They Do as They Please: The Jamaican Struggle for Cultural Freedom After Morant Bay

The Jamaican Struggle for Cultural Freedom after Morant Bay

Brian L. Moore is John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of History and Africana and Latin American Studies, Colgate University. He is the award-winning author or editor of more than eight scholarly books, several chapters in edited books, and many journal articles. Michele A. Johnson is Associate Professor, Department of History, York University, Canada. She is the award-winning author or editor of several scholarly books and has published extensively in scholarly journals. ISBN 978-976-640-245-7

“They do as they please”

“A marvellous example of social history at its best.” – Franklin W. Knight, Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University

The Jamaican Struggle for Cultural Freedom after Morant Bay

This book is a companion to Neither Led nor Driven, published in 2004. It examines the secular aspects of culture in Jamaica, namely, material culture (architecture and home furnishings, dress, and food), rites of passage, language and oral culture, creative and performance arts, popular entertainment, sports and games, social clubs and fraternities, and the issues of drinking and gambling. It also examines the lifestyle cultures of Indian and Chinese immigrants who were new arrivals in Jamaica. Moore and Johnson argue that although a vibrant and fully functional creole culture existed in Jamaica, after Morant Bay, diverse elements within the upper and middle classes (the cultural elites) formed a coalition to eradicate that “barbaric” culture which they believed had contributed to the uprising, and to replace it with “superior” cultural items imported from Victorian Britain in order to “civilize” and anglicize the people. It reinforces the prime thesis of Neither Led nor Driven that the lower classes, the main targets of this campaign, drew on their own Afro-creole cultural heritage to resist and ignore the new elite cultural agenda; but they did selectively embrace some aspects of the imported Victorian culture which they creolized to fit their own cultural matrix. Ultimately, the cultural elite efforts at “reform” were hampered by their own ambivalence, hypocrisy and disunity, and they actually impeded the sponsored process of anglicization. The data are primary archival and contemporary library resources housed mainly in Jamaica and the United Kingdom. The authors’ meticulous analysis of official reports, newspapers, religious denomination reports, private papers and published accounts has produced a work that illuminates the complex and still under-explored period of Jamaica’s history as the society entered new phases of “modernity”.

Moore and Johnson

“They do as they please”

“ They do as they please ”

The Jamaican Struggle for Cultural Freedom after Morant Bay

University of the West Indies Press Jamaica • Barbados • Trinidad and Tobago

www.uwipress.com

Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson

“They do as they please”

Map of Jamaica. (Source: United Presbyterian Church, Minutes of Foreign Mission Board, 1890–91.)

“ They do as they please” The Jamaican Struggle for Cultural Freedom after Morant Bay

w Brian L. Moore and

Michele A. Johnson

University of the West Indies Press Jamaica  Barbados  Trinidad and Tobago

University of the West Indies Press 7A Gibraltar Hall Road Mona Kingston 7 Jamaica www.uwipress.com © 2011 by Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson All rights reserved. Published 2011

A catalogue record of this book is available from the National Library of Jamaica.

ISBN: 978-976-640-244-0 (cloth) ISBN: 978-976-640-245-7 (paper)

Cover illustration: John Henderson, The West Indies (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1905). Book and cover design by Robert Harris. Set in Adobe Garamond 11/14 x 24 Printed in the United States of America.

For BRIDGET BRERETON BARRY HIGMAN FRANKLIN KNIGHT

whose encouragement, support and challenging critiques of our work over many years have been priceless

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Contents

1 2 3 4 5

List of Illustrations

ix

Preface

xi

The Struggle for the Cultural Soul of Jamaica after Emancipation

1

“Tu’n yuh han’ mek fashion”: Creolizing Material Culture

11

Celebrating Life, Commemorating Death: Rites of Passage

57

“Duppy know who fe frighten”: Jamaican Creole Language and Oral Culture

81

“Lighten our Darkness”: Promoting “Enlightened” Intellectual Activity

108

“Elevate the tastes and morals of the people”: Art, Music and Performance

145

7

“Rationalizing” Leisure: Holidays and Festivals

175

8

“De tune you playing no de one I dancing”: Popular Entertainment

210

“Mens sana in corpore sano”: Fashioning a Jamaican Sporting Culture

248

6

9

viii

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Contents

“The Brotherhood of Man”: Gentlemen’s Clubs and Fraternities

300

11

“Tom drunk but Tom no fool”: Lifestyle Peccadillos

317

12

“We are heathen”: Asian Cultures in the Culture War

360

13

Capturing the Cultural Soul of Jamaica

405

Notes

417

Bibliography

541

Index

567

Illustrations

Map of Jamaica

frontispiece

1

Kingston destroyed: Harbour Street after the 1907 earthquake

13

2

Kingston rebuilt: government buildings on King Street, c. 1915

15

3

King’s House, the governor’s residence, before the 1907 earthquake

19

4

An elite residence: Florence Hall, Falmouth, Trelawny 1896

21

5

An elite living room

24

6

A peasant house

29

7

Local fruit for sale

35

8

Elite dress: Governor Blake and family

49

9

Dress of peasant women

52

10

A Euro-Jamaican wedding party

62

11

An Afro-Jamaican wedding party

66

12

Claude McKay

95

13

The Institute of Jamaica, Date Tree Hall, 1906

111

14

The Institute of Jamaica’s lecture hall

141

15

The Kingston Choral Union, 1907

163

16

The Theatre Royal

167

17

A holiday crowd at the Kingston waterfront

201

18

A garden party at King’s House

217

19

Quebec Lodge, 1891 Jamaica exhibition hall

245

20

Jamaica College’s cricket team, 1912

257

21

Village cricket near Port Maria

262

22

J.K. Holt of Lucas: one of Jamaica’s leading cricketers

263 ix

x

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List of Illustrations

23

A footballer

267

24

Knutsford Park Race Track, Kingston

273

25

B.M. Clarke: Jamaica’s premier tennis player

280

26

A tennis tournament in Kingston

281

27

Female cyclists, 1912

286

28

J. Weir: Jamaica’s champion cyclist

288

29 30 31

The Jamaican rifle team, 1896 The Masonic temple, Kingston Lodge brotherhood

292 305 308

32

East Indian immigrants

364

33

The Hosay festival

370

34

Chinese immigrants

389

35

The Chinese temple in Kingston

391

Preface

T HIS BOOK HAS BEEN long in the making. Although most of the research was completed about seven years ago, much has intervened to delay the final product. Nevertheless, this research project has spawned multiple publications: several journal articles and book chapters, two edited books of newspaper documents, and a major monograph before this. So the intervening years have not been productively barren, but this book was delayed by the fact that both of us relocated from the University of the West Indies, Jamaica, in 2002–3 to new places – Michele to York University, Toronto, Canada; Brian to Colgate University, New York, United States – and had to make the usual adjustments related to settling into an entirely alien environment. Our first monograph from this project, Neither Led nor Driven: Contesting British Cultural Imperialism in Jamaica, 1865–1920, was published by the University of the West Indies Press in 2004. That work examined the British civilizing mission as it related to the efforts to change the belief systems of the Jamaican people, to christianize and educate them out of their traditional culture, to “improve” their behaviour and morality, their mating and family patterns, and transform them into loyal British subjects. This book, emerging from the same research project, looks at other aspects of culture in the same time frame: material culture, life-cycle customs, intellectual activity, sport and entertainment, and so on. It is thus intended as a companion to Neither Led nor Driven, and we hope that together they will provide readers and scholars with a comprehensive analysis of Jamaican culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The relevance of this historical work to present-day Jamaica is demonstrated by a series of newspaper articles and letters recently published in the two leading newspapers, the Jamaica Gleaner and the Jamaica Observer, particularly relating to popular music and the Jamaican creole language. Together they reveal the intense agony that Jamaicans are still experiencing over what constitutes their national culture. Columnist Keith Noel has decried what he xi

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Preface

considers to be the generally lukewarm attitude of the government, corporate Jamaica and many private citizens to the creole culture; and he argues that this threatens to undermine the value of the folk culture in the minds of the young, whether it relates to food, language, theatre, folk music, story-telling, or folk religion. “Our language is bad, our ancestral religion is deviltry, our dances are too lewd, even our popular foods are not good for us! This is what our youth are told. And we wonder why we are losing them!”1 This book analyses how such attitudes to most of these aspects of Jamaican culture were shaped during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We are, of course, indebted to the various individuals and institutions that assisted us with our research. In the first place, we remain ever thankful to the University of the West Indies at Mona, which provided us with a joint research fellowship as long ago as 1996 that granted us the time and some financial resources to conduct our research; this yielded enormous amounts of data, more than sufficient for all the publications alluded to above. We also thank the Main Library and the SALISES library at the University of the West Indies at Mona, the National Library of Jamaica, and the Jamaica Archives. In the United Kingdom, several research institutions facilitated our work. These include the National Archives (previously the Public Record Office); the British Library and its newspaper branch in Colindale; the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; Partnership House, and the Society of Jesus, English Province, London; Rhodes House Library, and the Angus Library at Regent’s Park College, Oxford; and New College, Edinburgh, Scotland. We particularly thank Colgate University Professor Emeritus Nigel Bolland for his thorough read of, and very helpful comments on, the draft manuscript. These proved invaluable in improving the final version. As usual we thank the board, management, and staff of the University of the West Indies Press for undertaking to publish this second volume with their usual very high quality and professional efficiency. Of course, we take full responsibility for the contents of the book, including any errors. And we do sincerely hope that ours will be a sterling contribution to the cultural historiography of Jamaica and the Caribbean which scholars, students and general readers alike will find illuminating and easy to read. BRIAN L. MOORE MICHELE A. JOHNSON

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Chapter 1

The Struggle for the Cultural Soul of Jamaica after Emancipation

The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770– 1820, Edward Kamau Brathwaite showed that despite stark differences in social status between slaveholders and the enslaved people, by the last days of slavery Jamaican society was in the process of being integrated by a shared culture. This was being achieved through creolization promoted by the interaction of the three primary groups in the society, whites, coloureds and blacks, and their socio-cultural adaptations to one another in the plantation environment. What was significant in his analysis was that the “interculturation” taking place among these groups seemed to be leading to the emergence of a new creole culture.1 In a subsequent piece, Brathwaite was careful to point out that this process of creolization was not complete at emancipation, meaning that no homogenized creole culture and value system had yet emerged. Although each of the constituent social groups shared a common colonial and creole experience, that experience was variously interpreted based largely on their foundational cultural traditions. The result was an overarching creole cultural continuum with interrelated, often overlapping orientations, that ranged from Euro-creole at the upper social end to Afro-creole at the lower. In the colonial context, the Euro-creole orientation enjoyed higher status than its Afro-creole counterpart.2 In the wake of emancipation, European missionaries and other social reformers played a major role in trying to staunch the march of creole culture. In their minds, most elements of creole culture were either debased forms of European culture or, even worse, manifestations of African barbarism. For IN

HIS SEMINAL WORK

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them, creole culture, in particular the Afro variant, was characterized by gross immorality, debauchery, superstition, fetish and paganism, among other things. This culture had, therefore, to be eradicated if Jamaica were to become a modern civilized society, and the standard for that would be the incorporation of middle-class Victorian, Christian values and morals which would provide the guiding principles of decency and decorum. Hence, the missionary assault on creole culture extended to all orientations of it, from Euro to Afro. In their estimation, all Jamaicans (white, coloured and black) needed to be purged of their debased way of life, their creolity.3 After emancipation, therefore, the missionaries, especially those from the nonconformist organizations, embarked on a campaign to civilize Jamaica primarily through the church–school complex. Benefiting from their support of the enslaved people during their struggle for freedom, these missionaries became self-appointed mentors of, advisors to, and protectors of the rights of the freed people, and sought to create village and urban communities that would be under their supervision and guidance. Their tutelage of the ex-slaves involved proselytization of Christianity, the spread of basic literacy and numeracy to enable their charges to function effectively in the new free society, an assault on all things African or Afro-creole, and the promotion of British middle-class values, morality and customs. This meant that to become good Christians the freed people were required to give up their traditional belief systems and many of their customs.4 They were also to be anglicized, at least to some degree – that is, to become brown and black British colonial subjects. The missionaries brought with them not only the Bible, but also their sense of European moral and cultural superiority. Christianity was just one prong, albeit the most important, of a concerted campaign to improve the moral conditions of the Jamaican people. The missionaries believed that these “hapless” former slaves and their debauched former masters had been trapped in a world of depravity and immorality for too long. They both needed to be uplifted morally. In the plantation world of slavery white men claimed to have absolute power over their enslaved work force. It had bred a culture of violence to preserve order; and in a social context where white women were few and black slave women were “available for the taking”, a world of lust and licentiousness had been nurtured and flourished. Sexual promiscuity rather than stable marriage had become the norm. This had to be changed if Jamaica were to be civilized. Legal Christian monogamous marriage and the patriarchal nuclear family were the standards of civilization that would have to be embraced by all Jamaicans.

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However, the European missionaries were engaged in a campaign against an entrenched culture. The powerful landed and commercial elites could afford to scoff at them without fear of recrimination. The ordinary working people, although more vulnerable, listened politely, but often quietly ignored their admonitions even if it meant expulsion from church. They were not going to be dictated to in matters of personal custom. They were not going to be led or driven by people, whether foreign or local, who considered themselves culturally and morally superior.5 By the mid-1840s, therefore, a growing tension between the freed people and their missionary mentors was already becoming apparent. The people sought to determine for themselves how they should live, and what they should believe in and practise. In short, they wanted to be truly emancipated. The vast majority did adopt Christianity as their religion, but they retained many of their African-based beliefs and ideas of God which in turn influenced how they interpreted and practised Christianity. During the next quarter of a century, they not only began to africanize Christianity, but they also began to form their own Jamaican “Revival” religious groups which interpreted and practised Christianity very differently from the European missionaries and their local surrogates. These were Jamaican Christians, not British Christians. In their practice of religion, they reinterpreted Christian concepts of baptism and salvation and merged them with their own Afro-creole beliefs in the existence of a world of spirits. In addition, their practice of Christianity was not in the sombre, staid, “sober” manner that the European missionaries advocated, but was characterized by exuberance, joyful singing and dancing, stomping of the feet, and African-type spirit possession. They had incorporated the god of the Europeans into their belief system, but their expression of their own spirituality remained decidedly Afro-creole.6 These Jamaican Christians retained their beliefs in the power of spirits to influence the real world, and the need to propitiate them for good and ill. Obeah, the practice of witchcraft, sorcery and folk medicine remained powerful in their everyday lives despite missionary denunciations. In their minds, there was no contradiction between acceptance of Christianity and communion with the spirits which roamed the world. These beliefs were mutually reinforcing of each other; adherence to both belief systems (although not seen as separate) provided double insurance to the believers. Jamaican Christians did not believe that prayer alone could enhance or protect their lives on earth. Their African ancestors had bequeathed to them a legacy of cultural proactivity to influence developments in their lives. The obeahman and -woman were

3

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intermediaries with the spirits, possessing special powers and exclusive access to the spirit world to facilitate good and to ward off harm. The spirits which were ubiquitous had to be controlled lest they create havoc in people’s lives. This was in no way incompatible with their belief in a Christian god who was himself mysterious and spirit-like. What after all was the Holy Ghost, or for that matter the Holy Trinity: three in one?7 Was that not the product of powerful sorcery? The years 1860 to 1865 were an important watershed in the missionary fight against the creole culture of the Jamaican people. The great religious revival of 1860, at first welcomed by the missionaries as evidence of the fruits of their hard work in christianizing the freed people over several decades, soon turned sour when they gleaned that it was really a manifestation of the africanization of Christianity. This great European religion had in fact been captured by “ignorant” Jamaicans who were “corrupting” it. Instead of victory for God and civilization in the island, all missionary efforts seemed to have failed.8 Disillusion soon set in, and that was made even worse by the violent uprising of black peasants at Morant Bay in St Thomas-in-the-East in October 1865. Were these not some of the very people they had converted? These peasants had attacked the courthouse, the symbol of British justice, killing the parochial custos and a white clergyman, among others. This appeared to provide clear evidence of the black “savagery” that the missionaries thought they had eradicated. What had gone wrong? The reprisal of the colonial state under Lieutenant-Governor Edward Eyre to this uprising was sharp, swift and shocking. Scores of black people were massacred, others flogged, their homes and crops destroyed. The uprising had left white Jamaican society and the European missionaries traumatized.9 Some missionary bodies, like the Church of England’s Church Missionary Society (which had previously wound down its operations in the island) and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, withdrew. The others, especially the Baptists, Methodists, Moravians and Congregationalists, were faced with a serious dilemma of whether to follow suit or renew their efforts. If the latter, a new approach would certainly be needed or Jamaica might well go the way of Haiti, which they all regarded as a failed state characterized by black anarchy. For the first time the social elites (mainly wealthy planters and merchants) who had for so long been implacably opposed to the work of the missionaries among the enslaved and, later, freed people, and who had in fact blamed the Baptists in particular for encouraging the uprising at Morant Bay, now had

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to rethink their own position and explore new ways to stem the threat of black revolution. Their first response was to relinquish political power to the British crown. They dissolved their self-governing representative assembly whose rights and powers they had vigorously defended for two centuries. And as it became clear, through the removal and subsequent prosecution of Governor Eyre, that the British government and public were not about to sanction the use of extreme violence to repress ordinary Jamaicans, the social elites realized the urgent need to cooperate with missionary efforts to civilize the Jamaican people in order to create a “proper” set of shared values, ideas and behaviours in order to construct some semblance of social order. The old antagonism between missionary and planter had to be buried. Within a few years, a new but loose coalition for civilization would gradually take shape, embracing the missionaries and the churches with which they were associated, wealthy white planters and merchants, educated middle-class browns (coloureds) and blacks, the press and the new colonial officialdom that was empowered to govern the island directly after 1866.10 A London Times correspondent later referred to this as “the reconstruction period following the Morant Bay outbreak”.11 This was no longer simply a socio-religious campaign conducted by a few missionaries; now the whole of elite civil society would be involved in an open war for civilization. The principal objective that united the disparate partners of this loose coalition during this reconstruction was thus to wage war against Afro-creole culture. Beyond that, there was little unifying consensus among the partners. Many of the old rural plantocracy and their merchant allies (the social elites), were more anxious to preserve their social dominance and white privilege in order to minimize the threat of black rebellion than they were to anglicize Jamaica. Their support of the civilizing mission was intended to encourage the growth of a modicum of shared values among the lower classes, while maintaining their social distance; to humanize the blacks and render them less “brutish” than their slave ancestors. However, imbued with an emerging sense of Jamaicanness, they wanted them to remain creole Jamaicans, “our Negroes”. They wanted to rid them of the worst characteristics of Afrocreole culture, not to transform them into black Britons. For these social elites, therefore, “civilization” did not mean “anglicization”. The middle- and upper-class cultural reformers (the anglophile cultural elites) on the other hand, had a much broader socio-cultural agenda aimed at imposing middle-class Victorian morality and anglicizing all Jamaica, including the upper-class planters and merchants, not just the lower classes. Their aim was to promote Victorian moral principles and values as the foundation

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of a civilized Jamaica, and this would be done mainly through the churches, schools, the media, voluntary associations, and other social and cultural institutions. This new moral order would be reinforced by laws against “heathenism”, “superstition” and “immorality” which the police, courts of law and the prisons would enforce. While the upper and middle classes felt a growing need to cooperate in order to contain the spread of Afro-creole culture, an underlying tension in their coalition from time to time generated dissension and hampered their efforts. The wealthy planters and merchants felt secure with their creole customs nurtured over two centuries of residence in Jamaica, and they were highly suspicious of the cultural reformers who, in their fervent anglophilia, were keen to attack all manifestations of creole culture. Such disharmony was in evidence, for instance, over attempts by some cultural elites to institute the compulsory registration of paternity, because it threatened to expose the sexual indiscretions of socially elite men.12 The same occurred in the fight against obeah, since many social elites did believe in it and also consulted obeah practitioners. Exposure and consequent social embarrassment were always lurking in the background if too much of a spotlight were cast on these “social ills”.13 Such dissonance among the elitist reformers would significantly undermine the success of their socio-cultural reform programmes. In this coalition’s campaign against the Afro-creole culture of the lowerclass black majority, they knew that it was vital to co-opt the local coloured and black intelligentsia (junior civil servants, journalists, parsons and teachers, many of whom had risen from the very ranks of the “lower orders”) who would assist in the spread of this new cultural thrust. They also agreed that Jamaicans should be taught to appreciate the virtues of being British, of being a part of a broad imperial family united in its common allegiance to a beneficent sovereign who was caring and loving of her or his subjects. This had already been allegedly demonstrated in Queen Victoria’s “generous” release of her Jamaican subjects from miserable slavery. However, to be proud members of this imperial family, certain standards of behaviour, morality and beliefs were essential. It required well-behaved, Christian, monogamous, hardworking individuals to be deemed fit to be good, loyal subjects of the British sovereign.14 The informal coalition for civilization took Jamaica into the twentieth century. But it had only moderate success in transforming the cultural behaviour of the Jamaican people. The latter selectively embraced elements of the imported Victorian culture that they felt could improve their social status in

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a colonial society, but when it came to matters of personal status and custom, they both resisted and ignored it. Cultural self-determination was the essence of their responses to the new thrust with the result that, far from curbing the expansion of the Afro-creole culture, it continued to spread and to engulf all in its path. It was the mainstream culture of Jamaica shared by the vast majority of people in the island, although its status was kept inferior to the dominant Victorian culture of the minority reforming elites. This book should be treated as a companion volume to Neither Led nor Driven. In its examination of the more secular aspects (though not exclusively) of the material and expressive culture of the Jamaican people (housing, furnishings, dress, food, rites of passage, festivals and entertainment, arts and literature, music and dance, sports etc.), it reinforces the findings of Neither Led nor Driven, which focused on the ideological confrontation between the forces of creolization and anglicization. This confrontation, which was an integral aspect of a full-fledged culture war unleashed by the cultural reformers on Afro-creole cultural expressions, remains the heart of the analysis here. This volume goes on to posit the notion that despite the intensified efforts by the elitist coalition for civilization to eradicate, or at least contain, the Afro-creole culture after 1865, by the early twentieth century the latter not only survived, but began to emerge as the basis of a national culture, practised by the vast majority of Jamaicans of all classes including, ironically, many of those who fought against aspects of it; and it also enveloped the newer immigrant groups and cultures. This, however, did not signify that a consensus had been reached on what should ultimately constitute the national culture. The culture war which intensified after Morant Bay would last well beyond the turn of the twentieth century. It was fought against all things Afro-creole: religious and secular beliefs, marriage and family, morals and values, behaviour, aesthetics, life-cycle rituals and customs, language, forms and styles of recreation and entertainment. W.D. Townsley, one of the soldiers in this fight, deemed the “impurities” and “superstitions” of Afro-creole culture “the great enemy against which all the agencies of civilisation in this island have to wage unending war”.15 The missionaries certainly considered themselves engaged in a “war on Superstition, intemperance and immorality in the name of the Master”.16 The term “culture war” unfortunately has considerable political and ideological baggage. It has gained currency in the American/Western political and academic arena where it has spawned a very substantial body of literature relating to the ideological warfare launched by right wing (evangelical Christian

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and other groups) seeking to “restore traditional values” such as the sanctity of marriage between a man and woman (anti-homosexualism), “family values”, the right to life (anti-abortion), a closer alignment between church and state, among other things, all in an effort to “take back” their societies from “extreme left wing” groups (“ultra-liberals”).17 Many intellectuals on the right attribute the development of this culture war to the propagation of the ideas of the Italian neo-Marxist philosopher, Antonio Gramsci. He argued that all societies have two basic groups, the privileged and the marginalized. The privileged classes hold power in two ways: first, through domination or coercion; and, second and more insidiously, through “hegemony” – the ideological supremacy of their value system – which they persuade the subordinated to incorporate, thus causing the latter to consent in their own marginalization and oppression. These hegemonic values pervade all the institutions of civil society: churches, schools, media, voluntary associations; consequently, all spheres of social and cultural life are potential battlegrounds if systemic change is to take place. Such change becomes reality only when a counter-hegemony dominated by the value system of the marginalized is created.18 The term “culture war” is employed in this book without any of its modern-day American/Western right-left ideological meanings. Instead, it is very differently and specifically used to describe the conflict that arose as a result of the zealous efforts by Jamaica’s cultural elites to eradicate, or at least contain, the Afro-creole culture of the black majority and to anglicize and civilize the people. Although some of the analysis might appear Gramscian, as was pointed out in Neither Led nor Driven, the Jamaican social reality was much too complex to be reduced to the binaries of domination and oppression, privilege and marginalization.19 While there were undoubtedly some elements of those present, the cultural elites were much too loose and fractious a grouping to constitute a hegemony in Gramsci’s sense. Also, and very importantly, even though they enjoyed cultural dominance, their imported alien culture was not the established norm in the society. As noted before, the mainstream culture was that of the vast Afro-creole majority which the elites were fighting to contain or wipe out, and replace with their own. It was extremely difficult for them in those circumstances to influence the people to accept a foreign culture and value system that would result in their marginalization. The culture war was fought on different levels, at times in deadly silence, at times very shrilly; it was multifaceted. It was aimed at imposing middleclass British Victorian culture and morality on Jamaica. All aspects of British

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culture would be employed as agents of “civilization”, and the people of Jamaica were propagandized, largely by force of opinion and public policy, to think that these cultural imports were superior to their own creole culture. Force of example was wishful thinking since the cultural elites were themselves imperfect, inconsistent, ambivalent and often hypocritical. A system of shared values around the idea that things British were superior was to be fostered while social distance would be preserved along race and class lines. One of the critical features of this campaign, therefore, was that it should take place with minimal social mixing, and it certainly was not designed to result in social equality. It was in fact intended to preserve the existing social distinctions based on race and colour. In this context, exclusion formed a vital element in the conduct of the culture war. None of this, however, was taking place in a cultural vacuum. As already noted, Jamaica had a well-established creole culture nurtured over centuries of colonization. To supplant it successfully meant eradicating, or at the very least containing, the cultural “impurities” primarily associated in the minds of the cultural elites with Afro-creolity. So they arrogated to themselves the right to impose their opinions, ideas, values, morality and prejudices on the whole society, and to be the final arbiters of what was right, proper, decent and appropriate. They admonished, denounced, condemned and repudiated things Afro-creole utilizing the press, the pulpit and the classroom. When those failed, they resorted to threats and ultimately coercion. They made full use of the apparatus of the state over which, although they had ceded control to the crown, they nevertheless retained enormous influence, in an effort to root out the “evil” of Afro-creolity: the political administration and legislature (policies and laws), the police (harassment and arrests), the judicial system (courts of law to prosecute/persecute cultural offenders), and the prisons to inflict draconian punishments on those found guilty. This was an all-out, though not efficiently conducted, culture war in which they did indeed employ all the strategies and tactics identified by Gramsci. However, theirs was a minority, imported, alien culture; and the lower classes who were the primary targets of the war, were (contrary to Gramscian theory) not about to acquiesce in their cultural marginalization. At times they engaged directly in open or guerrilla warfare and obstinately refused to accept the imposition of alien values, beliefs and customs, and in the subordination of their own culture. At other times they negotiated with their detractors while quietly subverting their efforts; and at still others, they simply “kissed their teeth” and ignored them altogether, continuing to act autonomously. They

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also fought against exclusion from those cultural institutions and activities that the social and cultural elites sought to keep them out of. These people were fighting for cultural self-determination, for cultural equality, and where necessary for cultural inclusion. Even so, the persistent and relentless denunciations of their cultural elite opponents would generate in some of them an element of doubt and ambivalence about the value of their own creole culture. However, notwithstanding such elite hostility, Afro-creoles would fight to play a leading role in shaping the national identity of Jamaica; and their efforts to win their cultural freedom, to do as they pleased, would remain “at the heart of a continuous struggle for the cultural soul of Jamaica that persisted throughout the twentieth century”.20

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Chapter 2

“Tu’n yuh han’ mek fashion” Creolizing Material Culture

A LTHOUGH COLONIZED FOR HALF a millennium, late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Jamaica still presented the picture of a raw frontier settlement. Because life centred on the super-exploitation of human and physical resources by the plantation system for most of that colonized past, Jamaica’s cultural landscape showed the signs of underdevelopment. It was the plantation works and edifices along the coast and in parts of the interior that were the main symbols of cultural life in the island. Since the exploitation of slave labour for economic gain rather than the establishment of new human settlements was the raison d’etre of plantation Jamaica, few social and cultural institutions had been intentionally constructed by the elites. There were, it is true, small urban centres that grew up in the island, but these were appendages to the main economic institution and largely catered to and were dependent on it: Spanish Town, Kingston, Montego Bay, Falmouth, Lucea, Savanna-la-Mar, Black River, Port Antonio, Morant Bay. These housed mainly the small merchant and professional classes and their dependent workers, among others. None of these towns became major cultural centres. Apart from the erection of churches to meet the spiritual needs of their inhabitants and others living nearby, few major social and cultural institutions were built: insufficient elementary or primary schools, very few at secondary level, no tertiary-level colleges or universities, and few libraries, museums, theatres or entertainment centres worthy of note. Unlike the Spanish Caribbean colonies (Cuba, Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo),1 Jamaica had none of the symbols that characterize settled “civilized” societies. It was 11

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essentially a place that produced tropical staples for export, and its cultural landscape reflected that reality.

The Cultural Landscape Spanish Town had been the first capital, but its inland location did not facilitate its commercial growth. It was quickly eclipsed by Kingston, where in 1872 the seat of government transferred. Situated on the northern shores of the Kingston harbour, the city with its suburbs covered an area of about 1,080 acres. Kingston’s importance as the capital was marked by the activities of building societies, commercial banks, fire, life and marine insurance companies, and an ice company. After 1872, in addition to the offices of the colonial government there were to be found a lunatic asylum, a public hospital and the General Penitentiary. The various Christian denominations which operated in the island also had their principal places of worship in Kingston, as did the Jewish community with two synagogues.2 However, the growth, structurally and demographically, and increasing prominence of Kingston was also a matter for concern because when disasters struck the city many lives were severely affected. In 1780, 1843 and 1862, Kingston was devastated by fires that destroyed large portions of the city. In December 1882, a large section of the business portion of the city (40 acres) was again destroyed by fire; 577 government, business and private buildings, worth between £150,000 and £200,000 were entirely destroyed and twelve others partially, a calamity which placed sixty thousand persons in dire straits.3 In January 1907, the city’s citizens experienced the terror of a massive earthquake which was followed by another major fire (see below). By the late nineteenth century, therefore, Kingston had earned a reputation as a ramshackle town with old dilapidated buildings and narrow ill-paved streets. This was made worse by recurrent fires which left open burned-out lots. For instance, the devastation of the great 1882 fire left a large part of the business area unsightly for several years.4 In 1902 the Jamaica Times lamented that the city could never be made beautiful.5 Ironically, it would take a disastrous earthquake five years later (14 January 1907) to present an opportunity to rebuild, improve and beautify parts of the city. This was perhaps the most devastating disaster ever to befall the city and its environs. Large sections of Kingston and St Andrew, as well as the neighbouring parishes of St Catherine and St Thomas were destroyed by the earthquake and the huge fires that it

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Figure 1. Kingston destroyed: Harbour Street after the 1907 earthquake. (Courtesy of the National Library of Jamaica.)

spawned. The human tragedy was also great, with about fifteen hundred ipersons estimated to have lost their lives.6 The Jamaica Times, whose buildings were destroyed, painted the horrifying scene a month later: A terrible sight on the 14th was to be seen on the great road leading from Kingston to Half-way Tree. Within a very short time of the shock that laid the City this thoroughfare was filled with a large hurrying crowd, rushing from the stricken town. Some ran, some drove; others rode on horseback or on cycles, others could barely walk. There were men, women and children jacketless, with torn blackened clothes, with faces blackened bruised gashed bleeding [sic], with eyes that mechanically gazed ahead with an intentness that was terrible. Some were simply refugees from the wrecked and flaming City with horrible memories of what they had seen in the inferno whence they came. Others were men husbands fathers brothers sons [sic] saved, some of them almost miraculously, and speeding now with anxiety at their hearts to reach home and know how it had fared there. Women whose men were that day in their City and who failed to detect the well known faces in that torrent of humanity that was passing called aloud questioning in wild strange tones. Men

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replied only by tense exclamation such as “My God”; “Christ”; or they replied not at all; perhaps they did not even hear. They shrugged their shoulders, flung up their hands or without any gesture pressed slowly forward. Meantime the early hour of the dusk was come and south in a great mass of black smoke, smitten with an angry yellow glare with hundreds living in its ruins; Kingston was burning. It was a sight never to be forgotten.7

That the reporter could only see men fleeing from the inferno speaks volumes of his gender bias even at a time of grave national tragedy. The indomitable spirit of Jamaicans would prevail and Kingston would rise once more from the ruins and ashes. In the years ahead some of the major streets were widened and cleared of encroachments. New public buildings, built of reinforced concrete in accordance with the Coignet system to withstand earthquake shocks better, were erected along King Street, and lines of shade-trees and/or colonnades were set up along the main streets which were also resurfaced and oiled to get rid of the dust.8 Houses and stores were rebuilt better than before. However, significant areas of poverty would still endure (see below). The city also experienced other infrastructural improvements during this period. Gas street lighting was introduced in 1877, but this was supplemented and ultimately replaced by electric lighting after 1889. This facilitated the inauguration of an electric tramway system in 1898–99 to replace the old muledrawn trams and buses.9 These changes revolutionized social life in the city for rich and poor alike by offering new possibilities for entertainment, especially at night. In comparison to the other smaller towns and rural villages, Kingston seemed to offer more opportunities for employment in various capacities, and this encouraged migration from other parts of the island. The reality, however, was that the capital’s economy was still largely tied to the old plantation complex, and while new independent commercial and financial businesses were thriving, there was no new industry to generate mass employment. So as its population grew nearly fivefold between 1861 and 1921,10 so too did unemployment; and the physical manifestations of that were the growing areas of poverty and squalor that developed by the late nineteenth century. This was characterized by abysmally poor, filthy housing, starvation, petty crime, prostitution, disease and death. In many of these poor areas there was no sanitation (in fact, some were actually built on garbage sites), no sewerage, poor roads (or, more accurately, bridlepaths in some instances); and, in so far as there was running water, it was in the form of a few standpipes which served whole

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Figure 2. Kingston rebuilt: government buildings on King Street, c. 1915. (Courtesy of John B. de Mercado.)

yards or communities. Many of the poor were forced to supplement their meagre incomes by scavenging in the city garbage dumps, begging on the streets and relying on the parish for a pittance in poor relief.11 So in the late nineteenth century, Kingston was a city of great contrasts. The business districts and the residential areas were not very far apart and some of the wealthier citizens lived in extremely close proximity to their less fortunate counterparts. While the private residences in parts of the city, which were owned by the affluent residents, were quite impressive and surrounded by trimly kept gardens, there were many people who lived in the most appalling misery. While some took advantage of the town’s ample markets, fine shops and well-stocked stores, others were simply destitute. Even in the “better” parts of the city, life was difficult. Kingston, as indeed all the other urban centres in the island, was hot and dusty. For the most part the streets were narrow and unpaved, which made them dusty in dry weather and muddy when the rains came. Frank Casserly noted that up to the 1880s, “men used to station themselves at various places, during rainy weather, to lift people across the flooded thoroughfares, for a payment of threepence each”. There were no continuous sidewalks as house owners built stairways

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to lead from the street to their residences. Some street surfaces were concave with an open drain in the middle which served as a conduit to flush the city’s sewerage and waste into the harbour. Others had drains along the sides. The streets were flushed every morning by letting water from the city’s hydrants run through them.12 At the best of times, therefore, Kingston bore a foul odour of sweaty dusty human bodies moving about in the tropical heat, of rotting garbage, the carcasses of dead animals and sewerage in the street drains “compelling the pedestrians to perform some acrobatic leaps in getting about”. Throughout the 1880s, the Colonial Standard called attention to the foul state of “putrescent Kingston’s” streets and drains where the foetid sewerage presented a serious threat to public health and forced people to cover their noses with handkerchiefs. In 1894–95, however, a sewerage works was built and partially solved that problem, at least in the city centre.13 Life in the rural towns, villages and parishes was much quieter than Kingston. Despite its structural and social problems, Kingston was bustling by comparison to the sleepy countryside. Emancipation had witnessed a migration of many former slaves into the interior of the island where they occupied lands unused by the dominant economic enterprises, and many rural free villages had been formed whose economy was largely based on small farming, mainly for subsistence and the local market. Life was simple but difficult especially in times of drought or floods. Missionaries, who followed these people wherever they went to take the gospel to them, often told of the enormous hardships of the rural peasantry during droughts, when they literally had to walk miles to find and fetch water for daily use.14 Although huge conflagrations from fire were not a serious problem in the countryside because houses were relatively far apart, they were nonetheless susceptible to destruction from hurricanes.15 These not only destroyed the fragile houses in which many people lived, but downed trees and destroyed crops and livestock on which they depended entirely for their sustenance and livelihood. Furthermore, rural hillside roads were generally treacherous and made it extremely difficult for the peasants to take their produce to market. These conditions of daily life meant that peasants and plantation workers had few luxuries, if any, and it is no wonder that many of the young people gave up and tried their luck in Kingston. If the capital was generally lacking in cultural institutions, the rural towns and villages were infinitely worse off. For the elites, the court houses (as we will show) doubled as entertainment centres where they would stage occasional concerts and dramatic events and hold grand dinners and balls. For all classes

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the churches occupied a central place not only for religious purposes, but also for entertainment. At the turn of the twentieth century, as we will see in chapter 11, the rum shop would become an important cultural institution in the lives of lower-class men. For most country people, life generally centred around work on their small plots, and there was not much beyond that.16 The cultural landscape of urban and rural Jamaica in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries then was harsh for many and difficult for others in normal times. Natural and human disasters made life even more difficult, especially for the poor. However, they all lived in and helped to shape that landscape, ultimately constructing something uniquely Jamaican. It provided the canvas on which Jamaicans of all classes and ethnic backgrounds stamped their imprint in important, but different, often contested ways, as we will see.

Houses and Furnishings Housing and furnishing in Jamaica in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were heavily influenced by class, to some degree ethnic differences, and also by the climatic environment. The houses of black rural peasants, often called “huts” by the elites, were probably influenced in part by Taino, as well as by African architectural ideas and styles,17 reflecting African values of extended family, kinship and community which placed little emphasis on individual rights to privacy. Originally from tropical Africa, their architecture styles were already harmonized with such climatic conditions. On the other hand, the houses of the upper and middle classes were more influenced by European architectural ideas, as well as by the desire to replicate European values of privacy and the partriarchal desire to protect his (nuclear) family unit. Over three centuries, however, they had had to make significant structural adaptations to make domestic life comfortable in the tropical environment of Jamaica. Lower-class urban blacks and coloureds living in close proximity to the social elites were to some degree influenced by elite ideas and styles, although very often they could not afford to own such homes. Such fundamental differences in architectural outlook and aesthetics, reflective of the societal divisions, would provide fertile ground on which the culture war could be waged; and although by the late nineteenth century there appeared to be a growing coalescence of taste over architecture and furnishings, significant differences still remained between the cultural elites and the lower classes to constitute a climate of contestation and negotiation.

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Elite Housing The houses of the social elites varied in size and grandeur according to the wealth and tastes of their owners. For a start, as the representatives of the British monarch, the governors resided at the very grand estate of King’s House in Kingston, situated on 177 acres of land, after the capital was moved there in 1872. Villiers Stuart observed that King’s House was more a group of semi-detached buildings than a palace architecturally complete in itself.18 The main building, the governor’s residential quarters, was square, built of stone and stood on blocks. It was hollow underneath presumably in order to allow air to circulate. There was a broad flight of stairs leading to the entrance, and there were “deep” verandahs or balconies on three sides of the upper and lower levels enclosed by green jalousies which kept out the sunlight. On the interior of the balconies were sitting rooms, darker with subdued green light, no doubt filtered through the exterior jalousies. The smooth floors were polished black with “loose” (presumably straw) mats in lieu of rugs. The dining saloon was connected to the main building by a covered passage, and in another building there was a suite of rooms for the governor’s aides-de-camp.19 To the tune of almost six thousand pounds, a separate building housing a ballroom and billiard room was constructed20 in time for the arrival of Queen Victoria’s grandson, Prince George, to open the 1891 Jamaica Exhibition. When completed, it was elegant. The banqueting hall, from the roof of which orchids hang, is built upon a platform raised on broad stone steps above the lawn. Three of its sides consist of arches entirely open to the elements, but sheltered from the sun by a verandah which completely surrounds them, ensuring perennial coolness. It is detached from the main building, except that a long flight of handsome stone steps, covered overhead but open at the sides, connect it with the reception rooms above to the south. The table, at all hours spread with pyramids and trophies of handsome tropical fruits, glittering with plate and glass, and glowing with flowers, forms an appropriate and attractive centre to this splendid saloon, which is occasionally entered by humming-birds, who rifle every blossom that overhangs the table-cloth, or flutter about the chandeliers attracted by the gilded ornaments.21

This was the venue of grand state dinners or ball-suppers, including a “splendid” costume ball given in honour of Prince George in 1891. The gubernatorial compound also housed a “superb swimming bath” sixty feet long and eight feet deep, in addition to stables and coach houses. Beyond the buildings

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Figure 3. King’s House, the governor’s residence before the 1907 earthquake. (Source: James H. Stark, Stark’s Jamaica Guide [Boston, 1898].)

lay extensive and well-manicured gardens and lawns, occupying 20 acres, “beautifully adorned with shrubbery and handsome trees shade it”. These gardens when illuminated for state functions “had a most fairy like effect”.22 Like most buildings in Kingston, however, all those at King’s House were extensively damaged in the devastating 1907 earthquake, causing Governor Sydney Olivier to recommend that the main residence and the ballroom should be rebuilt entirely. This was approved by the legislature.23 The main house would be rebuilt on the same site and be of the same size as its predecessor, although it would be better designed to cope with earthquakes. A new wing, however, would be added over the swimming bath to provide more accommodation; and the ball room was to be reconstructed. The Bristol firm, Messrs William Cowlin and Sons, was contracted to do the work.24 Even before reconstruction could begin, further tragedy struck when the stables, coach houses and the governor’s new car were destroyed in a fire on the night of 3 July 1908. This fire was started when the gasolene with which his chauffeur was refilling the car’s tank was ignited by a nearby lamp.25 Olivier would not have been amused.

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The restoration of King’s House was completed in January 1910 after considerable political controversy over the use of “foreign” contractors and cost overruns. The new complex was built with reinforced concrete, as was required for all new public buildings. King’s House was not only built to be resistant to earthquakes, but also to fire. The main residence consisted of a ground, principal and top floor with a flat terrace roof. Each floor measured about seventeen thousand square feet including the large swimming bath and various balconies and verandahs. Apart from the entrance hall and separate cloak rooms for ladies and gentlemen, there were five reception rooms on the principal floor, namely, a morning, dining, drawing, billiard and refreshment room. The top floor consisted of nine bedrooms, three dressing rooms, seven private bathrooms provided with running hot water, in addition to the governor’s room and the secretary’s room. There were nineteen servants’ bedrooms on the ground floor, a servant’s hall, housekeeper’s room and a wine cellar. Up to 1920, lighting was provided by a mix of electricity, kerosene lamps and candles.26 While few could rival the governor’s residence in terms of its architectural grandeur, the mansion stood as a symbol of the standards by which the community (especially the elite) measured itself. Wherever they could, they too built large homes, with multiple bedrooms and bathrooms, and of course, separate living quarters for their resident servants. The desire for a home that was a show-place straddled the classes and was manifested in both urban and rural settings. Although the rural plantocracy had been economically ravaged in the aftermath of emancipation (1838) and the sugar duties act (1846), there were still some elegant great houses in existence in the late nineteenth century. Built before emancipation, the Kinloss great house, for instance, was large and built entirely of wood with a shingle roof. A verandah ran along the front adjoining the main interior hall. Along the sides of the hall lay bedrooms. None of the rooms had ceilings, nor glass windows, just jalousies. The Hamden great house, likewise built by slave labour, was entirely of stone, a rarity in Jamaica. It too had a large hall running through the centre, with bedrooms on either side. A stairway led to more bedrooms on the upper floor. The windows were all glazed and on each side of them, as well as the doors, were loopholes which were previously used for defence (presumably against rebellious slaves). Beneath the hall were spacious cellars and accommodation for the domestic servants.27 Although not always on a scale as grand as the planters’ great houses, most other upper-class homes in Jamaica tended to have a basic plan with slight

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Figure 4. An elite residence: Florence Hall, Falmouth, Trelawny 1896. (Courtesy of the National Library of Jamaica.)

variations, evidence that a common style was shared by most elites. Most of these houses were made of Jamaican hardwood and had shingle roofs. The ground floors of the larger buildings had brick walls, and a few had slate roofs. Marble tiles could be found in the wealthiest homes. According to Frank Cundall, these elite houses were generally rectangular with front and back verandahs or “piazzas”. A part of the piazza was often used as a bedroom or sitting room, and also had a staircase to the upper floor. It was usually a wooden structure supported by pillars and the intervening spaces were filled with jalousies.28 By the early twentieth century, newer houses omitted the rear piazza, while the stairway to the upper floor was built inside the house. Until the early twentieth century, the high cost of glass prevented most people from using it for windows. In these houses, a dining room lay in the centre of the ground floor, and a drawing room above. Bedrooms were usually placed on both sides of these two main rooms. All the rooms were separated by light partitions which extended only to about three-quarters of the way to the ceiling or roof in order to permit ventilation, but did not permit much individual privacy. These

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houses were generally raised above the ground on concrete or brick slabs, presumably to facilitate air circulation and to avoid flooding. The space might also have been used for storage. Most of these houses were painted, with green and white the favoured colours.29 The home of Messrs B. and J.B. Machado probably exceeded the norm for extravagance. Built in 1896 on East Queen Street in Kingston, it had two floors. Minton tiles covered the entrance which led to a vestibule of about eight by twelve feet with a dome ceiling “supported by eight gilt fluted columns with Ionic capitals”. The drawing room was large and well ventilated, and its walls were covered with stamped paper and moulding. To the side of that was a large room that could be used as a library, morning or sitting room, and then came the dining room. The pantry and kitchen were part of the main house, which was unusual in late-nineteenth-century Jamaica. The walls of the stairway to the upper floor were adorned with beautiful landscape scenes. That floor had four bedrooms, two of which had connecting built-in closets. All the windows on this floor were “ornamented with designs of colored [sic] cement and gave additional beauty to the building”. A balcony paved with Minton tiles lay outside the bedrooms, as well as around the entire ground floor.30 Because cooking was generally done on open fire hearths, kitchens of elite houses were usually detached from the main building. The wood and charcoal used as fuel invariably blackened the walls, as well as the pots and pans, and the “smoke invaded everything”. One feature that the Machado residence had in common with most elite homes was a separate building that served as the servants’ living quarters. Una Wilson noted how “different” these generally were from the main house. Some elites also had stabling and coach houses like the Machados.31 In some parts of the island like Mandeville, where there were few or no springs for supplying water, great reservoirs were built to catch rain, and the water was then channelled into cisterns for storage. “Every house has its reservoir and tank. . . . In all the [elite] houses one finds the filter and the water jar [made of] clay, kept ever cool by the evaporation of moisture that bedews its round red belly. They are kept carefully locked in a wooden cage, and whoever would have a drink of the precious liquor must come and ask the mistress of the house for the key.”32 Most well-to-do Jamaican homes had beautiful lawns and gardens of flowering tropical plants. All along the road from Kingston to Half Way Tree were premises with “broad leaved century plants, segregated branches of palms,

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great blazing masses of scarlet or yellow bloom on flowering shrubs and trees, clusters of deep-hued mango foliage and groups of tree ferns or beds of glowing blossoms”.33 Ethel Symmonett described the suburban village of Half Way Tree in 1895 as follows: The residences stand on acreages of beautiful cultivated land, nearly all presenting a similar appearance. Houses built far in from the main entrances of wide ajar gates to these pens, as they are called, with gravel walks up the center [sic], spinning fountains swarmed with gold fishes, crowded over by water lilies, and water hyacinths: orchards laid out on one side, and bright flower gardens in large pots, and ornamented designs on the other, from whence any appreciated visitor on leaving, are oft’ times by the owner of any of these pens, presented with a choice bouquet, or fruit. Evergreens entwining around the frontages of many of these vine-covered porches, and creepers cling to the fences, or iron railings; and the sweet perfume of night jasmines and flowers in full bloom, with wide open petals of various hue and redolence, waft their blended fragrance from the sunny faces of the happy juveniles romping on the lawns, with clear silvery rings of laughter in their mirthful voices, on to the passers by.34

The homes of the well-to-do were quite well furnished and adapted to the tropical environment, a clear sign of creolization at work. Floors were either stained or polished with little or no carpeting or matting, except for a straw/grass mat in the centre of the drawing room and beside each bed. The latter were rolled up during the daytime not just for cleanliness and coolness, but also to prevent insects and centipedes from finding a cozy home. “In so warm a climate hard beds and couches and cane chairs are generally adopted for the sake of coolness, and home furnishing is a much simpler undertaking than in our chilly northern homes.”35 H.G. De Lisser confirmed the preference for light home furnishings which consisted of bamboo tables and wicker chairs, centre carpets/mats and light lace curtains, iron beds and imitation oak bedroom furniture. By the early twentieth century, the old solid mahogany beds, chairs and tables, made from local woods by Jamaican workmen, were a rarity. As steam ships made international transportation easier and quicker, the Jamaican elites preferred to import their wooden and wicker furniture from abroad. Said De Lisser, “Austrian furniture and cheap furniture from America will be found in many a Jamaican home today. Even the old mahogany sofas are disappearing, and ‘couches’ are all the fashion instead.”36 If the advertisements in the newspapers are any indication, Jamaican homes had a wide variety of furniture, many of which were imported. The verandah

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Figure 5. An elite living room. (©Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes; used by permission of the Methodist Publishing House.)

and living room were variably furnished with some of the following items: loo (card) and occasional/sofa tables; dumb waiter; liquor case; writing desk; rocking, rustic and reclining chairs; sofa, settee and couch; ottoman; what-not (ornamental display stand); clock, music stand, hat rack, and later on telephone and gramophone. A sewing machine might also be among these furnishings. Fans (presumably electric once electricity became widely available) were considered an essential part of the drawing room furniture. Chandeliers, drapery, paintings, engravings, and ceramic ornaments, flower pots and vases also adorned these spaces. No elite drawing room was complete without a piano. De Lisser observed that “Walking in a Kingston suburb after nightfall one hears these instruments being played upon here and there, for most of the Jamaica girls of the better classes have been taught to play.”37 A dining table and accompanying chairs were the standard furniture for dining rooms which might also house a chiffonier, sideboard, or demi-press (cabinet). Until the late nineteenth century, most houses had an outdoor kitchen since cooking was done either on open hearths, or on wood-burning

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or coal stoves. In 1861 F. Singleton and Co. advertised American portable kitchens which had “all the necessary apparatus for cooking”.38 If the house had an attached kitchen/pantry, that might contain an ice chest or later on a refrigerator, and meat safe. In 1875 Gall’s News Letter announced the arrival in the island of new cooking stoves which were “portable, require infinitely less wood [than fireplaces and brick ovens]”. It noted that the governor, Sir John Grant, his lieutenant-governor, “and a host of other fashionable families” had purchased these units.39 Bedrooms were also well furnished. Beds varied from elaborate mahogany, maplewood or walnut four-posters to simpler sofa beds, and cloth stretchers. Light nets were standard to ward off mosquitoes at night. Bedroom furniture included cribs and cradles, wash stands, toilet tables, dressing tables, clothes racks, towel racks, iron bergers and stretchers, chests of drawers, and commode chairs.40 Modernization gradually replaced lamp and candle light with electric lighting from the late 1890s. By 1910 most wealthy Jamaicans’ houses were equipped with electric light and, according to De Lisser, boasted an atmosphere of comfort.41 In addition, elite homes usually possessed a varied inventory of expensive cut and engraved glassware, including those suitable for wines, champagnes, clarets, hocks, as well as tumblers, goblets, finger dips, decanters and carafes; china: breakfast, dinner and dessert service (plates, dishes, cruets, mugs and cups); and silver cutlery.42

Lower-Middle-Class Housing The lower middle classes lived on the fringe of the suburbs of Kingston in areas like Franklin Town or Campbell Town, in neat little cottages with gardens attached to them. These people were “respectable” and socially aspiring. They had earned a good reputation as “workmen” and many of them qualified to vote on the basis of their income and property.43 They were also good, Godfearing Christians who formed a large part of the church-going contingent of the city. A step below them, but no less “respectable” and socially aspiring, were small shopkeepers, artisans, and “decent” women who had toiled and saved for years to build homes of their own. These lower-middle-class people tended to live on the narrow lanes of Kingston that ran between the major streets, in little houses facing the lane with steps leading directly onto the sidewalk. These were the front houses of yards that housed some of the city’s poor

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behind them. Influenced by the homes of their “social betters”, their houses were wooden, built on stone blocks above the ground, and like many upperclass houses painted white and green. Generally with just one or two rooms, they were furnished with a small centre table, a side-table on which a large kerosene lamp might be placed, two American rocking chairs, and three or four smaller chairs. Framed coloured prints from the Graphic or the Illustrated London News might decorate the walls. According to De Lisser, “You dine in this room, you receive your friends here; in the evenings when you are at home you sit at the window and think if you are not minded to enter into conversation.” The bedroom was furnished with a neat wooden washstand, a clothes press, a table with a mirror and a modern iron bed.44 What is clear is that although this class of people may not have been able to afford the luxuries of their “social betters”, they had similar tastes in furnishings. Not everyone in this category was so “well off”, however; yet that did not mean they did not want the same material things. Winifred James described the interior of one home she was invited into: “[I]t was like a large box divided into four rooms. The first was a sitting room, very bare; the second, a bedroom with a large bed. . . . The next had a larger bed, a four-poster with a canopied top. There was nothing in the room but the bed; it took up the whole of the floor. . . . [T]hen [the occupant] opened the door into the last room with a smaller bed and walls pasted over with pictures”.45 To some degree, these shared material desires were promoted by what was available for sale in the stores. The leading merchants were white, coloured and Jewish, who preferred to import their stock from Europe and North America. Their advertisements promoted Western goods as desirable and as symbols of good taste and sociocultural progress. They helped to shape the taste and desire among socially aspiring middle- and lower-class people for things Western.

Lower-Class Urban Housing Behind these “respectable” front houses on the lanes, and in many other parts of the inner city as well as in the “meaner” suburbs, were yards which housed “a range of wooden rooms from one end . . . to the other, each room divided from the next by a thin partition of board”. This was where the poorer classes lived, often in conditions that were subhuman, without sewerage or running water, without electricity when that became available in the early twentieth century, often in buildings that were no better than dilapidated shacks.46 Many

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of the inhabitants of these dwellings were rural migrants who had moved to Kingston in the hope of improving their way of life, but ended up doing unskilled, low paying jobs as labourers and domestic servants. As De Lisser observed, they came when young, and fascination with city life seized them so that, though poor, they were loath to leave it.47 Perhaps they were concerned that if they returned to their rural villages without the trappings of material success, they might be labelled failures. These tenement yards had about eight rooms each and were built low to the ground. Each room might have two shutters which were no more than rectangular pieces of board cut out of the sides of the room. Alternatively (or additionally), there might be two narrow jalousie windows. Each room housed between two and five persons, which meant that there was no individual privacy. Indeed, there was no privacy at all in these yards because what went on in one room could be heard through the thin partition in the next. Because of the overcrowding, these rooms were more dormitories than homes: [T]hey are not lived in; they are slept in at nights. All or most of one’s living is done in the yard; the women gossip there, cook there, often eat there. They fix their tubs by the side of their rooms or by the water-pipe, and there they wash for hours, singing all the while at the top of their voices. They beat the clothes with flat, paddle-shaped pieces of wood, they rub them vigorously, and all the time they sing or quarrel, for washing is not disturbed by a row.48

The yard was effectively a social community, “a little society in itself, with its own interests, its gossiping, its quarrels, its intrigues, its envies and hatreds, its friendships and its loves”.49 Life in the urban yard was quite miserable and squalid at most times. Said Alice Michelin, “[T]he toilets were an outhouse, a little distance from the house, with a seating capacity of usually four or five . . . one being for a child. These little houses usually were infested with croaking lizards and spiders; rolls of toilet paper were unheard of; old magazines and newspapers were the supply. Think how inconvenient this was on a dark night or in rainy weather.”50 In 1881 the Gleaner noted that many of the premises occupied by the very poor were “in a dangerously ruined condition” and were “thoroughly unfit for habitation”. Far from improving, most of these poor urban housing conditions only deteriorated further as time went on.51

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Rural Peasant Housing It is debatable whether the housing of rural peasants was any better than that of the urban poor. For the most part they resided in wattle and daub houses with thatched roofs. John Henderson saw them entirely through a racist lens: Native settlements are all unique; they are all strange villages erected according to an architecture peculiar to the minds of say fifty people. Each man builds his hut according to his own idea of what a hut should be like, and he digs the foundations with no regard for juxtaposition or the symmetry of the whole village. The result is always purely picturesque. Some huts are of heavy grass thatched with banana leaves; others are mud-thatched with cobbled floors. The richer natives build wood houses out of disused packing cases, and live under stencilled letterings which once directed a package out of England. One house was built with box-wood drawn from cases that had contained sugar, biscuits, marmalade, jam, cube-sugar and cigarettes.52

Mary Eliza Bakewell Gaunt thought that these resembled the “huts” in the Gambia and on the Gold Coast in West Africa,53 a view shared by the coloured newspaper the Morning Journal, which argued in 1872 that the peasants had retained the “African notion of house-building”; and it marvelled at the tenacity with which they held “on to the notions that have come down from the fathers”. It continued: The old Africans on being brought hither from their wild homes, finding that the general features of this country were like those of the one they had left behind them, had little occasion to depart from what were the habits and customs that marked the course of their lives while there. They therefore just acted as they were accustomed to do at home – indulged in the wild habits of an uncivilized condition of society such as marked their lives there, and . . . they planted and reaped after the manner they had been accustomed to, and constructed their dwellings after the fashion of those they had left behind them. It is noteworthy that their children, and their children’s children for generations past, have trod in their footsteps in most respects, without seeming to care to have things improved upon these models in any way. 54

That some culturally biased and condescending elites, white and coloured like this newspaper’s editor, attributed the architectural designs of rural black Jamaicans to ideas and aesthetics derived from their African ancestral past was not intended to be complimentary, but rather to “prove” that they had not “improved” in civilization. It ignores the possibility that they may also have been influenced by much earlier Taino architecture, or simply by the types of

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Figure 6. A peasant house. (Courtesy of the National Library of Jamaica.)

building materials that were cheaply available.55 These designs, as we will see, would undergo change as they embraced some of the aesthetics associated with the forces of “civilization”. Rural peasant houses were built by driving poles into the earth a few inches apart, and filling the intervening spaces with wattle made from cane, bamboo, or palmetto. The wattle might also be plastered with mud (daub). The roof, generally conical in shape, was made of bamboo and thatched with palm, banana or plantain leaves. This was “done by lashing one bamboo to another which are fastened to the top of the upright stakes, where the eaves of the hut are to be. The bamboos are brought from the tops of the poles to an apex, where they are fastened securely together. The frame completed, the roof is thatched, making the shelter impervious to rain and heat.”56 In 1869 the Morning Journal indicated that the thatched roof could be made incombustible if it were soaked with a wash made of lime or whitening. Some roofs were also made of wood shingles. Most of these houses often had mud floors. This, however, enabled cooking to be done in the ground, and a hole in the roof permitted the smoke to escape.57 C.W. Willis observed in 1896 that some

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peasants planted flagpoles in two corners of the house and placed pieces of red or yellow cloth on them. This might have had an African genesis, or have been influenced by Hindu immigrants who usually planted prayer flags in a corner of their homes, or might also have been revivalist flags, indicating the homes of some of that group’s adherents. As with the cultural elites, the completion of a new peasant house was usually marked by a house-warming gathering of friends.58 The circumstances might have been very different, but the customs were similar. Many cultural elites shared the views of the Morning Journal that, in addition to being wedded to the “wild” customs of their African ancestors regarding the construction of their residences, the peasants were deterred from improving their dwellings as a result of the influence and fear of obeah. They concurred that “men who are in a position to make a respectable show in the shape of dwelling houses, are deterred from doing so by the dread, that if they appear to be doing well their neighbours will work obeah to their injury and their undoing”. Afro-creole culture was regarded by these elites as an albatross that was inhibiting the progress of “civilization” in Jamaica. That point of view ignored a government tax on houses which even this newspaper acknowledged deterred the peasants from “improving” their houses. Some observers like William Livingstone and the Quaker missionaries, however, understood the negative impact of the house tax, first imposed in 1868, which made a distinction between “floored” and “unfloored” houses. Every dwelling house not located on an estate or pen and valued at less than eight pounds per annum was liable for a tax of two shillings if unfloored, and of four shillings if floored.59 Through this house tax elite lawmakers made housing and architecture an area of contestation by placing a cultural and monetary value on the floors of the houses of the poor. As the London Times correspondent noted in 1903, the tax was “graded to fall most heavily on low-class dwellings, with the result that improvement in the houses of the peasantry has been discouraged”. 60 Not prepared to be driven, the response of the rural peasants was predictable: many refused to floor their homes. This made elites like William Livingstone, despite recognizing the core problem, highly critical of “the more ignorant class [which] preferred to live on the bare earth rather than bring themselves under the increased rate”. Indeed he cited a few instances where some people actually pulled up new floors when they learned that they would have to pay more taxes.61 The impact of the house tax was revealed in the census returns, which showed that in 1891, 63.5 per cent of the enumerated houses had thatched roofs, and of those 56 per cent had mud floors. In the face of

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the adamant and protracted resistance of the “more ignorant class”, the legislature was eventually obliged to abolish this odious tax in 1903 (by law 16). This, however, was not accomplished without a fight, because the large landowners (the social elites) feared that the shortfall in government revenues caused by the repeal of the house tax might lead to an increase in their property taxes. In the end, the introduction of new flat-rate taxes on property values meant that the incidence fell more on middle-class property holders.62 With classic hypocrisy, the cultural elites who had previously castigated the lower classes for holding fast to “uncivilized African” ideas of house construction, balked when the colonial government removed the tax that may have hindered the latter’s ability to build better houses once the burden of the taxation was shifted to them. Civilization evidently had a price tag attached to it which the upper and middle classes were not prepared to bear, and the new flat taxes threatened to fracture their fragile coalition. Although it took some time for the abolition of the house tax to reflect itself in the construction of houses by low-income people, by 1921 its impact was discernible: thatched-roof houses had declined to 40 per cent, of which just 39 per cent had mud floors.63 Like their urban poor counterparts, rural peasants had few material possessions or amenities. Both Emelia Russey Gurney and Mary Gaunt noticed the sparsity of furniture and the lack of utensils except for a few calabashes. Edith Witter recalled with some rancour that the only light at night was by lamp, and that she had no mattress to sleep on: “We sleep [sic] on banana thrash with a bag on it. I drink [sic] and eat out of Kala-bash.”64 These small houses often accommodated large families “ranging from the old granny . . . to the new-born baby of her great grand-daughter”.65 Charles Rampini, former magistrate and an unabashed negrophobe, was caustic: “The wretched hovel is crowded with males and females of all ages, not to speak of pigs, fowls, goats, and dogs; and as the sexes have no means of separation, the social consequences may be easily imagined [our emphasis].” The Quakers (and other religious bodies) echoed his impression.66 This was a major problem among the cultural elites who allowed their fertile imaginations to get the better of them. Thus Governor Edward Eyre in 1864 was willing to assert without any evidence that “Large families and all Ages and Sexes promiscuously occupy the same apartment. The natural and necessary result is that all sense of propriety or decency, all morality and all cleanliness are utterly wanting.”67 Yet there was no evidence of such imagined promiscuity, impropriety or indecency when Jesuit Father James Splaine had to sleep “in a negro’s hut” in June

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1870 alongside “six or seven negroes”. It must have been uncomfortable for him to share space with “niggers” as he referred to them elsewhere in his diary, especially since “They sing and smoke, or talk lying on their mats, till about midnight, and they light up again at about four a.m.” So after spending the night there, Splaine found it “very difficult to get up and to attend to confessions, baptisms, etc.”.68 The “niggers” were not so lazy (or promiscuous) after all! By the turn of the twentieth century, as the impact of modernization began to be felt even in deep rural areas, Livingstone noted that some peasants were gradually abandoning “their primitive huts for dwellings of a more civilized order. Mountain negroes have risen to a higher stage. They give attention to the appearance of their cottages.” Many began to build verandahs (piazzas), to paint their homes and some also had flower gardens in front; but there were still many thousand families “living in structures scarcely different from those of their African prototypes”.69 That these changes were interpreted as a triumph of “civilization” (European culture) over “primitivism” (Afro-creole culture) highlights how important the contestation between these two cultural orientations was in the minds of the elites. By the early 1920s further changes were reported. American anthropologist Martha Beckwith stated that the typical peasant house was built on a foundation of stone and mortar raised two to three feet off the ground. On that was laid sills cut and squared from the bullet, broadleaf, wild tamarind, or other trees. Posts were then set in the sills two feet, six inches apart and fastened with pins of bullet wood at the top to plates three inches thick, upon which rested the rafters. Zinc sheets were fairly widely used for roofs, ostensibly because they were easier to handle than shingles or thatch and also made a good rain catch. Walls were sometimes made of wood or more commonly of a filling of stone covered with lime and earth neatly plastered and whitewashed, which was called a “Spanish wall”. Board flooring was also in greater use. These “improved” structures generally measured thirty by seventeen feet for two rooms and a hall, or twenty by seventeen feet for one room and a hall. The yards had fences made of wattle, bamboo or some sort of wood.70 The principal material possessions of the peasants were their homes, fruit trees (breadfruit, bananas, plantains, mangoes, coconuts, citrus, star apples, avocado pears, jack-fruit, naseberry, sweet- and sour-sop, pawpaw etc.), crops (yams, cocos, cassava, corn, sugar cane, vegetables etc.), livestock (fowls, pigs, goats, donkeys and mules), and the land on which these were located.71 Life was hard and simple. Said Willis:

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A few simple dishes, a rough bench or two suffice to furnish these homes. Cooking or any other stove is unknown. All cooking is done in the open air. Two forked sticks are driven into the ground behind the hut, a bamboo laid across from which an iron pot is suspended, answers all requirements. With a few stones [the peasant woman] constructs a circular enclosure beneath the pot, lights a fire of sticks which she picks up and brings on her head, and boils the yams, which form a staple article of diet; while a few plantains and breadfruits roast in the ashes at the edge of the fire.72

As mentioned earlier, in some parts of the island water was a problem especially in times of drought, and the peasants had to walk several miles to find and fetch that valuable resource. In places like Mandeville, some peasants like their more elite neighbours built water tanks to catch the rain water. If they could not afford those, they were obliged to make use of community water catchments,73 or to fetch water from rivers, streams or springs for their daily supply. Architecture and home furnishing, like most aspects of cultural life in colonial Jamaica, formed part of the struggle for cultural dominance between the forces of creolization and anglicization. The contest here, however, was quieter and perhaps less intense and confrontational than in other cultural areas. If initially the architectural ideas and tastes of Jamaicans were influenced by very different cultural traditions emanating out of Africa, the indigenous Caribbean and Europe, by the turn of the twentieth century those cultural differences were narrowing as they responded to the same circumstances in the same physical environment and the availability of materials. Jamaicans began to share similar tastes and desires in housing and furnishings. But their ability to possess them was largely determined by their socio-economic circumstances. This meant that well into the twentieth century, stark differences in material living conditions continued to exist between the wealthy elites (mainly white and coloured) and the poorer urban and rural people (mainly black), and these were clearly reflected in their homes, furnishings and, as we will see below, in their food and dress as well.

Food and Drink Food and drink reflected a process of creolization that had been well evolved by the late nineteenth century. The foods and drinks consumed reflected a culinary blend of Africa, Europe and indigenous Jamaica. While a significant

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number of items of diet were imported, many were locally produced. Imports included fish and meats (from expensive “luxuries” like salmon, partridge, pheasant, turkey, sheep mutton, ham and bacon, to ox and buffalo tongues, Bristol tripe, and the lowly salted-fish, -pork, and -beef); cheeses, butter, wheaten flour for bread and pastries, potato, corn, rice, red kidney beans; and alcohol (whisky, gin, wines, champagne, sherry, brandy, ale and beer, etc.). These were regularly advertised in the press, especially when merchants received fresh supplies from abroad. All newspapers throughout the period carried multiple advertisements of imported food items and drinks, especially at Christmas time. As previously noted, advertising may well have had a significant influence on the tastes of ordinary Jamaicans. Locally produced food items included ground provisions and fruit and were referred to as “bread-kind” since they were used as staples. These consisted of a variety of yams, sweet potato, coco (Colocasia esculenta and Xanthosoma sagittifoluum), cassava, plantain, banana and breadfruit. Fresh meats consumed included beef, pork, goat mutton, chicken, and river and sea fish. Eggs were quite widely eaten, as were a wide variety of vegetables and fruit, for example, cabbage, callaloo (Amarandthus viridis), chocho (Sechium edule), okra, various peppers, gungo peas (Cajanus cajan), pimento, ackee (Blighia sapida), sosuma/susumber (Solanum torvum), pumpkin, tomato, cucumber, a variety of mangoes, grapefruit, orange, coconut, avocado pear, sweetsop/sugar apple (Annona squamosa), soursop (Annona muricata), custard apple (Annona reticulata), star apple (Chrysophyllum cainito), naseberry/sapadilla (Manilkara zapota), guinep (Melicoccus bijugatus) and the like.The ginger root was used to add flavour to both food and drinks. Favourite drinks included coffee, cocoa, bush tea (generally made from mint, cerasee [Momordica charantia], lemongrass, orange peel etc.), fruit juices and, of course, rum and other alcoholic beverages.74 Income naturally determined what and how much each person or family could eat and drink, but even at the higher levels of society where more imported luxury items were consumed, many dishes eaten were the same as those partaken of by lower-income families. These were traditional creole dishes, some derived from a distant Taino past, prepared for the most part by hired domestic servants who emanated from among the poorer classes descended from former slaves. B.W. Higman notes that ever since the period of slavery, Jamaicans of all ranks had developed a clearly distinct Jamaican culinary taste and cuisine, which was characterized by a liberal use of salt, hot pepper and sugar.75

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Figure 7. Local fruit for sale. (Source: James H. Stark, Stark’s Jamaica Guide [Boston, 1898].)

Even expatriates, despite their initial aversion, soon had to adapt to the local cuisine. This process was assisted by the press, which from time to time published creole recipes in their pages.76 The publication of Caroline Sullivan’s Jamaica Cookery Book in 1893 generated great pride among some of Jamaica’s elites if only for the fact that it contained “no European dishes . . . the cookery in all cases being such as ordinarily obtains in the island”. Containing 312 recipes, this book covered a wide range of soups, fish, meats, vegetables, puddings and preserves – “a complete compendium of native cookery”.77 Creole food helped to define the elites as Jamaicans, but it also underlined their cultural ambivalence since they continued to yearn for imported European foods. Creole dishes and eating patterns were the standard fare at most guest houses. The day started at about 6:00 a.m. with early coffee, egg and toast. In some places, the coffee was ground between two stones, “a custom once universal throughout the island, and which is said to preserve the aroma of the berry better than when it is prepared by the mill”. One visitor observed, “it seems coffee and toast were just an appetizer”. For after about two hours, breakfast was served, and this could consist of any or all of porridge, milk,

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eggs, fritters, biscuits/crackers soaked in butter, roast plantain, fish, rice and fruit. For drink, there was milk, coffee, tea or iced water.78 A cool drink of fruit juice would suffice at midday. Dinner was served at about 3:00 or 4:00 p.m. and was substantial, consisting of soup, fish or fowl (beef and mutton were rare) with rice or “bread-kind” (vegetables or fruit of a starchy kind which may be substituted for bread), and fruit. In the country, the main course might consist of game (mainly birds) as well as land turtles and crab. But not all elite residents were enthused with the creole cuisine. Expatriate Charles Rampini, ordinarily very hard to please, found creole cooking generally bad. He complained that the meat usually floated in grease and was highly seasoned with Scotch bonnet (Capsicum chinense) or other peppers. The meal was washed down with alcoholic beverages such as “penn punch” made of “brandy and cherry brandy, main sheet, sangaree, man dram, and a host of ‘beverages’ of which not the least acceptable was sweetened lime-juice and water, with just a soupçon of nutmeg and perhaps a teaspoonful of old rum to qualify the whole”.79 His was a losing battle, however. Short of cooking for himself and his family, and importing all their food supplies, he had to “put up” with creole foods. How strongly his views were held by other, mainly expatriate, elites is difficult to say. When the European tastes (and their imported food items) did battle with Afro-Jamaican food culture, the result was not an eradication of African cuisine, but the creation of a new creole cuisine that relied heavily on Taino and African culinary customs. Food, therefore, was an area of contestation in so far as non-creole residents tried time and again to impose Euro-standards on the local cuisine, but were ultimately resisted both by the local creole elites and by the ordinary Jamaicans, who invariably cooked the meals in accordance with methods and tastes influenced by the aborigines and long fashioned by centuries of African enslavement that had taught them to create new recipes out of scarcity – “tu’n yuh han’ mek fashion”. By the late nineteenth century, a distinctly Jamaican cuisine was well established, and the likes and dislikes of foreigners like Rampini were inconsequential. That, however, did not stop them from engaging in a continuous war of resistance against the creole cuisine, and whenever possible they would seek to revert to their preferred European fare, which they continued to consider superior. This preference was especially exercised on special occasions when a premium was placed on European foods. A good example of this was a grand farewell dinner for some departing Americans at the Constant Spring hotel in April 1890. The menu consisted of:

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Little Treeks Clams Soups. Consommé Royal. Cream of Artichokes Rissoles à la Milanaise Fish. King fish à la Venitienne Cucumbers. Olives. Pommes Chateaux Pièces de Bœuf du Chartreuse Chaud poid of filet de Volaille Henri IV Nougat Napolitaire à P’Antigue Roast Turkey Stuffed Asperges de Mouseline Egg Plant Faries Pastry. Vanilla Ice Cream Dessert. Gateau Milanaise, Ruban Cakes, Malakoff, Fruits and Raisins, Madeleines Cocoa. Coffee. Tea. Cheese.80

Notwithstanding the pretentious European names given to the items on this menu (another sign of cultural elite craving for the grandeur and status that they believed European culture conferred), some of the ingredients were locally produced and the entire fare was prepared, seasoned and cooked by Jamaican servants who would have imposed their own styles and tastes, regardless of the recipes, thus rendering the dinner more creole than European. It was virtually impossible to escape creole influences at the dining table. The battles over appropriate foods, tastes and the hierarchies of cuisine had been long fought and they would not end in this period, and while some elites might scoff at the “coarse” food consumed by ordinary Jamaicans, that they often consumed “more refined” versions of those dishes left them implicated in the creole culture that emerged in the island. As restaurants began to be established in the later nineteenth century, it was essentially the elites (mainly men) who could afford to patronize them. Some of the more notable were the Commercial Dining Rooms (Harbour Street, 1868), Groom’s Dining Rooms (King Street, 1868), the Alhambra (1871), the Italian Bar and Dining Rooms (Church Street, 1888), Messrs MacNish and Sons (Port Royal Street, 1892), Spencer’s (Harbour Street, 1899), and High Class Restaurant (1905).81 Many elite restaurants, however, were short-lived, not because the fare was unwholesome, but according to the Gleaner for want of adequate “civility and prompt attention on the part

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of the servants”.82 Perhaps the long association between food preparation/service and the servility of an earlier era had resulted in a resistance among these more modern food servers. It was not only the elites who ate out, however. There were also restaurants that catered to lower-income Jamaicans. Herbert De Lisser claimed that the facilities, as is to be expected, differed according to the strata of their clients. At the upper end of the scale were the “higher lower-class” restaurants where the walls were clean and hung with large coloured prints. “There are two large tables in this room, upon which table cloths are spread. There are plenty of cane-seat chairs. There are cruet-stands on the table. There is a large pitcher of iced water on a special stand. There is a large refrigerator. A cupboard contains dozens of bottles of pale-ale and kola. A clock ticks on the wall.” The clientele, mainly busmen and tradesmen, revealed their superior status by being “decently attired, their talk is generally about . . . the [Legislative] Council, or the Races”; and they were staunchly loyal to king and country. At the lowest level the dining room was grimy and sooty, adorned with almanacs and advertising posters. “The furniture of the room consists of a long table quite innocent of a table cloth and two long benches placed on each side of it. There may be, seated at this table three or four [barefooted] gentlemen whose heavy cowhide whips stamp them as belonging to the noble order of cart men; there may also be one or two gentlemen from the country districts.”83 Working-class Jamaicans also partook of food sold on the streets. Both Una Wilson and C.G. Bailey recalled food vendors in the early twentieth century, located mainly at street corners, markets, schools and chapels, and entertainment venues, selling a variety of very affordable food to customers: “stampand-go” (saltfish fritters), fried fish and steamed bread, “bullas” (spicy rock buns), “totos” (coconut-based pastry), “tie-a-leaf” (also called “blue draws” and “dukunnu”, a pudding made from cornmeal, coconut, spices, brown sugar and wrapped in a banana leaf), corn pone (another cornmeal and coconut pudding), ginger beer, hot coffee and so on.84 Generally speaking food sold on the streets was kept in very unsanitary conditions, as the vendors’ carts were exposed to dust and flies. In 1920 W.G. Stephenson [“W.G.S.”], a Gleaner reporter, stated that On a Saturday we count at least a dozen bread carts in Luke Lane, all laden with bread, buns, flour, cakes, etc. The dust comes along in clouds and the flies swarm over those articles by the millions. Then again all the rotten stuff rejected from the stores or wharves finds ready sale in that area. There is a regulation requiring the

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vendors of cakes to carry around their stuff in covered boxes or trays, yet no step is ever taken to regulate the evil to which I have referred above.85

Most of the working people had to prepare their own meals at home or at work; and for many the fare was very limited, often no more than yams, saltfish, vegetables and fruit. Methodist missionary Henry Buntin stated in 1868 (and he was corroborated by several others): “Imagine people living on yam, with little more than a scent of stinking salt herring diffused through it, by boiling, in order to give it a taste! This is the diet of very many of our people, and there are others outside who do not fare so well.”86 Whether utter destitution drove those “others” to the desperate lengths suggested by Rampini, however, is uncorroborated by any other evidence. He claimed that “Stewed cat is said to be considered a dainty dish amongst these woolly-headed epicures. The labourers on the sugar estates, both Coolie and Creole, hunt and eat the large rats which infest the cane-pieces; and parrots are stated . . . to be largely consumed by the negroes of the mountain districts, who say they resemble pigeons in flavour.”87 Among poorer Jamaicans, Sunday was special not only for church, but for meals. At the turn of the twentieth century, if they could afford it, the average peasant’s wife shopped on Saturday in the local market for Sunday, and purchased herrings (three pence), saltfish (one and a half pence), pork (three pence), half pound of beef, a “gill” (three-quarter pence) of coarse salt, sugar (three pence) and half a penny of matches (for the week). Three meals were served on Sundays: early coffee at about 7:00 a.m. – coffee or bush tea, and three pence worth of bread for the whole family. For breakfast, they might have roasted yam with codfish or pork; and at about 3:00 p.m. dinner consisted of yams, plantains or rice and peas, and beef.88 During the rest of the week, the schedule of meals changed. Early coffee was at 6:00 a.m. (coffee with roasted plantains or green bananas), lunch at 1:00 p.m. (green bananas, breadfruit and herrings) and dinner at 8:00 p.m. (more or less the same); and the fare was virtually the same every day. Babies were given cornmeal “pap/pop” (cornmeal porridge mixed with milk and sugar) from birth until about two months old when banana or plantain “pap” was substituted. The only time that the menu was altered was during the weeks of Emancipation (August) and Christmas/New Year celebrations when a kid (goat), pigs and fowls formed the principal articles of “meat kind”. Generally speaking, the peasants used their hands rather than forks or spoons to eat. Meals were served in pudding pans or calabashes. Plates and yabbahs were

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used only on special occasions. Meals were generally taken either in the kitchen or the yard. School children often had to cook for themselves and took their meals in pans.89 Low-income Jamaicans sometimes substituted for vegetables an edible fungus called “junjo”90 that grew abundantly on the trunks of cotton and fig trees and in damp places. A favourite meal was salted cod with ackee (see below) or sosuma/susumber. Pepperpot was a rich succulent dark green vegetable soup made with cabbage, callaloo, chocho, pumpkin, broad and sugar beans, tomato and okra, boiled with salt-beef or -pork, and flavoured with red peppers. However, in keeping with his hostile attitude to things Afro-creole, Rampini considered it an unappealingly heterogeneous compound. Noting that for black Jamaicans, “prawns or crayfish of some kind are de rigueur”, he asserted that “the scarlet prawns appear[ed] through the chaotic mass not unpicturesquely . . . but bamboo tops, cotton-tree tips, cabbage, pimpernel, pulse, and even the buds of the night-blowing cereus occasionally find a place in its concoction”. He observed that the creole whites were very proud of their soups, minces and stews cooked by black servants.91 This is indicative of a distinct Jamaican taste shared by all classes. Martha Beckwith claimed that black Jamaicans preferred “hard food” to “soft”, which was the preference of the whites. Hence they tended to boil or roast their bread-kind when green rather than consuming them when ripened as did the elites. Red kidney beans were used to make red pea soup, while a smaller red bean was employed to make rice and peas. “Gungo/Congo peas” were also well liked.92 Corn/cornmeal was another major staple used by Jamaicans. Cornmeal was mixed with wheat flour to make dumplings, and with milk and sugar to make pap for the sick or for delicate children. Dried corn was soaked in a lye of ashes and water, and after being pounded in a mortar to remove the husk, boiled and mixed with sugar and milk to make “hominy”; while “Brown George” was ground cornflour mixed with sugar and salt. Other corn-based creations were “funga” (a mixture of cornmeal and flour boiled with okra), “dukunnu” and “stamp-and-go”.93 “Corn keckrey” as described by Sarah White is parched corn, instead of plantain, pounded, mixed with flour and boiled with meat. However, Rampini mentioned once seeing an old woman on the bank of a stream drying thin slices of plantain on the sun-baked stones preparatory to pounding them into flour (called “conquintay”) for porridge.94 It is not clear if they were both referring to the same thing made with different base materials.

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Bitter cassava was used for various food creations, but the process of extracting the poison from the tuber, learned from the Taino, was difficult. “Pot bammie/bammy”, according to Beckwith, was made by mixing the processed cassava with salt and baking it. On the other hand, for “bammie/ bammy” cassava flour was mixed with salt and water, baked, and turned on an iron griddle, and its edges rounded with an iron hook.95 From breadfruit, Jamaicans created “tum-tum”. The fruit was boiled or roasted, then pounded into a ball, and added to okra soup with meat and cow tripe.96 Although beef was a scarce item on the table of poor Jamaicans, goat meat (mutton) was a favourite and many of them reared goats because they were cheap to feed. There was a social stigma attached to goat meat, however, and consequently it was not a favourite among the “upper ten”. Because it was cheaper than sheep mutton, which was mainly imported, many elites expressed a preference for it, but this had to be justified on other socially acceptable grounds: “under the delusive or pretended idea that it tastes like, or reminds them somewhat of venison. . . . Indeed we have heard this ground of preference adduced by persons who never have tasted venison in their lives; but it makes a man look big.”97 The poor, however, did not have to engage in such pretence, and goat meat was made an even greater favourite with them when they adopted the curry seasoning of the Indian immigrants. In addition to imported salted fish, some Jamaicans ate a variety of fresh river fish and seafood. These included calepever/calipever (Mugil liza) – so delicious it was called the salmon of Jamaica; king fish (Scomberomorus cavalla), a variety of goatfish, butterfish (Cephalopholis fulva), cutlass (Trichiurus lepturus), old wife (Alosa pseudoharengus), mackerel, snapper, crayfish, shrimp, lobster, oysters, crabs and turtles. Rampini singled out the mountain mullet (Agonostomus monticola) for special mention. As soon as it was caught, it was “wrapped in plantain leaves or better still in note-paper, and lightly heated on a gridiron over a clear wood fire, it forms . . . a veritable bocca di Cardinale”.98 Margaret Newton observed that most Jamaican peasants used wood fires in the ground to cook their meals instead of coal-pots generally used by their counterparts in the other West Indian islands. According to Joseph Beckford, the peasant would dig a hole, place some cocoa leaves in it with which he would wrap the uncooked food after adding water and a little salt. Re-covering the hole with earth, he would then light a big fire above it. Within half an hour, the meal would be cooked.99 Another very interesting aspect about cooking facilities created by poor enterprising Jamaicans was the setting up

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of public ovens at intervals in the countryside, where they baked bread. “These ovens are perhaps six or seven feet high, four or five wide, and probably ten feet long, built of brick, or stone and adobe. . . . These ovens usually stand beneath some trees, simply having above a rude shelter of thatch, raised on four poles.”100 Fruit formed an important part of the diet of all Jamaicans regardless of ethnicity or class. The poor perhaps relied on them more than the elites, especially mangoes. There was a wide variety of mangoes and a great many trees throughout the island. During the mango season, roughly May to September, they reputedly formed a major, in some cases the chief, source of sustenance for the poor; while some mangoes like the “Number Eleven” and the “East Indian” were “the prized dessert of the better classes”. Guineps on the other hand, while much liked, were potentially dangerous and claimed the lives of several children who swallowed the seed which was large enough to become lodged in their throats.101 Perhaps the greatest threat to life from fruit, however, came from the ackee/akee (blighia sapida). Villiers Stuart observed that these fruit “in scarlet pods, gape open when ripe and display inside a black, shining bean, attached to a primrose-coloured substance resembling suet, which is eaten boiled as a vegetable. It is rich and nutritious, and initiated Jamaicans of all classes are fond of it.” But its beauty and delicious flavour masked a deadly poison; and every year it accounted for the deaths of several individuals, sometimes of whole families. Yet Jamaicans, almost ritualistically, continued to embrace it as a national dish.102 In fact they were divided in opinion on its deadly properties. T.W Cummings, for instance, claimed that in forty years of dealing with ackees all over the island, he had never seen anyone poisoned by it; moreover he claimed that until 1915 the island chemist had always said that there was no poison in the fruit. He had heard that it was poisonous unless it opened on the tree, but he had seen full-grown unopened ackees shipped to the Jamaican community in Colón, and he had not heard of any case of poisoning there. Others argued that if ackees were cooked with yams, potatoes,103 or more especially annatto (Bixa orellana), they were deadly. As the saying went: You tek ackee boil soup You tek natto ticken am Gal you want fe come kill me?104

Even the doctors were divided in their diagnoses. Ackee poisoning was

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apparently accompanied by nausea and vomiting. This “vomiting sickness” only seemed to occur in the cooler months of the year (November– March/April), but while some doctors linked it to poison, others thought it was due to worms, meningitis, or other maladies. Moreover, it was established that this illness did not occur in any other West Indian island. No less puzzling was the fact that it seemed to be confined essentially to the black and coloured population, especially children; for the Indian immigrants rarely ate ackees, and whites generally only ate those that had been carefully gathered under their own superintendence and from their own trees. This compelled Governor Olivier in 1910 to seek the services of a British “expert” in tropical diseases.105 After some months of research in 1911–12, Captain Potter reported that most of the incidents of vomiting sickness were misdiagnosed cases of yellow fever. That, however, did not seem to make sense to the Jamaican authorities because the outbreaks generally seemed to occur during the winter season when there were large numbers of white tourists without immunities to yellow fever, yet none was affected by vomiting sickness; and no doctor who had treated cases of yellow fever in the outbreak of 1885–86 had ever identified vomiting sickness with that disease.106 So Dr H.H. Scott, the government bacteriologist, continued research into this phenomenon, and from 1915 travelled to various parts of the island to conduct first-hand investigations. He identified three critical stages before ackees could be safely eaten, namely, when they were ripe, mature/full and fit/opened. His research purported to demonstrate that vomiting sickness was directly related to the consumption of ackees before they were fit/opened, that is, when they were ripe or mature/full. Once fit, however, they were palatable and nutritious. Hence, although they were shipped to Colón when full, they opened naturally on or before arrival there and so were benign. Poorer Jamaicans were the main victims of ackee poisoning, he argued, because some children picked up the unfit fruit from the ground where it had fallen, forced it open and ate it. Alternatively, if the immature fruit was boiled with provisions, the latter absorbed the poison; and among the poorer classes the “soup” was not thrown away but fed to young children. Scott also claimed that the poison could be rendered inert by immediately ingesting alcohol (rum, whisky or brandy).107 Except for the “antidote” of alcohol, more sophisticated modern scientific research has endorsed much of Scott’s findings. “The seeds and the membrane at the base of the seed mantle are always poisonous. The membrane at the base should be removed. The seed mantle of unripe fruits contains the toxic

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constituents hypoglycin A and B. It is a water-soluble liver toxin. . . . Ackee poisoning produces nausea and acute vomiting without diarrhoea, followed by dizziness, slight fever, convulsions, coma, and death in malnourished persons.”108 Notwithstanding Dr Scott’s findings, many Jamaicans refused to believe that the ackee was a source of lethal poison and continued to flirt with the fruit; hence the occurrence of and deaths from vomiting sickness continued to escalate: in 1915 – 134; 1916 – 68; 1917 – 172; 1918 – 257.109 This so alarmed the Colonial Office that Secretary of State Milner even put on the table the idea of cutting down all the ackee trees in the island. The local medical authorities, however, counselled against such drastic action. Dr Scott observed that particularly in Trelawny where there were more trees than elsewhere, it would be a herculean task to cut them all down, and in any event they would spring up rapidly again. Besides, he cautioned, the peasants would oppose it since the fruit not only provided direct sustenance, but were also an important source of income. Instead he recommended a sustained programme of public information on how to use the fruit safely. For his part, the superintending medical officer regarded any large-scale destruction of ackee trees as “an act of vandalism”.110 That ackee remained popular with all classes of Jamaicans despite its dangers, and was often consumed with salted cod and bammy (a cake made from cassava flour from which poison also had to be extracted) is perhaps illustrative of a people who were prepared even to risk danger to respond to their tastes and to “do as they please”. At the end of the nineteenth century, W.P. Livingstone had favourably observed that Jamaicans were consuming more and better classes of food which were widely available at every small store in the country, and that numerous families were regularly varying their native diet with “nutritious” articles from abroad, mainly Britain. This trend, he felt, was partly a consequence of the practice of white “mistresses” giving their black domestics food supplies so that they learned to relish substances to which otherwise they would not have become accustomed.111 This explanation completely ignores the enormous impact of merchant importations and advertising in shaping tastes. Still, either way, this trend made the country increasingly dependent on imported foodstuffs – not only saltfish which had been part of the diet ever since the days of slavery, but also flour for bread which rivalled local bread-kind, and luxury items such as prime York hams at Christmas time. At the same time the production of local food items declined. Indeed, despite the recommendation of the 1897 Royal Commission, the crown colony gov-

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ernment failed to encourage the development of local food crop agriculture, which remained concentrated in the hands of the peasantry.112 The focus continued to be on plantation agriculture for export (mainly sugar and later bananas) even though the sugar economy had been in a state of chronic depression ever since the early 1880s. The crunch came during the First World War when international shipping was disrupted. From the very outset of that conflict, the Gleaner, in anticipation of imported food shortages, began to urge farmers to grow more yams, cocos, sweet potatoes, bananas, rice, coffee and cocoa for local consumption.113 But the call fell on deaf ears: the government did no more than pay lip service to the idea, and the merchants continued to look abroad for food supplies. By 1917, however, there was a serious wheat bread shortage as the supply of flour declined. Although the price of local food produce increased, there was still not enough bread-kind being cultivated to meet the demand. While some people advocated an outright ban on flour imports in order to force Jamaicans to rely on local food items and encourage farmers to grow more of the same, the Gleaner rather more ambivalently argued that this would merely lead to widespread starvation because it doubted that the farmers could ever produce enough, and feared that with consequentially rising prices the poor would suffer inordinately. By the First World War, therefore, Jamaicans of all classes had become so heavily dependent on wheat bread as a part of their everyday diet that they could hardly survive without imported flour.114 If the forces of anglicization and civilization could claim a victory in persuading the people away from the “coarse” ground provisions of their foreparents, it was a hollow victory indeed. The cultural elite had helped to move the people into dependence on imported foodstuff; the price of civility and modernity was extremely high. If the flour shortage was bad enough, an even greater calamity was portended by an acute shortage of saltfish! By 1917 supplies from Newfoundland had been seriously threatened, with the German torpedoing of merchant ships. As a result, a national crisis loomed in Jamaica – of potentially greater proportions than if a backward constitutional change were made. With tongue in cheek, the Gleaner noted that the Newfoundland government was doing its best to overcome the crisis: “It recognises the seriousness of the situation. It knows that West Indians can face the artillery of the Huns with disdain, but cannot with a like equanimity endure the prospect of an existence without saltfish.” For, despite the fact that Dr Scott had gravely warned that under certain conditions ackee was a deadly poison, “we nevertheless cling to the

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dish of danger, saying that a people who cannot be frightened by the Germans will not be scared by the malignant demon that sometimes takes possession of the soul of the ackee. But ackee without saltfish is largely like mustard without beef.” Ackee, for most Jamaicans, was made for saltfish, and vice versa! However, the Gleaner warned that if no more saltfish came to Jamaica during the war, the people would realize what real sacrifice meant. “Our bitterness against the Germans will be increased a hundredfold, and men will go more gladly than ever to the Contingent Camp with the resolute purpose of breaking the power of the Hun – acursed [sic] be he!”115 No wonder Germany lost the war! Jamaicans had redoubled their efforts to fight the enemy of saltfish imports. For drink, water was mandatory for those who could not afford anything else, but since it was not potable, it had to be boiled or filtered. “Beverage”, drunk by the poorer people, consisted of no more than sugar and water, perhaps with a little lime juice. Refreshing drinks were also made from other fruits. “Matrimony”, for instance, was a concoction of equal parts of the pulp and juice of orange and star-apple mixed with sugar and a dash of rum.116 Of course, rum was perhaps the main alcoholic drink consumed by all classes; but those who could not afford even the cheapest rum could, according to the Gleaner, have “cork afloat”, made by adding to a battered can of water the cork of an old liquor bottle cork, “and as the drinker quaffs the liquid the cork bobs beneath his nose, and the rich aroma of the contents of the bottle in which the cork did service ascends to his nostrils – he forgets he is drinking water, and the beverage becomes rare old whisky, sparkling champagne, or rich sherry, according as he has selected his cork”.117 Coconut water was a cheap refreshing drink. Willis described it thus: It is the green, unripe nut, when its interior contains little but pure, limpid water, which is quite cool, very refreshing and delicious. Clinging to the interior of the shell there is a thin layer of white jelly, which may be scooped out with a spoon. . . . The natives gather these green or “water cocoanuts”, and with the machete cut off most of the husk – leaving it white, and oblong in shape. With the machete . . . one end of the nut is clipped off – just enough to make a small hole, perhaps an inch in diameter, in the end of the shell. Then place the lips around the orifice, tip back your head and shut your eyes, and allow this delicious refreshing nectar to gurgle down your throat.

After drinking, the coconut was split longitudinally with the machete, and the jelly scooped out from the two halves.118

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During the late 1860s quinine bitters, manufactured by Michael Lazarus of Falmouth, became popular among all classes of people, and several claimed to benefit from using them, particularly in curing fever. “It is a pure, wellmade and palatable Tonic; and those who are not acquainted with the fact, that it owes part of the bitter quality to quinine instead of excess of the other ingredients, could only remark it for the excellence of its flavour.” Of course, this tribute was in large part based on its favourable comparison with the Quinine Ale of England.119 In the 1880s aerated beverages were first made available locally by means of dispensing machines, and were purchasable by the glass for three pence. Aerated beverages were later bottled and sold for between three shillings and four shillings sixpence each.120 There is no item of material culture which more clearly demonstrates the emergence of a national culture in Jamaica than food. Jamaicans not only ate the same foods, although the wealthy had access to more imported items, but they also prepared them in essentially the same ways. Since most cooking was done by working-class people, either on their own behalf or in the employ of the middle and upper classes, Jamaicans developed a “standard” culinary taste that became national by the nineteenth century. There were some expatriate elites who did not care for creole cooking, and from time to time they did seek to escape its hegemonic embrace by having elaborate European-style dinners on special occasions; but these were still prepared by Jamaican servants who imposed their own tastes. Cuisine, therefore, was an area where battles over what foods should be consumed and how they should be prepared had long been fought and had resulted in a relative consensus by the late nineteenth century. However, from time to time, there were flashpoints over the island’s cuisine, initiated by non-creoles who rejected the local palate or else by the local elite who sought to reassure themselves that they retained their taste for the finer, “civilized” foods of “home”. As we have demonstrated though, even those moments were usually resolved in favour of creolity – the tastes and smells of Jamaica.

Dress By the later nineteenth century, most Jamaicans had adopted Western forms of dress for their everyday wear, whether at home or in public. At first glance, therefore, it would appear that there was very little cultural contestation here. Steeve Buckridge interprets this as accommodation by the black and coloured

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majority in response to elite anglicization efforts, and argues that it was facilitated by the commercialization of the island after emancipation, which saw the importation of cloths and fashions from Europe by local merchants.121 With the exception of head-ties, and the clothes worn by “liberated” African slaves taken to Jamaica after emancipation, African dress had more or less disappeared and, over time, the African immigrants too adopted Euro-creole dress styles. European dress became an important indicator of class and high culture, and anyone with pretensions to social respectability in colonial society was expected to conform to the established dress norm. Although the dress code was to some extent imposed by virtue of the fact that it was required for “white-collar” occupations, formal occasions and for socializing in “respectable/polite” society, it was also voluntarily adopted after emancipation by the ex-slaves as a sign of their material and social progress; and this was considerably reinforced by the missionaries, who equated Christianity with “proper” dress, especially for church-related functions and school attendance. Dressing “up” thus became a major preoccupation of all classes of Jamaicans, and advertisements in the press fed their appetite for fine European dress fashions. Clothing and cloths of every description were imported for women, men and children. At the upper end of the social ladder, ladies’ items included a wide variety of laced sleeves, collars and falls; glace/glacie silks, silk evening dresses, shawls and stockings; muslin and silk scarves; tarletan, muslin and barège robes; tulle veils; kid gloves; hats; trimmed and untrimmed bonnets; handkerchiefs; corsets; trusses; fancy fans; jewellery of French and English designs (brooches, chains and pendants, rings etc.); head dresses and hair nets; soaps and perfumes.122 “Respectable” girls and ladies generally wore long skirts and high-necked blouses with long sleeves, complete with stockings, hat or bonnet, and gloves. To keep off the dust of the streets they sometimes used veils, and “coloured shawls and rugs to cover their feet, and sometimes half the body” as they were driven in their carriages.123 Corsets, tightly laced back and front, were virtually indispensable, no matter how restrictive.124 Even for purposes of recreation “ladies” were expected to cover their entire bodies in keeping with Victorian conventions of propriety. Hence long skirts were worn to play tennis even though they had to be held up at one side for comfortable walking. Similarly sea bathing costumes were generally skirts that hung at least to the knee.125 Elite men preferred woollen cloths, but other fabrics were worn as well. There were tweeds, broad cloths, serges, venetians and doeskins for dress suits; satin and wool for vests; muslin and silk for neckties; linen and khaki for light

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Figure 8. Elite dress: Governor Blake and family. (Source: Edgar Bacon and E.M. Aaron, The New Jamaica [Kingston, 1890].)

tropical suits; cords for riding pants and leggings; box cloths for leggings; drills for tunics, rink jackets and riding breeches; and flannels for cricket and tennis. Morning, frock or tail coats, and evening jackets, were important items of formal wear, as well as a variety of shirts made of linen, cotton and flannel. Felt, silk, straw and pith hats, (fancy) walking-sticks and/or umbrellas completed the gentleman’s ensemble. For both men and women, a premium was placed on English leather boots and shoes of varying styles and shapes.126 Professional “gentlemen” such as lawyers, doctors, civil servants, businessmen often wore morning coats, waistcoats and top hats which reflected both their white-collar occupations and their elevated social status. This was the case particularly on state occasions such as the opening of the Legislative Council, when the members were expected to dress “appropriately”: “The top hats and coats worn by the legislators that aped the attire of the House of Commons in London always created much amusement.” Waistcoats, watches and chains completed the gentleman’s formal habiliment. In less formal settings or on plantations, however, a khaki or linen suit would be sufficient in daytime.127 In the evening, “the white man will religiously get into his

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black dinner clothes, stiff shirt and stiff collar. Army and Navy officers will not budge a button from ‘full dress’. These white men, all dressed up, will drink lime juices or rum punches and dance till the early hours without turning a hair. The ladies are better off, for their evening clothes are lighter anyway”.128 Many of the above items of clothing, especially those for men, were entirely unsuitable to the tropical climate of Jamaica,129 but the fact that the cultural elites considered them essential symbols of culture and respectability is indicative of how much value and importance were placed by them on things European as yardsticks of colonial civilization. For both elite men and women, their dress code sought to conform to British Victorian middle-class moral and aesthetic ideas and standards of decorum and decency. Any significant deviation from that norm was socially unacceptable, and more so in a society striving to prove that it was no less civilized than its model at “home”. Since the island’s tropical climate was perpetually warm or hot, however, these elites adopted English summertime habits of favouring light colours during the day, preferably white or fawn, with shady hats or helmets.130 Of course, long sleeves and shady hats also protected white/light skin colour in a society where whiteness was privileged. Indeed, Buckridge notes that some people of darker hue even used skin bleaching creams to lighten their complexion.131 Appropriate European attire was especially important when in public view, not only for the elites, but was also required for their servants. It was customary on Sundays and public holidays for elite couples and families to go for drives in their horse-drawn carriages and buggies. These were conducted by a coachman who generally had to wear riding boots, white breeches, coat, top hat and gloves. The horses too were well matched pairs (blacks, chestnuts or greys) dressed in brass liveries.132 As far as possible, therefore, elite comportment was designed to emulate their social peers back “home”. European garments, however, were subjected to creole methods of laundry by Jamaican servants who, in their efforts to prepare their employers’ clothing to pass muster in “respectable” society, were renowned for their liberal use of starch. Winifred James complained that “Unless you send eternal and unremitting weekly pleadings, everything you wear is returned to you starched; and what is more, raw starched. My handkerchiefs are pieces of cardboard, my nightgowns are [stiff] shirts; my linen dresses are plaster casts.”133 It was not only the elite classes who had a penchant for fashionable Western finery. Poor black and brown lower-class Jamaicans also shared these values with respect to dress. This was particularly evident on Sundays, holidays or

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special occasions like weddings and funerals. Mary Gaunt, for instance, noted that at the Anglican church in Negril, The older men must have found the morning hours a time of trial for they were clad . . . in heavy dark woollen suits though Heaven only knows what the temperature had risen to. Perhaps they took pride in their eminently respectable appearance. Or perhaps they acquired merit through suffering. . . . The women were much better off. A young woman in the choir was dressed in some sort of pink silk mixture toned with blue to the shade of deep petunia. It exactly suited her clear dark complexion. The points of her shoulders were covered and her round arms came out of plain short sleeves, graceful and seductive. Her hat was very simple, lending a becoming shade to soft dark eyes and gleaming teeth. A beautiful young woman most becomingly dressed. She would have been striking in London.134

That these dark-skinned colonials eminently measured up to London standards is proof positive of how well they adopted Western dress, and also proof that notwithstanding small variations, Jamaicans of all classes had settled on what they considered to be a national form of dress. Likewise, W.P. Livingstone commented on “the English attire” of the black men, “even sometimes to the top hat and frock coat”.135 In 1959, E.C. Gardiner proudly recalled that at the turn of the twentieth century, the men were exceedingly “well dressed” and groomed for church: boots sparkling like crystal, three-piece tweed suits, black venetian, vecuna, cream flannel muzzle waistcoats, Derby hats and felts, stiffed-front white shirts and silk stockings, broad and sparkling belts, underarm pants, watch and chains, umbrellas or a cloak. Women were dressed in veils, gloves, shawls, silk stockings and frocks, corsets, ladies pads to give the famous Boston styles, tested gold rimmed spectacles, thimble-heeled shoes, gold and silver bracelets and necklaces. In 1880 the Colonial Standard felt that many of their outfits would have done credit to a Parisian modiste.136 Ordinary Jamaicans had indeed fully embraced the best of Western dress. In the process, they earned a reputation for being fond of fine clothing; even the poorest would make many sacrifices to obtain it.137 That both lower- and middle-class black and brown Jamaicans went to great lengths to dress “up” especially for special occasions might be interpreted as evidence that anglicization was establishing a stranglehold on Jamaican culture. In a colonial society where progress and status were to a considerable degree measured by one’s outward appearance, it is not surprising that many people may have sought respectability through dress. Yet this also represented a challenge to elite exclusivity. To have adopted Western clothes and worn

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Figure 9. Dress of peasant women. (Courtesy of the National Library of Jamaica.)

them “well” was to break down an important socio-cultural barrier that was supposed to define the superiority of the white elites and to preserve their social distance from the rest of society. As Buckridge observes, lowerand middle-Jamaicans used English dress styles as a means of claiming social space and status that the elites sought to deny them. Dressing “up” in European finery was a way of demonstrating that they believed they were equal and just as beautiful. It provided them with a sense of self-esteem and made them feel good about themselves.138 Contemporary commentators, however, repeatedly found the contrast between the week-day appearance of these people and their Sunday dress striking; and hard times were vividly reflected in their clothing: at home, many adults wore tattered garments, while children were scarcely covered, and some of the little ones were reportedly in a state of nudity.139 Bessie Pullen-Burry observed that “on week-days they go about barefoot. On Sunday they screw themselves into tight-fitting garments and into new, squeaking boots, which, if the way be long, they take off, and put on just before going into church or chapel.” One woman admitted: “Oh yes, mem, dat’s our pride; we all dress

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spectacle on Sunday to go to church. Work ebbery day, but live for Sunday.”140 Evidently the missionaries had done an excellent job of instilling the importance of dressing “properly” for Sunday worship, and once having embraced Sunday as a special day, this was reinforced by the people’s own exuberance in displaying dress fashion. The cultural elites regarded Western clothing as a sign of civilization and so sought to replicate European dress in the tropics. When lower-class browns and blacks adopted these same forms of dress, they were seen as imitating their social betters.141 It was important for those who thought they were winning the war on culture to interpret their “victory” as a capitulation by the vanquished. However, as already noted, ordinary Jamaicans made a calculated decision to swim with the tide in order to contest perpetual social relegation; and, furthermore, they creolized European dress. Even the most begrudging of commentators admitted that they wore their clothes with unique style, flair and self-confidence. For instance, while observing with derision that the “big hulking negresses” were dressed in gorgeous silks and satins, truly wonderful hats and elaborate and stylish ribbons, Hastings Jay found the men loud and flashy, affecting a “horsey air”, and “bubbling over with self-conceit”.142 Devoid of such prejudice, Harriet Phillimore in her novel A Love Passage spoke of the coloured women sweeping majestically in their white muslin gowns and black lace shawls, in contrast to the white women in their drab habits and hats.143 Sir Sibbald Scott too commented on the grace with which working-class Jamaicans wore their fine clothes on Sundays: The strut of a negro, male or female, in gay attire, is curious to observe. The woman, probably without shoes or stocking all the week, with a print skirt and bandana on her head, turns out on Sundays and holidays in rich costume, with all the ease and grace of a lady always accustomed to fine clothes. Yet it must be confessed that there is no appearance of vulgarity; she feels and maintains the dignity due to the appropriation of superior attire.144

Much of this confidence and flair may have been born of, or encouraged by, fierce competition among themselves – a sense of one-up(wo)manship. An instance can be gleaned from the Colonial Standard, which in 1880 reported that Jestina Richards, a domestic servant attired in a fashionable long dress, was walking along King Street with a friend. They encountered Mary Ann Good, dressed in an out-of-fashion short gown, about which Jestina made critical remarks. A sharp altercation ensued which quickly degenerated into a bloody fight.145

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What seems clear, therefore, is that while stepping into European finery, the Jamaican people were doing so with their own distinctive and colourful aesthetic style and panache. This was no blind aping of English dress forms and behaviour. Jamaicans may have adopted English dress styles and fashions, but creolized them not only by the flair with which they wore their clothes, but also by the bright colours they chose. Livingstone admitted that “There is . . . a natural harmony between [the] bright hues and a brilliant environment, and it would be a loss to the eye if the approximation to the English model should become too close.”146 What most white observers, therefore, saw as English clothing worn by Jamaicans, were in fact distinctly creole dress styles. However, as Buckridge notes, “The Creole dress had a class-coded content; in general, the higher the social aspirations, the fewer the African elements in dress. Moreover, this dress had long represented cultural retention, and it also portrayed a continuum of overlapping and competing cultural norms, battling for control of cultural space.”147 This is clear in the comment of Mabel Caffin, who observed that notwithstanding the outwardly English form, there were always “the bright bandana women, the men wearing hats of a variety of patterns. At church one often sees women wearing both – a bright bandana, and on it a palm-leaf hat”.148 The bandana identified these women as peasant class; and although in this description, the “palm-leaf hats” were also reflective of low social status, it was not in fact unusual for imported hats to be worn together with bandanas, signifying the overlapping cultural orientations, one of African provenance, the other European, and resulting in a uniquely creole form of dress. These people, while adopting elements of Western dress, were not influenced by others on how they would wear them. They were neither led nor driven in this regard. The battle for control of cultural space is vividly seen in Villiers Stuart’s declared preference to see Jamaican women in their brightcoloured “headkerchiefs” (or head-wraps) rather than in bonnets: “they look hideous in the kiss-me-quick bonnets of their white sisters”.149 Bonnets, in his view, should be the preserve of white women, a claim to exclusivity that black and coloured Jamaican women clearly challenged regardless of what their “social betters” thought. The creole manner of dressing was even more evident during the work week. Some commentators, as already noted, only noticed the physical contrast with Sunday finery. However, there was much more to it than wearing ragged clothing during the week. Peasant men wore trousers with braces; the women wore long frocks caught half way to the knee, and fastened just below

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the waist by a cord tied around the body, making a large puff around the waist. Many men and women went barefooted; but sandals (called sanpatas) were also worn. Some women wore calico aprons with a text at its hem in red crossstitch. On their heads were bandanas, surmounted by “whey-fe-do” hats. Panama or jippa-jappa hats made of straw were also worn. These women were renowned for their erect stature and carriage, and walked “with a peculiar graceful, swinging motion which is due to the fact that owing to the custom of carrying loads upon their heads, they do not move the body above the hips in walking”.150 John Henderson noted that by the early twentieth century, some female black vendors had adopted the Indian custom of adorning “their coal black wrists” with silver jewellery, and their ears with rings.151 The grafting of an Indian accessory style into the creole dress pattern indicates that Jamaicans were not seeking to imitate their “social betters”. This was just an aspect of a continuously evolving process of creolization, which incorporated elements from diverse sources into the Jamaican creole cultural amalgam/complex. Jamaican dress may have borrowed heavily from Western styles for two principal reasons. First, it was all that was available in stores. Second, it was an important stepping stone for achieving social respectability in the colonial society. However, working-class Jamaicans did not simply ape English fashions as their “social betters” did. Instead they creolized them by the bright colours they chose, by the combination of garments some wore, and by the flair and confidence with which they wore their clothes. Creole dress had even greater socio-cultural significance. Buckridge puts it succinctly: Creole dress was vibrant, colourful and innovative. It was also the essence of resistance and accommodation. It resisted complete deculturation by visually declaring the survival of African aesthetics, and at the same time, it portrayed accommodation by adapting European norms as a subtle survival mechanism. . . . In this respect, Creole dress . . . was ambiguous. Creole dress was political because it represented cultures in conflict. It differentiated the people in a society that was polarized between the elite and ultra-Europeanized, who rejected anything African, and the peasant class, steeped in a deep-structured world that was African.152

Yet, at the same time, creole dress also represented an area of growing consensus towards the emergence of a shared national culture.

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Conclusion In the broader confrontation between the forces of anglicization and creolization, the material culture of the Jamaican people was not nearly as contentious as we will see in other areas of cultural life. Despite widely different origins, by the early twentieth century a strong pattern of creolization had emerged to shape Jamaican ideas and tastes in housing, architecture, furniture, food and dress. Cultural contestations still existed, and people continued to compete in these areas of material culture. These were not so much between traditional African-Amerindian and European forms, but within the creole cultural continuum itself: between the Afro- and Euro-creole orientations. The exceptions to this pattern were expatriate Britons like Charles Rampini who were generally hostile to anything creole. Notwithstanding stark socio-economic differences between the haves and the have-nots, elites and masses, which variably affected their abilities to consume (what types of house, furnishings, food items and clothing an individual or family could afford), it is clear that by 1920, regardless of class or ethnicity, Jamaicans shared similar basic tastes in each of these areas of material culture. Also, their expression of those tastes was neither strictly European nor African, but Jamaican. By the early twentieth century, therefore, despite the intensity of the culture war, Jamaicans had begun to shape their own creole aesthetic out of which was beginning to emerge a national identity. The orientation of that identity, however, would continue to be debated and contested for some time to come.

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Chapter 3

Celebrating Life, Commemorating Death Rites of Passage

IN THEIR MATERIAL culture and outward appearance, Jamaicans were evolving a shared creole aesthetic out of diverse cultural traditions, the same trend is evident for their inner private life-cycle rituals. This chapter examines the rites of passage of the Jamaican people. It describes and analyses their beliefs and customs in relation to birth, marriage and death. However, it is important to note the historical data are very uneven, dominated by the curiosity of white commentators about Afro-Jamaican beliefs and practices. Working from the assumption that Euro-Jamaican beliefs and practices approximated the British middle-class norm, even though they sometimes made references to, and may have been affected by, a debauched old planter culture, these commentators spent very little time describing them. What emerges is a very unbalanced picture of how different groups of Jamaicans marked these signature events in their life cycle, with far more focus on the process of anglicization among the black lower classes than on any corresponding creolization of the white upper classes. This chapter seeks to show that although derived from very different cultural traditions, one African, the other European/British, by the late nineteenth century, most Jamaicans of all classes shared a core of creolized ideas and practices to mark these events.

IF

Birth Hardly any information is available about the customs of the white elites. One might therefore be inclined to assume that the customs of white Jamaicans 57

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were closer to the middle-class British norms. To some degree this is true. As a very significant event, the birth of a baby was marked accordingly. During the 1860s, for instance, it was customary for white Jamaicans to announce the births of their children in the press in the following way: A T E ASTWOOD P ARK , S T . A NDREW ’ S , ON F RIDAY THE 18 TH INSTANT , MRS . J OSEPH G ORDON S MITH , OF A SON .1

However, this practice declined by the turn of the twentieth century. Even so, and short though they were, such birth notices served not only as announcements of the joyous event to the world, but also had a useful demonstration effect in the cultural elite campaign to “uplift” Jamaica. The imported Victorian ideals of legal Christian monogamous marriage and the patriarchal nuclear family were on display for all to discern. The birth had taken place within the “holy” institution of marriage, which made the child “legitimate”. His mother has subsumed her personal identity to her husband, lord of the home, and had assumed his name. This was the model for all to follow. Beyond that, the Jamaican whites, like their West Indian counterparts, either seemed to treat birth as a private matter, or their practices were simply not recorded because they were considered the norm by those who wrote. If one can draw from an earlier period, when Lady Nugent, the governor’s wife, gave birth in 1802 she was under the supervision of a doctor, and during her “Creole confinement” she was attended by her white maids and an “old black nurse”.2 White maids, however, were not a feature except in the most elite of Jamaican homes. Domestic service was undoubtedly the domain of coloured and black creole women. So too was the practice of midwifery. These women brought with them their creole beliefs and practices. Some of the Afro-creole practices that will be discussed below were undoubtedly transferred to the elites in this way. Likewise, as many elite children were cared for and reared by creole nannies, this reinforced the transfer of Afro-creole beliefs and practices to those higher up the social ladder. In other words, although unstated, it is reasonable to infer that by the late nineteenth century childbirth and child-rearing practices among the elites resembled those of their social “inferiors” more than they may have cared to admit. In the absence of hospitals or clinics for this purpose, births generally took place at the home of the expectant mother. If successful, the occasion might have been marked by some form of celebration among the family and close friends. If the practices of white Guyanese can serve as a guide, the child was

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probably christened or baptized in a church ceremony a few weeks or months after birth, accompanied by a party; and each subsequent birthday was also probably celebrated by a children’s party.3 In the absence of any firm evidence, it is difficult to say with any degree of accuracy whether this pattern held true for the Jamaican elites. Missing here too is the degree to which English birth customs might have been creolized in Jamaica. Much more, however, is known about the birth customs of black Jamaicans, no doubt because they were regarded as strange Afro-creole practices enveloped in “superstition” and “fetish”. Since rural peasant communities in particular were not always blessed with qualified nurses, more often than not midwifery was performed by older female villagers called “Nanas” or “Grandies” who specialized in these services. They delivered the baby, and cared for both the mother and infant, who were kept indoors for nine days. During these first nine days the mother ate only soft food like arrowroot, and bread, in addition to drinking milk and herbal concoctions prepared by the nana. On the ninth day, the nana prepared a bath for the child and a little rum was thrown into it. Each member of the family was also required to throw a bit of silver into the bath “for the eyesight” or “for luck”. To ward off evil spirits, indigo blue was added to the bath and the baby’s forehead was marked with a blue cross (a possible indication of Christian influence). The mother was also bathed and the nana offered a prayer before taking the baby outdoors. The nana was then paid about four to six shillings for her services. The child was generally weaned between nine and eighteen months.4 There were many Afro-creole beliefs associated with childbirth. According to Martha Beckwith, when the navel string was cut, it should not fall on the floor or the child would be unable to control its urine. Nor should it be exposed to rats lest the child’s life be endangered. The mother had to guard it for between three days and a year before burying it and planting a young tree over the spot. That tree belonged to the child, and if anyone injured it, she or he should pay its owner. If the property changed hands, a new tree was started from a seed or shoot of the old one. Coconut trees were preferred since they grew reliably and were believed to attract money. The afterbirth or “bed” was also carefully buried where it would not be disturbed by animals, and stones were piled upon it lest the mother should suffer. If the baby was born with a caul, it was removed and carefully parched over hot brick, and a piece of it was put into the baby’s tea to prevent convulsions caused by “duppies” (spirits). Pieces of it were also sold to other mothers who were troubled with restless babies.5

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Black Jamaicans took the naming of their children very seriously. The old African practice of naming children after the day they were born was to some extent preserved after emancipation, but by the 1870s was in decline and more or less extinct by the 1920s. According to that system, names were as follows: Day

Male

Female

Sunday

Quashie

Quasheba

Monday

Cudjo(e)

Juba

Tuesday

Cubbina/Cubena

Beneba

Wednesday

Quaco

Cooba

Thursday

Quao

Abba

Friday

Cuffie

Fibba/Feeba

Saturday

Quamin(a)

Mimba6

Old “classical appellations” previously assigned to enslaved people by their owners also disappeared after emancipation, and were replaced by more “romantic”, “sonorous” English names. It struck some travellers like Sir Sibbald Scott as odd to see black people bearing English names, and moved him to record that at one house “one handmaiden was called Janetta, and the stout cook was Justina”. Yet even as Jamaicans adopted English names, they did so in a creole style. Names such as “Constantia Rupertia” or “Justina Adriana” were used rather than the simple English “Constance” or “Justine”. Charles Rampini claimed that black peasants seldom bothered with surnames, so that the “Christian”/first name of a father became the last name of the son. Hence the son of William Roberts might be named Thomas Williams. It is possible that this naming practice was a way for unmarried mothers to establish a link between a child and his or her father. Beckwith also observed that there was no tradition for keeping a name in a family; and she further asserted that in addition to their formal names, black Jamaicans often acquired nicknames arising from some incident. Thus one man who was kicked by a mule was nicknamed “Matty Mule”.7 If accurate, these accounts clearly indicate that Jamaican naming systems, although making more use of English names, were uniquely creole. Of course, neither Rampini nor Beckwith would have known definitively how or why people selected names for their children. As with dress, the appropriation of English names by black Jamaicans was a way to claim equal status and self-esteem in colonial society. By the later nineteenth century Christianity had been so well embraced by Jamaicans that the christening of the child was regarded as an important rite.

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This was not simply to induct the child into the community of Christians as it was among Britons; rather this Christian rite was incorporated into the AfroJamaican belief system to hold that an unchristened child was liable to be taken away by a duppy. As with elite Jamaicans, the christening ceremony among the black lower classes was done when the infant was between one and six months of age.8 According to H.G. De Lisser, “So the little [girl] is clothed with the proper garments [lace hood and embroidered cloak], and bedecked with pink ribbons lacing up its sleeves, and has a touch of powder on either cheek, and wears brand-new woollen pink-and-white baby boots. The outfit costs something, and is, the circumstances considered, in the nature of extravagance.”9 Not unlike the white elites, the church service was often followed by a party with wine, cake, tea and other drinks and edibles. Although the godparents bore no special responsibility for the child, they were generally charitable to him or her.10 While therefore retaining important elements of their traditional Afro-creole beliefs and practices, black Jamaicans incorporated some British customs which they came to share with their white elite compatriots. This was not a one-sided phenomenon. As discussed above, in a context where midwives who assisted with births, and nannies who took care of the children of their elite employers virtually from birth, were drawn from the lower-middle and lower classes, many Afro-creole birth and child-rearing practices were transferred to the elite classes.

Marriage Customs In sharp contrast to the apparently quiet manner in which the white elites seemed to mark birth, marriage celebrations were often characterized by lavish public celebration. One notable and perhaps the oddest exception to this pattern was the wedding of Governor Sir James Swettenham in August 1905, which was a deliberately low-key affair with very few guests present to witness it. Indeed when all Jamaica were eagerly expecting it to take place on the thirtieth of August, Swettenham secretly held it on the twenty-sixth. “So careful was the Governor about details that the officiating clergyman himself did not know the hour of the wedding till a few hours beforehand.” Swettenham married an Englishwoman, surnamed Copeland, at the parish church in Half Way Tree and they spent their honeymoon at Belle Vue in St Andrew.11 Swettenham’s behaviour probably reflected his eccentric personality and may have

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Figure 10. A Euro-Jamaican wedding party. (Courtesy of the National Library of Jamaica.)

been influenced by Victorian disdain for ostentation and the promotion of restraint. By contrast, the normal pattern was for Jamaican elite (including Jewish) weddings to be extravagant affairs. Some of these were reported in the local press with full descriptions about decorations, dress, gifts and so on. Some persons also announced their weddings in the press. For example: MARRIED

On Tuesday, the 6th instant, at S. Michael’s Church, by the Revd. D.H. Campbell, M.A., Rector of Kingston, assisted by the Revd. Campbell Mackinnon, B.A., Curate of S. Peter’s, Port Royal, William Rastrick Lee, Esq., Solicitor, eldest son of Wm. Lee, Esq., to Sophia Isabella, only daughter of the late John Dodd, Esq., and step-daughter of S.S. Wortley, Esq.12

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The wedding of Captain Thomas Cregan and Beatrice Washington in January 1893 was fully reported in the newspapers. The Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church in Kingston was lavishly decorated for the occasion. As one entered the church the first thing that struck the eye was a triumphal arch placed before the Communion rails, draped with the English colors [sic] in the centre of which was the letter “W” surrounded with swords. The altar was covered with a white cloth the drapings being trimmed with cream brocade. On the steps leading to the Altar and inside the Communion rails were beautiful palms and crotons, all being fixed in such a manner as to appear pleasant to the eye and beautifying to the place.13

These decorations reflected an interesting mix of English military style and Jamaican materials and aesthetics. Elite bridal parties were usually very elegantly and expensively attired for these occasions. At her wedding to Richard Bradley in November 1905, for instance, Flossie Verley, daughter of Louis Verley, a wealthy Kingston merchant, wore “an elegant dress of ivory-white liberty satin with a long court train embroidered in pearls and silver, grape vine design, trimmed with fine Brussels point lace (the gift of her mother) and orange blossoms. Around her neck was a pearl necklace of old French filagree work, and she also wore a diamond brooch (also gifts of her mother). A plain white tulle veil trimmed with orange blossoms completed the attire. She also wore an opal and diamond ring.” Her three bridesmaids “were all dressed alike in white silk empire dress, and wore Juliet caps made of pearls and ribbons and carried staffs festooned with ivy and coralilla. They also wore gold and pearl brooches, the gift of the bridegroom.”14 Those invited to these weddings were also expected to be expensively attired. Small wonder that Gleaner columnist “The Critic” exclaimed in 1906 that elite weddings should not come too frequently: “For there is the problem of dress; and on such occasions it is inevitable that girls must have something new.” Emphasis was placed on outdoing one’s peers although that was never admitted; people were more prepared to assert that they were dressing to please themselves and to suit their social position. “So we make the sacrifice, and everybody else (except those who are well off and can therefore afford to dress plainly) makes a sacrifice; and on the day of the wedding behold us all resplendent and gay, but inwardly severely critical, and making notes of other persons’ apparel, which we intend to discuss fully and at length when we go home.”15 The accent of elite weddings was on a great show of wealth, both with regard

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to the decorations in the church and in the attire of the wedding party and guests. In matters of public display on important occasions, then, the elites were no less concerned than their counterparts in the lower classes. While, as we have argued, they might have criticized the “love of finery” among the less fortunate, they seemed to share that love, although they would have been loathe to admit it. At the weddings of the elite, the bride was normally “given away” by her father or, in his absence, the closest adult male relative (uncle or brother). The wedding ceremony was officiated by a priest, and after an appropriate sermon and the exchange of vows, the newly married couple retired to the vestry to sign the marriage register. Jewish weddings followed the same pattern and were attended with similar style (signifying a high degree of acculturation to the elite Jamaican norm), except that the ceremony took place in a synagogue according to Jewish rites and was conducted for the most part in Hebrew. Before placing the ring on the bride’s finger, the rabbi, bride and groom sipped the wine of betrothal and afterwards the wine of marriage. Then the groom would smash the glass into a silver bowl at his feet.16 After the respective ceremonies (Christian and Jewish), the assembly of guests proceeded, usually to the home of the bride’s father, for a grand reception. For that of his daughter in May 1894, for instance, P.E Auvray’s house in North Street was lavishly decorated. The drawing room and dining room had been converted into many tinted bowers, glowing with flowers and their contours rounded by ferny draperies. Along the centre of the dining table ran a line of beautiful Kaiser lillies and snowdrops intermingled with ivy, the whole forming a fitting connubial emblem of purity and constancy. At the head of the . . . table was the huge wedding cake, towering with its massive three tiered erection above the heads of all. At the base ran a circle of ivy and snowdrops and the whole was surmounted by a waving plume of snowdrops and maidenhair fern. Around the outer ear of the tables [was] a waving line of ivy showing beautifully against the white damask underneath.17

Elite wedding receptions were abundantly catered, with a wide variety of foods and drinks, and many toasts were raised to the married couple, the hosts (and often, even to the monarch as well) before dancing commenced. In the midst of the celebrations, the newly-weds would leave for their honeymoon at a quiet holiday resort or hotel, or go to their new home amidst showers of rice from the guests.18 Gifts at elite weddings were usually plentiful and expensive, many of ster-

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ling silver. At the above wedding, one entire room of Auvray’s residence had to be devoted to store the gifts which “looked like the treasure cave of Aladdin’s genie”. They included a magnificent silver tea set, a silver carving knife and fork, silver sugar dishes, salt cellars, and butter dishes, silver tankards, marble tables, a stand lamp, gold bracelet, china set and the like.19 Outwardly British in form, the average elite Jamaican wedding was celebrated in creole style, characterized by brightly coloured decorations making great use of local flora and fauna, and marked by lavish extravagance as reflected in the dress of the participants, wedding cake, wedding feast and very expensive wedding gifts. These events were colourful and noisy, attended by a band of music with dancing into the wee hours of the morning, and an overabundance of food and alcoholic drinks. These were truly creole Jamaican affairs. At the lower end of the social ladder, though perhaps not as extravagant in terms of food and drink, weddings were no less colourful, noisy and elaborate. Most contemporary commentators noted the enormous expense (relative to their modest means) that the poorer people went to when they got married; and indeed some felt that this insistence on extravagance was a major reason why so few blacks did marry – that they preferred not to marry if they could not do it in grand style. Mrs T.B. Butcher cited the case of a young soldier in the West India Regiment who had saved twenty-six pounds and, although advised to put aside some of it for later, he asserted that his fiancée wanted a lavish wedding, had invited all her friends, ordered carriages for the guests and provided a sumptuous feast. “The result was that the day after the wedding they had not £2 left.”20 It is highly questionable that Butcher had any evidence for this assertion especially since, as we shall see below, lower-class weddings were community affairs. Elsewhere we have shown that marriage was not a high priority among lower-class Jamaicans, and that most simply cohabited and raised families before getting married, if at all, in their later years.21 When they did marry, however, black Jamaicans almost universally opted for a church wedding just like the elites. In his 1880–81 annual report, Governor Anthony Musgrave asserted that “To the negro mind the marriage ceremony is not of much account unless celebrated in a Church, and surrounded with some amount of display often entirely out of proportion to the position and circumstances of the parties.”22 Clearly in his mind only white elites were entitled to such displays. According to Beckwith, “The bridegroom . . . must wear a new suit, the girl a white dress, veil, and flowers, and there is if possible a carriage and

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Figure 11. An Afro-Jamaican wedding party. (Courtesy of the National Library of Jamaica.)

pair [of horses] to carry the couple away from the church door.” Margaret Newton cited the case of a “work woman” earning just one shilling and sixpence a day, who on her wedding day wore “a cream coloured silk dress with a train, tulle veil, wreathe, etc., and had six bridesmaids dressed similarly, and two little girls to hold up the train”.23 This display was necessary because, whatever their differences about when marriage should take place, whether before or after the family unit had been created, by the late nineteenth century Jamaicans of all classes shared the same ideas about what constituted a “proper” wedding. As discussed more fully in Neither Led nor Driven, marriage may not have been a prerequisite for family formation among average lower-class Jamaicans, but when it did occur there was only one acceptable Jamaican way for it to be celebrated.24 If not, it would not gain the approbation of friends and relatives, of the local community. So, as reported in the Gleaner in 1916, when bride Ursie entered the church, “her satin robes falling round her plump figure gracefully, and her heavy train sweeping behind, her wreath of orange blossoms looking almost as natural as the bouquet she held in her white-gloved hand”, it aroused murmurs of

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approval and admiration from her guests: “Oh, my! De chile look sweet! Lord, what a train. Who floss de veil? Her frock look like han’ never touch it! Who meck it?”25 Not unlike the elites, her guests too were expected to dress “well” for the occasion. Frank Cundall noted that “all dress as finely as they can, squeezing their toes into absurdly small shoes; the ladies being especially fine”.26 There was a creole Jamaican way of celebrating all weddings, whether elite or lower class. Although they might not have been frequent among the lower classes, when they did occur weddings were joyful community affairs. As A.A. Grant recalled, the “good news” (signifying the positive perception and high value that they did place on marriage) was told to all the families in the community, and preparations began long before the event. Whereas elite families could afford to (or at least had to pretend) to meet the full costs of the wedding, among the working classes those costs were shared among relatives and even the wider community. “Eggs were sent from nearly every home, the pastry cooks got together and made all the cakes, puddings and pies. Young suckling pigs were sent to be delicately roasted . . . [for the] gorgeous day of feasting and merry-making – all the effort of the whole village.”27 Lower-class weddings were community celebrations, so the elite opinion that they left the parties bankrupt might not have been accurate. On the wedding day, the bride went to the church in a buggy or carriage. According to Frank Cundall, and allowing for racist hyperbole, “In towns they drive to church in the largest carriage that the local livery can produce – in the capital not impossibly a superannuated gubernatorial equipage.”28 In the country, however, it was not unusual for the wedding party to ride to church on ponies or donkeys. In one such procession at Little London, when they reached the market the bridegroom’s “steed” started to bray and all the other donkeys followed suit, announcing “the arrival of the gallant bridegroom” fully attired complete with coat and silk hat.29 The church ceremony was the same as described for the elites. In 1904, Steve Chalmers, journalist and poet, mockingly sketched a ceremony performed by a native parson, in which the nervously perspiring bridegroom vowed that “I, Shalamaneza [Beaver], tek de, Queen Elizabett, to me weddy wife ———”.30 Following the signing, or since many could not write, the marking of the marriage register, the wedding party repaired to the place where the reception was held, sometimes a large borrowed house, or a yard where a booth made of bamboo and coconut leaves was specially constructed for the occasion. There an elaborate multi-tiered cake (not unlike any at an elite wed-

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ding) was on display, which was cut by the bride or the minister. As with their elite counterparts, the health and happiness of the married couple were toasted with wine in a series of speeches, some serious, others humorous, and characterized by the use of big impressive sounding words, oft-times manufactured on the spot.31 Toasts reputedly included English rhymes and conceits as well as Latin quotations, but they were rebuked by the intelligentsia, including those who were black and had risen from lowly social origins. According to Martha Beckwith, “an intelligent negro” described the speeches at these weddings as “High-sounding words without any sense”. Even this "intelligent negro" did not appreciate that the people from whom he sprung were not speaking English, but Jamaican creole. Here are examples of two toasts: Marriage has five golden parts. The first, the life of marriage is sweet because its foundation is built in love and because of love it is sweet. The life of marriage is honorable [sic] because it enters the king’s palace; the king himself is married. The life of marriage is valuable because you can not get it without marriage. The life of marriage is good because it proceeds from age to age. The fifth part, the life of marriage is strong because only death can break its hold. To mistress Bride and Mr. Bridegroom and also to Mr. automatical Chairman: I arise on this festival, domestical and matrimonial occasion. I stand on my Hebrew gabister gabinastic, not to make a boast but to give a toast; not in pharsilogical diametrical repugnant, but in philadelphia. This I say unto you, “nonibus, domine, nonibus sed nominito de gloria”. . . .32

The toasts were followed by a grand feast including goat, fowl, pig, beef and copious drinks. The wedding celebration would last through the afternoon and well into the night with games, singing and dancing. Music was usually provided by drums, flute, grater and other instruments as were available, making it clearly Afro-creole. The Sunday after the wedding the couple sometimes went to church in their wedding garments to “turn tanks” (return thanks) to God and the community.33 It is clear that by the turn of the twentieth century Jamaicans of all classes celebrated marriage in more or less the same way. However, contemporary elite observers preferred to think that lower-class black Jamaicans simply tried to mimic their “betters” in their wedding practices. Beckwith, for instance, was convinced of this: “All this the Negro, with his quick appreciation for the mimicry of form and show, borrows bodily from old English custom, and I do not detect a single African idea creeping in to color [sic] the traditional

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observance”. She claimed that even the folklore of love and marriage (the superstitions) was borrowed from the European.34 There is no doubt that the major features of the wedding as celebrated by working-class Jamaicans were appropriated from the white elites. The very idea of Christian marriage was European. If, however, there is any charge of mimicry it should be directed more towards the elites than the lower classes, for the former deliberately set out to imitate their British “superiors”. Ironically, they failed for the simple reason that their values and tastes had been creolized over centuries, and furthermore they had to deal with the reality that they were living in the tropics, which heavily influenced their aesthetics, behaviour and decorations. Despite their best efforts, therefore, their weddings were creole, not British. The same applies to the black and coloured lower classes. Notwithstanding the Euro-Christian form of the wedding ceremony, the manner and spirit in which wedding was celebrated by black Jamaicans was distinctly Afro-creole. They may have borrowed the ceremony from their elite counterparts, but they imposed their own aesthetic stamp on the form. Marriage also had a different meaning for lower-class than for elite Jamaicans. Whereas for the elites it was a prerequisite for family formation, it was not so for the lower classes, for whom it might have been more a symbol of social respectability. What is clear, however, is that Jamaicans of all classes celebrated marriage in similar fashion and spirit: marked by pomp and lavish ceremony, extravagance, noise and colour. It was another clear manifestation of the emergence of a shared national culture.

Death Customs Death was a particularly solemn event in the lives of all Jamaicans. However, as in life, the funerary rites and customs differed somewhat along class lines. The death of a very prominent resident was announced in the newspapers, the columns of which were bordered with thick black lines. This was accompanied by an obituary which summarized the achievements of the deceased’s life. Prime examples of this were the deaths of Edward Jordon, the coloured politician and publisher of the Morning Journal, in 1869; of Lieutenant Governor Rushworth in August 1877; and of Esther de Cordova, publisher of the Daily Gleaner, aged 84, in 1889.35 More often, however, the relatives of the deceased would publish an announcement of the death, within deep black borders. For example,36

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DIED In the Parish of St. Elizabeth, on Saturday evening, 25th instant, Jane Eliza, relict of the late B.J. Robertson, of the Parish of St. George.

As with birth and marriage customs, the data about the funerary practices of the elite classes are relatively sparse. There is, however, reason to believe that as in Guyana, vigils similar to lyke/liche-wakes of Britain were also held in Jamaica. This was the practice of sitting up quietly as a social mark of respect for the deceased and his or her relatives. In the words of the Morning Journal, People here are not accustomed to shutting up their dead in one room and going to bed in another. They cannot do it. And, high and low, rich and poor, we have all been accustomed, whenever a death happens in a house, to hold a wake of some sort over it. The better classes of people do the thing quietly – having just a few of the particular friends and acquaintances of the family, sincere sharers of their grief, to sit with them throughout the night preceding that bitter morn, when earth shall be consigned to earth, and the loved one be shut out from their eyes for ever.37

Elite funerals, however, were an occasion not just to pay one’s last respects to the deceased, but one final indicator of his or her wealth and social position. The public arrangements made to commemorate the death, as well as the turn out at the funeral, were very important. Indeed it was just as important to the deceased’s family to have a large and prominent attendance at the funeral, which would underline their high social position, as it was for those who attended to indicate that they were securely positioned within the social elite. “Carriage funerals” in particular originally symbolized elite status, but that notion was soon debased because by the later nineteenth century it had become customary for ordinary middle-class families to publish notices of funerals in the press with the following appended: “Please let your carriage attend.”38 Nevertheless it was clear who were prominent and who were not, even in death. Public figures, wealthy merchants and planters, notable clergymen, lawyers and doctors, and notable lodge men, especially Freemasons, attracted large funerals. When, for instance, in May 1878, the Honourable Louis Fuller-

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ton Mackinnon’s funeral took place, all the business places in Old Harbour were closed, and the Court House was draped outside and inside in black, while the windows of neighbouring houses remained shut. Thirty carriages formed the funeral cortege. Similar expressions of public grief and respect were shown towards the Honourable Dr J.C. Phillippo, president of the Legislative Council, when he died in 1893. On that occasion, 140 carriages were present.39 According to “The Critic”, elite women only wore white at funerals, with perhaps a little black ribbon. The men were clothed completely in black, with here and there a pair of brown leather boots to relieve the monotony. Everyone turned up armed with a few words of consoling sympathy for the bereaved relatives: “The best of friends must part”; “We are here today, and somewhere else tomorrow”; “I regarded him almost as a father”; “There are not many like him left”, and so on. In the outer hall where there were no relatives of the deceased, however, the guests seemed as cheerful as usual. Even in death, the elites sought to conform to the rules and conventions of the cult of bourgeois respectability that they emulated. The women are all inside; but if this is an aristocratic funeral there will not be many women present. Women never follow an aristocratic corpse. We must differentiate – even in death we must differentiate – between the ways of the vulgar and the ways of the refined; and so the last sad offices of the dead must be performed only in the presence of unsympathetic men. Perhaps this is quite right: women may cry at the grave, or in the house where the body lies exposed, and “a scene” is detestable. There must be order and decorum at a funeral, and only “we” understand what order and decorum mean.40

The body of the deceased was generally taken from the house to a church at the head of a procession for a memorial service. It was borne by male relatives and/or close friends, and put to lie in state in the church. After the service, the coffin, usually bearing an inscription of the deceased’s name and dates of birth and death, and covered with floral wreaths, was borne to the hearse accompanied by the sound of tolling church bells. The hearse then slowly led the procession of carriages and mourners on foot to the cemetery where the final burial rites were performed.41 By the early twentieth century, however, the practice of walking behind the carriages to the cemetery was fast disappearing. According to the Jamaica Advocate: “From the start made at the home of the dead to the Church, and from the Church to the grave, the carriage procession is in full trotting speed, headed at times by the parson or the minister who sets the pace for the cortege, and who appears to have little interest

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in the decency or indecency of that part of his duty.” Mourners who could not afford to hire a carriage/bus for eight shillings or pay one shilling for a seat could no longer form part of the cortege. “Weeping, broken-hearted friends stand at the Church gate desiring to follow the dead to its last resting place, and would be satisfied to walk, but today civilisation does not permit of such a mean thing.”42 Lodge funerals were rather more elaborate and colourful, attended by the members of the fraternity in their full regalia. For that of James D. Ford, founder of the Good Templar order in Jamaica, the procession from his home to St George’s church was composed of members of the subordinate lodges in due order with the Grand Lodge last. They were accompanied by a band playing the “Dead March”. At the church, the Good Templars formed a guard of honour on both sides of the entrance way, through which the corpse on a bier passed. Thereafter the members entered the church in reverse order, led by the Grand Lodge. At the graveside in the May Pen cemetery, after the usual Christian last rites conducted by priests, the Good Templar Ritual was read.43 Among lower-class Jamaicans, funerals were of equal cultural significance. H.G. De Lisser claimed that they “enjoyed” attending funerals and, according to Frank Cundall, “many are requests of domestic servants for an hour or two’s leave to attend the obsequies of a friend”.44 It is an actual pleasure to be able to go to the house of mourning to condole with the relatives of the departed, and afterwards to sit waiting until the funeral shall move, the interval being employed in a quiet but animated discussion on any subject that may happen to be of present interest. It is a pleasure to sit in a cab – better still, a carriage – and thus follow the hearse to the cemetery. For then the enjoyment of a ride, during which you are conspicuously exposed to the public view, is seasoned and picked up with the knowledge and feeling that by attending this funeral you are performing an eminently social and respectable act.45

Considerably more data are available on the funerary rites of AfroJamaicans, perhaps because they appeared exotic or uncivilized to some elite commentators. Yet the point must be made that by virtue of their coexistence over centuries, a substantial core of Afro-creole beliefs and practices discussed below had already had an influence on the elite classes. Afro-Jamaican funerary beliefs and customs seemed to derive from West and Central Africa, although Christianity also had an important influence. However, underlying all their funerary rituals was the fundamental African notion of severing ties with the deceased without giving offence. And as in West and Central Africa, Afro-

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Jamaican wakes were characterized by lavish expenditure and merriment, as opposed to the staid, quiet wakes of the elites. According to Margaret Field, in West Africa expenditure is necessary to appease the dead who must be made to feel superior or she or he would be angry. Stinginess is an insult to the dead. As a sign of veneration, visitors contribute money to the funeral expenses.46 In Jamaica as well, immediately after the death, relatives and friends were informed, and they gathered at the “dead house” for an all night vigil or wake where they “sing hymns, lament the dead, and solace their grief with plentiful potations of rum”.47 The more intimate friends were accommodated in the house if large enough, while strangers sat out in the yard where a booth covered with sail-cloth or coconut boughs was erected. The booth housed tables covered with white linen, on which were placed plates, cups and a wide variety of food – roasted pig and goat, rice and peas, yams, roast plantains, roast corn, fried fish, mackerel, raw salt salmon, ackee, cheese, bread, biscuits, dumpling, ginger bell (cakes made from flour and ginger) and especially pepperpot soup with “jangas” (small shrimps); and drink – rum, chocolate, coffee, ginger and bush tea, and so on. As with weddings, all of this food and drink was provided by the people gathered, and was served at intervals. The yard was lit by several paraffin lamps and candles stuck in broken bottles, placed either on the ground or on window sills of the yard rooms. The mourners consisted of young and old of both sexes: “the women with large hand kerchiefs tied about their heads; the girls bareheaded but with shoes on; some of the men in short jackets, but the majority in morning coats . . . ; of course they were all [dressed in] black or white”.48 Just as in Africa then, the Afro-Jamaican funeral, like the wedding, was a communal affair. The whole community contributed and participated. At one wake, the coffin was placed at the door of the room of the deceased with the lid off, “exposing to view in the flickering light of three or four candles stuck at the head and sides, the shrivelled features of an old woman whose jaws were tied up with a piece of white calico. The shroud, which otherwise enveloped the corpse, was so arranged that the hands and arms were exposed, the hands being crossed upon the breast.” There was a “dull, monotonous groaning” of the mourners, who sang to the accompaniment of a fiddle and concertina: [B]ut the faces of those who took part in it did not seem to indicate that the occasion was one of a mournful character:- on the contrary those who were not joining in the dirge were laughing and chatting, and some of them had a teacup, a small tin

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pan or, in two noticeable instances, a bottle containing liquor in their hands whilst away back against the enclosing fence to the right and left, several small fires were burning, upon which cooking operations were evidently being performed.49

Furthermore, the Gleaner said with characteristic derision and disapproval, “It must not be supposed that the musicians and singers indulged only in refrains of a melancholy character. Not a bit of it; the mournful airs were only thrown in now and again at intervals just as it were as a seasoning to the general programme which consisted of such airs as ‘Ta-ra-ra boom de ay’, ‘Three little Girls in Blue’, ‘Annie Laurie’, and lively Salvation and Revivalist airs, with an occasional solo on a tin whistle.”50 In addition to singing, eating and drinking, games and gossip were also indulged in at wakes to while away the hours. Beckwith, however, observed that wakes tended to differ in form in various parts of the island. In St Elizabeth, for instance, they beat the floor with stones on the nights before and after the burial and strewed rice. In the Santa Cruz mountains, they built a bonfire around which men and boys played games while women and girls looked on.51 All of this loud merriment was regarded as most inappropriate, even shocking, behaviour by the elite classes, for whom funerals were supposed to be commemorated by quiet restraint. Bessie Pullen-Burry claimed that “Negro” wakes resembled those of the Irish, the only difference being that the latter were more humorous in character and the corpse lay in the centre of the lamenting friends and kinsfolk. However, according to her and prejudiced Jamaican elites, the principle of grieving for the departed was eventually lost sight of: “at midnight, orgies of the lowest character, tinged with the spirit of religious revivalism, are a perfect nuisance to the community”.52 Afro-creole wakes, therefore, became an important battleground in the elite war on Afro-creole culture. Wakes offered Jamaicans an occasion to do as they pleased culturally in honour of their dead. Throughout the period under review, complaints about these “noisy, immoral orgies” were made in the press and the police were urged to suppress them. In 1886, for instance, the Gleaner urged the government to stop wakes at 9:00 p.m. (although very often this was the time when most wakes were just beginning). “It is bad enough . . . to be within ear shot of such a gathering even until that time, but when such fiendish yells are permitted to continue until 3 o’clock in the morning . . . it is simply monstrous.”53 Likewise, in 1890, both the Jamaica Post and the Colonial Standard denounced them as profane and immoral “orgies”.54 The cultural elites were for once speaking with one voice.

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Quite apart from the noise and lewdness ascribed to these vigils, wakes came under intense scrutiny and suspicion in time of civil unrest and public health scares. In the first sitting of the legislature after the Morant Bay massacre in 1865, assemblyman Williams attempted to outlaw wakes on the ground that they were centres of disloyalty, disaffection and treasonable plottings against the power of the state. However, the House of Assembly repudiated this extremist move as an undue interference with the rights of the subject.55 The outbreak of smallpox in 1873, however, did bring the whole issue of wakes once more into critical focus. The Gleaner reported that this disease had spread to the Plantain Garden River district for instance because, despite the admonitions of the district medical officer, Dr Neyland, some people went miles away to another district to attend a wake for someone who had died of smallpox, and on their return brought the infection and spread it. The paper also cited another instance involving some travellers passing through a village near Yallahs who were greeted by some half-drunken people at a wake of another who had died of confluent smallpox. “The atmosphere was thick with the evil smell proceeding from the dead body, so that the parties had to hold their noses and urge their horses forward, yet there stood several men and groups of women about the place, as though nothing extraordinary had occurred.”56 This pattern of behaviour was replicated all over the island, and it forced the legislature to set up a select committee which recommended a law to prohibit the holding of “wakes and other assemblages of a similar nature” under certain circumstances. As passed, Law 27 of 1873 was highly controversial, enabling the governor to prohibit during any epidemic of a contagious disease the holding of wakes in any part of Jamaica. While it was recognized that it would unduly affect the customs of the black and coloured majority, it was nevertheless defended as an essential preventive health measure.57 In fact, the Gleaner thought that the law had been enacted too late, and urged that it should remain permanently on the statute books.58 So stringent was the law, however, that the Colonial Office was obliged to instruct that it should be amended so as not to prohibit four persons or less (presumably family members) from assembling to conduct traditional funerary rites even during an outbreak of disease.59 The controversy over the wakes law brought into sharp focus the differences in mentalités between the two main social groups of Jamaica. While the white and coloured cultural elites desperately wanted to cling at least to a pretence

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of an enlightened Victorian/Western ethic based on reason and scientific knowledge, lower-class black Jamaicans, with whom they shared many beliefs, were portrayed as superstitious and fatalistic. In the words of the Gleaner: They entertain the notion – and it will be found underlying everything else in their minds, that men die according to their lot – that epidemics like small pox are things sent by God Almighty for purposes outside of any thing with which they are particularly concerned, and that “if it is not to catch them it won’t catch them”, and that if it is to catch them, it will do so despite all measures of sanitation, and all precautions of medical science or whatever kind.60

As usual, Rampini put it more crudely in racist language. “Death to the negro has no terrors. He dies because his time has come. But he dies, like a dog, without a regret and without a pang, – confident that, if there is a heaven, he will find admission there; and that, if there is not, he has finished his course, and drunk all that he will ever be allowed to drink of the pleasures and pains of life.”61 For many members of the elite, while the rites practised by the lower orders deserved to be curtailed because they harkened to a barbaric past, their own gatherings and rituals were acceptable – they were considered decent, properly subdued and respectable. There is little doubt that a great deal of the elite objections to Afro-Jamaican funerary customs and beliefs grew out of the fact that they represented some of the strongest cultural retentions of their West and Cental African great tradition, with aspects of Christian belief grafted on. As far as the elites were concerned, this was such an abominable desecration of their esteemed religion, and of British civilization which it underpinned, that it ought not to be tolerated. Before or during the wake, the deceased’s body was prepared by two men, each working on one side from head to foot at the same pace. Should they go from foot to head, it was believed that the corpse would laugh. If either touched the back of the deceased with water, the duppy would haunt him later, complaining of the cold. The corpse was dressed in white: men in white duck or flannel suit and white gloves; women in a shroud of white muslin and gloves. This was to ensure that they “rise up tidy on de reburrection morning”, and that they appeared fully dressed to “sit down at de marriage supper of de Lamb”. Although the use of white garments might have been associated with the glorification of whiteness as a symbol of purity as transmitted by colonial Christianity, it is also probable that it was a retention of the commemorative and celebrative significance of the colour white in some West African traditions, for example, the Akan. Care was also taken to cut out or sew up pockets

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in the man’s suit lest his duppy came back with its pockets full of stones to harm the living. All buttons were also cut off and the clothes sewn or pinned together.62 After dressing the corpse, two or more persons lifted it three times before placing it in the coffin. According to American Jesuit anthropologist Joseph Williams, this was derived from a traditional Asante rite.63 To prevent the dead from returning to haunt the family or harm anyone, every family member was required to bid farewell (and friends visited the house to do likewise) by standing beside the coffin and uttering a few words to the dead. As in Guyana, every child was lifted and passed over the coffin while its name was spoken. Tears should not fall on the body or the duppy would return to the mourner.64 Before the corpse was carried out of the yard, the widow(er) put on a “guard” of large square black cloth with a white cross, a symbol of Christianity, marked on it with chalk, and was required to wear this for four or five months. The body was carried out feet first and by the front door, or the duppy would return. The burial had to take place immediately after death, either early in the morning or between five and six in the afternoon, but never in the middle of the day. And care had to be taken that the dead were subjected to no indignity during the journey to the grave.65 On the way, it was customary for the bearers to wrestle with the coffin in order to drag it past one hut or another. With some disdain, Williams observed: The carriers, dripping with perspiration from the effort that they are apparently making, struggle heroically to urge their burden forward. They even plead with it, and ‘argify’. Finding the task, however, beyond their combined effort, they lay the coffin down and pull and strain but to no avail, while a perfect pandemonium breaks out in the assembled throng that clusters around, ready with advice and suggestions of every kind. Finally, the chief spirit in the farce kneels down and puts his ear against the coffin . . . he receives minute instructions from the late lamented. The owner of the hovel off the path, who perhaps is standing in his doorway taking in the scene, has done the dead man some wrong. The entire multitude, abandoning the coffin in the road, troops up to give the unfortunate aggrievor [sic] of the dead an unpleasant outpouring of vituperation and abuse, until the price of rum is forthcoming, whereupon all throng back to the road, pick up the coffin, and continue on their way without more ado.66

Passers-by would also turn their backs to the corpse to prevent the duppy from recognizing them and perhaps returning to annoy them. Clearly derived from

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West African tradition, that the potentially problematic procession to the grave was also used as a means of settling arguments, delivering community sanctions and arriving at consensus, was probably lost on the contemporary elite observers.67 As in Guyana, so too in the Jamaican countryside, people were allowed to bury their dead on their own properties after properly notifying the local authorities. However, this too came under closer official scrutiny in the wake of the smallpox epidemic of the 1870s, and Law 7 of 1875 prohibited burials on private property if they were deemed by the authorities to constitute a danger to public health.68 The digging of the grave was not entrusted to one man or to an odd number of men, but to an even number: four or six. The gravedigger took a drink of rum after his first dig, and a cock was sometimes killed at the grave and the blood sprinkled over it. The grave was dug east-towest, and the body was placed to face the sunrise. Calabash trees were often planted at the head and foot of the grave to serve as markers. The final rite was the “tombing” ceremony which took place one month after the burial. The object was to cover the grave completely with more earth or, if the family were “wealthy”, with masonry.69 To prevent the duppy from returning, a number of precautions were taken. For instance, immediately after a person died, every drop of water in the house was thrown away “for Death cools his dart in the water as he departs, and it would be highly injurious to drink it”. As soon as the body was taken out of the house, the room was thoroughly swept. The deceased’s bath water was taken out and emptied into the grave. Some people then placed a jar of water in the room and kept a light burning for nine days, because if the spirit of the deceased returned to the room it would need a guiding light and water to quench its thirst. Any mirror in the room was covered or turned to the wall so that no living person was reflected in it lest she or he pine away. After a proper interval, it was advisable to rearrange the room, putting the head of the bed in a different position, whitewashing the walls and even changing the position of the door so that if the duppy returned it would think that it was the wrong house. It was considered advisable to “plant” the duppy by planting “pidgeon peas” on the grave since their roots reputedly grew downwards thereby entrapping the spirit. Other precautions included burning rosemary, scattering rice and so on.70 Some Afro-Jamaicans believed that for nine nights after the death, the duppy returned to its familiar haunts. On the ninth night it visited all relatives and friends and then departed forever. Others were said to believe that it rose

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on the third day, returned to the house and stayed there until the ninth night – an amalgamation of traditional Afro-creole and Christian beliefs. Thus considerable vigilance was demanded on the ninth night, and it usually took the form of another wake. According to Beckwith, “Such a festivity is called ‘Bäkinny’, or ‘Back in i’ ”, which she translated to mean “the driving of the ghost back to the grave”. Interestingly, this was done not only by the lower classes, but also by “some very worthy persons” who preferred to call it “a ‘prayer meeting’, the name ‘ninth night’ being a little too vulgar for their refined tastes”.71 What it does show, however, is that after centuries of co-existence, Afro-creole beliefs and practices penetrated the elite classes. There were, in effect, shared beliefs even though the elites denied, and even resisted, that reality. According to Beckwith, on the ninth night “A bonfire is built outside the [deceased’s] house, around which the men and boys gather in a circle while the women sit by to watch the sport.” Such trivialization of Afro-creole practices was common. Hymns and songs were sung, prayers and scriptures read, and folk games played (see chapter 8). Precisely at midnight the singing ceased, the deceased’s bed was upturned and the bed linen cast into the yard; water kept in the room was also thrown out. After a prayer, it was believed that the spirit had been turned out to return no more. Singing resumed but lessened as friends left in pairs at intervals. A stick-licking ritual brought the vigil to an end.72 Less widely commemorated was “fortieth night”, but it was believed by some people that forty days after the death of anyone, the spirit of the deceased took the final flight. “Of course,” said the Jamaica Times derisively, “it means drinking of rum, singing devilish songs, and in short, engaging in every sort of devilry.”73 Although funerary practices may have differed according to class, it is clear that all Jamaicans took death seriously and were careful about how they disposed of their dead. Elite Jamaicans made an obvious attempt to emulate their peers back “home”, but life in the Caribbean heavily influenced their cultural behaviour. So lavish displays of wealth that were viewed by some people as vulgar, were as much in evidence at their funerals as they were at their weddings. Besides, many Afro-creole beliefs relating to death, and about duppies (spirits), were inculcated by the elites despite their brash statements denouncing them. They may not have publicly gone through all the rituals of the lower classes to appease the spirits, but most did believe in the power of duppies to harm them, and took necessary precautions to prevent that from happening.

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Jamaicans of all classes, therefore, shared similar beliefs about death, and by the later nineteenth century many less wealthy Jamaicans were also using carriages at funerals, which made funerary practices similar.

Conclusion Although the elites wanted the lower classes to embrace the "superior" British culture to advance the process of civilization, they became annoyed when blacks appropriated certain aspects with greater flair and panache than them. This was particularly noticeable in their attitudes to Afro-creole wedding displays and dress. Hence, on one hand, they promoted cultural assimilation which would enable them to point their finger and assert black imitation, but on the other hand, they wanted to preserve their exclusive access to British culture. Afro-Jamaicans, however, were not prepared to acquiesce in their own cultural exclusion and marginalization, and instead opted to do as they pleased. This examination of the rites of passage of the Jamaican people has shown that notwithstanding differences in the origins of beliefs and practices relating to birth, marriage and death, by the early twentieth century most Jamaicans shared similar ideas about the significance of these events in their life cycle and how to mark them. To be sure, among lower-class Afro-Jamaicans, the influence of some West and Central African traditions remained strong, while elite Jamaicans made very conscious efforts to adhere to British traditions. However, the process of creolization had advanced to such a stage by the turn of the twentieth century that both primary ethnic groups shared many beliefs and practices in common that were neither wholly African nor British, but creole Jamaican. Where they differed, and what they contested, was the primacy that should be given to Afro and Euro elements in the Jamaican culture. This was most vividly demonstrated in the case of the Afro-creole wakes that the cultural elites demanded should be suppressed. As with many other battles, the elites were compromised by their own desire to hold “decent” gatherings to honour their dead; it was difficult for them to legislate the end of a practice in which they also participated. Further, although the cultural elites might have spoken derisively about the lower-class belief in duppies, and scoffed at the rituals to control their activities, they were careful to hold their own prayer meetings on the ninth night after death. They shared more with the Afro-creole majority than they cared to admit, and although they were committed to the path of anglicization and civilization, in the end they were creole Jamaicans.

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Chapter 4

“Duppy know who fe frighten” Jamaican Creole Language and Oral Culture

WITH MOST CARIBBEAN societies especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Jamaica’s national identity was largely defined by the oral culture of its Afro-creole majority. The spoken word, song and body motions were vital elements in the expressive culture of the people. These were central to the practice of their life-cycle rituals discussed in the previous chapter, to their religious expressions, and to their participation in the wide variety of popular entertainments that will be discussed later on. Oral culture, therefore, lay at the heart of the entire Afro-creole cultural matrix, and was essential to its expansion and preservation as the mainstream culture system of Jamaica.1 Since orality was so central to the life and culture of the majority of Jamaicans, they did not make and keep records of their own thoughts, ideas and philosophies which are thus in danger of being lost to posterity. What written data survive were collected and transcribed mainly by others, whose reproductions of oral culture forms are problematic sources to work with. This is because they are highly selective, mostly edited and filtered through the eyes of sometimes hostile, often unknowledgeable, compilers who could not, in any case, reproduce voice intonations or body motions that are so important to any oral record. As such, problems of perception, translation, interpretation and even basic accuracy haunt these records. The culture historian has therefore to read against the grain of the “evidence” to extract useful data relating to the mentalités of the unlettered classes. Nevertheless even with such difficult sources, it is clear that the expressive oral culture of Jamaicans was rich in

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content and meaning. This chapter focuses on three key aspects of that culture, namely, language, proverbs and folk tales.

Jamaican Creole Language Language lies at the core of a people’s culture. Not only a means of communication, it also helps to define their identity as a cultural group. Through language people can express their beliefs, ideas, feelings, attitudes, values and experiences that set them apart from other peoples. For Jamaicans in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this was no different. They had long crafted a language (hereafter called Jamaican) unique to the island which had become their main means of oral communication. Yet Jamaican, the language of the majority, was disparaged and denigrated by the cultural elites, a minority, who felt that English, the language of the colonizer, should be the accepted national language of Jamaica.2 Language, therefore, became a major area of contestation in the culture war between some members of the cultural elite and the Afro-creole masses in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This examination does not constitute a linguistic study of Jamaican (also called “patois”),3 but rather it analyses the socio-cultural significance of that language, assesses its contribution to shaping a distinct Jamaican national identity by the early twentieth century, and examines the fight to gain social acceptance of it as the national language. The Jamaican “nation language” is a truly creole creation, born out of the contact among the indigenous (later decimated) Tainos, enslaved West and Central Africans and their descendants, European (primarily British) colonizers, as well as more recent Asian (Indian and Chinese) and Middle Eastern (Lebanese/Syrian) immigrants.4 In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Jamaican functioned (as it still does) as a thread which bound people across classes, among races and between genders. It might have been rejected by members of, and aspirants to, the cultural elite who looked to “proper English” as a mark of their social status, but in a world where they and ordinary Jamaicans partook of a shared culture of syntax and usage, Jamaican was more of a national language than they cared to admit. Barbara Lalla and Jean D’Costa argue that while it is very difficult to point to a moment by which the Jamaican creole language form emerged, it is clear that by 1700 distinctive patterns of speech were noticeable. Jamaican had many English-derived words (as well as words from other languages), but was heavily

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influenced in structure and syntax by languages from the West African coast (including Kru, Mandingo and Kwa).5 By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it had become the lingua franca of the Jamaican people. Among those contemporaries who collected samples of Jamaican speech was Charles Rampini. He and his wife encountered the old house-cleaner as they were leaving their guest house in Kingston to tour the island, and the following conversation ensued: Cleaner: Hi, massa! You gwine away, sa? . . . and de day look quite mournful too! It mak me feel quite sad to see you gwine away, sa! Yes! . . . husband’s an’ wives mus’ part, parients an’ childring mus’ part; how much more de bes’ of friends! Tank you, sa! . . . an’ a safe travel to you, massa, an’ me hopes we will meet you in heaben. Rampini: Let us hope we may meet again on earth. Cleaner: P’raps, massa; but you young an’ me old, you see. Dat mak de differench. But me do hope me may meet you in heaben. Don’t you think it will be delightful to be in heaben, massa? – Noting to do, no work, no boderation, no cleaning, no noting; but always to fold me hand, and to sit down chattering with me Saviour. Yes, massa! . . . Ef me did not know me was a sacred girl of the Lord, me heart would quail and grow soft before Massa Lord! An’ to tink of de judgment! . . . when we all shall raise up out of our grabes in a lump! But me bery old, for true. Me fader Guinea man, an’ me moder Creole, an’ me bery old woman now! Good-bye den, sa! God bless you!6

As a phonetic transcription filtered through the aural senses, and edited with the pen, of an unabashedly hostile Englishman (a negrophobe), questions could be raised about its accuracy. With that in mind, it nevertheless provides some useful information about lower-class Jamaican speech patterns, thoughts, beliefs, and social attitudes. In its representation of a fawning old peasant woman who was very sad at the prospect of her “massa” leaving, it unwittingly contrasts her current life with her dream of a burdenless heaven which is a product of her Christian beliefs. This probably reflected the sense of frustration shared by many lower-class Jamaicans that more than a generation after slavery so little had changed. It was this frustration that had led to the uprising at Morant Bay in 1865. In addition, this nameless old woman disclosed her personal and cultural identities: “Me fader Guinea man, an’ me moder Creole.” In a mouthful, she expressed her feelings, dreams, religious beliefs and identity in an edited version of her native language. The Jamaican creole language spoken throughout the island existed in several varieties, as was the case in Guyana and other parts of the Caribbean where

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similar nation languages emerged.7 At the basilectal level, Jamaican was hardly understood by outsiders. Said Amelia Gurney, “You would never guess they are speaking English when they are talking together: their tone and accent is [sic] so very different; they chop their words up into short syllables like the chattering of parrots.”8 Gurney’s cultural bias is quite evident, and so too is that of Dorothy Bottle, who saw Jamaican as an imperfect form of English: “The language spoken was English, but it was hard to recognize. Persons and living things were given the masculine gender indiscriminately; final and initial consonants were often dropped, the letters ‘b’ and ‘d’ were used for ‘v’ and ‘th’, ‘at’ was shortened to ‘a’, the sound of ‘w’ was inserted before ‘oi’, and some words were prefixed by the letter ‘y’.”9 Because of its presumed imperfections (a bastardized English), cultural elites like Frank Cundall racialized it by labelling it “Negro English” (as if it were spoken only by blacks) to distinguish it from the “pedigree” version supposedly spoken by educated Britons and elite Jamaicans.10 What neither he, Bottle, Gurney nor Rampini seemed to grasp was that this was not English at all; it was an entirely different language, Jamaican. Although Walter Jekyll came close to seeing it as a foreign language, he too called it “Negro English”: When the stranger lands in Jamaica and hears the rapid rush of words, and the soft, open vowels, he often says: “Why, I thought they talked English here, but it sounds like Spanish or Italian!” The difficulty in understanding a new language lies in the inability to distinguish the point where one word ends and the next begins. . . . Just as hopeless [as a first encounter with Greek or Italian] is negro English to the newcomer, and the first thing to do is to set about learning it. And well it repays investigation. It is the boast of the English language that it has got rid of so much superfluous grammatical matter in the way of genders, inflections and such-like perplexities. True, it has abolished much that was evil, and enables us to speak and write shortly and to the point. But negro English goes a step further, and its form is still more concise.11

In order to illustrate this, Jekyll offered his readers some examples: Jamaican

English

Corn the horse.

Give the horse some corn.

Care the child.

Take care of the child.

Him wife turn fire.

His wife became a shrew.

You middle hand.

The middle of your hand.

My bottom foot.

The bottom of my foot.

Out the lamp.

Put out the lamp.12

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The proof that Jamaican is a distinct language and not simply “broken or Negro-English” has been amply provided by multiple reputable linguists, and Beryl Bailey has identified several grammatical rules which govern it.13 Likewise, Glenn Akers has examined the grammatical structure of Jamaican and demonstrated its linguistic distinctiveness.14 That notwithstanding, Jamaican has never been accorded respect by the cultural elites who, ironically, also routinely use(d) it. According to R.B. Le Page, it is ascribed low prestige, and “juxtaposed in the social system to a ‘model’ language of high prestige [English]”.15 Likewise Akers asserts: The language situation in Jamaica may . . . be viewed as a case of diglossia. The folk terminology opposes English as the high form, to Patois (alternatively, ‘chat bad’, ‘country talk’, ‘personal language’, or ‘broken English’, or ‘dialect’) as the low form. English is the prestige code used in formal settings; it is the official language which is taught in the schools, written in newspapers. . . . Proficiency in English carries positive social value. Patois, on the other hand, is the code first learned by the majority of the Jamaican population. . . . The traditional association of Patois is with illiteracy, rural-origin, and lower socioeconomic status.16

All of this, however, masks one fundamental reality clearly articulated by Leonard E. Barrett. He notes that although “The official language of Jamaica is English and Jamaican intellectuals take pride in speaking . . . English faultlessly. . . . English is a second language, a foreign language that must be learned. The lingua franca of the Jamaican people is referred to as ‘Jamaican dialect’ or ‘patois’ [our emphasis], which is a mixture of English, Spanish, and various African languages.”17 This was a reality that the cultural elites of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (and their successors today) adamantly refuse(d) to acknowledge and accept. At its basilectal level, Jamaican retained several words of African origin. American Jesuit anthropologist Joseph John Williams, in advancing his thesis that black Jamaican culture retained mainly Asante features, argued that most Afro-Jamaican words were derived from that source, for example, fufu (mashed yam or plantain); patu (owl); bonkra/bankra (Asante: bonkara – travelling basket); cutacoo (Asante: kotokuwo – small bag or sack).18 More recently, however, Mervyn Alleyne has argued that Jamaican words and culture have a much wider West and Central African provenance.19 One of the “weaknesses” traditionally attributed to Jamaican is the assumed difficulty of presenting it in written form. American anthropologist Martha Beckwith argued that “transcription . . . so as to preserve the Jamaican form

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of speech [had] been a difficult problem”, and quoted Mrs Starck (her research assistant) who pointed to “the difficulty of conveying upon the printed page the Jamaican’s ‘curious chanting method of speech’ with its ‘strange risings and fallings of the voice’ ”. Beckwith further argued that “a phonetic rendering of the speech would be unintelligible except to the phonetic expert”. As such she offered a compromise, “patterned chiefly after [Frank] Cundall in order to represent a conventionalized standard [where o]nly striking differences of pronunciation are marked, although the order of words and construction of the phrasing are strictly Jamaican”.20 The inability or failure of the lettered classes to reproduce the “colour and cadences” of Jamaican in writing has curiously been offered up by them as one of its shortcomings. Yet Jamaican was not deemed inferior because there was no standardized written version of it; rather, it was denigrated because the cultural elites associated it primarily with lower-class Jamaicans of African descent. As a result, no real or systematic effort was made to create a regularized written version of it, and its continued existence as “mere” spoken word ensured its relegation in a world that gave higher status to written rather than oral cultures.21 When Jamaican was presented in written form, it was often with an intention of indicating the “peculiar” and “amusing” nature of the ordinary people who spoke it; and rarely did the written form do justice to its complexities, nuances, emphases, colours and beauty. Without an appreciation of those complexities, colours and cadences of the language, many cultural elites and their allies treated Jamaican creole language–speakers as ignoramuses and/or buffoons. Alpheus Verrill claimed that working- or peasant-class Jamaicans were not as loquacious as their counterparts in the United States or other West Indian colonies: “He is, in fact, rather inarticulate.”22 With equal disdain, both Mrs T.B. Butcher and Winifred James asserted the exact opposite, that Jamaicans had a penchant for verbosity, the use of long words and malapropisms. Butcher made reference to one negro who said he liked to hear the gospel properly “confounded”, and of another who spoke of his minister “dispensing” with the truth. . . . One good classleader came to me and said she had been feeling “rejected” for some time, and wished to “anticipate” a few words with me. A man wishing to praise a sermon said it was the most “alphabetical” he had ever heard. Another, when the lights went suddenly out in the chapel, was very indignant, saying, “the sacred person of the minister had been plunged into primeval chaos”. Another, who could not give me some information I required said he would “inquisit” for me. And I heard of one man who, when asking for relief said he belonged to the “indignant” poor.23

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Perhaps he did. Words were a double-edged sword in the mouths of West Indian creoles,24 replete with multiple meanings, as can be gleaned from the lyrics of mento and calypso songs; and the above examples were not, as Butcher thought, errors at all. Jamaicans had creolized English words and given them new meanings in their own language. They were not speaking English. Winifred James, while being more racially trenchant in her remarks, unwittingly pointed to the element of competition so prevalent in the street culture of lower-class Jamaicans25 as one explanation for the verbosity of some blacks, arguing that it fills them with the spirit of their own greatness and warms them with the wine of their seeming wisdom. If the man who has once borrowed your saucepan and burnt a hole in it, hurls the word “exemplification” at you, you certainly need something like transmagnification to reply with, or else he had got the better of you twice. . . . If you are going to preach the gospel at all the street corners (which many coloured men desire most) . . . how are you to bring sinners to the proper sense of their own unworthiness unless you have wordy bladders with which to buffet them to repentance? And who, oh, who could expect to score in a love contest unless he were thrice armed with the only weapon that can take the wind out of his antagonist’s sails and leave breathless the adored one? In other countries it may be possible to woo in words of two or even one syllable, but if your love is a brown one I would be sorry for you if you tried, with her. She has been too well brought up to fall to poor trash like that.26

Rather than seeing the command of words as empty pomposity as James does, one needs to understand the sense of self-worth they gave the speakers. David Trotman refers to such persons as “wordsmiths”, and argues that this tendency was reinforced by the colonial education system through its emphasis on learning by rote. This “encouraged a concentration on and a delight in the sound of words” which allowed individuals to infuse new meaning into old words and to coin new ones.27 Jamaicans, in common with their counterparts throughout the Caribbean, were not content to be restricted by the constraints of the rules of English grammar in developing their own language. And why should they? Even their English lower-class counterparts who did speak some form of English were not, nor were many Americans who were or are famed for making up words as they went or go along, many of which eventually entered the Oxford and Webster’s dictionaries. Jamaican, therefore, like all other living languages, was constantly evolving and intimately related to the cultural reality of the everyday life of the people.

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Jamaican linguistic expression shared other characteristics with sister Caribbean creole languages that were commented on by contemporary elite observers using negative racial stereotypes. Body motions and gesticulations, so vital in oral (and other) cultures, were treated as an “excessive” use of gestures. With typical arrogance, Verrill attributed this to the “inarticulateness” of the average Jamaican: “He is far more like his African ancestor in his use of gestures in place of words to express his ideas and feelings.”28 Soliloquy, another feature of Caribbean oral cultures was, according to Frank Cundall, the consequence of the “unintelligence” of black Jamaicans who thus had to talk things over in order to understand them; hence one was apt to see several of them talking aloud to themselves on the road. Said Verrill, “He merely is thinking aloud, soliloquizing, talking matters over with himself; and curiously enough at such times he frequently assumes a dual personality, the one conversing and arguing with the other quite as seriously and as earnestly as though two really separate individuals.”29 Notwithstanding cultural elite attribution of Jamaican to the illiterate, it was not the exclusive cultural property of the lower classes. All Jamaicans, including those very elites, spoke it in one form or another. Alpheus Verrill observed, “It is so clearly defined as a distinct dialect that the white planters employ it in addressing the negroes.”30 Cundall observed that the white planters’ speech (presumably not basilectal “Negro English”) was “influenced” by Jamaican. While they might not tell someone to do a thing “one time” as did the blacks, they would tell him to “carry a horse” and “walk good”.31 Effectively, what Cundall observed was that the planters normally spoke another, no doubt more English-based, variant of Jamaican rather than the standard or (more appropriately for the time) “King’s English”. That variant was more readily understood by visitors like Verrill and Gurney because it adhered more closely to imperial English as regards the use of verbs, articles and consonants which were missing from the peasant version.32 Cundall called this “towntalk”,33 but it was very much a part of the creole linguistic continuum of Jamaica, and speakers often slipped back and forth between Jamaican and imperial English seamlessly.34 Indeed, according to Akers, Jamaica operates on a bilingual model which assumes that there is a continuum with two polar systems, Jamaican and English. “For a Creole-dominant speaker, Creole occurs in unmonitored speech, while English occurs in monitored speech; for English-dominant speakers, English occurs in unmonitored speech, while Creole occurs in monitored speech. . . . The majority of Jamaicans are Creole-dominant bilinguals.”35

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John Henderson provided useful evidence from his 1904 visit of the bilingualism of middle- and upper-class Jamaicans, noting that while they “speak a language officially known as English”, they also spoke Jamaican. On an occasion when he had afternoon tea with a planter couple whom he described as octoroons passing for white, he recounted their conversation “not because it is of interest, but to show the vernacular as voiced by the cultured octoroon”. In response to the wife’s lament that life would be much better if they still had slaves, the planter responded, “But, my dear . . . slavery is a thing not to be desired by us cultured gentlemen and ladies. We must protect the weak and fallen; it is our juty to heaven to succure the black heathen of the negroid race. Never say words in praise of slavery. Our juty is to helevate the trampled negroid to our condition of education and refinement.” This elite man and his wife were no different from the vast numbers of fellow Jamaicans who, in their creole way, pronounced “duty” as “juty”, “secure” as “succure”, and added “h” to words beginning with vowels. His, however, was the more Englishbased Jamaican which Henderson nevertheless derisively called “their negropigeon-English”.36 This conversation was also important in revealing the mentality of some of the people who constituted the Jamaican cultural elites and who declared war on things Afro-creole, including the creole language. Not only did they claim England as home and exult in the delusion that they were white, with expressions like “us white men” and “we Englishmen”, but in the same breath that they declared themselves to be philanthropists seeking to improve the condition of the island, they showed nothing but contempt for the very people they were ostensibly “helevating” by calling them “niggers”: “What is a nigger? He is our unequal in every manner. . . . What is a nigger that he should have despoiled me of my wealth?” 37 No wonder they felt entitled to arrogate the right to dictate what was morally right and culturally appropriate, and to teach those “niggers” how to speak properly. That Jamaican Creole was spoken by all Jamaicans was also clearly revealed in the courts of law and other spaces, public and private, every day. In one court case a man was accused of stealing, feloniously and with malicious intent, one and a half pairs of meat known and described (in Jamaica and elsewhere) as pig’s trotters. As we entered, the prisoner at the bar was tearing at the mangy patches of his mud-coloured hair, and pleading, “I no took them master, sir, yer honor, I no took them; I ask to be set free. I no see them, I no eat them, ’fore God in ’eaven.” . . . When the monotonous mumble of the magistrate had finished, only the pleased smile of the prisoner told us the news

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of his acquittal. To the inexperienced ear, the magistrate’s mumble was just as incomprehensible as any of the jargon of the witnesses themselves.38

The shared language bound together the accused, the magistrate and “the black [court] usher [who] shouts silence, or swears a witness after the usual caution of ‘Take se bible in you righ’ ’and’ ”. Their statuses in society were certainly different, but they operated within a common creole oral culture. Jamaican, therefore, in one form or another, was already the national language spoken by all classes. Despite the premium placed on British cultural items in the colonial context, imperial English was in reality a minority language in Jamaica, spoken by only a very few highly educated people, many of whom were British expatriates. Among the social and cultural elites, as well as those who aspired to joining that grouping, their quest to appear as English and civilized as possible meant that they could not, and did not embrace Jamaican as desirable; and even though they, often unwittingly, spoke a version of that language, they stigmatized it. They perceived Jamaican as a bastardized version of imperial English and were ashamed of it. Their efforts to distance themselves from it was premised on their assumption that they spoke “good English”, and that Jamaican were concentrated among the “ignorant” lower classes. Functioning under that delusion, at the turn of the twentieth century some of them expressed shock and surprise that Jamaican appeared to be spreading to the “better classes” too. When, in 1902, Jack Span wrote to the Jamaica Times lamenting that Jamaican school children abused the English language so badly “that their speech is almost on a par with that of our country peasants”, it was out of fear that this “bad language” was infiltrating the elite classes. “This fault is by no means confined to those low down in the social scale, but the sons of respectable merchants, and professional men are among the chief offenders. . . . Even the sons of English parents do not escape this evil. . . . [In fact,] The middle class young men of Jamaica on the whole, do not as a rule speak proper grammatical English. . . . [W]hen conversing among themselves or at house they abandon what grammar they do know, and revert to the patois or broken English.”39 This problem, he asserted, was to be found both at the elite high schools and the teacher training colleges; and he even referred to a young matriculant of London University “whose English is not only bad in the extreme, but he possesses the broad uncouth accent of a mountain negro”. Fortunately, in his view, it was a “problem” that was confined

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essentially to males. The speech of girls, while not what was desired, was “far superior” to that of the young men because “coarse language in every respect is objectionable to ladies, and so they do not suffer from contamination in school or from their companions”.40 This gendered difference with regard to Jamaican creole language usage is questionable, for early in the previous century Maria Nugent had noted that, “The Creole language is not confined to the negroes. Many of the ladies, who have not been educated in England, speak a sort of broken English, with an indolent drawling out of the words, that is very tiresome if not disgusting. I stood next to a lady one night near a window, and, by way of saying something, remarked that the air was much cooler than usual; to which she answered, ‘Yes, ma-am, him rail-ly too fra-ish.’ ”41 For Span, the poor English language skills in the island were an evil that had to be arrested because “the unfortunate fellows [once grown up] begin to feel ill at ease when in the company of educated gentlemen, and they find it very difficult to form their sentences correctly”. He thus called on the government to implement educational reforms immediately with a view to ensuring that Jamaicans would learn to speak the English language properly at all times and in all places.42 Generally speaking, cultural elite Jamaicans were contemptuous of Jamaican because they fooled themselves into believing that they did not speak it. Yet, at the same time, they were quite happy to be entertained in this medium because they saw it as a way to ridicule the “niggers” and thereby assert their own sense of social superiority and feelings of self-importance. Ever since the late 1860s, Henry G. Murray had used Jamaican in comic readings attended by select audiences of cultural elites, and this “tradition” of mocking comedy was continued by his sons.43 Minstrelsy was another art form that used the dialect; and smoking concerts which became popular from the 1890s (for men only) was another arena where the elites enjoyed Jamaican since they used it to mock the “negro”. As the coloured mayor of Kingston H.A.L. Simpson observed in 1915, several elite men (including by then some coloureds like himself, and a few blacks) when called on to perform at these events would go into the familiar routine of saying: “Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I am sorry I was not able to prepare a recitation, but I will give you one which you may have heard already. I am going to tell you ’bout that bad bwoy Sammy and how him throw way him boots before him go to Church.” 44 Jamaican was fine in a context where lower-class blacks could be painted in caricature and made fun of – they were “our negroes”, was a recurrent refrain.

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In the minds of these people, Jamaican ironically could never be representative of the “real” Jamaica where they regarded imperial English as the accepted language. Jamaican was considered a linguistic abomination that would (hopefully) eventually disappear with the advance of a true English education. Much to the consternation of conservative elites, however, instead of disappearing Jamaican earned new meaning, recognition, and respectability when literary writers began to use it. The most celebrated was Claude McKay, but there were others as well, such as Thomas Henry MacDermott (whose pen name was “Tom Redcam”) and H.G. De Lisser. The catalyst of utter despair and disgust among the cultural elites, however, was the publication in 1915 of the first issue of Pepperpot: A Magazine Depicting mainly the Personal and Lighter Side of Jamaican Life. This not only featured the figure of a barefooted Jamaican girl with the caption “Beg you quattie, sah – me well hungry, sah!” as its frontispiece, but included some pieces written entirely in Jamaican.45 This aroused the ire of those who felt ashamed of the language and its portrayal abroad. The recently formed Jamaica Patriotic League under the leadership of coloured musician Astley Clerk (who had also written a short piece in Pepperpot, but in imperial English) reacted vehemently and quickly by passing a resolution urging loyal Jamaicans to boycott all publications employing dialect relating to Jamaica and to end friendships with those who refused to do so. This was done on the grounds that such literature conveyed a false impression abroad of Jamaicans.46 In order to demonstrate their own “cultural evolution” and to claim higher social status, educated elites like Clerk sought to distance themselves from the language that was an integral part of the national culture. Mayor Simpson added his own weighty voice of outrage in a wellpublicized address to Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association in January 1915. Although admitting that as a lawyer he “had to imitate [Jamaican] in Court to get people to understand him”, he saw no reason why he should “listen to this imaginary, highly coloured inaccurate description of what is called ‘Negro dialect’ ”. Publications like Pepperpot and the Gleaner’s defence of it tended to lead to ridicule of Jamaica abroad. What would people in England think if they thought that all Jamaicans spoke like that? “Jamaicans would be held up as curios. Some would even wonder if people who spoke in that manner lived in houses.” He regretted that Claude McKay had not written after another fashion; and though some did argue that Jamaican was a reality and therefore no one should be ashamed of it, he would say that he was ashamed to hear people speaking in that way, and furthermore was

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ashamed of the lack of interest which those who knew better had in the past shown in the elevation of the people.47 The cultural elites in 1915 were clearly divided on this language question, which only undermined the opposition to the use of Jamaican. Yet, both leading newspapers, the Gleaner and the Jamaica Times, surprisingly adopted a somewhat sympathetic attitude. Their view was that, however undesirable it was, Jamaican was part of the cultural landscape and could not be wished away. It probably would disappear in due course as English education advanced but, as the Times argued, that was all the more reason why literature should snatch from oblivion and preserve the quaintness, the honour, the pathos that will soon be things of the past. . . . Even, therefore, if we grant that the dialect is not only a phase that must inevitably pass, but also one that it should be our endeavour to speed the departure of, it still remains fact that it is for the present a part, and a big part, of conditions here and while that is the case literature and common sense also will naturally reflect the fact.48

The Gleaner under the editorship of H.G. De Lisser, who as a novelist also used Jamaican, went further: “We are not ashamed of the working classes, they are decidedly not ashamed of themselves. . . . The people wont [sic] be affected by [the new literature] – they appreciate the true picture, not the false, and in this way they are the best critics, having instinctively a knowledge of the requirements of realistic art.”49 To credit the people with artistic sense and sensibilities was quite novel at this time. In his support of the use of Jamaican, H.S. Banbury was scathing in his criticism of Mayor Simpson. Like the Gleaner, he argued that it would be “as absurd to put tropical scenery into an English landscape as to put pure English speech into the mouth of a Jamaican labourer or domestic servant”; and concluded by saying: “There are many ways in which amendment is needed among the mass of the people of Jamaica, but the abolition of barefeet and suppression of dialects are not, in my view among them.”50 It is noticeable, however, that even in its defence, Banbury drew his distance by seeing Jamaican as a lower-class language. By dividing the opponents of dialect in literature into two categories, the literati and “defenders of the Negro”, Theo McKay (brother of Claude) sought to get to the core of the issue. He argued that there were those who “having a ready command over artistic English, . . . with a certain amount of arrogance look down upon the use of dialect as a medium through which thought is expressed”; and those who “think it is an attempt to caricature and ridicule

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our people”.51 Indeed, this was an issue raised by the Jamaica Times editorial: While the objection to the use of the dialect at all is not tenable, a protest is, we think very right and proper against the almost exclusive use made of it for purposes of broad farce, literary burlesque and caricature. The Negro is almost always represented as on the broad grin, exhibiting crude humour and childlike wit. Some of this is well in its way but when the entire picture is given in such colours the natural result is to produce a feeling of nausea in the minds of educated and cultured black men.52

Theo McKay contemptuously dismissed the first category of Jamaican creole language opponents that he had identified, not considering them worthy of the time of day. With respect to the second category, strong class biases entered his discourse by his assumption that educated Jamaicans like himself did not speak Jamaican: If writers, local or overseas, were to put broken English into the mouths of characters delineating school teachers, native doctors, and native lawyers, that would be to me a wicked libel upon us as Jamaicans. But is “Jane”53 not a most interesting type of a Jamaican girl, and does not such a girl speak dialect? Is not such a story a distinct gain for literature; a story superior to any of the “novels with a purpose”, with a weak impossible plot and weaker English which we readily pay our half a crown for?54

Despite his class bias, he vigorously defended speakers of Jamaican, and would not discourage its use. “It is to me a distinct gain as a people, when our sons and daughters, who know our manners and customs, can translate them into words with that rare insight and sympathy, which no stranger can emulate.”55 No doubt he had his more celebrated brother in mind. Perhaps most appropriately the last word is reserved for brother Claude himself, the leading exponent at that time of Jamaican in his creative works, but who ironically also regarded it as a poor cousin of imperial English. He correctly thought that “the opponents of Jamaica dialect poetry have been reading it not with their eyes, but with their prejudices”, and challenged them to “criticize it from a purely literary standpoint, than to write as if they were ashamed of the pretty negro variant of English”. Citing examples from Britain and the United States, Claude McKay pointed to the power of literary works in dialect by such notables as Burns, Chaucer, Tennyson and William Barnes; and he went on to state: “I fail to understand why writers should not express themselves in the dialect or pure English as they feel led – why Jamaicans

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should be ashamed of the dialect.” Further, “With the unadulterated blood of my ancestors coursing through me, I have no cause to be unreasonably prejudiced against or ashamed of a dialect, the charm of which lies in its perfect artlessness.” At the same time, however, he claimed that “though strong and expressive, the dialect has its limitations which are many; for in it one cannot express all the emotions of the heart”. Moreover, he shared the prevailing cultural elitist view that Jamaican language would die with the advance of English education: “We are a people in evolution, and in time Figure 12. Claude McKay. (Courtesy of the National Library of Jamaica.) the dialect will be to Jamaicans what Chaucer’s language is to Englishmen today: if my poor efforts will have helped to preserve the dialect I shall be glad.”56 As with many other aspects of culture in Jamaican life in this period, the issue of the Jamaican creole language generated great controversy and ambivalence. It was one of the prime areas in which the culture war was fought. As the language of the common people, Jamaican was looked down upon and stigmatized as inferior, and as one more symbol of their ignorance and lack of progress in the scale of civilization. Yet, in one form or another, it was in fact spoken by all Jamaicans regardless of race, colour or class, although the cultural elites deluded themselves into believing that they spoke imperial English. Most middle- and upper-class Jamaicans, therefore, sought to distance themselves from the “nation language”, and felt ashamed, offended and outraged if they thought it might infiltrate their social ranks or in any way be cast as representative of what was “Jamaican”, thereby linking them to it. For these people, Jamaican Creole could legitimately be utilized to poke fun at lower-class blacks, but ultimately the goal should be to eradicate it totally. “Civilization” demanded that imperial English (anglicization) should spread to all classes, not the “broken English” of the creole language (creolization). However, they were not united in this view. Some of them (a minority it seems) regarded Jamaican as something quaint, albeit inferior, that should be preserved in the museum of literary prose and poetry before it disappeared altogether with the “inevitable” march of the forces of anglicized progress (via

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English education). That it did not is a testament to the resilience, versatility, and innate strength of this remarkable creole invention.

“Today fe me, tomorrow fe you”:57 Jamaican Proverbs One of the criticisms of Jamaican was that it was incapable of expressing complex ideas and emotions. Even Claude McKay, one of its leading literary exponents, thought so. This, however, opens the door to those who might be inclined to argue that Jamaican creole language–speakers were not just handicapped in their oral expression, but in their fundamental thought processes. If one cannot express it, then it is not difficult for the prejudiced mind to conclude that one may not even be able to think it. If so, no body of profound intellectual ideas could be expected from people who were monolingual in Jamaican. The reality though was that lower-class Jamaican creole language– speakers formulated a very substantial body of philosophical sayings or proverbs so profound that they compelled a handful of elite observers to recognize their intrinsic value. In 1859, for instance, Scottish Presbyterian minister John Radcliffe delivered six lectures on Jamaican proverbs and noted that (along with folk tales and songs) they demonstrated that the intellect of the people was “higher than many dreamed of”; and he believed this body of indigenous thought could conceivably form the basis of a uniquely creole educational system.58 Following Radcliffe, a few other cultural elites drew attention to the proverbs, very often out of curiosity. In 1862 James Gall lectured on the proverb “Trouble catch you, pickney breeches fit you”,59 and even Charles Rampini alphabetically listed 227 proverbs in his book, although without explaining their provenance or meanings.60 These proverbs, often descriptive, prescriptive and witty, not only captured the socio-cultural concerns of the people and their economic circumstances, but also the philosophical and moral lessons of life as it affected them. These were condensed in highly illustrative metaphors which relied on easily remembered maxims, many of which were tied to the material culture and environment of the island. For instance, people were warned that things were not always as they appeared to be: “Alligator lay egg, but him no fowl”. They were cautioned against overindulgence: “Greedy choke puppy”. They were reminded that hasty actions had consequences: “Hot needle burn thread”; that there were

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great differences between casual contacts and intimacy: “ ‘Come, see me’ is noting; but ‘come, lib [live] wi’ [with] me’ is someting”; and that familiarity did, in fact, breed contempt: “Play wi’ puppy, puppy lick you face”. There were many admonitions about idle talk, for example, “Cock mout’ (mouth) kill cock”; “Man talk plenty, him pay him fader [father] debt”, and “Shut mout’ no catch fly”; while the verbal hypocrisy that often accompanied social interactions was captured in “Behind dog it is ‘dog’; before dog it is ‘mister dog’ ”. When they pointed to the limits of meritocracy in the proverb “Parson christen him own pickny [child] first”; or quipped that “When black man tief, him tief half a bit (twopence farthing), when buckra [white overseer] tief, him tief whole estate”, they believed they spoke well-known truths about status, hierarchy and relative opportunities, even of malevolence.61 The proverbs also contained aphorisms about the hardships that many people endured and the unpleasant alternatives they faced; after all, “Before dog go widout [without] him supper, him eat cockroach”, and “cornful (scornful) dog nyam (eats) dutty [dirty] pudding”. When individuals were told that “When crab walk too much, him lose him claw”, or that “Coward man keep whole bones”, maybe they were being warned against overextension or against wandering too far from their homes or stations in life. Linked to those sentiments were proverbs that focused on patience or a calculated forebearance: “Time longer dan [than] rope”; “Patience [patient] man ride jackass”; and, “To-day fe me, to-morrow fe you”; while the possibilities of the weak overcoming the strong were recognized: “Cotton-tree neber so big but lily (little) axe cut him”, and “Lily (little) crab-hole spoil big race horse”. There were also sayings, such as “De tune you playing no de one I dancing”, and “Two bull can’t ’tan (stand) in one penn”, that captured tones of potential discontent.62 If Rampini meant to smirk at the “quaint” sayings of the Jamaican people, and other elites believed that these proverbs and the colourful Jamaican creole language that delivered them would slide into decline as the twentieth century wore on, it must have been an unwelcomed surprise to see the Jamaica Times sponsoring a national competition in 1908, with a prize of ten shillings and sixpence (donated by the Honourable H.E. Cox) for the “50 Most Typical Jamaica Proverbs”. The judge, A.E. Murray, reported that “[t]his competition created a good deal of interest and a large number of papers have been sent in. Most of us are familiar with the more popular of our local proverbs and consequently there was very little to choose between the comparative merits of several of the papers sent in.” Several competitors submitted simple maxims such as “All is not gold that glitters”, and “not a few localized these by putting

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them into the local ‘vernacular’ ”; but the newspaper felt that “our proverbs are so numerous that it was quite unnecessary to go outside them to make up the 50”.63 That some persons translated English proverbs into the local vernacular both suggested that they thought the maxims transferrable, and recognized another language (albeit an “inferior” one) – Jamaican – into which those maxims could be translated. Further, that the Times referred to “our proverbs” said a great deal more about the shared Jamaican creole culture. That was signalled by one competitor who apparently went to great lengths to explain the proverbs and their portrayal of “[t]he dominant qualities of the inhabitants of our Island, their opportunities, privileges, besettings, manners and the consequences that follow”. Some of those qualities were reflected in the winning entry by M.I. Gayner of Rio Bueno. His list of proverbs related to important aspects of the people’s philosophy of life, for example, “Man hate you him gi [give] you basket fe carry water”; “Someting poil [spoil] a morning carn [can’t] come good a night”; “Cunny [cunning] better dan [than] obeah”; “No call alligator long mout [mouth] till you pass him”; “Trouble ketch [catch] man, pickney [a child’s] frock fit him”. The winning proverb expressed a belief that people only attacked those whom they were confident they could subdue: “Duppy know who him frighten.”64 It may well be that the proverbs were so embedded in the oral culture and were such a regular part of everyday speech that neither Rampini nor the Times saw any need to explain what they meant. Perhaps because of Martha Beckwith’s anthropological gaze, she attempted to translate, explain, and identify the provenance of her alphabetized list of 972 proverbs.65 She also recognized a direct link between some Jamaican proverbs and African tradition: African wit and philosophy are more justly summed up in the proverb or aphorism than in any other form of folk art, and the proverbial sayings collected from negro settlements in . . . the West Indies give a truer picture of the mental life of the negro than even story or song reveals. In them he expresses his justification of the vicissitudes of life. They are his consolation for impotence, the weapon of the weak against the provocations of the strong, in argument, an apt proverb will often win conviction. As a veiled threat, it carries almost the efficacy of a curse. Proverbs enter constantly into the life of the folk; borrowed sayings undergo a process of remolding [sic] under the influence of native conditions, being interpreted to meet the emergencies of native life, and new sayings pattern upon the old. There is no other art so thoroughly assimilated to the life of the people of Jamaica . . . as this of the aphorism, and none employed so constantly in everyday experience.66

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Her collection was largely generated from the twenty-two contributions of “young women students of the Bethlehem training school for teachers” who were asked to “write out lists of old sayings” in the summer of 1919, as well as “negro servants in the houses where [she] was staying and various other people, sometimes of the better class”. This clearly suggests that the proverbs were widely known and understood by people of all classes. This is not difficult to comprehend since many of the lower classes served as domestics and other types of workers in middle- and upper-class households and businesses, some as child-care nannies, thus facilitating the transmission of their proverbial sayings in Jamaican as part of their routine daily oral communication with both adults and children. This, therefore, was an Afro-creole culture form that most people in the society comprehended and shared in. Leonard Barrett argues that Jamaican proverbs . . . are known by almost everyone . . . [they] are short sayings in common use that strikingly express some obvious truths or familiar experiences, characterized by terseness, rhythm, and striking imagery. They are probably the most useful linguistic device in any language to warn, to encourage, and to trigger reflection. . . . Jamaicans in all segments of the society know the power of proverbs in everyday conversation, as a teaching tool, or as a weapon of verbal defence.67

Beckwith further observed that many of the sayings have a highly symbolic or riddling form. The people are quite aware of the import of this symbolism; if asked to explain a riddling proverb they will readily express its meaning in abstract terms or furnish an example of its proper usage. . . . [I]n most cases I was chiefly impressed with the dark sense of wrong and the nursing by the weaker folk of injuries real or fancied inflicted by those upon whom they were impotent to avenge themselves, which find voice in the apparently innocent or merely sententious retort. . . . It is the fate of the folk who are put upon by their betters and who smart under injury which is here expressed with an almost uncanny justness of observation; as if, by generalizing the experience of misery and poverty, each man became dignified in his own eyes. So he shares the common lot, and the hope of an eventual retribution appeases his particular sense of deprivation.68

That lower-class Jamaicans, often without formal education, were recognized by a highly qualified foreigner like Beckwith as being capable of complex abstract thoughts which they expressed as proverbs in Jamaican stands in sharp contradiction to the allegations of their “ignorance” repeatedly made by the local cultural elites and others.

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Utilizing the creole term “Saying”, G. Llewellyn Watson further elaborates on the social function of proverbs in Jamaican communities: A Saying is a phrase or maxim used to warn, to remonstrate, or otherwise implant the fear of retribution or social control in the consciousness of the listener, that is, the person or persons who most need to grasp a situation. . . . The Sayings are, clearly, an intrinsic part of the communicative resources of all Jamaicans, and all Jamaicans have generalized competence in their use. Like proverbs everywhere, their major purpose is to lay down cautions, warnings, and social ideals and to reveal certain attitudes considered important in social life.69

Watson also noted that these proverbs and sayings are used to exert “pressure toward conformity to community standards and culturally approved behavior [sic]. Their very structure reminds us, in the most abbreviated way, of the paradoxes and ironies of life and compels us to take responsibility for a good deal of the social forces that surround and shape us.” Hence, in Jamaica as in Africa, proverbs and Sayings are used extensively in daily life to inculcate morality, to teach the value of cooperation, to instill acceptable modes of conduct. Values such as hospitality, respect for elders, caution, bravery, patience, humility, courage, perseverance, and how to face the inevitable are all taught through the medium of Sayings. In addition, they facilitate the smoothing of tension and social friction, and make it possible to subsume the particular under the general. They inform, and they instruct.70

While Beckwith established a link between Jamaican proverbs and African oral tradition, she claimed that the “sources of these proverbs are in very large part British, often African; but the process of ‘composing’, as the people call it, is still going on”.71 Even with her Eurocentric bias, her description of the creative character of this intellectual process is very useful, as is her argument that since similar sayings were collected in Guyana this was proof about “how the old aphorisms have been banded [sic] about as a common stock wherever the African negro has taken root on western soil”.72 She concluded that where proverbs started as English phrases, they had been “assimilated”, while “[p]articular patterns noticed by collectors in Africa also appear in the colonies. For example, the ascription of a saying to an animal – ‘dog say’ or ‘hog say’ – is said to be characteristic of a particular locality on the West Coast” of Africa.73 Watson too observed that Jamaican sayings, strong in imagery, typically metaphorical and pointed, sometimes allegorical, often poetic, “draw upon a wide variety of folk creatures, real or imaginary, as the major characters”. These

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include goats, Anansi (the spider), Jankrow (John Crow, the turkey vulture), dawgs (dogs), hogs, rats, cows, rabbits, patu (owl). “These animal characters, as well as the flora and fauna which would normally be familiar to a native, are used to construct a Saying, always in Creole.”74 This was a creolized oral culture with contributions from West and Central Africa, and Britain, but with an overwhelmingly African structure, tone and perhaps cadence. The proverbs and sayings of the Afro-Jamaican people embodied their morals, values and philosophy of life. They represented the collective wisdom of whole communities of ordinary people, and by their pervasiveness they constituted a vital contribution to the intellectual life in Jamaica although, as we shall see in the next chapter, not much positive attention was paid, or recognition given, to this by the anglicizing cultural elites.

Jamaican Folk Tales Story-telling formed a very important aspect of the cultural life of lower-class Afro-Jamaicans especially in the rural areas. In the absence of electricity and all its related distractions, story-telling (and associated drama and singing) was a key element of night entertainment. Many of the stories were witty and designed to entertain, but they also invariably conveyed a social message that, like the proverbs, was intended to advise, admonish, warn, and to teach their listeners community morals and values. Story-telling was an important form of creative oral literature and theatre that were part of the intellectual and artistic life of the lower-classes; and story-telling dramatists were accorded high esteem in their communities. While the themes and characters of the stories varied widely, by far the dominant character was Anansi. According to Richard Allsopp, Anansi is a mythical spider originating in West Africa (especially in Asante folklore), who takes human form. He is famous for “outwitting opponents of superior strength, or barely escaping being caught”; he is a “cunning rascal and hero of a countless number of [Caribbean] folk-tales” and is “always amusing in his greed and selfishness”.75 So pervasive was Anansi in Jamaican and Caribbean folklore that the “Anansi story” became a generic term for folk tales. According to F.G. Cassidy and R.B. Le Page, it was “[a]n inclusive name for the tales favoured among the peasantry . . . either a beast-fable . . . or a ‘fairy-tale’. . . . Sometimes features of both types are combined.”76 In his typically racially disparaging manner, Rampini stated that “[t]he

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principal hero of this autochthonic literature is the large black Annancy spider. He is the personification of cunning and success – two qualities which have an especial charm for the negro mind.” Quoting from the Jamaica Royal Society of Arts, he continued: “He is the Jove, the Thor, the Bramah [sic] of negro mythology. His great strength is in his cunning, and his metamorphic versatility; he out-Proteuses Proteus. His parentage is utterly unknown – nor indeed does it seem referred to in any of the Annancy stories.” He referred to “[t]he other personages who figure in the tales [as] Annancy’s wife Crookie, and Tacooma his reputed son”.77 Walter Jekyll described the mythical spider-man as follows: Annancy is a legendary being whose chief characteristic is trickery. A strong and good workman, he is invariably lazy, and is only to be tempted to honest labour by the offer of a large reward. He prefers to fill the bag which he always carries, by fraud or theft. His appetite is voracious, and nothing comes amiss to him, cooked or raw. . . . He is perfectly selfish, and knows no remorse for his many deeds of violence, treachery and cruelty. His only redeeming point is a sort of hail-fellow-wellmetness, which appeals so much to his associates that they are ready almost, if not quite, to condone his offences.78

While Jekyll’s portrayal focused on the Jamaican manifestation of the myth, in her introduction to his book, Alice Werner located Anansi in West African oral and folk culture: “Annancy, or Anansi is the Tshi (Ashanti) word for ‘spider’; and the Spider figures largely in the folk-tales of the West Coast” of Africa. According to her, since there was “a Gold Coast tradition that affirms the human race to be descended from the Spider, it might be expected that he should sometimes appear in a more favourable light, and also that those peoples who had lost this myth, or never possessed it, should concentrate their attention on the darker side of his character”.79 Some elite contemporaries like John Radcliffe, Mary Pamela MilneHolme, and Walter Jekyll appreciated the intellectual value of these stories and sought to record and preserve them.80 Although Robert Jordon, coloured editor of the Morning Journal, urged care and caution in doing so to avoid errors that he detected in Radcliffe’s work, he (like many of his cultural elite peers) equated these folk tales with the cultural past, with backwardness. 81 That, however, mattered not to the majority of lower-class Jamaicans. They continued to speak as they pleased. For them, Anansi explained many of their daily observations and experiences. He walked and talked among them in their stories, which they delivered in Jamaican, and he offered many lessons about

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life, humour, and was the primary figure at many social gatherings where they entertained themselves. The Anansi stories and proverbs were complementary with each other within an integrated Afro-creole oral culture. They shared similar purposes and indeed characteristics. They were both reflective of the everyday circumstances of the Jamaican people and made use of animals as their main characters. According to Werner, “Besides Annancy himself, and . . . ‘Tiger’ . . . we have . . . either domestic or quasi-domestic animals: Cow, Hog, Dog, Puss, ‘Ratta’, etc., or creatures indigenous to Jamaica, such as John-Crow, ChickenHawk, Sea-Gaulin, Candle-Fly, Crab and Tarpon.”82 Their integration was rendered even more complete by the fact that proverbs were often embedded in the tales. For instance, in “Why the John Crows have Bald Pates” reproduced by Rampini, the protagonist repeated a number of creole proverbs to himself: “Cunny (cunning) better dan ’trong (strength)”; “To-day fe me, tomorrow fe you”; “When fowl merry, hawk catch him chicken”; “Hide fe me, talk fe you”; and “You shake my han’, but you no shake my heart!”83 Together they represented a very substantial and important body of unwritten literary, artistic and philosophical work. Yet Rampini claimed that “Many of the Annancy stories exist only as pointless, disjointed, mutilated fragments. Others of them break off abruptly just when the interest has reached its highest point.” Nevertheless, he asserted that the four stories he included in his book were “taken down from the lips of the narrators”. The idea that these were verbatim reproductions must be quickly dismissed since Rampini admitted that Much of their dramatic effect must, of necessity, be lost in their transcription. The action, the imitation of Annancy’s drawl, the alternation of tones by which the various personages are distinguished, the little fragments of song introduced, it was of course impossible to reproduce. To have given them too, in all the baldness of the negro dialect, would have rendered them unintelligible to the English reader. Still we trust that we have deprived them of no part of their essential character.84

Such trust, however, cannot be bestowed on Rampini for all the reasons he listed, in addition to his generally hostile attitude to things Afro-creole; so great caution needs to be exercised in using his transcriptions. Although he showed greater appreciation of this Afro-creole intellectual tradition, similar caution should be applied to Jekyll who also claimed that the stories (and tunes) that he included in his book were “taken down from the mouths of men and boys. . . . The method of procedure has in every case

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been to sit them down to their recital and make them dictate slowly; so the stories are in their ipsissima verba.” Among the fifty-one “Anansi tales” in Jekyll’s publication, he claimed that he made only four changes because he thought “the volume might find its way into the nursery”, but the rest were “authentic”, in their original Jamaican, with extensive notes after each tale. In those notes, Jekyll translated many Jamaican creole words, phrases and constructions which would have been unfamiliar to his readers.85 In other notes, he attempted to capture the speech patterns of the persons whose stories he collected, comparing them in some instances to French.86 Many in the cultural elite would have been surprised at his comparison of any aspect of Jamaican creole speech with French, and certainly would have questioned his attempts to understand words, phrases, parts of speech and the rules of pronunciation in Jamaican. Rampini was not nearly as sophisticated as Jekyll. He decided to make the Anansi stories “intelligible” by anglicizing “the baldness of the negro dialect”. That, of course, renders them problematic as “authentic” sources. What, then, can be said about the stories that he reproduced? “Annancy and Tiger” told the tale of how the physically weak spider(-man) tricked the powerful Tiger into allowing the former to ride the latter, all to impress a young lady whom both were courting. “Why John Crows have Bald Pates” explained how it was that the local vultures were tricked into scalding the tops of their heads; and the tale of “Why Hawks eat Fowls” examined the complicated family relationship between the two as well as the consequences of carelessness and gullibility. “Why Toads walk on Four Legs” explained that it was Toad’s interference in the imminent marriage between a proud prince and a witch that led to his being physically punished by her.87 Although Rampini refused to attempt to capture “the baldness of the negro dialect creole”, the lessons of life that the tales meant to teach were reasonably clear. He may have taken it upon himself to edit the people’s language, but he could not entirely distort what they meant to say. The more than four dozen stories collected by Jekyll were wide ranging. His list included “Annancy and Brother Tiger”, where the spider tricked Tiger into leaving his fat where Anansi could eat it (and then lay the blame on Monkey).88 In “Annancy, Monkey and Tiger”, Monkey boasted to Anansi about how sensible he was; however when he was caught by Tiger, he had to depend on Anansi to extricate him from the danger.89 Anansi was not always successful, however. In “Cow and Annancy”, the spider’s attempt to trick “papa Cow” into visiting him with the intention of butchering him, did not pay dividends

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for Cow escaped.90 Jekyll ended the tale as he did all of them, with the contemporary (and still current) refrain, “Jack Mantora [Mandora] me no choose none.” According to him: All Annancy stories end with these or similar words, the Jack is a member of the company to whom the story is told, perhaps its principal member; and the narrator addresses him, and says: “I do not pick you out, Jack, or any of your companions, to . . . [suffer as those in the stories]. Among the African tribes stories we know are often told with an object. The Negro is quick to seize a parable, and the point of a cunningly constructed story directed at an individual obnoxious to the reciter would not be missed. So when the stories were merely told for diversion, it may have been thought good manners to say: “This story of mine is not aimed at any one.”91

If Jekyll is correct, his explanation reinforces the idea that these stories served a social purpose and were in part aimed at exposing and correcting anti-social or immoral behaviour. “Jack” may well have understood exactly what was being said. In her publication, Children of Jamaica, Isabel MacLean included a chapter on Anansi stories which she labelled “Fairy Tales in Jamaica”. This is an indication of the way some elites went about translating the meaning and perhaps the content of these stories for their English-speaking readers. Anansi stories only made sense in their minds if equated with what they knew as “fairy tales” which, of course, were intended for children. That was an implicit judgement about the mental abilities of adult Afro-West Indians and Africans whom they assumed functioned at the same undeveloped mental level as white children. While MacLean’s book was indeed about de facto children, one can never be too sure where she drew the line. She included a story where Anansi found a magic pot that cooked on the command “Do-Mek-a-See”, as long as it was not washed; he kept the discovery to himself even though his family was suffering through hard times. Eventually they discovered his secret, partook of a feast and his wife washed the pot, ending its powers. Anansi next found a whip which responded to the same command by whipping him; he then left the whip to be discovered by his family, who shouted “Do-Mek-a-See” and were so severely beaten that “[i]n their fright and terror his wife and children had turned into Anancyspiders”.92 The lessons of the story were both instructive and harsh – Anansi might have been selfish, and he might have been punished for his tendency to take the easiest path, but he also punished his family for violating his rules and taking what was not theirs (his pot) even if they were starving. Those

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listening to the story might well have engaged in debates about Anansi’s morality even as they accepted that people were often selfish and vindictive. McLean recognized the importance of story-telling in Jamaica, and referred to the richness of the oral culture: “To understand the real charm of [the stories] you would need to hear the mimicry in the old lady’s voice, catch the ‘sings’ with their funny little tunes, and watch the expression of her face as she holds her audience spell-bound.”93 In communities where people congregated to hear these stories, their importance as entertainment and as facilitators of social gatherings was matched only by the status they conferred upon those who told them, but were generally otherwise marginalized. For the many ordinary Jamaicans who listened to these stories, the lessons were important. That the little spider could use his wit in order to have his way with more powerful and dangerous animals only confirmed the idea that an apparent disadvantage did not have to become a permanent impediment. Anansi’s cunningness, deceit and trickery might have been disparaged by the cultural elites, but the lower-class majority knew that often these characteristics were needed to contend with, and perhaps even triumph over, the barriers and powerful systems of exclusion that defined the socio-economic hierarchies of the island. Many of them celebrated Anansi; although he might be a scamp, he was also the small-man’s hero.94 The argument of Rampini and other elites that the popularity of the tales was connected to their focus on “cunning and success”, both of which held special “charm for the negro mind”, might have been more accurate, albeit for quite different reasons, than they realized. While Rampini meant to portray those characteristics as indicative of a degenerative Afro-creole personality, for ordinary Jamaicans whose access to economic and political power was limited, and whose cries for support or justice did not detain the colonial authorities, knowing how to manoeuver around the obstacles in the society was crucial. They might have been considered deceitful by some cultural elites, but they knew that without that ability for quick adaptability, for shape-shifting like Anansi, they were likely to emerge from encounters with the authorities the worse for wear. In a materialistic, poverty-stricken society, they also understood Anansi’s desire for material success, even though the line between that and his greed was thin. Rampini and his ilk might have found the stories to be “pointless, disjointed, mutilated fragments”, but for ordinary Jamaicans they were both powerful and poignant, as was the creole language in which they were told.

