R. Museu Arq. Etn., 35: 1-13, 2020. Archaeology of Marronage in the Caribbean Antilles Arqueologia da marronagem nas Antilhas do Caribe Theresa Ann Singleton* SINGLETON, T.A. Archaeology of Marronage in the Caribbean Antilles R. Museu Arq. Etn., 35: 01-13, 2020. Abstract: The archaeological study of maroons in the Caribbean Antilles presents both opportunities and challenges. On small islands, runaways had few places where they could seek refuge from slavery and elude capture for long periods of time. Consequently, such sites were occupied briefly and have been difficult to locate and identify. The Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico) had both short-term refuge sites and long-term settlements comparable to quilombos. Archaeologists have been most successful in their investigations of maroons in Cuba and Jamaica. In Hispaniola, where I am working at the moment, only a few cave sites and one presumed maniel (local term for a long-term maroon settlement) have been studied. In this paper, I provide an overview of the archaeological study of maroons on the Caribbean Islands and my preliminary research to locate El Maniel de Ocoa, a major settlement of slave runaways for over a hundred years during the 1500s-1660s. Keywords: Slavage, Marronage, Historical Archaeology, Resistance, Caribbean Archaeology Introduction Keys, Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana have no shorelines on he Caribbean is a very diverse, the Caribbean Sea. On the other hand, Tcomplex region that is variously Mexico and all the countries of Central defined from geographical, cultural, historical, America border the western edge of the or political perspectives. It encompasses the Caribbean Sea, but are not always included islands and the associated mainland areas or thought of as part of the Caribbean that span from the Florida Keys to northern region (FIGURE 1) Furthermore, the diverse South America, even though the Florida geographies, histories, peoples, languages, and political regimes constrain the comprehensive treatment of the region as whole, making any * Professor at the Department of Anthropology, Syracuse synthesis of Caribbean slavery and marronage University, USA. <[email protected]> a formidable task. 1 Archaeology of Marronage in the Caribbean Antilles R. Museu Arq. Etn., 35: 1-13, 2020. Fig. 1. Map of the Caribbean Region. Source: Drawn by Syracuse University Cartographic Laboratory. Marronage refers to the processes of slave Dominican Republic, to provide an overview of flight, self-liberation, and survival. It occurred maroon archaeology in the Caribbean as well as a throughout the Caribbean, but long-term context for an ongoing project in the Dominican settlements appear to have been confined to the Republic on slave runaways. larger islands (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico). Of the larger islands, only Jamaica has present-day maroon communities comparable to Defining marronage Brazilian quilombos that are descendant from slave runaways of the seventeenth and eighteenth The conventional categories used to define centuries. In this paper, I examine previous and maroons are: petite marronage – short-term for ongoing archaeological research as well as the flight from slavery by an individual or small prospects for and challenges to undertaking group of individuals with temporary goals maroon archaeology on Caribbean islands. The and the desire of returning to the plantation; size, location, and, most significantly, the physical and grand marronage – large-scale slave flight geography of the Caribbean islands played major that resulted in the formation of long-term, roles in the forms of marronage that developed on independent communities with no intention any particular island. I briefly examine marronage of ever returning to the plantation. Over the in six case studies: (1) Barbados; (2) English years, these definitions based on the duration, Leeward Islands of Monserrat, Antigua, and motivation, numbers of individuals, or other St. Kitts, Nevis, and Barbuda; (3) St. Croix, factors have been debated, refined, and more US Virgin Islands; (4) Jamaica; (5) Cuba; and recently, discarded by some scholars (Diouf 2014; (6) Hispaniola in the present-day nation of the Ritz 2016). These traditional definitions are often 2 Theresa Ann Singleton problematical for archaeological research as it some of which can potentially be rediscovered is very difficult, if not impossible, to determine through archaeology, we avoid some of the solely from archaeological resources different archaeological problems associated with variables such as the numbers of runaways, their the terms petit and grand marronage. More motivations, or even for how long they occupied significantly, the concept of maroon