Dear Editor,

At the heart of the misunderstanding between the Accompong Maroons in St Elizabeth and the Government of Jamaica is not sovereignty, per say, but land ownership.

No member of the Accompong community can either sell the land or present to a bank any documents to facilitate a loan. This is not due to the land being free because they fought for it, but because it is Crown land.

They also live on the land as stewards, caring for it, and do not pay taxes to the Government of Jamaica as they are responsible to use the money earned from the resources of the land to develop their own social and corporate amenities.

In 1842, following the abolition of slavery, “… the Statute; 3 Vic Cap, 49” repealed all previous laws dealing with the Maroons and provided that they shall be entitled to all rights, privileges, and immunities of British subjects. In short, they enjoy the same rights of all Jamaican citizens. All the rights as set out in the 2007 United Nations Rights for Indigenous People were accorded to the Jamaican Maroons 180 years ago.

The Maroon Townships Lands Allotment Law, enacted in 1856 and re-enacted in the revised edition of the Laws of Jamaica 1938, gave complete authority to Her Majesty’s commissioners in the granting, conveying, and allotting of all lands used and enjoyed by the Maroons. The law, in addition, gave the commission the power to settle all disputes arising between rival claimants: “In case any dispute shall arise between the parties desirous of obtaining a grant and conveyance of the same land, it shall be lawful for the said executive committee or any two of them to determine such disputes and to grant and convey the land in dispute to such one of the parties as they, in their discretion, shall think fit.” (Laws of Jamaica p 4124)

The Jamaica Gazette, Vol XXIX, p 186 records the following information: By Act 2 Wm IV C 34: “Under this Act, all Maroon reserves were subdivided except the Accompong’s 1000 acres, which were then vested in the Crown and all Maroons became merged in the general population.”

Since all Maroon communities across Jamaica, with the exception of Accompong, were merged into the society, it means that residents of Maroon Town in St James, as well as Charles Town and Moore Town in Portland own their lands and can sell it or present their titles to financial institutions for loans on their properties.

Since ignorance of the law only makes us like a bull in a china shop, and causes us to follow the masses in situations in which the M is often silent, I would recommend a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to be entered into between the Government and Colonel Currie on behalf of the Accompong Maroons.

It is the Government’s mandate to ensure that all Jamaicans have access to land ownership. An MOU would empower members of Accompong, individually, to own their own lands, and it ought to include reorganisation of the boundaries to protect the environmentally sensitive areas in the Cockpit Country, with the Accompong Maroons as stewards invested in safeguarding it from devious political decisions.

For transparency, my third grandmother was a Rowe from the Maroon community, and descendants of the Rowe family have served in Jamaica’s judiciary and are involved in the nation’s political life.

Dudley C McLean II

Mandeville, Manchester

dm15094@gmail.com