Chapter VIII: The Maroons (2)

That night there was a riotous scene. Lord Balcarres, we are told, having slipped on a plank made slippery by the rain had “a contusion over the eye,” if he hadn't been a lord and the Governor it would have been a black eye, and it might well have been attributed to another cause. But it did not add to his beauty, and the soldiers rushing into the camp wild with delight at having escaped, made such an uproar that only the Governor could cope with it. The night, indeed, was disgraceful to both sides, for the Maroons, instead of following up their very great success, retired to their town and recruited their spirits with such copious draughts of rum as made them “frantic and desperate.” Sixty of them by their own account lay in a state of insensibility till two o'clock the next day, when with the assistance of the women and the less intoxicated men they were removed to the cockpits of Petit River. Had the troops gone up that morning, more than a fourth of the young Maroon men must have fallen into their hands.

“It is much to be regretted,” says Dallas, who wrote within seven years of the catastrophe, and at least must have known something of the general talk, “that the panic by which the troops were hurried away to headquarters prevented their occupying the site of the Old Town after they were in possession of it, and might have maintained it without resistance. The immediate encamping there would not only have saved the lives of many who died of their wounds, or through fatigue, but would have left on the minds of the Maroons an impression that even their defiles were not to be depended on; whereas abandoning the town was giving them a triumph and confirming their reliance on their position.”

In this disastrous affair there fell Colonel Sandford of the dragoons, Colonel Gallimore of the militia, fifteen dragoons, thirteen militia, eight volunteers and not a single Maroon. No wonder they celebrated a victory. It is to the credit of the Maroons that none of the wounded were taken and put to torture, but most died where they fell or crawled into the woods and died for want of the help that was not forthcoming, although they were within so short a distance of the town on the seashore below, and close to so many pens and plantations. Colonel Gallimore's body was never found, and though the Maroons yielded up watches, knives, pencils, and other things from the dead and wounded, nothing of his was ever forthcoming. So it is thought he must have been wounded and crawling away, favoured by the coming darkness, have found some retreat where he died for want of care. Dallas says he was a brave, active man much beloved, but he was never seen again, and the dense woodlands of the cockpits have never so far as I know yielded up their secrets.

Things could not be left so. It was resolved to surround the scene of action, and they called up reinforcements, 100 men from the 62nd Regiment, a detachment of the 17th Light Dragoons and large bodies of militia. The soldiers could and did get at the provision grounds and destroy them, though all round they could hear the weird blowing of the Maroon horns, mournful, threatening, even triumphant and defiant. They were not beaten, they were not going to be beaten, said those horns. “Wait till we get you!” and then the angry soldiers fired into the gullies at random, and the mountains echoed and re-echoed to the noise of the discharge, and the Maroons were not a penny the worse, for even the destruction of their provision grounds did not worry them over much. They knew where to get fresh supplies.

And it rained and rained and rained. In these mountains where it is lush and green and the vegetation grows riotously, there is sometimes as much as 30 inches of rain in a month. All the paths were slimy and slippery, every overhanging branch held a heavy shower-bath, the men were soaked to their skins again and again, laying the foundation as everyone believed of all the deadly fevers with which the country was credited.

The only comfort they had was that things were a little disturbing to the enemy too, for hidden in the bush the attacking party found various trunks containing articles of linen and plate, the result of raids on the plantations, and many of the dragoons up here in the rain furnished themselves with chintz nightgowns. I like that last touch. Yet all the time the Maroons were so close in the jungle they could hear the orders given but did not attack, because they feared the white men were too far in to run away and were in such numbers they, the Maroons, could not escape if driven to bay.

But having conceded so much to the valour of the white men, they did pretty much as they pleased, even passing the soldiers camped at Vaughansfield at eleven o'clock one night and burning the buildings on a pen only six miles away on the road to Montego Bay. There was consternation in Montego Bay and thankfulness, that at least headquarters was between the town and the dreaded enemy. The raid quickened up the preparations, they dragged guns up the steep and slippery defiles that converged upon the Old Town, found no Maroons there, though round in the mountains the horns were calling defiance, and they recovered the bodies of Colonel Sandford and eighteen of those who had fallen with him.

Lord Balcarres grew tired of this unprofitable warfare and went back to Montego Bay, and, extraordinary as it seems now, they put a price on the heads of Palmer and Parkinson, the men who had been sent back to tell the other Maroons what had happened to the thirty-seven men who had come in, for they said these men had instigated the rebellion. But that these two always denied. They always maintained that when the Maroons heard what had happened to their messengers of peace, each man of his own accord set fire to his house, determined to die rather than come in.

