I Am Maroon! (1995)

The wild Maroons, impregnable and free,

Among the mountain-holds of liberty,

Sudden as lightning darted on their foe,

Seen like the flash, remembered like the blow.

Many have asked me why I call myself "Maroon." Most have never heard of a name like this but suspect that it has some meaning outside of a color associated with the dark reds. I had adopted the name Harun Abdul Ra'uf in 1972. In 1977, I escaped from the State Prison in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. I lived off the land for twenty-seven days while trying to evade scores of state police, prison personnel, FBI agents, and local police and volunteers. I had cause to reflect on and gain courage from all of the freedom fighters I'd read about and this did much to guide and reinforce my determination to succeed.

However, I was recaptured and on my return to prison, a friend mentioned that he had kept up with the search through the press. After a while he said, "They were chasing you like a maroon!" "Harun" (Ha-roon) sounds like "maroon" and he started calling me "Maroon." From that time on the nickname stuck.

I knew very little about the maroons at that time. I certainly did not know that their hundreds of years of struggle totally annihilate the commonly held view that our Afrikan ancestors (by and large) did not fight tenaciously, heroically, and brilliantly against their slave owners!

Historically, "maroon" came to be used as a generic term for slaves who became fugitives from their owners in North and South America and the Caribbean Islands. You have (what I consider) two types of maroons: "treaty maroons" and "fighting maroons." Treaty maroons are those who, after militarily defeating the Spanish in Mexico, the Dutch in Suriname (South America), and the British in Jamaica, succumbed to collaborating with their former enemies — similar to the way many later North American "reservation" Indian tribes did, such as those who helped kill Chief Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, or subsequently ran Geronimo to ground, who had fought against other Native Americans for either the French or British in their ongoing struggle to control the Americas.

The treaty maroons fell victim to their own lack of a comprehensive "pan-African" world-view, which caused them to settle for their own freedom from slavery, not recognizing that until all Africans were free, all remained in peril from those bent on subjugating them.

The "fighting maroons" were fugitive slaves "of iron will, nurtured in survival tactics; cruel, courageous, resourceful and scornful of danger." Fighting maroons began their struggles from the first years of landing in the Americas. They had established the "Republic of the Palmares" in northern Brazil as early as 1595. For two hundred or more years, fighting maroons used and perfected guerrilla warfare to defeat the best armies that the European powers could field against them.

Theirs was a struggle that was no less than heroic! They broke their shackles; took to the woods or swamps or mountains; found, took, or grew their own provisions while simultaneously fighting and defeating their former slave masters. The efforts of these men, women and children cannot be matched in world history. Their struggle was only eclipsed by that of revolutionary Haiti (1791-1804). There, the revolutionary slaves and their maroon allies had a clearer idea of how to consolidate and extend the gains they had won on the battlefield.

Among this group of illustrious fighters, a few names stand out for honorable mention:

The legendary "Granny Nanny" of eighteenth-century Jamaica is variously recognized as a female guerrilla leader, guerrilla spiritual leader (Obia or Obeah), a freedom fighter who has a town named in her honor in the maroons' "liberated territory." There may have been more than one Nanny (of note). At this time in Jamaica, Nanny is looked upon as a national hero.

Zumbi dos Palmares and his maroon community of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Brazil deserve special praise. The republic of the Palmares was forged and maintained for over a century by African slaves and their allies among the Indians and anti-colonial whites bent on having their freedom or death! From 1595 to 1659, through twenty-seven major wars with the Dutch and Portuguese colonialists, the maroons maintained their liberty. Against all odds, they never gave in, preferring death in battle or suicide to a life in slavery. To this day, November 20 is commemorated in Brazil to honor Zumbi dos Palmares.

The redoubtable Makandal of prerevolutionary Haiti is recognized as spending ten years of his maroon experience organizing an island-wide conspiracy, designed to free all of the island's slaves. Descending on the slave owners' plantations and towns, he held their lives and property in the balance while he recruited, organized, and trained a secret cadre for the planned uprising. He was betrayed before he could launch the revolt.

His efforts were not in vain. Two of those who followed, Jean-François and Biassou, carried their own, and other maroon communities into the front ranks of the Haitian revolution (1791-1804). Both of these fighters and their comrades were among the first leaders, even before Toussaint L'Ouverture, Dessalines, and Henri Christophe. They provided heroic and invaluable service to the Haitian people's determination to be free.

There were "fighting maroons" throughout South and Central America in countries like Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Guyana, Suriname, and Brazil. For hundreds of years, they honed their fighting skills to the point where they were unbeatable on the battlefield!

It is certain that maroon communities existed in what is now the United States. However, most scholars either are unaware of them or feel that it's not worth mentioning. Herbert Aptheker is a rare exception with his American Negro Slave Revolts and a number of other writings...