The Maroon Commune Archive (MCA) focuses on four distinct Maroon Communities. This archive was developed through research about the revolutionary maroon communities of  Jamaica, Haiti, The Great Dismal Swamp/ Seminole (Modern day Florida), and Mexico. Their survival in living off the land and interactions with colonizers, and other maroon communities was interesting to learn.  A lot of their history is not documented, talked about, nor celebrated… this my incentive for this study.

Liberation Timeline:

• Jamaican Maroons were at war with the British from 1655 until 1738.
• Haitian Maroons struggled against the French from estimate 1700 until 1804
• Florida/ Seminole Maroons can be tracked down from 1700 until 1850s
• Mexico Maroons struggled against the French from 1500s until 1800s

“The wild Maroon, impregnable and free.. Among the mountain-holds of liberty… Sudden as lightning darted on their foe…Seen like the flash, remembered like the blow.”

The Maroons of Jamaica p44

POETRY REFLECTION

Maroon Within

By Bethanie Corona

We look to the Stars.

We look to the Sky.

We look to the Sun.

We look to the East.

We look to the West.

We look to the North.

We look to the South.

We look for Direction.

And it is within Us.

Within our Intersections

of life, within the Freedoms,

and Rights,

Maroons gave to themselves.

While the System stole,

Within we find the Strength

and labor our Womyn Birth

We look within our Mother Earth to Heal.

While the system steals, we find liberation and

We look within.

The Maroon Mirror by Bethanie Corona 

Carribean people and humans of the African Diaspora are all connected. And we have ancestors that are maroons who do not get the acknowledgment they deserve, nor are they addressed in history books. This archive is to metaphorically yell their names and visualize their identities from the mountain tops of Vera Cruz to Haiti. So that their legacy does not sink to the bottom of the swamps. So that herstory, history, and theirstory may reunite in the real land of the free: off the grid, off the capitalist plantation that tried/s to shackle, steal, and bury. The Capitalist plantation that shackles, steals, rapes, and buries, repeat. Feel the maroon rhythm in your heart beat. Maroonage is within you and your community no matter where you are from, no matter your skin tone, no matter your creed, gender or sexuality.

Join the Modern Day Maroon Liberation Movement: