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Origins of marronage: Mitochondrial lineages of J amaica's A ccompong T own M aroons
Author(s) -
Madrilejo Nicole,
Lombard Holden,
Torres Jada Benn
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
american journal of human biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.559
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1520-6300
pISSN - 1042-0533
DOI - 10.1002/ajhb.22656
Subject(s) - haplogroup , haplotype , indigenous , mitochondrial dna , genetic genealogy , population , human mitochondrial dna haplogroup , maroon , ethnology , human migration , ancient dna , genealogy , geography , lineage (genetic) , demography , biology , genetics , history , allele , ecology , sociology , botany , gene
Objectives The Accompong Town Maroons are descendants of enslaved Africans who successfully waged war against British colonial rule and established an independent community in western Jamaica. There are discrepancies regarding Accompong Town Maroon ancestry with some scholars noting ancestry from both Africans and Taínos, Jamaica's indigenous population, while other scholars only acknowledge African ancestry. We considered the mitochondrial lineages of contemporary Accompong Town Maroons to address the question of ancestral origins. Methods We sequenced a section of the mitochondrial DNA control region (np 16,024–16,569) and genotyped a panel of hierarchically selected haplogroup diagnostic SNPs for 50 individuals with genealogical ties to Accompong Town. Mitochondrial haplotypes were also compared with publically available Jamaican mitochondrial haplotypes using an exact test as well as haplotypes within the EMPOP public database to further access biogeographic origins. Results L‐type mitochondrial haplogroups were observed in 96% of samples, and the remaining 4% belonged to haplogroup B2. Haplotype diversity was 0.922 (SD = 0.024) and not significantly different than the comparable Jamaican population. Of the two B2 haplotypes, one matched haplotypes throughout the Americas and East Asia and the other matched only in East Asia. These results suggest both African and indigenous American maternal ancestries within Accompong Town. Conclusions Our data suggested that the maternal ancestry of contemporary Accompong Town Maroons is predominantly African and, despite claims to suggest otherwise, also indigenous American. Our study complemented Maroon oral histories, archeological data, and illuminated how colonization shaped human genetic variation within the Caribbean. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 27:432–437, 2015. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.