life and history

W. Adolphe Roberts and Peter Hulme

INTRODUCTION the island sandwiching a In September 1962, just forty-five–year career in one five weeks after Jamaica of the world’s metropolises. became an independent He left Jamaica in 1904, aged nation, the writer W. eighteen, to live in the USA, Adolphe Roberts died in eventually settling in New London. At the moment York. He travelled widely of independence he was a and read even more widely, well-known figure in the before returning to Jamaica island’s cultural life, the in 1949, where he spent the former president of many last thirteen years of his life. organisations including the Unusually, he was brought up Jamaica Historical Society with an interest in languages, and the Poetry League became fluent in French of Jamaica, as well as the when covering World War I current chairman of the in Paris as a journalist, and Board of Governors to the later learned Spanish during Institute of Jamaica. Just his frequent visits to Cuba. the year before Roberts’s This allowed him a breadth of death, the literary critic literary and historical reading G. R. Coulthard had across the whole region, one recognised two twentieth- he took full advantage of in century West Indian both his fiction and in his writers of stature: Claude historical masterpiece The McKay and Adolphe : the Story of Our Sea Roberts.1 of Destiny (1940).9 Six pages of Roberts’s the years following Roberts’s return to There are various cases that recently completed autobiography, Jamaica in 1949—remains unpublished, could be made out for the importance dealing with the onset of World War I, having been rejected by the Institute of of W. Adolphe Roberts. The aspect of appeared in The Independence Anthology Jamaica after his death on the grounds his career that I want to sketch here of Jamaican Literature.2 Then, after his that it was too abrupt in its judgements is his re-engagement with Jamaica in death, Roberts’s reputation quickly for the political sensibilities of the the 1930s, because it was then that his faded. He had been a versatile writer— newly postcolonial state.5 There have life’s work most closely touched what poet, novelist, journalist, historian, been a few recent stirrings. In 2011, has become the national story. Perhaps travel writer; perhaps too versatile for two journalists noted the importance all lives have decisive turning points. an age of growing specialism.3 The new of remembering Roberts, given his I will look at two – one which brought nation certainly wanted literary heroes, pioneering work for Jamaican self- Roberts closer to Jamaicans and but Roberts belonged to a generation government;6 and two authors (myself eventually to Jamaica, the other which and class whose time seemed to have included) have published analyses7 took him away from the possibility of a passed. The tenth- and twentieth-year of Roberts’s The Single Star, his fine political career on the island and back anniversaries of his death brought short 1949 novel about the Cuban war of to his true vocation as a writer and appreciations, and a few of his poems independence and the US invasion of intellectual. remain anthologised,4 but otherwise the island in 1898.8 his writing has been largely forgotten. From the perspective of 2013, RE-ENGAGEMENT WITH THE All the novels are out of print, as are Roberts’s career perhaps looks more CARIBBEAN the works of travel writing and history. typically Caribbean than it once did, By the mid-1930s it did not look as if An autobiography—completed during with its youth and old age spent on Jamaica meant that much to Adolphe

10 Roberts. Born in Kingston in 1886 to and took issue with the reviewer’s a fairly impoverished white Jamaican blatantly racist remark: “What of family with roots around Mandeville, it?” Roberts retorts. “The fifty-nine- Roberts had been educated by his sixtieths are none the less Jamaicans, talented but wayward father. Taught and thanks to a good educational how to write well, Roberts as an system are perfectly capable of adolescent worked for the Gleaner and enjoying democratic institutions. I am the short-lived Leader before in 1904 not afraid of political liberty for my leaving like so many of his compatriots countrymen.” Roberts was making to try his luck in the USA. He soon this argument at exactly the same settled in New York, and for the next time as its other great proponent in forty years he would always find his the early 1930s, C.L.R. James, whose way back to Greenwich Village. After Hogarth Press pamphlet The Case for a spell in Europe covering World War West Indian Self-Government appeared I for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, he started this same year, 1933.13 He also notes in a career as a writer and editor, making this Times Literary Supplement letter the a living from his pen. Over the years origin of his political views: “I started Roberts edited various journals, some in journalism on the Daily Gleaner, of with literary pretensions, some not. In Kingston, Jamaica, my first assignment 1921 he became a US citizen. In 1931 he being to cover the Legislative Council. Mr Roberts is an American novelist.”12 published an autobiographical novel, The farcical nature of the proceedings As for Roberts’s appendix, the The Moralist,10 which made no reference converted me to self-government for reviewer quoted it quite extensively: to the West Indies. To all intents and the island.”14 “Jamaicans . . . have allowed their purposes it looked as though Roberts Over the next few years Roberts land to be ruled as a Crown Colony had become an American writer. But would make similar arguments in far beyond the moment when the Roberts had not burned his Caribbean various fora, adapting his language right to complete self-government bridges. In the early 1930s, with his skilfully for different audiences: should have been re-asserted”, only writing career launched and his “A profound impulse toward self- to add the telling comment that finances relatively secure, he embarked government is crystallising in the “American readers may not realise on his first major historical work, a British West Indies today,” he wrote that in Jamaica the white population biography of .11 Morgan for the prestigious US journal Current is only one-sixtieth of the whole”, was obviously an interesting choice: a History, speaking in the passive voice of on the basis of which he accused controversial figure widely regarded as an objective historical observer.15 After Roberts of “exaggeration as well as a pirate. His was certainly a colourful an assessment of Cipriani and Trinidad, . . . prejudice”. Roberts wrote a curt life, and ultimately a Jamaican life, Roberts moves closer to home, noting reply, published the following month, which allowed Roberts to raise issues that Jamaica’s size would allow it in which he asserted his Jamaicanness of colonial governance and personal to stand alone and that the issue of belonging alongside the telling of self-government “is not a ripening a rip-roaring story of plunder and but a renascence” because of its 1661 intrigue in the seventeenth century. The constitution, surrendered in 1865 in the biography carried four appendices, one aftermath of the Morant Bay rebellion.16 of which—a little anachronistically— He