Maroons

In some parts of Java, when a man marries a second or third wife, he is obliged to hold an ignited brand in his hand, on which the bride pours water from a vase to extinguish it.

Among the Maroons living in the mountains of Jamaica, when a girl was of an age fitted for a wife, her parents killed a hog and made a feast, to which their neighbors were invited, and which was intended to give an opportunity to the young men to make an offer for the maiden.

The marriage was attended with no religious or judicial ceremonies, the consent of the woman to live with the man being all that was required.

That being obtained, gifts of clothes and trinkets were made to the bride, and frequently the bridegroom received presents of hogs, fowls, and other things from the relations of the bride, to whom, however, they were to be returned in the case of a separation.

Their information was as bad as it could be.

The waste of hill and forest that lay on either side of the road from Panama to Nombre de Dios was occupied by a savage black people whom the Spaniards called Cimarrones, a word our seamen corrupted into Maroons.

Eighty years ago a number of African slaves had been driven by the cruelty of their masters to take to the woods, and having found favour in the eyes of the Indian women, they had now grown into two great tribes whose terrible mission it was to rob and kill and torture every Spaniard on whom they could lay their hands.

Filled with the savage cruelty natural to so mongrel a race, possessed of a splendid physique and alarmingly prolific, they were dreaded and treated by the Spaniards like wild beasts.

The town on whose sleepy security the success of the expedition depended would be all on the alert, and without shame Drake might well have reconsidered his determination.

But for him the news was but a reason for immediate action on the chance that the troops had not yet arrived from Panama.

With that remarkable foresight which always seemed to temper his rashest moods he set the negroes ashore, trusting they would find their way to the Maroons with a good report of his kindness, and at the same time made rapid preparations to reach Nombre de Dios before they could report his presence on the coast in case they were so minded.

It was arranged that the three ships and the caravel were to lie hidden amongst the pine islands under Rance, while Drake himself made the attempt with the three pinnaces and the shallop.

These two places are in two different continents miles apart, and yet at the end of the 18th century, many descendants of enslaved people in Jamaica were deported and ended up in Sierra Leone, joining the community of Christians founded by pastors like David George.

Yes, I read they were called the Maroons.

Why is that?

It comes from a Portuguese word, seramara, meaning wild or fugitive, because they escaped from slavery.

When he went into that job, um, followed Wayne, but he, he certainly had a l- he was probably as well-credentialed as anyone who's followed Wayne ever has been.

Hey, can I ask you about, on Wayne as well, uh, I don't know how true this is, I read it the other week, saying that, um, Souths had given Wayne permission if he wants to coach the Maroons.

Is there truth to that?

Yeah, Wayne said, um, he would never let them down, but I don't think he's got huge appetite for the job.

So I'm sure if it gets to the point where Queensland wanna talk to him and he wants to do the job, we'll sit down and work out and make it work.

It'd be a fair get for Queensland if they could get it.

You know, as a New South Welshman, that's probably one person I'd go, "Please don't coach the Maroons."

[laughs]

Well, first of

all, I want to thank my friends at Austin High, the Maroons.

Hung in there late.

They lost, but they covered the spread.

The new press box and the Westwood quarterback's dad used to be, what Brad Smith used to be, the quarterback of Missouri.

So, pretty good quarterback and must have been an exciting game.

But sadly, the Maroons went down, but...

I'm a winner, and you are a

I think they might have mentioned it in the movie, but, you know, kind of like one of the big things that happened where there was... right before the Haitian Revolution, there were so many slaves that had run off into the hills.

I think they were called the Maroons, actually, which is, that might be in South America, though.

Either the Maroons or actually the Browns or whatever.

And they just had their, you know, societies up there in the hill away from the plantations of the French or whatever.

And basically they, you know, were getting ready for revolution had a big voodoo ceremony apparently on the night before the revolution and from that point on you know the french were saying stuff like yeah they were made a pact with the devil to get their country and all this other kind of stuff um and things have never been really great in haiti uh because as soon as you know the power shifted they There was really no alleviation of just general human suffering there, especially with the plantation system just continued on.