“It’s a plucky and ambitious sprint that I’m about to embark upon,” says Chief Richard Currie as he pauses pensively to procure a sip of coffee.
It has been lower than 72-hours since his oath of design of work changed into taken as the youngest chief ever of Jamaica’s Accompong Maroons and the novel colonel, age 40, enthusiastically shares his tips on the land, water, farming and the birthright of his of us.
Chief Richard Currie holds up a Cocoon bead that he usually wears around his neck. It’s a ways a symbol … [+] of the freedom that his Maroon ancestors fought and died for.
Outside the window, banana bushes wave a warmth Accompong welcome whereas plants procure pleasure in the wintry mountain lag. And somewhere, on a segment of this compound that I haven’t viewed, is a tank stuffed with rainwater and secondary catchment that the Chief employs for domestic expend.
Chief Currie presides over 74,726 hectares of Cockpit Country— primarily the most necessary closing natural forest in Jamaica. This land is dwelling to the Leeward Maroons, descendants of the West African slaves who fled harsh plantation prerequisites and the indigenous Amerindians who they banded with, combating colonists with guerrilla ways, equivalent to cloak created with the tint of the heart-shaped cocoon bead that the Chief is currently carrying around his neck, and the secret language of the abeng, a make of bugle made from a cow horn, historical to blow coded messages. It changed into these ways in which sooner or later obtained the Maroons their freedom and their very maintain sovereign lands.
The Sovereign Recount of Accompong is dwelling to lush inexperienced hills, rivers, springs, streams and other natural water sources, titillating biodiversity and vegetation that blueprint now not develop someplace else in Jamaica.
But despite being the availability of 40 per cent of Jamaica’s new water present, Cockpit Country itself has no working water.
A river in Accompong
The irony is tips-boggling.
“Our community is as a minimal fifty-years in the support of,” says Currie of the huge activity of implementing the infrastructure to alleviate the water stress faced by the sturdy farming community and its residents.
Seventy per cent of Accompong’s residents are subsistence farmers who develop vegetation equivalent to yams, bananas, breadfruit, potatoes, ginger, turmeric, tomatoes, cabbage, callaloo and peppers, the usage of primitive African farming ways.
Every household farms for itself and the extras are purchased, nonetheless if there changed into a necessary crisis they would possibly presumably be in inconvenience.
“We are at risk because our systems haven’t enabled us to hang the infrastructure in the support of the agriculture,” Currie explains. “Right here’s the single thing between us and total meals safety.”
Well, that and water.
While the clay soil in Accompong is now not most attention-grabbing for many farmers, it effectively retains water sooner or later of dry classes, and primitive ways for digging and water storage hang confirmed efficient in the absence of infrastructure in the residence.
“As a closing resort, we actually haul water from water holes which would possibly presumably presumably be nearby, nonetheless with the steady planning and resources, all of this can also additionally be resolved,” says Currie.
The closing estimate to poke water into the community, got from the Nationwide Water Commission in Jamaica, changed into $1.2 million US greenbacks.
“I even hang loads work to blueprint nonetheless so cramped to blueprint it with,” says Currie of the payment to give what the United Countries has deemed a frequent human exact— that someplace else in Jamaica would possibly presumably be supplied by the federal government as a public provider.
But Cockpit Country is considered by the Maroons and by slightly loads of these in the broader community to be a sovereign nation sooner or later of the nation of Jamaica.
In 1739, a treaty that changed into signed by Maroon chief Cudjoe, under the leadership of British governor Edward Trelawny, granted the Maroons land between Trelawny Town and Accompong to boot to to political autonomy and financial freedoms, making the Maroons the first free dark of us in the Western Hemisphere.
Maroons blueprint now not depend on the Jamaican government for meals safety, social welfare or infrastructure and so the onus is on the novel Chief to fabricate his economy and compose out systems and safety nets that had now not been place in design by the outdated administration.
“The Maroons were the catalysts of emancipation; we were the leaders of liberation. That’s what we stand for,” he says. “Our treaty is constructed on sustainability and perpetuity and our only route to constructing is thru economics and commerce constructed on these same tips.”
