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l' 1 CLARENDO~ PRESS· OXFOR D l 1971 l - r - ~= .. ------,- _,.,._ lr!;""-- ' 1:" '- A CREOLE ECONOMY 81 factories of tiles [could be] set on foot in the island, which abounds with excellent clays'. I The Spaniards, after all, had used tiles for

7 roofing and this had helped to give their housing its local character.~ H e also saw the restoration of the local cattle industry as essential. A CREOLE ECONOMY This was so important it should be legislated for: an act of legislature [is necessary] to encourage the island-breed, and throw gradual restraints upon ... importation; by which means, beef might I THE American Revolution, however, did not only provoke a con­ possibly, in course of a few years, return to a more moderate price ... thus might be saved many thousand pounds now paid for foreign salted beef, stitutional reaction in Jamaica. One of its first effects was to make which is neither so wholesome, nutritious, nor pleasing ... as fresh meat.l some, at least, realize that the island had to diversify its economy and begin to rely more on local industry if it was to survive the break Coffee growing (there was plenty of land and the climate was suit­ in trade and supplies from the Thirteen Colonies and the rising costs able) should also be encouraged, the woods and flora of the Blue I in freight, insurance, and imports introduced from Britain as a Mountains studied scientifically for their commercial and medicinal result of the American War. I I n his History of Jamaica, published possibilities, and above all, white settlement of the interior under­ in the year of the Assembly Petition in support of the Americans, taken not only as a measure of local defence but to help make agri­ Edward Long had produced a far-reaching and' long-term inventory cultural diversification and self-reliance possible.• But to achieve of what needed to be done to make the island more self-sufficient this goal, Long warned, Jamaicans would have to slough off their and certainly less dependent on North America. It was a blue print conservatism: for possible action. 'Arguing in the character of a planter', Long said, To persevere in errors, because our forefathers did so, is the sure mark of a let me say, that in several respects, it is in our power to lessen our depen­ narrow or indolent soul; not to endeavour to correct them, is equally dence on the Nonh Americans; namely, by importing from Great-Britain reprehensible. The opening a liberal communication of remarks and opin­ i and Ireland, many of the commodities with which the Nonh Americans ions, and selecting such as are distinguished for their seeming rectitude, is supply us; and by good management, providing many others of them a sure method, whereby we may be freed from those restraints which our within our own island. Mjght we not, for example, be supplied from Britain ancestors imposed, and to which we may have yielded implicitly under the with soap, candles, ham, fish, bacon, cheese . .. etcetera, as cheap, in sanction of custom, and long usage . .s general, as from them 1 as also with beef, pork, and butter, entirely from -.:;. j This warning was necessary. Long knew his creoles. The yea·r Ir:laod 1 Corn, in abundance, we may have of our own growth, and lamp ~.-':} after the American crisis, and as a direct response to the new con­ oil of our own manufacture, both far cheaper than we can buy of them. -,:,~-1 ditions created by it, I I How strange, and inexcusable is it, that we should pay so much money· - -_\~j every year for their horses, ·wlien those of our own breed are so incom- - - ?:J A member in his place, represented to the bouse [of Assembly], that it is ~blymore beautiful and serviceable! Great quantities of hoops, head- ~-i.1 probable, in the present critical situation of affairs, the importation from mg, and shingles, might be provided in .tbe island, were proper methods _ ~..J ' North-America to this island, of provisions of all sorts of grain, as well as taken to encourage our own settlers. . . . ~:.;-.:'of staves, boards, and other lumber, will be greatly diminished, if not totally interrupted for some time; and therefore moved, that a committee Jamaican shingles, he said, "!'ere 'five times mor~dunible and secure':~-~.-. J be appointed, to take into consideration ... what m~ ought to be And if shingles were unobtainable, why not use local tiles: 'manu:~~- taken to prevent a scarcity of provisioD$, and what encouragement ought • For the econoatic effect of the American Revolution on Jamaica and other parts ,. ~ of the Caribbean, see Richard Pares, A W

- '" 6 91-J, 186, 208, 229; David H. H. Makinson, &ubado.r, A Study of Nortlr Aml!rlcan.-_ ~ l procuring and manufacturing of staves, boards, and other lumber.... W

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The result of this was the Act 16 Geo. II£, c. 12 of 1775 'to en­ their own sugars for exportation to Great-Britain and Ireland, and that courage the planting and growth of provisions in the several parishes application to that effect should be made to his majesty ... • of (the] island'. 'An act to encourage the taking and curing of fish This was a direct result of the rising British import duties on mus­ and turtle, and the making of oil, and procuring salt, and importing covado sugar. a There were already two sugar refineries in Kingston.l the same into [the] island' (16 Geo. III , c. 16), was also passed that In 1775, John Russell introduced and had patented by a private year. The next year saw 'An act for encouraging the manufacturing bill, his method of 'applying friction wheels to mills for grinding of agnus castor, or nut oil' (17 Geo. III, c. 17 of 1776), a bounty to sugar canes' .• In 1789, Isaac Lascelles Winn of St. James patented encourage the introduction of buffaloes, • and the renewal of the his 'principle of manufacturing sugar, and distilling rum, with a bounty, first introduced in 1773/ for the encouragement of coffee much smaller quantity of fuel' than was necessary hitherto; and James production.J In 1779, again because of the American Revolution, Small, a Clarendon carpenter, patented his 'mills for grinding sugar there is evidence that some attempt was being made to encourage canes'.S In 1790, a private bill was passed to protect John Reeder, the local cattle industry, in order to supply British troops quartered Esq., in his 'discovery and invention of a varnish for copper, and in the island with fresh meat.• In 1783, local cattlemen, petitioning his introduction .of the discovery of joining the seams of copper, the Assembly for its continued support, said that 'many of them and making the same water-tight without solder'.6 Daniel Siddon, of [had], of late years, employed their time, labour and little capitals in Westmoreland, a mason, was protected by a private bill for his establishing pens of breeding stock', with the result that 'new roads of 'Method of hanging of coppers, for boiling of cane juice, and communication (had] been opened, [and] large tracts of wood-land manufacturing of sugar', in the same year. Private bills of patent cleared'. This, the cattlemen felt, showed 'a spirit of improvement, were drawn up for John Ashley and Josias Robbins in 1793, for a which, if not ... checked, would soon penetrate into the very heart of 'machine for raising water without friction, to be applied to mills the country') In 1780, a bill removing all restrictions to the encour­ for grinding sugar-canes' (Ashley), and a steam pump (Robbins).? agement of new white would-be settlers was introduced and passed In 1800, Thomas Roper of Portland, a planter, had his 'wheels for through the H ouse.6 This was followed in 1782, by an Act (23 Geo. turning water-mills' patented, and Ezra Waldo Weld received protec­ 8 a III, c. 23) to encourage loyalist settlement from North America, tion for his 'machine for cleansing of clothes, called the New Laver'. the Bay of Honduras and the Mosquito Shore.' In 1783 it was In 1785, John Hunter (not a creole), applied to the House for help resolved by a Committee of the House in manufacturing alkaline salts from wood ash. This ash, he said, was

essenti~in British and Irish linen manufacture, and at the time it was 1bat it appears to be highly expedient for the welfare of this island,._:.~ ... being produced only in North America. He had come to Jamaica to that the proprietors of sugar estates should~have the liberty of refining~ . ~-~ carry out experiments, bad set up first in the wrong area because be -~~' did not know the country, but now, ·Vere, he had made 'trial -;.....:. in of •JAJ, VI,676of60cc_t776. • ibid.,464ofz6 Nov. 1773· ~ -t:· ' !b~d.,634 of23 Oct. 1776. • ibid., VII, 146 of 18 Aug. 1779. =~~ ;.. almost all the different woods in the island', except the resinous ones, ' ab1d., 6o9of 2.1 Nov. 1783. · ::.-:: • 2.1 Geo. III, c..u. Plau.s for white settlement are di.sc:ussedmo re fully on pp. 86-91, .;. = and found that they yielded 'a considerable quantity of salts'. He below. ..:...-:... had been working on the estate of Robert Jackson,9 a representative '1beso were British protectorates within Spanish territory on the Caribbean coast~

of Central America: Honduras on the Yu~tanpeninsula, the Mosquito Shore, part~~ · in the Assembly for Vere. It is not clear what became of this project, of Njcaraaua. From the earlY seventeenth century, and probably even earlier, Hon- . ..,_, . but the same year, Joel Evans, a Kingston merchant, made this dura.s Bay had bec:ome a settlement for Eo&lish Iogwood (later mah.opny) cutters.. ·S'· ~adventurersbad also settled along the Mosquito Shore where the Mosquito.-.;· ·;, ~tition_to the Assembly: Indians, a people of mixed Nqro and Amerindian descent, had claimed the protection • ~ of Charles I. (C.S.P., 1685-8, no. 162.4.) Both territories were administered by the::..-~~That [he] hath, at a very considerable expeoce and trouble, erected build~ Governor ofJamaica froau744 until1884 (Honduras) and 1894 (the Mosquito Shore),~ej ~ ings, enclosed yards, and provided implements and materials necessary for aJt!l?u&h by 1810, the local Superintendents there were in direct c:ontact with the £~ :".: I JAJ, VII, S53 14 Feb. 1783· • Rqatz., Fall, p. 164. J ibid.. p. r6. Bnusb Government. (Sec Burns, op. cit., pp . 49, 365, 497~6s7. 68s, 693; D. A. G.~~'}~ or WaddeU, British Holldwos: A Historical and ContmtpOrary Sunq (London, 1961), ··~ •16Geo.DI . s 3oGeo.m. • 31 Geo.m. '34Geo.m • pp. 10, n. 17; 52.-4.) . . • S?.: • 41 Goo. 01. t JAJ, VIII, 12.4 of:l. Dec. 178s. ....

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A C REOL E ECO N O MY ss ~ 84 JAMAJ'CA AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIO N carrying on and bringing to perfection the tanning business in aU its to the whims and needs of the British consumer. Rising British taxes branches, in the said town of Kingston, and hath already manufactured on West Indian suga r meant a rising cost of sugar, a consequential sundry sorts of leather, such as, upper and sole leather for shoes and boots, fall in demand for it in Britain and a consideration there, of alterna­ for kittereen tops, and covering close carriages, for smiths' bellows, for tive sources of supply.' Nor, in Jamaica itself, were the planters saddlers' use, harness, and white sheep skins for aprons and other uses .... ' prepared to divert effort from sugar production into growing food .. He had, be continued, sold examples of all these various leather and providing supplies. Instead, they wanted to retain and have i products to patrons, who, upon trial, declared them to excel 'any reassumed the trade links with the American colonies. It might imported hither from other countries'. 1 The House decided to have been possible, for instance, as Long had suggested, that local examine Evans' claims, commenting that since the island possessed woods be used for staves, etc., but as a petition from the parish of all the raw material necessary for this industry, and since the product St. George pointed out in 1784, rather reiteratively, could be produced and sold cheaper than imported leather goods, the staves of this country are infinitely heavier than the red oaks of America; and since it would give employment to many industrious white and there being only a certain given tare allowed at the custom-house at people, 'it might ... be proper to encourage, in its infant state, so London, all that the hogshead weighs above that, freight and a duty is useful a manufactory in [the] colony'.J In 1786 an attempt to further paid for, at the same rate as if it was actually sugar, ... which additional encourage the local cattle industry by imposing a tax on all imported grievance to the sugar-planter is occasioned by the Joss of their usual supply of red oak staves from America; an evil they patiently submitted to, cattle was introduced, 4 but shelved.s That same year, though, it during the war, in hopes it would only be .. • temporary ... but are now was agreed that the breadfruit should be introduced into the island, 6 told by their factors in London, that they have no remedy; but that of (though it did not arrive until 1793)1-the climax of a whole series I sending home to them for Ham burgh staves, which would make the remedy of horticultural improvements: the establishment of Botanical as bad as the disease .... ' Gardens (1775), 3 the appointment of a Gardens Supervisor (1777),9 Petitions a similar nature came in from Yere, St. David, St. :J the introduction of the ackee (I778), ' 0 now one of the island's staple of i foods, the mango (I782),t' cinnamon,u clove, nutmeg, and black Dorothy, St. John, St. Thomas-in-the-Vale, St. Ann, St. Mary, pepper (I 788). 1 J St. Andrew and St. Thomas-in-the-East.J Trade with Canada and This, in outline, was the Jamaican response to the economic Nova Scotia-the proposed British alternative-was rejected as imbalance created by the American Revolution. As a response it j unsuitable and too expensive. The planters wanted the restoration of the old links, the proved intercourse. Deprived of Americ~n was local-creole -i n character. But how much did it achieve? "'~ trade, the Assembly informed His Majesty that How far to making the local eco~omyself-sufficient and viable did ,~!j it go? Here Long's warning about .conservatism becomes relevant ~ in all probability, such planters who have it in their power, will emigrate, All the activity, as. outlined ~b.~ve~JV~Considered and remained-- 'ti with their families and slaves, to happier countries; and those who cannot,

marginal to sugar production and the imperatives of sugar produc- -~~ :1 as honest men, take this step, of which the number is great, must remain unhappy spectators of their properties mouldering into ruin, themselves tion; and sugar production not only tied Jamaica firmly to Britain ~1'~ and families reduced to indigence and want. ... 4 and the dictates of mercan~t~oli~y, but increasingly after 1783, -~:f

• JAJ, VIII,1o6 of 16 Nov. 1785. . J ibid. They were also cheaper. ~~~..1 Nor-was the situation helped by bountiful Nature. Hurricanes hit • ibid.,134of8 Dec.1785. • ibid,242ofr9Dec.17 86. : '- _;-""""-'~ the island in 1780, q8 1, 1784. 1785, and q86-that of 1780 being • ibid., 2.46of:u Dec. 1786. - . • ibid..,258 of22 DcC.1786. - - ·- "'--r~ • JAJ,IX ,:z.J7-80f:z7Nov.I793- . - -:-.1""; one of the most devastating in West Indian histor:y.S This was 1 ibid., VI, 591 of 30 Nov. 1775. An earlier. Garden purchased from Huddesley -JiY. • JAJ, VIII, 66r ofs March 1791. • ibid., 590f 14 Dec. 1784. Balcer of SL Andrew in 1773. failed. (19 Geo. ill, c. 17 of 23 Dec. 1778; Laws, Vol II, ~ , pp. 236-7.) - ~ - • ibid,. 28-30 of 2.5 and 16 Nov.; 37- 8 of 2 Dec.; 43- 4 of 4 Dec. and 467 of 7 Dec. 1784. • ibid., 41 of 4 Dec. 1784. • Dr. Thomu Clarke. See JAJ, Vlll, 6o2 of 1 Dec. 1790; CundaU, Historic JQmai«~,.,_~:!1, p.2.6. - s Maxwell Hall. 'The Jamaica Hurricane of Odober J, 178o', Qwuttrl:t JoiiT1t41 of the •• Cundall. Historic JQm.tUco, p. 25. . " ibid., and Edward!, op. ciL, Vol. I. p. 257 • Ro}'Ql Meteorolorfcol Society, vol. xlili (1917), no. 18:t, pp. UI -S; Notu of HIITriCDMS, .. Edwards, op.cit., Vol. I, p. 257. -- ''Cundall , HistorlcJQma/cQ, pp. 25-

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~ 86 JAMAICA AND THE AMERICAN R EVOLUTION A C REOLE ECO~O MY 87 foJJowed by a severe drought which persisted until 1787. It was In 1797, a different line was taken: estimated that between 15,000 1 and 24,000 slaves> 'PERJSHED OF ... that in case any master, O"''Tlcr,or possessor, of slaves and stock, shall, FAMINE OR OF DISEASES CONTRACTED BY SCANTY at rus proper cost and charges, import into this island any family of white AND UNWHOLESOME DIET'.l This, too, the planters attributed persons, of which one member, at least, shall be capable of serving, and to the loss of American trade.• Of the projects for local diversification become actually eoroUed, in the militia of this island, within three months of the economy, in fact, only coffee, which enjoyed a golden period after their arrival ... ; or shall settle any poor wrute family now ·Jiving, or from about 1788 to about 1813,.s and which is discussed in more which may hereafter reside, in this island, by granting them a lease of land detail below, 6 and the horticultural activities centring around the for a term of years, not less than twenty-one years, or for life, or any breadfruit came to anything. (These activities petered out when the greater estate in such land, without any rent reserved (save and except the Liguanea Gardens were sold in 1810.)1 The sugar refining scheme quit-rents to rus majesty ... ) in the proportion of thirty acres of land for i wilted under prohibitive British taxes on colonially refined sugar. s the husband, fifteen acres for the wife, and seven acres for each child, with I But perhaps the most important factor in the attempt to rehabili­ a house thereon in good habitable condition, and two acres thereof cleared and planted with provisions, for each member of such family; and shall tate the Jamaican economy was the failure to encourage white pay or cause to be paid to them ... the sum of£ 15 per head per annum .•• , settlement. An Act of 1776,9 repealing 'part of an act entitled "An shall be entitled to have each and every member of such family admitted I explanatory act for the further encouraging the settling the parish and allowed to save deficiency for him or her [according to certain pro­ ofPortland ... "',described nicely what, in the eyes of the Assembly, portions as set out]. • would have been an ideal situation: This clause, proposed as an amendment, was ordered to be printed [That] the governor shall grant to every person willing to become a ... (100 copies) and circulated to members for consideration and dis­ settler ... [in Portland], a quantity of land, not exceeding five hundred acres, in proportion to the number of negroes and wrute men they are cussion.~But as nothing appears to have come of it, perhaps it suffered the same fate as an earlier attempt to encourage family ~ willing and ready to put thereon, and perfect the settlement thereof, and i also a lot of land in the town of Titch.field; 10 ... with a condition or life by a tax on bachelors.J • proviso ... That every person, so patenting any parcel of land, shall be In 1798 it was proposed that the 2,000 British troops to be sent obliged to build and erect a house on such lot in the said town witrun nine to the island as a result of the war with France, should be enlisted months from the date of such his patent, and to maintain and repair on a long-term (five-year) basis, with the option of a further three the same; and to keep one white person actually residing thereon, at the to five years on payment of a bounty to them and a grant of land­ least, for and during the term of three years ... ; and also to begin and carry 'small settlements in the interior parts.'• This long-term employment on a settlement on his said land, in proportion to the number of acres in of white troops, the Assembly felt, allowing them time to become it •. • II inured to the climate and offering the opportunity to set themselves In 1781, even more generous terms were offered;u but up to the up after service as small landed gentlemen in the island, was the end of the period of this study, the parish of Portland remained only way to provide the country with a stable and permanent defence, largely unsettled. 11 and add 'to the population and militia of the island.'s It was a • Edwards, op. cit., Vol II, p. S I S. sensible and realistic plan, a justification of the argument that only • Minute Book: The Honourable Committee of Correspondence, Minute of 9 Marcb the local people, in a colonial situation, really know what is best for 1814- • Edward$, op. cit., Vol II, P-S IS. Sec also JAJ, VIII, 4.19 of 1~Nov. 1788. • Committee of Corre$pondence, as for o. 2., above. them, given the chance to express their ideas.- Enlistment, the House 'Sec R.G., XXXJU (1811), no. 4S, p. 10 and XXXV (1813), II, 17.

1 - " 9• See pp. 147-8. Sl Geo. III, c. 30 of 1810. • Ra.gatz, Fall, p. 16. ~ • JAJ, X~6s-6 of 16 Dec;. 1797. • ibid., p. 6s. 17 Geo. Ill, c. 2.6 of 2.1 Dec. 1176. •• Sec Map I. • 'from 2.1 years and upwards'. JAJ, VI, 661 of 2.7 Nov. 1776. The JGnaston Vestry "Low.t. Vol. II, pp. 2.11-12.. Some versions of this Act read 'six months' and 'four Minutes throw some light on lhe small number of families in the island with figures for Years' and specify 'while persons'. - .. Sec 2.1 Geo. Ul , c. 2.2. of t:zJan. 1781. 1788, showing the proportion of free while male to free wbite female as standing at •• As late as 1863, the parish of Portland bad only 8,540 rqistered inbabitaniS. Port 4:1. There were 4,793 free white males in Kingsron in 1788, compared to 1,746 free ~~!,11·St. David, St. George, St. Dorothy, and St. John aU bad under 10,000. (Hand­ white women. (Kingston Vestry Minutes for 2.8 Feb. 1788.) Jamaica for r88J. p. 6s.} ._... of •JAJ,X, I)Sof8 Nov. 1798. , ibid.,2790f7 March 1799·

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~ 88 JAMAICA AND THE AM ERICAN REVOLUTION A CREOLE ECONOM Y 89 also pointed out, should be staggered over the five-year period in­ 1798/9, some r ,200 'Frenchmen' were to come from St. Domingue. 1 volved. r The local legislators were so pleased with this plan and so The Rev. G. W. Bridges/ always anxious and willing to support the optimistic that it would succeed, that they asked the Brirish Govern­ forces of tradition and 'civilization' in the creole/slave society of his ment adoption, said the American immigrants generally: ~ of I That it [be] perfectly understood that the engagement, which pledges this ... several of these emigrating royalists settled in this island, bringing with I country to provide for the whole expence of these two thousand men, will them fixed principles, and faithful slaves, who were much further advanced I be completed as soon as the whole of the non-commissioned officers and in the scale of civilised society than the plantation negroes, amongst whom I privates shall be provided with settlements in the interior. ... • they were here dispersed, and over whom their example soon spread its beneficial infiuence.J In the event, this plan was hardly given a chance to succeed. When I the troops arrived, they found that not even the barrack accommoda­ In 1782, apart from the civilians, there were two groups of loyal tion promised them had been provided.l But there was still hope. American forces in Jamaica: the Duke of Cumberland's Regiment The Committee of Public Works, inspecting the Army barracks under the command of the Right Hon. Lord Charles Montagu, and I at Stony Hill in 1800 reported: Col. Odell's corps of Loyal American Rangers, which included the Black Carolina Corps. • These troops (the white ones) wanted to That twenty-five non-commissioned officers and fifty-six privates have ... settle in Jamaica. Their behaviour, they claimed, entitled them 'to built huts for themselves, which your committee visited with great satis­ faction, as an earnest of what their industry will produce when they come the name of good citizens as well as soldiers.'S But the Assembly was to be settled in the interior of the country.... • not at all happy about them. It told the Governor that no money was available 'for any more troops than are already provided for.'6 Above all, the Assembly still hoped that the soldiers would settle Eventually, however, the white troops were compensated with grants as family men: of lands.? After considerable argument between the Military and ... out of six hundred and fifty-one non-commissioned officers and pri­ the Jamaicans, the Black Carolinas were 'removed to [the] Leeward vates [at Stony Hill], there are only thirty-nine who have wives with them [Islands) command'.8 in Jamaica; but your committee find that twenty-two non

British troops in the island6 and the plan fell through. .~~.~ • Bridges, op. cit., Vol. I, p. sos. Jamaica, therefore, never solved the problem of attracting and "'f :j • The Rev. G. W. Bridges, an Englishman, came to Jamaica in 1816. He was rector of Manchester (1817-23) and while there was also made a magistrate and assistant gaining a sizeable body of small-settlers to help with its economy ~0 1 judge of the Court of Common Pleas (1820). He was rector of St. Ann (1823-37) and defence. The American and French (St. Domingue) Revolutions -: ':1 after which he returned to England. Apart from his Annals, be published several other did supply, however, a certain number of emigres. Nine hundred : t} pro-slavery works. including A Voice from Jamaica (1823), Drearru of Dulocracy (1824), Emancipation unmask'd • •. (1835) and a Statistical History of the Parish of adult (white) Americans and 378 children arrived at Port Royal in·_.J ·.j Manchester ... (1824). (See Cundall, HistoricJamafca,pp. 299, 372; R.G., XLU (1820), January 1783 after the British surrender at Charleston,? and in;.£~ 37. 19; Ragatz, Guitk. pp. 194, S99·) , Bridges, o-p. cit., Vol I, p. S0'7· ' 'His Majesty's ministers must easily perceive the evil that would result ..• should ~·;;J • Cundall, Historic Jamaica, pp. 226-7;/..U, VII. S3S of 18 Dec. 1782. For details of the periods of enlistment expire at one and the same. time. •. .' (JAJ, X, 28.4 of u _ _;,;::"1 the Blaclc Carolinas and the British units in the Caribbean sec A. B. Ellis, Tlte Histcry March, 1799.) • JAJ, X, 284 of 12 March 1799, my italics. · ...... ,_ of the Fust West lnd'uz Regiment (London, 188s); Caulfeild, op. cit., and G. Tylden,

, Sec the Report of the Inquiry conducted by Army Officers into the State of the !i;._~o 'The West India Regiments, 1795-1927' in Journal of the Society for Army Historical Barncb:J..U,X,Js~ofz2Nov.1799. '~~ Ruearch, Vol xi. • JAJ,X.4S70f7Feb.J8oo. • ibid. •ibid.,67r-3ofzr J une 18o2. •. _,:::::_:: • JAJ, VII, SJS of 18 Dec. 1782. 'ibid., SS9 ofzo Feb. 1783. 0 1 Cundall. Historic Jamaica, op. cit., p. 216. • A. B. Ellis, op. cit., p. s 1. ' Raptz, Fall, p. 194. -~~~·~

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0 __ •_;5:0~· -- 0 .,- ... ·~,--;.-zcc- o'";··o- o,_- .. ,0 - ~- -- - ,.. -.., ' 90 JAMAICA AND THE AMERI CAN REVOLUTION A CREOLE ECONOMY 91 country.'' The Assembly agreed. The Americans would 'meet with ahead planters and merchants. Too many creole vested interests every favour and encouragement to which good policy, and their were involved. As Patrick Grant, the surveyor, said: sufferings, give them so just a claim.'~Early the next year, a bill was drawn upJ a few interested persons, who have properties in the neighbourhood of the morass, in the dry seasons of the year, take the benefit of the morass and to exempt from taxes, for a limited time, such of his majesty's subjects of turn their cattle therein, and are desirous of preventing the loyalists from North-America, as, from motives of loyalty, have been, or shall be obliged settling there. ' to relinquish or abandon their possessions in that country, and take refuge in this island, with intent to settle here. • A colleague of his, Gran t went on, had been 'instructed to give every opposition' to the settlement of the area, 'and that he was deter­ But how was this 'settlement' managed? What kind of land had mined so to do.' 1 been appropriated for these refugees? According to Patrick Grant, Equally unhappy about the American influx were the merchants I a surveyor, between 14 February 1783 and November 1784 28,040 who dominated the Kingston Vestry. In 1784, they complained acres of (morass) land had been divided into '183 separate parcels' about seventy American housekeepers (i.e. householders) 'who are for use by the Americans . .s refugees and who, by that circumstance, are exonerated of all paro­ I chial taxes, although many of them are apparently wealthy, and Q. Are you acquainted with the lands and swamps laid out for the practise commerce to a considerable extent'.J In December 1786, loyalists in St. Elizabeth, by Mr. Grant? there was another memorandum from the Kingston Vestry before the House. The population Kingston was increasing, trade was Q. Are you of opinion that there is a quantity of dry land interspersed of declining because of restrictions on American trade and heavier among the waters, sufficient to make I 83 comfortable settlements ... ? British taxes on Jamaican exports, and there were more and more ~ Q. Are you of opinion that any living creature, besides fish, frogs, 4 poor people in the town, which was a burden on the parish. The Dutchmen, and amphibious animals, can exist in the district ... ? situation was being aggravated, the vestrymen continued, 'by the A. He thinks not. multitude of loyalists who have taken refuge' in Kingston 'under Q. Are you of opinion that this spot ... can be drained, so as to make it the encouragement and sanction' of the Act of 1783, which though useful for the habitation of man ... ? acknowledged to be wise, was still 'severely felt' by the petitioners. • A. He does not think it possible to drain it, but at a very great expence The trouble, really, was this: as far as the Jamaicans were concerned, 0 •• 7 the American refugees were either too rich and successful, or too poor and burdensome: In other words, having made their gesture of sympathy to the Ameri­ can refugees, Jamrucans were not really prepared to spend money for ... some of the opulent and industrious practise commeroe, and exercise permanent hospitality on them. Although the Assembly was aware their trades with peculiar advantages, occupying houses and stores in of the need for increased white settlement, it did not really have in valuable situations, and other visible property, which were formerly mind the kind of settler the Americans represel!ted- tough, go- productive of relief to the poor, but now wholly lost to tho (vestry], as sources of parochial impost. .. . ' JAJ, Vll, <476of19 Oct. 1782. • ibid.,479 ofl Nov. 1782. [On the other hand, many of the loyalists are] extremely indigent and J l) Geo. ill, C.l) of 1783. • JAJ, Vll, 544 Of II Feb. 1783. wholly supported at the expence of the pirish, whilst some others of them 4• ibid., Vlli,uofJJ Nov.1784. - ~ ~

Was this an intcntioo&! pu.n 7 One ltop~.sso, althouah there is no cvidczlc:o iJl the ~ rivalling the petitioners in the little trade they have left, and, in their JOIIntQu of this lcind of levity. One of the first Americans to inspect the swamps with a sucoesses, an: enjoying an immunity from all taxation.' view7 to settlement was a Mr. Robert Frog. (JAJ, VIII, 1-48of J6 Dec. I78s.) Georcc Murray, surveyor and member of the Assembly, before a House Investi- Pti~CoiDIIlittoe;JAJ,VIU, b -3 oflt Dec.1784. • 'JAJ, VIII, 1-48of 16 Dec. 1785. 'ibid . 'ib id., )l of30 Nov. 178<4. • ibid., lOl of 1 Dec. 1786. J ibid.

