Nanny of the Maroons

Often referred to as Queen Nanny, Nanny of the Maroons stands out in history as the only woman among Jamaica’s National Heroes. She possessed that fierce fighting spirit generally associated with the courage of men. In fact, Nanny is described as a fearless Ashanti warrior who used militarist techniques to foul and beguile the English.

Nanny sold into slavery

What we know of Nanny is mostly oral history as there are very few historical texts about her. Nanny was born c. 1686 in Ghana, Western Africa, into the Ashanti people. It is believed that some of her family members were involved in an intertribal conflict and her village was captured. Nanny and several relatives were sold as slaves and sent to Jamaica.

Along with other defiant Jamaican slaves, Nanny escaped into the Blue Mountains area of northern Saint Thomas Parish and helped to form a community of free people called the Maroons. The Maroons were considered skilled fighters and hard to defeat.

More Maroon communities were set up across the island with the help of Nanny’s brothers (it is not known whether they were really related) Accompong, Cudjoe, Johnny and Quao (Kwau). Eventually, they split up to organise more communities across Jamaica. Cudjoe (Kojo) went to Saint James Parish and organised a village, which was later named Cudjoe Town; Accompong settled in Saint Elizabeth Parish, in a community known as Accompong Town; Nanny and Quao founded communities in Portland Parish.

Nanny Town

By 1720, Nanny had taken control of the Blue Mountain rebel town that then became known as ‘Nanny Town’. Located on a ridge, it became a maroon stronghold with guards placed at look-out points. Maroon soldiers were called by the blowing of a horn of African origin called an abeng.

The Nanny Town Maroons survived by sending traders to the nearby market towns to exchange food for weapons and cloth. The community raised animals, hunted, and grew crops, and was organized very much like a typical Ashanti village in Africa.

The Maroons were also known for raiding plantations for weapons and food, burning the plantations, and freeing slaves. Nanny was very skilful at organising plans to free the slaves. For over 30 years, Nanny freed more than 800 slaves and helped them to resettle in the Maroon community.

For six years from 1728, the British fought Nanny and her forces. Using cannon, they captured Nanny Town, and in 1734, Captain Stoddard, the British commander, reported that ‘all the maroons had been killed’. But there were survivors – the British pursued them and destroyed all the crops in the region. In some reports, Nanny and some of her followers escaped and made a new hideout near the Rio Grande.

In 1739 Quao signed a peace treaty with the British. Soon after that he and Nanny parted ways. Nanny took her supporters east to what would later become Moore Town on the eastern fringes of the Blue Mountains, while Quao took his people west to central Jamaica, and formed a community in a town that later came to be known as Crawford’s Town.

Some claim that Queen Nanny lived to be an old woman, dying of natural causes in the 1760s. The exact date of her death remains a mystery, yet, the spirit of Nanny of the Maroons remains today as a symbol of that indomitable desire that will never yield to captivity.