stresses here, writing in 1934, that was the first version of a document there is no labour movement in Jamaica Roberts would re-write again and again and little tendency towards radicalism, over the next few years: the case for judgements that would have to be Jamaican self-government. sharply revised over the next few years. The Morgan biography was While he was in Jamaica later widely and appreciatively reviewed. Even the prestigious Times Literary Supplement proffered some favourable opposite page Portrait of Roberts in 1949. (W. Adolphe Roberts papers, National Library of words (“well worth reading for the Jamaica) sake of the information collected above from top Sketch of Roberts in New York in about Morgan”), even if these were 1917 by John Butler Yeats. (W. Adolphe Roberts papers, National Library of Jamaica) couched in that quintessentially English A cover from Ainslie’s magazine, edited by Roberts tone of imperial condescension: “Mr from 1918 to 1921. Roberts believes that a ’s Roberts in front of the statue to Garibaldi biography should be written brightly. in Washington Square, New York, in 1925. (Photograph in private collection)

11 that year, shortly after this article had university, an incident quickly called appeared, Roberts bumped into his “La matanza de Río Piedras”. There old friend Herbert de Lisser, editor of was no investigation and the policemen the Daily Gleaner, in the stacks of the involved were promoted. Albizu Institute of Jamaica library.17 De Lisser Campos spoke at the graveside. Four enquired what Roberts was looking months later, the San Juan police chief, for: “Material to buttress an argument Col. Francis E. Riggs, was assassinated. favouring a new political movement in His two killers were taken to the police Jamaica, I replied, and added that the station and summarily executed.19 With awakening autonomist sentiment was these kinds of events as background, overdue.”18 De Lisser was unimpressed it is clear that Roberts, arriving and would spend much time over in Puerto Rico in April 1936, was the next ten years sniping in a good- absolutely galvanised by the strength natured way at Roberts from the pages of nationalist feeling he encountered of the Gleaner. among the students and this—he says—made him realise that he needed THE EXAMPLE OF PUERTO RICO to tap into a wider Jamaican audience Meanwhile, one of Roberts’s old friends if his ideas about self-government from New York, the American poet were ever going to gain traction.20 Muna Lee, who had married the Puerto There were, of course, thousands of Rican politician (and later governor) Jamaicans in New York, but most of Luis Muñoz Marín, and moved to them were living a world away from San Juan where she was working the bohemian climes of Greenwich for the University of Puerto Rico as Village. While Marcus Garvey and Director of Communications, invited his ideas had held sway, Roberts had Roberts to Río Piedras to give a talk. felt alienated from this world—“What Although labour disputes had been had I to do with his dreams of a black bubbling away in the other anglophone African empire?”—but now, as the islands during the early 1930s, they political climate changed, “I realised were as yet small beer compared with that I must look for support among the upheavals in Cuba and Puerto the thousands of the islanders living Rico. Cuba had seen the overthrow in Harlem”.21So Roberts’s way back to of the dictator Gerardo Machado in Jamaica led through historiography— August 1933 and, after the short-lived his book on Morgan; through the government of Ramón Grau, the first nationalist students of Río Piedras; appearance on the political stage of and most importantly through the Fulgencio Batista, who cracked down Jamaican community in the black area hard on the general strike of February/ of Manhattan. March 1935. In Puerto Rico, against a background of economic depression, A PARTY IN HARLEM mass unemployment and wildcat It seems that Roberts’s one relevant strikes, the movement for independence contact in Harlem—probably via the had been boosted by a changing of worlds of journalism and publishing— the guard in the 1932 elections, which was with Wendell Malliet, then writing saw Muñoz Marín and Pedro Albizu for the New York Amsterdam News.22 Campos emerge as national figures. A Through Malliet Roberts was invited to massive student protest was increased a party in early July 1936 at the rather when university administrators grand home of James S. Watson23at associated with the Liberal Party 117 West 120th Street in the heart of (including Muna Lee) were threatened Harlem. This is the scene of the first with the sack. At the same time, Albizu turning point, shifting the direction Campos started to prepare for the paramilitary route, training combat units and using the crypto-fascist above from top 117 West 20th Street in Harlem, where Roberts first met Wilfred A. Domingo. language of the time. Then, on 24 (Photograph: Peter Hulme) October 1935, four nationalists were Wilfred A. Domingo. (Photograph: Gleaner) shot in their car by policemen near the Egbert Ethelred Brown. (Photograph: Gleaner)

12 of Roberts’s life. Watson had left a forum for political debate: he chaired starts by simply describing Jamaica’s Jamaica early in the century, become and encouraged heated discussions. system of government, then reviews the a successful lawyer in New York, and Additionally, Brown was chairman island’s political history before looking had recently been elected as the first of the British Jamaicans Benevolent briefly at other colonies and quoting black judge in New York State. He Association and vice president of the some expert opinion. It says that the was also an amateur poet who acted Federation of Jamaican Organizations. moment has come for Jamaicans to as patron to writers of the Harlem So between them, Domingo and Brown realise that if they are to develop Renaissance, including Claude McKay. had a wonderful array of connections politically, “they must set about the McKay was at this party, but Roberts’s throughout the Jamaican community in shaping of their own future . . . [t]hey key encounter there was with Wilfred Harlem, exactly the sorts of connections must begin to act as a people”. They Adolphus Domingo, with whose name Roberts needed. Just as important, are in fact a people, Roberts argues, 24 he may already have been familiar. Domingo and Brown were already rehearsing the definition to which he Before leaving Jamaica in 1910, W. committed nationalists who welcomed would always adhere: “For national A. Domingo (1889–1968) had worked their association with this fellow entity is a gift of God to every society in Kingston as an apprentice tailor and Jamaican who arrived in Harlem as a that has seen its generations come joined the newly-formed National Club, fully-fledged writer and historian. and go on the same soil for centuries. through which he met Marcus Garvey: Probably through Brown, Roberts The awakening of a consciousness of Garvey was the club’s first assistant was invited to speak to the British nationality is what is needed today.” secretary, Domingo its second.25 In New Jamaicans Benevolent Association on He offers some final recommendations. York Domingo was one of the editors 15 July 1936, where