}}</ref>{{Rp|76–77}}

In what is now the district of [[Popayán Province|Popayán]], the ''palenque'' of Castillo was successfully established by runaway slaves. In 1732, the Spanish authorities tried to secure peace terms with the Maroons of Castillo by inserting a clause requiring them to return runaways, but the rulers of Castillo rejected those terms. In 1745, the colonial authorities defeated Castillo, and over 200 African and Indian runaways surrendered.<ref name="Escalante1996" />{{Rp|76}}

At the start of the 17th century, the Maroon community of [[San Basilio de Palenque]] was founded, when [[Benkos Biohó]] led a group of about 30 runaways into the forests, and defeated attempts to subdue them. Biohó declared himself King Benkos, and his ''palenque'' of San Basilio attracted large numbers of runaways to join his community. His Maroons defeated the first expedition sent against them, killing their leader Juan Gomez. The Spanish arrived at terms with Biohó, but later they captured him in 1619, accused him of plotting against the Spanish, and had him hanged. But runaways continued to escape to freedom in San Basilio.<ref name="Escalante1996" />{{Rp|79–80}}

In 1696, the colonial authorities subdued another rebellion in San Basilio de Palenque, and again between 1713 and 1717. Eventually, the Spanish agreed to peace terms with the ''palenque'' of San Basilio, and in 1772, this community of Maroons was included within the Mahates district, as long they no longer accepted any further runaways. The San Basilio community, where the creole [[Palenquero]] language is spoken, is one of several that still exist along the Caribbean coast.<ref name="Escalante1996" />{{Rp|79–80}}

==== Ecuador ====

{{Main|Afro-Ecuadorians#History}}

In addition to escaped slaves, survivors from [[shipwreck]]s formed independent communities along rivers of the northern coast and mingled with Indigenous communities in areas beyond the reach of the colonial administration. Separate communities can be distinguished from the ''cantones'' Cojimies y Tababuela, [[Esmeraldas Canton|Esmeraldas]], [[Limones, Chiriquí|Limones]].{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}

==== The Guianas ====

{{Main|History of Suriname#Slavery and emancipation}}[[File:Saramaka-1910.jpg|thumb|180px|[[Saramaka]] man, photo c. 1910]] [[File:Tropenmuseum Royal Tropical Institute Objectnumber 10024950 Portret van drie Marron mannen en een.jpg|thumb|upright|Maroon men in Suriname, picture taken between 1910 and 1935]]

Marronage was common in British, Dutch, and French Guiana, and today descendants of Maroons account for about 15% of the current population of Suriname<ref name="Kuipers2005"/> and 22% in French Guiana.<ref>{{Cite report |url=https://s24.q4cdn.com/382246808/files/doc_downloads/2021/06/French-Guiana-Maroons-June-7-2021.pdf |title=Maroons in French Guiana: History, culture, demographics, and socioeconomic development along the Maroni and Lawa Rivers  |last1=Bellardie |first1=Tristan |last2=Heemskerk |first2=Marieke |date=May 2019 |publisher=Newmont |location=Denver, Colorado}}</ref> In the Guianas, escaped slaves, locally known as '[[Bushinengue]]s', fled to the interior and joined with Indigenous peoples and created several independent tribes, among them the [[Saramaka]], the [[Paramakans|Paramaka]], the [[Ndyuka people|Ndyuka]] (Aukan), the [[Kwintis|Kwinti]], the [[Aluku|Aluku (Boni)]], and the [[Matawai people|Matawai]].<ref>
{{cite book|chapter=The Guianas|editor-last=Price|editor-first=Richard|title=Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas|location=Baltimore|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|date=1996}}</ref>{{Rp|295,}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Price |first=Richard |title=The Guiana Maroons: A Historical and Bibliographical Introduction |date=1976 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |isbn=0-8018-1840-0 |location=Baltimore, Maryland |oclc=2121443}}</ref>

In the plantation colony of [[Suriname]], which England ceded to the Netherlands in the [[Treaty of Breda (1667)]], escaped slaves revolted and started to build their villages from the end of the 17th century. As most of the plantations existed in the eastern part of the country, near the [[Commewijne River]] and [[Marowijne River]], the marronage took place along the river borders and sometimes across the borders of [[French Guiana]]. By 1740, the Maroons had formed clans and felt strong enough to challenge the Dutch colonists, forcing them to sign peace treaties. On 10 October 1760, the Ndyuka were the first to sign a peace treaty, drafted by former Jamaican slave Adyáko Benti Basiton of [[Boston, Suriname|Boston]], offering them territorial autonomy in 1760.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Ndyuka Treaty Of 1760: A Conversation with Granman Gazon |url=https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/ndyuka-treaty-1760-conversation-granman-gazon |access-date=21 July 2020 |website=Cultural Survival |date=28 April 2010 |language=nl}}</ref> In the 1770s, the Aluku also desired a peace treaty, but the [[Society of Suriname]] started a war against them,<ref>{{Cite web |date=1916 |title=Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch West-Indië - Page 154 - Boschnegers |url=https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/benj004ency01_01/benj004ency01_01.pdf |access-date=21 July 2020 |website=[[Digital Library for Dutch Literature]] |language=nl}}</ref> resulting in a flight into French Guiana.<ref>{{cite web |date=September 1989 |title=The Aluku and the Communes in French Guiana |url=https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/aluku-and-communes-french-guiana |access-date=21 July 2020 |website=Cultural Survival}}</ref> The other tribes signed peace treaties with the Surinamese government, the Kwinti being the last in 1887.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hoogbergen |first1=Wim |date=1992 |title=Origins of the Suriname Kwinti Maroons |journal=New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids |volume=66 |issue=1–2 |pages=27–59 |doi=10.1163/13822373-90002003 |doi-access=free}}</ref> On 25 May 1891 the Aluku officially became French citizens.<ref name="parc">{{cite web |title=Parcours La Source |url=http://www.parc-amazonien-guyane.fr/fr/download/file/fid/5438 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221231090332/https://www.parc-amazonien-guyane.fr/fr/download/file/fid/5438 |archive-date=31 December 2022 |access-date=1 June 2020 |website=Parc-Amazonien-Guyane |language=fr}}</ref>

After Suriname gained independence from the Netherlands, the old treaties with the Bushinengues were abrogated. By the 1980s the Bushinengues in [[Suriname]] had begun to fight for their land rights.<ref>[http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_172_ing.pdf Case of the Saramaka People v. Suriname, Judgment of November 28, 2007], Inter-American Court of Human Rights (''La Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos''), accessed 21 May 2009.</ref> Between 1986 and 1992,<ref name="peace">{{cite book |last=Boven |first=Karin M. |year=2006 |title=Overleven in een grensgebied: Veranderingsprocessen bij de Wayana in Suriname en Frans-Guyana - Page 207 |url=https://dspace.library.uu.nl/bitstream/handle/1874/15288/full.pdf |location=Amsterdam |publisher=Rozenberg Publishers}}</ref> the [[Surinamese Interior War]] was waged by the [[Jungle Commando]], a [[guerrilla warfare|guerrilla]] group fighting for the rights of the Maroon minority, against the military dictatorship of [[Dési Bouterse]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=French |first1=Howard W |title=To Suriname Refugees, Truce Means Betrayal |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/14/world/to-suriname-refugees-truce-means-betrayal.html |access-date=14 June 2018 |work=The New York Times |date=14 April 1991 |language=en}}</ref> In 2005, following a ruling by the [[Inter-American Court of Human Rights]], the Suriname government agreed to compensate survivors of the 1986 [[Moiwana]] village massacre, in which soldiers had slaughtered 39 unarmed Ndyuka people, mainly women and children.<ref name="Kuipers2005">{{cite news |last1=Kuipers |first1=Ank |title=Villagers return to site of 1986 Suriname massacre |url=https://www.forestpeoples.org/en/topics/legal-human-rights/publication/2010/villagers-return-site-1986-suriname-massacre |access-date=14 June 2018 |work=Forest Peoples Programme |agency=Reuters |date=30 November 2005}}</ref> On 13 June 2020, [[Ronnie Brunswijk]] was elected [[Vice President of Suriname]] by acclamation in an [[uncontested election]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://dwtonline.com/laatste-nieuws/2020/07/13/live-blog-verkiezing-president-en-vicepresident-suriname/|title=Live blog: Verkiezing president en vicepresident Suriname|website=De Ware Tijd|access-date=13 July 2020|language=nl|archive-date=15 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210115220444/http://dwtonline.com/laatste-nieuws/2020/07/13/live-blog-verkiezing-president-en-vicepresident-suriname/}}</ref> He was inaugurated on 16 July<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.waterkant.net/suriname/2020/07/12/inauguratie-nieuwe-president-van-suriname-op-onafhankelijkheidsplein/|title=Inauguratie nieuwe president van Suriname op Onafhankelijkheidsplein|website=Waterkant|access-date=13 July 2020|language=nl}}</ref> as the first Maroon in Suriname to serve as vice president.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://dwtonline.com/laatste-nieuws/2020/07/12/marronorganisaties-blij-met-brunswijk-als-vp-kandidaat/|title=Marronorganisaties blij met Brunswijk als vp-kandidaat|website=De Ware Tijd|access-date=13 July 2020|language=nl|archive-date=24 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201124121655/http://dwtonline.com/laatste-nieuws/2020/07/12/marronorganisaties-blij-met-brunswijk-als-vp-kandidaat/}}</ref>

In modern-day [[Guyana]], Dutch officials in 1744 conducted an expedition against encampments of at least 300 Maroons in the Northwest district of [[Essequibo (colony)|Essequibo]]. The Dutch nailed severed hands of Maroons killed in the expedition to posts in the colony as a warning to other slaves.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Thompson |first=Alvin O. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/49332819 |title=Maroons of Guyana: Some Problems of Slave Desertion in Guyana, {{circa|1750–1814}} |date=1999 |publisher=Free Press |isbn=976-8178-03-5 |location=Georgetown, Guyana |pages=15, 21 |oclc=49332819}}</ref> In 1782, a French official in the region estimated there were more than 2,000 Maroons in the vicinity of [[Berbice]], [[Demerara]], and Essequibo.{{sfn|Thompson|1976|p=16}}

==== Venezuela ====
{{One source section
| date = May 2025
}}{{Main|Afro-Venezuelans#History}}

There were a number of rebellions of slaves throughout the history of what later became Venezuela.<ref name="Franco1996"/>{{Rp|37}} Through the region of [[Barlovento, Venezuela|Barlovento]], many free and escaped slaves founded communities, known as ''cumbes''. One of the most well-known of these settlements is [[Curiepe]], where the annual [[Saint John's Eve|Fiesta de San Juan]] is celebrated. Another was the ''cumbe'' of Ocoyta, led by runaway Guillermo Ribas, which reportedly engaged in a number of attacks on the neighbouring towns of [[Chuspa]] and [[Panaquire]]. These Venezuelan Maroons also traded in cocoa. Guillermo ran away in 1768, and formed a ''cumbe'' which included runaways of African and Indian origin.<ref name="Acosta1996">{{cite book|first=Miguel|last=Acosta Saignes|chapter=Life in a Venezuelan Cumbe|editor-last=Price|editor-first=Richard|title=Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas|location=Baltimore|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|date=1996}}</ref>{{Rp|65–67}}

The ''cumbe'' of Ocoyta was eventually destroyed in 1771. A military expedition led by German de Aguilera destroyed the settlement, killing Guillermo, but only succeeded in capturing eight adults and two children. The rest of the runaways withdrew into the surrounding forests, where they remained at large.<ref name="Acosta1996" />{{Rp|64–65}} One of Guillermo's deputies, Ubaldo the Englishman, whose christened name was Jose Eduardo de la Luz Perera, was initially born a slave in London, sold to a ship captain, and took a number of trips before eventually being granted his freedom. He was one of a number of free black people who joined the community of Ocoyta. In 1772, he was captured by the Spanish authorities.<ref name="Acosta1996" />{{Rp|70–71}}

There were many ''cumbes'' in the interior of the colony. In 1810, when the [[Venezuelan War of Independence|War of Independence]] began, many members of these ''cumbes'' fought on the side of the rebels, and abandoned their villages.<ref name="Acosta1996" />{{Rp|72–73}}

== See also ==

{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
* [[Slave catcher]]
* [[Slave rebellion]]
* [[Afro-Latin American]]: [[Latin Americans]] of significant or mainly African ancestry.
* [[Black Seminoles]]: Indians associated with the [[Seminole]] people in Florida and Oklahoma.
* [[Bushinengue]]s: in [[French Guiana]], meaning people of the forest, descendants of slaves who escaped enslavement and established independent communities in the forest.
* [[Gaspar Yanga]]: an African known for being the leader of a Maroon colony of slaves in New Spain.
* [[Saramaka]]: one of six Maroon peoples in the Republic of Suriname and one of the Maroon peoples in French Guiana.
* [[Jamaican Maroons]]: one of the few countries where Maroon communities still exist.
* ''[[Quilombo (film)|Quilombo]]'' a 1985 film about Quilombo dos Palmares, a fugitive community of escaped slaves and others, in colonial Brazil.
* [[Jean Dugain]]
{{div col end|2}}

