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24-503: Old Nanny Town was a village in the Blue Mountains of Portland Parish , northeastern Jamaica , used as a stronghold of Jamaican Maroons (escapee slaves). During the early 18th century, the region was led by an Ashanti escapee slave known as Queen Nanny , or Granny Nanny, who gave the town its namesake. The town was steadfast, and held-out against repeated attacks from the colonial militia before being abandoned in 1734. One story

48-449: A militia detachment under the command of Lieutenant Ross to negotiate with Quao, but the Maroon leader spurned his offers, and reasserted Maroon control of Crawford's Town. Ross then secured the allegiance of the supporters of Crawford, as well as other Windward Maroons, and they defeated the minority of Maroons who supported Quao, capturing him, and killing a number of his Maroon officers. It

72-683: A spiritual leader. However, during the First Maroon War, and especially between 1728 and 1734, the British attacked Nanny Town time and time again, but each time the colonial militias captured and occupied Nanny Town, the Windward Maroons regained it shortly afterwards. This was accomplished due to the skill of the Maroons skilled in fighting in an area of high rainfall as well as disguising themselves as bushes and trees. The Maroons also used decoys to trick

96-572: A subtropical highland climate (Cfb) under the Köppen climate classification. The Blue Mountains climatic diversity has led to the growth of diverse and lush vegetation including towering trees and more than 500 species of flowering plants. The mountains are home to the world's second-largest butterfly and the largest in the Americas, the Homerus swallowtail . This is the most well-studied remaining population of

120-643: A typical Ashanti tribe in Africa. After the First Maroon War , a deed from the colonial government granted Nanny more than 500 acres (2.4 km) of land where the Maroons could live and raise animals and grow crops. In addition to what they raised and produced, the Maroons sent traders to the coastal towns to exchange food for weapons and cloth. During the First Maroon War, the Maroons of Nanny Town raided plantations for weapons and food, burnt plantations, and led liberated slaves to join them at Nanny Town. Nanny Town

144-606: Is maintained by the Jamaican government. The Blue Mountains rise to their summits from the coastal plain in the space of about 16 kilometres (9.9 mi), thus producing one of the steepest general gradients in the world. This provides cooling relief from the sweltering heat of the city of Kingston , visible below. Their summits rise and fall for 38.62 kilometres (24.00 mi) and span 22.53 kilometres (14.00 mi) at their widest point. The temperature decreases from around 27 °C (80 °F) at sea level to 5 °C (40 °F) at

168-410: Is not clear what happened to Quao, because he disappears from the records after Crawford's Town was destroyed. The supporters of Quao relocated to the neighbouring Maroon town of Scott's Hall (Jamaica) , while the supporters of Crawford took up residence in the new Maroon community of Charles Town (Jamaica) . The white superintendents took control of both Charles Town and Scott's Hall in the aftermath of

192-514: Is that Nanny of the Maroons (also known as Queen Nanny and Granny Nanny) was born in what is now Ghana , West Africa, as a member of the Ashanti nation, part of the Akan people . Allegedly, she was enslaved , along with her five "brothers-in-arms", and brought to eastern Jamaica. She and her five "brothers", Cudjoe , Accompong , Johnny, Cuffy and Quao , quickly decided to flee the oppressive conditions of

216-525: The Blue Mountain Peak, just 16 km (9.9 mi) inland. The island's average rainfall is 1,960 millimetres (77 in) per year. Where the higher elevations of the Blue Mountains catch the rain from moisture-laden winds it exceeds 5,080 millimetres (200 in) per year with some areas recording totals of more than 7,620 millimetres (300 in). High elevations of the Blue Mountains have

240-486: The British colonial forces would not be able to win the First Maroon War, he offered a treaty first to Cudjoe of the Leeward Maroons in 1739, and then to Quao in 1740. However, Cudjoe was able to secure a more advantageous treaty than Quao, probably because the western Maroon leader was negotiating from a stronger position. The 1739 treaty gave Cudjoe permission to keep all Maroons who had joined his town before he signed

264-445: The British into a surprise attack. This was done by having non-camouflaged Maroons run out into view of the British and then run in the direction of the fellow Maroons who were disguised, leading the British into ambushes time and time again. After another Windward Maroon leader, Quao , signed the treaty of 1740 with the British, the Windward Maroons split up. Quao's supporters moved to what later became known as Crawford's Town , while

