Maroons in Guyane

For more than four centuries, communities of maroons (men and women who escaped slavery) dotted the fringes of plantation America, from Brazil through the Caribbean to the United States. Today their descendants still form semi-independent enclaves—in Jamaica, Brazil, Colombia, Belize, Suriname, Guyane, and elsewhere—remaining proud of their maroon origins and, in some cases, faithful to unique cultural traditions forged during the earliest days of Afro-American history.

In 1986, expelled by the military regime of Suriname, anthropologists Richard and Sally Price turned to neighboring Guyane (French Guiana), where thousands of Maroons were taking refuge from the Suriname civil war. Over the next fifteen years, their conversations with local people convinced them of the need to replace the pervasive stereotypes about Maroons in Guyane with accurate information. In 2003, Les Marrons became a local best seller. In 2020, after a series of further visits, the Prices wrote a new edition taking into account the many rapid changes.

Available for the first time in English, Maroons in Guyane reviews the history of Maroon peoples in Guyane, explains how these groups differ from one another, and analyzes their current situations in the bustling, multicultural world of this far-flung outpost of the French Republic. A gallery of the magnificent arts of the Maroons completes the volume.

Richard Price (Author)
RICHARD PRICE has written extensively on the history and culture of African Americans throughout the hemisphere. His prize-winning books include First-Time, Alabi’s World, The Convict and the Colonel, Travels with Tooy, and Rainforest Warriors. He is the coauthor, with Sally Price, of Saamaka Dreaming. He lives on Coquina Key, Florida.

Sally Price (Author)
Sally Price is the author of Co-wives and Calabashes, Primitive Art in Civilized Places and Paris Primitive: Jacques Chirac’s Museum on the Quai Branly. She is the coauthor of Saamaka Dreaming.