chopping off their legs and their ears. The hounds were let loose on them, inflicting the greatest torture by their fierce attacks on the unfortunate creatures. Flogging was the mildest chastisement inflicted on the slaves. The honor of their wives, the chastity of their daughters were matters of the slightest consideration to their masters.
Small wonder it was that the slave was beset with one fixed idea—to free himself of that odious yoke. Throughout his sufferings he never despaired: liberty was the one hope of his existence. And when he could not buy his freedom he would secure it for himself by fleeing; at the first opportunity he would fly for safety into the densest forests and the most inaccessible gorges of the mountains. When he was successful in effecting his escape he became what was called a maroon.
Hence the maroons were slaves who, at the risk of their lives and after undergoing untold hardships, had eventually recovered their freedom. Being outlaws and hunted like wild animals they had continually to be on the lookout. Any place where they could find a safe shelter from their pursuers became their domain. Should they happen to be caught by their owners they knew beforehand that no mercy was to be expected and that the most inhuman punishments the colonial imagination could invent would be theirs. Consequently, when attacked they fought with the fiercest desperation. Theirs was a perpetual struggle for existence. It was these men, without education or culture, who gathered from their confused ideas of human dignity the necessary energy to wage war on the society which was oppressing them so brutally. The first to bid defiance to the colonial system, they showed the men of their race that hardships, sufferings, even death—all were preferable to such degrading servitude. They formed the vanguard of the future army of liberation.[1]
Such were the four classes of men who inhabited
- ↑ In 1784, after an unsuccessful attempt to subdue by force the maroons in hiding in the Bahuruco Mountains, Governor-General Bellecombe acknowledged their independence.
