The Maroon Treaty of 1739

This chapter examines the main terms of the Treaty completed between the British and the Maroons in 1739. This Treaty accorded privileges and responsibilities to the Maroons, but it did not seek to grant Maroons sovereignty over Accompong. On the contrary, the Treaty acknowledged the freedom of the Maroons but obliged them, as part of a soulless quid pro quo, to capture and return all enslaved persons to the British slave owners. Some historians also posit that the Treaty granted a degree of autonomy to the Maroons analogous to sovereignty. This chapter refutes the idea, emphasizing that even if the Maroons had some autonomy, this did not mean that, as a matter of law, a Maroon state had been established within Jamaican.