~ • A CREOLE ECONOMY 93 92 JAMAICA AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION l There was not much, though, that could be done about this situation and doctor, was engaged by the West India Interest of that city to go short of repealing the 1783 Act. This was attempted in I 785 after to Jamaica to direct experimental work connected with the improve­ a petition from the Kingston Vestry which complained that ment of sugar and rum production, 'whereby the sugar may be made whiter, purer, and more valuable, intrinsically, and the rum ... more as there are upwards of eighty houses in the said town now occupied [by grateful, salubrious, and valuable'.' Higgins arrived in May 1796, Americans] paying no taxes whatever; many of whom are very well able but it was not until December that his presence was 'approved' by the so to do, reaping all the benefits of commerce in common with the other Assembly, it being agreed, then, that he was not, 'in any shape, to be inhabitants, whose burdens are increased by so much taxable property being possessed by these people.. .. ' regarded as a needy adventurer, or idle projector' .z On the contrary, there was 'reason to believe that the specific services proposed (by the the tax holiday should be rescinded. But although the House decided doctor] would, if effected, produce solid advantages to [the] island, 1 to bring in a Bill for the repeal of the Act, it was lost on the first in the manufacture of the principal staples'.l Committees were 1 I reading. appointed in the three counties 'to attend doctor Higgins in his I The opportunity offered, then, by the American Revolution, operations', and he was offered £500 currency a quarter.• He in its dislocation of traditional American/Caribbean economic remained five years in the island, during which time he experimented connections, was not taken full advantage of by Jamaica. The island's with and introduced, mainly on the Constant-Spring estate in l I sugar planters remained conservative; and how could they, under Liguaoea,s several new ways of hanging coppers and clarifiers (used I eighteenth-century West Indian conditions of instability and in­ in the process of sugar boiling and the distillation of spirits). He also 1 calculability do, otherwise than stick to what they knew and continue studied the relationship of the soil to the quality of cane produced in to harvest their precarious, though often substantial, profits from it. These findings were published in his Observations and advices for 6 that? Besides, as long as the island remained a colony within the the improvement of the manufacture of Muscovado Sugar and Rum. mercantilist system, the British Government would, in any case, be Copies of this work were dutifully purchased by most planters; but unwilling to see a change of structure within its economy-an very few, apparently, adopted his methods, and experiments along economy 'fixed', too, by a tremendous capital expenditure on slaves. the lines recommended by him were discontinued after his departure. 7 Yet, there might have been greater efforts made to 'creolize' the James8 Stewart, who had lived for more than twenty years in Jamaica, economy, especially when it is realized that of all the British islands, summed up the situation when he said: Jamaica was the only one which maintained any significant diversi­ fication during the period of this study.J A little planned effort Agriculture, though practically well understood in this island, is very little · might have gone a long way. But in Jamaica there seemed to ~ cultivated as a science .... There was either a disinclination to the toil of little interest in soils, manures, terracing, etc.; nor was there a"~,.. scientific study, or a want of talent, or both: ... And yet, considering learned Agricultural Society concerned with studying and discussing the great variety and value of the products of this island, there are few local problems.4 · :; I JAJ, IX. S51 of IS Nov.J7¢. • ibid., s84ofl9 Nov. 1796· I ibid. In 1796, though, Bryan Higgins, a distinguished London physician = • ibid. 'ibid., X, SSS of 4 March; S76-7 of 13 March !Sol. • Published in four pans at St. lago de Ia Vega: 1797, 1800, 18o1, t8o3, and in 'JAJ, VIII, 138 of 13 Dec. 1785. .:; Th<'Columbian MagaziM(Kjngston, 1798), Vols. 3-s,pass/m. - • ibid., JSO of 17 Dec. 1785. Complaints about wealthy Americans persist until 1 Ragatz, Guide p. 199· Higgins left the island, rather reluctantly, it appears, because 1787. (See hU, VIII, 501-3 of 17 Nov.) The French refugees from St. Domingue were of age and ill health. (JAJ, X, S76 oft3 March 18o1.) even less welcome because of their co~oo with the republican Freucb. Revolutio~•':?<• _, • There is some confusion a.s to whether this abould be John. a.s listed in Raptz's and the black slave revolt io that island. -,~.. -..,1 Guide (p. 134) or James. The title page of A p/ew of the past and prese/11 state ••. of , See Ragatz, Fall, p. 38. . ~- Jamaica (18.13), in fact, reads I. Stewart. An acco/UII of Jamaica {18o8), is written by f • According to Long (Vol. I, p. 436), s~cha Society had bee.nstarted in 1767, •A Gentleman, Long Resident in tho West Indies', but is clearly an earlier version of a ter a few publicatioiU, had disappeared. Sec also, Stewart, v;.,,.,,p. J 15, View. A James Stewart (of Trelawny), almost certainly the member of Assembly for Stewart), An Accoun.t of Jamaica and its lnltobitants {London, 18o8), pp. II3-14- Trelawny, 1794-1810, wrote A Brief Account oftiK Pusent Stau of the NqrtHs In Comwall AariculturaJ Society, started sometime around 18o8, had di$appea.rcd by Jamaica (Bath, 1791), and from internal eviden<:e would appear to be the author of the 1813. other two books. .... ---. f~ F.._. 1 ... A C REOLE ECONOMY 95 94 JAMAICA AND THE A~1ERICANREVOLUTION always devolving on the break with them. Twenty years after countries that present a more ample and interesting field for inquiry on this American Independence, with the islands faced with the possibility subject. ' ... of competition from the East Indies, the Jamaican planters were Because of its conservative attachment to the American connec- still expressing themselves in this way: tion, in other words, alternative sources of supply, within the island, the expence of carrying on plantations in the West-India islands, were never seriously explored. island continued 'over- ... The to look augmented lately by many local causes, increased indirectly by every seas'. The result, after American Independence, was an increased impost on the British manufacturer, and directly by duties levied on the Jamaican dependence on Britain. But Brit11in was geographically exports for our own use and consumption, leave nQ. room for fair com­ distant and the relationship with the 'Mother Country' was constitu­ petition with those who shall embark in the cultivation of sugar in the tionally and necessarily different from what it had ' been with the East-Indies, unfettered by these disadvantages, and with power to send Americans. In this sense, the American Revolution caused a certain their produce, direct to any market. in foreign vessels; ... trus expence has isolating of Jamaica from immediate contact with centres of lively been greatly enhanced by the restrictions on our intercourse with the United culture-the journey to Britain was long• and was not undertaken States of North-America, not only without benefit to the mother-country, lightly; when one left Jamaica for Britain it was often 'for good' or at but to her manifest injury when viewed in all its consequences: That the least for an extended stay. Contact with the American seaboard had articles supplied are of prime and indispensable necessity is admitted; that they cannot be furnished by the united kingdom of Great-Britain and Ire­ been easier,J visits more casual. It does not follow, though, that land, or any dependency of the empire, is evinced by twenty years experi­ the break with America, caused by the Revolution, was the most im­ ence; that they cannot be transported in British bottoms, at least during portant single factor in the decline of the Jamaican economy after war, is equally evident; yet the planters of this island are restrained from 1774. Since 1763 the American/Caribbean balance had been tilting, paying for what they cannot forego, by bartering a small part of the com­ more and more steeply, in favour of the Americans• and the develop- modities they possess, and are drained of specie wanted for common ing French islands. The Jamaican/West Indian decline was also con-. circulation, and of large quantities of bullion, which would centre in Great­ nected with the role played (perforce) by colonies within the European Britain; whilst the cultivation of their staples is cramped, and the quantity mercantilist and imperialist framework. Wars, gluts of plantation of what would be sent to the mother-country, in more favourable cir­ products on the world market, were as important as anything else cumstances, most probably diminished .... ' in the overall decline, as well as the inability of a slave-based economy privations by the invasion of the Americans .. .', and 'We are as avene as even Admini· I to react quickly to change, to reflect economic and social versatility.' stration could wish to giving encouragement to the Agriculture or Shipping of the What is significant, though, is that the Jamaicans, culturally and . United States, and will concur readily in any permanent measures to exclude them from the West Indies at a general peace' (Minutes of the Hon. Committee of Correspon· traditionally connected with the North American colonies, saw their~~ dence: 9 March 1814). But the economic dependence continued: 'but if it were believed decline (certainly until the second decade of the nineteenth century)J' :, : j that the buJic of the inhabitanu of the Island were in danger of sufrerin& for want of Subsistence We cannot think that Government would refuse to invite a temporary 1 ···~~~· ~i Stewart, View, pp. 115-16. · .... ::.:.~i.' supply from every quarter, Nothing more is asked for, noth.ini fonher expected •• .' • The Nuaenu toolc si.xty·six days <~sMay -19 July 1111) to reach Jamaica. Mn.7 ", • (Minutes, 9 March I 814). Nuaent len for England on 18 July 1885, reaching Weymouth in thirty-eight days. _--__~. j 1 JAJ, XI, 156 of 1s Dec. 18o3. (See LNJ.) •MonJe' Lewis did his first Gravesend-Black River journey in fifty days~:.,.,;l

(II Nov. 1815-1 Jan. 1816), his second in eighty days (j Nov. 1817- Z4 Jan. 1811):"':"' ~. His return to England in 1816 took lixty-two days sailio&( 1 April- I June). (SeeM. G:-~:

Lewis, Journal of a W~stlnditz Proprietor, lupt durin8 a residence In the islmtd of".~:.C­ Iamaica(London, 1834).)Lewisdiedatseawhilereturnin&toEnglandin 1818. - -- _-:::;·- , The run from Jamaica was six weeb at the most. (SeeR. Wri&ht, op. cit., pp. 1-2.) ·- l 4 See Elsa V. Goveia, $/ape Society in tlte British Luward blonds at tlte End of tU ~ - Eightunth Century (Yale UniYerSity Press-; 1965), pp. 1-11. - " · ~-~ J This is the main argument of Genovese, op. cit., with rqard to the American South.::f'n· .

It holds good for Jamaica also. -"' - - ·:..;:;~ " • The Jamaican attitude to the United States changed with the war of J8ll-1 4. See. :· .;?.·J for example, R.G., X:XXV(1812), 37,17: 'Weare happy to learn that a subscription bas :-ff'I~l

?ceo~t on foot in .~iscity [Kiogston] and in Spanish Town, ti.or the relief of tbe •:::_.~ . inh4b•tanu of the Bnltsh North-American coloni- who have suffered great loues and. :---...,;:;;•. __., ::!!,..... ,~ 1

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- JA:'IIAICA: C OLONIAL O R CREOLE? 97 becomes apparent. The .\ssembly's main arguments on this point were as follows: 8 That this house hath, os the representative of the people of this island, all the privileges that the house of commons hath as the representative JA:VIAICA: COLONIAL OR CREOLE ? of the people of Gre:u-Bmam: ond that any instrucuon from the king and his ministry can neither abridge or annihilate the privileges of the representative body of the people of this island.' As things stood, then, Jamaica was unable, unlike the Americans, That the inhabitants of this colony, unhappily situated at so remote a to claim and take independence in 1774. In one sense there was no distance from Great-Britain, and thereby deprived, in many cases, of the desire for this-the island was apparently satisfied with its measure means of laying their grievances at the foot of the throne .... have no de­ oflegislative autonomy. On the other hand, certainly on the evidence fence against the abuse of power, and the tyranny and oppression of ill governors, but in the frequent meetings and freedom of their assemblies ... , of the state of its economy, the island could hardly have taken and certainly not have maintained-as a white-dominated society-a The committee [reporting on the state of the island], in the course of [their] constitutionally independent stance in the 1 nos. even if it had wanted inquiries, have seen, with the deepest distress and anxiety of mind, that to. Besides, Britain clearly reserved the right, as Edwards admitted, there are reasons to fear that the House of Commons may be induced, by to intervene in the affairs of the island. The King was determined 'in men of great authority, to renew the doctrine of a right in the British no way to recede from His Right on this Important Point'.r This parliament to legislate for and tax the colonies. The committee dare not right of intervention and the willingness to use it was, needless to say, venture to state to the house the case wherein it was proposed to legislate for the colonies; for, if made public here, it might have the most fatal crucial to the constitutional development of the colony qua colony. As consequences [But] the committee ore of opinion, that it is absolutely long as the Mother Country could enforce this right, the territory .... necessary, on this occasion, to declare in the most solemn manner, that remained a colony: unless, that is, it was granted some other status­ the colonists are entitled to the same rights and liberties, within the colon­ a development still beyond the horizons of thts study. But this right of ies, that the subjects born in England are within the realm; that they have intervention, from the point of view of a creole society, as Jamaica the indefeasible right of giving and granting their own money, and of also was. was to be even more important to the development of the legislating for themselves; that it is the indispensable duty of the assembly island; because it meant that the 'Establishment' of the white elite, of Jamaica to maintain, to the utmost of thetr power, in perfect consistence fostered and protected by the Assembly, could, if it was felt necessary, with the truest loyalty to the crown, the just privileges of the colonists; be interfered with from outside. Constitutional politics, in other and that they will oppose, in every constitutional manner, any attempt to words, could affect the social development of the island; in fact, was deprive them of such rights and privileges, though they most fervently pan of that social development in a very intimate way. This was why pray that such an attempt may never be made .... 3 it was essential for the whites, through their Assembly, to prevent, The last quoted statement was an early response to House of restrict. or as a last line of defence, moderate, the British Govern­ Commons' activity over the Slave Trade. With the actual abolition ment's right of intervention in its internal affairs. As long as colony of the Trade, the argument, now based firmly on the right of and to and Mother Country saw eye to eye on the question of slavery­ internal legislation, is repeated: the vital heart of Jamaica-all might be well. But if there were external changes ... ? It was therefore important to establish the ... the act contains clauses foreign to the avowed purposes of the law, island's right to complete internal legislative competence; and it is which are calculated to establish measures of internal regulation, sub­ here that the paucity of creole constitutional theory, as expressed versive of the local rights and legislative authority of this island. • by people like Long and Bryan Edwards (see pp. 73-9, above), • The Pricilegesofthe lsland of Jamaica Vindicated, p. 101 ( 181oed.). 1 JAJ, VI. 194 of IS Nov. 1710. l Ibid., IX, 147-8 of13 Nov. 1792. • C.O. 138/44, Draft to :'11nnchestcr, 19 :\larch 1810. • ib1d., XI, 598 of 27 Oct. 1807. Hcs ~

• JA:-.IAIC.\: COLO:-HAL OR CREOLE? 99 98 J \~1.-\IC A .-\:'\D THE .\\!ERIC.\:'\ REVOLvTl0:-1 1 (the act has] an internal and unjust operation by interfering with and being this instance. a Consolidated Slave Act of that year. The Assembly's subversive of laws, which are to regulate the internal government of the tirst reaction was prompt and firm. 'The present momentous question', colony, the enacting of which h:tS long and uniformly been asserted by this It declared. '(involves} nothing less than (our] existence'.: A long island, and recognized by the parent state.' report. reviewing Jamaica's constitutional position from the begin­ ning of civil go\'ernment in the colony, was presented to the House The following year, the point about internal self-competence was Jnd the Act of I 728 was reierred to as 'the Magna Chana of again repeated: Jamaica'.3 When, the next month. the royal disallowance of local religious legislation came before the House, the old no-taxation­ your committee think themselves bound to warn the house and the country without-proper-satisfaction argument was resurrected: of the necessity of maintaining unimpaired the exclusive right of the colonial legislature to legislate internally for the island.: That if the board of trade or his majesty's ministers can prescribe or limit the objects of internal policy on which this house shall or shall not legis­ But the fact that on this .occasion the resolution was defeated by late, no vestige remains of the free constitution established by our ancestors, and it will not be expedient to exercise th:e invidious power of imposing twenty votes to sixteen,J a majority of members being more keen taxes, if we are to be divested of the functions which render that power on conciliation with Britain in the hope of gaining some compensation supportable to our constituents.... • for the losses envisaged as a result of Abolition, indicates once again the limitations imposed by the Assembly on its own arguments­ The strength of feeling in the House on this occasion may be gauged not to mention the bankruptcy and cultural myopia of the argu­ from the heavy defeat-18 votes to 4-of a conciliatory resolution, ments. The real concern should not have been with legislative 'trusting to [his majesty's] gracious interposition for redress'.s To competence at all, but with social reform; not with 'states' rights, save the situation, the Governor dissolved the Assembly.6 When but with civil liberty; not with property, but with people. Perhaps the the House reassembled, however, there was no more violent language white creole Jamaicans subconsciously recognized the culturally and the legislators, in fact, were co-operative. 1 But the dichotomous reactionary nature of their claims and arguments, and this may, in symptoms were there: anger ; cooling off. By the time the Parliamen­ part at least, account for their failure, once again, to push their tary attack on slavery itself developed, the Assembly had run out of constitutional arguments to their logical conclusions. In any case, ammunition. Continuing economic decline, increasing fear of slave this failure (inability, or lack of desire) indicated the existence, revolts, especially after the Maroon War at home and the Haitian within the Jamaican mind. of a dichotomy between argument and Republic next door, had taken their toll. Nevertheless, the committee sanction. wish and reality. colonial and creole. The choice before the report of 20 December 181 s,s on the question of possible Emancipa­ Assembly was, in fact, a simple one. The material terms in which tion, produced, for the first time, some new arguments. Bryan they stated their predicament made it easy for them. In the face of the Edwards' view of the British Parliament as primus inter pares,9 British attack on what was, in effect, the whole structure of white­ was rejected : dominated society, should the Assembly hope for concessions through appeasement. or should it stand on the unilateral assump­ Your committee must assert, that as British subjects we are, as our birth­ tions of its own internal legislative competence? right, entitled to British freedom: We shall resort to no abstract principles or fine drawn theories of equality;'0 but we do claim the same privileges, The answer, as it turned out. was appeasement. This is illustrated immunities, and franchises within this island, which are enjoyed by our by the defeat of the committee resolutions of I8o8 on the question of Abolition. In I 809, the British Government 'encroached' again; 'C.O. 138/44, Dr:tit to Manchester, 19 March 1810. 1 JAJ. XII. 172 of 16 Nov. 1809. • ibid., 169 of 16 Nov. 1809. this time by reviving its right to suspend Jamaican legislation-in • ibid., :.p of I 3 Dec. I 809. ' ibid. • ibid.. 242 of 14 Dec. 18o9. 'Sec ibid.• 253 of 9 Nov. 1810. • JAJ, XII, 781-825 of.:o Dec. 1815. t Sec p. 76, above. 'JAJ, XI, 598 oi27 Oct. 1807. 1 ibid., XII, 27 of 16 Nov. 1808. • ibid., 28 of 16 Nov. 1808. •• Cf. Edwards, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 436- 7. lW

~ 100 J.\\IAICA A>ID THE A\IERICAN REVOLUTION JA~!AICA:CO LONIAL OR CREOLE? 101 fellow-subjectS witiun the body of the realm, particularly the right to What this study is concerned wnh. therefore. is determining how consent by our representatives to the laws, by which our property, liberty, far this colonial status (and the mentality that \vent \\ith it) affected and lives are to be regulated, abridged, and disposed oi.' the process of creolizauon. Was the failure of political action. the This was a claim to full legislative autonomy. These were 'inherent failure to make the economy ,·iable. in locally autonomous terms, a result colonialism. a fa1lure the creole society. (as was more nghts· ... ''"hich his majesty could not confer or take away·.~nor of oi or could they be transferred 'to the House of Commons of Great likely) a combination of the two? If the latter, how much of one and Britain'.J But up to this point, despite the forceful language, it could how much of the other? After all. all Jamaican creoles were colonials, be argued, as A. L. Murray does, that here was nothing more than the but it does not follow that all colonials in Jamaica were creolized. old arguments, 'ineffective except in the courtroom'.4 But embedded The assumption is, of course, that the social process of creolization, in the rhetoric was a significant creole point: since it created, by its very nature (as will be discussed later), a way of life essentially different from the metropolitan model. would tend In the exercise of these powers and privileges, it became the duty of the to make for the creation of attitudes which in their evolution would general assembly of Jamaica to enact such laws as were called for by the alter the very nature of colonial dependence. This was certainly the new and peculiar circumstance~of their constituents . ... l case with the Americans. But why was it not so also '' ith the Jamai­ Here, at last, perhaps, was a peg from which to hang a whole new cans? Can 'creole' in this study·s terms. be identified with stability, series of constitutional argumenrs. the beginning of a (white) creole with change, or with both? If with both, did this result in some kind political philosophy in defence of their peculiar institution. But such of creative friction, or merely in the kind of ambivalence we have a theory never developed. Instead, the planters settled for compensa­ already examined as a cultural attribute of 'colonial'? We must now, tion. therefore, examine Jamaica's infrastructure. What was society like within the island; how did it interrelate; what were the views and So much then for the notion of Jamaican legislative competence. It attitudes both to themselves and to each other, of the various sections takes the story back to the Assembly Resolution of 1774 and the of the society? Was the dichotomy already described related only to American reply. Claims made by colonial 'Britons' against Britain, in Jamaica's 'external' (colonial) relationship with the Mother Country; British constitutional terms, would remain meaningless unless the or was the external dichotomy a reflection of a deeper cleavage-of claimants, like the Americans. were willing to break with the whole attitude and action-within the society itself? structure of British colonial culture, and if, in its place, they had evolved, or were evolving, an alternative cultural tradition, based upon the realities of their situation and environment. Anything less than this created a dichotomy of thought, action, and attitude which finally weakened the possibility of action. Jamaica found itself in this position in 1774 when the island's relationship to a wider (American) cultural complex was in question. In 1807, when it was a question, as they saw it, of defending their own internal structure, the (white) Jamaicans' ambivalence of attitude and their cultural dependence on the Mother Country again defeated them. At every step, it seems, the creatively 'creole' elements of the society were being rendered ineffective by the more reactionary 'colonial'.

'JAJ. XII, 782. • ibid. J ibid.• p. 783. • A. L. Murray, op. ot., p. 38. >JAJ, XU, 782-3, my italics. ..• ,i'"""" ---­· - .. grt

i 9 I I l WHITES 4 f i i The inhabitants of this colony consist of four classes; whites, free people •I of colour having special privileges granted by private acts, free people of i colour not possessing such privileges, and slaves ... all these classes, when employed in the public service, have, as far as it has been practicable, been j kept separate.' ' THIS, from the Assembly itself, was an 'official' admission of basic I social divisions, though one could hardly have expected it to have been otherwise. Slave societies, though to varying degrees,, are naturally divisive; and Jamaican society, built up by Englishmen still retaining, in the seventeenth century, many of their medieval feudal instincts, conformed to pattern. What this study is concerned with,

j however, is determining how far these divisions contributed to, I or militated against, the process of creolization within the society. It will be convenient, in the first place, to treat each class separately, i as suggested in the Assembly statement. I The white population of the island increased from about 18,000 in q86l to approximately 30,000 in 1807.4 It appears to have remained at I about this figure for the rest of our period, even perhaps declining.' J 'White' in this context means people from Europe or of patently unmixed European descent-in Jamaica, mainly English, Scots, and Irish. There was also a small but wealthy settlement of Portuguese Jews, especially in Kingston. These Jews had first arrived during the Spanish occupation of the island and by 1730 numbered about 900.6 They were legally, politically, and, to some extent, socially dis­ criminated against because of their religion,7 but counted as white. • JAJ, IX. 647 of 28 July 1797· • See Smith, Plural Society, pp. 116-01: 'Slavery and Emancipation in Two Societies'; David Brion Davis, The Problem of S~ry in Western Culture (Cornell University Press, 1966). 1 Long, History, Vol. I, p. 377· • Reooy, op. cit., p. 127. s Until t83 1. 4 Add. MS. 11419, f. 74; Jacob A. P. M. Andrade, A R~cordof the Jews in JamaiCil from th~English Conque1t to the Pu1~ntTime (Kingston, 1941), pp. 15-16. 1 See C. H. Wesley, 'The Emancipation of the Free Coloured Population in the Brit.ish Empire', Journal of N~groHistory, Vol. XIX (1934), no. 1, p. 139. By t 844, the white population bad fallen to 15,776. The 1861 Census recorded it as 13,819.

- -·---- -·------~,~-:--~----.--.. " ;,.,... - · ...,...,_. I - - • 106 TH E SOCIE TY .. ~ ' Wlf ITES 107 • ~ ll The Royal Administrators Assembly (it broke or rather ignored his agreement with the I' The first convenient sub-division' of whites in Jamaica was that Maroons) was symbolic of his alienation from creole standards.1 i of the Royal administrators: the GoYernor with his entourage at Even the liberal Bryan Edwards mentions the incident in his History i l i Spanish Town, the Admiral in charge of the Jamaica Station at with 'great concern'. 2 In 1808, Maj.-General Carmichael refused to ~ Port Royal, the officer commanding the armed forces in Kingston. co-operate with the Assembly in a witch-hunt against mutineers in . This group represented Jamaican dependence on British power and the black 2nd West India Rcgiment.J This led to yet another con­ i was (technically at any rate) symbolic of British culture. The King's stitutional dispute and Carmichael's removal.• But Walpole and l Birthday celebrations and the visits of Prince William Henry in Carmichael were exceptions. They could not have survived within the : 1 1783 and 1788 underlined this. No creoles ever held the posts of System. The society could not have tolerated the kind of dissenter Admiral or General during the period of this study. Between 1726 that they were. It could not have done so and remained the same. I and 1767, four creoles acted as Governor of the colony, but after Protest, disagreement (and this is still very much so today) bad to be J 1770 none did, except George Cuthbert briefly in 1832 and 1834.1 censored out of the body politic. The result was that the island was f The contribution of this British administrative elite to the develop­ bereft of the sort of active social criticism which it feared and from ment of Jamaican society was minimal; though the Army, through which, paradoxically, it might have benefited. I its desire to use armed black troops to help in the defence of the The Admirals, for their part, seemed mainly concerned with island,• and the rank and file's virile need of (black) female company looking out to sea-from Port Royal and Port Henderson-as they near them in their camps,s made a not insignificant contribution to had to be until the end of the Napoleonic wars. But they were social integration. Because of their 'outsider' attitudes, at least two enormously popular-no doubt because of their dramatic roles as I senior Army officers ran foul of the Establishmeot.6 Maj.-General protectors of the island. It was a long and distinguished tradition: Walpole fought and won the campaign against the Maroons (1795/6) Morgan, Benbow, Vernon, Ogle, Rodney, Parker, Nelson. By far the I with great skiU but without the bloodthirstiness urged on him by the most popular was Rodney who, by defeating de Grasse at the Battle i Governor and many in the Assembly. He was clearly unhappy about of the Saints on 12 April 1782, is supposed, as every Jamaican school­ l the use of Cuban bloodhounds against his adversaries, sympathized boy learns, to have saved the island. 12 April became a day of I with the Maroons' hope for new cultivable lands (one of the causes of national celebration and Rodney something of a cult figure. The the war was growing Maroon dissatisfaction with their allotments)7 House of Assembly voted £1 ,ooo to have 'the most eminent artist in i and entered into a gentleman's agreement with them against their England ... prepare an elegant marble statue ... , with a handsome possible transportation.a His refusal of a Sword of Honour from the pedestal to the same·.s This, executed in the Mother Country by ' Professor Goveia points out in her study of the Leewards (Siaoe Society, pp. 205, John Bacon,6 arrived in the guise of a Roman general in January f 213, 314-15), that there was, despite the strati&ation, an unconscious sense of soli­ darity among all classes of whites in slave society. They were aU, because of their colour, I 79o-all twenty tons of it.7 After. a I 9 to 19 division in the Assembly members of the elite. This was less markedly the ease in Jam much larger single aica- • On the other biJld, bow docs one interpret this: Walpole to Balcarres, Old Maroon l territory: 30,000 whites compared with the Leeward Islands' less than 9,000 at the end ' of the eighteenth century. (See Slave Society, p. 203.) Town, 24 0«. 1795: 'If ( might give you an opinion, it should be tbat they [the . Maroons) should buc:ttled near Spanish-Town, or some other the laq;e towns in the r· • SeeJAJ, VII, sso. 551, of 13, 14 Feb. 1783; VUI, 455, of25 Nov. 1788. of low lands: The accessto spirits wilt soon decrease their numben, and destrOy that 'See Metcalf, op. cit.; Cundall, HlstoricJatnaJaz, pp. 51, 5S, 139, 167,217,249. i hardy constitution which is nourished by an healthy mountainous situation' (JAJ, IX, I • 'A deliberate arm.ing of bondsmen to defend their masters marks the opening of a I 4 37 :z.March 1796). Walpole perhaps respected the Maroons fighters but despised new epoch in interracial relations in the Caribbean. • (Ragatz, Fall, p. 33.) British of as them as blacks. This love(bate relationship, which is a feature of the colonial situation, J)Olicy ref. black troops is discussed in Caulfeild, op. cit., pp. 28-37; A. B. Ellis, op. cit., has been discussed by Mannoni in Psycho/ogie de Ia Colonisation (Paris, 1950), PP. 3-4, 83-4; John Hunter, Obsuoations on the diseases of the army in Janw/co ond the 0. btJst means of presuolnr thtJ htalth of EuroptJans in tluu clinwttJ (London, 1788), pp. 169- trans. Pros,nro attd Caliban (New York, 1956), and is revealed, from tbe coloni.:ll's point view, in Franz on, Peau Noire, MtUqutJs Blancs (Paris, 1951). For details 73; Add. MS. 12411: 'G eneral OaJijng's Plan for the Security and Defense of Jamaica' of Fan of (1781); King's MS. 214; J. W. Fonescue, A History of the BrftiJh Army, Vol. IV Walpole's ambivaleoce, see A. E. Furness, 'The Maroon War of 1795', /HR, Vol. V (London, 1915), pp. S42. 543. 'See RG, XXXV, 47, 17 oflo Nov. 1813. (1965), no. 2, pp. <40-'9· • Edwar

- •u·~, .-...,.. _ ... • ''II ' ,.-- - • ro8 THE SOCIETY WHITES 109 as to whether it should be placed in Kingston or Spanish Town, it administration and especially its militia, 1 a job started by his pre­ was finally decided by the casting vote of the Speaker that it should go decessor Lt.-General George Nugent (18or-6), whose contribution to Spanish Town. 1 to our understanding of creole society is his 'Sketch of the Characters Nor was this all. There were fireworks displays depicting the Battle of certain Individuals in the Island of Jamaica' ;2 and his wife's more of the Saints, with 'the report of the guns heard, tbe destruction of celebrated Journa/.3 some of the enemy's vessels, the agitation of the seas, [and] in short, But like the Admirals, the Governors (mainly military men), did i every circumstance attending that celebrated action'. z Meanwhile, not contribute very much of lasting cultural value to the society.• an American theatre group was presenting in Kingston a 'Miscella­ This was perhaps because (like the rest of the administrative elite), I neous Entertainment' (August 1790) which was to conclude they were never resident in the island (and could not expect to be, with a Transparent likeness of the GaUant Lord Rodney, descending from under the conditions of colonial service) for any real length of time, i the Clouds, supported by Victory and Britannia, and accompanied by so that they never really came to know the island intimately..S The the Brave Admirals and Officers who supported him on the Memorable Duke of Manchester had eleven years in Jamaica, but in two spells 12th of April 1782 .. .l (1808-u; 1813-21). Alured Clarke (1784-90) and the Earl ofBal­ carres (1795-18or) had six years each, and so had Dalling, in two By 1817, however, the Rodney enthusiasm seems to have cooled, instalments (1772- 4, 1777--Sr). But the average gubernatorial I though 'A Lover of my Country' could still write to the Editor of the Royal Gazelle: appointment within our period lasted for about three and a half years -not quite long enough to settle down. Of the six-year stayers, only Sir, Dalling, with his 'Plan for the Security and Defense of Jamaica',6 In all ages and countries a particular reverence and regard has always appears to have contributed anything beyond the routine of duty. In been paid to the Monuments of departed Heroes and benefactors to their fact, if Maria Nugent's comments on Lord Balcarres are anything to country. go by, it is doubtful whether the average Jamaican Governor had On a late visit to Spanish-Town it was with pain that I observed the anything to contribute: decayed appearance and mlllilated state of the Triumphal Dome and Statue [of Rodney]. I wish Lord B. would wash his hands, and use a nail-brush, for the black I am not sufficiently acquainted with the items of public expenditure to edges of his nails really make me sick. He has, besides, an extraordinary be able to say if there is any provision made by the House of Assembly propensity to dip his fingers into every dUb. Yesterday he absolutely towards defraying the expence of keeping this ornament to the country helped himself to some fricassee with his dirty finger and thumb. 7 in repair.. ·.. 4 I must not omit to mention ... an extraordinary pet of Lord B's, which But the Memorial had already cost the island over £)o,ooo,.s and makes its appearance every day in the dining-room. It is a little black pig, there was no response to the patriot. that goes grunting about to every one for a tit-bit ... 1 • See p. 30, above. • See p. 64. o. 9, above. Of the Governors, Dalling (1772-4, 1777-81), Campbell (1781-4), J A JourlfOI of a ooyag~to, and r~sitknuin, th~ lsl!Dfli of Jamaica,from r8or to t8o5, Mtl of subs~quentn~~ntsIn England from t8o5 to 1811, by Maria, Lady Nuaent. first both advocated the use of black troops to help with the island's _ appealed, privately printed in London in 1839, five yean after her death. (See Ragatz 6 defence. Sir Eyre Coote (r8o6-8) directed his .demonic energies r·"'­ Guid~,p. 131; Wright, LNI, p. ix.) • H. P. Jacob"$ tehabilitatory effort on 'The Earl of Effingham' (SuNiay Gl~aner,3,

(he went mad in r8rs)7 into reforming and streamlining the colony's ..,~~;;10, 17 May 1970) does not alter this assessment. Etliogh.am arrived in 1790 and was dead by 1791- ~ J F. W. N . Bayley, Four y~ars'reslfhnc~ in the Wat INilu, during th~y~ars r8z6- • Daily AdD~rtisu,27 March 1790. Actually there were two motions: (1) that the . ~~"'' t8l9 (London, 1833), p. 236. For conditions of and in the Colonial Service, see, amoo& statue should stand in IGneston, defeated by the Speaker's vote; (2) that it should be · ~~. · others, H. R. G. Greaves, Th~Ciuil ~ffli"In tlu Stat~(London, 1947); placed in Spanish Town, Passed 17 to 21. ·-~ ~ng Henry L. Hall, Th~Colonial Offic~:A History (Loodon, 1937); Charles Jeffries, Th~ • Quoted in R. Wright, op. ciL, p. 293, from R.G. • ibid., pp. 287-8. Colonial Emplr~and Its Cioil S~n1ic~(Cambridge Uni~tyPrCM, 1938). • R.G., XXXIX (1817), 41,13. • £30,918. (Cundall, Historic Jamaica, p. 121.) • Loc. ciL, n.4, p. ro6, above. 1 LN/(Wright),J1 July 18or, p.1 1. • Seen. 1, p. 26, and n. 4, p. 106, above. 1 See Wright, LNJ, p. 293. • ibid., p. Il.

