Audio Recording On Rasta trimming and Maroon’s nonsense.
Maroons were no heroes to enslaved Jamaicans; they were complicit in prolonging slavery on the Island by colluding with the slavers to return runaway enslaved people.
It is time that we stop whitewashing history.
Audio on the plans Donald Trump & Republicans have for America.
Apart from the gross boneheadedness that seems to be sweeping the world where facts are treated as fiction and fiction facts, there are two distinct groups of people in our country.
(1) The so-called educated, you know the ones who turned “tappanaris”, in particular, the ones who attend the left-wing UWI University Of The West Indies, otherwise knows as the intellectual ghetto à la the late Mutty Perkins, they are probably the worst of the lot, they are so stush, you know the lot who refers to their university as up by (u wi) ‘in my stush voice’, hahaha.
Those folks earn a degree in one discipline, and thereafter you can’t tell them anything because they automatically become an authority on everything.
So a medical Doctor gets to tell firemen, Farmers, Teachers, Police officers, and everyone else how to do their jobs because they earned their degree.….….. say it with me.….…” up by u wi.” ha aah.
Don’t leave off the fake accent either, please, dwl.
Then, of course, there is the not so educated, notice that I said “not so educated,” I did so because I’m at least enlightened enough to understand that being educated does not mean having to set foot on a college or university campus but having spent time honing one’s specific craft in one’s individual field of endeavor.
If, of course, one is educated in nothing, then that person has no claim to education, but for this #1 class of people, earning an undergraduate or graduate degree is not about self-improvement; it is about talking and looking down on their contemporaries who were lucky not to be indoctrinated into their leftist ideologies…
The # (2) group, the not so educated, generally know everything without knowing anything. They recite every trope, lie, and old wives’ tales as if they are facts and no amount of data will change their minds because (dem born an liv a Jumeka and nu one can tel dem nutten).
Therein lies the problem.
And so the up by u wi crowd perpetually speaks down on the can’t tel mi nutten crowds.
If there is a third group between the tappanaris and the know-nothings, they need to speak up now to be identified.
The recent propaganda campaign being waged by the two classes of Jamaicans surrounding the infantile claim laid by the so-called Maroon people as to their perceived right to self-autonomy is nothing more than a campaign by the opposition People’s National Party and its surrogates as they have learned to do since the early 70’s to destabilize our country using the same tired old subversive tactics Michael Manley and his acolytes used.
For those old enough to recall, those tactics were learned from Cuba, which was a satellite of the Soviet Empire.
These subversive tactics have nothing to do with truth or data; they are what the Republican party in the United States has resorted to as white supremacy is threatened by changing racial demographic data.
It is important to reconcile that the Maroons in Jamaica have enjoyed Lion status born out of how our history has been taught to us from grade school.
We believed that the Maroons were heroes who fought and defeated the British planters and British colonialist military on the Island.
In fact, though the Maroons themselves were enslaved runaways who became thorns in the side of the white slavers, the planters devised a plan which made them party to the brutish practice of slavery on their own brothers and sisters.
Their origins as distinct from the rest of the Jamaican population can be traced to the pre-British era of Jamaican history. Most scholars placed their inception in 1655 when the British took control of Jamaica from the Spanish. They are reported to have fled with their Spanish masters; these former slaves took to the mountainous interior and formed groups that survived British colonization.
So the idea that they have some insulation from independent Jamaican laws is based more on fantasy than reality. Sure they were not slaves to the British, But they were slaves to the Spaniards.
Neither of which makes a difference in the greater scheme of things.
According to (aaregistry.org (Before 1700, men who had been born in Africa generally led the Maroon population; many claimed they had been Kings in their homeland. After 1700, Maroon leaders were often Creoles familiar with the ways of Whites and with African methods. The leader of the Maroon community in Jamaica was Captain Cudjoe (Kojo). During the 18th century, the Maroons became more powerful and settled in, among other places, the mountains of Jamaica. Carving out a significant area of influence, their threat to the system of slavery was clear; hence, the white planters signed a treaty with the Maroons in 1738. This treaty was an unlikely concession during the eighteenth century, given the dominance of the British class across the Caribbean. The treaty did not exclusively serve White interests. Article three of the treaty stated that the Maroons were given 1,500 acres of Crown land.
Article eight of the treaty stated: “that if any white man does any manner of injury to Cudjoe, his successors or any of his or their people shall apply to any commanding officer or magistrate in the neighborhood for justice.” This showed some equity under the law between the Maroons and White plantation owners. In brief, the British were willing to divide themselves equally among the Maroons. In general, the articles of pacification also attempted to limit Maroon attacks against the system of slavery. Article thirteen required that the Maroons continue to help clear roads from Trelawny Town to Westmoreland and, if possible, from St. James to St. Elizabeth. This was biased because, as free men, the Maroons were not required to labor for the planters showing a White view that the Maroons were inferior.
Another bias in the treaty includes article fourteen, which affirms that two White men shall live with the Maroons “to maintain a friendly correspondence with the inhabitants of this island.” This was to encourage a friendly relationship between the two but gave Whites first-hand knowledge of the state of affairs in the Maroon community. Most importantly, the treaty also required the Maroons to act as a police force for the planters, returning future runaways to the plantations and drafting them to fight against future rebellions.
Overall, this treaty recognized the Maroons and their needs and revealed that the British feared the Maroons’ capabilities and ever-rising power. (Reference:Harvard.edu)
As part of the peace treaties, one signed with Cudjoe in the west and another subsequently signed with Quao in the east, Maroons agreed to hunt and return future runaway slaves and, amongst other things, aid the suppression of internal and external threats. In return, the British recognized Maroon freedom, granted the communities land in the interior, and allowed Maroons to sustain themselves through small-scale trading at markets supplemented by wild boar hunting.
This suggests that many colonists were very much aware of this and came to rely on the Maroons for security.
In essence, the British colonist came to rely on the Maroons for protection as mutual recognition of the benefits of an alliance emerged.
And so, I ask the Jamaican people who have long lionized and adored the Maroons, and even bestowed hero status on Maroon leaders like Nanny and Cudjoe and made them national heroes; how have these facts lined up with the rest of you whose ancestors have been forced to endure slavery at the hands of the white slavers and their Maroon allies?
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.