he seems to have These are the immediate founding of of Garvey’s newspaper, Negro World. impressed the membership.27 Roberts a political party in Jamaica pledged Meanwhile, however, Domingo had and Domingo arranged to meet again to work for self-government; and the developed strong political ties with more formally, which they did on 3 waging by Jamaicans in Jamaica of a other black socialists which led to his August 1936 at the Harlem office of Dr campaign of cultural development. The split with Garvey. In the late 1920s Lucien Brown, a close friend of Judge stated ideal is a national one: national and early 1930s, Domingo prospered Watson’s.28 The Jamaica Progressive sentiment and national consciousness, in business as an importer of West League (JPL) was then formally created through political action and Indian foods while remaining an established on 1 September 1936 with artistic fruitfulness.31 active presence in organisations such Roberts as president, Domingo as vice as the British Jamaicans Benevolent president, and Brown as secretary.29 back to jamaica Association, which he had helped Public meetings were regularly held in The earliest inkling of Roberts’s views found in 1917. And in 1925 his essay Harlem over the next few years. on self-government in Jamaica itself “The Black Tropics in New York” had The founding declaration of the came with a flying visit he made at appeared in the March edition of Survey JPL, adopted on 1 September 1936, is the end of January 1934 while on a Graphic, now considered the founding fundamentally nationalist: “Firmly lecturing cruise through the Caribbean. 26 document of the Harlem Renaissance. believing that any people that has Under the headline “an advocate of A second key figure, probably seen its generations come and go on self govt. for jamaica: Mr W. Adolphe introduced to Roberts by Malliet or by the same soil for centuries is in fact a Roberts, Jamaican Author and Novelist Domingo was E. Ethelred Brown (1875– nation, we pledge ourselves to work Speaks Fearlessly”, the Gleaner reporter 1956). Born in Falmouth, Brown had for the attainment of self-government elicited Roberts’s ideas about his native trained as a civil servant and moved to for Jamaica, so that the country may island: the day had passed for Crown Spanish Town but lost his job in 1907. take its rightful place as a member Colony government; Jamaica lagged He enrolled in a Unitarian college and of the British Commonwealth of behind neighbouring islands in the began his studies in the USA, being Nations.” Those words of Roberts’s development of a national spirit; and ordained in 1912. He tried working form a touchstone to his nationalism. the younger generation should be back in Jamaica in Montego Bay and The six principles also articulated in taught more about Jamaica’s history Kingston, but eventually relocated that declaration included universal (Gleaner, 30 January 1934, 6). This to New York in 1920, founding a adult suffrage, economic and social proved only a brief foretaste. Later community church in Harlem. Plagued reform, and an encouragement of the that year, when Roberts developed by financial problems, he took other study of the history, geography and the views first outlined in the jobs, including as an elevator operator literature of Jamaica. Based on two appendix to his Morgan book into for nearly six years. In Jamaica he had of his early talks to these meetings, the article for Current History, the helped organise the Negro Progressive Roberts produced a 16-page pamphlet Gleaner—presumably on de Lisser’s Association and the Liberal Association, Self-government in Jamaica, published say-so—reprinted it in its entirety both of which were geared toward in New York, which served as the under the headline: “british west indian civil and economic rights for blacks. most important articulation of the aspirations: article by mr. w. adolphe Brown’s Harlem church was very much movement’s aims.30 The pamphlet roberts in ‘current history’: ‘Profound

13 Impulse Towards Self-government Is despite their political disagreements, of the JPL on 6 December 1937, after Crystallising’ in the Islands” (Gleaner, though Roberts would have needed an earlier meeting had been broken up 24 August 1934, 18). the patience of a saint not to have been by political opponents.34 Roberts first After the successful launch exasperated by the tone of some of addressed the group on 15 December of the JPL in New York, Roberts, de Lisser’s comments, which usually at the Metropolitan Hall, reading the Domingo and Brown all realised that managed to conceal a barb underneath JPL’s Declaration and its objectives the next stage in the process was to their honeyed tone, as with this remark and stressing its commitment to take their message to Jamaica: they which greeted Roberts’s arrival in self-government as a dominion. He knew perfectly well that any political December 1937: then spoke at a big public meeting in party pushing for self-government Kingston at the Ward Theatre on 21 needed Jamaican roots. Some of We know Mr Adolphe Roberts December under the joint auspices the groundwork was prepared by well, we like him immensely, of the National Reform Association two local enthusiasts, Rupert E. and there can be no doubt – founded earlier that year by Ken Meikle and Walter G. McFarlane. In about his ability and the single- Hill -- and the Federation of Citizens’ December 1935—and so even prior to mindedness of his public aims. Associations. In his autobiography the founding of the JPL—Meikle had But he has the romanticism of Roberts recalls the moment: “I told already written to the Gleaner asking a minor poet and this naturally them that it was undesirable, if it to reproduce Roberts’s appendix affects all his thinking. (Gleaner, not impracticable, for a nationalist from Sir Henry Morgan—which it 17 December 1937, 12) movement to be permanently directed did—and underlining that in Jamaica from abroad. They must regard their This struck one of de Lisser’s “there is a group of young people organisation as the nucleus of a political keynotes over the next three years— who like myself feel that we cannot party, the activities of which should possibly go on being satisfied with this soon take precedence over anything pseudo-Crown Colony Government we could do in New York.” Roberts and keep our self-respect as a people”. also particularly recalls a meeting in He noted a move afoot among the the old schoolhouse at Linstead where Citizens’ Associations for a wider he criticised the Jamaican nominated constitution and for full representative members in the legislature who always government (Gleaner, 16 December supported the governor, but then 1935). A year later, in another letter to received an unusually hostile question: the Gleaner, Meikle took advantage of “An oldish lean fellow, Arnold Lecesne, a passing mention of the road to self- descendant of French refugees from the government for several British colonies slave insurrection in Saint Domingue, made by a British diplomat, to refer to inquired why I stopped short at Roberts’s pamphlet, Self-government preaching self-government within the for Jamaica and to quote extensively Empire. As he saw it, Jamaica should be from its recommendations (Gleaner, a republic. I had