, ~ "',. --=--- • I I 10 TH E SOCIETY WHITES Ill We drove to Lord B's Penn. Never was there such a scene of dirt and dis­ legislators of Spanish Town ; and their wives making royal 'pro­ comfort. Lord B. was in a sad fright, thinking that we should expect a I ' gresses' over the countryside. What is noticeable, however, is that i breakfast. However, upon his Secretary's wtllspering me, that there was i one whole tea-cup and saucer and a half, we declared our intention of they do not appear to have had any 'friends of the family'. Visitors returning to the King's House ... . ' came to the General on business. He had little time, according to I his wife's account, to relax. She herself bad one or two female It must be borne in mind that Balcarres was enjoying(?) the status of acquaintances from among the Spanish Town wives, but nothing ~ i bachelor,1 that he was the Nugents' immediate predecessor in office intimate. There were three, possibly four, relatives in the island­ and had a title to boot- something which Maria Nugent devoutly Lt. Noble of the 67th Regiment, a distant relative of Mrs. Nugent; wished for her husband.l Mrs. Nugent was also quite prissy: her own brother, Downes Skinner, who arrived in Jamaica in 1802 J' J' to take up appointment as Captain of Fort George, Port Antonio i Left alone part of the morning, with Major Gould, who entertained me and Collector of Customs, Savanna-la-Mar (he died in December with an account of Lord B.s domestic conduct, and his menage here alto­ of the same year); John Nugent, a relative of the Governor; and gether. Never was there a more profligate and disgusting scene, and I .I Nelly Nugent, housekeeper of Simon Taylor's Golden Grove estate really think he must have been more than half mad. I was glad to get to in St. Thomas-in-the-East, who claimed she was.' The only one of ' my own room, and employ my time more profitably than in listening to such I horrid details. 4 these relatives the Nugents saw much of, however, was John, who was a teacher at Wolmer's Free School.~Unlike Balcarres and Man­ Middle class Mrs. Francis Brodbelt, on the other hand (her husband chester, the Nugents were clearly upholders of British culture and was Physician to the Spanish Town Jail), no doubt impressed with tradition. They were critical of creole departures from the 'estab­ his aura of peerage, 'could scarcely keep [her] Eyes from him'' when lished' norm then, though they did nothing themselves to upset the she first dined in his company. 'There is', she informed her daughter, local status quo. 'a very great resemblance in him to the .King!'6 But this was when the Earl had just arrived; before, that is, in Maria Nugent's estimation, The Merchants i he had gone 'creole'. The merchants (as distinct from shopkeepers and retailers),J f In like manner, the Duke of Manchester, 'one of the finest and were among the richest people in Jamaica, the very wealthiest ' handsomest men of his time', 1 became a 'good type of the traditional deserting the island in 'West Indian style' for Britain where they I Jamaica grandee-a hard drinker, a hard rider, a reckless gambler formed the core of the powerful West India Interest. The Jamaica i and a begetter of numerous brown-skinned illegitimate progeny'. 8 Coffee House, the first headquarters of this body in London, was Sixteen years after he left Jamaica, 'five of his bastards were at school functioning as early as 1674,• forming a coalition with other West in Kingston'.9 Indian and American mercantile interests, but keeping separate I The Nugents, by contrast, were very much a family group, and from the planters (who had their own Planters' Club),s until 1781 were active socially: breakfasts, dinners and dances, entertaining when, as another adjustment to the American Revolution, the ~ 6 Government officials, Army and Na~alofficers, a few merchants, the Society of West India Planters and Merchants was formed. This coalition reflected changes in the West Indian economy. • LNJ(Wriabt),toAu,. z8or, p.r5. • Aleunder, 6th Earl of Balcam:s, wu married io r78o and had four sons and two In the pre-sugar days, planters bad found it possible to conduct their dauahters; but the Countess Elizabeth, his wife, did not go out with him to the Carib­ own trade with overseas markets. From the 1740S, with sugar exports bean. Sec DNB; A. W. Lindsay, LltH!s of tile Lindsays; or a meiN)/r of tire ltousu of I LNJ (Wright), p. 68. Crawford and Balcarres, 3 vob. (Loodoo, 1&49, 1858), Vol. ll, pp. 345, 358, 367. • Wright, LNJ , pp. 256, 26o, 269, and especially pp. J88, n. r, 266, n. 1. • ibid., pp. 209, 212, 309. • Loog, Jrtstory, Vol. I, pp. 575, 511· • ibid., 7 Nov. J8o1, p. 38. s Letters to Jane, 4 May 1795; p. 105. • Lillian Penson, The Colonial Agents of tile Britislt West Indies (Londoo, 1924), 'ibid., 17 May 1795; p. 110 1 Queted in DNB, Vol. XIII, p. 722. p. 181. J ibid., pp. 189-91. • Sydney H. Olivier, Jamaica tire Blessed Island (London, f936), pp. 91-2. • ibid., pp. 205-7. Meetings of merchants and plaoters had actuaUy st.al1ed in 1775; • ibid., p. 92, note r. sec West I.ndia Committee Minutes, We:;t lndia Merchants, VoL 1, April 1769-April 1779 (W.I. Committee Library, London), Minutes of 3 Jan. 1715.

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- ~ - ...., - !Ph -1'> = ~a hi'",., & .. ------'--- _., "" ~ -- • 7. Jl2 THE SOCIETY WHITES 113 and the white population rising, and a corresponding rise in the Kingston 687 import of slaves and plantation equipment, planters found it increas­ Montego Bay J87 ingly difficult to carry out and .finance these operations themselves, Savanna-la-Mar 55 and came to rely more and more on the credit and operational Port Antonio 38 Lucea 20 facilities provided by the merchants. r These facilities were the raison Total 987 ships• d'etre of, if not the only reason for, absenteeism. It was simply more

convenient for those merchants (and planters) who were doing well In 1787 (Bryan Edwards' figures),~474 ships, representing some to move to London-the governmental and banking seat of the 86,000 tons of shipping, cleared Jamaican pons. In 1803, according I Empire. Here it was possible, through influence in and on Parliament, to Dallas,l Jamaica owned 400 ships valued at £I ,5oo,oooand employ­ to secure favourable trade legislation for West Indian sugar (the ing 9,000 seamen. The total tonnage of vessels trading to and around Sugar Act of 1764, for example)/ and to raise loans from British the island between September 1807 and September I8o8 was well banks; though, as Pares has suggested, the major part of the .financing over 170,000 tons.• By 1815, this figure was almost 188,ooo toos.s of the West Indian trade and economy probably came from West I 21,444 hogsheads of sugar, 52,409 puncheons of rum, 6,529 bags Indians themselves.J With the American Revolution, however, the of pimento and 29,528,273 lb. of coffee, among other products, economic balance of the British New World was permanently dis­ were exported in 1807-8.6 In 1814-15, u8,767 hogsheads of sugar, turbed, and there was a sharp decline in West Indian prosperity. 52,996 puncheons of rum,. 27,386 bags of pimento and 27,362,742 This, plus the naturally growing personal relationships between lb. of coffee, among other products, were exported. 1 No matter what merchants and planters, and the need for a common front,• resulted the 'groans of Jamaica' about economic decline and commercial in the coalition already referred to. neglect, therefore, it is quite clear that the island's trade continued to In the islands this decline, except in Jamaica and Barbados, affected prosper in the post-1774 period. The real question was: who made the mercantile community. There was a steady fall in numbers . .! Some and kept the profits? merchants emigrated to Britain. Others remained in the islands, but turned their talents to attomeyship and commissioneering for Kingston was very much a merchants' town. 126 merchants 6 estates. They were ceasing to be specialists. Merchants and factors appeared on the Kingston Vestry Jurors' list in 1784,8 167 in 1805,9 in the Mother Country-and local big-time planters-were beginning and 135 in 1819. 10 The 135 merchants in the 1819list made up almost to carry the risks of the trade. half of the entire rota. There were 141 other occupations listed; but In Jamaica, however, this kind of break-down was not taking .:: even here, seventeen of these had mercantile connections. 1 r 298 of place, mainly because the merchants of Kingston were still closely the 420 occupations listed in 1805 were mercantile. As early as 1745, connected with the Spanish trade7 and the North American com­ the Kingston Vestry had ordered mercial complex. In the years 1769-71, according to Edward Long, a That the Pew Commonly len own by the Name of the Merchants Pew and some 700 ships, representing 75,000 tons of shipping, cleared the next Adjoining Pew to the Northward be kept Separate for the use of Jamaican ports; and 725 ships were cleared-46o from Kingston the Merchants and Officers and that no Other Person be admitted to Sett alone-in 1774.9 The inward/outward .figures for ships through there.u Jamaican ports for the year beginning September 1783 were as follows: • P.P., Vol. LXVIla. Accouflls and Papers(9) 178s; nos. 113-19. • Pares, Merchants and Planters, pp. 47-9. • Edwards, op cit, Vol 1, p. 28s. • Dallas, op. cit., Vol. I, p. cv. •JAJ, XII, 4.10fn Nove. J8o8. s ibid., 716of 14 Nov. J8ts. • Sec Ragatz, Fan, p. sJ. · ~- - 4 ibid., 4.1 ofn Nov. r8o8. 1 ibid., 716 of14 Nov. ISIS. J Pares, MuchaJIJs and Planters, p. so. • Kiapton VesuyProc:ccdinp, 1781-8; Minutcfor6Jan. 1784- • Ullian PCTUon, 'The London West Iodin Interest in the Eighteenth Century', English Historical Review, VoL XXXVI (19.11), no. 14.1, pp. 378-81. . . 'K.C.C. Minutes 179S-18oS; 24 April 1805. 10 ibid., 181S-:Z.O;1.1 March 1819. 'Pares, MuchtmJsandPianters, p. 33. 'ibid., p. 78, n. S7. 7tbtd., p. 33· I Add. MS. 12412, f. )I. , ibid. " Vendue master, sbip.carpeoter, shipwright. sailmaker, etc. "Kinaston Vestry Minutea, 1744-9: 19July I7o4S. .. ~ ---

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WHITES ;., 114 THE! SOCIETY 115 The merchants also had their own Association, situated in the Begin letters to England at 6 o'clock, but find that, at the request of the Kingston Coffee House, and in 1794 'appropriated the large hall merchants, General N. had ordered the packet to be delayed, till the § 1 ; upstairs and room adjoining, where a REGULAR Marine Intelligence 17th .... ; [was] kept, and a very excellent Spy Glass for [the use of merchants and ships' captains]'. 1 There was also the Old South-Sea House near The Rooms were to be open from seven in the morning until four in the • afternoon, except when a packet arrived, when they would remain • the Customs, on Port R oyal Street,>- and in I 81 7, the more elaborate i Kingston Commercial R ooms were opened at the corner of Harbour open until seven in the evening. R efreshments would be supplied 'at and Orange Streets:J the Tavern prices' ... The subscriptions proposed for these facilities were as follows: The Subscribers• are induced, from the very liberal encouragement they It have met with from several Commercial Members of this Community ... A subscriber £10. IJS . 4f}. per annum I to establish in this City, by subscription, a place for the greater dispatch A Finn with 2 partners £16. OS. od. , .. and convenience of transacting Mercantile Affairs, and whatever is con­ A Finn with 3 partners £21. 6s.8d. .. nected with them .... A Subscriber outside Kingston £ 5· 6s. 8d. , l The Rooms will be fitted up with every reqwsite converuence, viz. Pens, Transients in Kingston Ink, Paper, and a Drawer, with lock: and key... . s more than 3 months £ 5· 6s. 8d. .. , J Relevant publications, including all local newspapers, the L

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I 16 THS SO C IBTY WHITES 117 "' though technically he was not a merchant at all, but a goldsmith or ended for the day, ... and if no public diversion is going forward, retire to 1 moneylender, who died in Kingston in June 1729. His fame derives bed at eight or nine, after having supped upon tea. from the fact that he was one of the few of this class who left anything The merchants as a group (though wealth could and did create for posterity- £2,36o in his will for the foundation of a Free School. 1 exceptions)~were looked down upon by 'gentlemen'l- in keeping The school (Wolmer's) was established in 1736,~but did not get going with the still existing British prejudice against 'commerce'. Those I properly until 1774-6 when the Assembly stepped in with a who were invited to King's House during General Nugent's regime, I £2,000 grant and plans for the reorganization of its trustees.l Wolmer for instance, usually came there on business, especially to discuss himself seems to have been forgotten until 1787 when an anonymous St. Domingue affairs." But the merchants had their own social I correspondent to The Essayist for 6 January 1787, pointed out that organization in Kingston, in addition to the Commercial Rooms, it was 'extraordinary that one of the best benefactors of this town, based on Ranelagh House, Vauxhall, Harmony-Hall, the Kingston the late Mr. Wolmer, should lie undistinguished, and without a Theatre, and their 'assemblies' at Half-way Tree. s With their contacts, I stone to mark the place of his interment',• and suggested raising occupations, and concerns, they contributed significantly not only to funds for a monument by means of a Concert of Music. This sugges­ the running and efficiency of the Kingston Vestry- the development tion was taken up by the Vestrys and a monument was erected three of the Kingston police and fire service, 6 for instance, owed a great I years later. 6 deal to them and their natural desire to safeguard their inflammable In the mid-eighteenth century, most of Kingston's wealthiest warehouses and their property-but also to the cosmopolitan nature merchants appeared still to live in the heart of the city. It was here of the town. that John Bull built Bull House on North Street, Jasper Hall built Jasper Hall on High Holbom Street, and Thomas Hibbert, of one The Planters of the wealthiest of Jamaican mercantile families, built Hibbert While we were at breakfast, I saw a column of negroes at some distance House (now used by Government) on Duke Street. 1 But even by this coming towards the house, with things upon their heads, which I could not time, the wealthy gston merchants were moving town Kin out of and well distinguish; but the master of the penn taking his spy-glass (with one of i becoming landowners. John Bull had a coffee estate at Sheldon in which most balconies and piazzas are furnished) he told me that it was only the Blue mountains and Thomas Hibbert owned Agualta Vale in St. a trunk-fleet. ... Mary. 8 Those who did not become landowners on a big scale also moved out of the hot town into the higher suburbs (as they still do A dozen or more negroes, men and women. are dispatched in the morning, . today), where it is cooler, quieter and healthier: long before day, their heads charged with band-boxes, bundles and heavy trunks, containing the most considerable part of the wardrobe of the The merchants, from their pens in the country, or the higher part of the visitors:-under thU load the poor creatures trudge twelve, fifteen, and town, go down to their stores or shops in lcittercens (single horse chairs) about seven in the morning. Having breakfasted, they gene.rally get a ' Peter Marsden, All accowtt of tM Lrland of Jamojw, with reft«doru on the trMt­ second breakfast at eleven, and dine at four or five, when all business is mmt, oce~~parlon,and proolsloru of tM slmJu. To w/Uch Is added a tkscrlption of tM anintlll and ~gelableproduct/oru of tM Lrland (Newcastle, 1788), pp. 6-7. See also Stewart. Ylew, p. 2.8 and E. Montule, A DO)'Qgeto Norrh America, tDtd the 'Sec John Wolmer's Will dated IS July 1729 in Wolmer's Old Minute Book, I736- Wut/Niiu, J826, l vols; Institute of Jamaica, MS. 97; Proc:ecd.iJic:s,24 June, 1736. lit 1817 (London Jill ), p. 44- • See, S7S- • 9 Geo. II, c. 6 of 1.5 May 1736. for instance, Lone, HLrtory, Vol I, p. •JAJ, VI, SlO of 4 Nov. 1774; 661 of.z7Nov. 1776. • Add. MS. 12414, f. 42. ' See the comments on William Bolt's ~tatu.s,on p. 49, above. • Sec LNI (Wri&bt), pp. IS, 33,298, 301 and entries for 10 Jan., 29 April, 2.4 June 'Kill&'Ston Vqtry Pro<:eedincs,1781~;Minutes nos.299, 3000h2 Oct. 1788. • 'The monument in memory of Mr. Wolmer_, who founded our free-school •.• 18o2; 2~May , 19 July, 2.7 Auc., 18o3; 2.7 Jan. J8o4,amongothers. anived in one of the ships, and wiU shortly be put up in the South aisle [of the Kingston • See Gardner, op. cit., p. 168; T1u Jamolas Mercury, Vol I, no. 12. for· July 1779· Parish Cburcb]' (Dally Adoertistr, 8 June 1790). Ranelagh Ho\130, Vauxhall, and Harmony-Hall were taverns. '~ ,CundaiJ, HWoric JomiJica, pp. 179, 18o; T. A. L. Concannon, 'Houses of • Serious efforts to establish an efficient poUQ: (or Town Guard) and fire serviQ: bepn in 1781. See IAJ VII, 402. of 7 Nov. 1781; Kinpton VcstrJ Proceedings 1781- J~a~ca.Jama lcaJolirnai(Kingston, 1967), VoL I, no. 1, p. 37. The house was used as Military H .Q. from 1814 to 1872. · · 8, Minutel for 11, 18 Oct., 24 Dec. 1781; 7,.14 Jan. 1782.. Tbo Town Guard was lqa.1ly 1 Cundall,HLrtoriclamalas, pp. t7~t,l6~. m::oani:zed by 2..5 Oeo. m. c. 14 of 1784. ..a-. r -:..--- • II8 THE SOCIETY WHITES ll9 ~ sometimes twenty, and five-and-twenty miles, to prepare the toilet for and because, also, three of the main characteristics of planter life in their mistresses, whose arrival they are in time to announce. . . . Jamaica: its medieval quality (the procession and the fact that it An hour after the arrival of the trunk-/feet, I perceived something like was a 'progress' from one estate or home to another, fo r an extended another fleet, which I soon found to be the lady herself and her family stay of hospitality); its American 'frontier' quality (the easy loping proceeding to Prospect Penn in journey array. horses, the feet up on the verandah) and its 'creoleness' (the presence It was a procession of several horses in a strait line one after the other: of the slaves and their place in the pattern), come out very clearly. it is a rule that the gentlemen should ride before the ladies; so first came There was certainly much that was medievally feudal about the young Chewquid, the heir, neJtt Bob Cbewquid, then Mrs. Chewquid; life and social attitudes of the planters, 1 and at least one West Indian after her rode her eldest daughter, then two more daughters on horseback; I historian 1 has suggested the need for a re-examination of West J then three negro boys on mules, then stout De~I"Omen a-foot carrying Indian slave societies in the light of what we know about medieval young children.- The ladies wore white and green hats, under which white i·.li' times. As Bridges put it: handkerchiefs were pinned round their faoes, meeting over their noses­ this is the usual precaution for preventing the sun from blistering the skin. The negro slave-<:ode, which, until lately, governed the labouring classes - The gentlemen wore white handkerchiefs, under the fore part of their of Jamaica, was originally copied from that of Barbadoes; and the legis­ hats, and rode in long trowsers, made of Russia sheeting. the little children lature of that colony resorted, for a precedent, to the ancient viUeinage were also pinned up, and all the company had umbrellas. laws, then scarcely extinct oo British ground. They copied thence the principles which ruled, and the severity which characterised, the feudal I Most of the horses were American, and of course what are here ca1Jed pacers: they have a shuffling gait, that gives a very slight and easy motion system under the Saxon government. J to the rider- but the eldest son rode a fine staUion, bred in the country, The Statute Against Vagabonds (with branding, iron collar, use of that no English jockey would have been ashamed to mount. the word 'slave', etc.) was passed in 1553, 'not seventy years',

At last the procession arrives before the piazza, all puffing for breath and Bridges points out, 'prior to the settlement of Barbadoes',• and ~s , half stitHed with their handkerchiefs. After the first how-dees were over, late as I 574, British slaves were being 'manumised , under a commission the ladies were shewn to their bedchambers, and the gentlemen took from Queen Elizabeth' ;.s therefore chairs in the piazza. i The early settlers in the West Indies might be expected to carry with them, The manner in which the last seat themselves, would strike you on the as they did, those ancient prejudices in favour of the villeinage system, first view as ludicrous.-They draw their chairs to the railing of the piazza. which coincided with their ideas of the active government, and necessary and futing themselves nearly upon the end of their back bones, they elevate restraint, of wild Africans.... 6 their feet into the air upon the highest rail above their heads ... . But Bridges' point is only a constitutional(legal one. Medieval The gentlemen were no sooner seated, than one of them gave a shrill feudal attitudes went much deeper than this. In the first place, as whistle, by the help of his fin~Crs,and immediate ly a negro bo)' came in medieval Europe, here were the wide-open spaces an agrarian running in: as soon as he made his appearance, the gentleman, who bad of whistled, cried (rather laconically, I thought) •Fire!'-upoo which the boy economy. The units of this economy were the estates or plantations, went out as fast as be had entered, and returned in a minute with a bit of with their self-contained and dependent labour forces, and their wood burning at one encl. By this time the tobacco pouches were all opened, 3CgarS prepared, and each with his scissars had clipped the ends: • See Long, History, VoL ll, p. <48S; Thomas Southey, Chronolotlcal History of the Wut Indies, 3 vol.s. (Loodon,1817), Vol. U, pp. 197-8. the negro then presented the fire. all round, the tobacco was lighted, and I • Douglas Hall. 'Slaves and Slavery in tho British West Indjcs', Social aNI Economic walked off. • Studies, Vol. x.i (1961), no. 4, p. 311, n.ll . s Bridges, op. cit., VoL I, p. 507. • ibid. s ibid., p. SQS. This passage has been quoted at length because it describes, with a • ibid. Sec abo Viola F. Barnes, ' Laud Tenure in Enclish Colonial Olarters of the Seventeenth Century' in Essays in Colonial Hi3tory Preunted to Charles McLean novelist's sense of timing, a moment in the life of the plantocracy, Andrew' by !tis Students (New Haven, 1931), pp. 4-40; Pitman, The DerJelopl'Mlll of the '~o...A SltMt Jo11rney in the West Indlu z vola. (London, 1790), Vol. 0. pp. :t6- Brlti3h We31 lndiu, p. 10:1.; ]IUIIC$ Stephen, The S/aoery of the British West India ).4. tewart, new,PP· :tll~IJ,also describes a pt<>cress and visitation. Colonlts delineated, :I. vols. (London, 18:1.4,1830), Vol. I. pp. 18-.U. ' r...,..-_-...- • 120 THE SOCIETY WHITES 121 strictly observed ranks of precedence and contro l. When in 1785, Polinks• and provision places 6oo Coffee plantations 150 for instance, the Assembly proposed in a Bill that the Chief Justice Indigo works 8 and a committee of judg es, rather than the Crown(Govcrnor) should 2 be re$ponsible for appointing judges, the freeholders of St. Catherine In I82o there were 5,349 properties in Jamaica. Of these, 1,189 contained over 100 slaves or head of stock or both. Those, howe ver, protested that this would 'reduce the people ... to be dependent on, that could be considered really big estates (over 500 slaves or 650 at most, their equals; the meanest of vassa/age'. 1 In 1815, as intelli­ II gent a person as the Hon. James Stewart, Assembly representative for head of stock)> were: I Trelawny, in giving evidence against Chief Justice Lewis (Lewis was slaves stock ownu Sir Rose Price being arraigned for corruption), said that he knew Lewis had 'some Worthy Park (St. John) 514 Bushy Park (St. Dorothy) 673 William Mitchell sinister designs of his own' Rio Magno (St. Thomas-in- 661 Sir Alex Grant I because I saw in the panel for the July Cornwall assize the names of the-Vale) ... Pamassus (Clarendon) 585 James Dawkins several gentlemen placed low in such panel, and instead of having their Rhymes bury 673 Lord Dudley and Ward description of esquire, ... they are designated as planters, and ... I saw Moreland (Vere) 612 James MitcheU the names of several gentlemen placed at the head of the panel entitled Manin's Hill (Manchester) 697 Earl of Balcarres Grier Park (St. Ann) 720 Hamilton Brown esquires, ... who . .. were men of inferior conditions in life.~ Domock (St. Ann) 662 R. H . Gordon As in medieval Europe, although of course there were exceptions, Greenfield (St. Ann) 766 Thomas Hynes (St. Ann) 818 John Moncrieffe estate there was little possibility mobility within the various ranks Soho of of Golden Grove (St. Thomas-in- society, and those persons and social groups, such as merchants and th~East) 717 Ch.aloner Archdeckne free people of colour, for instance, who were not directly a part of Hoiland (St. Thomas-in- t*East) 6oo G. W. Taylor the planting structure, difficulty in finding a 'place'.> (The mer­ had Lyssons (St. Thomas-in- i chants, as in late medieval Europe,' got around this because of their tb~East) 516 Simon Taylor (heirs of) wealth and their intermarriage into the planting society, or by Albion (St. David) 511 Robert Hibbert i (St. George) 598 Wentworth Bayly becoming plante rs themselves.) Gibraltar Fort George Pen (St. George) I ,oo6 John Ellis Spring Garden (St. George) 6!6 Grossett, Scbaw and Son The plantations Hampstead (St. Elizabeth) 678 Thomas Smith 1,590 F. G. Smyth For the beginning of our period, Edward Long.s _provides the Goshen (St. Elizabeth) Carysfort (Westmoreland) 851 Ann C. Storer following record of Jamaican plantations: Paradise (Westmoreland) 745 John Weddubum Sugar estates 68o Old Hope (Westmoreland) 933 Martin WtllWns 661 Wm. Hudson (heirs of) Cotton wol'k.s 110 Ramble Pen (Hanover) 731 James Haughton James Pimento walks 100 Burnt-Ground (Hanover) Knockalva (Hanover) 1,031 Neil Malcolm Ginger plantations 30 Edward Atherton Breeding pens 500 Green Parle (Trelawoy) 551 Orange Valley (Trelawoy) 646 H. N. Jarrett• • JAJ, vm. 114 of lS Nov. I78s. my italics. • ibid., XII, 771 of 14 Dec. t81s. • Sometimes spelt 'polinck.', a small farm or provision plantation usually in the 1 Many novels of the period, especially Montgomery (see n. 7, p. 114, below), mountains. Sec p. 133, below. For history and derivation of the word, see F. G. illustrate this. See abo Jacobs, 'EUetson', pp. s1.67; but cf. pp. 137-8, bel.ow. Cassidy and R. B. Lc Page, Dictionary of Jamaican English (Cambridce University • See, foreumple, V. F. RlSrig,The Mdi~a/Town(1932.,trans. London, 1967). For Press, 1967). a ~scussionof feudalism as a world system, see Feudalism In History, ed. R. Coulborn • These figures are derived from The Jamaica Almanackfor r8Jr, 'Givin&s-In for the (Pnncetoo University Press, 1956). A full examination of the relationship between March Quarter, 1820', pp. 3-134. J slavery and serfdom is in Davis, op. cit.,~esp.Ch. 2.. One planter, the Barbadian Joshua Bryan Edwards (op. cit., Vol. II, p.295) con5idered a zs<>-slaveestate the lowest Steele, actually made plans to convert his slave plantations to a copyhold manorial ·' . optimum. U. B. Phillips, ATMrlcan Negro Slaottry. A SIUfJey of rhe supply, employment, system. See William Dickson, Mirtgation of SlaPery. Part 1, Letters and Papers of rhe and ctJntrol of negro labour tU determined by the plantar/on regimtt (New York, 1918), fare Hon. J. Strele •.. (London, 1814), pp. 9S~.Steele lived in Barbados, 1773-90· p. so, calculated that 18o slaves would have been found on ao averace Junaican supr • History, VoL I, pp. 49S~. estate. • The Jamaica AlmaNlck for 1 Bu.

~ ...... ~~~~_;.- :::- .sm ~...:.Lr-~-..=-z "':·~:.<--·-·.--·- __ ~ r-- --- ..

122 THE SOCIETY WHITES 123 The parishes with the highest concentration of estates were: pier-glass or two, a few prints, or maps: the greatest expence is bestowed upon the arch of the principal hall, which is generally of mahogany . . . . • + 100 slaves{sto ck + 300 slaves/stock St. Ann 121 30 Bryan Edwards said: Trelawny 98 24 St. Thomas-in-the-East 98 18 There are some peculiarities in the habits of life of the White Inhabitants, St. Mary 97 31 which cannot fail to catch the eye of an European newly arrived; one of St. James 90 20 which is the contrast between the general plenty and magnificence of their r Hanover 88 12 St. Elizabeth 83 31 tables (at least in Jamaica) and the meanness of their houses and apart­ I Westmoreland 74 32' ments; it being no uncommon thing to find, at the country habitations of the planters, a splendid sid~boardloaded with plate, and the choicest the 5,349 properties, 562 were probably specialized sugar estates,~ Of wines, a table covered with the finest damask, and a dinner of perhaps I 155 pens, and 452 complex estates, containing both sugar estates and sixteen or twenty covers; and all this in a hovel not superior to an English I pens. There were perhaps about 771 coffee or other estates.J The barn.> other 3.409 properties had few slaves and/or stock. When it is realized that this cultivated area (1,740,000 acres in 1789)• repre­ Maria Nugent, on her visits to country estates during her residence in sented only one-quarter of the island's 4 million acres, of which Jamaica, made similar comments, though she found exceptions: I 'King' Mitchell's house at Busby Park, for instance.l Monk Lewis, Ji million was cultivable,s the full force of the frontier nature of Jamaican society becomes apparent. 8o,ooo acres in St. Elizabeth when be arrived from England to visit his Cornwall estate in r8r6 and 100,000 acres in St. James were 'waste' in 1768.6 The situation found his bouse 'frightful to look at, but very clean and comfortable bad not appreciably improved by the end of the period. The total on the inside'. 4 In fact, his impressions were, on the whole, more favourable than Governor Nugent's wife's: acreage under cultivation in I 820 was just over 2,222, 000.1 t The houses here are generally built and arranged according to one and the Houses same model. My own is of wood, partly raised upon pillars; it consists of i This frontier situation partly accounts for the style of living a single floor: a long gallery, called a piazza, terminated at each end by a reported by many contemporary observers. Edward Long in the square room, runs the whole length of the house. Oo each side of the piazza I 1770s said that is a range of bed-rooms, and the porticoes of the two fronts form two more rooms, with balustrades, and flights of steps descending to the lawn. The It is but of late, that the planters have paid much attention to elegance in whole house is virandoed with shifting Venetian blinds to admit air; their habitations: their general rule was, to build what they called a except that one of the end rooms has sash-windows on account of the make-shift; so that it was not unusual to see a plantation adorned with a rains, which, when they arrive, are so heavy, and shift with the wind so very expensive set of works, of brick or stone, well-t:xecuted ; and the owner suddenly from one side to the other, that all the blinds are obliged to be residing in a miserable, thatched hovel, hastily put together with wattles kept closed .... ' and plaister, damp, unwholesome, and infested with every species of - vermin. [Few] of the inhabitants are curious in the decorations of their • Lone. History, Vol. II, p ..12. • Edwuds, op. cil, Vol li, pp. 9-10, footnote. Tumor's vision of the American apartments: the halls are seldom adorned with any thing better than a large frontier and its effect on the process of tMstlzo creolizat.ion may be recalled hac.