And so bitter were they, not unnaturally, that a captain of Accompong Maroons, who had gone by a secret path to persuade them to surrender, was promptly shot because they feared he knew too much about the approaches to their strongholds.

The great mistake probably lay in bringing in soldiers who could know nothing of the difficulties of the country. There must have been many stalwart young men, in fact we know there were, who were expert hunters and woodsmen and fully competent to deal with such an enemy. The difficulty was the leader. Brave men were a drug in the market, a clever leader almost impossible to find. Counsels were always divided. A soldier fresh from Europe or from the parade ground clearly was not the right man, but it always ended in a soldier being chosen.

When Lord Balcarres gave up a command which did not seem likely to cover him with glory, he handed it over to Colonel Fitch, and General Reid came and occupied the quarters at Vaughansfield with detachments of militia from the St James, Hanover and Westmoreland regiments. They marched and they counter-marched, and the militia quarrelled with the regulars and they both consumed an immense amount of ammunition and food, but came no nearer to getting those Maroons. And still it rained and the militia grew sick of the fruitless job, declared they had work on their plantations that must be attended to--the companies were relieved every fortnight, and it grew more and more difficult to collect men to take their place. And Colonel Fitch with the aid of slaves set about the clearing of the country as well as he was able, but it was a job that is not finished yet, so he only got a little done, and the Maroons used to come into the hills above his quarters and call him, and at last he responded to their call and they told him they only wanted a free pardon and a promise that they should not be sent from the island. This seemed to him reasonable enough and he promised to do what he could for them, and allowed two of them to go on a safe conduct to visit their friends imprisoned at Montego Bay.

It was a wrong move. The Governor, dreading lest the Maroons should raid the little town, had had the prisoners moved to a vessel in the bay for their better security, and the men returned reporting that they were in a ship and were evidently going to be taken away. From that time no more Maroons visited Colonel Fitch; they were prepared to die for their freedom.

But in true barbaric fashion they saw to it that a goodly company should attend them across the river. Colonel Fitch, preparatory to an assault, set gangs of slaves to clear the ground with companies of militia to guard them, and the Maroons laid an ambush and killed ten of the slaves and six of the militia, so that I presume clearing away undergrowth was popular neither with soldiers nor bondsmen. This certainly set the slaves against the Maroons. The militia were already as hostile as was possible.

I cannot say too often it was an awful country. There was a certain Captain Lee who commanded an advance post set in the dense jungle and fenced by high palisades, and he complained that from the hillsides above the Maroons could shoot into it, and he asked Colonel Fitch to move it. Accordingly Colonel Fitch, bent on seeing things for himself, with Colonel Jackson and several other officers, and accompanied by two Accompong Maroons went to inspect. The Accompongs did not like the job. They declared the Maroons were too close, and pointed out where they had thrown away the heads of wild cocos and eddoes, broad-leaved plants, and the leaves were not yet withered. But the white men, with incredible folly which perhaps does them credit, were unwilling to go back before they had accomplished something, and, persuading Colonel Fitch to allow them to go ahead, Colonel Jackson and one or two others went on, still accompanied by the unwilling Accompongs, and followed slowly by the Commanding Officer till they came to a place where the road forked. They were descending now so steep a declivity that they could only go one at a time, holding on by their hands. Then history repeated itself. There was a tremendous volley of small arms, an officer named Brisset was seen staggering among the bushes, both the Accompongs fell dead, and Colonel Jackson ran back on ground lower than the path. We can see him stooping low to escape possible shots, taking all advantage he could of the cover till he came back to Colonel Fitch, seated on a fallen tree, his arm supported by a projecting stump and his head resting on his hand. Once more the Maroons had got the Commander-in-Chief. The blood was trickling from the middle of his waistcoat, and the short red and brown striped linen jacket which he wore stuck out behind “as if a rib had been broken.” Such was Colonel Jackson's description. He was mortally wounded. Jackson caught his hand.

“It is Jackson, your friend Jackson. Look at me,” and he drew out a dagger, saying that he should not fall alive into the hands of the Maroons and he would die with him rather than leave him. Remember, they all feared torture. The dying man turned his face towards his friend (he was at peace with all men now, even with the Maroons) and looked at him kindly, though he was past speech, and then Jackson heard the cocking of guns, click, click, click, one after another, horribly close, and called to the soldiers to lie down, and tried to drag his friend down beside him. But Fitch resisted, turning his head as if he too would have spoken to the men, and so, though little harm was done to the men who had obeyed the order promptly, their dying leader was shot again through the forehead and there was no need for Jackson to consider his condition any longer.

