When the Spanish found their way to the main island of Jamaica, they felt they had come upon an untapped resource ready for the taking. In their eyes, there was a wealth of forced labor and a seemingly bottomless pit of natural resources. Colonizers quickly established sugarcane plantations and shipped in additional slave labor from West Africa. Yet, by the arrival of the 16th century, uprisings among the slave population were a regular occurrence. Hundreds of slaves had even fled to the mountains of Jamaica, earning themselves the name of ?Maroons? from the Spanish. Maroon comes from the Spanish ?Cimarron?, meaning fugitive or runaway. Since the mountains of Jamaica were riddled with deep hollows large enough to provide semi-permanent human habitation, the Maroons were happy to stay in their new homes.
In the parish of Trelawny, several miles inland from Montego Bay, is a region known today as Cockpit Country. The mountains are densely forested with deep hollows in the bedrock. Kept apart by rocky ridges and hills, some of the hollows are as much as 400 feet in depth. The mountain hollows are so numerous and so well hidden, non-Maroon residents of Jamaica felt they were reminiscent of illegal cock fighting dens; thus the name Cockpit Country.
The Maroons established the majority of their communities in Cockpit Country, largely because the Europeans were too afraid to enter the seemingly impenetrable rainforest. In addition, the Spanish knew the Maroons to be crafty warriors with the ability to camouflage themselves among the flora of the forest. A district called Land of Look Behind, is in the southwest part of Cockpit Country. Initially, when the Spanish arrived they rode two soldiers per horse; one facing front and one facing back. They knew the country was full of hostile Maroons, and they knew a covert attack was inevitable.
Even the soil in this area is naturally rich. Where ridges have given way to limestone or bauxite sinkholes, basins have formed. Over the decades, those basins have gradually filled with the rich red soil indicative of weathered limestone. The soil itself is very productive and highly valued - called terra rosa soil. It is therefore no coincidence the largest remaining rainforest in one continual formation lays in Cockpit country.
Some people believe that Cockpit Country has more cultural and environmental history than other areas of Jamaica. The unique flora and fauna of Cockpit Country is the result of many thousands of years of evolution of the local species. Interestingly, the descendents of the Maroons, the people that took refuge there 500 years ago, still inhabit the mountain regions today. Cockpit Country has seen everything and has managed to survive, including: earthquakes, hurricanes, drought, famine, flood, and war..
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