Living Freedom Through Louisiana's Maroon Landscape

February 14, 2023 4:16 PM

Trees nourish each other through interconnected root systems; underground networks created by mycorrhizal fungi link individual plants and transfer water, carbon, nitrogen, and other nutrients and minerals. In an analogous manner, maroons shared what they had, supporting and protecting each other during times of need, while carving out complex yet sustainable ways of using the wetland forest.

These landscapes were places of danger, beauty, and secrets, two worlds at once — neither solid nor submerged; not completely safe from slaveholders and slavecatchers, but not easily navigable by them. By Diana Jones Allen.
posted by Rumple (8 comments total)

This is wonderful and powerful; thanks for posting. Any linguists want to weigh in on why the people were called maroons but the system is marronage? (I assume that Bugs Bunny saying 'what a maroon!' was a humorous mispronunciation of 'moron.')
posted by cyndigo at 5:01 PM on February 14, 2023

This is wonderful and powerful; thanks for posting. Any linguists want to weigh in on why the people were called maroons but the system is marronage? (I assume that Bugs Bunny saying 'what a maroon!' was a humorous mispronunciation of 'moron.')

I believe the etymology of "maroon" in this context comes from the Spanish "cimmaoon," and is separate from "moron" and its mispronunciations.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:18 PM on February 14, 2023

Incredible, thank you.

Readers may also enjoy Laura Ogden's work on the Everglades.
posted by criticalyeast at 5:25 PM on February 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

the Spanish "cimmaoon,

That would be "cimarron," cf course, if I could only spell.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:31 PM on February 14, 2023

That is an exceedingly generous and completely unwarranted assumption to make about older Disney cartoons.
posted by eviemath at 6:50 PM on February 14, 2023

Warner Brothers.
posted by saturday_morning at 10:57 AM on February 15, 2023

Ah, thanks! But still, older Looney Tunes cartoons definitely had their share of racism.
posted by eviemath at 1:50 PM on February 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Islands in the Fen. Atlantic resistance from Winstanley to Jones County, or the Dismal Swamps, seek the islands in the swamps and. Marshlands.
posted by eustatic at 5:12 PM on February 15, 2023