Qualla: Nanny Town

Nanny Town: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User: (WT-shared) Bz3rk at wts wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 3.0. The sound of the abeng, a cow horn used as a war trumpet, once echoed through the Blue Mountains of northeastern Jamaica. When British soldiers heard it, they knew they were already too late. The horn meant the Maroons of Nanny Town had spotted them climbing the ridge, and whatever ambush awaited in the dense mountain rainforest was already set. Between 1720 and 1734, the colonial militia attacked this settlement again and again. They captured it more than once. Each time, the Windward Maroons took it back.

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Image: User: (WT-shared) Bz3rk at wts wikivoyage | CC BY-SA 3.0

Nanny Town: From Chains to the Mountains

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The Maroon communities of Jamaica trace their origins to people formerly enslaved by the Spanish who refused to submit when the British seized the island in 1655. Over the following decades, more enslaved people fled the sugar plantations and joined these autonomous communities i...

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Image: Public domain

Nanny Town: A Fortress Built by Geography

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. By 1720, Nanny and Quao had organized the Windward Maroons into a settlement perched on a 900-foot ridge overlooking the Stony River. The position was nearly impregnable. Any approaching force had to climb through thick mountain jungle under observation from lookouts stationed al...

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Image: Public domain

Nanny Town: The First Maroon War

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The colonial government launched the First Maroon War in the 1730s, determined to crush the communities that were bleeding the plantation economy through raids and by offering a destination for those who escaped bondage. Nanny Town bore the brunt of the British assault in the eas...

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Image: Public domain

Nanny Town: Eight Hundred Lives Freed

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Nanny's legacy extends beyond military resistance. Over the span of approximately fifty years, she is credited with freeing more than 800 enslaved people, guiding them from the plantations to the Maroon settlements. After the war, a deed from the colonial government granted Nanny...

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Image: Public domain

Nanny Town: Where the Maroons Went

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. In 1740, Quao, another Windward Maroon leader, signed a peace treaty with the British. The agreement split the community. Quao's supporters relocated to what became Crawford's Town. The Maroons of Nanny Town moved to Moore Town, in the Rio Grande valley, where their descendants l...

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Image: Public domain