{{Clear}}

== References ==

{{Reflist}}

== Sources ==

=== Literature ===

*[https://archive.org/details/historyofmaroons02dalliala/page/n8?q=%22halifax%2C+Nova+Scotia%22 History of the Maroons]
* [[Russell Banks]] (1980), ''The Book of Jamaica''.
* Campbell, Mavis Christine (1988), ''The Maroons of Jamaica, 1655–1796: a history of resistance, collaboration & betrayal'', Granby, Mass.: Bergin & Garvey. {{ISBN|0-89789-148-1}}
* Corzo, Gabino La Rosa (2003), ''Runaway Slave Settlements in Cuba: Resistance and Repression'' (translated by Mary Todd), Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. {{ISBN|0-8078-2803-3}}
* [[Robert Charles Dallas|Dallas, R. C.]] ''The History of the Maroons, from Their Origin to the Establishment of Their Chief Tribe at Sierra Leone''. 2 vols. London: Longman. 1803.
* De Granada, Germán (1970), ''Cimarronismo, palenques y Hablas "Criollas" en Hispanoamérica'' Instituto Caro y Cuero, Santa Fe de Bogotá, Colombia, [http://worldcat.org/oclc/37821053 OCLC 37821053] (in Spanish)
* Diouf, Sylviane A. (2014), ''Slavery's Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons'', New York: NYU Press, {{ISBN|978-0-8147-2437-8}}
* Honychurch, Lennox (1995), ''The Dominica Story'', London: Macmillan. {{ISBN|0-333-62776-8}} (Includes extensive chapters on the Maroons of Dominica)
* Hoogbergen, Wim S. M. Brill (1997), ''The Boni Maroon Wars in Suriname'', Academic Publishers. {{ISBN|90-04-09303-6}}
* Learning, Hugo Prosper (1995), ''Hidden Americans: Maroons of Virginia and the Carolinas'' Garland Publishing, New York, {{ISBN|0-8153-1543-0}}
* Price, Richard (ed.) (1973), ''Maroon Societies: rebel slave communities in the Americas'', Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books. {{ISBN|0-385-06508-6}}
*Schwaller, Robert, ed. ''African Maroons in Sixteenth-Century Panama: A History in Documents.'' University of Oklahoma Press, 2021.
* Thompson, Alvin O. (2006), ''Flight to Freedom: African runaways and maroons in the Americas'' University of West Indies Press, Kingston, Jamaica, {{ISBN|976-640-180-2}}
*{{cite book |last1=Thompson |first1=Alvin O. |title=Some Problems of Slave Desertion in Guyana, C. 1750-1814 |date=1976 |publisher=Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies |page=16 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mJm4AAAAIAAJ&q=%222,000%20Maroons%22%20%22French%20official%22}}
* van Velzen, H.U.E. Thoden and van Wetering, Wilhelmina (2004), ''In the Shadow of the Oracle: Religion as Politics in a Suriname Maroon Society'', Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press. {{ISBN|1-57766-323-3}}

== External links ==

{{Commons category|Maroons}}
* {{cite web|author=Chaglar, Alkan |website=toplumpostasi.net |url=http://www.toplumpostasi.net/index.php/cat/9/col/85/art/1008/PageName/English |title=The World of Surinam |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928061031/http://www.toplumpostasi.net/index.php/cat/9/col/85/art/1008/PageName/English |archive-date=28 September 2007}} (The Maroons, Hindustanis and others of Surinam.)
* {{cite web|url=http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/ethnoatlas/hmar/cult_dir/culture.7834 |title=Society-BUSH-NEGROES: Culture summary |author=Lagace, Robert O. |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140312212555/http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/ethnoatlas/hmar/cult_dir/culture.7834 |archive-date=12 March 2014 }} A good short history of the "Bush Negroes" of Suriname.
* {{cite web|url=http://www.kingbotho.com/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040421170257/http://kingbotho.com/ |url-status=usurped |archive-date=21 April 2004 |website=Kingbotho|author=Mosis, André |title= Articles on Suriname Maroons and their culture in Dutch and English}}
* {{cite news|url=http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Maroon+culture+of+endurance.-a08929661 |title=The Maroon Culture of Endurance |author=Reidell, Helen Reidell|work=Américas |volume= 42|date= January–February 1990|pages=46–49}} (A history of Jamaican Maroons.)
* {{cite web|website=Smithsonian|url=http://www.folklife.si.edu/resources/maroon/presentation.htm|title=Creativity and Resistance: Maroon Cultures in the Americas|author=Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) in collaboration with the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, with the support of the Special Exhibition Fund of the Smithsonian Institution|date=March 1999}}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.folkways.si.edu/music-from-aluku-maroon-sounds-of-struggle-solace-and-survival/world/album/smithsonian |title=Music from Aluku: Maroon Sounds of Struggle, Solace, and Survival|website=Smithsonian Folkways|author=Various artists}}
*[https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/portchester-castle/history-and-stories/black-prisoners-at-portchester/ ''Black Prisoners of War at Porchester Castle'']
*[https://amazonteam.org/maps/lands-of-freedom ''Lands of Freedom: the oral histories and cultural heritage of the Matawai Maroons in Suriname'']
{{Maroons}}{{African diaspora}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Maroons (people)| ]]<!--leave the empty space as standard-->
[[Category:16th century in the Colony of Santo Domingo]]
[[Category:People of African descent]]
[[Category:Ethnic groups in the Caribbean]]
[[Category:Ethnic groups in Haiti]]
[[Category:Ethnic groups in South America]]
[[Category:Ethnic groups in Suriname]]
[[Category:People from Saint-Domingue| ]]
[[Category:People from the Colony of Santo Domingo]]
[[Category:Pre-emancipation African-American history]]
[[Category:Fugitive American slaves]]