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Conclusion The interrelatedness of the Anansi stories and proverbs was demonstrative of the existence of an integrated and substantial body of oral literature and philosophy that constituted the innate intellectual and artistic creativity of the lower classes, which many of their “social betters” simply did not care to acknowledge in a positive vein. At best, they thought that they were symbolic of cultural (if not racial) backwardness. Many cultural elites believed that the “bad” language, “childish” stories and “silly” sayings of the people would eventually be rooted out by their exposure to the “uplifting” influence of a “superior” English education. As the next chapter will show, they would seek to hasten the extinction of this “debased” oral culture that in their minds symbolized ignorance, by establishing cultural institutions to promote the spread of “enlightened” ideas and philosophies by which “civilized” and “advanced” people were expected to be guided. For their part, the ordinary people remained unperturbed and continued talking in a creole language that they had invented, telling their stories, and preserving and creating new proverbs as needed. When they listened to their “social betters” who spoke just like them and yet at the same time castigated them for speaking that way, and who also recited some of the same proverbs as the occasion warranted, they must have realized that the culture war was a murky business, not least of all for their confused elite antagonists. As the oral creole culture embedded itself and came to characterize the identity of the whole nation, although most cultural elites wanted to get rid of Jamaican and its associated by-products (the proverbs and Anansi stories), they were thwarted by the sheer number of Jamaican creole language–speakers which ironically included themselves. As Kamau Brathwaite put it, “Within the folk tradition, language was (and is) a creative act in itself; the word was held to contain a secret power.”95 Armed with that power, lower-class Jamaicans continued to add new layers of complexity to their nation language, as well as to the expression of their proverbs and stories that it facilitated. They were not at all bemused or befuddled by the agonizing and denunciations of the cultural elites. For them, the proverb “duppy know who fe frighten” had special resonance.

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Chapter 5

“Lighten our Darkness” Promoting “Enlightened” Intellectual Activity

T HE “ CRUDE ”, “ SILLY ” , even if “quaint”, proverbs, sayings and folk tales of

the mass of illiterate or semi-literate lower-class Jamaicans, expressed in “bad” English, could hardly be advanced by the cultural elites as symbols of learning or intellectual thought worthy of a civilized society. On the contrary, for them these were reflective, and contributed to the perpetuation, of many of the “superstitious” beliefs and “fetishes” that their culture war was designed to eradicate. One could hardly expect to find evidence of intellect among the lower classes. The latter were, after all, “ignorant” and illiterate, bereft of learning and incapable of intelligent thought. They were governed by their natural instincts. It is true that many of the lower classes were unlettered, after all their taxes were not spent on providing sufficient schools at any level to facilitate their education. That in one sense might have been a blessing, since the curricula were designed to alienate the “educated” from their “debased” Afro-creole roots.1 There was plenty evidence of this. Out of the ranks of the lower and lower middle classes came a new black and coloured intelligentsia including eminent leaders and scholars like Marcus Garvey (political philosopher and activist), Bahamas-born Robert Love (theologian, journalist and political activist), Astley Clerk (musician), J.J. Cameron (doctor), H.A.L. Simpson (lawyer and politician), Alexander Dixon (minister and politician), Thomas Banbury (minister), Hector Josephs (lawyer and civil servant), Claude McKay (poet) and his brother Theo (teacher), and Norman Manley (Rhodes scholar and later lawyer and politician). 108

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Some of these men were brilliant by any yardstick. A few, like Love, Garvey and, later, Manley, were nationalists who fought for the political rights of the black and coloured majority. However, as products of the colonial education system they (with the possible exception of the McKays) inculcated a disdain of Afro-creole culture and considered it inferior. The hostile attitude of Clerk and Simpson to the creole language has already been discussed in chapter 4. Love thought that the behaviour of the black lower classes was so vulgar that it “would surprise, if not shame an English fish-woman”.2 No less a celebrity than Garvey is on record deploring the lower classes and their culture as “contemptible”, replete with “villany and vice of the worst kind”, immoral, “uncouth” and “vulgar”; and he admitted “that we of the cultured class feel positively ashamed” of them.3 These evolués formed part of the cultural elite seeking to “uplift” the people through anglicization. They shared the belief that ordinary Jamaicans, out of whose ranks they had emerged, had to be taught to think, act and express themselves “properly”, like normal civilized people. They saw themselves as living proof of that. They endorsed the idea that a conscious effort should be made to promote “enlightened” intellectual activity as a direct counterweight against the “backwardness” of their own Afro-creole traditions. They supported plans for the establishment of institutions that would nurture a “cultured” intellectual life. So with the literati of all social backgrounds on board, a new dawn of intellectual (and artistic – see chapter 6) florescence designed to underscore Jamaica’s claim to civilization seemed to be beckoning, and new cultural/intellectual institutions would become critical planks in the fight against Afro-creole “ignorance, superstition and simplicity” usually expressed in a “bastardized” language. Although colonized by the English ever since 1655, Jamaica was still, decades after emancipation, generally lacking in cultural institutions such as theatres, concert halls, libraries and reading rooms, art galleries, museums, or even schools and colleges beyond the elementary level. Despite the enormous profits that planters and merchants had extracted from the island for over two hundred years, they did little to promote intellectual and cultural activity. A Royal Society of Arts, more a social club of planters than a serious cultural institution, was in decline by 1860. After Morant Bay, more focus and energy were evident as the new coalition for civilization gradually took shape. If the potential for violence and barbarism which they associated with creolization were to be pushed back, then institutions capable of injecting a good dose of English culture and learning needed to be established. These new elitist institutions

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would play an important role in the fight against the ignorance and barbarism that were presumed to be integral to Afro-creole culture.

The Institute of Jamaica By far the leading cultural institution in the island in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the Jamaica Institute (later renamed the Institute of Jamaica). Launched in 1879 by Law 22, its mandate as laid out by Governor Anthony Musgrave was to promote some of the higher branches of education. He argued that it was not the masses of people who in the “quietness of apprehension” and education were so far behind the analogous classes in other places, “it is among what may be termed the middle and lower middle classes that the standards of intelligence and of information are so low in comparison”. Efforts should be made to raise these standards, and they would be successful “if only the erroneous idea is discarded, which has heretofore been sedulously fostered for selfish ends, that Jamaica being in the tropics and once having been a Slave Colony cannot be treated like any other collection of human beings”.4 As such the Jamaica Institute law was passed, with the institute dependent on an annual government grant in order to carry out its mandate. Musgrave was not incorrect in thinking that Jamaica’s middle classes, which included the very people who considered themselves erudite, anglicized and civilized, often fell well short of those desired attributes. Like other Britons who visited or resided in the colony, he saw them for what they really were: creole Jamaicans, but with all the negative connotations that conjured up in the minds of the “culturally superior” British; and he believed that if serious progress were to be made in the civilizing mission, it was precisely these middling classes that should first be targeted, and perhaps there might be a trickledown effect to the lower classes. It is not surprising, therefore, that the early secretaries who ran the Institute of Jamaica were British, not Jamaican. The other point of interest is that the institute was clearly not intended to cater to the Afro-creole lower classes. They were to be entirely excluded, even though their taxes were being spent to build this elitist institution. With the demise of the Royal Society of Arts and Agriculture,5 the small natural history collection belonging to it, as well as some remains of collections illustrating the industries of Jamaica (which had been made at various times for international exhibitions) were together handed over to the government.

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Figure 13. The Institute of Jamaica, Date Tree Hall, 1906. (Source: Frank Cundall, Historic Jamaica [London, 1915].)

These, along with the library of the House of Assembly at Spanish Town, were housed in a building, purchased for this purpose and known as Date Tree Hall, and placed under the care of the island chemist in his capacity as curator. This was the foundation of the Institute of Jamaica (hereafter IOJ), which it was hoped, under the control of an energetic board of governors, would develop.6 Date Tree Hall, like so many other buildings in Kingston, was destroyed in the 1907 earthquake. The IOJ did not find a new abode until 1911, when “a fine two storey edifice, [was] constructed of brick and concrete” on East Street at a cost of about three thousand pounds.7 For a society whose elite and middle classes were devoid of any serious inclinations towards intellectual pursuits, the IOJ was an ambitious project. Not surprisingly, by its tenth anniversary in 1889, there was a growing concern in some quarters that it was not carrying out its mandate. The Gleaner, for instance, claimed that It is a fact which must be generally admitted that the Institute has hitherto greatly failed to fulfil the objects which its founder Sir Anthony Musgrave had in view at the time of its establishment. It was . . . intended for the promotion of the higher

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education, by diffusing, and providing the means of gratifying a taste for literature, science and art throughout the community. The means were to be a great central library in Kingston, and branches for the distribution of books throughout the rural parishes; the delivery of lectures by competent persons on scientific subjects; the establishment of classes for the teaching of art and other forms of culture, and the offer of rewards for inventions, improvements or any service tending to the advancement of the country. These objects have, down to this time, been very imperfectly carried out.8

Only a few rural branches had been established, and some of those had collapsed. The lectures had been few and infrequent, no classes were established and no prizes awarded. The Gleaner opined that the lack of popularity of the IOJ was due in large measure to the fact that the objects of the institution “do not seem to commend themselves to the tastes and habits of a sufficiently large number of persons to make it a success”, and no effort had been made to “popularize” it. Indeed, “at times . . . it has seemed as if there existed somewhere an intention to ostracize the public”.9 Following an investigation by a select committee of the Legislative Council, Law 34 of 1889 was passed to promote “greater efficiency of the institution . . . by the infusion of new blood”.10 Furthermore, the role that it was intended to play in spreading British cultural ideas was enhanced by its affiliation to the Library Association of the United Kingdom in 1896–97.11 With its reorganization under a new secretary, Frank Cundall, a Briton, it slowly began to fulfil its mandate – “the encouragement of Literature, Science and Art”,12 and became an important part of the intellectual landscape of elite Jamaica. It held pride of place in the minds of those interested in the intellectual and artistic “upliftment” of the Jamaican people at the turn of the twentieth century. The library, a special feature of which was a collection of books on Jamaica and the Caribbean, was said to be “one of the best in the West Indies”. The museum contained geological specimens, fine collections of woods, grasses, ferns and orchids, Jamaican shells, birds, and fish, as well as general products including the bell from the old church at Port Royal.13 The IOJ also organized various lecture series and other, less traditional means of disseminating information. There was every expectation, said Rev. Radcliffe, one of its leading members, “without claiming for each individual member of the Institute the possession of Alpine intellectuality it may be safely and modestly stated that in its corporate capacity it is one of the high places in the educational territory from which, it is hoped, will be channelled downward many a stream of refreshing water to the dwellers in the Delta below”.14

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Herein lay one of the fundamental weaknesses of the IOJ. It was conceived and functioned as an elitist institution on the assumption that knowledge and culture would filter down to the unlettered and “uncultured” masses. This was assured by restricting membership to persons who paid an annual subscription of five shillings, and those who wished to borrow additional books were required to pay seven shillings and sixpence per annum. Their social pedigree was guaranteed by the safeguard that their application had to be approved by a majority of the Board of Governors. Although the public reading room was theoretically open free to all persons above the age of fourteen, readers had to be “decently clad”; and if they wanted to borrow books or magazines, they were required to pay a subscription of two shillings for a period of three months. If they were not recommended by a member, they had to lodge a deposit of ten shillings.15 Altogether these regulations ensured that only upper- and middle-class persons would be encouraged to walk through the doors of the IOJ. Not surprisingly then, it continued to be a largely ineffective outpost in the war against the scourges of “ignorance”, “incivility” and creolity, since it refused to engage with the masses of the Jamaican people, the majority of whom could not meet its monetary or dress requirements, but whose taxes contributed significantly to its existence.

Library Service Primary among the IOJ’s functions was its library service. Up to the late 1890s, there was a steady increase in readers which was attributed to the “evening openings”.16 The number of readers peaked at 45,274 in 1897–98; but thereafter showed worrying signs of decline. Several reasons were offered for this decline. In 1904–5, the fall-off in readers was said to be “apparently partly due to increased theatrical and other amusements provided, in the evening especially”. The 1907 earthquake which destroyed large sections of the building led to its closure for three months, and its eventual relocation “too far out of the commercial part of Kingston to be readily available for readers”. Also, the reading room could not be kept open at night.17 Perhaps another explanation for the decline in numbers was the type of literature offered (works of the “great masters”); over 70 per cent of the books were of British and foreign content. Finally, there was the simple fact that the Jamaican reading public was small. The island’s literacy rate was just 58.2 per cent of the population over ten years of age as late as 1920. Many of these were barely functionally literate.

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Notwithstanding its overwhelmingly Eurocentric focus, from the outset the IOJ also set out to become a repository for the works available on Jamaica and the West Indies. Every year donations and purchases were made to these holdings.18 By 1920, 26 per cent of the library’s 20,960 volumes related to the Caribbean.19 Throughout the period, however, magazines and periodicals were among the most popular types of literature consulted by the elite reading public. These included Nineteenth Century, the Contemporary, Fortnightly, the Century, Harper’s, the Naval and Military Magazine, Scribner’s, and Nature.20 Notwithstanding their craving for “civilization” and the high esteem in which they held the IOJ, some of the cultural elites displayed the coarseness that lay beneath the thin veneer of respectability. They stole the magazines and disfigured pictures, causing the Board in 1903–4 to take “legal proceeding with regard to breaches of the Library Regulations”. In September 1903, the Assistant Librarian, helped by a reader in the Reading Room, “caught an apparently respectable reader in the act of stealing one of the magazines from the table”. He was found guilty, but “as it was stated to the Magistrate . . . the Institute only desired to make an example, and did not press for severe punishment”; so the offender was given the benefit of the First Offenders Law, and “bound over to keep the peace for six months”.21

Rural Outreach The civilizing process could hardly be effective if it was confined to Kingston. So as early as 1880–81 the IOJ established small library branches in some rural towns. “[T]he Board’s chief object in founding branches is to encourage, by the multiplication of facilities, a love of reading in the community generally, rather than to enable a few comparatively well-to-do people to borrow books by becoming members”.22 Branches were opened in Montego Bay, Lucea, Mandeville, Spanish Town, Savanna-la-Mar and Falmouth. Transmission of books to coastal libraries was provided by the agents of the Coastwise Steamer free of charge.23 The cooperation of a commercial steamer service in a project of this sort indicates how seriously the mission to civilize Jamaica and to root out its Afro-creole “impurities” was taken. The cultivation of “appropriate” reading habits was also promoted by the IOJ’s “Literature in the Country” programme, also known as the “Box-ofBooks scheme”, where one hundred books were packaged and sent to various organizations around the island.24 The institute also supported a number of libraries for teachers. In the first year of this programme (1911–12), twelve sets

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of books (each comprised of twenty-five volumes) were put together for circulation among elementary school teachers’ associations in various parts of the island.25 This programme was a logical outgrowth of the institute’s vision to uplift and civilize through education and their partnerships with the island’s teachers, who stood in the trenches of the war on Afro-creole culture, battling to turn the tides of “ignorance and backwardness”, made perfect sense. That many of the teachers were, themselves apparently, in need of “moral upliftment”26 must have given some members of the cultural elite moments of pause. In 1895–96, the board of the IOJ, “in its desire to spread as far as possible the influence of literature throughout the island”, formed a committee for the management of the Jamaica Branch of the National Home Reading Union.27 This was another indication of a growing urgency among the cultural elites to promote intellectual “enlightenment” island-wide; and, by affiliation with a reputable British organization, it would presumably also signify imperial recognition of Jamaica’s educational “advancement”. By the next year, “Five Circles” of the Reading Union had been formed comprising sixty-six members; but by 1897–98 “this movement ha[d] not been very encouraging” and membership was down to thirty-seven members. In 1920, just twenty-four small associations were affiliated with the institute in this way.28 In the rural areas the IOJ’s promotion of civilization through reading not only touched the larger towns, but also some smaller villages. Its outreach was aided by small local organizations comprised of teachers and other literate persons eager to bolster their claim of high social status. Supported by the colonial government and the commercial round-the-island steamer service, the institute was a leader in the cultural push to expose segments of the rural population to “appropriate” literature and their framing mindsets. Very importantly, though, there remained a substantial portion of interior Jamaica that was not reached by this thrust; so its impact remained decidedly limited. The IOJ’s campaign to expose Jamaicans to the supposedly positive influences of literature (which no doubt meant the “proper” English canon) was limited by its relatively narrow focus on middle- and upper-class associations and clubs, which automatically excluded the vast majority of Jamaicans. Its founding mandate had stressed the intellectual development of the cultural elites, and its decision to remain within the parameters of that mandate meant that despite its outreach programmes and affiliations, it never made inroads among the ordinary people whose taxes were the bases of the institution’s support. That Musgrave and his successors could use government funds to support a facility that was not meant for the benefit of all gives some glimpse into

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the classist arrogance of elite society which was, in turn, manifested in the broader culture war.

Publications The IOJ functioned more than merely as a library making books available for reading. Efforts were also made to publish materials on subjects deemed important to those with an intellectual interest in special fields of knowledge. This was very much in keeping with cultural elite ideas of what all civilized societies in the Western world sought to encourage. In 1893–94, the IOJ announced the publication of the first volume of its Journal in eight parts. Seven of the eight parts were scientific in nature (for example, “Notes on some Jamaica Muscidae”, by C.H. Tyler Townsend, F.E.S.), while the eighth was “The Journal of Admiral Penn’s Expedition to the West Indies in 1654–55”, by Henry Whistler. The volume also included short biographies in a section called “Jamaica Worthies”, which commemorated William Jones, naturalist; William Beckford, historian; and Henry Stubbe, MD – all white men. Free copies of the journal were sent to all members of the institute and to “kindred societies in Europe, America and Australia”.29 Very noticeably, none was sent to kindred Caribbean colonies. The board also authorized the publication in September 1894 of a special number of the journal “commemorative of the [four hundredth anniversary of the] Discovery of the island”.30 The cultural focus of the journal was clearly intended to satisfy the tastes and interests of a culturally Eurocentric readership. The IOJ also published a series of informational books on Jamaica. Responding to “the number of questions asked by intending [white] settlers in the Island and others”, it published Jamaica in 1895, A Handbook of Information for intending settlers and others. Described as “a brief Handbook of Information about the Island, giving in a handier form than was possible in the official Handbook, particulars of interest to intending settlers”, it was prepared by the institute’s British-born secretary, Frank Cundall, and distributed to libraries and public institutions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.31 The fact that the IOJ should engage in the business of recruiting white immigrants speaks to a long-held belief, shared by its white board, that Jamaica’s salvation, economic, cultural and political, lay in the hands of white

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settlers and leadership. That these racist ideas remained prevalent to the end of the nineteenth century could be seen in Black Jamaica, A Study in Evolution by W.P. Livingstone, the Gleaner’s editor, who argued that “the future of the Negro is in the hand of the European”. In his review in the Jamaica Times, H.G. DeLisser, who succeeded Livingstone as the editor of the Gleaner, agreed.32 The idea of “trusteeship” enshrined in crown colony government epitomized this view. For the rest of the period under review, Cundall and the IOJ continued to publish the “Jamaica in [year]” series. In 1912, however, the publication generated considerable controversy over Cundall’s racist remarks that “if anyone expected the truth from the Negro on the English standard, he would be disappointed”. This was directed especially at black and coloured elementary school teachers, and generated a flood of letters in the press. Black legislator Rev. Alexander Dixon led the opposition to the book as a put-down of Jamaicans, and urged the public not to buy it.33 Cundall was also behind the publication of several other pieces under the auspices of the IOJ, including Lady Nugent’s Journal: Jamaica one hundred years ago.34 During 1909–10, the institute published “Jamaica Place-Names”, and a preliminary “List of Historic Sites and Monuments in Jamaica” – all of British imperial importance.35 The following year “Jamaica Negro Proverbs and Sayings” was published by Dr Izett Anderson and Frank Cundall.36 This was born largely out of a racist desire to satisfy white curiosity about the exotic “negro”: his speech and ideas (in so far as he had any). In 1911–12, Cundall’s “Some Notes on the History of Secondary Education in Jamaica” appeared;37 while his “Historic Jamaica”, another tribute to European dominance in the island, was published just after the outbreak of the First World War.38 Generally speaking, Cundall’s work, and that of the IOJ by extension, celebrated British imperialism in Jamaica. If there was any doubt that the institute meant to anglicize the emerging intelligentsia (and then, presumably, extend its focus to the masses), its publications laid that to rest. The focus on the British imperialist enterprise and culture, the celebration of things Jamaican within the context of the mighty empire, the relegation of ordinary Jamaicans to exotica, and the racist attitudes of Cundall himself, indicated the institution’s agenda clearly. That Cundall should have become the voice of the institute (and in many ways, the scholarly voice of the cultural elite) was appropriate: he was white, self-consciously culturally British, and an intellectual – all of the things that the Jamaican cultural elite aspired to, but which most would or could never attain.

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Museum The museum of the IOJ was the main means of promoting the scientific aspect of the intellectual crusade. For almost every report from the institute during the period, there were references to donations and additions to the museum. These included “a large number of stuffed birds, fishes preserved in spirits, and insects indigenous to Jamaica and a large and thoroughly representative collection of rocks and minerals illustrative of geology and mineralogy, and a glass model of invertebrata [sic], has been imported, such as will prove interesting to all students of nature, and especially to the rising generation of students in Jamaica”. In 1899–1900, the display was enhanced by a sawfish (Pristis) which was fourteen feet, ten inches in length and which had been captured near Port Henderson, Kingston Harbour; a collection of fifteen Jamaican bats, including a unique specimen of Reithronycteris aphylla and a fifth specimen of the scorpion netrurus gracilis.39 In addition to the items which were on display, the museum provided information to overseas specialists who were interested in aspects of Jamaican “nature”. The argument in favour of this thrust was that when Jamaican scientists sought overseas help, it was usually available, especially from the US Department of Agriculture, which gave help “as freely as if Jamaica were United States territory”. In keeping with their aspirations to be integrated at all levels in the “civilized world”, the board (through the museum) intended to reciprocate those scholarly courtesies.40 The museum reported on local scientific activity: for instance, in 1892–93, that Dr Strachan, the island chemist, had “discovered” the Icerya rosae in Jamaica and the Iacana was established as a member of the avifauna of the island. By 1895, the museum had started to keep and to exhibit “live exhibits”, which included “various arthropods, lizards, snakes, tortoises, turtles, birds, and agoutis” as well as one crocodile in the space outside the building. The museum’s place as an “authentic institution” was assured when it joined the Museums Association in 1896–97.41 The IOJ, then, stood at the forefront of the campaign to “improve” the intellectual side of life in the island. In its focus on the emerging and aspiring members of the cultural elite, it probably shared the hope of other groups that this uplifted segment would lead the country into a more genteel existence, divorced from a crass and barbaric past. Through its lecture series, library services, publications and various “enterprises for edification”, it was quickly established as the premiere cultural institution in the island. Despite its elite

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stature and status, some of its middle- and upper-class members and readers defaced or stole its materials; and it, in turn, continued to show scant regard for the lower-class Afro-creole majority or their intellectual products. In this light, its contribution to the broad intellectual development of the society is questionable. Housed in grand quarters, supported by tax dollars, the institute long remained as narrowly effective as it had been conceived.

The Kingston Athenaeum Since the IOJ failed to reach many even within the middle classes, the need for other intellectual and morally uplifting institutions became apparent. The Kingston Athenaeum was one answer to that need. It was started in 1899 “to cultivate a love of reading, particularly among the young men and women of the community”, mainly by establishing a library and promoting lectures and debates.42 In 1901–2, the IOJ and the Kingston Athenaeum forged a relationship through the Box-of-Books scheme. That connection deepened the following year when the books and periodicals, which were the property of the Athenaeum, were allowed to be kept on the institute’s premises. By 1904–5, the institute’s report referred to the Athenaeum as “a young daughter society” which it continued to aid in its endeavour “to train the young people of Kingston and the neighbourhood in a love of literature”. That daughter, however, was fast becoming more popular than its foster parent, which experienced a “falling off in its own membership”, ostensibly because the Athenaeum offered more popular literature at less cost.43 In the Gleaner’s opinion the reasons for the Athenaeum’s popularity lay largely in its frequent meetings and entertainments, its increasing library, and its low subscription of four shillings a year. Perhaps the types of books which were available were also a draw since, in the Gleaner’s opinion, its library was “slightly ridiculous”, with an abundance of novels that were “not only very unwholesome but have no compensating excellence to recommend them”. The discussions promoted by the Athenaeum covered “a considerable range of subjects”, and the newspaper was gratified that “even the lighter ones [for example, about the Asylum, prison life and coal mines] could not be accused of being merely frivolous”. The Athenaeum gained real help from “ladies” who, despite their small numbers, made an impact, a condition that the Gleaner described as “a most satisfactory state of affairs for a conservative

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community like ours”. And its status was enhanced when, in 1904, colonial secretary Sydney Olivier agreed to serve as its honorary president.44 In 1909, however, the Athenaeum merged with the IOJ under Law 3 of 1909. This amalgamation was greeted with enthusiasm. The Jamaica Guardian argued that the Athenaeum added a “popular” aspect that the institute had never been able to cultivate. While the institute had “never attempted to cater to the needs and tendencies of the public” and had instead “fixed their eyes on the well-educated and cultured few, rather than on the less-educated many, eager for instruction along certain lines”, the Kingston Athenaeum had filled the gap.45 While the Athenaeum’s targeted clientele was, class-wise, slightly below that of the IOJ, the anglicizing and civilizing missions of the two institutions were remarkably similar, which made the eventual merger possible. Through the lectures, debates and library services, the Athenaeum hoped to make its contribution to the “improvement” of the Jamaican people. And since it focused on the middling strata, perhaps the expectation was that its impact on the wider society would be more easily discernible. However, despite its relative popularity, the Athenaeum was not on as firm a footing as the government-supported institute, and it was soon absorbed.

Other Libraries and Literary Societies The IOJ and the Kingston Athenaeum were not the only libraries in Jamaica. As the civilizing mission took root among the middle and upper classes, several other small libraries and reading rooms, literary and reading societies, were formed. The state hardly figured in these efforts, leaving them to private individuals and social groups. One of the earliest of these was the Colonial Literary and Reading Society (CLRS) which, functioning as a hybrid subscription library and social club, hosted monthly soirees in its reading rooms “to the edification and amusement of a large but very select circle”. Perhaps patterned after similar subscription libraries in Britain, it was established in 1849 and supported by a substantial annual subscription of thirty shillings from members who were carefully elected by ballot and further required to pay an entrance fee of ten shillings and sixpence. In 1865, the society held 2,418 volumes in its library. As an elite organization it may have suffered from that very fact, since the number of members was undoubtedly quite small and that made it difficult for them to sustain especially during tough economic periods.

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By 1868, therefore, the society had fallen on ill times and could not service its debts.46 Although the fate of the CLRS did not dampen the elite enthusiasm for library and reading facilities, it clearly demonstrated that small private elite libraries were not the way forward if a truly literate society was to be promoted in Jamaica. However, that was precisely what happened for most of the period under review. The initiative for establishing such facilities remained in private hands because the colonial state either did not have the resources or the desire to fund free public libraries throughout the island before the IOJ. Churches, private groups and individuals were thus the prime forces behind the creation of literary and reading societies, subscription and circulating libraries and reading rooms, the vast majority of which were supported by small membership subscriptions and/or user fees which, whether deliberately or inadvertently, restricted access and thus limited revenues. Furthermore, most of these societies seemed to target and cater to young middle-class men as part of a moral outreach designed to channel their energies in pursuit of wholesome, minduplifting activities that would consume their spare time in the evenings and divert them from the temptation of debauchery (sex, drink and gambling). Said the Falmouth Post in 1862, they were intended “to keep the young men from spending their leisure hours in idleness and dissipation. . . . If they elect to leave off idle and dissipated habits, wandering in the streets, drinking, gambling, and other abominations, they have a place where they may retreat to and find information for their minds.”47 This focus on the male segment of the society, which was in keeping with the Euro-gender ideology, further limited the pool of prospective participants and the potential impact of these groups, and rendered their efforts short-lived once interest waned. The list of attempts to start private libraries, reading rooms and societies in Kingston, is long, but marked by non-sustainability. The Kingston Literary and Reading Society had a membership of ninety in 1869 and a library of 2,016 volumes, but soon disappeared. Likewise, the Collegiate Reading Society associated with the Church of Scotland, whose “monthly meetings [during the 1870s] are a source of much intellectual enjoyment to members who appreciate such a method of passing an evening”,48 was no longer in existence a decade later. How long Gall’s Circulating Library remained in existence is anyone’s guess. The same might be said of Matin and Gardner’s Circulating Library which was established in 1881 in connection with Mudie’s Select London Library, even though it enjoyed the distinguished patronage of Governor Musgrave and Enos Nuttall, bishop of Jamaica.49

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By 1882, the Colonial Standard was reporting that “several young gentlemen have for sometime past been giving their earnest attention and endeavour to the forming in Kingston of a [new] Club or Association of a literary and scientific character”, for which they were amply commended: “Something is needed to cheer the dry routine of business and relieve the dull monotony of existence in a tropical climate. . . . It is a matter of congratulation that, in a materialistic age, the youth and hope of the colony are inspired with a love of intellectual pursuits and influenced by the light, sweetness and beauty of the higher culture.” When the Kingston Young Men’s Guild, whose membership was open to young men of all churches, was formed in 1887, it was described as having “the nature of a Literary and Debating Club; and the syllabus contains a number of subjects which are of a deeply interesting character”.50 The turn of the twentieth century witnessed further attempts by private groups and individuals to provide additional reading facilities in the city. In a campaign that was as much about moral upliftment as stimulating intellectual pursuits, in 1900 a Mrs Denniston opened a reading room “for the sailors who come to Kingston in such numbers and seem so little regarded by any but the rum sellers and the nameless women of the street”. Another reading room was opened at 71 Harbour Street, on behalf of which the Jamaica Times launched an appeal to its readers for assistance with gifts of magazines and papers. A “free reading room for men” was also set up by Rev. G.H. Baron Hay at 42 Hanover Street where, according to the Times, over a six-month period the attendance stood at 5,492. There were also the St Michael’s Musical and Literary Association (1903), and the Literary Society of St Paul’s Presbyterian Church (1909), which was considered “a good outlet for the talent of the young people of the congregation”. A “varied syllabus” was prepared for its meetings which also included a musical night and a social.51 The need to cultivate the habit of reading was not confined to the capital. All over the island private reading clubs were formed but with the same result. In 1862, the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Society in Montego Bay provided a reading room three times a week. As with so many others, it eventually withered, and in 1902 another literary association was formed in that town. The Vere Reading Society held monthly meetings in the 1870s, while in 1875 the Buff Bay Reading Society met in the Town Hall. Literary societies and reading rooms were also set up and died in several other rural locations.52 While these efforts were laudable, the fact that as private initiatives they required membership subscriptions and fees for their sustenance effectively removed them from poorer citizens, some of whom were literate, who may

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have had an interest in reading but who could not afford those charges. Even so, their simple existence was enough to persuade Governor Henry Norman of their success. He asserted in 1884 that the children were helped once they left school by having somewhere to practise the skills they had acquired. However, he expressed concern about the “very restricted circulation of literature suited to the capacities and tastes of the humble classes” which he thought constituted a “bar to the spread of general useful information on matters and things outside their little world”. Yet, that deficiency did not persuade him to think that the state should take the initiative to establish public free libraries (unlike the IOJ), the absence of which Ethel Symmonett justifiably lamented.53 It was a curious and ironic development that those who most desired to improve the society through an exposure to English literature continued to be so blinded by long-standing class prejudices that they could not conceive of literary appreciation beyond people like themselves. As such, the larger population of the island was ignored as private libraries, reading clubs and associations were established. Somehow the literati (and those who aspired to such a designation) expected to “improve” the ordinary citizens without having any direct intercourse with them. Perhaps they believed that the “uplifted” segment, although small, would lead the fight for proper British culture. However, their ignoring of the population was returned, in kind, and their literary societies struggled and failed, while the creole oral culture, as shown in chapter 4, gathered momentum.

The Victoria Institute The cultural elite yearning to be assimilated in what they considered to be an enlightened European intellectual tradition made them unhappy with the socio-cultural impact of the IOJ. So in 1887, among the many plans and schemes to celebrate Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee, was a proposal to establish a literary and scientific society called “The Victoria Institute”. Such an organization was deemed necessary because of the alleged “absence in Kingston of an Institution in which literary improvement and rational amusements can be enjoyed at a moderate cost by the large body of young gentlemen who reside in the City having long been the subject of complaint and of regret”. The Gleaner supported this initiative, claiming that “one of the most crying wants of Jamaica . . . has been a literary and scientific society in which the

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young men of the community can meet together for mutual improvement and intellectual recreation”. In addition, there would be amusements of a social character, including billiards, whist and chess.54 The Colonial Standard, however, was rather cynical about the proposal, arguing that the provisions in Kingston for the intellectual improvement and entertainment of young men in the city were not so deficient that a new institution needed to be launched, especially in the face of the proposed entrance fee of ten shillings and sixpence and the annual subscription of twenty-one shillings, and especially when “the majority of people are just now, to use a colloquial form of expression, hard-up”. Instead, the Standard argued that the IOJ, the Young Men’s Christian Association (see below), the Jamaica Club, the Jamaica Yacht Club, the Jamaica Bicycle Club and several cricket clubs (see chapter 9) already answered the need for “diversified recreation”.55 Despite the misgivings of some, the Victoria Institute was inaugurated by Governor Sir Henry Wylie Norman on 24 August 1887, amidst great pomp and colourful ceremony. The grand event featured flags, ornamental plants and flowers; there was also “a large crown in gas-jets” over the entrance gate, and at the corners of the inner portico the letters “VR” were exhibited. A concert of “unusual excellence”, and a “most interesting speech to a large number of ladies and gentlemen” by the Honourable S.C. Burke stamped the occasion. The governor praised the new institution, but expressed the hope that the young men who would become involved in it would not desert the cricket, bicycle and yacht clubs, since exercise was vital and was “so characteristic of our race and to which as a nation we owe so much”56 (see chapter 9). Founded for the primary purpose of “providing a place in which the young men of Kingston might engage in healthy games and amusements”, and for “giving the members an opportunity of improving their minds by reading the principal periodicals of the present day and the best authors of bygone generations” – for “civilization” – the establishment of this institute was positively greeted by many.57 That the Victoria Institute, like so many of the societies and clubs at that time, continued the focus on young men, although it may have had a few female members, placed it firmly within the gendered considerations of the day, since it was men with “cultured” minds who were expected to lead other (ordinary) men as well as all women and children. In short order, a course of lectures on literary, scientific, economic and practical and popular subjects was arranged. Classes were offered for the study of language and science, and debates were to take place on approved subjects. Chess and draughts tournaments were to be organized, and members were

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entitled to borrow books from the library. In January 1888, the membership stood at 289, including twenty-one ladies.58 However, as early as 1890, the Gleaner began to express some concern over whether or not the Victoria Institute was fulfilling its mandate. While the social aspect of the institute seemed to have flourished, its intellectual pursuits appeared to suffer. The newspaper also opined that the amount spent on magazines was an “extravagant waste of money”, and that the institute had acquired “a vast number of third-rate novels”. Further, “it is piteous, it is painful, to see the success or non-success of such a valuable scheme, staked upon the returns of a billiard table, the number of cocktails drank, or quantity of Jam devoured”.59 Efforts to revitalize the Victoria Institute with a series of debates and lectures, billiard, whist and chess tournaments, as well as impromptu concerts, had some effect. By 1892, however, its touted recovery was chimerical amidst a concentration on “providing for the physical culture of its members”. A scheme to build a gymnasium, “fully equipped with all the necessary accessions of a school of Calisthenics”, became its preoccupation. By the following year the Victoria Institute had become defunct and a syndicate of leading businessmen offered to purchase its effects and premises. According to the Jamaica Post, a large number of nominal subscribers had “refused to pay up their subscriptions”. The institute had fallen victim to an old problem in elite Jamaica: “we have not among us a sufficient number of young men out of whom to build up and manage an institution of the kind”.60

The Young Men’s Christian Association In 1869 the Morning Journal reported on plans to revive the dormant Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), but it was not until February 1876 that this was realized. Regular meetings were held consisting of readings from essays, poetry and fiction. One meeting in October 1877 discussed “various aspects of begging, vagabondage and pauperism”, and featured readings from Thomas Carlyle, Charles Lamb, Charles Dickens, Henry Mayhew, Dr Holland and others. Its anglicized cultural orientation was clear. The new association seems to have become defunct, again, because in April 1885, the Gleaner reported that a good number of gentlemen had assembled at the St George’s schoolroom “to form the YMCA in Kingston”. The association’s objectives were similar to those of the YMCA in Great Britain – to cater to the wants,

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physical, mental and spiritual, of the young men in Kingston. It was proposed that as the institution progressed, besides establishing a library, reading and smoking rooms, there should be a dining saloon where members could get dinners for a small sum, and a bar where non-intoxicating drinks could be had. There would be classes in shorthand and science, lectures, gymnastics and other activities. “In short the proposed institution would combine the comforts of a club (without imputing its evils) and the pleasure and entertainment of a Literary Society.”61 Following on its promise, the YMCA offered a lecture series in 1886 at the St George’s School room. The association put on evenings of readings, recitations and lectures, and the support it enjoyed was demonstrated in 1887 when its fund-raising concert was well attended by a “large and fashionable audience”, including the governor and his party from King’s House. By 1902 it was well enough established for a rural branch, in Port Antonio, to be formed. That branch had a membership of thirty-seven in May 1902, and it featured a library and promoted games such as table tennis.62

Reading Imported Literature Throughout the period under review, it is worthy of note that the works which most readily acquired the label of “literature” were those that originated in Europe or North America. These were the “real” canon, and the expectation that any cultured person would have read them seemed almost universal. Indeed as Frank Casserly observed, up to the late nineteenth century even “books on Jamaican themes . . . were [written] by visitors to the island and were published in England”.63 So when the IOJ was busy acquiring a minority of books on Jamaica, most were not written by Jamaicans, even by white Jamaicans. During the 1860s Oliver Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield, Eustace Clare Grenville Murray’s The Roving Englishman and Rachel MacCrindell’s School Girl in France joined Amelia Blanford Edwards’s My Brother’s Wife, James Fenimore Cooper’s The Two Admirals and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin as some of the popular texts advertised for sale in the Falmouth Post.64 In 1893 the Jamaica Post’s assessment of “the best one hundred books” stated that while “taste in such matters is so widely divergent, [t]he only general agreement . . . was that the Bible and Shakespeare, being included in nearly everyone’s list, were considered to be the two best”. While the article

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promoted “books of travel and adventure”,65 it also mentioned the fictional works of “the standard authors no one should be unacquainted with” including Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Henry James, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Anthony Trollope, James Fenimore Cooper, Charles Reade and Henry Rider Haggard. There was, said the newspaper, one book which every Jamaican should read. Michael Scott’s Tom Cringle’s Log gave “an excellent idea of life in the tropics about 80 years ago”. In poetry, it rejected “trashy jingles and doggerel rhymes” when the works of the great poets such as William Shakespeare, John Milton, Alexander Pope, Edgar Allan Poe, Edmund Spenser, John Dryden, Lord (George Gordon) Byron and William Wordsworth were available for a few pence.66 In keeping with the general thrust of what constituted civilization, therefore, it was only British and American works, and the Bible, that were worth reading. Based on the reported sales of books, those who purchased literature responded, at least in part, to what the accepted and acceptable works were. In 1894 the Gleaner interviewed book sellers and librarians to ascertain “What Jamaicans Read”. Aston Gardner, one of the premier book sellers in the island, claimed that his sales indicated that “Every country person whether he or she be able to read or no, wants to have a bible. In the cheap class of these we sell an enormous quantity.” As to the ordinary literature, “[the] cheaper class of novels sell of course very largely. The paper editions of MacMillan’s and the cheap editions of Scott, Dickens, etc. all sell very well indeed.” Admitting that he did not do much trade with “the lower class of the population”, Gardner said that the popularity of books in Jamaica depended on their popularity in Europe. When the local elite saw books praised in the English newspapers, they were determined to possess those books too.67 The more serious middle- and upper-class readers, the real literati, however, sought the “standard works of literature” (Thackeray, Dickens, Bulwer-Lytton and the like) and more scholarly works. The librarian at the IOJ noted that the most popular genre of book among their readership was the “standard” [Anglo-American] novel, followed by “History, Biography and Travels”, then “Theology, Philosophy”; “Law, Politics and Sociology”; “Art, Science and Natural History”; “Poetry and Drama”; and finally “books related to the West Indies”.68 That the region of their residence should place last in their choice of reading materials is a clear indication of where the hearts and minds of these cultural elite readers were. This pattern of book sales was echoed by all the other book sellers interviewed, namely, Surge Gardner, Arthur Hylton, William McCarthy and Justin

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McCarthy. The Bible and all types of hymn music and hymns were the staple diet among Jamaicans of all classes and ages, while the youth favoured “the shilling novels” or “penny dreadfuls . . . cheap classes of stories, sketches, etc. [such as Charlotte M. Braeme’s Dora Thorne] containing the inevitable moral which have become so popular in England”. “Every girl”, said Hylton, read Braeme’s “sickly sentimental love stories. . . . Chinese girls, all sorts of girls will come in here and buy a dozen at a time”. Justin McCarthy added that novels “of a sensational character, detective stories and the like” were also very popular.69 Among the few poorer citizens who patronized his store, Aston Gardner said that John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and Louisa Lawford’s The Dream Book were very popular with them, as were the penny series of stories such as “Horner’s” and “Ward & Lock” which had “an enormous sale”. Technical books had very little demand, except for some on farriery and farm management.70 Those among the lower classes who were literate and could afford to buy books opted for Pilgrim’s Progress, Cain and Abel, Life of Joseph, The Book of Fate, Dream Book and Peep o’ day. In fact, Hylton claimed that Louisa Lawford’s Fortune-tellers and Dream Book sold more than Bibles. For the average Jamaican, whose belief system was as inclusive as it was proactive, the idea of purchasing books about fortune-telling and dream interpretation, along with Bibles, was neither contradictory nor unexpected; the world of spirituality was complex and needed to be approached from a variety of angles. They also bought books of a mild religious class such as Basket of Flowers and Thorns and Orange Blossoms.71 These lower-class readers surprised their “social betters” with some of their purchases. William McCarthy, who specialized in school texts, reported that there was a great demand for his stock. “Not only . . . are these books sold for the use of children, but judging from the sales I make, I am of [the] opinion that many of the country people read them largely on account of the interesting stories they contain.” And that was not all; Justin McCarthy observed in astonishment: “Also . . . a matter which I cannot understand is the great sale we have to country people of cheap editions of Shakespeare. Saturday after Saturday, the country people come in and buy Dick’s Edition of Shakespeare. He is the only poet whose works I sell at all largely. I attribute his popularity to the fact that the people learn and recite his monologues.”72 If McCarthy was right, then the incorporation and transformation of this central plank of the English literary canon into the oral culture of the Jamaican people is very

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interesting. Not content simply to read Shakespeare’s works, the people were engaged in transmitting the canon and its “inherent” civilizing abilities; however, there is little doubt that they did so in their own styles, perhaps on the many occasions where “speechifying” was practised (see chapter 4). Whatever the reason, in the eyes of the literati, the peasants were reading above their station. Cheap English magazines and journals also became popular in Jamaica from the later nineteenth century and seemed to be consumed by readers of all classes. Among these were All the Year Round, which was published under the auspices of Charles Dickens; Once a Week, successful largely on account of its great reliance on illustrations/engravings; Chambers Edinburgh Journal, which the Morning Journal thought was “not very good or very bad, but it is, as a general rule, prosy”; Leisure Hour, a penny periodical which was “excellently got-up”; The Lamb, a Catholic cheap paper calling attention to modern miracles; London Journal, which stood at the head of the “strictly secular cheap periodicals” and contained “hot house literature, whose great attraction in the eyes of the vulgar is its constant antagonism of the classes”; Cassels’ Illustrated Family Paper, whose stories were “fearfully washy”; Reynold’s Miscellany, “the worst type of our popular literature . . . rivalling the most depraved and coarsest writers of the French school, and subjects are alluded to . . . which would make a Traviata blush”; and “insignificant penny periodicals” like Parlor Journal and Home Magazine. By late century, however, said the Gleaner, American periodicals such as Harper’s Magazine, Scribner’s Magazine and the Century were said to be more popular in Jamaica than their English counterparts, the Illustrated London News, Punch Magazine, Cornhill Magazine and others.73 This may indicate a slow and as yet imperceptible growth of American cultural influences in Jamaica that would later outpace those of the “mother country”. The fact that more people were reading by the turn of the twentieth century was pleasing to some cultural elites. Based on the type and quantity of literature passing through the postal system, postmaster G.H. Pearce believed that the taste for reading in Jamaica had “increased wonderfully”. A bit more cautiously, Surge Gardner opined that “The standard of popular reading is not perhaps too high in Jamaica but it is I think a good sign that the people are reading at all. This taste will improve in time.”74 Surely this augured well for civilization in Jamaica; or was it a chimera? Not everyone was satisfied, because there was some concern that some of the cheap publications being widely consumed were trashy and might even

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be pernicious. As early as 1862 the Morning Journal urged caution about cheap magazines and periodicals, since for men who read the events of the day carefully, most infallibly find their prejudices undermined and learn to look with loathing on those panderers to popularity who employ their misdirected talents in heaping abuse on an Aristocracy the purest in the world and the sincerest friends of the struggling classes. As all semi-educated persons obey their feelings rather than their reason, the mischievous consequences entailed by the cheap periodicals are most melancholy and the constant misrepresentation of the motives actuating the higher classes of society keeps open that wide gap which it is the true interest of all to close.75

That the Morant Bay uprising and massacre, grounded in race and class difference, occurred just four years later might make this newspaper’s editor seem prescient. Be that as it may, if Jamaicans were increasingly reading “cheap” magazines, romance novels and books about psychic phenomena that were disapproved of by the cultural elites, the reality is that these publications were all provided for sale and loan by some of these very elites in their capacity as booksellers and librarians. The issue then was whether civilization was being advanced by the simple fact that more people were reading, or whether only a certain class of literature could bring about such an advancement. The cultural elites were themselves unsure about this. While on one hand the Jamaica Post considered novel-reading “one of the most elevating and entertaining pursuits open to us” and was loath to curtail it, it nevertheless considered “some novels . . . best left with closed covers and uncut leaves, such as that class known as the ‘Penny Horrible’, which charge the mind with unreal ideas, and create a morbid state which unfits one for the every day duties of life”.76 Cheap publications aside, some persons raised more fundamental questions about the reading habits of Jamaicans. In 1873 the Morning Journal pointed to “the small extent to which our population are a reading people”, and argued that “[t]his ought not to create surprise, however, when we look upon the smallness, the extreme smallness of the means of mental improvement that people have here. It is painful to go into our country towns and villages and see the purely animal life that the people about them lead. Eat, drink, and sleep – drink, eat and sleep again.”77 Indeed encumbered by high levels of illiteracy up to 1920, it was unrealistic to expect a majority of the lower class to do otherwise. But for all the flurry of book purchasing and the opening of libraries and reading rooms, non-reading was not restricted to that class.

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Among the upper and middle classes there was a great deal of superficial show. When Mary Gaunt visited the New Yarmouth Great House, for instance, there was on display a great bookcase “full of standard works and books of that ilk handsomely bound in calf and morocco”. Yet, she said, no one but the book worms ever looked at them.78 So what was the reality: were Jamaicans “a Reading People”? At the end of the nineteenth century, “E.B.D.” thought the broad generality of them were not: “as a people Jamaicans are not given to the perusal of books”. The reasons, she or he thought, could either be the “sultry clime” or the “dispositions of the people inclined to such amusements such as cycling, horse racing, concert going etc. . . . As a rule our young men and young ladies prefer to spend a few hours over some trifling story of every day occurrence than to burn the midnight oil over some well known scientific work or a novel from some of the great English Authors such as Dickens or Thackeray.” Since she or he thought that it was books that had made the English who and what they were, “Why cannot Jamaicans follow in the same footsteps?” The IOJ, administered by Frank Cundall, “a gentleman of literary and artistic aptitude who has spared no pains to bring this Institution unto a high literary standard”, could be the place to fulfil these aspirations and “surely the small sum of 10s. per annum should not deter anyone from being a member”. “E.B.D.” argued that Jamaicans should make a special effort to read the great English literary works and newspapers so that they would “not be behind hand in the march of intellectual improvement and that they will begin to think for themselves and contribute to the world’s literature, [and] that the trite aphorism which they now bear at present, that they are not given to reading may be speedily removed”.79 The slow spread of education, and perhaps a greater recognition among the socially aspiring that emulation of their English “masters” might pay dividends, may have precipitated some change; for a decade later, while sharing “E.B.D’s” apprehension about the lacklustre reading habits of Jamaicans, none other than Frank Cundall discerned some improvement: [A] very large proportion of the books imported by booksellers are modern fiction; the works circulated are as a whole healthy in tone; and the excellent “Colonial Libraries” of London publishers have taken the place of American piracies. The “penny dreadful” is, it is not to be feared, not unknown among certain classes but there is evidence that this is losing ground before the influence of books of more wholesome character: and attempts are being made to form small libraries in connection with some of the elementary schools. The movement by which magazines are taking the place of books in imparting the latest developments of thought and

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research, has made itself felt in the West Indies, and newspapers and magazines are more frequently met with than books on the tables of West Indian houses.80

By the end of the First World War, therefore, reading may have been done by people of all classes, but very unevenly since illiteracy rates remained high among the lower classes. If cultural improvement was to be delivered through the pages of the best of English literature, then it is clear that there was some movement in that direction. However, the fact that the dream books and penny dreadfuls were extremely popular among the reading public imposed a caveat on any celebration of intellectual advancement: more people were reading, but there continued to be concerns among the cultural elite about what they were reading. And since there was no way of telling who bought or borrowed which literary works, there is every likelihood that the popularity of these less “uplifting” pieces was at least partly due to the support of the middling and upper classes, who could most easily afford them. The dual missions of anglicization and civilization seemed to follow the rules of a quintessential Jamaican dance of one step “forward”, one (or two) steps “backward”.

Jamaican Literature Given the cultural elite preoccupation with the great Anglo-American standard works of literature, it raises the question whether there was any space for local writers. Would those with creative talent be encouraged, and would their work be appreciated by the reading public? Although Jamaicans had authored work on Jamaica ever since the days of slavery, for most of the nineteenth century there was very little local creative writing and publishing beyond what appeared in the newspapers and periodicals. This began to change in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when some indigenous Jamaican literature was produced. Among the works of fiction published in this period was a series of short stories by Henry G. Murray which formed the core of the readings that he performed before elite audiences (see chapter 6). His Tom Kittle’s Wake, published in 1869, sold for one shilling, and was acclaimed by the Morning Journal.81 Three years later, he compiled fifteen more of his stories in a new publication. Most of Murray’s stories, however, painted humorous caricatures of black Jamaicans for the entertainment of the white and coloured elites. His sons, Andrew C. and William C. Murray, followed in his footsteps as humourous satirical writers and performers.

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Most Jamaicans with any sort of creative literary talent seemed content to publish their work in the newspapers or in locally produced periodicals that began to appear in the later nineteenth century. In the 1880s the Gleaner serialized an anonymously authored story entitled “Who Shall Rule, or the man who Mabel married”.82 To encourage more creative writing, in the 1890s this newspaper sponsored “Our Christmas Competition”, where cash prizes were offered for the best stories submitted. In the 1896 competition, the adjudicators, Rev. G.H. Baron Hay and Dr Jasper Cargill, judged the forty-eight stories and awarded first prize to Godfrey Brian’s “The Obeahman”, second prize to “Brave as the Bravest” by “Cullus”, and third prize to “The Slave Girl” by “Clare”. The use of pseudonyms suggests that Jamaicans may have been somewhat diffident and insecure about disclosing their identities as amateur writers. In the category “Papers by Women, Young Women and Children” (a separate and infantilized category for “the fairer sex”), the judges stated that the entries were “extremely disappointing”, while there were few submissions to “The Teachers’ Competition”.83 In 1901 the Jamaica Times sponsored a story competition that was won by S.W. Weller for his or her “Henry Hines, Esq., Shoemaker”.84 After the turn of the twentieth century, these two newspapers became more active in promoting local creative writing. The Times, published weekly, was itself more a news magazine (it actually described itself as a magazine) than strictly a newspaper, and its primary constituency was the literate middle class, especially the teachers. In the context of Jamaica’s culture politics, it could be considered “progressive”, although it clearly supported the idea that English literature was the canon. At the same time, it was supportive of local writing and used its pages to promote it. Significantly, although it actively promoted education and the interests of the teachers, as shown in chapter 4, it defended the use of the Jamaican creole language, even as it was prepared to chronicle its eventual demise, and to criticize writers who deliberately shied away from it. In 1903 the Jamaica Times launched “The All Jamaica Library” which collected and marketed Jamaican stories on behalf of their authors. As a result, Becka’s Buckra Baby sold fast and well, while E. Snod’s Maroon Medicine was made available to the public for sixpence. The Jamaica Times also regularly published “native stories”, many of which featured Jamaican folklore. One of these was “How Monkey Manage Anancy” which was originally part of Walter Jekyll’s Jamaican Song and Story published in the previous year. Some of these “native stories” were written in Jamaican, for example, “Tomby”, “Yellow

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Snake”, “Dry-Grass and Fire” and “Tiger’s Death”. In 1911 this newspaper had a column called “Our Jamaican Writers”, while it also published serialized versions of local stories. For instance, it published “E.A.D’s” “The Obeah of ‘Ole Shaw’: A Jamaica Story”, and in January 1912 it serialized Clarine Stephenson’s Undine. From November 1911 the Gleaner too began a weekly column called “Review of Current Literature”; and from 1914 it featured a book review column called “Jottings from the book shelf”.85 Local periodicals provided encouragement for Jamaican residents to publish their writing. During the 1860s the Jamaica Quarterly Journal aimed to fill a vacuum for “really instructive and entertaining literature, which must be cheap and good”. In 1871 the Gentleman’s Journal presented a prize of “a richly bound copy of Longfellow’s poems” to Solomon Rodrigues for his literary work which was interpreted as a sign of “our native talent thus holding its own alongside that of the Mother country”.86 The Jamaica Family Journal in 1880 contained the stories “The Ghost in the Bank of England”, “From the Wayside” and tales about “Pansy’s New Year Card”, as well as poetry.87 From these small beginnings came more ambitious work. H.G. De Lisser reviewed two books in the Jamaica Times in 1899, both of which treated “Anancy”, the Afro-creole mythical figure. (Miss) P. Smith’s Annancy Stories, and “Wona’s” A Selection of Anancy Stories, sought to capture in print the oral traditions about the sly and self-serving spider-man. “The folk-lore of Jamaica has yet to be exhaustively treated. . . . Now why should not this work – the preservation of Jamaica tales – be taken up at once? A few years more and they have been completely lost; for novel-reading is taking the place of story-telling. Wona has very truly written that ‘we Jamaicans, in relating our curious legends, have nothing to be ashamed of’.”88 The reception of Noel de Montagnac’s Negro Nobodies; being a series of sketches of peasant life in Jamaica, which appeared in the same year, was altogether different. The Jamaica Times denounced it as “a failure” because “it lacks even the saving grace of humour”. The newspaper’s critique was especially harsh in the area of the language of the novel which had the characters switching between Jamaican and English. The author’s excuse was that “the dialect is very difficult to understand and to write”. That, however, was unacceptable to the Times, which retorted caustically that since other writers had managed to write Jamaican (even some foreigners), “why then should a Jamaican find it difficult to write or understand the dialect used by threefourths of the people of Jamaica?”89 Why indeed, although the Times’s exclusion of as many as one-quarter of the population from the everyday usage of

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Jamaican is no less puzzling. Yet in keeping with its own positive attitude towards Jamaican creole language usage, as already mentioned in chapter 4, the Jamaica Times itself began publishing a small weekly magazine in 1915 entitled Pepperpot which included poems and stories written in Jamaican,90 but this was assailed by many elites who felt ashamed. Seventeen-year-old Albina Catherine MacKay’s poems in 1912 posed no such problems. She was on the contrary praised fulsomely for mastering a language that was not her native tongue. Her poems were considered remarkable for the fact that she “has never been out of Jamaica and yet has acquired a wonderful mastery of the Scottish dialect”.91 She was the granddaughter of the late William Shand Daniel of Edinburgh from whom it was presumed that she had inherited her “talent”. However, that a Jamaican-born youngster should so identify with the origins of her grandfather that her poetry should be termed “Gaelic” speaks volumes for the mindset of some elite Jamaicans. No one even questioned that. Eva R. Nichols, a black “Jamaican poetess”, was featured in the Jamaica Times in 1913, and her poetry was published in both the Times and the Gleaner. In 1916 the Times also made favourable mention of A.R. Nicholas, who it described as one of the most talented of Jamaica’s poets. Astley Clerk was not only a talented musician (see chapter 6), but his poem, “My Rainbow Coloured Mountains” drew the praise of Edna Manley who said, “Norman & I both feel it is infinitely the best in the book [of poems he had lent to her]”.92 Apart from being a journalist and literary critic, Herbert George (H.G.) De Lisser was also an acclaimed creative writer who was quite prolific before 1920. His novels included Revenge, Jane’s Career, Days of Terror, Susan or Mr. Proudleigh’s Daughter and Triumphant Squalitone, which were all well received by the local literati. Along with poet and novelist Thomas Henry MacDermott (alias “Tom Redcam”) and historian Walter Adolphe Roberts, he was hailed by Frank Casserly in a triumvirate of “pioneers” of “authentic Jamaican literature”.93 In 1892 the Gleaner published Redcam’s poem “An Hour of Passion”, and by 1900 the Jamaica Times anointed him as being “more versatile than any other writer of verses in Jamaica”, although it felt that by that time “his best things have already been written”. In 1909 Redcam published One Brown Girl and —; a Jamaica story. At the time of publication he said that he had chosen to publish locally and to seek a Jamaican audience rather than one overseas because it was his chief ambition “to produce among his fellow Jamaicans that

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which Jamaicans will care to read, and may find some small reason for taking pride in as the work of a Son of the Island”. He further asserted that when a work was prepared for publication overseas much of the “local colour, detail and dialect” was removed. This, therefore, was a deliberate and conscious attempt by a Jamaican artist to foster the growth of the island’s literature.94 Pride of place among Jamaica’s creative writers in the early twentieth century goes to Claude McKay, whose work not only demonstrated that there was a viable indigenous Jamaican creole literature of high quality, but effectively earned international acclaim for it. He entered the Jamaican literary scene in 1911, and the Gleaner took the opportunity to describe the young man as “a gifted Jamaican”. Then a member of the police force and stationed in Kingston, McKay spoke about his youth in Clarendon, his inability to take up a trade scholarship that he had won because of the 1907 earthquake, his education by his brother, U. Theo. McKay, and his attempts to write “dialect verses” from 1909, when he was just twenty years old.95 Alongside the interview, the Gleaner published McKay’s “De Dog-Drivers’ Frien’ ”, “Agnes O’ de Village Lane”, “Taken Aback” and “A Midnight Woman to the Bobby”, which were later included in his Songs of Jamaica. This book, which also included “My Pretty Dan” and “Jubba”, was greeted with enthusiasm by the Jamaica Times: “We venture to say it: here we have a poet. . . . It is absolutely correct to say that the publication of this volume is an event of note in Jamaica Literature.” Written in Jamaican, the collection was described as “one of the most delightful bits of Dialect work we have ever read”; and the talent of the twenty-one-year-old McKay was highly praised.96 By May 1912 the newspapers had reason for even more celebration – McKay won the English prize for a “patriotic” poem. “George William Gordon to the Oppressed Natives” was written as a celebration of Gordon’s alleged role in the Morant Bay uprising, and was an interesting choice for one of the seven prizes awarded by a British imperial institution since it included stanzas such as: . . .Wil’erforce has set you free Sharpe and Buxton worked for you; Trample on the tyranny Still continued by a few! . . . England paid you’ ransom down, Meant to save you from the pain; Now, freed men o’ England crown, Burst de cruel tyrant’s chain!

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Never would an English mind Bow beneat’ such tyranny; Rise, O people of my kind! Struggle, struggle to be free!

Perhaps by 1912 Gordon’s role had been so sanitized or reconstructed that a poem eulogizing him could win an imperial award. Perhaps the judges in England did not realize what the voice in the poem advocated, for one English paper described it as an expression of “the desire of the negro for a greater freedom”. Nevertheless, the endorsement of McKay’s talent from no less a source than the heart of the empire could have done nothing but good for his celebrity status in Jamaica. His contribution to the literary world was rewarded with a Musgrave Silver Medal for his second volume of poems, Constab Ballads, which the Gleaner described as “a worthy successor” to his previous volume. 97 Notwithstanding his enormous literary acclaim, his material circumstances in his homeland had hardly been encouraging. Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads had resulted in “considerable pecuniary loss”. “A few discerning spirits saw their merit. The Press encouraged him. The Gleaner published many of his poems. The Editor of the Jamaica Times was a staunch and steady friend. The IOJ awarded him the Musgrave Medal. But there was a prejudice against dialect, for one thing, and for another, the prophet’s appeal was to his own country.” Seeking to improve his position, McKay emigrated to the United States in 1912, but there met extreme racial prejudice and soon “in papers and periodicals he flung out his flaming poems” so that he became “the great singer and champion of his race”.98 Some of these “flaming poems” appeared in his acclaimed 1920 publication, Spring in New Hampshire and Other Poems.99 McKay’s story encapsulates the ironies and ambivalences inherent in Jamaican and West Indian life at this time. Black and successful, he threatened to turn the established convention of white tutelage and leadership on its head. His success had put Jamaica on the map, but many light-skinned and “cultured” elites could not embrace it or him, for he was black and his success was based on poetry that often used the people’s “debased” language, Jamaican, which many educated évolués often were ashamed of and were seeking to distance themselves from (see chapter 4). In his success, therefore, he was exposing the raw underbelly of the Jamaican beast – cultural blackness. Many elites might have felt betrayed by the cultural abomination that he seemed to embody and represent. Yet there was no denying his raw talent, something that some of the enlightened literati were prepared to celebrate. More importantly, he symbolized the emergence of a creole literature that was uniquely

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Jamaican; a literature that did not look to Britain for inspiration and validation but rather drew on its Afro-creole roots; a literature which, despite the dissonance emanating from some elite circles, could be shared and appreciated by a majority of Jamaicans of all classes. Perhaps without meaning to, McKay had engaged the cultural elite which was bent on anglicization: he had used his literary skills and gone in the opposite direction, towards creolization, in his celebration of the experiences and language of ordinary Jamaicans. As they struggled to eradicate the very language and expressive culture for which he was celebrated, at the imperial centre of all places, members of the cultural elite must have been perplexed: was this Afro-creole expression not “backwardness”? How could it be given recognition by the true masters of “culture”? And as ordinary Jamaicans saw and heard themselves reflected in McKay’s work, they might well have confirmed what they had long suspected or known – that theirs was a vibrant and colourful culture, worthy to be embraced, recorded and even championed.

Debates and Elocution Closely related to the spread of the reading habit was the ability to speak and argue clearly. The art of debating was highly treasured by the cultural elites in Jamaica as a sign of erudition and intellectual percipience. Mastery of the “Queen/King’s English”, the ability to think quickly on one’s feet and to develop and refute arguments, the cogent manipulation of words and ideas in that medium, were considered very important attributes for educated men in particular as they went about their day-to-day business. Good debating standards were also regarded as another benchmark of Jamaica’s march towards the high level of intellectual achievement accredited to civilized societies in Europe and North America. Thus, according to the Gleaner, In England and America and in fact in nearly every civilised country, the culture of the art of debating takes as high a place as that of any other accomplishment and there is scarcely an institution which has for its object the improvement of young men, either physically or intellectually, which does not include in its curriculum some means for enabling them to hold their own, either in extempore speaking or in debate. . . . By this means a young man is taught self-reliance and learns to have the courage of his convictions. He begins to think, and think rapidly; he is enabled to put those thoughts into easy and flowing language, to express himself clearly and unambiguously and by hearing the speeches of others to judge impartially and without fear or favour.100

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The Colonial Standard opined that “[t]he habit of clear, forcible, fluent expression is very intimately connected with the formation of a clear train of thought, a correct process of reasoning, a keen perceptive faculty, and the enviable power of ready, effective retort”.101 Several debating societies were consequently established in Jamaica between 1865 and 1920, but they suffered from the same problem as other intellectual and cultural organizations – early demise; for narrow elitism and sustainability did not go hand in hand. Kingston and Spanish Town were the main centres of such activity, but other rural towns were also involved, namely, St Ann’s Bay, Brown’s Town, Montego Bay, and the parish of Westmoreland. Several of these societies had priests as their prime movers and were therefore linked directly to churches. It also appears that in most cases membership of these societies was exclusively male.102 The art of “proper” public speaking was further promoted by elocution contests in the early twentieth century. These were held both in Kingston and in rural towns, and were promoted by the church schools.103 Annual “Island Elocution Contests” were held at the prestigious Ward Theatre. Although in 1913 the Jamaica Times found it “disappointing to see the small presence of the Upper Middle Class and the school masters so scantily represented in the audience”,104 it is clear that the cultural elites attributed very great importance to these contests as another indicator of the spread of civilizing and edifying influences in the society. When their own children were involved, they turned out in large numbers. So the annual elocution contest of St George’s College in December 1916, for instance, attracted a large audience, including the Roman Catholic bishop (who was white), Hector Josephs, KC (a brilliant Cambridge-educated black lawyer) and many other cultural elites.105 While they might have been hard pressed to admit it, the cultural elite’s celebration of formal elocution in the approved Queen’s/King’s English had a great deal in common with the love of speechifying which occurred in the Afro-creole culture, and which the elites commented on, often in derisive tones (see chapter 4). They valued very highly the “correct” delivery of a narration, which they linked to the ability to reason. Yet, when it related to the ordinary Jamaican, they claimed that mimicry and a simplistic love of words explained all. The reality was that the average Jamaican, elite or otherwise, was a (wo)man of words – the oral culture, which they all shared, was more influential than some would have liked to admit.

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Lectures Public lectures formed a part of the intellectual life of elite Jamaica. They were regarded as a sign of an erudite society and a symbol of civilization. These were sponsored primarily by the Institute of Jamaica after its establishment in 1879,106 but also by churches and private associations. The lectures were quite varied, ranging from the fine arts to science, politics and “Jamaicana”. Lecturers included foreign visitors, clergymen, public officials and other locals who had a particular interest in what they spoke about, and these lectures were delivered for the entertainment as well as for the intellectual “upliftment” of the community. Many lectures focused on literature, centring mainly on the English “masters” such as John Bunyan, Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles Dickens, Oliver Goldsmith, John Keats, Thomas Babington (Lord) Macaulay, Alexander Pope, William Shakespeare, Robert Louis Stephenson and Alfred (Lord) Tennyson. Others dealt more generally with “lady novelists”, music, musical composers and English art (paintings and sculptures). Several lectures treated religious topics and not surprisingly, the majority of these were delivered by clergymen.107 The main focus of these lectures was on English culture, and they were part of the bigger programme of anglicization and civilization. As part of a wider and “majestic” empire, elite Jamaicans evinced great curiosity about foreign lands, peoples and events, and lectures on these topics were usually well supported.108 These included talks on Asia and the Pacific, Africa, Europe and the Caribbean.109 Several lectures were scientific in nature, especially focusing on agriculture, astronomy and, with the advent of electricity late in the nineteenth century, on that subject.110 In keeping with the increasing concerns in the international arena about the spread of germs and contagion, and given the particularly vulnerable situation of Jamaica in this regard, sanitation and hygiene were also subjects of public lectures. In 1890, for instance, Dr Bronstorph spoke at the St Matthew’s schoolroom (Allman Town) on “Sanitation at Home”, and in 1892 the IOJ mounted an eight-part lecture course on “Hygiene with all its accessory branches.”111 Jamaicana (things Jamaican) were always the subject of considerable public interest, underlining the fact that despite the generally outward-looking bias of elite Jamaicans in particular, they were nevertheless Jamaican at heart. Lectures on Jamaicana ranged from its physical structure and natural features, to the lives and culture of its people.112 Perhaps the most popular lectures were

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Figure 14. The Institute of Jamaica’s lecture hall. (Courtesy of the National Library of Jamaica.)

those that centred on Jamaican culture. In 1862 Rev. John Radcliffe delivered a lecture to a “densely thronged” audience at the Freeman Chapel school room on a Jamaican proverb: “When trouble catch bull-dog, monkey breeches fit him”. According to the Falmouth Post, the lecturer offered great amusement “at the expense of the small young men in our community”.113 The humorous Murray lecture-performances delivered over a forty-year period from the late 1860s to beyond the turn of the century by Henry Garland Murray and his sons, Andrew C. and William C., formed part of the entertainment calendar of elite Jamaicans. Delivered in the Jamaican creole language, these lecturers sought to tell their audiences about the foolishness and wisdom, the mannerism and curiosity of the peasants or lower-class Jamaicans, with whom they shared a culture, but for whom they had no small amount of disdain (see chapter 6).114 Lectures, like other cultural events of elite life in Jamaica, provided an opportunity for socially aspiring individuals to mingle and associate with the local “aristocracy”. They also bestowed on their audiences the stamp of intellectualism that was essential to validating their claims to high social status and civilization. Not surprisingly, these people were even prepared to pay for these

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privileges. Thus in 1872, and again in 1873, Mr Thompson lectured on “Women’s Rights”, which the Morning Journal described as “lots of fun and new ideas” for which front seats were available for one shilling.115 Admission to the lectures hosted by the IOJ at the Town Hall on subjects such as “Evolution”, “Our Home, a geological lecture”, “The Fishes of the Island” and “Railways”, was one shilling, sixpence or one penny for non-members, while members were admitted free.116 In 1883, James Leslie Main’s “Here will we sit and let the sound of Music creep in our ears” at the Theatre Royal (which featured poetry and song) cost patrons three shillings for the dress circle/parquet, children two shillings, and those in the upper boxes one shilling.117 When the institute sponsored two series of lectures on “Elizabethan Literature” (1891), and on the “Philosophy of Jamaica” (1892), the public were charged as much as six shillings for admission, while members of the institute paid half-price.118 While the proceeds from the gates may have helped to finance the IOJ’s other work, and benefited many charitable institutions,119 the high price of admission for some lectures was clearly designed to render them exclusively elite events. Not surprisingly, in keeping with the borrowed virtues of the Victorian culture which relegated women (especially those in the middle and upper classes) to lives of privacy, the majority of the lecturers in the period under review were men. It was thought inappropriate in most circumstances for women to be public speakers as this challenged the very foundations of the ideology behind “separate spheres”. However, by the later nineteenth century, elite women found ways to step out of the strictly defined separate spheres that should have limited their lives. Having created the ideal (middle-class) home as a “haven in a heartless world”, Victorian women began to use the basis of their relegation to matters of nurturance and morality to move beyond the boundaries of true womanhood. Women therefore became more and more involved in reform movements which targeted the “problem” areas in society. In keeping with the reform and missionary impulse, women were “allowed” into the public space, as speakers. But, particularly in a colonial backwater like Jamaica, they were so few that they tended to arouse curiosity and thus tended to draw very large audiences who wanted to hear them speak. Thus the Gleaner was amazed by a lecture delivered by Miss Marsh in 1876, which it described as “an intellectual treat – her language was choice; her rhetoric charming and her delivery good. The fair lecturer indulged in the descriptive, more than the teaching, interlarded with appropriate selection in verse, on the subjects on which she spoke – introducing many happy local allusions – Miss Marsh deserves praise for the able manner in which she acquitted herself,

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and convinced the public that she has found her proper province in literary pursuits.”120 Other female lecturers were Miss Anderson of the Zenana Mission, who in 1888 delivered a lecture in St Paul’s church to a “highly respectable” audience. The building was “crammed” and half the listeners, including many ladies, had to be content with standing room. Her lecture on “Life among the East Indians from a religious point of view” aroused great interest, and “the Lady showed no signs of diffidence in addressing so large a body”.121 The new world of educated women was manifestly stamped on the Jamaican cultural landscape when in 1903 Bessie Pullen-Burry of Cambridge University and a Fellow of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, delivered a lecture on her “travels in the Holy Land” at the Deaconness Home conference hall. The archbishop presided and there were “sacred musical selections” by Mrs Lucie-Smith, Miss Kilburn, Mr Courtice and Mr De Montagnac, as well as a recitation by Miss Fox. Admission to the event cost one shilling and proceeds were in aid of the home.122 This opened the door to local females such as Miss Howson, BA, headmistress of Wolmer’s Girls School who, under the auspices of the IOJ, lectured on “Geoffrey Chaucer” in 1906 in the “Favourite Authors” series.123 By the time Miss A. Hollar, BA, lectured on “Keats, and his place in English Poetry” in 1908, the institute had to hold the lecture at Mico since its own accommodation was inadequate on account of the devastation by earthquake the previous year.124 These women clearly demonstrated their ability to stand on the same intellectual stage as men, and it comes as no surprise that just a few years later an annual Jamaica Scholarship was made available for girls to pursue tertiary education at universities in the British empire.125

Conclusion In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Jamaica’s cultural elites, ambivalent towards, and sometimes contemptuous of, the Afro-creole intellectual tradition, and anxious to underscore their claims to being a civilized colonial society, entered into a wholesale embrace of Eurocentric intellectualism. This was done by establishing cultural institutions such as libraries and reading rooms, museums, literary and debating societies, and the like. Many of these were short lived because their memberships were confined mainly to the upper- and middle-class males who were too small in number to sustain

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them for a long time. While the literati, some of whom were educated blacks, pushed the great works of English literature, most of the reading public preferred light novels and magazines, and of course, in a country that professed to be Christian, the Bible; and in keeping with the complementary beliefs system in the island, they also purchased large numbers of books which professed to assist them to “read” the future and their dreams. This thrust of Eurocentric intellectual activity took a great deal of energy, but was very sporadic and in the end fell well short of what was imagined or desired, producing few significant results. Hampered by low literacy rates, exclusive reading clubs, libraries and societies, and expensive lectures, the crusade to “improve” the intellectual life of Jamaicans was narrowly conceived and left the vast majority, mainly lower class, largely untouched. The latter, therefore, were given the space to do as they pleased and continued to practise their Afro-creole folk culture largely unimpeded, the intellectual base of which was grounded in a long-standing oral tradition sustained over generations by the power of their numbers.

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“Elevate the tastes and morals of the people” Art, Music and Performance

the promotion of intellectual activity, or rather the lack thereof, by the cultural elites before the late nineteenth century, was equally true about their attitude towards the fine arts. Little time, resources, and energy were spent on cultivating the arts locally. However, in the post–Morant Bay thrust to “improve” the culture and morality of Jamaicans, greater attention was paid to using art, mainly imported, as an agent of civilization and anglicization. In so doing, the artistic efforts of lower-class Afro-Jamaicans would be disparaged as worthless, and outlets would not be provided to encourage their professional involvement. The arts then would provide yet another battleground in the wider war on Afro-creole culture, over what was proper and acceptable, and over the right to participate. W HAT

WAS TRUE FOR

Art, Craft and Photography The works of art that were created in the Jamaican plantation world tended to fall within a few categories, including formal portraits of the island’s social elites, paintings portraying its natural and built environments, and some stylized productions of the enslaved engaged in various aspects of work.1 However, these pieces were few, and only a small segment of the social and cultural elites had access to them; most made little or no distinction between fine art and the productions of craftsmen in the period under review. “Art” was, thus, very broadly defined in Jamaica. 145

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While the local art scene remained woefully underdeveloped, social reformers were quite clear that the “art” that was produced should aim to civilize, both by “improving” people’s aesthetic tastes and sensibilities, and by reinforcing the value of productive work. Given this perception, art was an intricate aspect of the war that ensued in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Not surprisingly, therefore, social reformers in this period recognized the need to promote artistic expression. However, they had to convince the plantocracy and merchant community who, like their peers elsewhere in the Caribbean, were so narrowly focused on securing their own financial wellbeing that they showed very little interest in art.2 Notwithstanding the decline of the plantations in Jamaica, many social elites still owed their livelihood and status to their earnings from commercial agriculture, and their lives and energies continued to be centred around the goal to generate profits in very difficult times during the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In those circumstances, there was little time or enthusiasm for pure art. “Good” art works were largely acquired to underscore one’s social status, as opposed to deriving aesthetic pleasure from them. As was the case for so many other cultural markers, the cultural elites looked to Europe to define standards, and the acquisition of European cultural products was one means of their social and cultural validation. The importation of European objets d’art was facilitated by the Jamaican assembly’s removal of the duties on drawings, engravings, lithographs and photographs, as well as paintings in oil, in 1860.3 Elite Jamaicans, therefore, imported “real” art, “in proportion to our wealth and civilization”,4 to show off to their peers. Most who could afford to do so satisfied their desire for art with items such as what the Morning Journal in 1861 called “elegant steel engravings, chrome, lithograph and coloured prints” of “Lady Jane Grey”, the “Crucifixion”, “Titian’s Venus” and “Pope Pius IX”.5 In almost every elite house, said the Gleaner in 1888, “you find evidences of a refinement in decoration which you would have looked for in vain, even ten years ago, and which is traceable, in a considerable degree, to the importation of the innumerable art nicknacks, and art fabrics”. These elites were keen to emphasize their cultural ties to the imperial centre: “the spread of a taste for art and artistic ornament has been simply marvellous in England and her colonies”.6 Nevertheless, elite interest in art remained consistently low throughout the period. In 1855, William Browne noted that the Jamaica Society of Arts, composed of the “best men” in the island, remained unsupported by the planters

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who were “almost to a man opposed to it”. To make matters worse, the merchants, who tended to be transient, took no interest in the society’s work and “the great mass of the people are ignorant”; the few who understood what was at stake were “either oppressed by poverty, or have suffered the universal apathy to cut into souls and paralise [sic] their energies”.7 Three decades later, Gall’s News Letter observed that, “In Jamaica, the more one travels through the country, the more he finds the lack of ART, the absence of those great moral teachers – ‘FRAMED PICTURES’ – the absence of those Reminiscences of History which daily point a moral and invite example – HISTORICAL PAINTINGS &c.” The main problem, its owner and editor, James Gall, thought, was cost. More optimistic than most, he argued that “Thousands of people would avail themselves of these additions to the homestead, but for the fact that they are all beyond the reach of an individual purchaser”.8 This was in spite of the abolition of duties on art objects. When in 1895 a great debate was fired up over the issue of whether a bust of Rev. John Radcliffe should be publicly funded, the Gleaner hoped that the process would force the public to take some interest in art, whether they wanted to or not. Contradicting what it had said just seven years earlier, the paper observed: “It is surprising how few of our rich men think of adorning their homes with pieces of . . . sculpture or good paintings and where the ‘upper classes’ do not set the example the ‘lower’ classes will not develop a liking for such things”.9 Seven years later, it opined that art appreciation was not well developed in the country because whatever art-loving tendencies existed were not catered to and fostered as they ought to be. Since “good pictures, like good literature have their refining influence upon character and life, . . . it is a pity that they are so scarce in this country on account of the impoverished condition of the community”.10 In the estimation of the “omniscient” Frank Cundall, the fine arts had “fared badly” in Jamaica because “the English are not an art-loving people by nature, and those who came to the island appear to have been more than ordinarily utilitarian”. The white elite, he asserted, paid little attention to architecture as a fine art, sculpture was given “scant appreciation”, and there was not a painting of first rank in the colony because “Jamaica is not a painter’s country. The scenery is often too panoramic in character and the difficulties of painting out of doors are considerable.” Photography had developed as a favourite amusement, especially among tourists. Nevertheless, he did think that there was some hope since there was “considerable artistic talent lying dormant in the creole population”.11 This was quite a surprising admission

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from an unabashed anglocentrist like him. Yet it demonstrates that, as in almost every other aspect of culture, the elites did not speak with one voice. There was always a small minority, in this instance including Frank Cundall, who departed from the mainstream thinking on a particular issue. However, one must be clear: Cundall remained “certain” about the superiority of British culture. In recognizing black talent, he would have wanted them to copy English artistic styles, to learn from the “masters”. Notwithstanding an alleged apathy towards art, there was always a small core of persons who were keen to stimulate broader societal interest. During the 1860s, an elite organization which called itself the Royal Society of Arts existed, although its membership of 150 in 1865, paying the high annual subscription of one pound, was naturally small.12 In 1861, its council sought to “use every exertion in their power” to place Jamaica firmly in the international artistic arena by participation in the International Exhibition of 1862.13 So when the exhibition opened in the United Kingdom, several “specimens” of Jamaica were on display, overseen by Governor Darling.14 Then, in 1868, the society established an art museum. Although the Morning Journal lamented the lack of a catalogue and the absence of classification, it told its readers about the museum’s “treasures”, which included about twenty paintings in oil and a few watercolour sketches, “crowded together and not in the best light”. 15 This collection was an eclectic mix of local and British subjects, in many ways typifying the creole identity of the museum’s founders. The Morning Journal’s critique of the museum’s display in January 1868 goes a long way to telling us not only what was considered art by the cultural elites, but also the artists who were promoted. In looking at the display of engravings, it opined that they were not worthy of mention, not because they were not admirable but because “for the most part, [by comparison with] the annual issues of the English and Scotch Art Societies to their subscribers, and in the possession of so many persons in the island, there is nothing novel about them”. These, it seems, were considered by this coloured-owned newspaper to be unoriginal and uncreative imitations of British art. The photographs by Messrs Russell, Brothers, and Moncrieffe, included portraits of “the Governor at Creighton” and “the Colonial Secretary at the Cottage”.16 The display of sculpture consisted of a “few busts of English workmanship of Shakespeare, Milton, Dante and Sir Walter Scott”, which the newspaper adjudged to be poor. On the other hand, a plaster cast of a bust of Mr Sanches of Customs deserved “special mention as being a remarkable exemplification of native talent”.17 What seems to be unsaid here is while the predominantly white

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members of the Royal Society of Arts were intent on perpetuating the British aesthetic in Jamaican art, the Journal’s coloured editor was more interested in promoting local artists, art subjects and materials. So even among the cultural elites (white and coloured) there were disagreements, tensions and battles in the war which was being waged over what should constitute Jamaican art. The museum’s holdings also included “fancy work”, such as Rosalie Arnaboldi’s “basket of flowers made up entirely of Jamaican fish scales”; and Madam Roberts’s piece of shellwork “which rather surprises us, as there are so many of our native ladies who possess great talent in work of the kind”. In the area of “fancy articles”, the items included necklaces, bracelets, watch pockets, pincushions, mats, baskets made of beads and seeds, and other materials: “They are deserving attention, being the handiwork of poor but industrious females”, said the Journal. Also, Fanny Badley presented “a very ingeniously made and exceedingly pretty hat from the corn trash”. The museum’s groundfloor was reserved for persons who wanted to exhibit and sell articles of their own handiwork, but as the newspaper pointed out, it had been little used either due to indifference, idleness or because those who were poor and talented were too proud to use that place.18 While members of the cultural elite saw production and displays such as these as a means of inculcating more advanced aesthetics and economic improvement among the people, those who produced the pieces might have been more interested in gaining recognition as artists. They may have been “poor and talented”, but they were not willing to solve the former by exploiting the latter. The cultural elites might have had plans for the reformatory uses of art, but ordinary Jamaicans may have thought otherwise. In 1869, by way of Act 27 Victoria, Session 1, Chapter 22, the Royal Society of Arts gave way to the Royal Society of Arts and Agriculture, which was established “for the encouragement and development of the productive and industrial resources of the colony”. The linking of art with agriculture conformed with contemporary colonial ideas about the connection between the two and also highlighted the fact that the island’s elite classes still owed their status and wealth to their interests in large-scale plantation agriculture. The new society’s president was the island’s governor, thus ensuring imperial patronage.19 However, as with so many elite socio-cultural organizations in Jamaica, this society only exhibited some signs of activity for as long as those who originally promoted it retained an interest; so by the late 1870s “they languished and ceased to do anything for the objects for which they were created”.20 Their collection of art and artifacts was handed over to the Jamaica Institute.

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In 1884 a new organization, the Jamaica Art Union, was established by businessman James Gall. It was modelled on its “Parent Institutions in London and Edinburgh”, a clear indication of where its cultural inspiration emanated. Interested parties were asked to subscribe six shillings, for which they would get “a beautiful lithographic portrait of ‘MEN OF MARK IN JAMAICA’ ”, as well as a chance at winning a prize drawn at Gall’s Myrtle Bank Hotel. Gall’s News Letter further supported the effort by offering every paid up subscriber one four-shilling ticket (two shillings less than the regular price) for the draw. 21 Despite Gall’s criticism that the objets d’art were too highly priced, the subscription that he charged effectively excluded the lower classes from participation, and once more marked art as one of the areas over which they would have to struggle for access, construct their own aesthetics or ignore the representation of imported art as desirable. And as was the case in so many aspects of Jamaica’s cultural scene, the struggles about art were not exclusive to the lower classes; unsure of the value of such cultural enterprises, even middleand upper-class Jamaicans had to be enticed with gifts and prizes. In the following year, the Art Competitive Society stepped in with a view to “encouraging and developing artistic talents among the people”, especially poorer young women. This was certainly in keeping with a somewhat gendered view of art; and consistent with the ideas of its elite founders, it was aimed more at developing the craft skills of these women in order to help them to make a “decent” and productive living than in stimulating their creative artistic talents. It sought to accomplish its goal by offering classes under competent teachers and “finding an outlet for the disposal of the articles produced, to enable many whose talents lie dormant to support and assist themselves and their families”.22 In addition, its paternalistic philosophy to “civilize” those who joined competed with an agenda to uncover new artistic talent. The Gleaner stated that “It is necessary for us to point out that such a society, if liberally supported and well managed . . . will prove a powerful lever with which to elevate the tastes and morals of the people, and by finding employment for young women strike an effective blow at vice.” The newspaper argued that since it was considered derogatory for females to work in stores or even to do “fancy work” for a livelihood, several of them were turning to “deplorable means of existence”. Any society which sought to “raise the moral tone of the community”, as the Art Competitive Society did, was to be encouraged because it would “cultivate and refine the tastes of those who in all probability will become mothers of the next generation”.23 Just three years after its establishment, this organization was already strug-

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gling against “a thousand difficulties”. Its vocational skills-training orientation, as opposed to genuine art education, where persons could “create and cultivate the sense of the beautiful in form and colour”, was reflected in the production of its members. These were “limited to a few decorative articles such as fern work, fans, d’oyleys, lamp shades etc. made for the most part by ladies in their leisure moments”. There were few oil or watercolour paintings, chalk and pencil drawings, art needlework, or modelling. This generated some concern even at the Gleaner, although it held fast to the idea that art and economic production should go hand in hand: Apart from the intrinsic value of the study of art, in greatly increasing the value of manufactures, the moral value of art studies needs no vindication from us. It is universally recognized that an art education has an elevating and refining influence upon the mind and consequently upon the manners and habits of a man, the value of which is beyond all price, and that domestic circle in which the love of art finds a congenial home, is happier and more contented in every way, than the household where the rough asperities of every day life are unsmoothed and unsoftened by the influence of the true and beautiful in art.24

The year 1892 witnessed the opening of Gardner’s Art Rooms. This was welcomed by those in elite society who felt that “one of the criteria that a nation . . . [is] advancing in civilization is the spread of an art spirit in the community. A love of art means simply a love of all that is beautiful and refining, and what is civilization but the disappearance of the rough excrescence of barbarism?” The use of the word “barbarism”, generally associated with things African, Afro-creole/black, immediately signified the role these art rooms should play in the ongoing culture war; and that was reinforced by the fact that the works for sale were British. The Gleaner claimed that there was an increase in the sales of engravings, etchings and other art objects which was reflective of the “greater appreciation for such objects”. With five guineas (five pounds and five shillings) a quite wealthy householder could supply himself with “a full complement of pictures for his home – artistically framed and the subjects [are] those that have stirred the heart of humanity”, particularly engravings from the paintings at the Royal Academy in Britain. That the anticipated purchasers of artwork would be mainly men is quite fascinating. Be that as it may, the newspaper sought to encourage this interest in art because “[i]t will be found that the mind thus educated to perceive grace of line and form will not rest satisfied with the acquirement or contemplation of art objects such as engravings or casts”, but also “[b]y the great law of

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evolution the aesthetic spirit will widen in its scope” and move from simply homely decorations, good architecture and ordered gardens to “a more wide awake appreciation and conservation of the incomparable natural scenes which the island has been lavishly dowered with”.25 Art was considered good for the individual soul as well as for the attainment of higher civilization of society at large. So in 1909 Lady Clarke (the wife of the chief justice) gave a further boost to the artistic scene when she organized a sketching club in St Andrew, which provided “pleasant and profitable” evenings for its forty-two members.26 The Institute of Jamaica also played a leading role in promoting art. In 1891 the Colonial Standard reported that the institute intended to promote an art competition in order to “stimulate native art”, for which prizes were offered by the governor. “This the Board rightly thinks will be the best method of developing a taste for art in the island.” Items in the categories of painting and photography were displayed and awarded prizes ranging from two pounds and ten shillings to three pounds.27 According to the Standard the 1892 exhibition was “among the many little evidences of progress in our island”, and the newspaper expressed its support, since “the country without art and dress is but a wilderness”.28 The 1903 competition provided for categories such as fine arts, photography and crafts, and required that all entries be produced in Jamaica.29 Further, in 1903, when the government of England and other countries began to encourage persons to get involved with “nature study”, the institute “desiring to do what it can to aid in this movement” decided to add “nature studies” to the categories for its art competition in March 1904.30 In 1910 the institute hosted an exhibition of “art and craft” which was attended by the governor and earned the praise of the Jamaica Times, in particular for the pottery and basketwork. The inclusion of photographs of the highly controversial black Revivalist preacher, Alexander Bedward, might have been purely to satisfy the curiosity of those elites who would have read and formed opinions about him from newspaper accounts, but did not know what he looked like.31 The institute also promoted its own ideas of art by including a portrait gallery within its walls. “In order to encourage a love of historic and biographic study”, it decided to start a gallery of the portraits of “deceased celebrities and benefactors of the island”. Following the example of the British National Portrait Gallery, “the celebrity of the person represented rather than the merit of the artist” was considered, and it was stated that “endeavours would be made to estimate that celebrity without any bias to any political or religious party;

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no portrait of any person still living will be exhibited”. All but one of the first forty-five portraits placed in the gallery were those of whites, including Sir Henry Morgan (buccaneer), Sir Charles Theophilus Metcalfe (governor), Sir Anthony Musgrave (governor), Christoforo Colombo (Christopher Columbus – explorer), Bryan Edwards (historian), Marianne North (traveller and flowerpainter). The exception was a portrait of George William Gordon, the coloured politician who was executed in the immediate aftermath of the Morant Bay uprising.32 Perhaps by then this brown son of the soil had been sanitized and absolved for his “misdeeds”. He had, after all, been an honourable member of the same elite classes. In subsequent years, portraits of Edward Jordon (coloured politician and administrator) and Joseph Robert Love (prominent black politician and journalist), in addition to a terra cotta bust of Mary Seacole (renowned for her volunteer nursing work in the Crimean war, but whom the IOJ referred to as a “sutler”), were added to the gallery.33 As the institute acquired pictures and paintings, in 1904–5 it decided to display these acquisitions in an art gallery, separate from the portrait gallery. To the engravings and a few paintings already in its possession, it added two paintings by Joseph Kirkpatrick for display; and it invited “amateur painters resident in and visitors to the colony [to] supplement these works by examples of their own productions”. It was hoped that the small gallery, which included works by various female artists, “would prove of value to the people of Jamaica and attraction to visitors”.34 In 1889 the institute also began to offer art classes for adults and children under the instruction of Miss Long;35 in 1891 and 1892 it offered art classes for ladies run by Mrs T.D. Cockerell. Ladies would be trained in the skills of “free hand and model drawing, shading, water colour and oil painting” at a cost of twelve shillings per month, one day a week (11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.), or seven shillings and sixpence per month, half day a week; institute members received the benefit of the half-day price for a full day’s class. In addition to the fees (to be paid in advance), pupils were expected to provide their own materials.36 Miss E.G. Vaughan-Pryce’s art classes for ladies in 1894 included areas covered by Mrs Cockerell, as well as “lessons in geometry and perspective”, at a cost of sixteen shillings per month (two days a week) or ten shillings per month (one day a week).37 As indicated by the amount of time to be spent on the lessons, the times that they were offered and the fees charged, this offer was for those in the middle and upper classes who were in a position to afford both the time and money. These art classes for ladies were also in keeping with the

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Victorian ideals of a “finished” woman who could entertain and please her husband and family with skills in music and art as well as a familiarity with literature, which indicated refinement. So what about art by lower-class Jamaicans? Was there a place in the attainment of higher civilization for it? Could it achieve the “exalted” standards of Britain so craved by the Jamaican elites? Magistrate Charles Rampini certainly did not think so. Describing a painting on canvas of the coat of arms of Jamaica done by a black artist, he disparagingly asserted: There they stood as large as life, the two naked female savages, with leering eyes and feather petticoats and gemmed and jewelled legs, arms, hands and feet. One grasped bow and arrow; the other carried a pine-apple. Above their heads stood an alligator with tail erect, a characteristic grin, and an unmistakably human eye. At the foot of the picture was the motto, “Indus uterque serviet uni”, in blue letters on a white ground; and below this in ornamental characters an inch in height was the inscription, ‘W. Beckford. Native Talent.’38

No doubt Rampini believed that the portrayal of “naked savagery” was in keeping with his low cultural sense of Beckford, “Native Talent”, who, in his mind, was not far removed from a similar state. The subjects’ “leering eyes” and the humanoid gaze of the crocodile (Jamaica has no alligators) left Rampini unsettled; for him and others in the cultural elite, this was not art and they would resist any attempt to embrace it and its producer. Despite his low opinion of Jamaican blacks, W.P. Livingstone nevertheless demonstrated more sensitivity to the disadvantages local black artists faced. He noted that no real opportunity had been afforded the blacks to exhibit their artistic senses and the only examples that were available were by selftaught students. “Crude though this be, it indicates a latent capacity for drawing, colouring, and designing, and leads to the inference that with direction and encouragement they will yet attain success in art as well as in literature.”39 So the local talent existed at grassroots level but the patrons, who would come largely from among the wealthier cultural elites, either lacked artistic taste themselves, were too preoccupied with acquiring copies of British works which they felt would enhance their social status, or else viewed local, self-tutored efforts to be too coarse, crude or primitive for their “refined” tastes. Notwithstanding this, occasionally the artwork of some local artists came in for high praise, but generally if they were themselves middle or upper class or, alternatively, if their work were portraits of prominent white personages or seemingly innocuous landscapes. In 1881 the Colonial Standard informed

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the public about the “magnificent painting in oil of Knutsford, the residence of the Honorable Sir J. Lucie Smith, K.C.M.G.” by Mr Mills, who had also painted many landscapes in Jamaica and thereby “commends himself to the lovers of Art in the island”.40 In 1901 Louis Winkler opened an art exhibition in the Christmas season which displayed the works of several local artists. The Jamaica Times described it as “one of the best to be seen”.41 At the St Mary Agricultural Show in 1906 there was a display of “native pottery” made by W.W. Aiken of Jamaica Art Pottery in Kingston. Aiken’s work was so highly regarded that he was allowed to present a special piece to the governor’s wife, Lady Swettenham.42 In 1917, the Jamaica Times reported on the talents of a local artist named Francis who painted portraits, “quiet landscapes, sunset skies and the many-sided beauty of water views”, as well as historic buildings such as the old Ferry Inn, “that ancient and famous tavern between Kingston and Spanish Town”, and scenes such as “the famous Bog Walk road and river”.43 Photography also became a major part of the art world in Jamaica during the nineteenth century. The cost of equipment, however, meant that it was largely confined to foreigners and wealthy local elites, and the subjects were therefore selected through their own Euro-cultural lenses. In February 1862 the Falmouth Post reported that Messrs Pearsall and Brother had arrived in the town to “take photographic likenesses”.44 In 1865 it reported the arrival of Messrs Duperly and Tomford in Falmouth to “take portraits”.45 The Photographic Gallery of Duperly Brothers had been established on Church Street, Kingston, since 1842, and had become a mainstay of the “photographic art” world of the island by the 1860s. Not only did they produce portraits (half a dozen for twelve shillings, one dozen for twenty shillings), but they offered “ambrotypes in fine engraved cases” (from one shilling and sixpence each, upwards) and “porcelain pictures in beautiful cases or frames” from twelve shillings upwards. Large photographs were available from sixteen shillings.46 The Duperlys were by far the best in the photographic business in nineteenth-century Jamaica. However, others competed. In 1875 when Mr Berry mounted his exhibition of rare and historical pictures at Thompson’s Photographic Gallery in Church Street, the Gleaner said that “[q]uite a bevy of ladies and gentlemen assembled” for the occasion. Among the displays were an excellent oleograph picture of the battle of Gravelot, and “Moonlight on the Mosille” [sic].47 In May 1880, the Colonial Standard carried an advertisement for “O Bavastro Photographer”, at 72 Harbour Street, who offered to produce “perfect like-

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nesses” at the following rates: half dozen cabinet size for twelve shillings, one dozen cabinet for twenty shillings.48 Photographs of Jamaican scenes reproduced by J.V. Pankhurst in 1887 were described as worthwhile pieces, “their delicacy of tone, combined with utmost clearness, even in minute detail, reminds us of a fine steel engraving”. They made good presents for friends of the elites in Europe and the United States.49 Foreign photographers also capitalized on the island’s natural beauty and sold prints in Jamaica. For instance, “Photographs of Jamaica, taken by Valentine & Sons, Dundee Scotland, photographers to the Queen” were available at Gardner’s in 1896.50 By the 1890s, although photography was developing as a leisure activity among amateurs overseas, Jamaicans were slow to take it up. Dubbed “the black art” by some,51 “the tiny kodak [sic]” camera was having an impact internationally, but the Gleaner lamented that “[t]he speculation and wonder which overwhelm the amateur photographer when he proceeds to the development of his studies seem to have no fascination for Jamaicans”. This was not attributed to their conservativism, for “we can hardly say that Jamaicans are conservative – except in politics – for in no other part of the world are novelties more appreciated and prized than in Jamaica”. Simple leadership was needed to get the interest going, and the newspaper encouraged the ladies to get involved, expressing a view that the gentlemen would follow.52 Art provided yet another arena in which the cultural elite war for civilization was fought. If anything can be said for the pursuit and promotion of art in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Jamaica, it is that it was unappreciated by many of the upper and middle classes. Consumed with materialism, their prime objective was to get rich and so they displayed little appreciation for art except to show off as symbols of their high social status. When they did exhibit an interest in art, it was with a view to furthering their mission to civilize Jamaica through artistic representations of whiteness and of British/ European culture. The labouring classes were normally too busy at work, and perhaps not interested in or too poor to purchase works of British art; but that does not mean they had no artistic interests, tastes or talents. Some carved drums and other musical instruments, furniture, walking sticks, masks, and other decorations; and they also painted and engraved. Discussion about their artistic works is hampered since these would have been ignored, deplored as crude and primitive, or under-reported unless they replicated “good” European art. This imposes severe restrictions on historical researchers. Afro-creole artists certainly would not have had a market for their work to permit them to live as professionals, because their likely representations of Afro-creole

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aesthetics and of blackness not only would have offended cultural elite sensibilities, but they also ran counter to the mission to anglicize Jamaica. In the area of art, then, black Jamaicans were literally shut out by a silent, but no less effective policy of exclusion.

Music and Concerts Music played an important role in Jamaican cultural life among all classes; but it was yet another aspect of culture in which the elite classes chose to conduct their campaign against things Afro-creole. Some whites even questioned if black Jamaicans could be described as musical. There were some like Charles Rampini, an unabashed negrophobe, who was scathing in his assessment of blacks’ musical abilities. “Negroes”, he said in 1873, were “the least musical creatures in creation. A negress’s voice is shriller than the most strident fife; a negro’s is harsh and wooden. Time and harmony are beyond the comprehension of either. A hymn sung by a negro congregation is a race, where the object of everyone is either to distinguish himself by some eccentric performance of his own on the way, or to reach the goal, the end of the verse, before his neighbours.” Improvisation, so central to the music of descendants of Africans throughout the diaspora, had no appeal to Rampini and his ilk. The only “negroes” who sang to his satisfaction were the pupils of Fairfield day school in Manchester, who did so “with wonderful effect”; but the credit, he thought, belonged to their white (German) teacher.53 Even the Jamaican elites were accused by Frank Cundall of being “more music-loving than musical”. He believed that the average Jamaican of any class did not love the art of music, “preferring comic or common-place songs to the best expression of real artists”.54 Some of these “knowledgeable” persons thus thought that one way of solving the poor musical abilities and tastes in the island would be the establishment of an academy of music. More music, and moreso “good” music, would “lift the mind to the contemplation of higher and nobler things”; it would “soften” and “beautify” the whole nature.55 It would, in short, help to “civilize” Jamaicans of all classes. There were others, like Villiers Stuart, who, notwithstanding his sense of cultural superiority, thought very differently of the musical abilities of Jamaican blacks. After hearing a church choir in Creighton, he opined that it was a “hopeful feature about the African race that they are so musical; they have good ears and soft voices and keep good time”. The fact that the choir-

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members were “all little innocent blacknesses . . . and looking blacker for their snowy surplices”,56 made their talent all the more remarkable to him. The Colonial Standard, albeit with its own local bias, shared his appreciation, declaring in 1892 that “in no community does there exist a more ardent taste for Music than in ours, and that taste is not based on a mere smattering of ‘the Art Divine’ but on an intimate knowledge of it”.57 The Gleaner went further when in 1894, in response to many requests, it decided to publish a weekly column called “Musical Gleanings”.58 While Frank Cundall argued that “as a race negroes are certainly not artistic” or “musical”, unlike Rampini he nevertheless believed that “they have talent” in music. He found them to be “passionately fond” of “pretty tunes”, “digging sings”, ring tunes and dancing tunes.59 Walter Jekyll claimed that “dancing-tunes” and “digging-sings” were the two main categories of Jamaican “negro music”, with ring tunes (also called “playing in de ring”) forming a third “informal kind”. “Digging-sings” were impromptu compositions sung while at work on the yam plot. As the hills are being dug, the rum bottle circulates, and the digging-sings, which began quietly enough, get more and more lively. . . . Nothing more joyous can be imagined than a good “digging-sing” from twenty throats with the pickers [pickaxes] . . . falling in regular beat. The pickers work faster and faster to the strains of a rousing “Oh, Samwel, oh!” or “The one shirt I have ratta cut ahm”. One man starts or “raises” the tune and the others come in with the “bobbin”, the short refrain of one or two words which does duty for chorus. The chief singer is usually the wag of the party, and his improvised sallies are greeted with laughter and an occasional “hi”, which begins on a falsetto note and slides downwards, expressing amusement and delight very plainly.60

Alpheus Verrill’s description of the “digging songs” named the leader as the “fugleman” who sang a short phrase, after which the “gang” shouted the chorus (call and response). Sometimes the gang merely “hummed the air of a song” which included titles such as “Mongoose a come, Dory”, hummed when the boss appeared, and which served as a sort of warning to the gang “to work with feverish energy while under his eye”. He asserted that hymns and spirituals were great favourites, especially those from the Moody and Sankey hymnal collection, as well as Salvation Army songs and Psalms.61 With respect to “dancing tunes”, Jekyll argued that the original melodies were brought by European sailors and spread inland from the ports. The words, he claims, were invariably altered. “So generally we find that the tunes

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are refitted with a complete set of new words, describing some incident which has lately happened in the district, or some detail of daily life.”62 Although usually ignored by elite contemporaries, this demonstrated the creole creativity of the people at work. Cundall shared the view common among the elites that the melodies of Afro-Jamaican music were European sailors’ “chanties” and British nursery jingles and hymn tunes, “but in adopting, they have selected and adapted those forms of foreign music as have most nearly followed the canons of their own”.63 With typical arrogance, he went on: Often they are improvised on the spur of the moment. Any trifling local incident affords a subject, and a slight variation of a favourite tune supplies a melody for the new composition. Neither tune nor song as a rule shows much inventive or imaginative power. The words are as a rule of extreme simplicity, usually the repetition of a few words only. . . . [W]hen they adopt tunes that they can dance to they usually set new words to them, the English words having no special meaning for them.

