Maroons, Indigenous Peoples, and Self-Determination: The 13th Annual Charles Town Maroon Conference

 

On Thursday, June 24, 2021, I was honoured to participate (by virtual means) in the 13th Annual International Charles Town Maroon Conference and Festival. My presentation focused on The State, the Church, and Indigenous Self-Determination in Trinidad & Tobago. You can listen to the audio file of the spoken presentation, or watch the video presentation of the proceedings below. The conference program follows next.

The purpose of the presentation was to outline both the advances and successes of the work done over the past four decades (45 years) by the leadership of the Carib Community in seeking greater national visibility, official recognition, and a land grant. At the same time, I discuss some of the constraints that have been imposed by the Community's relationships with both the state and the Catholic Church. This information can be used to reflect on the strategy of trying to build autonomy at the same time as leading a cultural resurgence, in the absence of significant economic resources.

13th Annual International Charles Town Maroon Conference Programme - June 23 and 24, 2021 by Maximilian Forte on Scribd

Archaeologists discover slaves were wealthy; relations with Tainos

Friday, 27 July 2007-Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation:

Caribbean archaeologists say recent discoveries have forced them to rethink traditional views about the region's history. They have just held their biennial conference in Jamaica, where the role of archaeology in understanding the Caribbean history came up for discussion. The archaeologists say their findings are sometimes in direct contrast to what has been written by the "planter class", especially as it relates to the period of slavery. Roderick Ebanks, who chaired the Jamaica conference, is one of the archaeologists doing research into the Caribbean's past. He explained that they have come across the villages of enslaved workers and what they found is very different from what was written by contemporary planters. At an excavated African workers village in Seville on the North coast of Jamaica there were keys and large padlocks in the buildings indicating there was a lot of material wealth. As he pointed out the wealth is not surprising when you remember that the slaves create the internal marketing system. Many slaves were wealthy during slavery. Their wealth came not from handouts from planters but from their work in the grounds, their trading and their farms in the hills. From oral tradition it was known that there was a close relationship between Africans and native Arawaks who were called Taino. Now DNA evidence is showing that the maroons carry a lot of genes of the Taino people. The African male slaves who escaped took Taino wives and those were the people who became the maroon population.
Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation

Suriname: "New" Species Already Endangered

From the Associated Press, June 5 2007, an article on the "discovery" (one can be sure that the species are not new to the indigenous peoples of the area) of previously undocumented species of frog and insects in eastern Suriname. Having just been found by surveyors, they are almost immediately at risk, especially as the survey was done for mining companies, one of which, BHP is an Australian transnational corporation, with a woeful record of environmental destruction. Amerindians and Maroons of Suriname's interior, as the article notes, already suffer from poisonous contamination from mining, so the prospects for this "new" frog do not look too good.

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PARAMARIBO Suriname - A frog with fluorescent purple markings and 12 kinds of dung beetles were among two dozen new species discovered in the remote plateaus of eastern Suriname, scientists said Monday.

The expedition was sponsored by two mining companies hoping to excavate the area for bauxite, the raw material used to make aluminum, and it was unknown how the findings would affect their plans.

Scientists discovered the species during a 2005 expedition led by the U.S.-based nonprofit Conservation International in rainforests and swamps about 80 miles southeast of Paramaribo, the capital of the South American country, organization spokesman Tom Cohen said.

Among the species found were the atelopus frog, which has distinctive purple markings; six types of fish; 12 dung beetles, and one ant species, he said.

The scientists called for better conservation management in the unprotected, state-owned areas, where hunting and small-scale illegal mining is common.

The study was financed by Suriname Aluminum Company LLC and BHP Billiton Maatschappij Suriname. Suriname Aluminum, which has a government concession to explore gold in the area, will include the data in its environmental assessment study, said Haydi Berrenstein, a Conservation International official in Suriname, which borders Brazil, Guyana and French Guiana.

About 80 percent of Suriname is covered with dense rainforest. Thousands of Brazilians and Surinamese are believed to work in illegal gold mining, creating mercury pollution that has threatened the health of Amerindians and Maroons in Suriname's interior.