Case file · Folklore / legend
Nanny of the Maroons
Queen Nanny, leader of the Windward Maroons in the Blue Mountains in the 1720s–30s, is remembered as an obeah woman who could catch bullets and turn them back on British soldiers.
1733 CE · 18.05, -76.48 · status: legend
The account
Her stronghold, Nanny Town, was attacked repeatedly; British records mention a destruction of the town in 1734. Maroon oral history credits her with a magic cauldron that boiled without fire and lured soldiers to their death. She is Jamaica's only female National Hero.
The sceptical view
Few documents mention her; the supernatural stories come from Maroon oral tradition and express her role as a spiritual and military leader.