This may or may not have been the case, but in any event one must remember that, as shown in chapter 4, English was not their first language. What Jekyll referred to as the third “informal kind” of Afro-creole music was “ring tunes” that usually accompanied “ring games” or “playing in the ring” (see chapter 8). This genre was usually a mixture of song, game and dance, generally among children forming a ring. Each game had a song associated with it.64 In support of his opinion that Afro-Jamaicans were talented, Cundall asserted that so ready were they for musical entertainment that boys constantly carried musical instruments with them – “flute and consertina [sic] are favourites”.65 Ethel Symmonett concurred, claiming that music was “evidently innate in them”.66 So did Altheus Verrill: “Very few artists, designers, decorators, sculptors or architects have been of colored [sic] blood. But on the other hand they are extremely poetical and musical.”67 The idea that blacks were good only at entertainment (as opposed to intellectual endeavours) was clearly extant; and, that their musical ability was viewed as “innate” suggests that they deserved no special credit for working at those skills. Many contemporary European and American visitors simply did not comprehend and therefore could not appreciate black musical styles. Walter Jekyll recognized the cultural difference when he stated that songs “gain a peculiar and almost indescribable lilt from a peculiarity in the time-organization of the Negro. If you ask him to beat the time with his foot, he does it perfectly regularly, but just where the white man does not do it. We beat with the time, he

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beats against it. . . . The effect of this peculiarity in their singing is, that there is commonly a feeling of syncopation about it.”68 While it is possible to read this beating against the (white) rhythm as simple defiance and an insistence on an alternative and oppositional perspective, it is worth noting that for scholars like Roderic Knight and Kenneth Bilby, the African roots of the music make this a logical occurrence.69 Perhaps this is what so disturbed many of the contemporary observers and made them hostile to the musical contributions of many ordinary Jamaicans. For them, it was a symbol of their blackness, their backwardness, their lack of good taste. Cundall’s idea that Jamaicans were “music-loving” but not “musical” was conclusively contradicted by his own measure since local musicians created several Euro-style compositions. For instance, in 1886 Jane H. Nunes wrote a waltz titled “Isle of Springs”, and Miss R.T. Phillips of Falmouth composed another called “Coffee Blossoms” which the Colonial Standard believed possessed “the merits of melody, rhythm and original musical conception”.70 When the military band performed R.A. Turnbull’s waltz “Queen of the Antilles” in November 1890, large numbers came to hear it, while Dr Strachan’s “Xaymaca” was said to be deserving of notice.71 The Colonial Standard also reported on the publication of “Sunshine” waltz in 1891, composed and dedicated to Governor and Lady Blake by Miss G. Dunn, for which it offered its congratulations as the tune had a “a lovely, attractive ring which cannot fail to constitute a bright and special favourite with the devotees of the light . . . art”.72 The accomplished coloured musician, Astley Clerk, wrote “Jamaica Air No. 2” which was arranged by M.J. Derbyshire as a foxtrot.73 In 1920 he published “Hail to Jamaica”, “Our Island Anthem” and “The Homes of Fair Jamaica”, among many others, in Jamaican School Songs.74 It must be said that these Jamaican musicians were of the cultural elite and most probably had grown up on a diet of European classical music. Elite Jamaicans also memorialized the Great War in music, including Astley Clerk’s “Hop Off Contingent” which sold for sixpence for the benefit of the Contingent Comforts Fund; Daisy E. James’s “Jamaica Contingent Rag”, a two-step march which was dedicated to “our boys on the front”; and Tom Redcam’s and Stanley G. Owen’s (bandmaster of the First West India Regiment) “Jamaica Marches On”, which was “a marching and recruiting song for the Jamaica war contingent”.75 These pieces were appealing to the cultural elites because they drew on the European musical tradition, advanced the civilizing mission and spoke to the glory of the empire of which Jamaica was a part. Some encouragement of local musical talent was given by businessmen such

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as Louis Winkler, who sold “musical merchandise” including pianos, organs and “American Albums of Song, Dance &c”.76 For those in the middle and upper classes who could afford them, “the piano played a large part in the life of the family”, while the harmonium served a similar purpose in smaller homes.77 According to Cundall, with perhaps a bit of exaggeration, “almost every house, or even hut, possesses a piano, harmonium, concertina, or accordion”.78 The black lower classes, however, often made some of their own musical instruments. In rural districts “the men used to make fife from bambo [sic] and blow very lovely music from it. There were also guitar, bango [sic] and drums . . . [and] comb . . . . [T]he mouth organ was used especially by children and big people at Christmastime and some musician[s] used them in their bands.”79 Verrill, however, asserted that self-made instruments, similar to those used “by their ancestors in Africa”, were disappearing by the early twentieth century: “today such are very rarely seen, the drum and the rattle-gourd or sandbox, together with a nutmeg-grater-like affair, rubbed with a stick, being the only savage musical instruments in general use. . . . [O]f all the musical instruments, if it can be classified as such . . .[the drum] is the most essential to the negro.”80 These were some of the instruments used for the mento (see below). In the culture war, the creativity and innovation of ordinary Jamaicans were dismissed as “savage” by their elite judges who were caught up in their fanciful festival of mimicry of Europe. Recognizing the importance of documenting the island’s musical heritage, in 1914 Astley Clerk wrote a series in the Jamaica Times which examined “The History of Music in Jamaica” and included a discussion of “Arawak music and musical instruments”, as well as “African song and the instruments of Afro-Jamaicans”.81 Despite his hierarchical celebration of European sounds, this work clearly demonstrated that Jamaican music had a diverse multicultural ancestry that included, and was by no means exclusive to, Europe or Britain as many cultural elites wanted to believe. Nevertheless, they continued to exhibit a clear preference for English/European musical pieces, and saw the performance and enjoyment of these as evidence of the island’s march to civilization. In concert performances there was a preponderance of European pieces, and musical scores on sale were European.82 Jamaicans’ patronage of musical concerts provided ample proof that they were indeed “music-loving”. These concerts were both religious and secular. The former were usually held at churches and in schoolrooms owned by churches (of all denominations and all over the island), and were normally organized to raise money for the churches themselves,83 as well as to cultivate

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“a taste for good music, and to afford both edification and pleasure of a high order”.84 These “sacred” concerts or “festivals” were attended by people of all classes and supported by the parochial custodes in many instances as a form of rational entertainment. They consisted mainly of a variety of English songs, European classical pieces, such as cantatas sung and played (organ, piano, violin, cornet, clarionet, piccolo etc.) by individuals and choirs, as well as poetic recitals and readings.85 They clearly sought to promote anglicization. Secular concerts were held in various arenas, both in town and country. The favourite venues were the parochial court houses, Spanish Town and Kingston town halls, the Theatre Royal (and later the Ward Theatre), the Conversorium, the Collegiate Hall, and the Polytheama/Myrtle Bank Lawn in Kingston.86 With admission fees generally above two shillings per adult, these affairs were normally geared to the social elites, some of whom also complained about the high fees.87 These events were often patronized by the governors and the custodes. The programmes were decidedly culturally European with vocal and instrumental offerings including European classics, opera, and sometimes more popular English melodies.88 Concerts were staged both by local amateurs and foreign professionals. The latter came from Britain, the United States, Italy, Germany, Bohemia, Cuba and Haiti, among other places.89 Among the best received visiting groups, interestingly enough, were the African American Tennessee Jubilee Singers, who toured the island in 1888 and returned in 1890, and the Fisk Jubilee Singers from Nashville who visited in 1893. These were given rave reviews in the local press.90 There were also local choral groups considered good enough to earn great appreciation among the cultural elites. The most notable of these was the Kingston Choral Union, which was formed in 1882, and survived into the early twentieth century. This was a black group trained by “an intelligent black [man, T. Ellis Jackson]. . . . It has given many performances and recently [1896] carried off the first prize in a public choral competition”.91 In 1906 this choir toured Britain under Jackson’s leadership and performed, among other places, at the Colonial Products Exhibition in Liverpool; and was so successful that a second tour was organized in 1907–8.92 Among the other notable local choirs were the Choral Bouquet Company, formed in 1903,93 and the Kingston Glee Society, established in 1909, which continued to serve the city beyond the First World War.94 These may have been black groups, but the Euro-style music they sang could be appreciated by the cultural elites who saw it as proof that the civilizing process was advancing.

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Figure 15. The Kingston Choral Union, 1907. (Courtesy of Joy Lumsden and the late Raymond Brandon.)

Several local Euro-style concert bands were also formed during the period, but were generally short-lived. During the 1860s, Trelawny had an Amateur Philharmonic Society and a Choral Society which performed on the north coast of the island, but neither survived very long despite elite support, including that of the parochial custos.95 In 1880 the Kingston Philharmonic Society was formed under the patronage of the governor.96 However, by 1884, it had been reorganized,97 and was defunct by 1890 when the Victoria Institute formed a new society under custos Colonel C.J. Ward.98 In the same year, a similar orchestra was organized in Brown’s Town,99 and another in Montego Bay in 1895.100 The short life of many of these groups was attributed by Christopher Gornell, conductor of the Victoria Institute Philharmonic Society, mainly to the high costs of maintaining musical bands and the indiscipline of their members. According to him, “It is very difficult to get persons in a private band or orchestra to conform to discipline in this country, everyone having his own view of how a thing should be done or what should not be done; they become easily offended and everything gives way.”101 Since these orchestras were probably composed mainly of middle- and upper-class musicians, it is telling that they shared the same “indiscipline” of which they often accused the lower classes.

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For most of the period under review, the military bands of the West India Regiment and the Kingston Volunteer/Infantry Militia provided free open air concerts at Up Park Camp (the military garrison in Kingston) and the Parade/Victoria Gardens in Kingston two evenings per week,102 while the St Catherine Artillery Militia band performed at the Parade Gardens in Spanish Town.103 During and after the 1890s, bands of the West India Regiment and the Kingston Infantry Militia were also hired to play on the lawns of the Myrtle Bank hotel on Wednesday and Friday evenings, respectively.104 The programme of music at these military band concerts was generally intended to civilize the audience: European marches, waltzes, lancers, polkas, quadrilles and galops. All these concerts ended with the British national anthem, “God Save the Queen [or King]”. While the “Camp” tended to attract a “respectable” (middle- and upperclass) audience, that at the Myrtle Bank was more exclusive on account of the fact that admission was by ticket only. The audiences at the more accessible Parade Gardens, however, were decidedly mixed; so much so that when the band of the Second West India Regiment was about to resume playing there in 1881, the Colonial Standard called on the inspector-general of police to issue orders “as will have the effect of saving respectable citizens, who may be desirous of enjoying the attractive, excellent, and enlivening music, from being brushed against and in other ways annoyed by the ragged, dirty and shoeless canaille who have hitherto shown so much activity in forcing their way into the garden. None but clearly and decently clad persons . . . should be admitted.”105 The newspaper was prepared to draw battle lines against the lower classes, and perhaps not without reason; for the latter was conducting their fight in not too subtle ways. Two incidents in December 1891 exemplify this: in the first, “a lady” attired in white got the whole back of her gown completely smeared with black ink by someone in the crowd; in the second, a young man was physically attacked by someone described as “a Haitian”.106 The military bands were the only ones in Jamaica with any degree of longevity simply because they were state supported and did not rely on private patronage. There were other bands of professional musicians which went in and out of existence. As early as 1868 these small bands were complaining that the military bands were providing unfair competition to them because private people could hire the military bands to play on occasions. As a result professional musicians were very few, and the Morning Journal expressed concern that if they were forced into a corner they would be obliged to seek an alternative living and “we will be left with no music – but of the very worst descrip-

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tion for our public entertainments – for the military are not going to lend their band for every occasion”.107 During the seventies and early eighties, however, Kingston boasted a “City Band”, led by David Augustus Lewis, which assumed the mantle of providing music for the “masses” and especially during Christmas season, when it played along King Street and at the Victoria Market.108 This was succeeded by Watson’s band in the late eighties, which survived at least until the turn of the twentieth century.109 Other bands evidently were less well known and therefore were short-lived. For instance, one band composed of several Cuban musicians was formed in 1879 to perform at balls and parties;110 and in 1907 there was reference to the Constant Spring Orchestra under Mr Ellis, which played at garden parties and similar engagements.111 The advent of the phonograph and later the gramophone led to a new form of musical entertainment from the 1890s on, which may have aided the anglicizing process. May Jeffrey-Smith recalled first seeing the phonograph at the 1891 exhibition; she described it as a “small rectangular black box with projecting rubber-typed tubes which you placed in your ears and then heard music”.112 This was probably Thomas Edison’s recently invented machine which was on show in Jamaica for the first time.113 While phonographs were luxury items that only the most affluent could afford in their homes, enterprising foreign entrepreneurs would sometimes take the machine around the island in itinerant fashion which gave the lower classes an opportunity to listen to “good” recorded music.114 Since this was the music of “top class” foreign Euro-American entertainers, it represented the real thing, except that it was not live. Phonograph/gramophone entertainments enabled wider and more dispersed audiences to listen to and appreciate “good” music at little cost, and the churches made excellent use of them as part of their cultural mission to uplift their members.115

Theatre116 One feature of elite entertainment was theatre-going. Theatrical performances, dramatic and operatic, were staged in towns all over the island by local amateur groups, the military, schools and churches, and by foreign professional troupes. Kingston and, to a lesser degree Spanish Town, were the theatrical centres, with the former boasting the only specifically designed theatre building in the island – the Theatre Royal, completed in 1840.117 Other venues were little more

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than makeshift spaces with rudimentary stages: meeting rooms, lecture halls, hotel auditoriums, school halls, rural court houses, and the military and naval quarters. Since the Theatre Royal was maintained largely by the rental fees paid by performing companies (which very often had to effect minimal infrastructural repairs before they could perform), by the 1870s it was in a dilapidated condition.118 A description published in The New York Clipper in 1876 stung elite Jamaican pride: “the front wall is covered with long accumulated debris of old play bills, cats, etc., that add a ragged dismal appearance to the already crumbling, rat-beset, structure – old benches, divided off into stalls without cushions or carpets, constitute style of seating in the Dress Circle – the present building is fifty years old, and looks as if it were five hundred”.119 Ever so sensitive to foreign opinion, this criticism prompted the municipal authorities in 1880 to consider relocating the theatre to the site of the old barracks in the Parade.120 An alternative proposal to spend the princely sum of eighty pounds on repairs121 was not acted upon; instead, the visiting McDowell Dramatic Company had to undertake the repairs before their season began in December. The theatre was thoroughly cleaned and scoured inside and repainted. According to the Gleaner: Inside was warmth and light and color [sic]. The stage had a novel appearance, owing to the removal of the steps, and was draped in crimson cloth. Down in the Parquette [sic], a fountain set about with ferns, flowers, plants, rock, shells and coral, threw aloft light spirals of spray. . . . The dress circle has also been freshened up with red cloth. . . . It is but too true that nothing can be done to relieve the hideousness of the clumsy, barbaric old benches of the Parquet and Circle, but the house as a whole charmed by its graceful novelty and its air of general cosiness.122

Two years later further renovations were done. The stage was replaced with “an entirely new one with all the most modern appearances”; the old benches were removed and replaced with chairs.123 However, there was still a problem with the surroundings. In 1886, the Gleaner reported that “[t]he flow of dirty water which comes down Love Lane, at the rear of the Theatre, on the nights of the performance, is abominable, causing great inconvenience to persons visiting the Theatre, who get their feet in the slush and water in attempting to cross it”.124 In the absence of further maintenance, by the 1890s the theatre had once more assumed a shabby appearance, and was labelled “Kingston’s disgrace”. It was considered ill-adapted to meeting the public’s expectations: “In all respects it is deficient in seating accommodation (the arrangement of which

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Figure 16. The Theatre Royal. (Source: James H. Stark, Stark’s Jamaica Guide [Boston, 1898].)

is barbarous), in lighting, staging, ventilation and in green-room convenience”, said the Gleaner;125 and it was feared that “neither companies nor audience will visit it: it has no financial attractions for the former, and the accommodation provided is such that no manager with any share of respect for his profession will venture to bring a decent company to Kingston; for the latter there is nothing from either the point of view of comfort or of art to attract an audience to pay it a visit”.126 The property and store rooms were the first indicators of “the decay and utter wretchedness of the whole interior”. Doors were creaky and unhinged, the floors were rotting, and the walls defaced. The green room lacked charm and decency. The roof of both the gentlemen’s and ladies’ dressing rooms was broken, the walls patched and destitute of adornment, without even a mirror, and the floors unsafe. The only furniture was a narrow bench round the room and a rickety, bottomless cane chair. The men’s rooms were also close to an evil smelling sewer. The floor of the stage was seamed and cut up, and in some places rotting badly. The ticket office resembled a disused old fashioned sentry box, while the exits were few and badly contrived. There was but one pipe

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that could be used in the event of a fire.127 The city council, which was responsible for its upkeep, was castigated for allowing it to fall into such a disreputable condition. Plans for a complete overhaul of the building were thus devised by the city surveyor to the amount of £6,119.128 Repairs to the theatre were eventually completed for a grand reopening in January 1897.129 The refurbished building was considered an architectural showpiece in the city.130 The proscenium, thirty-three feet wide and twenty-six feet high, was surrounded by a heavy sheet iron architrave and cornice which were decorated. The stage was sixty by thirty feet, with a height of thirty-five feet from the floor to the gridiron, and the pit descended another nine feet. On both sides of the proscenium were two boxes, one, with its own private entrance, was reserved for the governor, and the other for the city’s mayor. Above were some other boxes available for rent. “The decorations of the auditorium are most chaste, the prevailing colours being white and gold, relieved by touches of light blue. The top rails of the balconies are painted crimson and the panels are adorned with gilded festoons and wreathes. The ceiling is arranged with a series of coves painted a light grey, the mouldings being of orange and lilac.”131 Exactly a decade after these renovations were done, the Theatre Royal was irreparably damaged by the 1907 earthquake. After a great deal of public debate over whether or not a new theatre should be erected at public expense,132 Colonel C.J. Ward, custos of Kingston and a wealthy planter, donated nine thousand pounds of his own money to the city for that purpose.133 The new Ward Theatre, as it was named, was built on the same site as its predecessor, the Theatre Royal, and opened in December 1912.134 It met the dreams of elite Jamaica for a facility of perceived grandeur. It was built of reinforced concrete with a reported seating capacity of nearly two thousand. The stage was fifty-six feet wide and thirty-five feet deep, with a proscenium opening about thirty-three feet. The foyer of the pit was approached directly from the main entrance, and therein stood the ticket box. The foyer of the dress circle reputedly had an air of exquisite loftiness and commanded a fine view of the stage. The construction of the floors, ceilings and large ventilation windows to the east and west permitted maximum acoustic effects. The gallery, with a seating capacity of four hundred and thirty, was provided with two flights of stairs for easy exit. The stage and its adjuncts were designed for giving all the necessary convenience and accommodation to local amateur and visiting companies. In particular, the dressing rooms were spacious, and the scene room had ample provision for easily manipulating and controlling scenery.135

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Spanish Town, too, claimed its own “theatre” largely as a result of the efforts of the custos of St Catherine, Isaac Levy, who spearheaded the drive with “all necessary stage furniture, decorations and machinery, specially imported”. Formally opened in December 1879, it was in reality no more than the main room of the renovated town hall.136 Notwithstanding the generally poor state of theatre facilities for most of the period, from time to time small dramatic associations were formed in different parts of the island, but not surprisingly they were usually short-lived. Amateur groups were formed, for instance, in Lucea, Trelawny, St James, Manchester, St Ann, Spanish Town and Kingston; while the military stationed at Port Royal and Up Park Camp also staged dramatic performances. From the 1870s, several elite private schools such as the Collegiate, Catholic, and Convent, East Branch, and Halfway Tree Boy’s schools, as well as the Kingston Academy, periodically performed dramas. The pieces were invariably English, and ranged from light comedies and farces, which were the usual fare, to more serious drama being occasionally staged.137 Because they met the aspiring anglicized tastes of the cultural elites, attendance was usually good, and indeed just before the First World War there was an increase in theatre attendance. According to the Gleaner, “the Ward Theatre is full to overflowing every night, and at the matinees the attendance is most encouraging”.138 One problem, however, was that the pool of potential patrons, essentially drawn from the upper and middle classes, was too small to sustain long seasons.139 Besides, very often local talent did not meet the exalted standards demanded by those seeking emulation of “high-class” European performances. Indeed Gall’s News Letter claimed that many local performers were coarse and ignorant and this displayed itself in a wholesale massacre of the English tongue, and becomes offensive, not to those who have no ear to appreciate, and no judgment to exercise, but to the educated inhabitants of the city who care not to patronise the ordinary run of Kingston performances, simply because those who seek to entertain are in a degree ignorant, and are vulgar, consequently anything but attractive to the more refined of that English and Jamaica Society who are the legitimate judges of Art and the Drama.140

What James Gall, a Scot who was in the vanguard of the civilizing mission, was in effect saying was that Jamaican theatrical productions put on by middle- and upper-class promoters and actors, were essentially creole, not British, affairs. His put-down was reflective of what British residents and

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visitors generally thought of many elite Jamaicans, some of whom were the very people who were promoting civilization: they were ignorant and vulgar, not unlike their lower-class countrymen, and they butchered the English language. This was always a source of grievance and insecurity for these locals, who were anxious to measure up to their British counterparts. In keeping with their penchant for consuming imported culture, all over the island the middle and upper classes exhibited a preference for international acts which were believed to offer more “authentic” theatre. For this reason, the foreign theatrical companies that visited Jamaica were generally well received by the cultural elites craving what they perceived to be high culture. These companies were both dramatic and operatic, and occasionally blackface minstrels came as well. The groups came mainly from Britain and the United States,141 but a few opera companies also came from Italy.142 One of the more notable visiting dramatic groups was W.M. Holland’s Dramatic Company (1870s). His wife and star actress, Effie Johns, also known as “the Elfin Star”, achieved celebrity status locally.143 Another was the E.A. McDowell Dramatic Company, which had three successful seasons between 1881 and 1891.144 The London Dramatic Company also played in Kingston during the 1891 Jamaica Exhibition.145 According to Errol Hill, the earliest blackface minstrel on stage in Jamaica was a Mr Cassares in 1849.146 In July 1865, an American minstrel quartet played both in Kingston and Spanish Town, followed by the Original Georgia Minstrels in 1869. Perhaps the most celebrated group of this genre was Christy’s Minstrels which visited Jamaica in 1872.147 It is interesting that the cultural elites, especially those with some African ancestry, were likely to have been amused by the mocking antics of these white American minstrels with their “coon songs” and exaggerated “black speak”.148 It is no less fascinating that Jamaicans with African ancestry should have embraced and perpetuated this art form as practitioners for decades to come.149 Perhaps in their state of selfdenial they believed that these portrayals bore no reflection on them; or that their enjoyment of such racial buffoonery culturally blanched them of the “taint” of blackness and/or Afro-creole culture that was so often too close for comfort. Foreign theatrical companies visited very infrequently and were sometimes substandard; and soon knowledgeable Jamaicans became sceptical of some of these visiting groups. Foreign performers who thought they could get away with inferior acts in what they perceived as a cultural backwater were sometimes surprised by audience reaction. “Kingston reads and judges for herself,

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and if there is not real talent, real, refined and educated acting, nothing will induce the citizens to come out of their houses to patronize a very inferior stamp of performance, the charge for which is the same as for a higher class of intellectual amusement.”150 Some of these groups were thus forced to lower their prices of admission “to a scale in accord with the value they offered in return. Unfortunately for us, however, so soon as these inferior people and mere mountebanks return to their own or their adopted country, they commence to vilify the community of Jamaica, and to denounce the kind of reception accorded to them.” Sensitive in their collective insecurity as were the Jamaican elites to foreign criticism, they chafed at the bad name they were getting, in the “mother country” and the United States in particular.151

Reading Performances Theatrical-style reading concerts were popular among the cultural elite throughout the period and were offered as family entertainment as well as for their intellectual stimulation. Between 1861 and 1862 the community was informed that Mr Dickinson would give a reading “in character” at the Theatre Royal; his renditions were from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Edgar Allan Poe’s “admirable poem” of “The Bells”.152 In 1870, Mr Ince’s “Readings and Recitations” at the Wolmer’s Boys’ School and the Collegiate School room included the speech of Sergeant Buzfuz in the celebrated case of Bardel V. Pickwick.153 Another series of readings in 1871 proved to be extremely popular. According to the Morning Journal, “these readings have taken quite a hold on our rather limited community, no better proof of which need be adduced than the fact that the ‘gentler sex’ appeared in greater numbers than previously”. On the occasion of the third set of readings, “[t]he reader of ‘Tom o’ Shanter’ delighted by his style those even that were not well up in the dialect of [Robert] Burns and [William] Wallace’s native land”.154 The military establishment too had their own entertainments of this type. For instance, in 1886, there was a series of “concert readings” which were held in the Recreation Room at Up Park Camp.155 These reading entertainments were by no means limited to Kingston. “Literary Readings” were offered by “two gentlemen” in Linstead in 1868;156 while in 1871 the Falmouth Court House was the venue for the “choice selection” of classical readings and recitations which were performed by David A. Quern, a young Englishman.157 By the 1880s, weekly “Penny Readings” were taking place in Spanish Town. Said the Gleaner, “the elite of Spanish Town take an

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active part in the entertainments, which include Tableaux Vivants, Pantomimes, Songs, and Readings from celebrated authors”.158 In 1886, members of the St Catherine Penny Reading group, in addition to promoting reading, attempted to present “an attractive programme” of entertainment.159

Comedy Shows Comedy shows formed a small part of the entertainment available in Jamaica. Occasionally, foreign comedians or comedy companies visited,160 but perhaps the most celebrated entertainers of this genre were three Jamaicans – Henry Garland Murray and his sons, Andrew C. and William C. – all of whom used Jamaican as the medium for their performances before cultural elite audiences. Henry began performing in January 1869 until his death in the late 1870s; Andrew performed from 1879 through the 1880s; and William from 1887 beyond the turn of the century. Although phenotypically black,161 their humour was based largely on imitations of the stereotypically comic character, speech and mannerisms of the uneducated black Jamaican peasant which cultural elite audiences embraced warmly.162 The Morning Journal, for instance, whose editor was coloured, said that Henry’s “delineations of the negro character were . . . life-like and highly amusing”;163 so much so that during his performances, according to the Falmouth Post, “Mr. Murray had to stop several times in his reading to wait upon the audience who were convulsed with laughter.”164 The Gleaner described Andrew as “a humorist of no mean order” because he kept his audiences “in roars of laughter by his frequent flashes of negro humor [sic]”.165 Likewise, the Colonial Standard reported that William’s performances “abounded in comic situations and graphic delineations of the character of our peasantry [which] kept the audience in roars of laughter”.166 Errol Hill tried to draw a distinction between the humour of Henry and Andrew Murray on one hand, and William on the other, claiming that although each directed his satire mainly at the poorer classes, only William was accused of insensitivity.167 Indeed William did attract the public rebuke of Robert Love, a black “radical”: “For ourself [sic], we cannot say that we enjoy these lectures for the simple reason that in them, our race is held up to ridicule and lampooned. When this is done by a member of the more fortunate race, it makes us angry; when done by one of our race, even the humour does not take away a feeling of sadness from us.”168 This does not mean that Henry and/or Andrew were not similarly insensitive, but perhaps black racial

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consciousness and pride were on the rise at the turn of the twentieth century precisely because of the political and journalistic activism of Love, who formed the People’s Convention in 1898. Had Love been resident in the island when Henry and Andrew performed, they too might have encountered his strictures. The popularity of the mimicry of the Murrays does provide us with fascinating insights into aspects of the underlying cultural antagonisms that fuelled the struggle for cultural supremacy in the island. The fact that socially aspiring, black men opted to demonstrate their cultural “progress” (anglicization) by ridiculing the Afro-creole mannerisms of lower-class blacks for the amusement and acclaim of “cultured”, racially mixed but mainly light-skinned audiences, and the warm receptivity of these acts by such audiences, speaks volumes of the intersection of race/colour, class and culture in late-nineteenth- and earlytwentieth-century Jamaica. Race and colour might still occupy positions of pre-eminence as social determinants, but culture and class were becoming increasingly important as some black and coloured people acquired the trappings of anglicized culture. In a society where whiteness and British culture were favoured at the highest levels, socially aspiring black and coloured men and women were in a constant struggle for recognition and social acceptance at the expense of their Afro-creole heritage, which was denigrated by the very circles they were seeking admission into. The Murrays faced this dilemma and used their talent to portray fellow, but less fortunate, blacks negatively. No less significant, though, was the reaction of Love, himself an educated and “cultured” black man, who on other occasions deprecated what he considered to be the “vulgarities” of the manners and behaviour of lower-class blacks. Love clearly interpreted William Murray’s performances as evidence of racial self-hatred rather than as efforts at black cultural upliftment. The case of the Murrays highlights two key issues at the heart of the struggle for the cultural soul of Jamaica. First, this was not fundamentally a race war. Whites, browns and blacks participated voluntarily on the same side against a common enemy of perceived cultural darkness. By the late nineteenth century, the civilizing/anglicizing mission was no longer solely a white man’s burden. It was being carried forward in Jamaica mainly by middle-class browns and blacks. Second, the weapons used by the cultural elite forces were varied, in this case public ridicule. Perhaps it was intended to generate shame and self-doubt in the minds of lower-class blacks, and by extension a desire to “improve” themselves. The problem, though, was that the audiences were small, middle and upper class, and generally of one mind; although for some, laughter might have provided only a thin veneer for their personal discomfort

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and unease over their familial proximity and familiarity with the caricatures that were on display. On the other hand, those being lampooned, the vast black majority, were not exposed directly to the ridicule, and that gave them enormous cultural space to continue to do as they pleased.

Conclusion After Morant Bay, the cultural elites paid greater attention to the arts as another weapon in their arsenal to fight the war for civilization in Jamaica. As usual they looked to “mother” Britain, Europe and also the United States for inspiration and guidance. Local arts, when encouraged, were expected to emulate what were on offer in the imperial centres of the Western world. If so, the artists would earn the plaudits of the cultural elites, who saw them as vindication of their fight for cultural upliftment. On the other hand, they permitted no space for Afro-creole artistic and aesthetic expression, which they dismissed as coarse and ugly. The absence of elite support or patronage meant that lower-class Jamaicans, already considered to be lacking good taste and artistic skills or talent, had very little scope to become professional artists. Their work thus remained, for the most part, unseen and unheralded, excluded from the galleries of the Institute of Jamaica and other elite-owned commercial outlets, while there was no place for them in public theatre. As the elites intensified their cultural assaults on the Afro-creole lower-classes, not only were attempts made to vilify and suppress their musical and dance expressions (see also chapter 8), but they also become the butt of a tasteless display of elite ridicule and minstrelsy (called “humour”). This had minimal impact if only because the bearers were playing to small select audiences which left the majority untouched, except those who worked in the shadows as theatre hands, waiters and other menials, who may have reported these portrayals back to their communities. For all their disdain of Afro-creole culture, the fragile sensibilities of the Jamaican cultural elites were rendered quite insecure, since they were aware that the very British people whom they so avidly sought to emulate looked down on them with disdain, regarding them as coarse, vulgar and lacking good artistic taste. Bred in the same creole cultural environment from which they tried so fervently to distance themselves, they often fell well short of the desired mark they sought to attain. No amount of cultural importation could take the creolity out of them. Notwithstanding their efforts, they had more in common with their lower-class fellow citizenry than they would have cared to admit.

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Chapter 7

“Rationalizing” Leisure Holidays and Festivals

focus the joint issues of work and leisure. One of the principal concerns that was expressed after 1838 was that freedom might cause the ex-slaves to “relapse” into inherent habits of idleness – that they would not work without the persuasion of the whip. The post-emancipation period also coincided with the importation of the new Victorian middle-class culture and philosophy, an integral part of which was the so-called work ethic. Hard work was supposed to be an ennobling social attribute in Victorian Britain, and it was also regarded as the fuel of that country’s remarkable industrial progress. When imported into the post-emancipation Caribbean, however, this took on new meaning. The necessity to work was regarded as essential to the fundamental “civilization” of the ex-slaves, and was sharply contrasted to their “natural inclination” to idleness and barbarism. This was combined with the local imperatives to get the ex-slaves to continue providing plantation labour. Thus in the Caribbean, civilization equalled hard work on the plantations; and the longer and more regular that work, the higher up the ladder of civilization the labourer climbed. There was no space for the leisured activities that came to characterize the experiences of the middling and upper classes – the labouring classes were expected to live up to their appellation. H OLIDAYS

BRING INTO SHARP

The Holiday Laws It is not surprising that in this social environment holidays were few and for all practical purposes enjoyed only by a small class of people. Until the 1890s, the law governing public holidays in Jamaica had been passed in 1845. Except 175

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for two holidays that were compulsory for everyone – both Christian holy days (Good Friday and Christmas Day) – the holidays applied only to persons working in public offices and banks. For all other categories of people, holidays were optional, which meant that unless one was self-employed, one was dependent on the whim and fancy of one’s employer. In addition to the two cited above, the holidays were: New Year’s Day, Ash Wednesday, Easter Monday, the Queen’s birthday, Great Earthquake Day (the seventh of June – commemorating the 1692 earthquake which destroyed Port Royal), Great Storm Day (the twenty-eighth of August – commemorating the devastating hurricanes of 1712 and 1722), and Boxing Day (the day after Christmas).1 Towards the end of the century, however, there was growing dissatisfaction with this state of affairs as middle-class Jamaicans, in particular private sector white-collar workers employed in stores, counting-houses and other business establishments, like their counterparts “at home” and elsewhere, began to seek time to pursue leisure activities. They complained about the long hours of work that they were required to do,2 and the fact that they were entirely dependent on the benevolence of their employers in determining whether or not they could get a day off work. Well beyond the turn of the twentieth century, store clerks worked from 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday to Friday, and between 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. on Saturdays. Sunday was effectively their only day off work, and it was not considered a day of leisure, but rather a day of Christian worship (see chapter 8). It was not until 1912 that, despite strong opposition from many shopkeepers, elected representative H.A.L. Simpson piloted through the legislature his Shop Assistants’ bill, when at last their daily working hours were fixed at between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.3 – an eighthour working day. In September 1876, an Early Closing Movement sought to persuade the commercial community to close their businesses at 2:00 p.m. on Saturdays in order to allow their employees a “certain leisure time for intellectual and physical improvement”. Saturday seemed logical for an early cessation of work for the week because the banks and public offices closed at noon, mechanics and artisans stopped working at about that time as well, and Jewish merchants, who comprised a sizable portion of the commercial sector, especially in Kingston, did not work on that day. Since not all the other merchants complied, this initiative began to fizzle out by April 1877. It was not until 1910 that the stationers and booksellers in Kingston agreed to close their stores at 12:30 p.m. on Saturdays amidst hope that this would extend to hardware and other merchants.4

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In 1898 E. Astley Smith started another, more determined, effort to campaign for a half holiday, this time on Thursday each week. Smith was successful in bringing together the leading merchants and the clerks in support of this drive with the result that by 1901 the Thursday half holiday had become generally accepted. He further consolidated the movement by establishing the Half Holiday Association in 1902, whose membership was comprised of businessmen, clerks and even members of the clergy. The object of this association was to preserve the half holiday, and to enjoy it by arranging for cheap railway excursions, cheap admission to entertainments and friendly intercourse among the clerks. Smith also appealed to the public to boycott any store which did not close some portion of the week. However, because the Direct Line steamer left Kingston for the United Kingdom on Thursday, and that was also a post day, and since both required the attention of workers, the members of the association agreed to observe Wednesday instead as the weekly half holiday.5 If, however, private sector white-collar employees eventually won some amount of respite from the daily drudgery of their work routine through the voluntary observance of the weekly half holiday and the institutionalization of an eight hour working day, there was still the broader issue of their entitlement to annual public holidays to be resolved. The middle classes felt themselves particularly discriminated against in this regard because while on one hand “[t]he richer classes in our community go abroad; [on the other] the mass of agricultural and industrial workers take existence so lightly that a compulsory holiday affects them but little”.6 “Hard Work” observed that civil servants in particular seldom went to work before 9:00 a.m. and left at 4:00 p.m.; on Saturdays they got half the day; they enjoyed the nine public holidays per year plus any odd days approved by their heads of department; and they were entitled to six weeks’ annual leave. On the other hand, the labourers were quite independent and “as all employers know, work when they please”.7 This negative perception of lower-class workers was certainly in keeping with that formed by the employing classes after slavery: they chose not to view the hard labour of maintaining small farms and livestock as “work”, nor did they care about the working classes’ creative accommodation of the seasonality of much of their paid employment. Rather, the labouring classes were accused of unsteady work habits and a penchant for idleness which, if either were true, would have left the vast majority destitute in this society with no real welfare safety net. The lower classes, then, did not need to be a focus in the debate

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about holidays, and many in the social and cultural elite would have agreed with “Hard Work” that it was vital that all public holidays should be made compulsory by law if the neglected middle-class store clerks were to benefit because, although several employers paid lip-service to the idea of their employees enjoying those days, oft-times in practice they honoured it in the breach.8 In 1893, amidst considerable public controversy, elected representative C.S. Farquharson introduced his Public General Holidays bill in the colonial legislature. The bill made compulsory the observance of all public holidays, and extended its provisions beyond public offices and the banks to the wharves, offices of assurers, insurers, and discounters, building societies, merchants and retailers, large factories, iron foundries, and so on; and it empowered the governor to include other categories of enterprise. It also revised and increased the number of public holidays from nine to ten as follows: New Year’s Day, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and the day after (Holy Saturday), Easter Monday, Whit Monday, the first Monday in August (Emancipation Day), Christmas Day and the day after (Boxing Day), and the birthday of the reigning monarch.9 Although the bill was not universally supported, not even by Governor Blake,10 it was nonetheless passed, initially for two years, and then made permanent in 1895.11 The new law attracted considerable criticism and opposition, and it brought the culture war into clear focus. What was good for middle-class workers was not good for lower-class workers. It was argued on one hand that the labourers would lose ten valuable working days each year; but, on the other hand (and quite contradictory), it was also argued that since they were only too ready to take a holiday on the slightest pretence, the law would increase that evil.12 Said Legislative Council member Robert Craig: “Do you believe that in an island where it is notorious the labouring classes work less than in any other, except in perhaps Utopia, that this humane measure of reform will spur them to greater exertion or encourage them to greater laziness?” His colleague, J.H. Levy, further protested that ten days off work were too many; and in particular he opposed the consecutive holidays from Good Friday to Easter Monday which, he argued, would force the poor man to go to his provision ground on the previous Wednesday since the Thursday would become market day. The labourers would thus only have two working days that week. Levy also opposed fixing Saturday as a holiday unless it was Christmas Day because it would ostensibly prove injurious to the poorer classes who had for over two centuries utilized it as market day. As to the clerks in business houses, he

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argued that they would be deprived of getting holidays at times most convenient to them as before.13 These elite legislators with ties to the agricultural and commercial sectors were clearly seeking to disguise their desire to keep the poorer classes hard at work by posturing as defenders of their right to work and lamenting the “hardships” that mandatory holidays would impose on them. Elite concerns about the impact of the holiday law on the poorer classes were disingenuous. In practical terms, as the attorney-general observed, the new law was really intended to apply mainly to middle-class white-collar workers; and it was so understood by the Gleaner, which supported it “because we saw in it the hope of some amelioration in the lot of the hard-working city population . . . whose lives are divided from the lives of the peasantry and labouring class in the country by a great chasm which will never be bridged until we have public holidays”.14 This separation of urban from rural workers was, perhaps, another angle from which the cultural elites viewed the civilizing mission, associating as they did urbanity with improvement and maintaining a very jaundiced notion of the life of the less urbane, less educated and more Afro-creole rural labouring classes. On the other hand, it was precisely because of the undisguised bias of the bill in favour of the middle classes that the Jamaica Advocate (edited by Robert Love) harboured deep reservations about it. [I]t would appear . . . that the main point aimed at in the conception and enactment of it is the benefit which it will bring to clerks of mercantile houses and other such establishments. An aim so narrow would jeopardise the passage of the law, and, indeed, if that be the aim, the law would deserve to be defeated. . . . [The clerks] deserve holidays, but not as a class; they deserve it on the broad ground that they are working men, and their overtaxed physical powers need repose. For the same reasons all other labourers, whatever may be the kind of occupation which they follow, deserve, and should have, the benefit of the law in question.15

The 1895 holiday law was amended in 1902 by public demand, when Victoria Day, 24 May (in memory of the late beloved Queen Victoria), was added to the schedule; and again in 1911, when 9 November (in memory of the late King Edward VII) was substituted for Whit Monday.16 As was so typical of Jamaica in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the legislation for holidays was biassed in favour of the upper and middle classes only. The lower classes, considered naturally lazy and idle, were instead to be pressed to work harder rather than engage in leisure pursuits. Despite those who claimed that the workers and peasants would be adversely

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affected by mandatory public holidays, the latter had no intention of being left out (as we shall see). They appropriated those holidays for themselves, and pursued sports and entertainments on those days off in their own ways, some of which they shared with the elites. So the statutory holidays, intended to benefit just the elite classes, would in effect become national holidays enjoyed by all inhabitants if they so chose.

Minor Holidays By the late nineteenth century, Jamaicans of all classes tended to celebrate most holidays in more or less the same ways. Lowest in importance were the two natural disaster days (Great Earthquake and Great Storm). Since only public offices and the banks were closed, not much public attention was paid to them. Those days thus came and went virtually without notice other than a perfunctory announcement in the newspapers and a few church services. Likewise, before they were made compulsory, both Ash Wednesday and Whit Monday were treated as minor holidays, and were marked just by church services and the closure of public buildings. After 1893, however, when all businesses were required to close, they were more generally celebrated by all classes with excursions and picnics, cricket matches, athletic meetings and aquatic sports.17

Imperial Holidays From the inception, the imperial holidays were celebrated on a grand scale with the state taking the initiative. They included the monarchs’ official birthdays annually (Victoria’s on 24 May; Edward VII’s on 9 November; and George V’s on 3 June); the corresponding posthumous remembrance days for Victoria and Edward in May and November respectively; Empire Day (which replaced Victoria Day on 24 May); the coronations of Edward VII (26 June 1902) and George V (22 and 23 June 1911); and the grand golden and diamond jubilee celebrations of Victoria’s reign in 1887 and 1897 respectively. In the context of the battles over cultural activities and their meanings, these were intended as demonstrations of the triumph of the anglicization/civilization process, and great attention was placed on the lavishness of the celebrations and a great show of ritualistic pomp and ceremony. As we have shown in the

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previous volume,18 they were marked by elaborate decorations on, and illumination of, public buildings, special church services, pompous ceremonial mili-tary parades, levees and grand balls at King’s House (the governor’s residence), concerts, regattas and yachting races, cricket matches, rifle-shooting competitions, horse racing meetings, athletics, picnics, magnificent fireworks displays and charity to the poor. All classes of people in every part of the island were expected to be involved either as active participants or as spectators, and great attention was paid to how the lower classes in particular dressed and behaved as proof of the success of the civilizing mission. That the lower classes treated these events with the reverence and decorum that the cultural elites found reassuring may well have indicated their embrace of the ideas inherent in these celebrations. In addition, and/or alternatively, these occasions may have served as a reminder that “proper” behaviours were not the exclusive domain of the elites, but rather that just like their “social betters”, ordinary Jamaicans chose the moments when they would display those behaviours, and then, that they would express their “decency” with great aplomb. They dressed and acted the part, embracing the pretentious affectations associated with elite sensibilities, sometimes to the chagrin of the elites; and on other occasions, they behaved differently and in their assessments, just as appropriately. The cultural elites could not control which occasions would be overlaid with mantles of civilization and which would not – this was a battle over cultural production in which they had a great deal of weaponry, but not all of the power.

Other Major Holidays Besides the grand imperial holidays, there were three other major holiday seasons, namely, Easter (from Good Friday through Easter week), Emancipation (roughly the first two weeks of August), and Christmas–New Year (midDecember to 6 January). These were celebrated by private individuals and groups with greater activity than usually witnessed on ordinary holidays.

Good Friday and Easter Good Friday started the Easter season in a relatively quiet manner with the closure of all forms of business. Whereas the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches held solemn devotions between noon and 3:00 p.m., the dissenting

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denominations held special services from 11:00 a.m.19 that, particularly in the rural areas, were rather less sombre. A Colonial Standard correspondent in 1880 contrasted the services held in Porus at the St Augustine Anglican church and the London Missionary chapel. Whereas the former was quiet and solemn with a very sparse attendance, the latter attracted a very large number of welldressed people complete with baskets and trays of ginger beer, cakes, patties, and other edibles. This “Missionary Meeting”, as it was called, was hardly solemn, as the mainly black congregation treated it more like a “religious outing” where they displayed their finery. When it ended at about 4:00 p.m., some of the worshippers repaired to a nearby tavern where “drinks and ices as well as cooked food were abundantly provided and placed at extremely low prices within the range of every one”; and the crowd did not disperse until late in the evening. Likewise, the Porus Baptist chapel held a tea meeting on Good Friday afternoon, with a five-piece band from Kingston which played a selection of “hymn-tunes”.20 These features of religious observance were no doubt replicated throughout the rural districts. Although the observance of Good Friday was evidently creolized within the dissenting churches by their members, the elitist religious denominations still appeared to be in control of their congregations. However, lower-class Jamaicans did not allow themselves to be unduly constrained in the way they observed religious days and consequently deviated from accepted convention. This could take the form either of deplored religious activity such as Revivalist rituals, or “debased” or desecrating secular behaviour. An example of the former was witnessed, for instance, in 1903 when, in the words of the Jamaica Times, there was “an odd looking religious procession along Lawes Street” in Kingston: “Some 30 persons, men, women and girls, led by a man . . . [were] walking two and two. They all wore spotless white. The women displayed a peculiar head dress, white of course. Some of the men wore crape bands. Every member of the procession bore a lighted candle. It passed onward towards the Parade to the monotonous singing of ‘Sing Hallelujah to the Lamb’ and with it were the curious fringes of Kingston rag and bob tail that such passing picturesqueness tears off intransit.”21 More lamentable, as far as the cultural elites were concerned, was the occasion when for some unexplained reason no church services were held at Falmouth on Good Friday 1860, and the people engaged in a great deal of revelry throughout the day including a “dignity ball” in the night.22 Likewise, “a gentleman of Newport” near Mandeville held a grand picnic on Good Friday in 1892.23 How frequent and widespread such “deplorable” occurrences

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were is not clear from the documentary evidence. What is clear is that Afrocreolization was directly challenging “established” conventions, and that was a concern for the cultural elites. Except for 1894 when “Holy Saturday” was made a compulsory holiday, it was generally treated as a normal working day. Large crowds flocked the “grand markets” to purchase extra food items for Easter Sunday and Monday. Easter week usually began with commemorative church services on Sunday, which were all generally very well attended by people of all classes. Most churches were beautifully decorated with flowers and plants, and the offerings/donations were oft-times more generous than usual. Some churches also held special Cantata concerts.24 Easter Monday, a public holiday, was a gala day. Even before it became compulsory in 1893, many businesses would close, some all day, others in the afternoon, to give their employees some time off work. A variety of activities rendered the day very enjoyable for a wide cross section of the people all over the island – cricket matches, horse racing, rifle shooting, athletic sports, concerts, balls, bazaars, agricultural shows, lawn or garden parties, excursions and picnics. Many of these activities were also spread throughout the week. During the 1880s and 1890s, the Kingston Infantry Militia and the Garrison Artillery held annual military manoeuvres and sham fights at Mona in St Andrew. 25 Easter cards made their appearance in Jamaica during the 1880s, and reportedly became fairly popular by the early twentieth century. In 1901 the Jamaica Times published an article about customs in different countries relating to the Easter egg,26 which suggests that this probably became a feature of the Jamaican Easter celebrations during the period under review.

Emancipation Day Before 1893, Emancipation Day was not a public holiday, but as the former slaves and their descendants (supported by the non-conformist missionaries) nevertheless commemorated it annually, it was disdainfully regarded as a “negro holiday”.27 From its very inception, therefore, Emancipation Day became a target of elite assaults on Afro-creole cultural celebrations. According to the Falmouth Post, before 1860 Afro-Jamaicans marched through the streets of the principal towns with bands of music and flags on which scriptural passages were written. These processions were led by dissenting clergymen who were generally regarded as “Apostles of Liberty”. Children

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were regaled with cakes and lemonade at well-decorated schoolrooms, and public meetings were held in the afternoon at which large sums of money were collected for various charitable purposes. After the death of “the great liberator”, as the humanitarian Baptist pastor William Knibb was fondly known, the processions stopped in most parts of the island (this, however, was mistakenly interpreted as a growing sign of apathy towards the holiday),28 although the ex-slaves and their descendants continued to observe the day/month by abstaining from work. “They do not work for the owners of estates during the first two weeks of the month, neither do they work for themselves on their own lands; the females take but scanty supplies of ground provision, fruit and poultry to the markets; trade becomes almost paralyzed: and in the third and fourth weeks labour is partially resumed in some districts, and wholly in others, but certainly, not with anything like active industry, until the beginning of September.”29 For a few years after the Morant Bay uprising and massacre of 1865, when there were rumours and fears of another uprising on Emancipation Day, and the dissenting missionaries were clearly on the defensive politically, the public observance fell into desuetude. In Falmouth, for instance, there were not even any church services up to 1868, although in Kingston Rev. Phillippo and the Baptists held small church meetings, baptisms and children’s picnics. Generally, however, the day was commemorated quietly everywhere.30 It was not until the 1870s, “aided and encouraged by a considerable number of persons of lighter complexion”, claimed the Morning Journal, that the alleged apathy of the black population in Kingston was reportedly cast aside and they once again turned out publicly en masse in organized companies representing different trades/occupations to commemorate the day – carpenters, painters, bricklayers, blacksmiths, mechanics and artisans (including tailors, saddlers, goldsmiths etc.), tanners, and coopers. The tradesmen were respectably dressed with rosettes on their chests: magenta with blue streamers for the carpenters and coopers; green with white streamers for the painters; blue with red for the bricklayers; black with white for the blacksmiths; and red, white and blue with blue and white for the artisans. Each trade also had a blue banner with different inscriptions in white, surmounted by a royal crown. In addition to the mottoes, the banners bore emblems representative of each trade, an open scroll, inkstand and pen. These processions started at the Parade and marched through the city streets to the railway station, whence the participants travelled by train to Cumberland Pen for a picnic, having been joined along the way by the Spanish Town tradesmen. In the country areas,

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the public celebrations picked up more slowly and took the form mainly of church services, tea meetings and picnics.31 It is interesting that it was “persons of lighter complexion” who were credited with reviving the public celebrations is of interest. They tended to be from the middling ranks of Jamaican society, which would normally seek to maintain their social distance from those of darker complexion and indeed to denounce the latter’s cultural expressions. On the issue of emancipation from slavery they were caught betwixt and between, for they were obviously the progeny of those who had been enslaved by those whose company and culture they now avidly sought to embrace. While some within their ranks wanted to forget the “shame of their ancestral enslavement”, others may have hoped that by supporting the celebration of freedom, they would call attention to how much progress had been made by them as a class. Not only had they moved out of “mere” agricultural labour and into the trades, but some among them had been elevated (both in terms of complexion and status) to become the advocates of those not as well placed as themselves. By the 1880s, Emancipation Day had been fully restored as an unofficial holiday. Most of the leading stores in Kingston voluntarily closed on that day, and church services, lectures, excursions and picnics became the norm.32 This development was further encouraged when Emancipation Day was added to the list of mandatory public holidays after 1893. Thereafter, social meetings, athletic sports, cricket matches, horse and mule races, lawn/garden parties, and concerts, “not to mention the numerous ‘Cumbia’ and ‘Crown Bread’ assemblies”, were added to the celebrations.33 The fiftieth anniversary of emancipation in 1888 was celebrated as an extraordinary red-letter day. There were colourful marches of lodges and school children in different parts of the island, special watch night and other church services, addresses to the people by prominent citizens, and dinners for the poor, in addition to the usual range of cultural and sporting activities and amusements.34 Emancipation was clearly taken very seriously by Afro-Jamaicans, and although the day was not an official holiday before 1893, by their actions they effectively turned it into an unofficial holiday prior to that recognition. As C.E.A. Roberts put it in 1905, “[I]t is right and just and wise for every true son and daughter of the race to give God praise and thanks for his mercy. The Jews never forget their day of deliverance. . . . The Scotch people have their day of importance. . . . We as a civilized nation ought also to write yearly as that day returns and finds us improving in civilization, realizing rapid educational progress.”35 The call by Roberts and others for the children of former

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slaves to write about their deliverance and so indicate their civility is interesting. And it was sentiments like these that led to very special celebrations of the golden jubilee of freedom (1888), and to the establishment of the People’s Convention (1898) by the black journalist and politician Dr Robert Love and others. This organization held its annual general meetings on Emancipation Day to commemorate the event, and it aimed at “developing and making permanent in the minds of the people, a sense of obligation to the performance of duty and of responsibility in the emancipated people of the land and to guide and assist the people in all matters relating to their moral, mental and social development and progress. It supports free discussion of questions of public importance, and the taking of steps that will lead to the obtainment of all the advantages which belong to a free people.”36 The Jamaica Patriotic League, established in 1916 by William Wilson, JP, Astley Clerk and others, had similar aims, and likewise held its annual general meetings on Emancipation Day.37 The emphasis that these groups placed on obligation, duty and responsibility, as well as on “moral, mental and social development and progress”, clearly indicate their concern with the appearance of “improvement” among ordinary Jamaicans. That the leaders of the convention and the league were obviously (racially) tied to the majority seemed to instil in them a certain anxiety to focus on the “upliftment” of the “uncultured” masses. In their support of “free discussion of questions of public importance” they portrayed themselves as an emerging intelligentsia, tied to the emancipated masses whose “freedom” they celebrated, but from whom they were separated in their lived experiences, lifestyles and status. It is somehow fitting, given the ambivalence of these individuals and groups, that these events should take place on Emancipation Day. The annual celebration of emancipation was not without its controversy, and became a prime target in the struggle for the cultural soul of the island. Many Jamaican elites, like their counterparts in other West Indian territories, questioned the wisdom (and indeed motives) of the celebrations, and the annual general meetings of the People’s Convention and the Jamaica Patriotic League were “in a special way a fount of offence to these gentlemen. Their argument is that remembering Emancipation, tends to keep alive old animosities and old bitterness, and to keep up the cleavages between white and black”. They argued that it served no good purpose to revive memories of a period best forgotten, “for slavery is a shameful remembrance”.38 Indeed, memories of slavery were deliberately kept alive by some churches,

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where every year elderly ex-slaves (for as long as they were alive) were encouraged to recount their experiences during slavery before the congregation. According to Daniel B. Tait, they did so “in crude vernacular. . . . Some of their tales were ludicrous and some were pathetic, but one could easily see that they were cruelly illtreated by their masters.”39 For Tait and others, the idea of narrating the “ludicrous” and “pathetic” tales of ill-treatment by enslavers was alarming. Not only would the evil deeds of the recent past become an important part of the collective memory, but their perpetrators (and their benefactors) might also be held accountable. That the “tales” were delivered by former slaves, in the accessible “crude vernacular” of the majority, only made them potentially more powerful, more real. This aspect of the oral culture had to be discouraged. On the eightieth anniversary of emancipation in 1918, the Gleaner added its weighty voice against commemorating Emancipation Day, arguing that since most of the descendants of ex-slaves allegedly regarded Emancipation Day no differently from any other holiday, it ought not to be treated as a solemn day of thanksgiving. Besides, it claimed that there was no special observance of emancipation in any other country where slavery had previously existed – not in Cuba, Columbia, Venezuela, Panama or Puerto Rico; not in England, Italy or Germany; nowhere. Very strikingly, it made no reference to Jamaica’s sister colonies in the British Caribbean, where the day was annually celebrated. Furthermore, it added, since there had been many thousands of free people in Jamaica on 1 August 1838, there was no very good reason why their descendants should be thankful on any particular day. Moreover, not all descendants of slaves in Jamaica were black since there were also European slaves during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: “some of these slaves survived the horrible ordeal and won to freedom once more: we do not imagine that they or their descendants would have thought that they ought to hold thanksgiving anniversaries on that account”. The paper thus concluded: “we can quite understand the early missionaries endeavouring to make of August 1st a sort of religious anniversary; they wanted the people to be thankful to the God who had led them out of the house of bondage. But, as we have said, August 1st has no sort of religious significance to-day, and after eighty years can have none. There is therefore no reason in the world why anyone should endeavour to observe it as of special and of particular significance.”40 The celebrants of the holiday had other powerful advocates in the media, especially the Jamaica Advocate and the Jamaica Times. The latter argued that Emancipation Day should

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be heartily celebrated by the whole community, black, white, and brown, as the reminder of a great event in our history; an event which we should all be proud of and eager to remember. There seems to us a want of robustness about the thought that it is “nicer” for black people not to remember the days when blacks were slaves. Only to minds enslaved to the Conventions can that fact seem to reflect shame on the freemen of to-day. We think the robust, the wise, and the manly way is to face facts, and to remember every thing in one’s history, pleasant or disagreeable.41

When Emancipation Day became an official public holiday in 1893, therefore, it had little to do with the enlightenment, or even the paternalism, of the elite legislators, but rather with the self-determination of the people who made it their holiday regardless of what their “social betters” felt. Here, through their marches, tea meetings and other recreational activities, as well as their own reduction of their working schedules in the holiday period, they engaged the cultural elites in a determination to mark their freedom. That some members of elite (and their forebears) were implicated in the previous enslavement of the majority may well have encouraged the children of the former slaves to be tenacious in their support for this unsanctioned holiday, and resolute in ignoring the entreaties of members of the cultural elite to “forget” the centuries of abuse and exploitation that so many of them had benefited from. And that the colonial authorities were finally forced to legitimize what had long been practised by ordinary Jamaicans reminds us that while the cultural elites had within their grasp many of the weapons by which to fight a cultural war, they did not hold them all. When the people were determined not to be interfered with, the elites could but hope to let them be, and to offer them “guidance”.

Christmas and New Year By far the most celebrated of the holiday seasons was Christmas/New Year. The celebration of Christmas in Jamaica and the rest of the British Caribbean dates back to the English colonization of the region in the seventeenth century. This (and other English customs) was brought by the early settlers, and appropriated by the enslaved Africans because it was one of the few times of the year that they were granted a few days off from their daily routines. Robert Dirks notes that by the late eighteenth century, the Christmas holidays were more or less regarded by the slaves as a right. What began as a period of merriment for the English settlers was transformed into an annual saturnalia in

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which, as with the English medieval tradition of the Lords of Misrule,42 roles were reversed. Christmas was rapidly africanized and creolized: The thousands of slaves upon whose labors [sic] everything depended abandoned their work and any pretense of subservience and adopted a manner both brash and aggressive, at which their masters took no offense but played along. In the tumult of lively celebration and gala ceremony, it was a time for permissiveness; indeed, throughout the islands Christmas meant setting aside the very premise of inequality upon which relations normally rested and replacing it with a cordial and sportive, if at times somewhat tense, egalitarianism.43

Dirks further notes that “the masters were involved as deeply as the slaves in the saturnalia; in a way, it was as much a white saturnalia as it was a black one”. By the end of slavery, therefore, Christmas was an integral feature of popular culture in the British Caribbean and nowhere more so than in Jamaica, where “the holiday observances . . . [were exceedingly] elaborate . . . [and wholly] given over to the spirit of bacchanal”.44 One of the main features of these creolized Christmas celebrations was costumed musical bands of revellers who were regaled by the planters on Christmas morning with gifts of all sorts. The English folk custom of mummery seemed to have merged with African theatrical tradition to become the colourful creole Jonkonnu bands that would symbolize the Christmas spirit for the next few centuries.45 According to Dirks, Jonkonnus were masked characters impersonated by especially robust men. Edward Long described them in 1774 as wearing “grotesque” (African) masks and carrying swords.46 Identifying the coexistence of two masquerading forms during the eighteenth century that drew on African and European theatrical traditions respectively, Judith Bettelheim argues that by the early decades of the nineteenth century the African costumes had changed somewhat, particularly the headgear, from animal heads of horses or oxen with horns to model houseboats containing puppets of sailors, soldiers and slaves. These changes, she claims, reflected a growing influence of British artistic prototypes. She goes on to assert that the African tradition was slowly replaced by the European as white sponsorship for these festivities increased. Yet, there is clear evidence that African influences persisted into the twentieth century.47 Another spectacular and distinctly creole feature of the festivities was the “Set Girls”. These were elaborately dressed women, mainly coloured, organized in groups or sets. Each set dressed identically using the same colours, normally blue and red. Dirks states: “They wore exquisite, matching gowns of

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the proper hue, their dresses patterned afresh each year and prepared by a seamstress sworn to secrecy lest their opponents discover and better the design.” There was keen, even at times fierce, competition among these sets which were further segregated by pigmentation. Each set was led by a magnificently dressed queen complete with retainers and musicians. This was Christmas carnival, and it received the encouragement and support of the white establishment.48 Kamau Brathwaite further observes that “[p]erhaps because of these factors (participation by the free groups, Establishment encouragement), public entertainments in the island became increasingly orientated (externally, at least) towards European forms (silks, muslins, bands of music); at the same time reflecting the unquestionably creole [his emphasis] colour/class divisions of the society”. 49 It is clear that long before the end of slavery in the 1830s, the celebration of Christmas in Jamaica, with its incorporation of several African and local customs, was quite distinct from its English model. In Britain, Christmas celebrations had been banned by the Puritan-dominated parliament in 1647 because they were considered essentially non-Christian (pagan). Although this ban was eventually lifted by the Stuart monarchy, Christmas celebrations never fully recaptured the joi de vivre of times past, and declined further until the early nineteenth century.50 It was the Victorians who revived, or as some scholars argue, virtually reinvented, Christmas. From the 1830s onwards, middle-class Britain was seized with nostalgia for what they considered to be the old Christmas traditions. Several publications attempted to rekindle the feeling for Christmas of olde on both sides of the Atlantic, of which the most notable were Charles Dickens’s Pickwick Papers (1836) and A Christmas Carol (1843). Golby and Purdue argue that the Victorians renovated and refurbished Christmas by copying the behaviour and customs of the past, especially those of the English upper class, and by adding new elements determined by their own preoccupations in relation to their growing wealth and leisure time, their belief in the importance of the family, and their reaction against the social ills of industrialization (poverty, unemployment and the threat of social unrest). “So Christmas became something of a [private] celebration of the family unit. . . . Children acquired a special place in the Victorian Christmas.”51 This reinvented Christmas was transmitted to their overseas empire by the Victorians. But in Jamaica it encountered long established creole traditions that were deeply entrenched in the popular culture and shared by all classes of local society. These local traditions, however, were regarded by the cultural

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elite reformers and British missionaries as primitive, pagan and barbaric, on account of their largely non-Christian creole content. So as the culture war intensified during the nineteenth century, great emphasis was placed on eradicating the creole customs. Christmas was now to be regarded as an essential part of Victorian Christian culture, the superiority of which had to be emphasized at all times in order to promote the moral and social upliftment of the ex-slaves, and to anglicize society. For all practical purposes, the Christmas season in Jamaica in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries could be considered to have extended roughly from mid-December to about the end of the first week of January. This lengthening of the season was a significant change from what obtained during slavery, when it lasted only from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Day. From about mid-December, references to Christmas became more frequent and the announcements in the island’s newspapers pointed to a society whose preparations for the festive season would build into almost frenzied activity. Christmas advertisements began to appear in the press even before, from late November; and during December the merchants decorated their stores to entice people to shop. Perhaps the chief signal of the coming holidays was a gala horse racing meeting at Kingston in mid-December, to which people of all races and classes, male and female, from town and country flocked in festive mood. Thereafter there was a variety of social activities: fairs, parties, dinners, concerts and theatricals, and sporting events. A shopping mania developed in the main commercial areas of the towns, reaching its climax on Christmas Eve with droves of shoppers and onlookers parading the streets on foot and riding the horse-drawn buses and tramcars. This commercialization of the festival was a post-slavery development that sought to capitalize on the growing purchasing power of the ex-slaves and their descendants as they became integrated into the new money economy. By the late nineteenth century, Christmas shopping was an integral aspect of the festive season indulged in by people of all classes. Hence, the report in 1881 that “[t]he several Fancy Stores are crowded with eager purchasers throughout the day. Seldom if ever has a more extensive and elegant variety of goods been offered to public patronage”, was by no means singular or strange. In Kingston, Spanish Town and other rural townships, the wholesale and retail establishments were brilliantly illuminated in order to encourage customers on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas morning.52 Several contemporary commentators observed that women were the principal Christmas shoppers: the “fancy stores in Harbour St. [are] well filled

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with the fair sex shopping for [the] festive season”. Merchants induced customers to spend by offering credit payable at their convenience. Many people thus incurred considerable debts in order to live up to a growing Christmas tradition of materialism.53 It was not only the wholesale and retail merchants who capitalized on the shopping spree. Small vendors, with their decorated stalls in markets across the island, also cashed in. “Grand market” was a creole tradition that dated back to slavery. What was new in the late nineteenth century was the wider variety of foods and goods, many imported, on offer. In Kingston, the Victoria Market occupied centre stage on Christmas morning where people from all walks of life gravitated: “indeed it would hardly be regarded as Christmas by Kingston folk without a visit to the market. This is a great centre of attraction from daylight to 10 o’clock on every Christmas morning. The little folk talk about it for weeks in advance, and the big folk begin their preparations for it as early. The Christmas gathering is a time honoured institution, and no one would think of omitting it.”54 All sorts of foodstuff were on sale at these markets: fruit, especially oranges, yams and other ground provisions, fresh vegetables and eggs, and American food importations. By far, the main attraction of the markets in town and country was the “excellent display of Christmas beef”, for which large numbers of persons attended early on Christmas morning to buy.55 The grand markets were not by any means limited to food; gift items and toys were also available. The markets, particularly the Victoria in Kingston, were handsomely decorated on Christmas morning, as were the patrons and vendors: “the most pleasing sight . . . was the dense array of beauty and fashion that, as on former occasions, graced that foot of King Street and flitted to and fro along the several passages of the market, between the tempting display of good things appertaining to the animal and vegetable kingdom”.56 In many respects, the grand markets captured the essence of the Jamaican Christmas at the turn of the twentieth century. With their stalls laden with the choicest fruit of the season, toys and puddings, foodstuffs and beef, they were a scene of joy and gladness where “hundreds of friends and acquaintances showed the happy sign of union by the return of smiles and ‘hands all round’” amidst a cacophony of noisy sounds made by the bands of music, shouts of vendors, salutations of shoppers, shrieks and cries of joyful children, firecrackers (squibs), fee-fees, toys and so on.57 For those who promoted anglicization, Christmas commerce would have been regarded as a key indicator of a desired change in the cultural orientation

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of the Jamaican people. As we shall see, the merchandise on sale in the shops and stores were for the most part imported from Britain and the United States, with all the implications for influencing local tastes and customs; and even at the grand markets, in addition to local foodstuffs vendors sought to attract their clients with imported decorations and other goods. Thus even in the most creole of commercial settings, Anglo-American cultural influences were discernible. That notwithstanding, the grand markets played a major role in preserving the creole flavour of Christmas throughout the period despite the efforts at anglicization.58 As was the case with other aspects of the lived culture of the island, this was reflective of the consistently dynamic relationship between the “civilizing” forces and those whose long-extant, yet constantly evolving creole culture had served them well. The cultural elites might have envisioned a war in which the forces of European civility would triumph, but the reality was one where there was much more engagement and selective embrace than the elites had counted on. Jamaican merchants and vendors also capitalized on a new feature of the Victorian Christmas – the exchange of greeting cards which were imported, with the very idea itself, from Britain.59 Christmas cards were a new invention in Britain itself, only becoming popular among the upper and middle classes there after the introduction of the half-penny stamp in 1870, which made their postage cheap. By the 1880s the practice had spread to all sections of British society.60 What was good for the motherland was good for the local cultural elites. In Jamaica, cards were sold in variously sized packets. Some were “celebrated for the beauty of their designs and general artistic arrangement”. By the mid-1870s, elite Jamaicans had begun to adopt the Christmas card as an integral feature of their festivities,61 a clear indication of growing British cultural influence among that class. On the other side of the coin, however, some attempts were made to creolize this new culture form, so that a decade later local cards featuring Jamaican motifs began to appear on the market. According to Andrew M. Scott of Harbour Street, “We have inspected with much pleasure a small but exceedingly pretty parcel of hand painted Christmas Cards, Ivorite and cardboard, the handiwork of a Jamaican lady resident of Rae Town.” These could hardly compete with the mass produced imports. So popular had the Christmas card become that from 1894 the postmaster of Jamaica began to issue advisories, suggesting when cards should be mailed to ensure delivery before Christmas Day.62 The custom of gift giving at Christmas and New Year, long a feature of the saturnalia of the slave days, was reinforced in a more individualistic form

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after emancipation by the new Victorian focus on the family and children. Most gift items available in the fancy stores and markets were imported. Shoppers in Kingston were invited to visit, for instance, the Myrtle Bank Christmas bazaar, which was open every evening “for sale of Christmas and New Year gifts”. The bazaar offered white-skinned wax dolls, framed pictures, travel and adventure books, watches, jewellery cases, games and puzzles, among other imported items.63 Kingston stores offered Christmas gifts ranging from toys, clothes and jewellery to household items such as “elegant cut glass ware, superior Electro plated ware, Statuettes, China breakfast and dinner sets of elegant designs, Mirrors, Chiffoneers [sic] and Modern Household Furniture in great variety, also lamps, Vases, Oil Paintings with an endless variety of other beautiful articles”.64 Although these imported gift items may have reinforced the British cultural influence mainly among the elite classes, towards the end of the century there was also a small number of local products bought, if only as curiosities to send to friends and relatives abroad. “Some of the novelties offered are ornamented with conventional Jamaica subjects such as alligators, pine apples etc. in hammered silver ware, and a number of beautiful ornaments are also offered, made by mounting alligator teeth . . . . A beautiful and elegant pair of bracelets were shown made out of Jamaica 1d pieces mounted and enamelled.”65 The gifts with which the season had come to be associated by the late nineteenth century were often presented with other imported cultural symbols that were increasingly reflective of efforts to anglicize society – the Christmas tree and decorations. Ostensibly originating in Germany, the Christmas tree was universally adopted in Britain after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had it installed at Windsor in the 1840s. By the later nineteenth century the tree with its colourful lights, decorations and gifts had replaced the traditional mistletoe as the centrepiece of family gatherings. In the words of Golby and Purdue, “The tree was at the centre of a family Christmas and it dominated the home; it appealed especially to children and represented the new importance given to the indulgence of presents within the family and to friends, presents being attached to the tree or laid underneath it.”66 As Jamaica’s elite classes sought to identify culturally with Britain, it was not long before they added the Christmas tree to their celebrations. By the late nineteenth century, it was given prominence as a symbol of the season and, whether in stores as an attraction or in churches, it often “afforded . . . a little amusement”. Very often the tree was used to provide entertainment in order to raise funds for some “worthy cause”.67

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The Christmas tree was not, however, the only symbolic decoration of the festive season. Similar to the British tradition which emphasized the use of lights to symbolize the birth of the sun (a pagan festival that Christmas had replaced), lights and plants became a big part of the Jamaican Christmas. Some business places offered “Grand Illumination! Unsurpassed Decoration!” while others were brightly lit with Chinese lanterns, variegated coloured cups with floating wicks, flowers of brilliant colours, intermingled with the green of coconut boughs and other kinds of foliage which formed handsome decorations to the frontages of commercial establishments.68 In addition to stores, Kingston’s public buildings and churches were also handsomely decorated with “flowers and foliage – the orange predominating”. So too were the grand markets and the vendors’ stalls therein: “The stalls in the market are gayly decorated with flags, bunting, palm branches, colored paper, tinsel and an abundance of flowers.”69 While the “traditions” may have been borrowed, their manifestations were distinctly Jamaican/creole. The use of the palm branches, orange blossoms and fruit spoke to a creolized concept of Christmas in Jamaica. According to the editor of the Morning Journal, Thus, we decorate our churches, both in the Mother Country and in this island; and to a certain extent we follow the example of the former in bedecking our residences, though with different materials. In England where the coldness of the climate is favourable to their growth, they employ the holly, the laurel, the mistletoe and other evergreens for that purpose. In Jamaica the aromatic orange branch is the favourite . . . in all stages from the earliest germ of the delicate white and sweet scented blossom to the fully ripe and golden fruit, so suggestive to a classical scholar, newly arrived from a Northern country, of the fabled apples of Hesperides.70

Along with the Christmas tree, card and gift came the emerging icon of Father Christmas or Santa Claus. This mythical figure had its roots in legends of the ancient southern European Saturnalia and the northern Yuletide celebrations, and in the Christian era it assumed varying forms in different countries; but its popularization in nineteenth-century Britain may have come via the United States where, particularly in New York, the Dutch legend of St Nicholas had been fulsomely embraced and americanized in Clement Clark Moore’s poem A Visit from St Nicholas (1823). It was the Americans who portrayed Santa Claus travelling in a sleigh drawn by reindeer; and Thomas Nast illustrated Santa as a large, jolly white-bearded figure dressed in a red suit with white fur trimmings and matching cap. This was the figure which eventually

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captured the hearts of the Victorians on both sides of the Atlantic,71 and not least in Jamaica. Many of the references to Santa Claus in the Jamaican newspapers used him as an advertising gimmick. In 1918, Times Store capitalized on the growing popularity of the figure by having Father Christmas and his workshop in the store. Consumers were told of the large number of toys and novelties which Santa and his big staff were preparing for Christmas. According to the Gleaner, the prospect of seeing him caused “no little excitement . . . among children all over the island”. He was available to see them between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. each day for the week leading up to Christmas Day. By then the Santa persona was already fully integrated as an important icon of Christmas and could be found at several seasonal events.72 Another British cultural import, the Christmas carol, was also incorporated into the Jamaican season, especially in the churches. In Britain, carolling assumed more importance after 1850 than before: old carols were revived and new ones added to the popular repertoire. British churches also incorporated carols in their Christmas services.73 Not surprisingly, in Jamaica carols also became the focal points in the choral and “semi-choral” church services.74 Carolling, however, was not restricted to religious locations. In 1872, for instance, “after midnight, the citizens of Kingston were awakened out of their sleep by the agreeable singing of a large band of both sexes who, after the manner of the English Carol Singers, paraded the several streets of the city, singing a diversity of hymns appropriate to the season, by which numbers were awakened to their early marketing, while those who chose to lie abed were lulled to slumber by the sacred melody”. The cultural elites considered carolling to be “a vast improvement on the somewhat boisterous [creole, un-Christian] minstrelsy of former days”,75 that is, the Jonkonnu bands which, as we will see, they avidly sought to discourage. Jamaican churches held late night services on Christmas Eve, after which many merrymakers resumed their promenades of the commercial areas until about 2:00 a.m. when the markets opened for business. They remained open until about 10:00 a.m. so that people could attend special mid-morning services in various churches.76 The middle-class Victorian emphasis on family and privacy seemed to have a noticeable impact on all classes of people in Jamaica by the late nineteenth century. Even some of the lower classes opted to spend Christmas Day at home with the family. In the townships, after going to the Christmas market, “the people retire to their homes and enjoy themselves in equally innocent

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and simple fashion. The evolution has been great and all for the best.”77 In the countryside, [t]he men would go to their fields on the 24th and bring home enough yams etc. to last the family for one week. No one worked for that week, all they did was to eat and drink and visit each other. On New Year’s Eve they would go back to the field and gather enough for the week ahead and the same thing was done – no man worked for that week. There was always plenty to eat and drink though money was hard to find. The people were happy, they drank what rum they could afford at their homes . . . and those who had gave to those had none.78

The cultural elites welcomed this. According to the Gleaner in 1895, “the tendency seems still to pass from public show to private social reunion and amusement”. The scene in Black River in 1900 appeared typical: “all the delights of the season seem to have been found in family gatherings. This after all, is perhaps the best way of spending Christmas; indeed it is the English way, and we cannot do better than follow the customs of the Mother Country”.79 The anglicizing process seemed to be taking hold in the celebration of Christmas. For their part, the cultural elites had no difficulties trying to anglicize their own observance of Christmas wherever possible. Hence: We have no mistletoe bough, here in Jamaica, and hunt the slipper is seldom played, even by juveniles, who do not, as a rule, regard it as one of the games peculiarly appropriate to the Christmas season. But there are several points of resemblance in the manner in which the day and its vigil are generally observed in the Old Country and in Jamaica, which shew that however we may differ in some respects, from the influence of climate in particular, as well as in the peculiarities of constituted society here and across the water, there is yet a bond of union between us which is illustrated in each successive recurrence of the festive season.80

As in Britain where the middle and upper classes came to regard Christmas as a time for family reunions, in Jamaica among the more “genteel” families, relatives travelled long distances to visit each other. At these gatherings, there were “good things” specially provided to whet the appetite, please the eye and cement personal and social bonds.81 “It was usual to rise early on Xmas morning and mix a huge bowl of egg punch [a hot drink made of whipped eggs, rum, sugar and hot water with local cinnamon] which the elders enjoyed while the children opened their Santa Claus parcels. Then everyone would go to early morning [church service] and Christmas dinner would be enjoyed in the late afternoon.”82

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The Jamaican elites also emulated their British peers by making Christmas dinner the central event of the day. If the British celebrated with roast beef, turkey, goose, ham, plum pudding, wines and chestnuts, coffee and tea,83 wealthy Jamaicans took it a step further. Their Christmas dinners were lavish with roast beef, which they proudly described “as second . . . to Roast Beef in old England”, dominating the fare. This was supplemented by a wide variety of imported meats: hams, turkey, geese, grouse, pheasant, partridge, pork, mutton and fish; in addition to plum pudding, wines, champagne, cognac, ale, beer, whisky, rum or gin.84 By the 1890s, those who no longer wanted to entrust the preparation of their cherished Christmas dinner to their lowerclass domestic servants, could have it catered to taste by commercial restaurants.85 These elite family gatherings were spiced up by games such as “Blind Man’s Buff”, “Musical Chairs”, and “Kiss in the Ring”, in which grown-ups participated with children; and the playing of music on organs or pianos, accompanied by dancing: waltzes, quadrilles, polkas and so on.86 Although children and family became the focus of the elite Christmas, by the early twentieth century, there was an accompanying paternalistic Christian charity towards the “respectable” or “deserving” poor. In Britain, the Victorian social conscience exhibited concern for those less fortunate; so they drew on earlier tradition and “saw Christmas as a time when the poorer and deserving members of the community should be remembered. The Victorian middle classes put much effort into giving to the poor at Christmas and into pointing out who the needy were.”87 The Jamaican elites also drew on earlier creole tradition of acts of charity which in fact dated back to the days of slavery when planters gave their enslaved workers gifts of food, clothes and money (see above). That tradition was maintained on many estates after emancipation. At Knockalva, for instance, the proprietor, Morris Malcolm, “[g]oes to England and return for Christmas Season Bringing all kinds of Present for his choice [sic]”. In other places, “every property owner . . . killed a few cows on Christmas Eve; all labourers got whatever beef they wanted at 3d. per lb., they did not pay for it then but would do some work after Christmas in payment for same”.88 Such acts of charity also extended beyond the estates. According to the Morning Journal, the wealthy at Christmas, given that they would have “opened wide their hands and contributed to the Christmas cheer of the poor around them will . . . enjoy their roast beef and plum pudding, and perhaps their luscious turkey and succulent ham with a keener relish, while their port and sherry will acquire a more fruity and nutty flavour, ripened as they will

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be by the benediction of the recipients of their gifts”.89 The general pattern was for one or two notables in a town or district to establish a subscription fund to which the wealthy contributed in cash. The money collected was used to purchase food items which, together with other donations in kind, would be distributed to the poor usually during the period between Christmas Day and Epiphany (6 January) at a special event that included entertainment. Sometimes this involved a dinner treat with a Christmas tree for added effect. The general pattern of distribution at these doles was for each person to receive one pound of bread, sugar, rice and beef, respectively.90 After the climax of the Christmas Day celebrations, the festivities continued into the new year. Centre stage, however, was reserved for watch night church services on New Year’s Eve signalled by the peeling of church bells. For some elites, the Christmas season meant a gay round of balls and dances, both public and private. By the early twentieth century, the Myrtle Bank hotel each year marked the dawn of both Christmas and New Year with elaborate and expensive dinners and dances. In 1915, after paying the admission price of two shillings and sixpence, patrons could dance from 9:30 p.m. until midnight to the music provided by the West India Regiment band.91 As far as public entertainment went, this could be found in some commercial places. Gall’s Bazaar, in particular, provided a wide variety of activities on the Myrtle Bank grounds. Gall’s entertainment season began with a garden party where the chief attraction was a gas light illumination of the grounds with artistic devices and mottoes. Those who attended the bazaar were surrounded by an abundant supply of refreshments – ice creams, sandwiches and a Good Templars Fountain to supply iced fruit drinks. The lawn of the Myrtle Bank was used for dancing to the music of the city band.92 The Conversorium and Streadwick’s Marine Garden were two other popular places of public entertainment. In 1894 the former featured a Christmas tree, ices and cakes, a Gypsies’ tent, and a “wonderful Chinese Dwarf”, among other attractions.93 Streadwick’s was more ambitious and provided twelve nights of frolic. Described as “the Ranelagh, Vauxhall, or Cremorne of Kingston”, in 1888 it featured fireworks as well as theatrical set pieces for nightly entertainment. In addition, bold efforts were made to create an artificial environment for the pursuit of northern wintery entertainment: Tobogganing, skating, swinging, traveling [sic] on the switchback railway were all going forward at the same time, and the comic disasters which sometimes occurred were borne with the utmost good humour. In the skating rink . . . those who devoted

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themselves to the sport [were] . . . evidently practiced [sic] skaters. . . . The Ice Carnival was a very successful scenic illusion, and the placing of large blocks of ice in the room heightened it by superinducing a real sensation of cold in the visitors. The lamps and lanterns of variegated colours added to the brilliancy of the scene.94

Streadwick prohibited “the inebriating cup, and the intoxicating excitement of the lottery”95 to preserve the emphasis on clean family fun. As will be shown in chapter 8, fairs, carnivals, fêtes, festivals, garden or lawn parties were also quite commonplace throughout the island during the Christmas season. Many times, these events were linked with churches, and were mainly fund-raising occasions. From the 1890s, the Roman Catholic Church Union and Sodality hosted annual garden parties, first at Clovelly Park and later at the more spacious Winchester Park. With their themes and varied attractions, these parties became a much anticipated event for Kingstonians on Christmas Day after their dinner. The rural areas, too, had public entertainments of this sort.96 Perhaps the most elaborate of its kind was the garden fête at King’s House, organized by Lady Probyn in December 1918 to augment Jamaica’s war fund. The grounds were elaborately illuminated with multicoloured lights, and dinner on the lawn consisted of: Fish.

Choice of lobster salad [or] shrimp salad.

Meat.

Choice of turkey and Ham, Chicken and Ham, Roast Duck, Roast Beef, Suckling Pig, [or] Chicken Salad

Green Salad. Sweets.

Choice of: Fruit Salad, Mince Pie, Cream Puffs, [or] Peaches andCream

Coffee

In addition, there was a variety of amusements, including a play, concert, wheel of fortune, and dancing in the ball room.97 A number of concerts and theatrical performances also contributed to the Christmas entertainment. These were generally held in the major townships such as Montego Bay, Spanish Town, Ulster Spring, Annotto Bay, Linstead, Christiana; and by 1920 the Christmas morning concert at the Ward Theatre had become a feature in Kingston.98 The advent of motion pictures in the early twentieth century added to the public entertainment at Christmastime in the urban centres of Kingston, Spanish Town and Montego Bay. In

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Kingston the principal cinemas advertised different shows for each day of the season.99 Much of the entertainment which marked the Christmas season was directed at the children in the community. In keeping with the new Christian Victorian emphasis on children, events such as the children’s festival and flower service in the St Ann’s Bay Parish Church in 1895 were held: “[t]he children were all very nicely attired in pure white, each carrying a large bouquet of flowers which were presented and laid before the altar”. The symbolism was very powerful indeed. While Figure 17 A holiday crowd at the Kingston many of the events for children were waterfront. (Source: H.G. DeLisser, Twenchurch-related, some, like the chiltieth century Jamaica [Kingston, 1913].) dren’s costume ball at old King’s House in Spanish Town on 21 December 1899, were not. By 1915, the events planned for children had become more elaborate. In that year, there were plans to drive some lucky children, chosen in a competition, in an automobile (with fairies to watch over their welfare) to St Ann where they were to expect a merry feast and then to be taken to “Gnome City” for a few magical hours. Thereafter they would be taken home “to be snugly tucked in their cots”.100 Many of Kingston’s residents took advantage of another popular form of entertainment – rowing across the Kingston harbour. It was customary on Christmas morning after visiting Victoria Market for parents to take their children to the pier for a row out to sea.101 As in Victorian Britain, outdoor sports began to occupy a major place in the entertainment menu of the Jamaican Christmas season by the late nineteenth century. Although the sports played in Jamaica in December–January were different, their British provenance added to the already powerful cultural influences from that source. That said, all of these activities were creolized and had a distinct Jamaican creole flavour. The season was to some extent bracketed by two major horse race meetings in Kingston, one in mid-December, the other at the start of the new year. In between there were smaller race

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meetings held sporadically in different parts of the country: for example, at Port Maria, Black River, Mandeville, Cumberland Pen and Lime Tree Garden in St Catherine, Montego Bay, Spanish Town, Port Antonio, and Drax Hall.102 Cricket was one of the major sporting activities during the Christmas season. Matches were played all over the island, particularly on Boxing and New Year’s Days; but the centrepiece was the uniquely creole New Year cricket carnival held annually at Sabina Park from 1892 under the patronage of the governor. Here the imperial sport of cricket was refashioned in a very un-English way to suit the tastes of an elitist creole Jamaican Christmas. The “Grand Clown Match”, as it was called, began by featuring “an eleven of clown cricketers in their varied costumes”, playing against the Kingston Club. Indeed, according to the Colonial Standard, “The novelty of the game played, may have accounted in a great degree for the popular interest manifested as the match was we believe one of the first of the kind ever played in Jamaica. The dresses worn by the Clowns were as unique as they were remarkable in conception. All the world of clown harlequins, court jesters, pierrots and stage minstrels were represented and their vari-coloured dresses made a bright spectacle.” The band of the West India Regiment added to the festivities. This became an annual elite New Year event, and was soon replicated by the middle-class coloured Melbourne Cricket Club.103 During the late nineteenth century, rifle shooting competitions gradually came to occupy an important place in the holiday season, particularly on New Year’s Day at Norman Range in Kingston. As an exclusively elitist pastime, its appeal was limited and was always likely to come a poor second to the cricket carnival at Sabina Park.104 Athletic sports were also very popular on New Year’s Day and attracted large crowds both in town and country. For instance, in 1881 in Spanish Town, there was a sports events on the racecourse which included Scottish games, foot races, climbing the greasy pole, a horse race and shooting gallery. In 1885, there was a similar event, to which a tug-of-war match between a team from the Royal Artillery and one from a visiting warship and a bicycle race were added. As cycling became popular, that too was added to the Christmas sporting calendar by the end of the nineteenth century. Other sporting events included football, polo and hockey matches. Moreover, outdoor activities were not limited to land sports. For instance, “some excellent aquatic sports” were held at Baker’s wharf, Port Antonio, in 1882; and from the 1890s the Kingston Yacht Club held annual regattas and aquatic sports in the Christmas season.105

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For persons who sought more leisurely amusement, there was some encouragement to go into the rural areas for relaxation. For instance, in 1896 the railway service provided an excursion train on the Port Antonio line for Boxing Day, “to give pleasure seekers an opportunity of visiting the natural bridge which is one of the most interesting sights in the Island”. Excursions into the countryside were also linked with agricultural shows such as those at Cumberland Pen and Kendal, which were part of the seasonal attractions.106 The entertainments described above were organized by the social elites mainly for themselves, although lower-class Jamaicans could attend if they could afford the entrance fees. Often many could not, which threatened to but did not deprive them of Christmas joy. The less affluent found their enjoyment elsewhere, in activities that traditionally took place in the public arena of the streets, but these became the targets of suppression as the reforming elites sought to purge Christmas of its Afro-creole “impurities”, and to stress private, indoor, family celebrations. Lower-class Jamaicans, however, were not about to be led or driven into a cultural cul-de-sac, and so notwithstanding elite pressures, they fought to preserve many of their Afro-creole traditions, especially in the more remote rural areas: drumming, trumpeting, “fiddling and dancing, and [even] the parading of Sets through the ‘broad central street’ of Savannah-la-Mar”.107 The elaborate Set Girl parades, however, do not appear to have survived beyond the 1860s. Immediately after the Morant Bay massacre of 1865, lower-class festivities were targeted under the guise of outlawing practices deemed un-Christian, uncivil and/or dangerous. In December of that year, the inspector-general of police announced that during the Christmas holidays, the provisions of the Towns and Communities Act with respect to the blowing of horns, shells, or other noisy instruments, or the beating of drums in public thoroughfares under pretence of “John Canoeing” or for other illegal purposes would be enforced. In order to effect these laws, the Volunteer Forces throughout the island were placed under arms from the twenty-second of December to the fifth of January. As a result of the ban, “the usual sports generally indulged in by the lower classes were laid aside”, and Christmas Day had a dull appearance. Since a special police licence was subsequently required for Jonkonnu revellers to go onto the public streets, the colonial authorities were able to restrict their activities, especially in the major towns. Although the Gleaner may have exaggerated in 1878 in saying that “all these things have vanished out of sight”, their decline was perceptible.108 Nevertheless, masquerading did survive into the twentieth century, more

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strongly in the rural areas, but it could still be found in poor urban areas in defiance of the law. In 1895 the Gleaner stated: “We have the ‘John Canoe’ parties still but in a very degenerate form that attracts scarcely any attention. Some one rigs himself out in a hideous dress and mask and marches through the low-class streets followed by a motley crowd.”109 Julia Mullings recalled seeing Jonkonnu bands at the turn of the century: “you would also see people wearing a lot of ‘John Canoe’ faces [masks] and dancing . . . [and] doing various kinds of tricks”.110 As was the case ever since slavery, they dressed in “all sorts of m[ult]icolored cloths [and] horsehead[s]”, with some on stilts.111 They paraded in the thoroughfares, “leaping, jumping and dancing”; and allegedly frightened children, who sought refuge under their beds.112 As late as 1920, Jonkunnu bands could be found at Buff Bay, Lacovia and Prospect, Brown’s Town and Richmond.113 There were also other, more elite, forms of masquerade, composed of reputedly “respectable young men who would make themselves ridiculous by dressing up as Red Indians”114 which was described as “a kind of rough acting . . . in the open air – accompanied by the unmusical chanting of women and the shaking of small calabash rattles by way of accompaniment to the monstrous ‘tumtum-tum’ of a drum”;115 “or [dressed] in female attire, [they] patrol the Streets, visiting the homes of friends, who would pretend that they did not know who they were”.116 These young men would sponsor a party on Christmas night, and dance in their masks, so well hidden that “the Ladies who [were] invited [didn’t] know who they [were] dancing with” until the masks were removed at midnight.117 Elite youths were borrowing a culture form from the lower class to spice up their Christmas, and by so doing, they indicated that the process of creolization was relentless and affected all classes of Jamaicans. That did not mean that the cultural elites had consciously surrendered to the forces of creolization. Instead as they clung ever more to Victorian values of decorum and order, they increasingly called on the police to put a stop to pastimes considered dangerous especially if indulged in by the “irresponsible” lower classes, notably the uncontrolled firing of guns and squibs. A tax on firearms may have had the desired effect of less spontaneous gunfire at Christmas by the 1870s,118 so much so that the coloured-owned Morning Journal in 1871 lamented that “there was not the usual burning of gunpowder at 12 o’clock on Sunday night, in pursuance of the old approved, time-honoured mode of ushering in the festival day of peace and love and goodwill. . . . [S]everal people . . . have expressed their regret that this harmless old custom of the country should this time have been overlooked”.119 However, in 1882

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the white-owned Colonial Standard reported with satisfaction that “the firing of guns on the Christmas eve, a practice absurd enough in itself, but nevertheless one which is, at this season, indicative of a buoyancy of spirit, was almost entirely dispensed with”.120 The objections to the uncontrolled firing of squibs were ostensibly both on account of the noise created, as well as the dangers of fire in communities where most buildings were wooden. “Any urchin who threw a firework in the air” could start a major fire, as indeed allegedly happened in Barry Street, Kingston, in December 1879.121 Nathaniel Davis was only one of many who were arrested for this practice and in 1872 he was sentenced to a fine of one shilling or three days’ imprisonment.122 With typical double standard, however, the authorities seemed prepared to tolerate the exploding of squibs as long as it was done in a “responsible” and “controlled” manner, that is, by the elites. Indeed, many elite parents routinely indulged their children by purchasing large amounts of squibs, and even the police joined in the fun of the explosions in the streets, public markets and at fairs.123 It would have struck Davis and others among the lower classes that the selective enforcement of the laws against public noise and disorder was reflective of the larger inequities in the society. It is little wonder, then, that they continued to breach the unfair barriers which were constructed to keep them quiet and in their place; and in so doing, they joined some of their creole elite counterparts in noisy revelry Jamaica style. The elites, after all, seemed ambivalent in their insistence on decorum. Similar attempts were made, and with similar results, to stamp out what the cultural elites considered the evil of gambling that was customary at Christmas time. There were numerous raffling and lottery establishments in Kingston, liberally patronized by elite and masses alike.124 From the 1870s, however, the authorities embarked on a vigorous police campaign to suppress the practice which met only with limited success until a new law of 1899 seemed to push it underground for a short time (see chapter 11).125 These restrictions threatened to take the cheer out of Christmas for many Jamaicans, mainly those of the lower class, but also some of the middling and upper classes. However, as a rule the social reformers were unapologetic; staid and sombre celebrations would serve as proof that the people were being Christianized and civilized. The Colonial Standard stood firm: “Lightminded folks call this dull, and so it is, when compared with the revelry which prevailed 20 or 30 years ago at this season of the year; but the more thoughtfulare disposed to regard it as an indicator of the improved social condition of the peasantry.”126

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For lower-class Jamaicans, therefore, particularly those in the urban centres, as the nineteenth century wore on Christmas was increasingly threatened with being stripped of those traditional creole customs that conflicted with the Christian ideals, values and practices of a cultural elite bent on anglicizing the society. They were pressed to eschew the “raucous” and “outlandish” saturnalian creole features of old. To some degree this was successful; the outward manifestations of such “excesses” of the past declined. In 1878 the Gleaner could cynically assert that black Jamaicans were a docile people, easily governed . . . [who] know how to cater to their own amusement, after their own rough fashion. Given a somewhat better meal than usual, quantum suf. of psalm-singing, intermixed with an abundance of dancing and praying, after their own fashion, with an occasional horn of rum and water; and, when they can get it, a bottle or two of inferior Teneriffe, with a small allowance of porter and very light ale, by way of superlative treat, and provided he keeps sober, Quashie will keep the peace also.127

By the last decades of the nineteenth century, reports from various parts of the island indicated that Christmas was “very quiet”.128 In the deep rural areas, they still had “the usual dances . . . and tea meetings”, and paraded the streets on Christmas eve singing, eating, drinking, tooting horns, blowing fee-fees and firing squibs; but, with few exceptions, they were generally “well behaved” and, as good Christians, went to church next morning.129 Annotto Bay typified what Christmas had become in many rural towns by the turn of the twentieth century: it “passed off quietly, soberly and orderly with sports and pastimes of various kinds by way of amusements such as picnics, masquerades, and target firing. . . . The good behaviour which prevailed speaks well for our people. It is a pleasing fact to note the absence of drunkenness.”130 According to the Gleaner in 1895: “The people were on their trial as a responsible community and they preferred to imitate the quiet pleasures that had also been introduced into English homes.”131 What is clear is that although quieter and well behaved, the people had not in fact given up their street revelry and gun firing. In many ways they remained defiant of the legal restrictions on their celebrations. In fact, things still got out of hand from time to time. For instance, after shopping and cleaning up on Christmas Eve the people of Mount Pleasant would gather in the village square: “By 7 or 8 p.m., [the] square [would be] buzzing with [the] district band playing [the] latest hits and the ‘rumers’ taking their ‘quatie quatie’ rum, [and] licking stick at one another.”132 Such displays of “vulgar”, “raucous”,

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unchristian-like behaviour were deplored by the cultural elites, but they were unable to stamp them out entirely. Some expressions of the people’s culture might have been outlawed and driven underground, but they were not eradicated. In one strategic move, the people quieted their exuberance on Christmas Day, only to redouble their celebrations on Boxing Day unimpeded by any references to the Saviour’s birth – the fairs, dances and general festivities were soon to be unsurpassed. Once again, their selective embrace of the “superior” culture and their unwillingness to be dictated to, left the cultural elites frustrated, as ordinary Jamaicans expressed their independence in their unrelenting determination to decide how they would practise their culture.

Other Festive Days Although not public holidays, there were two other festivals in the cultural calendar, namely, St Valentine’s Day and May Day. From the late 1860s, several advertisements appeared in the press announcing a wide assortment of Valentines for sale – sentimental, comic, semi-comic and satirical, for both bachelors and unmarried girls. These were both gifts and mainly cards, the latter being sent by mail anonymously to a person of the opposite sex on 14 February.133 In 1875 the Gleaner reported that this celebration was more extensively observed in Jamaica than previously, as several thousand Valentines had been imported, with the largest assortment available for sale each night at the Myrtle Bank hotel until late in the evening.134 Very soon the custom was tarnished by unscrupulous individuals who sent cards with sexual content to young girls. According to the Morning Journal in 1871, “Some vulgar drawings and paintings, taken from books of low character, which are proscribed in this country, accompanied with abusive words, suggesting in some cases, and insinuating in others, unchaste actions, were sent to some young ladies in this city. In a great many instances, the unfortunate recipients were children in age, some not having left school.”13 Since this was essentially a middle- and upper-class celebration, for once the cultural elites could not point the finger of blame at the lower classes for such vulgar behaviour. Perhaps because of this unsavoury development, the celebration of Valentine’s day soon fell into desuetude and by the 1880s advertisements no longer appeared in the press.136 During the First World War, however, attempts were made to revive the festival, and it was commemorated by garden parties in aid

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of church charities. The cards exhibited and exchanged at these functions were mainly local hand-made ones, since importations were difficult to obtain during the war.137 It is difficult to know the extent to which these local cards imitated the previously imported versions, or if the sentiments they contained were reflective of local expressions of affection. The May Day festival was yet another late-nineteenth-century importation. It was introduced in 1893 by Misses Ashby and Small at the Ladies College which they founded at Half Way Tree, was taken to Mandeville by Ashby, who opened another school there after the turn of the twentieth century, and then started at the Shortwood College in 1917 by the principal, Miss A. Whitehead. These celebrations were patterned on those in which all three women had participated as students at Whitelands College in England where Professor John Ruskin, writer and art critic, was the moving spirit behind those activities.138 Traditionally in Europe, the May Day festival signified a renewal of nature with the advent of spring and the reappearance of flowers, and was greeted by joyous dancing around a garlanded pole from which hung streamers held by the dancers. Ruskin, however, was instrumental in having the celebration at Whitelands conform to his ideas of nature and womanhood. He regarded nature as sacred, and thus as man’s greatest blessing. He also believed that women should be queens – to their lovers, their husbands and their sons, and so remain “regally” within the defining parameters of the patriarchy. These two ideas combined in his desire to keep the May festival alive and to place young women at the centre of its celebration.139 As practised at the Jamaican schools cited above, the annual festival witnessed the crowning of one girl as “Queen of May” on the first of May. The queen was elected by a majority of her fellow students, not based solely on physical beauty, but also on her qualities of “head and heart”. “She must have proven herself gentle, kind, wise and good. She must have ruled herself well before she is singled out to rule her fellows with which is by no means a nominal sceptre.”140 The festival’s venue was decorated with ferns and flowers, as was the throne. The girls were all dressed in white with wreaths of wild flowers on their heads, and wands of silver with tops of flowers and ribbons in hand. The coronation was preceded by a religious service and an address by the presiding clergyman. Each girl was then given a ballot, and the one receiving the most votes was declared queen. She then put on a pink or blue robe edged with ermine with a long train borne by two pages, a crown of flowers, and a cross on ribbon was fastened round her neck. Led by a boy herald bearing a banner, the new queen, previous queens and the girls then went in procession

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to the throne-room. After being enthroned, and homage paid to her by all her “subjects”, the queen read a proclamation declaring the day a school holiday, and then distributed prizes and certificates to her peers. Thereafter she led the party to view the May Pole dance by the younger girls. “And it was indeed a pretty sight to see the little things plait and unplait the ribbons, march to and fro, round and reverse, etc. without a hitch.”141 Quite different, however, were the May Day festivals later held by the Roman Catholics at Winchester Park. These were essentially garden parties with theatricals, concerts, phonograph exhibitions and athletic sports, but with a May Pole as an added attraction.142 As events that were geared more to the general public, however, these introduced the festival to a wider spectatorship than the schools’ ceremonies. May Day festivities would spread to the lower classes through their churches and schools to become a national festival.

Conclusion In late nineteenth and early twentieth century Jamaica, public holidays and festivals found themselves enmeshed in both low-keyed and pitch battles between the forces of creolization and anglicization. This meant either that there was continuous contestation and struggle over how these holidays and festivals would be celebrated, or in the case of Emancipation Day, whether it should be celebrated at all. At every turn, while seeking to involve the lower classes in the festivities in the interest of creating a shared and “elevated” culture, the cultural elites sought to diminish or eradicate Afro-creole cultural expressions, and to promote British Victorian values and practices. With their ability to influence the colonial state, they managed to push some of the lowerclass creole cultural forms underground, but these would find different, sometimes muted, ways to express themselves – to do as they pleased. The Afro-creole culture was, in a word, irrepressible, and it would prove virtually impossible to suppress it entirely. What is no less striking is the impact it had on the very cultural elites who sought to suppress it. They too were heavily influenced by its pervasiveness. What that meant was that by the early twentieth century Jamaicans of all classes were sharing more, increasingly creole, cultural attributes than some of them recognized or cared to acknowledge. A clearly discernible creole identity had emerged that defined Jamaicans as a people, as a nation of shared values and customs, even if they continued to fight over which cultural ingredients, Afro or Euro, should predominate.

