Coromantee
Coromantee, Coromantin, Coromanti, Kormantine, Kromantyn or Kromanti is an English-language term for enslaved people from the Akan ethnic group, taken from the Gold Coast region in modern-day Ghana.
Etymology
The name, in both Jamaica and Suriname, is derived from the Fanti town of their imprisonment known as Kormantse. The Fantes and British captured their rivals the Asantes and these captives were sent to British colonies such as Jamaica. While Dutch Komenada Fantes allied themselves to capture British allied Fantes to Dutch colonies such as Suriname.Due to their militaristic background, Coromantins organized dozens of slave rebellions in Jamaica and elsewhere in the Americas. Their fierce and rebellious nature became so notorious among European slave traders in the 18th century that an Act was proposed to ban the importation of Akan people from the Gold Coast despite their reputation as strong workers.
Most European slave merchants came to understand that the Akan, while primarily peaceful and hardworking, were a proud and fiercely independent people who fought vehemently to protect their vast territories from encroachment by other expanding groups and also fought off the Dutch, Prussians, and Portuguese.
History
1690 rebellion
Several rebellions in the 1700s were attributed to Coromantees. According to enslaver and colonial administrator Edward Long, the first rebellion occurred in 1690 between three or four hundred enslaved people in Clarendon Parish, Jamaica, who, after killing a white owner, seized firearms and provisions and killed an overseer at the neighbouring plantation. A militia formed and eventually suppressed the rebellion, hanging the leader. Several rebels fled and joined the Maroons. Long also describes the incident where an enslaver was overpowered by a group of Coromantees who, after killing him, cut off his head and turned his skull into a drinking bowl. However, the "drinking of blood" is more than likely anti-African propaganda, though Coromantee and especially Asante war tactics were known to use fear in their opponents. In 1739, the leader of the Western Maroons, Cudjoe, signed a treaty with the British, ensuring the Maroons would be left alone, provided they did not help other slave rebellions.1712 New York Slave Revolt
On the night of 6 April 1712, a group of more than twenty black enslaved people, the majority of whom were believed to be Coromantee, set fire to a building on Maiden Lane near Broadway. While the white traffickers tried to put out the fire, the enslaved blacks, armed with guns, hatchets, and swords, defended themselves from the whites and then ran off. Eight whites died, and seven were wounded. Over the next few days, colonial forces arrested seventy black people and jailed them. Twenty-seven were put on trial, 21 of whom were convicted and sentenced to death.1731 First Maroon War
Led by Cudjoe and Queen Nanny, the First Maroon War was a conflict between Maroons in Jamaica and the colonial British authorities that reached a climax in 1731. In 1739–40, the British government in Jamaica recognized that it could not defeat the Maroons, so they agreed with them instead. The Maroons were to remain in their five main towns: Accompong, Cudjoe's Town, Moore Town, Scott's Hall and Charles Town, Jamaica, living under their own rulers and a British supervisor.1733 Slave Insurrection
The 1733 slave insurrection on St. John in the Danish West Indies started on 23 November 1733, when 150 enslaved Africans from revolted against the owners and managers of the island's plantations. Lasting several months into August 1734, the slave rebellion was one of the earliest and longest slave revolts in the Americas. The Akwamu enslaved people captured the fort in Coral Bay and took control of most of the island. They intended to resume crop production under their own authority and use Africans of other tribes as slave labor.Planters regained control by the end of May 1734, after the Akwamu were defeated by several hundred better-armed French and Swiss troops sent in April from Martinique, a French colony. The colonial militia continued to hunt down maroons and finally declared the rebellion at an end in late August 1734.