landscape the sites attributed to them. This is especially provides a spatial framework that can facilitate true for the temporary character of petite archaeological investigations. marronage which yield few, if any, artifacts. It is also difficult to distinguish a temporary refuge for runaways from sites used for other Case studies purposes, such as a social or ritual space, that may be unrelated to marronage but nonetheless Barbados may be associated with other forms of slave resistance, sometimes referred to as cultural Founded in 1627, Barbados was the first resistance – the use of art, religion, or other English colony to develop sugar production traditional practices to challenge oppressive social based on African Labor (Handler 1997: 183). systems. It may also be difficult to determine, if A small, relatively flat island of only the archaeological context presumably related to 34 kilometers (21 miles) in length and up petite marronage indicate days, weeks, months, or to 23 km (14 mi) in width, covering an even a longer period time. area of 432 km2 (167 sq mi). Sugar culture Maroons fled to places where they could transformed Barbados within a decade from a elude capture for as long as possible – in thick colony with landholdings of varied sizes that forests, swamplands, mountains, caves and included a white non-slaveholding class, mixed overhangs, and other localities that offered agriculture, and a predominant workforce of seclusion and were hard to access “because of white indentured servants to a colony of sugar difficulty of the terrain” (Diouf 2014: 4). Due plantations, controlled by an elite planter to the strong relationships between marronage class, and worked by black enslaved laborers. and geography, historian Svlviane Diouf offers Between 1645 and 1650, the African population definitions of marronage based on where doubled, while the white indentured population runaways chose to seek refuge from slavery: decreased significantly. (1) Borderland maroons lived on the fringes Barbados’ small size and the lack of of plantations; (2) Hinterland maroons lived mountains, dense forests, or extensive cave further away in inaccessible locations where systems presented obstacles for the formation seclusion was more critical than distance. In of long-term maroon communities (Newman her study of southern United States, she found 2017: 51). In the early decades of colonization, that hinterland maroons sometimes lived only marronage in Barbados involved small bands 8-10 km from the plantation the runaways fled. of runaways that lived in the island’s forested These two categories, however, should interior areas and subsisted on raiding farms not be thought of as two types of marronage, and plantations. By the 1670s, as sugar but as parts of the larger landscapes runaways cultivation expanded, the island became occupied. Borderlands and hinterlands together deforested. Deforestation not only changed formed the maroon landscape – a vast area the island’s environment, but the nature connected by secret paths, trails, waterways of marronage (Handler 1997: 187). Slaves navigated at night, and temporary hiding places continued to run away, but with the clearing (Diouf 2014: 9). Runaways traveled through of the forest, they found other places to seek this landscape often moving back and forth refuge, including caves scattered about the from borderland to hinterland. By framing the island, ditches, and ravines. Some runaways archaeological study of maroons as landscapes headed to town where they assumed the where various forms of slave flight took place, identities of “Free Blacks,” until their former 3 Archaeology of Marronage in the Caribbean Antilles R. Museu Arq. Etn., 35: 1-13, 2020. identities as slave runaways were revealed, used for both temporary runaways and as which subjected them to recapture and severe social/ritual spaces. The bottles most likely punishment. Other maroons escaped the initially contained alcoholic beverages, but were island by boat – a widespread practice in the probably reused for water collection, storage Caribbean referred as “maritime marronage.” and consumption (Reilly 2019: 134). The frequency of maritime marronage may explain why few maroon sites have been identified on islands where large numbers English Leeward Islands of slave runaways were reported. In the seventeenth century, slave runaways who fled The Leeward Islands refers to the group of Barbados most likely went to St. Vincent, islands lying east of Puerto Rico and continuing which was about 150 km from Barbados and south to where the Windward Islands begin not yet colonized; it remained unplanted until with the island of Martinique (FIGURE 2). the eighteenth century. African runaways from The islands of Antigua, Montserrat, Nevis