Play launches new book about the Maroons at Literary Festival

Papillote Press is delighted to announce the publication in Dominica of the book “Your Time is Done Now. The Maroon Wars of Dominica (1813-14): Slavery, Resistance and Defeat”, compiled and edited by Polly Pattullo with an introduction by Bernard Wiltshire.

The launch will take place on Thursday 6 August at Alliance Francaise at 5.30pm, in association with the Nature Island Literary Festival, when a short play based on the book will be performed. All are welcome.

“Your Time Is Done Now” tells the dramatic story of a key moment in Dominican history. When the Maroons – powerful and free – challenged the British Empire 200 years ago, they were captured and put on trial. Here, through the transcripts of those trials you can read their evidence for the first time; and, unusually, hear their voices — in resistance and defeat.

The play of the same name, which will be performed at the launch, is written by Polly Pattullo and directed by Alwin Bully, and is an accurate re-enactment of some of the trials, held under martial law, of 1814. More than a courtroom drama, the play has an emotional impact – as those who saw an extract of the play in the Old Market on 12 July as part of the 12th of July Movement events have testified. A cast of both veteran and new actors play a range of characters – from the brutal British governor, George Ainslie, to defendants (some of whom were hanged), court officials and witnesses. Jacko, the “governor of the woods” and Dominica’s most famous Maroon comes to life as the narrator of the play.

Using the evidence to explain how the Maroons waged war against slave society, both the play and the book reveal fascinating details about how the Maroons survived in the forests and of their relationship with their allies, the enslaved on the plantations. It also, again through the historical record, illustrates the key role of Governor Ainslie, who succeeded in defeating the Maroons, and how the Colonial Office in London reacted to his conduct.

The book shows, as historian Dr Lennox Honychurch has said, that the Maroon movement was “as strong in rugged Dominica as it was in the more widely known case of Jamaica.” While Adam Hochschild, the author of the best-selling book, “Bury the Chains”, says: “It’s good to have this new window onto that past in this book, and to be reminded again of the cruelty of Caribbean slavery and the bravery of those who tried to escape it.”

Polly Pattullo is a British journalist and publisher of Papillote Press, which specialises in books about Dominica and the wider Caribbean. She lives in both Dominica and the UK. Bernard Wiltshire is a founder of the 12th of July Movement and Dominica’s former attorney-general.