African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
509 p., Presents a diverse, richly textured picture of Africans' experiences during the era of the Atlantic slave trade and offers the most comprehensive explanation of how African lives became entangled with the creation of the modern world. Includes Emmanuel Kofi Agorsah's "Scars of brutality : archaeology of the Maroons in the Caribbean."
Investigates the Islamic heritage of the Maroon societies in Jamaica and the Islamic nature of the Baptist Rebellion which brought an end to slavery in Jamaica and in the British West Indies. The Maroons are the enslaved Muslims who took flight or ran away from plantations in Jamaica. An overview of the African diaspora in the Americas, including Jamaica and the West Indies is presented. The strong Islamic faith of the Maroons are manifested in their use of Qur'anic terms, Islamic salutation, Islamic governance, Muslim names and Islamic actions.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
224 p., Marronage - the process of flight by slaves from servitude to establish their own hegemonies in inhospitable or wild territories - had its beginnings in the early 1500s in Hispaniola, the first European settlement in the New World. As fictional personae the maroons continue to weave in and out of oral and literary tales as central and ancient characters of Jamaica's heritage. Identifies the place of Jamaican fiction in the larger regional literature and focuses on its essential themes and strategies of discourse for conveying these themes.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
319 p., Africans in Jamaica developed and exhibited a multiplicity of cultural identities and a complex set of relationships amongst themselves, reflective of their varied cultural, political, social, and physical origins. In the context of late-18th and early-19th century Buff Bay, Jamaica, most Africans were enslaved by whites to serve as laborers on plantations. However, a smaller group of Africans emerged from enslavement on plantations to form their own autonomous Maroon communities, alongside the plantation context and within the system of slavery. These two groups, enslaved Africans and Maroons, had a very complex set of relationship and identities that were fluid and constantly negotiated within the Jamaican slave society that was in turn hostile to both groups.
Traditional Maroon culture was, however, determined to be in need of safeguarding and protection because of several factors. Chief among these was the fact that transmission of traditional knowledge from elders to younger generations was not taking place on the scale it was used to and the fact that migration patterns saw large numbers of Maroon youth leaving the traditional sites of settlements. In response, UNESCO was petitioned to assist in safeguarding traditional Maroon culture in Jamaica, in particular, that of the Maroons of Moore Town, who were deemed to be the most remote. In November 2003, UNESCO declared the Maroon Heritage of Moore Town as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. This action facilitated the implementation of measures geared toward documenting, for posterity, traditional Maroon cuisine, language, the Kromanti play and the craftsmanship associated with the creation of tools and implements such as their unique Prentin drum, fishpots, spears and the abeng.
