Hiding on Maroon Ridge: The Search for Maroon Settlements on St. Croix, US Virgin Islands

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

During the 18th century, formerly enslaved Crucians self-liberated and developed a community in the northwest hills of St. Croix. The rugged hills of St. Croix provided an ideal location for self-liberated Crucians to avoid detection and establish settlements. Archaeologists and historians have discussed the maritime marronage of self-liberated Crucians migrating via boat or canoe to near-by Puerto Rico, but there has been little attention paid to finding where Crucians lived in the northwest hills. Our recent pilot study survey used a combination of lidar data and an archaeological predictive model to identify possible habitation locations. We used pedestrian survey and metal detecting to investigate these locations. Our preliminary results suggest that St. Croix Maroons utilized a variety of environmental landscape features in selecting locations to live in this region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SHA 2023 General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow