In 1800 the Sierra Leone Company obtained a Charter of Justice from the
Crown, authorising the directors to appoint a Governor and Council, and to
make laws not repugnant to those of England. During the same year the
settlers, roused to wrath by a small ground-rent imposed upon their farms,
rose in rebellion. This movement was put down by introducing a third
element of 530 Maroons, who arrived in October. They were untamable
Coromanti (Gold Coast) negroes who boasted that among blacks they were
what the English are among whites, able to fight and thrash all other
tribes. They had escaped from their Spanish masters when the British
conquered Jamaica in 1655; they took to the mountains, and, joined by
desperadoes, they built sundry scattered settlements. [Footnote: In 1738,
after regular military operations, the Maroons of Jamaica agreed to act as
police and to deliver up runaways. In 1795 the Trelawny men rebelled, and,
having inflicted a severe loss upon the troops, were deported to Nova
Scotia and Sa Leone.] Introducing these men fostered the ill-feeling
which, in the earlier part of the present century, prevented the rival
sections from intermarrying.
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