Statecraft & Independence
Peerless
Nanny of the Maroons
1686 – 1760
Leader of the Windward Maroons against British forces in the eighteenth century
Peerless is level 1 of 4 in the Jamaica Hall of Fame: changed the field itself. Tell the country's story without them and the story breaks. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
The leader of the Windward Maroons in the Blue Mountains, remembered for defeating British troops in the First Maroon War, and Jamaica's only female National Hero.
Nanny led a community of people who had escaped slavery in the mountains of eastern Jamaica, organising its defence and its farming through years of war with the colonial authorities in the early eighteenth century. Much of what is known of her comes from Maroon oral tradition. She was declared a National Hero in 1976, and her portrait appears on the Jamaican $500 note.
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