The History of the Maroons, from their origin to the establishment of their chief tribe at Sierra Leone: including the expedition to Cuba ... and the state of the island of Jamaica for the last ten years, with a succinct history of the island previous to that period

Front matter

ZimJtcap* A- E.s, Ztttw ■: IkiMUkl$jbr Zosf/tSmmti <fc #„, April S.rfo*. THE HISTORY OF THE MAROONS, FROM THEIR ORIGIN TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THEIR CHIEF TRIBE AT SIERRA LEONE : INCLUDING THE EXPEDITION TO CUBA, FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROCURING SPANISH CHASSEURS; AND THE STATE OF THE ISLAND OF JAMAICA FOR TUI LAST TEN YEARS: "WITH A SUCCINCT HISTORY OF THE ISLAND PKEVIOUS TO THAT PERIOD. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. By R. C. DALLAS, Esq. LONDON: PRINTED BY A. STRAHAN, PRINTERS-STREET, FOR T. N. LONCMAN ANB O. REES, P ATfcRNOSTER-ROW, I803.

Preface

. A he magnitude of the objects which have engaged the attention of the world during the last thirteen years ; the revolu tion of empires, the destruction of states, the extinction of whole classes of men, the alteration of established customs, the sacri fice of millions of lives, the general con vulsions throughout the earth, the terrific though unavailing ambition of groveling upstarts, the unnatural policy and feeble efforts of the most powerful governments, the wonderful exploits of British arms in every quarter of the globe ; the return of France to absolute authority, and the extraordinary feats and good fortune of the man who, big with the intent of Cæsar croffing the Rubicon at the head of the flower of the Roman armies, crossed the Mediter' Tanean without a soldier, and seized upon the empire ; have accustomed the minds of men to gigantic contemplations.

We have Vol. I. a seen i seen a pious and beneficent monarch perish on a scaffold ; another, virtuous, ardent, and heroic, publicly assassinated; a third, privately put to death ; a fourth and fifth, chased from their capitals ; and a sovereign Pontiff torn from St. Peter's chair, hurried into foreign lands, and dying in captivity ; a Queen, bereft of her crown, thrust in tatters into a common jail amongst the vilest of criminals, kept awhile alive on the sorriest food, and at last, with an heroic firmness becoming a Queen, yielding her life to the public instrument of execution. We have seen a chain of opposed armies extending from the north to the south of Europe ; the navy of a small island blockading all the ports of all the maritime powers ; a Ruffian issuing from his frozen region, chafing victorious armies before him through Italy, and scowering the Alps; and an Englishman blowing up navies, one after the other, beneath the line and at the pole ; in fine, we have seen all the passions in a tempest, and nature herself struggling against the chaos which threatened her very existence.

But the contemplation of stupendous objects, far from disqualifying the the mind for the relish of less extensive views, heightens its satisfaction in them, as the eye, after poring over the unbounded expanse of the ocean, is relieved and de lighted by a streamlet and a dell. Encou raged by this reflexion, I undertook, at the request of a friend, to write the history of a short war, carried on by the government in Jamaica, against the body of black people called Maroons, long established in the in terior of that island ; a subject I the more readily adopted, not only on account of its uncommon nature, but because the result of the contest was of great importance to the colony. My task, however, would have been very brief and incomplete, had I con fined myself to the events of the war ; a war in which ambition, aggrandizement, and the usual incentives to hostility, had no part ; but which originated in private re sentment on one side, and was prosecuted on the other from the necessity of settling the internal security of the country : I have, therefore, thought it proper to extend my plan, by including in it the whole his tory of the Maroons, the expedition to Cuba for the purpose of obtaining Spanish a 2 chasseurs, chasseurs, and an account of the state of Jamaica since the French revolution, by which I hope the whole subject has been placed in a clearer and more interesting light.