Currie, who holds a degree in Banking and Finance from the Mona College of Alternate on the University of the West Indies and has 15-years of corporate skills, sees commerce rooted in the bounties of Accompong’s God-given resources as the primary route to the commercial constructing of his of us.
Richard Currie changed into sworn in as the Chief of the Accompong Maroons on February 24, 2021
“The earth is the lord and the fullness thereof. Our sovereignty is derived from the freedom of our lands, so what ever we blueprint with our lands is of imperative payment to our safety as a of us,” he explains. “I want to transform our economy in a sustainable methodology in tell that we are able to withhold our culture, our heritage and our legacy that is constructed on this heritage.”
Nutraceuticals, wellness tourism, agro-processing, different vitality, ganja and the sale of new make are commercial endeavors being explored by the novel Chief.
Food, he recognizes is one residence whereby his of us hang a determined competitive advantage.
“Barely loads of our meals hang inspired the epicurean nature of the broader Jamaica,” he says. “We as indigenous of us realized to reside from the land so we had varied methodology of keeping and cooking our meals, which in turn influenced native meals culture.”
Currie lists corned pork, pepper pot, jerk sauce, roasted tubers and poke down as examples of Jamaican meals that were adopted from the Maroons.
Accompong’s moving to traverse elevated terrain basks in an surprisingly wintry climate with titillating volcanic and clay soil kinds that Currie says trigger meals grown here to hang “extra efficiency” than these on the flat lands. Cockpit Country is also titillating in its ability to develop vegetation which would possibly presumably presumably be now not incessantly display camouflage in other Caribbean climates, equivalent to berries, strawberries and mushrooms that develop wild amongst the networks of springs and streams.
Accompong’s topography also protects its residents from slightly loads of the same old environmental threats posed by climate trade and encountered by flat land farmers. In October and November 2020 there changed into necessary rainfall that worn out the vegetation of farms on the outskirts of Cockpit Country. Accompong changed into now not affected negatively and native farmers relished the different to hydrate the soil and come by exact catchment.
Cockpit Country plateau and thick tropical forest. (Portray By DEA / V. GIANNELLA/De Agostini by strategy of … [+] Getty Photos)
“To me, Maroon nation is Jamaica’s contingency for meals safety and that is how we desires to be positioning ourselves,” says Chief Currie. “As a diplomatic engagement I would severely examine how the Maroons can even additionally be a offer of meals safety for the nation.”
Amongst the vegetation that Currie says will possible be with out explain brought under the umbrella of sustainable constructing are ginger, breadfruit, yams, castor oil, sorrel, potatoes, peppers, bananas, plantains and turmeric.
Most smartly-liked talks with possible out of the country companions hang printed an passion in Cockpit Country-branded meals merchandise nonetheless planning and infrastructure is required to facilitate achievement of the inquire of.
“Now we hang the land, now we hang the labour, we factual don’t hang the capital to total the circle of productiveness,” Currie explains.
But what is missing in infrastructure and constructing the Accompong of us come by up for in their sturdy ethos of family, community, birthright and admire for the earth.
Currie’s father, who he misplaced to a automobile accident when he changed into factual seven, changed into a farmer, a Rastafarian, a “freedom fighter” and an Accompong Maroon. Currie’s mother, who hails from the Beth Salem Maroons taught him the that methodology of family, birthright and spirituality.
No matter their innovative history, the Maroons of on the present time are a peace-loving nation.
While the be conscious Maroon originates from the Spanish cimarrón, that methodology wild, and despite Jamaica’s effectively-documented concerns with violence, Accompong has had only three murders previously five years.
The one untamed thing about the Maroons is their connection to the land.
“Now we hang arguments on the present time, nonetheless then we’re sitting on the same bonfire tonight and we’re eating from the same pot the following day to come,” says Currie with fun as he finishes his cup of coffee.
“If we reside in steadiness with nature and each other then nature will present for us in a same steadiness. Right here’s the exact that methodology of freedom.”
