THE EDITOR, Madam:It is time people with a reputation for scholarship stop condemning the Maroons for collaboration with slavers for returning runaway slaves without offering an explanation.
The Maroons were more than runaway slaves. There is evidence that black sailors had settled in the hills with native Indians before Columbus arrived. They offered a sanctuary for runaway slaves.
However, many runaway slaves were not freedom lovers but criminal-minded people with a slave mentality. They ran away to avoid punishment for various infractions. They discovered that the Maroons were a very disciplined society with strict moral codes which was not to their liking. That is how they were able to survive and fight off attacks for so long.
Many of these runaways sneaked back to their masters and offered to reveal the Maroons' hideouts. Many of them became professional trackers. The Maroons not only had to fight off whites but black traitors. The Maroons often had to track these traitors down and would often mingle with the crowds at market places and kill them. They developed a contempt for these traitor-slaves and for their own safety became distrustful of the slaves.
It was quite easy thereafter to cut a deal with slave masters in returning those runaway slaves whom they considered bogus freedom lovers. The Maroons of today have no need to apologise to anybody.
I am, etc.
MANLEY E. LUMSDEN
P.O. Box 526
Kingston 8
