What Are The Maroonon Colonies

Maroon communities, also known as Seminole communities, were small factions formed by escaped slaves from the Americas. The word “maroon” means “untamed” in Spanish, and the earliest maroon societies occurred in 1512. The escaped slaves created independent settlements which were hidden in jungles and forests, providing camouflage from slave masters. Maroon communities provided escaped slaves with food, shelter, and protection. If captured, the slaves were subjected to various forms of torture, including having their Achilles heel removed, having their legs amputated, being castrated, and being burned to death. Maroon communities also gave escaped slaves a group with which to defend themselves, as there were numerous instances of war and violence among slaves and slave masters. Maroon settlers were incredibly skilled in guerrilla warfare tactics, which they used to fend of whichever …show more content…
Without these settlements, slavery presumably would have lasted longer than three centuries. Granted, there were other factors which contributed to the end of slavery, such as slavery ceasing to be profitable in areas such as the Caribbean, but the economic implications in the southern United States were not as prominent. The South had built its entire economy on the backs of slaves, and undoubtedly would have continued to attempt to profit from slave labor. And while the settlements were masses of escaped slaves with no similarities in language, they were able to build communities based on the principle foundations of African culture. Slaves were able to come together in order to protect each other, and formed communities to simply provide an escape from the torture they endured from their slave masters. The formation of these societies demonstrated the adaptability of black individuals, and also the lengths to which they would go in order to escape