found an extremist. He 21 December 1936, 12).32 Things now had always been one, but the general started—finally—to move with some stirring of national consciousness speed. Two months later Ethelred had brought him out.”35 Roberts was Brown announced that the JPL would enough of a politician to welcome the Roberts as a romantic idealist. Another be seeking to establish itself on the voicing of a view more extreme than would be that Roberts was really a island (Gleaner, 15 February 1937, 12), his own—one whose time is, indeed, writer, with no political savvy. And yet and Public Opinion was launched as a perhaps finally about to come.36 another would be that as an American weekly newspaper on 20 February 1937 He then spoke at various other citizen out of touch with Jamaica by a group of political activists who meetings, including an address to the Roberts had no right to interfere in would later help create the People’s Jamaica Union of Teachers where he Jamaican politics, which was de Lisser’s National Party (PNP). made much of what would become thrust a few days after Roberts’s arrival Over the course of Roberts’s next a standard postcolonial theme—the (Gleaner, 9 December 1937, 12).33 two visits to Jamaica—a short one need to recognise the geographical With Roberts on the island but in 1937–38 and a much longer one specificity of the place: “Jamaica is not initially keeping a fairly low profile, in 1939—his views were repeatedly a part of England,” he said. “She is not McFarlane (who had seen news of the commented on in the editorial page of a European country. She is an entity JPL meetings in New York and had the Gleaner by de Lisser, the paper’s in the Caribbean region of the North already written to ask whether he long-time editor and Roberts’s long- American continent and the curriculum could start a Jamaican branch) and six term friend. The relationship seems of the schools should be based on that others founded the Kingston branch to have kept its genuine warmth unalterable fact” (Gleaner, 7 January

14 1938, 7). of a University of Jamaica, and forest therefore the PNP) owed to Roberts. protection, positioning itself therefore He noted that he did not claim to A PERMANENT HABITATION? as something much more than a one- have originated the idea of a national [IMAGE: Norman Manley. issue pressure group.39 Domingo had Jamaica nor that of self-government— (Photograph: Gleaner) prepared the way with a long letter “which was the logical and inevitable The success of this brief visit to Jamaica to the Gleaner in December 1938, corollary of the progress they had encouraged Roberts to make plans to recapping the brief history of the JPL made”, only to have recognised, and return permanently. In August 1938, and associating it with Manley and the that in a tardy fashion, the value of de Lisser wrote of Roberts expecting, PNP (Gleaner, 8 December 1938, 15). the ideas that Roberts had outlined to “according to the latest note we had This note was also struck in Roberts’s him in his chambers a year earlier. The from him, to be in Jamaica during first interview after his arrival: the ultimate aims and ambitions of the the coming winter; he contemplates differences between the JPL and the JPL and the PNP were now identical, setting up a permanent habitation here PNP over self-government were a Manley concluded. and then beginning his work towards matter of timing, not substance, he These were heady days for self-government” (Gleaner, 22 August said, and the JPL “feels itself affiliated Roberts. Change was clearly afoot 1938, 12). In a ‘private’ letter to de with the PNP and will support it”. in Jamaica and he and Manley, often Lisser (though since many of them And he himself would, he said, after accompanied by Domingo, toured the ended up being quoted in the Gleaner, a short return to New York later in island, speaking at innumerable public Roberts was probably not naive enough 1939, settle permanently in Jamaica meetings to urge Jamaicans to join the to regard them as private) Roberts and eventually qualify for election as PNP. Meanwhile, Roberts was doing wrote that he anticipated de Lisser’s member for one of the parishes on the research in the library of the Institute opposition and “I’m sure we’ll both Legislative Council (Gleaner, 3 January of Jamaica for his general history enjoy making the feathers fly” (Gleaner, book on the Caribbean, for which he 1 November 1938, 12). had a contract from his US publisher, Meanwhile, of course, other Bobbs-Merrill. He was also active in the things had been happening on the Poetry League during this time, and island. An incident at Frome Estate in was elected vice president in March May 1938 had ended with a group of 1939. And to cap it all, in early March labourers being charged with rioting. his sister, Ethel Rovere, arrived for an The lawyer Norman Manley and the extended visit, accompanied by her son, labour leader Alexander Bustamante Richard, editor of the US Communist had risen to prominence. And the Party journal, The New Masses, and by PNP had been founded in September the glamorous screen and short story 1938, with considerable input from writer, Ella Landry, who may have local members of the JPL, including been a romantic distraction for Roberts Walter McFarlane.37 The New York JPL (Gleaner, 8 March 1939, 7).41 Ethel and was prominent in protests against the Richard left at the end of May (but there violent British reaction to the Frome was no mention of Ms Landry leaving ‘riots’—one of the few times Judge too). James S. Watson put his head above the At the first annual meeting of the political parapet—and raised £100 to Jamaican branch of the JPL in Kingston defend the protestors, engaging E.R.D. 1939, 11). This was a very public at the end of February 1939, Roberts Evans after Manley, at least according statement of Roberts’s intent. The was elected president and affirmed to McFarlane, backed out.38 Gleaner certainly gave full coverage to the strategy of supporting the PNP Roberts returned to Jamaica on Roberts’s activities, as did its new, more while retaining the JPL’s own identity. 1 January 1939 and would stay for sensationalist rival, the Jamaica Standard, But he also announced an educational eight turbulent months. Ethelred edited by the English journalist, F.J. and cultural campaign to “Jamaicanise Brown had gone back in November Makin, who would write a forthright Jamaica”, perhaps suggesting that the 1938 and Wilfred Domingo arrived book about his short Jamaican JPL was beginning to see itself as the at about the same time as Roberts. In experience.40 cultural wing of the PNP rather than August 1938 the JPL (New York) had The local JPL had a welcome as an electoral force in its own right presented “A Social and Economic meeting at which Norman Manley (Gleaner, 28 February 1939, 13). Programme for Jamaica” advocating, spoke alongside Roberts and Domingo amongst other measures, civil liberties, (Gleaner, 6 January 1939, 22), setting THE RURAL RETREAT a minimum wage, pensions for all, the tone for the months to come. In IMAGE: Albert Huie, Quiet Corner unemployment insurance, compulsory this speech Manley gave his fullest (Gordon Town), (1958). The Michael elementary education, establishment acknowledgement of what he (and Campbell Collection.

