Quao
Quao | |
---|---|
Died | c. 1750s |
Known for | Leader in Jamaican uprisings against British colonial forces |
Quao (d. c. 1750s) was one of the leaders of the
First Maroon War
The Windward Maroons were based in the forested interior of the island, in the heart of the Blue Mountains (Jamaica). During the First Maroon War, Quao shared the leadership of the Windward Maroons with Queen Nanny, an outstanding female Maroon leader. Under the leadership of Quao and Nanny, the Windward Maroons carried out the bulk of the fighting against the British colonial authorities during the 1730s.[1]
When Governor
Quao watched while the British military commanders quarreled over who should sign the treaty with the Windward Maroons, an argument that was eventually won by Robert Bennett. Quao and Bennett ‘cut their fingers, and mixed their blood in a calabash bowl’, after which they signed the peace treaty.[3]
Crawford's Town uprising
After the 1740 treaty, it appears that Quao and Nanny parted ways. It seems that Nanny took her supporters east to what would later become
In 1754, Quao and his supporters rose up in revolt, killed Ned Crawford, and captured the three white men who acted as superintendents in Crawford's Town. Governor Charles Knowles sent a militia detachment under the command of Lieutenant Ross to negotiate with Quao, but the Maroon leader spurned his offers, and reasserted Maroon control of Crawford's Town. Ross then secured the allegiance of the supporters of Crawford, as well as other Windward Maroons, and they defeated the minority of Maroons who supported Quao, capturing him, and killing a number of his Maroon officers.[5]
Legacy
It is not clear what happened to Quao, because he disappears from the records after Crawford's Town was destroyed. The supporters of Quao relocated to the neighbouring Maroon town of
References
- ^ Mavis Campbell, The Maroons of Jamaica 1655-1796: a History of Resistance, Collaboration & Betrayal (Massachusetts: Bergin & Garvey, 1988), pp. 88-125.
- ^ Campbell, The Maroons of Jamaica, pp. 126-163.
- ^ Michael Siva, After the Treaties: A Social, Economic and Demographic History of Maroon Society in Jamaica, 1739-1842, PhD Dissertation (Southampton: Southampton University, 2018), pp. 44-5.
- ^ Siva, After the Treaties, pp. 4, 54. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/423482/1/LIBRARY_COPY_After_The_Treaties_Final.pdf
- ^ Siva, After the Treaties, pp. 55-6.
- ^ Siva, After the Treaties, pp. 56-7.