In spring 1796, after eight months of war in the mountainous terrain of Jamaica, most of the village of Trelawney Town—a community of about 550 runaway slaves and their descendants—surrendered. They had resisted black militia and British regulars but they were frightened by the savagery of the bloodhounds imported from Cuba to defeat them. They could not have imagined the outcome that followed. The Jamaican government, fearing that the Maroon War would trigger a second Haitian Revolution, deported the Maroon families to a remote location from whence they could never return home – Nova Scotia. ... More

In spring 1796, after eight months of war in the mountainous terrain of Jamaica, most of the village of Trelawney Town—a community of about 550 runaway slaves and their descendants—surrendered. They had resisted black militia and British regulars but they were frightened by the savagery of the bloodhounds imported from Cuba to defeat them. They could not have imagined the outcome that followed. The Jamaican government, fearing that the Maroon War would trigger a second Haitian Revolution, deported the Maroon families to a remote location from whence they could never return home – Nova Scotia. After four years of enduring Halifax, the Maroons were sent to the West African colony in Sierra Leone. Remarkably, some returned home in the 1840s after the British Empire abolished slavery. The insurrection in Jamaica, the deportation it triggered, and the far-reaching impact of a small group of refugees together comprise one of the earliest instances of community displacement. Yet, remarkably, although the Maroons did not choose their initial place of exile, they actively determined the next one. The Maroon rebels of Jamaica transformed into protected refugees in Nova Scotia and empire builders in Africa. During an era of British abolitionism and global expansion, a small group of black insurrectionists maneuvered on a world stage. In each British zone, the Maroons brought to bear the full range of their cultural and military experience. Their remarkable adaptations form the crux of this book.