The treacherous feast: a Jamaican Maroon historical myth

• Published in: Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde land- en volkenkunde, 1984, Vol.140 (1), p.1-31
• Main Author: Bilby, Kenneth M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Betrayal; Blacksmithing; Deportation; Governors; History; Maroons (People); Oral tradition; Peace treaties; Rebellion; Slaves; Society; Spanish; Treaties; War
• ISSN: 0006-2294; 2213-4379; 0006-2294
• DOI: 10.1163/22134379-90003425

Nonetheless, questioning about either the song or the story associated with it provided little further illumination. Because the song belongs to the most powerful category of Maroon Kromanti songs (known as "Country") - the group of songs that draw on the tremendous power of the earliest ancestors - it could not be treated lightly. According to he Maroon view, the British, even though they had "h~norably'~ completed two peace treaties with the Maroons in 1739, proved themselves during this later period capable of the worst kind of treachery: the calculated betrayal of trust. [...]one reason Balcarres had so hastily imprisoned the six Trelawny captains on their way to see him at Spanish Town was that he believed "that they were really on their way to form an alliance with the Maroons who lived in the Blue Mountains" (Fumess 1965:38). [...]I owe a special debt to Barbara Kopytoff for her encouragement and generous sharing of information; if she had not directed me to the proper archival sources, I might never have found some of the more important original documents which I quote in this paper, several of which were first located by her.