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Chapter 8

“De tune you playing no de one I dancing” Popular Entertainment

ABSENCE OF STATUTORY public holidays before the very late nineteenth century and the generally long working days each week meant that middleclass, and lower-class Jamaicans in particular, did not have much time for leisure activities. These were further restricted by religious proscriptions which, as we shall see, literally removed Sunday from the leisure calendar until the turn of the twentieth century. Together these imposed severe restrictions on attempts to organize public entertainment. Jamaica also lacked the basic infrastructure for such entertainments. The island was still not regarded as a place for white people to migrate to and settle in; and in the context of the prolonged decline of the plantation system which began before the emancipation of slavery, many whites had actually emigrated. Those who remained, and the few who came in the later nineteenth century, were struggling against great odds to generate wealth for themselves and thus had very little resources or incentive to invest in public entertainment facilities. On the other hand, since Jamaica was their temporary or permanent home, one would assume that they had an interest in being entertained if only to enrich their social and cultural lives. In this regard, they were joined by the fairly substantial mixed (coloured) population who knew no other home.1 Yet, neither of these social groups made the establishment of public entertainment facilities a priority. In part they were hampered by a chronically ailing economy, in part by their growing addiction to imported culture. The black lower-class majority for whom Jamaica was their permanent home would also have had an interest in public entertainment facilities, but

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they were in no financial position to invest in them. Even if they could, since entertainment would, like all other forms of culture, be viewed through the lens of the intensifying culture war and become enmeshed in controversy and confrontation, their Afro-creole events would not have been encouraged by the cultural elites. Besides, since lower-class black people were expected to be always at work, when they did set aside time for leisure and pleasure, the elites labelled this “idleness”. “Leisure” was regarded an exclusively elite privilege. For all these reasons, therefore, as the quotations below demonstrate, throughout the period under review there was a virtual unanimity of opinion among the middle and upper classes that socio-cultural life in Jamaica was dreary. In a town, numbering between thirty and forty thousand inhabitants, there must naturally be a very large proportion of young men whose evenings are at their own disposal, and yet there is absolutely no place of public amusement whatever at present open. (1875)2 A remark very current amongst residents of Kingston, and visitors also, is that the city is “dull”, especially in the evenings; that there is no amusement to be had, and that there is no where to go to, unless one feels like paying a visit to an acquaintance or friend. . . . The only time when the monotony of our humdrum life is broken is when professional people [artistes] pay us a visit. (1883)3 Some people might be bored here – possibly. There is no Casino: no music: no drama: not much to be done in the evenings: no antiquities or architecture, no work of human art worth looking at . . . except the ornamental Gardens at Hope, King’s House, and Castleton. (1904)4 The dullness of life in Jamaica is one of its greatest drawbacks and there is little chance of social improvement, especially in the country parts. This is true of all classes. (1915)5

Especially before the turn of the twentieth century, public entertainment was very limited and there was precious little to do after dark. Indeed entertainment venues were so few that the parochial court houses often doubled as cultural centres where elite dinners, balls, plays and concerts were held. The capitals, Spanish Town and later Kingston, were only slightly better off than rural towns and villages. Each had a theatre, and other entertainment centres were established in Kingston in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Even so, public cultural entertainments, although quite varied, remained infrequent and sporadic beyond the First World War. Great emphasis,

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therefore, was placed on community and privately organized functions to fill some of the spare time of people of all classes. As a result, elite social life mainly consisted of low-keyed social gatherings or family outings. In 1873 Charles Rampini observed that towards 5:00 p.m. the jalousies of Kingston’s elite houses were opened, and the ladies in evening dress – “low bodice, bare arms, and faces whitened with poudre de ris” – appeared at windows or lounging on rocking chairs in piazzas. Carriages commenced to reappear on the streets, filled with elite ladies, children and portly fathers going for an evening drive. On some evenings they went to Up Park Camp to listen to the open-air concert provided by the military band.6 Bridge parties for ladies were also a regular afternoon pastime, while both sexes played some tennis on the lawn.7 The rural peasants and urban lower classes evinced a similar desire for entertainment. Despite long working days, they found a little time to enjoy themselves. During the work week, their main time for fun and entertainment would have been Saturday afternoon and night after they had returned from market. Sunday was generally kept sacred, especially in the rural areas. The Christmas–New Year and Emancipation (August) holiday seasons also offered them opportunities for relaxation and pleasure. “During the holiday season, all-day picnics and all-night ‘tea-meetings’ [see below] are held for young and old alike. . . . Assembled on some green, they keep up the festivities all day long with much grace and spirit, passing from one game to another without discussion and pausing only for refreshments of sweetened water and biscuit.”8 Weddings and wakes were also occasions for social (community) gatherings where, notwithstanding the sadness of the wake, there was some scope for light-hearted commemoration (see chapter 3). The church–school complex doubled as entertainment centres especially for women and children, who were the principal patrons of the fairs, concerts, raffles and other fund-raising events they sponsored.9 With the advent of the electric tramcar at the end of the nineteenth century, many lower-class Kingstonians took relaxing rides especially on Sunday afternoons;10 and, as will be shown in chapter 11, the rum shop became a hub of lower-class, especially male, socio-cultural activity at the turn of the twentieth century. By then, Jamaicans of all classes and in all locations had moulded and were sharing in a culture in which public entertainment featured prominently.

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Folk Pastimes What little spare time the ordinary people had was generally filled with familial and community activities. Singing and dancing were favourite entertainments among the peasants and lower classes.11 These were often coupled with storytelling and the playing of games, especially on moonlit nights.12 According to Martha Beckwith, in some of the “more backward districts”, merrymaking was done in a ring around a bonfire and featured “the endless rhythmical beating of drums and twanging of musical instruments”. However, she claimed that among the “better trained and more ambitious” Afro-Jamaicans, song and dialogue games had superseded those unrefined entertainments. In these games, “two or three from the group sprang inside the circle and executed a dance, often dramatic in character, and then gave place to a succeeding couple”. One such game was called “Proposal” which “consisted in the mere repetition of a set form of proposal by a lad to his lady or by a lady to her lad, the interest of which lay in the dramatic dignity of each acceptance or refusal”.13 She neglected to mention the underlying etiquette and respect for one's partner that these games instilled in the young. “Forfeit-games” were very popular as were games of wit with words, which underlined the reality that though perhaps illiterate, these were nevertheless thinking people. In the former, the defaulter might be required to pick three different kinds of leaves which meant venturing into the darkness outside the circle or be liable to “blows and imprisonment”. More often his or her task was to sing three songs, narrate a story, give three riddles, or tell three lies. According to Beckwith, “The lie is a performance calculated to tickle the fancy by a juxtaposition of impossibilities recited with the utmost gravity.” For instance, she quoted one young man as saying: “I was going down to Maggotty. I see bull-frog a ride bicycle. I see a boy lick a ball from here to Panama. I see pot tumble down off of fire lef’ de water on fire boil now. . . . I see Patoo (owl) ride horse. . . . See maggot-fly ride bicycle. . . . See toad drawing buggy. . . . Hear maggot-fly whistle. . . . Hear dry gunga-pea talk, ax me how far I going.”14 Games of wit were fast-paced and called for quick-wittedness, an attribute that was not usually ascribed to poor black Jamaicans. Those who could not keep up were required to withdraw to the sidelines. Rapid dialogue, especially that built upon word-play, pleases the company. Scraps of homely drama are readily absorbed into a game, as are bits of native wit into the

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song or action. . . . [M]any of the games are . . . a dance performed with special steps and accompanied by a song which helps to dramatize the steps. For with the true sense for a folk-dance, song and movement are linked together in [the performer’s] mind. He never loses contact with the game as a group art, although the individual may act out a solo part sure of the ready appreciation of an audience who share the game and are stimulated to competition by his achievement.15

There was a vast range of folk games, mostly accompanied by song and dance steps. “Sally Water” was very popular among children. Boys and girls would join hands to form a ring with one of them crouching in the centre impersonating Sally Water. At the words of the accompanying song, “rise, Sally, rise”, she or he would slowly stand, brushing away imaginary tears, turn first one way and then another, and choose a partner from the ring. They would then dance rapidly and after wheeling, the partner would remain inside the ring and become the new Sally.16 Other games included “Hunt the Slipper”, where the players were seated and passed the slipper behind their backs as the “cobbler” in the ring looked for it; and “Hill and Gully Riding”, in which the players formed a curved line by holding hands, and one after another they would alternately leap over and pass under the joined hands without breaking the links. Likewise in “Thread the Needle”, the players joined hands to form a curved line. The end player passed under his or her own and the second player’s linked hands; the second player would do likewise with the third, and so on until all were wound up in a coil.17 These clever folk games were fully inclusive, interactive and competitive, and were an integral part of the oral culture of the people. All who attended could perform, and pride of place went to those who were funny, quickwitted, and deft with words and on their feet. A combination of play, drama, song and dance, the ring games provided fine theatrical entertainment for all. Because the players drew on everyday happenings, however, one can readily imagine that some witty ridicule might have been reserved not only for errant community members, but also for the cultural elites and the colonial authorities over their generally negative statements and actions against the folk culture of the people.

House Visits Evening house visits formed an important part of the cultural activity of the elite classes to fill the social vacuum. According to May Jeffrey-Smith, the

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early twentieth century was “an era of leisure and quietness [for the elites]. When night fell streets were deserted and folks remained indoors, playing, singing or dancing.”18 After dinner, they might occasionally make casual visits to the homes of friends or entertain visitors. The home was indeed the centre of elite social activity and, according to Coaker, there was much home entertaining. “The people love their homes and enjoy them. They spend their evenings mostly at home. Their evenings are lived in the open verandas. Most of them dine in the open veranda. Most families retire by 11 p.m.”19 Casual evening visits, when made, were enlivened with parlour games and charades. Children played games like “Beggar my neighbour” and “Donkey”; the adults played card games such as bridge, whist and cribbage, as well as draughts and chess. Singing and dancing generally occupied centre stage. They would gather around the piano and sing popular melodies or have impromptu dances – the waltz, lancer, polka, quadrille, schottische and so on. JeffreySmith stated that it was not unusual for one to be sitting quietly, reading or playing a game when the sounds of carriages arriving and merry voices would be heard. A large party of friends would arrive unexpectedly, especially if one had a good piano and a large room for dancing, bringing all the necessary refreshments and sometimes even a musician. The furniture would be pushed against the walls, French chalk sprinkled liberally on the floor, and dancing would proceed, sometimes continuing all night until dawn.20 While such impromptu parties might not have been regular occurrences, the informality of visitations by friends was normal, and demonstrated how different in reality social life and etiquette were in Jamaica among the middle and upper classes from their counterparts in Britain; and although these house visits centred on the home as a site of entertainment as opposed to the yard among the lower classes, Jamaicans of all classes even in their separate spheres showed a similar desire for “community” leisure activities, which emphasized their shared creolity.

Afternoon Tea and At Homes In keeping with the emphasis on home entertainment, “afternoon teas” and “at homes” were very popular in elite Jamaican circles. The former seemed to decline in popularity towards the end of the nineteenth century and was replaced by the latter.21 An “at home” was a reception evening set apart for entertaining, at which “claret, cup and ices were added to the usual tea and

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biscuits” of the afternoon tea. On that evening the lady of the house, who was usually the main organizer, and her family were “at home” to visitors. It could also assume grander proportions with specially invited guests, such as those of the governors’ wives to which only the elite were invited and attended “in their Sunday best”.22 The naval officers at Port Royal, companies and societies also hosted “at homes”.23 These social gatherings were notorious for generating gossip about other high-society people.24 According to “The Critic”, “they enable you to criticise the absent ones freely to your dear and sincere friends, who will do the same by you on the first convenient occasion. . . . [T]he real substantial viands are the small talk about engagements, weddings, servants, the vocal abilities of young ladies ‘just out’, and other highly intellectual topics of the kind.” Social hypocrisy was an important attribute of “at homes”.25 It was not unusual for guests to remark, after profusely thanking their hostess for the pleasant afternoon, that the entertainment was awfully slow and that they only went because it was something to do. To ease the boredom, some “at homes” were spiced up with games of tennis and croquet.26 That, however, obliged the guests to watch the tennis players with marked admiration, to clap at intervals when some player of ordinary skill does a little better than usual; and, if you have been playing yourself, at the end of the performance you must declare that you have had a most delightful game, and find any number of complimentary explanations for your beaten opponents. This is absolutely essential and is a mark of good breeding. If you are a man, and if any lady would like “a cup of tea”, you should hand it to her yourself if possible; though there will always be some more fitting person to do it instead. . . . The way to win the favour of your hostess, too, is to take “another bit of cake”. It is true the cake might not commend itself to your taste, but you must protest (if an opportunity offers) that it is the best you have ever tasted. This form of appreciation is flattering, but you will win a still greater reputation for intellect if you can show a deep concern in the tale of how one of the little ones recovered from the measels [sic].27

Dinner Parties and Banquets Private formal dinner parties at home were an integral feature of elite social life. Mary Gaunt recalled that at New Yarmouth in Vere, they used to have dinner parties for ten or twelve persons on the wide verandas which were lit for the occasion. They played card games, listened to music and between

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Figure 18. A garden party at King’s House. (Source: Daily Gleaner, 26 January 1914.)

eleven and midnight had “a wonderful supper in true Jamaican style, the board groaning with provisions. I have seen suckling pig, which the Jamaicans call ‘Moses’, and find excellent, and even a lamb roasted whole. . . . Under the table there would be a small Indian boy with a whisk to keep the mosquitos from biting our ankles. . . . I wondered what were the thoughts of a small boy who sat silently for hours among the legs of his master’s guests.”28 David Brandon recounted that on one such occasion, one of the dishes placed on the table was a very plump turkey. Knowing that he did not own such a turkey, the host enquired of his servant the provenance of the bird. The servant indicated that the turkey had been fighting one of his master’s, and as the latter was getting the worse of the struggle, he proceeded to “dispatch him”. One of the guests, however, was the owner of the turkey being consumed, which he had imported from England. He angrily sued the servant, but the case was dismissed.29 These dinners were sometimes accompanied by unusual amusements. For instance, Marianne North observed that one of these was to play with a small beetle, no bigger than an English housefly, but so strong that it could carry a

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wine glass on its back across the table. Two or three were used to race in that way, “and one of them once carried a small salt-cellar full of salt in the same way”.30 The tedium of elite social life must have been mind-numbing to render this an amusing dinner entertainment. More elaborate public formal banquets were occasionally held at elite social and sports clubs, hotels, restaurants, the military garrison, on board ship, and at the governor’s residence, King’s House. Usually only the crème de la crème of society were invited to attend these, which were usually accompanied by speeches, toasts, and ended with the singing of the imperial anthem. 31 Following the Jamaica Exhibition of 1891, for instance, Lee Bapty, the manager, hosted a dinner for the members of the executive committee as well as the foreign and colonial commissioners. The restaurant of the Exhibition was tastefully decorated with plate, mirrors, flowers and fruit, “the cooking was good, the service excellent and the wines of the best”. The menu, as reported in the Gleaner, was comprised of: Chablis – Huitres. Cocktail – Sardines, Olives Anchois. Punch – Tortue Claire a la Jamaique. Madere – Filet de Snapper Rouge, sauce Napolitaine. Champagne – Pates de Volaille a la Viennoise, Rognons Saute a las Parisienne. Glavier 1884 – Tete de Mouton a l’Ecossaise, Flageolets du Pays, Petit Pois, Plantains. De Iossy 1884 – Filet de Bœuf a l’Anglaise, Oison a la Boston, Pintade Coloniale. Salade de Saison. Pommery – Pouding a l’Exposition, Glace a la Canadienne, Ananas, et Fruits Assortis. Liqueures – Café des Montagnes Blueus.32

For all its pomp and splendour (and the pretension of listing the menu in French), the inclusion of red snapper, plantains and Blue Mountain coffee marked the dinner as a creolized creation. And since, in every likelihood, the meal was prepared by local chefs, whose ideas of taste spilled into almost every culinary concoction, there is every reason to suggest that the meal tasted “Jamaican”. Further, scant attention was paid to the enormous amount of labour that was expended by the hired cooks and servants in preparing these sumptuous dinners for large numbers of guests. The same disregard was shown to the discomfort of the little boys who squatted in silence under the table for hours swatting mosquitos from the feet of their “social betters”, who in the normal course of events thought so little of them. During the 1890s, smoking concerts (called “smokers”) were added to the elite male leisure circuit. These were for men only and featured amateur instrumental performances, comic songs and comedy often done by the members of the gathering in an air of light-hearted jollity. Amidst the clouds of smoke

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from pipes, cigars and cigarettes, and with inhibitions loosened by the liberal consumption of alcoholic beverages, the “gentlemen” let off steam with their elitist peers in song and frolic that promoted a sense of camaraderie. The military and the elite sports clubs (cricket and yachting) were the principal promoters of this form of entertainment.33 Far less popular were Bohemian concerts which were similarly as frivolous as the smokers, except that ladies were present and smoking was not allowed. No doubt the men were more constrained in their behaviour as well.34

Rockfort Gardens At the very turn of the twentieth century, the Rockfort Gardens just east of Kingston were established as an amusement park with a wide variety of entertainment for the public. This parched patch of triangular-shaped real estate between the Windward Road and the Kingston Harbour was acquired by the West India Electric Company and transformed into a horticultural oasis and pleasure spot for locals and tourists. A tropical garden with a wide variety of Jamaican plant life and flora was created and fenced off, and two circular pavilions and a band stand erected. The apex of the garden, carved in the shape of a heart, was filled with decorative miniature trees and shrubs. Paths were cut around the heart to the base, a few yards from which was the larger, more central pavilion. A fountain supplied with water pumped from a well added to the attraction of this section of the park. Another path was cut parallel to the shoreline and ended at a smaller pavilion at the western boundary of the gardens. A long row of almond trees was planted behind this pavilion to serve as a windbreaker, but the frontage of the site had a clear unimpeded view of the harbour. A very wide gravel promenade, the sides of which were lined with seats for the patrons, lay between the two pavilions. This housed the bandstand.35 Even before it was completed, the Rockfort Gardens were formally opened on 18 July 1899 with a grand concert performed by the band of the Kingston Infantry Militia before an estimated crowd of between four and five thousand under electric light.36 By 1902, however, its initial attraction seemed to wane, perhaps because it catered mainly to the elite classes through “high-culture” Euro-classical concerts and highfalutin garden-parties;37 but they were too small in number to sustain it as a commercial enterprise. Financial considerations, therefore, might have forced the management to broaden the forms of

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entertainment in order to attract a wider audience; and the Rockfort Gardens experienced a revival after 1906 when a new hall was constructed with a seating capacity of four hundred. As a multipurpose entertainment centre, it now housed a cinema, gardens with an electric riding gallery, swings and improved sanitary facilities.38 The nightly entertainment was reputedly fine, and to appeal to a more culturally diverse public, the management introduced new features so that tiresome shows were avoided unless the patrons called for a repeat of anything specific. Likewise the movies were changed frequently. 39 The result was that every night the venue was crowded with people who travelled there by the tramcar;40 and it became the major entertainment venue for Kingstonians, including on holidays and Sundays.41 While it may have continued to attract some elites, a growing number of its patrons were drawn from the “democracy, the class who are not afraid to applaud when delighted at some performance, and who do not think it disgraceful to encore a good singer”. 42 Once the entertainment suited their tastes, the lower classes were not too diffident to dress up, climb aboard the tramcar and commingle with their “social betters”. On the other hand, even if disdainful, the latter could be gratified by the cultural “upliftment” that these entertainments might offer the lower classes. It was a delicate trade-off in the ongoing cultural contestation. No less important, however, the Rockfort Gardens served as an important site for entertainment that straddled all classes in the process of moulding a shared Jamaican culture.

Public Dances All classes of Jamaicans enjoyed public dancing. Among the social elites, elaborate balls were infrequently held at King’s House, the big hotels (for example, Constant Spring and Myrtle Bank), the main military garrison (Up Park Camp), and the social clubs (see chapter 10). These were grand formal affairs, attended by the social and cultural elites, mainly white but also some coloured and black, and including military officers in full dress uniform. Music was usually provided by the bands of the West India Regiments, and a sumptuous supper, complete with a variety of viands, pastries and wines, normally accompanied these affairs. Dancing invariably extended into the wee hours of the morning.43 Winifred James provided a graphic description of a ball at the Myrtle Bank hotel:

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The night was a fiesta. Out in the garden Chinese lanterns hung like necklaces of glowing jewels between the palm trees. Trembling there in mid-air, apparently held by nothing at all . . . they seem like enchanted balls; jade and topaz and ruby carved and wrought with strange figures of fish and birds and flowers. . . . On a platform on the grass and within the circle of the lanterns the band of the West India Regiment played music that set the feet twitching. A band of negro Zouaves [West India Regiment band] with full trousers tucked into white spats, scarlet and yellow coats over white jackets and white tasselled turbans, is a gay sight. Indoors the hotel band played for the dancers, and between the dances the people thronged the lawns: women in chiffons as bright as a field of poppies, black-faced men in white clothes, white-faced men in black ones, scarlet-coated officers from camp; and the unsettled traveller agape.44

This kaleidoscope of colour (in all senses) clearly left the visiting James in a state of wonderment. Civilian and military, white and black, mingling in harmony: this might belie what lay beyond the boundary of the Myrtle Bank. It seemed to offer some hope that the civilizing efforts of the cultural elite might yet yield desirable cultural results. Fancy dress balls, particularly the annual subscription balls held at the Constant Spring hotel in January or February, always generated extraordinary excitement among the elites, perhaps because they were rare, but also because of the carnival atmosphere promoted by the costumes. These balls even attracted the attention of the London Illustrated and were rated among the best of their kind in the colonies. The ten-shilling-sixpence ticket plus the cost of the costume ensured that only the wealthy could afford to attend, and the best costumes were awarded prizes.45 Fancy dress balls were also organized on for elite children, whose parents ensured that their costumes were no less elaborate than those of the adults. One held at King’s House in 1890 was attended by children of all ages, including those of Governor Blake, in a wide variety of costumes. Dancing commenced at about 8:30 p.m. and lasted until 12:30 a.m. with the music provided by the band of the West India Regiment.46 High-society balls not only attracted the attention of the elites. Winifred James noted that outside the fence of the Myrtle Bank hotel were assembled lower-class black Jamaicans who peered “obliquely with fascinated eyes at the scene. All evening they hung there. Some were head and shoulders above [the fence], some hooked on with their chins, and some only showing a pair of rolling white eyes above their hands. Others there were who could have got

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little pleasure from anything but the imagination, for nothing but a pair of small tightly grasping black hands and crown of a battered hat told of their presence”.47 What this suggests is that some among the lower classes were curious about these entertainments even if they could not afford to go or were not invited to participate. They sought inclusion, and were prepared to organize similar events of their own. In September 1860, for instance, they hosted “a splendid Ball” at the Lucea courthouse with the permission of the parochial custos, who along with “several other gentlemen” of Hanover were invited. Entertainment was reportedly conducted in a grand manner. “The dresses of the females were elegant: the males were also fashionably attired: and the whole of the arrangements were creditable.”48 How often the lower-class people organized such elaborate affairs is difficult to say; but it is clear that they shared ideas of grandeur with the elites. They, however, made a distinction between those events which were held in a hall or house, and so-called practice dances, often held weekly in a yard where about forty or fifty persons might attend – on invitation. These were subscription parties, generally about three pence for “ladies” and sixpence for “gentlemen”, or alternatively the guests would be asked to bring kind. Three or four storm lanterns were hung on nails against the fence and sides of the low tenement buildings to provide light, and boxes and empty barrels served as seats. Music was provided by a band consisting, perhaps, of a concertina, supported by a mouth organ (harmonica), sometimes a guitar and/or violin, fifes, tambourines and a big drum, and was often reinforced by amateurs with a cassava grater rubbed with a handle of a spoon, a horse’s jaw-bone with rattling teeth, or a stirrup-iron. As usual, elite commentators were disdainful: “The band is arbitrary and insists upon having its own way; it only plays what it likes, not what the dancers like, and the latter must needs be content.” The favourite dances at these affairs were European: waltzes, polkas, schottiches and quadrilles, although when danced by ordinary Jamaicans, these were creolized. All the rules of polite society were observed: “at the beginning of the dance you bow to your partner here as you do in the ballroom of the Titchfield Hotel, and she curtseys in the manner approved”; but such etiquette did not prevent altercations and fights from occurring at these dances.49 Lower-class Jamaicans also danced what, according to H.G. De Lisser, in all its varieties was known as the mento or shay shay (derived, he guessed, probably incorrectly, from the French chassé).

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It is a phallic dance, a dance in which a frank appeal is made to the passions. Or rather, a dance in which such an appeal may be made, for it all depends upon how you dance it. It consists of slow movements of the body, and the point of perfection is reached when . . . the dancer never allows the upper part of her body to move as she writhes and shuffles over the ground. You dance with your partner alone. If you are refined, your motions may be a trifle suggestive – hardly even that. If you are not refined, they may be coarsely, brutally, blatantly vulgar.50

In this period and well beyond it, however, the cultural elites were very critical of any perceived displays of sensuousness and “indecency” among the black population. This behaviour harkened back to an association with “savage Africanness” that they found unsettling, especially since some of them may not themselves have been far removed biologically and culturally from an ancestry that they were ashamed of. The cultural battle, then, was not always between the classes, but often within the middling classes whose members sought higher status on the basis of their behaviour. An elite man, Herbert De Lisser did not have much of an ear for the mento’s lyrics: “Everyone is very like its predecessor, while the song is simplicity itself. And when the song is at the height of its popularity it is sung and whistled all over the island, while the air is played at every ‘practice dance’.” However, he claimed that among black Jamaicans, the mento took second place to the European dances. “Many a peasant girl refuses to dance them [mentos] in these days. And they are by no means the staple of any respectable dance-party given by the working classes now. They are popular, but, even so, at your open-air ‘practice dance’ you will have two-steps and waltzes and lancers in plenty. The lascivious dances of West Africa have taken second place.”51 If this were indeed so, then it suggests that some AfroJamaicans had bought into the elite notion that things European/British conferred social respectability, even though things Afro-creole constituted the essence of their day to day way of life and culture and were probably considered more pleasurable. It is also entirely possible that De Lisser could only comment on the aspects of cultural life that the people allowed him to observe, which may have been in keeping with their ideas of his expectations. They may well have preferred to dance them, but the “lascivious dances of West Africa” were not for his consumption. The bamboula, chica and belair were other Afro-creole dance events. Frank Cundall asserted that the belair, a favourite, was often kept up all night to the sound of drums accompanied by improvised songs “in the chorus of which

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the rest of the party join usually monotonous, and often personal in its remarks on neighbouring buckras”.52 Not surprisingly, on that account and also because of the incessant noise of the drumming and the language of the revellers, which the elites deemed indecent, these dances greatly annoyed them and they complained bitterly, repeatedly calling on the police to suppress them.53 This was another manifestation of the elite war that was being waged on Afro-creole culture. Yet it disguised the fundamental facts that the love of dance was shared by all Jamaicans, and that Afro-creole styles would slowly rise to prominence as they moulded a national culture.

Circuses, Acrobatic and Magic Shows Circuses and acrobatic troupes made infrequent visits to Jamaica, but when they did were well patronized. These came mainly from Britain, the United States, France, Brazil and even as far away as Japan. Most of the large animal circuses camped at the Race Course in Kingston, and other open parks in rural towns. Small acrobatic troupes performed at the theatres and town halls. Although tickets for some seating could be expensive, cheaper gallery seats brought these entertainments within the reach of the less wealthy, thus enabling people of different classes to share the spectacle in the same arena.54 Another popular form of public entertainment was magic and hypnotic shows. These were invariably done by foreign artistes55 and were no less expensive than theatrical and musical entertainments, thus catering largely to an elite audience. Yet, it is reasonable to assume that the Afro-creole presence was always evident, if only on the fringes, as crowds of the curious gathered perhaps in the hope of “crashing” the event. Many of these shows featured legerdemain, prestidigitation, hypnosis, ventriloquism and palmistry.56 An example was the performance of Professor Ortega at the Freemason’s Hall in Kingston in May 1875: “The sleep produced after the manner of Mesmer was really astonishing. Some of the minor feats such as producing never ending cups of coffee, with milk and sugar, out of two small tin pans, and into which he had a moment before put some shavings of wood, were highly gratifying.”57

Magic Lantern and Cinema From the 1870s until beyond the turn of the century, magic lantern shows became popular in Jamaica. The magic lantern was an optical instrument for

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projecting magnified and illuminated images from glass slides on to a white screen. These shows were organized by private entertainment entrepreneurs and the churches, and featured pictures for both children and adults, for example, stories illustrated by pictures (biblical, Robinson Crusoe, Mother Hubbard etc.), comic pictures, views of the Spanish-American War, scenes of England, Jamaica and other parts of the British empire, British military and naval heroes of the Victoria Cross, British royalty, and so on.58 This was thus a very useful medium for religious and imperial proselytizing, and also for bolstering the anglicization process. In a way, the still-picture magic lantern exhibition could be considered the precursor of the moving-picture shows that would expose many segments of the society to identical fare and help to solidify their shared culture, notwithstanding the struggles against that cohesion. The cinema made its advent in Jamaica in 1906 at the Rockfort Gardens, when the Ireland brothers started moving picture exhibitions to large audiences on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.59 By the following year the Ireland Cinematograph Company was also having shows outside of Kingston – at Mandeville, Black River, Savanna-la-Mar and Montego Bay – to packed houses, all of whom were highly impressed with the quality of films.60 After its construction in 1912, the Ward Theatre doubled as a cinema on Wednesday and Saturday nights, while the Movies Theatre was already in existence at Cross Roads with a bill of two showings per night of five movies. With admission fees of six pence and one shilling,61 the cinema provided entertainment to the elites and masses alike, and its owners were ranked among the “most influential and patriotic citizens” by the Jamaica Times.62 By 1914, there were four major cinemas in Kingston, namely, the Movies at Cross Roads, the Palace at South Camp Road and East Queen Street, the Rose Garden on East Queen Street, and the Metropolitan;63 and there was the Rockfort Gardens cinema just outside the city limits. Cinema filled some of the blank spaces in people’s spare time, and certainly the ordinary people responded positively to it. According to the Gleaner in 1913, A year ago we were a home-staying population. After sundown there was nothing to do, and as a rule one was too lazy – we said tired – to go and see one’s friends. Now our weariness has disappeared, and night after night we see crowds of people wending their way to moving picture shows, and we hear of more shows coming, and we confidently expect that in every town of a decent size in this island there will soon be at least one of these popular picture palaces.64

This prediction proved fairly accurate. In 1915 the King Street Day Theatre

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was added to the list in Kingston, while cinemas were established in Montego Bay (Paramount House) in 1918, in Spanish Town (the Triangle Theatre) in 1919, and in Savanna-la-Mar in 1920.65 The cinemas were regulated under law 14 of 1913 (based on Hong Kong and Grenada ordinances) which gave the mayor of Kingston or the chairman of a parochial board the authority to grant permission for such entertainment facilities.66 If the cinema provided cheap, popular entertainment shared by all, it also reinforced white racial biases through its portrayal of white movie stars. However, for the elites who valued their association with mother England, cinema’s portrayal of American images threatened to undermine the strong hold that British imperial culture had hitherto exercised on the minds of the people. The main newspapers voiced those concerns. Said the Gleaner, the “dramas” presented are too often purely American, and when the scenes and events are not American they are coloured by American ideas and American prejudice. . . . It is bad enough that much of our news from the outside world comes through American sources; we don’t want all our pictures of outside life to be American . . . let England be represented also. After all, this colony is English, and must needs take an interest in things that have reference to life within the British Empire.67

The Jamaica Times, too, inveighed against the intrusion of American culture via films. They were not British enough. With all the glory of the history of the British Empire to draw on, with the lives of all our heroes and workers to invoke and many of those workers so closely connected with these very islands and their romance and struggle, we do not need to be fed everlastingly with sights and incidents connected with other lands and empires. These we will welcome certainly, in due degree, as the exceptions, but in this British Colony we want British pictures as the rule.68

Special attempts were indeed made to get British films, and in 1920, for instance, Lewis Ashenheim applied to import same;69 and whenever possible, films depicting the greatness of Britain’s imperial might were shown to the public. For example, in October 1913, a film about the Battle of Trafalgar was shown at the Movies Theatre to commemorate Trafalgar Day: the “Hall was well decorated with the flag of Britain for which Nelson died and the Union Jack which symbolises the unity of the Empire was particularly in evidence”.70 The problem, however, was the British film industry was not nearly as developed as the American; and also given the proximity of the United States, it was easier and perhaps cheaper to get American films. The film industry,

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therefore, started a slow shift away from British cultural influences toward American which were to become prominent in Jamaica later in the twentieth century. Cinema was a double-edged sword: it strengthened images of white supremacy, but at the same time it strengthened lower-class black Jamaican participation in popular culture events. In allowing for an activity and space in which “leisure” could be realized, it gave an opportunity for one aspect of the creole culture that the cultural elites were anxious to dampen – the exuberant expressions of pleasure. Cinema also assisted and reflected a slow erosion of the cultural pull of Britain among the cultural elite classes. This would render them, and their message of “civilization”, even more confused and confusing.

Sunday Entertainment The Rockfort Gardens, other cinemas, and places of public entertainment were not without their fair share of controversy. This centred around the staging of entertainments on Sunday evenings. Not unlike the situation in Britain itself, ever since the early 1860s there were signs that some people were beginning to regard Sunday with less reverence than the churches demanded. In 1861 “A Christian” noted that he found in Kingston a party going on in a house opposite the Scots Kirk during the church service;71 and in 1881 the Gleaner reported that many residents of Kingston were making excursions into the country on Sunday for recreation, although they also attended suburban churches.72 By the 1890s, however, a growing restlessness was discernible with the monotony of observing Sunday strictly as a holy day. The Jamaica Post observed that it had become “the most wearisome and miserable day of the whole week . . . [and] to the vast majority of the people hymn-singing and listening to sermons do not form attractive occupations”. The paper further claimed that among all classes there was an increasing tendency “to loosen the rigid bonds that have hitherto bound round Sunday, and in fact to make the first day of the week a holiday rather than a holy day”. It thus advocated rational amusement and exercise on Sundays especially for people who spent their entire week at work behind a desk, and argued that “[t]o divorce religion from healthy exercise or amusement (as is too frequently done by ministers) is . . . a suicidal policy in this age of intellectual progress and achievement. What we require is a rational Sunday – that is to say, a Sunday in which

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everything is subordinated to the idea of ensuring rest for the mind as well as for the body.”73 The churches were very zealous in vigorously defending their hallowed ground and lashed out at any attempt to “desecrate” Sunday by the introduction of secular amusements. So when, for instance, in 1892 a number of “gentlemen” in Kingston, “interested in the welfare and improvement of the masses”, decided to hold monthly meetings at the Conversorium on Sunday afternoons, they encountered the firm disapproval of all denominations. This was despite the fact that the meetings were carefully scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. so as not to clash with any church services; that a few individual clergymen participated in them; and that the organizers had gradually turned the meetings into virtual religious assemblies with the singing of hymns in an effort to neutralize the more fundamentalist Christians.74 Notwithstanding these concerns, it appears that some churches in different parts of the country co-opted the idea of “pleasant Sundays” and made it their own, thereby ensuring that their flocks did not stray too far from the straight and narrow.75 Likewise in 1906, when the city council approved militia band concerts in the Parade Gardens on Sunday afternoons,76 and secular entertainment at Rockfort Gardens on Sundays began to take off, the clergy once more came out in vehement opposition. Rev. J.C. McKinney of St George’s Church saw this as the thin edge of the wedge which, if allowed to continue, would secularize and desecrate the sabbath.77 According to Rev. William Graham of the Church of Scotland, the sabbath day was set apart for rest, but was also a day of opportunity for strengthening and feeding the spiritual life of man.78 The churches not only wanted Sunday entertainment to be stopped, they demanded that all Sunday work should cease, including the operation of the trains and tramcars which were in fact the means of transporting people to secular Sunday amusements. (In 1898, the Jamaica Railway Company had inaugurated a Sunday excursion service to Port Antonio.)79 The governor, however, refused to accede to their demands.80 This intemperate outburst by the churches merely made some Jamaicans cynical about their motives. Was it that they feared losing some of the money that found its way into the collection bags to the tramcar and amusement companies?81 The Gleaner in 1906 argued that it was mainly the elites who had secularized Sunday: The truth is that Sunday recreation is not popular in Protestant Jamaica: the people have become so accustomed to the old British way of regarding Sunday to throw themselves readily into any new movement that conflicts with established customs.

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It is only in what is termed “the best society” that tennis and golf are played on Sunday afternoons, and while the Jews do enjoy themselves on Sunday evenings and nights, the majority of them do so in their own houses and take care that the tastes and feelings of their Christian fellow-citizens shall not be violently shocked.82

While the paper did see public attitudes undergoing change and did not itself see any harm in Sunday music in the park (after all music was supposed to possess a civilizing and refining influence), it agreed with the clergy that sports and games should not be tolerated on Sundays no matter how much they may be liked by the social elite. For if we allow them, we must also allow ball-plays, cricket and even dancing on Sunday on the part of the humbler classes, and this will infallibly mean the slackening of one of the best influences now exerted on their lives. . . . We are . . . content to regard religion as an instrument of discipline and training, and as in our opinion the State is bound to be concerned with the conduct of the people . . . it must take care that what makes for good conduct is not destroyed or rendered nugatory. In Jamaica religion undoubtedly does make for this, and so we must see to it that nothing which tends to undermine seriously the influence of religion is permitted to grow and flourish. If we neglect this simple duty, we may have cause to repent it bitterly some day.83

At the heart of this debate were elements of the struggle to maintain cultural definitions and control of lower-class cultural activities; the contours of the culture war were once more drawn. That the more zealous among the cultural elite were not always able to have their way is indicated by the fact that by 1909, when further improvements were completed at Rockfort Gardens, Sunday entertainments were a fixture and attained respectability through the concerts provided by the band of the First West India Regiment, which played European marches and classical pieces.84 Here again the elite classes were divided among themselves. The debate on the secularization/desecration of Sunday was raised once more in 1914 when the mayor of Kingston lifted the prohibition on cinematographic shows on Sunday evenings; but he subsequently reversed this when the churches called to his attention the existence of an obscure law passed seventy-one years earlier (7th Victoria, chapter 14) specifically prohibiting the conduct of business on Sunday, Good Friday or Christmas Day. The irony was that this law permitted the opening of licensed taverns and temperance bars on Sundays, which continued to do a roaring business (see chapter 11).85 Since this prohibition applied only in Kingston, some cinema owners in the

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city refused to comply because cinemas nearby in St Andrew could remain open on Sunday.86 Thus in May 1915 the Kingston Ministers’ Fraternal, representing most of the leading Christian denominations, wrote to the cinema directors asking them to close their businesses on Sunday evenings, chiefly on the ground that it tended to lower the general respect for Sundays as a day for rest and worship.87 Though themselves members of the cultural elite, the cinema operators declined, and, cleverly employing the rationale and language of the civilizing mission, countered that they were helping to uplift the moral tone of society because the shows were cheap and that they kept men from rum shops and brothels. The cinema also had the tendency to encourage men to spend their leisure time with their wives and children, thus making them at the same time better citizens and a credit to their communities.88 Affronted, the ministers appealed to both the mayor and the police to enforce the law against Sunday business,89 and simultaneously mounted a campaign to get their congregations to sign a petition to that effect.90 The churches found support in black councillor Alexander Dixon, himself a pastor, who argued that the clergy were doing good and should be given one day in a Christian community like Jamaica.91 Perhaps their strongest and most influential support, however, came from the Jamaica Times, which called for a virtual crusade against Sunday shows. The paper saw these as cynical moneymaking affairs that had little to do with providing the people with wholesome amusement. Instead, “[w]hat is aimed at is to check those public customs and ideals that are distinctively Christian and that are generally associated with British ideals”. It thus called for a straightforward prohibition of any entertainments on Sunday for which a charge was made.92 The cultural elites were again divided. But times had clearly changed and left institutions like the churches and the Times behind. After emancipation they had been able to use their power to get the Jamaica assembly to pass a law against Sunday trading; and for most of the century thereafter to use their enormous influence to ensure the observance of Sunday as a sacred day.93 The dawn of the twentieth century, however, brought new attitudes and desires. This was most clearly reflected in the altered stance of the Gleaner, which only a decade before had so staunchly defended the position of the churches on Sunday amusements. “The idea of the special ‘sanctity’ of the Lord’s Day has largely disappeared from the minds of the people; and, particularly in the region of amusements, both outdoor and indoor, there has been an increasing tendency to disregard old-time

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restrictions on freedom of action, and to utilise the weekly Day of Rest as also a day of healthy recreation.”94 The paper further argued that Jamaica no longer had a church establishment, “and it would not be safe for anyone to contend that Sunday must strictly be regarded as a religious institution on the ground that this is essentially a religious country. Not a third of the people are attached, either as members, as adherents or as Sunday scholars, to the several churches. . . . Nominally the people are Christian: effectively a good many of them are. But Christian peoples differ in their opinion as to how Sunday should be observed.”95 This freedom of opinion was precisely what the churches feared would cause them to lose control over their flock; and that was clearly registered at the synod of the Presbyterian church in 1914: “The holy day is slowly but surely becoming a holiday, and a large portion of the juvenile population is being trained to do without the Church.”96 By the end of the First World War, it was clear that the churches had lost the fight to prohibit Sunday entertainments. Papine became an infamous “watering hole” on Sunday (in the eyes of the moralistic elites), attracting lower-class people from all over Kingston and St Andrew by tramcar, for an afternoon of uninhibited pleasure. Not willing to be led or driven by the churches, they gathered in and out of bars, some operated by Chinese shopkeepers, joking and playing music on pianos, violins and other instruments: “The selections were not hymn tunes either, nor such-like strains of an elevating character. They were rags and dance music pure and simple.” “Rum drinking, swearing, rowdyism, profanity, were all rampant.” A reporter from the Jamaica Times “saw young girls with the glasses charged with the yellow liquid which they chinked with their men folk. . . . All ages and sizes gathered here, little boys of 7 or 8 years, who resisted my suggestion that they should then be in bed.” Even justices of the peace mingled in these bars. There was gambling as well: “Around a table in the hall of the big bar to the right half a dozen men gathered throwing the dice and betting freely.” The solitary policeman on duty (from Matilda’s Corner station) was usually blind to infractions of the law, and sometimes enjoyed himself as well with the young ladies. Yet amidst all this “irreverence” the official closing time of 10:00 p.m. was marked by the playing of “God Save the King”, although a brisk business continued thereafter through the back doors of the bars.97 The relaxation of Sunday entertainment restrictions was done by the political representatives of the cultural elite classes, but in the process it exposed divisions within their ranks since moralistic and religious people remonstrated against those who wanted to enjoy a broader range of secular pleasure

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activities. It also realized some of the worst nightmares of the cultural elites as a body, since Sunday pleasure could not be confined to themselves. Once the relaxing was done, it unleashed the raw underbelly of lower-class cultural expression which the elites discovered they could not contain. The lower classes were inadvertently given the space (and felt empowered) to do as they pleased. Although Sunday became a day of entertainment shared by people of all classes, it would remain an important symbol in the ongoing cultural elite war against lower-class Afro-creole culture as it increasingly threatened, by force of numbers, to dominate Sunday leisure and undermine the elite fight against raucous decadence.

Social Meetings, Bazaars and Fairs Social meetings, bazaars, garden parties and fancy fairs helped to break the tedium of social life in Jamaica. In general, they were organized by the cultural elites for themselves, although people of all classes could and did attend. Besides, such elite events always attracted a core of curious onlookers from the lower classes who gathered outside along with vendors to enjoy the spectacle, and if possible to gain unpaid admission. So although as a cultural genre, these fairs extolled European culture and in so doing promoted the civilizing mission, they were always surrounded by the Afro-creole element, the presence of which was made evident by the noisy exuberance of its adherents. Social meetings were gatherings of people in a school or chapel yard, with tents and tables decorated with flowers and foliage, containing food, fruit and drinks. After eating, the company would sing hymns and listen to addresses on a variety of topics, and donations for church related projects would be sought. People of all classes attended.98 Bazaars were organized for the benefit of churches, schools and other charitable institutions, and they sometimes lasted more than one day. The organization was usually done by elite women who also staffed the stalls. The venue of the bazaars, as well as the stalls themselves, were well decorated, and personal, household and ornamental items such as clothing, cushions and so on were donated for sale. In addition there were food and drinks stalls, and entertainment in the form of picture galleries, magic wells, gypsy tents, hermits’ caves and the like. The elite bazaars were usually opened by the governors/ parochial custodes and their wives.99 Garden parties were grand amusement fairs. One of earliest was held in

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Kingston at Winchester Park on 6 and 7 January 1886. The grounds were said to be gaudily decorated and furnished with gaily trimmed tents. As dusk descended, they were illuminated with gas lamps, while hundreds of Chinese lanterns were strung all around. Over the entrance was a very handsome gas illumination, the centre being a crown surrounded by olive branches, and underneath was the word “Welcome”. Among the attractions were a shooting gallery, magic well with fishing poles, athletic games and a refreshments area; and the evening ended with a magnificent display of fireworks. The band of the First West India Regiment provided live music. Over four thousand persons attended this event during the two days.100 “Ye Fancie Fayre” was an even more elaborate affair, and was similarly organized by elite “ladies” for charity. While these were held in different parts of the island by various church denominations from the 1880s,101 the grandest was the annual fair held during the 1890s by the Roman Catholic Church Union and Sodality, first at Clovelly and later at Winchester Park. These were opened by the governor and his wife and had a wide variety of attractions, including a merry-go-round, “fairie fyshinge wells”, donkey- and goat-cart rides, Coney Island swings, and athletic sports (throwing the cricket ball, flat races, jumps, bicycle races etc.). The grounds and tents were well decorated with flowers, foliage, flags and buntings, with the Union Jack occupying a very prominent position. They were lit with electric lights, and all the ladies attending the stalls, and their little maidens and lads, were bedecked in fancy costumes representing fairies, pages, peasants of various nationalities, sailors, nursery characters and so on. “All the beauty and fashion of Kingston” turned out on these occasions. In 1889, over eleven hundred persons attended this fair on the opening day. With their themes and varied attractions, these fairs became a much anticipated event for Kingstonians on Christmas Day after dinner.102 The stalls were representative of different countries. At the 1889 fair, for instance, the British stall was draped with Scottish and Irish plaids, and the blazing scarlet of England, and a large Union Jack was hung at one corner. It was especially devoted to the sale of ornamental and decorated articles. The Swiss and German stall was reportedly prettily draped with black and yellow bunting, and overhung with the two flags. Its speciality was a complete collection of children’s toys. Next was the French stall, festooned with red, white and blue bunting, and with the French tri-colour. This stall was stocked with every kind of French confectionery, chocolates, bon bons, biscuits and some perfumery. The Spanish stall was decorated in red and gold and devoted

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mainly to the sale of tobacco, cigars, cigarettes, pipes, ash trays and the like. The American stall, draped with bars of red and white bunting, overlooked by the Star Spangled Banner, contained a great number and variety of mechanical toys such as a working locomotive and train, steam engines, a smithy and so on. There were also theatrical performances, a post and telegraph office, illusion mirrors, swings, horses, electric light works, soda fountain, and refreshment rooms and bar, while the band of the Kingston Volunteer Militia played music. The evening’s amusement terminated with a magnificent display of fireworks. In 1890 a Punch and Judy show was added to the attractions, and by 1897 there was a Japanese stall with “Japanese fans, real oriental screens embellished with fiery dragons and fierce griffins, waiters decorated with stumpy trees and peculiar-looking Chinamen or Japanese, quaint vases and all the articles for which Japan is noted”.103

Merry-Go-Rounds104 By the late nineteenth century, no public entertainment was complete without a merry-go-round or carousel. Certainly from the 1880s, they were present at most of the fairs and garden parties, horseracing and other sporting events organized by the elites,105 including the Rockfort Gardens. A steam-powered carousel, lit by electricity, with a mechanism to make the horses jump, and an organ attached, was specially imported for the Jamaica Exhibition of 1891 (see below). The merry-go-round was a major attraction wherever it was located, patronized by people of all classes. The presence of one at a public entertainment almost guaranteed its success. The one at the Jamaica Exhibition, for instance, was patronized by over three thousand persons on Easter Monday, 30 March 1891, alone; and merry-go-rounds continued to have enormous appeal for both adults and children throughout the period under discussion. Soon they became a thriving business for enterprising entrepreneurs, and the newspapers carried numerous advertisements of merry-go-rounds of various descriptions being offered for sale. By the 1890s, some operators were taking them around the country, both over land and by sea along the coasts so that people in rural areas also experienced the thrill of the rides. So lucrative a business did they become that by the early twentieth century, there was enough demand for merry-go-rounds to sustain a few local manufacturers of the equipment.106 What apparently contributed to make this amusement so popular was the

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cheapness of the rides, usually about threepence; and, in addition, they provided patrons with an exhilarating thrill. At Crosskeys, Manchester, in January 1891, it was reported that after having spent his day’s earnings from selling ground provisions on merry-go-round rides, a peasant then sold his donkey for half its value and used all of the proceeds to ride the carousel.107 According to legislator David Corinaldi, the operators offered to make patrons giddy for threepence and sea-sick for six. Yet some craved for even more, and in one tragic instance at Epping Forest in 1913, James Harriott was killed when he attempted to increase the speed of the machine and slipped, causing his body to be caught between a board and the handle with which the carousel was turned. The rides, it seems, also offered opportunities for people to meet and, if inclined, to pursue romantic courtships. Not all were successful, however, as was the case of young Irene Miller’s rejection of Manasseh McCartney’s advances in November 1911. His apparent insistence resulted in a fight that included their mothers.108 It is clear then that by the turn of the twentieth century, the merry-goround was a form of amusement enjoyed by people of all classes. Yet, for all its apparent innocence as a source of fun, it became embroiled in the insanity of the elite culture war; for among the lower classes, the merry-go-round became a site where they could congregate and enjoy themselves in their inimitably exuberant creole manner. When it was part of elite-organized events that were open to those members of the public who could afford the entrance fees, there was an expectation, in some cases a requirement, of “proper” dress and behaviour. For instance, advertisements for Louis Bopp’s carousel at his Pleasure Grounds in Kingston (1891) insisted on “good behaviour and respectable appearance”.109 The people were put on notice that their noisy exuberance would not be tolerated. Many of the poorer classes could not afford the sixpence fees that Bopp and other operators charged. So they built their own carousels, usually without the expensive engines found on those imported by, or manufactured for, better off commercial operators; and they erected them on small parcels of land in town and country alike. C.W. Willis described one thus: “It was a crude affair, but was built on the correct principles and went round just like the American machine; but, instead of being provided with an engine or crank for driving it, it was pushed around by perspiring boys, to the discordant strains of a cornet and violin. But the people enjoyed it and it was liberally patronized.”110 To those musical instruments mentioned above, the drum was always

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present, making this a truly Afro-creole amusement, and at the same time rendering it particularly annoying to the elites who complained about the disturbance. The people congregated at these sites, rode the carousel, played and danced to their music, ate, drank and chatted (often liberally interspersed with expletives) for hours. They thus appropriated the merry-go-round and turned it into a site for what is known in other parts of the Caribbean as “liming”. It was absorbed and seamlessly integrated into their Afro-creole cultural matrix alongside pre-existing culture forms. For instance, just outside the exit of an elite fair in Portland in December 1890, which Governor Henry Blake attended, the people erected a merry-go-round which they enjoyed while playing their folk game of “Aunt Sally”.111 The juxtaposition of poorly clad peasants outside the gates amusing themselves and the well bedecked social elites within having “fun” in the rain that fell, must have made for quite a striking cultural contrast. At a sports event at Montpelier in 1898, there was “a ‘Merry-goround;’ ‘Bow-so-roe;’ ‘John Canoe’ – Cow head dancing, perfectly indescribable . . . and other fancy dancing, all going on with the greatest good order and good temper”.112 The creolization of the merry-go-round, however, put it in the same category as other forms of Afro-creole culture that were loathed by the cultural elites, and so they called on the colonial authorities to suppress it. Here as elsewhere, their duplicity was glaring and galling because while they were quite happy to enjoy this amusement in public, at the same time they attempted to deny the lower classes similar enjoyment. Hence in 1887, they drew “[t]he attention of the St. Andrew constabulary . . . to the disgraceful scenes which occur nightly at a Merry-go-Round near the Cross Roads. A number of disreputable characters assemble in front of the premises, and indulge in filthy language and howling up to sometimes one o’clock in the morning, to the great disgust and annoyance of respectable neighbours.”113 In May 1888, Moxey Loza was arrested and charged for “unlawfully blowing a horn or cornet at the performance of a Merry-go-round”.114 In December 1889, there were complaints about the “idle” men and women who congregated around the merrygo-rounds nightly using “the most unseemly and disgusting language”.115 By 1890, the tone of elite condemnation was shriller, and the police harassment intensified. In September 1890, a pastor warned against “the pernicious soul destroying evils of the satanic Merry-go Rounds”, a campaign that was actively taken up by the Salvation Army. At one of their meetings in Savannala-Mar, they charged the devil with owning a merry-go-round in the town. In their zeal to impose their imported morality on Jamaica, some cultural elites

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had turned the merry-go-round when utilized by the lower classes into a “sin”. Yet as a more enlightened Gleaner would eventually recognize many years later, the people were merely using the rides as catharsis from their daily drudgery: “these so called extravagant and foolish people were not stinting themselves of food, they were merely enjoying themselves more than they did before, and in order to have some luxury along with the simple necessities that had sufficed them they gave less time to indolence and more to productive exertion”.116 This elite publication, however, still held to the stereotypical belief that the people had been (and still were to some degree) inclined to be indolent. The power of the cultural elites was not, however, hegemonic. Although the police seemed all too willing to do their bidding, as usual they were ambivalent about the assumed socio-cultural effects of the merry-go-round, and divisions within their ranks were reflected in the judicial system. In a test case in 1892, the police arrested Hugh Augustus Rose, a carousel operator, for creating a common nuisance with his machine. He was fined twenty shillings or fourteen days’ imprisonment with hard labour. Rose, however, was not about to let this go unchallenged.117 He appealed and, very surprisingly, the verdict was overturned. As Joy Lumsden observes, this meant that “Rose and others were free to operate their merry-go-rounds without fear of prosecution”;118 and so they did despite the continued elite condemnations of them and their culture. The merry-go-round had become part of the wider struggle by the lower classes for freedom of cultural expression – a struggle in which they ultimately prevailed amidst cultural elite ambivalence and hypocrisy. They did ultimately do as they pleased.

Tea Meetings and Pink Teas Although there were a few organized specifically for children,119 tea meetings were usually entertainments for the entire family. The vast majority was organized to aid church charities and was in fact under the direct supervision of the churches. Initially the Wesleyan Methodists made most use of these entertainments, but the other denominations followed suit from the 1870s onwards. The church-related tea meeting was thus initially a highly respectable, quasireligious affair, designed to promote the church’s mission to “civilize” Jamaicans, and a great amount of effort was made by the “ladies” who generally put them together to decorate the venues, usually churches or school-

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rooms, with a wide variety of flowers and flags, and to arrange tables with cakes, buns, ices, confectionery, sweet meats, tea, coffee, lemonade and other beverages. There was usually a music band in attendance. Funds were generated by the admission fees and the sale of food and drink. After eating and drinking, there were speeches by ministers and other notables, the singing of hymns and songs, recitations and the like. They ended at about 10:00 p.m. with a benediction and/or the national anthem.120 Pink teas were rare elite affairs. Again organized by the “ladies” for charity, these were characterized by the use of the colour pink – programmes, decorations, tablecloths; flowers and so on were all pink. Tea, coffee and ice cream were served, and these events were accompanied sometimes by athletic entertainments, mini-bazaars, “post office”, concerts and light theatricals, generally consisting of farces. A band for music was also usually in attendance.121 Lower-class Jamaicans, however, appropriated the tea meeting and creolized it. Theirs were wholly secular and were organized by private individuals, sometimes for profit, usually in holiday periods such as Christmas–New Year and Emancipation in August. A large booth was built by using poles nailed or tied together with withes, with the sides and top made of coconut leaves. The earthen floor was pounded until smooth. Along three sides benches were arranged, and a platform placed at the fourth side. Sometimes just a long table was placed in the centre of the booth, around which people sat. Some tea meetings featured an elaborately dressed “queen” whose identity was kept secret until the unveiling ceremony. Younger women attending might wear dresses or ribbons of a prearranged colour. A chairman presided; his task was to entertain the gathering with recitations and funny speeches. He was assisted by a “president”, “secretary” and other volunteers chosen from among those gathered. Finally, he would “crown the speaker” and at midnight would respond to requests to unveil the “queen”. Tea meetings usually had an elaborate cake or “show-bread” made in a fanciful shape which was also unveiled, and then cut and distributed among the guests.122 The costs of the tea meeting were defrayed by admission fees (of about one shilling); charges to peep at the queen and the show-bread (about sixpence) before they were unveiled; and by auctions to unveil the queen and for pieces of the cake. The queen would not be unveiled until a sufficient sum had been collected or the privilege of unveiling her had been auctioned to the highest bidder. Julia Mullings recalled that “[s]ometimes a piece of bread would be sold for 2/6, 2/- or 1/6. This would go on until the bread was finished.” Refreshments included tea, chocolate and coffee. After the bidding, the par-

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ticipants ate, sang, told jokes, old stories and riddles. Usually there was a band for music on hand, so these gatherings were eventually turned into dancing parties which lasted until daylight.123 As Errol Hill noted, “What was a docile, spectator-oriented, and sedate occasion under church auspices [had] been transformed into a joyous, participatory, and climactic event organized by Jamaican blacks.”124 Sometimes, however, things got out of hand and outbreaks of disorder would occur. Already by the mid-1880s, tea meetings had earned a reputation for being disorderly. Far from providing a civilizing effect as far as the cultural elites were concerned, it is not surprising that they would call on the authorities to suppress these “orgies”.125

Excursions and Picnics Excursions and picnics became popular among all classes and age groups of Jamaicans by the late nineteenth century, particularly as railway services facilitated travel into the countryside. These were either privately organized, and thus composed of small groups of people; or alternatively public events organized by churches, schools and other organizations. They were usually planned for weekends and holidays, particularly during August and at Christmas time (December–January). After the railway line was extended thereto in 1893, Port Antonio became a favourite excursion and picnicking destination. A variety of activities was engaged in at these events: in addition to a great deal of eating and drinking, there were sports and games, walks, horseback and cycle riding, singing, band music and dancing.126 As might be expected, however, the churches railed against Sunday picnics whether engaged in by elites or others.127 While lower-class people participated in the abovementioned picnics, especially those organized by the churches, their own picnics took an altogether different form – usually of great all-day dances which were held at well-known places in Kingston and in rural towns and villages. These, of course, advanced the creolization process. “Flaming placards inform you that ‘A Grand Unique Star of the West Picnic’, will take place at Wildman Penn on Thursday, King’s Birthday: Mr Johnny’s Band in attendance. Admission: Males 1s., Females 6d.” Large crowds, sometimes numbering up to a few thousands, attended these picnics. “To be well-dressed at a picnic of this sort a girl will save for months. And she will dance all day until she is perfectly exhausted and wet through and through with perspiration. Then home she will go, to talk about

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the events with her relatives and friends; to relate quarrels, tell of compliments, and to declare how ‘I enjoy meself’.”128 Another form of lower-class picnic apparently centred the game of “nine pins”, which was adapted and called “ball play”. Players were divided into two sets, the Blues and the Reds (perhaps a remnant of the old Christmas Sets idea – see chapter 7). Costumed and accompanied by a band of musicians, they paraded to the venue, usually a large yard transformed into a long alley along which the balls were thrown. A small admission fee was charged. At the end of the alley was a small structure with three judges, and in front of this, nine pins were arranged. A toss of a coin determined which set began first. The ball was thrown with both hands, “the thrower bending forward and swinging it between his legs before doing so”. If a player knocked down the pins, he was hoisted in the arms of his comrades and carried to the judges to receive a prize, usually a tin medal hung on a bit of coloured cloth. This game lasted all day while the other picnickers spent their time eating, drinking, smoking and dancing.129

Swimming and Sea Bathing Swimming competitions were a small part of regattas and aquatic sports organized by the elite yacht clubs in Kingston (see chapter 9). Beyond that, however, competitive swimming was very rare.130 Swimming and sea bathing were thus essentially leisure pastimes rather than sports and could, at least in theory, be done by all who had easy access to the sea or rivers. A few amenities, both public and private, were erected to facilitate these pastimes. In Kingston, a sea bath at the end of Hanover Street was extended in 1881.131 Streadwick’s Marine Gardens also had a sea bath which, when reconstructed and enlarged in 1892, was the largest and considered the most pleasant in Kingston, complete with a fresh water shower. Eight cottages were built on the grounds, each with its own private fresh water bathroom and ready access to the sea.132 Similar facilities were built in St Ann, but those at Doctor’s Cave in Montego Bay in 1906 were reputedly unsurpassed in the entire island.133 More generally people simply found a quiet spot along the beach to take a dip in the sea.134 Swimming and sea bathing, however, were attended by problems and dangers. The most obvious danger was posed by sharks.135 No less disconcerting was the moral issue of “decency”. Many people, both male and female, and especially of the lower classes, were in the habit of bathing/swimming naked.

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On occasion, women had their clothing stolen by men. On the other hand, there were reports that some “gentlemen” quite unabashedly stripped themselves and promenaded in public in front of private residences along the seashore, much to the disgust of their occupants. The term “gentlemen” could either suggest that these were middle- and/or upper-class men, or was sarcastically directed at lower-class males. Periodically some offenders (most likely lower class) were prosecuted and either fined or imprisoned.136 But when in 1905 the Montego Bay Board passed a regulation insisting that sea bathers should wear bathing costumes, Governor Swettenham informed them that there was no legal provision empowering them to take such action, and so long as the law was not infringed, the people could bathe as they wished.137 This debate about whether or not bathers should be allowed to continue in their nakedness pointed to ongoing moral battles about the “proper” engagement with leisure pastimes. In a society anxious to indicate its graduation from barbarity to civility by way of adoption of the tenets of an imported Victorian culture, the spectacle of unbridled nakedness was very troubling to those who agreed that a covered body was a “decent” body. That members of the middle and upper classes may have “joined” their less affluent brethren in unrestrained displays of nakedness only served to highlight the struggles and ambivalence within the ranks of the middle and upper classes who were, at the end of the day, a part of creoledom. At the same time, everyone seemed to conform to the prevailing convention of decency that regarded mixed-sex bathing as inappropriate.138 Ultimately, swimming was a pastime that people of all classes could participate in, and thus formed part of the shared leisure culture of Jamaica.

Fishing and Hunting Fishing and hunting of birds were regulated under the birds and fish protection laws, which not only protected certain species of bird and fish, but also laid down the seasons for fishing and hunting, and the types of equipment that could be used in these activities.139 Both were leisurely pastimes rather than competitive sports. Fishing was done both in the rivers and in the sea along the coasts by people of all classes. Like swimming, it was a shared national leisure pastime. The main river fish were the callipeva/calepeaver – a hog-nosed mullet averaging about eight pounds, and the snook, which could be as large as twenty pounds. These were caught near the mouths of the rivers

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using mainly fishing rods. Higher upstream, beneath the waterfalls and rapids, were the famous mountain mullet, which rarely exceeded half a pound. Eels, mud-fish, crayfish and prawns also abounded in the rivers and were caught in bamboo basketwork pots. The sea furnished mainly the tarpon, which attracted both local and foreign fishermen. One of the largest, weighing 112 pounds, was caught off Old Harbour Bay, but they were usually found off Port Royal, Black River and Milk River. Other sea fish were kingfish, yellowtails, grunts, grouper, hind, jack, parrot, turbot, whiting, cutlass, June fish and snapper.140 Bird hunting, too, was done by people of all classes. While the usual weapon/tool was the rifle, country boys used catapults (“sling-shots”) to shoot birds.141 Ringtails, white-wing and blue pigeons, pea-doves, partridges, and baldpates were the main game birds. In addition, large flocks of ducks (whitebelly, whistling, shovel-bill) and teal visited the island from North America during winter. The best time for shooting was at dawn and for a couple hours after sunrise when the birds were leaving their roosts.142 There were some abuses associated with this pastime because several hunters ignored the closed seasons.143 Men would go to the back woods, out of the reach and hearing of the constables, and shoot the birds in the closed season, in some cases even in their nests.144 The Gleaner reported, for instance, that during the first quarter of 1901 in the upper Rio Grande valley, one man alone killed two hundred wild pigeons, wounded three hundred and caused five hundred to starve to death in their nests;145 and although two “gentlemen”, Frank and Leo Verley, were hunting within the open season in 1895, surely their record breaking tally of two thousand baldpates shot in the first month was overzealous.146 There were no big game on the island, but wild hogs were hunted in the Blue Mountains and, although dangerous, crocodiles as well in the swamps and rivers.147 Although not widely participated in, fishing and hunting were leisure activities shared by all classes of Jamaicans and fitted into an evolving culture of national recreation.

Agricultural and Horticultural Shows Agricultural and horticultural shows too became very popular among all classes of Jamaicans from the 1870s. Agricultural shows were held in different parts of the island, most notably in Cornwall (1870s and 1880s), Cumberland Pen

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in St Catherine (from 1882), Kendal in Manchester (from 1893) and Hanover (after 1899). In 1896 the idea was imported into Kingston and St Andrew and the first show was held at Quebec Lodge, site of the 1891 Jamaica Exhibition (see below). These shows were usually organized by the elite members of the parochial agricultural societies. Essentially they comprised an exhibition of a wide variety of livestock, namely, various kinds of cattle, horses, mules, donkeys, sheep, pigs, dogs, rabbits and poultry (turkeys, geese, ducks, fowl etc.). As was customary, these shows were spiced up with music and athletic sports, and in the absence of other forms of entertainment attracted large numbers of people of all classes.148 The first Kingston Flower and Horticultural show was the brainchild of Dr J.C. Phillippo who chaired an all-male organizing committee. This was held at Campbellsfield Pen in July 1881, and was opened by Governor Musgrave. There were eleven tents and booths with a variety of flowers, plants, fruits, and vegetables, and the show was attended by over fifteen hundred persons. The band of the Fourth King’s Own Regiment provided music.149 Thereafter, this became a much anticipated annual event with a wider variety of exhibits, and it was held at the spacious Winchester Park in Kingston.150 These shows were organized by the Kingston Horticultural Society, formed in 1885, which was composed only of males, although the wives of the governors were the patronesses for the shows. They were supported by voluntary subscriptions which entitled subscribers to enter the grounds one hour before the general public. Tickets were also sold at the gate to the public.151 A smaller flower show was held annually in Mandeville from 1895. These horticultural shows were attended by a broad cross-section of people, and represented yet another example of shared national entertainment.

The Jamaica Exhibition By far the largest public event held in Jamaica during the period under review was the International Exhibition of 1891. Perhaps the brainchild of director of public gardens and plantations, William Fawcett,152 this idea was taken up by Governor Henry Blake and pushed with utmost vigour153 utilizing a considerable amount of money raised largely from public donors154 for, among other things, the construction of a massive exhibition hall at Quebec Lodge, just north of the Race Course. The grandiose objective was to put on show all the products of the island, natural and manufactured, as well as those from

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the wider British empire, the wider Caribbean, the Americas and Europe. Blake hoped that the exhibition would help the Jamaican people to acquire new business ideas and skills to jump-start the chronically ailing colonial economy.155 The exhibition was also intended to provide entertainment and amusement as well as information and education. The plans of the exhibition hall and grounds were prepared by George Messiter, but the final building differed somewhat from the original plans. Entirely constructed of imported American wood, it was built wholly by Jamaican labour under the supervision of the Public Works Department. The building was cruciform in shape, with the main arm running east to west for 511 feet, and with entrances comprising vestibules screened by trees, pillars and arches at each end. The transepts were 166 feet long, north to south, with similar vestibule entrances. At the intersection was a large magnificent dome, 114 feet high, with corniced and moulded faces and ribs in Moorish design. The nave of the building had a semi-cylindrical roof about 54 feet above the ground, supported on each side by a long line of pillars in pairs with a continuous line of arches between. A continuous gallery ran around the building. On the outside the dome extended to a gilded cupola with an ornamental terminal. The main roof line ran from the centre dome to the points of the arms with cornices and arcaded lights. The four ends of the cruciform were capped with large semicircular windows in trellis lights of ornamental work flanked by the side flat roofs of the vestibules. At each corner of the arms was a large minaret with access by a staircase in the interior. The roof of the building was covered with prepared paper which was painted a dark red while the sides were painted in alternate stripes of buff and red, and the dome of a darker colour. The interior was painted red, buff and blue. The building was lit throughout with electric light, with an arc light in the cupola that was visible from all directions.156 The grounds covered 23 acres and were laid out by William Fawcett. They were broken up into walks and planted with a wide variety of tropical vegetation – trees, shrubs, ferns, flowers and so on. In front of the main building, all paths converged on a beautiful fountain, to the left of which was a bandstand. Also on the grounds were Gothic structures housing a kitchen and a pantry; a machinery annex; the pavilion of Messrs Lascelles DeMercado and Co.; an apiary; an industrial village with six houses, schoolhouse and sugar mill; and two more large annexes, one of which housed some of the Canadian exhibits, the other housing some exhibits from the United States, France, Germany, Austria, England and Wales.157

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Figure 19. Quebec Lodge, 1891 Jamaica exhibition hall. (Courtesy of the National Library of Jamaica.)

In the main building, apart from the exhibition courts there were an art gallery, theatre, two restaurants, a bar and a variety of amusements – merrygo-round, switchback railway, maze, toboggan slide, skating rink, shooting gallery, camera obscura, among others. The catering and amusement facilities were all run by local companies. The exhibits themselves were from a fairly wide range of places. Apart from the local ones, exhibits came from Canada (by far the largest exhibitor), Britain (mainly England and Scotland), the United States, Italy, Austria, France, Belgium and Germany among others; and from within the region, the Turks and Caicos, Windwards, Bahamas, Barbados, St Vincent, St Lucia, Grenada, Grand Cayman, and Suriname.158 The whole of Kingston was decorated with floral wreaths, triumphal arches and streaming banners for this unique extravaganza; and although the rural peasants in particular were at first quite wary about the exhibition due to a number of disturbing rumours,159 large numbers of people eventually came into the city from the countryside,160 as well as foreign visitors, the most notable of whom was Prince George, the Prince of Wales, who opened the

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exhibition on 27 January 1891. Until it closed fourteen weeks later on 2 May,161 the exhibition proved to be the largest and most extravagant show in Jamaica before the First World War. The opening ceremony was itself a spectacle of pomp and splendour, complete with a royal salute and the usual speeches. Both the bands of the First West India Regiment and the Kingston Volunteer Militia were on hand throughout the day to provide music. There were piano and organ recitals, theatricals provided by the London Dramatic Company (which performed for the duration of the exhibition),162 and in the evening a magnificent fireworks display provided by James Pain and Sons of London.163 For the duration of the exhibition, there was a variety of shows and lectures to attract the general public, for example, on Easter Monday (30 March), a fête; on 1 April, a grand carnival and fancy dress ball; 7–9 April, a flower show; and a special exhibition horse race meeting was held 15–16 April. Altogether it was estimated that over three hundred thousand persons of all classes and ethnicities visited the exhibition.164 Perhaps except for the Rockfort Gardens, no other entertainment served as a site for bringing together Jamaicans of all classes and fostering a sense of cultural symbiosis than the 1891 Exhibition.

Conclusion Even at the end of the First World War, there was not much happening on a regular basis to entertain the people of Jamaica. The events discussed above were at best sporadic and many catered mainly to the entertainment of the middle and upper classes. As a society that was created to produce tropical staples for export, among the majority work was emphasized ahead of leisure. After the lower classes won their freedom from enslavement, great emphasis was placed on their pursuing a religious and “civilized” existence by foregoing the pleasures of life. So no encouragement was given to them to develop their own forms of entertainment outside the reach of the churches since those were regarded as debased and vulgar. That of course did not prevent them from finding ways to entertain themselves, but this was always under a cloud of suspicion and constantly disparaged in a war that sought to suppress Afro-creole cultural expressions. For most of the period under review, the majority of the middle classes, like those below them, had to work long hours, and thus had little leisure time. Their demand for entertainment was not as great as the more leisured upper classes. However, the latter were too small in size to gen-

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erate a regular stream of public entertainment, and in any event a substantial section among them preferred to rely on cultural importations from Europe, the United States and elsewhere in an attempt to keep up with trends overseas, which were given an enormous premium over local productions. Entertainments, public and private, were conducted within the context of the ongoing contestation between the forces of civilization/anglicization and creolization where, from the cultural elite standpoint, the objective was either to suppress or curtail lower-class entertainments, or to restrict their participation in elite events. Yet only few of the latter could take place without being “surrounded” by the ubiquitous Afro-creole cultural presence as the black lower classes were invariably attracted by the spectacle, and perhaps the hope of gaining unpaid admission. Some were legitimately present because their labour was required before, during and after these events. What this means is that no cultural elite event was entirely void of Afro-creole “participation” and “influence”, however peripheral. Indeed, the elite efforts to exclude them were an acknowledgement of an Afro-creole presence that was constructed as problematic and threatening. The lower classes constantly impinged on the cultural space of the cultural elites and thereby challenged their exclusion from some events. By making their cultural presence felt, even if only on the outside, they “tainted” the pretensions of the cultural elites to a faithful practice of anglicized culture. The adherents of Euro-cultural civilization were regularly made to feel that they were walking the plank amidst the “mob” of Afro-creole lowerclass spectators, who felt empowered by their numbers to do as they pleased. That did not, however, daunt the cultural elites in their determination to civilize the “unwashed”, the “uncultured”; and they felt obliged to keep up their war against Afro-creole cultural expressions. Yet, as this chapter demonstrates, despite the cultural strife, Jamaicans shared similar forms of entertainment and leisure activities as they gradually moulded a national creolized culture by the end of the First World War.

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Chapter 9

“Mens sana in corpore sano” Fashioning a Jamaican Sporting Culture

T HE A FRO - CREOLE FOLK games that aroused the curiosity and interest of many elite commentators, although themselves “benign”, were often played in social settings that the cultural elites considered morally dubious. These were often labelled “orgies” where they claimed excessive rum consumption and drunkenness, licentiousness, loud music and lewd dances, indecent language and brawling were commonplace. The games themselves, “quaint” though they might be, were the “simple” products of a “backward” people. They were closer to crude dances and primitive theatre rather than physical athleticism. For those, mainly clergy and teachers, who sought to spread civilization through religion and education, the desirable thing was for them to be replaced by the more vigorous and “manly” British sports and games through the churches and schools. However, there were many other cultural elites who firmly believed that as unique symbols of Britishness, sports should be kept exclusive and should not be shared with the masses. In the cultural thrust to civilize, the lines that separated the races and classes were being blurred and sport could serve a very useful purpose to maintain social distinctions. This chapter will show how exclusion was used as an important weapon in the arsenal of the cultural elite war effort. For a long time, they would seek to exclude the Afro-creole lower classes from participation in organized sporting events. This undoubtedly conferred on these sports a premium value that motivated the lower classes to demand inclusion in some of them on equal terms. So one of the areas that they voluntarily sought to embrace British culture (although in their own creole way) was sport, but this would threaten the 248

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preservation of their old folk games by the early twentieth century. After the First World War, anthropologist Martha Beckwith observed that the latter were “giving place to more modern amusements. The song and dialogue games of the past are being abandoned for field sports” even though they still remained vibrant in some parts of the island.1 In the later nineteenth century, a variety of new sports and games, largely of British provenance, were imported into Jamaica by the elite classes. They were played mainly by men, not just for enjoyment, but also for physical exercise and, as we will show, for status. New entertainment facilities in the form of private sports clubs were established to cater to these sportsmen. These would help to ease the tedium of elite social and cultural life, while less privileged people played sports wherever they could. By the turn of the twentieth century, a new sporting culture had been engendered in Jamaica, and the friendly and competitive contests which it spawned formed an important extension to the sparse public entertainment that was otherwise available.

Transmission of British Sport Values Sports that became increasingly popular in the later nineteenth century also played a very significant role in the transmission of Victorian socio-cultural values. They formed a major part of the leisure activities of the white elites (mainly the males) and, as in other areas of their lives, attempted to duplicate those in England. In the metropolis itself there was literally a sports revolution from the 1860s onwards as both the middle and lower classes began to enjoy more leisure time. Organized sport was one means of putting this spare time to constructive use, and this was undertaken largely under middle-class leadership and sponsorship, and promoted mainly by the churches, public schools and elite universities. Games were standardized by rules and regulations governing not only how they were played, but the conduct and dress of the players; and supreme governing bodies like the Marylebone Cricket Club and the Football Association were set up in all major sports (tennis, hockey, netball, golf, racing, athletics etc.).2 In the colonies like Jamaica, such organizations would count for much, for British sports were seen to possess precisely those attributes that were promoted as characteristic of an advanced civilization, namely, structure, order, rules and regulations. These rendered British sports “rational” amusements and made them superior to the “irrational” amusements of creole folk games. In the late nineteenth century the doctrine of “muscular Christianity” held

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sway in Britain. According to Keith Sandiford, this revolved “around the basic notion that there [was] something innately good and godly about brute strength and power. Physical weakness [was] unnatural since it [was] only a manifestation of moral and spiritual inadequacy. It could be overcome by prayer, upright living, discipline, and exercise.” In Jamaica this could be contrasted with creole folk games, which seemed to offer little opportunity for vigorous physical exercise, and were not considered to be imbued with the spirit of Christianity. Sport, especially team sport, was thus good for the body as well as the soul. It was considered a civilizing agent, one that instilled such middle-class values as teamwork, self-discipline, respect for the rules, obedience to authority, courage in the face of adversity and so on. In short, sport was the training ground for life’s challenges.3 Given the importance which sports assumed in late Victorian British social life, it is not surprising that they should have been taken abroad, in particular to the colonies. According to the Gleaner: The love of sport is deeply implanted in the breast of every Briton. He may leave the Mother Country to reside in other climes, but the passion for the grand old games of his boyhood cannot be subdued. Not content with playing them himself, he infects those by whom he is surrounded with the same enthusiasm. The British colonies to-day are full of ardent individuals who engage with as much zeal in athletic contests as any English public school boy.4

Richard Holt and Mike Huggins concur on the importance of sport to colonial officials and colonists alike. For the former, they “helped both to relieve the tedium of a distant posting and to integrate new arrivals into the small world of colonial society”. For the latter, they served overwhelmingly to express and enhance the solidarity of colonial society. Providing amusement for those far from home isolated amidst an alien and sometimes hostile population, sport was not so much a luxury as a necessity, a means of maintaining morale and a sense of shared roots, of Britishness, of lawns and tea and things familiar. For the more humble middle-class emigrant sports also underlined that transition from a suburban to an essentially landed style, which added to the appeal of the Empire.5

Sport was taken to the colonies with all of the class and gender prejudices with which it was engulfed in Britain. The British working classes were systematically discriminated against in middle-class sports clubs and associations, and there was a rigid differentiation between amateur and professional players.6

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This class bias, when transferred to colonies in the Caribbean, Africa, India and the Pacific, was reinforced by racial prejudice; and, as Holt notes for the Caribbean, “racial segregation was built into colonial sport. Many whites simply refused to play in or against teams with black players.”7 In addition to underscoring their British identity, on which they placed a very high value and sought to protect at all costs, British sport set them apart from, and emphasized their “superiority” over, the rest of society. Many elites valued this feeling highly. While seeking to maintain social distance between white and non-white in the colonial context, sport was at the same time recognized by some as a useful assimilative cultural mechanism, in order to promote a consensus of shared values, beliefs and attitudes between rulers and ruled. Brian Stoddart points out that dominant British beliefs relating to social behaviour, standards, relations and conformity were transferred through sport. It provided excellent socialization, camaraderie and good fellowship even among rivals; it was considered good for disciplining the mind and very importantly it reputedly instilled good habits.8 Yet in Jamaica and the Caribbean it would be some time before the elite mindset to exclude would be transformed sufficiently to allow the assimilative power of sport to work. By the end of the First World War, however, one journalist could write, “I venture to say that if every village had its club, football, cricket or basketball and tennis clubs, Jamaica would have a better peasantry, less gamblers, less rioters, less praedial thieves, less loafers and less vagrants, for more of our people would learn ‘to play the game’.”9 So, in Jamaica, sport naturally became enmeshed in the culture war, both as a civilizing agent in promoting anglicization through inculcating the “right” cultural attributes, and also as a mechanism to preserve the socio-racial status quo by attempting to exclude the black majority from active participation in organized competition. British sport was also enveloped by gender bias against female participation. With the strict separation of sex roles in British society and the philosophy of muscular Christianity with which sport was imbued, there was little place for women, who were characterized as the weaker sex. According to Kathleen McCrone, the stylized image of the genteel middle-class woman held her as a person “imbued . . . with qualities of mind and body that destined her for specific tasks, such as being man’s helpmate, nurturing his children, and protecting the sanctity of his home. [This] ideal woman was antithetical to sport. Passive, gentle, emotional, and delicate, she had neither the strength nor inclination to undertake strenuous exercise and competitive games.”10

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Hence although noble women had hunted, hawked and ridden horses ever since the Middle Ages, there was still the popular perception that sport was a male sphere of activity, and “scientific evidence” was employed to “prove” that strenuous exercise was harmful to women. It was not until the late Victorian period that British women gradually, quietly, almost clandestinely, began to participate actively in sports, a process facilitated by the girls’ public schools and women’s colleges of the elite universities.11 One consequence of this was that with few exceptions, female sports developed in a totally separate sphere from that of males, and thus mirrored the gender separation in public and private life.12 The ideal of the genteel elite woman attained its highest expression in the colonies, where there was an even greater perceived necessity to protect their “vulnerable” physical beings and honour from the “lusting black natives”. In the colonies the lady of high status had to conform to strict social codes governing her deportment and physical activity, which consequently ruled out participation in those sports that required “unladylike” exertion. Although somewhat slow to be infected by the sports virus, the Jamaican cultural elites were by the 1890s fully imbued with the idea that athletic exercise was necessary for the physical well-being of the youth of the island, both male and female. The Gleaner thus advocated the establishment of gymnasia for regular exercise,13 arguing that this was needed more in the tropics perhaps than in temperate climates. For the perpetual summer found in Jamaica was enervating and it required an effort of will for one to move about much. It further noted that practically every doctor in the island recommended his patients take physical exercise in order to maintain good health. “The moral of their remarks is therefore plain. Every young man (and every young woman too) should, at school and out of school, take part in healthy games and such amusements as are calculated to have the desired effect upon the body. Girls, we know, are not particularly fond of this sort of thing; they seem to consider it unladylike.”14 While it is not at all clear if these sentiments were meant to apply to women who were not “ladies”, what is sure is that the physical benefits that were supposed to accrue from “healthy games” were perhaps gained by other means by those who were engaged, as many lower-class women were, in manual labour.

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Cricket In the second half of the nineteenth century, the English sport of cricket became increasingly popular in Jamaica. As in England, this “manly” sport was swathed in many positive qualities of benefit to young men and to society at large. It not only provided entertainment in an island where that was limited, but it encouraged healthy athleticism in the youth.15 Elite Jamaicans also bought the British idea that cricket instilled uplifting character-building qualities. It prevented intoxication and promoted proper conduct and respectful demeanour.16 In making the presentation of the Senior Cup in 1916, BrigadierGeneral Leonard Blackden, commanding officer of the imperial troops, praised the game for developing teamwork and unselfishness, which was of benefit to the community as a whole.17 It also promoted courage in the face adversity. No greater testimony of that could be proffered than by an anonymous enthusiast who, despite having his thumb broken by the ball and suffering other injuries, asserted that there was “no better game to improve a man’s physical condition: it strengthens one’s sinews too”. Cricket, for him, was a healthy amusement and he gloried in it.18 Although cricket had been played in the island ever since the days of slavery,19 it was not until the 1860s that it really began to take off in a significant way. The British military, who were largely responsible for transmitting the sport in the first place, continued to play a major role in its promotion throughout the nineteenth century. The garrison at Up-Park Camp in Kingston was a major centre of sports, especially cricket, and visiting warships also provided sporting teams that played against both the garrison and local clubs. Cricket was in fact one of the major sporting events during the annual visits, in February–March, of the British North American and West Indian Squadron – “the Fleet”. It was teams of military and naval officers, therefore, which formed the main opponents of the local clubs when they were first formed.20 From the 1860s, elite “gentlemen” in various parts of the island began to form cricket clubs. The Kingston Cricket Club (hereafter KCC) was established in 1863, and this was followed by similar elite clubs all over the island.21 Some, however, especially in the rural areas, had difficulty sustaining themselves and were short-lived. This was largely due to their small and exclusive memberships, which could not finance and upkeep the expensive facilities and paraphernalia required for cricket – club house, grounds and equipment – although fees were set high to keep out social undesirables. Less than five years

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after its foundation, the Falmouth Cricket Club had become dormant; and when a new club was formed at Port Maria in 1880, it was feared that like its predecessor it would not last very much longer than it would take the half dozen members to “wear out the ball and their patience too”. Cricket also languished in Portland until the 1890s for similar reasons.22 However, the KCC, as well as its rival, the Kensington Cricket Club, was to prove enduring largely because of the staunch support it received from the crème de la crème of the island’s wealthy elites. Much of the success of cricket in Jamaica was in fact attributed by these elites to the KCC, which assumed the mantle of the sport’s leadership in the colony. This gave its members a decided advantage over the other clubs because visiting military, naval, and international teams automatically played against the KCC, and it attracted to its membership young cricketers from British public schools and universities.23 However, even this club suffered periods of waning interest, most notably in 1890 when its energetic captain, Lawrence R. Fyfe, left the island for Grenada; and such was its influence on the domestic scene that whither Kingston went, so did the entire island. But the club and cricket in general survived this decline. Its membership fluctuated, and stood at 222 in 1919 despite the high subscription fees of two pounds and eight shillings per annum.24 By the late nineteenth century, KCC was big enough to possess at least three teams, which visited different parishes to play against local clubs and promote the sport. The colours of the club were sky blue and white, and the cricket dress was white flannel trousers or knickers, shirts and straw hats with turbans of the colours. The first practice ground was at McIntyre’s Pen, later called Winchester Park. After the sale of McIntyre’s Pen, the club used the Race Course until 1877, then moved to Paradise Pen, before renting Sabina Park in 1879. In 1894 a new two-storied pavilion was erected at Sabina at a cost of two hundred and eighty pounds.25 Although by the early 1890s cricket was regarded by many as “the national game”, its dominance was never taken for granted. There were periods when interest in it seemed to wane, and other sports/activities especially football, athletics, bicycling, yachting and volunteering26 drew away its devotees. However, the elite press were united in their support of this “good old English game” that was considered “one of the branches of genuine sport which are so essential to the physical development of the rising generation”. The Colonial Standard argued that there was room enough for the pursuit of all sports in Jamaica without affecting cricket: “A good Cricketer will, as a rule, prove a good Yachtsman, and a good Volunteer.”27

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Cricket not only had the unwavering endorsement of the elite newspapers. It was fully supported by “the wealth, intelligence and respectability” of the island – the colonial establishment, both civil and military (see above), the merchant and planter class, the legal and medical professions, and the churches. The leading members of the elite clubs came almost exclusively from those socio-occupational groups, and many were products of the English public schools, where cricket was almost a religion.28 Some of these elite clubs enjoyed the patronage of the governors and parish custodes. The KCC, for instance, routinely had the governor as its patron, while the Kensington club enjoyed the patronage of the commanding officer of the imperial forces in the island.29 In the rural parishes, the custos of Trelawny, Robert Nunes, and Judge Davidson were founding members of the Falmouth club in 1868, which also benefited from a large donation by acting governor Major General O’Connor towards its start-up funds. Likewise, Custos Gibb was a founding member of the Vere club in 1878. The custos of St James, William Kerr, donated cricket equipment to the Phoenix club in neighbouring Trelawny in 1873, while a former commander of the imperial forces, Colonel Sir Henry E.F. Johnstone, shipped a marque from England to that club. In 1890, the custos of Kingston, Colonel Ward, donated a handsome cup to the newly formed Norman club.30 The governors further supported the game by attending cricket matches.31 The fact, too, that at least three clubs during this period were named after governors, is testimony to their influence on the sport locally, and the elite desire to identify with the symbol of British imperial power.32 Governor Sydney Olivier, at the golden jubilee dinner of the KCC in January 1913, stated that although he had not personally taken an active part in local cricket, his interest in the game had never flagged because he realized that there was no more splendid or manly sport than cricket for young and middle-aged men. He had played the game at school and college, and he thought that he owed his current position as governor to the administrative training he had acquired as captain of his school’s second eleven, particularly the “independence” and “despotism” that it afforded him.33 The fact that he should refer to his leadership style as despotic is illustrative of his mindset and the way crown colony government was conducted. Governor Augustus Hemming went further than most by actually playing the game while in office – much to the annoyance, however, of the black newspaper the Jamaica Advocate, which argued that he lowered his prestige by this activity.34 So involved was he in promoting the game that he publicly censured

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the famous English author, Rudyard Kipling, for referring to cricketers as “flanneled fools at the wicket”.35 So much a part of the local cricket fraternity was Hemming, that he was invited to chair the committee which selected three Jamaican players for consideration for the first West Indies tour of England in 1900.36 That a British governor should be so intimately involved in the selection of Jamaicans to represent the West Indies is a clear indication that the lines between being British and Jamaican/West Indian were quite blurred, even non-existent in the minds of the cultural elites who were intent on demonstrating that anglicization was a reality. Cricket was also strongly endorsed by the clergy, some of whom were themselves practitioners of this “manly” exercise. The English clergy, from among whom many of the influential local priests were recruited, were convinced that “a vast moral good is to be achieved by a general introduction of the game amongst all classes”; and the churches encouraged the spread of cricket because it seemed capable of promoting godliness along with healthiness – what was referred to in Britain as muscular Christianity.37 Cricket clubs were formed in association with local churches, which organized matches, not only as good character building, community-oriented activities, but as fund-raising entertainments too.38 They also took the game into the schools for which they were responsible. Cricket thus became part of the staple educational diet in high schools such as the Church of England and Collegiate, St George’s, Jamaica High (later Jamaica College) and Wolmer’s in Kingston, Potsdam (later Munro) in St Elizabeth, York Castle and Walton in St Ann, and Titchfield in Portland. Indeed, it was the old boys of the Collegiate who established the KCC in 1863, and the school’s club was fully integrated into the KCC in 1868, thus serving as a feeder of good young players into the senior club.39 This also served to ensure that the barriers to this premiere cultural activity would remain in place; after all, except for a few scholarship holders, these schools were attended by the children of the social elite. Since most of the teachers (called “masters”) in these schools were drawn from the ranks of the English public schools, they were imbued with the same philosophy towards games as their peers back home. As the Colonial Standard put it: “The education of the body is, in some respects, as necessary as that of the mind, and the trite Latin quotation ‘mens sana in corpore sano’ [a heathy mind in a healthy body] has been appropriately styled ‘the golden rule of education’.”40 The colonial elites evinced the same desire to have their sons active on the playing fields as if they were attending English public schools; and the

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Figure 20. Jamaica College’s cricket team, 1912. (Courtesy of the National Library of Jamaica.)

playing of cricket in particular was fostered by the elite clubs (especially the KCC), which fielded second and third elevens to play against the elite schools.41 The early elite cricket matches were little more than social gatherings, which brought together the cultural elites from nearby districts for a day’s entertainment and socialization where they could reaffirm their Britishness. The staging of matches, especially in the rural areas, depended on the state of the sugar crop. In February 1870, for instance, a match planned between the St James and Falmouth clubs was fixed for Monday the twenty-eighth because it was impossible for the planter community to travel on any other day during crop time. This however posed problems for their merchant friends, who eventually had to close their establishments on that day.42 Up to the 1890s, it was rare for entire teams to amass more than one hundred runs, and far greater emphasis was placed on playing the game for its own sake, and on the accompanying fun and feasting. Certainly up to the end of the nineteenth century, the day fixed for a cricket match especially in the rural areas was, in the absence of other forms of enter-

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tainment, a red-letter day for all classes of Jamaicans. The venue would be thronged with people – “ladies” splendidly bedecked arriving in carriages, “gentlemen” on horseback, and the “plebeians” on foot. Special attention was paid to the accommodation of the ladies to make their attendance pleasant and comfortable. Marquees were erected to provide them with shade from the broiling sun, and their presence was evidently greatly appreciated by the men, not least of all by those who were on the field. These events were usually accompanied by a band, which played music during the breaks. An ample luncheon was generally served, and some ladies helped to serve refreshments to the players. At the close of play the teams paid their respects to the ladies who would commend the players for the amusement provided. Then they would leave the gentlemen to partake in a sumptuous dinner complete with choice viands, wines, brandy and champagnes. These gala dinners were concluded with “the usual loyal and patriotic toasts”,43 which further served to reinforce their sense of being British. The emphasis of these affairs was on sociability and lavish hospitality. It did not matter if a team won or lost; what mattered was the spirit in which they played the game. Cricket was designed to promote camaraderie and esprit de corps among rivals, not competition. Reporting on a match in St Thomas in September 1872, the Morning Journal commented: “The sociability, order, and happiness of every one were characteristic of the good feeling that existed; and there can be no doubt that the Saint Thomas men did everything that was in their power to make their guests happy and comfortable. . . . These gatherings tend to bring out the bright side of human nature; and, perhaps, none so much as Cricket, where all the energies of mind and body are called into play in friendly rivalry.”44 Middle-class Victorian manners and etiquette, however, were not easily inculcated by the Jamaican elites even though they avidly sought to align themselves culturally more closely to their British “cousins”. Nurtured and living in a creole/plantation social environment characterized by aggression, raucous and coarse behaviour, the elites did not always live up to the demands of their newly adopted ethical code. It is not surprising, therefore, that occasionally disputes arose over cricket. Perhaps the most notable was the occasion of a match between Falmouth and St James in June 1870 over the dismissal of a batsman off an adjudged no-ball. It was alleged that the umpire was influenced by a bet he had placed on the game. Out went the noble ideal of unquestioningly obeying the umpire’s decision, and a fracas ensued between the two teams involving their

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supporters in which “fists were freely made use of in the presence of a large number of Ladies”. It took a platoon of police armed with rifles and fixed bayonets to quell the disturbance.45 As we have noted elsewhere, it was this “unruly” behaviour and the culture associated with it, which were erroneously ascribed almost exclusively to the lower classes, that most confounded the cultural elites. As they sought to inculcate the virtues of decency and respectability, they were regularly reminded of the long-extant culture of aggression and exuberance which many members of the upper and middle classes shared with their less affluent brethren. That a fight should erupt among the former, in the midst of one of the most forceful symbols of Victorian civility, only confirms that the process of “civilizing” could be taken only so far. These were still creole Jamaicans.46 Owing to the generally sunny weather, cricket was played all year round, but more matches were played on holidays such as Easter, the Queen’s birthday, Whit Monday and during the Christmas season. Until the dawn of the twentieth century, there were no formally organized competitions among the clubs, so most matches were informal affairs, so-called scratch matches. This accounts for the unevenness of participation in the sport and the generally poor level of performances until the end of the century. However, once cup competition was started, those matches were confined to the period February to October each year. Jamaica, being so far away from the other British Caribbean colonies, did not play against any of them until 1891 when a Barbadian military team visited the island. In 1896 Jamaica sent a team to Guyana and Barbados but lost all three matches played. It was not until 1905 that Jamaica next played against its sister West Indian colonies, but again fared badly (against Trinidad and Barbados).47 Before 1920, therefore, the main exposure of Jamaican players to high level competitive cricket was through the visits of American and English teams. In 1888, an American team toured the island and played against Kingston, St Elizabeth and the Garrison.48 In March 1895, an English team led by R. Slade Lucas played in Kingston, Montego Bay and St Ann’s Bay. Although the visitors won all their matches, elite Jamaica seemed more bedazzled by their presence than concerned about the bad results, and the Legislative Council adjourned for a week “in order that the members might have an opportunity of witnessing what one hon[ourable] gentleman termed ‘an event in our lives’ ”.49 This was regarded as a learning experience from their English “masters” for which Jamaicans should feel privileged: “let the local cricketers go

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with the idea of copying the best methods, of following the examples of the best men in the visiting team”, pronounced the Gleaner.50 Jamaica’s catastrophic losses in Guyana (and Barbados) in 1896, however, served as a wake-up call. The Gleaner urged greater dedication to training. “This course involves a certain amount of self-denial and perseverance but the cricketer who wishes to excel must face the sacrifice or have his efficiency impaired.”51 Yet, when in 1897 Lord Hawke’s English team under A.A. Priestley, won all its matches in Jamaica, there was no outcry. The Jamaica Post was content to say that there was no reason for falling into despair: “On the contrary, every lover of the great English game in this colony owes a debt of gratitude to Mr. Priestley for having given our players an object lesson in the art of cricket as it ought to be played.”52 This was colonial sycophancy at its highest; and to compound the grovelling, one John S. Brown published a poem entitled “Toast to the English Cricketers” in the Gleaner extolling their greatness.53 For the cultural elites, their cultural and kinship ties with the mother country were valued much higher than beating their “cousins” at cricket. And there was no greater expression of ecstasy than when Lord Hawke proposed that a West Indian team should tour England in 1900. The Jamaica Daily Telegraph and Anglo-American Herald, in keeping with its title, saw this as a golden opportunity to draw the West Indian colonies and the mother country more closely together: “This island is a loyal British colony: and we hope it will always remain a loyal British colony. And what we hope for Jamaica, we hope for the rest of the British West Indies.”54 The poor fortunes of elitist Jamaican cricket, however, did not change. Another English team under R.A. Bennett won all its matches in February 1902.55 This prompted the Jamaica Times to observe that “[w]e faithfully maintained our reputation for losing matches to our English visitors to the very last”.56 The island fared slightly better in 1905 against Lord Brackley’s XI, losing one match rather badly but drawing two.57 Against the Philadelphian tourists in 1909, Jamaica finally won one match, lost one and drew the third.58 This upward trend was maintained against the Marylebone Cricket Club in 1911 when Jamaica tied one match and drew the other two.59 The principal problem with organized cricket in Jamaica up to the First World War was that it sought to exclude the black majority and cater only to the social elites. That base was too small to sustain top quality performances at the highest level. The Jamaica Cricket Committee/Council needed to expand its range of selection to include the mass of the population, but this

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was especially difficult in a society defined by, and riddled with, colour and class prejudices. The Jamaican elites were so self-absorbed in their own narrow class-based sports that they had failed or refused to notice the emergence of talented black cricketers even without formal training, proper facilities and equipment. Although quick to criticize other West Indian whites for refusing to play against blacks,60 they were themselves guilty of at least ignoring the latter. Lower-class black Jamaicans had long shown an interest in cricket, and were always among the spectators at elite matches. The cricket that was played by the lower classes, however, was confined to rough patches of pasture or the streets with makeshift equipment. But black boys playing in the streets aroused elite hostility in the war of culture. For instance, in 1892 the Colonial Standard complained about young idlers, aged between thirteen and sixteen, who were playing “bat and ball” in Duke Street, and called on the police to stop the practice.61 In November 1910, five lads were arrested in Port Royal for playing cricket in the street.62 In many ways, it was typical and symbolic that members of the local elite would invoke the power of the state against lower-class citizens for daring to sully their elitist sport with a “street” version. This was another telling moment in the convoluted culture war: because the elite and the lower classes both played the imported game, there was a closer affinity between them than the former cared to admit. However, since the lower classes could/would not play within the parameters laid out by the elite, they sought to inhibit the enjoyment of the game by “young idlers”. Sharing aspects of a culture, while trying to control its execution, the elites were involved in a confrontation with ordinary Jamaicans over whether or not “this was cricket”. Lower-class black Jamaicans began to play from childhood. Howard Pyle, in 1890, observed black boys playing cricket on the green near the Mandeville Parish Church and “for a moment it seemed all like a piece of old-time English life”, except for their black faces in the burning afternoon sun.63 The Quakers noticed that the boys at Amity Hall always played cricket;64 and Bessie PullenBurry too commented that “[s]wings and cricket seemed most popular amongst the small blacks”.65 By the late nineteenth century, cricket had become very popular among blacks and coloureds all over the island. Every district had its cricket club, and on Saturdays and public holidays teams could be seen going in different directions, sometimes walking as many as twelve or fourteen miles to play a match. They were accompanied by bands of musicians playing drums, tambourines

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Figure 21. Village cricket near Port Maria. (Source: Pleasant Glimpses of Jamaica [Kingston, 1908].)

and fifes made of bamboo. Women fetched beverages and food: water, lemonade, rice and peas, yams, breadfruit, fish, roasted pork and so on. Throughout the game, there was music and dancing; and after play ended there was feasting and singing. The shaking of hands brought the day to a pleasant end. As a rule, equipment was minimal – there were rarely gloves and pads for the batsmen and wicket-keepers. This may have tempted a few to steal equipment in order to play better.66 This was creolized cricket. Those elites who bothered to watch blacks playing cricket recognized their raw talent. S.C. Spencer Smith, for instance, observed that in a match between Fonthill and Hodges estates in 1899, “[t]he negroes catch and field very well: & bowl well: but it is . . . always a shy & a terrific pace”.67 Some blacks became so addicted to the game that Robert Love’s Jamaica Advocate thought that it might induce more harm than good: “when it is so followed as to become the daily pursuit of scores of our young men we become apprehensive that it is giving rise to habits of idleness, which will, in time, become fixed, and thus produce a type of character which will add very little to our future development, even if it does not become a stumbling-block in the way of our future program [sic]”.68

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The need to make organized cricket in Jamaica more inclusive was clearly expressed by M.M. Kerr on his return from the West Indian tour of England in 1900. He pointed out that the two best players were both black, C.A. Ollivierre of St Vincent and Learie Constantine (Snr) of Trinidad. “I need hardly say that the blacks were the favourite[s] of the British public.” And he added: “We ought to search for new talent in Jamaica as vigorously as they do in the other colonies, and we ought to encourage black players as they do. . . . There are, I believe, plenty of Figure 22. J.K. Holt of Lucas, one of Jamaica’s leading cricketers. (Source: Daily Gleaner, 30 black cricketers in Jamaica who August 1919.) would do credit to the Island if they were only given a decent chance.”69 That chance would not be forthcoming so long as blacks and coloureds were excluded from the leading cricket clubs such as KCC. Denied equal opportunity, they were obliged to form their own clubs if they hoped to play the game at a high level. Thus in 1892, well-to-do coloureds established the Melbourne club, but they in turn employed the same methods of relatively high subscription fees and screening to deny those who were less well-off and of darker hue from joining. Not to be denied, some black artisans in Kingston also decided to form a club of their own – Lucas, named interestingly enough after the Englishman Slade Lucas. This seems to signify their intent to appropriate not only the sport as theirs, but the accompanying respect that accrued to those who played it well.70 At the turn of the twentieth century, therefore, just when the white elites had taken steps to organize cricket around the Senior and Junior Cups competitions, the coloureds and blacks were about to enter the fray and test their skills and wills against their “social betters”. Lucas’s dominance in the first decade of the century astounded the elites and shattered the racial myth of black inferiority/white superiority upon which Jamaican society had been premised since the days of slavery.71 They proved themselves to be better at

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the imperial game than those who had brought it, and they introduced a new aggressive attitude and determination to win that had been heretofore absent.72 In cricket, the cultural battle-lines were drawn very clearly. There was no pretence at forging camaraderie with the elites because the latter refused to socialize with the Lucas team (very noticeably, Lucas was not invited to the golden jubilee dinner of the KCC in 1913).73 Even the Melbourne coloureds were guilty of such snobbery. So there was only one thing left for Lucas – to win. So successful were they that the elites began to complain about their attitude and that of their supporters. In 1908 Frank Cundall opined that “[t]here is perhaps a tendency to placing the winning of a match above the playing the game”.74 No longer were cricket matches (involving Lucas) the quiet and decorous affairs of old. Their matches were marked by raucous barracking and shouting, while drinking and gambling became rife. Violations of the cricket code were more frequently manifested in disputes, rows, abusive language, intimidation and fights. But had not these people on occasion witnessed similar scenes (like that at Falmouth in 1870) among those who would claim to be their superiors?75 In 1905, the Gleaner reported that the captain of Lucas was himself under official investigation for misbehaviour. There were also complaints about a gang of Lucas supporters who attend all the cup matches in which their favourites appear. At times, the conduct of these men is simply disgraceful. Every means short of actual assault or interference is used to intimidate and fluster players on an opposing side: yelling, waving of hats and all kinds of pantomime gestures are indulged in when a catch is about to be made with the hope of distracting the player’s attention and frequently the language used is of such a character that were the “barracker” heard in the public thoroughfare, he would be arrested, taken before a Justice of the Peace and fined.76

Nor did the Lucas players adhere steadfastly and unquestioningly to the imported Victorian code of ethics. The umpire might be the supreme authority in the game, but his decisions, if perceived to be wrong, were likely to be vociferously challenged, and he was likely to be subjected to abuse and harassment. For instance, in 1905 a young Lucas cricketer reportedly made use of very “unbecoming language to one of the umpires”; and in 1914 J. Nelson Barclay, an umpire, complained about the abuse often heaped on his kind by people as a result of their having lost bets on matches.77 This sort of (mis)conduct prompted the Jamaica Times to plead that “[i]t is essential in sport that when the game goes against us we take it like men, and that the person and decision

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of the umpire be regarded there with the respect and obedience given in other departments to the rulings of a judge. Unless that wholesome view is resolutely upheld sport will surely become a rottenness and abomination.”78 Occasionally disagreements on the field of play even had to be resolved in the courts of law. The cultural elites lamented these developments. The Gleaner opined that if trivial disputes on the cricket field were dragged into the law courts, it would not be good for cricket in Jamaica: “Now, this sort of thing is not cricket. It is not playing the game fairly. . . . Let us have the great national game played fairly and squarely or not at all. We cannot afford to have it thus brought into disrepute.”79 If elite clubs had, as we have seen, occasionally broken the game’s code of conduct, this was more the norm with Lucas and other lower-class clubs who constantly felt obliged, given their accustomed underprivileged position in society, to fight for what they felt was justly theirs. The “gentleman’s” world of cricket was being turned on its head: it was being proletarianized and creolized; and, not surprisingly, the white officers of His Majesty’s forces withdrew from Senior Cup competition in 1909; while their duskier companions at arms, Melbourne, ever so sensitive of their social proximity to their darker Lucas “cousins”, threatened to follow suit. The reasons proffered were the fiercely competitive manner in which cup cricket was being played and the unacceptable behaviour of supporters.80 A deeper reason might have been that the representatives of colonial authority and elitism could not allow the “benighted” people over whom they ruled to beat them at the quintessentially imperial sport. The rise of Lucas was symbolic of a process of democratization that was just beginning in Jamaican cricket. Blacks no longer acquiesced in their relegation to the sidelines, or behind fences; they were at centre stage and their supporters made quite sure that everyone knew that. However, they brought to that stage the values and behaviour of the streets and yards of the towns and rural villages where they lived and were nurtured, which threatened to subvert the Victorian code of ethics that cricket had been enveloped in. This contest of value systems was to remain a critical feature of Jamaican cricket in the years after the First World War. Another major feature of Jamaican cricket was its unquestionably male exclusivity. In so far as women were involved it was essentially as spectators and caterers. But with the consent and indulgence of their menfolk, elite women occasionally took to the field for a day of fun and frolic. This usually took the form of a match against a “gentlemen’s” team in which the men were

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handicapped, as at Old Harbour in 1899, by using a small club in lieu of a bat, and were required to bowl and field with their left hands (assuming they were right-handed).81 These women seemed content for the most part to remain on the periphery of the sport, and were apparently unwilling to challenge seriously its male exclusivity. Yet a ladies’ cricket club was established at Christiana in 1896,82 and the Gleaner (perhaps from a male sexist perspective) encouraged this process on the grounds that such clubs would be popular and women’s matches would draw large numbers of (no doubt, male) spectators.83 Some elite girls’ schools also showed an interest in cricket. In 1893 Miss Long’s Kingston High School for girls played against the boys of the Kingston Grammar School.84 And in 1899 not only was a match reported between two teams of Hampton High School girls,85 but the headmistress of Wolmer’s Girls’ School, M.M. Barrows,86 urged the trustees to rent suitable grounds to enable the girls to play cricket separately from the boys.87 How significant or enduring these developments were is not clear. Certainly they occurred at a time when women, and girls’ schools, in Britain were becoming more active in sporting activities, and athleticism was beginning to be recognized as beneficial for females too. Cricket in Jamaica, however, was resistant to such change and remained an essentially male sport beyond 1920. Perhaps more than most sports, cricket came to represent various sides of the culture clash in the period. On the one hand, the game was believed to represent all that was manly and civilized about the British identity. In its encouragement of teamwork, its requirement of complete acquiescence to the authority figure (the umpire), and its celebration of effort as opposed to victory, it was hoped that the Jamaican people (both elite and non-elite) would be introduced to and learn from the tenets of the game. However, when the people either ignored the rules of the game or else played them according to their creole interpretations, those who were invested in the civilizing mission felt violated. That the people, especially the black lower classes, did embrace cricket was more than the cultural elite might have hoped for; that those benighted classes creolized the game, playing it with aggression and panache, as well as harbouring a desire for victory, caused no end of consternation to those who sought to lead or drive them.

