Some men who had been in the corps since its foundation told about their experiences in the bush…
The Alukus had a real fort, one that was just as good as the whites’. This fort was called Buku165, referring to the fact that the negroes themselves said they would rather ‘return to the dust’ than surrender. Fort Buku, under the leadership of Baron, lay in the middle of a swamp, completely surrounded by palisades and equipped with small canon. A flag bearing a black lion on a yellow background flew above the village, which they called ‘Mi sa lasi’ (I shall lose). There were other forts, too. For example, Gado Sabi (God Knows), which also lay in a swamp with extensive paddy fields having rows of felled trees in them which provided good cover for the guerrillas, for that is what the negroes were. Another Aluku fort was Pennenburg. The surrounding land was covered with sharp-pointed wooden stakes, which meant that the military could not get near.
The Alukus knew what they were doing. Maybe they did not have the weapons that the colonial army had, but they had all kinds of ways to make a fool of the enemy or frighten him off. They knew the military’s strategies precisely, and put this knowledge to good use. Very often the army followed one of the Maroons’ paths. The Bonis made all kinds of false tracks. For instance, a path would suddenly come to an end in the middle of the bush and then start again a few hundred metres further on, but the army did not know this. Often they would follow a path, only to find after struggling on for two days that they had made a complete circle and were back where they started. There were many traps set, often with sharp-pointed stakes. A tuft of hair was attached to each point, and when the soldiers had managed to extract the points from their skin, the hair remained behind and ensured that infection set in.
The military could make no further progress at night, but the bush-negroes were experts in finding their way through the bush at night. They had very regular contact with the military’s porters, who would provide all kinds of information. The Maroons hid themselves in the many swamps. If a troop of soldiers came on through such a swamp with their weapons in their upheld hands, the Maroons would shoot at them from their hideaways. The soldiers could return the fire only once, for it was then impossible for them to lower their arms in order to reload.
When raiding a military post the Maroons used the following tactics. They made a lot of noise outside the post at night. They took with them the bodies of soldiers that had been left behind after previous raids and treated them with herbs so that they did not decompose. When they raided a military post, they would throw these bodies down. The soldiers woke up, saw weapons pointed at them from all direction and dozens of bodies on the ground. A voice called to them that if they dared go for their weapons they would be shot dead. The soldiers would flee in panic, leaving everything behind. The weapons were, however, mock ones, made of wood, and when the soldiers had fled, the Maroons could triumphantly take possession of all the weapons, ammunition and food stocks that were left behind.
When the Alukus raided a plantation they would surround the buildings at night. All the buildings were set on fire simultaneously. If the plantation owner, manager or overseer was known as someone who mistreated slaves, then the Alukus made quick work of him. They usually left the white children unharmed. If they raided plantations where the owner did not have a bad reputation, they freed the slaves, took weapons and other tools, and did not harm the whites.
Because the negroes knew that the military were trying to starve them out by first stripping their farmlands and then destroying them, they laid these plots out a long way away from their villages. Sometimes such fields were one or even two days away from the village. Providing food was a job for the women. They cultivated the ground and laid up huge stores of food. It was painfully obvious that the eight hundred European soldiers with all their weapons were no match at all for the Alukus, about three hundred in number.
Three of the men who now belonged to the Zwarte Jagers had previously been porters. This meant that they had been in the army for five years now and had gone on many expeditions. They had a great deal to tell. Those white soldiers were in fact really stupid: you could almost take pity on them. What did those white kids know of the jungle? When they went on an expedition they just hoped for the best, with a compass in one hand and a machete in the other. For a four-week expedition a group would comprise three officers, six subalterns, three doctors and sixty-five soldiers. Such a group needed one hundred and eighty-three porters. These porters carried for the soldiers: one thousand and eighty pounds of meat, five hundred and forty loaves of bread, one thousand three hundred and fifty pints166 of groats, thirty-six pints of dram (strong drink), six cases of cartridges, three cases of medical supplies, a hundred and fifty flints and seventy-five machetes. For the hundred and eighty-three porters themselves were taken: two thousand five hundred pounds of dried cod, twelve hundred loaves, one thousand seven hundred pints of groats. The paths were narrow, so they walked in single file, thus forming a long line. The vanguard comprised a few slaves who would have to hack the path free. Then came the troop itself, as a whole or in two parts. The porters walked in the middle. If they encountered Maroons or were attacked by them, all the soldiers had to form a tight circle round the porters, to ensure that they did not desert. At the rear walked several more soldiers and an officer. Due to the huge distance between the front and rear of this column, hardly any communication was possible, while the Alukus had often detected them long in advance.