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288-404: The Leeward Maroons. Cudjoe is probably the son of one of the leaders of this revolt. While Cudjoe emerged as the leader of the Leeward Maroons of the west, Nanny came to prominence as one of the main leaders of the Windward Maroons of the east. By 1720, Nanny and Quao had organized and were leading the settlement of Windward Maroons; it was known as Nanny Town. Nanny Town was organized similarly to

312-553: The Maroons of Nanny Town relocated to Moore Town . 1720s – 1750s Queen Nanny 1720s – 1750s Captain Welcome Blue Mountains (Jamaica) The Blue Mountains dominate the eastern third of Jamaica , while bordering the eastern parishes of Portland , Saint Thomas , Saint Mary and Saint Andrew to the south. Part of the Blue Mountains is contained in the Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park established in 1992, which

336-521: The area's rich soil for growing coffee. Quao Quao (d. c. 1750s) was one of the leaders of the Windward Maroons , who fought the British colonial forces of Jamaica to a standstill during the First Maroon War of the 1730s. The name Quao is probably a variation of Yaw , which is the Twi Akan name given to a boy born on a Thursday. The Windward Maroons were based in the forested interior of

360-432: The document, but the Windward Maroons were required to return all runaways who joined them in the three years prior to Quao signing the 1740 treaty. Quao watched while the British military commanders quarreled over who should sign the treaty with the Windward Maroons, an argument that was eventually won by Robert Bennett. Quao and Bennett ‘cut their fingers, and mixed their blood in a calabash bowl’, after which they signed

384-500: The endangered butterfly. The Jamaican coney , a type of hutia and Jamaica's only native land mammal, as well as the Jamaican boa and wintering Bicknell's thrushes , are found here. The mountains have been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because they support significant populations of many Jamaican bird species. When Jamaica's economy was dominated by plantation slavery, some slaves escaped to

408-402: The island, in the heart of the Blue Mountains (Jamaica) . During the First Maroon War, Quao shared the leadership of the Windward Maroons with Queen Nanny , an outstanding female Maroon leader. Under the leadership of Quao and Nanny, the Windward Maroons carried out the bulk of the fighting against the British colonial authorities during the 1730s. When Governor Edward Trelawny realized that

432-886: The mountains to live independently, where they were known as Jamaican Maroons . Charles Town, Jamaica on the Buff Bay River in central Portland, Moore Town in eastern Portland, and Scott's Hall, Jamaica in St Mary are the contemporary communities of Windward Maroons . Today, the famous Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee , which commands premium prices on world markets, is cultivated between 0.6 kilometres (0.37 mi) and 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) above sea level , while higher slopes are preserved as forest. Hagley Gap and Mavis Bank are farming communities located on Blue Mountain, with Hagley Gap being closest to Blue Mountain Peak . Both towns rely upon

456-419: The peace treaty. After the 1740 treaty, it appears that Quao and Nanny parted ways. It seems that Nanny took her supporters east to what would later become Moore Town on the eastern fringes of the Blue Mountains, while Quao took his people west to central Jamaica, and formed a community in a town that later came to be known as Crawford's Town on the western edge of the Blue Mountains. However, in about 1746,

480-400: The plantations and joined them. Angered by continued raiding of plantations and armed confrontations, the colonial government mounted the First Maroon War of the 1730s in an effort to defeat and capture the runaway slaves. One story is that 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

504-532: The sugar cane plantations to join the autonomous African communities of Maroons which had developed in the mountains. These communities of Free black people in Jamaica originated from people formerly enslaved by the Spanish, who had refused to submit to British control. The Maroons of Nanny Town claim descent from escaped African slaves and Taino men and women. The Maroon communities grew as many more slaves escaped

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528-494: The white superintendents appointed by the British governors took control of Crawford's Town, and replaced Quao as the Maroon leader of that community. The new leader was another Maroon officer, Edward Crawford, after whom the town was eventually named. In 1754, Quao and his supporters rose up in revolt, killed Ned Crawford, and captured the three white men who acted as superintendents in Crawford's Town. Governor Charles Knowles sent

552-414: Was an excellent location for a stronghold, as it overlooked Stony River via a 900-foot ridge, making a surprise attack by the British very difficult. The Maroons organized look-outs for such attacks, and warriors could be summoned by the sound of a horn called an abeng . Granny Nanny allegedly freed more than 800 slaves over the span of 50 years. She also had a vast knowledge of herbs due to her role as

576-401: 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 and the Blue Mountains. A more likely origin for the Leeward Maroons occurred in 1690, when there was a Coromantee rebellion on Sutton's estate in western Jamaica, and most of these slaves ran away to form

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