15 by various PNP stalwarts such as Campbell, Ken Hill, and many others. For a time Roberts juggled these Florizel Glasspole and by Oswald Hinting at slurs that had been cast upon various activities, but at a certain Anderson, previously considered a JPL him, Roberts rebutted suggestions that point, in March 1939, he decided he sympathiser. Campbell won, though he he was a communist—slurs which must needed more peace and quiet to write shortly afterwards left the PNP. have amused the communists. His own and rented a house called Rawcliffe, In any case Roberts evidently self-description was a “radical liberal” in Gordon Town, eight miles outside decided that, when it came to the (Gleaner, 21 August 1939, 8), which Kingston (Gleaner, 15 March 1939, crunch, he was a writer not a politician. seems as good a label as any. Roberts 3). This was a decisive move – the Domingo left for New York at the had once belonged to the Socialist Party second turning point. Roberts writes of end of April, promising to act as a in the USA, but that was before the realising that he could not in the end PNP ambassador in the USA and to watershed of 1917: he had no sympathy visualise making a political career for return for the 1940 elections. Among with the Soviet system. himself on the island. He had travelled the numerous speeches at his farewell the length and breadth of Jamaica with banquet, Manley’s was the most [IMAGE: Roberts in Chicago in Manley and observed the grassroots interesting. He said that he had often 1939. (Photograph by A.S. Knobble, support that Manley could draw on, wondered why it was that Jamaicans W. Adolphe Roberts papers, National not to mention the personal wealth who had been abroad were far more Library of Jamaica) that enabled him to sustain a political appreciative of and devoted to Jamaica career. It was at this point that de Lisser than those who had spent their lives OUR SEA OF DESTINY made his longest public comment about at home. He ventured two answers. The war then forced his hand, a Roberts when he chose “Adolphe” as Those who stayed in Jamaica were “couple of months” back in the States the first subject for some reminiscences often ostrich-like in their behaviour, to wind up his affairs turning into which formed an occasional part of not understanding the wider world ten years. Roberts spent most of the the addendum to his Gleaner editorials of which Jamaica formed a part. And war years in New Orleans, writing under the heading “Random Jottings”. those who travelled and saw the real three historical novels about the city’s The first sentence offered a classic problems facing other parts of the history and then undertaking a long- ‘delisserism’: “One of my most vivid world were able to put Jamaica and its planned novel about the Cuban war of reminiscences is my first meeting with problems into proper perspective. In independence.43 As a US citizen who Adolphe Roberts, whose political views this context, Manley again paid tribute had voiced strong political opinions, are so much misunderstood in this to Roberts’s foresight and to the role of he would not have been allowed back country by nearly everyone, including the JPL in developing the PNP (Gleaner, into Jamaica during the war—and himself.” The portrait he offers is 24 April 1939, 21). was indeed denied a visa in 1945 just warm, even though he talks more about The move to Gordon Town was as the war was ending, the Jamaican himself than his friend Adolphe, adding certainly not a rejection of Jamaica authorities basing themselves on the the detail that he had actually gone to itself on Roberts’s part. Anything but: fact that Roberts was not a Jamaican.44 visit him at Rawcliffe one evening. The Roberts had committed himself to His response was as follows: “I felt picture is of a writer already slightly returning to live on the island of his myself unalterably a Jamaican, and withdrawn from the daily hurly-burly birth. But it was a recognition that if Jamaican nationality had been a of Kingston politics (Gleaner, 13 June what he could best contribute was recognised legal fact I would never 1939, 12). precisely the wider angles that came have given it up for any other. That There may have been contributing from research and writing—seeing I had been born a British subject was factors. Ken Post suggests that Jamaica as part of a larger region a lesser consideration, because I had Domingo and another prominent with a shared geography and history. not asked for the status and did not member of the JPL, Jaime O’Meally, Roberts left Jamaica on 20 August concede it the right of precedence over were more sympathetic to the left 1939 for New Orleans to do work on the impulses of my true ancestry.”45 wing of the PNP, led by Richard the French and Spanish sections of his In 1940, with war raging in Europe Hart, than they were to the local JPL history book, intending to return at and nobody quite knowing how it leaders.42 Roberts too may have been the end of the year. De Lisser saw him would affect the West Indies, Roberts disappointed with the quality of the off in his usual fashion: “Mr Roberts is published The Caribbean: The Story local support he received. Relationships not really a politician: he is a literary of Our Sea of Destiny; the book was between the JPL and the PNP were not man of distinction” (Gleaner, 17 July dedicated to Norman and Edna Manley, in practice quite as smooth as Manley’s 1939, 12). But it was de Lisser who with whom Roberts had become words suggest. In the election for the presided over his farewell dinner at close friends during 1939. De Lisser Kingston seat on the Legislative Council Peggy Brown’s restaurant, attended recognised the prescience of Roberts’s in 1939, E. R. Dudley Evans stood for by the great and the good of the JPL book as early as August 1940, just as the JPL but was opposed by Erasmus and the PNP, including H.P. Jacobs, it was being published (Gleaner, 24 Campbell, who was strongly supported O.T. Fairclough, Clare McFarlane, E.A. August 1940, 12; Gleaner, 3 September

