Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- "Mingled fear and ferocity": a glimpse into the maroon communities of the Great Dismal Swamp / J. Brent Morris -- Belonging and alienation: Gullah Jack and some maroon dimensions of the "Denmark Vesey Conspiracy" / James O'Neil Spady -- "We will never surrender!": Quilombos, their descendants, and the struggle for land and rights in Brazil's Ribeira / Edward Shore -- The Bermuda assemblage: toward a posthuman globalization / Steven Mentz -- Bookends of history: maroonage in The Female American and Die Wand / Peter Sands -- Castaways, re-captive slaves, and resistance: testing the boundaries of freedom in the work of Yvette Christiansë / Simon Lewis -- The opacity of home -- being marooned at the end of the world / Claire Curtis -- "Lest darkness fall": castaways in time and space in popular turn-of-the-century fiction / Richard Bodek -- Maroons and the American epic / Joseph Kelly -- List of contributors -- Index.
Summary:
"Commonly, the word maroon refers to someone cast away on an island. One becomes marooned, usually, through a storm at sea or by a captain as a method of punishment. But the term originally denoted escaped slaves. Though being marooned came to be associated mostly with white European castaways, the etymology invites comparison between true maroons (escaped slaves establishing new lives in the wilderness) and people who were marooned (through maritime disaster). This volume brings together literary scholars with historians, encompassing both literal maroons such as in Brazil and South Carolina as well as metaphoric scenarios in time-travel novels and postapocalyptic narratives. Included are examples from The Tempest; Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy; A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court; and Octavia Butler's Kindred. Both runaways and castaways formed new societies in the wilderness. But true maroons, escaped slaves, were not cast away; they chose to fly towards the uncertainties of the wild in pursuit of freedom. In effect, this volume gives these maroons proper credit, at the very heart of American history"-- Provided by publisher. "A provocative juxtaposition of escaped slaves and the shipwrecked across the Americas"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.