This is the face of Queen Nanny of the Maroons, a hero so important to Jamaican history that she earned her visage on the $500 Jamaican bill.
Living from indeterminate dates from the 1600s to 1700s, accounts of Queen Nanny largely come from oral histories and are difficult to pin down with certainty. She probably came to Jamaica from the West African Ashanti tribe, and many sources assert that she had managed to evade slavery altogether.
On firmer ground is Nanny’s role in fighting the British overlords in the 1700s, when Queen Nanny helped lead groups of Jamaicans known as the Maroons in guerilla-style warfare against the white slavers. For decades, Nanny succeeded in hounding the British, enabling upwards of a thousand people to escape bondage and fight with her. Eventually she settled with a peace treaty in 1740 and her people were given 500 acres and allowed to abide unmolested by the British. The town she helped establish is called Moore Town, or New Nanny Town, and in 1975 the government of Jamaica declared her to be a national hero.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanny_of_the_Maroons, https://www.badassoftheweek.com/nanny
