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"Mr. Speaker, the Parris Lyew-Ayee Jr. (2005) boundary is being recognized by
the Cabinet as the boundary of the Cockpit Country by the State and is
depicted on Map 1. This boundary will be declared and gazetted."
WRC notes that the map shown by the Prime Minister on November 21st, 2017 did not include named location points for Accompong or Maroon Town (historically called Furry's Town). In our ATI request to Forestry Department, we asked for these and other heritage points-of-interest to be added to a map of the Prime Minister's "Map 1 - Boundary of the Cockpit Country (geomorphological boundary).
A zoom-in to Accompong on this map confirms that, if defined by Lyew-Ayee's 2005 geomorphologic description (which has technical flaws), "the Cockpit Country" excludes Accompong.
Given that it was the British (while fighting the Maroons) who asribed the term "The Cockpits" to this part of Jamaica's landscape in the early 18th century, more than 200 years before Dr. Marjorie Sweeting coined the term "cockpit karst", WRC completely rejects this boundary definition for "the Cockpit Country". No definition of Cockpit Country can exclude Maroon and British heritage.
We direct readers to L. Alan Eyre's 1980 article in The Jamaican Historical Review and the references he cites for much greater detail.
As an interesting aside, Sir Henry Thomas De la Beche -- considered to be one of the founders of modern geology -- was related through his grandmother to Colonel John Guthrie*. It was Colonel Guthrie along with Lieutenant Francis Sadler who signed the Peace Treaty with Captain Cudjoe of the Maroons. Thus, De la Beche's ancestors were talking about the Cockpits for more than 50 years before Sir-Henry-the-geologist was even born!
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*REFERENCES
Chubb, L.J. 2010. Sir Henry Thomas De la Beche. Pp 9-28 in (ed. Stephen K. Donovan) Jamaican Rock Stars, 1823-1971: The Geologists Who Explored Jamaica.
Memoir 205, The Geological Society of America.
Eyre, L.A. 1980. The Maroon wars in Jamaica - a geographical appraisal. The Jamaican Historical Review, vol XII, pp 5-19.
Sawkins, J.G. et al. 1869. Reports of the Geology of Jamaica; or Part II. of the West Indian Survey. Memoirs of the Geological Survey. Longmans, Green, and Co. London.
Sweeting. M.M. 1958. The karstlands of Jamaica. The Geographical Journal 124: 184-199.
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