Consider the Source: An 1800 Maroon Treaty

Herrmann, Rachel B. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1676-7164 2023. Consider the Source: An 1800 Maroon Treaty. Early American Studies 21 (1) , pp. 166-199. 10.1353/eam.2023.0004

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Abstract

In 1800, an exiled community of Jamaican Maroons migrated from Nova Scotia to the British antislavery colony of Sierra Leone. When they disembarked, Maroon captains met with Sierra Leone Company officials and rapidly negotiated and coauthored a treaty. This treaty is a composite manuscript document scattered throughout the National Archives at Kew (United Kingdom). The diplomatic customs that Maroons and British officials observed at the negotiation—including making speeches, reading script words aloud, and refusing to sign documents—marked the document as a treaty. This essay makes the case that the source is a treaty; explains and contextualizes the negotiation that occurred; and explores the themes of settlement, alliance, and antislavery that changed in Maroon treaties in Jamaica and Sierra Leone in the eighteenth century.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	History, Archaeology and Religion
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DT Africa E History America > E11 America (General)
Publisher:	University of Pennsylvania Press (Penn Press)
ISSN:	1543-4273
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	9 December 2021
Date of Acceptance:	6 December 2021
Last Modified:	31 Jan 2024 16:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/146003

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