25112022

Queen Nanny: Ghanaian woman
who led liberation army in Jamaica
NANNY, a young Akan
woman from present day
Ghana, born about 1686 was
captured with her four
brothers and sold into slavery.
They were taken on ‘The
Journey of No Return’ across
the Atlantic Ocean, becoming
part of the 12.5 million Africans
forced on this journey by
Europeans and Americans who
wanted free labour to exploit for
profit. Unlike the 1.8 million
others who perished during this
journey and had their bodies
fed to the roaring ocean waves,
Nanny, who was to become
known as "Nanny of the
Maroons," and her brothers,
survived the ordeal and arrived
in Jamaica.
They later escaped from the
slave plantations and fled into
the mountains and jungles of
Jamaica to become Maroons.
This was the name for escaped
slaves who banded together
and fought for freedom, initially
for themselves and eventually
for various Latin American
and Caribbean countries,
including Jamaica. The names
of slaves, in almost all cases,
were lost. This was part of the
depersonalization and
dehumanisation of the slave,
who was forced to forget the
past and live entirely at the
pleasure of the slave owner, who
exercised the power of life or
Prioritising lives: Chinese and American responses to COVID
By ANDREW ADEGBITE
SINCE the COVID outbreak, the
United States has engaged in an
effort to demonise China, fabricating
allegations that the virus originated in
a military lab in Wuhan. Unable to
prove such baseless accusations, the
United States has long attacked
China’s utilisation of strict lockdown
measures to prevent the spread. It
almost seems preposterous that a
country like the US believes it has the
moral high ground or the legitimacy
to lecture China on dealing with the
pandemic. With a recorded death toll
of 1.09 million and 98 million
confirmed cases, the United States
government is hardly in any position
to offer criticism or advice on the
handling of COVID.
China’s strategy of "Zero COVID"
has proven to be a big success. When
the rest of the world was ravaged by
COVID, even in the most developed
countries, China was able to contain
the spread of the virus quickly, and
the Chinese people were able to live
their lives just as usual. This is a
remarkable feat that garnered praise
from world leaders and medical
experts. "China’s lockdown measures
keep excess mortality at remarkably
low levels. It was a dramatic, forceful
demonstration of Chinese might and
resolve," wrote J. Stephen Morrison,
Senior Vice President and Director of
death on his "property. So it is
not unlikely that her original
name was not Nanny. This was
most likely a corruption of the
name Maame, which means
mother in Twi. This would have
been preferred to the names
given her by the slave masters.
By the mid-1550s, there were
already escaped slaves in the
Caribbean, who, with no way of
finding their way back home to
their loved ones, banded
together to fight the slave
owners and establish their own
communities. In Jamaica, as in
some other countries, these
freedom fighters were called
Maroons. The word, "maroon"
was derived from the Spanish
word "Cimarron," which was
originally used for runaway
cattle. Since African slaves were
valued and treated no better
than cattle, it came to be
used for escaped African
slaves. Maroon communities
were typically located among
mountains and swamps,
making slave owners and
European countries' raids
difficult. They also provided
safe bases for the Maroons to
conduct raids on white
plantations and organise
guerrilla armies. They linked
up with local Native Americans
to defend the terrain. Today,
Maroon communities still
exist in various North and
Nanny of the
Maroons
deservedly won
her place in the
pantheon of
fighters for human
freedom
the Global Health Policy Center, and
Scott Kennedy, Senior Adviser and
Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and
Economics.
Meanwhile, they described the US
handling of COVID as "denials,
incompetence, and polarization,"
which left many Americans dead.
Many are casting doubts over China’s
decision to continue its implementation
of the zero-covid policy, arguing that
the Omicron variant is a milder and
The Chinese people, together
with the Chinese government,
know what is at stake; and that
is why the Chinese government
cannot do what the U.S. does
and leave behind its most
vulnerable group
less lethal variant than the original
one. But China doesn’t leave things
to chance. Without a complete
understanding of what health effects
the virus has on human beings,
especially the vulnerable population,
relaxing pandemic control methods is
an irresponsible thing to do.
Protecting the elderly: In contrast to
the U.S.’s staggering number of
fatalities, China has recorded only
5,226 COVID deaths since 2020 among
a population of 1.4 billion, just a tiny
fraction of the former. China cannot
South America countries like
Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico,
Puerto
Rico,
Suriname, Ecuador and the
United States especially in the
Carolina's, Alabama, Florida
and New Orleans areas. They
also exist on islands in the
Indian Ocean.
After escaping from the
plantations, Nanny and her
brothers joined the Maroons.
She later founded a Maroon
village with one of her brothers,
Quao, in the Blue Mountains
in eastern Jamaica in
1720. British Captain
Stoddart said Nanny Town, was
"situated on one of the highest
mountains on the island" and
found the only path leading to
it, to be: "steep, rocky, and
difficult, and not wide enough
to admit the passage of two
persons abreast." This
forced the invading army into
a single file and an easy target
for the Nanny fighters. This part
of Jamaica was described as
"Windward" and the inhabitants
were known as "Windward
Maroons." The village became
known as Nanny Town. The
Maroons evolved their own
traditional religious practices
with West African influences. It
was called Obeah. Nanny was
a priestess, leader, and
commander-in-chief of the rebel
army who trained her soldiers
in guerrilla warfare. She was
so fierce in battle that the
Europeans tried to pass her off
as a myth created to rally the
Vanguard, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2022 — 17
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forces of the Maroons. But
despite strenuous efforts, the
Europeans could not force her
off the history books. This is
primarily because a ghost could
not have been recorded by
European writers; could not
have been declared
wanted with a bounty on her by
the colonialists, nor could a
myth had physically established
two separate towns. Also, she
organised and supervised the
escape of about 1,000 slaves
over a three-decade period and
resettled them.
