Cudjoe of Jamaica

Cudjoe of Jamaica
By Milton G. McFarlane
Ridley Enslow Punlishers
60 Crescent Place, Box 07078
Short Hills, N.J. 07078
143 pp. $7.95
By Gladys T. Turner

Cudjoe of Jamaica is a fascinating historical novel about
the dauntless military chief of the Maroons who were the
runaway slaves of Jamaica. The term Maroon is believed to be
Spanish in origin, meaning "untamed, wild, or unruly."

This is a story of struggle and war against enslavement;
the courageous battles of a group of slaves to live forever free,
and their ultimate triumph.

Milton G. McFarlane, the author, is a descendant of the Maroons,
and he has imaginatively recreated the times and life of
Cudjoe from documentary records and oral accounts maintained
by his people, as related to him by his Grandpa Wallen, "a
 man old and wise in Maroon ways."

"The before-time people, "ancestors of the Maroons, were
enslaved by the Spaniards and brought to the Carribean Island
of Jamaica from the Gold Coast of West Africa early in the
16th Century as a source of cheap labor. Prince Naquan, a
Koramanteen, had traded gold to Spanish traders in exchange
for copper and was subsequently tricked into sailing
supposedly to their homeland in search of more copper, with
some of his strongest men, but they ended up as slaves in
Jamaica. Naquan and his tribesman , reacting to the
conditions of slavery, refused to work and escaped to the
high mountains of the island. Although, the Spanish attempted
to recapture them, they were unsuccessful because the Koromanteens
were skillful in blending into the forestation by using the
African disguise of "ambush."

In 1655, the British captured Jamaica from the Spanish
and increased the number of African slaves to work on the
sugar plantations. Consequently, as more slaved escaped to
the Maroon community, the Maroons were seen as a menancing
threat to the colonists' way of of life and their labor supply.
Thus, British soldiers and the colonists on the plains
were to wage war over three fourths of a century against
the Maroons, believing it to be their civilized and God given
duty to wipe out the heathens, until a peace treaty was
signed in 1739.

Grandpa Wallen is the chief story teller of the feats
of Cudjoe, who was the oldest of Naquan's three sons, born
late in the 17th Century. Propelled by an oath to his father
that he would never surrender himself or his people into
slavery, Cudjoe organized the Maroons' settlements stragetically
for defense. Although, the Maroons possessed only antiquated
weapons against the powerful British, they successfully defeated
them because of their knowledge of Jamaica's mountaineus
terrain, Cudjoe's leadership skills and abilities in
guerilla warfare the art of camouflage in battle, and intelligence
data gathering.Furthermore, the Maroons possessed a communication
tool, the abeng, a bugle made from a cattle horn, which allowed
them to single out each other and send messages over long
distances. Finally, the British government in Jamaica, through
an intermediary, requested the Maroons to make peace. A peace
treaty was concluded March 1, 1739 guaranteeing Cudjoe and
the Maroons "a perfect state of freedom and liberty forever."

This is a book that adds richness and diversity to our
knowledge of African people, thir descendants and their
survival in the colonized New World. It disspells the myths
that all the slaves were happily and passively working "Di
Backra's" plantations. It is a book that should inspire all
freedom fighters in their fight against oppression, apartheid,
and injustices.