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Football Two versions of football were introduced by the British into Jamaica and the Caribbean: Association football and Rugby Union football (rugby). In Victorian England, the first was regarded as a gentleman’s game played by hooligans (mainly the working classes); the latter as a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen (the middle and upper classes). Both forms of football, therefore, could be problematic if the wrong social elements in the “dark” colonies took a liking to them. They could send the wrong socio-cultural messages and set back the civilizing mission.

Figure 23. A footballer. (Source: Daily Gleaner, 30 August 1919.)

Association Football Association football was slow in taking off in Jamaica. The early games were played primarily by the military at their garrisons at Up Park Camp, Newcastle and Port Royal, practically all year round,88 and military teams continued to dominate the sport until almost 1914. From time to time, groups of civilians representing Kingston played against the Garrison,89 but it was not until Rev. M.C. Clare, curate of the Kingston Parish Church, arrived in Jamaica in 1891 that the game was pushed with any vigour among the civilian population. A product of the English public school system, Clare was an outstanding schoolboy footballer, and brought that zeal with him to Jamaica. He immediately set about introducing the sport to the boys of the Kingston Grammar School where it took root, and subsequently was the main figure behind the formation of the Kingston Football Club. In 1892, another club, the Winchester, was established. Soon the sport was being taken up in various parts of the island as far as St Ann’s Bay and Port Maria, Falmouth and Montego Bay. It was also being adopted at Mico and other educational institutions. By

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1895, there were several football clubs in the island, namely, Kingston, Winchester, Collegiate School, Kingston Grammar School, York Castle, Port Royal, Spanish Town, Up Park Camp and others in the rural areas.90 Many people, however, doubted that football would ever become popular in Jamaica because it was considered too vigorous a game for whites, who were the main players at this time, in the hot tropical climate. However, that was compensated by reducing the length of the match to about forty minutes and playing at a slower pace.91 Besides, for some people, playing in the heat “far from having an exhausting effect, it tones up the system wonderfully and keeps one’s muscles strong and supple and the body in good condition”.92 From very early the perceived virtues of football were recognized. Perhaps more so than cricket, it required a strong frame, keen eye and ready courage. “As a game requiring above all pluck, good temper and unselfishness in the players, its beneficial effect on the body is almost equalled by the higher benefits it confers on the mind.”93 According to the Jamaica Times: “As a game to develop qualities which win success in life, courage, determination, pluck, patience, and self-control and the altruistic qualities of sympathy, good honour and comradeship, there is no game to beat it. It reminds one of the good old days of chivalry. Hard knocks are taken and given in perfect fairness and good humour and every effort of mind and body is made to win success. There is an element of danger but this only adds spice to the play.”94 However, among the cultural elite there were some perceived risks in promoting football (a sport that required kicking and body contact) in a society like Jamaica’s, that were apparently not present in cricket. Kicking lent itself to violence if passions were aroused, which could be socially disruptive; nevertheless “it cannot be gainsaid that football, so long as it is played in a gentlemanly manner and there is an absence of what is known in England as ‘the rough element’, is a healthy and healthful pastime”.95 In the context of a culture war, therefore, football would have to be more carefully promoted than cricket, which was accepted by all as a “gentleman’s game”, and the case would have to be made why boys and men should play it instead of cricket. The First World War seemed to present precisely the right occasion for promoting football over cricket. Solicited by Howard Turner, secretary of the Jamaica Football Association to make the case, Barbadian R.H. Smith, MA, a teacher at Jamaica College, argued that young men who had played football in school and continued to do so afterwards were more physically fit to fight in the war than those who did not; and he asserted that it was “the duty of every schoolboy, as a member of the British Empire, to take part in football,

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unless his doctor consider him physically unfit to do so”. Nevertheless many parents refused to allow their sons to play football, considering it “too rough and dangerous”. However, as someone who had excelled at academic work while playing football, Smith offered himself as living proof that “children would in most cases do much better work in school, if they played football regularly”. While admitting that “[i]t is true that slight injuries are more frequent at football than at cricket”, he asked: but is it a bad thing to accustom boys to endure hard knocks? Is not this a splendid means of teaching boys to keep their temper? . . . Football again is often the means of curing a boy of cowardice. . . . [And] [w]hat a glorious game football is to teach unselfishness! In this respect it has a great advantage over cricket, which I think is apt to make boys selfish. Now it is almost needless to state that a team that does not combine well cannot be successful at football.96

Initially, therefore, promoting this potentially violent sport among the middle and elite classes was an uphill task. Their lukewarm support in its early days was reflected in the absence of proper playing facilities. Apart from Up Park Camp, the only available playing area for footballers in Kingston was the Race Course. However, it required permission from the city council to play there, and footballers had to compete with other athletes, especially cricketers, for space.97 Besides, the playing surface at the Race Course was hard, bare of turf, in parts with gravel and broken bottles, which meant that players had to be careful to avoid falls as much as possible.98 There was also the lower-class “hooligan” element to contend with at the race course, especially in the context of ongoing battles over the proper conduct of cultural activities. Rev. Clare observed that “[t]he conduct of the lads who come to the racecourse is . . . very annoying. It is quite a common thing when the ball goes out of bounds for some of the lookers-on to run off with it and thus delay the game.”99 In one incident in 1896, members of the Kingston Football Club were surrounded by a group of “rowdies” who apparently demanded the ball, and when refused they attacked the footballers with heavy sticks. Several players received serious injuries and one was knocked unconscious.100 Notwithstanding those difficulties, interest in football continued to grow, and in 1898 the Jamaica Association Football League was established under the patronage of Governor Augustus Hemming and Major-General H.J. Hallowes. The committee of the league read like a who’s who of the civil and military establishments of Jamaica. A Challenge Shield, costing thirty pounds,

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was put up for annual competition among the clubs in the league,101 which was affiliated to the English Association Football Union.102 Until the First World War, however, the Challenge Shield was dominated by British military teams,103 and to create more local interest in football, in 1906 Fred N. Martinez donated a cup for competition among civilian teams only. This seemed to pay dividends, for not only did several new clubs, including some elite schools (St George’s, Jamaica College and Wolmer’s) participate in this new competition, but the Challenge Shield itself was won for the first time by a local club in 1907–8 (Kingston Cricket Club Football team). In the rural areas, a competition was started in Montego Bay in 1911 which stimulated considerable interest in St James, and clubs were also formed in Port Antonio, St Ann’s Bay and Chapelton.104 The sport was further made popular by promoting it in the elite high schools. Three competitions were sponsored exclusively for the schools: the Inter-Scholastic (Olivier) Challenge Shield donated by Governor Sydney Olivier in 1909; the Manning Cup donated by Governor W.H. Manning in 1914; and the Wilson and Company (Chicago) Cup, 1914. The principal teams that participated in these competitions were Potsdam (renamed Munro) and Jamaica Colleges, Calabar, Metropolitan and Wolmer’s High Schools. As a result, “hundreds of boys are growing up to be adepts and experts at the game, where only a few ever kicked a ball in the old days”.105 By 1914 R.H. Smith could, perhaps with some justification, claim that football was beginning to rival cricket in popularity, and not only among males. This was so in part because it offered more entertainment in a relatively short space of time to both players and spectators, including women. “Ladies flock to football matches, because they understand something about the game, and it only lasts an hour. You hardly ever see them at cricket matches, except when a team comes from abroad, and even then they go more from duty than anything else.”106 If football had become popular by competitions both at the elite school and adult levels, its democratization still seemed some years off; for up to 1920 working-class clubs had not yet penetrated into the competitive arena. Perhaps this was an indication of the primary importance attached by the lower classes to achievement and success in cricket which, because of the way it was elevated by the colonial elites, seemed to offer greater scope for attaining recognition and social respectability. Perhaps, too, the Jamaica Association Football League and its successor, the Jamaica Football Association (formed in 1910),107 were especially careful about admitting lower-class clubs to competitive football in

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order to avoid a repetition of the sort of social difficulties that followed the admission of Lucas into competitive cricket. Even so, more and more people of all classes were playing the sport, which would become another area of cultural activity that would be shared by all, yet divided along class lines.

Rugby The other style of British football was also played, in accordance with Rugby Union rules.108 Again it was mainly the military who participated. Indeed, until 1891, when Rev. M.C. Clare began his fervent promotion of the Association version of football, rugby was the more popular of the two, notwithstanding its inherent physical dangers, and its being considered even more trying for the “Brits” to play in the tropics.109 However, it lost favour among the civilian population particularly after Clare’s push of association football. Despite the efforts of K.P. Spicer of the Polytechnic to revive its fortunes in 1898,110 rugby remained confined to a handful of elite devotees. In Britain rugby was a middle- and upper-class sport, played in the public schools and elite universities, and was transmitted especially to white British colonies (Australia, New Zealand and South Africa); but it was never seriously promoted in Jamaica and other Caribbean colonies perhaps because of its inherent violence as a rough contact sport that seemed to transmit the “wrong” social message and to militate against the efforts to “civilize the natives”.111 After one game, for instance, the players were said to present “the appearance of animated scarecrows, bedaubed as they were in mud, blood and dressed in tattered habiliments, the results of the various mills and scrimmages”.112 In another, six players were seriously injured with broken bones and were hospitalized.113 Not surprisingly, therefore, rugby never enjoyed the same degree of patronage and support in Jamaica that Association football, and more especially cricket, did, and so remained for a long time essentially a military sport to toughen up the troops. That agenda was not extended to the ordinary Jamaicans who might have excelled at this “violent” full-contact sport. Exclusion was found to be a useful means of restraining the lower-class “lack of selfcontrol”.

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Equestrian Sports Horse Racing Perhaps the oldest sport (dating back to the British occupation of the island) and certainly the most popular in Jamaica was horse racing. This pastime was indulged in all over the island, formally and informally, by people of all ages, sexes and classes. Race day in any town or district was a red-letter day. There was excitement for days before as large numbers of people turned up at the race course at dawn to see the horses exercise,114 and the actual days of the race meeting were virtually holidays. The principal and most prestigious race meeting was the Kingston December (Christmas) races. Cyril Lyons recalled that on the night before race day, the course was lit up with lamps and candles as “thousands of people” camped out all night, some selling “race cakes”, patties, roast pork, rice and peas, saltfish and ackee, snowballs; some gambled, playing three-card tricks, poker and dice games, “and then every now and again a stick licking contest would start”.115 All over the city, street boys sang race songs “called from the race books”. People flocked to watch the racing, “a great number of whom did not bet at all, but went, and took their families, just for the fun of the thing”.116 According to the Jamaica Times, “Everyone goes to the Races or at least feels impelled to talk about them while they are on. People come into the City to see them. King’s House arranges its ‘At Homes’ to suit the visitors, the business part of Kingston, from the Bank down, assumes a life and death aspect as noon is reached and passed on the famous days.”117 “[T]o seek to transact business after twelve o’clock was altogether hopeless, the general reply to any such desire being, ‘I am off to the races and can’t attend to you.’ Race day was one of pleasure and happy reunions with friends.”118 Apart from the December meeting, Kingston also hosted a midsummer (August) meeting after 1875, occasionally one at Easter, and during the first decade of the twentieth century the Jamaica Turf Club held a meeting on Whit Monday.119 Horse racing was also regularly conducted at several rural locations, especially at Cumberland Pen in St Catherine, which regularly hosted an Easter meeting after 1897.120 All race courses were circular and varied from six and a half furlongs to one and a quarter miles in circumference.121 The accommodation at these courses reflected the class distinctions in the society. There was invariably a grandstand where dignitaries and the social

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Figure 24. Knutsford Park race track, Kingston. (Courtesy of the National Library of Jamaica.)

elites were seated. According to Villiers Stuart, the Cumberland Pen course in 1891 “was overlooked by an extensive grand stand on which was congregated all that was most brilliant and fashionable in Jamaican society. The benches were filled with the official, military, naval, planter and mercantile aristocracy of the island; a box in the centre was occupied by his Excellency the Governor and his party. There were also some English visitors of rank and two ex-M.P.’s [sic].”122 There was also a Steward’s Stand at the Kingston course “with its rows of eager old sports and knowing young turfites”.123 In 1885 a sizeable new Judges’ Stand was built: “Four substantial iron pillars support the flooring and roof, which is . . . covered with ornamental tiles. Half-way up the stand is panelled, on the top of which is placed a broad ledge, a great accommodation to those who wish to make memoranda.”124 The lower classes had to be content with standing or sitting around the race courses because no accommodation was provided for them.125 Horse racing was not a male sport only – large numbers of women graced the course with their presence. Indeed, race day brought out all the latest dress fashions, especially among the “ladies”. According to De Lisser: “The Grand Stand is crowded and every woman wears a new frock (the best she can afford), and consciously tries to look her handsomest: the meet is a parade of fashion and of frocks, or bodies, of eyes, of hats – of everything that a woman has and

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thinks about; it is a show of women: the best that Jamaica can put forth.”126 The coloured and black people were no less well attired. With characteristic bias, Stuart observed that “[t]he coloured [sic] women wore hats and feathers, and their smartest frocks; some were so ill-advised as to venture on fashionable bonnets. Nothing can become them worse; they are better in hats; but best of all wearing bright-coloured handkerchiefs twisted round their heads turban fashion. But on such an occasion they would die sooner than be seen in anything so unfashionable. The men wore billycock hats and cloth coats.”127 The presence of “ladies” at the race course did not influence the behaviour of their elite male companions for the better when the races were being run. The Gleaner observed that these “gentlemen”, sarcastically called the “standing brigade”, routinely stood in front of the grand stand “regardless of the comfort or convenience of the ladies, evidently being under the impression that no one but themselves wanted to see”.128 John Henderson was much more trenchant in his criticism of these elites. “Before the people of the grand stand, some of the junior officers of the army and the hospital and the medical service, even the civil service, are engaged in a ceaseless parade – the strut of self-conscious vanity. It is these jackanapes that the black men imitate.” No matter how well attired, they behaved no differently than their lower-class counterparts on the other side of the course when their guard dropped in the excitement of a race. Amidst an unbridled display of rabid racism, Henderson captured the essence of creole exuberance that was integral to that excitement. When the horses really got away, the heat vanished and pandemonium reigned to the tune of risen Africa. Jamaica vanished, and in its place we saw and heard wild, discordant Africa. We heard the echoes of the war cries of half the tribes that fight in the savage belt of country stretching from Tanganyika to Sierra Leone. The sportsman and the gambler threw off the thin veneer of a chaste and modest civilisation, and became their fathers’ fathers’ true descendants. The half-breeds shouted and then were much ashamed. The blacks tore the air with their eager hands and flung themselves prostrate, biting the grass in the frenzy of the savage African. . . . The women of the dusky whites were hot and dusty in their finery, but they sometimes forgot to assume the appearance of calm indifference peculiar to their quite white sisters, and shouted with the rest. Then they sulked because they had forgotten that they were white.129

Setting aside the stereotypical hyperbole in his racist sentiments, it is clear that all classes of Jamaicans behaved more or less in the same animated manner in the heat of a horse race. This was not English horseracing; it was creole

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Jamaican. Henderson’s jaundiced view of the Jamaican people allows us a glimpse into the continuum of creolity that increasingly defined Jamaican culture. These meetings were much more than the races on the track. There were several side-attractions both on and off the course. Invariably a music band was on hand to entertain primarily those in the stands. In addition, at Cumberland Pen in 1861, there were foot races, a pig hunt, swarming the pole, quoits and even cricket.130 Merry-go-rounds were also an attraction at these races. As we have seen, in Kingston the governors usually held their “at homes” at race time so that the rural planter elite could attend. Plays, concerts, club dinners and balls were also part of the circum-racing entertainment.131 Race day, however, was especially characterized by an extensive amount of gambling and drinking. Indeed the churches felt that horse racing was responsible for much of the moral decadence in society.132 Gambling helped to give horse racing its enormous appeal. The Pari Mutuel, or “French Pool”, was the generally recognized sweepstakes for betting on the races, and a booth was usually located near the refreshment room under the grandstand (see chapter 11).133 The race courses had several booths well stocked with liquors of all sorts and light viands. In addition, there were many vendors selling a wide range of beverages and food items. According to Stuart, the favourite drink at Cumberland Pen in 1891 was “an aërated compound resembling British ginger beer, but dignified by the imposing title of Rhapsodia (negroes love a long word); which was consumed in combination with rum”.134 Excessive drinking was probably the cause for the frequency of stick-licking fracas at the races. At Old Harbour in 1893, the band members of the Kingston Infantry Militia were the victims of such an assault.135 Notwithstanding its marginal position in the moral debate, horse racing was the recipient of full official patronage and elite support. All the governors attended the major race meetings and authorized grants of money from public revenue for the Queen’s and Governor’s purses;136 and in 1914, Governor W.H. Manning indicated his intention to run his own horses in the Kingston races.137 Horse racing meetings were also used to reinforce the image of British imperialism with the playing of the national anthem at the start.138 The horses were owned by wealthy elites, and were either local breeds, stallions imported from England, or cross-breeds. Said Cundall, “some of the best equine blood of England runs in the veins of weedy looking Jamaica horses and ponies”.139 The jockeys were generally lower-class blacks and coloureds. However, amidst the social glitter of the races, these jockeys were treated as

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inferior unskilled workers, and for quite some time their attire was decidedly substandard. “This shabbiness had its origin in the vicious idea that anything was good enough for Jamaica.” Said the Gleaner: “What can be more ludicrous than to see a bare footed jockey with the stirrups held between his toes, ‘parrot fashion’ . . . while his nether integuments reach down to his ancles [sic], where they are secured by a string?”140 It was only towards the end of the nineteenth century that improvements in their outfits were made, although those did not extend to riding boots. According to Stuart: “They wore the usual jockey caps, gay silk jackets and knee breeches, but their feet were bare, and in bare feet they rode with spurs on their naked ebony heels; moreover, several of them were decidedly stout.”141 Even then John Henderson could find nothing good to say about these jockeys: The coloured jockey is a type by himself. In his amber and gold, or pink and yellow, or green and red, and with his bent legs and humped back, he would delight the heart of any disciple of Darwin. On his horse, he looks for all the world like a clothed monkey on a London barrel-organ. He rides with an air of bravado, and a most cruel switch. He gets excited, but seldom loses nerve or head. . . . A black jockey never looks a part of his horse. The two are separate and distinct; a comparison between the two would be to the advantage of the horse.142

Never at a loss for scathing, offensive commentary, even Henderson’s diatribe could not hide the colour and excitement of the creole racing event. The lack of care for the jockeys meant that horse racing was a precarious business for them, and by extension their mounts too. Yet, with typical class bias, it was the jockeys who were blamed. Alfred Leader asserted that “they ride more with their heels than their heads”.143 “Turfite” claimed that “[t]o begin with the riders here seem to command the officials as well as their mounts, they are never guided by what the starter says, they take whatever place suits them at the starting post instead of drawing for position as is usual, they take no heed of the rule requesting jockeys to be properly equipped, many of them starting without boots and they in fact do as they please”.144 Henderson concurred: “False starts were made by too eager jockeys who could not hope to win, and a discordant trumpet regularly screeched return as often as half the line of horses sprang forward before the starter’s flag had really dropped. These things happen everywhere.”145 Lower-class jockeys whose livelihood depended on the good will of wealthy horse owners who, not only had invested a great deal of money in breeding or buying and training their horses, but no doubt had also staked considerable sums in bets on those horses, had

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no option but to do whatever it took to gain an edge in an effort to win so as to be assured of their jobs. On the other hand, it is clear that the racehorse owners, their employers, accepted no responsibility for the welfare of the jockeys. Accidents and injuries, not surprisingly, were frequent. At the 1890 Cumberland and Bog Walk races, for instance, there were no fewer than eleven accidents to jockeys. In one or two cases, riders had their bones broken, while the others were fortunate in escaping with only a few slight bruises.146 So when the elites had no option but to include the black lower classes in their sport events, they were treated as inferiors, and their lives and limbs were expendable. Despite repeated calls for a jockey club to be established ever since the 1880s, it was not until 1905 that the Jamaica Jockey Club was formed, not by the jockeys themselves, but by the horse-racing elite. It assumed full responsibility for the administration of horse racing at Kingston and Cumberland Pen in accordance with the English Jockey Club’s rules. A similar organization, called the St James Jockey Club, was later established in Montego Bay.147 Although horse racing, like cricket and football, was considered an elite sport, it was shared and enjoyed by all classes as a national sport. However, like other sports it was riddled with class distinctions that kept elite and mass apart, and the jockeys at a disadvantage in relation to their employers. Those class prejudices are reflected in the written records that were left for historians to use; for they do not shed light on the race meetings that the lower classes, especially in the rural areas, organized for themselves. Some small farmers owned horses although these were used mainly as draught animals; many peasants owned mules and donkeys. The records are silent about races that they most likely organized on holidays and weekends for their own entertainment, just as their peers did in other Caribbean territories. They were not waiting on the elite horse racing events to seek enjoyment.

Polo Polo was played mainly by Britons resident in the island, especially military officers. Among the local population only the wealthy elites could afford to play, since the sport required ownership of trained ponies. Up to 1892 only the garrison had a club with polo facilities, and all matches took place there, usually among the officers alone, but sometimes including elite civilians.148 The most prestigious person ever to grace the ground was Prince George, who on his visit to open the 1891 Jamaica Exhibition, played a game of polo there.149

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In that same year, the St Ann’s Polo Club was formed, and the “gentlemen” at Montpelier in St James did likewise in 1894. It was not until 1897 that Kingstonians joined the circuit by establishing the Kingston Polo Club with just seven members. Without grounds of their own, they had to seek permission from the city council to use the race course. Other clubs were formed at Brown’s Town in 1899, and Mandeville in 1906.150 Throughout the period under review, polo remained a cultural enclave. The All Jamaica Association provided the institutional framework for organizing the sport locally among the affiliated clubs,151 but the First World War proved very disruptive as most of the players were in the military. And it was the military, in the person of Major R.R. Leader of the West India Regiment, which in 1920 resuscitated the sport after a four-year hiatus.152 Polo was promoted in very much the same vein as other elite sports. Apart from exercise and muscular development, it was reputed to endow its practitioners with the elements of manhood such as hardiness, daring and judgement.153 Despite (perhaps because of) its low popularity, polo matches also provided the elites with an opportunity to get together, socialize and reaffirm their “superior” cultural Britishness.154 Although they would have relied on grooms drawn from the lower classes to do the manual work associated with caring for the horses, and other workers to maintain the polo grounds, they would have ignored them, confident that their culture of exclusivity remained secure. Suffice it to say, polo never became a part of the mainstream sporting culture of Jamaica.

Gymkhana and Paper Chases From time to time, the military at Up Park Camp added to the elite sporting calendar by holding gymkhanas to show off the skills of horse riders. “At a Gymkhana racing is not taken seriously; it is in fact more an excuse for a social gathering than anything else.”155 As such it served as another opportunity to reinforce a sense of being British among those who attended. Consequently the events attempted to mix equestrian skill with entertainment, and included pony racing (both flat and steeplechasing), tent pegging, lime cutting, tandem racing, bending races, pony jumping, donkey racing, “sky races” and so on. Gymkhanas were always well attended by the “fashionable” social elites, including the governors, and the military band usually added to the entertainment.156 The officers of the garrison and local elites also occasionally organized “paper chases”. These took the form of “hunts” through the public streets,

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with one group of horse riders acting as “hares” and another as “hounds”. Participants were both male and female. One such chase in 1891 began at the south guard gate of Up Park Camp, along Long Mountain Road, through a river bed/gully, thence into Hope Road, and back to the camp – a ride of about five miles. Another at Black River started at the race stand, moved along the main road to Hodges Pen, thence to Lowerworks pasture and back to the race course. The “hares” would periodically lay false “scents” (tracks) to throw their pursuers off course; and, along the way and on their return to the starting point, the riders and their mounts were required to negotiate a series of hurdles such as penguin fences, wire palings and so on. The start and finish of these chases were usually witnessed by “large and fashionable assemblage[s]” of the social elite.157 As minority sports largely confined to the military officers and wealthy white Jamaicans, gymkhana and paper chases, like polo, perpetuated the illusion that Jamaican culture was being anglicized. Here, again, the elites sought to teach the lower classes about the finer aspects of a civilized lifestyle, without actually expecting them to participate in many aspects of it. Rather, they were expected to note the status and privilege of those who galloped through the streets and to acknowledge them as their social betters. It would be interesting to know what ordinary Jamaicans made of this spectacle and inconvenience, as they were forced to relinquish the public thoroughfare to the elite leisured (and perhaps idle) class to pursue their games.

Tennis As late as 1883, lawn tennis was said to be virtually unknown in Jamaica, but as a genteel sport which could be played by both men and women of all ages,158 it is not surprising that it soon became popular among the elites. By the early twentieth century, tennis was played all over the island – at King’s House, the military garrisons, hotels, sports clubs and private homes. 159 Because this sport required manicured courts and expensive equipment,160 it was initially confined largely to the wealthy elite. Again it was the military, in conjunction with the Kingston Cricket Club, which played a major role in “popularizing” the sport through their organization of matches and tournaments; and soon not only did other cricket clubs add tennis to their activities, but new tennis clubs were established in different parts of the island.161 It was through their membership of clubs like the Melbourne and Kensington Cricket Clubs that middle-class coloureds like B.M. Clarke gained

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access to this sport. He would dominate the men’s game after the first world war. Lower-class blacks were not so fortunate, unless they were employed as ground staff at these facilities. Elite women were encouraged to play, and willingly participated both for pleasure, exercise and socialization, as well as for competition. From very early, therefore, tennis tournaments featured women’s singles, doubles and mixed doubles matches; and some sporting clubs opened speFigure 25. B.M. Clarke, Jamaica’s premier tencial ladies’ branches to facilitate nis player. (Source: Daily Gleaner, 31 July 1919.) their participation.162 This sport became so popular among the social elites that by the mid-nineties, tennis parties were being hosted at private homes on Sunday afternoons, much to the chagrin of the churches.163 When Governor Hemming sanctioned these at King’s House, he aroused the ire of the press. As the representative of Queen Victoria, widely regarded as a model of Christian piety, he was viewed as setting a bad example in a society as “half-civilized” as Jamaica. Private persons, thought the Gleaner, could get away with this sort of thing, but not the governor, who bore not only an administrative, but a moral responsibility for the well-being of the society. “To keep the spirit of that society even partially true to the lofty and pure ideals which are cherished and held aloft in the mother country is for us even under favourable conditions, a most strenuous task, the terrible pull of the half-barbaric, half-civilized condition of a great part of the community being always there as a weight and hindrance.” The Gleaner thought that governor’s example was liable to be misinterpreted as licence for laxity, and likely to have a profoundly damaging effect on the whole of society. [T]his example is sure to be followed by the baser spirits who only want some encouragement to excuse the indulgence of their own laxity, their frivolous irresponsible characters. . . . [T]hese tennis parties at King’s House on Sunday evenings are a distinct lowering of the standard, a weakening of that reverence in our social life

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Figure 26. A tennis tournament in Kingston. (Courtesy of the National Library of Jamaica.)

which is such a topic and stimulant. It is the beginning of that downward path, which will not end at tennis or croquet, but which will be followed by a general loosening of social action in the sphere of philanthropy, morals and religion.164

Once again the cultural elite classes were divided, so this diatribe did not dampen the enthusiasm of many of them for Sunday tennis. The sport was put on a firm institutional footing in 1899 with the establishment of the Jamaica Lawn Tennis Association which assumed full control and responsibility for it in the island. Affiliated to the All England Lawn Tennis Association, it organized an annual inter-club tournament for a Challenge Cup until 1903, and thereafter an open tournament as well.165 Still tennis remained confined to the upper- and middle-class whites and coloureds who could afford membership of clubs, while virtually no opportunities existed for the broad mass of the black population except as ball-boys in service to elite players. Once more, exclusion was considered a useful method in the fight to promote civilized cultural activity and to keep out the “debased” democracy, even while promoting sports as a hallmark of civility and elevation.

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Golf If tennis was largely confined to the elites, the Scottish sport of golf was no less exclusive in Jamaica. It required a considerable amount of land space, the equipment (clubs and balls) was very expensive, and caddies had to be paid to fetch the clubs around the links. Golf, therefore, attracted only the elite of the elite, and very few golf clubs were established before 1920. The sport was as usual played by the officers of the garrison at Up Park Camp, and was introduced to the cooler climes of Mandeville in 1891 with the formation of the Mandeville Golf Club and the laying out of a six hole course (later extended to nine) at Brumalia. By 1894 some “ladies and gentlemen” at Port Henderson had taken up the sport.166 It was not until 1896 that the Kingston and St Andrew Golf Club was formed and a nine-hole course laid out at Retreat pen, owned by George Solomon. The entrance fee of one guinea (one pound and one shilling) and annual subscription of ten shillings and sixpence ensured that only the wealthiest people would apply for membership. Indeed with the governor as patron, the founding members included Major-General Hallowes (commanding officer of the imperial troops) as president, Sir Fielding Clarke (chief justice) as vice-president, Rev. W. Graham (Church of Scotland) as secretary.167 In this company, even middle-class store clerks and professionals felt intimidated.168 Lower-class Jamaicans simply could not afford the fees, nor would they have been welcome to mingle and mix in such august company. Their only access to these hallowed grounds were as workers in the shape of groundsmen and caddies. For these reasons, golf never became a mass/national sport, although its popularity among the wealthy elites increased significantly.169

Athletics Track and field events formed part of the sporting revolution that took place in Jamaica towards the end of the nineteenth century. Young elite Jamaicans, however, were slow to participate, citing the heat as a reason.170 Instead they seemed to prefer to relax and drink alcoholic beverages. As the Gleaner put it: “what is wanted to start a club here, is a few chairs, a sea view, and a few whiskies”.171 Early athletic sporting meetings, therefore, were organized mainly by the British military at their facilities, and by the Scots, who from the early 1880s held annual Caledonian games to celebrate St Andrew’s Day. There

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were a few attempts to promote athletics among Jamaicans during the 1880s, but it was not until the following decade that these began to take root with the formation of the Kingston Athletic Club in 1893.172 By 1898, athletics were high on the local sporting calendar as witnessed by a first-rate athletics meeting held at Sabina Park in March. Attended by the social elite of Kingston including Governor and Lady Hemming, “there was little to distinguish the scene from that of an English gathering. The whole of the sports were distinctively English – of the best known type. The sward was as green as in England, and the competitions were as keen as those seen on an English course.”173 Athletics had finally come of age! For the cultural elites, a favourable comparison with an imagined mother England (since most of them had never been there) served as sufficient validation of this. Thereafter athletic sports were on the rise and were largely supported by the leading cricket clubs, Kingston, Kensington and Melbourne. Their popularity also spread to the rural areas, and by 1909 the Jamaica Times was obliged to observe that “[a] notable feature of recent years in Jamaica is the keen and extended interest that is being taken in sport, particularly in Athletic sports. It is still more so now.”174 In that same year, athletics were placed on a firmer organizational footing when the Jamaica Amateur Athletics and Cycling Association was established. Affiliated with the Amateur Athletic Association in England, it was set up to regulate all amateur athletics and cycling meetings, and to secure the affiliation of all cricket, tennis, football and golf clubs.175 The popularity of athletics was further enhanced when the elite boys’ high schools adopted them in their games programmes during the 1890s. The principal of the Kingston Grammar School, Rev. M.C. Clare, was one of the key figures behind the introduction of school athletic sports into the island;176 and so entrenched did they become that in 1903 the annual inter-school athletic sports meetings were inaugurated. Perhaps the most outstanding schoolboy athlete of this period was Norman W. Manley of Jamaica College, a coloured boy, who ran the sprint events, quarter mile, hurdles, relays, and did the long jump and high jump, and was crowned “the schoolboy national champion” in 1912 by the Gleaner.177 Most athletic meetings were designed to provide healthy physical competition as well as entertainment. Some of the athletic events included track – 100, 200 and 300 yards, quarter, half and one mile, 120 yards obstacle/hurdle, and walking races; field – long and high jumps, pole vault, shot putt, throwing the cricket ball and the hammer, and tug-’o-war; and for entertainment, threelegged, menagerie and sack races. The most outstanding adult athlete

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before 1910 was G.C. Foster, a coloured man, who also happened to be a fine cricketer.178 It would be another seven years, however, before women’s athletics became public events at Melbourne Park in April 1910. The Jamaica Times seems to suggest that initially men were either not welcome as, or interested in being, spectators of female athletics. “Truly it is a ladies event, as far as the Stand tickets go. For but few men look down upon you.” While the Times might not have meant to sound paternalistic, its tone reflected the consensus that this event was considered a more genteel, less robust sports meeting than the men’s, designed more for fun than sporting prowess, in keeping with the expectation that ladies did not engage in vigorous competition. “Sober dames and sprightly maidens, dashing housewifes [sic] and many in their hey-day of youth shine forth their costly attire vieing [sic] for pre[e]minence, their bej[e]welled hands, rich headdresses and brilliant ribbons and flowers glisten and glitter as the tropic sun shines on and as all hearts beat in union to the tune of jollity and merriment. The first ‘Girls’ Athletic Meeting’ in Jamaica is about to commence.”179 Nevertheless, according to the Gleaner, there was considerable curiosity “to see how the ‘weaker sex’ would acquit themselves on the field”. As it turned out, the only really “strenuous” athletic events were the hundred yards flat, a quarter mile walk, and half- and one-mile bicycle races. The other “races” were an “obstacle” race which, instead of hurdles as for the men, required the young “ladies” to pass under two tarpaulins pegged to the ground; “egg and spoon”, “potato”, “skipping”, “driving”, and “thread and needle” races.180 Among a cultural elite anxious to maintain the gendered identities of the sporting “ladies” among them, perhaps references to jewels, headdresses and ribbons were understandable, lest their femininity be questioned. Further, that so many of their sporting activities should echo the expectations around their gender roles – dealing with food and needlework – both reaffirmed those roles and cast the sports as amusing and inferior to those moments of (manly) athletic prowess. That said, at the end of it all, Justice Beard, who distributed the prizes, in typically patriarchal manner exclaimed that the main impact of this pioneer ladies’ athletics meeting “would be to improve athletics among the boys, for no boy would like to know that a girl could jump higher or run faster than he could”.181 This became an annual event of the Girls’ Club at Melbourne Park. And although by 1918, the cycle races were reportedly keenly contested, and throwing-the-cricket-ball and tug-o-war had been added to the programme, the pri-

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mary focus was still on fun rather than competition. For instance, “[t]he Transformation Race is full of mirth. Here the lady says to the gent, ‘Will you be the lady of the home and I the man?’ There is a hesitation, but he consents since it is but for a short time, and he dons the skirt, blouse, hat, veil, etc., and she, well, you will see how she suddenly becomes the man.”182 Female athletic sports were still sufficiently a rarity that when in 1917 the Girl Guides organized a meeting at Clovelly Park in Kingston to raise money for the Red Cross Fund, it generated enormous excitement. The Gleaner claimed that “[a]ll the competitors are as ‘fit as nails’ ”; however, further enquiry into what the public was keen on witnessing from these fit young women revealed that it was the obstacle races. “It is worth going miles to see girls going through barrels, under tarpaulin, putting on boots and many other things too numerous to mention.”183 Right up to the end of the First World War, therefore, female athletics were not taken seriously. Because track and field events did not require any expensive equipment, they could be participated in by all classes, and the schools and churches became principal promoters of athletic sports, in keeping with the prevailing idea of muscular Christianity. In 1915 arrangements were put in place for an athletics programme for elementary school children under twelve years of age. Again, however, gender distinctions were made. Boys could participate in the 100, 220, 440 yards, relay, walking and cycling races, and the long jump. Girls were restricted to the 100 yards, walking and skipping races.184 However, by extending athletics from the elite boys’ high schools to the elementary schools, they were relatively democratized, thus transforming them into what would become a staple in the national sporting culture of Jamaica.

Cycling The advent of the safety bicycle not only made cycling a popular social and sporting pastime internationally, but also in Jamaica. Although the first bicycle club was formed in Kingston in 1880, bicycles were relatively few in the island until well into the 1890s. So much so that in 1892, according to the Gleaner, when some bike-riders (called wheelmen) rode into Spanish Town, children reportedly fled precipitately from the road into the bush and their elders stood dumb with astonishment.185 It was the pneumatic tyre that really popularized bicycles in Jamaica, and by 1894 cycling was a fairly common pastime among young middle- and upper-class Jamaicans who rode particularly on Sundays

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Figure 27. Female cyclists, 1912. (Source: Daily Gleaner, 8 November 1912.)

and holidays. By 1896, “[t]here is scarcely a corner of the Island unfamiliar with the sight of wheelmen”.186 Like other sports, cycling was promoted in this era of athleticism and health consciousness largely as an instrument of bodily exercise, and also for its versatility. Most of the old forms of sport are too vigorous, not to say violent, for universal adoption and are therefore restricted to a class, whereas the great majority of either sex can indulge in cycling and can pursue it to any extent desired from moderate runs to spins of many miles. It adapts itself admirably to general use and with it both pleasure and business can be combined. It has come as “a boon and a blessing” to our young men and women affording an outlet for their surplus energies.187

Unlike many other sporting activities, cycling was not gender specific, although it started that way both in Britain and Jamaica. However, by 1890 British women were successfully resisting censures that cycling was vulgar. They found it socially liberating as it offered them more freedom to move about on their own away from the watchful eyes of their chaperons. It also

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contributed to a change in female dress fashions as it required less restrictive garments, and led to the introduction, among other things, of bloomers.188 In Jamaica, female bikers were likewise initially regarded as vulgar, and it took the daughters of Governor Blake to remove the stigma and make cycling socially acceptable for elite Jamaican women. Thereafter women adopted cycling with the same enthusiasm, and for similar reasons, as did their “sisters” in Britain.189 The promotion of cycling as a sport/pastime in Jamaica was done by clubs established for this purpose; but most of these were short-lived. Within a few years, the Kingston club (1880) had died, and was replaced in 1886 by a new one under the patronage of Governor Norman. This club organized rides to different destinations, cycle races and athletic meetings,190 but like its predecessor did not last long. In 1893 the Jamaica Bicycle Club was formed with just thirteen members, who paid an entrance fee of five shillings and a monthly subscription of two shillings. Its club room was located on Duke Street, fitted with electric light, and boasted a full supply of metropolitan periodicals on cycling. It also organized races and other events (for both males and females). In 1896, the clerks of the Colonial Bank in Kingston formed another club. Cycling as a sport also became popular in Spanish Town and Mandeville; and at Black River, a cycle track was built around the St Elizabeth Cricket Club ground.191 Formed in 1897, the Victoria Cycle Club exemplified the main problems which plagued all these organizations – memberships that were too small and socially exclusive. After almost two years of existence, the Victoria Club still had far less than fifty members and was finding it difficult to sustain itself.192 To combat this, the Jamaica Amateur Athletic and Cycling Association was established as an umbrella organization to which cycling and athletic clubs could be affiliated. Under its rules, only members of affiliated clubs could participate in the sporting events that it organized; but licences were issued to other persons to allow them to compete.193 This unwittingly enabled the socially undesirable lower classes to participate. It was not long, however, in the midst of the battle for elite cultural exclusivity and dominance, before this loophole was closed, and in 1911 the association stopped issuing licences and restricted competition strictly to members of the affiliated clubs. The rationale was to cajole free agents to join or form affiliated clubs. As one representative asserted, “there is a club for every stratum of society from ‘the snowball man to the Chief Justice’, and . . . everybody should thus be able to belong to a club”. What this meant was that ordinary

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working people who wanted to participate in organized sporting events would be compelled to join clubs and to pay club fees that they could ill afford. The other problem was that in any event the association was not prepared to admit clubs with memberships of the status of the snowball man. As one Gleaner correspondent put it: “They would have us believe that individuals are to be barred because they do not belong to any club, and that they will be forced to join some Club, which will have them as members; but in the same breath they say that only clubs of a certain standing are wanted. And yet they would deny that they are aiming at class distinction.”194 This attitude continuously bedevilled the cycling clubs and ultimately contributed to a decline in the sport. By 1909 most cyclists were riding for locomotion rather than for sport, and there were just 531 bicycle licences issued in Kingston.195 Part of the reason was the cost of bicycles themselves, ranging in 1899 between eight and fifteen pounds, which was beyond the means of the average lower-class worker. Such individuals, if they wished to participate in cycling as a sport, had to rent machines from repair shops in the city;196 and this further serves to emphasize that the policy of restricting competition to members of affiliated clubs only was clearly aimed at maintaining the sport’s exclusivity. So the availability of bicycles through rentals reopened the doors of cycle racing to black and coloured men; and on a level riding track, there was nothing to prevent black riders from excelling. One of these, J. Weir, was acknowledged as Jamaica’s premier cyclist, and his outstanding performances forced the elite selectors to pick him to represent Jamaica at several inter-colonial meetings.197 Although vigorously contested, cycling nevertheless became a shared area of sporting culture in Jamaica by 1920. In as much as sports reflected the social, economic and cultural barriers in Jamaica, the steady penetration of nonelite cyclists threatened the zone of privileged exclusivity that was so carefully cultivated by members of the cultural elite. They preferred to teach the lessons Figure 28. J. Weir, Jamaica’s champion of civility from afar and the athletic cyclist. (Source: Daily Gleaner, 25 May 1910.) black cyclists, many of whom were bent

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on winning contests rather than “tooling around” for leisure, left the elite uncomfortable. Cycling, then, symbolized both the culture that various groups shared and the differing agendas that could be attached to these cultural activities; in fact, a large part of the culture war circulated around these issues of meaning and intention.

Aquatic Sports Yachting and rowing were the principal aquatic sports in Jamaica and were participated in mainly by wealthy elites all around the island. From the beginning of the period under review, individual sailing and rowing boat races and regattas were occasionally held at Falmouth, Port Antonio, Lucea, Kingston and Port Royal, with each of the competitors putting up the stakes for the winner;198 and during their annual visits, the British naval squadron (“The Fleet”) organized a regatta at which one race was usually reserved for local competitors. However, as the Colonial Standard reminded its readers in 1880, those regattas were “intended principally for the enjoyment of Her Majesty’s seamen” rather than for the locals. Nevertheless, it called on Jamaicans “to exercise their wonted generosity and hospitality, and to do all in their power, in a thoroughly unselfish spirit, to make the Regatta as agreeable and gratifying as possible to the gallant soldiers, who will . . . be to a certain extent our honored [sic] guests”.199 Yachting was put on firmer footing with the establishment of the Jamaica Yacht Club in 1885 (later granted the prefix “Royal”) which immediately received the patronage of Governor Norman, who not only donated ten guineas in prize money, but in 1886 bought a schooner yacht to add to the club’s fleet.200 Thereafter the governor was always entitled the “Patron” (later called “Commodore”) of the club.201 Located at Holmwood in Rae Town, the club boasted a billiard room, whist tables and a cool airy reading room.202 Its impact was tremendous among the social elites. Within just one year, its membership stood at 150, and by 1890 it had increased to over 200.203 This, however, declined to about 150 members in 1921.204 The high subscription rates and the rules governing entry ensured that membership was exclusively elite. To emphasize its imperial links, all naval and military officers stationed in the island were made honorary members, and were allowed to steer boats in races organized by the club. In addition, its coat of arms was the blue ensign of the British imperial fleet with the island’s crest (a crocodile) in gold surmounted

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by a crown on the fly. Its burgee was white with the blue St George cross and a crown in the centre.205 This was indeed an English colonial club. The club organized both individual races as well as regattas from its headquarters, which were attended by the governors and social elites. In addition, the leading commercial stores often closed at noon to give their employees a chance to attend the yacht races. This meant that spectatorship was widened, so that yachting became a shared sport although effectively controlled by white elites. The usual yacht race course ran from Holmwood to the Hunt’s Bay buoy off Fort Augusta, back to and across Kingston Harbour to the Harbour Head, thence to the Palisadoes buoy, and back to the starting point. A friendly race among the members of the club took place every Saturday when there was a breeze; but following the presentation of a Challenge Cup by the Royal Navy Commodore in 1886, annual competitions, open to all-comers, were held. In addition, the club took responsibility for organizing annual regattas during the visits of the imperial fleet (February or March), as well as on the birthday of Queen Victoria (May 24). Race meetings were sometimes held on New Year’s Day too. Races included sailing, pulling and rowing. A musical band was usually present at the club house to add to the day’s entertainment, and other activities such as swimming, bath pan races and climbing the greasy pole helped to complete the day’s fun and make it more enjoyable to a broader range of spectators. An annual dinner was also organized by the club for its elite members and guests.206 In 1890 another club, the Kingston Yacht Club, was established to promote yachting and aquatic sports. It was located at Putney Lodge on Water Lane which had a fine lawn and beach where boats belonging to the club were anchored. Its programme of activities was very similar to that of the Jamaica Yacht Club.207 Yachting was taken very seriously by many elites. It was regarded as one of the healthiest and manliest of exercises which instilled courage, skill and patience in the yachtsman; and a direct link was made with the very might of the British empire itself. According to the Colonial Standard: “The inhabitants of Kingston and of the whole Island are thoroughly imbued with the ardent love of the sea and of all associated therewith which is common to all who have a national share in the maritime traditions and triumphs of the AngloSaxon race.”208 This, according to the appropriately named Jamaica Daily Telegraph and Anglo-American Herald, was reflected in the existence of two yacht clubs. The sea was not only “the girdle and the glory of the original island sanctuary which contains the home and cradle of the [Anglo-Saxon] race”, it

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was “the symbol of the unity of the [British] Empire as well as the seal of its enduring safety, for it is to the supremacy of the mother country at sea that the scattered members of the Empire owe their joint protection and common nationality”. The Jamaican elite affection for the sea was thus “intensified by the reflection that the waters which lave our shores have been the scene of glorious sea-fights, the results of which made England mistress of the sea, and the echo of which will go down the centuries blending its heroic music with the familiar strains of ‘Britannia Rules the Waves’ ”.209 It is not clear if those whose ancestors had crossed the Atlantic in chains, and who still had a healthy respect for the mystery and power of the sea, would have agreed. Certainly the strains of that British patriotic song would have served as a sharp reminder to them of their historical place and status in this great sea-borne empire; for the words of the last verse of that stanza were, “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves”. How the lower classes, including those who served the elites in their yacht clubs, viewed these moments of extreme privilege is unclear. Nevertheless, many witnessed the yachting and regattas that were pursued by the wealthy white elites in part to symbolize their connection with the British imperium, and also to reinforce their efforts to advance the process of anglicization in Jamaica.

Rifle Shooting If the military officers participated in most sporting activities in Jamaica, rifle shooting was the sport most closely linked to the military. There was never any doubt that this sport was designed to train civilians to become efficient marksmen with a view to defending their social order and country if called upon to do so. As the Gleaner said: “The value of such shooting to the young men of the island is very great. They are trained in many qualities which react on their ordinary life – self-control, perception, quickness of eye, precision, &c.; and, not least, they are encouraged in that spirit of comradeship which is so essential for producing a solidarity of aim and effort in the militia organization.”210 Many people shared the view that not only was rifle shooting a manly sport, but it was the duty of every man to know how to use a weapon so that he could protect and defend his family, king and country. “The man who spends all his leisure time in amusement, and shuts his eyes to one of the first duties of good citizenship, is not to be either envied or admired.”211 It is not surprising, therefore, that rifle shooting for sport was promoted

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Figure 29. The Jamaican rifle team, 1896. (Courtesy of the Jamaica Archives and Records Department.)

by the volunteer militias and the regular military forces. Its value was appreciated and reinforced by the manner in which “our volunteers fought at Morant Bay against overwhelming numbers”,212 most of whom were not equipped with firearms. Rifle shooting, therefore, was clearly seen as the mechanism for training elite boys and men to defend, as a last resort, the established

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order of society in the war for civilization. What the elites were promoting among themselves as a sport served as an important reminder to the lower classes that their fellow citizens would not hesitate to subdue them with violence should they threaten the status quo. In 1863 some members of the Volunteer Corps and the Jamaica assembly formed the Jamaica Rifle Association. The adjutant-general of the militia, Colonel Maycock, expressed the hope that the association would bring “to the knowledge of a large and respectable class of the community, the use of the Rifle”. This knowledge was clearly not intended for everybody. And, as was customary with all such colonial bodies, it was automatically affiliated with the British National Rifle Association, which sent a silver medal to be competed for as a prize.213 Rifle-shooting matches were held periodically among the volunteers, military and the police, and these were attended by the elite classes, including many “ladies”. They were sometimes followed by dinners complete with toasts to the queen, royal family and governor.214 The elite boys’ high schools also held rifle-shooting competitions.215 The sport received the full support of the governors and parish custodes by way of patronage of rifle clubs, donations of prizes and attendance at shooting matches. It is not surprising, therefore, that when the Kingston Volunteer Militia acquired their rifle range on Windward Road in 1888, they had it opened by the governor’s wife, Lady Norman, amidst a display of military pomp, and named it Norman Range.216 Governor Henry Norman also presented a silver cup to the volunteers for competition.217 Likewise, when a new Jamaica Rifle Association was established in 1894, its prime mover and patron was Governor Henry Blake, who also donated a fivepound prize.218 In 1905 Governor Alexander Swettenham donated a trophy for an annual inter-colonial rifle-shooting competition.219 This sport also received official sustenance in other ways. Gun club rifles were applied for through the governor, and were imported via the crown agents in London after being approved by the British War Office. The latter’s approval was also required for the sale of ammunition to the clubs by local ordnance stores. Support also came by way of exemption from import duties on guns and ammunition used by the rifle clubs, as well as exemption from gun licences, even though by Law 38 of 1908 members of approved clubs were allowed to keep the rifles on their own premises without paying the licence tax.220 Indeed government support of the rifle clubs only stopped short of supplying rifles free of cost to their members.221 To ensure that the rifles and ammunition got into the “right” hands, the governor was required to testify

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to the “respectability and loyalty” of those persons forming a gun club. It is not surprising that with such encouragement rifle clubs mushroomed all over the island after 1890.222 It was not only the social elites who had access to guns. Many black peasants and Maroons owned guns that they used for hunting, target-shooting and holiday celebrations. They often organized shooting matches using old muzzle-loaders and cast-lead bullets. These, of course, were no match for the Enfield and other modern rifles imported for the gun clubs. Rum and whisky, goats, legs of ham, bars of soap, and the like, were offered as prizes.223 Such unauthorized use of unlicensed guns caused concern among the social elites who took steps to curb it. Law 57 of 1908 prohibited the discharge of any firearms on or near a main or parochial road or public place; and Law 58 of 1908 defined “firearm” in a very wide way to include weapons other than those in which the propulsive force of the missile discharged was an explosive.224 It clearly was not nearly as important for the lower classes to know how to defend their families and country as it was for the social elites. However, the former were not prepared to risk remaining undefended against the latter.

Hockey Although hockey became quite popular in Britain among both men and women in the late nineteenth century, it did not gain much popularity in Jamaica before 1920. Early efforts to promote the sport in Spanish Town had foundered largely, it is said, because of “the propensity of the players to start ‘stick-licking’ with the hockey-clubs when the game grew exciting”.225 This inclination to indiscipline and even violence among players was certainly counterproductive of the values that team sports were intended to instil in their participants, and would not have recommended hockey as a sport to be promoted at any level in Jamaica, and especially among the “volatile” lower classes, since the hockey-sticks themselves constituted formidable weapons. Except, therefore, for small pockets of interest, mainly in the military garrisons, hockey was not widely encouraged. It is very noticeable, too, that it was not promoted in the boys’ high schools despite the high profile given to sports by their masters.226 An experiment was made in 1915, however, to encourage females to play,227 presumably because it was felt they might approach it in a more genteel spirit. Despite its potential hazards, hockey did have some advocates. In 1912

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W.P.C. Adams urged Jamaicans to take up hockey if only to expand their primary sporting interests beyond cricket, football and tennis, and she or he called for a civilian club to be formed.228 “Kaptin” was even more impassioned in his or her attempt to wrap hockey in the British flag. She or he argued that though potentially dangerous to limb, hockey, perhaps more than any other sport, had steeled the Britisher “from boyhood to endure, to fight bravely to the last sound of the whistle, to take success or defeat in the same quiet undaunted spirit, which on the fields of History has won power and position for the nation, and undying glory to the English speaking race”.229 However, these were voices in the wilderness whose message largely went unheard. Hockey might be good for native born Britons, but not necessarily for their “un- or half-civilized” colonial subjects in Jamaica. The sport, therefore, hardly existed beyond the boundaries of the military barracks, where the potential for sticklicking could be parlayed into a talent for crowd control, if required.

Boxing As late as 1890, boxing was either relatively unknown in Jamaica or practised clandestinely, but thereafter there was a growing interest in this “manly art”, particularly after Dick Matthews, an ex-champion of New Zealand, visited the island in 1892 and issued an open challenge to all-comers. Although no local was prepared to take him on, Pat Burke, an Irishman, stepped up for a bout scheduled for eight rounds. He was no match for Matthews and lasted only two rounds.230 Thereafter boxing slowly took off, at first in secrecy at night under lamp and candle light. These affairs, reportedly conducted under the Marquis of Queensbury’s rules, were witnessed by very few people, and the entire purse went to the winner. The names of the boxers were not revealed, but we can assume that they may have included a few lower status whites like Burke, and perhaps coloureds and blacks as well.231 Boxing would also have been part of the sport culture of the troops in the imperial and West Indian regiments stationed in the colony. These early pugilistic contests were regarded with a certain amount of opprobrium largely because they pitted amateurs without boxing skills against each other, and tended to be brutally bloody affairs after the contestants lost their tempers. They consequently seemed to convey social values that ran counter to the “civilizing” effect of sport. The Gleaner, for instance, considered

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them “unworthy of the class in which they originated, and brutalizing in their effects upon all who witnessed them. . . . The vulgar exhibitions of pugilistic skill to which we have been treated of late are by no means steps in advance; a few more demonstrations of the same character and the effect will be marked on the thought and tone of the community.”232 After 1900, however, boxing came literally into the light of day and achieved greater respectability as a manly sport that would toughen young lads, teach them to defend themselves, inculcate self-control, and also to obey rules and regulations even under the most stressful circumstances of a physical pounding. It thus had civilizing attributes after all. Fights were more carefully organized and conducted, publicly advertised and patrons charged an entrance fee to view them.233 It was not until the advent of the cinema, which brought moving pictures of big American bouts such as the Jack Johnson–Jess Willard fight in 1916,234 that boxing really became a popular sport in Jamaica. Thereafter a series of prize fights was promoted in the island as several black Jamaicans entered the ring. Melbourne Park was one of the main venues for these encounters.235 By 1920 boxing was well on its way to becoming a key part of the shared national sporting culture in Jamaica; and since it required little more than raw courage, lower-class men who were so inclined could participate. The evidence, however, does not indicate whether the sport pitted boxers of different races and classes against each other, although the spectators certainly were diverse.

American Sports The American sports of baseball, basketball and roque were also experimented with in Jamaica. These may be interpreted as signs of the growth of American cultural influences in the island in the wake of the close commercial, migratory and religious links. How baseball was introduced is not clear, but in 1881 two matches were arranged at Emerald Pen between players from Kingston and McDowell and Company. This sport never took root in Jamaican soil, and it was not until 1905 and 1912 respectively when teams from visiting US warships staged exhibition games at Sabina Park that it made news again. On both occasions, large crowds were present. In 1919 another match was reported between St George’s College and the Jamaica Tobacco Factory.236 Basketball seems to have been introduced during the First World War. In 1917, it was reported that T.K. Wint was teaching it to the Third Kingston

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Troop of the Girl Guides,237 though it was also played by males. In 1918, it received a fillip when the wealthy jeweller, Reginald Henriques, donated a silver trophy to be competed for by teams including schools. This led to the formation of three teams from among the Kingston Constabulary, and one by a well-known Lebanese merchant, Mr Hanna. Another club was formed at Free Hill in 1920.238 However, like baseball, basketball did not take root among the Jamaican people. Roque, a lawn game said to be similar to croquet, made its appearance in 1919 with the formation of a Roque Club in Kingston under the presidency of D.C. Vaz.239 Its fate, however, seems to have been no more fortunate than the other two American sports. Although some American cultural influences might have been discernible by 1920, Jamaicans as a whole were still psychologically and culturally too tied to Britain to be sucked into the US cultural ambit. That would, however, change with the growing popularity of American films and other cultural items.

Indoor Games Several indoor sports were played in Jamaica, particularly by elite males, to help to consume their leisure time in the absence of regular entertainment. These went well with their penchant for liberal consumption of alcoholic beverages and gambling (chapter 11). Billiards was played at social and sports clubs, hotels and private houses,240 and became so popular that by the 1880s a Billiard Club could be supported at Old Harbour, and a billiard saloon in Kingston.241 Billiard matches and tournaments for cash prizes were regular features of elite indoor entertainment by the 1890s, and these encouraged a fair amount of betting as well.242 Table tennis, called “ping-pong”, had a meteoric rise after being popularized primarily by the Young Men’s Guild. By 1902 it was a craze among young athletes and had been taken up by sports and social clubs, and even bar rooms in different parts of the island, where it was played every night. According to the Gleaner: “The enthusiasm of its votaries has in no way abated, and new strokes are constantly being practised. So as to obtain the best results, the racquet is also being experimented with and various means are adopted for getting a rough surface.”243 Card games were also very popular indoor pastimes among all classes of Jamaicans, and were accompanied by gambling (see also chapter 11). Among

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the elites, the more popular games were bridge, poker and whist. Whist parties and tournaments were also held,244 but bridge emerged so popular that from October 1911 the Gleaner featured a special column with problems and solutions on Mondays.245 Far less popular was chess, although a club of twelve members, the San Jago, was formed in Spanish Town in 1876, and the Jamaica Chess Club (Kingston) in 1881. The latter aimed to bring “gentlemen together to promote friendly intercourse, as well as to cultivate a taste for the science of chess”. The Jamaica Family Journal published by the Gleaner during the 1880s featured a chess column; and in 1884 Governor Norman presented a prize of five pounds to be competed for in a tournament inaugurated in connection with the Gleaner’s column. After 1886, chess tournaments were organized mainly by the YMCA, which also hosted draught tournaments.246 The general lack of enthusiasm for chess might lie in the fact that, although presumably civilizing, it was much too intellectual a game for the elites in plantation society who preferred physical gratification to sedentary thinking and thoughtfulness; and the lower classes were not introduced to the game since it might have been thought to be beyond their mental capacity.

Conclusion By the early twentieth century, a wide variety of sports was played in Jamaica, most of British provenance. Many of these were played by people of all classes, even though there were areas of cultural contestation among the classes over the right to participate. Imported British sports were an area of culture which attracted the keen interest of Afro-Jamaicans because, potentially, they provided a level playing field on which talent and skill reigned supreme. Sport thus offered a major platform on which the culture war was fought, for as more black and coloured Jamaicans adopted British sports, they creolized them and undermined the anglicizing intent of the cultural elite classes. Eroded too were the claims of superiority that mastery of sports and games and displays of muscular Christianity were supposed to have ensured for the (white) cultural elite who imported these civilizing activities, since all too often the island’s outstanding athletes were not from among them. If sporting prowess was supposed to indicate true manliness, then the emergence of icons like the aptly named Norman Manley, J.K. Holt, G.C. Foster, B.M. Clarke and J. Weir challenged the idea that whites held the monopoly on those attrib-

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utes. That Manley also happened to be a world-class scholar only strained the myth of white superiority even further. As might be expected these were complex processes with which the local cultural elites struggled from their own creole perspective. At the same time that they embraced the upliftment that these British sports seemed to proffer, they were loathe to violate the long-standing barriers of race/colour, class and gender, and so practised a culture of exclusion towards those whom they believed were beneath them. The difficulty of instructing civility while striving to maintain social distance partially undermined their efforts, as did their own relapses into “crassness”. From the perspective of the lower classes on whom the tenets of civilization were being foisted, the process of cultural construction was just as complex. Anxious to imbibe the benefits of recognition and social advancement which they were encouraged to believe would accrue from an acknowledgement of their decency and respectability, many of them embraced some of the symbols of anglicization, including sports. They voluntarily played the games imported by the cultural elite, and in some cases, they excelled at them. However, for many the adoption of these British sports represented an opportunity to display their prowess and to win at all costs. This was not the lesson that the cultural elites had hoped to impart, and their frustration was apparent in many confrontations. It is important to note also that many ordinary Jamaicans, excluded from some aspects of the elite sporting culture (yachting, golf, polo etc.), looked on from the sidelines; and while they could share in the spectacle of this culture with the elites, they were also conscious that sport was being used to keep them separate and apart socially. Although some of these sports would remain out of reach to the lower classes on account of class prejudice, lack of access to facilities and sheer cost of equipment (and also in some cases a lack of active interest), they were able to break down the social barriers in others, especially cricket, association football, athletics, cycling, horse racing and boxing, and to impose their own creole stamp and style on them. The cultural contestation in the sports arena would continue for many more decades, but all classes of Jamaicans, male and female, developed a shared sporting culture that would become a national passion.

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“The Brotherhood of Man” Gentlemen’s Clubs and Fraternities

the only male-oriented socio-cultural associations that were formed in the later nineteenth century. Along with public (including sports) and private family-based events, a great deal of cultural activity took place in elite gentlemen’s clubs, fraternity lodges and friendly societies. The gentlemen’s clubs provided meeting places for many of the cultural elites, most of whom supported the civilizing mission. However, they were also private homo-social spaces where elite men could meet and engage in a great deal of “uncivilized” behaviour. Here, as in many other circumstances, the cultural elites were ambivalent about what constituted pleasurable enjoyment and what would mark them as progressive sons of the empire, identifiable by their sense of decorum. The lodges and friendly societies tended to have slightly different foci, but they too operated as spaces where those, mainly males, could attend to their social, economic and even political networks. For the vast majority who were excluded from these gentlemen’s clubs and fraternities, they formed their own, and their social meetings occurred in much less salubrious environments – the yards and streets, rum-shops and taverns (see chapter 11). As was so often the case in other aspects of culture, while they were frequently just as engaged as the elites in the enjoyment of their social gatherings, they were generally castigated as the disruptive and uncivilized elements of Jamaican society; and those who constituted the cultural elite would have liked nothing more than to halt or control such lower-class social gatherings and activities. S PORTS

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Gentlemen’s Clubs Social life in elite Jamaica was characterized to a high degree by gender separation. One manifestation of this was the growth of gentlemen’s social clubs in the later nineteenth century patterned on similar institutions in Britain, of which the most prestigious were the Pall Mall and St James clubs in London. Gentlemen’s clubs like these were formed by the colonial elites all over the British empire, and became sanctuaries for their members, who spent a considerable amount of their leisure time there in relaxation with a view to putting aside the daily cares of business and the concerns of wives and families. They collected their mail, read newspapers and magazines, chatted and socialized with their peers, gossiped, discussed politics and made business deals while dining, drinking or playing cards, chess, draughts, checkers or billiards. In the colonies, these clubs became important meeting places for mixing with the rich and powerful, and membership signified one’s acceptance in elite society. They might also have served as safe and private rendezvous for a variety of homo-social activities, including possible connections among elite homosexuals. A premium, therefore, was placed on being invited to, or even better being accepted as a member of these clubs.1 In Jamaica, several of these clubs were formed between 1865 and 1920, most notably the Jamaica Club (1872), the Kingston Club (1885), the St Andrew Club (1895), the Liguanea Club (1910) and the St George Catholic Club (1920). Smaller provincial clubs were also formed, for example, in St Ann (1883), Porus (1894) and Manchester.2 All, however, catered mainly to an elite male clientele as their high subscription fees and strict screening procedures for membership ensured, but the St Andrew and Liguanea clubs later broke the gender bar and admitted “ladies” to limited membership privileges.3 By far the most elitist of these was the Jamaica Club, whose imperial connections and credentials were underscored by its granting honourable membership to the governor, the commander of the military forces, the naval commodore and the officers of the North American and West Indian Squadron who visited the island once a year. The entrance fee, initially fixed at two guineas (£2 2s.) in 1873, was progressively raised to seven guineas (£7 7s.) by 1921. Likewise the annual membership subscription rose from three (£3 3s.) to eight guineas (£8 8s.) for town members, and from two (£2 2s.) to five guineas (£5 5s.) for country members over the same period. Even among those who could afford this, membership was not open to all comers. A special committee dealt with applications of candidates, who were elected by ballot. Every

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applicant had to be proposed by one member and seconded by another, both of whom had to know him personally and vouch for his social credentials. His name was then placed in a candidates’ book for at least three weeks for scrutiny and approval by members.4 This process certainly ensured that only persons of desirable social status would be admitted. Membership of this club was thus small.5 Although not nearly as exclusive, the other clubs employed similar methods to preserve their social pedigree and, although their fees were lower, they were still sufficiently high to keep out “undesirables”. Thus the Kingston Club in 1885 charged an entrance fee of three guineas, and annual subscriptions of two guineas for town and one guinea for country members.6 Although not as high as the five guineas then charged for entrance by its rival the Jamaica Club (and without the latter’s impeccable social credentials), this fee was the same as what the Liguanea Club was charging thirty-five years later! No wonder the Kingston Club did not survive for long, notwithstanding its initial membership of fifty gentlemen.7 The Liguanea Club’s annual subscriptions in 1920 were also fairly steep: four guineas for Kingston members, three guineas for military, naval and police officers, and thirty shillings (one pound and ten shillings) for country members. Ladies paid two guineas for limited privileges.8 Membership of both the St Andrew and St George Catholic clubs, however, was cheaper. The entrance fees were two guineas and one guinea, respectively, while the annual subscriptions were the same: two guineas for town members and one guinea for country members, officers of the army, navy and merchant marine. The St George Catholic Club, whose patron was the American consul, also naturally catered to officers of visiting US ships; and despite its nomenclature it was secular and admitted non-Catholics. Ladies at the St Andrew Club paid one guinea. A similar process of nomination and election by ballot as was done at the Jamaica Club was used by the others to screen candidates for membership. Members of all these clubs were allowed to introduce their friends free of charge for two weeks if they were visiting the island or resided more than five or ten miles, respectively, from the club houses. Thereafter they were required to pay a fee to use the clubs’ facilities.9 These facilities were fairly similar in all the clubs. They all provided access to furnished accommodation (bedrooms) with servants for members; reading rooms equipped with English newspapers, periodicals and books; and dining, bar, card and billiard rooms. In addition, both the Liguanea and St George Catholic clubs offered croquet and lawn tennis courts, while the former also provided a swimming pool and a nine-hole golf course, and the latter possessed

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a gymnasium, cricket and football fields.10 These clubs went to great lengths to cater to the comfort and relaxation of their mainly male elite members, and to provide them with a British cultural ambience (notwithstanding the black and coloured servants) for socializing informally with their peers while being insulated behind walls of gender, class and often race. They were important institutions for reaffirming both the Britishness and elite social status of their members. Thus, when in 1890 the Jamaica Club moved from King Street to more commodious premises on Hanover Street with marble tiled floors, new furniture specially imported from England, and grounds of colourful flowering gardens, the Gleaner was sanguine that the new club house would “provide its members with all the comforts and pleasures such as are to be obtained in any first class English Club”.11 It was in and from these spaces that ideas for conducting the elite war against the Afro-creole culture were probably ventilated and orchestrated. In these exclusive zones, protected by a social understanding of who belonged and who did not, as well as prohibitive membership fees, the island’s male cultural elites could discuss at length the failings of the “benighted” lower classes and formulate the solutions that would result in their “upliftment”. However, because many among them shared a creole cultural heritage with the majority whom they castigated, it made the implementation of the master plan for civilization a somewhat difficult proposition. For while they sat in the equivalent of “any first class English Club”, they were participants in a culture that tied them more strongly to the persons who served them than they would have cared to admit.

Fraternities: Lodges and Friendly Societies Secret societies (lodges) manifested themselves in Jamaica during the eighteenth century when the first freemason lodge, Mother Lodge, No. 182, was formed in Kingston in 1739 under the Provincial Grand Lodge of England. Thereafter the growth of freemasonry was episodic until 1831, when the uncertainties associated with the abolition of slavery saw the departure from the colony of many active members and the consequent closure of several lodges. Freemasonry was revived in the mid-1840s when Columbian exiles in Kingston formed the Union et Concordia Lodge, No. 754. This seemed to excite the interest of elite Jamaicans, with the result that an independent grand chapter called the “Grand Lodge of Jamaica” (which adhered to the constitution of

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the Grand Lodge of England) was established in Kingston in 1858, with Dr Robert Hamilton, a wealthy planter, as district grand master. This precipitated the establishment of several new lodges: in Port Royal (1861), Savannala-Mar (1871), Spanish Town (1873), and three more in Kingston between 1878 and 1880. By the end of the nineteenth century, there were eight lodges in this grand chapter.12 The masonic brethren on the north side of the island, however, declined to form part of this new arrangement and instead maintained their direct connection with the English metropolitan grand lodge.13 But by 1920 all the English masonic lodges were united under the umbrella of the Jamaican grand chapter and numbered twelve.14 The Scottish freemasons under the Provincial Grand Lodge of Scotland were also active in Jamaica in the later nineteenth century. In 1860 their first lodge, the Victoria, No. 402, was formed in Spanish Town, followed by others in St Ann (Seville, 1873), Port Maria (Caledonian, 1874) and Kingston (St John, 1878). Although this order continued to grow slowly, in 1899 it was still comprised of four lodges but increased to five by 1920.15 From the 1850s, a third grand chapter of freemasonry was operating in Jamaica, English Mark Masonry, and in 1877 the Provincial Grand Mark Masters’ Lodge of England was formed. Up to 1920, however, Mark Masters lodges were all attached to those of the Jamaican (English) and Scottish orders. The same applied to lodges of the Holy Royal Arch Chapter, some of which existed since the late nineteenth century, although it was only in 1903 that a district grand chapter was formed in Jamaica.16 Other masonic orders included the Knights Templar, the Knights of Malta, the Order of the Red Cross of Constantine, and the Order of St John the Evangelist. Initially called the “St Josephs’s Commandery, No. 182”, the local order of St John the Evangelist was established in 1911. In 1914 a Ladies Auxiliary, known as the “St Ann’s Commandery, No. 174”, was formed. Up to 1920 both wings were based only in Kingston.17 The principal masonic hall in Kingston, Sussex Hall, was located on Hanover Street. Owned by the Sussex Lodge, No. 354, it was nevertheless used by virtually all the masonic bodies in the city. The building occupied two storeys. On the first floor were a banquet hall, kitchen and pantry. The worshipful master was responsible for placing the great lights of freemasonry on an altar to the east. A low stand on the diamond-marked floor contained a chart or trestle board of the various degrees, and the one on which the lodge was at work was displayed.18 The second floor housed the lodge hall, forty by sixty feet, with a high ceiling. By the end of the century it was fitted with elec-

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Figure 30. The Masonic temple, Kingston. (Courtesy of the Jamaica Archives and Records Department.)

tric lights and fans. On this floor as well were the tyler’s and preparation rooms. The floor and woodwork were of well-polished mahogany. A throne, raised three steps, was used by the worshipful master; and on either side of him were seated past masters and worshipful masters of other lodges. The banners of all the lodges and other masonic bodies which used the hall were displayed at all times. Distinguished guests were conducted to the throne by a

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committee of the highest brethren through two lines of past officers. The visitor was then introduced and the gavel placed in his hands, whereupon he could address or seat the gathering.19 The establishment of freemason lodges in Jamaica emulated a development that was taking place in Britain and across its empire during the Victorian and Edwardian periods. With branches formed in the elite British public schools, many of the old boys took their memberships with them (and established branches of their lodges, if necessary) wherever in the world they went. Membership provided immediate admission into colonial elite circles,20 and a fraternal “home” away from home. For elite white Jamaicans, membership of masonic lodges was another way of emphasizing their cultural Britishness, while for aspiring Jews, coloureds and blacks who could make the cut, membership meant entrée into high society with all the prestige and privilege associated with such status. As in Britain, therefore, the masonic lodges appeared to luxuriate in their exclusivity.21 According to P.A. Cole, “Freemasonry has been from its inception confined to the higher class of the community, and the standard of admittance is very high. The doors are, however, never closed against any respectable person on account of his class, creed or colour.”22 Those who cleared the hurdles of admission included merchants and planters, lawyers, doctors, priests, and publicists. Some of these, as Patrick Bryan notes, belonged to more than one order.23 The list of masons who, for instance, attended the service at the Kingston Parish Church on 14 May 1894, to celebrate the centenary of the Royal Lodge, read like a roll call of Jamaica’s elite citizens, including none other than Sir Henry Blake, the governor, attired in his Irish masonic regalia.24 One staple feature of all orders of freemasonry was that they were entirely male and so provided another theatre for elite male bonding. In addition, they were shrouded in secrecy and mysterious ritualism. P.J. Rich asserts that perhaps the greatest attraction of freemasonry, both in Britain and the colonies, was its ritualism, much of which was invented in the nineteenth century. This paralleled the ritualism of the colonial state itself and helped to reinforce imperial authority and hegemony. Indeed the structure of the freemason lodge system, with its “parent orders” in Britain as we have seen, emulated the imperial administrative system. Says Rich: “The masonic order became imperial at the same time as [the] British government.” He emphasizes the importance of the rituals of freemasonry in support of British cultural imperialism. “It was the ritualism as much or more than the secrecy that helped to enforce rule, clothing the imperial authority with awe-inspiring rites.

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It was all the better to have some of them mysterious.”25 In their promotion of British cultural dominance, therefore, freemason lodges could be useful agencies in the elite culture war against Afro-creolization. Freemasonry was also made attractive to Jamaicans by the grand-sounding titles it bestowed on its members and its ritualistic pageantry. Its system of honours and titles paralleled that of the imperial state, and men who could not gain imperial honours equally coveted those generated and proliferated by freemasonry. As Rich put it, “[e]xtravagant titles were its stock-in-trade”. Pompous titles such as prince, duke, count, knight or grand master,26 accompanied by colourful regalia (uniforms and aprons, medals, swords etc.) gave their recipients a sense of high status and self-importance in society. This was matched by the elaborate pageantry of its celebrations, often wrapped in imperialistic symbolism. If the installation in 1862 of the attorney-general, the Honourable A. Heslop, as grand master of the freemason Hamilton Lodge, Spanish Town, was typical, the lodge room was (usually) decorated with flags of England, the United States and France with the royal crown illuminated on the eastern wall, and the plume of the Prince of Wales opposite with the letters VR (Victoria Regia or Viva Regina) on either side of it.27 The lavish banquets that marked the consecration, anniversary or annual installation of office-bearers of these lodges invariably included loyal toasts to the British monarch, the royal family and the governor.28 It was even better when the “brothers” had an opportunity to display their finery in public. So the spectacle of ostentatious street parades was a major attraction to many men and encouraged them to join these lodges. Witness, for instance, the grand parade of the masons in Montego Bay for their fiftieth anniversary in 1868. This was clearly treated as a major public event because for several days before, banners and flags were put up at stores, shops and private residences. The “national standard” was displayed at both entrances into the town (a clear link between freemasonry and British imperial rule); and a handsome arch, decorated with evergreens and flowers with the inscription “And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year”, was erected in St James Street. At 10:00 a.m., fifty-five masonic brethren gathered at the lodge room for a procession to Trinity chapel. Led by the Volunteer Band (another indication of the state’s involvement), they moved off in precise ceremonial order as follows: two tylers with drawn swords; apprentices two and two; two stewards with white rods; fellow crafts two and two; two stewards with white rods; master masons two and two; two stewards with white rods; mark masters two and two; the treasurer; the secretary with the Book of Constitution; the inner guard; the Holy

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Figure 31. Lodge brotherhood. (Source: Daily Gleaner, 7 November 1912.)

Bible with the compass and square borne by a brother, supported on the right and left by the senior and junior deacons; two stewards with white rods; Royal Arch companions three and three; the worshipful past masters, presiding master; a worshipful past of the Royal Arch order; and two stewards with white rods.29 Not surprisingly such displays of pomp and pageantry led during the later nineteenth century to a proliferation of other secret lodges and friendly societies which, according to Frederick Seal-Coon, were “imitative of Freemasonry”.30 These appealed mainly to black and coloured people in the lower middle classes who could not muster admission into the elite fraternities. One of these was the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows of England and America (GUOF), which was introduced into Jamaica in 1880 when the first lodge, the Surrey, was formed in Kingston. Thereafter the movement spread to other parts of the island with lodges being established in Montego Bay, Spanish Town, Port Antonio and Balaclava. By 1920, this order comprised eight male lodges in the island. In addition, a branch called the Household of Ruth catered separately and exclusively to the female relatives of male members of

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the order, although other “women of good character” were also admitted on special vouchers of not less than five members in good financial standing. In 1920 there were four such households, all in Kingston.31 The Independent Order of Odd Fellows (Manchester Unity) was entirely different from the GUOF. Introduced in 1885 under the jurisdiction of the Barbados district, an independent Jamaica district was formed in 1890. Thereafter several lodges, numbering fourteen by 1920, were established in various parts of the island.32 The first lodge of the Independent Order of Good Samaritans and Daughters of Samaria was established in Kingston in 1882. By 1920 there were ten lodges under the supervision of a district grand lodge, and these were located in Kingston, Morant Bay and Yallahs Bay. Both sexes enjoyed equal rights and privileges in these lodges and met together.33 The Loyal Order of Ancient Shepherds (Ashton Unity) was introduced in 1886. By 1920, a district lodge managed the affairs of its over five hundred members who belonged to nine subordinate lodges. These were all located in Kingston and St Andrew, and Spanish Town.34 All of these secret orders had as their primary objective the provision of aid to members and their families in time of need, although it was only in 1882 that the freemasons formed the Jamaica Masonic Benevolence Association.35 Each member of these societies subscribed a monthly fee, from which fund they benefited when sick by an allowance; and generally the lodges also provided burial assistance for members, their wives and children. Both Oddfellow orders also supported their members in old age and when unemployed, and provided temporary relief to widows and orphans; while the Good Samaritans had a special obligation “to remonstrate with those who wander from the paths of rectitude and sobriety”.36 In addition to these secret societies affiliated to orders in the United Kingdom, there were several home-grown friendly or mutual aid societies, many of which were associated with churches, and catered more to the lower middle classes. Among these were the Wesleyan Methodist Mutual and Benevolent Society formed in 1856, St George’s Church Mutual Relief Society (1864), Church of Scotland Mutual Aid Society, Kingston Mutual Aid Association (1890), the Clerks Mutual Aid Provident Society (1889); and in the country districts, St Catherine Mutual Relief Society (1866) and Linstead Mutual Aid Society (1893). The Women’s Self-Help [sic] was formed in 1879 to help industrious women by teaching them plain needlework and the cutting out of clothing, providing a sales room for the products of their work, and occasional

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employment for distressed needlewomen. Ethnic minorities like the Jews had their own Hebrew Benevolent Society, established in 1850, although many leading Jews were also freemasons; and the Chinese immigrants formed the Chung Far Fucion in 1895, and a masonic lodge, the Chee Kong Tung in 1897.37 Lodges and friendly societies offered a measure of social security in a country with very limited notions of welfare and state support, and this was another reason for their attractiveness. These lodges and friendly societies, like all other institutions in the island, had a hierarchical pecking order. The masonic fraternity was certainly the most elite, and its membership reflected this (see above). The “lesser” orders actively sought to improve their pedigree by attracting a “respectable” middleclass membership, if only to be kept alive by their subscriptions. Indeed in 1901 the Gleaner claimed that the majority of middle-class men belonged to lodges and/or friendly societies.38 Societies that were attached to churches and other local-grown ones generally catered to the lower middle class.39 Friendly societies were first encouraged after emancipation as a practical means of lessening the dependence of those ex-slaves who became indigent on account of old age, infirmity or illness, on the parochial relief system. In their illiberal mindset, the planters and merchants in control of the assembly were intent on shifting the responsibility for the poor from the state/local government to the people themselves. The 1842 Friendly Societies law thus stated that in order to improve the condition of the people, to encourage industry and thrifty habits among them, and to make them more dependent on their own exertions for support than on parochial aid, [it was necessary and] desirable to establish, encourage, and protect Friendly Societies in this Island for the purpose of raising, by voluntary subscriptions of the members thereof, or by donations of charitable and benevolent individuals, separate funds for the mutual relief and maintenance of the said members in sickness, old age, and infirmity, and for making provision for their widows, or children, or other relations, after the death of the said members . . . and at the same time diminishing the public and parochial burdens.40

These societies were to be the vehicles by which the poor would provide for themselves in time of need. Hence, the proliferation of friendly societies in the later nineteenth century was generally regarded as a good thing for Jamaica. They were credited with inculcating such desirable civic and moral characteristics as “thrift, sobriety, unselfishness, and consideration for others” deemed essential to the “civilizing”

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process.41 The Gleaner put this succinctly: “In this as in other progressive communities, the spread of friendly societies may well be regarded as being among the landmarks of civilization. Institutions of the kind are indicative of moral and social advancement. . . . In one form or another, friendly societies have been the accompaniment of civilization and freedom.”42 The friendly societies were supposed to civilize the people they touched, according to P.A. Cole, by reinforcing the Christian spirit of caring for one’s neighbour especially in time of need. They also had, as a key part of their subtext, the promotion of peace and harmony in the society.43 No wonder the clergy embraced them and undertook to encourage their spread among the middle classes. There was indeed a symbiotic linkage between the churches and these societies in Jamaica, not least of all the secret lodges. Despite the claim by some Europeans that the secret freemasonry rites in particular were a form of devil worship, several clergymen (especially Anglicans) in Jamaica were freemasons, as were many of the leading members of their congregations.44 The opening of new lodges and the celebration of their anniversaries also usually commenced with an elaborate service at local churches, while in turn these lodges laid the foundation stones for the construction of churches and schools for which they undertook to raise building funds.45 Friendly societies were also important for reinforcing British cultural imperialism in the island. P.A. Cole, for instance, argued that “Great Britain, the civilizing centre of the modern world, has been the medium used to throw out the ‘rays of light’ and it is to her that the world is indebted for the formation and development of the Friendly Societies that are to-day one of the distinguishing features of the Anglo-Saxon race, and are established wherever that tongue is spoken”.46 And, emulating the freemasons, these “lesser societies” also staged colourful street parades with their regalia, which sought to reinforce publicly the social status claimed by the participants and made them feel important. By the end of the century, not only had the non-masonic lodges been successful in winning a substantial middle-class membership and propagating the idea of loyalty to the British crown, but through their rituals and pageantry they also attracted the interest of large numbers of lower-class people. This was fully demonstrated during the diamond jubilee celebrations of Queen Victoria in June 1897, when lodges representing the orders of Mechanics, Galilean Fishermen, Ancient Shepherds, and Good Samaritans joined their female counterparts in procession order outside the Coke Chapel in Kingston. According to the Gleaner,

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The sisters were standing in rank on the steps fronting the Coke Chapel and the brethren halted in the road facing them. The four mounted marshals rode up and down between the ranks brandishing their swords. The vivid sunlight beating down on the glittering tinsel and brass insignia there so much in evidence and on the uplifted swords of all the brethren, was flashed back again, bewilderingly. Of course, the common people were there. So much so, that every available vantage ground from which a view might be obtained of the great spectacle was occupied and altogether there must have been some thousands of people present.47

While stimulating the interest of the “common people”, the upper and middle classes were not keen on them joining their organizations. They kept their entrance and subscriptions high to exclude the lower classes. Thus, although there was a proliferation of lodges they were generally small and upper or middle class, which made their survival difficult especially in lean economic times. As Cole put it: “The evil of such motives will be apparent when it is remembered that the social divisions in this country are as varied as the different shades of colour, and none of these ‘little circles’ can by itself maintain any organization.”48 The result of this sort of class prejudice was that by the end of the nineteenth century, the total membership of the lodges and friendly societies was estimated at only about two thousand.49 Among some members of the middle and upper classes, the motives for joining lodges were trivial and short-term, and thus compromised their survival. The secrecy in which these societies functioned stimulated considerable curiosity. All of them had signs of recognition, passwords, task words and other signs by which the members were known to each other. Passwords were sent out by the central bodies in Britain every quarter. Moreover, the lodges generally worked behind closed doors, and the only glimpse that the outside society got of them was on the occasion of their anniversaries or any great national event when they marched in their regalia. Some persons, it seems, thus joined them essentially in order to obtain the secrets and/or to hobnob with their social peers or “betters”, thus very often converting the lodge room into “a Social Birds’ nest”.50 No wonder, therefore, many were short-lived. Yet, at the same time, the social aspect of these lodges and friendly societies was an important calling card. Apart from the pomp and ceremony, and lavish banquets associated with their formal functions, they also organized a variety of socio-cultural events: lectures, concerts, fairs and athletic events, picnics, banquets and balls.51 The proliferation of friendly and benefit societies in the late nineteenth

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century aroused the interest of the state for two reasons. First, at a time of recession in the sugar plantation economy and falling government revenues from taxation, these societies with the accumulated savings of their mainly middle-class members began to take on the appearance of potential milch cows. Previously not taxed, in 1889 the attorney-general claimed that they were liable to pay taxes, and retroactively. (The more elite masonic lodges were apparently not targeted since they were not considered benefit societies.) This naturally threatened the financial viability of many of these societies, and aroused a howl of opposition from their members. This remained a hot political issue for a long time especially since benefit societies in England were exempt in law from taxation. Notwithstanding calls to amend the local laws to bring them in line with those of England in this respect, nothing was done.52 This was in large part because, despite repeated attempts (1900–1901, 1910 and 1919) to get protective legislation passed, without the support of the powerful elite freemason lodges, which were not threatened, the middle-class friendly societies did not have the political clout on their own to advance their case effectively.53 The second cause of state interest in these friendly and benefit societies was their loose methods of financial accounting. Although the 1842 friendly societies law had been amended in 1886 (law 23) to require friendly societies to publish their financial statements annually, and made them liable to scrutiny by inspectors appointed by the Supreme Court,54 this was not strictly enforced. Many of these societies, according to “Interested”, failed to send their annual statements to the deputy keeper of records.55 The result was fraud in some cases and the loss of the savings by members. A classic example was the case of the Imperial Friendly Society which, after being formed late in 1896, was hailed by the Jamaica Post as “one of the most beneficial agencies in the island, and richly deserves a wide extension, throughout the island, of the popular appreciation it enjoys in the metropolitan district”. In just ten months its membership had grown phenomenally, mainly among Kingstonians. Thus in October 1897 the Post felt “assured that when the benefits offered by this Society, together with its guarantees of security [our emphasis], become more fully known, its success will prove even more phenomenal”.56 The very next month, however, the Gleaner reported that this society was in grave financial difficulties, causing a large number of members to congregate in front of its Duke Street offices demanding their money. “But strong armed gatekeepers stood at the door, and effectively repulsed the efforts of the crowd, which as the day wore on gathered largely in force and became more and more

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declamatory.” According to Dr Robert Love, who was one of the leading members of the board of directors, president A. Hanson and secretary William Y. Knighton, had decamped to Port Limon leaving only ten pounds in the bank. What was remarkable was that in the face of such bad news, the subscribers departed “in excellent order, no rowdyism have [sic] occurred throughout”.57 This was a fine example of their “biting the upper lip” in a display of exemplary “civilized” behaviour in keeping with their middle-class status. It was incidents like this that caused the Jamaica Privy Council, in 1901, to assert that in the case of an “uneducated community” such as in Jamaica, it was necessary that safeguards against fraud should be particularly effectual, and that a system of audit should be as perfect as possible and be strictly applied. Yet, although the mayor of Kingston, Dr A.A. Robinson, sponsored a bill to amend the 1842 law to make that possible,58 nothing concrete materialized up to the end of the First World War.

Lower-Class “Associations” If the gentlemen’s clubs and many of the friendly societies remained exclusive to upper- and middle-class males throughout the period, this did not mean that the lower classes did not have their own social gatherings which operated similarly. In the public spaces to which they laid claim or in which they were allowed to congregate (the common yard spaces in urban settings, in churches and rum shops across the island), groups of ordinary Jamaicans met to enjoy themselves in spite of their limited resources. As we demonstrate in chapter 11, the rum shops filled many of the same functions as the exclusive gentlemen’s clubs in that they provided homo-social spaces for the development of a male creole culture. In other cases, that function was provided by the social intercourse that was encouraged in the many male-centred church and secular groups and, for some lower-class women, by the female-exclusive groups such as the Mothers’ Unions, the Upward and Onward Society, and the like.59 If the masonic lodges, friendly societies and other groups provided some financial security for their members, especially in times of hardship, then the lower classes found their own solutions in the penny banks established and encouraged by the churches and schools, as well as with the long-standing Afro-creole activity of creating informal credit associations called “partners”, “meeting turns”, “throwing box” or “sou sou”.60

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Conclusion Gentlemen’s clubs and fraternities had a very important place in the social lives of elite and upwardly mobile men. They offered them a sanctuary where they could bond along gender and class lines, and fostered a sense of camaraderie and extended “kinship” based on shared ideas, interests and customs. The gentlemen’s clubs were exclusive, often closeted, social spaces where they could indulge their passions (perhaps sexual as well – homosexuality was not uncommon among elites in the colonies61) out of the public gaze. Women were excluded, except in a few instances where they were only allowed to play sports or specially invited to accompany their partners to dinners or dances. In these clubhouses, amidst eating, drinking, smoking and gambling, often to excess, elite men also exchanged ideas and probably hatched schemes to impose their cultural dominance on the lower classes. These social clubs were thus important bases for the conduct of the elite culture war. However, as their servers and servants, who emanated from those same lowly classes that they sought to dominate and transform, prepared and served their sumptuous meals, witnessed their gluttonous and drunken (and perhaps other “deviant”) behaviour, cleaned up after them, and overheard their conversations, they gained a first hand look at the hypocrisy that underlay elite claims to cultural and moral superiority; and they probably recounted in detail to their friends beyond the walls what occurred in these closed places. The gentlemen’s clubs were thus important windows into the real character of those who frequented them. They were hardly the models of decorum and propriety that their members so piously preached that the rest of society should emulate for civilization’s sake. Secret lodges, friendly and mutual-aid societies served important social and psychological functions for their largely middle- and upper-class members. They tied them to a larger imperial order through their dependent association with their parent lodges in Britain whose rituals and dress they adopted in a wholesale manner, thus perpetuating a sense of colonial dependency already etched in their minds. They reinforced the hierarchical nature of the colonial social structure in a ritualized manner through their imitation of the colourful regalia and grand parades of institutions such as the imperial military that were ranked higher than them, thereby encouraging their members to seek to associate symbolically with people of higher status. As their reach for members extended further down the social ladder, this was important especially for

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those who otherwise might have felt socially insecure and anxious on account of a lack of money, poor education, or “inferior” racial status. Membership of these lodges enabled them to lay claim to higher social status through their grand titles, which made them feel better about themselves. In addition, membership was also materially beneficial. Many lodges, friendly and mutual-aid societies encouraged their members to save for a rainy day, and provided them with welfare assistance in time of need: unemployment, illness and death. Although both sets of these socio-cultural institutions may have been set up to assist in the promotion of anglicized culture through British cultural hegemony, it is unimaginable that with memberships composed mainly of native Jamaicans, albeit from the middle and upper classes, their modus operandi, membership behaviour, and perhaps even some of their adopted rituals, could have escaped creolization. However, shielded by class exclusivity and fraternal secrecy, it is difficult to discern quite how creolized they really were. On the other hand, it is reasonable to say that as societies aimed at generating brotherly solidarity along class lines, they stood against the spread of the “worst forms” of creolization, that is, Afro-creole cultural influences from below. They did this by utilizing their restrictive membership fees and selective admission procedures to exclude lower-class men. But the impact was counterproductive, since exclusion meant that only a tiny fraction of the adult male population could be influenced by the anglicizing agenda of these institutions. The vast majority of lower-class men thus continued to enjoy the cultural space to do as they pleased, which merely aided the spread of Afro-creole culture.

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“Tom drunk but Tom no fool” Lifestyle Peccadillos

and sports clubs that were formed during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were places where drinking and gambling were prevalent. The mainly upper- and middle-class men who were members of these clubs reputedly drank alcoholic beverages, often to excess, and gambled heavily, mainly at cards and billiards. Yet, as we will show, it was primarily towards the lower classes that the campaigns against these “vices” were directed. If the cultural elites were determined to engage and control the activities of ordinary Jamaicans in every sort of cultural expression (including how they spent their holidays, spoke, and played their sports), their battles against the creole culture were brought to a fever pitch over a number of lifestyle peccadillos that they found to be simply unacceptable. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the social reformers declared war on increasingly popular activities involving the drinking of alcohol and gambling of all sorts. They spoke in shrill tones about the threat to the island’s moral fibre and pointed to the path of destruction that was inevitable should the Jamaican people not be curbed in these “evil” habits. In their minds, to be civilized required self-denial and restraint of the passions, that is, behaviour that was instinctive and uncontrolled. Excessive alcohol consumption and gambling in particular were associated with the sort of unrestrained exuberance that was considered antithetical to civilized order. When associated with “ignorant” black people, it was a disaster waiting to happen. Every effort had, therefore, to be made to stamp out these “vices”. B OTH

THE GENTLEMEN ’ S SOCIAL

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Drinking Both in Britain and its colonies overseas, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed a concerted campaign by moral reformers to curb the “vice” of alcoholic consumption and the drunkenness that often resulted from excessive drinking.1 These reformers, mainly middle class, subscribed to a temperance movement whose ideology equated sobriety with decency and social respectability. Although the temperance movement may have originated in the United States early in the nineteenth century, its spread to and embrace by Britain’s burgeoning bourgeoisie fitted in well with their Victorian concepts of morality, which they intended to proselytize throughout the empire. This new morality emphasized notions of self-constraint, individual responsibility, and “sober” reflection that were essentially parts of a body of social virtues that led to self-improvement.2 In Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean this anti-drink campaign was part of the broader culture war whose mission was to civilize the people and tended to focus largely, though not exclusively, on the poorer non-white classes, and was therefore to some degree racialized. This campaign reached a crescendo at the turn of the twentieth century. Some contemporary commentators believed that before the 1870s, the Jamaican people displayed great sobriety and that intemperance was not “a prevalent vice”. Indeed in 1873 Methodist missionary, Samuel Smythe, commented that “[o]ne might live a whole year in some localities and never see a drunken man”. Even then he observed that “drinking habits are being formed and rum drinking to intoxication is on the increase”.3 That Jamaicans, who had been engaged for more than two centuries in the manufacture of rum, should have been characterized almost as teetotallers would mark them as unique in the post-emancipation Caribbean. To a large degree this perception of sobriety was chimerical and was largely due to a dearth of public bars and rum shops where ordinary Jamaicans could go to drink. Most drinking, therefore, was done in one’s own house or at friends’. According to the Jamaica Post, this “home-drinking” was carried on “to an extent little known, and the curse accompanying it is beyond description”. Because it occurred out of the public view, it was difficult to gauge its extent.4 However, already by the 1870s the “problem” of excessive drinking was sufficiently noticeable to lead some concerned individuals to begin forming temperance societies to combat it (see below). And when rum shops, taverns and other drinking establishments started to proliferate in the last quarter of the

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nineteenth century, the issue of alcoholism and drunkenness became a serious matter of public concern. In 1894 George Robson asserted that intemperance was “beginning to threaten the welfare of the people all across the island”.5 As one might expect in a country that manufactured rum, it was the principal alcoholic drink of all classes. Rum was king among alcoholic beverages and it was consumed neat and in a seemingly inexhaustible variety of concoctions. Francis Dodsworth asserted: “Alone, or as a predominant partner in a firm, coming in disguise with milk, with lime or with the juice of the orange; in many forms and under many aspects he [rum] reigns supreme. From thirsty noon to arid eve he is drunk on the plantations. No house is complete without him, no host dare act in his official capacity, unless Rum lurks on the sideboard.”6 Rum was supplemented, particularly among the middle and upper classes, who had more disposable incomes, by a wide range of other alcoholic beverages, mostly imported. These included brandy, gin, scotch whisky, wines, champagnes, sherry, cider, eau-de-Cologne, lavender, stout, porter, ale and beer. Milwaukee beer was said in 1885 to be “a household word not only in Kingston, but throughout the Colony”, because of its reputedly pleasant tonic, pure, palatable and refreshing properties, and its reputation as one of the few beers “allowed and recommended by the Medical Faculty”. When consumed, said the Colonial Standard, “there is not a headache in a hogshead, nay, in a whole brewery of it”. Jamaicans also loved ginger wine (green and white) which was different from the English variety and, allegedly, not as intoxicating. Kola wine and kola elixir, products of the local kola nut, were said to become intoxicating when alcohol was added to them. Along with peppermint and orange brandy, Jamaicans also relished milk punch (composed of milk, rum, brandy and other ingredients, plus two drops of Tabasco sauce), and pimento dram.7 The general scarcity and the sporadic nature of public entertainment in the social life of Victorian and Edwardian Jamaica enhanced the allure of alcoholic consumption, especially by men. This transcended all classes. Among the elites, drinking formed a central feature of male interaction and socializing at their social and sporting clubs, as it did at their “at homes”, dinners, balls, garden parties, casual social visits and sporting events such as horse racing meetings, cricket matches and yacht races. It formed part of their daily diet, consumed by some after and between meals, and was considered a principal means of easing the tedium of everyday life, especially at night and on holidays in both town and country.

