Policy Perspectives on Maroons in Jamaican Society

This chapter departs from legal argumentation and considers some broad social attitudes taken by Jamaicans towards the Maroons. For the most part, Jamaicans do not regard Maroons as non-Jamaicans, and are opposed to special socio-economic privileges for Maroons as a group. Some Jamaicans have been sharply critical of the Maroons for their apparent willingness to collaborate with the British in preserving colonial structures and enslavement in the past. Other Jamaicans adopt a more sympathetic perspective, suggesting that Maroons, a brave and determined group of people, were obliged by difficult historical circumstances to collaborate with the British as a means of survival within an oppressive social system.