Esmeraldas
Marronage—the flight of enslaved men and women was a common occurrence in the Americas and Caribbean from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Originally believed to be of Spanish origin (cimarrón; French marron), the term “maroon” is now thought to derive from a Hispaniola Taino root meaning “fugitive,” which combined with the Spanish cimá (mountaintop). […]
The Gullah
In music class when I was in junior high school my teacher told us something fascinating about former African American slaves who settled off the Southern United States coastline and said that to this day their descendents have their own language developed on the islands. I found it intriguing and it stuck in the back […]