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That drinking was mainly a male pastime in Jamaica conforms to a pattern observed globally. Increasingly, as gender distinctions and roles were sharpened in the late nineteenth century, men of all classes separated themselves from their womenfolk and resorted to all-male social and sporting clubs, in the case of the elites, and to taverns and rum shops, in the case of the lower classes, where drinking (and gambling) formed an integral aspect of their social interaction. Indeed, Craig Heron argues that “The right to drink with other men became a major component of their class identity, masculinity, and, in some cases, ethnic formation.”8 Nor was social drinking confined to the laity; many clergymen also quaffed. Alcohol, especially brandy, was furthermore used for medicinal purposes. It was often prescribed by qualified doctors as a palliative, if not a cure, for a variety of common fevers and ailments. Alcohol, therefore, buoyed the “spirits” of the social elites in Victorian and Edwardian Jamaica. It was when rum shops, to which the lower class had ready access, started to proliferate in many urban and rural communities late in the nineteenth century, and drinking and drunkenness consequently became more visible, that this “vice” began to be regarded as a serious social evil. Since these rum shops were in easy walking distance of the people’s workplaces and homes, they became centres of mainly male leisure activity and socializing (in short, the working man’s social club), but where some “loose women” also congregated. Not surprisingly these rum shops became prime targets of the cultural elite reformers, who castigated them as “hotbeds of idleness and dissipation”.9 Already, by the mid-1860s, rum shops had begun to make their distinctive mark on the cultural landscape,10 even in rural villages, quickly becoming major socio-cultural centres in direct competition with the church-school socio-religious complex for the “souls” of the people in the local community. The liberal plying of alcoholic beverages in the rum shops removed whatever socially determined behavioural constraints their clients may ordinarily have been under, and played into what their “social betters” would have described as their “natural” Afro-creole culture of exuberance. Excessive drinking would also have generated raucous (“lewd”), uninhibited, drunken behaviour, and in the process fostered an alternative morality to that of the churches and elite reformers who stressed temperance, sobriety and civility. This is why rum shops attracted very hostile attention. As early as 1865, “Peace” complained about a number of disorderly persons who assembled at a rum shop at King and Barry Streets in Kingston; and even though a policeman was generally stationed there, he allegedly frequently joined with the cake sellers on

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the opposite piazza and took no notice of the “vagabonds gathered in the rum shop to drink, sing, and dance in the most disorderly manner”, all the time using indecent language.11 The rum shop thus presented a direct challenge to the new moral order and civilization that social reformers were seeking to impose on Jamaica after emancipation. Although in 1873 Magistrate Charles Rampini, an unabashed negrophobe, observed on his visit to a “small negro village” in the Clarendon hills that the “half-a-dozen bottles of ale” in the rum shop had no buyers, he speculated that it was the “country rum”, which he suspected had been stolen from the surrounding estates, that was the main means of financial reward for these shopkeepers. These rum shops, he noted, were already the rendezvous of “all the loafers of the district”. Draymen, labourers and petty shopkeepers gathered at “almost every hour of the day lounging over the counter, or playing ‘nineholes’ before the door”. In the Christmas season the rum shopkeeper, “with a view of bringing Christmas to his establishment gives a dance to all the negroes in the country-side, and the scenes of debauchery that then ensue are almost incredible in their abomination”.12 Rampini thus drew a racial correlation between (black) lower-class consumption of alcohol on one hand, and the absence of morality on the other, that would dominate cultural elite thinking until and beyond the First World War. Although drinking was defined, almost exclusively, as a man’s occupation, that general convention was broken by some women in Jamaican society, both elite and lower class. In 1868, the Morning Journal claimed that increased drinking was observed among both men and women. “What lady”, it asked, “two and three years back would have thought of stopping in the middle of a dance to drink wine? She might have asked for a . . . lemonade.”13 As time went by, a small but growing number of elite women did apparently consume their fair share of wines, champagnes, ciders and other “light” liquors. Generally speaking, however, these women were constrained by the prevailing Victorian gender ideology that demanded decorum and propriety of “ladies” at all times, and this did not include their imbibing of potent alcohol that might result in their inebriation and any resultant “loose” behaviour that would at the very least reflect negatively on their fathers, brothers or husbands (the patriarchy), or at worst render them vulnerable to the sexual advances of disreputable men, especially if non-white. By far, however, the references to drinking among women were to the lower classes, whose intoxication and “lewd” behaviour aroused hostile attention. These were labelled loose women, harlots. As Heron found for Canada, so

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too in Jamaica. “The small number of women willing to flaunt dominant bourgeois assumptions about the feminine ideal by enjoying the pleasures of booze in a public tavern faced harsh denunciations as ‘bad mothers’, ‘fallen women’, or prostitutes.”14 So in September 1875 Susan Smith was arrested in a drunken state in Matthew’s Lane, Kingston, at 1:00 a.m.15 and in 1884 an old woman named Louisa Forbes “who was addicted to drinking” was picked up on a piazza in John’s Lane “in a helpless state of drunkenness”. While being removed to the Destitute Home on a dray cart she died.16 In 1908 Emily McLeod went home drunk, fell in her yard and was taken to her apartment by friends, who found her dead the next morning, allegedly “as a result of intoxication”.17 The spread of rum shops was thus increasingly regarded by elite Jamaica as a serious social ill affecting both men and women of the lower classes. In Port Antonio, said Quaker missionary Mary White in 1915, “[t]he rum shops are so largely patronized that I felt that they should pay our rent as they rob the people, so I started out to solicit, going to two wholesale men first and they each . . . subscribed a month’s rent”. By 1920, there was a significant increase in the number of rum shops in that district and an accompanying increase in the extent of drunkenness among women as well as men.18 Not surprisingly, the proliferation of rum shops became the focus of complaints by social reformers. When a proposal was made to add a third rum shop to the village of Jackson Town in 1903, the Jamaica Times opined that “[t]hese are surely enough if not one too many”. In Falmouth where there were eight places licensed to retail spirits in 1912, in addition to two stores in which spirits could be bought in bulk, the Times correspondent exclaimed: “Now I put it to any reasonable man – Is [sic] 8 rum shops not too many for a town the population of which is only 2,200?” Subtracting an estimated 500 children and another 500 persons whom he claimed did not drink, that left 1,200 people who did. This meant that there was one rum shop for every 150 drinkers, a proportion that he considered quite alarming.19 In the Long Bay district of Portland, there were eight rum shops between Windsor Forest, Long Bay and Priestman’s River in 1912, “an extraordinary number for a country place”. These shops were said to be affecting the morality of the inhabitants: even “little boys [were] degenerating”, for groups of them could be seen early in the morning in these shops allegedly drinking rum.20 By 1914, as the number of rum shops grew to 1,677, Jamaica was described as a cow “sucked by rum shop ticks. . . . Unless we can get clear of these blood suckers, the poor old cow cannot get fat, or give milk enough for

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all the children. The only way to do this is to use a wash made of Jeyes fluid of Total Abstinence.”21 In an attempt to stem the rising tide of taverns, rum shops and bars, the “temperance bar” was promoted during the late nineteenth century. As a “decent” alternative, these establishments were supposed to provide “a place for cool and refreshing drinks”, and to offer entertainment with a “first-class” billiard table.22 They were intended to control the sale of alcohol by serving in their stead more acceptable non-alcoholic drinks, presumably lemonade, fruit drinks and teas; and to encourage their growth, their licence fee of one pound per annum was substantially less than those paid for taverns and rum shops. Moreover, unlike the latter their opening hours were not strictly regulated. Many licensed owners soon began to circumvent the original intentions for these establishments. By 1913 it was acknowledged that many of these so-called temperance bars abused the “spirits” of their title and licence, and made no pretence at promoting temperance. While some did not serve hard liquors like rum, gin, brandy and whisky, they did sell beer, wine, champagne and liqueurs. Others served all liquors, and allegedly engaged in other “immoral activities” such as prostitution as well. The low licence fee also allowed persons of marginal economic means, and presumably of dubious moral character, to become involved in the retail spirit business.23 Such was the concern about this trend that in 1915 a meeting of Kingston magistrates was summoned by the acting parish custos, A.H. Jones, to discuss these bars regarding their illicit sale of alcohol and their encouragement of “immorality”. The resolutions passed addressed the dangers that these bars were assumed to present to young men and women, and urged that urgent steps be taken for their control, and especially to contain the evil and nuisance caused by the “depraved and degenerate women who frequented the streets for immoral purposes”.24 Ever since the 1880s, some people had felt that the growing consumption of alcohol was attributable to “the ease with which rum-licences [could] be obtained”. They alleged that as the spirit licence was available to anyone who wanted one, rum shops were being opened in every small village.25 This view seemed to be substantiated by the number of licences that were issued annually. In 1885, at a special session of the justices of the peace held to approve the granting of licences for the selling of spirits, 108 licences were granted, 90 of which were awarded to retailers and taverns, accounting for 83.3 per cent of the total. Messrs Wray and Nephew and Messrs P. Desnoes and Son dominated the session, each receiving nineteen licences. By 1906–7, 1,296 licences

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were issued with 1,246, or 96.1 per cent, going to retailers and taverns. 26 However, the growing calls by social reformers for government legislative intervention to curtail the consumption of alcohol by the people did not go down well in some quarters. In 1890 the Colonial Standard, normally on the other side of the culture war, broke ranks and warned against such action: Our people are naturally temperate, and we, therefore, claim that their natural disposition should not be spoiled and perverted by vexatious, nagging legislation. The tavern is the poor man’s club; and the poor man has as good a right, as the rich man has to the free disposal of his time, and to rational, moderate enjoyment. If our legislators wish to avoid the evils of the summary Sunday closing of Taverns or Public Houses, let them not imitate the legislation which has produced the Glasgow “shebeen” in all its unseemliness and horror.27

In the later nineteenth century, however, colonial administrators felt morally obliged at least to use licensing and regulation to control the trade of alcohol, determine the conditions under which alcohol could be sold, ensure the quality of the product that was sold on the market, and regulate those who had access to it. In this light, the alcohol act of 1860 (23rd Victoria, Chapter 4) provided for the granting of licences for the sale of distilled spirits and spirituous liquors, and contained more stringent provisions in the alcohol trade, prohibiting, for example, the hawking of spirits in the streets. In addition to a stiff fine on retailers and tavern keepers who allowed disorderly conduct in their places of business, there was the possibility of imprisonment of between ten and thirty days.28 By the end of the nineteenth century, a cash-strapped government no longer used the spirit licence system solely to regulate the liquor trade and control the spread of alcoholism. Instead as drinking grew it saw the licences as an excellent source of revenue and sought to exploit them for that purpose as well. Hence, the spirit licence law of 1898 tried to relax what were seen as some of the more stringent measures of the previous law of 1896. In the 1898 law, the amount payable for a spirit licence was reduced, in Kingston from twenty-five pounds to twenty pounds, and in a number of rural towns from twenty pounds to fifteen pounds; and the licensing sessions were held in each parish four times a year in order to make licensing an easier process. Those who objected to the bill (including the Anglican archbishop of the West Indies, Enos Nuttall, and ministers from several other Christian denominations) pointed to the extension of the closing time, from 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., and the reduced cost of the licences which, they argued, would surely

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give rise to a multiplication of drinking establishments.29 However, Roman Catholic Bishop Gordon dissented from this movement, arguing that intemperance was not a serious public evil in Jamaica. He posited the curious view that temperance was the result of climate and race, and claimed that the natives of cold countries were more prone to drink. So he did not think that the removal of the restrictions would have any significant effect on the character and habits of the Jamaican people.30 As usual, the cultural elites were divided on how to deal with this “evil”; and it was left to the Colonial Office to make a final determination. Driven by Victorian moral principles and a good dose of racist sentiment, they eventually disallowed the law.31 Smitten by the rejection of the 1898 bill, the Jamaican legislature passed Law 30 of 1900 which did amend the Spirit Licence Law of 1896. It made provision for passenger coastal steamers to be licensed as taverns on special terms; and also allowed for the duty payable on taverns to be paid in moieties as occurred for retail licences. The new law also facilitated persons applying for renewals of licences by allowing the application to be made seven days before the hearing and the duty to be paid any time before the hearing. Although not nearly as blatant as in 1898, this seemed to be another veiled attempt to raise revenue by making alcohol more easily available.32 Reformers concerned with the moral soul of the society thus had every right to look upon the colonial government with cynicism and distrust. As beliefs about the baneful effects of alcoholism became more or less accepted, that the government should appear to be encouraging more consumption of alcohol in order to increase its revenue was extremely distasteful to them. It seemed that the government wanted to cash in on the destruction of its citizens, to make money from their personal devastation and the demoralization of the community. It was, objectors said, the government’s greed for revenue which accrued from the duties and the licences that accounted for their lack of attention to the larger ramifications of the situation.33 This was one occasion on which the agenda of the imperial rulers was at variance with that of some cultural elites and which made the crusade of the latter less effective. The idea that the government was indeed driven mainly by a desire to raise revenue at the expense of the moral condition of the society is doubtful. The reality was that the government was engaged in a delicate balancing act. Even the Jamaica Times, which was in the vanguard of the temperance movement pressing the government to reduce the issuing of liquor licences, was obliged to admit that, if successful, there would be a serious shortfall in government revenues: “In any settlement of the liquor problem that reduces consumption

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of alcohol materially, it must be a part of the settlement to find some way by which the revenue, thus lessened, may be replaced, and it will not be an easy task.”34 So colonial administrators and legislators had to balance morality with practicality; and although relatively late in the day, the 1911 spirit licence law proposed to do just that. It allowed for the refusal of a licence when the justices of the peace thought that there were sufficient rum shops and taverns in a neighbourhood. Similarly, while no doubt largely driven by wartime circumstances, Law 21 of 1915 was passed specifically to restrict the sale or consumption of intoxicating liquor for the duration of the war.35 There is no gainsaying the fact, however, that the spirit licence system certainly did yield substantial income for the state. In 1907, for instance, the exchequer raised £14,753 5s. by this means. In 1911 the collector general admitted that there was a significant increase in the spirit licence duty collections, and even opined that the number of licences issued was in excess of the needs of the community.36 This naturally added fuel to the charge of government greed and indifference, especially since no reduction in the issue of licences followed. On the contrary, the Presbyterians could point out in 1913 that in the two years since the collector general’s observation, 205 more licences had been granted.37 For them, it was as if the government, in its hunger for revenue, did not care about their moral concerns. The government never in fact lost sight of its larger moral obligation to constrain alcohol consumption, but it had to balance that against the need to raise revenues. Unknown to the society at large, Governor Leslie Probyn sought to achieve this in 1919 when, on the grounds that the existing licensing system was defective, he proposed to his superiors in Whitehall that it should be abolished and the sale of rum be undertaken directly by the Jamaican government itself. He argued that “[w]ith Government acquisition, liquor shops would only be run in places where they are needed and non-alcoholic drinks and tea, coffee, etc, could be supplied”. At the same time, if the government undertook the sale of rum, it stood to make a very large profit from direct sales, instead of simply collecting on the duties and licences, which could then be used for special purposes such as social improvement and sanitary reform that would help to stem the tide of emigration if life in the rural areas could be made brighter by establishing well-equipped recreation rooms and a library.38 No decision was taken up to the end of 1920. Jamaica’s social reformers were not in any event prepared to sit back and allow the government to issue spirit licences purely for revenue purposes. Several church groups campaigned against the “lax” legislation that in their

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estimation had allowed the growth of drunkenness. The Jamaica Council of Evangelical Churches advocated increased discretionary powers to the authorities, and a reduction in the number of licences. They further argued that objectors to the granting of licences should not have to pay deposits in order to deter “frivolous objections” as the regulations required; that there should be at least two hundred yards between rum shops or taverns on one hand, and schools or churches on the other; that taverns should have reduced opening hours and be closed on Sundays; that wine and beer should be brought under the spirit licence law; that no person under sixteen years should be able to buy alcohol; and that no women should be employed as sellers of alcoholic drinks in licensed premises.39 The Gleaner objected to the last proposal, noting that instead of protecting young women, any such legislation would have the opposite effect since so many women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one depended on these establishments for gainful employment. Without this work, many would become “idle” and much more likely to “throw themselves in the way of men than girls who are earning their livelihood”. Further, “[i]t is a matter of common knowledge that the women serving in rum-shops are not given to drinking, and so all fear for them on this score may be dismissed. They will meet men, yes: but they can meet men at any time and anywhere if they are idlers.” To prevent them from working, then, would be to encourage them in a trade “infinitely worse than the selling of liquor in a licensed shop”.40 The cultural elites were once more divided on an important issue of reform. The government was not the only target of the opponents of strong drink; the press too was criticized for the “glaring advertisements” for alcoholic beverages that appeared on their pages. They, however, were well placed to defend themselves. While the Jamaica Times empathized with the sentiments of those who campaigned for temperance, and the editor himself advocated that Jamaicans should “leave drink alone”, the paper declared itself to be a community institution which did not believe it should push the line of total abstinence, especially since there were a great many excellent citizens who drank moderately.41 This of course smacked of class paternalism: the perceived obligation on one hand to constrain the excesses of the lower classes, while preserving the right of the social elites to indulge “responsibly”. Craig Heron states that [f]or all its Christian rhetoric and evangelical style . . . the English-speaking temperance movement arose outside the churches themselves, as a non-denominational,

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non-sectarian campaign intended to unite people of all faiths. In this way the temperance societies with their public meetings, parades, and vast outpouring of printed literature were an important part of the new practice of attempting to mobilize public opinion and action outside the state for various forms of moral reform – to create “civil society” – a practice evident in the English-speaking world on both sides of the Atlantic.42

In Jamaica, however, after emancipation the churches occupied so central a place in the quest to mould a “moral” society that they were very much in the vanguard of the temperance movement. Also, because of the intense competition among them for members, they generally preserved their denominational boundaries in the campaign against drink as in other matters. They all used their internal structures to rein in their members from “destructive” behaviour. For instance, Methodist church rules required members to desist from buying or selling spirituous liquors, and from drinking them except in cases of “extreme necessity”. So successful was the policy in some districts, claimed the Methodists in 1909, that although there was no focused temperance work in progress, “as a direct result of Evangelistic efforts in the Mount Hannah Church [Lucea] some years ago, every rum shop was wiped out of the District and not one has ever been reopened”.43 The Presbyterians established a committee within their Synod specifically to address the issues of temperance and morals. In 1906 they petitioned the Legislative Council to close taverns on the sabbath (Sunday). In addition, they formed six temperance and ten purity societies in the church, the majority of their congregations (all but five) supported the use of unfermented wine at communion, and they declared the fourth Sunday of November “Temperance Sabbath”. The Presbyterians also attended the parochial liquor licensing meetings in order to oppose applications whenever possible.44 Acting independently, the Quakers did the same and by persistent objection succeeded in preventing the grant of a rum licence at Orange Bay in 1918. According to H. Alma Swift: “The Temperance fight is still on at Orange Bay each quarter the Chinaman renews his application for a licence and each quarter we have with God’s interposition and help been able to defeat granting it.”45 Aping their peers overseas, the churches also formed temperance societies that generally aimed to educate their members about the evils of drink and to spread the gospel of sobriety. Heron argues that in the industrializing Western countries, the temperance movement “became a lens, a set of concepts and practices, used as a means of viewing the changing world of the nineteenth

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century, a way of understanding the chaos and disorder and of contemplating a different kind of future”. This would be a future concerned with “selfdiscipline and self-formation in a new bourgeois social order”.46 As early as 1860 Rev. John Campbell, Presbyterian minister in Lucea, and James Trench, founded a temperance society. Each person who joined was asked to make the following pledge: I hereby solemnly promise and engage, in the strength of Divine Grace, that I will abstain from the use of Rum, Brandy, Gin, Wine, Porter, Ale, Cider, Eau-deCologne, Lavender and all other intoxicating Liquors and substances, except when any of these is prescribed and administered to me by others as a medicine or in a religious ordinance: that, except in cases of necessity in which I believe such Liquors are medicinally required, I will neither offer them nor give them to others; and I will do everything in my power to discourage and remove all the causes and practices of Intemperance.47

Through the efforts of Rev. W. Edward Pierce, a meeting at the Stony Hill Court House in 1875 resulted in the formation of the Stony Hill Temperance Society. The Jamaica Diocesan Branch of the Church of England Temperance Society had the bishop as its president. Through sermons, meetings, lectures and addresses, this organization hoped to promote the cause of temperance. Teachings from the Bible which focused on temperance were thought to be especially effective. The Quakers too had their own temperance societies. They observed in 1921 after one “Temperance Sunday” that several persons expressed surprise that the Bible had so much to say about drinking. “One woman said, ‘Me used to take a little something, a little wine, a little whiskey and rum. Me didn’t know that the Bible was against it, Me learn it no good, since me come to this Church and me no take it again.” The Quakers claimed success on the ground that the serving of wine at weddings had fallen off considerably among their congregations.48 The temperance movement also attracted women to the cause. Women would have been the principal sufferers from the drunkenness of their menfolk, whether it was performing the tasks of sobering and cleaning up after them, being vulnerable to physical and sexual violence, or enduring the economic dislocation of incomes misspent on alcohol. The Quakers reported in 1898, for instance, that a woman who had lived with her husband for twenty years suffered immensely at his hands when he drank. As the years went on, the situation only grew worse until she and her older children, in order to escape, built a mud hut and moved into it.49 Repeated incidents like this

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caused the Jamaica Times to cry out in anguish: “Can you look around . . . in this island and see how many homes are wrecked: life to the poor mothers and children made a misery instead of a joy. . . . Look . . . at the statistics of crime, of lunacy, of the degradation of mankind, morally and physically, and what is proven before our eyes – drink is the prime factor in all these evils.” So temperance would have had special appeal to women of all classes. Some women attended the meetings of the societies, signed up for membership and were active in the crusade to rescue Jamaica from the demon of alcohol. Indeed, by 1892 Jamaican women had established the Kingston Women’s Christian Temperance Union which held entertainments to raise funds.50 Children were also targeted by the temperance movement. The Presbyterians reported in 1909 that they had expanded their programme to include juvenile temperance societies that held quarterly lessons on temperance. More usually, however, although adults could also join, children were recruited into Band of Hope societies that were established by several church denominations independently. These usually exacted a “temperance pledge” from the children who joined. Anglican Bands of Hope, for instance, were established at different locations: in Kingston, St Ann, Stony Hill and Mandeville. Some groups (for example, Stony Hill) reported steady progress as new members were inducted, but in others not much happened, ostensibly because the ministers were pressed by other obligations.51 The churches were not, however, the only players in the struggle against intemperance among children. In 1875 the Jamaica Association for the Suppression of Intemperance was especially concerned about the recruitment of middle-class juveniles to the ranks of the “constant, habitual drinkers. . . . Young Jamaica, having attained the ripe age of fourteen, not infrequently walks into a hotel, or even a downright rum shop, where the ardent is not only being imbibed before the bar, but carried away in bottles, mugs, pans, &c., and calls for his ‘tot’, which he there and then drinks with all the gusto of a veteran toper.” This was due, at least partially, it was believed, to the “custom of over indulgent parents” who offered the youthful members of the family, “sometimes mere children”, sips of wine at the table. This was presumed to lead to a drinking habit, which might have started out moderately but soon developed into a problem. The Morning Journal proposed that the authorities should attend to the problem by paying closer attention to how they allowed the multiplication of “rum holes in the city and elsewhere”.52 It would also seem that the Sons of Temperance had a chapter in Jamaica. In 1873 it was reported that well-known comedian Henry G. Murray,

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described as “the leader of the temperance movement” in Jamaica, was operating under the auspices of the Grand Division of the Sons of Temperance of Massachusetts. He delivered speeches at churches and schools all over the island recommending total abstinence from the use of intoxicating liquors.53 Another organization, the Catch-My-Pal Society, campaigned for total abstinence and did its utmost to attract members among the young men of Kingston. Its hall at 26 North Street was “most daintily fitted up, most appropriate pictures and inscriptions adorn the walls, and there is a feeling of homeliness about the general atmosphere”. It was opened every night for games and recreation, as well as reading, and every Tuesday there was a lecture for the men. The “catch a pal” concept, it was claimed, made the recruitment process brisk. So intensive was the campaign among young people, that some groups began to extract temperance pledges from children as young as seven and eight years old.54 The Good Templar fraternity, another imported institution, was also present in Jamaica. In 1875, “opponents to the use of alcoholic beverages” led by James D. Ford, principal of the Kingston University School, formulated plans to form a lodge of the Independent Order of Good Templars “for the suppression of drinking usages and drunkenness” in the island. The Good Templars were very active during the 1870s and 1880s. When Ford died in 1881, the temperance movement was on full display in a Good Templar funeral (see chapter 4).55 If, after his death, some of the enthusiasm for the temperance lodges waned, and the Imperial Lodge of Good Templary in Kingston had to cease its operations due to a lack of cooperation of the membership, by 1888 fresh attempts were being made to resuscitate the organization, with new plans and a scheme for stronger associations with sister lodges.56 Clearly the spirit of temperance was alive and well. As was the case abroad, the temperance movement in Jamaica also made extensive use of periodicals. The bi-monthly Jamaica Good Templar, edited by James Ford, was devoted to “the advocacy of Total Abstinence principles”, and also to the discussion of questions of a political, social and religious nature. In addition, Onward and the Adviser, which included articles on temperance, were distributed throughout the island.57 In fact, so influential had the movement become that by 1910, the Jamaica Times started a “Temperance Column” in its pages. In one April 1910 issue, this column included a statement by Mrs Clement Leevett (once president of World’s Women Temperance Union) who claimed that prior to emancipation the black population had little to do with liquor except a glass of rum at Christmas and a few rare

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festive occasions. Changed conditions, she said, had had their effect, and “in all parts of the country the multiplication of rum shops has excited a craving for drink”. The Jamaica Times decided to use its influence in the community to address the “fast growing” drinking habits of the people.58 It is clear that Mrs Leevett too subscribed to the pernicious view that drunkenness was a black problem. For all the pledges and meetings, organizations and lectures, the temperance movement was not ultimately successful, even among those who purportedly supported it. In 1880, H. Melhado was arrested and charged at the Petty Sessions court with being “drunk and disorderly”. When the magistrate enquired about his previous behaviour, the police said that he was a Good Templar. The magistrate then asked if he would be punished by the lodge if he were “given over” to it, whereupon the court was informed that the lodge had no such powers, but that he might be expelled. The magistrate then ruled that for Melhado to be expelled from his lodge was a worse punishment than the court might give and agreed to have him given over to the lodge.59 A generous reading of this curious ruling would be that this was a way to keep Melhado under the influence of the Templars for rehabilitative purposes. However, it does call into question the perceptions of the magistrate regarding the embarrassment of the expulsion from his lodge for this man. And it raises the questions of how one became a Good Templar, of who (in terms of class) constituted the core group, and of whether such lenient judgement might have been available for other types of persons who were also drunk and disorderly. This ruling could also be interpreted as a way to get a middle- or upper-class man out of the prison system so he would not have to serve time with black lowerclass drunks. Even at the temperance meetings that were held, there was a cause for concern about the effectiveness of the campaign. The Church of England admitted that it was difficult to encourage men to attend meetings of their Band of Hope at St George’s, so these meetings were in fact attended mostly by children. In 1900, the group held twenty-five meetings and had three entertainments, which were greatly appreciated. However, “when the definite instruction is given on, say, the effects of alcohol on the organs and tissues of the body there is manifested impatience and indifference”.60 Thus, even within the movement itself, the motives for those who attended were not readily apparent. There might have been, especially among the children, more of an emphasis on the entertainment that the movement offered than on its objectives. One anonymous critic described the programmes of the Bands of Hope

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as “laughable and odd”, which she or he argued accounted for the lack of many people’s interest.61 It is probable too that, as was the case abroad, by their insistence on total abstinence and prohibition, the temperance movement alienated many others who drank modestly or occasionally. H.S. Banbury regarded this as the imposition of “an odious and intolerable tyranny on that immense multitude of moderate drinkers who never exceed and to whom what they take in wine, beer or spirits, is necessary and beneficial. So-called social reforms now-a-days are apt to encroach on individual freedom.”62 The wrangling among the cultural elites about the need for, and degree of, abstinence helped to undermine their case for temperance in the society at large. In the final analysis, neither government attempts at regulation through licences and legislation, nor voluntary efforts by temperance organizations, resulted in a reduction of alcohol consumption, let alone abstinence. The official statistics indicate that especially after the turn of the century the consumption of alcoholic beverages increased substantially. There were reports that in the eight years between 1905 and 1913, for instance, the island’s consumption of wine increased by 83 per cent, from 30,000 gallons to 55,000 gallons per annum, while the intake of whisky had expanded significantly, by 10,000 gallons in the same period. Whereas 173,000 gallons of ale had been drunk in 1905, its consumption doubled (347,000 gallons) by 1912. The Gleaner quipped that “it must be admitted that our thirst has become prodigious”.63 By 1914 it seemed that there was another significant increase in consumption of, and expenditure on, alcohol whereby 451,335 gallons of ale were consumed at a cost of £287,919.64 However, this increase in alcohol consumption might not have been primarily among the lower classes; for, according to the Gleaner, despite better earnings the consumption of their main drink, rum, had in fact fallen between 1905 and 1912. If so, it could be argued that the increase in alcohol consumption might have been mainly among the “better-off classes of the country” who, given their comparatively smaller numbers, were spending money very liberally to quench their thirst. Since this increased consumption was accompanied by the considerable expansion of “a more deadly and dangerous evil”, the temperance bars, which “in the service of Aphrodite” flourished everywhere, this is suggestive that it was middle- and upper-class men who, contrary to popular imagination, were in fact some of their main clients.65 Still, it is difficult to understand the reported decline in rum consumption especially when men were reportedly earning more. Perhaps higher earnings

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for lower-class men might have encouraged them to drink “better” imported alcohol instead of rum. Contemporaries, however, while agreeing that there was a direct correlation between higher earnings and increased drinking, did not believe that Jamaicans had given up rum. In 1908 J.S.A. Bennett claimed that “the ignorant men” who worked on the pimento crop in the hills around Ocho Rios, gathered in the town on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays “for the express purpose of drinking rum” for as long as the crop lasted.66 And, said the Presbyterian in 1910: In a dull time, when money is scarce, there is what is known among the country stores as a “dry counter”. The liquor sold does not pay for the licence. But when times improve and there is money the amount that is spent represents a very considerable sum. We are informed that the drinking that goes on in some parts of the country on pay day is increasing to an alarming extent. The more prosperous the time, the more money is spent in strong drink, and the more spent thus the more rowdy the district becomes.67

Rowdyism and violence were two of the more baneful consequences of this increase in alcohol consumption and drunkenness. The police report for 1879– 80, for instance, attributed largely to alcoholism the fairly large number of persons arrested for “Disorderly Conduct” and “Drunk & Disorderly” behaviour; for the many quarrels among those described as “idle loose women, sailors, drunken Coolies and market people”; and for the motley group labelled the “undesirables” of society. By the First World War, the inspectorgeneral repeatedly claimed that a larger circulation of money, especially in the banana growing parishes, had led to more drinking of spirits and to consequent disorder and violent crime, especially cutting and wounding. He pointed to the differences between two parishes to illustrate his point: whereas St Mary had one rum shop to every 306 people (“a world record it was believed”) and had the highest incidence of crime, Hanover, with the smallest number of such shops, had the least amount of crime.68 There were numerous incidents of disorderly and violent conduct that seemed to substantiate this view. One Friday night in May 1880, a crowd of about one hundred persons gathered in and around the drinking places on Tower Street, Kingston. Joshua Rae, a butcher in the crowd, became so drunk that the tavern keeper, Phillips, asked the police to remove him from the premises. When he got out of doors, “he ran up to a sailor who was passing that way and butted him in the face with his head”, while another man, James Toura, who was also drunk, came out of the tavern and also butted the sailor.

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Both men were arrested and each fined twenty-one shillings or thirty days’ imprisonment with hard labour. The magistrate also asked about the wisdom of Phillips holding a tavern licence and instructed the police to keep the premises under observation.69 “Morally minded” persons were always ready to make links between excessive drinking and other “vices” such as gambling, defilement of the sabbath, and outrageous behaviour. At New Carmel in 1870, a rum shop was opened on land nearby where horse races were held on Emancipation Day and at the end of the year. Both the rum shop and the races were portrayed as twin evils.70 The same problem was highlighted by the Moravians at Ballard’s Valley in 1905: “The rum shop and the race course, the favourite places of resort, exercise a demoralizing influence on our people, and draw the minds of all interested in them from the church and from spiritual things.”71 In 1913, they regarded the rum shop at Broadleaf as a place for “breeding many a vice, for drunkenness and gambling [were] both on the increase”.72 All of those who expressed a concern about the problem of increased drinking made special mention of the desecration of Sunday.73 In 1893, Methodist minister Edwin Southall asserted that “[t]he laws upon this subject in this land need to be more stringent. Especially it is desireable [sic] to stop the sale of intoxicating liquors on the Sabbath in Taverns, which at the present time is the cause of much evil.”74 This was by no means limited to Kingston. In 1901, according to a press report from Arcadia, rum drinking was “famous” on the “Lord’s day”, after which there were several fights. The drinking culture, furthermore, encouraged a set of men to stay away from church and “instead of reading the Bible, they talk about bad and good women, how ministers are robbing people, obeahism, drinking, provision field and what work is to be performed on Monday”.75 Periodic arrests had no impact with respect to the violation of the Sunday closing laws by bar operators.76 In 1913, there were complaints about the “outrageous behaviour” of persons who used the tramcars, especially on Sunday nights. The problem was particularly bad on the cars that originated in Papine on the outskirts of the city, where there was “drunkenness and rowdyism” with a great deal of “shouting and singing”. One Sunday night in May 1913, so disgraceful was the conduct of these persons that policemen boarded the car at Half Way Tree and arrested five women and one man, who were found guilty in court and fined forty shillings with costs. These “loose and lawless people” were a great nuisance. The Gleaner, however, seemed especially outraged by the “loose women [who] were seen swaggering around in a semi-intoxicated condition, and indulging

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in language of the filthiest possible description”.77 They seemed to defy the prescriptive and proscriptive notions of gendered decorum that the cultural elites were so anxious for them to embrace. Taverns were permitted by law to open on Sundays in order to provide food, lodgings and facilities to travellers and their animals. Many did good business by delivering ordered breakfasts and luncheons to any part of Kingston.78 It was not these “decent” premises that concerned those who were worried about the growing intemperance. Rather, it was those taverns (like some in Papine) which were for all practical purposes rum shops in all but name. At these establishments, said the Jamaica Post, there were “midnight brawls, drunken orgies, indecent and disgusting practices”, that were carried on by all sorts, and not always “the lower and uneducated classes”. Further, it was at these establishments that dishonesty in the trade was most rife, where proprietors resorted to tricks in order “to increase the strength or the burning quality of the liquors they retail”.79 The rum shops, taverns and temperance bars established themselves by the end of the nineteenth century as social institutions that provided their clients, mainly male and lower class, with a place of escape from the pressures of everyday life and a centre for relaxation that competed with the church–school socio-cultural complex. They were also sites for male bonding and served to define and shape masculine identities, paralleling the male elite social and sporting clubs. Furthermore, with the noisy chatter and raucous laughter, unrestrained, often profane and lewd behaviour, and sometimes violent conduct that they seemed to harbour, they offered their customers a milieu in which thrived an alternative morality that directly challenged the imported Victorian moral code promoted by the churches and elite social reformers, which stressed temperance, sobriety and civility. Recognizing this for what it was, the churches took the offensive and, with their allies in civil society, set about attacking the beast of alcoholism and what they considered to be the associated culture of unrestrained exuberance, the loss of individual responsibility, accompanying immorality and ungodliness. They made full use of the pulpit, church organizations, and the press, and petitioned the government to impose stringent legislation. These efforts were viewed by lower-class Jamaicans (and some elites) as yet another invasion of their private lives by those who set themselves up as their moral guardians. Almost instinctively, many people exhibited a strong disinclination to being dictated to despite, in this case, clear evidence of the debilitating effects of the abuse of alcohol. The problem was that the campaign against alcohol, as a

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major part of the culture war, came burdened with, and tainted by, a broader cultural agenda that aimed at denigrating the creole culture and identity of the Jamaican people. In those circumstances, social drinking became another arena for contesting the moral authority of an imported cultural system, based as it was on alien moral values. Social drinking, often to excess, therefore, had become a way of life among all classes of Jamaicans. Those who struggled to promote temperance in the name of morality had ultimately to face that reality.80 By the end of the First World War, therefore, Jamaica was no closer to solving the problems associated with alcohol consumption than it was thirty years earlier. Indeed, if anything, drinking to excess was probably worse in 1920 than at any time before.

Gambling Another “vice” that was said to plague all classes of the Jamaicans was gambling. The newspapers reported numerous cases of gambling, many of which ended with court convictions. There were many “dens of infamy” in the western end of Kingston that catered to gamblers daily, including Sundays. Gambling was also said to be done in houses by “the better educated individuals, moving in a higher grade of society”.81 In the estimation of many Jamaicans, the “vice” of gambling was in evidence everywhere towards the end of the nineteenth century. According to Rev. H.H. Kilburn, in the taverns people gambled at “Pool”, “Nap”, “Loo” and “Poker”; in private houses, gambling at billiards predominated.82 Notwithstanding the police, courts and jails, gambling was done quite openly. Robert Love’s Jamaica Advocate observed that there was no need to search for “open dens” of gambling since the “votaries of gaming do not hide from the light of the sun”; but it lamented that there did not seem to be any means of suppressing it, especially the Chinese “lotteries” (see below), which were carried on openly every day.83 Those who denounced gambling pointed to its “sinfulness”, and claimed that it was dishonourable, covetous, demoralizing, and destructive, and led to a broken constitution, an injured reputation and financial ruin.84 Those who adhered strictly to the virtues of Victorian morality and the work ethic tended to condemn every form of speculation, from “guessing the number of seeds in a melon at a Church Bazaar to the immense gambling on [the] Stock Exchange”, arguing that all gambling came under the label of chance rather than hard work.85

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The moral and financial consequences of gambling were stressed over and over again. Gambling, said its opponents, created “many an aching heart”, as homes and children were affected by the loss that so many gamblers experienced. Further, they argued that children, influenced by the behaviour of their fathers (gambling was almost always referred to as a male-orientated vice) would themselves become gamblers.86 While the potentially adverse repercussions in the lives of the poor, where they might gamble away more money than they could really afford, were often the focus, the impact on the well-todo also came in for comment. Said the Baptist Reporter: “From time to time we hear of men, who have held positions of trust, fleeing from the island to escape the hands of justice and we learn that some defalcation or embezzlement is the cause of their hasty flight, and, on further enquiry, that gambling is at the bottom of it all. Of many of the failures in business and in character that occur amongst us, betting and gambling are the evil cause.”87 There were also concerns about violence associated with gambling. The many “dens” in western Kingston were allegedly plagued by fights among the gamblers.88 When Fred Da Costa (a pedlar) was arrested in 1880 for wounding Abner De Pass at a “gambling party” in Peter’s Lane, the Colonial Standard noted that the victim’s brother had been stabbed to death six years previously at a similar party. When Cyril Brown’s body was found floating in a tank in Glendale in 1915, the men with whom he had been gambling were arrested for manslaughter. The main defendant, Alexander Thomas, claimed that while gambling Brown had “kicked and fainted”. Believing him to be dead, Thomas and the other gamblers simply threw him into the tank.89 However, it must have come as a shock to “respectable” society to read the following year that Charles Dixon, a district constable, had been murdered by William Thomas when a gambling session turned sour. Dixon threatened to “mash up” the game and allegedly struck the defendant “in the King’s name”. He was killed in the ensuing fracas. That an officer of the law should have invoked the king’s name in a dispute that resulted from his participation in illegal activity was consummate irony, albeit with quite tragic results.90 The assumed corrupting influence of gambling on the young was another cause for concern among cultural elite reformers. Despite its pervasive nature, this concern was always expressed against the lower classes. According to the Moravians, in Carisbrook, gambling was especially common among young men who squandered their money; while at Nazareth they claimed that it was linked to the extension of the railroad in 1890, which had led to an influx of “groups of strangers who are in a great proportion the scum of the Island –

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gambling and riotous living is carried on there all Sunday”. Similarly, an increase in gambling in the district was attributed by the Quakers to bad “outside influences”, this time among contractors building a new road in Glen Haven in 1898. They claimed that these men gambled away their money as soon as they were paid, leaving those who worked for them unpaid and desperate. Much of this gambling was done in the local rum shops, labelled “schools of vice”, where there was drinking, gambling and smoking of cigarettes, “thus multiplying the demoralizing effect”.91 By the turn of the century, it was alleged that young men and even boys gambled regularly, “encouraged in this activity by men who were old enough to be their fathers and grandfathers”.92 By 1912 there was a great anxiety about the increase in the drinking and gambling habits of the people (that is, the lower classes) and the churches’ efforts were being directed at these “evils”. The Presbyterians claimed that gambling was part of a broader complex of evil in the society: the “popularity and frequency of horse racing, the big prizes offered at the daily competitions, the numbers of commercial firms using this latter device as a means of successful advertising are but striking manifestations of a deep-seated evil”.93 Henry Monteith, among others, implicated the churches in the vice. They believed that the churches were hypocritical, arguing that the raffles and other games of chance held at fund-raising church events were only (thinly disguised) forms of betting, chance-taking and gambling. Others, however, made a distinction between hard-core gambling and “innocent gaming”. While the former was associated with playing for money (personal gain), they considered things such as “grab-bags”, “magic-wells” and even “drawings” for a prize as different. In the latter types of gaming, according to the Jamaica Post, one paid a fee for a “grab” and was contented beforehand to draw whatever came up first; or else one paid for permission to cast the line into the “well” and was satisfied to take what came first to the hook. When one drew at a bazaar, one did so with the intention of helping the charitable cause for which it was held. These and similar amusements were thus considered harmless.94 Others disagreed. “J.H.P.” raised the specific question of the activities at St Michael’s and St George’s churches in 1908, which relied on “questionable” methods of fund raising. At a fair hosted by the two churches, a guessing game was conducted. Participants were told that Rev. Ormsby had cycled thirty miles in a certain time, and that for the price of a three pence coupon, they could make a guess about the time he took to do so. The correct guesser won a bicycle. Again, at the Holy Trinity church, a watch was wound up and put

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under lock and key until it ran down. Guesses were made for a penny a chance as to the correct hour, minute and second when the hands of the watch would stop, and the nearest guess won the watch. “J.H.P.” asked the rectors (Rev. Ramson and Rev. Ormsby) and the bishop if these actions were right. Ramson replied that he did not consider this gambling, but “J.H.P.” remained adamant: “I insist that this is gambling; they must have either failed to consider the matter carefully, or if they do not see the gamble in the thing, then one cannot but feel that they have not the clearness and keenness of discernment generally attributed to men in their position.” “Free Wheel” agreed that these activities were similar to gambling with dice, cards, race horse sweep stakes, guessing games and the Chinese lotteries.95 The non-conformist denominations were much stricter against all forms of gambling than their establishment counterparts (the Anglicans and Roman Catholics). The Baptist Reporter argued that by engaging in games of chance, churches “are not only breaking the law of the land but also killing the spirit of voluntary giving”; consequently it called on all churches to “set their faces against every form of gambling; use all their influence against it”.96 Along with other denominations who were members of the Kingston Ministers Fraternal, the Presbyterians embarked on a moral crusade against gambling. In addition to distancing themselves from church related lotteries, they sent a memorial to the governor in 1913 demanding that the gambling law should be strictly enforced. The governor’s response that advertisements for lotteries in newspapers should end, but that anything else to do with the law should be pursued on an individual basis, did not satisfy them.97 But was gambling as pervasive in Jamaica as the social reformers made out? How were Jamaicans gambling?

Cards Card playing was very popular among people of all classes. From elite social and sporting clubs and private homes to the open urban yards and rural fields, cards were played for money. Games such as poker, bridge, whist and euchre were favoured by elite men not only for fun and relaxation, but for big monetary stakes; while betting games like the “three-card monte” and “wappy” were generally played along the street-side and in other public spaces by lowerclass people with much smaller stakes at risk (see below). Most of the data relating to gambling were generated from the reports of police arrests and court convictions, which were primarily directed at the lower

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classes. In November 1877, for instance, a band of gamblers was surprised at 1:30 a.m. by the authorities in an open grass yard at the west end of the city where they were gambling by candlelight. On realizing that they were discovered, all but one man who fought the policeman scampered away. He was overpowered and arrested with the cards and money.98 In 1880, complaints were still being made about this grass yard where, according to the Colonial Standard, several men and boys assembled every day (Sundays not excepted) to gamble, accompanied by many noisy quarrels. As a result of police action, David Fuller, William Burrows and Josiah Smith were tried and sentenced for gambling to sixty days’ hard labour, while John Small was given a lighter sentence of fifteen days “on account of his having been seduced into bad company”.99 Three-card monte was by far the most popular betting card-game among lower-class people, but it also lent itself to a great deal of sleight-of-hand tricks by the operators. The gambler was shown three cards by the dealer, who then quickly shuffled them, laid them out face down, and called on the gambler to bet on the location of a specific one. For instance, in September 1895 James Harvey went into a rum shop at Tower Street and Temple Lane in Kingston where Eustace Stennett was playing three-card monte. The cards being used were a 7, 6 and the jack of clubs. Stennett said he would bet two pounds against sixpence from Harvey that the latter could pick the winning card. Harvey picked the six of clubs, but Stennett declared the jack the winning card, whereupon Harvey’s watch and chain were put on the line and he picked another card. Stennett, allegedly without turning over the card, declared Harvey a loser, and took the watch and chain. Harvey reported the matter to the police, who charged both him and Stennett with gambling after seizing the watch from Stennett. The charges against Harvey were subsequently withdrawn. Stennett was found guilty of gambling and sentenced to fourteen days’ hard labour, and the watch was returned to Harvey.100 Generally played along the street side or in any public place where participants could be attracted, the operators were very mobile, though quite visible as well. They were therefore engaged in a constant game of hide-and-seek with the police, quickly packing their box and moving to another location if the latter were nearby.101 Many were the persons who were seduced to participate in what seemed to be a “sure thing”. There were reports that folks from rural areas were particularly susceptible and thus were targeted by the three-card men. The Gleaner reported a systematic scam where a number of men went out to solicit

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people from the country under the pretence that they had dogs, jewellery and the like for sale in a shop. Then they encouraged them to try the tempting three- card game that was being played, and they almost always lost.102 It was not only “simple” country folk who were conned; more “sophisticated” townspeople were too. It was reported in 1918 that the “Poka Cachette” (“Poka Catcheto”) gang had roamed all over the city, including a fashionable section, with their confidence games. After taking advantage of some of the city’s residents, they moved on to the sugar and banana parishes.103 In the early twentieth century, another betting card-game called “Wappy” became immensely popular among lower-class gamblers; and the police were just as active making arrests of its participants as they were against the threecard monte gamblers. In October 1902, for instance, six of the seven men who were arrested for playing the game for one and a half pence and threepence at Emerald Park were charged ten shillings, and the seventh was charged forty shillings! This once more aroused the attention of people who were concerned about the unfairness of law enforcement. Said the Jamaica Times: “The Police are of course not to be found fault with for robbing gamblers like these humble individuals, but they will do well to turn their attention also to gentlemen who don’t use out-houses [where the gambling had taken place] or indulge in ‘Wappy’, but gamble all the same. Some people think it queer these gentleman gamblers don’t get caught.”104 Here, then, was one of the hurdles facing those who mounted the battles against “vices” such as gambling. The patent classist (and racist) implementation of “moral” legislation became a greater cause for concern than the “immorality” itself. And for those among the elite who gambled, the idea of championing legislation which would limit their own activities was nonsense. For ordinary Jamaicans, the observation that they were persecuted and prosecuted for activities that their elite counterparts were not, simply confirmed what they already knew; for them, the creole saying – “Donkey seh, ‘Worl’ nuh level’ ” – must have seemed especially apt.

Dice Dice games were also very popular among lower-class Jamaicans and could be found in bars where men gathered to drink, in the open air at events during festive seasons, and at the various horse-racing and other sporting events around the island. The Jamaica Times cynically observed that many times these activities took place in small shops where there was a regular “rattle of

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the dice box” and the gathering of excited crowds which indicated what was going on to everyone, except the police.105 These shops were also invariably labelled “gambling dens”.106 “Seven-eleven” was one of the most popular dice games.107 As with other forms of lower-class gambling, it attracted a great deal of police attention and many gamblers were arrested, charged, fined and/or imprisoned. In 1885, for instance, Nathaniel Bennett was charged with gambling by throwing die on a “sweat table” on the race course during the first night of the races. Detective Sergeant Maxwell said he had warned Bennett, but he did not care and continued, surrounded by several people. The police seized table, die and money and arrested Bennett. In court, an interesting defence was mounted and again, the issue of class was highlighted. Bennett’s lawyer argued that “as the law was obsolete for years, and the people were under the impression that they were not doing wrong, it was unfair to pounce down on them now; he shewed how gambling was permitted under the Grand Stand in another form, by what is known as French Pool, and yet the police did not interfere, simply because the partners were in good positions”. The lawyer asked if his client were found guilty that, under those circumstances, he should be fined a penny. Bennett was, indeed, found guilty by justices J.W. Whitbourne and P.J. Ferron, but was fined twenty shillings or fourteen days’ imprisonment.108 It was occurrences like these that reflected unequal application of the law, and reinforced the class differences that seemed to characterize the culture war. Some lower-class children also participated in dice games. In one incident in 1903 three boys were seen gambling in Matthews Lane on Christmas Day. They were chased by a constable who caught one, on whom was found a pair of die and nine pence in coppers. “They were evidently playing ‘seven-eleven’ at a 1½d. per chance.” The fourteen-year-old boy was arrested, found guilty, and fined twenty shillings or seven days in the lock-up.109 Perhaps more than any other form of gambling, dice games seemed to be associated with violent brawls. In one game of seven-eleven in March 1900, a man was struck down and seriously hurt by someone throwing a stone.110 However, if fighting and wounding were not unusual at dice games, it was very rare for them to escalate into murder. Yet this is precisely what happened at the 1894 Vere horse races. Albert Miller and Joseph Clarke of Peter’s Lane, Kingston, were among the large crowd at this event. It was alleged that the two men had quarrelled previously, and Miller had threatened to kill Clarke. Probably under the influence of alcohol or narcotics, Miller’s behaviour at the Vere races was very erratic. He was reported to have openly declared, “Gen-

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tlemen, I am prepared to shoot any nigger.” Then he and Clarke quarrelled over the use of loaded die, and whether or not Miller had won sixpence at one of the gambling games. He was also reported to have fired several shots during the course of the day; was accused of stealing sixpence from a boy who called him a “damned thief”, whereupon he responded by threatening to “shoot any damned son of a bitch who troubled him”. In the fracas that ensued, he allegedly put out the lights and fired three shots, one of which hit Clarke in the groin; he later died. Miller was arrested and charged with his murder.111 Developments such as these convinced many reformers of the evils of gambling and encouraged them to step up their activities. Violence apart, gambling with die was thought to be especially reprehensible because of the cheating that allegedly occurred. The die were always liable to be loaded, and it is this that apparently set off Miller on his rampage in 1894.112 The clear and consistent association between gambling with die and the activities of the lower classes made it an easier target for the members of cultural elite to focus on. If in other areas of their moral crusade, such as card playing, there was some overlap with and resistance from the middling and upper classes, games of seven-eleven on the street corners were unlikely to affect them. Even so, the cultural reformers did not get the overwhelming support that they needed from either the social elite or the political directorate in order to stamp out this “evil”, and so place Jamaica firmly on the path to civilization.

The French Pool A great deal of gambling was connected to horse racing meetings. Gambling, for most spectators, was the essence of the “sport of kings”. The Pari Mutuel or French Pool was the officially recognized sweepstakes for betting on the races: “On a race being announced the names (or numbers representing the names) of the contesting horses are exhibited to the Public on a Board and any person is at liberty to purchase from the keeper of the Pool at a fixed price, a ticket or tickets representing the horse which he has backed to win the race. The race is run, and the money subscribed or paid in the Pool by those who have purchased tickets or on the several horses is distributed among the holders of the tickets of the winning horse.”113 Gambling/betting was freely indulged in by elite and poor alike, in and out of the grandstands.114 Indeed in 1884, when Governor Henry Norman refused to attend races if the French pool were allowed to continue, its subsequent

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discontinuance led to a marked decline in the number of elites attending the race meetings. Many elites regarded this prohibition as a great hardship. Not surprisingly, it was short-lived; by 1886, things were back to normal.115 The French Pool was not the only form of gambling on the race course. In fact, every conceivable form of gambling could be found there. At the Kingston race meet in 1913, “Eye Witness” said that she or he saw 30 or 40 “pools” at work along with some 20 other games. . . . Sweat Tables, Hokey Pokey, Three Cards and Seven Elevens. On every side hundreds of men were soliciting customers for the sole purpose of taking part in these games. . . . Gambling was going on wherever one turned and often the gamblers were of the lowest class of men, men with hardly any money to buy a change of clothes. Nothing was heard but blasphemy and men crying to God to blind them.116

It was these lower-class games of chance that captured the attention of the authorities and of “Eye Witness”, not the upper-class indulgence in the French Pool. Race day was a red-letter day largely because of gambling. This cut across all classes and ethnic groups. It was a reality that social reformers had to face. Since horse racing was an integral part of the national cultural scene, they had to be prepared to make compromises on the gambling associated with it. But how could they permit the French Pool of the social elites and outlaw the three-card betting game of the lower classes at the same location? And if they permitted the latter on the race course, how could they denounce it off the course? This dilemma would prove to be the Achilles heel of the anti-gambling lobby; not that it prevented them from raising their voices.

Chinese Lotteries In the minds of many of the cultural elites, outside of the lower-class card and dice games, there was nothing more despicable and reprehensible than the lotteries introduced by Chinese immigrants. Gambling was a major form of leisure and consumed much of the spare time of some Chinese. It was bad enough for these immigrants to gamble among themselves; it was worse when the majority creole population began to participate and become seemingly addicted. It was after all undermining the progress that had been made over many decades in civilizing them. So their participation in Chinese gambling lotteries would become a major issue for the church leaders and colonial policy-makers in their war to civilize Jamaica.

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Chinese “gambling dens” sprang up in Kingston, particularly along Barry Street and Matthew’s Lane, and not least of all in the compound of the Confucian temple itself. One Chinese man, Chin Tang Kow, called the temple “a gambling hell”.117 Dorothy Bottle observed that on Sunday mornings she often saw Chinese men driving there “for, as I thought, a religious service. No such thing – they went to gamble their week’s earnings!”118 A Chinese woman complained that gambling fell most heavily on the wives who helped their husbands in the shops to earn money only to have it squandered. Many shopkeepers did indeed go bankrupt as a result of gambling, and it was said that “as much as £10,000 changed hands in gambling resorts”119 in any single session. Since gambling among the lower classes and immigrant groups was deplored by the cultural elites, not surprisingly the Gleaner very early called for the suppression of these Chinese “dens”.120 The Chinese also drew adverse attention to themselves as a result of the disorder associated with their gambling. In 1876, for instance, one gambler who lost heavily attempted to cut his throat and caused a public commotion. Thirty years later Lewis Low Hoe, a habitual gambler, was rather more successful in making good his suicidal vow that “[w]hen my money is finished, death will be my end”. He drowned himself in the Kingston harbour.121 If those were extreme and infrequent consequences of gambling, disputes and bloody fights were commonplace at the “dens”, often necessitating police intervention. Cognizant of the social problems caused by excessive gambling among their countrymen and the bad press they were receiving, in 1912 the Chinese Merchants’ Association took steps “to check it as far as possible”.122 What those steps were is not known, but they were evidently not very effective. Unlike the other forms of gambling, Peaka Peow (or “drop-pan” as it was more commonly known; Wey-Wey in Trinidad, Chefa in Guyana) was not confined to the Chinese community. It was a lottery open to general public participation and, on account of its enormous popularity, it became a major money-earning enterprise for the Chinese.123 Drop-pan was ostensibly simple, involving thirty-six Chinese characters painted on pieces of paper, each representing persons, animals, birds, reptiles or sea creatures (for example, an old man or woman, a horse, cow, sheep, dog, alligator, scorpion etc.). One of these characters was selected at random and placed in a pan (or box, basket, or cloth) which was then suspended from the roof by a string and pulley. The object was to wager on which character was in the pan. Each bet, for which a ticket was given, cost three pence. At an appointed time the pan was solemnly

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lowered (dropped), opened, the paper unrolled and shown to all. Seven shillings (twenty-eight times the value of the bet) were paid out on each winning ticket. In order to ensure the viability of these lotteries, they were officially recognized by the “Chinese Court”, and every morning the amount of the bank was registered at the Chinese Club (sharing the same compound as the temple) which served as insurer in the last resort. Furthermore, in no case was more money received from bettors than the bank could pay.124 Since the odds were great, the Chinese operators purportedly gave their patrons riddles or clues as to the identity of the secret character, but “it would take an Eastern Philosopher to be able to interpret some of the riddles”.125 As astute businessmen, the Chinese lottery operators were not about to reduce the odds for their patrons. And if at first the Chinese characters on the paper offered an opportunity for the operators to outwit their patrons, that advantage was soon lost for, as the Jamaica Times noted, the latter became as familiar with the characters as the Chinese themselves.126 If anything, it was the Chinese who had to be wary of the clever Jamaicans who lost no opportunity to try to outwit the lottery operators. In 1896, for instance, the Jamaica Post reported that they literally caught one Chinese lottery operator napping when, during his midday siesta, he took a whiff too much of his opium pipe and fell asleep. “While he was dreaming of all sorts of blissful things two frequenters of the place entered and seeing the basket hanging in its place, mounted the ladder and looked at the lucky number. Then they silently stole away and returned just as the Chinaman awoke. They gambled and gambled heavily too; and they nearly broke the bank. Next day they accomplished the same trick; but on attempting it a third time they were discovered.”127 Drop-pan became immensely popular among lower-class Jamaicans during the 1890s, and large crowds of people congregated at the lottery shops day and night in a state of “lotto mania”. According to the Jamaica Post, by 1896 there were twenty-five or more Chinese “gambling dens” flourishing in Kingston, frequented and mainly supported “by the lower orders – that large class of young men and women who have no visible means of support”.128 Elite Jamaica saw this as undermining the moral fabric of society and called on the authorities to curb it. The existing laws, however, were inadequate to deal with this new phenomenon129 and the police were rendered impotent.130 Many policemen were probably participants in the lottery frenzy, or sympathetic to it. For their part, the Chinese were quick to defend their lifestyle and business interests: “Our lottery is amusement to the public generally. If a person makes a guess, pay[s] threepence, he gets seven shillings. We as Chinese do not ask

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the Jamaicans to interfere with our lottery. It is a harmless amusement to our countrymen just the same as has been played in any bazaar.”131 The allusion was to games of chance played to raise money for charity at church and other bazaars. One leading Chinese lottery operator, James Solomon, argued that because the payment was large in comparison to the investment, the lottery did a distinct good “in so far as it oftentimes enabled poor people to pay their rent, where they would otherwise be rendered homeless, owing to lack of funds”.132 By 1918 the creole population had become intimately familiar with Chinese gambling culture. In one area of St Andrew, a patron of a drop-pan game even tried to kill the operator whom he suspected of cheating: “According to the rules of the ‘drop pan’ the man who runs the lottery is supposed to play the ‘Tai Shim’ or the sequence of the number immediately preceding the dropping of the pan. It appears that the man who conduct[ed] the lottery did not play the ‘Tai Shim’ and so irate was one of the lottery buyers, that he got hold of an axe and made a desperate effort to decapitate the banker.”133 Creole Jamaicans’ familiarity with drop-pan encouraged some of them to go beyond mere betting and to try to set up themselves as “bankers” on their own account, in competition with the Chinese, albeit without the insurance of the Chinese operators; and the latter were not averse to devising new strategies to keep them out.134 The establishment of the Chinese lotteries, their embrace by large portions of the creole population and the negative response of the authorities to them may well have done a great deal to integrate both the Chinese and this aspect of their culture into the wider creole culture. While the authorities might have been focused on this very “foreign” source of “evil”, and may well have viewed the group through a racist lens, with every game of drop-pan the creole culture (with its abilities to adopt and adapt) became even more textured. And when the dreams and daily experiences of the creole population were read against the Chinese symbols in the search for clues about the next numbers to be drawn, there was a seamlessness to the experiences that the cultural elites had great trouble addressing, curbing or rooting out.135

Christmas Lotteries Lotteries were not confined to the Chinese. Along with the other attractions that marked the festive season of Christmas, there was usually a flurry of lotteries and raffles, some commercial, some charitable. They added to the jollity

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of the season and people of all classes participated. Indeed, by the late nineteenth century, these Christmas lotteries and raffles became a regular and expected part of the holiday activity. They were regulated by special licences granted to commercial and charitable entities, and so were regarded as rational entertainment. However, there were several detractors, principally from within the religious community, who regarded them as gambling and thought they were defiling the sanctity of the birth of Christ. The Methodists passed a resolution in 1880 urging the government to curb the practice.136 This was politely ignored, but as the anti-gambling crescendo grew louder towards the end of the century, Governor Henry Norman felt obliged in December 1891 to instruct the police not to interfere with the season’s lotteries and raffles. For that, not only was he openly criticized by some in the press and from the pulpit, but a number of ministers of religion expressed their displeasure in writing directly to Secretary of State Ripon in London.137 Christmas lotteries and raffles came in for further reproach when the Kingston City Council passed a resolution against them in January 1892. The reach of the moral reformers had begun to enter the corridors of power in an attack on an aspect of Jamaican culture that many considered harmless, fungenerating, and was participated in by elite and poor alike. Where would it stop? Interestingly, and reflective of the ambivalence, and oft-times confusion, that characterized the attitudes of the cultural elites, on this issue the Gleaner, one of the bastions of “civilization” in Jamaica, reversed itself and used its considerable influence to try to staunch this cultural assault by the social/moral reformers.138 The Christmas lotteries and raffles, after all, were not in the same “debased” category as the Chinese lotteries that were “demoralizing” all of society, since many of the social elites participated in them. They should, therefore, be preserved. Once again, the intentions of the cultural elites were deflated by their ambivalence. The hypocrisy of targeting Chinese lotteries but keeping Christmas lotteries was not lost on the lower classes, who were far more likely to benefit from the former.

Other Forms of Gambling Billiards, played mainly in social and sports clubs and in public houses, was a major pastime, particularly among elite men who had access to those places through membership. This game, however, was not just played for relaxation or competition, but also for money. It was indeed a principal form of elite male gambling. Yet because of the social exclusivity of the places where it was

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played and the social class of the gamblers, police action was generally absent.139 By the early twentieth century, those who were expressing grave concern about the growing ease with which people could gamble had a new phenomenon to deal with. In 1905, the Daily Telegraph reported that “gambling machines” were being illegally imported and were allegedly patronized even by members of the police force. The user was required to insert a shilling into a slot and if lucky could win a handsome dividend.140 As the police crackdown on the “three-card trick” intensified, some lowerclass men (derogatorily called the “Kingston loafers”) resorted to something else. Passing down a certain back street on a Sunday morning, you will observe half a dozen or so men (not small boys) walking with heads down along the side of the water table, excitedly snapping their fingers and wringing their hands, and looking intently in the water. This is continued until the next corner is reached. Two or three small bits of sticks are then taken out of the water and the umpire hands over what is committed to his charge to another. . . . [process repeated] These men are gambling. It is like running a race. The bits of sticks are about an inch long and [a quarter] inch wide and are named after favourite horses. Each individual brings his own horse or stick and the water-table which is most convenient is selected. Stakes are then laid on the favourites by the owners and their admirers and the sticks are placed in the water; then begins the racing.

These contests might continue for hours on Sundays and on weekdays by these “big lazy men”, much to the admiration of the small boys who congregated and followed the racing intensely.141 There were also reports about the far more conventional game of dominoes which was spurred on in some communities like Geddes Town, close to Oracabessa, by gambling. A reporter for the Jamaica Times asserted that men, young and old, and “even women”, were devoted to this game, and played it daily, even on Sundays.142 What this suggests is that although gambling was usually a male preoccupation, women (and children) also participated, not only as spectators, but also as players: “One cannot help noticing the men in shop places surrounded by women and oft-times by children as they increase in this gambling habit. We see them early in the morning, at noon and late in the nights. They are either raffling in shop places for different articles, playing at cards, dominoes, and last of all in the wide streets playing at dice.”143 Cockfighting was another gambling pastime, but because it was done in great secrecy, the data are very sparse. It was well known that cockfighting

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was practised especially during holiday seasons.144 In 1875, the Gleaner reported that a “nest of disreputable gamblers were astir” in Tower Street, Kingston, “to witness the demoralising and disgraceful spectacle of a Cock-fight”. The gathering was large and much money passed hands. One young man in particular reputedly lost his wager while his bird was killed after repeated assaults.145 Unless the participants were caught red-handed, it was difficult to make arrests and to get convictions in court. When, for instance, John Gartshore encountered four young men on Rosedale Avenue off the Kingston race course in 1913 with game cocks just as they were setting up for a fight, they quickly put one cock in a crocus bag and decamped, saying that they intended only to give the cocks some exercise.146 But when, in 1916, a police officer was accused of participating in a cockfight, he was simply transferred to another parish and the matter died “a natural death”.147 In 1914 the Gleaner reported that the cinemas had also been invaded by the “nuisance” of gambling. In an effort to attract audiences, the four moving picture show places in Kingston were giving away “over eighty pounds a week in prizes”. It speculated that the hundreds of patrons did not like having to sit for between half an hour and an hour “while the numbers of tickets [were] being called out”.148

Legislating against Gambling With evidence of the increasing incidence of gambling, and the threat that it was assumed to pose to the moral fabric of civilized society, the nonconformist churches were joined by many persons in the battle for the cultural soul of Jamaica in calling for more stringent legislation to suppress this “evil”. In April 1898, the Gleaner urged that a new gambling law should replace the existing legislation, which had been in force since the reign of George III and had not even been amended.149 That law, it argued, was inadequate to deal with the upsurge in gambling, especially the Chinese lotteries in Kingston, towards the end of the nineteenth century.150 Under mounting elite pressure, the legislature responded with a new gambling law, 25 of 1898. Drafted by resident magistrate S.L. Thornton, it was modelled “on the lines of a similar enactment in force in the Straits Settlements, where gambling is prevalent amongst the Chinese”. It was written largely in response to “complaints against the Chinese lotteries in Kingston [that] had frequently been made to the government”.151 Although it purported to ban all forms of lottery, the intent of this law was specifically to suppress the Chinese lotteries that had become a

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key part of lower-class creole entertainment. It was a classic piece of class legislation in a war that extended itself to fighting against all forms of nonEuropean culture. It made all operators liable to a fine of up to two hundred pounds or two months’ imprisonment with hard labour. Lottery gamblers were also liable to fines (of five pounds) or two months’ imprisonment with hard labour. The issuance of lottery tickets was made illegal and liable to confiscation by the police.152 The law also seemed to harbour a presumption of guilt that was troubling,153 but some of the cultural elites were unapologetic, as they arrogated to themselves the right to dictate what was good for the whole society. They knew what was best for the people whom they had to lead and/or drive towards a moral, civilized existence. The Gleaner articulated this elegantly: The people of Jamaica have in many things to be protected from themselves. They do not realize the personal and social consequences that flow from certain acts, and their feelings are still so elemental that they require a coercion of the force of law to act as some sort of restraint. They are at a stage of development too, when they can be most easily guided into proper habits of citizenship, and to give them liberty in any direction which leads to their demoralisation is both unstatesmanlike, impolitic and cruel.154

When the elite lawmakers banned all lotteries, it was not their intention to include their own gambling. The law, however, aroused considerable concern among the elites who feared that the Pari Mutuel (French Pool) would be affected. Their worst nightmares were realized when at the 1899 Cumberland Pen races the crown colony administration imposed a fine not exceeding two hundred pounds on operators of the French Pool. They argued vociferously that this would end all horse racing and discourage the continued breeding of thoroughbred horses in the island. J.L. Ashenheim was vehement: “If the Gambling Law remains in force in its present form, racing in Jamaica will be as dead as Queen Anne.” He demanded that the law should be amended “so as to enable the French Pools at the various races to be continued. . . . It was only an oversight that the races were not exempted from the operation of the Law when it was passed.”155 In face of such elite hostility, the attorney-general hastily drafted an amendment to the bill that would give the governor the power to exempt any particular lottery from the operation of the law as he deemed advisable. It was clear that this amendment was only intended to allow the operation of the French Pool to continue.156 This, once again, shed light on elite hypocrisy and

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double standards. “W.D.T” was outraged: “Verily the ways of our Law makers are past finding out. There is apparently a law for the rich and another for the poor. . . . Why should the Governor be permitted to foster the spirit of gambling in the upper ten by race horsing and French Pooling by a law which forbids the poor man shaking his elbows and crying in stentorian tones ‘nick! nick!’ when they have won a two penny or three penny piece?”157 Even the Gleaner argued that any attempt to exempt some forms of gambling would have a negative effect on the whole law, rendering it “a disgraceful farce”. It was joined by non-conformist churches.158 The ranks of the cultural elites were again divided on an issue central to their moral campaign. Hostile public reaction notwithstanding, the elite horse racing fraternity had its way. A sympathetic Governor Augustus Hemming acknowledged that subsequent to the passage of the 1898 gambling law he received a petition from “persons interested in the breeding of horse-kind” arguing that it would affect the industry if the provisions were enforced against horse racing. “It appeared to me advisable that the Law should be amended, so as to empower the Governor in Privy Council to exempt certain lotteries from its operation and [I] therefore deferred assenting to it until the amendment could be effected.”159 If the French Pool could be exempted from the law, what about the “respectable” lotteries and raffles traditionally run by many private charities and commercial enterprises essentially for poorer beneficiaries during the festive Christmas season? If these were outlawed under the new legislation, would the governor exempt them too? The Gleaner seemed to think that the law was unequivocal, and argued that no one had the authority to make any exceptions to sanction particular lotteries. One way out of this dilemma, it suggested, might be for the police to wink at Christmas lotteries and raffles which the paper considered quite harmless; and it claimed that that was precisely what the governor, Henry Blake, had instructed them to do.160 This, however, was extra-legal, and each year it would be left to the governor to use his executive power to make decisions on Christmas lotteries and raffles with all the attendant uncertainty that entailed for prospective operators. This came to a head in 1905 when, for some strange reason the governor feared social unrest, and instructed the inspector-general of police not to permit any Christmas raffles. City councillor J. Wareham, who had been approached by several anxious operators of raffling shops, pointed out that the raffling had been allowed in the two previous years without any problems and the people had behaved properly. However, the inspector-general was

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unmoved, stating that no leniency would be practised in either Kingston or out of town.161 The following year, D.A. Corinaldi tabled a proposal in the Legislative Council calling for a permit to grant leave for a mild kind of gambling for the twelve days during Christmas, but it was rejected.162 So the law was left in force with all its defects, and twenty years after its passage, with the benefit of hindsight, a more enlightened, but typically inconsistent Gleaner felt obliged to comment on the double standards inherent in elite legislation: Betting at horse-races is gambling pure and simple. But the law does not interfere with it; it openly permits the running of a French Pool. Church lotteries can be strictly classified as gambling inasmuch as they are purely games of chance. But the police does [sic] not interfere with them. Card-playing for money is allowed by the law so long as it takes place in a private house or club: the law does not recognise that as a crime. . . . The arrangement at present, in fact, allows members of the better-off classes to gamble as they please, but puts an embargo on members of the poorer classes. The Gambling Laws suggest that it is safe for some persons to do what it is most immoral for others to do. And this inherent defect of the law ties the hands of the police at every turn. 163

It also tied the hands of the moral reformers who were effectively thwarted in their struggle for upliftment and civility by segments of the social elite.

Policing and Prosecuting Gambling Even before the 1898 gambling law was passed, the police and the courts were active in their attempts to curb this “evil”. The newspapers reported many arrests and convictions, primarily of lower-class people. The class-based nature of police arrests and court penalties simply reflected a reality that had existed since emancipation. The old gambling laws that dated back to the late eighteenth century were never designed to hinder gambling by the elite classes. It is not surprising, therefore, that there was no pretence at even-handedness in enforcing them. So, for instance, when in September 1862 the Falmouth Post reported that gambling was being carried on on Sundays in the town by a gang of “reckless men” who had no regard for Christian dogma and the law, it also observed that Sunday gambling was by no means restricted to the lower classes. It accused the “higher classes” of desecrating the sabbath, while admitting that their gambling was more difficult to curtail since the police could

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not enter the house of a private individual who, with his friends and associates, chose to pass the sabbath in card and dice-playing.164 Conscious of the tarnished image of the police force, inspector-general Major Prenderville issued instructions to his officers in 1868 intended to redress the uneven nature of the “crackdown” on gambling: You should also impress on the minds of your men, that there are duties in connexion with public morality requiring their utmost attention. They are invested with extensive statut[ory] powers to suppress Gambling Houses and Booths, and to arrest those engaged in this pernicious vice. There is no exception in favor [sic] of any place, and you must be particular to prevent all gambling operations at Race Courses, Fairs, and other places of amusement, while you will see to the suppression of similar illegalities in private houses, taverns, and shops, known to you or your men as places kept for gambling.

He further noted that there were elites who were well known gamblers and with whom police inspectors and sub-inspectors were friends and in whose company they were often seen. “A man is apt to be identified with the doings of his companions.”165 His admonition, however, does not seem to have made much difference in the way the police dealt with gambling. As gambling increased towards the end of the century with the growth in popularity of the Chinese lotteries, the police reaction was to harass both the Chinese operators and their largely lower-class patrons. R.E. Clarke noted that while he had seen many reports of raids on Chinese gambling houses and lower-class rum shops where gambling was suspected, or the seizure of three or four ignorant lads for playing three-card tricks, he did not recollect reading of any raid on certain aristocratic clubs or any other house of the higher class “where it is known or suspected that gambling is practised”. He claimed that on Good Friday 1897 in Balaclava, several “so-called gentlemen” gathered at a doctor’s house and spent their time gambling. “The proper course would have been for the Inspector or Corporal of Constabulary to have raided that house and arrested the offenders in exactly the same manner as poor ignorant Chinese or black lads are arrested who are detected in this offence.”166 While wharf labourers and street boys, or “boys seen at the seaside playing for ‘farthing a throw’, or men under the Sollas ‘Big Tree’, playing for halfpenny a chance”, were being arrested, there were only one or two spasmodic police raids against important persons.167 In Morant Bay in 1898, at a certain establishment on the main street, “members of the Parochial Board, aspirants

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to the honours of the Legislature, Justices of the Peace and other prominent men, congregate, and convert the place into a gambling den. They are undisturbed in their vices.”168 The special status of high- or upper-class gamblers was further emphasized by the fact that while lower-class gamblers were almost always named, there was a reluctance to name upper- and middle-class persons who were arrested, preferring to refer to them anonymously as “gentlemen”.169 The courts of law were similarly biased in their sentencing. In 1865, for instance, the police raided a house in Upper Parade Street in Falmouth to arrest some gamblers. When they entered, the lights were put out and some of the gamblers escaped through the windows, but the police were able to capture eight men. In the court case that followed, the accused argued that they had been playing cards in a private dwelling, and that the police had no more right to interfere with them than with persons of high position in the community; and they further pointed out that there had been no attempt to arrest the keeper of a public house where billiards was played for money on Sundays. Even though their counsel argued that the men did not come within the meaning of the relevant Act (18th Victoria, chapter 46, sections 5 and 6) which provided for the punishment of “loose, idle and disorderly persons engaged in gambling, or assembled for the purpose of gambling”, the magistrate remained convinced that the house was kept for illegal purposes, discharged two of the accused, sentenced three others to thirty days’ hard labour, and fined another twenty shillings plus nine shillings and sixpence in costs or fourteen days’ hard labour.170 There were many other instances like this. The campaign against gambling thus seemed to have had less to do with morality than with the social position of the offender. Although the social reformers seemed genuine in their efforts to eradicate all forms of gambling among poor and elite alike, the latter were very selective in how they received this message and the broad package of Victorian morality with which it came. Even the lawmakers and enforcers were prepared to embrace it only in so far as it reinforced their own class interests. When it suited them, they were prepared to use Victorian morality as a means of keeping the lower classes in check without altering their own behaviour. Enforcement of the gambling laws, therefore, was not designed to curtail elite gambling, but rather to control lower-class gambling. The lower classes knew this, for class legislation had been the order of the day since emancipation; and although they lacked political influence, they were not prepared to be intimidated by the law, the police, the courts or the

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jails. They responded as they always did to such legislation by ignoring or defying it; and the police and the courts probably felt justified in arresting and convicting these vulnerable offenders: “the Law, drastic enough nominally, seems effective only when very small fry are at its business end”, said the Jamaica Times.171 The Gleaner noted that immediately after the passage of the 1898 law, there was a flurry of police activity which resulted in several raids (including the Chinese temple compound) and many arrests of high profile Chinese businessmen. In 1899, for instance, James Solomon, president of the Chinese club, and some others were arrested. The following year Ah Sin and twenty-three others were arrested, and Ah Sin was fined thirty pounds. In September 1908, Clifford Solomon, son of James, was fined the maximum of two hundred pounds for carrying on a lottery. Thereafter the maximum penalty seemed to have been routinely imposed on all Chinese operators.172 Initially the police raids drove the Chinese lotteries underground. Said the Jamaica Daily Telegraph: “The many clubs along Barry Street and Matthew’s Lane stand closed, and one would imagine that the whole affair has been stopped. Not so, however. All the keepers of those shops, having nothing else to do, and no doubt encouraged by past successes, are doing all they can to evade the law.” These lotteries were very lucrative business for the operators and offered good winnings for their creole patrons, neither of whom intended to be dissuaded. In a clear act of defiance, some Chinese operators banded together in 1899 and opened “a colossal concern in a big club house in Matthew’s Lane, near Barry Street”. The utmost secrecy was observed: “every applicant for admittance is scrutinised carefully. In fact, the plan usually adopted is to ask one of the Chinamen at the gate to buy the ticket, whilst the purchaser wait[s] outside; and, unless the applicant be known, neither admittance nor tickets can be had.”173 Some operators stopped issuing tickets altogether since this could lead to police entrapment. “Instead, the applicant who wants to join in the lottery, tells the keeper what his favourite is – ‘Sunchow’, or whatever it be. This the astute Easterner writes in the book he keeps along with the name of the chooser; and the fee of 3d or 6d is deposited.” (“No habee ticket. . . . Ge me money me put you in book.”) As if to thumb their noses at the authorities, the patrons waited outside the lottery shops and “fun is poked at the policemen, Chinese slang-words being introduced”.174 This unrelenting refusal of the people to be cowed by this legislation eventually sapped the will of the police. By 1904 there was reason to believe that gambling was as rampant as

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it had been, especially at the Chinese “gambling dens” on Barry Street and Mathews Lane, and in the “seemingly reputable houses along Harbour Street”.175 Even some of the underpaid police constables succumbed to the temptation to gamble.176 Far from ridding society of the “scourge” of gambling, the “vice” seemed to mushroom after the 1898 law and became ingrained in the very fibre of the population. Because everyone knew that law enforcement generally ignored elite gambling, they treated the law with scant regard. As with so many other forms of repressive class legislation, its effect was thus made minimal. By the end of the First World War, the craze continued unabated without even the pretence of concealment (even the ticket system of drop-pan had been reinstated), often with middle-class participation. “N.E.M.O.” claimed that “[m]en neglect their work, boys steal their employers time often at the behest of clerks and others in authority above them. Young men after leaving work at eventide loaf around the city in order to hear ‘what drop’ at nights. . . . A good many buy heavily on some numbers, putting out I understand sums of 10 [shillings] and 20 [shillings] with different bankers, and indeed I heard in one quarter that a man had won about £100 yesterday on Whiteman.”177 The Gleaner reported that on the first Sunday of December 1918, a large crowd of about two to three hundred assembled at Temple Lane and Church Street at about midday to await the result of the drop-pan. Another big gathering was at Barry and Duke Streets for the same purpose. “It is an open secret that there are several drop pan establishments about Kingston: that these have been going on for months, and seem to flourish more day by day.”178 The newspaper estimated that in 1918 about six hundred pounds worth of drop-pan tickets were sold weekly in Kingston.179 This was no longer an issue affecting only the tiny Chinese minority who might be bullied by the police and the courts, the press and church, to give up an integral part of their culture. It was now an issue that affected a large portion of the creole population, who had absorbed a major element of Chinese culture into their own creole matrix, and were prepared to defy the law to engage in it. The law was rendered impotent by the combined cultural power of the creole majority and the Chinese minority. The cultural elites, spearheaded by the non-conformist churches, however, were not about to surrender, and continued to call on the authorities to take “immediate steps, however drastic, to root out the evil”.180 That they failed to do so is significant.

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Conclusion The campaigns against excessive drinking and gambling formed an important part of the culture war in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although regarded as direct threats to the moral fibre of “civilized” society, and although all classes in Jamaica were equally guilty of these “social vices”, the laws, the police and the courts directed their attention mainly against the lower classes, while very generally exempting the social elites. This hypocrisy was blatantly visible to all, and caused deep divisions even among the elite classes. It also spawned strong resistance among the targeted lower classes and the Chinese immigrants, who openly defied the laws and their enforcers. In the final analysis, this war against drinking and gambling proved unsuccessful, and by 1920 these “vices” were more deeply entrenched in the culture of Jamaica than they were in 1865. The people were intent on doing as they pleased.

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“We are heathen” Asian Cultures in the Culture War

who entered Jamaica in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, only the Indians were of any numerical significance. They were first introduced into Jamaica in 1845 as contract labourers for the plantations, which were experiencing a significant exodus of ex-slaves. Although the British government made a massive loan of five hundred thousand pounds available to the West India planters to fund large-scale immigration, the Jamaican planters could not afford to draw down on this loan fund. As a result, a total of only about 37,027 Indians were imported into the island over the entire period up to 1917 when the immigration ended.1 In 1881, the Indian population stood at 11,016, and by 1921 it had risen by 68 per cent to 18,610 (2.2 per cent of the total population). Women were always a minority of this ethnic group, forming just 31.5 per cent in 1871, but rising to 45.2 per cent by 1921.2 We have already seen the very prominent role that Chinese immigrants played in the gambling enterprise in Jamaica. This was way out of proportion to their numbers in the population, or for that matter their lowly beginnings as indentured immigrants. Although Chinese labourers were first introduced into Jamaica in 1854,3 by 1921 there were only 3,696 Chinese residents in the island, comprising less than half of 1 per cent of the total population.4 Most of these originated from the southeastern provinces of mainland China, Fujian and Guangdong, and the British territory of Hong Kong. The Chinese migrants were composed mainly of two mutually antagonistic ethno-linguistic categories, namely, the Punti (Cantonese) and Hakka (“guest people” originOF

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ally from north China).5 As was the case with all Chinese emigration overseas in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, very few women were among the migrants. Females thus comprised just 19.2 per cent of the Chinese population in 1881, and increased only marginally to 23.8 per cent in 1921.6 Both the Indians and Chinese brought new cultures into Jamaica that were considered inferior and debased by the cultural elites. Neither group was Christian, none of them English-speaking, and many of their beliefs, customs and habits were not just looked down upon, but regarded as despicable. They simply did not measure up to what the cultural elites considered acceptable. What was worse was that some of the more “deplorable” aspects of their cultures might spread to the creole lower classes and reinforce their “innate depravity”. These new immigrants too, therefore, had to be civilized. The elite culture war was thus extended to attack these alien cultures.

The Indian Immigrants Accommodation As part of the unskilled plantation work-force in a race- and class-ridden society, the accommodation provided for the indentured immigrants was basic, even substandard, although improvements were eventually made over time. The immigrants were given no option but to accept and adapt to what was provided on the estates. Until about 1870, they were generally housed in barrack-type buildings sub-divided into apartments. At Tulloch estate in St Thomas, for instance, the building was 145 by 25 feet; at Bybrook it was 55 by 30 feet; at New Works and Wallens, 60 by 30 feet; at Lloyd’s and Retreat estates in St John’s, 30 by 20; and at Lanks in Clarendon, 56 by 35 feet. These buildings were either made of stone, brick or board, or else were wattled and plastered, with shingled or thatched roofs; the floors were off the ground, and they were ventilated with jalousies or lath windows.7 Physical conditions varied from estate to estate: some were fair, others were quite bad. Several estates in Manchester and St Elizabeth in 1862 were using old curing houses and other works as temporary accommodation for the immigrants until pressed to provide better buildings; while at Lanks estate in Clarendon, the barracks were in such poor repair that some Indians had to abandon the upper floor and move into the cellar. Yet, in the propaganda of the culture war where they were represented as culturally inferior, they were

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accused of preferring to live in impenetrable darkness and smoke rather than where there was light and fresh air; their traditions were portrayed as curious, substandard and nasty. The Indian immigrants, however, adapted their accommodation in accordance with their own cultural traditions. They often smeared their floors with diluted cow’s dung which in the Hindu belief system has cleansing properties. The local elites regarded this as filthy. The furnishings of the Indians were quite sparse in the eyes of elite Jamaican observers: for, as in traditional Indian peasant homes, there were no tables or chairs. “An Indian never uses a chair . . . if he sits on a bench or the bed he draws his feet up in front of him.” Generally speaking, a mat, spread on the floor or on a platform, was used for sitting cross-legged and for sleeping.8 Their disinterest in acquiring items of Western material culture was taken as symbolic of their cultural backwardness. Cooking facilities in these estate barracks were rudimentary and no attempt was made to cater to Indian caste prescriptions and proscriptions. There was generally only one communal kitchen where a number of women, regardless of their caste, cooked; but to preserve caste regulations, some opted to cook in their own rooms on a terraced hearth (choolah). More often, several families used the same kitchen, but each had a stove of its own. This was built of clay, just large enough to hold the kettle, with an opening in front for the wood, and a hole at the back to let out the smoke. The kitchens were also converted by the Indians to suit their own customs. Usually they had only three walls, wattled and plastered with mud, then washed and rubbed until smooth; the roof was of galvanized iron sheets; “the floor, bare mother earth: not a single chair, not a table, not a cupboard”.9 The implied criticism was Eurocentric, and since it spoke to the group’s apparent lack of materialist concern, confirmed their lack of progress and civility. Notwithstanding their attempts to adapt their quarters to suit their cultural traditions, at the best of times these barracks could not accommodate the customs and tastes of the Indians, nor did they promote secure family life. Eventually an 1867 immigration commission recommended that Indian families should be accommodated in individual cottages separated a little distance from one another. “Cottages have the advantage of being more easily ventilated, and kept clean, affording greater domestic privacy to the occupants, and are more suited to the previous habits and customs of the people.”10 This recommendation was adopted as policy by the government, and immigration agents were instructed to urge employers to provide detached cottages in preference to barracks. Although reluctant, many planters eventually complied, and by

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1872 the building of new barracks had ceased; however, some of the old barracks continued to be used well into the twentieth century.11 The 1879 Immigration Protection and Regulation Law further stipulated how the indentured immigrants should be accommodated on plantations,12 and these requirements were further elaborated and amended in 1894 and 1910. Dwellings were to be of one storey with a gallery preferably on the leeward side. Floors were to be made of boards raised two feet above the ground, or of banked earth raised to a height of at least nine inches (in 1910 this was increased to twelve inches to prevent dampness). Roofs were to be either shingled, boarded or sarked, and covered with galvanized iron or thatched with durable material. Walls were to be made either of board or concrete, or alternatively of lath, carefully plastered and lime washed; and they should be no less than eight feet in height from floor to ceiling. Division walls between apartments were to be raised or wired at the top to prevent access from one apartment to another. Permanent ventilation was to be effected by a leeward cow mouth gable, jalousies, or an eaved space. Each room was to have an appropriate number of platforms on which to make beds for the occupants.13 It is evident that while resident on the estates the Indians had very little input in the construction and design of the buildings where they resided since these were not owned by them, and their cultural tastes were generally discounted by those in authority, who “knew better” and framed the requirements in law. The style of estate housing was Jamaican and the Indian occupants were required to adjust as best they could. After their indenture, however, if they moved off the estates they had an opportunity to build houses more in keeping with Indian architectural traditions. Where, as in Gordon Town, Vere and Westmoreland, they established small Indian settlements, their quarters were said to resemble village huts in India, complete with red flags of Hindu worship on bamboo poles in front.14 However, many formerly indentured Indians found themselves in rural villages and urban communities living in buildings erected by Afro-Jamaicans, and so once more had to adjust. It was very rare, therefore, that they had an opportunity to influence architecture in the island, and so in the area of housing had to make the adaptation to creole Jamaican styles and forms.

Dress In their sartorial appearance, the Indians had greater scope to retain their traditional forms of dress and did so for some time. According to C.W. Willis:

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Figure 32. East Indian immigrants. (Source: James H. Stark, Stark’s Jamaica Guide [Boston, 1898].)

A typical coolie woman is artistically draped with what looks like a breadth of unbleached cheese-cloth,15 one end arranged about the head, then gracefully twined over the shoulders and about the waist to hang down, shawl-like, partially to conceal the limbs, one corner falling at the side just below the left knee, and the open part crossing near the other knee [sari]. A streak of red paint adorns the parting of her straight, black hair, and a smooch of paint is in the centre of her forehead.16

He was astonished to see the men “deftly and swiftly bind a strip, yards longs, of this cheese-cloth-like material in a turban around his head. The same cloth forms his short, loose trousers, not reaching to the knees [dhoti]. . . . A dark cloth roundabout jacket completes his costume.”17 Jewellery formed an integral aspect of Indian dress, particularly among the women. Contemporary writers commented on the spectacular display of jewellery all over their bodies. In many instances this was an important part of their accumulated savings, consisting in large part of silver coins. Noting that Indian banana workers earned twenty-five cents a day plus rations, Willis observed that “[i]nstead of using this money for comforts, for actual neces-

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saries, it is all beaten into jewelry and worn by the women for safe keeping. Each company brings a native silversmith.”18 Hence, according to Bacon and Aaron, the Indian woman’s “wealth is apparent to all eyes, for she carries it where all may see, displayed upon wrists, forehead, breast, anklets; in fact anywhere that there is a chance to place a hoop or a bangle”.19 The rings, bangles, anklets and other jewellery also marked the community as different, even as the style of wearing them became more fashionable among members of the general population (see chapter 2). Unlike their more numerous counterparts in Guyana and Trinidad, the small number of Indians in Jamaica found it more difficult to resist the pressures to conform to the dominant Euro-creole dress forms. This was initiated when they were first allotted to estates as indentured labourers. Employers were required to issue to each man a shirt and a pair of trousers; and to each woman a jersey with sleeves and a petticoat.20 Immigration sub-agent Henry Laidlaw (Mandeville) asserted in 1863 that after just two years, “[t]heir habits in many respects have undergone a great change . . . particularly as regards Dress and Food, which are gradually assimilating to those of the Native labourers”.21 By 1865, many of those who had opted to remain in the colony and reside amidst the black population had adopted creole dress.22 According to sub-agent W.J. Garsia (Westmoreland), the men in particular were “giving up the wrapper and adopting the dress of the native, wearing shirts, trowsers and jackets, and some of the women, petticoats and frocks”.23 Richard Hill, however, was careful to note that this was largely an outward change and did not signify complete creolization, for “they are essentially the same in household life, as the recently arrived Hindoo, – indifferent to all things, which our peasant people, humble as they are, deem requisite to a Homestead”.24 Some Indian immigrants, therefore, may have adopted the outward manifestations of creole appearance in their dress, but sought to retain their traditional customs and beliefs in the privacy of their homes; others had their feet more firmly planted on the path of creolity. In terms of material culture, many came to resemble the Afro-creole majority while adding their own flavour to the cultural mix. And not surprisingly, aspects of the Indo-creole community found their adherents among the creole population as well. The expansive creole culture adopted, adapted and reshaped aspects of Indian culture, which helped to construct an even more textured and complex Jamaican culture.

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Hinduism and Islam The area of religion was one of those aspects of culture that the Indian immigrants tried to preserve despite the absence of infrastructure. However, the documentary sources are very sparse on this matter. This is no doubt explained by the fact that the Indians were a small, dispersed, foreign ethnic group who, until the late nineteenth century, attracted very little attention from mainstream Jamaican society except when seen in their unique dress and jewellery or when something sensational happened, such as a brutal wife murder (see below). Unlike their counterparts in Guyana and Trinidad, who were numerous and had tremendous impact on those societies, the Indian immigrants in Jamaica never constituted a significant presence in the existing social order. It was not until a more steady inflow of immigrants began to arrive in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that some attention was paid to their material and moral well-being. Even then, hardly anyone bothered to pay close attention to their religious activities except to label them as “heathen” and seek to convert them to Christianity. Although it is unknown whether the majority of Indian immigrants to Jamaica adhered to the Shivite, Vaishavite or Shakti forms of Hinduism, it is reasonable to assume that, as in the southern Caribbean, the bhakti movement was the most popular manifestation of the Hindu religion in the island. Because this was tied to neither shrine nor holy place in India, it could survive anywhere, especially overseas. This obviated the need for temples (mandirs) and places of worship to preserve Hinduism in the alien environment.25 The absence of those structures in Jamaica, therefore, did not mean a weakening of Hinduism among the immigrants. Sacrifice and prayer, which form an essential part of Hindu worship, would have taken place mainly in the home, and most Hindus travelled with the sculpted image of a god which they kept in a corner of their room for this purpose. In addition, from time to time their spiritual needs would have been serviced by Brahmin priests who also formed part of the immigrant population. Although considerably smaller in number, Muslims also formed part of the Indian migrant population. No data have been found to indicate the proportion of Sunnis and Shiites. Gillion claims that Islam is less dependent than traditional Hinduism on a particular social context, and thus tends to suffer less disruption when transplanted overseas. Besides, Muslim imams also migrated and thus were able to attend to the spiritual needs of their people. Presumably, therefore, in Jamaica as in Fiji, “most of the religious duties and

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festivals were maintained, except for the namaz (prayers five times a day), pardah (the seclusion of women), and the full observance of the fast of Ramazan” 26 – none of which would have been permitted by the plantations. One can reasonably conclude, therefore, that both Hinduism and Islam survived the crossing of the kali pani (the dark waters of the oceans) and were installed in Jamaica, as they were in Trinidad and Guyana. However, the archival records merely provide superficial glimpses of traditional religious activity among the Indians. It was not until 1901 that the first reference to a physical place of worship was made when the Presbyterians referred to a “Mohommedan mosque” in Portland as “a source of trouble”.27 No other reference to it or to any other mosque or Hindu mandir has been found in the period before 1920. Even among the much larger Indian populations of Guyana and Trinidad, such religious infrastructure was not erected until the late nineteenth century after a sufficient number of immigrants had decided to settle permanently. Until then, the Hindus built flimsy temporary roofless structures for communal worship.28 Worship, therefore, for Jamaica’s Indian immigrants, both Hindu and Muslim, would have been largely individual and private, except for special religious events that called for communal worship. For Hindus, the daily ritual of puja/pooja, where they worshipped privately in a separately reserved sacred corner or room of their home, would have been vital. Small groups of Indians would also have gathered for worship at temporary structures erected for that purpose for most of the period under review. In 1900 the Quakers made fleeting reference to some Indians worshipping and offering sacrifices to the image of an unnamed Hindu god (a murti): “[T]he little brass, stone or clay idol is placed within sight, and unto it a little of the rice, drink or eatables are first presented.” Sometimes an animal was killed as an offering. After the god’s blessing was invoked, the food was cooked and a great feast indulged in by all present. In this type of communal puja/pooja, it was customary to pay reverence to a god through invocations, prayers (mantras), songs and ritual offerings, often followed by a feast among the worshippers.29 An even more substantial puja/pooja was referred to in 1899 by Presbyterian Zenana missionary Martha Croll, who encountered a large crowd of Indians travelling by electric car to the Papine barracks on the Mona sugar estate “to engage in the worship of the blood-thirsty goddess Kali”. Her harsh words are indicative of the extension of the elite war to the culture of the Indian immigrants. This spiritual event, however, was in honour of one of the most feared and revered deities in the Hindu pantheon. To some a symbol of dissolution

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and destruction, Kali Ma (mother Kali) is also regarded by her Hindu devotees as a protector, and is worshipped particularly in West Bengal, whence originated many of the Indian immigrants in Jamaica and the Caribbean. Kali Ma Puja/Pooja is celebrated on the Amavasya (or the no-moon night) in the Hindu month of Kartik (October/November). It coincides with Diwali, the great Hindu new year festival of lights which, quite probably, was also celebrated by the Indians in Jamaica as it was in Trinidad and Guyana.30 Another Hindu observance reported in the press was held in February 1902 (during the Hindu month of Maagha) at Martha Brae. This was reportedly for the purpose of celebrating the fulfilment of vows that had been made the year before. According to the Jamaica Times reporter, if an Indian was in trouble he vowed that if he got over it he would give a feast the next year. At these events a Brahmin priest presided, “opening with droll sounding songs; which are followed by the beating of drums, tingling bells, etc., then follows the eating of a mixture of soup [perhaps dhal] and rice spread out on plantain leaves, dumplings fried with cocoanut oil, jack-fruit curried and parched flour mixed with spices and a host of other things which do not look palatable to creoles”.31 It is not clear if this was in any way related to the observance of the Hindu festival of Maha Shivarati/Sivarati that is very popular in Uttar Pradesh, whence originated several of the Indian immigrants.32 The following month, March 1902, the Hindu month of Phalguna, the Jamaica Times provided a fuller report of what it referred to as a “Thanksgiving Party” hosted by Baboo Potopsingh in Falmouth in fulfilment of a vow he had made after recovering from illness. Over forty Indians attended including the Brahmin priest who came from Westmoreland. Interestingly, almost as many creole Jamaicans assembled as well. A large booth was erected for the occasion, within which there was a square mound with a banana tree in the centre and one at each corner. At the root of each tree was a basin containing rice, a small cup with a lighted wick in coconut oil. Flour was sprinkled on the mound and flowers scattered around. At about seven o’clock, after bathing in the river, the priest and Potopsingh entered dressed in pure “white wrappers”. The priest sat facing east with Potopsingh to his left. About seven Brahmins sat cross-legged around the priest. On the mound was placed several pieces of white calico which were reputedly exactly five yards long. These were to be given, along with money, to the priest and his party.33 The ceremony began by the priest opening a book and taking some rice in a vessel placed before him and sprinkling it over the host, together with three blades of grass and some water, which he took up with a small leaf. He then

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read for some time before blowing a horn, at which point a musician started drumming, and skilfully playing the tambourine and two small bells attached to strings “in accordance with the style of singing”. That was the end of the first chapter; six others were read. At about ten o’clock the readings ended, and the priest was given money by the host. In addition, a pudding pan with some lighted camphor was taken around for collection and everyone who put in something inhaled some of the fumes and rubbed his face over for a blessing. The collection was for the priest. A Brahmin then lit a fire with mango wood which was kept blazing by pouring coconut oil on it.34 Next, a pudding pan with a mixture of soaked rice, sugar, raisins, currants and the like was served around. Some of those gathered took it in their palms, others in coconut cups. Another pan contained pieces of every fruit in season. The priest and his party of Brahmins sat apart from the other Indians during the feast as “they may not eat with other castes”. Plantain leaves were laid before the guests, and water to wash their hands. Rice was placed on the leaves in a circle, in the centre of which soup (perhaps dhal) was put. When everyone was served, the priest began to eat and all followed. A strict etiquette was in force: “As soon as one was filled he closed his arms and meekly waited till all were finished; not even the Priest dared stir until the smallest child was finished.” A variety of curries was served, and the food included flour (perhaps roti), rice, greens, ground provisions. Only coconut oil was used, and no meat was served on the first day. The following day, however, meats and drinks (perhaps including rum or coconut toddy) were freely consumed.35 That the creoles present may have enjoyed the festivities and the food, even if they did not participate in the attendant rituals, might be surmised in the quick adoption of these foods into the national cuisine. Proportionally small, the Indian population made a cultural impact far outstripping their numbers; and the inclusionary nature of creolity allowed for the embrace of some Indian cultural activities so that they became a part of Jamaica’s cultural identity. By far the most visible Indian religious activities were their street festivals, generically referred to as Hosay or Tadja/Tadjeah. This annual festival was supposedly related to the Islamic Mohurrum festival, held to commemorate the martyrdom of Hassan and Hosein, the two sons of the prophet Mohammed (Ali) in the forty-sixth year of the Hirjah (the flight of the prophet). The festival is supposed to be observed by devout fasting for thirteen days during which Muslims, especially Shiites, are required to abstain from all work. As in Guyana, it is doubtful that these strict religious observances could have been adhered to by indentured Indians, not least because the estates did not

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Figure 33. The Hosay festival. (Courtesy of the National Library of Jamaica.)

allow them so much time off; but the ex-indentured could observe them if they so chose.36 The main features of the Hosay were as follows. For several weeks the Indians on different estates built an elaborate “Hussay” (tazzia), generally described by elite observers as a miniature temple made of wood or bamboo and decorated with coloured paper, gold and silver tinsel.37 One of Martha Beckwith’s informants said that it was the practice to begin building the structure at the new moon; then on the first night of the next new moon the earth platform on which it was to be displayed was consecrated. The finished Hussay was brought out on the ninth night thereafter (it is not clear if the “ninth night” concept was borrowed from the creole Jamaicans who, as we shall see, became heavily involved in this festival). The earth platform at Chovey estate was a raised rectangular mound with a flat surface and was grassed. On the night of consecration, the priest and four or six men (always an even number) went to a field and filled a little earthen bowl with soil. This was placed in a cavity in the centre of the platform and covered with a coconut shell. “The people believe that at twelve o’clock on the ninth night of the new moon, a drop of blood will fall upon the earth in the bowl, because on that night the

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lives of the two brothers were taken.” Four banana suckers were also planted at the corners of the platform.38 The Hussays apparently varied in design, but great attention was paid to details in the pursuit of perfection.39 Beckwith actually witnessed part of the construction of one of these at Chovey estate. Slim pieces of bamboo were set a few inches apart and lashed neatly together. These were later covered with coloured paper. The structure was built in three parts, which were then set one on top the other to complete the whole. Two parts already completed were shaped like cages, the bottom one measuring thirty-seven inches square at the base and sixty inches high; the upper portion, called the khond, was thirty inches square at the base and thirty-nine inches in height. Each portion was divided into three sections by means of an open flooring set at intervals of twenty inches in the bottom cage and thirteen inches in the khond. The (third) top portion, called the gummaj, had two parts, one conical, the other dome-shaped. The whole structure was finally set upon a platform of bamboo, called a chotra, which had poles extending from each corner for carrying on the shoulders of at least four men.40 David Brandon took the care to mention the presence of “an Idol seated inside” the Hussay. This was confirmed by Beckwith, who observed that behind a small door in the lowest portion of the structure were either two little clay images as at Port Antonio (presumably representing Hassan and Hosein), or a representation of the graves (tabuts) of the two martyrs as at Chovey estate, made in the form of a small double boat of bamboo. Sometimes a couple handfuls of earth set up in a napkin sufficed.41 For nine nights, women sang mournful songs and “the Hussay is ‘served’ with fans and incense”. On the ninth night, it was brought out and placed on the platform.42 At Vere in 1908, the people gathered around it, the men dancing and indulging in games and acrobatic performances, while the women kept up a monotonous, dirge-like chant to the sound of a drum, whilst another of these ‘flowers of the East’ fed the flames around the structure with incense. It was a weird spectacle, to see by the glimmering light of the torches the acrobats stripped, with only a wrapper around their loins, moving agilely from side to side, as with club and shield they defended themselves or tried to break the adversary’s guard; or to watch their shining, sinuous bodies as they twisted themselves under their companions’ legs, up their backs, and down under the legs of another without the bodies touching the ground.43

According to Beckwith, a priest killed a white cock (rooster), filled a small

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bowl with the blood and put it behind the tabut. People brought offerings of cocks, some of which were killed by the priest. (In India, doves were used.) Beckwith was informed that each “caste” in Jamaica had its own particular kind of animal sacrifice – cocks, doves, sheep and the like. People also brought money to the priest to cover the expenses of the festival, and if any was left over it was divided among them. Amidst this, women stood in groups singing, and children sat listening. Men too sang their own songs from sacred books relating to the lives and deaths of the two martyrs. This continued all night until daybreak when they assembled to march. They took toasted bread, called tosha, which they ate and shared with others on the way.44 There were grand processions through the streets, accompanied by loud music, drumming, flag waving and ritualistic fights.45 Some of these processions were quite large. For instance, there were no less than fifteen “Hussays” in the 1909 Annotto Bay festival.46 “As they march there are cries of ‘Hasan! Husain!’ the drums beat, songs of lament are sung. Special pageants are borne in the procession such as a hand on the end of a long pole, a symbol which may also be seen painted upon the side of the Hussay.” The principal musical instruments were drums. The dholak measured twenty-six inches high and nineteen and a half inches in diameter and, covered on both ends with goat skin, it was hung around the neck of the drummer and played with a curved stick called a danka. The tasa (called by the creole term yabba in Jamaica) was made of clay in the shape of a bowl with goat skin across the top, which measured between twelve and eighteen inches in diameter. It was hung at the waist and played with two short sticks, called chob, that were wound at both ends with waxed cloth.47 This was “[a] time of festivity and plays”.48 Indeed, according to Beckwith, before the 1920s elaborate costumes were worn, and Peacock fans, called jharoo, and censers filled with burning myrrh (luban) or with camphor and resin, are used for the serving of the Hussay. At night men twirl torches made of long sticks tied at both ends with cloth dipped in kerosene oil; these are called banethe (fire-sticks). Others carry sticks (bana) some eight feet long with which they make figures called tamasha. Men in couples play with . . . “real swords of iron”. . . . Couples oppose to each other short bamboo sticks about three feet long, called gutka, held in the right hand while with the left they guard with circular shields covered with goat-skin, about twelve inches in diameter, called phari. . . . Other players engage in wrestling, called kushti.49

For instance, at Rio Magna in 1902, “[a] fight took place in which the Rio

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Magna champion was defeated by a lad from Golden Grove”.50 All of this was usually accompanied by live music: “the drumming, the tooting of the fifer on his flute, the beating of cymbals, and tinkling triangles amply compensated for the holiday”.51 Since the Indians were dispersed throughout the island, there were just a few centres where these festivals were held, mainly Kingston, Port Antonio, Annotto Bay, Port Maria, Savanna-la-Mar and Vere. Large numbers of Indians from neighbouring districts (men, women and children) came on foot, horseback and in carts to attend these festivities.52 At Vere in 1908, “The East Indian women in their gay attire of scarlet, blue, yellow, green, with bright vari-coloured Madras kerchiefs for their head dress, and profusely decorated with silver jewellry [sic] – necklaces, ear-rings, ankle-rings, and nose ornaments – completed the picturesque and gorgeous show.”53 At the Annotto Bay festival in 1909, an estimated four thousand Indians were present.54 In addition, large numbers of creole Jamaicans and, in Portland, white tourists as well, gathered to view these colourful spectacles.55 As one might expect, the sections of the towns where these grand festivals were held were closed to normal business and traffic.56 “The festivities were carried on all day until evening with acrobatic performances, exhibitions of Indian dexterity in sword play, club-swinging, wrestling and dancing.”57 The climax of the processions was the ritual casting of the Hussays into the sea or river just before sunset. In Savanna-la-Mar, boats were hired to take them out to sea.58 This ritual was followed by grand feasting, with curried goat being one of the main items on the menu. There was also extensive rum consumption, which may have contributed to quarrelling and fighting. According to Brandon, “Many a bitter feud takes their origin from these orgies.”59 The word “orgies” was no accident, and signifies the way the cultural elites, shaped by the war they were conducting against anything non-European and non-Christian, regarded Indian culture. The Jamaica Guardian noted that these celebrations lasted three days.60 It was not only Indians who were getting drunk at these “orgies”. Certainly by the 1880s, creole Jamaicans were very much involved in the Hosay festival. According to the Gleaner: “Very many creoles seemed to join in the religious (?) [sic] ceremonies of these immigrants, and to afterwards get gloriously drunk with them.”61 A Jamaica Times correspondent observed that at the Rio Magna celebrations in 1902, creoles were very much involved in all aspects of the festival. The night before the grand procession, the rum shop near “the coolie camp” was packed with people fiddling, drumming and dancing, a clear sign

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of creole Jamaican involvement. The apartment where the Hussay was kept was actually protected by two rural policemen (creoles) who were being paid three pence and a pint of rum for their unofficial services! All classes and conditions of people were to be seen rushing about; as they approached the door [of the apartment] a voice said: “Sixpence fee see”, and all stumped up. There was all kind of music from the fiddle, accordion, fife and many kinds and sizes of drum. . . . Those who paid to see or stopped to dance, were people from the fields, labourers on the property, the swells of the neighbourhood all mixed up in dancing till about 2 o’clock. Then they paraded the road.62

Further possible creole influences on Hosay are evidenced by the burning of a “cow-horn” to keep off “duppies”,63 the sacrifice of white cocks and the spilling of their blood, the concept of “nine nights”, and the adopting the creole name yabba for the tasa drum. It seems fairly clear, therefore, that by the turn of the twentieth century Hosay was being creolized and converted into a Jamaican festival involving people of different ethnic backgrounds. As a large street festival, Hosay presented problems of law and order for the police. Ritual fighting did take place as part of the play-acting in the processions, but quarrels and fights also resulted from drunken disorderliness.64 Those were easily controllable and posed no real threat to the peace. Rather different were clashes between rival processions as they jostled for “the right of way”.65 The Gleaner reported the scene in Vere in 1908 thus: “The rival factions were drawn up facing each other, each wanting the place of precedence which is the right [side] of the road, but the police and [plantation] bookkeepers quieted down the leaders, and a compromise was effected.”66 According to acting protector of immigrants, Charles Doorly, in 1902, “There is always great rivalry as to which Estate shall take the right hand in the procession, as this position is considered a great honour, and those who hold and maintain it are looked upon as the ‘Champions’.”67 Gladstone Burke recalled these as mere “mock fights” which he perceived as “great fun”.68 However, not infrequently they got out of hand and led to serious fracas. As a result of the potential for disorder, it became customary for police squads to be on hand to preserve the peace.69 A growing incidence of such disturbances in Vere, St James, Westmoreland and Portland70 after 1900 led the government to impose restrictions on the festival by requiring the organizers (estate drivers or headmen) to give security for the peaceful and good behaviour of the participants before permission was given to hold them. In addition, police permission had to be sought for the procession to enter a

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town, and they were eventually forbidden altogether from entering Kingston and Savanna-la-Mar.71 It is not clear if these requirements had the effect of diminishing the popularity of the festival islandwide, but in the Port Maria area in 1919 only the Indians on three estates celebrated.72 The need to preserve law and order would have given the police authorities, representative of the cultural elite classes, the excuse to suppress the Hosay festivities. However, one also has to put this in socio-cultural context. These were massive demonstrations among the lower-class population, involving both Indian immigrants and lower-class creole Jamaicans, representing some of the “worst” symbols of “heathenism”, that threatened to undo the “good” work of the churches to civilize Jamaica. This could not be allowed to go unchallenged. These “heathen” demonstrations had at least to be contained, if not suppressed altogether. It is clear that the Indians continued to practise their traditional religions (Hinduism and Islam) for a considerable period of time, both privately and in public. However, some of their religious observances underwent change in the alien environment as efforts were made to homogenize their culture in order to mould a distinctive “Indian” identity. No less importantly, the great Indian street festivals, and some of their private religious celebrations as well, were attended and influenced by creole Jamaicans. Over time, these ceased to be entirely Indo-ethnic festivities and were slowly incorporated into the creole cultural matrix to become Jamaican. Jamaican creole culture therefore expanded with these new additions that were shared by the immigrants and significant numbers of locals alike. This was a matter for concern among the cultural elite, struggling to defend a Christian “heritage” and celebrating a British cultural sensibility. The already suspect Afro-creoles, with their uneven embrace of Euro-Christian tenets, and the “heathen” East Indians, represented a potentially threatening cultural mixture that had to be curbed. The use of legislation and the police force to dampen the enthusiasm for these foreign, “heathen” festivals was a key aspect of the elite war against Indian cultural expressions.

