Roadways had become so open to attack, the Spaniards felt it was necessary to only navigate in groups.

When Archdeacon Alonso de Castro toured Hispaniola in 1542, he estimated the maroon population at 2,000–3,000 persons. For centuries, enslaved Black people fought the oppressive forces in America, while finding sanctuary in swamps and other maroon communities. In 1781, the Spanish colonial authorities agreed to recognise the freedom of the people of this community. There is much variety among maroon cultural groups because of differences in history, geography, African nationality, and the culture of indigenous people throughout the Western Hemisphere. Their survival depended upon their cultures, and their military abilities, using guerrilla tactics and heavily fortified dwellings involving traps and diversions.Creators are allowed to post content they produce to the platform, so long as they comply with our policies.

Many of the Garifuna were deported to the American mainland, where some eventually settled along the Mosquito Coast or in Belize. These escaped, enslaved people controlled many of the canals and back-country passages from Lake Pontchartrain to the Gulf, including the Rigolets. Only on some of the larger islands were organised maroon communities able to thrive by growing crops and hunting. Arawak lineages ( Taíno people represented within haplogroups A and Kalinago people represented within haplogroups C) can also be found in this area.Expeditions in 1740, 1742, 1746, 1757 and 1761 had minor successes against these maroons, but failed to destroy their hideaways. Due to tensions and repeated conflicts with maroons from Trelawny Town, the Second Maroon War erupted in 1795. Robeson County, North Carolina was a place where Blacks, Native Americans, and even some outlaw whites lived together and intermingled producing a people of great genetic mixture. Later these people, known as the Cimarrón, assisted Sir Francis Drake in fighting against the Spanish.

The Caribbean coast still sees maroon communities like San Basilio de Palenque, where the creole Palenquero language is spoken. Alternatively, the Cuban philologist José Juan Arrom has traced the origins of the word maroon further than the Spanish cimarrón, used first in Hispaniola to refer to feral cattle, then to Indian slaves who escaped to the hills, and by the early 1530s to African slaves who did the same. Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) in collaboration with the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, with the support of the Special Exhibition Fund of the Smithsonian Institution (March 1999).After the Treaties: A Social, Economic and Demographic History of Maroon Society in Jamaica, 1739-1842 (PDF) (PhD). The Dutch nailed severed hands of Maroons killed in the expedition to posts in the colony as a warning to other slaves.