The year 1655 was a pivotal moment for the Jamaican Maroons. When the British defeated the Spanish, many enslaved Africans escaped into the island’s mountainous interior, sometimes joining with the remaining Taíno population. These Maroons formed largely independent communities and gradually gained power, much to the frustration of the British.

By 1720, a spiritual leader named Nanny emerged in the Blue Mountains, uniting several villages that would later become known as Nanny Town. “Queen” Nanny led a successful guerrilla war against the British. At the same time, the British were also fighting the Maroon leader Cudjoe in Westmoreland Parish. Realizing they could not defeat the Maroons, the British eventually agreed to a peace treaty.

Nanny refused to sign the Peace Treaty of 1740 but was able to relocate to 500 acres of land at a site that later became known as Moore Town. Her body is said to be buried there. I visited Nanny’s memorial in Moore Town.

Moore Town is tiny. Apart from a cultural centre — which was closed on the November day I arrived — there was little more than scattered residential housing. A small shop sold cheap but cold Red Stripe beer for only 250 dollars a bottle. I drank a beer and watched the roosters parade around in the rain while a few men repaired a car, hammering loudly.

When I wanted to head back to Port Antonio, there wasn’t a taxi in sight, so I decided to start walking. The mountain road was beautiful, and I didn’t mind the occasional light rain shower. The distance, though, was quite far. When I reached a junction, I struck up a conversation with someone and eventually ended up in a small bar, where I bought a few people a beer.

The conversation below began when someone asked how much I’d paid for my plane ticket. The man in the pink shirt offered me a ride back to Kingston. Along the way, we stopped at a house where he bought two pigs for Christmas. The pig farmer asked: “A who dat white man deh?”

Barbecue and jerk

When the Spanish settled in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica, they adopted the Taíno word barbakoa for the raised wooden structure the Taíno used to slow-cure meat over hot ash. The word later entered the English language as “barbecue.”

The practice of slow-roasting heavily seasoned (jerk) meat is said to have been preserved by Maroon communities, who learned it from the Taíno. It’s believed that the Maroons used underground fire pits to keep the smoke from being seen. The jerk seasoning helps preserve the meat and gives it extra flavour. The process of roasting seasoned meat is called “jerking,” and the seasoning typically includes at least pimento and Scotch bonnet peppers.

Traditional Jamaican jerk is made on a fire pit below sticks of pimento en sweet wood. The meat is placed on the wood and then covered with metal sheets to capture the flavourful wood smoke. It is quite a difficult proces because you need to maintain a low but stable temperature for many hours.

On my first night in Portland, I walked to one of the Boston jerk spots. Boston is famous for its jerk, but it’s really just a cluster of several jerk stalls. I opted for pork instead of chicken. It was served with “festivals” (fried bread), and of course, I ordered a Red Stripe.

The women in the background were lively and loud. The loudest of them proclaimed to no one in particular that she was a Christian and that her Lord commanded her to have sex every day — and twice on Sundays. I couldn’t hold my tongue and told her I was getting tired just listening to her.

She didn’t believe I had such little stamina, and when I admitted I lived not far from Amsterdam’s red light district, she really didn’t believe me. I joked that I didn’t want any “double trouble,” and everyone got the Beres Hammond reference. The ladies screamed with laughter. In the end, she made me buy her a drink. I made it back to my hotel alone, just as planned.

Of course, I remembered the name of one of the men from the night before — Shane — and he took this as an opportunity to drag me to a small bar a few hundred meters off the road and coax a couple of beers out of me. Shane was a “habitual line stepper,” to quote Charlie Murphy, and the man in the foreground pulled up a chair for me so I could drink my beer in peace.

Jerk Chicken in Port Antonio

After the Boston jerk pork I had to try the jerk chicken. This place is just outside the town center of Port Antonio. The chicken is grilled in large batches in old oil drums.

The rain intensifies Potential Tropical Cyclone 22