Image:Body of Maroon child brought before medicine man, 1955.jpg Maroon child brought before a shaman, Suriname 1955]] Maroons (from the word marronage or American/Spanish cimarrón: "fugitive, runaway", lit. "living on mountaintops"; from Spanish language cima: "top, summit") were runaway slaverys in the West Indies, Central America, South America, and North America, who formed independent settlements together. Descendants of Maroon populations are found in Jamaica, Colombia, the Amazon River Basin and the American states of Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia (U.S. state).