In 1663 the British, finding that they could not master the warlike
fugitives by force, offered them a full pardon, with liberty and twenty
acres of land apiece, if they would yield. But the negroes, who were
masters of the whole mountainous interior, where thousands could live in
plenty, chose to stay where they were and not to trust to the slippery
faith of the white man. And so it went on until after 1730, when the
depredations of the negroes upon the settlements became so annoying that
two regiments of British regulars and all the militia of the island were
sent into the mountains to put them down. As it proved, the negroes still
held their own, not one of them being taken prisoner, and very few of them
killed. They were decidedly masters of the situation.
At this time the chief of the Maroons, Cudjoe by name, was a dusky dwarf,
sable, ugly, and uncouth, but shrewd and wary, and fully capable of
discounting all the wiles of his enemies. No Christian he, but a full
Pagan, worshipping, with his followers, the African gods of Obeah, or the
deities of the wizards and sorcerers.
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