Maroons and Marronage

What did it mean to free oneself from enslavement in different parts of the Americas? What constitutes success? How do agency, resistance, and complicity emerge in the transition from unfreedom to freedom? What are the legacies of such actions in the contemporary moment? By focusing on flight from enslavement, we will trace the contours of colonization in the Americas and discuss how maroons challenged the naturalness of the colonial order and shaped larger geopolitical relations among colonial powers. First, we will take a nuanced approach to broad themes such as freedom, independence, and resistance as we examine case studies from Latin America, the Caribbean, and North America. We will then explore how these narratives of freedom and resistance have been used in the present day for a variety of purposes from commemoration to tourism to activism. By following the lives and afterlives of maroons in the Americas, this course asks us to critically engage with the often ignored co-authors of the hemisphere's past, present, and future.
Course Attributes: EN S; BU BA; BU IS; AS LCD; AS SSC; FA SSC; AR SSC

Maroons and Marronage

AFRICAN AND AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDIES 367

Section 01