• Tlr~Jam~~iw Alm~~Mckfor 1821. 'Tbe frontier is the line of most rapid and dfective Americaaization. The wilderness masten the colonist. finds him a European in dress, industries, tools, modes travel • This ficuro is arrived ~tby counting properties of 100 or more slaves u suaar _;;;;n..,_ It of estates. J udcin& from Lone's 1174 figure, above, this total does not seem uncea.sonablc. .; -'"":" ~ndthought. It talces him from the railroad car a.nd puts him in the bircll canoe. lt Tho Lon&, FUller, Chisholme Evidence before the House of Commons Investigation .,.,-, strips olf the garments of civilization and arrays him in tho hunting shirt and the Collllllittee pve the numberofsugacestates in 1789u t,o6o. SeeP .P., Vol LXXXIV. moa:asio. It puts him i.n the Joe ~bin of the Olerolcee and Iroquois and runs an Ac«~untsand Papus , 1789 (19), Put III, A. No. 51 and Add. MS 18173 f. 94· But Indian palisade around him ..•. He must accept the conditions which (the frontier} soaller, non-specialist est~teswere probably included in its estimate. furnishes, or perish ... the outcome, is not the old Europe •.• here is a new product J There were686 cotreeesta1es in 1800. SeeJAJ, XII, 796ollo Dec. J8 IS. that is American.' (Frederic.lc Jaclc.son Turner, Tlr~Froll/i6 in .AmmCtVI History • Edwuds, op. cit., Vol I, p. 248. (New York , 1910), 1961 ed., pp. J-4 .) 'See ibid., PP·l47-8. • Long, History, Vol. li, p. 191,113. s LNJ (Wright), pp. SS-6. • Lewis, op. cit.. (1929 ed.), p. 62.. .i 1 Jam~~lcaAlm~~nackfor 1821, p. 136. s ibid~ pp. n-s. ., , - ~- - • -- 124 THE SOCIETY WHITES 125 Edward Long, despite his general strictures, was quite enthusiastic sides and ends of the haU are either occupied by windows, or open, and ' about the Pinnocks' house in Half-way Tree: furnished with jalousies, a broad sort of transverse Venetian blinds, which freely admit the air while they exclude the glare of light. ... [The] chief ornament [of Half-way Tree] is a very magnificent house, erected here a few years since by Mr. Pinnock; which may vie, in the ele­ gance of design, and exceUence of workmanship, with many of the best BELLEVUE, KINGSTON JAMAICA. (c.l76S) country-seats in England. The stone used about this fa brick was brought from the Hope river-course: it is far more beautiful than the Portland [stone], and of a closer and finer grain. The mahogany-work and ornaments J \D I within have been justly admired for their singular beauty, being, as I am \o informed, selected with great ex pence. •

I / l )'r I I ""-1 ..... I The Palmers' bouse (Rose Hall) near Montego Bay, z built about -! I ? I 1760,3 Sir Charles Price's house, "The Decoy", in St. Mary,4 Chief Front Elevation Justice Fearon's house and library,s the Great House of Rhimesbury - - -- estate, 6 Citron Vale,? Marlborough House in the Manchester Hills ------61'8''-' ------I near Spur Tree, Cardiff Hall in St. Ann, Arcadia, Bryan Castle and Good Hope in Trelawny' were also, among many others, excellent examples of local building standards and are evidence of a creole style, a Jamaican 'vernacular'9 and indicate that considerable effort was being made, the popular traditional view to the contrary, to 'civilize the wilderness'. a ~ A tlight of stone steps, with iron balustrades, on which run beautiful twining or creeping plants ... , leads the visitor up to the front door, and 'Co he is immediately ushered into a spacious hall, of the form of a cross, \o extending the whole length and breadth of the house. This large hall is V'l characteristic of all Jamaica houses; it forms the principal sitting room; and, from its shape, admits the cooling breeze to sweep through it, when­ ever there is a breath of air. The two square areas formed by one side of the cross are filled by bedrooms; but with these exceptions the whole of the

• Long, History, Vol. 11, p. 12.4- • Gardner, op. ciL, p. 166. J Concannon, op. cit., p. 36. . • ibid.; Gardner, op. ciL, p. 166; Frank Cundall, A Brief History oftlte Parish Clturclt of St. Andrew in Jamaica (Kincston, 1931), p. 66. · _ > Gardner, op. cit., p. 166. '"; 'Marsden, op. cit., pp. 16-17. --=~ 7 For a description of this in 18u, see Anon., Mo~~~Komery:or tlte West Indian :~;::-::; .A.doenturer, 3 vols. (Kingston, 181:1-13)., VoL II, pp. :117-19. Montgomery is one of tho ·--3---:; 10 0 lOfeet Floor tint novels written about domestic West Indian life and appears to have been the tint - ..... ~7 Ground Plan published in the West lnclies. See my 'Creative Literature of the British West Indies - - during the period of Slavery', in Saoacou, Vol. I, no. 1 (1970), pp. 46-73. • Concannon, op. cit., p. 36; LNJ (Wright), p. 83. A. W. AcwottTH, Treaswe In tlte Caribbean: A Flnt Study of Georrlan Bllildlngs In ' See A. W. Acworth. Buildinzs of .A.rclaitectural or Hlsroric Interest in tlte Bridsh West tile West lndlu (London, 1~9),p. 10. Indlu (H.M.s.o., London, 19SI), p. s.

i .. r -:-.;;..-..----- .,. L 126 THB SOCIETY WHITES 127 This large and cool apartment is furnished with sofas, ottomans, tables, Forts chairs, etc., not differing from ours; but there is no fire places, nor any Port Henderson (Healthshiret Hills, St. Cath.) c. 1770 Rodney's Look-out (Healthshire Hills, St. Cath.) 1771- 4 carpet. Instead of the latter the floor is made of the most beautiful of the Keith Hall Barracks (St. Catherine) c. 1774-7 native woods, in the selection of which much taste is displayed, as also in St. Ann's Bay Fort (St. Ann) 1777 the arrangement, so that the various colours of the wood may harmonise Fort Dundas (Rio Bueno, Trelawny) 1778 or contrast well with each other. Mahogany, green-heart, bread nut, and Fort Columbus (Dry Harbour, St. Ann ) c. 1783 Fort Haldane (Oracabessa/Port Maria, blood-heart are among the trees whose timber is employed for floors. St. Ann) c. 1789 i Great hardness is an indispensable requisite in the wood used, and capa­ Up Park Camp Barracks (Kingston/St. Andrew) c. 1793 I bility of receiving a high polish, which is given and maintained with Stony Hill Barracks (St. Catherine) 1799 great labour. Scarcely anything surprises an European. more than to Windsor Fort (St. Ann) 1803 18o3• tread on floors as beautifully polished as the finest tables of our drawing Fort Balcarres, Falmouth (Trelawny) Fort Nugent (St. Andrew) t8os rooms ... ' i Public Buildings and Monuments I King's House, Spanish Town q62 Gosse was at Phoenix Park (Westmoreland) during the 184os, but Rodney Memorial 1796 his description holds good for many of the better-kept Great Houses Montego Bay Town Hall (2nd building) 18o4 Falmouth Barracks 18o4, 1812 of our period. It was here, in these material arrangements; in the Falmouth Court House 1814- 17 I (Port Maria) 1820 shaping of the physical environment-Great Houses, aqueducts, St. Mary Court House bridges, roads, churches, public buildings and monuments, burial Aqueducts grounds, forts, and schools-that the white contribution to the Wag Water to Constant Spring (built by Daniel Moore) 1770 island's cultural development lay. A listing of some of these struc­ Bridges tures, built during our period, will help indicate the scope and nature Rio Cobre (wood) 1775--(, Rio Bueno 1782-9 of this achievement.~ : Rio Cobre (stone) 1794 Milk River to Bath 1797-S 18oP 1 Phillip H. Gosse, A Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica [1844-5] (London, 1851), Spanish Town (iron) i 1810 pp. 156-7. For a modern novelist's description, see John Hearne, Stranger at th~Gate Black River (London, 1956), pp. 12-13, 15. Yallahs River 1812-13 • Sources used in the list that follows include, Cundall, H istoric Jamaica; Philip Montego River 1813- 14 Wright and Paul F. White, Exploring Jamaica ... (London, 1969); R. Biclcell, T1te I Rio Magno 1816 West Indies a.r they are: or a r~lpictur~ of slaving: but mare particularly a.r it existJ in

th~island of Jamaica (London, 1825); Concannon, op. cit.; Inez Knibb Sibley, T1te· - ~--•- ! Burial Grounds 1770 ;;;; Jewish Cemetery, Montego Bay c. Baptisu in Jamaica (Kjn~on,1965); Thomas Dancer, Some Obseroatlons respec~;:--_- I th~Botanical Garden (Kjngston, 1804); Alan Eyre, The Botanic Gardens of Jamalca . -A,_. Jewish Cemetery (Elletson Road) 1787 (London, 1966}; Laws; JAJ; R.G.; Jamaica Mercury; Kiniston Vestry Minutes; LN/;7';-;:;:.• Wesleyan Methodist Cemetery (Windward{Elletson Road) 1791 J. H. Buchner, The Mor®Um.s inJamalca. History of the Mission of the United Brethren's -"'~~~_.-I Spring Path 1794 Church to the Negr~sin the Island of JamaiCDfrom the year 1754 to 1854 (London;-- ·"":£."- i Baptist Cemetery (Windward Road) 18o1 1854): Andrade, op. cit.; Francis X. Delany, A History of the Catholic Church in -.--·.;:_,., '1 JamalCD, BWI, 1494 to 1929 (New York. 1930). Ray Fremmer, Daily Gleaner, 12, 26 • · -:, , Churches, Clwpels, Synagogues May 1970, R. Wri&ht. op. cit. . '7 · ,-?;:.... 1 Hanover Parish Church, Lucea c. 1770 For an in~entory~fth~ island's public an~historical '!XU~·see 'List of ~blic_z=:;:;;_~,, St. JameS Parish Church, Montego Bay - 1·i7s-82 Monuments m Janwca', 1ssued by the Janwca Information Servloc, SUNiay Gleaner;"': ~:::·.~- I Baptist Church, Kingston , - 1783 19 Church of England, Montego Bay 1789 t~:~~i!"o:·of Jamai~and_West Indian arch.i~~see A.W. A~:~ ~,[:'~f·J Tr~ur~111the Caribbean: A Fvst Study of Georgian Buildings tn-rhe"Brltlsh;WestS •::::~·t• Or Hellshire. See F. Seal Coon, 'How healthy is "Hell"7', Daily Gleaner, 30 Oct. /Niles (London, 1949), pp. s-u; 'Georgian Archi~in the British West Indies";~;;,~,~i 1969. p. 3· . Tile Co11110/seurYearbook (London, 1953), pp. 39-44; A. 1. May, 'The Architecture of?"~~ ··· • Built about 1774, when the town of Falmouth was founded; renamed Balcarres in the West Indies', Wist India Committee Clr_cular (1933), 48 (899) 16 March, -IOS-7;- '77-~ honour of the then Governor, and transferred from·ocntre of town to present site near 48 (9oo) 3o March, us-6; 48 (9ot) 13 April, 147-8; 48 (9o2) 27-April. 167-8; 48 (904)~:;::.::-the Court House. (Fremmer, 'Fort Balcarres', Daily Gleaner, IZ May 1970, p. 3.) 25 ~ay,207-8; 48 (9os) 8 June, 227:-9; Frank Cundall, 'Architecture in Jamaica:. :I~-? J This is said to be the first cast-iron, and possibly the oldest iron bridge in the stencil (W.I. Ref. Lib. Institute of Jamaica) (Kinaston n.d.]. · :.: ~..;.":-<"';,-,__ Americas. (Sec Wright and White, op. cit., p. 234.) . :~::~-i~~:©~~

~.------~·,

-~-L - ··-~E • ,------1'.4 WHITES 128 THB SOCIETY 129 Jewish Synagogue, Kingston• 1789 The most significant material contribution of the planters to Raptis! Chapel, Crooked Spring, St. James 1791 creole society, however, was the pen and the sugar estate.x Roman Catholic Chapel, Kingston• c. 1796--9 Jewish Synagogue, Spanish Town• 1796 Trelawny Parish Church, Falmouth 1796 Sugar Estates-General Westmoreland Parish Church, Savanna-la-Mar 1796--9 There were, in fact, two kinds of sugar estate: the so-called 'dry 1814 Scots Kirk, Kingston weather' estates and the 'planting estates' .l The 'dry weather' estates Trelawny Baptist Chapel, Falmouth 1814 Irwin Hall Moravian Church, St. James 1815 were situated on the coastland and called 'dry weather' perhaps St. Catherine Baptist, Spanish Town 1819 because the rainfall was appreciably lower on the coast than in c. 1820 Methodist Chapel, Kingston the hills. On these coastal plains the soil was clayey, intermixed with Manchester Parish Church, Mandeville c. 1820 New Eden Moravian Church, St. Elizabeth 1820 sandy spaces. These estates yielded the steadiest returns- about 2t tons per acre l-and were relatively convenient vis-a-vis the shipping Hospitals Public Hospital, Kingston 1776 ports. Because of the sand, light rains evaporated quickly and left Military Hospital, Kingston 1779 the canes dry. Heavy rains, on the other band, tended to settle in 1779 Slave Hospital, Kingston pools in the clayey soil, rotting the shoots. • But the nature of the Jamaica Spa 1790 Negro Hospital, Half-Way Tree 1812 soil allowed 'dry weather' canes to grow again from their stumps Marine Hospital, Savanna-la-Mar 1812 ('ratoon') and so saved considerable labour. 1817 Marine H ospital, Montego Bay The 'planting estates' were situated on higher ground- the expan­ Naval Hospital, Port Royal 1819 sion of the frontier- inland. Here the black mould soil, 'accumulated Botanical Gardens Spring Garden, Gordon Town 1770 perhaps from rotten vegetable substances' ,5 made for brilliant first Enfield, St. Andrew 1774 crops. But the rocky base of this soil resulted in rapid soil exhaustion. Bath, St. Thomas-in-the-East 1776--9 Jamaica does not have the wide fecund valleys of, say, St. Lucia, ~· Schcols/Public Trinidad, or St. Domingue and not more than two crops could be Rusea's, Lucea 1777 expected from any one planting. Titch.field, Portland q8s Jamaica Free Scbool, Walton Pen 18o6 Because of the nature of these estates, the plough was never effectively used in Jamaica, though the conservative nature of the Private Buildings/Great Houses 6 Golden Grove, St. Thomas-in-the-East 177o-80 creole planters must also be taken into account. The clay soils of Montpelier, St. James c. 1775 the dry weather estates made ploughing slow and difficult; tlie rock­ Hampden,SLJames 1779 based soil of the planting estates could be costly on the implement and, Arcadia Pen, Trelawny c. 1785 Cardiff Hall, St. Ann 17905 as it often happens ... there is not a blacksmith's shop within fifteen miles c. 1791 Chippenham Park, St. Ann to repair the plough when out of order, and they (the planters] look to Bryan Castle, Trelawny 1793 by the Marlborough House, Spur Tree Hill 1795 immediate labour so as not to admit of any delay, which ordinary Minard, St. Ann c. 1810 plantation work might be kept back... .1 Greenwood House, St. James c. r81o Auchindown House, St. Elizabeth c. 1810 'Monk' Lewis wrote in 1818, rather wistfully, -that the plough had c. 1810 Barrett Hall, St. James ' For the distribution of these, see James Robertson, Map of tht County of Com wall in the island of Jamaica, cafiSCTIIctedfrom act110/ s~eys,undtr tht authority of the Han.. Theatres House of Assembly ... (London, 18o4); Map of the Ca1111t)'of Middltux • •• (London, Spanish Town - ·:~• ·..,. ~ 1776 1804); Map of the CountyofS~trrey... (London, 18o4). Montego Bay • ~-' c. rm • See Benjamin M' Mahon,/41rtQica Planurship (London, 1839), PP-2.4?--SO. Theatre Royal, Kingston c. r8oo I SeeR. C. Dallas, op. cit., Vol. I, p. xc. • Long, History, Vol. I, pp. 352-3. • The Synaaogues served the small but very activo Jewish communities in Kincston ' ibid. ' See, for instance, Beckford, Account, Vol. II, p. 204. and Spanish Town; the Roman Catholic Chapel the small resident French and 1 William Fitzmaurice, P.P., Vol. XCII, Accounts and Paptrs 1790-1 (34), no. 745, Spanish tradin&community in Kingston and, after 1799, the St. Domincuo reflli'CCL pp.zzs-6.

; • \. r:~ - IJO THE SOC IET Y WHITES 131 been introduced 'completely successfully' in several parts of the Shand-appear to have been in the island.' Even admitting the high island; on his own well-managed estates, however, proportion of absentees, it does not necessarily follow that had there been fewer of them, they would have been more efficient than their the awkwardness, and still more the obstinacy, of the few negroes, whose professional substitutes, the attorneys.l When William Be.ckford services were indispensable, was not to be overcome; they broke plough returned to Jamaica with his wife in (be was born in the island after plough, and ruined beast after beast, till the attempt was abandoned 1774 in despair.' in 1744 but went to England for his education)l he railed against the negligence of his attorneys and set out to reform his estates. • There was also a noticeable lack of experiment with manures;l But in 1781 his mortgage stood at £25,ooos (he had first taken it out and the absence of local agricultural societies has already been in 1777), and he went back to Britain after thirteen years in Jamaica mentioned.l to be seized as a debtor. 6 He was a casualty not simply of absenteeism This failure to improve their farming methods has been advanced but of the e<:Onomic imbalance following the American Revolution, on a wide front in criticism of the planters; they were concerned the victim of rising British duties on sugar, the rising cost of living, with 'pushing' their estates4-the soil and their slaves-in their the devastating hurricanes of 1780, 1781, 1784, 1785, and 1786, single-minded dedication to the export of sugar for profit. Looking drought, famine, the unprecedented loss in slaves due to these, 'the for explanations of this 'failure', it bas been generally held that villany of others'7 and his own managerial inefficiency.• absenteeism was to blame. Had planters remained resident, it is argued, instead of making for England and banding their properties Sugar Estates: lAyout and Output over to the clumsy mercies of attorneys and overseers, things would Jamaican sugar estates varied from about 300 to 3,000 acres in have been more efficient, more humane, certainly different.s This size,9 and a 900-acre estate was considered average.10 On a typical may well be so, though keeping in mind the purpose of the Jamaican 'average' estate, there was the proprietor's or Great House-the economy and the colony's frontier psychology, it is very much to be residence of the owner or, if be was absent, of the overseer. Con­ doubted. Besides, the actual number of permanent absentee pro­ veniently near was the accommodation, often quite makeshift, for prietors throughout the entire slave period, bas not been firmly the other white personnel-the book-keeper or book-keepers (usually determined. Patterson, for instance,6 points out that though only one­ two), 11 the distiller, mason, carpenter, blacksmith, cooper, wheel­ sixth of Jamaica's proprietors were absentees in 1774, it was this wright. The numbers of these depended on the size of the ·estate, one-sixth who owned most of the property and slaves in the island. and from about the middle of the eighteenth century, black artisans The 1820 property figures reveal that one-fifth of the island's pro­ increasingly replaced indentured whites in these skilled crafts. u prietors owned most of the slaves and acres in the island. Yet some A few of the very largest estates bad a resident (white) doctor.'J of the very largest bolders7-Price , the Mitchells, Grant, Dawkins, • Ja.WUJica Almanack for ..• 1821, 'Return. of Givillas-ln for the March Quarter, Arcbdeck:ne, the Taylors, Bayly, Ellis, Storer, Wedderburn, James, 1820', Feu.rt&do, op. cit.; John Roby, M e.mben; Members o/tM Assembly for the Parish of S t. Jamu (Mootego Bay, 1837). • For a critical look at the commonly held views of absenteeism, see Douglas Hall, ' Lewis, op. cit. (1929 ed.), p. 272. For Beckford's despair of the plough. see Beclc­ 'Absen.teo-Proprietonhip in the British West Indies, to about 1850', Vol. iv (1964), ford, A ccoUill, VoL 11, pp. 202-3. pp. 22~.For a picture of a professional attorney in action, see pp. 141>-2, below. • Bccliord, Account, VoL 11, p. l9S· Fuller, Lo~,aod Chisholme discussed the ldnd > See A.lu111111O;wllleiiSes. · of manures used in the island in P .P. VoL LXXXIV, A ccount and Papus, 1789 (29), • See R. B. Sheridan, 'Planter and Historian: Tho Career of William Beckford ol Part III, A. no. 51. • Pqe 92, &bove. Jamaica and Eo&land, 174-4- 1799', VoL iv (t¢4), p. s6. · • Stewart, View,p . t86. I ibid. • See, A Short/OIVIIeY ill the West Indies, Vol. n. p. 144. • I See, for example. Dr. Harrison, P.P. as n. s, p. n9, above; R .G., XL (1818), 45, 26; 'ibid. , p. 140. Gilbert Mathison (op. cit., pp; 99-100) made the same complaint in Thomas RouahJey, The JaWUJica planters' guide; or, a system/or planting and managilllf I8o8. • Sheridan, op.-cit., pp. ss-8. . - a sugar estate or other plafllatiOIIS in tluzt island and throughout the British West Indies In • See J. Wedderburn, P.P., Vol. LXXXVU, Accou1111 and Papers, 1790-1 (29), no. general • . . (London, 1823), passim, but esp. Ch. I; Raptz , Fall, Ch. • 2; Absentee (7). p. 378. Landlordism in the .British Caribbea11, 1751:>-18]] (London, 1931); Patterson, op. cit., 10 See EdWII.rds, . cit. (1793 ed.), Vol. U, pp. lSO, 251; Fall, p. 37· pp. 33-$1. op Racatz, " Marsden, op. cit., pp. 20, 22. _ uSee Shcridan.op.cit., p. 52. • Patterson, op. cit., pp. 36-8. 1 See pp. 40, 121, above. ''Beckford, Account, Vol. II, p. 379· • ,. I32 T H E SOCI ETY T WHITE S 133 1 Other estates shared one between them. The domestic slaves I lemon, and lime trees. If tbe pastures were also pens, 1 they were (butler, coachman, postilion, cooks, waiting-men and maids, house­ naturally quite extensive. On the Rhimesbury pen in Clarendon, cleaners, washer-women, seamstresses) were also often housed within I there were often (the reference is to 1784),t 'a housand head of this compound which usually stood on high ground overlooking the cattle in charge of the overseer, a vast quantity of swine, poultry of estate. Further away (it varied with the size of the estate, but on the all kinds, and flocks of sheep and goats, which are all numbered at average half a mile away-'not so far removed as to be beyond the set times, to prevent their being stolen... :~ sight of the overseer', z were the Negro (field slaves') quarters. Form­ The estate kitchen-gardens and/or provision grounds, which ing a third complex were the industrial buildings- the sugar mill supplied the whites with food, were situated near the Great House. (water, cattle, wind), the boiling and curing houses, the distillery, Peas, beans, sweet potatoes, cassava, peppers, pine-apples, pump­ the blacksmith's and carpenters' sheds and the trash houses. There kins, cucumbers and ochro were grown here, and after 1792,1 the was also a cattle yard and poultry pen. Separate from all these was breadfruit also. Poultry and meat were available from the pens, the Negro hospital or 'hot house',J which apart from sick slaves, though these were heavily supplemented by imported beef, pork, provided 'accommodation' for plantation runaways. herring, butter (salt or rancid), • and flour.s Fresh fish-Jew-fish, hog­ Surrounding the buildings were the estate lands. One-third of the fish, mud-fish, snappers, god-daromies, groupers and grunts6 among total acreage was usually occupied by the sugar cane, another r. them-<:ame up to the estates twice a week for the whites.7 Salt-fish third by pasture and kitchen-gardens. The rest was woodland or was issued at regular intervals to the slaves. • waste- the former a source of fuel, timber, and since unlike St. The estate slaves also had their kitchen:.gardeos-small ones­ Kitts, for instance,• rotation was not practised, possible ground for behind their huts, where they grew plantain, ackee, ochro, various expansion. 'ground provisions' (yam, eddoe), mangoes, oranges, shaddock. etc.9 The cane-land was divided into fields of various extent and shape, They were also allowed to keep hogs and poultry, though if the hogs according to the terrain. Intervals of about twenty feet were left broke into the cane-pieces, they could be shot by command of the between each field for the convenience of carriage, and each field in overseer. 10 But the maio provision grounds of the slaves, certainly on Jamaica was enclosed and protected by stone walls, Iogwood hedges the 'planting estates', were the 'polincks'-areas in the hills up to teo or mounds of earth planted with a prickly penguin shrub.s Each miles 11 from their houses, which they cleared and tended themselves. acre of cane contained about 3,500 cane holes, three and a half feet These poliocks were required by law, the first Act to this effect being square, and it was calculated6 that forty slaves could dig an acre in passed in 1678. It stipulated that proprietors should, under penalty, a day. Output from the estimated 200,000 acres in use rose from provide 'one acre of ground well planted in provision for every five 69.451 hogsheads (exported) in 1772 to 8o,ooo in 1792, to 129.544 in Negroes and so proportionately for a greater or lesser number... :u 1802 (reflecting the introduction of Bourbon cane in 1799); and then • Also spelt 'peons'; cattle farms. See Cassidy and Le Pa&e,op. cit. began to decline: 105,283 hogsheads in 1812, 88,551 in 1822.1 • Mandeo, op, cit., p. 17. The estate pastures were planted with sweet and sour orange, J Seep. 84, above. • R.G., XXXVIII {r8o6},1S, IO. >See Moreton, op. cit, p. 79; Manden, op. cit., p. IJ. ' Marsden, op. cit., p. 18. • Beckford, Acro1111t,VoL U, p. 10. 'Lewis , op. cit. (1834 ed.), p. 104. 1 Mandeo, op. cit., p.l4. • For detailed descriptions of estate lay-outs see, amooc others, Marsden. op. cit., • Edwards, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 159 says that this allowa.oce was weekly. pp. 16-38; Beckford, AccoiUII, Vol Il, pp.17-34; R. C. Dallas, op. cit., Voll, pp. xcill­ ' Alexander BarclAy, A practfetli Dlew of the pruOII state of slaouy ill tk }Vest iv; Patterson, op. cit., pp. 53~. /Niies {London, 1816), pp. 313- 4. The dates of introduction into Jamaica ohome of • See Long, Add. MS. 11413. these plants are mentioned on p. 84, above. •• Marsden, op. cit., p. 18. >Stewart, Jliew, pp. J~. " Thomas Cooper, Facts IIIIUtratl" of tk roNiitio1111/ tire netro siaDD in Jamaica ' See Moreton, op. cit., pp. 43-4- {London, 1814), p. s. The distance of the poliocb would depend of course on the loca­ 7 Cumper, op. cit, p. 41. See also Noel Deerr, 'I1te Jrutoryof Sutar,1 vols. (London, tion of suitable land. The planters would hardly want their slaves travelling or straying 1949), Vol. I, p. 198. A hogshead {cask: of ~iimperial pl.lons) varied in wei&ht from too far afield. The 1781 Actdefininc runaways(sec Acfl •.• rno-r78J , No. 91, p. 264), 12 ~o18 cwt. See the Shorter Oxford Englilh DlctioN:VY; Herbert C. BeU, 'The West gave eight miles as the limit a slave could travel withoat 'a Ticket. or other Pennit to lnd1a Trade before the American Revolution', Arr~Uic4AHistorical Rnlew, VoL XXII pass'; thouah enfon::cmeut of thi.s depended on the Jcx:alplanter. 1 1

:~ -- '- - "_._.;_..J • r -;-- fl6 134 THE SOCIETY The Rhimesbury estate, according to Marsden, 1 allowed its slaves I I one acre each. i The shape and positioning of all the buildings and areas described I 10 I above, were aspects of the function of the estate. There was nothing I chance or haphazard here. The organization of this complex was OTHER WHITES even more impressive. The cycle of the seasons and the nature of the cane dictated where and bow it should be planted, nurtured and harvested. Weeding time, planting, cutting the cane, its conversion to sugar and transport to the wharves, were regular and unvarying Other Whites activities which made their mark on the social activities and psy­ From the constant complaints about absenteeism, from the con­ chology of all concerned and played an essential part in their tinuing (and unsuccessful) attempts of the Jamaican legislature creolization. There was unquestionably considerable maltreatment and administration to encourage white settlement, 1 from the of and brutality practised against the slaves within this specialized remarks of visitors about the shortage of white women and Jack of society. The slaves retaliated in ways that will be discussed later. family life, the impression has been formed that Jamaica was almost There was also considerable inefficiency and carelessness on these exclusively a planter society-or rather an absentee planter society, estates. But they functioned always towards the purpose for which with no 'yeoman' or lower-middle class backbone. Closer examina­ they were designed-as the export figures of Jamaican sugar attest. tion, however, reveals a Oilferent picture. There were some o,ooo The successful realization and maintenance of this function was the whites in Jamaica in 1820 of w om o a out 1,189 were men of

planters' contribution to creole society. property.~owance for rich merchants and the families o both, wOiiiCI'J>ut this 'upper class' at something around 6,000 whites. This of 1788, the proportion was given as four slaves per acre. 3.1 Geo. III, c. .14 of 1791 leaves 24,000 other whites of whom not more than 5,000, after the placed the figure at ten slaves per acre of provision ground, and so it remained for the rest or the period. middle of the eighteenth century, would have been servants (calcu­ I 0p.c:it.,p.l8. lating, in a slave society that relied mainly on black and coloured domestics, one white servant per very rich family.J There were also 3,000 British troops permanently stationed in Jamaica from 1773.4 Whether these were included in contemporary population returns is not clear. Governor Lyttleton included white troops in his 1764 figuress and so did Long in his History.6 On the other hand, the Vestry returns, on which the Assembly returns were based, did not include British troops. Depending, therefore, on whether soldiers are included or not, there are still between 18,000 and 24,000 whites to be accounted for in Jamaica-the majority of this section of the population. • See pp. 86-9.1, above. • This figure is based on the estimates made on p. 1.11, above. • Long's figure for 1768 was s.983white SCO'ants, c:a1culatinathese at ono-third of the lotal white population. (IIUtory, Vol I, p. Jn.) His filure for 1787 was s,ooo. (Add. MS. 1:1.41-4,f. ~3.) • C.O. I.P./33. 'Subsistence of Jamaica Troops', MiDute dated 6 Feb. 18.19, initialled JFS. , SoeJAJ, I, Appendix, p . .so. 6 Vol. I, p. 378. Wesley (op. cil, p. 1-40)caJculates that of the ~8.8oowhites in t8l6, 400 were 'rich', .s,.soo were 'fair', and ~2,900were 'absolutely poor'.

