Meanings
- historicalA Jamaican heroine, 18th-century leader of a community of formerly enslaved Africans in a guerrilla war against the British.
Jamaicans view Nanny of the Maroons as a mother of the nation.
3 more examples
“An Akan ethnic, Nanny's name derived from "nana," a title of respect given to chiefs, spiritual leaders, and elderly women ("ni" meaning first mother). […]”
2003, Serafin Méndez-Méndez, Serafín Mendez Mendez, Gail Cueto, “Nanny of the Maroons”, in Notable Caribbeans and Caribbean Americans: A Biographical Dictionary, →ISBN, page 325“The history of Jamaican national hero Nanny of the Maroons is also a narrative about the renegotiation of space — literal and figurative space. […]”
2006, Andrea Elizabeth Shaw, Andrea Shaw Nevins, The Embodiment of Disobedience: Fat Black Women's Unruly Political Bodies, →ISBN, page 70“For the Jamaican historical figure of Nanny of the Maroons, it is precisely her hypersexualized yet impenetrable body that centers her "masculine power" as aimed and dutiful-directed toward slave subjectivity. […]”
2015, Kimberly Juanita Brown, The Repeating Body: Slavery's Visual Resonance in the Contemporary, →ISBN
Cite this entry
Nanny of the Maroons. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Nanny%20of%20the%20Maroons
“Nanny of the Maroons.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Nanny%20of%20the%20Maroons. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Nanny of the Maroons,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Nanny%20of%20the%20Maroons.
Source: Nanny of the Maroons on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.