Justin Dunnavant is an archaeologist and Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UCLA. His current research in the US Virgin Islands investigates the relationship between ecology and enslavement in the former Danish West Indies. He recently wrote an article about Maroon settlements on St Croix, USVI. In 1733, the Danish West India-Guinea Company purchased St. Croix from France and quickly expanded the island’s sugar and cotton production. Dunnavant said “but the Danes were never able to fully control the island — or the enslaved. By the end of the 1700s, nearly 1,400 people – more than 10% of the enslaved population — successfully escaped captivity.”
According to Danish records, Maronberg, there was a community of escaped slaves, known as Maroons, in the northwest mountain ranges of the island. Researchers like Dunnavant is trying to shed light on the mystery — where is Maronberg? He further shared that, “For a long time now, a large number of [escaped slaves] have established themselves on lofty Maroon Hill in the mountains toward the west end of the island [of St. Croix]. … They are there protected by the impenetrable bush and by their own wariness.”
Researchers are using new technology to see 300 years into the past and try to uncover the location of Maronberg, a community that successfully hid from the Danes during their occupation. By trying to locate these sites, archaeologists are working towards honoring a legacy and help us understand more about the Maroons who turned a rugged landscape into a sanctuary for freedom.
Read the full article on the St Croix Source here.
We also recommend you reading the Op-Ed piece on St Croix Source written by Professor Olasse Davis’ decades-long effort to preserve Maroon Country on St. Croix as part of the U.S. Virgin Islands’ Territorial Parks system which is now a reality, click here to view.
Photo by Olasee Davis featuring the Maroon Hole, a difficult cliff below Maroon Ridge, where runaway slaves hid.