QUEEN NANNY
​GUERILLA WARRIOR
A member of the Ashanti Tribe, Queen Nanny is presumed to have been born around the 1680’s in Africa’s Gold Coast (now known as Ghana) and arrived  in Jamaica around the 1700s. Her time of death is estimated to have been 1755. The Maroon community esteemed Nanny and bestowed upon her the identity of Queen Mother, a translation of the Koromante, Hni. This title has maintained its cultural significance and political agency throughout the years and  is symbolic of the political and social agency and transformation that roots African descendents within Jamaica and throughout the New World. 

NANNY OF THE MAROONS:  A THORN IN THE SIDE OF BRITISH IMPERIALISM
Nanny, leader of the Windward Maroons, escaped from slavery and along with her four brothers and established a community that today is firmly rooted in the ancestral heritage of the African Diaspora. Under the leadership of Nanny and her brothers, the Maroons fought a valiant guerilla warfare with such fortitude that the British were forced to sign peace treaties with them, resulting in their sovereign ownership of the land to this day. These warriors challenged the institution of slavery and helped to bring it to an end. Across the African Diaspora, we identify with the fighting spirit of Nanny, whom Jamaicans readily liken to the biblical David. A small, wiry woman who amassed the meagre resources of her community to thwart the Goliath of Imperialism. While colonial narratives portrayed and simplified Nanny as a flat figure by calling her “obeah woman” and “old hag” in the few places she is mentioned, the oral history carried over the ages and post-colonial texts by Caribbean scholars reveal Nanny as complex and multi-faceted with contradictory subjectivities and desires. The story of Nanny’s indomitable will, her efforts and success in carving out an alternative society in Nanny Town, and her perseverance in fighting the British to earn the identity of a thorn in their side, all speak to the will of any marginalized or disenfranchised people who are determined to confront adversity and assert their rights.

Grandy Nanny-Queen Mother 
Artist: Marcus Woolombi Waters 

HEROES OF THE BLACK ATLANTIC 
I should fight for liberty as long as my strength lasted. Harriet Tubman

MARCUS GARVEY 

PAUL BOGLE 

​CULTURE
 
Culture is the memory of my grandmother’s stories
Words raining on my head as she braided my hair,
Tales and wise words to journey with me throughout the ages,
Memories of the guinep tree swaying in the wind
Laden with sweet tangy fruits and the exuberant vocabulary of our play.
 
Culture is the river of words on whose currents I swim
Gasping for air, my life guard against drowning