His lurking-place, in the defiles of
the John Crow Mountains, was named Nanny Town, after his wife. Here two
mountain streams plunged over a rock nine hundred feet high into a
romantic gorge, where their waters met in a seething caldron called
"Nanny's Pot." Into this, as the negroes believed, the black witch Nanny
could, by her sorcery, cast the white soldiers who pursued them. As for
old Cudjoe himself, the English declared that he must be in league with
the devil, whom he resembled closely enough to be his brother. And they
were not without warrant for this belief, for he held his own against them
for nine long years, at the end of which the Maroons were more numerous
than at the beginning, since those who were killed were more than made up
by fresh accessions of runaway slaves.
It is certain that the British soldiers were no match for Cudjoe the
dwarf. Retreating warily before them, he drew them into many an ambush in
the wild defiles of the mountains, where they were cut down like sheep,
the waters of the "Pot" being often reddened with their blood.
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