Jamaica's history - always something new to find out!
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  • people
    • - 'ordinary' people >
      • 'extraordinary' lives >
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        • James H Blackwood >
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    • remarkable families >
      • family of C E Moody >
        • Harold Moody
        • Elise Moody
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      • family of R M Nicholas
      • family of C A D Phang >
        • Rosalind
        • May
        • Hilda
      • family of H B Phillips
      • family of A T Stewart
    • in the churches >
      • George Fox and early Friends >
        • 1692 and beyond
      • Rev. S. J. Washington
      • Rev. W. Theo Bailey
      • Rev. E. E. Brown
      • Rev. I. N. D. Gordon
      • Rev. J. J. Fuller
      • Church of England >
        • Rev. Francis Humberstone
        • Rev. J. M. Trew
        • Edward Maunde Thompson
        • Rev. R. Gordon
        • Rev Dr Hugh Croskery
        • Rev. T. Banbury
        • Rev. R. O. Taylor
        • Rev. H. L. Phillips >
          • as an Episcopalian priest
        • Rev. C. C. Douce
        • Rev. A. Cole
        • A. L. "Teacher" Walcott
        • Rev. and Mrs W. A. Burris
        • Rev. W. L. Brown
      • the Moravians >
        • Rev. W. V. Moses
    • in education >
      • brief lives >
        • Thomas Terence Sherlock
      • Francis Williams
      • ~ Woodlawn 1896
      • Matthew Josephs
      • T. B. Stephenson
      • Robert Lindsay
      • W Thomas Linton
      • S. C. Thompson
      • W. H. Plant
      • Sigismund C. Walker
      • Thomas I. Brown
      • E. Luther Brookes
    • in legal professions >
      • Peter Moncrieffe
      • J. T. Palache
      • A. A. Fleming
      • H. R. Walters
      • H. A. Joseph
      • M. H. Spencer Joseph
      • J. L. King
    • in medical professions >
      • - doctors >
        • Sampson Altman
        • J. J. Edwards
        • A. J. Thomas
        • R. M. Stimpson
        • E. C. Kinkead
        • E. V. Smith
        • T. A. Dryden
        • Cicely Williams
        • Roderick Atkinson
        • - in the U.S.A. >
          • Simeon I. Battiste
          • David Newton Emanuel Campbell >
            • portable window fire-escape ladder
          • A. E. Forsyth
      • - dentists >
        • Pedro Pompey
        • A. T. Cooper
        • E. E. Clark
        • J. H. Nicholson
      • - dispensers >
        • Anthan F Berry
        • Charles E Moody
      • - nurses
      • - psychiatrists
    • in politics & public affairs >
      • early Black politicians [slideshow]
      • Edward Jordon
      • Jim Russell >
        • the 'Great War'
      • Colonel George Hicks
      • Samuel Page Smeeton
    • in business >
      • drogher/droguer women
      • Edward Vickars
      • Charles Phillip Lazarus >
        • Charles Philip Lazarus remembered
        • foundry >
          • - 'City of Kingston'
          • - Jamaica Cycle Company
        • building contracts
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          • 1909 Party of Progress
      • J. H. & J. O. Milke
      • beekeepers >
        • Hill/Darwin correspondence
      • Robert Mitchell Nicholas
      • Joseph Milward Gordon >
        • Gall's News Letter 1890
      • John Cassis
      • Jacob Hume Stewart
      • Christopher L Barnes
      • Ernest Clarke
      • Lance E. Drysdale
    • on the land >
      • John S. Levy
    • in sports >
      • athletics >
        • Alfred Reynolds Downer >
          • education
          • athletics career >
            • - amateur
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          • . . . but after that
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          • tributes
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        • J. K. Holt, snr
        • S C Snow
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        • Washington 'Teacher' Battiste
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    • Maroons in Jamaica >
      • Gleaner references
      • 1796 Richard Brinsley Sheridan
      • 1802 Maria, Lady Nugent
      • 1836 Popular Encyclopedia
      • 1844 Edwin Tregellies
      • 1844 Philip Henry Gosse
      • 1859 Richard Hill
      • 1860 Atlantic Monthly
      • 1862 Edward Cust
      • 1865 Col. Fyfe
      • 1865 Once a Week
      • 1866 Charles Town Maroons
      • 1867 Trip to the Tropics
      • 1890 Historical Geography
      • 1898 New York Tribune
      • 1898 Edith, Lady Blake
      • my articles: >
        • 1996 'Trouble with the Maroons'
        • 2001 'A brave and loyal people'
    • . . . some more Jamaicans
    • and even more
  • places
    • Kingston & St Andrew >
      • various places >
        • Knutsford Pen
      • street corner cannons
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        • four 18th century houses >
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        • 19th century
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          • P A Espeut interview
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        • a trip to 'Wareka' 1896
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          • Mount Mansfield
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        • - the Church
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          • the Treasury clock
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        • - 'Victoria Quarterly'
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        • Prof. W. A. Barclay
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      • the classical musicians >
        • - Eleanor Alberga
        • ~ Neville Atkinson
        • - Nerine Barrett
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        • - Harold St Nicholas Cartier
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        • - Noel DaCosta
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        • - Samuel Felsted
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        • - Edmund Reid
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        • - Oswald Russell
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  • events
    • & everything else >
      • - manumissions
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        • - cocaine
        • - cannabis >
          • 1913 legislation
    • public holidays >
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      • May 24th
      • June 7 >
        • Port Royal 1667
        • Great Earthquake 1692
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        • 1888 - 50 years
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        • 18th century
        • 19th century >
          • Christmas with Belisario
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            • - Creole Airs
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    • exhibitions >
      • 1891 >
        • the phonograph
        • merry-go-rounds
        • Amphitrite
      • 1932 >
        • the Exhibition starts >
          • a walk around the Exhibition
        • Exhibition extended
        • Exhibition sports
        • - D T Wint
        • - 'Exhibition' Beecher
        • - W A W Mitchell
        • - L. A. Thoywell-Henry
      • 1934
      • 1946 - Exhibition that wasn't
    • natural disasters >
      • earthquakes >
        • - 1692
        • - 1907 >
          • Kingston burning
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            • map
            • - Capt. T. T. Lovelace
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          • afterwards
        • - smaller 'quakes
      • hurricanes >
        • Jamaica's climate
        • Dampier and hurricanes
        • 18th century >
          • 1780s - hurricane decade
        • 19th century >
          • - 1815
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        • 21st century
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        • 1843 >
          • 1843 Colonial Magazine
        • 1862
        • 1875
        • 1882
      • diseases >
        • cholera
        • 'Dandy fever'
        • "Spanish" 'flu
people >
Maroons >
1865 Colonel Alexander Fyfe