When I fay that it is of an uncommon nature, I am not ignorant of the notice that was taken of it in parliament, nor of the account given by Mr. Edwards ; but it does not appear to have been understood or detailed. Far be it from me to speak lightly of the works of Mr. Edwards ; I shall only observe here, that I have been able to derive little or no assistance from the cursory narrative published by him in the year 1796. Consulting it, as incumbent upon me, I found very few of the particu lars which I purposed to detail ; and saw, with some pain, that in those few, my in formation did not concur with his : a circumstance that renders it doubly necessary for me to state the authorities on which the following pages are founded. The gentle man, to whom I have dedicated the work, and who was indeed the friend that sug gested it, is the chief source of my information ; V ation ; an authority that will have full weight when it is known that he served in the Maroon war ; that he was the commissioner sent to Cuba for the Spanish chasseurs; and afterwards the commissary entrusted with the removal of the Maroons from Jamaica to Nova Scotia, where he remained some time with them ; that he has a considerable property in Jamaica, where he was a member of the House of Assembly at the time of the war, and is now a member of the Council.

The conversations I had with this gentleman, convinced me that the subject would be highly interesting to the public ; and I found it a duty, as well as a pleasure, to comply with his desire. To make myself master of the subject, I not only repeatedly talked with him upon it, but I requested and obtained copious notes ; and I wrote the greater part of the book while we were under the fame roof. The notes were so full, that I wished him to arrange and publish them under his own name ; but to this he was averse, and I therefore undertook the task. While, however, I fortify myself with his authority and friend ship, I must not leave him exposed to any a 3 censure VI censure sor my defects or opinions. For the language, observations, and reasonings 1 have to answer ; though, of the two last, I own I have adopted much from him.

Mr. Quarrell was indeed but too scrupulously anxious not to be personally made promi nent : he requested, where it was necessary to speak of him, to be mentioned as com missioner or agent, and forced me to draw my pen through passages which he thought complimentary, and some of which, since his departure from England, I have resto red. After the manuscript was sent to the press, it was my good fortune to be intro duced to Mr. Robertson, who had just arrived from Jamaica for the purpose of publishing the highly finished maps of that island, which he had completed under the patronage of the Assembly of the country. These maps are now in the hands of the engraver, Mr. Neil, and are acknowledged by all acquainted with Ja maica, to whom they have been shown, to be not only of very superior execution, but of striking accuracy.

I had been furnished by by Mr. Quarrell with a small sketch of the seat of the last Maroon war, which he had himself penciled from imagination : this I showed to Mr. Robertson, who was highly pleased with the powers of recollection it displayed; but, having minutely surveyed the spot, as will be seen on his large maps, he kindly undertook to draw a precise plan of it, with which my readers cannot but be highly gratified. Nor is this the only obligation I am under to Mr. Robertson ; who, having served as an officer in the Ma roon war, enabled me to extend my detail of the events in which he personally shared, and who also favoured me with a journal written by Dr. Tate, of the last expedition into the woods with the Spanish chasseurs, which terminated the war. Clear and certain as are these sources, I have not confined myself to them, but have always had recourse to the acts of the Le gislature, and to the journals of the House of Assembly for whatever they contain relative to my subject.

If any passage implies information that could be gained only from the Maroons themselves, let it be remema 4 bered, bered, that for more than two years the commissary who went with them to Hali fax in Nova Scotia, had frequent opportunities of conversing with them, of observing their character, and of judging of the truth of their assertions. If I have not caught the zeal of Edwards, in painting these people as tygers ; if I own that I have read of more savage casts, and that I have known some distinguished by complexions less dingy, more barbarous ; and if I allow them the portion of desert which appears to me their due ; I trust I shall not there fore be misunderstood, and proclaimed the apologist of their rebellion : my opinion respecting it is fully stated at the conclusion of the fifth letter.

Having formerly resided some years in the island of Jamaica, the subjects of this work are far from being new to me : and, with the assistance that has been afforded me, I flatter myself that I may, with confidence, lay it before the public. It is of the execution alone I am diffident. The reader, who has been accus tomed to the pure diction of a Robertson, and the energytic style of a Gibbon, be comes nice in the language of history ; whoever whoever pretends to tread their paths, should remember their powers, and fully weigh his own : therefore, although my task is of an historical nature, I was ready to persuade myself that it was one that did not require all the dignity of history, and I was glad to take shelter under the ease and familiarity of epistolary writing. To render the work complete, I have prefixed a general history of Jamaica, previous to the period of the French revolution ; and I have thrown into an appendix, such papers as I thought necessary for elucida tion.