16 1940, 12), though he also, of course, were the two historians writing in any party he led would only take votes took issue with some of its conclusions the 1940s whose approach “departed from the PNP, allowing Bustamante (Gleaner, 10 September 1940, 12), significantly from the imperial an easy ride. His relationship with provoking Norman Manley in the tradition”.47 In other words they wrote Manley cooled, especially when the process. De Lisser, as was his constant their histories of the Caribbean from the PNP fell into line with the British wont, described Roberts’s perspective Caribbean. Roberts was the pioneer: The push for Federation.51 Instead, Roberts as American. By ‘America’ he meant Caribbean: The Story of Our Sea of Destiny threw himself into his role as a cultural the USA, but Roberts was in fact an appeared in 1940, the first historical nationalist, writing, for example, Six Americanist in the broader sense, which expression of a pan-Caribbean political Great Jamaicans, biographical sketches allowed him to view the Caribbean consciousness. Arciniegas’s Biografía of Edward Jordon, George William as an American place rather than as a del Caribe was published in 1945, its Gordon, Enos Nuttall, Robert Love, European appendage. Offended by de English translation, Caribbean: Sea Thomas Henry MacDermot, and H.G. Lisser’s tone, Norman Manley wrote to of the New World, one year later.48 It de Lisser, two of whom (Nuttall and the Gleaner to offer an alternative view would be a further twenty-five years Love) Roberts remembered from his of Roberts’s book: before the appearance of books with childhood, and another two of whom a similar scope: Eric Williams’s From (MacDermot and de Lisser) were The Caribbean is chosen as the Columbus to Castro and Juan Bosch’s De lifelong friends.52 focal point of the narrative in Cristóbal Colón a Fidel Castro.49 On most In August 1962, when Jamaica order to develop the theme of reckonings, Roberts’s book is superior finally achieved independence, Roberts the dominant part played in to that of Arciniegas: its coverage of sent what may have been his final the history of the development the region is certainly more even and written words in a note to his old of the Americas by their inland it takes its story up to 1940, while the colleagues at the JPL in New York, sea. The importance of the Colombian stops at the end of the congratulating them on twenty-five Caribbean is for the purposes nineteenth century. But Arciniegas is years’ effort and recommending— of the book, and indeed for all an honoured figure in his homeland, so true to his perspective—that Jamaica historical and geographical his book had a second edition in 2000 to should seek to join the Organisation considerations to be found, mark the centenary of his birth, while of American States. Right after the not in the fact that it contains a Roberts’s book remains out of print.50 independence celebrations, Roberts diversity of imperial vestiges, travelled to London on the first leg of the result of its history, but in after the war what was to be a European trip. He had the fact that it served as matrix De Lisser’s final commentary on his dinner with one of his oldest Jamaican for the development of the friend and opponent was published friends, Lucille Parks, who had married Nations of the New World and in March 1943. It contains a warm a Tory MP called Tom Iremonger.53 that it is still just as inevitably appreciation of Roberts’s last three During dinner Roberts was taken ill bound up in their destiny as books and predicts that he still has and he died in his room in the White it was five hundred years ago. an important role to play in Jamaica’s House Hotel in Earls Court Road in the (Gleaner, 11 September 1940, 8) future. He will continue to press early morning of 14 September 1962. for immediate self-government, de His ashes were returned to Mandeville Whereas for a conservative like Lisser notes: “I am going to oppose for burial. Despite living most of his de Lisser, the connection to Britain him and beat him. I do not underrate life outside the island, Adolphe Roberts was the most important, for Roberts my political opponents. I respect was a nationalist to the core and Jamaica’s destiny was Caribbean, and their honesty of purpose even while wanted his remains to lie in Manchester the Caribbean’s destiny was American. deprecating their political obtuseness” soil. His many contributions to his In the late 1930s and 1940s, it was the (Gleaner, 11 March 1943, 6). Roberts country deserve to be remembered. Cuban Republic that—for all its flaws— would doubtlessly have permitted offered Roberts a model of a Caribbean himself a smile: de Lisser was by now ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS nation beginning to fulfil its potential, quite seriously ill, but there was clearly I would like to thank Leah Rosenberg, a theme he explored in The Caribbean still life in the old dog yet. John Aarons, Franklin Knight, and Birte and in his novel The Single Star, works Roberts says that after he finally Timm for their helpful comments on a which brought him recognition in returned to Jamaica he was asked by draft of this essay. Cuba before he received any in his own many people to form a new political country.46 party to fight the general election In her essay on “Regional of 1949. He had certainly been Histories” in the UNESCO General unimpressed by the growing socialist History of the Caribbean, Bridget Brereton tendencies apparent in the PNP and notes that Roberts and his Colombian by Manley’s prevarication on the push contemporary, Germán Arciniegas, for self-government. But he knew that

