Term generally used to describe
pirates. Maroon comes from the Caribbean, where the Spanish word "cimarrón" was used to describe anything wild or untamed, used for runaway
slaves and later for
lost people in general. The practice of
marooning was a punishment, used by pirates, in which a
seaman was left on a desert island to die. The
Caribbean is ideal for this because by high tide its many small sand
islands disappear, and eventually the marooned pirate would die.
http://www.columbia.edu/~tg66/piratepage.htm