The succinct account of Jamaica prior to the revolution it was my intention to have compiled from the best authorities, while the body of the work was going through the press; but, being visited by Providence with an affliction that suspended my application, and rendered me for a con siderable time unable to pursue my work, I requested a friend, to whose sympathy and kind attentions I am indebted for much consolation, to undertake the previous his tory. He has composed it with a spirit that is only equalled by the ardour of his kindness. X kindness. To give a general knowledge of the country to which the subjects of these volumes relate, was the object in view ; and this he has accomplished at once so concisely yet so completely, so elegantly yet so simply, that I am highly gratified in thinking the reader will have gained by my having transferred the composition of it to the pen of Mr. Cutting*.

There is something in the explanatory nature of a preface which occasionally calls upon a writer to mention himself to the reader : this is expected, and for this he is forgiven. But I have in the body of the work been led to admit a pas sage which, though totally irrelevant, my feelings would not allow me to separate from the points relative to my subject. I allude to a letter, which will be found in the following pages, and which I received from the Bishop of Meaux, in answer to one I wrote to him respecting the propa gation of Christianity among the negroes by the French missionaries. I was too much gratified with the beginning of his * John Browne Cutting Esq. of Boston, in America. letter letter to omit it ; but, though I am sensible of the egotism, I will not beg pardon of my readers, lest I soould happen to offend by an affectation of extenuating what a feeling mind may think stands in no need of par don.

Proud of the friendsoip of the Bisoop of Meaux, I wisoed much to speak of him in my preface, and to express the sentiments with which he has inspired me ; but he has forbidden me to indulge the wiso : *• If you mention these circumstances," fays he, " speak little of me, except to make it known that I am your friend ; give me no other praise :" thus delicately gratifying my feelings, while he souns even the legitimate enjoyment of a tribute due to him. In obeying his injunction, how ever, I have a delight in observing, that the letter itself displays the spirit and character of the writer more forcibly than could the warmest language of my pen. It is well known to my friends, that I early professed my abhorrence of the cruelties attendant upon the state of slavery, and of slavery itself, as it appeared to me in my youth.

Lest the tendency of my sentiments in in these tolumes soould expose me to the charge of inconsistency, I beg leave to observe, that it is not my opinions but things that are changed ; I am still an ene my to cruelty. Previous to the French revolution, I was an enthusiast for freedom, but I very soon after learned to substitute the words happiness and order, for liberty and right. The former are unequivocal and proceed from God ; the latter are ambi guous, and too often become mgans in the hands of the devil and his agents. Throughout the work, but particularly in the last part of it, umbrage may possibly be taken by some men who will meet passages and facts, of which they will deem the ex posure a kind of sacrilege. Truth and general good, not individual interests, are the objects I have in view ; but, in stating errors, in exposing injurious practices, in soowing where a large community is made unwarrantably subservient to personal ag grandisement, I declare that I make no par-;. ticular allusion, and am swayed by no motives but thole which soould sway every man who takes the pen into his hand.

That 4 the HMULJJ* I .n.,,n-,i tJhi Man-it ?«.j4p.i the faithful history I have written may be gratifying to the public ; that the circum stantial account I have given of the Maroon wars may be of use in preventing similar disasters, by turning the minds of the colonists to the interior security of their country, and to a thorough knowledge of the relations and government of the various classes of its inhabitants ; and that the display of the state of the ifland of Jamaica, while in most instances it gratifies, may in others lead to reflexion, and conduce to the general improvement of its morals, religion and happiness, are the objects of my book, and the sincere wisoes of my heart. A SUCCINCT HISTORY O F JAMAICA. Jamaica, or, as the early Spaniso histo rians wrote it, Xaymaca, (signifying the land of springs,) is a link belonging to that chain of islands, which, under the denomi nation of the West Indies, extends from the soore of Florida north, to the mouths of the Oronoko south.

