Nanny of the Maroons ONH (c. 1686 – c. 1760), also known as Queen Nanny or Granny Nanny, was a Jamaican revolutionary and leader of the Jamaican Maroons. She led a community of formerly-enslaved escapees, the majority of them West African in descent, called the Windward Maroons, along with their children and families. At the beginning of the 18th century, under the leadership of Nanny, the Windward Maroons fought a guerrilla war lasting many years against British authorities in the Colony of Jamaica, in what became known as the First Maroon War.
The Maroon communities
According to a Maroon legend espoused by the Maroons of Accompong Town, Nanny was born into the Asante people of modern-day Ghana. According to several Maroon colonels, her mother's name is Nyankopong. It is possible that this figure was the founder of the Oyoko clan, Antwiwaa Nyame. As Nyankopong is another name for Nyame, and the name Nyame is paired with Antwiwaa. In other words, she is a relative of the Asante ruling class of the Oyoko clan. The Maroons are descendants of West Africans, mainly people from the Akan.
Many Akan captives were known as Coromantie or Koromantee. A number of the enslaved originated from other regions of Africa, including Nigeria, the Congo and Madagascar. However, at least half of the enslaved African people in Jamaica during the early English colonisation of the island were also Asante in origin, as shown in maternal genetics, linguistics and cultural evidence.
In 1655, following the Invasion of Jamaica, the English captured Jamaica from the Spaniards, but many Spanish slaves became free under Spanish Maroon leaders such as Juan de Bolas and Juan de Serras. The Spanish left, freeing their slaves in the process, and they joined the Windward Maroon communities. These formerly enslaved people, with their ranks enhanced with escaped and liberated slaves, became the core of the Windward Maroons. They staged a prolonged fight against English subjugation and enslavement.
Resistance in the mountains
By 1720, Nanny and Quao, sometimes called her brother, settled and controlled an area in the Blue Mountains. It was later given the name Nanny Town, and it had a strategic location overlooking Stony River via a 900-foot (270 m) ridge, making a surprise attack by the British very difficult. Nanny became a folk hero among the Maroons and the slaves. While the British captured Nanny Town on more than one occasion, they were unable to hold on to it, in the wake of numerous guerrilla attacks from the Maroons.
The Maroons waged a successful war against the British colonial forces over the course of a decade. When Nanny Town was abandoned, the Windward Maroons under the command of Nanny moved to New Nanny Town. The Windward Maroons succeeded against a much superior and better-armed enemy. One of their advantages over the British was their long-range communications capability. They pioneered the use of a cow horn called an abeng. This horn with a hole drilled in one end was used for long-range communications.
Its signals allowed Maroon lookouts to communicate over great distances, and they were not understood by the British, who had no similar communications capability. Nanny's troops were masters of camouflage. The soldiers were so proficient at disguising their location that the British would circulate tales of trees in the forest becoming alive and cutting one's head off.
Peace terms and Moore Town
When the British signed a treaty with Cudjoe in 1739, this success allowed them to offer a less favourable treaty to the Windward Maroons. Representatives of the British governor in Jamaica signed a treaty with the Windward Maroons in 1740, between the colonial authorities and Quao, who later became one of the leaders of Crawford's Town. This treaty between the colonial authorities and Quao's Maroons made no mention of how much land would be allocated to Crawford's Town. As a result, a number of disputes occurred between planters and the Maroons of Crawford's Town, and later the succeeding towns of Charles Town and Scott's Hall. In response, the Assembly of Jamaica often tried to resolve the land disputes in favour of the Maroons to keep the peace.
New Nanny Town was renamed Moore Town, possibly in 1760 after the governor Sir Henry Moore, 1st Baronet, during Tacky's War, which the Maroons helped to suppress. The first official reference to Moore Town in the colonial records was in 1760. By 1760, New Nanny Town, now known as Moore Town, was under the command of a white superintendent named Charles Swigle, and the Maroon leaders of that town, Clash and Sambo, reported to Swigle when the superintendent commanded their forces against slave rebels in Tacky's War. It is possible that Nanny had already died by this time.