Shavagne Arlene Scott

By centering maroon women in colonial Jamaica, this project argues that the gendered parameters of marronage offer new ways of conceptualizing resistance and community formation under slavery. Colonial officials consciously concealed maroon women’s presence and experiences in acts of resistance, which also produced our contemporary understanding of marronage as a masculine phenomenon. The project contends that this rendering obscures maroon women’s reproductive and social work that were critical to both the survival of maroon communities and maroon rebellions. To further emphasize the long-term pivotal work performed by maroon women, it follows a subset of maroons to Nova Scotia and then Sierra Leone, where they relocated following their failed military effort against the colonial Jamaican.