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The Cimaroons (also Cimmarones or Cimmarons) were Africans who had escaped slavery and lived in the forests and mountains of the Caribbean and South America. Sir Francis Drake attacked Spanish ships in the 1570s and often enlisted Cimmarones as allies against their former masters. By the 1770s the English-speaking slave-masters had changed the word to Maroon, though both forms still exist.
Cimmarone is the Spanish word for wild; the North American tribe Seminole also derive their name from Cimmarone, though they were not from Africa. Far from being a word of insult, Cimmaron imples defiance and love of freedom.
"Rose of Cimmaron" was an album by Poco. Emmylou Harris recorded one of the songs on her album "Cimmaron".
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