Wes­ley Gib­bings

The 17th An­nu­al In­ter­na­tion­al Charles Town Ma­roon Con­fer­ence & Fes­ti­val in Ja­maica, held from June 20 to 23, blend­ed cel­e­bra­tion with se­ri­ous di­a­logue on in­dige­nous land and cul­tur­al rights.

The four-day event cen­tred on three main goals: com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment, cul­tur­al preser­va­tion, and in­ter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion. It brought to­geth­er Ma­roon com­mu­ni­ties from Charles Town, Ac­com­pong, Moore Town, and Scott’s Hall, along with Ja­maican Tain­os and over­seas par­tic­i­pants.

On the third day, act­ing Charles Town Chief Cap­tain De­lano Dou­glas—broth­er of the late Chief Mar­cia Dou­glas, who died last Oc­to­ber at age 48—re­mind­ed at­ten­dees of the Ma­roons’ spir­i­tu­al and his­tor­i­cal ties to the land.

“Our con­nec­tion to this land is not own­er­ship; it is a re­la­tion­ship,” said Dou­glas, al­so known as Ras Padam. “We are the de­scen­dants of free­dom fight­ers. This land gave us shel­ter when the world gave us chains, and we have nev­er for­got­ten.”

His re­marks echoed grow­ing con­cerns about un­re­solved land rights is­sues be­tween the Ja­maican state and Ma­roon com­mu­ni­ties. On day two, Moore Town Chief Colonel Wal­lace Ster­ling, the coun­try’s longest-serv­ing Ma­roon leader, said it was time­ly that land rights be a cen­tral fo­cus of the 2025 ob­ser­vances.

“If you have land, you have pow­er,” Ster­ling de­clared. He ques­tioned the in­con­sis­ten­cy be­tween calls for repa­ra­tions from Britain for slav­ery and the lack of “in­ter­nal repa­ra­tions” or land recog­ni­tion for in­dige­nous groups like the Ma­roons.

De­spite for­mal recog­ni­tion of their cul­tur­al and po­lit­i­cal iden­ti­ty, many Ma­roons ar­gue that their land claims re­main un­ac­knowl­edged by the gov­ern­ment. In Ac­com­pong, for in­stance, the com­mu­ni­ty’s claim to Cock­pit Coun­try—based on the 1738 and 1739 peace treaties that end­ed the First Ma­roon War—has not been of­fi­cial­ly ac­cept­ed.

Ac­com­pong Chief Richard Cur­rie called for uni­ty among Ma­roon com­mu­ni­ties on the is­sue. He in­sist­ed the treaties re­main “still stand­ing, still bind­ing, and still sa­cred.” Cur­rie al­so crit­i­cised the gov­ern­ment’s re­fusal to fund de­vel­op­ment projects in what he refers to as “the Sov­er­eign State of Ac­com­pong.”

In re­sponse, Cur­rie said Ac­com­pong had launched sev­er­al in­de­pen­dent de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing plans for a mi­ni health cen­tre, a tech­no­log­i­cal and en­tre­pre­neur­ial cen­tre, com­mu­ni­ty Wi-Fi ser­vice, and an at­mos­pher­ic wa­ter gen­er­a­tor to ex­tract wa­ter from air.

Amid the ad­vo­ca­cy and re­flec­tion, the fes­ti­val al­so of­fered rich cul­tur­al ex­pe­ri­ences.

Day two fea­tured “Bun Fyah Night,” with tra­di­tion­al mu­sic, drum­ming, dance, and sto­ry­telling, along­side a Taino river­bank cer­e­mo­ny in­volv­ing lo­cals and in­ter­na­tion­al guests. A Com­mu­ni­ty Day cre­at­ed space for shared sto­ries, dis­cus­sions, and the en­joy­ment of tra­di­tion­al food and craft.

The fi­nal day in­clud­ed a trib­ute to leg­endary Ma­roon leader Cap­tain Quao, who played a key role in the re­bel­lion that led to the 1739 Wind­ward Peace Treaty.

As the cur­tain fell on four days of events, par­tic­i­pants were left not on­ly with mem­o­ries of cel­e­bra­tion but al­so re­newed calls for uni­ty and jus­tice re­gard­ing land and an­ces­tral rights.