Maroon communities
Escaped slaves build independent societies and some force treaties from empires.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 200 years
- Known to
- ± 50 years
- Era
- Early Modern, Holocene
Across the Americas, people who escaped enslavement establish autonomous settlements in forests, swamps and mountains — Palmares in Brazil lasted almost a century and may have held tens of thousands; Jamaican Maroons fought the British to a treaty in 1739; Suriname's Saramaka and Ndyuka secured recognised autonomy that persists. They are the clearest evidence that enslaved people resisted continuously and sometimes successfully.