17 NOTES 1. G.R. Coulthard, “The West Indies”, in the NLJ Librarian, Mrs Winsome Hudson, publisher. Active in New York-based West The Commonwealth Pen: An Introduction to for facilitating my access to the manuscript. Indian politics, he published a number the Literature of the British Commonwealth, 6. Ken Jones, “W. Adolphe Roberts: ‘Father of pamphlets, including The Destiny of the ed. A. L. McLeod (Ithaca: Cornell of the Nation’”, Gleaner, 31 July 2011, F14; West Indies (1927). He later represented the University Press, 1961), 185–202, at 189. Louis Moyston, “W.A. Roberts et al. and Jamaica Labour Party in New York. The bibliography of W. Adolphe Roberts’s the JPL 1936–1944”, Jamaica Observer, 27 23. The Jamaican James S. Watson (1882–1952) writings is large and rather complicated. August 2011. in 1917 had married Violet May Lopez, also He wrote a great deal, much of it in 7. Peter Hulme, Cuba’s Wild East: A Literary a Jamaican. One of their daughters, Barbara ephemeral magazines: my incomplete Geography of Oriente (Liverpool: Liverpool M. Watson (1918–1983), became the first list has 161 items, not including his book University Press, 2011), 260–66; Faith woman and the first African-American reviews and by-lined journalism, and Smith, “Between Stephen Lloyd and to be a US under-secretary of state (for the final count will be much higher. In Esteban Yo-eed”, Journal of French and security and consular affairs in the Carter addition, some of the books published Francophone Philosophy 20, no. 1 (2012): administration), and was later the US under his name were not actually written 22–38. ambassador to Malaysia. One of their sons, by him, as notes in the copies he provided 8. W. Adolphe Roberts, The Single Star: A James L. Watson (1922–2001), became a to the Institute of Jamaica library make Novel of Cuba in the ‘90s (Indianapolis: federal judge. clear. Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1949; abbreviated ed., 24. On West Indians in Harlem, see Winston 2. “How the War Came in 1914”, in The Kingston: Pioneer Press, 1956). James, Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Independence Anthology of Jamaican 9. W. Adolphe Roberts, The Caribbean: The Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth- Literature, selected A.L. Hendriks and Story of Our Sea of Destiny (Indianapolis: century America (London: Verso, 1998). Cedric Lindo (Kingston: Ministry of Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1940, repr. New York: 25. On this period, see Glen Richards, “Race, Development and Welfare, 1962), 190–95. Negro Universities Press, 1969). Class and Labour Politics in Colonial 3. Some of Roberts’s publications will be 10. W. Adolphe Roberts, The Moralist (New Jamaica, 1900–1934”, in Jamaica in Slavery referred to in the course of this article. York: Mohawk Press, 1931). and Freedom: History, Heritage and Culture, Others include the poetry collections 11. W. Adolphe Roberts, Sir Henry Morgan: ed. Kathleen E.A. Monteith and Glen Pierrot Wounded and Other Poems Buccaneer and Governor (New York: Covici Richards (Kingston: University of the West (New York: Britton Publishing Co., 1919), Pan Friede, 1933; abbreviated ed. Kingston: Indies Press, 2002), 340–62. and Peacocks (Boston: Four Seas Company, Pioneer Press, 1952). 26. “Look for me all around you”: Anglophone 1928), and Medallions (Kingston: Arawak 12. Edward W. O’F. Lynham, “Buccaneer and Caribbean Immigrants in the Harlem Society, 1950); the novel The Pomegranate Governor”, Times Literary Supplement, no. Renaissance, ed. Louis J. Parascandola (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1941); 1656 (26 October 1933), 723. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, the biography Semmes of the Alabama 13. C.L.R. James, The Case for West Indian Self- 2005) contains examples of Domingo’s (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1938); Government, Day to Day Pamphlets no. 16 writing. On Domingo, see Birte Timm, and the travel books Lake Pontchartrain (London: Hogarth Press, 1933). James’s and “Caribbean Leaven in the American (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1946, Roberts’s arguments are virtually identical, Loaf: Wilfred A. Domingo, the Jamaica in the American Lakes Series), Lands of both examples of what F.S.J. Ledgister Progressive League, and the Founding of the Inner Sea: The West Indies and Bermuda accurately calls “creole nationalism” in his a Decolonization Movement for Jamaica”, (New York: Coward McCann Inc., 1948), work Only West Indians: Creole Nationalism GHI Bulletin Supplement 5 (2008): 81–97. and Havana: Portrait of a City (New York: in the British West Indies (Trenton: Africa 27. John S. Young, Lest We Forget (New York: Coward McCann, 1953). World Press, 2010). Isidor Books, 1981), 31. 4. Frank Birbalsingh, “W. Adolphe Roberts: 14. W. Adolphe Roberts, “Sir Henry Morgan”, 28. Dr Lucien M. Brown (1895–1960) was on Creole Romantic”, Caribbean Quarterly Times Literary Supplement, no. 1660 (23 the initial steering committee of the JPL 19, no. 2 (July 1973): 100-107; Wycliffe November 1933), 840. but soon took a back seat. Like Watson, Bennett, “W. Adolphe: a Personal 15. W. Adolphe Roberts, “British West Indian Brown was a Jamaican immigrant who Recollection”, Jamaica Journal 16, no. 4 Aspirations”, Current History 40, no. 5 made a successful career for himself. He (November 1983): 54–58; The Penguin (1934): 552–56, at 552. and Watson travelled back to Jamaica on Book of Caribbean Verse in English, ed. 16. Roberts, “British West Indian Aspirations”, holiday together in 1931 and were treated Paula Burnett (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 554. with great deference. Reporting his funeral, 1986), 140–42. A commemorative volume 17. Herbert George de Lisser (1878–1944) the New York Amsterdam News referred to had been published of the Bulletin of the was a journalist, editor, and novelist. On him as a “wealthy and socially-prominent Jamaican Historical Society III, no. 8 (1962). his central role in Jamiacan political and physician” (23 April 1960, 1). Interestingly, Roberts’s poem “The Maroon cultural life, see Leah Reade Rosenberg, 29. Roberts, “These Many Years”, 435. Neither Girl” is a favourite of Lewis Powell, the Nationalism and the Formation of Caribbean of the two histories of the JPL is entirely black nationalist teacher in Michelle Cliff’s Literature (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, satisfactory: Young, Lest We Forget, and novel, Abeng (Trumansburg NY: The 2007), 63–90. Walter G. McFarlane, The Birth of Self Crossing Press, 1984), 90–91. 