... .l

~ ..l •i• • ...

11

BLACKS

THE American Revolution destroyed the cultural unity of British America, isolating Jamaica and throwing the island back upon its own resources. The response to this new situation was positive but limited because of the basic constitutional and military weakness of the territory, and because, as a specialist sugar producing colony, there was no real attempt, or apparent need, to diversify the internal economy and make the island self-sufficient. Even within the context of British mercantilism this might have been achieved, had it been possible to obtain a sufficient number of independent white settlers, or to utilize the large non-white population of the island towards this end. The difficulty here was that most of the non-white population were slaves-either African or of African descent-and regarded legally and to a large extent socially, as things, human machines, while the free coloured population (approximately 40,000 in I82o) 1 was excluded from effective participation in the life of the island until I 830. 1

Slavery in Jamaica As in the Americas generally, West African Negro slaves were imported into Jamaica to labour on the plantations-in Jamaica's case, mainly on the sugar plantations. Significant importation began in I703 and by 1775, nearly 500,000 had already been absorbed into l J the island.J It is estimated that there were 167,000 slaves in the colony f in 1768.• By the end of the period of this study, the figure had risen I to 339,ooo.s Of the 250,000-255,000 in the island in 1790/91, about • 'This figure is arrived at from the discussion in Duncker, op. cit., pp. 1-1 o. 'Coloured' in this context means people of mixed African and European descent. I; • Duncker, op. cit., p. 37· • See 'aocount of the number of negroes imported into this island from Africa, since I• the year 170:1... .', JAJ, VI, 598 of 30 Nov. 1775· Some of these were re-exported to North America and elsewhere. In 1788, Henry Shirley put the then total import figure i at 676, 276. (JAJ, VIII, 429 of 1:1.Nov . 1788.) • Long, History, Vol. I, p. 58. 'J AJ, XIII, 507 of 9 Dec. 18:1.0.Total imports into Jamaica are estimaled at 747,500; f into the British Caribbean as a whole 1,665,000. See Philip D. Curtin, Tlte Atlantic ; Slaoe Trade: A Census (University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), p. :1.68. l' f f. i

-• m - ~ • - • • !.- ~ ...... 152 .. THE SOC IBTY BLACKS 153 three-fifths were employed on sugar plantations, I concentrated in the been well described in contemporary and modern accounts, I and will parishes of Trelawny, St. Thomas-in-the-East, St. Mary, St. James, O('t be repeated here. Hanover, Westmoreland, Clarendon, St. Ann, St. Elizabeth, Vere, On a well-run estate, it was said, 1 6o per cent of the field slaves St. Andrew, and St. Thomas-in-the-Vale, in descending order of would be effective as and for labour at any given time. This was true,

density.~In the parish of St. David, slaves outnumbered whites by as say, for the Prices' estate at Worthy Park in St. John where, in 1789, much as 29 : I in 1793.J The average slave/white ratio for the island seventy-nine of the 119 field slaves (66 per cent) were unequivocally I as a whole was just under Io : 1 throughout the period of this study :• recorded as 'able'.l But a picture of the economic wastage involved ! in the System begins to emerge when the total slave population at i slaves whitts Worthy Park is considered. In 1787, only 157 of the 306 slaves there 1768 166,914 17,000' (51 per cent) were 'able' ;4 and in 1789, only II2 out of 31o-36 per 1785 229,000 25,0005 I 1787 c. 237,000 2),8007 cents Seventy women (47 able) as compared to 29 male 'specialists' 1790 255.700 c. 2),000 1 (20 able) were in the fields in 1789. Twenty other men doubled as I 1791 250,000 30,0009 field slaves and boilers, wainmen, etc.; and there were 28 watchmen, 18o5 280,000 10 28,000 6 1807 26o,ooo 1 all old, infirm and/or sickly. Jobbing gangs had to be hired.' Here c. c. )0,000 ' 1820 339,287 35,000" was 'built-in obsolescence' with a vengeance. Some small Govern­ ment properties were little more than asylums. Of the sixteen slaves These slaves may be divided for convenience into five main func­ at the Botanical Gardens in 1799, six were like the Worthy Park tional groups: field slaves, mechanics, domestic slaves, 'jobbing' watchmen, either old or lame and diseased.' In 1796, on the Govern­ or hired slaves, tradesmen and 'professionals'. Runaways, rebels, ment Mountain (the Governor's 'retreat'), there were eleven working ' and freed slaves formed another category, and within the slave men and five unfit ones; six working women and seven unfit.9 (Soon groups, there were also distinctions based on colour (black, brown, after the revelation of this, the 'retreat', at the Governor's suggestion, yellow, ash) and on whether the slave was African or creole. was sold and £2,000 per annum added to his salary instead. 10 s 1 See, for example, Marsden, op. cit., pp. 18-30, 35-8; Moreton, op. cit., pp. 146- The Field Slaves 52; Wm. Fitzmaurice and Dr. Harrison in P.P., XCII (34), oo. 745, pp. 47, 217-21; l Edwards, op. cit., Vol. ll, pp. 245-75; H. T. De Ia Beebe, Nous on the present condirion These made up the great mass of the slave population, I6o,ooo ~ of the negroes in Jomoi~(London, 1825), pp. 4-8; U. B. Phillips, 'A Jamaica Slave Plantation', American Jrut. Reoiew, vol. XIX, oo. 3 (Apri11914), pp. 543-58; Patterson, out of a total 220,000 in 1787, according to Long;IJ 14o,oooout of the op. cit., pp. 65-9. total of 250,000 reported by Coke in 1791. 14 Their work routine has • See R.G., XXXVIII (1816), 27, 10. In St. }(jtts (May 1801) the figure for one well­ roo estate was So per cent. See Clement Caines, uturs on the CulriPOtion of the Otaheiu Cane •.. (Loodon, 1801), table facing p. 246. I Phillips, Nqro Slavery, p. so; Coke, Hbtory, Vol. I, p: 369. ''A General List of the Negroes on and belonging to the Worthy Park Plantation • JAJ, IX, 4-lS of 17 Dec. 1795. Compare this with the table on p. 122, above. taken the tst January, 1789', Worthy Park Plantation Register, 1787-91, MS. Worthy 'St. David Vestry Minutes, 1793-18oo: Deficiency lax Returns, December Quarter 1793. Park Estate, Lluidas Vale, Jamaica. Phillips's 'A Jamaica Slave Plantation' makes use of a second Worthy Park Register (1791-1811) which came into his possession at a New • In Barbados (1790), the white/slave ratio was just under 1: 4; in Antigua. 1: 18; in York auction and is now in the Library of Congress. (Phillips, p. S44, n. 1; Ragatz, St. Domingue, I: 16. (Edwards, op. cit., Vol. 11, p. 2; Vol. III, pp. 2, 12.) Barry Higman, Guid~.p. 26.) No photostat or microfilm copies of this document are yet available in using the 'Returns of Registrations of Slaves, 1832', at the Jamaica Archives, Spanish Jamaica. Two Engli.sh researchers, however, have recently completed a study of Town, places the Jamaica white/slave all-island ratio in 1832 at 1 :19·83, and the rural Worthy Pa.rlc, initiated by the Estate as p&rt of its tri<:eotena.ry celebrations. See ratio at 1 :26·o6; the white population ligures being derived from the 1844 Cerisus. St. Michael Craton and James Walvin, A Jamoican Plantation: the History of Worthy David then had a ratio of 1:42·97 and St. ·Thomas-in-the-East a ratio of 1:47·97· Park, 167o-1970 (London, t970). For the period of slavery, it is critical of much of (Barry Higman, 'Some Demographic Characterutics of Slavery in Jamaica, c. 1832', Phillips's use and interpretation of material. Tbe 1787-91 Register is soon to be trans. U.W.I., Dept. oCHistory, Postgraduate Seminar Paper, March 1969, [Appendix], p. 2.) ferred to the Jamaica Archives. 'The General List' for 1789 is included in this text as J Stewart, Jliew, p. 24- ' Moreton, op. cit., p. 38. 7 1 Appendix Ill. Add. MS. 12431 f. 224- Beckford, Account, Vol. I, p. XJcix. • 'A General List of the Negroes on and belonging to the Worthy Park Plantation 'Edwards, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 284; Vol. 11, p. 2. 10 Young, op. cit., p. 3. taken on the 1St January, 1787', as at n. 3, above. • See Appendix IlL " Renny, op. cit., p. 127. ,. J AJ, XIII, S07; Stewart. Jllew, p. 36. I) Add. MS. l2414 f. 23. 'ibid. 1 Worthy Park Plantation Register, op. cit., passim. 1 JAJ, X, 285 of 12 Much 1799. 'ibid., IX, 486 of 12 April1796. ''Coke, Hutoq, Vol I, p. 369. For Coke, seep. 2o8, n. 6, below. ~·ibid.,so8-9 of 23 April 1796.

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------~----- • r .. - IS4 THE SOCIETY BLACKS ISS The annual plantation slave decrease was calculated by Bryan eighteenth century. On the plantations, these men maintained the Edwards to be 2~per cent per annum in 1789. 1 Robert Hibbert, in sugar works: carpenters, millwrights, coppersmiths, wheelwrights, Evidence before the House of Commons in 1790, claimed the decrease coopers, sawyers, distillers, boilers, blacksmiths, bricklayers, to to be s per cent per annum, with a compensatory increase, by births, whom may be added other specialists like head-drivers, mule-men, I! of 2 per cent.,. The optimum working life of an able-bodied male cattle-men and midwives. The jobs of watchmen and 'governesses' slave was estimated, on the average, as being seven years.J went to superannuated males and females respectively. There was Before the Abolition of the Trade (1807), the approximate purchase also an 'official' known as the 'Jumper' or 'Johnny Jumper', who was price of a 'new' male slave was between £so and £70. Healthy females employed, according to evidence before the House of Commons in cost between £so and £6o, as did a youth approaching manhood May 1790,1 to whip the delinquent or intransigent. ('man-boys'). Children (under fourteens) fetched from £4o to £6o, if • The roost valuable slaves in this category (that is, those on whom I African. • Prices for creole slaves were about 20 per cent higher. s the highest valuation was placed by the owners) were the carpenters, Children were valuable, obviously, because they could be more millwrights and coppersmiths (valued in 1789 at £140 to £300 cur­ flexibly trained and successfully adapted than adults. Prices for all rency), followed by coopers, sawyers, distillers and midwives at £120 categories rose steadily throughout the period; 6 steeply after I 807.1 to £2oo. Head-drivers, (according to the House of Commons 8 James Stewart, writing just before 1823, put the value of an able evidence)l were worth only between £120 to £ISO, but they no doubt field slave at £r8o. BickeJI,9 writing in 182s, quotes £140. 10 'Seasoned' made up for this in social prestige (vis-a-vis the field slaves) and slaves were of course valued much higher. Some field slaves at the through special clothing and drink allowances. J Botanical Gardens, for instance, fetched from £roo to £200 in Perhaps the most skilful slave on an estate was the Head Boiler, 1799.u On the other hand, old lame and/or diseased slaves were who had to know how the cane had been raised and treated, its valued at £6o to £2ou and one exasperated owner put the value of :. species, the kind of soil it bad grown in, whether it bad been arrowed, s his slave, Pompey, who was not only very old and infirm, but had bored or rat-eaten. Knowledge of this kind would determine the 'been runaway for upwards of 10 years' and had been sentenced to juice's tempering with lime, how long it would have to boil, and hence transportation, at a microscopic 7fd.•l. the quality of the sugar.• Long estimated the average annual cost of maintaining a field .. Master mechanics like carpenters, coopers, masons and copper­ slave (in the 1780s) at about £12 sterling. This included food, clothing, smiths had perhaps the greatest amount of freedom on sugar medicine, poll tax, and insurance. 14 plantations, as (especially before the Abolition of the Slave Trade), Mechanics they were encouraged to 'job' off the estate and pay the planter a weekly sum. .s These were the skilled workers (usually black or coloured creoles) who had steadily replaced white indentured labour during the Domestic SltweS

' Speech to the Free Conference between the Msembly and Council, Spanish Town. This group was regarded by most slaves and masters as being in 10 Nov. 1789, reported in the Daily Adoertiser, 22 Jan. 1790. a more 'honourable' position than the field slaves. 6 Poor Ned, a • Robert Hibbert, P.P., LXXXVII (29), p. 368. I Wm. Fitzmaurice, P.P., XCII (3.4), no. 745, p. 2.22; Frank Tannenbaum, Slaoe and .• mulatto stable boy, a domestic, was in 1790, because of some mis­ Citiurr, tire Negro irr tire AmerlctU (New York, 1947), p. 36. ~ demeanour, 'stripped of his livery, degraded to a field negro, and • Edwards, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 154; P.P., LXXXIV {26), Part Ill, Jamaica, A. No. 29.· I ibid. for six months dug cane-holes, weeded and cut down the crop .... 7 1• See Ragatz, Fall, pp. I30, I91; PhiUip.s, Negro SlaNry, p. 365. 'P.P., Vol. LXXXV Ill (30), pp. 146, 374· PhiUips, Negro Slaoery, p. 400; R.G., passim. 1 Jliew, p. I 16. • P.P.. as for n. 9, p. 1 S4. above. ' De Ia Bcche, op. cit, pp. JO-t 1 . . t The Rev. R. BickeU, author of The West lrrdies tU they are (Joe. cit., o. 2, p. 126), • Pitman, 'Slavery', p. 598; Rou&hJey, op. oiL, pp. 8~. J Lewis, op. cit., p. 200. was a curate in Kingston and later in Port Royal towards the very cod of the period of ' SeeWiUiarn Beckford, Remarks upon tltt sitiiDtion of negroes in Jamaica, lmpartilzlly this study. •• Bickell, op. cit., p. 24S· made from a local OtpuitiiU of n.early tlrirttUI years In that islond (London. 1788), p. IJ. X, 285 of 12 March I799. u ibid. •1 R.G., XXV, 18, 9. "hU, 1 ' •• - with a fifty pound weiaht fastened to his body'. A Sltort JOIITMY, Vol. n, •• Add. MS. 12404 f. 405; letter to Lord Wakingharn, IS March I787. p. 74. my italics.

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? rr~1 •• I 56 THE SOCIETY BLACKS 157 A similar disgrace befell the Pinnocks' 'House Wench', Rose.1 A as a positive danger.' He was perhaps in dread of being poisoned. high proportion of these slaves were coloured, which perhaps also This was a not unreasonable anxiety, considering the slaves' skill in gave them status in the unfree hierarchy, though in Marly a black this matter and the opportunities open to them to give it practice. slave tells a coloured one: 'You brown man hab no country­ I attended lhe Slave Court, where a negro was tried for sheep-stealing, and OnJy de neger and de buckra hab country.' 1 On the other hand, a black servant girl for attempting to poison her master The latter was because of their proximity to the masters (and mistresses) domestic .... a girl of fifteen, called Minetta: she ack:nowledged the having infused slaves were less personally independent than field slaves probably corrosive sublimate in some brandy and water; but asserted that she had and what is more, could be subject if they were so unfortunate, to taken it from the medicine chest without knowing it to be poison, and had the sadistic whims and devices of their frustrated owners. As one "' given it to her master at her grandmother's desire. This account was witness told the House of Commons Inquiry of 1790/ 1: evidently a fabrication . ... She [had) stood by the bed to see her master drink the poison; witnessed his agonies without one expression of surprise . .. I have henrd many of them say, that they would ralher continue under or pity , the hardship of the field, than be what is there called a House Negro; and ... here I will give an instance of one person, at whose house I was boarded A neighbouring gentleman, as I hear, has now three negroes in prison, all about six months. He was a doctor, who treated his Field Slaves ill, but domestics, and one of !hem grown grey in his service, for poisoning him I had an opportunity of seeing how his domestics were treated daily. A with corrosive sublimate; his brother was actually killed by similar means. boy that waited on him, he made no more of knoclcing down !han if he had ... Another agent, who appears to be in high favour with the negroes whom been a piece of wood .... (There) were two house wenches he served in the he now governs, was obliged to quit an estate, from the frequent attempts same manner. One evening one of them had either broken a plate, or spilt to poison him; and a person against whom there is no sort of charge [of) a cup of tea, which raised his passion so much, !hat he took: a hammer and tyranny, after being brought to the doors of death by a cup of coffee, only a tenpenny nail, and nailed one of her ears to a bullet-tree post. ... We went escaped a second time by his civility, in giving the beverage, prepared for to bed, and left her standing there; in the morning we found she was gone, himself, to two young book-keepers, to both of whom it proved fatal . . . .J having torn the head of the nail through her ear. As soon as the Doctor lcnew, he dispatched a mao, who brought her again, and when I came to Eliza, belonging to Mr. John Williams, of the parish of St. Thomas in breakfast about eight o'clock, I found he had given her a very severe the East, carpenter, found guilty of having administered night-shade and whipping. His fury did not stop here; he had taken a pair of large scissors, other poisonous drugs to her master, by mixing the same in his coffee.... 4 and clipt both her ears off close to her head, and she was set picking seeds In 1776, a committee of the Assembly reported that it could not out of cotton, amongst three or four more that had been emaciated by his 'reflect, without horror, upon the late attempt at Montego-Bay, of cruelties till they were fit for nothing else. J poisoning the market, by making use of arsenic; a circumstance On smaller plantations, if not the treatment, certainly the distinction impossible to guard against' ;.s and observed, 'with concern, the between field and house slave might have sometimes been less careless manner in which that pernicious drug is kept in almost every clear-t he slave working in or about the house when young, moving apothecary's shop'. 6 But this was a slave conspiracy, not domestic to the field in his prime, and returning to the house as his back action. What is surprising is that potions were not more widely and cracked and he became weaker. On larger estates, however, where systematically used by house slaves-despite the cases cited above­ specialization was necessary; this happened more rarely.• against their masters. In fact, many deaths from 'poisoning' were Peter Marsden (writing, however, after only one years experience probably not from poisoning at all. When 'Monk' Lewis, for instance, of living on a plantation),s regarded the presence of domestic slaves had thought some more about Minetta's case, he added that 'as 1 PiJlllock. Diary, 7 Aug. rn7. • Marly, p. 94· [her master had] lived intemperately, the whole blame ... must not • He11ty Coor, P.P., XCU no. 745, pp. (34), 91-2. The Evidence c:ontailu seYera! be laid upon the poison'. 1 In any case, the slaves poisoned each other more such instances.

• For a n:cent im.a&irative rcoonstructioo of slave labour (io the Americ::an South) 1 See Marsden, op. c:it., p. 2. of Advertisemeat. • Lewis op. c:it. (1929 cd.), p. 149· see William Styron, Tire Confess14ru Tr~TMTed. 1968). 1 of Nat (London >ibid., p. u6. • R.G., XXXV( 1813),4.17. I See Mandeo, op. cit., p. of Advertisement. 'SeeJAJ, VI, 693 of 17 Dec. 1776. • ibid. 1 Lewis, op. cit. (192.9 cd.), p. 327·

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-- -- -· · •• - .» - " r • rs8 THE SOCIETY BLACKS 159 ~ more often than they poisoned their masters. This was usually October 12th, 1794 attributed by whites to the influence of obeah 1-though again it is Marshall's second trip to England has no doubt made her quite the English­ probable that this was, in many instances, merely an accepted way of woman.1 explaining away a death. March 8th, 1795 Marsden notwithstanding, the whites, on the whole, did not appear I am distressed on account of Marshall, who you say 'left Gravesend the to fear death by slaves' drugs as much as might have been expected. beginning of November', for as she was placed altogether under the direc­ Domestic slaves, in fact, contributed significantly to the integration tions of the Captain, I can have no doubt of her having been on board the of the black/white creole society. Many of them, according to the Ship from the time of Her first sailing, as those Gentlemen are Seldom I Rev. Dr. Coke, could read.,. Many of the females were often kept as indulgent to Servants in general, but less so to those of her complexion. 1 mistresses, and were 'exceedingly faithful and useful in overlooking ~ May 4th, 1795 the others in their master's absence'.l Long found them 'orderly and Poor Marshall was truly happy to return to Us ... l obedient'4 and held that they conceived 'an attachment to the families James Pinnock4 however, was not so lucky to get his man-servant they serve, far stronger than may be expected from the ordinary white .. back after leaving Jamaica: domestics' .S This is borne out in the letters to Jane Brodbelt written to her in England from Jamaica :6 October 12th, 1790 My Slave Charles Bobbie, who had lived with me in the greatest Con­ October 12th, 1788 fidence for 14 years, hearing me speak of returning to Jamaica if there was Tabby [Marshall] presents her respects and is pleased you liked the Guava a War, ran away to Town. Had rum taken up ... put on board a press marmalade. 1 Tender [and taken before the Marshall]. July 12th, 1789 Your good dry nurse Tabby sends her warmest wishes to you and your • November 18 sister. 8 . . . sincerely as I believe repenting of rus Folly, he was taken into Service !. again.' i March 1st, 1793 Mama has got another little girl ... Marshall is her Nurse, she tells you But in 1793, returning to Britain after a tour of Europe: howdee.9 September 5 April 14th, 1793 My negroe Charles Bobbie ran away and engaged himself as cook on board 6 Marshall is nursing Mrs. Gardner Millward's little Girl, they are both of HM's frigate theLeda ... . them at this Minute seated down quite close to my Chair.... Io Jobbing and Hired Slaves May 15th, 1794 These were of two types. The first type were labourers kept John and Frances Millward, with your old favorite Marshall, are to· sail specially by small white settlers (as already discussed),7 to be hired for England in the Simon Taylor. .•• I I out to plantations to do, or assist with, particularly heavy labour­ • Sec Lewis, op. cit. (1919 ed.), pp.191-1; R.G., XXXVI (1814), 17, 9. For an excellent consuming jobs like digging cane holes or weeding or transporting treatment of the subject, coveriJii the French and British islands, sec Monica Schuler, 'Slave Resistance and Rebellion in the Caribbean during the Eighteenth Century'; sugar to the ports, or hired out to the vestries to act as road:making unpublished paper, Dept. of History, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica .. • Lettus toJane,op.cit., p. 96. • ibid.,p. 104. • ibid., p. 105. (n.d. (1966]), pp.17-36; and Lucien Pcytraud, L'esciaDage aux Antilles [ra~lsesaoant '. • James Pinnock was a member of an old, wealthy, influential and very ~u connected 1789 (Paris, 1897), pp. 3 IS- 11. ~ Jamaican family. His father, Thomas, who died in 1758, was at one time Receiver­ · • Thomas Coke, StatetMnt of the receipts and disburseTMnts for the support of th~ General. His brother Phillip, was Chief Justice (I7SS--6>. Speaker of the House of mhstons established by the Methodist society for th~Instruction and com~erslonof tM · As3Cmbly from 1768- 70 and from 1775~.James was educated l.t Westminster and negroe_sIn the West Indies (London, 1794), p. 16, footnote. Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and Lincoln's Inn. He became Advocato-General in Jamaica ' Manden, op. cit, p. 8. • Lona. History, Vol. II, p. 181. in 1787. He died in London in t8I I. (Sec Add. MS. 33316; Metcalf, op. cit., pp. tIS, '!b!d.,pp. 282-3. • Letternolane, op. cit. 1 ibid.~p. II. 130, 144; Cun.dall, Historic Jamaica p. xvii; Alumni Cantabrlg/enses.) 1 -- 1b1d., p.10. 9 ibid., p. SS· 10 ibid., p. 57• 11 ibid., p. 83. ' Add. MS. 33316. ' ibid. 1 Sec p. I 46, above.

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' x6o t· THE SOCIETY BLACKS 161 or road repair gangs. This labour was worth, in the last twenty years stresses and master mechanics feature prominently in this group, as of the period of this study, 2S. 6d. a day, or rss. a week for general did (especially in the towns) higglers. plantation work; 3s. 6d. to 4s. a day for road work, and ss. a day for digging cane holes 1- thc most arduous of plantation tasks. The other The very scanty supply [of provisions] lately brought to this city [Kingston] type of hired-out slave was skilled: the plantation mechanics ... is chiefly intercepted and bought up by negro and mulatto higglers of the town, principally slaves, and many, no doubt, runaways, before it already referred to, gardeners, waiting-boys 'who can dress Gentle­ reaches the proper and legal market-place; and these locusts thereby men's hair' (two in 1794 were to be hired out at 32s. 6d. per month levy a contribution of 75 to 100 per cent in profit upon the inhabitants, and each), .1 horse-boys, coachmen, washerwomen, sempstresses, tailors, at the same time defraud the industrious and praise-worthy planters of and prostitutes. small properties, the mountain gardeners, and the industrious slaves .. .. The question of slave prostitution came up before the H ouse of The greater part of the supply of country provisions and vegetables for Commons Inquiry into the Shive Trade in 179o-1, when a Lt. this market come in by the north road; and as the demand for Up-Park Davison, for one, admitted that it was 'a very common thing' Camp is pretty large, the higglers of this city go beyond that distance; and, 'for Female Slaves to be let out by their Owners for purposes of indeed, even to the bottom of the mountains, to meet the country negroes prostitution'.l On 20 November I8IJ, Col. Hamilton, Commanding coming down. 1 Officer at Fort Augusta, the Army barracks near Kingston, because Another group of independent slaves were the fishermen, seamen, of the frequent taking-up of Negro girls from about the camp, had boatmen, pilots, and canoe-men. The Kingston/Port Royal canoe men the following notice inserted in the newspapers: in the 182os earned 2s. 6d. a week for 'pulling a large canoe with The Commanding Officer of Fort-Augusta, being desirous to prevent as six or eight persons in it, three or four times a day from Kingston much as possible Runaway Negro Women from being permitted to to Port Royal and back (and vice versa), a distance of six miles'.~ remain in or about the Fon, thin.Jc.sit necessary to acquaint those persoos, There were also slave woodsmen, guides, 'shots' (hunters), firemen who are in the habit of granting passes to their Women Slaves, to resort (in the towns) and rat-catchers. There seem to have been large to the Garrison, that after the present month, every Woman found there, quantities of these rodents in Jamaica during the period of this study, I who cannot produce a regular pass, countersigned by a Magistrate, will both in town and country. One of the book-keepers' jobs was noting be taken up, and forwarded to one of the Workhouses.• in their books the number of rats captured and killed. l On one large In other words, only authorized prostitutes- i.e. those with owners­ estate, where records were kept, 40-50,000 of these 'noxious animals' were to be aUowed in. One must not, however, become too 'moral' were destroyed in a year, 'independent of those killed by poison'.• about this. As Bryan Edwards reminded his readers, prostitution was ":' Rat-catchers were therefore very much in demand, the more so as not as flagrant as it was in the cities of Europe,s and in a slave . one needed to have a gift for the job. An expert could capture 6o to

society, it was only natural that many of the prostitutes would be~. 100 rats in a week, using 'a wooden trap of his own making, with as slaves.6 · much effect as the best steel-spring trap'.s Because slaves doing these kinds of work were indispensable Tradesmen and 'Professionals' and worked, on the whole, very much in isolation, they were more or From the point of view of the future development of the society~:..i less independent of a master. Many runaways were to be found in and also as individuals contributing to the development of creoliza-ii this category, carrying on their lives in virtual freedom: tion, this category of slave was perhaps -the most important. In fact, .,;J. • R.G., XXXVIII, 29, 18. many in this category were not slaves at all, and many that were, ~ • Bickell, op. cit., p. 88. This wa.s good earning by prevailing scales. In the West did not appear to recognize their servile status. Carpenters, semp- - India Regiment, for instance, blaclc privates earned 6s. 9d. a day in 1796, white privates 'i one shilling (A. B. Ellis, op. cit., pp. s, 84). The canoe fares were probably shared 'Bickell, op.cit., pp. 243-4. • R.G.,XVI, 5,4- > P.P., Vol. XCII

