Your Sponsorship will keep both our organizations growing.
The Annual International Charles Town Maroon Conference & Festival continues to be the premier and “not to be missed” celebration of indigeneity, marronage, African and Taíno culture and cultural retentions in Jamaica.
Anchored around the June 23rd signing of the 1739 peace treaty between the Windward Maroons and the British, the event pays tribute to the incredible skill, persistence, courage and unrelenting efforts of the Charles Town Maroons in their unending quest for freedom and its attendant rights. Initiated and first celebrated as a local community activity honouring Quao, a brilliant strategist and warrior in the Maroon wars, the celebration has metamorphosed into a Conference & Festival that is international in scope and participation.
Over the past 11 years the CTM Conference & Festival has been hosted with a number of themes which have facilitated a focus on indigenous teachings, knowledge systems, ancestral veneration, wellness and the continued role and function of the Maroons in today’s Jamaica. This year the 12th Annual International Charles Town Maroon Conference and Festival will be held under the theme of Sovereignty, with sub-themes:
- Maroon and Indigenous Sovereignty (self-determination, sovereign immunity)
- Sovereignty and the State (independence, national Identity, “state within a state” status, and its logistics)
- Sovereignty and the Environment (natural resources, mining, environmental justice, ecological issues)
- Sovereignty and its structures (logistics, mechanisms, implementations, its challenges or complexities)
- Sovereignty and the Self (creative, intellectual, philosophical, and spiritual)
The staging of the Conference and Festival has traditionally rested on a foundation of public private partnership that has afforded us a pool of funds to finance the event.
Sponsorship assists the Charles Town Community in hosting a celebration that features:
- An Academic Conference
- Ancestor Quao Day Celebration
- A Wellness Village
- Maroon Victory Day Celebration
These activities are surrounded by vintage music, drumming, dancing, storytelling, films, stargazing, Taíno & African rituals, maroon foods and other forms of meditation and entertainment.