It was a great victory for the Maroons. Several of the party were killed and many more wounded, among them the Captain Lee, who had come in because his little palisaded fort was hardly tenable. Colonel Jackson collected the men from Lee's post and took them all back to Colonel Fitch's quarters, where one died the next morning and Captain Lee a day or two later. Eight altogether were killed and seven wounded, but none were more regretted than Colonel Fitch. We are told he was tall and graceful, and a charming young man.

“He threw around his hut,” says Dallas, using the language of the time, “a certain elegance that bespoke the gentleman. His private virtues endeared him to his friends to whom his death was a deep wound.”

Great was the consternation in Jamaica, for riot was let loose in the mountains. Seventy men were dead and twenty-three were wounded. Listen to the tale of rapine. Brook's House was burnt; Schaw Castle was burnt; Bandon was burnt; Shand's was burnt; Stephen and Bernard's House was burnt; Kenmure was burnt and twelve negroes carried away. Darliston trash-house was burnt; Catadupa, Lapland, and Mocha were burnt and two negroes carried away. There is a little block-house of stone on Lapland with loopholes in the walls, a most substantial place, but the roof has not been on in the memory of anyone living, and I wondered very much whether this was the Lapland that was burnt by the Maroons; and we passed by Mocha, connected by an aerial rope railway on which were slung cars that descended with bananas to the country below. All these steep hillsides are flourishing fields of bananas now. Catadupa is lovely as its name, and there are one or two cottages there in which winter visitors may stay, revelling in a climate where the days are delightful, the nights gorgeous, and the mornings and evenings divine.

Those freebooters did well. Not a man of them is known to have suffered. No wonder the colony was roused to a simmer of excitement. I wonder--as probably some of the colonists wondered--why the slaves did not rise in a body, join these men of their own colour and make a bold bid for freedom.

General Walpole was put in command, and he began entirely different tactics. He taught his men to take cover as the Maroons did, so that there are accounts of actions in which a great deal of powder was expended and no man was killed on either side, and he began to clear the country round the mountains, but as for trying to keep the Maroons penned in he knew better. “It would have been just as feasible as to pen pigeons in a meadow.” He employed working negroes under cover of strong advanced parties to clear the heights that surrounded his camp, the approaches to the Maroon defile, and an eminence near to his headquarters, which almost looked into a cockpit. And always he kept the soldiers on the move, harrying the Maroons successfully on the whole, but once a sergeant and ten men took a wrong turning, a thing easy enough to do in the mountains, and got into the Maroon defile, and presently the men who were waiting for that sergeant to bring them some more ammunition heard heavy firing, and not one man returned to tell the tale.

And the soldiers kept clearing the country, and the Maroons kept breaking out in unexpected places, and raiding “like wild creatures of the forest, they found issues at every point.”

Still General Walpole had high hopes. The dry season would come with the winter months, and where he knew there was a spring he could get at, he mounted a howitzer and threw shells into the cockpit just beyond it. And some of the springs go dry in the dry season, and it was not likely the Maroons were thrifty and conserved water. Though the rains in the mountains are plenteous in their season, I have myself seen the people come miles from that cockpit country with kerosene tins upon their heads to get water from the nearest spring which happened to be upon the Hyde.

They did object to General Walpole. “Dam dat little buckra,” said the Maroons, “he cunning more dan dem toder. Dis here da new fashion for fight. Him fire him big ball a'ter we an' wen de big ball top de dam sunting fire we agen. Come boys, make we go take farer an' see wha he do den?”

And they did go farther and were driven out again. But the soldiers had to be fed, and one day the Maroons surprised a convoy of provisions, captured the ten soldiers guarding it, and cut off their heads, and always they raided the negro provision grounds whether the slave owners liked it or not, and kept themselves well supplied. The soldiers were doing better, but the Maroons were still a thorn in their side, and the war threatened to be long and prolonged, which was bad for the prestige of the white people if nothing else. For nearly five months this body of untrained negroes had defied the military force of the island.

The Governor called a council at Falmouth, a town on the north coast, twenty miles from Montego Bay--a very despondent council--and it was actually proposed, to the wrath of General Walpole, to send into the woods some of the Maroon chiefs confined at Montego Bay, men who had been confined in irons, as ambassadors to persuade the rebels to make peace!

