Figure 1.--Here we have the family of Noira Bonis. His father was a captain with the French colonial service in Guiana. He is pictured with with his family. They are a Maroon group, decended from runaway slaves that fled into the interior. Many Maroons were the recently enslaved with a full understanding of African culture. This photoigraoph was taken in the 1920s. The photograph has a date stamp cancelation, we can make out what looks to be Nov 25, we think meaning 1925. (The stamp was issued in 1904, bit surcharges began to appear after the war in 192.) The family seems to be living an Aftrican village life style even well into the 20th century. It is unclear, however, to what extent they were influence by African or Amerindian culture, but they do not seem to have intermarriaed with the Amer-Indians. The Maroni was a river which became the the border betweem French Guiana and Surinam. Most Maroon settlements were located in this area of western French Guiana, hence the name of the river.

The main Maroon groups today are the Paramacca, Aucan (both of whom also live in Suriname) and the Boni (Aluku). The Aluku are the only Maroon group established traditional villages in French Guiana, and that mostly live in French Guiana. All Maroon groups in French Guiana are descendants of Maroon groups who formed earlier in Suriname where the colony and sugar plantations were founded earlier than French Guiana. Most of the freed plantation slaves in French Guiana over time adopted a French life style and are today a largely mulatto group known as Creoles. Maroon communities continued to survive in the interior and have life styles much more akin to the Amer-Indians, although it is dufficukt to know to what extent African culkture played a role. And adapting to their new forrest enviroment must have been a major factor. This postcard from the1920s shows a Maroon family still basically untouvhdd by the modern world Figure 1). There still are maroon communities in French Guiana and unlike the Creole population are not urban communities. One source suggests that the Maroons/bushinenge constitute over 20 percent of the French Guiana population. [Bellardie and Heemskerk] This is higher thn other estimates we have noted. We suspect that there may hasve been an influx from Surimane. The French Goverment largely left the Maroon oeople in the interior alone. t wsas not until reaktively recentkly that the Goverment extended the French administrative system upon the traditional communitiesto the traditional Maroon communities in the interior. Aluku communities now have government schools, clinics and gendarmeries as wll as a range of generous French social subsidies. Suriname Maroons negan ,igrating toi French Guiana because the Suriname Govermebnt began cancelling traditional rights as wella as generraous French social welfare benefits (1970s). The poor Syriname economy as ethnic violence against the Maroons in Suriname resulyed in massive movement into French Guiana (1980s). [Bellardie and Heemskerk] Large scale commercial mining has become an issue among the Maroons in French Guiana among both traditionally groups and the increasingly well educated younger people.

Created: 1:42 AM 5/23/2017
Last updated: 6:29 PM 11/20/2021