Nanny Town
| Nanny Town | |
|---|---|
| Abandoned Maroon Village | |
 Nanny Town
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| Coordinates: 18°04′06″N 76°31′27″W / 18.0683°N 76.5242°WCoordinates: 18°04′06″N 76°31′27″W / 18.0683°N 76.5242°W | |
| Country | Jamaica |
| Parish | Saint Thomas |
| Founded | c1700 |
| Destroyed | 1734 |
| Founded by | Nanny |
Old Nanny Town was a village in the Blue Mountains of Portland Parish, north-eastern Jamaica, used as a stronghold of Jamaican Maroons (escaped slaves). They were led in the early 18th century by an Ashanti escaped slave known as Granny Nanny, or Queen Nanny. The town held out against repeated British colonial attacks before being destroyed in 1734.
Nanny was born in what is now Ghana, West Africa, as a member of the Ashanti nation, part of the Akan people. She was enslaved, along with her five brothers, and brought to eastern Jamaica. She and her five brothers, Cudjoe, Accompong, Johnny, Cuffy and Quao, quickly decided to flee the oppressive conditions of the sugar cane plantations to join the autonomous African communities of Maroons who had developed in the mountains. This community originated from people formerly enslaved by the Spanish, who had refused to submit to British control. This community developed as many more slaves escaped the plantations and joined the Maroons. Angered by continued raiding of plantations and armed confrontations, the colonial government mounted the First Maroon War of the 1730s in an effort to run out and capture the refugee slaves.
Nanny and her brothers split up in order to continue the resistance to the plantation slave economy across Jamaica. Cudjoe went to Clarendon, where he was soon joined by about a hundred Maroons from Cottawood; while Accompong went to St. Elizabeth, where a Maroon community was later named for him. Nanny and Quao made their way to Portland Parish and the Blue Mountains.
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Wikipedia