Falmouth is not a town that attracts me, though it has a fine situation right at the sea-shore just beyond the mouth of the Martha Brae, and it is reminiscent of the days of long ago. The houses without verandahs, without even a creeper over their bare white walls, in streets without the vestige of a tree, look hot with the tropical sun pouring down upon them, but it was an important place in those times, for it has a harbour into which quite big ships may come, and those houses to which I objected are all mahogany floored with mahogany and mahoe panelling against the walls, truly the houses of rich people. In the courthouse, where probably they held this meeting, for it is one of the largest houses in the town, the mahogany flooring is simply magnificent, and kept with a shining polish that could not well be excelled in any great house in London or New York, while from the ceiling hang most splendid chandeliers of cut glass. They hold balls in that room occasionally, and then they light those chandeliers, and all the thousand and one facets of the cut glass reflect the light back on to the dark, highly polished flooring, and the deep dark flooring reflects it back again, and the girls of Trelawny and St James have as magnificent a setting for their youth and beauty in this remote corner of the Empire as ever have girls in London Town. And here, more than a hundred years ago, the Governor of the colony and all the important men met to decide what they should do with a party of banditti who only eighteen miles away were setting the whole island at defiance.

Disaffected, unconquered, they formed a rallying point for every discontented slave in the island. There lay the danger, the danger that was with them always.

But no one had any proposition to make till a certain Mr Quarrell, who had a plantation near to Bluefields, suggested that they should bring dogs, the hunting dogs the Spaniards kept to run down their slaves, from Cuba.

Curiously enough, a people who seem to have hesitated at no barbarity where their slaves were concerned, hesitated over this matter. What would the rest of the world think of them if they hunted men with dogs? However, necessity knows no law, and finally it was agreed to send Mr Quarrell to Cuba to get the dogs, and the men who could manage them.

The tale of the bringing of those dogs reads like an epic in itself. Mr Quarrell embarked in the schooner _Mercury_, carrying twelve guns, and the crew of the _Mercury_ consisted of four British seamen, one of whom was made captain, twelve Curacoa negroes, and eighteen Spanish renegadoes, and they appear to have been as nice a parcel of blackguards as a man might well gather together in those times. Throughout the voyage, the English who were on board found it necessary to keep possession of the cabin and quarter-deck, and to keep all the arms under their own charge. It was a long story of tribulation, but finally after infinite difficulties, Quarrell shipped forty chasseurs and one hundred and four dogs. They were big dogs, like powerful greyhounds, and I suspect were something like the kangaroo dogs that were so common in Australia when I was a child, greyhounds crossed with some other breed to give them bulk and strength. The chasseur was armed only with a machete, and the dogs were not supposed to tear the man they came up with, but if he made no resistance to hold him and bark for assistance. It would be no good resisting man and dog, for the steel of the machetes was excellent, and they were about eighteen inches long, formidable weapons. Dallas says these dogs and their keepers were employed in Cuba for taking runaways and breaking up bodies of negroes collected for hostile purposes, which is “sometimes occasioned,” he remarks quaintly, “by the rigour exercised on the Spanish plantations.”

The _Mercury_ was a luckless ship. She ran ashore on a sandbank and appeared likely to leave her bones there. They had shipped cattle to feed the dogs, and on that dark night the dogs broke loose and seized the cattle, and the bellowing of the cattle, the howling of the dogs, the wild wail of the wind, the roaring of the waves as they washed over the little ship, all combined to make pandemonium, and Quarrell must have felt the Maroons' luck was holding. Even when they got her off and arrived at Montego Bay their ill-luck pursued them, for from the little fort on the hillside that was a haven of refuge to the townspeople there came a volley of grape-shot, the officer in command having mistaken the _Mercury_ for an enemy's privateer! Luckily, they don't appear to have been good marksmen for no one was hurt, and the little ship came to anchor with some American ships between her and the guns.

Amidst immense excitement the dogs and their guardians were landed. We can imagine it. How the news flew from house to house, the Maroons were to be hunted with these immense dogs with which the Spaniards never failed to bring down their slaves. And the house slaves listened round-eyed and passed on the news to the field labourers and the streets of the town--those shamefully shadeless streets were thronged with people half-fearing, half-comforted with the reflection that soon the hills above the town would no longer be occupied by the savage Maroons. And, indeed, one hundred and four great dogs, even though muzzled and held by great rattling chains, ferociously making at every strange object and dragging the chasseurs after them, must have made a formidable array. Every door in the town was barred and the people crowded to the windows, out of reach of the dogs who were to be their salvation. And they were hurried up the mountains, paraded before the General and--never used.

But it was time they came. The dry weather was now come, the canes were very inflammable, it was difficult to defend some of the estates, especially those in the beautiful and fertile Nassau Valley, down which wanders the Black River, and it was reported that a large body of slaves were preparing to join the victorious Maroons. And then up that mountain path, the very same I dare say by which I went that December day, came the chasseurs with the dogs tugging at their waists, and the General held a review, a review at which the dogs grew so excited at the discharge of the guns that they flew at the stocks of the fusils which had been given to the chasseurs and tore them to pieces. The General himself had to flee before their onrush to his chaise, and it was only with difficulty they were restrained from tearing to pieces his horses. After which we are a little surprised to hear he expressed himself exceedingly pleased with the review. Perhaps it marks the desperateness of the situation.

