Wilson on Performance, Freedom and Maroons

Click Image for Credit

Wilson, Kathleen. “The Performance of Freedom: Maroons and the Colonial Order in Eighteenth-Century Jamaica and the Atlantic Sound.” The William and Mary Quarterly 66, no. 1 (January 2009). http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/wm/66.1/wilson.html

First paragraph steal:

“In 1764 Edward Long witnessed an extraordinary performance. It exuded all the drama and flair of any production at Drury Lane or Covent Garden, yet it took place in Montego Bay, near the cockpits and defiles of western Jamaica, and the performers were Leeward Maroons. They had been at peace with the British government since 1739 and along with the Windward Maroons had proven to be adept if not wholly reliable allies in official efforts to capture runaway slaves. But now, in honor of the annual visit of Governor Henry Lyttelton, the performers from the Maroon village of Trelawny Town showed off the physical and military prowess that had made the Maroons the dread of the British colonial state…”

Read the rest at the History Cooperative (sub only)

Join the Discussion

Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s