APPENDIX.] THE MAROONS. 357 



plantain trees, near their habitations ; but the ground 

 was always in a shocking state of neglect and ruin. 



The labours of the field, however, such as they 

 were, (as well as every other species of drudgery), 

 were performed by the women, who had no other 

 means of clearing the ground of the vast and heavy 



woods with which it is every where incumbered, than 



j * 



by placing fire round the trunks of the trees, till they 

 were consumed in the middle and fell bv their own 



j 



weight. It was a service of danger; but the Ma- 

 roons, like all other savage nations, regarded their 

 wives as so many beasts of burthen ; and felt no more 

 concern at the loss of one of them, than a white 

 planter would have felt at the loss of a bullock. Po- 

 lygamy too, with their other African customs, pre- 

 vailed among the Maroons universally. Some of their 



o * 



principal men claimed from two to six wives, and the 

 miseries of their situation left these poor creatures 

 neither leisure nor inclination to quarrel with each 

 other. 



This spirit of brutality, which the Maroons always 

 displayed towards their wives, extended in some de- 

 gree to their children. The paternal authority was at 

 all times most harshly exerted ; but more especially 

 towaTds the females, 1 have been assured, that it 

 was not an uncommon circumstance for a rather, in a 

 fit of rage or drunkenness, to seize his own infant, 

 which had offended him by crying, and dash it against 

 a rock, with a degree of violence that often proved 

 fatal. This he did without any apprehension of pu- 

 nishment ; for the superintendant,, on such occasions, 