~ ~ ...... - - BLACKS 163 • 162 THE SOCIETY

RAN AWAY majority of slaves made any real distinction between obeah-ment ADAM, a creole, a fisherman by trade, much pitted in the face with the and black (Christian) preachers, cannot be determined. Certainly these black preachers were not always recognized as acceptable small pox, short and well made, and will attempt to pass for free; ~inga great smatterer in religious topics, has been lately converted by Parson Christian ministers by the white missionaries.~Moses Baker, the Lisle, and is always preaching or praying: he was seen on board a ship this Black Baptist ex-slave from New York, bad in 1814, at Flamstead, morning, going to Old Harbour, and no doubt will sail out with her when in St. James, a congregation of some soo,J and claimed 3,000 fol­ she is completely loaded .... 1 lowers throughout the island.• He was prohibited from preaching under the Slave Preaching Act of 1806, but continued as an itinerant Equally significant were the black and/or slave preachers, doctors to the end of his life.s George Lewis, another Black Baptist, came to and obeah-men. Whether as Christian or pagan, European or African trained or inspired, these men were almost entirely indepen­ Jamaica from Virginia as a slave, but was allowed by his owner, a Miss Valentine of Kingston, 'upon his paying her a certain sum dent of white control and contributed enormously to the physical every month, to traverse the country as a pedlar; and (she gave] and psychological well-being of the slave population and therefore him a ticket of leave to this effect. He travelled frequently in the to the health of the society as a whole. Slave doctors usually confined parishes of Manchester and St. Elizabeth (and was soon] so well their work to their own particular plantation. A good obeah-man ... known among the slaves, that they assembled round him at night would have influence throughout the district. These obeah-men wherever he went'.6 The same may be said of George Liele (the (and women) received a great deal of attention from the white legislators of the island, especially after the (Tacky) slave rebellion of 'Parson Lisle' referred to in the Runaway Notice quoted above),1 the 176o which was said to have been inspired by them : first Black Baptist in Jamaica,• and George Gibb, an ex-slave married _,, to a slave woman.9 Like the obeah-man, this kind of Negro was seen And in order to prevent the many Mischiefs that may hereafter arise from as a real threat by the white power structure and gave the Establish- the wicked Art of Negroes, going under the Appellation of Obeah Men and ment considerable cause for alarm. Women, pretending to have Communication with the Devil and other -· evil spirits, whereby the weak and superstitious are deluded into a Belief Friday one JOHN GILBERT, a black Preacher, was brought to the of their having full Power to exempt them, whilst under their Protection, • Workhouse in this town [Kingston], under a comrrUtment from the from any Evils that rrught otherwise happen: Be it therefore enacted ... , magistrates of St. George, by whom he is sentenced to two months hard That from and after the First Day of June [q6o], any Negro or other labour. The practices of this black Itinerant among the negroes on various Slave, who shall pretend to any supernatural Power, and be detected in properties to which he has introduced himself, under pretence of instruct­ making use of any Blood, Feathers, Parrots Beaks, Dogs Teeth, Alligators ing them in religious duties, have occasioned much mischief, and given Teeth, broken Bottles, Grave Dirt, Rum. Egg-shells or any other Materials vezy serious cause for alarm. It appears, by affidavit, that among other relative to the Practice of Obeah or Witchcraft, in order to delude and 'See Anon., HamLl, The Obeah M(JJI, :2. vols. (London, 1817). impose on the Minds of others, shall upon Conviction thereof, before two • See, for example, A NUratiPt of ucent eoents conMcted with the Baptist Mission in Magistrates and three Freeholders, suffer Death or Transportation .... " this island, comprising also a sketch of the mJujon,from its commencement, In r814, to theendof IBJI (Kingston, 1833), p. 3· >'John Rowe's Journal in J&maica', 31 Dec. 1813 to 2.3 June 1814. io Periodical With the influx of American Baptist slaves or freed slaves into Accolmls relalioe to tht Baptist Missloflllr}' Society (Bristol, 1816), pp. SOl-S. • The Baptist A~~~UMJlRqlstu , J/JQI-I8o:J (London, o.d.), p. I 146. Jamaica as a result of the American Revolution,l the public leader­ 'The Baptist MagaziM (1815), (London, 1815), pp. 168-9. An account of Baker'.s ship of a large mass of the slaves shifted from obeah-men to black arrival (1783) and settlement in Jamaica.. and his establishment of a Baptist com­ munity on Adelphi estate io SL James, told partly io his own words, is io John Clarke, preacbe~vidence,certainly, of creolization, since it was now an Memorials of Baptist Missioflllriu In JantDica (London, 1869), 'PP· 18-)0. element of the white man's religion that was being used by the slaves • Buchner, op. cit., p. 48. 1 P. 162. • See, Baptist AIIIUI41Rcgist ~r.I7f}8-I/JQI (London, n.d.), pp. 3Jl., 333, 335; F. A. for their own spiritual purposes, though the extent to which the Cox, History of the Baptist MissioNUy Society from 1792 to 1842. :2. vols. (London, ' Daily A®ertiser, 24 Dec. 1790. 1842), VoL 11, pp. 12.-16; Clarke Memorials, pp. 1o-11 ; R.G., XVI, 14. 23. • Clarke, Memorials, p. 16. This fact is mentioned because it was unusual in Jamaican • I Geo. ID, c::..n; Act 24 of 176o, clause x, Acts of AJsembly (1769}, Vol I, 'P· 55· , Seep . 66, above. society. Gibb, in fact, was twice married. His lir$t wife had been a woman of colour. • rr~- 164 THE SOCIETY BLACKS 165 • 1.~ 1817 !820 pernicious doctrine, he strenuously insisted on the necessity of the negroes African Creole African Creole fasting at least one day in the week, when fowls, hogs, etc., were put into Orange Valley (Trel.) 141 473 J 19 520 the hands of their teacher, as an expiatory sacrifice; and that no work Lioton Park(Trel.) 142 163 137 169 Fontabelle and Southfield (Trel.) 261 317 235 314 whatever, either for themselves or owners, should be done on the Sabbath. Hopewell (St. Mary) 110 305 90 316 The consequence of this was, that the Slaves, particularly on one estate, LtanrummY (St. Mary) 251 190 231 207 became, from fasting, spiritless, sick and emaciated; and being deprived Fountain, etc. (Ciar.) 165 213 I 53 217 Whitoey (Oar.) s 248 s 261 of the produce of their own grounds by the prohibition of Sunday's labour, Bogue (St. Eliz.) 3 368 3 381 were driven to the shameful and casual recourse of plundering the property Hampstead (St. Eliz.) 103 137 191 141 of their neighbours, to save themselves from perishing by famine ... . 1 Lyssons(St. Thos. E.) 229 297 213 299 Hector's River (St. Thos. E.) 76 305 61 316 Golden Vale (Portland) 176 299 16o 320 African and Creole Slaves (P.P., 1831- 2, VoL XX (16), Appeodix (A), pp. s66, s68.) Apart from the groupings described in the foregoing (not all of which were consciously recognized as such in the society), there were condition. 'The characters of creole negroes', William Beckford two. general categories which slave owners used to distinguish what asserted, with thirteen years' Jamaican experience behind him, they regarded as two different kinds of Negroes. Creole slaves were those hom into the society; African slaves were imported. These are widely different. and in many instances may serve as a faithful contrast latter were further divided into 'old' and 'new', depending on the [to those of new negroes. New] negroes, although they seem to be cheer­ 1 length of time they had been in bondage in the island. ful upon their arrival in the colonies, are apparently heavy in body and mind They have not the least idea of personal delicacy, or shame ~ It is not possible to provide a picture of population ratios for ...... creole and African slaves for the entire slave period, as early statis­ And, he added, 'The creoles are not from nature, but example, tics made no distinction between the two groups; and even within the somewhat more decent.'J In other words,' the creoles had the advant­ period of this study, figures reveal significant discrepancies. In 1789, age of contact with 'civili.zation'-an advantage denied the 'G uinea­ the Assembly calculated that Africans made up 25 per cent of the birds' in their homeland. slave force. Ten years after the abolition of the slave trade, however, These Africans, indeed, were seen to be proud and recalcitrant the available figures indicate that Africans made up 36 per cent of the ('heavy'), with a propensity to abscond as soon as opportunity slave population.,. The Parish Returns for St. James (1817), in fact. presented itself-us ually very soon after arrival. Besides, unlike many give an even higher ratio: Africans, 9,150; Creoles, 16,627.1 The creole slaves who 'ran away' merely to another town or district and figures for twelve plantations in 1817 and 1820 were as shown on ­ continued, if unofficially, as functioning members of the society,+ page 165. In other words, in spite of considerable variation on African slaves tended to take to the hills, forming gangs of aggressive individual estates, African slaves made up and continued to make marauders or organizing themselves into self-contained Maroon-like up, until the end of our period, a significant proportion of the black communities. Those on the plantations tended to become focal population of the island. points for 'seditions and mutinies' . .s Because of this difference in The whites, for their part, preferred creole slaves for a variety of • AJ Bryan Edwards put it: 'They display ... , on being brought to market, very few reasons and valued them at three times the price of African or 'salt-­ signs of lamentatioo for their past, or of apprehension for their future condition; but water Negroes' ('Guinea-birds'). the first place, since creole slaves wearied out with coafl..oement at sea, commonly express great eagerness to be sold; In presenting themselves, when the buyers are few, with cbearfulness and alacrity for were indigenes, they came, as it were, ready-made and selcctio.n. •. .'(Edwards, op. cit., Vol. II (18o1 ed.), p. ISJ.) From tho slave's own point seasoned. On the whole, they were regarded as having accepted their of view, needless to say, it was not as simple u this. There was terror, relief, ren~ appreheosion IUld finally IIJl adjustment-or not-«pending on circumsu.nccs and the psycho-physical ma.k&-up of the $u.!rere.r cooc::emed. See, Tire /nuruting Narralioe • Daily AdNrtiser, 30 Aug. 1790. of the Life of 0/oudalt Equlano «" Gustaous YIUS4 the AfricmL Written by" Himself. • See P.P., 1831- 2, Vol. XX, Reports from Committees (16): Mioutcs of Evideoc::e 2 vob. (London, 1789); abridged and edited by Paul Edwards (London, 1967), taken before the Select Committee on Slavery, p. 521, A. 7937· pp. 3o-:1. • Beckford, RemiUks, p. 88. • ibid. 'Io R.G., XLII, 46, 22. • See pp. 192-20 1, below. • Long, History, Vol. JI, p. 444·

------'_"·.,-.A=- ill~ --·at . ~ - • 166 THE SOCIE T Y psychological orientation, I the Africans tended to despise the creole slaves2 (though this was mutual),l and at times of crisis-fo r example during the widespread slave unrest during and after the second 12

Maroon War-t ended to be openly hostile to creoles. ~ Physically, also, African Negroes appeared different from creoles THE (FREE) PEOPLE OF COLOUR in that (with many) their teeth were filed, they had tribal marks on face and sometimes on body; their women wore their hair in plaits or combed into rolls or toupees, while some of the men shaved their heads in stripes.s For Long, they were less attractive than creoles in THE offspring of white-black unions in the Americas were placed 'shape, feature and complexion'.6 Apart from a few briJUant excep­ on an elaborate ladder of skin colouring. In Marly, I for instance, we tions (usually youngsters) they had not the same kind of command of find the following gradations: the masters' language that the creoles enjoyed, and they were great Sambo: child of mulatto and negro 'obeah men'. Mulatto: child of white man and negress It was from this group, however, that a real cultural contribution Quadroon: child of mulatto woman and white man to creole society could have come, since they had a cultural inherit­ Mustee: child of quadroon [or pure Amerindian] by white mao ance of their own? which could (had conditions been different) been Mustiphini: child of mustee and white man available for the benefit of the whole society, and a sense of con­ Quintroon: child of mustiphini and white man tinuity that was lacking in black creoles. Octoroon: child of quintroon and white man.

On my return to the West Indies [in 1785], I was surprised [wrote Bryan The Spaniards, with even more sophistication, accounted for, and Edwards] to find the old-established Negroes, when young people newly named, combinations such as sa/tatras (mulatto/quadroon), tente­ arrived from Africa, were sent among them, request, as a particular in­ ene/-ayre (quadroon/mustee) and givero (sambo Indianfsambo stance of favour and indulgence to themselves, the revival and continu­ mulatto). 1 Even mulattoes were further sub-divided into pardo, ance of the ancient system [of receiving newcomers]; assuring me they had prieta, obscuro, etc. In all, some 128 gradations were apparently the means of supporting the strangers without difficulty. Many who thus possible.J As Long put it, referring to the Dutch, applied, proposed each of them to adopt one of their young country-folks I in the room of children they had lost by death, or had been deprived of in They add drops of pure water to a single drop of dusky liquor, until it Africa; others, because they wished, like the patriarchs of old, to see their becomes tolerably pellucid. But this needs the apposition of such a mul­ t sons take to themselves wives from their own nation and kindred; and all titude of drops, that, to apply the experiment by analogy to the human race, of them, I presume, because, among other considerations, they expected to twenty or thirty generations, perhaps, would hardly be sufficient to dis­ charge the stain. • revive and retrace in the co~rsationof their new visitors, the remembrance and ideas of PQstpleasures and s~ of their youth. Tile strangers too were On this argument, in Jamaica, the 'stain' could be discharged much sJ best pleased with this arrangement, and ever afterwards considered them­ quicker. The most commonly observed distinctions were sambo, selves as the adopted children of those by whom they were thus protected, mulatto, mustee, and octoroon. Legally, all coloured people were calling them parents, and venerating them as such. ... 1 'mulatto' and this 'corruption of blood'S was visited upon 'not the

• See.Lows, III, p. 362. • Long, Hl.rtory, Vol. II, p. 410. • ibid., p. ~o. ' Op. cit., p. 183, footnote. • See C.O. 137/ IOO: Balc:arres to Portland, 30 July 1798. • Long, History, Vol. II, p. 261. Ellt!!lle mel o.lre {literally, suspended), was the term I Anoo., 'Characteristic Traits of the Crcol.ian and African Negroes in the Island. aiven to a colour that showed neither 'procrcss' nor 'retrogression'. etc., etc.,' in T'lu Columbian Mo.taziJW, Vol. II, April 1797, p. 700; and p. 233, below. J See Charles Waaley and Marvin Harris, MiMritfesln tlte New World (New York, • Long, History, Vol. II, p. 410 -. • See Chapter t.S, below. 19S8), pp. 1o6-7, footnote, also G. A. Belttln. 'Races in 17th Century Mexico', • Edwards, op. cit., Vol. I[ (r8o r ed.), p. ISS. my italics. The more usual view of this Pity/on, vi ( 194.5), no. 3; Irene Diggs, 'Color in Colonial Spanish America', JourNJI of relatioosbip was that tho 'old' Negroes imposed a tyranny on the newcomcn. See, for Ne,ro History, Vol. :uxvili (1953) no. 4, pp. 403-7; Marvin Harris, PatttriU of Race eu.mple, Tire Diary oftlte Ru. Wil04m JoMs, 177]-1821, ed. 0. F. Christie (London, In tlte Americas (New York, 1964), pp. 54-61. 1919), pp. JIH}. • Long. History, Vol. II, p. 261. •JAJ, III, 113 of 30 March 1733. •

• !66 TilE SOC! ETY

psychological orientation. r the Africans tended to despise the creole slaves, (though this was mutual)) and at times of crisis-for example during the Widespread sla\'e unrest during and after the second 12 ~1aroonWar-tended to be openly hostile to creoles.4 Physically, also. African :"fegroes appeared different from creoles THE (FREE) PEOPLE OF COLOUR in that (with many) their teeth were filed, they had tribal marks on face and sometimes on body; their women wore their hair in plaits or combed into rolls or toupees, while some of the men shaved their heads in stripes.> For Long, they were less attractive than creoles in THE offspring of white-black unions in the Americas were placed 'shape, feature and complexion'.6 Apart from a few brilliant excep­ on an elaborate ladder of skin colouring. rn .'vfarly, 1 for instance. we tions (usually youngsters) they had not the same kind of command of find the following gradations: the masters' language that the Creoles enjoyed, and they were great Sambo: child of mulatto and negro men'. 'obeah Mulatto: child of white man and negress It was from this group, however, that a real cultural contribution Quadroon: child of mulatto woman and white man to creole society could have come, since they had a cultural inherit­ Mustee: child of quadroon [or pure Amerindian) by white man ance of their own7 which could (had conditions been different) been Mustiphini: child of mustee and white man available for the benefit of the whole society, and a sense of con­ Quintroon: child ofmustiphini and white man tinuity that was lacking in black creoles. Octoroon: child of quintroon and white man.

On my return to the West Indies [in 1785], I was surprised [wrote Bryan The Spaniards, with even more sophistication, accounted for, and Edwards) to find the old-established Negroes, when young people newly named, combinations such as saltatras (mulatto/quadroon), tente­ arrived from Africa, were sent among them, request, as a particular in­ enel-ayre (quadroon /mustee) and givero (sambo Indianfsambo stance of favour and indulgence to themselves, the revival and continu­ mulatto).: Even mulattoes were further sub-divided into pardo, ance of the ancient system [of receiving newcomers]; assuring me they had priero. obscuro, etc. In all. some 128 gradations were apparently the means of supporting the strangers without difficulty. Many who thus possible.J As Long put it, referring to the Dutch, applied, proposed each of them to adopt one of their young country-folks in the room of children they had lost by death, or had been deprived of in They add drops of pure water to a single drop of dusky liquor, until it Africa; others, because they wished, like the patriarchs of old, to see their becomes tolerably pellucid. But this needs the apposition of such a mul­ sons take to themselves wives from their own nation and kindred; and all titude of drops, that, to apply the experiment by analogy to the human race, of them, I presume, because, among other considerations, they expected to twenty or thirty generations, perhaps, would hardly be sufficient to dis­ reoive and retrace in rhe com;ersation of their new uisitors, the remembrance charge the stain. • and ideas of past pleasures and scenes of their yourh. The strangers too were On this argument. in Jamaica, the •stain' could be discharged much best pleased with this arrangement, and ever afterwards considered them­ quicker. The most commonly observed distinctions were sambo, selves as the adopted children of those by whom they were thus protected, calling them parents, and venerating them as such.... 8 mulatto, mustee, and octoroon. Legally, all coloured people were 'mulatto' and this 'corruption of blood'S was visited upon 'not the , See Laws. II f. p. 362. • Long. History, Vol. II, p. 410. l ibid .. p. 420. 'Op. cit., p. 183, footnote. • See C.O. 137/100: Balc:ures to Portland. 30 July 1798. • Long, History, Vol. II, p. :6r. £/rente e11el aire (literally, suspended), was the term 'Anon .. 'Characteristic Traits of the Creolian and African Negroes in the Island, ajven to a colour that showed neuher 'progress' nor ' retrogression'. etc., e1c.,' in Tire Columbian Maga:me. Vol. II. April 1797, p. ;oo; and p. 233, below. l See Charles Wagley and Marvin Hams, Ml11orities in the Sew World (New York, 'Long, History, Vol. II, p. 410 • See Clupter 15. below. 1 1958), pp. 106-7, footnote. also G. A. Beltran, 'R:tces in 11th Century MeJUco', Edwards. op. en., Vol. II (!Sot ed.). p. 155, my italics. The more usual view of this Phylon, vi {1945), no. 3; Irene Diggs, ·color 111 Colonial Spanish Americ:t', Journal of relationship was that the 'old' Negroes imposed a tyranny on the newcomers. Sec. for Negro HiHory, Vol. x;uviii (1953) no. 4, pp. 403-7; Marvin Harris, Patternf of Race example. Tire Diary of the Rev. William Jones, 1777-18.u, ed. 0. F. Christie (London, in the Americas (New York, 1964), pp. 54~2. 1929). pp. 38-9. • Long, History, Vol. II, p. :61. 'JAJ,lll, 123 of30 March 1733. 9

• r68 THE SOCIETY THE {FREE) PEOPLE OF COLOL'R !69

sins of the fathers bm the misfortunes of ~hemothers· r unto the Distribucioll third and fourth generation oi intermixture from the ~egroancestor The free coloureds lived mainly in the towns: Kingston. Port cxc!usive. = .-\n octoroon was therefore legally white and so auto­ Royal. Spanish Town. St. Ann's Bay, ~IontegoBay; in the pari~hof mau~allyfree in Jamaica and the British West Indies.> :\fanchester (created I 8 q), 'where mixed blood was a characteristic of the whole population'; 1 anc.Lalong Parratee Bay, east of Black .Vumbers River, in St. Elizabeth.: Kingston had by far the largest concentration Professor G. W. Roberts,J. using census figures, estimates that the of coloureds. with about 1,.200 reported there in the years between average rate of increase of Jamaica's coloured population between 1774 and 1793,; 3,500 in 1807,~6,719 in 1814 and 7,064 in 1819.5 1844 (68,500) and 1861. was I per cent. Mrs. Duncker, accepting this Spanish Town came next with r ,056 6 (including some 380 free percentage for the end of the period of her study, places the coloured blacksF in the e3rly 1770s, rising to about 1,530 in 1796.3 One population in 1830 at 59,797 of which about 15,000 were slave and hundred and t\venty-four coloured names were 'given in' to the St. 44.000 free.s Assuming that Professor Roberts' r per cent would Ann Vestry in r8o6, sixty-three of whom were women.9 The 1807 6 apply for the period of this present study as well, the number of figures drop to fifty-nine, including twenty-two women. 10 This might coloured people in Jamaica in I774 might be estimated at 23,000, indicate a ·floating' free coloured population in this area; more likely with about 4,000 of these free (accepting Long's 6gure),7 rising it reflects inefficiency in record keeping and collation. (The Assembly to 10,000 including free blacks in 1793 (accepting Bryan Edwards' was constantly reprimanding vestries for failure to send in figure). s Dallas estimates the same figure for 1803.9 Stewart's 1823 statistics.)n A small parish like St. David recorded only fourteen figure is 35,000 free coloured ro out of a possible 50,000 coloureds. free people of colour in 1785. ·~ButBeckford. for the 1790s, claimed Th.Js leaves 15,000 coloured slaves in 1823, which tallies with Mrs. that there was an average of 500 free coloured and blacks per parish.IJ Duncker's figures for r 830. r r These figures, it must be stressed, cannot be taken as reliable as Restrictions there are no reliable figures for this period. Mrs. Duncker discusses Of the (approximate) 35,000 free people of colour in 1820. some this thoroughly on pages 1-10 of her study. They may, however, be would have been born free as mustiphini and octoroons. A high taken as an indication of the steady rise of the coloured population in proportion would have been born free as the children of freed mothers. the island. The rest would have acquired their freedom through petitions to the ' Michael Hanl.:y to Bathurst, 22 Sept. t 823, quoted in Duncker, op. cit, p. 20, n. r. • See Edwards, op. cit. (1793 ed.), Vol. II. p. 16. ' In fact, all grades above mustee were in this category. • Op. cit.. p. 39. 1 Duocker, op. cit., p. 10. Higman queries this. The 183::: slave figures 'show Man­ ' Duncker, op. cit., p. 9· Mrs. Dunckcr's study was found invaluable in the prepara­ chester to have [had} a below average percentage of coloured slaves'. (Private com- tion of this chapter. munication, 17 March 1969.) 'Long, History, Vol. ll. p. 186. • It would probably have been higher, since black/white sexual mixing no doubt 1 See ibid .. p. 103; Moreton, op. cit., p. 34. • Renny, op. cit., p. 103. declined sharply after Emancipation as the male whites lost their right of control over 1 [Gerad Tikasingh}, 'A Method for Estimating the Free Coloured Population of the bodies of black women. On the other hand, of course, the post-Emancipation Jamaica', unpublished paper, U.W.I., Dept. of History, Staff/Graduate Seminar fentlity rate might have risen. [1967]. p. 15. :Long, History. Vol. II, p. 337· • ibid., p. 14. Loog (History, Vol. 11, p. ::.8) says Soo. • Edwards, op. cit. (1 ;93 ed.), Vol. II, p. :::. 1 Tikasingh, op. cit., p. t6. • 1bid .. p. 14. t Dalla.s, op. ctt., Vo1.1, p. c;ti. 10 Stewan, View, p. 36. 9 St. Ann Vestry Proceedings t8Q0-9, 7 July 18o6. ::.48-9. " Barry Higman disagrees with this. 'Working from the slave side of the problem •oobid., 13 July 1807, f. 292. "See. for example, JAJ, VI, 457 of 18 Nov. 1773 (returns for free coloureds); VIII, I reckon roughly to'~of the slaves were coloured in 183:::, that is 31,000. Certainly both sides of the question an: difficult ground, but the slave registers give a sounder 169 of :.1 Dec. 1785 and 543 of 16 Dec. 1;88 (Free S~hoolsreturns); XII. 794 oi :o statistical base than do the esumates of free-coloured. I would argue that somethm& in De::. t815 and 57 Geo. lll. c. 15 of 11 Dec. 1816 (returns of slaves); and pp. ::n-::.. the order of 15,000 coloured slaves for t8:o would be a better esumate-and I assume below. The inadequacy of several Vestry records IS :1l.so commented on by Duncker, ... that they had :1 better rate of survival than the slave population as a whole (since op. cit.. pp. 7 and 8. they were all creole and less subject to field labour), so that the estimate is on the con­ n St. David Vestry Minutes. 1785-93: Gi' ong-in List,::. Apnl1785, f. 13. Free Negro servative sode' (Hi&man, Private Communication, 17 March 1969). In his paper, and Indian are included in this return. Higman (op. Cit .. p. 17) places the 1832 coloured slave population even higher-at 11 Beckford, Account, Vol. II. p. 324. The s:~meesumatc IS given by Bryan Edwards 39,000, or about 1:::per cent of the total. m JAJ, Vlll, ~9 of 12 Nov. 1788. \

I .. • 1/0 THE SOCIETY THE (F REE ) PEOPLE OF COLOCR I il legislature for pri\-ate declaratory acts ol manumission. presented by generality of free coloureds (and free blacks) were not able to save white or free coloured sponsors. Pe::sons thus freed, however, had no their own deficiency until I 8 )0 . 1 civil rights per se. Their names had to be registered at the local Nor were these the only restrictions against this class. Free vestries (until I823) and they were issued (until 18 I)), with Certificates coloureds could not normally vote for either locnl or Assembly 1 of Freedom, valid for seven years.~which they could not travel with­ elections,= and they were excluded from holding office. 1 They could out, and. according to Long,J the poorer members of this group4 had not of course run for election into the Assembly, nnd even though to wear 'a blue cross on the right shoulder, on pain of imprisonment'­ they had to bear arms in the militia (and by 1796~were outnumbering the badge of freedom.S Freed people of colour and blacks (the law of whites in tbjs organization in several parishes)s they were excluded Jamaica made no distinction) were also restricted. until 1813, by from the cavalry (it was too precious a status symbol) and could not the Act 2 Geo. III, c. 8 of 19 December 1761. from inheriting more rise above the rank of sergeant in the foot militia. than £2,000 currency or worth of property. Until I7966 they could not give evidence in court even in cases involving themselvcs7 and not Privileges until 18138 could they appear in cases involving white men. Even the Within this framework, however, it was possible to be given special limited liberties granted were not as generous as they appeared. privileges. Petitioners, again sponsored by white men or other free Attested certificates of baptism into the Anglican church had to be persons of colour, could apply for concessions. usually on the ground produced before appearance in court was possible. and all cases that they were baptized Anglican Christians, had considerable were tried before all-white judges and juries. Of especial hardship to property or were at least comfortably well off, and (quite often if coloured employers and owners of slaves was the legislation of I7729 males) had received their education abroad-all of which placed which took away their right to save 'deficiency' to themselves. Coloured them slightly higher in the scale than ordinary people of their caste. proprietors with more than ten slaves were legally obliged after this These petitioners would be granted, through private acts, the rights legislation to employ one white man per every ten slaves or pay a of persons born of white parents ·with certain restnctions', these fine accordingly. This was not only expensive. but as a group of free restrictions varying with the individuaL though never allowing them coloureds it in 1773, those put to sit in the legislature or hold government office.6 who do hire or employ such white men, are obliged to submit themselves to the humour of every white man they so employ, who oftentimes take That the petitioner hath caused all his ... natural children to be baptized, advantage of the situation of the [coloured employer's] not being on an educated, and instructed, in the principles of the Christian religion, and equal footing with them, and treat [them] with great incivility." intends bringing them up in a respectable manner, and to bestow on them such. fortunes as to raise them above th.e common level of people of Despite concessions in 1794, I809, 1812, and r813,t: however, the 1 colour... See 1 Geo.III, c. 22 of 176o. • See 2 Geo. III, c. 10 of 1761. 'Histo ry, Vol. U, p. Jll. That, by the unfortunate circumstances of their births, they are subject • Those without a1least a ten·slave settlement. (Long, as n. 3, above.) and liable to the same rules of government, and to the same pains and 'See Act 64 of 1717 in Acts of Asumbly Vol. 1 (1769), p. 116. Long, however, is the penalties, as free negroes and mulattoes are. who have no educat:on. only writer who mentions the cross as being actuaUy "'Om. The Assembly admitted in 1788 that the law was very seldom complied with. many of the free negroes con­ The petitioner therefore humbly prays, that the house w1ll b: pleased to sidering the badge rather as a token of di.sgrace, than a mark of distinction. (J AJ, give leave to bring in a bill, for the granting unto ... the before-mentioned VIII, ~9of 12 Nov. 1788. See also C.O. 137191, Report of tbe Assembly by Bryan Edwards on the condition of the free people of colour, 16 May 1793.) children, the like privileges as have been hitherto granted to persons under '3 6 Geo. IH, c. 23 of 25 March 1796. the same circumstances. 7 7 An act of 1748 (21 Geo. II, c. 7) had already granted this, but it distinguished belween coloureds with and without special privileges. 1 1 See Duncker, op. cit.. pp. 88-93. S4 Geo. III, c. 19. 9 SceJAJ. VI, 467 of27 Nov. 1773. 10 ' •It is the opinion of this committee, that mulattoes have no right to vote an the elec- Seep. 146, above, for an explanauon of this term. tion of any member to serve in any assembly.' (JAJ.Il. 531 of 1 Oct. 1725.) "JAJ, VI, 467 of27 Nov. 1773. 'S ee 10 Annaec. 4 of 171 I. • SeeJAJ, 0<, 650 of I Auaust 1797· " See 35 Geo. III, c. IS ( 1794); 50 Geo. III, c. 18 (1809); 53 Geo. Ill, c. 27 ( 18tl); s Seep. ::9, o. ::,above. d Long, History, Vol. II. p. :46. S4 Geo.III, c. :o (1813). 'JA J, VII, 537 of 18 Dec. 178l.

Ij I • • THE (FREE) PEOPLE OF COLOUR 175 r-'/ "T THE SOCIETY white coloured the black slaves and in its propinquity of blood to the white masters, 1825 89 185 things were better. A very high proportion of domestic slaves were 1826 93 176 coloured. 1 and many of these were mistresses to estate owners, 1827 92 156 1828 88 152 attorneys, overseers. and the white plantation staff generally. The1r 1829 i9 19! children, if slaves, in 'Monk' Lewis' experience. were 'always 1830 88 194 honoured by their fellows with the title of Miss. My mulatto house­ 1831 88 315 maid is always called "Miss Polly" by her fellow-servant Phillis.': 1832 90 36o 1833 93 411 It was 'considered inhuman that the child of a white man should be 1834 81 420 reduced to the same state as that of a negro' ,l and for their part, 'no 1835 85 425 freed unfreed Mulatto ever wished to relapse into the Negro'.~ 1836 78 428 or 1837 7! 430 • See Marly, p. 95 and p. 156, above. 1 Lewis. op. cit. (1929 ed.), p. 143· In other words, as the school became flooded with coloureds, white J Marly, pp. 94-5. • f..ong, History, Vol. II, p. 332. parents (unless there was an overall decline in the numbers of their children, which is unlikely at this time) probably removed their children to private, still segregated schools, of which there were several in the town. 1 Examination of school admission lists through­ out the West Indies even up to the years following the Second World War would, more than likely, reveal a similar pattern.

Position in Society These middle-class mechanical and professional coloureds who II were making their way in the white world were, however, only a fraction of the whole. 2 In a society that was not designed for them and did not really recognize them (or at least did so very reluctantly), \ the 'lower' class of free coloured suffered. Mrs. Carmichael, speaking of St. Vincent, said that the coloured domestic slave was ten times richer and more comfortable than the ordinary free person of colour.l

Mrs. Duncker, quoting Manchester to Bathurst,~says that the people of colour did not pay in taxes one thirty-fourth of what the white inhabitants paid. 'So near the borderline of poverty did many of [them] live that quite often they were buried at expense of their church.'5 On the estates, however, where their colour counted in relation to

• See advertisements in the Royal Gazette for the period of this study. 1 Free coloured women (those who worked), went in for retail trading, scUing 'Ribbons, silks. laces and gauzes'. and some of them did a "little genteel and skilled laundenog'. Others kept lodging houses of varying classific::~tioosof repute. (Se c Duncker. op. Cit., p. 85; Mrs. A. C. Carmichael, Domestic manMrs and social condition of the white, coloured and lll!gro population of the West Indies, l vols. (London, 1833), VoL r, p. 79.)

J C:umich:~cl.op. cit., Vol. I, p. So. • 23 Dec. 1823; Duncker. op. cit., p. 76. 'Dun ckcr, op. cit., p. 213.

_......

