The legendary Queen Nanny

NOT MUCH is known about Nanny of the Maroon’s early years on Earth. But the story is that she was from West Africa, from where many people were taken to the West Indies to work on various plantations under subhuman conditions. But there are also claims that she did not come as an enslaved person, per se. She had come to see what was happening to her people.

The theory that she was from the Akan people of the Gold Coast (Ghana) has been posited. It was a matrifocal society in which they lived. Women were usually the head of families. University of Ghana Distinguished Professor Kofi Opuki says: “The indomitable spirit they (the Maroons) exhibited in Jamaica came straight from Ghana. It is the real Akan spirit.”

ACT OF BETRAYAL

Thus, Queen Nanny is compared to Akan warrior Nana Yaa Asantewaa, who fought the British in the 1900 War of the Golden Stool. But unlike Asantewaa, Nanny was never captured. Instead, she was invited to sign a treaty of peace and friendship with the British, who she did not trust. She did not sign it, saying that it would be an act of betrayal of her people. But Captain Quao did. The treaty ended the First Maroon War against the British from 1720 to 1739 when the British were devastated in the final battle in the Spanish River in Portland.

Captain Quao and Nanny were said to be skilled military strategists who used their knowledge of the geography of the Blue Mountains region to outlast and confuse their pursuers. She has been described as a “tough negotiator” and a “brilliant strategist” who led her people into guerilla battles even when her original town was taken over by the British in 1734. The hapless British were tricked and distracted over and over again by the people over whom Nanny wielded great influence.

THE OLD OBEAH WOMAN

It was not all about fighting and strategising; Nanny seems to have had knowledge of the healing properties of plants. She can easily be considered a herbalist, and she was also known for her ancestral spiritual practices, which the British feared because they did not understand them. What was regarded as witchcraft were rituals and practices that African people would use to heal themselves. Nanny is oft referred to in the literature as “the old obeah woman”.

Nanny’s story is a legendary one, and with legendary statuses come myths. There are many myths swirling about her, some of which are feeding the claims that she was not real. Stories of her supernatural powers are forever being told. One story goes that she could catch bullets with her posterior and fire them back in rapid succession. Another is that Nanny lured the British soldiers into a boiling pot, which hypnotised them. It is also said that once after she meditated and prayed, she found pumpkin seeds in her pocket. Within a week, the seeds, which she had planted, had borne enough pumpkin to feed her people.

A REAL PERSON

Despite the myths and the fact that the image of Nanny of the Maroons that is emblazoned all over is a figment of an artist’s imagination, it is also true that Nanny was a real person as implied above. However, some people refused to accept that fact. But before she who lived in Jamaica from about 1685 to 1755 was conferred with the title of National Heroine on March 31, 1982, much research was done by poet and historian Professor Kamau Brathwaite of the University of the West Indies.

The research was inspired by a motion in Parliament in 1976 by Senator Colin L. G. Harris, former colonel of Moore Town, where Nanny’s remains are set to be buried in the ‘Bump Grave’. Other noted contributors to the research were Lucille Mathurin and historian Bev Carey. Whatever doubt that is still lingering about her realness should be obliterated by the fact that Nanny’s name is mentioned many times in historical documents in national archives in Jamaica and Britain.

In a ‘Land Patent to Nanny, 1740, Patents Vol. 22, Folio 15 B’, entered April 20, 1741, King George II of Great Britain, France, and Ireland and King of Jamaica gave Nanny and the people residing with her and “other heirs” 500 acres of land in the parish of Portland “branching north south and east on Kingsland and west on Mr John Stevenson”. Nanny was mentioned seven more times in the document.

Real or imaginary, the story of Queen Nanny of the Maroons has inspired thousands of women all over the world. Her leadership and military skills are sources of great pride. Hers is a narrative of redemption, the leader of a people who refused to be enslaved and subservient. Her exploits will forever be etched in the annals of Jamaica’s history. She is one woman among a pantheon of seven. She predated them all, leading the way to the evolution of a nation of people in whose beings live her indomitable spirit. She is National Heroine Queen Nanny of the Maroons.