Cockpit Country

Cockpit Country
Geographical Region
Cockpit Country
Coordinates: 18°17′43″N 77°41′43″W / 18.295209°N 77.695313°W / 18.295209; -77.695313
Country	Jamaica
Parish	Trelawny
Named for	Topology reminiscent of the shape of cock fighting dens.
Time zone	UTC-5 (EST)

Cockpit Country is an area in Trelawny and Saint Elizabeth, Saint James, Saint Ann, Manchester and the northern tip of Clarendon parishes, mostly within the west-central side, of Jamaica. The land is marked by lush, montane forests and steep-sided valleys and hollows, as deep as 120 metres (390 ft) in places, separated by conical hills and ridges.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, maroons—the escapee former slaves (and their descendants) of the island's Spanish and British-operated sugarcane plantations—used this rugged terrain to their benefit, carving out an existence all their own, away from the violent slavers and colonial powers of the lowlands.^[1]