Maroons
MAROONS. A negre marron is defined by Littre as a fugitive slave who betakes himself to the woods; a similar definition of cimarron (apparently from cima, a mountain top) is given in the Dictionary of the Spanish Academy. The old English form of the word is symaron (see Hawkins's Voyage, 68). The term "Maroons" is applied almost as a proper name to the descendants of those negroes in Jamaica who at the first English occupation, in the tyth century fled to the mountains. (See Jamaica.)
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
