MAGGOTTY | ACCOMPONG | ST.ELIZABETH | JAMAICA

In the 18th century, Maroon leader Cudjoe is said to have united his people under the Kindah Tree, as they struggled for autonomy. This was the site for signing the 1739 treaty with the British, according to this Maroon town's oral history. This legendary, ancient mango tree is still standing (2009).The tree symbolizes the common kinship of the community on its common land.[4] However, the Returned Maroons of Flagstaff believe that the treaty was signed at Petty River Bottom, near the village of Flagstaff.


The Kindah Tree of Accompong, near where the Maroons signed a treaty with the British in 1739 that established their autonomy
Accompong was likely settled in the 1730s, during the First Maroon War, when rebel slaves and their descendants fought a guerrilla war to establish independence against the British. Hostilities were finally ended by a treaty between the two groups in 1739, signed under British governor Edward Trelawny. It granted Cudjoe's Maroons 1500 acres of land between their strongholds of Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town) and Accompong in the Cockpits. While the treaty granted this land to Trelawny Town, it did not recognize Accompong Town. In 1756, following a land dispute between Maroons from Accompong Town and neighbouring planters, the Assembly specifically granted Accompong Town an additional 1,000 acres of land

The treaty also granted the Maroons a certain amount of political autonomy and economic freedoms, in return for their providing military support in case of invasion or rebellion. They also had to agree to return runaway slaves, for which they were paid a bounty of two dollars each. This last clause in the treaty caused tension between the Maroons and the enslaved black population. From time to time refugees from the plantations continued to find their way to maroon settlements and were sometimes allowed to stay. However, Accompong Maroons earned an income from hunting runaways on behalf of neighbouring planters.

After the treaty, Cudjoe ruled Trelawny Town, while his brother-in-arms, Accompong, ruled Accompong Town. In 1751, planter Thomas Thistlewood recorded meeting Accompong, whom he called 'Capt. Compoon'. The planter described the Maroon leader as "about my size, in a Ruffled Shirt, Blue Broad Cloth Coat, Scarlet Cuffs to his Sleeves, gold buttons...and Black Hatt, White linen Breeches puff’d at the knee, no stockings or shoes on".

In the decades that followed, after Cudjoe and Accompong died, control of the towns passed to white superintendents, who were appointed by the governor to supervise the Maroon towns. The treaty of 1739 named Accompong as Cudjoe's successor. When Cudjoe died in 1764, Accompong tried to take control of Trelawny Town. The governor, Roger Hope Elletson, asserted authority over the Leeward Maroons. Elletson instructed Superintendent John James to take the Trelawny Town badge of authority away from Accompong, and to give it to a Trelawny Town Maroon officer named Lewis. James instructed Accompong that he had authority only over Accompong Town.[8] Accompong seems to have died in the decade that followed. In 1773 it was reported that the white superintendent had appointed Maroon captains Crankey and Muncko as the officers reporting to him in Accompong Town.

Accompong Town's population grew from 85 in 1740 to 119 in 1770, to 159 in 1788


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