The Queen Nanny rebels
fought the British military for six
years from 1728 until the latter,
led by Commander
Stoddard seized and destroyed
Nanny Town in 1734. In fact, the
British claimed that one of its
mercenaries, Captain William
Cuffee alias Captain
Sambo, leading the "Black
Shots," killed Nanny in 1733
during the battle for the town.
However, a year later, the same
British reported that she was
leading the Windward
Maroons in a retreat westward.
Eventually, she was reported to
have led her troops to take
refuge near the Rio Grande,
one of the largest rivers in the
country. The Maroons were
making slavery costly and
unsustainable and creating
insecurity for the Europeans.
These, coupled with the
European powers' inability to
defeat them after 84 years of
insurgency, led the British
settlers in 1738 to call for a truce.
The first peace treaty was
signed with the Leeward or
Western Maroons, led by
Captain Cudjoe (Kojo), another
Maroon of Ghanaian origin, in
1739. The other, was with the
Windward Maroons on April 20,
1740. The agreement tried to
limit Maroon attacks against
slavery, and also protect the
Maroons. For instance, Article
simply remove all medical restrictions
and open up its border in such an
irresponsible fashion, just like the
United States did. China has an ageing
population. Currently, 12.34 percent
of China’s population is 65 and over,
which translates to around 172 million
people, larger than most countries'
entire populations. People in this age
demographics are particularly
vulnerable and likely to develop
severe symptoms and unexpected
medical complications once they
contract COVID virus. Since it has
been proven that the vaccine does not
entirely prevent transmission, China
feels an obligation to use strict
measures to protect the elderly and
prevent them from catching a disease
that is in no way, shape, or form, just
a cold. It is much more severe than
that, with long-term side effects that
humankind still cannot fully
comprehend, a fact that has been
dismissed by many so-called experts
in the West.
Even in some of the so-called
advanced countries, they could not
prevent elderlies from succumbing to
the disease. A rapidly increasing
number of COVID patients puts a
strain on the provision of healthcare
services and leads to hospital
overcrowding. This is a recipe for
disaster, considering the accelerated
transmissibility of the Omicron variant.
Eight states that "if any White
man shall do any manner of
injury to Cudjoe, his
successors, or any of his or their
people, (the Maroon) shall
apply to any commanding
officer or magistrate in the
neighbourhood for justice.
Article Fourteen provided
for two White men as
ambassadors to live with the
Maroons: "in order to maintain
a friendly correspondence with
the inhabitants of this island."
This clearly could be used for
espionage. However, the treaty,
in Article Three, gave 1,500
acres of Crown land to the
Maroons. Nanny took
possession of the 500 acres
allotted to her and her followers
in Portland Parish in 1740.
There, she built the New Nanny
Town, which still exists today as
Moore Town. She died a
decade later. In 1781, the
town bought an additional 500
acres of land. Ninety-nine years
after the destruction of Nanny
Town, slavery was
abolished. Jamaica, 212 years
after Nanny passed on, gained
independence on August 6,
1962. The date the treaty was
signed is observed as a national
holiday. Her grave is regarded
as a monument, and
Jamaica’s $500 note bears her
image. Also, the Jamaican
Government
in
1975, awarded Queen
Nanny the "Right Excellent"
national medal, making her the
only woman among the
country’s seven National
Heroes. Perhaps one more step
the Jamaican government
needs to take is to restore Nanny
as the official name of the town.
In about 1760 it had been
renamed Moore Town after
Governor Henry Moore. Nanny
of the Maroons deservedly won
her place in the pantheon of
fighters for human freedom.
Former New York State Governor
Andrew Cuomo’s outcry for more
ventilators was still fresh in our minds.
"We’ve tried everything else. The only
way we can obtain these ventilators is
from the federal government. Period."
Governor Cuomo begged then-
President Trump for the crucial
machines to help patients experiencing
serious illness. China has no intention
of putting its elderly through the same
ordeal that those people in New York
went through.
The elderly deserve society’s utmost
respect and care, not an undignified
death. This is something that the
Americans clearly do not understand.
China recognises the disparity
between its medical infrastructure and
that of the West.But the lives of its
citizens always come first for the
Chinese government. And the
Chinese people wholeheartedly agree
with that sentiment, which is why
China’s zero covid strategies have
been so successful.
Nothing trumps human lives, not the
so-called freedom and the right to
choose that Americans talk so
frequently about. The Chinese people,
together with the Chinese government,
know what is at stake. And that is why
the Chinese government cannot do
what the U.S. does and leave behind
its most vulnerable group. China will
always do what’s in the best interest
of its people.
•Adegbite, a public affairs analyst
wrote from Lagos.