It is situated in the Atlan tic ocean, about four thousand miles south west of England. At the distance of thirty leagues to the north, lies the island of Cuba. About the same distance to the east, is His paniola ; to the west, the Gulph of Hon duras ; and to the south, Carthagena, on the great continent of South America, distant one hundred and forty-five leagues. 9 Th~ The centre of Jamaica lies in about 1 8° il' north latitude, and in longitude about 760 45'. west from London ; it measures in length one hundred and fifty miles ; and in breadth not quite one-third of its length. It was discovered by the great Columbus during his second voyage to the new world, on the 2d of May 1494. The day follow ing, he landed and took possession of it, after an inconsiderable conflict with the natives, whom he soon found means to conciliate.

From this period, the condition of the island and its inhabitants for nine years is totally unknown. Afterwards indeed, its illustrious discoverer, taking refuge in it from a storm, remained during a whole year on its soores. Christopher Columbus pursuing his last voyage to Hispaniola, en countered such tempestuous weather off Cuba, as compelled him, on the 24th of June 1503, to seek soelter in one of the small harbours on the north side of Jamaica. This harbour still retains the name of Chris topher's Cove. But he did not escape this tempest without loss ; two vessels, out of a small squadron consisting but of four, perisoed at sea ; and those with which he escaped, escaped, were on examination found to be irreparably damaged. It is foreign to the design of this sketch, to give a detailed account of the adventures, sufferings, and fortitude of this extraordinary man.

In this exigency, his courage and sagacity had full scope for exercise : he invented means of safety, and combined materials for escape ; by the superior force of a firm, in genious, and contriving mind, he extricated himself from an isolated and hazardous state ; undepressed by the detestable con duct of the Governor of Hispaniola, who refused to succour him ; unsubdued by the pressure of hunger and sickness ; undis •mayed by the revolt of his own followers, or the defection of the natives. Overcom ing obstacles that seemed almost insuperable, after a year of fatigue, adversity, and exile, he effected his escape from Jamaica. It is painful, however, to relate, that his priva tions and efforts during this period, height ened by the ingratitude of the Spaniso monarch, put an end to his life soon after his ensuing return to Europe.

But death could not extinguiso his renown, or tarniso the lustre of his achievements. Vol. L b Not ) Not many years after his decease, his eldest son Diego, the intrepid heir of his fortunes, being deprived of his rights, and defrauded or despoiled of his property by the baseness of Ferdinand, instituted a suit for the recovery of both, before the council for the Indies at Seville. It is to the ho nor of this tribunal, that he obtained a decision against the sovereign. His interests were furthermore strengthened soon after, by a marriage with the niece of Frederic the Great Duke of Alva. " Diego Colum bus, thus fortified by law and alliance, un dertook a voyage to enforce his claims in the West Indies ; and, in the month of July 1508, he arrived with a splendid retinue in the island of Hispaniola.

But soon after his arrival, it was discovered that the king had not only parcelled out into two distinct governments all the conti nent which had been discovered by his fa ther; but that Jamaica also was specially annexed to those separate jurisdictions. It was destined to be a place of refresoment for the crews of vessels passing between Europe and the West Indies : but Diego, deeming such a grant of the island invalid, and and a direct violation of his right, vigO' roufly pursued measures to resist or elude it. He asserted his claim to Jamaica. In the month of November 1509, he detached thither seventy men under the command of Juan de Esquivel ; a gallant soldier and an honourable man. Among other de monstrations of Esquivel's clement temper and generous disposition, a signal instance is related of his conduct towards Ojeda.

This haughty Spaniard had been invested by Ferdinand with authority in one of the governments before mentioned. When Es quivel was proceeding to Jamaica, Ojeda, then in Hispaniola, publicly threatened, that if he found him on that island when he returned from the continent, he would hang him up as a rebel. But his own voyage proved extremely disastrous, and terminated in soipwreck on the inhospita ble coast of Cuba. Escaping the sea, he found himself in danger of perisoing on soore. In this state of dejection and jeo pardy, recollecting that Esquivel was in Jamaica, he contrived to apprize him of his distress ; and implored his succour. Esquivel afforded it effectually, and withb 2 out XX out hesitation. He sent an officer of rank to conduct him from Cuba to Jamaica. There he received him with tenderness, treated him with distinction, and dismissed him with honour.

