The Defender: Queen Nanny
On the Jamaican $500 note is a woman’s face. That African-Jamaican warrior woman is Queen Nanny, also known as Nanny of the Maroons. Although much of Queen Nanny’s story comes from oral history, this fierce woman who was posthumously named a Jamaican National Hero - the first woman to receive this honour-, was said to have led her people, the Windward/Eastern Maroons, through guerilla warfare, to victory against the “redcoats” of the British Colony in the 18th century.
Believed to have been born in the Asante/Ashanti region in now-Ghana in the 1680s, it is not clear if she was enslaved or free - some versions say she was African royalty - when she arrived in Jamaica. After England captured the island from the Spanish, over a thousand enslaved people - the Maroons - settled in the forests and mountains.
The Maroons were a community of resistors who escaped enslavement on plantations. They were a big threat to the colonial power structures. Queen Nanny is accounted to have been an expert military strategist, and the success of the Maroons’ fight against the better-armed British army from their basecamp called “Nanny Town” was due to a combination of excellent camouflage & surprise (they used the terrain to their advantage), long-range communication (the cow horn), and constant innovations. On April 20, 1740, the British signed peace treaties and gave freedom and land to the Maroons. Most of this success has been attributed to Queen Nanny’s inspiring leadership.
Queen Nanny was also known as a spiritual leader and healer. She practiced obeah, a religion common in the West Indian Colonies. The practitioners were well-versed in the use of poisonous roots and plants found in the tropics. She is said to have used her mastery of medicinal herbs to kill soldiers whose mission was to re-enslave the ‘fugitive’ blacks. (Although the slavers were worried about poisoning and sorcery, plantation owners still relied on the ethnomedical knowledge of these people to treat illnesses of enslaved workers.) In a Jamaican folk tale, the Maroons were on the brink of starvation and surrender when Queen Nanny heard a voice telling her to wait one more day. The next morning, she found three pumpkin seeds in her apron pocket and was told to plant them. She did, on the side of what is now known as Pumpkin Hill. The seeds grew quickly into large pumpkins that saved the Maroons from starvation and defeat.
This wise woman understood the importance of her people to remember the customs and traditions they had carried with them from their homes across the Atlantic. She encouraged her people to never forget. This warrior, spiritualist, and general, led her people to victory after victory against the dominating British; she will not be forgotten.
CC Photo: "Queen Nanny (c. 1686 - 1733) was a well-known leader of the rebellious Jamaican Maroons." by David Drissel is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