~ • • THE 'fOLK' C t: LT U RE OF TilE SLAVES 213

Tiu! African orientation of Jamaican folk culture Folk culture. though usually autochthonous, may be said to be 15 Jependcm upon J. 'great tradition'. in the sense defined by Redfield. 1 t"N its sanctions. its memories. its myths. In the case of Jamaica·s .;l:l\·es. the ·;rear tradition' was clearly in Africa. in the same way that THE'FOLK' CULTURE \\ hne Jam:.1icans' was in Europe-both. in other words, external to OF THE SLAVES the society. Have you ever he::trd African Negroes speak of their own country? -l have he::trd them speak very much in favour of their own country, and THE vast majority of Jamaica's slaves came from West Africa. express much grief at le::tving it. I never knew one but wished to go back ~oattempt will be made in this study, to enter the argument about .\gain.: African 'survivals', 'retentions', 'adaptations' and so on.' 1 within Did you know any instances of African Negroes expressing themselves creole society. But the habits. customs, and ways of life of the slaves with atfection of their native country, and desinng to return to it? did. as I brought a Guinea woman to England who wished much to in Jamaica, derived from West Africa, will be seen in this context as -[ be sent back to her own country; and it is very common for ~egroeswhen a 'folk' culture-the culture of the mass of ex-Africans who found they are sick to say, they are going back to their own country. themselves in a new environment who were successfully adapting and Did they say it with apparent satisfaction? to it. -They certainly do, as they express always a great de::tl of pleasure when Some understanding of the nature of this folk culture is important, they think they are going to die, and say, thr.t they are going to leave this not only in terms of the creole society to which it was to contribute Buccra country. J within the time-limits of this study, but also because the changes in Jamaican society after r865 involved the beginning of an assertion Slace cusroms connected with the life cycle of this folk culture which was to have a profound effect upon the very (i) Birth constitution of Jamaican society. This assertion has become increas­ When a child was born. the placenta and navel string were care­ ingly articulate since the gaining of political independence in 196:. fully disposed of. 'The mother must guard it carefully and, after and is now the subject of some study by scholars and intellectuals. three days to a year from the time of birth, must bury it in the ground This 'folk culture' is also being made use of by many Jamaican and and plant a young tree over the spot, which henceforth becomes the

West Indian artists and writers, though the nature of the creolization property of the child and is called his "navel-string tree.. .'~The new­ of this culture has made the effective validation of it more difficult born was regarded as not being of this world unttl nine days bad

than might be supposed. This is because, in M. G. Smith's phrase. passed. ·~Ionk'Lewis was told by a slave midwife: 'Oh, massa, till 'the Creole culture which West Indians share is the basis of their ' "In a Ct\llization there is a great tradition of the reftecuve few, and there IS a little division'.: White (European) and 'mulatto' (creole) values are tradition of the largely unreflective many. The great tradition is cultivated in schools <>r temples: the little tradiuon works itself out and keeps itself gomg m the li~esof the still preferred to black folk values-even by black West Indians ;.~nleneredin their vtllage communities. The tradition of the phtlosopher, theologian. themselves. J nd hterary man is a tradition conscious ly cultivated and handed down: that of the ;i;:le people tS ior the most pan taken for granted and not submitted to much scrutiny or considered refinement and improvement . ... The two traditions are interdependent . . . . ( Roben Redfield. P~asanrSoci~ty and Culture (University of Chtcago Press, 1956), 'SeeM. J. HerskovitS, The .\fyth o/tlr~.V~groPtut (New York, 1941) ; G. A. Beltr:in. "African Influences in the Development oi Regional Cultures in the New World', rn tCJ6~imp., pp .. p-l.) Plantation Svstems, pp. 64-70, with comments by Rene Riberro, pp. 70-1; :\1. G. Smith. 'P .P.• •-9o-r, Vol. XCII (34). no. 746, p . 196: Mark Cook's Evidence. tbtd.. p. 18.1: D::vidson's £,·idence. See also .\lontule. op. cu.. p . .13. Kerr also 'The African Heritage in tt.e Caribbean', Carrbb~anStudi~s:A Symposium . ed. Ver:1 Rubin (Seattle. 1960), pp. 34-4 6, with commentS by G. E. Simpson :tnd Peter B. .:cscn bes \p. 31) present-day btrth-<:ustoms and beliefs. • W. Beckwith. Black Roadways (Chapel Hill. 1919). p. ss. This custom Hammond. pp. 46-53; Roger Bastide, Lu Anririquu Noius (Paris, 1967). \hnha ;oersts\S. See .\1adeline Kerr, Personality and Conflict 111 Jama~ea(London, 195! ), = :\1. G. Snutb. "West lndi:111 Culture' tn Th~Plural Soci~t)!,p. 9. t9b3 ed., p. 19. ' • 214 THE SOCIETY THE 'FOLK' CUL Tt:RE OF TilE ';L.\ VES 215 nine days over. we no hope of them'. 1 Dr. Dancer in his J1edica/ ... To ward off evil spirits. indigo blue is added to the bath .•1nd the fore­ Assistant,: said: 'The negro usage. of tying up the cut Navel-string head marked with a blue cross ... the m1d'' 1ic 0rfers :1 ?rayer before with burnt rag, and never examining it for nine days. is attended bringmg the baby out into the :m. 1 sometimes with bad consequences.' After this period, the child was exposed 'to the inclemency of the weather. with a view to render [him] (i i) Sexual/ Domestic unions hardy'. J But was it as simple and crude as this? Dr. Patterson, in It is a truth well known, that the practice of polygamy, which uni\'crsally discussing the nine-day period of neglect, says it was due to the fear prevails in Africa. is also very generally adopted among the Negroes in the

of tetanus in Jamaica.~On the othe r hand M. J. Field. describing the West Indies; and he who conceives that a remedy may be found for this. birth customs of the Ga people, has this account which corresponds, by introducing among them the laws of marriage as established in Europe, not insignificantly, with the Jamaican experience: is utterly ignorant of their manners, propensities, and superstitions. lt is reckoned in Jamaica, on a moderate computation, that not less than ten After the child is born it is 'kept like an egg' indoors for seven days. It is thousand of such as are called Head Negroes (artificers and oLhcrs) then held to have survived seven dangers, and is worthy to be called a possess from two to four wives., person. On the eighth day very early in the morning, about four o'clock. two But women of the father's family are sent to bring the child from the mother's home, where it was born and where it will be suckled. to its father's house. one only is the object of particular steady attachment; the rest. although The friends and relatives assemble in the yard outside the house for the called wives, are only a sort of occasional concubines. or drudges, whose kpodziem, or 'going-out' ceremony.... assistance the husband claims in the culture of h1s land, sale of Jus produce, ... the child is laid naked on the ground under the eaves .. .. Then the and so on; rendering to them reciprocal acts of friendship, when they are 'godfather' takes water in a calabash and flings it three times on the roof, in want. They laugh at the idea of marriage, which ties two persons to­ so that it trickles down on the child like rain. This is to introduce the child gether indissolubly.J to the rain and to the earth. Then the child as it lies on the ground is blessed .... The child is now a member of the family and has assumed its (iii) Children own name. If it dies before the eighth day it is considered as having never They exercise a kind of sovereignty over their children. which never been born and has no name, but it can die on the ninth day and its father ceases during life; chastizing them sometimes with much severity; and and mother for the rest of their lives be called by its name-· Dede mother', seeming to hold filial obedience in much higher estimation than conjugal 'Tete father.'S fidelity. 4 Martha Beckwith's Black Roadways, in fact, describes a Jamaican I can affirm, that the affections between the mothers and even spurious 'outdooring' observed in the 1920s: offspring are very powerful as well as permanent ... and with respect to The momentous time in an infant's life arrives on the ninth day after birth, black children, nothing is so sure to irritate and enrage them as cursing when for the first time he is taken out of doors. During the first nine days their mothers.... s the mother eats only soft food, like arrowroot, bread, and milk. On the ninth day, a bath is prepared for the child, a little rum thrown into it, and negroes absolutely respect primogeniture; and the eldest son takes an each member of the family must throw in a bit of silver6 'for the eyesight'. indisputed possession of his father's property immediately after his • Lewis. op. cil. (1929 ed.), p. 87. decease....

: Op. cu., p. ~67. J Jamaica Maga=int, Vol. IV (Dec. 1813), no. 6. p. 893. they are in general [so] attached to their families, that the young wiU work • Patterson. op. ctt., p. 155. with cheerfulness to maintain the sickly and the weak. and they are s M. J. Field, Rtligion and Mtdicint Ga Ptoplt (London. 1937: Accr:tiLondon, ... of tht 6 1961), pp. 171 and 173. See also G. Parnnder. Wtsr A/ru:a11 Rt/ifion ... (London, much disposed to pay to age respect and veneration. 1949). pp. 11o-11: Herskovits. .\fyth. pp. 188-9; Dahomey: An Ancmtr IVtsl African Kingdom. : vols. (New York, 1938). Vol. l, pp. 266-7. 1 Beckwith, Black Roadways. pp. 57-8. 'Edwards, op. cit., Vol. II. pp. 175-6. • Yet another West AfriC:ln custom. See, for example. Field, Rtligion and ,\fl!dicine, 1 Long, History, Vol. II, pp. 414-15. • ibid .. p. 414. p. 166, who also Stresses the importance of the initiatory bath. 1 Bickell, op cit. • pp. t7-18. • Beckford, Account, Vol. II, pp. 323-4......

• :16 THE SOCIETY THE 'FOLK' CULTURE OF THE SLAVES 217

(iv) Dcarh. fi merals and burial The manner of the Sacrifice is this: The nearest Relation kiUs (a hog), ~he lntrails are buried, the four Quarters are divided, and a kind of Soup made. 13dorl! burial. a dead person was. if possible. laid out in state: which is brought in a C.1labash or Gourd, and, after waving it Three times. an Jsscmblagc of slaves from the neighbourhood appears: the body it is set down: then the Body is put in the Ground: all the while they are is ornamented with linen and other apparel. which has been previously covering it with Earth, the Attendants scream out in a terrible manner, purchased, .ts is often the custom, for this solemn occasion; and all the which is not the Effect of Grief, but of Joy; they beat on their wooden trmkcts of the derunct are exposed in the coffin .... ' Drums and the Women with their Rattles make a hideous Noise . .. . ' A wake usually took place at this time,' accompanied by what white The dead body's spirit, however, would not yet be at rest. A observers called 'every kind of tumult and festivity':-dirges, period of forty days~had to elapse before this would be accomplished. drumming, horn-blowing in the West African style,> praise-songs for As in parts of West Africa,l therefore, the first burial was considered

the deceased. sacrifices of poultry and libations.~ Interment took temporary, and food was left by the graveside for the succour of the place in ~egroburial grounds, if these were provided by the authori­ 'traveller': ties. 'promiscuously the fields. [near] their near dear or in and and After the Grave is filled up they place the Soup which they had prepared relations at the back of their huts, and sometimes under their beds'.s at the Head, and a Bortle of rum at the Feet .... • According to Lewis, they were There then followed the period of mourning-again West African always buried in their own gardens, and many strange and fantastical in character (though Longs thought that he recognized in it the ceremonies are observed on the occasion. If the corpse be that of a grown Scottish highland 'late-wake'). person, they consult 1t as to which way it pleases to be carried; and they make attempts upon various roads without success, before they can hit \History, Vol. H. p. +11. 'Cf., Field. Religion and .\1edicme. p.!Ol. R:lttroy. ReligiOn and Art in Ashanti (Oxford University Press, 1927). 1954 ed., pp. 167- 1 Long, History, Vol. II. p. 411. • Phillippe, op. ell .. p. !46. 70. For West Afnca generally, see Parrinder, op. cit., pp. I 18. 106-7. 9 Long, History, Vol. II. pp .. p1-2.

~ '

' 2I9 ::r~ THE SOCIETY THE 'FOLK. CULTt:RE OF THE SLAVES did not care !'or therr dead. but merely covered them lightly wnh a Such a possibiiity. however. was not easy for white creoles to acc:pt, little e:trth. : The ·;appy' songs and up-tempo rhythms used when though De Ia Beebe found that returning from the gravesrde also contributed to tlus rmprcssion.' Some negroes entertam ideas of the transmigration of the soul: an old woman on my estate stated her belief that people when they died turned Religious ideas ... into dust like brickdust; that those who behaved ill durmg their lives 'The African negroes of the West rndies,' Stewart wrote, became mules, horses, flies, etc.; but that those who had led a good life were born again, and occupied similar situations to those they had whatever superstitious notions they may bring with them from their previously filled; that blacks would be blacks again, and whites whites.' native country, agree in believing the existence of an omnipotent Being, who will reward or punish us in a future life for our good or evil actions in this .... l Religious practice As Lewis said.: it was difficult to know if the slaves had any real Another writer confirmed this, but went on to assume that this Being religious beliefs or practice, since the only external sign of a 'priest', was not worshipped: was the obeah-man. Lewis was perhaps nearer than he knew to the The Africans all acknowledge a Supreme Being; but they suppose him truth about his slaves' religious beliefs and practices, but he did not un­ endowed with too much benevolence to do harm to mankind, and therefore derstand the function of the obeah-man, since he was associated in the think it unnecessary to olfer him any homage .... • Jamaican/European mind with superstition, witchcraft, and poison.3 But in African and Caribbean folk practice, where religion had not The slaves also believed that been externalized and institutionalized as in Europe. the obeah-man

after death, they shall first return to their native country, and enjoy again was doctor, philosopher, and priest.~Healing was, in a sense. an the society of Jcindred and friends, from whom they have been tom away act of faith, as it was in the early Christian church. and the fetish in an evil hour.... s (suman) had come to mediate (in many instances to replace and This led, as in Africa, to the recognition of the ancestors as active obscure the connection) between man and god. More generally, spirits or forces6 and to the connected belief (or superstition) in however, the fetish was regarded as an attribute or token of the duppies7 and other forms of visible ghosts; 'Monk' Lewis in r8r8 god. Each man was also. in a way not understood by Europeans, having to wonder if his slaves' general resistance to Christian a priest, and through possession (induced by communal dancing to doctrine did not betoken some religious beliefs of their own. s drums) could not only communicate with the gods, but become and assume the god.5 In Jamaica, Black Baptist worshippers were often ' Long, History, Vol. II, p. 421; Phillippo, op. cit., p. 246; Daily Advertiser, 15 Sept. 1790. possessed. as were 'pagan' cultists, and not always under the prompt- ' See Stewart, View, p. 275. A brilliant New Orleans re-creation of a Negro funeral is rendered by Louis Armstrong and his All Stars in 'Oh, didn't he ramble' on the LP ing of drums: New Orleans Days (Brunswick LA 8537), 1950. J Stewart. View, p. :So. ' De Ia Beebe. op. cit .• p. 31. Dr. Field discusses the concept of reincarnation as it • Dr. Winterbotham's 'Account of the Native Africans ... ',quoted in Watson, op. is expressed in the nanung of Ga cluldren in Religion and .\fedicme. pp. 1 N-S· cat.. pp. 15-16 (n.) s Stewart, View, pp. :.So-t. • Op. Cit. (1929 ed.), p. :86. 6 ~Curtin,Two Jamaicas, p. 31 ; Beckwith. Black Roadways. p. 54· 1 See also Marsden. op. ctt., p. 40. Obeah (and myalism) are thoroughly discussed in ·See Lewis, op. cit.. p. 88, and J. G. ~foore,'Religion of Jamaacan Negroes: A Patterson. op. cit.. pp. t85-")S. Afric:~n-denved Study of Afro-Jamaic:~nAcculturation', unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Northwestern • See Field, Search/or Securrty. In the Caribbean, the only function- University (1953), pp. 33- 4: 'When a man is born, be has a personal sptrit and a ary of this type to have received det:uled study is the lroungan of the Vodun ·cult' of duppy spirit. The personal spirit is regarded as a man's personality. where:~sthe duppy Haiti. A useful summary is by H. Courlander :md Remy Basuen. Religion and Politics spirit is [his] shadow.... The duppy sparit, or shadow, remains wath the corpse in the i11 Haiti (Washington D.C .. 1966). For Jamaica see ~loore,op. en.; for Trinidad, grave .. .. When [he] feels that his body has not been buried properly, it is believed that G. E. Simpson, The Shango Cult in Trinidad (Rio Piedras. 1965). l he becomes restless and dissatisfied ... ' For probable African derivation of the word. 1 See Herskovits . .'-!)'th, pp. :1 S-17: J. H. Nketia. 'Possession Dances in African I see F. G. Cassidy, Jamaica Talk (London, 1961), p. :!47; Cassidy and LePage, op. cit.. Societies' in Journal of rhe International Folk ,\(usic Council, Vol. IX (1957), pp. 4-8. p. 164 (Bube, dupe); M. J. Field. Search for Security: An Etlmo-psyclriatric Study of Moore, op. ciL. pp. 76-9. 130 and the discussion in Caribbean Studies: A Symposmm, I Rural Gitana (London. 196ol. p. 44 (Ga-Adangme adope): ana Patterson, op. cit., ed. Vera Rubin (Unaversity of Wa~hingtonPress, 1957). :nd cd. 196o, p. 36 (M. G. I p . .:o,., n. 2. • Lewts, op. cn. (1929 ed.), pp. 286-7. SmJth), pp. 48-"} (Simpson and Hammond). ,...,- - • 22I ~ THE 'FOLK' CULTl.:RE OF THE SLAVES 220 THE SOCIETY nothing could be more light, and playful. and graceful. than the extempore Dunng the sennon. a heathen woman began to twist her body about. movements of the dancing girl. Indeed, through the whole day, l had been and make aU manner of Grimaces. I bore it all for sometime till she struck wtth the precision of their march [Lewis is here describing a Christ­ disturbed the congregation, when 1 desired one oi the assistants to lead her mas carnival], the ease and grace of their action, the elasticity of the1r step, out, thinking she was in pain. When the service was over, 1 inquired what :1nd the loity a1r w1th which they carried their heads.... • ailed her, and was told, that it was a usual thing with the negroes on ~1. estate, and called by them Conviction. • The dances perfonned tonight seldom admitted more than three persons at a time: to me they appeared to be movements entirely dictated by the Music and da11ce caprice of the moment; but I am told that there is a regular figure, and that the le:1st mistake, or a single false step, is immediately noticed by the rest.: Music and dance, though recreational. was functional as well. Slaves, as in Africa, danced and sang at work, at play, at worship, Dancing usually took place, as in Africa, in the centre of a ring of from fear, from sorrow, from joy. Here was the characteristic form spectator-participants, performers entering the ring singly or in twos of their social and artistic expression. It was secular and religious. and threes.J Sometimes male dancers expressed themselves acro­ There was no real distinction ·between these worlds in the way that a batically, 4 but more often, especially at private entertainments, the post-Renaissance European was likely to understand.z And because shuffle step was employed, the dancers stylistically confining them­ this music and dance was so misunderstood, and since the music was selves to a very restricted area indeed.S 'Sometimes there are two based on tonal scales and the dancing on choreographic traditions men dance with one woman; they follow, fan her with their handker­ entirely outside the white observers' experience- not forgetting the chiefs, court her and leave her alternately, and make you understand, necessary assumption that slaves, since they were brutes could pro­ as perfectly as any ballet-dancer in E:.trope, what they mean.'6 duce no philosophy that 'reach(ed] above the navel'l-lheir music As is still the custom in parts of West Africa, where coins are placed was dismissed as 'noise',4 their dancing as a way of (or to) sexual on the forehead of excellent performers, 'presents of ryals [were] misconduct and debauchery.s On the other hand, the 'political' thrust into [the] mouths or bosoms' of dancers who gave particular function of the slaves' music was quickly recognized by their masters satisfaction to the audience, 'some officious negro going round the -hence the banning of drumming or gatherings where drumming circle to keep back intruders' .1 took place6-often on the excuse that it disturbed the (white) Improvisation was also a feature of many of the slaves' songs. neighbours, or was bad for the bondsmen's own health,i or both. ·Guinea Corn' is an excellent example of this genre: On the whole, therefore, the available descriptions of the slaves' Guinea Com, I long to see you music and dancing are picturesque only, though now and then a hint Guinea Com, I long to plant you comes through of grace of form and discipline: Guinea Com, I long to mould you 'John Lang's Diary in (Moravian) Periodical Accounts. Vol. VI (t8t6), p. 364. • Lewis, op. cit.. (1929 ed.), p. 57· ' ibid.• p. 74· This cult. or something very similar was observed m eastern Jam:uca in t956 and 1 A Shorr Journey, Vol. J, p. 88; Stewan, View. pp. 269-70. descnbed by Donald Hogg, in 'The Convince Cult in Jamaica'. Yale University Pub­ • 'performing the most extravagant and hyperbolical saltations'. Campbell, op. en., UcatiotU in Anthropology, no. 58 in Sidney Mintz, comp., Papers in Caribbean Anthro­ p. 16. pology (New Haven, t96o). 1 • ••• two of them generally dance together, and sometimes do not move silt inches • For a discussion of this, see J. B. Danquah. Tile Akan Doctrine of God (London and from the same place'. Marsden, op. cit., p. 34· This of course was 'apart' dancing, the Redhill, t944); Placide Tempels. Bantu Philosophy (Paris, 1959); Daryl\ Forde, 'Intro­ couples not being in any physical contact. This sr;yle IS perhaps the most common form duction' and P. Mercier (trans.) 'The Fon of Dahomey' in African Worlds: Studies in of dancing, certainly among the Akan and related people of West Africa. See R. F. the Cosmological Ideas and Social Values of African Peoples (Oxford Universir;y Press, Thompson, 'An Aesthetic of the Cool: West African Dance', Frudomways, Vol. I[ 1954); JanheinzJahn, Munru: An Outline o/Neo-A/rican Culture (trans. London, t96t), (1966), no. 2, p. 97; and the descripuons in Geoffrey Gorer, Africa Dances (london, pp. 96-1zo: and A History of Neo-African Utuatllre: IVritinrr in Two Continents t93S); J. H. K. Nketia. Folk Songs of Ghana (Uruversity of Ghana. t963). pp. 17-18. (trnns. London, t968), pp. t56-7; Marcel Griaule, Dzeu d'eau (Paris, t948). For comparative work on Negro dancing-mainly religious ritual- tn Africa and the 1 The phrase is from the St. Lucian poet, Derek Walcott. In a Green Night (London, New World. see Pierre Verger. Nous sur le culce des Orisa til Vodtm a Bahia. Ia Bate de t¢2), p. !6. rous les Saints, au Bresil eta l'anczenne Core des Esclaou en Afrique tDakar, t957); • See, forinstance. Edwards, op. cit.. Vol. II. p. to6; Renny, op. cit.. p. t68. Jahn, ."-funru. pp. 62-95; Roger Basude, op. cit., esp. pp. t75-96. 'See. amon& othen, The Diary of William Jones, p. tz; Gardner, op. cit., pp. 99-too. • A Sltorr Journey, Vol. I. pp. 88-9. 'See Laws, Vol. IV, p. 2t6; Stewart. View, p. 272. 1 Columbian Magazine, Vol. II (May t797), p. ;68. 1 See. for instance, 32 Geo. Ill, 23, section 23 (t792).

I "

~,, ' THE 'FOLK' CULTURE Of THE SLAVES --.) :12~ TI!C SOCIETY 1 Guinea Com.llong to weed you while many of them carried on the West African tradition of ridicule. Gumea Com. I long to hoe you Some of these were merely concerned at laughtng at Europeans. like Gumea Com. [long to top you the song Rennyz reported he:uing off Port Royal: Gumea Com. I long to cut you As soon as the vessel in which the author was passenger arrived near to Guinea Corn.llong to dry you Port Royal in Jamaica, a canoe, containing three or four black females, Guinea Corn, I long to beat you came to the side of the ship, for the purpose of selling oranges, and other Guinea Corn.llong to trash you fruits. When about to depart, they gazed at the passengers. whose number Guinea Com, I long to parch you seemed to surprise them: and as soon as the canoe pushed off. one of them Guinea Com, I long to grind you sung the following words, while the other joined in the chorus. clapping Guinea Com, I long to turn you Guinea Corn, I long to eat you' their hands regularly, while it Lasted: 1\ew-come buckra, The climax the song came with the word eaE, when though of 'as He get sick, satiated with the food, or tired with the process for procuring it', He tak fever, the singers bestowed 'an hearty curse on the grain, asking where it He be die came from'.~ He be die Many of these ·impromptu s' were, like ·Guinea Corn' (above) or New-come buckra, etc. like The song, as far as we could hear contained nothing else and they con­ Hipsaw! my deaa! you no do like a-me! tinued singing it, in the manner just mentioned, as long as they were You no jig like a-me! you no twist like a-me! within hearing.l Hipsaw! my deaa! you no shake like a-me! But very often the ridicule was turned as much against the masters You no wind like a-me! Go, yondaa !l as the singers themselves: and If me want for go in a Ebo,

~lecan'tgo there! Ying de ying de ying, Since dem tiei me from a Guinea. Ying de ying de ying, Me can't go there! Take care you go talk oh, Min' you tattler tongue, H me want for go in a Congo, Ying de ying, Me can't go there! Min' you tattler tongue, Since dem tief me from my tatta, Ying de ying, Me can't go there! Min' you tattler tongue, lf me want for go in a Kingston, Ying de ying ... 4 Me can"t go there! songs of entertainment, used in ring games or while dancing. Some Since massa go in a England, songs, on the other hand. had rebellious overtones or intentions,s Me can't go there!•

1 See Columbian Maga;:ine, vol. 11 (May 1797), p. 766. I • ibid., pp. 766-7. ' Moreton, op. cit., p. 156. Or • Walter Jekyll, Jamaican Song and Story (London, 1907), reprint, New York, 1966, p. 38. This IS a 'modem' song; there IS no evidence of its havmg been sung dunng the • See. for e"tample. Theodore Van Dam, "The intluence of the West Afric:m Songs oi penod of this study, though it. or some vers1on oi it. may well have been. But as Jekyll Oens1on in the New World'.1n African .\fusic,'Vol.l. no.llt954), pp. 53-6. himself potnts out, 'These songs however inaccurately recorded. are of the greatest : Op. Cit., p. 24t. I value for the hint they give us of Jama1can music as it eJUsted over two centunes ago 1 What is surprising here IS that Renny did not nouce and cenainly did not comment (ibid .. p. :83). "Ying de ying' is in imitation of fiddle strings. on this soog's derisive 1ntent. \ ' See pp. 208, ltl, above. • Moreton, op. cit., p. 1 53· I ' ~.:q THE SOCIETY TilE 'FOLK' CULTURE OF THE SL.\V(S ::!~5 Sarragree kill de capJain. 0 the dead greet her 0 dear, he must die; The gal who greets the dead :\ew rum kill de sailor. They all come tall to greet her 0 dear. he must die: The black ancestors from the water Hard work kill de neger. '\lanuka of the spirits greets her. • 0 dear, he must die. La, Ia, Ia, Ia As in Africa. these songs were usually built on a statement and La, Ia, Ia, Ia ... • response pattern and except for work and digging songs. were and customarily the province of women: z Bun-go Moo-lat-ta, Bun-go Moo-lat-ta, The style of singing among the negroes, is uniform: and this is confined to Who de go married you? the women; for the men very seldom, excepting upon extraordinary You hand full a ring occasions, are ever heard to join in chorus. One person begins first, and An' you can't do a t'ing.: continues to sing alone; but at particular periods the others JOin: there A closer approximation to the African character of slave songs, is not, indeed, much variety in their songs; but their intonation is not less perfect than their time.J however, may be observed in this phonetic transcription of a cumina invocation recorded by a field researcherJ in the Morant Bay area of St. Thomas (in-the-East)-+ in the early 1950s. Cumina is a lvfusica/ instruments memorial ceremony for calling down ancestral spirits and African These were almost entirely African. There were flutes: from the

gods and is similar to, say, L·odun, in Haiti. long bassoon-like ·Caramantee flute',~to the small ':Ylaroon' s nose­ Tange lange Jeni di gal eva flute;6 the abenghorn; a mouth violin or 'bender'7 (Twi: benta'); the Wang lang mama o banjo (banja or bangil) ;8 a box (tambourine) filled with pebbles, Di le k:uwidi pange le 'which they shake with their wrists' ;9 the rookaw' 0 and scraper So-so lange widi gal (similar instruments), 11 corrugated sticks across which were (and are)

So-so lange marna o rubbed a plain stick;'~jenkovi ng (from the Ga kofen)I3 'which is a Owot kuqelaa zombi di gal obk way of clapping their Hands on the Mouth of two Jars'; I+ and the 0 widi pange le 'jawbone': rs the lower jaw of a horse, 'on the teeth of which, a piece Gal :>mot widi pange le of wood [was] passed quickly up and down, occassioning [sic] a Di lekonak:unda pange lange e Di b woto widingga le ' My interpretation. Moore's translation (op. cit., p. 175) is as follows: 'Dancing Monub di b kuwidi pange le.' erect, tall Jenny/Ever walling tall and erect,JDead mama.(rhe person all the dead ( widi) call [ku) to greet [pange)/Like clean water [so-so; Twi: nso) of the dead, this girl,/ Dance lal.l Jenny gal Clean, clearwater, dead mama,/ Oh what a day of the gods1When th1s girl is greeted by the dead/Who all greet her./ They who all come [konakundaf, erect,,Greeung her.;Who Walk tall mama o would like to carry her away with them,/Even Manuka of the calling spirits/Comes to The dead come to greet you greet her.' The full text of the song, in ~oore'stranslation, is reproduced in Appendix Water long like the dead, gal IV. • See Nketia, Folk Songs, p. 16; Ftu~ralDirges, p. 8: Lew1s, op. cit. (19~9ed.), p. 74· Water long, mama o 1 Beckford, Accounr, Vol. II, p. 1: 1. See also L.VJ (Cundall), pp. 65-6. Look how the spirits look on the gal there • Beckford, Account. p. 387. s Cassidy, op. cat.. p. 264. • LNJ, Cundall, p. 101. 1 Beckford, Accounr, Vol. II. p. 387. • Leslie, op. cu., p. 310; Cassady and Le Page, op. cit., p. ::6. ' P!tillippo, op. cit. . p. 189. Surragree (sangaree) is a drink composed of lemon, water. and red wane. 9 Beckford, Account, Vol. li, p. 3S;. ' 0 Leslie, op. cit., p. 310. " See Cassidy and Le Page, op. cit., .P 385. " ibid., p. 396. • Jekyll, op. cu., p. us. l Moore, supra. cir., p. 218, n. 7. • See Map r. s Moore, op. cit., p. 174. ,, ibid., p. ::45. ,. Leslie, op. cat., p. 310 . •s Beckford, Account, Vol. li, p. 387. Qcs

~ _.._ ~

~ :!:!6 THE SOCIETY THE 'FOLK' Ct:LTt:RE OF THE SL \ VES

t rattling noise·.' .Above all. there were the various drums: the cotter~ and filled with beads, shots or gravel' used, as in African music. or cotta. the Eboe (lbo) drum. the bon or panya (played with sticks), as a ki nd of metronome. the gomba3 (goombah.· _6umbie or goombays played with the It was 10 this area of most intense ·culture focus'.: however. that. hands.6 One commentator claims that the gomba. goombah and paradoxically ( ?), the greatest amount of ~realizationtook place. goombay were ditTerent drums.- Btll this seems unlikely, though it As Stewart observed in I 823 :

is possible that the word 'gomba' (conga'? congo?) might have been [n a few years it IS probable that the rude mus1c here described will be alto­ applied generically to a certain kind of dance drum. In any case, there gether exploded among the creole negroes, who shew a decided preference are conflicting descriptions of the gomba. In Jfarly it appears played for European music. Its instruments. its runes, its dances. are now pretty with ·a single stick'. s The! confusion seems to have started with generally adopted by the young crcoles, who indeed sedulously copy their Long, (usually reliable in description). His is the first extant descrip­ masters and mistresses in every thing. A sort of subscription balls are set tion of the gomba.9 But what he appears to have described is the on foot, and parties of both sexes assemble and dance country dances to gomba ('tabor') and a kind of etwie drum 'which is played by rubbing the music of a violin, tambarine, etc.l the drum head with a stick': ro But a distinction must be made here between public slave entertain­ The goombah . . . is a hollow block of wood, covered with sheep-skin ment, like Christmas 'John Canoe' processions and the balls des­ stripped of its hair. The musician holds a little stick, of about six inches in cribed by Stewart, and the more intransigent 'cult' observances of length, sharpened at one end like the blade of a knife, in each hand. With the slaves that were necessarily secret. or ar any rate, private, and one hand he rakes it over a notched piece of wood, fixed across the instru­ which centred around the drum. It was thjs drumming, which the ment, . . . whilst a second performer beats with aU his might on the sheep­ authorities and the missionaries tried unsuccessfully to eradicate by skin, or tabor." legislation and persuasion, respectively, which retained and trans­ mitted important and distinctive elements African1folk culture Belisario's description (in view of the modern equivalent) is probably of 4 more accurate: into the period after Emancipation.

