Nanny was real, not a myth
DESPITE HER national heroine status, some people still are convinced that Queen Nanny, the legendary Windward Maroon leader, was a myth, a figment of some historians’ overactive imagination. And the fact that the image that represents her is not hers has fuelled the mythology.
Yes, there are fabulous folklore and fantastic tales, stuff that legends are made of, about her. The stories of her indomitable spirit and exploits are many. Her undaunted mettle and iron fortitude made her catch bullets with her backside, one story goes. She was said to have supernatural powers that drove fear into the heart of the British.
But myths apart, Nanny was a live and breathing woman who fought alongside Captain Quao in a protracted war that led to the signing of the treaty of peace and friendship between the British and the Windwards Maroon in 1739, one hundred years before Emancipation. The treaty was signed on behalf of the Windward Maroons by Captain Quao as Nanny refused to have anything to do with it.
It is true that not much is known about her familial origin and when she would have arrived in Jamaica. She is said to have come from the Ashanti people in Ghana. It is also conjectured that she did not come to Jamaica as an enslaved African, but one who came over a free woman to see what was happening to her people.
Some of her people were in bondage, others, the Maroons, had set up camps in the hills, where they were pursued by men in thick, red coats. Nanny joined the ones in the mountains. Together, they employed guerilla war strategies to wear down the resolve of the hapless British.