Asafu Yard

[Ɔkyeame Kwame]

Asafu Yard
Groundins
with Charles Campbell
Sunday, April 29, 2007

Saturday, April 21 was one of those days you can only experience if you are a Jamaican living in Jamaica and deeply steeped in the culture. The West Indies cricket team was playing their last match in the World Cup series against England, our ex-colonial masters.

This was to be Brian Lara's last international match, having decided to call it quits and we all expected him to leave the game, with an exquisite display of the batting skills that had made him such a giant of an enigma for the last 17 years.
The match went down to the wire, with England needing to score one run from two balls with one wicket in hand. Suspense - drama at its best.

Meanwhile, a reorganised and expanded WellFest opened at Hope Gardens. Similar to the last setting, this venue enhanced the theme of the festival, which promotes a healthy lifestyle. The rain started, just as the stage show got under way. But the precipitation took more than one form as man and nature harmonised. Tarrus Riley's set brilliantly orchestrated by backing band Constructive Noise, led by Glen Browne, delivered such excellent music that Tarrus Riley has never before sounded so good.

By the time Chalice began their set, patrons were well primed for the slew of hits and the band proceeded to mesmerise us even more. The end result was that most patrons, even your normal prudes, gave themselves up to gay (excuse my language) abandonment, kept dancing in the rain and so enjoyed one of the most wondrous afternoons of the year. We all left there soaked to the bone with rain and great music and filled with live food.

The general feedback from patrons and participants was that this was a successful transition and therefore congratulations are in order for Elaine, Carol and the Ocean Spray team who have created Kingston's first annual festival. While there, it suddenly dawned on me that the dreadlocks hairstyle is now more popular than it has ever been in Jamaica .

I have great regard and a lot of time for two groups that have consciously persevered in retaining elements of our African cultural heritage. These are the Maroons, who have played this role traditionally and contemporarily, the Rastafarians. Coincidentally, in the same way that the Rastafarians today are often misunderstood and caricaturised, so has the role of the Maroons in our history.

We visited a lesser known Maroon settlement, called Charles Town in Portland on Monday April 16, touring Quao Village, the Asafu yard and museum. Quao Village is a traditional and very enchanting recreational ground, sited on the eastern bank of the Buff Bay River, continuously in use by the Maroon community for recreational purposes since the Quao peace treaty of 1739. The Asafu yard was where the Maroons gathered and prepared for battle with the British, a most essential aspect of which, was performing their ritualistic war dance. Is there some symbiotic connection with our modern dancehalls? Col Frank Lumsden rejects this notion, but it begs further psychoanalysis.

However, I must admit to feeling a bit awed and humbled standing in the same spot where the Maroons imbued themselves with the spirits of the ancestors before going into battle. For its authenticity and depth, the museum was oozing with inspiration and little-known information that helped tremendously in clarifying the origins of the windward maroon community. For instance on prominent display was a fascinating feature on members of the Maroon community who were African Spanish Moors and devotees of the Islamic faith.

Led by the great warrior Tarik, the Moors conquered Spain in 711, and ruled there for over 700 years. They pulled Spain out of the Dark Ages and introduced agriculture, water distribution and irrigation, architecture, medicine/science and all the trades on which Modern Spain later evolved, until their rule finally ended the same year that Columbus sailed unwittingly onto the Americas. Of significant connection in understanding our local history is the fact that the only Spanish colony that was not impacted by the Inquisition which followed the defeat of the Moors was Jamaica.

During the period of Spanish colonialism, many Moors (and Jews) piloted ships and/or came on their own to Jamaica. While the Spanish did have African field slaves, free Moors also served the Spanish settlers as tradesmen - building their colony, mercenaries, cattle herders and rangers. (Historians ascribe the origin of the term 'maroon' mainly to these last two lifestyles. The English word is derived from the Spanish word 'cimarron' meaning wild and untamed.)

As time progressed, large Maroon villages, inhabited by a mix of Tainos, Moors and later, runaway slaves evolved and existed alongside Spanish settlements. (Beverly Carey posits that the very first Maroons were actually Tainos.) Jewish traders traversed between the Spanish and these Maroon settlements, successfully selling everything from utensils to guns and ammunition. With the tactical agreement between the two communities, the men from the Maroon villages became the main military resistance forces to the early British incursions on the island.

Colonel Lumsden puts it succinctly, "The Maroons were already free, so [they] went to war with the British to maintain their way of life". Military skirmishes with the British continued for nearly 40 years before Juan De Bolas, an African Spanish Muslim Moor Maroon, accepted the British offer of land, title and freedom (from continued British aggression) for the group he led.

This divided and critically weakened the ability of not just the Maroons, but the Spanish settlers to defend their communities and precipitated the demise and departure of the Spanish and the ceding of the island to the British, who on their takeover, initially freed all the Spanish African slaves, some of who joined the Maroon communities.

What is little known however, is that Juan de Serras, another Moor Maroon leader rejected the offer, insisting that his people already had their freedom and land, therefore the British land title meant nothing to him. He was later responsible for the ambush and killing of Juan de Bolas for his treachery. This was deemed necessary because a critical component of Juan de Bolas's agreement with the British compelled him to disclose the locations of all Maroon Villages of which he had knowledge.

Thus began the first Maroon War that lasted over 70 years and eventually led to the Battle of Spanish River in which Quao displayed military genius, tactically drawing the British deeper and deeper into the jungle of the Blue Mountains , until they were completely lost and forced to retreat. Knowing the terrain as well as he did, Quao surmised that the British could only find a route out by following the Spanish River and could only exit the forest in one particular location.

Quao positioned his forces on both sides of the river and after the initial confrontation those British soldiers trying to flee across the river were caught in the crossfire. Very few English soldiers survived, but not one Maroon soldier was lost.

Soon afterwards (1738) the British first negotiated peace treaties with Cudjoe and Accompong, the leaders of the leeward Maroons and on June 23, 1739, Quao followed suit. Unfortunately, a condition of the treaties was that henceforth these Maroon free-states were obliged to return runaway slaves to the plantation or local militia, who were mostly 'black shots'. Thus began the assimilation of the Maroons into the broader British-Jamaican community, and marks the juncture where the controversy begins. The British tactic of divide and rule continues up to today. More anon.

Email: che.campbell@yahoo.com