It is pleasing to learn, that Ojeda appreciated this generous con duct, and was ever after truly grateful to his benefactor. Under the sway of a chief thus humane and placable, it may be presumed, that the natives of Jamaica scarcely felt the yoke of foreign subjection. Accordingly, we are informed by a Spaniso historian of credit, that " the affairs of Ja maica went on prosperously, because Juan de Esquivel having brought the natives to submission without any effusion of blood, they laboured in planting cotton, and rais ing other commodities, which yielded great prosit." It is to be regretted, that such r. leader survived but a few years. He died in his government, and was buried at Sevilla Nueva, a town which he had founded. Succeeding governors refusing to profit from the mild wisdom of his policy, seemed rather rather to vie in cruelty with the Spaniso governors of Hispaniola, who were now desolating that island.

The galling yoke and iron minds of the several Spaniso go vernors who succeeded each other after the death of Esquivel, irritated the meek Indians, and provoked and perpetuated hostility. Carnage stained the land ; destruction pur sued the wretched natives: they were sub dued by the superior discipline and tactics of the European race. This gentle and harmless people, emigrated anciently from the great hive of the Mexican empire. It is believed by Sir Walter Raleigh, that they belonged to the Arrowauk tribe, which in his time inhabited Guiana ; to whose noble qualities, honourable testimony is borne by every traveller, who after visiting the nation has recorded his observations. The number of native Indians, who on the first arrival of Co lumbus inhabited Hispaniola, Cuba, Porto- Rico and Jamaica,, amounted to more than two millions.

In mind, body, manners, and habits, and particularly in respect of their food, this race differed from that of rtleir in veterate foe the fierce and warlike Charaibes, who were cannibals. Both men and wob 3 men men in Cuba, Hispaniola, and Jamaica^ wore a slight covering of cotton cloth round the waist. Tall in stature, slender in person, round in face, of a clear brown complexion, their hair strait and black, and their eyes streaming with good nature, they exhibited an honest countenance, coarse but not gloomy, enlivened by confidence, and softened by lenity. Their limbs and muscles were less robust than pliant ; and when in motion by dancing or other exercise, were alternately nimble, graceful, or voluptuous. Possessing the means, in a fertile soil and genial climate, of gratifying every inclination with light labour; love was the source of their pleasure, and the chief business of their lives.

In many of their customs and' institutions, particularly in their national songs and dances, their domestic economy, their system of government, and their funeral ceremonies, they resembled the natives of the South Sea islands. But they exceeded them in those inventions and arts, which varying the enjoyments, augment the value of life. In agriculture, they were greatly superior to the Otaheiteans : possessing with them almost ) most every variety of vegetable nature, the breadfruit excepted, they raised the maize and the maniock in abundance ; and had the skill to water their lands from distant rivers. They made excellent cloth from their cotton ; and practised the art of dying it with colours brilliant and beautiful. Among their domestic utensils and furniture, Martyr speaks with admiration of earthen ware ornamented With accurate images of living animals, chairs of ebony beautifully wrought, curiously woven beds, and ingenious implements of husoandry.

The industry and ingenuity of this race, must have exceeded the measure of their wants. Placed in a medium between savage life, properly so called, and the refinement of polisoed society, they were perhaps equally exempt from the bodily distresses and sanguinary paffions of the former con dition, and from the artificial necessities, restraints, and solicitudes of the latter. But whether such was or was not their condi tion, they were , unquestionably the most unoffending, gentle, and benevolent of the human race ; and the history of man kind affords no scene of barbarity similar to b 4 that that which was exercised in exterminating this innocent and inoffensive people. Notwithstanding such destruction of the natives, and the state of hostility that en sued after the death of Esquivel, it appears that in 1523, Francis De Garay, the Spa niso governor of Jamaica, fitted out an expedition for the conquest of Panuco, ignorant that it had already been conquered and annexed to the other continental pos sessions of Spain.