And what the white men knew in the morning before nightfall had been carried into the mountains and the Maroons probably discussed this new evil that had befallen them. There could be but one end if the white men came against them with dogs--but one end. And doubtless General Walpole and his officers judged from the effect it had on the negroes the consternation that was inspired in the mountains, and they agreed that now the simplest thing would be to make peace as Colonel Guthrie had done fifty-six years before. In the end the whites must win, but the blacks might set the country in a blaze and do many thousands of pounds worth of damage before they were all taken. Therefore they would compromise.

On the 14th December the dogs were landed at Montego Bay, and on the 18th Colonel Hull fell in with a party of Maroons under Johnson, and Johnson was their best leader. It was difficult to get into conversation with them, but the troops ceased firing and then the Maroon officers, who had some inkling of the offer that was to be made, were seen skipping about from rock to rock and Mr Werge of the 17th Light Dragoons, who seems to have been a very capable young man, with a cool, deliberate courage flung down his arms and stepping down the hill till he was close under them, called out that it was peace and they had better come down and shake hands upon it. Then Fowler the Maroon advanced and took him by the hand, and at Mr Werge's suggestion--he was as brave a young man as Dr Russell--they exchanged hats and jackets.

Relations once established, General Walpole came up and the Maroons agreed that, on their knees they would beg His Majesty's pardon, that they would go to the Old Town or Montego Bay or anywhere else the Governor might appoint, and would settle on whatever lands might be given them. They would give up all runaways. And General Walpole agreed to a secret clause that they should not be sent off the island.

And, indeed, the Maroons were in a bad way. They were short of provisions and measles had broken out among them, and their women and children were almost famished.

The 1st of January 1796 was fixed for the day they should come in. But they were very distrustful. It was difficult to make them understand that no harm would be done them. Some few turned up, but practically the New Year's Day passed unnoticed. They straggled in by slow degrees, finding it exceedingly difficult to persuade themselves to abandon their mountain fastnesses for the tender mercies of the white man, but as a matter of fact all with the exception of the small parties out with Palmer and Parkinson came in within a fortnight of the day appointed, and the last were only out three months.

But the Assembly because of this laxness, felt they might break their pledged word, and they banished the majority of the Maroons with incredible foolishness, considering that the negro line is supposed to be drawn at the 40th parallel of latitude, to Nova Scotia. Perhaps they hoped to destroy them, root and branch. There, as was only to be expected, they did not do well, and finally they were taken to Sierra Leone, where I read they made valuable settlers and helped the colony greatly. I was glad they did. And then I remembered that in Pree Town I had met the most bumptious, the most aggressive, the most unpleasant black men it has ever, except in Liberia, been my lot to come across, and I felt my sympathies weaken.

Jamaica was not unmindful of these her children whom she hated. For a small island she spent an enormous sum of money on their welfare. £46,000 was expended in trying to colonise them comfortably, and this was supplemented by the British Government.

General Walpole was bitterly angry. He had given his word, and the country had broken it, and in his turn he declined to accept the sword of honour which the Assembly voted him in honour of his bloodless victory, and declined it in such terms that the Assembly considered the letter a misrepresentation of their proceedings and ordered it to be expunged from their minutes.

Not all of the Maroons were banished. Those who came in by the 1st of January 1796 were allowed to stay if they so pleased, and they settled about their old town and about Accompong, but their teeth were drawn. They were no greater danger now than any of the other black people. Less, in fact, for they had a certain contempt for the slaves, and regarded themselves as on a par with the white men.

The people about Maroon Town now do not think of themselves as Maroons. The day I went up, when we had gone as far as we could within a mile and a half of the old Maroon Town, the people came crowding round, and they looked much like the dark folks who lived lower down in the mountains. One yellow man brought me a can full of green coffee berries.

“No, not for sale, for the lady to remember we's by.” I accepted the gift, so graciously given, and I asked the giver's name.

“Heed,” said he, and I said I'd put him in a book, but I don't believe he understood what I said. I felt in my pocket. I know of old the African likes a return present, but I had forgotten my purse, and my host settled the difficulty.

“Take him round to the Chinaman's shop,” he said to his driver, “and give him a drink,” and my yellow friend, whom I thought must be grandson to one of those long-dead soldiers, accepted the offer with a smile.