18. W. Adolphe Roberts, Six Great Jamaicans: Government for Jamaica and the Jamaica 5. The autobiography was drawn on by Biographical Sketches (Kingston: The Pioneer Progressive League 1937–1944 (Kingston: John A. Aarons in an excellent outline of Press, 1951), 110. self-published, 1957; revised ed., 1974). Roberts’s achievement published in 1983: 19. See, for example, César J. Ayala and 30. W. Adolphe Roberts, Self-government for “W. Adolphe Roberts and the movement Rafael Bernabe, Puerto Rico in the American Jamaica (New York: Jamaica Progressive for self-government”, Jamaica Journal 16, Century: A History Since 1898 (Chapel Hill: League of New York, 1936). no. 4 (Nov. 1983): 59–63. I draw on it here University of North Carolina Press, 2007). 31. Ibid., 14–15. too: W. Adolphe Roberts, “These Many 20. Roberts, “These Many Years”, 432. 32. Rupert E. Meikle had established the Years: An Autobiography in Two Parts”, 21. Ibid., 434. “Quill and Ink” literary club in Port Maria unpublished manuscript, National Library 22. A.M. Wendell Malliet (1896–1976) was in 1932, with Roberts and Zora Neale of Jamaica, MS. 353, with warm thanks to a Jamaican-born journalist and later Hurston as overseas “friends” (Gleaner,

18 22 March 1937, 5). Meikle also became a Co., 1944); Roberts, Brave Mardi Gras: A prominent member of the National Reform New Orleans Novel of the ‘60s (Indianapolis: Association and the League of Colored Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1946); Roberts, Creole Peoples, as well as remaining a stalwart Dusk: A New Orleans Novel of the ‘80s JPL supporter. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1948); 33. Another JPL member in New York, Roberts, The Single Star. Ben Burrell, contested de Lisser’s point 44. Domingo had tried to re-enter Jamaica in (Gleaner, 30 December 1937). To his credit, June 1941 but was arrested on board ship de Lisser did later change his view: Gleaner, and placed in an internment camp, where 31 October 1938, 12. he joined a number of Jamaican labour 34. McFarlane, Birth of Self Government, 11. leaders. A lengthy campaign to secure Like so many others, McFarlane had Domingo’s release from detention was been radicalised in North America, launched by his associates in Jamaica where he had trained and worked as a and New York, with Roberts prominent land surveyor, returning to Jamaica in among them, but Domingo was detained 1933. Later he was on the first organising for twenty months and then forced to committee of the PNP but fell out seriously remain in Jamaica for an additional four with Norman Manley, about whom his years when the US government denied book is vituperative. Aged ninety-six, he him a visa. was still arguing that Adolphe Roberts, not 45. Roberts, “These Many Years”, 471–72. Norman Manley, was the founder of the 46. He was awarded the Orden Nacional de Jamaican nation (Gleaner, 30 July 1993, 7). Mérito: Carlos Manuel de Céspedes in 35. Roberts, “These Many Years”, 441. 1950. 36. Lecesne also voiced this opinion in letters 47. Bridget Brereton, “Regional histories”, to the journal Public Opinion: see Louis in General History of the Caribbean: Vol. Lindsay, “The Myth of Independence: VI: Methodology and Historiography of the Middle Class Politics and Non- Caribbean, ed. B.W. Higman (London: mobilisation in Jamaica” (1975; Mona: UNESCO Publishing / Macmillan Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Education, 2000), 315. Economic Studies (SALISES) Working 48. Germán Arciniegas, Biografía del Caribe Paper No. 6 [2005]), 100. (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 37. On the labour rebellions in the British 1945); Caribbean: Sea of the New World, Caribbean, see O. Nigel Bolland, On the trans. Harriet de Onis (New York: A.A. March: Labour Rebellions in the British Knopf, 1946). Caribbean, 1934–39 (Kingston: Ian Randle / 49. Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro: London: James Currey, 1995). On Jamaica, The History of the Caribbean (London: the study that pays most attention to the André Deutsch, 1970); Juan Bosch, De JPL is Ken Post, Arise Ye Starvelings: The Cristóbal Colón a Fidel Castro: El Caribe, Jamaican Labour Rebellion of 1938 and Its Frontera Imperial (Madrid: Alfaguara, Aftermath (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970). 1978). 50. Ironically, in 2004, Jamaica saw the 38. On Watson, see Richard B. Moore, reprinting of the English translation Caribbean Militant in Harlem: Collected of Arciniegas’s book: Caribbean: Sea of Writings 1920–1972, ed. W. Burghardt the New World, trans. Harriet de Onis Turner and Joyce Moore Turner (Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004). It had also been reprinted in 2003 1988), 74–75; McFarlane, Birth of Self (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener). Government for Jamaica, 15–16. Note, 51. Roberts, “These Many Years”, 512–21. though, that Manley said he could not Even the JPL (NY) came out in favour of appear for the strikers because of his Federation: see letter from Fred L. Reid retainer from the West Indies Sugar to the Gleaner, 2 September 1961, 4. Company – see James Carnegie, Some 52. Roberts also produced The Capitals of Aspects of Jamaica’s Politics: 1918–1938 Jamaica: Spanish Town, Kingston, Port (Kingston: Institute of Jamaica, 1973), 108. Royal (Kingston: Pioneer Press, 1955); 39. McFarlane, Birth of Self Government, 57–62. Jamaica: The Portrait of an Island (New 40. F.J. Makin, Caribbean Nights (London: York: Coward McCann, 1955); Old King’s Robert Hale, 1939). House – Spanish Town (Kingston: Old 41. Ethel Rovere was herself a published King’s House Restoration Committee, writer (in fact her story, “The Curse of 1959). God” won first prize in the Public Opinion 53. Lucille Iremonger (née Parks) (1919–89) short story competition in April 1939), was the author of several novels and while her son, Richard H. Rovere (1915– biographies and a memoir called Yes, My 1979) would later become one of best- Darling Daughter (1964). known US journalists and political writers of the 1960s and 1970s. 42. Post, Arise Ye Starvelings, 322. 43. W. Adolphe Roberts, Royal Street: A Novel of New Orleans (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill

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