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Col. Fyfe, and two Maroons, 1865






Colonel Alexander Gordon Fyfe

c1801 - c1876
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It is clear that Fyfe distinguished the Maroons sharply from the rest of the Black population for whom he had none of the affection and respect which he had for the Maroons.

      One of the sources of Fyfe’s feelings for the Maroons becomes clear when he noted Eyre’s making him their Colonel, and added:  ‘… in my formal Commission I should like to be also termed “& Chief” as I wish to consider them Jamaica Highlanders.’ It is ironic that Fyfe should be writing in such terms, since the original Highlanders in Scotland had by this time all but disappeared. The terrible ‘Highland Clearances’ had depopulated the Highlands to allow land to be turned over to sheep farming; the proud Highland regiments which had helped to fight Britain’s wars since the mid-18th century had dwindled drastically, and recruits were almost impossible to find. The ‘Jamaica Highlanders’ were to have no brighter future.
      Writing to Cardwell on 20 November 1865, Eyre said that a Bill was about to be introduced into the Legislature ‘to embody and employ’ the Maroons in a military capacity, to ensure their continued loyalty. Such a Bill was introduced on 22 November in the name of Mr Hosack; the Bill was read for the first time on 28 November as a measure ‘for the formation of the Maroons of this island into septs or clans, and for their embodiment as a permanent military corps’. It was read for the second time on 5 December and referred to a committee. The reference to ‘septs or clans’, both terms connected with the Highlanders, showed that Fyfe’s idea had persisted, but in fact nothing more seems to have come of this measure. 
      The House of Assembly was abolished and there is no indication that Sir John Peter Grant, the first governor under Crown Colony government showed any interest in maintaining the Maroons as a permanent force. Fyfe, and the Maroons, had failed to restore their old status; the Maroons were to be ordinary Jamaicans, like it or not


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