publicly executed by the French in 1758, he and
his army killed up to 6,000 whites during what
the Maroons consider his divinely inspired reign.
In fact, the creation of present-day Haiti (and
the end of chattel enslavement on the island) was
the result of another Maroon uprising led by
Boukman, anotherVodunpriest who, on August
14, 1791, organized a traditional Vodun cere-
mony in Bois Caiman in the northern mountains
of Hispaniola. During this ritual meeting—which
was conducted under a rainy, overcast sky—the
congregants commenced lamenting their treat-
ment at the hands of the whites who continued
to hunt them like animals. Their frustration and
righteous indignation began to cascade like the
rain from above. Legend has it that the spirit of
the Lwa possessed a woman in the crowd, moving
her to slit the throat of a pig and distribute its
blood to all in attendance. At that time they made
a blood pact to exterminate all the whites on the
island colony.
A week later, on August 22, 1791, the northern
Maroons set their plan in motion and killed all
whites whom they encountered, setting fire to
many of the plantations on the island. Boukman
would meet his demise when the French captured
and beheaded him. In an effort to convince the
Africans of their mortality, the French displayed
his head on the square of Cap Français (modern-
day Cap Haitien), but by this time the die was
cast. The Maroons were undaunted. The Haitian
Revolution was on.
Toussaint L’Ouverture soon entered the histori-
cal stage. With his military and tactical genius—
from 1791 until 1800—he pitted the French,
Spanish, and British against each other. By 1801,
his European opponents had been vanquished,
and he held the reins of power, becoming the self-
appointed governor of Saint-Domingue (Haiti).
Alarmed to no end, Napoleon Bonaparte sent
82,000 of his finest French troops, armed to the
teeth—with guns, canons, dogs, and other sundry
munitions—to the now autonomous French
colony, which had drawn up its own constitution
that abolished slaveholding.
The two armies fought to a draw; however,
the French acted in bad faith and arrested
Toussaint during a meeting in June 1802, after
which Dessalines became the new leader of the
Revolution. L’Ouverture was exiled to France,
where he died in April 1803, within a year of
reaching the frigid Alpine mountain city of
Jura. However, his memory lives on, and the
Hatian Revolution is arguably the most com-
pelling grounds for belief in the otherworldly
power of the Maroons.Contemporary Communities
Many of the Maroon communities are now
extinct, but several continue to exist. Most
notable are the Saramacca, the Surinamese
Maroons, who have singularly managed to remain
politically and culturally viable and self-controlled
from 1690 to the present. Some other celebrated
Maroon communities/leaders were Bayono of
Panama, Yanga of Mexico, Benkos Bioho of
Colombia, Bondi of Suriname, and John Horse
of the southern United States and Mexico.
It is widely believed that the Maroon spirit has
sustained African people’s willingness and ability
to resist and revolt against all forms of oppres-
sion, then and now.Pamela D. ReedSeealsoBois CaimanFurther Readings
Corzo, G. L. (2003).Runaway Slave Settlements in
Cuba:Resistance and Repression(Mary Todd,
Trans.). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press.
Gottlieb, C. (2000).The Mother of Us All:A History of
Queen Nanny,Leader of the Windward Jamaican
Maroons. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.
Hilliard, A. G. (1995). TheMaroon Within Us:Selected
Essays on African American Community
Socialization. Baltimore, MD: Black Press.
Hoogbergen, W. S. M. (1997).The Boni Maroon Wars in
Suriname. Leiden, Netherlands, & New York: E. J. Brill.
Learning, H. P. (1995).Hidden Americans:Maroons of
Virginia and the Carolinas. New York: Garland.
Navarrete, M. C. (2003).Cimarrones y Palenques en el
Siglo XVII. Cali, Colombia: Universidad del Valle.
Price, R. (Ed.). (1973).Maroon Societies:Rebel Slave
Communities in the Americas. Garden City, NY:
Anchor Books.408 Maroon Communities