Maroons to be recognised by Parks Canada on Emancipation Day

TORONTO:

The federal government will recognise the Trelawny Town Maroons in a ceremony at the Citadel Fortress in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on August 1, Emancipation Day.

The Trelawny Maroons were deported from Jamaica to Nova Scotia in 1796 in the aftermath of the Second Maroon War. They stayed in Nova Scotia for four years and migrated to Sierra Leone in August 1800.

“I am gratified that the application was successful. The honour for the Maroons was long overdue. This collective was deported from their homeland in Jamaica because of racism, colonialism, and imperialism. They contributed to world history because of their stance of resistance and for Black liberation,” said Dr Afua Cooper, a historian, poet and professor who made the application for the Maroons to be so recognised.

There is now a small exhibit on the Maroons at the Citadel Fortress Museum. The government has also commissioned a painting of the Maroons working at the Citadel during their time in Halifax.

The government of Canada website notes that in 1796, three ships brought approximately 600 Maroons – men, women, and children – to Halifax from Jamaica, where they had fought for independence from Britain. To solve what the British saw as a security problem in Jamaica, the Maroons were transported against their will to Nova Scotia.

“Although they stayed only four years, the Maroons left an enduring legacy in Nova Scotia. Maroon men worked on the defences of the third Citadel, for which it is believed a part of the fortifications was called ‘Maroon Bastion’ in their honour. They helped erect Government House, were part of a militia unit, cleared woods for roads, and were employed as general labourers.

“Among other tasks, the women and children gathered fruits and berries, and grew vegetables for sale at the Halifax market,” it notes.

PIVOTAL ROLES

Dr Cooper said that for black Canadians, the plaquing and unveiling means a recognition of the history of the Trelawny Town Maroons – which is a transatlantic story.

“The event also means that Canada has now recognised the pivotal roles blacks have played in the development of the country. Visitors will be pleasantly surprised to learn that the Maroons have played such a pivotal role in global history. Everyone will learn more of black history,” said Cooper who is also the principal investigator of A Black People’s History of Canada, a past visiting scholar of the Charles Warren Centre for Studies in American History, Harvard University, and a member of the International Scientific Committee of Routes of Enslaved Peoples, UNESCO.

In an essay titled “ Monument for the Maroons” published in 2018 in The Coast newspaper in Halifax, she argued that, “every year, Citadel Hill receives hundreds of thousands of visitors, and one would imagine this national historic site and Halifax landmark, given the contributions the Maroons made to its construction, would have a very visible marker honouring Maroon history. But no such thing is there. The waterfront is another place that cries out for a monument to the black experience. In the case of the Maroons, this was where they landed in July 1796, and the site from which they left when they sailed to Sierra Leone in 1800.”

ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS

On Emancipation Day this year, there will also be the opening of the exhibit, A History Exposed: The Enslavement of Black People in Canada, at the Pier 21 Museum.

“It is significant because this is the first time that an exhibit on slavery has been done by a national museum (we have had provincial exhibits). It was great unearthing so many unknown stories – stories of strength and resilience, but also stories of sorrow and woe. A big part of my work was to humanise the enslaved,” said Cooper who is the guest curator for the exhibit.

Dr Cooper is the poet laureate Emerita of Halifax, founder and past president of the Black Canadian Studies Association, and was the chair of the Lord Dalhousie Scholarly Panel on Slavery and Race, and lead author of the Report on Lord Dalhousie’s History on Slavery and Race.

“A narrative that I want visitors to leave with is the ethical implications of slavery: that a great wrong happened to black people in this country, that for over two centuries, blacks were stripped of their human rights and reduced to the condition of sub-humanity, and that we are still grappling with the legacies of that history. I want visitors to also leave with the fact of the great struggle the enslaved fought to liberate themselves and create a future for their descendants. I also want visitors to know that black people were integral to the history of Canada and its founding, and to entertain the issue of reparations,” she said.