MAROONS, African descendants in the Americas who formed and protected settlements, communities, and free societies outside of slavery, often by guerilla warfare. The name comes from the French marron, meaning “feral” or “fugitive,” as well as from the Spanish cimarrón, meaning “wild” or referring to Black rebels. Maroon communities harbored fugitives and runaway slaves and often allied with indigenous peoples, frequently occupying the same land. These settlements appeared in the wetlands of Virginia and the Carolinas, in Cherokee enclaves in the southern Appalachian Mountains, the Seminole forests of Florida under Spanish rule, the bayous of Louisiana, and the lands of Jamaica, Cuba, Brazil, and elsewhere.
The first known maroon settlement in North America developed in the Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia and eastern North Carolina. Maroons in present-day Florida allied with Seminole Indians and formed large and successful communities, even gaining rights and freedoms from the Spanish Empire. Descendants of maroons and Seminole Indians— Black Seminoles or Afro-Seminoles— were removed to the Indian Territories in the 1830s. Many were absorbed into the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma but have since been excluded through membership rules regarding documentation of Native American descent. The bestknown maroon (quilombo) settlement in Brazil—Palmares (or “Palm Nation”)— was founded in the early seventeenth century and maintained independence under its ruler, King Zumbi, for almost one hundred years until it was conquered by the Portuguese in 1694.