Creolization Private entertainments [A) small square wooden frame. over which a goat's skin is tightly Dec 24, 1812 Being Christmas-eve, our evening-service was attended by most of our strained ... , and being briskly struck several times in quick succession people from Elim, Two-mile-wood. Lancaster, and this place [Bogue]. with one hand, and once only with the other, produces a sound with ... The glad tidings of great joy [were] heard with great attention but little vibration :-it is supported by a Bass-drum: very unlike that in the ...... [But] Scarcely was our worship closed, before the heathen negroes on the band at the 'Horse-Guards' in London .... " estate began to beat their drums, to dance, and to sing, in a most outrageous There were also various rattles ('Shaky-shekies and Kitty-katties'), r; manner. The noise lasted all night, and prevented us from falling asleep. made of gourds or cylindrical tin boxes, 'pierced with small holes, Dec 25,1812 1 I. M. Belisario, Sketches of Cltaracur in Illustration of the Habtts, Occupations and After breakfast, I went down and begged the negroes to desist, but their Costume of the Negro Population in the Island of Jamaica, 3 parts (Kingston, 1837-8), explanation to Plate 3. answer was: 'What, Massa, are we not to dance and make merry at • Beckford. Account. Vol. ll, p. 387. • ibid. Christmas. We always did so.' I represented to them that this was not the • Long, History, Vol. II, pp. 423-4. ' Lew1s. op. cit. (1929 ed). p. 74. footnote to 'French Set-Girls'. s Michael Scott, Tom Cringle's Log (Paris, 1836), p. ttz. , See Melville J. Herskovrts, ·Problem. Method and Theory in Afroameric:ln 6 ibid., Beckford. Accoum, Vol. H. p. 387. Studies' (1945), reprinted in The New World Negro (lndi:1na University Press, 1966), 1 SeeR. Wright, op. ciL, pp. 235-6. • .''>!arty,p. 46. pp. 43-6 t; .M. J. and F. S. Herskovits, Trinidad Village (~ewYork. 1947), p. 6. • Cassidy and LePa ge. op. Cll., p. :oz. l SteW:lrt. View, p. 27~. 10 J. H. Nketia, Drummmg in Akan Communities of Ghana (University of Ghana. • See. for instance. J. G. Moore :10d G. E. Simpson, 'A Compar:~tiveStudy of 1963). p. 18. Acculturation in Morant Bay and West Kingston'. Zaire (1957, 1958), nos. 11, 12; " Long, History, Vol. II, p. 423. " Beli.sario, op. cit., as at n. 1, above. G. E. Simpson. 'Jama.ican Rev1valist Cults, Social and Eco11omic Smdies, Vol. v (1956), •• Lewis, op. cit. (1929 eel.), p. 74. no . .J; :tnd The Shango Cult in Trinidad. ------·------

" ::3 THE SOCIETY THE 'FOLK' CULTURE OF THE SL \\ ES ~::!9 way w celebrate the birlh of our Saviour. and expressed my surpnse, that basis of the various ·cults' that were to emerge after Emanc:pation. luvmg he:1rd the word of God for so many ye:u-s, they still continued their \I any creole slaves and the bulk of the free people. ''n the other !land. :1cathemsh customs. But all I could say was in vain .... 1 tended to be grateful for the seasonal licence and encouragement1

given them publicly by the white Establishment. and so rc~-"~nnded Dec 26. 1813 These Christmas rejoicings among the negroes have certainly a very bad enthusiastically to the occasion: influence, even among Christian negroes, several of whom will find excuses The Negroes enjoy the time from Christmas to new-Ycar's-day as holid,1ys for joining in what they call an innocent dance .... ; and the streets were now crowded with splendid processions, or choaked up with crowds of dancers .... Their processions are really elegant, but as far 'Crop-over'J and the 'Habit of rambling to what are called Negro as I could learn, they consisted principally of free ):iegroes. (The author is Plays. or nocturnal Assemblies',4 the annual yam festivaJ,s and here writing of the North Coast, a dense plantation area.] They were well wrestling,6 were also among the entertainments of African origin in attired in muslins and silks, accompanied with bands of music. They walked this category, as were games of chance like warri (Twi: ware; Fante: arm in arm, males and females. Sometimes a female with a good voice sung

31~·are)which, like the musical jnstruments described above, survived a song, and the whole procession joined in the chorus. They earned. at the :Middle Passage.' certain intervals. large artificial trees, stuck full of burning tapers. They usually made a halt at the doors of the wealthier inhabitants, and after Public entertainments chanting some stanzas in praise of the occupant, received ... gratuity in These took place during the legal seasonal holidays: Christmas, money! Easter, and Whitsun. They took the form, usually of street proces­ Perhaps because of these factors (participation by the free groups, sions with music, dancing and costumes as in the Trinidad8 and Establishment encouragement), public entertainments in the island sirrular carnivals in the Catholic Caribbean today. As in Carnival, became increasingly orientated (externally, at least) towards Euro­ these entertainments were a brilliant fusion of African and European pean forms (silks, muslins, bands of music); at the same time reflect­ elements, deriving their energy and motifs. not from Catholicism in ing the unquestionably creole colour/class divisions of the society. In Protestant Jamaica. but f10m Africa, where many of their prototypes the various costumed bands, for instance, can still be observed, especially in the festivals of the coastal towns the colours were never blended in the same set- no blackie ever interloped and villages. with the browns, nor did the browns in any case mix with the sables­ fn Jamaica, these Carnivals (Belisario uses the word)9 rapidly always keeping in mind-black woman-brown lady) became the cultural expression, par excellence, of the creole slaves and the free blacks and coloureds, rather than of the African or 'new' This process of creolization from African motif to something local Negroes. The 'new' Negroes influenced by their African Great but (externally) European-influenced may be studied in the develop­ masked (masque) bands like Canoe.4 Edward Tradition, tended to regard festivals as essentially religious in nature, ment of the John and so kept them secret (or as secret as possible); thus formjng the Long, writing just before the beginning of our period, described this manifestation as follows: • John Becker's Diary in (Moravi an) Pusonal Accounrs. Vol. V ( 1812), pp. 332-3. • ibid., Vol. VI (1813), p. Sz. '.\farlv, p. 47. In the towns, during Christmas holidays, they have several tall robust • P.P., Vol. LXXXIV (:6), 1789, J30laica A. no. 11, Fuller. Long, Chisbolme fellows dressed up in grotesque habits, and a pair of ox-horns on their Evidence. s Bickell. op. cit., p. 232; Lewts, op. cit., p. 105. ' Leslie, op. cit., p. 310. head, sprouting from the top of a horrid sort of vizor, or mask. which 1 Edwards. op. cit .. Vol. II, p. 142. For warri in West Africa, see the article by G. T . about the mouth is rendered very terrific with large boar-tusks. The mas­ Bennett in Rattray, R~ligionand Art, pp. 382-90. For ·Wari 1n the New World', see querader, carrying a wooden sword in his hand, is followed with a M. J. Herskovits, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Jn~titllle(1932), no. 62, pp. 23-)7. • Lewis, op. cit. (1929 ed.), p. 71. >Campbell, op. cit .. p. 16. 1 For this, see Don:J.Id Wood. Trlmdad in Transition: Th~Years aftu Slavery (Oxford 1 Scott, op. cit., p. 166. Universtty Press. 1968), pp. 243-7; and the special Carnival Issue of Cartbbean • Kerr, op. cit.. pp. 143-4. A good summary account of John C.1noe ts in Cassidy, Quarterly, Vol. IV (1956), nos. 3 and 4. op. cit., pp. 2.5~1.Beckwil.b (Black Roadways, pp. 150-5), descnbes certain modem • Belisario. op. cit., note on •Jaw-Bone, or House John-Canoe'. developments and syncretisms within the form. THE 'FOLK' CULTURE OF THE SLAVES 231 ~ 230 THE SOCIETY Sets.' Golderr Sets. Velvet Sets, Garnet Ladies, etc.:; and each set numerous croud oi drunken women (sic], who refresh him frequently with represented some variation of the society"s complexity of colour: a sup of aniseed-water, whilst he dances at every door, bellowing out John Connu! with great vehemence .. .. This dance is probably an honourable They danced along the streets, in bands of from fifteen to thiny. There memorial of John Conny, a celebrated cabocero at Tres Puntas, in A~im, were brown sets, and black sets, and sets of all the intermediate gradations on the Guiney 1 coast: who flourished about the year 1710.z oi colour.[The girls in each] set (were] dressed pin for pin alike. and carried umbrellas or parasols oi the same colour and size, held over their nice In 1769 'several new masks appeared; the Ebos, the Pawpaws, etc., showy, well-put-on toques, or Madras handkerchiefs, all of the same having their respective Connus, male and female ... .'> By 1815, how­ pattern. tied round their heads, fresh out of the fold.- They sang. as they ever, when 'Monk' Lewis was writing his Jamaica Journal, this swam along the streets, in the most luxurious attitudes . .. beautiful creatures 'primitive' Connu had been creolized into ... elegant carriages, splendid figures,-full, plump, and magnificent.l a Merry-Andrew dressed in a striped doublet, and bearing upon his head a Here, too, it was the brown girls who predominated. with their 'clear kind of pasteboard house-boat, filled with puppets, representing, some olive complexions, and fine faces'.~These, at least. were the ones sailors, others soldiers, others ag;tin slaves at work on a plantation ...• ~ most noticed, representing as they did~the Euro-tendency of this while De la Beche ( 182 5) records an even further stage in the process: part of creole society. I was much amused on Easter Monday by a party which came to my house First marched Britannia; then came a band of music; then the flag; then from a neighbouring property, consisting of musicians, and a couple of the Blue King and Queen-the Queen splendidly dressed in white and personages fantastically dressed to represent kings and warriors; one of silver ... his Majesty wore a full British Admirars uniform, with a white them wore a white mask on his face, and a part of the representation had satin sash, and a huge cocked hat with a gilt paper crown upon the top evidently some reference to the play of Richard the Third; for the man in of it... . s the white mask exclaimed, horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!'S 'A Jack-in-the-Green and the May-pole dance (using a 'spike of the In true Carnival spirit, however, yellow flowers of the American aloe· as pole),6 were also popular forms of public amusement by the end of our period. These were The piece . . . terminated by Richard killing his antagonist, and then posH807 developments, reflecting the cutting off of demographic figuring in a sword dance with him.6 and cultural renewal from Africa, and the increasing influence of The most beautiful moment in these seasonal festivities came, those browns and privileged blacks who could afford to spend time perhaps, with the procession of the Red and Blue 'Set Girls', and money on costumed processions, and who wished, or tended, to originating, according to Lewis, in the Red and Blue divisions of the imitate European models in these matters. Royal Navy, and coming later to represent the English (Red) and But the African influence remained. even if increasingly submerged, Scots (Blue) in Kingston and elsewhere.7 There were also French as an important element in the process of creolization. European adaptations imitations could never whole-heaned complete. • Gold. or be or 1 Long, History, Vol. II, p. 4::4. For John Conny, see John Atkins, A Voyage to There might be apparent European forms, but the conter.t would be Guinea. Brazil. and the West Indies (London. 1735), pp. 75-8. Dnnces similar in form to different. There was developing a European-orientated creole form that described by Long may be seen dunng fesuvals in Nzima (Axim) and Fante coastal

towns in Ghann today. For Ni~:eria,see Afolabi Ojo, op. cit., pp. 176-7. (Euro-creole) and an African-influenced creole form (Afro-creole); • Long, History, Vol. II, p. 425. • Lewis, op. cit. (1929 ed.), p. 53· 1 De Ia Beche, op. cit., p. 4Z. ' ibid. for the date. In the 1780s, according to Clowes (The Royal .Vacy: A History ... , 1 '[t seems that, many years ngo, an Admiral of the Red was superseded on the London, 1898, 5 vols., Vol. III, pp. 537, 565-6) there was a change-over from White Jamaica station by an Admiral of the Blue; and both of them gave balls nt Kingston to (Rodney) to Red (Pigot). For this and other issues connected with the provenance oi the "Brown Girls"; for the fair sex elsewhere are called the "Brown Girls" in Jamaica. Jamnic:m folk culture. see my review of The Soctology of Slavery in Race, Vol. ix In con$equence of these balls, all Kingston was divided mto parties: from thence the (1968), no. ), pp. 337-4 1. division spread into other distncts: and ever stnce, the whole island at Christmas, is • Belisnno, op. cu. 'Columbian Magari11e, Vol. iii (Oct. 1797), p. :88. separated into the nval factions of the Blues nnd the Reds .. .' (Lewis, op. cit., t929 • Scott, op. cit., p. :65. • ibid. ed., p. 54). Orlando Patterson (op. cu., p. 239) places this change-over from Blue to 1 Lewis, op. cu. (1929 cd.), p. S5· • De Ia Beche, op. cit.. p .. p. Red, and hence the beginning of Set Girls, to the 178os, but does not cite his authoritY ~

' -.>-''" T HE SOCIETY THE 'FOLK' CULTURE OF THE SLAVES 233 .. nd they cxistec :ogether within. often. the same framework. It was a all times, twisting one or two handkerchiefs round it, in the turban 1 '\~!gro liddh:r \Yho usually led the costumed bands; and it was the form ... ', and at festivals, according to Lewis,: they tended to dress

mus1c of 'nc~r0edrums . the sound oi the pipe and tabor, negroe in white-an Akan colour of celebr:nion;l though Christian mis­ llutes. gombns :llld jawbones·, 1 that moved them along. There were sionary influence cannot be ruled out here. They also appeared dur­ also l.1rge areas o l public entertainment that remained intransigently ing their holidays, according to Lewis, 'decked out with a profusion .\frican or Afro-,;reole. Those bands, for instance, who continued to of beads and corals, and gold ornaments of all descriptions'.• Jramatize or satirize aspects of the slave society-their and their Where the gold came from is not indicated or suggested. Is it possible

masters' condition.~Outside the sets and masquerades, large groups that it could have been smuggled over on slave ships and accumulated

of slaves 'from different districts. in Guinea' wandered about, over the years in the island? Writing of St. Vincent, ~[rs.Carmichael 'diverting themselves with their own peculiar singing, instruments and noted that dances'.; The real value of their jewellery is considerable; it consists of many gold Dress ear-rings, and rings upon their fingers. Coral necklaces, and handsome gold chains, lockets, and other ornaments of this description.J The general Clothing in Jamaica is what is called Osnaburgh Linen. On every well-regulated Estate, the annual Allowance is from Ten to Twenty Besides the usual ear-rings and necklaces, the slave beiJes produced yards to every :Vlan; from Seven to Fifteen Yards to every Woman; and African-influenced creole decorations of their own: in proportion to the younger People. To every Negro, a Worsted Cap, Bonnet, or Hat, besides a Woollen Jacket, or Welch Blanket, to the Men; the women have at different times used as beads, the seeds of Jobstears, and a Petticoat and Blanket to the Women. The Petticoat is on many liquorice, and lilac: the vertebrae of the shark; and lately red sealing wax, Est:ltes of Perpetuana; a Quantity of common Check Linen is given on which in appearance nearly resembles coral. Sometimes they sportively some Estates to the principal Negroes, such as Boilers, Drivers, Waggoners affix to the lip of the ear, a pindal or ground nut, open at one end; at other and Tradesmen: and several of our Planters furnish Handkerchiefs, times they thrust through the hole bored for the ear-ring, the round yellow Knives, Scissors. Thread, Needles, and short Tobacco Pipes. The Jamaica flower of the opopinax.... ;6 law enjoins sufficient Clothing to be given, and inflicts a Penalty on such Owners as disobey that Injunction. In general, the Negroes in Jamaica are while many slaves proudly displayed their tribal marks well clothed; and there are very few Sugar Estates where the ~egroesdo with a mixture of ostentation and pleasure, either considering them as not from their own private Earnings provide themselves with extra Oothes highly ornamental, or appealing to them as testimonies of distinction for Sunday and Holidays ... (from] Africa; where, in some cases, they are said to indicate free birth and In some houses, male domestics wore 'a coarse linen frock which honourable parentage.7 buttons at the neck & hands, long trowsers of the same, a checked Under ~lavery,needless to say, these marks were supplemented with shirt, & no stockings' .s Servant maids appeared usually in' cotton or planters' initials on the shoulder or breast, stamped into the flesh 'by striped Holland gown[s]' ;6 though of course there was often con­ means of a small silver brand heated in the flame of spirits .. .'.8 siderable variation between house and house, estate and estate, and Hair style was presumably 'Afro' or plaits, many females taking town and country.7 'great pleasure in having their woolly curled Hair, cut into Lanes or Slave women. as in Africa, were 'fond of covering [their head] at • Long, History, Vol. II, pp. 412-13. 1 Op. cit. ( 1929ed.). pp. 53, 69. 'As for n. 2, p. 231, above. J See Field, R~/igionand Medicin~. p. 172 n. 1; R. S. Ramay , A.slrantr (Oxford, 1923). • See Scott, op. cit.. p. 265. P:tuJe Marshall in her novel. The Chosen Place, The p. 1 sS and passim. It is not intended, by the use of these mrunly GaiAkan sourt:es. to Timeless People (New York, 1969) constructs, for a modern Barbados Carnival. a imply that Jamaican slaves came only or mainly from what is now Ghana. For ::1 dramatizing proc.ession (pp. 28

~ THE SOCIETY :3-t THE 'FOLK' CULTURE OF THE SLAVES 135 Walks as the Parterre a Garden ·.r of ... ' as is still done in West shape of slates, and used as a substitute for them) 1 were in e\ idence on Africa.: the roofs. Slave children. as children in West Africa still do. wore 'party­ Of furniture they have no great matters to boast. nor, considering their coloured beads tied round the1r loins·.; Sandals, 'cut from an ox­ habits of life, is much required. The bedstead is a platform of boards. and 1 hide, which they bind on with thongs', were also worn on occasion the bed a mat, covered with a blanket.~ by adults. In general, however, slaves went barefoot and many of ~{anyslav es, in fact, slept the floor ground, causing a wit to them, especially 'new' Africans and field slaves when working, were on or remark they don go to bed, they simply go to sleep.J Other described as being naked or almost naked.s As in Africa, babies were that 't items inside the house included often carried 'ty'd to their [mothers'] Backs, in a Cloth [used for that] purpose, one Leg on one side, and the other on the other of their a small table; two or three low stools; an earthen jar for holding water; a Mother'.6 few smaller ones; a pail; an iron pot; calabashes of different sizes (serving very tolerably for plates, dishes, and bowls) .. . .4 Houses and Furniture According to the slave laws,.s certainly for the towns, slave huts, for The cottages of the Negroes usually compose a small village, the situation control and security reasons, were not supposed to have more than of which, for the sake of convenience and water, is commonly near the one window door. This, plus the very limited height the struc­ buildings in which the manufacture of sugar is conducted. They are seldom and of placed with much regard to order, but, being always intermingled with ture, meant that little more than sleeping could be enjoyed inside the fruit-trees, particularly the banana, the avocado-pear, and the orange (the houses. 'Cookery', relaxing, story-telling, singing, etc., were all Negroes' own planting and property) they sometimes exhibit a pleasing and 'conducted in the open air'.6 picturesque appearance.7 This account of their accommodation, however, is confined to the lowest In general, a cottage for one Negro and his wife, is from fifteen to twenty among the field-negroes: tradesmen and domes ticks are in general vastly feet in length, and divided into two apartments. It is composed of hard better lodged and provided. Many of these have larger houses with boarded posts driven into the ground, and interlaced with wattles and plaister. The floors, and are accommodated (at their own expence it is true) with very height from the ground to the plate being barely sufficient to admit the decent fumiture:-a few have even good beds, linen sheets, and musquito owner to walk in upright. The floor is of narural earth, which is commonly nets, and display (such was the progress of their creolization] a shelf or dry enough, and the roof thatched with palm ... , or the leaves of the two of plates and dishes of queen's or Staffordshire ware.7 cocoa-nut-tree; an admirable covering, forming a lasting and impenetrable The making of these houses was, as in a great deal of public Negro shelter both against the sun and the rain. s activity, communaJ.8 Ingenuity and improvisation, as is so often the By the end of our period, some of these huts were boarded, instead of case in 'pre-industrial' situations, went into their construction-skills wattle and daubed; and shingles ('wood split and dressed into the which were also applied to the building of plantation houses. The 1 Sloane, op. cit., Vol. I, p. liv. wood used in building, for instance, was often first burnt to prevent • See, for example, Boris de Rachewiltz, Black Eros (trans. London, 1964), photo. it from rotting. When nails could be easily obtained, a notch was facing p. 240. not J Scott, op. cit., p. 124. cut in the top of each post to receive the wall-plates, 'bestowing very • Long, History, Vol. II, p. 412. little labour on any of their timber, except squaring one or two l See for instance, 'An accurate Account of whatever has appeared most remarkable [in Jama1ca) ... ' in The Uniuersal .'ll(aga=ine, Aprilt773, p. 172. sides' .9 The beams which crossed the wall-plates were held in their • Sloane, op. cit., Vol. I, p.lU. According to Sloane, the carrying of babies in this fashion accounted for the flatness of Negro noses and the broadness of Amerindian 1 Stewart. View, p. ~66. :Edwards, op. cit.. Vol. II. p. 164. o-p. faces (ibid.). See also Lewis, cit. (t929 ed.), p. 273, where the cloth slipped.... ' Sloane, op. cit.. Vol. I. p. XXXI. • Edwards, op. Cit., VoL II, p. 164. 1 Edwards, op. cit., Vol. 11, p. 163. 'See 35 Geo. Ill. c. 5 of 1795, for ~omegoBay. • ibid., p. 164. Stewart (View, p. 266) adds that the branches the mountain cab­ of • Edwards, op. cit., Vol. II, p. t64. 1 ibid., p. 165. bage. a palm. durable for 3o-4o years, were also used. A pan from this detail. however. 1 See Bickell. op. cit., p. 201. Stewart's account of slave houses echoes Edwards's almost "ord for word. 9 Columbian Maga:ine, Vol. Ill (Sept. t797). p. :so. .,.,-- - --~ . ~ v 236 THE SOCIETY THE 'FO LK' CULTURE OF THE SLAVES 137 proper position by notches at the end where they overlapped. A Language ridge pole was placed in the forks of the uprights. at the ends and It was in language that the slave was perhaps most successfully middle of the structure. The rafters, often of sweet-wood 1 were imprisoned by his master, and it was in his (mis-)use of it that he 'ftatten'd at the upper ends and connected in pairs by wooden pins·.~ perhaps most effectively rebelled. 1 Withm the folk tradiuon. language The laths were bound to the rafters by strong withes, easily obtained was (and is) a creative act in itself; the word: was held to contain from the surrounding woods. a secret power, as 'Monk' Lewis discovered one day on his estate:

The structure being thus far completed, the next concern is furnishing the The other day, ... a woman, who had a child sick in the hospital, begged sides with wattles ... . Between every two posts in the wall, a small stick is me to change its name for any other which might please me best: she cared placed perpendicularly & another nailed on each side of every post. The not what; but she was sure that it would never do well so long as it should wattles are placed alternately; both ends of one bending inward, the next be called Lucia.l in a contrary direction. The interstices among the wattles are filled with 'Perhaps', Lewis speculated, clay and earth, into which some fibres of dried plantain leaves are rubbed to render the same more cohesive; and both the surfaces of the wall this prejudice respecting the power of names produces in some measure plaistered smoothly with the same composition: the whole is white washed their unwillingness to be christened. 4 when the mountain affords lime stone and the owner will be at trouble to bum it; otherwise the surface is left of its natural colour, a pale reddish Lewis, like most Europeans in Jamaican slave society, was really yellow, red, or gray, as the loam employed in plaistering happens.l unable to conceive of the possibility that the slaves did not wish to be christened because they had their own a/ternariz:e to Christian­ Where hinges were unobtainable, un-dressed leather straps or ity. The Bantu concept of nommo was unknown to him, though he wooden pivots were used. Locks, keys and bolts could also be made did recognize that some principle of belief was at work. of wood. In the kitchen, which, as pointed out earlier, was out of They find no change produced in them (by Christianity], except the altera­ doors, the trivet for supporting cooking-pots was replaced (as it still tion of their name, and hence they conclude that this name contains in it is in many rural areas) by three large stones. Ovens were made 'by some secret power; while, on the other hand, they conceive that tht' ghosts . scooping hollows in perpendicular sides of a bank; and covered with of their ancestors cannot fail to be offended at their abandoning an a shade of sticks & leaves to keep off rain. By frequent heating the appellation, either hereditary in the family, or given by themselves.S cavity acquired sufficient hardness to answer its intention'. 4 Where It is interesting to observe, though, how nommo was quickly creolized the in-door householder used shelves, the •kitchen-garden cook' had by Anancy into a secular device to avoid responsibiliry. This may be to improvise with forked sticks placed in the ground. An earthen wares illustrated with the instance of the slave who, after having been water jar hung from the 'stem of a small tree with three prongs, baptized by a missionary, declared (the story is no doubt apocryphal, fixed in one corner of [the] house'.6 The water-{;up (and one can still but it serves its turn): remember using these as a small boy) was a calabash, or small coco­ nut shell, with a stick thrust through the sides. There were also 'Me is new mao now; befo me name Quashie, now me Thomas, derefo calabashes, gourds, wooden plates, and bowls, yahbas (Twi: ayawa; Thomas no pay Quashie debt. IS earthenware vessels, crudely glazed, coming in all sizes), and the • This point is ni~Jymade by Carlos Fuentes in a letter to the Editor of The Times wooden mortar for pounding Indian corn,' plantain, etc., into juju Literary Supplement no. 3455 of r6 May 1969, p. 505, about Styron·s Conjessrons. See and tumtum. s also Jahn, .Yeo-African Literature, pp. !4o-2. For spc:ctalist treatment of Jamntc:ln creole, see Cassidy, op. cit.; Cassidy and LePage, op. cit.; Beryl L. Bailey, Jamaican Creol~Synra:c. A Transformational Approach (Cnmbridge, 1966); R. B. Le Page and ' Lewis, op. ciL ( 1929 ed.), p. 97. • Columbian Ma~a:ifll!,Vol. Ill, p. :.so. D. De Camp, Cr~ol~lAnguag~ Studiu. No. 1: Jamaican Creole (London. 196o). 'ibrd . • rbid. ' Edwards, op. cit., Vol. II. p. 164. • Jahn . •~funru, pp. Jll-55· 1 lewis, op. cit. (1919ed.), p. 290. 'Co lumbian Maga:ine, Vol. JJI, p. 252. 1 Stewart, View, p. :.67. • ibid., ' ibtd., pp. 29(>-1. 1 For rhese, see Cassidy, op. cit., pp. 192-J. 6 Phillippo, op. en., p. 203

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f THE 'FOLK' CULTt:RE OF TH E SLAVES :!.39 :38 THE SOC;ETY ' The Rt:v. G. W. Bridges recognized and analysed another J.spect of This language attained its freest expression 10 the folk tales, many, Iromnw :n discussing the power of Negro preachers over the1r but not all, ieaturing the Akan spider-hero. Ananse, and knO\\n in congregations: the island as Anancy stories. Stories involving magtc and rivers. and

featuring spirit persons like the River ~{aidor Water ~1ama,'were so susceptible are the Africans of the influence of that art which variously I. (and are) also very common. since these elements ~·magic·and rivers .ufectS the mind by the mysterious power of sound, ... they will scarcely in flood) play such an important part in the life of the folk. g1ve any .utemion to a religious instructor who possesses a harsh or dis­ , cordant voice. Every good speaker, independently of the softness of his an, a so dem do. Dem kal de gya1, an she come. An im seh, Yu nyaam me . tOnes. raises and lowers them in strict musical intervals; so that, in fact, peas today? Him seh, nuo rna, me no eat non. Him se, a'right, come, we his discourse IS as capable of being noted in musical characters as any go down a gully ya. We wi' find out. Him tek de gal an im go dow11 a de melody whatever, becoming disagreeable only when those intervals ear gully. An when goin down to de gully, im go upan im !aim tree, an im pick uniformly the same, or when the same intonations are used to express trii !aim. Im guo in a irn fowl nest, im tek trii eggs. Him guo in a geese nest, 1 sentimentS of the most opposit~import. im tek trii. Das nine egg. An im tek trii dok eggs, mek wan dozen egg! An im staat, an haal im sword, an im go doun a de gully. An im go doun in a 'Of this qualification', the Negro congregations, with their African di gully. Him pu' down de gyal in a di lebl drai gully, an seh, See background of tonal speech (though Bridges did not know and ya! tan op dey. Me de go tell you now, ef you eat me peas, you de go certainly did not admit this) were 'naturally most extraordinary drownded, bot ef you nuo eat e, notn wuon do you. So swie, you bitch! judges•.: swear! Seh you no eat e, while you know you eat e. An she lit [lick} doun ln their everyday lives, also, the slaves observed carefully the wan a de laim a doti [dirty; earth. ground} so, wham! An de drai gully courtesies of language. Their greetings-'Good morning; how is pomp op wata, cova de gyal instep. De gya1 sell. ~lai!puo me wan! A weh family', followed by the asking after each member in turn,J their me de go to die? Him se, Swie! Swie! you bitch! An im lik: doun wan nida polite modes of address-'compliments of respect and friendship, I aim so, wham! An de wata mount di gyat to im knee. De gyal seh, when speaking of or to each other' (Uncle, Aunty, Granny, Tatta)•• laad ooi! Me Wilyam ooi! all had their roots in West African forms of etiquette. Then there was flattery (Congo-saw), as when an old slave woman, (e im sweetheart im de leal!) wanting to impress on 'Monk' Lewis her gratitude to him for a small me Wilyam ooi! favour, addressed him as 'my husband' instead of Massa .s There were puo me wan ooi! Peas ooi! also proverbs and sayings such as 'Massa's eye makes the horse grow oo, me dearis Wily:un oo! fat" ;6 the response of the old man who, wakened from sleep by another ring doun peas oi ai A ring doun l with the question,' You no hear lvfassa call you?', replied, 'Sleep !tab oo, ring doun.:. ;7 no /vfassa' and returned to his dreams and the accurate description ' See Peyraud, op. cit., pp. 370-1; Beckwith. Black Roadways, pp. 101-2. by the woman who, asked by a Baptist minister if she still felt sin, • Adapted from Le Page and De Camp, op. ciL, pp. t44-5· This corresponds in now that her heart was changed, admitted: 'It trouble me too much form and content to the Mammy Luna story in LeWls,op. at. (1929 ed.), pp. 1o6-10: 8 If dame eat Mammy Luna's pease-0, -it tick to me Massa, as close as de clothes to me back'. Drowny me water, drowny, drowoy! ' Bridges. op. cit., Vol. II. p.442, and cf. David Lawton 'The Implications of Tone But De Camp"s version was chosen, though not contemporaneous with the period of for J:~m:ticanCreole,' in Anthropological linguistics, Vol. X, no. 6 (1968), pp. ::!.::!.-5. this study, because of its advantage ofvensimilitudeover Lewis' \'erston: • "My neger, • Bridges, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 442. l Marly, p. 67. my neger," repeated Mammy Luna, .. me no want punish you; my pot smell good, and • Moreton. op. ciL. p. 159. you belly-woman. Come back, my neger, come b:1ck; me see now water :1bove your 'Le\\tS, op. cu. (1929ed.), p. 111. & G:~rdner,op. cit., p. 157. knee"!' (Lewis, op. cit .. 1929ed., p. 107.) 1 Edwards. op. cit., Vol. II, p. 101. '&prist .\faga:ine (1821), p. 226. For full treatment of this subject, see. among others, Violet Heaven. Jamaica Proverbs and John Canoe Alphabet (Kingston and Mon· tego Bay, t896): JelcyU,op. cit.,; Martha Beck\\;th, 'J:~maicaProverbs' in Publications of rhe Folklore Foundation, no. 6 (Poughkeepsie, 1925); I. Anderson and Frank Cundall, Jammca Nef/ro Procerbsand Sayings (London. 1917).

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