This squadron consisted of nine ships and two brigantines, on which Were embarked 850 Spaniards, a body of Jamaica Indians, and 144 horses. Such a force detached from this island, at the end of thirteen years only after the Spaniards had settled in it, demonstrates its progres sive culture and new population. The town of Sevilla Nueva before-mentioned, was built on the scite of the Indian village Maima, contiguous to the port now called St. Ann's harbour. It probably soon at tained some consideration. Its importance at some period, may be inferred from the vestiges of a Spaniso cathedral and monas tery, discovered or examined by Sloane in the the year 1688. It is also indicated by a pavement, that was discovered, reaching to the distance of two miles from the church. Sloane, who at that time carefully exa mined the west gate of this cathedral, then entire, and likewise certain building materials of wrought stone, manifestly prepared for some other edifice that was not erected, entertained an opinion that these buildings had not been finisoed.

A tradition still prevails in the island, that the inhabitants of Sevilla were at some period suddenly and entirely cut off by the natives. It is certain, that from some adequate cause, now disputed or unknown, it did not gradually decay, but was depopulated suddenly, while in an unfinisoed state, long before the Engliso conquest of Jamaica. The calamity which it is supposed desolated Sevilla Nueva, extended to Melilla, a small village situated about eleven leagues to the eastward of the former, at the harbour now called Port Maria. The fate of these places caused the establisoment of St. Jago de la Vega, or, as it is now called, Spaniso Town. The foundation of this town was laid by Diego Columbus himself, who upon the departure departure of Garay in 1523, went thither to suppress a revolt of the Indians, and assumed the government of Jamaica.

Twenty years after the death of Diego, it furnisoed the title of Marquis to his Ion and heir: he received it in the year 1545, from the emperor Charles the V. and with it a grant of the whole island in perpetual sovereignty, as an hereditary fief of the crown of Castile. The property of this grant afterwards, by failure of male issue, became vested in Isabella, only daughter of Diego Columbus. She became sole heiress of the Columbus family, and by' intermar rying with Count de Gelver, conveyed all her rights to the house of Braganza. By the revolution in 1640, which placed John Duke of Braganza on the throne of Portu gal, those rights reverted by forfeiture to the crown of Spain. This successful strug gle of the Portuguese, after many families of their nation had settled in Jamaica, under the patronage of de Gelver and the Bra ganza's, probably excited that jealousy and hatred of the Spaniso settlers towards the Portuguese, mentioned by Blome, who says the ) the old settlers abhorred the new. , It was perhaps owing to such a soarp dissention among the inhabitants, that in 1596, when Sir Anthony Shirley invaded the island, he met with but slight resistance, and plundered the capital with impunity.

About forty years afterwards, it was again invaded by a force from the Windward Islands under Colonel Jackson ; who, although he pil laged St. Jago de la Vega and carried off his booty, met a much stouter resistance than Shirley formerly encountered. We now approach the period, when, during the protectorate of Cromwell, Jamaica was captured by the Engliso forces in May 1655. The war of extermination which the Spaniards had begun to wage against the wretched natives, has already been alluded : it was prosecuted with unrelenting perseverance. The extent of the havoc is less known by the details of history, than by melancholy tradition confirmed by modern discoveries. To this day, in the mountains of Jamaica caves are discovered in which human bones cover the ground : and the sculls being preternaturally ) turally compressed, it is evident they belonged to skeletons of the Indian race.

Shut up in these recesses when driven from the coast, multitudes of the natives doubtless perisoed by famine, to evade the edge of the sword. Of this devoted people, con fisting of at least 60,000 souls, who were found and destroyed by the Spaniards in Jamaica, not a single descendant existed in 1655, when Venables and Penn landed on the island. The Spaniards had now possessed Jamaica a century and a half; yet at that time, not more than " fifteen hundred white inhabitants (fays Penn in his examination before the protector's council) were found on it." Not one hun dredth-part of the land fit for planting was cultivated. A number of slaves had been introduced soon after the deplorable extinc tion of the natives ; but the sloth of both masters and slaves when the Engliso landed, was extreme.