The Queen Nanny of the Maroons.

The Akan woman from Ghana who ended up as freedom fighter and heroine in jamaica

The Queen Nanny of the Maroons.

She was a former slave stolen the akan people of Ghana brought to Jamaica during the late 1700s. Maroons escaped slaves who formed their own independent settlements. Nanny and her 4 brothers, who were Maroon leaders, escaped their plantation and hid in the mountains and jungles in Jamaica. They created a village in the Blue Mountains where they took slaves after they raided numerous plantations. Nanny is credited to freeing over 1,000 slaves.

Nanny of the Maroons was a warrior, healer, and spiritual leader who led escaped enslaved Africans in Jamaica in the 1700s. She built independent maroon communities and waged guerrilla warfare against the British, winning a treaty that granted her people freedom.

Her legend says she could catch bullets with her bare hands and that she used African spiritual practices to protect her people.

Queen Nanny was the leader of the Jamaican Maroons, a community of formerly enslaved Africans who fought the British for their freedom.

As a child, Nanny was kidnapped from Ghana and enslaved in Jamaica. She escaped, joining other formerly enslaved people who sought refuge in the island’s Blue Mountain region. By 1720, thanks to her exceptional leadership and military skills, she’d become head of the Maroon settlement. That year she began to train her people in guerilla warfare.

Queen Nanny led the Maroons into dozens of successful battles, freeing over 800 enslaved people. Her clever strategies allowed the Maroons to catch the heavily armed British by surprise and decimate their numbers.

By 1740, the British were forced to sign a peace treaty with the Maroons, guaranteeing their freedom. In 1975, the government of Jamaica declared Queen Nanny a National Heroine and awarded her the title of “Right Excellent” for her strength and courage. Her portrait appears on the $500 Jamaican dollar

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Note : Maroon in Latin means wolf. The Spanish called these free slaves “Maroons,” a word derived from “Cimarron,” which means “fierce” or “unruly.”

‘Maroon’ aka Moors

Not the brownish-red colour

That colour of spilt blood

Marron – French

Mawon – Haitian Creole

Maroon – English

All 3 Translates to…

“runaway black slave’

Wherever Africans were enslaved

runaways who escaped permanently

lived in free independent settlements.

These people and their descendants are known as… “Maroons”

Queen Nanny of the maroons

18th century Jamaican freedom fighter

Personified – what it is to be a Maroon

Fought the wicked colonisers

Colonises thought they were wiser

Wiser than our resistance

Resistance for our freedom

Freedom for us to be free

Labelled as terrorists

And yes, they terrorised

Terrorised the brutal European trespassers

Trespassed over our freedom

Freedom fighting warriors

Strategic military opponents

Masters of guerrilla warfare

Impossible to beat in battle

Guaranteed prolonged successful resistance

Resistance to this very day

To Our brave Ancestors

We give thanks and praise

To the most high In the sky

The supreme All Mighty

Olodumare Almighty

Jah – Rastafari