1736 Antigua slave rebellion
In 1736, on the island of Antigua, an enslaved African known as Prince Klaas planned an uprising in which whites would be massacred. Court was crowned "King of the Coromantees" in a pasture outside the capital of St. John's, in what white observers thought was a colourful spectacle, but was for the Africans a ritual declaration of war on the white enslavers. Due to information obtained from other enslaved people, colonists discovered and suppressed the plot. Prince Klaas and four accomplices were caught and executed by the breaking wheel. They hung and starved six Africans and burnt another 58 at the stake. The site of these executions is now the Antigua Recreation Ground.1741 New York Conspiracy
In 1741, a supposed plot of arson in the Province of New York was allegedly conducted by three enslaved men, Cuffee, Prince, and Caesar. These three men were alleged to have burned several buildings, including the home of Lieutenant Governor George Clarke. The leaders, Cuffee and Quack, were tried for arson, found guilty, and burned at the stake. In total, they burnt 13 black men at the stake and hung 17, along with four whites. Among those arrested when the plot was discovered were 12 men and women of Akan origin. Seventy people were deported from New York. There is considerable historical debate as to how these fires were started.1760 Tacky’s War
In 1760, another conspiracy known as Tacky's War was hatched. Long claims that almost all enslaved Coromantin on the island were involved without any suspicion from the whites. They planned to overthrow British rule and establish an African kingdom in Jamaica. Tacky and his forces were able to take over several plantations and kill the white plantation owners. However, they were ultimately betrayed by an enslaved man named Yankee, whom Long describes as wanting to defend his master's house and "assist the white men". Yankee ran to the neighbouring estate and, with the help of another enslaved man, alerted the rest of the plantation owners. The British enlisted the help of Jamaican Maroons, who were themselves descendants of the Akan ethnic group, to defeat the Coromantins. Long describes a British man and a Mulatto man as each having killed three Coromantins.Eventually, Tacky was killed by a sharpshooter named Davy the Maroon, who was a Maroon officer in Scott's Hall.
1763 Berbice Slave Uprising
In 1763, a slave rebellion in Berbice, in present-day Guyana, was led by a Coromantin man named Cuffy or Kofi and his deputy Akra or Akara. The slave rebellion lasted from February 1763 into 1764. Cuffy, like Tacky, was born in West Africa before being trafficked and enslaved. He led a revolt of more than 2,500 against the colony's regime. After acquiring firearms, the rebels attacked plantations. They gained an advantage after taking the house of Peerboom. They told the whites inside that they could leave, but the rebels killed many as they did and took several prisoners, including the wife of a plantation owner, whom Cuffy kept as his wife.After several months, a dispute between Cuffy and Akra led to a war. On 2 April 1763, Cuffy wrote to Governor van Hoogenheim saying that he did not want a war against the whites and proposed a partition of Berbice with the whites occupying the coastal areas and the blacks the interior. Akara's faction won, and Cuffy killed himself. The anniversary of Cuffy's slave rebellion, 23 February, is Republic Day in Guyana, and Cuffy is a national hero commemorated in a large monument in the capital, Georgetown.
1765 Conspiracy
Coromantee enslaved people were also behind a conspiracy in 1765 to revolt. The leaders of the rebellion sealed their pact with an oath. Coromantee leaders Blackwell and Quamin ambushed and killed a group of colonial militiamen at a fort near Port Maria, Jamaica, as well as other whites in the area. They intended to ally with the Maroons to split up the island. The Coromantins were to give the Maroons the forests while the Coromantins would control the cultivated land. The Maroons did not agree because of their treaty and existing agreement with colonial government.Anti-Coromantee measures
In 1765, a bill was proposed to prevent the importation of Coromantees but was not passed. Edward Long, an anti-Coromantee writer, states:Such a bill, if passed into law would have struck at very root of evil. No more Coromantins would have been brought to infest this country, but instead of their savage race, the island would have been supplied with Blacks of a more docile tractable disposition and better inclined to peace and agriculture.
Colonists later devised ways of separating Coromantins from each other by housing them separately, placing them with other enslaved people, and stricter monitoring. Since groups such as the Igbos were hardly reported to have been maroons, Igbo women were paired with Coromantee men to subdue the latter due to the idea that Igbo women were bound to their first-born sons' birthplace.