Sex, Marriage and Domestic Relations As already noted, Indian immigration to Jamaica was attended by a significant disparity in the sex ratio in favour of men. This had a significant impact on gender relations. In Jamaica the percentage of Indian women increased from thirty-seven to forty-five between 1881 and 1921, but they were still less than a

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moiety of the men.73 Among the unindentured and more especially the local born, the percentage of women was higher than among the indentured and foreign born, where it was just 40 per cent as late as 1914.74 This woman shortage was exacerbated by the fact that not all Indian women in Jamaica were interested in marriage. According to MacNeill and Chinman Lal in 1913, the majority of indentured women were not married to the men with whom they cohabited; and they claimed that a few unmarried women were prostitutes “whether nominally under the protection of a man or not”.75 Under these circumstances, one might expect that Indian men would develop relationships with Jamaican creole women. However, according to immigration agent-general A.H. Alexander in 1871, there appears to have been a strong disinclination to do so, partially on racial grounds, partially because of caste proscriptions. “The indisposition seems . . . to be [very] strong on the part of the Coolies, as they appear rarely to forget the family and race associations of their own country. I have found many who have been in this Colony, upwards of twenty years, still only mixing with their own people.” He also observed that creole women were equally racially indisposed to forming connections with Indian men.76 Racial prejudice between these two ethnic groups apparently remained strong beyond 1920,77 notwithstanding the fact that they generally lived side by side in the same communities. The shortage of Indian women and the disinclination of the men to find mates outside of their ethnic group led to grave domestic problems. Indian women were released from the domination of their men/husbands and had greater scope to negotiate sexual and conjugal relationships to their own advantage. In Jamaica (and the Caribbean), Hindu women could not be confined to zenanas, nor could their Islamic sisters be put in purdah. As in Guyana and Trinidad, this gave them more freedom of action. Martha Croll observed that it “has helped to develope [sic] [the women] greatly. I notice an alertness and self-reliance, a business capacity and firmness of purpose, which as a rule were sadly lacking in the women I taught in India.” Moreover the shortage of women meant that the men could not practice polygamy as in India; instead, “[e]very man jealously guards his wife. Seldom if ever does one come across a case of [male] unfaithfulness. This in itself, at one bound, places the East Indian women in Jamaica in a far more enviable position than their sisters in the East,” asserted Croll.78 It not only did that; it facilitated their ability and willingness to change partners if/whenever it suited them. According to MacNeill and Chinman Lal: “The majority remain with the man with whom they form an irregular

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union. They are, however, exposed to a good deal of temptation as there are on all estates a number of young unmarried men with much more money than is needed for their personal wants. A few women change their protectors and out of these desertions trouble not infrequently arises.”79 These positions of relative empowerment where mate choices were concerned, and the tendency among Indian women to move into more advantageous relations, would not have seemed strange to their creole counterparts; and, like creole women, the cultural elites (and the Indian men) accused them of promiscuity and infidelity. Within their personal lives, those accusations sometimes became a major source of domestic violence in Indian households. Some Indian men refused to accept the loss of power and authority over their women in the new social environment in which they found themselves. Besides, since most of their savings were invested in jewellery which the women wore on their bodies, female desertion often meant the loss of the man’s life savings. Together these occasioned considerable male jealousy and rage and, reinforced by religious (in the case of Hindus) sanction, they felt compelled to chastise the unfaithful women physically, and even take their lives. “Wife murders” might not have been numerous in Jamaica, but as in Trinidad and Guyana, when they did occur, they were so gruesome that they aroused immense elite disgust, especially since they were associated with the alien and “heathen” population.80 A few examples will suffice. That some of the murderers had English names suggests that they may have been Christian converts, which in turn indicates that the problem was not confined to Hindu or Muslim Indians. In July 1878, after killing his wife, an Indian man in St Thomas-in-the-Vale hacked her body to pieces.81 In September 1881 at Bybrook estate, Nayeck decapitated his paramour.82 At Ipswich estate, St Elizabeth, in May 1882, Colison struck his partner, Ramdall, to the ground and then thrust about eight inches of his hoe stick down her throat.83 In November 1910, Nabi of Burlington grabbed his wife by her hair and cut off her head.84 And at Port Maria two years later, Mohan severely wounded his wife Sidda by chopping her repeatedly in the head with a cutlass while she lay in bed because she planned to leave him and take their jewellery. He is reputed to have said, “[t]he woman go dead, and me go hang”.85 None of these men displayed any sense of remorse for their crimes. In such fits of jealous rage, capital punishment by hanging clearly held no terrors for the aggrieved men. This left the colonial authorities in a quandary about solving the problem. The long term solution lay in equalizing the sex

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ratio, but that was never achieved during the period of the indenture system. In the short term the officials floundered. In 1869 the immigration agentgeneral called on estate managers to exercise greater vigilance over their Indian workers and to ferret out information regarding domestic quarrelling and wife desertion; and they were enjoined to report to the immigration agent all cases where there was reason to believe violence might occur.86 This of course meant that plantation personnel were being asked to spy on the Indian workers, infringing on their domestic privacy. In addition, the immigration laws empowered the agent general (later protector of immigrants) to separate man and wife as a precautionary measure without their consent.87 Their marital freedoms were thus liable to be violated at any time on a mere suspicion. Finally, the Indian Immigrants Marriage, Divorce and Succession Law of 1896 sought to address this problem by giving to the husband who had been deserted, the right to recover all moveable property he had given to his wife; and to make the dissolution of the marriage by legal divorce more readily attainable.88 This of course applied only to those persons who were legally married under the same law, and those (as we shall see) were relatively few. Altogether, these measures only made life more difficult for the Indian labourers without securing the safety of the women. They also emphasized how paternalistic the indentured system was, and how ready the colonial authorities were to use legislation to try to control the behaviours of ordinary residents. That the authorities were quite willing to tear man and wife asunder on the suspicion of marital disharmony certainly gives an indication of how seriously they viewed these threats to the lives of Indian women. Had they intervened in the marriages of the cultural elites in like manner whenever domestic abuse was suspected, one can guess what the reaction would have been. The 1896 marriage law was not so much intended to keep the peace between estranged Indian couples, but primarily to deal with the failure of most Indians to get legally married. It was a product of the war on Indian culture. This moral issue was not identical to that pertaining to the creole Jamaicans. While some Indians did as their creole counterparts and simply cohabited unmarried in a household, others did formally tie the knot in accordance with their traditional religious customs, officiated by Hindu or Muslim priests. Such marriages, however, were regarded as heathen in “Christian” Jamaica and were not recognized by law. This meant that the vast majority of Indian couples were deemed to be “living in sin” and their children were “illegitimate” with all the attendant problems relating to inheritance of family property.

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Before 1879, when civil marriages were permitted, in order to be legally married an Indian couple would have to convert to Christianity, since only a Christian minister could marry them legally. Thereafter they had the alternative of going to a civil registrar. It was not until 1896 that Hindu and Muslim marriages were legally recognized, but even then the couple still had to get the marriage formally registered by the protector of immigrants. These legal procedures were a nuisance, and for those who planned to return to India they had no significance. Indians who “converted” to Christianity were subject to the ordinary marriage and divorce laws of the colony, and thus enjoyed no special protection of their property in the event of separation or divorce.89 The result was that very few Indians up to 1920 were legally married either under the provisions of the 1896 law or the general marriage laws. For the cultural elites, this was no less an abomination than creole non-marriage. In both cases, marriage was an important battlefield in their war against “immorality”. While the cultural elites were frothing at the mouth about “concubinage” and “fornication” because they would not recognize Indian marital unions other than those they formally sanctioned, Indians were getting married. For a traditional Hindu wedding a booth made of bamboo and covered with palm leaves was constructed. There the ceremony was conducted before a large number of guests, some of whom might wear European dress – testimony to their partial creolization. The principals, however, generally wore Indian garments. In one instance, the bridegroom was attired in a long white calico robe with a red sash wrapped around his body. His head was covered with “something in the shape of a sugar loaf, made of paper and paper flowers hanging down from it”. A little “altar” was made in the form of a triangular mound in a chalk-marked area over which the bridegroom was not allowed to cross.90 For about two hours prayers and admonitions were said informing the bridegroom of his duties and during this ceremony rice, oil and water were used. Thereafter the bride, in traditional Indian dress with a chuddah over her face, entered and stood on the opposite side of the mound. After being “given away” by her father, rice was poured into her hands. The couple later joined hands as rice, oil, water and sugar were poured over them. The bride was then taken across the triangular area to stand next to the bridegroom. Red powder was given to him and a cloth thrown over the couple while he marked a “cross” on his bride’s forehead. Next, a ring was procured and placed in a marriage knot (tali) that tied the end of the bridegroom’s red sash to that of the bride’s chuddah. The bridegroom then led his wife around the mound a few times and the ceremony was brought to an end. Before entering the house, the bride-

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groom was required to negotiate with the bride’s sister at the door who refused to let the couple and guests in until he offered a satisfactory amount of money. Thereafter there was a feast, and Indian dancing and music.91 These traditional ceremonies were considered heathen by the cultural elites, especially the Christian missionaries, and it was the latter who took the cultural fight directly to the Indians. For instance, in 1900, in accordance with Hindu tradition, a mother arranged the marriage of her little girl who had been converted to Christianity. She received part of the dowry from the prospective husband (the shortage of women led to a reversal of the normal practice where the girl’s family should have paid the dowry). Encouraged by the Quaker missionaries, the girl resolutely refused to marry the man despite being severely whipped, and threatened to kill herself if forced. Her mother was eventually obliged to break off the engagement and return the dowry.92 At Salt Ponds, an old Indian couple was pressured into marriage by the Presbyterians, “one of whom had long resisted all efforts put forth for his conversion”.93 Some Indians fought back and demonstrated their desire to preserve their traditional marriage customs in a forceful manner. In 1896 a number of them took possession of a Quaker tabernacle “where they were having a dance in true Indian style to celebrate the nuptials of one of our school girls about to be performed in their own way. . . . After considerable arguing on their part, they reluctantly withdrew to another spot.”94 At Golden Grove in 1900, a little girl was made to marry “according to their heathenish custom, to a man considerably older than herself”.95 In 1913, a traditional Indian wedding in Kingston attracted much attention because Christian Indians who were invited were warned by the Presbyterian church to which they belonged not to attend. This so incensed the celebrants that they marched past the church shouting, “We are heathen.”96 In another instance at Annotto Bay in 1915, the wedding of a boy was held according to Hindu rites above the protests of the Quaker missionaries who had educated him in night school. “The old mother was as hard as could be and never for a moment yielded her determination that her son should marry according to heathen rites.”97 Standing on the bases of their traditions which were millennia in the making, many Indians refused to be bullied into abandoning an important rite of passage and forced into embracing the rituals of a religious system that they did not embrace, or if so only partially. Still the missionaries were assiduous in their efforts to get the Indians under their sway to marry by Christian rites. The Quakers insisted on simple “no frills” weddings as, for instance, two that were conducted at Amity Hall mis-

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sion in 1897. The accent was on simplicity and cheapness. The hall was decorated with bouquets of flowers, ferns and house plants. “The dresses of the brides were white wash goods made at the Mission House, and the cakes were inexpensive.” After a simple marriage service, “all went out on the verandah. The cakes were cut and passed around. The Indians chatted and laughed, and expressed themselves decidedly in favour of christian [sic] weddings.” Very interestingly one couple adopted English names after the ceremony.98 Other Christian denominations were less restrictive and allowed Indians to celebrate marriage with pomp and flair if they could afford it. For instance, in February 1899, an Indian wedding was conducted at the Bull Bay Mission station by Rev. Thompson. The bride was “nicely attired” and attended by five bridesmaids; while the bridegroom was attended by several Indian males. A reception was held after the ceremony at the bride’s family home before the couple departed for the groom’s home.99 It is clear therefore that under pressure emanating mainly from the churches, by 1920 some Indians were beginning to yield and get married by Christian rites. When they did, they dressed and celebrated in creole Jamaican manner. Still there were many who did not get married at all, but simply cohabited like creole Jamaicans amidst whom they lived. Others celebrated their marriages according to their own religious custom, though few bothered to register them under the 1896 law. Marriage and family, therefore, were a battlefield in the war against the customs of the Indian immigrants, but the forces of christianization and creolization were already leading more of them to behave like creole Jamaicans.

Food Data on the Indian cuisine in Jamaica are sparse, but there is no doubt that they preserved some traditional foods and in fact transmitted them to the wider Jamaican community. Although the annual number of Indian arrivals to Jamaica was never large, they still strove to perpetuate the traditional cuisine well beyond 1917 when Indian indentured immigration ended. The continued demand for Indian food items was reflected in commercial advertisements in the press. Items included ghee, choorah, mustard oil, several varieties of dhal and rice, and the like.100 In 1904, convicted killer Bessambra requested for his last meal before his execution “a hearty breakfast of Dahll, currie and Rute (an East Indian cake)”.101 Rice was the principal staple of the Indian diet, and by the 1880s some of

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them were cultivating significant amounts of wet rice in the swampy lowlands of the island, both for subsistence as well as for the local market. As late as 1940, Marjorie Nelson observed that “they eat a good deal of rice and vegetables, especially calalou as it is cheap. Doris [an Indian woman] boils the rice with curry, and goat meat when they can afford it, and lots of pepper.” Fruit also figured prominently in their diet. As in India and elsewhere in the Caribbean, the Indians placed their food on leaves (in Jamaica, banana or plantain leaves) and ate with their fingers.102 Preferably their cooking and drinking utensils were made of brass103 to ensure proper cleaning; but more often than not one large, black pot and a sheet of tin for a frying pan were the only cooking utensils they could afford. “A tin pan or two in which to wash the rice and yam, a wooden bowl or earthen crick for mixing the fried cakes, a knife for peeling vegetables and spoon for stirring are all the necessary requirements for preparing the food for use.”104 “In drinking, as they avoid touching the vessels with their lips, they must have pots with spouts, yet they neither desire our clay monkey-jars which have spouts, nor do they willingly use our earthen pots. They despise the calabash.”105 These precautions had little to do with the fact that these utensils were Jamaican, but rather with their religious and caste ideas relating to food pollution. Hindus refused to eat foods with beef since, according to their religion, the cow is sacred: “if they knew they had eaten beef in any shape, they would have made away with themselves”. Muslims did not eat pork which, Islam deems unclean.106 Nevertheless, food was one area of Indian life that underwent change very early after their arrival in Jamaica as they began to incorporate elements of the creole cuisine, particularly ground provisions which they cultivated for themselves. This was aided and abetted by their participation in creole festivities on some estates, such as at Christmas and New Year, at which local bread, buns and fruits were distributed. They also adopted the creole favourite, ackee, into their diet, and in turn passed on curried goat, which became a favourite among creole Jamaicans and an integral part of the national cuisine.107 While many Indians continued to hold themselves apart from the creole culture, they were slowly integrated into the larger whole. They might have perceived themselves as different from and superior to the black majority but as they lived, worked and even loved together, they found themselves in cultural intercourse with creolity. In time, as curried goat and rice, boiled bananas and yam, callaloo and fried plantain became one definition of a “good meal”, the expansion of creole culture was in evidence.

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Drinking While many Indians might have indulged in alcoholic drinking before their arrival in Jamaica, their employment on sugar estates where rum was manufactured, and their difficult conditions of life and work on those and other estates, in addition to intermingling with the majority creole population who consumed rum freely, certainly had the effect of increasing its consumption among them. While this is another indication of creolization, it was also a bane to the Indians. As Quaker missionary Gilbert Farr put it in 1892: “Rum is crippling the hands of all the other churches, so that they cannot fight the demon, which is one of Jamaica’s great twin curses. It is the enemy that meets the Coolie the moment he lands on these shores.”108 Many years later, fellow Quaker Mary White lamented that “[t]he increased desire for drink among the Indians is our greatest hindrance in getting our church into the position spiritually that we desire. They always tell us that if it is wrong the fault must lie with the ‘King’ for doesn’t he license the rum-shop?”109 The problem of excessive drinking was not confined to adult immigrants. Indian children reputedly started drinking alcohol at a very young age. In 1900 Mary White reported on a class discussion on temperance at which one boy, Sebugua, asserted that at Winchester estate in Portland the men urged him and his friend Bersattie to drink. Although he was able to remain standing, Bersattie was forced to drink rum until he was “dead drunk” and had to be carried home. Another boy, John, only stopped drinking after joining the temperance society; and Julia, whose mother frequented the rum shop, admitted to having drunk rum twice. None of these children was more than fourteen years old.110 Some Indian immigrants, therefore, quickly adopted the creole Jamaican taste for rum and excelled at it. It was another way in which they added their names to what became an integral part of the national culture of Jamaica by the end of the nineteenth century.

Ganja Consumption Apart from alcohol, narcotics played an important part in the cultural life of the Indian immigrants. J.O. Brown recalled seeing them sitting in a circle smoking ganja from their “chilong” [chillum pipes] at lunch time or after work.111 Indeed, both ganja and the chillum were important contributions by Indians to Jamaica’s creole culture. And it seems that ganja may have been the first crop that they cultivated for themselves in Jamaica. In 1862,

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sub-immigration agent Richard Hill observed that those on Tulloch estate in St Thomas “were carefully cultivating Indian hemp (cannabis Indica) for the purpose of preparing the powerful narcotic known as gunjah – the plant [when] dried having in India that name, as well as bang and subjea. This narcotic throws those who use it into the most extraordinary nervous condition. It does not occasion nausea like tobacco, nor does it create the depression that results from opium. . . . The growing of Indian hemp is the only garden cultivation I have seen among the Hindoos.”112 The Gleaner alleged that by the 1890s “every coolie family [grew] its own small patch” of this plant. 113 The Indian hemp plant, which was probably taken to Jamaica by the Indians as seeds,114 produced three main forms of narcotic. Ganja consisted of the dried flowering and fruiting tops of cultivated female hemp plants that became coated with resin. Charas was the resinous matter itself when detached from the plant. Bhang was the dry leaves and small stalks of the plant. They were all, however, reputedly similar in nature and in effect on the user. Ganja, however, was connected with religious and social observances in all parts of India except the Punjab.115 “The whole operation of preparing the mix and smoking the herb . . . is something of a ritual. The Hindu god, Shiva is invoked with the ceremony and the smoker considers the spirit of Shiva to enter him with the act of smoking.”116 So long as ganja smoking remained an exclusively Indian habit, the planters cast a blind eye to it since that was one way of keeping these workers “hallucinatingly” contented and happy. Hence hemp was imported into the colony up to 1876–77; presumably local production was able to keep pace with demand thereafter. When the churches later began to proselytize the Indians, the giving up of ganja smoking was made an important symbol of their conversion to Christianity. The culture war was extended to seeking to eradicate this habit that was associated with their “heathenism”. That, however, was a hard sell even to those willing to convert, who legitimately asked: “Why is it that we must give up Ganja smoking when the Christian ministers smoke tobacco?”117 Ironically not all ministers eschewed ganja. According to Oscar Plummer, “[a] certain clergyman in this island invariably took this drug before his sermon, and he was a marvel in the pulpit. His Church was always packed.”118 The war against ganja grew more hostile at the turn of the twentieth century when it became noticeably evident that its consumption had spread to the creole population, some of whom were actually cultivating it as well. 119 Alarm bells began to ring among the cultural elites, who urged the government

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to introduce legal measures to prevent it from consuming the “nation”.120 The Gleaner led the charge with a series of editorials and interviews in 1896. It alleged that ganja had serious deleterious effects on users. “It acts on the nervous system. A small dose produces cheerfulness and increase of appetite; larger doses produce delirium, hallucinations and catalepsy.” It quoted a Miss Donnelly, who had reputedly spent many years in India (thus making her an “expert”), as saying that “it makes the persons who indulge in it quarrelsome, infuriated, and mad, and . . . under its influence most crimes of violence are committed”.121 Frederick Amir, an Indian catechist in Port Antonio, claimed that as a boy in Trinidad he had used the drug and it had led him “to think and do things I never would have done otherwise. If you are working it makes you work for a time with the greatest energy and with all your might. But when it has gone off your natural strength seems lost and you are left quite exhausted. I have seen men go off into fits after smoking the plant. I have not seen crimes actually committed under its effects but have been told of many instances.” He further noted that some Indians mixed ganja and tobacco half and half.122 Not everyone, however, was convinced that ganja was harmful. None other than the protector of immigrants, P.C. Cork, thought that the evils of ganja smoking were exaggerated. “It is true that under its influence people do things which otherwise they might hesitate to do; but it seems to me that ganja could scarcely be regarded as the cause of the crime. He simply takes ganja as another man would spirits to give him Dutch courage.” Besides, Cork felt that there were “certain compensating advantages afforded by the moderate use of ganja. It is said for instance to counteract the effects of malaria very much like the question of eating or smoking opium.”123 Likewise, the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission appointed in 1895 reported that moderate use of hemp drugs appeared to cause no appreciable physical or mental injury of any kind, although excessive use could cause physical injury and intensify mental instability.124 Oscar Plummer was much more effusive about ganja’s benefits. Although as potent as opium, he asserted, ganja was “still more marvellous in its influences on the mind, but harmless in its effects on the body”.125 Plummer seems to have had personal knowledge of the effects of ganja which, since he might be ranked as middle-class, would suggest that it may have been in use within that social stratum as well. The Gleaner and the more zealous among the cultural elite, however, remained unconvinced, and after 1896 that newspaper engaged in open warfare designed to outlaw ganja. “It is grown as an intoxicant. It is much more pow-

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erful in its effects than spirits and when intoxicated by it men do things they would not do when in their normal condition. Its use should therefore be restricted to a greater extent than spirits is by various means.” Jamaica, it argued, should follow Trinidad, which had passed a law prohibiting the possession of more than a certain amount of ganja. The paper criticized the government, and in particular P.C. Cork, for dragging their feet on this issue and discounting the alleged baneful effects of the herb. It also took the Indian Hemp commissioners to task for their apparent ambivalence on the issue.126 This open war against ganja gained cultural elite support,127 reinforced by incidents attributed to its usage. In 1912 a Port Antonio correspondent of the Jamaica Times cited two instances: “A well known character parades the streets of this town, performing the antics of a maniac”, while another man had used a razor freely on his paramour. The correspondent demanded that sale of ganja “should be disallowed to natives, so that the community could be saved from further human suffering, due to the evil effects of this death-bearing habit”. This seems to suggest that the miscreants were creole Jamaicans, not Indians. Such views were further reinforced by post-mortem examinations like that which certified that the death of Jethro Daley (presumably a creole Jamaican) in January 1910 had been directly attributable to ganja smoking.128 By 1912, some cultural elites were in quite a frenzy over ganja smoking. Its spread was so exponential that it seemed to threaten to consume the entire fabric of “civilized” society, and they intensified their fight against it. It had already become a key part of the national culture, consumed by members of all classes and ethnic groups. The Jamaica Times noted that ganja was being grown and brought into the general markets or sold to individual enquirers like any article of common consumption, “and there are districts where its use is becoming a very common sight, chiefly among boys and young men”. As a result, even planters and overseers who had previously tolerated its use by immigrant workers, now joined hands in the war against the drug, and ordered the destruction of hemp plants on their properties. The Council of Evangelical Churches, which embodied all the churches except the Anglican and Roman Catholic, petitioned the legislature to introduce legislation to prohibit, under heavy penalties, the cultivation of the plant. The Jamaica Times supported this as the right policy: “Kill out the Ganja; we have no use for it here, and its presence only fosters an evil that will drag down the manhood and womanhood of the Island. . . . Let the cry be ‘Out with the Ganja’, and let us get it out. . . . Ganja does not excite to crimes of violence, but it deadens and disintegrates the moral, mental and physical life.”129

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In the face of such strong moral pressure from the cultural elite classes the legislature finally succumbed, and by section 14 of the 1913 opium law (No. 15), the growing and selling of ganja were prohibited. Those who were either ignorant of, or chose to ignore the new law, were dragged before the courts and convicted. By 1916 the protector of immigrants could assert that there were no breaches of the law, and that the only Indian who had applied for permission to cultivate ganja had been refused.130 But it is clear that the real effect of this law was simply to make ganja cultivation and selling clandestine; for the police were still finding people in possession of the weed, and that was not illegal. It meant that ganja was still being grown for sale; but Indians and other traffickers had a loophole through which they could escape the law. If that was eventually plugged in 1923,131 however, it did not stem the cultivation and consumption of the herb, which had taken on a life of its own among creole Jamaicans. By the 1920s, ganja had been fully absorbed and integrated into the creole cultural fabric of Jamaica, and no pressure from the cultural reformers, no laws or persecution, could change that.

Obeah Like all other ethnic groups who settled in Jamaica, the Indians cultivated a belief in the power and efficacy of obeah. This can be interpreted as yet another indication of the process of creolization that was manifested in other aspects of their social and cultural lives. However, one needs to be more circumspect in this regard because the Indians came from a tradition where practices similar to obeah were extant.132 Jamaican beliefs and practices may merely have reinforced, and perhaps diversified, those brought from India. Thus Indians did not simply consult creole obeah practitioners, but were themselves engaged in a similar craft that could be mistaken for obeah; and some may also have adopted the creole practice of obeah. In 1899, for instance, sixtyyear-old Teckman was sentenced to twelve months’ hard labour for practising “obeah”, but was spared the flogging with the cat-o-nine tails that usually accompanied incarceration for this crime on account of his physical condition. The case of “Professor” Pearial Maragh, who was arrested in 1909 for contracting to cure the eye of a police informant, is certainly suggestive of syncretism and/or creolization. Apart from a phial and some powders that formed part of his paraphernalia, he made a cross on a table and told his client to put a coin on it. Indian women were also practitioners of this “black art”.133

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Summary Once it was clear that some of the Indian immigrants were prepared to settle permanently in Jamaica, their “heathen” beliefs and practices were targeted by the cultural elites as uncivilized. Their numbers might have been relatively small, but their cultural influence among the creole lower-class Jamaicans was considered baneful and had to be arrested before undue “harm” was done. That creoles were involved in hosay festivities and smoking ganja was particularly alarming. What might happen if some of them embraced Hinduism or Islam the way they did curried goat? The solution was to try to stamp out these religious beliefs, convert the Indians and civilize them. What was apparent, however, was that the Indians themselves became rapidly creolized as they mingled with the majority Afro-creole population while they in turn influenced the latter.

The Chinese Immigrants Although the early Chinese were imported essentially as indentured labourers to work on the sugar and coffee estates, they showed very little inclination to remain for long in that occupation. Hence at the first opportunity, they sought more lucrative areas, particularly the grocery retail trade which they began to dominate by the early twentieth century. By the First World War, they had small shops in towns and rural districts all over the island, and especially in Kingston, where about 30 per cent of their number lived. Scores of Chinese wholesale houses could also be found mainly in Barry Street, as well as Orange, Princess, and West Streets, and Matthew’s and Luke Lanes in Kingston. Their energy and enterprise were largely credited for this enormous success in commerce, but it was achieved largely at the expense of creole Jamaican shopkeepers whom they out-competed. To some extent this was facilitated not just by “superior” business techniques, hard work, and a willingness to live more simply and cheaply than their Jamaican competitors (especially since many were single men who may not have had families to support), but also by their ability to turn over their stock rapidly and the willingness of suppliers to extend favourable lines of credit to them.134 Chinese shopkeepers earned a reputation for dishonesty as they were accused of engaging in sharp practices such as short weights. This generated enormous hostility towards them as a group who many people thought should

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Figure 34. Chinese immigrants. (Courtesy of the National Library of Jamaica.)

be prevented from entering Jamaica as residents. This hostility eventually erupted in anti-Chinese riots in St Catherine (mainly Ewarton and Linstead) in July 1918.135 Their decision to bypass the local courts and to resort to the Chinese and American governments to protect their interests after those riots, resulting in the award of fifteen thousand pounds as compensation to be paid by local taxpayers, did not endear them to Jamaicans.136 In this crunch, the Chinese indicated that while they were in Jamaica, there were important ways in which they were separate from the majority of its people. Racially and culturally distinct, they felt vulnerable in the face of the hostility of the wider community, and in their reliance on outside rather than the local authorities, they indicated that their fears were not directed only towards the lower classes. Based on the classist ways in which the legal system worked, perhaps their fears were well founded; but their actions highlighted the shortcomings of the middling and upper classes where the fair administration of justice was concerned; and they, in turn, lashed out at the Chinese “foreigners”. As the Jamaica Times put it: “The Chinese never become incorporated in the general community. They always remain ‘a thing apart’. Even when they become

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naturalized, or, are born here they remain exclusive, and are distinct entities to the last.”137 The Chinese community continued to negotiate their inside/outside status, and as they traversed those identities would construct one version and vision of creolity which coexisted with many others within “modern” Jamaica. Notwithstanding the animosity towards them and their own sense of isolation from Jamaican society, there was a symbiotic relationship between them and the locals. As shopkeepers their prices were lower than their competitors’, and they were always willing to give “barata/brawta” when customers asked (a little extra salt, a cracker, a few more matches, etc). Although some who could afford it sent back to China for wives,138 the severe shortage of Chinese women led many men (unlike their Indian counterparts) to form sexual, even conjugal relationships with creole women, resulting in a growing number of half-Chinese (called “Chinese Royal”).139 Not surprisingly, although widely viewed with suspicion and in some cases despised, the Chinese had their supporters who were prepared to rise to their defence in the press, and the Jamaica Times (notwithstanding its comment above) was itself generally sympathetic to them.140 And despite widespread notoriety over their gambling and opiumsmoking (see below), which repeatedly brought them into conflict with the law, the Chinese were successfully able to woo elite politicians,141 most notably the influential member of the Legislative Council, D.A. Corinaldi.142

Community Organization Owing to their very small numbers and their dispersal all over the island, not much was recorded about the internal organization of the Chinese community. As the greatest concentration of Chinese was in Kingston (about 30 per cent by 1920), that is where most efforts were made to build communal societies and clubs. Most of this activity was centred on a large compound located at the corner of Barry Street and Matthew’s Lane. This compound housed a Confucian temple for religious worship (1895); a benevolent society (1897) for the assistance of sick or indigent members; a social club (1898) where the Chinese congregated to relax and socialize among themselves – chatting, eating, drinking, snoozing, gaming, smoking opium and so on; and a court where disputes among Chinese were adjudicated. In 1897, a Gleaner correspondent was privileged to be granted permission to tour this compound. Entering a massive courtyard through a small door cut in a large double-sided gate on Matthew’s Lane, he found the Chinese busily engaged in many activities.

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Figure 35. The Chinese temple in Kingston. (Courtesy of the University of the West Indies Library, Mona.)

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For the most part the operations going seemed to be of a culinary nature, the numerous little fires scattered about the place being built directly upon the bare ground, a couple of bricks or rough stones supporting the soot-begrimed parti-coloured iron and earthen-ware cooking utensils, the dirty condition of which was on par with the filthy clothes of the Celestials who were superintending the culinary operations. Along the side of the enclosure running parallel with Matthews Lane were a series of little anterooms in which through the smoke emanating from the numerous little fires could be seen here and there a Chinaman seated at a low table apparently engaged upon figuring up certain accounts, whilst a companion lay stretched upon a low trestle, or a mat on the bare earth, evidently enjoying (?) an afternoon nap.143

In this vein of utter disdain, this reporter was more keen on getting a sensational story about Chinese gambling than on presenting a balanced portrait of the compound: [O]ur object . . . was not to see how gambling is carried on in the more respectable part of the Temple, The Club, to which members alone are admitted, and where I believe order and decorum is observed to the same extent as that which characterises the conduct of the most aristocratic European Clubs . . . [but instead] to be eyewitness of . . . the manner in which the lottery [“drop pan”] is conducted in that part of the establishment where the oi polloi of the Chinese community are accustomed to assemble in large numbers every Sunday, there to indulge in these practices and smoking opium galore.144

So most of the article detailed precisely those activities, appropriately coloured with the reporter’s prejudices. Likewise he made disparaging comments about “certain little ante-rooms or alcoves” in which numerous Chinese men smoked opium. No attention was paid to the temple itself. Another article in the Jamaica Times helps to fill some of the gaps, but hardly adequately. It noted that about 1895 the Chinese erected a fine building on Barry Street, costing several hundred pounds, “which is used in the dual capacity of club house and Confucian Temple”.145 The Chinese, however, always disputed this asserting that the temple (on Barry Street) and the club (on Matthew’s Lane) occupied different buildings separated by a grocery shop.146 But through their gambling activities and their liberal use of opium, the Chinese became embroiled in the culture war. Not surprisingly, the Times account was discoloured by similar socio-cultural bias as the Gleaner’s: In one apartment the chop sticks are being plied vigorously, and streams of rice are seen disappearing into the capacious mouths of hungry Chinamen. In another, lot-

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teries are in full swing, while other Chinese games are being carried on among themselves all around the room. In still another, are to be seen Chinese, placidly sucking the stems of their opium pipes, and carrying on a languid conversation. In the temple proper, the general public is not admitted, and what goes on there, can only be surmised. There is a priest among them, and it is supposed that some kind of worship is conducted, but, to say the least of it, it is rather incongruous and a flagrant disregard of the “everlasting fitness of things” to run a lottery and conduct divine service under the same roof at one and the same time. It outrages our occidental ideas of decorum, but if it be considered the proper thing from the oriental standpoint, no one has any right to interfere.147

Few cultural elites shared this view that they had no right to interfere in what went on behind the walls of the compound, especially as it related to the lottery and the smoking of opium (see below). The Times, however, shed some light on the internal organization of the Chinese community. It spoke about the existence of a court that tried members of the Chinese community who were in breach of their code of morals. “In Kingston, they have a president and other officials, who decide questions, and differences, among themselves, and even punish criminals. These tribunals are conducted with the utmost secrecy and no hint of their proceedings ever reaches the public.” The sanction of this court was also apparently required for those Chinese who sought to operate the lottery.148 This indicates that the Chinese had a community alternative to the elite legal and moral codes, even though it was not recognized by, nor did it abate the assaults of, the cultural elites. Intimately connected with the temple and the club was the Chinese Benevolent Society (Chung Far/Fah/Wah Fuicon) which was established in 1897 for the mutual assistance of its members in time of sickness, death or indigence.149 When the temple was destroyed by the devastating 1907 earthquake, it was this society that mobilized Chinese both locally and abroad to raise funds to assist those who had suffered and to restore the buildings. Indeed they were so successful in this fund-raising drive that they were able to purchase land and build an alms house for Chinese.150 Notwithstanding some internal disputes,151 this society came to represent the “respectable” face of the Chinese community in Jamaica, and it was used to counter the image of disrepute that was routinely painted of the Chinese in the local press. The president frequently hosted elaborate luncheons at which Kingston’s social elite were invited. On these occasions they were conducted on a tour through the temple where select pieces of Chinese art were on display, in addition to the religious

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icons of Confucian worship. This was an opportunity for the guests to learn a little about Confucianism, and “it was explained that the Chinese believe in a Supreme Being, that they have adopted the teachings of the Great Philosopher Confucius as an Ethical Code, and they revered the memory of the greatest man in Chinese history”.152 However, there is no evidence that social and cultural elites were impressed by these displays or that they saw the Chinese as anything else but mysterious strangers who lived among them, and who they expected to conform eventually to the tenets of “superior” British culture. In order to smooth the path to their acceptance in the society and to indicate their full appreciation of what might indicate their integration, many in the Chinese community chose important moments in which to indicate their Jamaican-Britishness. On one such occasion, in 1907, the Chinese community was among those who welcomed the arrival of the new governor, Sydney Olivier, with an ornate address engrossed in a Chinese frame tastefully enveloped in a velvet sack with the word “Welcome” imprinted on it.153 On the occasion of the visit to the island in September 1909 of the Chinese ambassador to the United States, the society organized a day of celebration at the temple, suitably decorated for the occasion, which was attended by the governor.154 In 1911, it submitted an address to King George V on his accession to the British throne expressing their loyalty and devotion to the monarchy, and their happiness to be residents of a colony “governed by just and impartial laws carefully administered with no distinction to nationality, creed or colour”.155 Furthermore, the Chinese temple “was magnificently decorated. It stood in a class by itself and attracted enormous crowds who were not only content to behold the beautiful exterior, but who invaded the inside which was also decorated with true oriental gorgeousness.”156 Here was one occasion on which Chinese aesthetics were on display for a Jamaican-British event; one might well wonder what effect this had on the “enormous crowds” who gathered to view the “oriental gorgeousness”.

Food As with many aspects of Chinese culture in Jamaica, not much is recorded about their cuisine. This is altogether strange since Chinese foods are probably among the best loved by modern Jamaicans, and Chinese restaurants abound all over the island. The little historical information that exists is largely impressionistic, but it does at least provide a very basic sketch.

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In 1897, a Gleaner correspondent and a friend decided to visit a Chinese restaurant near the temple in Kingston in order to sample the fare for Sunday breakfast. Even as they started out they bore misgivings born of prejudice; for “[r]umour has it that the Chinese are not very particular in their choice of viands, some of their chief delicacies never finding a place upon a European dinner table. One of the patrons, Charley, admitted that he had heard certain rumours about kittens, rats, puppies and such small deer, not to speak of snakes, snails, and edible bird’s nests.” On arrival at the restaurant, they were seated at a low table with low stools, where several Chinese were regaling themselves upon the contents of certain mysterious little saucers placed in a semi-circle round a larger saucer containing rice. . . . The piece de resistance of the meal consisted of rice it was easy to see, but whether the smaller dishes contained fish, flesh, fowl or good red herring it was not so easy to decide, especially as everything was cut up in small pieces to facilitate the operation of picking the different morsels up with the chopsticks which look like elongated wooden knitting needles.157

When they enquired from the waiter what was on the menu, he is reported to have said, “Moosher habe some lice; lice velly good.” This alarmed the two patrons, and recognizing this, the waiter quickly went off to the kitchen and brought “two large plates of smoking hot rice, cooked as only a Chinaman can cook his native dish, every grain being seperate [sic]”. This was followed by an array of little saucers. Of what the dishes consisted I know not, but we were both ravenously hungry and as they were decidedly appetising we did full justice to them. I fought shy of one little concoction, however. It looked like a dish of carrots cut up into little diagonal pieces and this is what my friend thought it was until he tasted it and then with a wry face pushed the offending mess away from him, saying “Pear’s soap by Jupiter!” . . . . Upon the whole we agreed that we enjoyed our meal which was “cheap” enough.158

Other accounts of Chinese food come from the fare provided at special occasions. In 1908, lawyer David Brandon who attended a Chinese feast complimented them on their abundant hospitality. “Birds-nest soup, and cured duck, which tasted very much like a knuckle of ham, sweet meats of the most delicious taste and flavour, champagne and other wines of the rarest vintage, besides a profusion of other delicacies, formed part of the entertainment.”159 Luncheons hosted by the president of the Chinese Benevolent Society were

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usually quite elaborate. This was apparently part of an exercise to present a respectable image of the Chinese to Jamaica and so, very often, Kingston’s social elite were invited. The best Chinese chefs were pressed into service “in order that the guests might enjoy with advantage these delicacies in the Chinese culinary art”. Although invariably the dishes were quite unknown to the guests who could not pronounce their names, they evidently enjoyed them. The fare generally included edible birds nests, bamboo shoots, Chinese shellfish, mushroom, Chinese guineps, “and another fruit called Lee Chi” [lychee]. The variety was seemingly endless, as were the wines and champagnes served on these occasions. According to the Gleaner, these oriental luncheons, served amid oriental surroundings, were as excellent an example as any of “East meeting West”.160 That some of these dishes would be embraced beyond the small Chinese community and become part of the general creole cuisine is yet another indication of the elasticity of the creole culture, which absorbed aspects of new cultures.

Festivals The archival records reveal very little about the cultural festivals of the Chinese immigrants. In fact, reference to just two has been found, namely, the Chinese New Year celebrated in January or February, and another (possibly Duanwu Jie or the Dragon Boat) festival that was celebrated in June. For the latter, except for the fact that the Chinese shops were closed, there is no further information available. Slightly more data are available for the new year festival because the Chinese made a greater public display on that occasion. The celebrations lasted about three to five days, during which time all Chinese shops were closed. “The aim of the Chinaman, wherever he may be, is to enter upon the new year without a debt.” The Chinese decorated their homes by putting red paper on the walls and hanging lanterns about. Some shops and stalls were likewise decorated. The celebrations were also marked by much socializing as the Chinese visited one another, “and wherever they meet, whether it be in the homes or on the street, they salute each other by saying ‘Kon Hee Fet Toy’ meaning ‘A Happy New Year’. At the homes the tables remain spread during the entire day, and all who call are made welcome.”161 Some wealthier merchants hosted lavish receptions at their residences. In 1909, for instance, J. Harris Carr held an “at home” followed by a dance at which the elite Philharmonic Union orchestra played.162 Carr’s English name and his use of a Euro-classical orchestra to

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celebrate a Chinese festival are indications that some well-to-do Chinese were perhaps being anglicized. The Chinese temple was the main centre of activity. Most Chinese gathered there during the day. It was gaily decorated and illuminated with Chinese lanterns. The Jamaica Post described the scene in 1898 thus: “At the entrance was a large crown and around the balcony were hundreds of lights. On the balcony was the name of the society: ‘Chung Wah Society’. These showed out of the beautiful paintings on the outer wall of the building.” This society also hosted a grand banquet at the temple. In 1909, for instance, it was attended by about one hundred ladies and gentlemen, and several prominent local singers performed. “There was a splendid orchestra and dancing was kept up until the early hours of the morning [further evidence of creolization]. Refreshments were served and a very pleasant evening was spent.” All during the day explosions of firecrackers took place, not only at the temple, but at private residences, and the climax of the celebrations was an elaborate fireworks display.163

Opium Consumption Many Chinese who migrated overseas in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were addicted to opium. This drug had been trafficked by Western, particularly British traders to China ever since the eighteenth century and had become a matter of grave national concern for the Chinese authorities by the early nineteenth. Their efforts to impose restrictions on this traffic, however, met with British naval aggression in 1839–42 and, in the wake of their defeat, opium imports flowed into China for the rest of the century. The result was that large numbers of Chinese were addicted to this narcotic and became economic burdens and social pariahs. Many of these found themselves on ships bound for distant destinations abroad. In Europe, opium was widely used as a medicinal drug during the nineteenth century, and therefore was widely available over the counter to anyone, including children. In Jamaica, opium was imported duty-free. Those Chinese who were addicts, therefore, had no difficulty coming into unrestricted possession of the drug which they continued to use for relaxation. In 1897, a Gleaner correspondent reported seeing numerous Chinese men at their club in Kingston “reclined in all sorts of attitudes, being more or less under the influence of the pernicious drug”. Demand for it was thus high, and the offi-

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cial Blue Book statistics showed an increase in average annual importations of opium from 324 pounds between 1865 and 1879 to just under one thousand pounds between 1907 and 1913, when unauthorized opium imports were banned.164 Unlike ganja, opium as a narcotic was largely confined to the Chinese immigrants and, even though readily available, was not favoured by creole Jamaicans. This was attributed to its relatively high cost as it was imported, as opposed to ganja, which was grown locally and thus very cheap.165 That does not mean that Jamaicans who were friendly with Chinese did not experiment with the drug; but perhaps far more worrisome for some prejudiced people was that, due to the largely male composition of the Chinese community, they might be inclined to indulge in “the unmentionable vice which has so recently been ventilated as taking place in the South African Compounds” – homosexuality.166 Concerns, however, were expressed about opium’s effects on the individual even though not many Jamaicans were affected. Said the Gleaner: “Everybody knows that one of the most vicious evils in the east is the excessive use of opium, an evil which has had the most deterrent effect upon the progress of christianity [sic]; and it has been proved over and over again that the use of opium while stunting in mind and body generations to come has also proved the ultimate degradation of the individual.” Opium consumption was being painted as the enemy of civilization. One correspondent who saw opium smokers at the Chinese club in 1897 observed: “I believe it is said that opium smoking has a particularly soothing influence upon the nerves. It may be so; but judging by [the] horrible contortions upon the faces of some of the sleepers . . . [t]hey seemed to be suffering from all the torments of hell.”167 The occasional outrage committed by Chinese was usually attributed to overdosing on opium. This certainly appeared to be the case in 1875, when a man “supposed himself to be a butcher, and his wife an ox [and] He literally cut up certain portions of her body”.168 Not surprisingly, sections of elite society were alarmed at this foreign mindaltering substance (although many among them regularly altered their minds with alcohol) and as such they waged a campaign against the importation of opium. Despite the known problems associated with it, said the Gleaner, “Jamaica, the free, the liberal, is sufficiently gracious to the strangers within her gates or sufficiently careless of the health of her inhabitants, to receive opium into the island duty free”, whether it was to be used as an anaesthetic or as a narcotic. “It is classified as a drug, a beautifully vague description.”

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Other “medicinal substances”, however, did not enjoy similar tax exemption. “Tobacco and whisky have certain medicinal qualities but they are taxed. Brandy and champagne are often the right-hand servants of the physician, yet they are not duty free. Opium is more noxious than any of these yet it is allowed to enter without restriction. Those who benefit chiefly by the arrangement are the Chinese colonists” – aliens. “Opium is in the same category as fresh meat, rock salt, corn and maize. Indian corn, coffee, flour, matches, rice, bread, etc., are taxed – opium is not.” The newspaper thus urged the government to single out opium from medicinal drugs and place it in the same category as spirits, tobacco and other luxuries.169 Still the government did nothing. It was not until 1911 that opium was taxed: a duty of twenty shillings per pound was payable on raw opium, while medicinal opium attracted an ad valorem duty of 10 per cent.170 By then, however, the opium traffic had come under international scrutiny at a specially convened conference at the Hague. Once the British government acceded to the International Opium Convention (January 1912) to restrict this traffic, Jamaica had little option but to conform;171 and in 1913, law 15 was passed to regulate the importation of opium, morphine, cocaine and similar drugs into the island and restrict their use. This law made “prepared opium”, imported mainly by the Chinese, a contraband substance. All such opium was liable to be confiscated and the importer fined. Importers of medicinal opium were required to obtain a permit to withdraw it from the bond, from the superintending or government medical officer. He could refuse to issue it if he felt that the importer was not qualified to be entrusted with the possession or handling of the drug.172 Although the importation of opium was severely restricted thereafter, the Chinese found ingenious ways to circumvent the law. At first, intransit shipments already consigned to them were withdrawn from the Bond by a bona fide dispenser.173 When that door was shut, they made arrangements with some drug stores to import large quantities of tinctures of opium which they then bought. The tincture was poured on to tobacco flakes, the spirit allowed to evaporate, and “they have a nice mixture of opium and tobacco for smoking”.174 These clandestine transactions between the druggists and the Chinese were naturally kept beyond the investigative reach of the police. The druggists were guarded and tight-lipped because of the legal sanctions that could be incurred. “As for the Chinese, I think I can safely state it is an impossibility for the Police to obtain any evidence from them as far as Opium is concerned.” Even though the supply of the drug became difficult during and after the war,

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the Chinese were reputedly prepared to pay very good prices wherever they could obtain it.175 The opium law was thus somewhat impaired, particularly as there was no means of tracing the sale of opium by druggists. To rectify this, in 1920 the Superintending Medical Officer suggested that all persons selling poisons should be compelled to keep a stock book that would be a record of how they were disposed.176 It was not until 1922 that this was formally adopted.177 In the meantime, legal importations appeared to rise once more, for as Malcolm Deleviugne of the British Home Office observed, applications had been received to ship the phenomenal amount of 2,988 pounds of tincture and six pounds of raw opium to Jamaica in 1921–22. He was clearly dissatisfied with the measures taken by the Jamaican authorities to ascertain whether these shipments were for medical and other legitimate purposes; and he animadverted that if Jamaica did not tighten up its regulations the entire system under the International Opium Convention, recommended by the League of Nations and adopted by the British government for the colonies, “must break down”. Jamaica was the weak link which seemed to threaten the entire international system against the drug trade, and Deleviugne urged the governor to institute an inquiry into the process of certifying import applications.178 From the perspectives of some ordinary Jamaicans, perhaps, these events placed the Chinese squarely within the culture of defiance that marked so many of the encounters between the cultural elites and those they were bent on “improving”. Although this narcotic did not become popular among the creole masses, the crafty means by which its users got their supplies engendered the wrath of the authorities and perhaps the silent admiration of others in the society.

Entertainment Because the Chinese community was relatively new, alien and predominantly male, most of their entertainment was traditional and was not family oriented. Gambling and opium smoking, as we have seen, consumed a considerable amount of their spare time. Besides, not many would have been able to afford the cost of attending the Theatre Royal (and perhaps would not have been welcomed to do so) when a company of Chinese performers visited the island in 1878. Their performance was so very different from what the cultural elite audience expected (it was perhaps not Eurocentric enough) that they hooted, hissed, demanded their money back and rushed the stage. The theatre “became

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a scene of wild riot and confusion, and damage was done to several portions of it”. It required police intervention to quell the unruly crowd and to provide safe passage to the Chinese performers out of the theatre. Yet this mob of “socially respectable people” pursued them and stoned the place where they were staying.179 Here, then, was an example of the challenges facing the cultural elites: how could they convince the lower classes to behave “properly” when some among them were involved in “reprehensible” behaviour? For most of the period under review, there is almost complete silence about artistic entertainment of the Chinese. However, over time, some of them were clearly exposed to and imbibed cultural elitist influences, and began to display these publicly. By the First World War, some Chinese entertainments exhibited a judicious mix of Eastern and Western influences. A concert at the Conversorium in July 1916 consisted of songs, recitations and drills, and “was something unusual, – rather something unique”. Rose Smith (the adoption of an English name speaks volumes) opened with a swing-song piano solo; twelve girls performed in a Flower Song; Chin Fook’s piano solos were well done, as were Cody’s clarinet solos. But Hong Fook was a revelation to the Jamaican elites who perceived the Chinese as culturally inferior. “He has a complete mastery of the English language. He brought out in his songs that valuable feature in singing, clear and distinct articulation. Both his songs were encored.”180 Another concert at the same venue in 1917 was equally successful. Everything was carried out on a high-class scale, and the majority of those present were pleasurably surprised [our emphasis] at the splendid manner in which the artistes, several of whom they were seeing for the first time, acquitted themselves. As was expected, the decorations were surpassingly attractive; they were done after Chinese and Japanese fashion. One of the outstanding features of the entertainment was the brilliant and costly array of costumes, the quaint and novel Oriental fashions and designs being displayed with delightful effect.181

Performances included songs, piano solos, oriental dances and tableaux. Very interestingly, this entertainment was in aid of the Kingston Parish Church, bearing further testimony to a growing influence of Christianity among the Chinese.182 In their anxiety for recognition by the cultural elites and to claim respectability, some of them chose to become members of this very powerful middle- and upper-class congregation, even while maintaining important aspects of their original ethnic identities. They continued to straddle their Chinese-Jamaican and Jamaican-Chinese identities and in the process defined their relationship with and membership of Jamaican creoledom.

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Acculturation From the foregoing, it is evident that some Chinese had by the close of our period become partially westernized/creolized. However, that process of acculturation was slow and uneven. One of the first areas in which this was manifest was in their appearance. As early as 1873, the funeral of a Chinese man attracted press attention because of the creole style funeral cortege of thirtytwo carriages. This prompted the Morning Journal to remark that “John Chinaman in this city is coming out STRONG”.183 Yet, Maggie Jakes recalled that about the turn of the twentieth century, Chinese men and women dressed alike, both wearing “oilskin pyjamas”, while the men wore their hair long in a “pigtail”. A decade later change was evident. Many dressed in creole fashion, no longer wore their pigtails, and participated in local sports and pastimes.184 The changes were uneven and probably reflected a combination of personal preferences and strategies, as well as group perceptions. Of course, their introduction as indentured labourers on the plantations and their subsequent vocations as shopkeepers and lottery operators, brought them into direct contact with the creole population, whose language at least they had to acquire into order to survive and progress; and, as we have seen, because of the acute shortage of females, some Chinese men had sexual relationships with creole women, some of whom they married, and with whom they fathered children. A further sign of their desire to assimilate and to counteract the stereotypically negative image generated of them was the formation of a Chinese Freemasons lodge, the hall of which, located at North and East Streets, was formally opened on New Year’s Day 1917. “An arch of evergreen and crotons was erected at the entrance gate, and the interior was resplendent, with flags, Chinese lanterns, and silken curtains, etc. The decorations showed great taste, the blending of colours being most artistic.”185 The dedication ceremony was attended by the mayor and other Kingston elites, in addition to over seven hundred leading Chinese, and the hall was christened by R.J. Ripley, rector of the parish church. The banquet that followed featured an elaborate Chinese menu: “The ‘staple’ dish was, of course, chicken and rice, cooked in a way that only a Chinaman knows . . . [and] ‘helped down’ by a varied supply of beverages.” Already with an estimated membership of about two thousand (which, if correct, represented over 70 per cent of Chinese males in the island), this new institution sought, among other things, to establish a school for the teaching of both English and Chinese.186

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As with other immigrant groups, acculturation was accelerated by the agencies of Christianity and education. We have already shown that the Chinese appeared to embrace Christianity quite readily, and many joined church congregations, particularly of the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Church of Scotland, Quaker and Methodist denominations. However, at the same time, many of them also continued to worship at the Confucian temple in Kingston. The Chinese, it seems, recognized what it took to become “respectable” and make progress in a “Christian” society, and in the absence of a religion that was stridently doctrinal, converted to Christianity while continuing to adhere to their traditional culture.187 Although initially vilified as non-Christians, inveterate gamblers and opium abusers, the Chinese, it seems, were just as selective as the Afro-creoles in doing what was necessary to render themselves respectable and thus acceptable to Jamaican elite society, and had to some degree managed by 1920 to soften the prejudices that were directed against them as an ethnic group. They shared the behaviours of Afro-creole Jamaicans with a selective embrace of the elite culture; and on some matters, as they skirted the law and made strategic choices, they indicated that they too, would neither be led nor driven.

Conclusion Coming in small waves ever since 1845, the Indians and later on the Chinese (1850s onwards) never formed a very large population in Jamaica. Both groups were scattered throughout the island and were never able to build large ethnic communities. Within both groupings, women were a minority, although their numbers were much smaller among the Chinese. This naturally had a tremendous impact on the preservation of their traditional cultures in Jamaica. That was made more difficult, however, by the fact that they entered the island just at the time when the cultural elites were launching a full-scale war against all cultures that were not Western/European/British or Christian. Deemed heathen, the traditional cultures of the Indian and Chinese immigrants were attacked by the cultural elites as immoral and uncivilized in the same vein as the Afro-creole culture, and no stone was left unturned to eradicate or contain them. In particular, their religions and pastimes such as gambling and the use of narcotics came in for the most vicious assaults. Small in number in a hostile socio-cultural environment, both groups eventually negotiated peace through acculturation, although they still sought to preserve some

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semblance of independent ethnic identities. By 1920 most Chinese, and a significant number of Indians, had already converted to Christianity and, living among the majority Afro-creole population, most were rapidly becoming creolized. At the same time, they made very important contributions to the burgeoning creole cultural matrix through their lotteries, New Year and Hosay festivities, ganja and opium smoking, and their cuisines. These were fully embraced and incorporated to become integral parts of an ever-expansive creole culture. The Asian presence rendered the Jamaican social and cultural matrix more complicated, though not to the extent as in Guyana and Trinidad, where the number of Indians was large and concentrated. There they were able to build strong, independent, vibrant, ethnic communities, whereas in Jamaica they were small in number, dispersed all over the island, and consequently constituted relatively weak ethnic groupings. Notwithstanding bold efforts to forge and maintain distinct ethnic identities, the pressures of creolization proved too powerful for them to withstand. The broad Jamaican creole matrix, however, did not extinguish their cultures; although if left to the cultural elites that is precisely what might have happened. But this was not a one-sided cultural transformation that involved the immigrants abandoning the totality of their cultural traditions. Instead the creole matrix expanded to accommodate these new ethnicities. Creolization thus entailed the absorption and reconfiguration of elements of these immigrant cultures which, while not materially altering the fundamental Afro-creole core of Jamaican national culture, nonetheless influenced it in important ways and made it more complex.

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Chapter 1 3

Capturing the Cultural Soul of Jamaica

YEARS AFTER THE Morant Bay massacre witnessed an intensification of a clash of cultures that had begun shortly after emancipation. Before 1865, it was largely the non-conformist missionaries who were in the vanguard of the struggle to “civilize” and anglicize Jamaica, and to fight against the “evils” of creolization. Together with the great revival of 1860, Morant Bay (1865) seemed to portend what many in the upper class had feared since the 1830s: the destruction of “civilization” and the rise of another Haiti. Drastic action had to be taken to forestall a “regression into black barbarism”. While in the wake of the tragic events of 1865 some white missionaries felt disillusioned and dejected, and others (especially the Baptists) were on the defensive against charges of their alleged role in inciting the black rebellion, a new resolve was engendered among the elite classes by the tragedy. The task of civilizing the ex-slaves and their descendants could not be left only to the missionaries. This was now a “national” project in which all elite classes, sectors, and civic institutions in existence and yet to be born, would have to participate. Jamaica had to be reconstructed, not by the old methods of naked coercion, but by using more subtle socio-cultural methods aimed at engendering value consensus. During this period of reconstruction, a loose coalition for civilization gradually took shape, and war declared on Afro-creole culture (“barbarism”) in many of its manifestations. Jamaica was also drawn closer to “mother” Britain for military support and good political governance; and there was a small but powerful constituency of Jamaicans who, convinced of the inherent superiority of bourgeois Victorian culture and morality, avidly sought moral

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guidance and cultural inspiration from the “mother country”. No stone would be left unturned in this monumental effort to save Jamaica for civilization; and no more time could be wasted in implementing this project. This was an all-out, albeit ill-considered and haphazardly orchestrated, culture war. What must be made pellucidly clear, however, is that this was not a race war between white and black. Although racism played a major role in fashioning elite attitudes and furnished them with their sense of moral superiority, and the confidence to arrogate the power to determine for the whole society what was right, decent and appropriate, the confrontation transcended both race and colour. There were whites, coloureds and blacks on both sides of the cultural divide. It was a war primarily aimed at eradicating or, at the very least, containing the spread of the cultural “impurities”, especially those related to morality and values, of non-European cultures. These, especially the “debased cultural remnants of darkest Africa”, supposedly stood in stark opposition to the exalted, pure and civilized cultures of Europe, and of Britain in particular. Superficially, this may have also resembled a class war, since it seemed to pit the lower classes against members of the upper and middle classes. The lower classes were indeed the primary targets because the cultural “impurities” associated with Africanisms, and more generally with blackness, were thought to reside mainly among them. When Asian immigrants were imported into the society, they too became lower-class targets. In reality, however, the culture war transcended class and ethnic boundaries, although most of the lower-class blacks and coloureds found themselves, wittingly or unwittingly, in defence of Afro-creolization, while most of the upper and middle classes (mainly composed of whites and coloureds, but also including socially aspiring blacks) favoured “civilization”, with or without anglicization. The Asian immigrants found themselves in a peculiar situation trying to preserve their own distinct ethnic identities against both anglicization and creolization, while being influenced by both processes, and also in turn significantly influencing the latter. So how was this culture war configured? How were the battle lines drawn? Who were antagonists and foot-soldiers on both sides? First, it is important to remember that this was a unilateral declaration of war by the Jamaican elites and their foreign allies (mainly British) on the mainly black lower classes, who had been content to live their lives and practice as much as possible of their ancestral culture without interference. However, the Jamaican culture warriors who joined hands in the fight for civilization were not homogeneous. Many came from ranks of the social elite (the predominantly white upper class consisting mainly of wealthy planters and merchants), and these were more inter-

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ested in bolstering white racial solidarity. They had no real desire to embrace anglicization, although some eventually did. For them, “civilization” was not synonymous with anglicization and could be secured solely by preserving white supremacy. Some of them, therefore, staunchly opposed the anglicization efforts of the zealous reformers. They much preferred to preserve their own rural plantocratic Euro-creole culture than to adopt the new middle-class Victorian moral code, which they found very restrictive of their customs and traditions crafted over centuries of residence in Jamaica. They joined the social reformers in their efforts to suppress some expressions of Afro-creole culture because they shared the view that those were inferior and symbolized the barbarism into which the island should not be allowed to descend. For them, therefore, the sole targets of the thrust for civilization were the potentially “barbarous” black lower classes who needed to assimilate just enough white culture to humanize them and thus forestall precisely the sort of rebellious tendencies that were unleashed at Morant Bay in 1865. They wanted the old social order based on sharp racial and class distinctions preserved. Allied with them, but with a broader agenda, were middle- and some upper-class social reformers drawn mainly from the ranks of the clergy and lay missionaries, journalists, professionals (lawyers, doctors, teachers, civil servants), and some businessmen. These were anglophile cultural elites who were convinced that embracing the new bourgeois Victorian culture emanating from Britain was the only way forward for Jamaicans, white and non-white, rich and poor. For these crusading reformers, civilization and anglicization were synonymous, and they campaigned tirelessly for both. They were joined by equally passionate, educated, acculturated and socially aspiring coloureds and some blacks (lawyers, doctors, clerks, teachers, parsons, policemen, small businessmen, nurses, skilled artisans). These people (like H.A.L. Simpson, Astley Clerk, Robert Love, Alexander Dixon, Thomas Banbury, and even Marcus Garvey), were ashamed of important aspects of Afrocreole culture and sought to “elevate” both themselves and their “vulgar” kith and kin in the scale of civilization through anglicization. Yet because they were products of Jamaican creole society, anglicization meant cultural self-denial; and this bred a double consciousness in them between being Jamaican/creole and British, which manifested itself in their ambivalence, confusion and contradictions. Nonetheless, the social and cultural elites were armed with enormous political and cultural power. They had on their side the apparatus of the state (gov-

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ernment, legislature, courts of law, police and armed forces, and prisons), the church–school complex, libraries, the press, and elite socio-cultural civic institutions, private and public; and they used those resources to their fullest extent. However, their warfare was from the outset ill-conceived, ill-planned and ill-executed. Where the power of persuasion and inclusion should have been front and foremost, they sought instead to repress, restrict and to exclude. This was thus essentially a negative campaign born out of desperation, and it proved counterproductive. Dissemination of the message of civilization to a large extent depended on literacy if the power of the press and “appropriate” literature were to be effective, yet few schools were erected and so less than half of the population could be reached in these ways. The positive aspects of “civilization” could only be transmitted effectively if its propagators were prepared to mix and mingle with the people they sought to reform, yet out of race and class prejudice most of the culture warriors kept to themselves and excluded the “riff-raff” from their organizations and cultural activities, preferring instead to preach down to or persecute them. This merely afforded the latter the cultural space literally to do as they pleased. In this context, the elite culture war was unwinnable. The cultural elites also failed to devise any coherent plans on how to conduct their warfare, and instead stumbled in an ad hoc manner from issue to issue. It was thus conducted in an unsystematic manner and, furthermore, the elites lacked cohesion as a socio-cultural force. This was clearly reflected in three of the leading newspapers which had relatively long runs in the period under review, namely, the Daily Gleaner, the Colonial Standard and the Jamaica Times. From time to time, these newspapers contradicted themselves and often broke ranks with the zealous core of cultural reformers on particular issues. The coalition for civilization, therefore, was loose, and oft-times disunited and fractious, thus significantly undermining its own determination to impose its cultural stamp on society. The black and coloured lower classes, for their part, were determined to make the cultural freedom that they interpreted emancipation to mean a reality, and had no intention of being dictated to by people who they knew from experience were ambivalent and hypocritical. Many were content to go about their lives as they thought fit, unencumbered by the insecurities that tormented their “social betters”, and quite unconcerned about the denunciations and condemnations that were tossed their way from above. However, when their personal freedom was threatened by police harassment and arrest, court convictions and draconian punishments, they were obliged to respond.

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Lacking the infrastructural and institutional power of the cultural elites, they nevertheless possessed their own cultural power that stemmed from their overwhelming numbers, and in their abiding faith in a culture that had served them well for generations. They too were confident: in the fundamental integrity of their Afro-creole value system, and in their ability to defend it in the culture war. They were not prepared to be subdued or subjugated by their opponents. They would neither be led nor driven. Yet, to some degree, some of them also exhibited signs of cultural ambivalence; for while firmly resisting efforts to eradicate their practice of obeah and funerary wakes, for instance, they equally firmly embraced Christianity and cricket with gusto (though they creolized both).1 Even so, their cultural power provided them with the strength to fight effectively against exclusion from some elite cultural activities in which they sought to participate. For their part, the new immigrants from India and China were caught between the two contending forces in this titanic struggle for the cultural soul of Jamaica. Lacking both the power of the state and cultural institutions on one hand, and the power of numbers on the other, from inception they were pressured directly and indirectly either to anglicize or to creolize. Despite valiant attempts to preserve the integrity of their indigenous cultures, they found themselves adopting important aspects both of British Victorian culture, in particular Christianity and some of its values; and, given their low social status and cohabitation amidst the Jamaican lower classes, they inculcated even more Afro-creole culture (for example, attitudes and values, language, food, dress, sport and entertainment, including rum consumption) while sharing significant aspects of their own traditions with ordinary Jamaicans, for example, ganja, Hosay, drop-pan, and their cuisines. By 1920, both the Indians and Chinese were far more creolized than anglicized. However, as they still tried to remain faithful to some important aspects of their traditional cultures, they too were conflicted and ambivalent. It would be reasonable to say, therefore, that all ranks of Jamaican society were permeated by some measure of cultural ambivalence. Perhaps nothing better illustrates this than the debate over language. In a country where practically everyone, not just the uneducated lower classes, spoke (and still speak) Jamaican, and very few spoke or wrote standard English, the cultural elites persistently deluded themselves into believing that Jamaica was an Englishspeaking “nation”. That debate, ironically, still rages one century later. The same sense of shame in which the cultural elites of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were engulfed is evident today. Then, however, they

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hoped that Jamaican would slowly die out as anglicization spread. Today, stemming from the same fear of being regarded as backward, they despair that Jamaicans will not be able to communicate with other peoples if Jamaican is formally recognized as the national language.2 It was not only the issue of language over which the cultural elites became animated. Practically every aspect of culture was intensely scrutinized, albeit in a disorganized and unsystematic way, and came in for assault if it did not conform to their views of what was appropriate and civilized, that is, if it did not accord with the British middle-class standard that they aspired to. From material culture (housing, food, dress), through rites of passage, to literature, art, sports, recreation and other forms of entertainment (theatre, music, dance, etc.), the cultural elites attacked and sought to eradicate or contain most forms of Afro-creole cultural expression. But it was not only the culture of the Jamaican lower classes which was castigated. Those of the Chinese and Indian “heathen” immigrants were too. Only European (and white American) cultures were spared. That fact might make this anti-creolization campaign appear racialized; however, it is important to remember that the creole culture of Jamaican whites was also frowned upon by the social reformers because they regarded that too as debased. On the other hand, truly European, especially British, cultures were considered superior even by non-whites who were partially acculturated or aspired to social mobility in the white-dominated colonial society. In this sense, the promotion of civilization through anglicization was not wholly racial. By the 1920s, it was being advocated as much by middle-class brown and black Jamaicans as by their white compatriots. Yet for all the contention and anguish generated by the culture war, by the early twentieth century Jamaicans did have more in common than what seemed to divide them. The culture war was essentially ideological; the reality of cultural life was often somewhat different. The contours of an emerging national creole culture were already clearly discernible. This manifested itself in shared aspirations to possessing “nice” homes and furnishings, similar styles of dress, shared culinary tastes, a common lingua franca (Jamaican), similar forms of entertainment (sports and games, bazaars, concerts, fairs, music and dance, parties, theatre and cinema); and even shared “vices” such as gambling, narcotic consumption and heavy drinking of alcohol. However, as Raymond Smith pointed out many years ago, creolization can also be accompanied by “conflict” even as it promotes shared culture.3 Social differences, it is true, influenced the attitudes of each class to, and their participation in, the emerging national culture. The wealthy elites

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could afford grand houses furnished with imported items, expensive even if inappropriate clothing, imported foods, lavish entertainments in exclusive settings, and all the equipment and accoutrements to allow them to control organized sports like cricket, football, horse racing, yachting, cycling, rifle shooting, tennis and golf, which they imported. Notwithstanding the harsh language of the culture war, there was no apartheid in nineteenth- and earlytwentieth-century Jamaica, and so a number of less wealthy Jamaicans, brown and black, were able to infiltrate the once hallowed spaces of white privilege, and many others from within the lower classes appropriated elements of European cultural products and creolized them. What this meant was that on balance the Afro-creole values and attitudes, beliefs and behaviour of lower-class Jamaica were gradually but relentlessly assuming prominence in the emergent national culture. That is what the cultural elites found particularly alarming and distasteful, and what fuelled (and has continued to fuel) their continuing campaigns in the enduring culture war. Although it was clear by 1920 (except, of course, to the contemporary actors themselves) that the forces of creolization were winning, the process itself was quite uneven. Aspects of culture that were associated with the institutions of the colonial state and the cultural elite classes (government, law enforcement, the church–school complex, the churches, and many private cultural and sporting institutions) were less creolized than those areas that related to the personal thoughts, attitudes and lifestyles of ordinary people, for example, religious and secular beliefs, moral values, behaviour, language, architecture, food, dress and entertainment. This brings into sharp focus the politics of culture. Where the cultural elites could exercise control, they were able to preserve their false sense of cultural dominance and to insist that their quasi-anglicized ways and ideas should predominate. Creolization was strongest, however, where the people’s agency held sway. The dichotomy between “vulgarity” (associated by the cultural elites with lower-class Afro-creole cultural expressions) and “morality” (which they linked to their own imported “civilized” cultural forms and values) did not disappear in 1920 when this examination terminates. Indeed, as shown above, some of the debates are still extant in twenty-first-century Jamaica.4 The cultural confrontation, therefore, would persist for another century, but Afro-creolization would prevail over the long haul. No matter how repressive the state was, the cultural elites, who were themselves creole, were preaching one thing and practising another. Their lived culture was really creole, however much in denial they were about that; their cultural ideals were British, however chimerical

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those would prove to be. They were always a relatively small minority living in a sea of Afro-creolity from which they could not escape. They were surrounded by it even when they sought to revert to exclusion; and it even threatened to invade their hallowed spaces of exclusive sanctuary. The cultural power of numbers rested squarely in the hands of the lower classes, and it would only be a matter of time before their Afro-creole culture would assert itself and threaten to consume the quasi-anglicized culture of the cultural elites. The reality, therefore, was that the desire of the reforming cultural elite minority to impose their cultural will on the rest of Jamaican society was not only challenged, but effectively thwarted and pushed back by the Afro-creole majority. It was the cultural elite who, despite their aggression, constantly found themselves on the defensive against the seemingly ever-advancing forces of Afro-creolity. This had important implications for the emergence of a Jamaican “national” culture, for it meant that as Jamaicans shared more cultural items by the early twentieth century, the latter were increasingly Afro-creole. Those would ultimately shape Jamaica’s national identity despite the continued assaults by the cultural elites. The cultural soul of Jamaica would be captured by the Afro-creole culture. In the final analysis, the people were largely successful in winning their cultural freedom to do as they pleased. The controversy over values and attitudes in the twenty-first century between “uptown” (middle- and upper-class) Jamaica on the one hand, and “downtown” (disdainfully referred to by the new elites as the “lumpen”) and rural (“dark”/backward) Jamaica on the other, is largely a consequence of the irrepressible expansionism of Afro-creolity ever since the nineteenth century despite cultural elite efforts at repression. Much of the long-extant anxiety among the latter is related to their sense of being perpetually on the retreat against the relentless advance of what they perceive as lower-class (Afro-creole) vulgarity. Yet, “uptown” Jamaica remains no less ambivalent in the midst of these cultural confrontations than it was a century ago. Very significantly, the language of the enduring culture war has remained more or less the same as it was a century ago.5 The analysis in this volume, and in Neither Led nor Driven, may have some implications for the broader concept of creolization in Caribbean societies. One of the pioneering and leading scholars of this concept, Kamau Brathwaite, envisages creolization as a process of interculturation taking place among the diverse cultural groups in the society, not just vertically (superordinatesubordinate), but laterally (between equal subordinates). He argues that during

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slavery, notwithstanding the cultural dominance of the white slaveholding minority, “significant interculturation” between European and African was going on. For him, emancipation was a critical historical juncture when creolization could have been actively promoted to enable Caribbean societies “to attain (regain) cultural wholeness, organic function”. “This would have involved, above all else, the acceptance, and incorporation of the black mass of the population into the political, economic and social structure; and, at the same time, the acceptance of the culture of this black ex-African majority as the paradigm and norm for the entire society [his emphasis].” Instead, that opportunity was missed and the process of creolization was “slowed/halted/altered” after emancipation with “a new emphasis on culturation into European models”. “The result was a dramatic shift, within the society as a whole, to a European value system.” This led Brathwaite to talk about “incomplete creolization”, by which he meant that no homogeneous creole culture was allowed to emerge.6 The analyses of both Neither Led nor Driven and this book concur with Brathwaite’s fundamental conceptualization to a point. Both publications have clearly shown that the local cultural elites and their imperial allies launched a culture war to halt or at the very least retard the process of Afro-creolization. They also demonstrate that there was considerable lateral interculturation among the subordinate ethnic groups, mainly new immigrants. They, however, expand Brathwaite’s ideas by demonstrating that immense complexities were associated with creolization, whether in relation to religious practices and belief systems, behaviour, values, material culture, intellectual life, sport or entertainment. In all these areas of cultural life, the constituent ethnic traditions contributed to the emergence of a new creole culture that was dynamic in its ability to absorb and refashion such diverse influences into something uniquely Jamaican, in the process transforming and modernizing itself, as some older and perhaps less functional aspects were lost, others diluted, new ones incorporated, some appropriated, and then reinterpreted (creolized). The various culture bearers, who mixed and mingled in diverse ways at different levels of society, and adjusted to the cultural environment in different ways, could all claim this creole culture that emerged as their own. Yet, the two primary cultural groups, the Euro-creole elite and the Afrocreole mass, fought for pre-eminence. While the elite classes undoubtedly made a conscious attempt on ideological grounds to orient their creole culture towards a European norm and on that basis claim dominance, the Afro-creole culture of the black majority, though influenced by aspects of that dominant

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culture, continuously renewed itself while preserving its essential core, and was able to consolidate itself as the mainstream culture of the society. Indeed, many aspects of it were ironically shared by the cultural elites who were at the same time seeking to eradicate it. Although European culture (and its creole derivative) was increasingly privileged in the colonial society, the reality on the ground was the spreading influence of Afro-creole culture, around which the national identity of Jamaica would eventually be shaped, although there was (and still is) no consensus about that. Because the cultural elites did not embrace the Afro-creole culture as the societal norm, but instead inveighed against it and on occasion called on the apparatus of the colonial state to curtail some of its expressions, they may have retarded, but could not halt, its inexorable march. Indeed, their own ambivalence significantly undermined the impact of their opposition. The process of creolization, then, may have been slowed much less than the cultural elites desired. Nevertheless, their relentless and continuous assaults probably had the effect of sowing seeds of self-doubt among some of its primary bearers, and inducing in them too a measure of ambivalence towards aspects of their own mainstream Afro-creole culture. While scholars of many disciplines have written about creolization and the societies it has influenced in the Caribbean,7 Nigel Bolland has gone further to advocate the formulation of a sociological theory. He has argued that a dialectical approach is essential to provide the concept of creolization with more intellectual rigour. This approach highlights the power relationships within the social system between the dominant and the subordinate, and draws attention to conflicts that can arise as change takes place.8 At first glance, the culture war in Jamaica that has over several generations pitted the socially dominant cultural elites, with all the trappings of state power within their reach, against the subordinate, and seemingly powerless lower-class majority, would seem to fit Bolland’s dialectical framework perfectly. However, as shown in Neither Led nor Driven9 and here again, this war was not simply a conflict between the forces of oppression and resistance. Cultural oppression there undoubtedly was; but the lower classes reacted in myriad ways, including outright rejection (resistance), opposition,10 contestation, negotiation, and just plain ignoring. While these can all be subsumed under the generic label of “resistance” if one employs Foucault’s broad terminology of a “plurality of resistances”, that would not meet Bolland’s quest for greater theoretical rigour. Again, as both books have clearly demonstrated, the cultural elites did not exercise hegemonic power in the Gramscian sense. Not only did

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they not enjoy political dominance under the crown colony regime, but in any event they were much too fractious to be hegemonic. Dialectical analysis, which centres on the binary of domination/hegemony and subordination/ resistance, while unquestionably useful to a point as an analytical tool, is by no means sufficient to comprehend the immense complexities that arose from the unpredictable, fluctuating, and unstable alliances among cultural elite groups, and the variable and equally unpredictable responses of the underclasses, that characterized Jamaica’s culture war. The Afro-creole culture is not just a culture of resistance. It is that and more; and it has continuously evolved through different modalities. It has always been adaptable to and absorptive of foreign, even hostile and competing, cultural influences. As the data here (and in Neither Led nor Driven) indicate, it engulfs and envelops all that it encounters and transforms (creolizes) them, reshaping them in its own image through the stamp of its unique ways, styles, tastes, beliefs, mores and values. It is sponge-like, except that it has no saturation point. Because its strength comes from the power of numbers possessed by its primary bearers, the lower-class majority, far from being eradicated or contained, it is continuously, relentlessly and irrepressibly expansionist. The process of creolization in the Caribbean, therefore, is endless and irreversible. Perhaps on account of its flexibility, adaptability and all-inclusive characteristics, the process is much too dynamic and elastic to be reduced to rigorous theorization, dialectic or otherwise.11 Perhaps the very concept of creolization reflects the shape-shifting characteristics of Anansi that is ingrained in the cultures of the Caribbean to which it is applied.

Notes

Preface 1. Keith Noel, “Check Yourself”, Jamaica Gleaner, 17 June 2010.

Chapter 1 1. Edward Brathwaite, The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770–1820 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971). 2. Edward Brathwaite, Contradictory Omens: Cultural Diversity and Integration in the Caribbean (Kingston: Savacou, 1974). 3. For a full discussion of this, see Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven: Contesting British Cultural Imperialism in Jamaica, 1865–1920 (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2004); also Patrick Bryan, The Jamaican People 1880–1902 (London: Macmillan Caribbean, 1991). 4. Moore and Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven; Philip Curtin, Two Jamaicas: The Role of Ideas in a Tropical Colony, 1830–1865 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955; reprinted New York: Atheneum, 1970); Robert J. Stewart, Religion and Society in Post-Emancipation Jamaica (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992). 5. Moore and Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven, 96–136. 6. Ibid., 51–95, 167–204; Mary Turner, Slaves and Missionaries: The Disintegration of Jamaican Slave Society, 1787–1834 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982; reprint, Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 1998); Curtin, Two Jamaicas; Stewart, Religion and Society; see also Catherine Hall, Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination 1830–1867 (London: Polity, 2002). 7. Moore and Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven, 52–95. 8. Curtin, Two Jamaicas; Stewart, Religion and Society; Hall, Civilising Subjects. Also, Monica Schuler, “Alas, Alas, Kongo”: A Social History of Indentured African Immigration into Jamaica, 1841–1865 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980). 9. Gad Heuman, “The Killing Time”: The Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica (Knoxville: 417

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10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

18.

19. 20.

Notes to pages 5–11

University of Tennessee Press, 1994); Douglas Hall, Free Jamaica, 1838–1865: An Economic History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959); Don Robotham, “The Notorious Riot”: The Socio-economic and Political Bases of Paul Bogle’s Revolt (Kingston: Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1981); Thomas C. Holt, The Problem of Freedom: Race, Labor and Politics in Jamaica and Britain, 1832–1938 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992). Moore and Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven, 171–74; Curtin, Two Jamaicas, 172, 199–200; Stewart, Religion and Society, 167–70; Hall, Civilising Subjects, 251. Kingston correspondent of the Times, “Taxation in Jamaica: Mr Olivier’s Work”, Daily Gleaner, 31 March 1903. Moore and Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven, 113–35. Ibid., 27–33. Ibid., 167–244, 271–310. W.D. Townsley, “A Cousin of Myalism: Something About the Pokomaniac”, Jamaica Times, 20 July 1912. See, for instance, H. Alma Swift, Reports of the Friends Jamaica Mission, 3rd Quarter 1918, JA 5/8/4/524; and Moore and Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven, 123, 176, 195 and 197. See, for instance, James Davison Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York: Basic Books, 1991); Gerald Graff, Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American Education (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992); Gregory S. Jay, American Literature and the Culture Wars (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997); Richard Jensen, “The Culture Wars, 1965–1995: A Historian’s Map”, Journal of Social History 29 (October 1995): 17–37; Bill O’Reilly; Culture Warrior (New York: Broadway Books, 2006). Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, 3 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991–2007); also “Hegemony in Gramsci’s Original Prison Notebooks: Carl Cuneo’s Notes on the Concept of Hegemony in Gramsci”, http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/soc/ courses/soc2r3/gramsci/gramheg.htm (accessed 30 April 2009); also John Fonte, “Why There Is a Culture War: Gramsci and Tocqueville in America”, Policy Review 104 (December 2000–January 2001), 15–32. Moore and Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven, xv and 322–23. Ibid., 325.

Chapter 2 1. The Spanish treated their Caribbean colonies in part as places of permanent settlement, not just as colonies of exploitation. So they made some effort to construct a few elementary and secondary schools and even universities, substantial structures designed to last a very long time, such as cathedrals and churches, and other cultural

Not es to pages 12–14

2.

3. 4.

5. 6. 7.

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institutions, to cater to a settled society. For instance, the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, established in 1538, is the oldest tertiary institution in the entire Americas. By the mid-eighteenth century, Santo Domingo had three universities. Cuba was slower in developing similar institutions, but the University of Havana was founded in 1728. By contrast, the first university in Jamaica and the anglophone Caribbean is the University of the West Indies, founded in 1948. The Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, completed in Santo Domingo in 1540, is the oldest of its kind in the hemisphere. See Julio Rodríguez-Luis, “Education in the Hispanic Antilles”, in A History of Literature in the Caribbean: Hispanic and Francophone Regions, ed. Albert James Arnold, Julio Rodríguez-Luis, and J. Michael Dash (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1994); Edward E. Crain, Historic Architecture in the Caribbean Islands (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994); Pamela W. Gosner, Caribbean Baroque: Historic Architecture of the Spanish Antilles (Pueblo, CO: Passeggiata Press, 1996); Joaquin E. Weiss, La arquitectura colonial cubana: siglos XVI al XIX (Havana: Instituto Cubano del Libro; Seville: Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional: Consejera de Obras Publicas y Transportes, 1996); Graziano Gasparini and Eugenio Pérez Montas, Arquitectura colonial iberoamericana (Caracas: Armitano Editores, 1997). Kingston was built on a grid. At the intersection of the main streets of the town, King and Queen Streets, which ran north and south and east and west respectively, a plaza or parade ground was reserved, forming a square of 10 acres in the middle of the town. The Parade, which had formerly been used as a market place and parade ground for the troops and militia, was later enclosed by the government and converted into a garden and arboretum. Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson (eds.), “Squalid Kingston” 1890–1920: How the Poor Lived, Moved and Had Their Being (Kingston: Social History Project, University of the West Indies, 2000), 2–4. Frank Casserly, “Kingston in 19th century”, National Library of Jamaica (NLJ) Manuscript (MST) 317, no. 6, 45. James McQuade, The cruise of the Montauk to Bermuda, the West Indies and Florida (New York: Tomas R. Knox and Co., 1885), 302–3; also Morning Journal, 6 May 1872; and John Henderson, The West Indies (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1905). Jamaica Times, 20 September 1902. Jamaica Gleaner, 14 January 1988. The exact number of people who died in this tragedy is not known. Most buildings, public, commercial, and private, were either severely damaged or destroyed by the earthquake, or burned in the fire that followed. The assessed damage was £2,000,000. The human tragedy was also horrendous. Said the Times, “The horrors of the earthquake are well illustrated by the sight that unnerved Mrs Williams of Campbell Town. She had, owing to some unaccountable impulse insisted on leaving a dentist’s office where she had an appointment. From the street

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Notes to pages 14–18

8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14.

15.

16.

17. 18. 19.

20.

she saw the building fall. She cried to a woman near to stay in mid street. Giddy with the earth rocking the woman leant against a wall. Next instant it fell and crushed her head. Her legs moved convulsively and then she lay dead and still.” Jamaica Times, 16 February 1907; also Jamaica Daily Telegraph, 22 January 1907. In March 1907, the Gleaner published a list of about one thousand known victims of the earthquake (Daily Gleaner, 11 March 1907). Sydney Olivier, Times (London), 1 April 1931; and Moore and Johnson, “Squalid Kingston”. Casserly, “Kingston”, 57; Daily Gleaner, 11 May 1877, 23 November 1889 and 19 April 1899. Kingston’s population increased by 470 per cent from 13,337 in 1861 to 62,707 by 1921. These statistics are taken from the population censuses. For a fuller description of conditions of life among the poor in Kingston, see Moore and Johnson, “Squalid Kingston”. Casserly, “Kingston”, 28–29 and 43; Sir Sydney Olivier, Times (London), 1 April 1931; C.W. Willis, “Buckra” Land: two weeks in Jamaica (Boston, 1896), 56–57. According to the Colonial Standard this flushing system cost the taxpayers £400 per year in 1880. Colonial Standard, 18 August 1880. Willis, “Buckra” Land, 56–57; Colonial Standard, 16 March, 11 May, and 3 December 1881; 4 April 1885; 30 June 1888; and 2 August 1889; Casserly, “Kingston”, 56. See, for instance, the 1865 and 1866 reports of Thomas H. Clark (London Missionary Society) at Four Paths and Brixton Hill; of James Mill at Dry Harbour; and John Dalgleish at Chapelton. LMS Reports, West Indies, Box 1. Also Methodist Missionary Society reports for 1915 and 1916. Thirteen hurricanes struck Jamaica between 1865 and 1920 in the following years: November 1874, 8 October 1879, 18–19 August 1880, 6–8 October 1884, 28–29 June 1886, 28–29 October 1899, 11 August 1903 (north-eastern Jamaica), 9–13 November 1909, 17–19 November 1912 (western parishes), 12–13 August 1915, 25–26 September 1915, 15–16 August 1916, and 23 September 1917. For a full description of life in rural Jamaica in the late nineteenth century, see Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson, eds., The Land We Live In: Jamaica in 1890 (Kingston: Social History Project, University of the West Indies, 2000). It is arguable that some of their architectural designs might also have been influenced by the pre-existing Amerindian (Taino) heritage. Villiers Stuart, Adventures amidst the Equatorial Forests and Rivers of South America (and Jamaica Revisited) (London: J. Murray, 1891), 168. J.A. Froude, England in the West Indies or the Bow of Ulysses (London: Longman, Green and Co., 1888), 210; Edgar Bacon and E.M. Aaron, The New Jamaica (New York: Walbridge and Co.; Kingston: Aston W. Gardner and Co., 1890), 97. The original sum of £4,000 voted for this work was exceeded by £1,700, and generated such intense dissatisfaction among the elected members of the legislature,

Notes to pages 18–25

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

28.

29.

30. 31.

32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

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that Governor Blake was forced to set up an enquiry to account for the excess expenditure. Blake to Knutsford, no. 333 (and enclosures), 8 September 1890, Colonial Office papers (CO) 137/543. Stuart, Adventures, 168–69. Ibid. See also Froude, England in the West Indies, 210; Bacon and Aaron, New Jamaica, 97. Olivier to Legislative Council, 15 June 1907, in Daily Gleaner, 19 June 1907. Governor’s address to the legislature, Jamaica Times, 18 January 1908; Daily Gleaner, 29 August 1908. Daily Gleaner, 4 July 1908. Daily Gleaner, 8 January 1910; and Blue Books, 1910–20. Philo Scotus [Philip Barrington Ainslie], Reminiscences of a Scottish Gentleman, commencing in 1787 (London: Arthur Hall, Virtue and Co., 1861), 179 and 188. The loopholes were small slits in the wall in which firearms could be placed to shoot at an approaching enemy. Effectively the planter’s great house during slavery was built not just as a place of residence, but as a mini-fort to hold off rebellious slaves hopefully until military reinforcements arrived. Casserly, “Kingston”, 29; Frank Cundall, “The West Indies Today, 1908”, NLJ MSTT 934, 186 and 188–89. See also Charles Rampini, Letters from Jamaica (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1873), 21–22; and Willis, “Buckra” Land, 37–38. Cundall found the choice of colours displeasing. “Some one once suggested that green was good for the eyes and so jalousies are usually painted an ugly grass green: it was also pointed out that white reflects heat, and buildings are therefore frequently painted an ugly blue white, and nobody seems to realize . . . that green and white in juxtaposition are not harmonious.” Cundall, “West Indies”, 186 and 188–89; Rampini, Letters, 21–22; and Willis, “Buckra” Land, 37–38. Jamaica Post, 25 November 1896. Margaret Newton, Glimpses of Life in Bermuda and the Tropics (London: Digby, Long and Co., 1897), 188; Una Wilson, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/265; also Jamaica Post, 25 November 1896. Howard Pyle, “Jamaica, New and Old”, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 80 (January–February 1890), 392–93. Bacon and Aaron, New Jamaica, 97; see also Willis, “Buckra” Land, 37–38. Ethel Maud Symmonett, Jamaica: Queen of the Carib Sea (Kingston: Mortimer C. De Souza, 1895), 27–28. The lawn of the Machados had a mound with the word “Cuba” and a star on each side of it. Jamaica Post, 25 November 1896. Newton, Glimpses of Life, 187–88. H.G. De Lisser, In Jamaica and Cuba (Kingston: Gleaner Co., 1910), 91–93. Ibid. All of the newspapers carried advertisements of furniture, etc. Morning Journal, 21 January 1861. Gall’s News Letter, 24 June 1875.

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Notes to pages 25–28

40. See newspaper advertisements during the period. 41. Ibid. In 1886 an English electrical engineer, Ernest G. Craven, visited Jamaica to introduce the electric light (Daily Gleaner, 21 June 1886), but it was not until November 1889 that Electric Light Company completed preparations to stage the first public exhibition of electric lighting in the city via twelve hundred candle-power arc lamps at certain junctions in Kingston (Daily Gleaner, 9 and 23 November 1889). This was just twelve years after the city was lit for the first time by gas (Daily Gleaner, 11 May 1877). It would be another decade before the streets of the lower part of Kingston were properly lit (Daily Gleaner, 8 August 1898). Thereafter electricity slowly spread and began to be installed in buildings and homes. In January 1881 the Gleaner stated that the first two or three telephones in Jamaica were working (Daily Gleaner, 11 January 1881), ten years after the telegraph reached Jamaica (Morning Journal, 14, 15, 16 September 1870). 42. Among the newspaper sources from which these data on household furnishings are drawn are: Morning Journal, 14, 17, 18 and 21 January, 23 and 25 February, 2 March, 4 and 20 September 1861, 8 July 1870; Falmouth Post, 31 January and 15 May 1860; Jamaica Times, 7 November 1908, 13 March 1909; Daily Gleaner, 26 July and 17 September 1875, 10 October 1879, 6 and 16 April and 2 July 1887, 8 April 1891; Colonial Standard, 2 May 1884; Gall’s News Letter, 24 June 1875. 43. These would have been junior white-collar workers, e.g., teachers, office and store clerks, etc. When limited electoral representation was reintroduced in 1884, the franchise qualifications were set at the same level as before 1865. Only males could vote and for the privilege they had to be paying direct taxes of 10s. or earning a minimum annual salary of £50. Further restrictions were introduced in 1893 when a literacy test was imposed. 44. De Lisser, In Jamaica, 90–91. 45. Winifred James, The Mulberry Tree (London: Chapman and Hall, 1913), 105. 46. Varvill del Fosse, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/143. For graphic descriptions of the desperate living conditions of many of Kingston’s poor, see Moore and Johnson, “Squalid Kingston”. 47. De Lisser, In Jamaica, 91. 48. Ibid., 90. 49. Ibid., 127. 50. Alice Michelin, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/250. 51. Daily Gleaner, 20 April 1881; Moore and Johnson, “Squalid Kingston”. This volume contains a series of newspaper reports on the living conditions of the poor in Kingston over a thirty-year period from 1890 to 1920. 52. Henderson, West Indies, 216–17. 53. Mary Eliza Bakewell Gaunt, Where the Twain Meet (London: John Murray, 1922), 285–86. 54. Morning Journal, 7 December 1872.

Notes to pages 29–33

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55. Irving Rouse, The Tainos: Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 10. 56. Willis, “Buckra” Land, 30–31; see also Bacon and Aaron, New Jamaica, 113; Emelia Russey Gurney, Letters of Emelia Russey Gurney (London: James Nisbet, 1903), 312; Rampini, Letters, 89. 57. Morning Journal, 13 October 1869; Gaunt, Where the Twain Meet, 285–86; Rampini, Letters, 89; William Pringle Livingstone, Black Jamaica: A study in evolution (London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co., 1899), 106–7; Gurney, Letters, 312. 58. Willis, “Buckra” Land, 31. 59. The first house tax was law 5 of 1868, which was amended by law 27 of 1869. Houses belonging to the crown, the colonial government, and school-houses were exempt. Law 15 of 1882 exempted other categories of houses from the tax; and another amendment came in Law 28 of 1890. This vexatious law was finally repealed by law 16 of 1903. 60. “Taxation in Jamaica”, printed in Daily Gleaner, 31 March 1903. 61. Livingstone, Black Jamaica, 106–7. 62. “Taxation in Jamaica”, printed in Daily Gleaner, 31 March 1903. Under the new legislation (laws 15 and 16 of 1903), two fixed rates were imposed: a property tax of 8d. on every £10 for general revenue, and a parish rate, varying in amount according to the conditions in each parish, for sanitation, poor relief, and other local purposes. The rationale for having middle-class property bear the greatest incidence of these taxes was that they had not been contributing their fair share in the past. Besides, it would have the “salutary” effect of disfranchising the more irresponsible voters as their taxes would fall below the amount to qualify them for the vote, and as a result it was “expected that a better class of representatives will enter the local boards”. 63. Decennial censuses, 1891–1921; also Morning Journal, 13 October 1869; Livingstone, Black Jamaica, 106–7; Friends Jamaica Mission 8, no. 9 (September 1900), JA 5/8/78/5927. 64. Gurney, Letters, 312; Edith Witter, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/227. 65. Gaunt, Where the Twain Meet, 285–86. 66. Rampini, Letters, 89–90. See also Friends Jamaica Mission 8, no. 9 (September 1900), JA 5/8/78/5927. 67. Eyre to Cardwell, no. 256, 10 September 1864, CO 137/384. 68. Letter of Father Splaine, 7 June 1870, Letters and Notices 7 (1870), Archives of the Society of Jesus, English Province. 69. Livingstone, Black Jamaica, 192. 70. Martha Warren Beckwith, Black Roadways: A Study of Jamaica Folklore (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1928), 10. 71. Rampini, Letters, 90; Willis, “Buckra” Land, 31; Gaunt, Where the Twain Meet, 284– 85; Beckwith, Black Roadways, 13. 72. Willis, “Buckra” Land, 31–32.

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Notes to pages 33–39

73. Pyle, “Jamaica, New and Old”, 392–93; Beckwith, Black Roadways, 12. 74. Beckwith, Black Roadways, 17–25; Livingstone, Black Jamaica, 108–9; Rampini, Letters, 91–92; Cundall, “West Indies”, 192–94. 75. B.W. Higman, Jamaican Food: History, Biology, Culture (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2008), 17–20. 76. See for example, Jamaica Times, 5 January, 13 April 1901; 24 May, 14 June, 13 September 1902; 16 September 1905; 30 October 1909; 5 October 1912. 77. Daily Gleaner, 18 December 1893. Caroline Sullivan’s The Jamaica Cookery Book: 312 simple cookery recipes and household hints was published in Kingston by Aston W. Gardner in 1893. In 1896 it was republished in London as Classic Jamaican Cooking: Traditional Recipes and Herbal Remedies (Serif, 1896). 78. Newton, Glimpses of Life, 208; Rampini, Letters, 18; Anon., Me: A Book of Remembrance (New York: Century Co., 1915), 33. 79. Rampini, Letters, 53–54, 163–65. Rampini clearly did not know what he was drinking. According to Sullivan (1893), sangaree alone is a cocktail of sherry, water, nutmeg, lime peel and sugar (Sullivan, Jamaica Cookery Book, 106). 80. Colonial Standard, 22 April 1890. 81. Morning Journal, 20 December 1868, 20 April 1871, 29 July 1875; Colonial Standard, 18 February 1888, 1 April 1892; Jamaica Times, 15 April 1899, 30 September 1905. 82. Daily Gleaner, 12 December 1876. Perhaps, too, the limited number of clients made these early restaurants unprofitable. 83. Quoted in Moore and Johnson, “Squalid Kingston”, 86–89. 84. Una Wilson, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/265; and C.G. Bailey, JA 7/12/160. 85. Moore and Johnson, “Squalid Kingston”, 150–52. 86. Henry Buntin to W.B. Boyce, 24 February 1868, Methodist Missionary Society (MMS) Box 200 [microfiche (mf) no. 2414]. See also, Gurney, Letters, 300; Henderson, West Indies, 39; and Moore and Johnson, “Squalid Kingston”, 85–86. 87. Rampini, Letters, 91–92. 88. Daily Gleaner, 13 February 1901. De Lisser observed in 1899 that the poor both in town and country ate irregularly, but the principal meal was dinner, eaten at about 7:00 p.m. “I think that on the average the food of the majority of the people living in the city may be said to be, on two evenings in the week: herring, yam, bananas, sweet potatoes or breadfruit; on two other evenings saltfish, with the same ground provisions, soup on one evening and, perhaps, tripe on the other; then on Sunday there may be rice and pease [sic], or a little beef or some other such luxury. I should put down the cost of a dinner for four persons, during the week at ninepence, on Sunday at a shilling. This, I think, is a fair estimate. In the country districts herrings may be eaten four times a week and saltfish three times; there may occasionally be vegetable soups seasoned with a ¼ pound of salted beef. Now and again these people taste pork; fresh beef they scarcely ever eat. Anything will do for their breakfast, a roasted potatoe [sic], a few bananas or so. In the

Notes to pages 40–42

89.

90.

91. 92. 93. 94. 95.

96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102.

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town the people may eat three farthings’ worth of bread flavoured with a little sweetened water for breakfast. People in the country prefer bush-tea and chocolate – generally bush-tea – to coffee, not generally from taste but from its greater cheapness.” Quoted in Moore and Johnson, “Squalid Kingston”, 85–86. Daily Gleaner, 13 February 1901. Generally, the yabbah was a clay cooking pot in everyday use, but it is probable that some people had special ones reserved for use as serving bowls. The Gleaner noted that some peasants did possess plates, cups and saucers, mugs, etc., but claimed that they were largely ornaments that were used only on special occasions. The calabash is a fruit that grows on a tree. It is huge, hard-shelled and globular and was used by the peasantry to make domestic utensils simply by cutting the fruit and removing the inside. Calabashes were sometimes etched in artistic designs. Willis, “Buckra” Land, 77–79. “Junjo” refers to both edible and inedible fungus-like plants. F.G. Cassidy and R.B Le Page (eds.), Dictionary of Jamaican English, 2nd ed. (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2002), 254. Rampini, Letters, 64–65; Beckwith, Black Roadways, 15–19. Beckwith, Black Roadways, 15–19. Ibid., 19–21. Sarah White, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/148; Rampini, Letters, 73. Beckwith, Black Roadways, 21–22. According to Beckwith, each piece of cassava had to be scraped and grated, and the hard part next to the root discarded. After soaking the grated cassava in water, it was strained through a towel held by two persons. The cassava thus drained of its poison, was then spread out to dry for two hours, before being mixed with salt and baked into “pot bammie”; or dried for several days, pounded in a mortar, sifted and mixed with flour to make dumplings. Alternatively instead of washing it out at all, the grated cassava was put in a “cutacoo”, a long, flat basket, which was placed overnight in a press made from two boards. The lower board rested on stones, while the upper one fitted at one end into the hollow of a tree and was kept in place by a rock. Next morning, the meal was taken out of the “cutacoo”, pounded and sifted. The flour was then mixed with salt and water, and baked to make “bammie”. L.U. Williams, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/288. Morning Journal, 28 October 1873. Rampini, Letters, 65–66; Cundall, “West Indies”, 192; Jane Thompson, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/43. Newton, Glimpses of Life, 183; Joseph Beckford, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/ 271. Willis, “Buckra” Land, 41–42. Livingstone, Black Jamaica, 108–9; Cundall, “West Indies”, 193; Bacon and Aaron, New Jamaica, 116; Daily Gleaner, 28 July 1875. Stuart, Adventures, 176. Press reports of ackee poisonings were numerous. For exam-

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Notes to pages 42–43

103.

104. 105.

106. 107.

ple, in January 1892, several members of a well known St Andrew family, the Brandays of Long Mountain Road, were poisoned (Daily Gleaner, 12 January 1892). In March of the same year, six members of the Rose family of Porus were likewise poisoned (Daily Gleaner, 16 March 1892). See also, Falmouth Post, 14 February 1862; Daily Gleaner, 20 January 1910, 1 and 12 April, 15 June and 24 October 1916; 3, 23, 28 February, 6 March, and 4 September 1917; 8 and 28 January, 2 April, 10 July and 24 August 1918; Jamaica Times, 14 August and 4 September 1915; 31 March and 26 May 1917; and 23 February 1918. T.W. Cummings to editor, Daily Gleaner, 5 August 1915. Cummings was not entirely correct in saying that the reports of the Island Medical Officer drew no connection between the ackee and food poisoning, it was simply that they did very little to ascertain whether or not it was scientifically true. Ever since 1886–87 Dr Bowrey had conducted investigations into suspected ackee related deaths, and in fact concluded that “There are no chemical tests for akee and the fruit is speedily broken up in the stomach so as to be unrecognisable. That the akee sometimes proves deleterious and even deadly there can be no doubt”, but he could not gather scientific evidence to prove it (Daily Gleaner, 7 October 1918). He apparently conducted another inclusive investigation in 1891–92 and again for want of sufficient data, the public were led to understand that “akees in a wholesome condition are not poisonous”. What constituted wholesomeness, however, was not clear. The Jamaica Post chastised him for his department’s failure to investigate more instances of alleged ackee poisoning. As such this poison remained unknown to science. “We confess it is a little astonishing that with reputed cases of akee poisoning on record the Government Analyst’s department possesses little or no information regarding the poison of the akee and that it is only when a whole family have been wiped out of existence by akee poison, that the head of that department set himself to make experiments to test its virulence.” Since ackee was eaten by thousands of Jamaicans, rich and poor, the paper urged that the government analyst should spare no expense to find out all about the fruit. Jamaica Post, 15 February 1892. See also Daily Gleaner, 12 June 1896. “Ackee Eater” to editor, Daily Gleaner, 27 March 1916, and “Another Ackee Eater” to editor, Daily Gleaner, 4 April 1916. Olivier to Crewe, no. 419, 20 October 1910, CO 137/679; Olivier to Harcourt, no. 418, 10 November 1911, CO 137/686. In 1906, in response to enquiries, it was established that vomiting sickness did not occur in any other Caribbean island (including the non-British territories of Cuba, Haiti and Santo Domingo). Report of the Island Medical Department, in Department Reports 1906–7, 224. Dr H.H. Scott, the government bacteriologist, asserted in 1915 that vomiting sickness affected only the black and coloured population. Report of the Island Medical Department, in Department Reports 1917–18, 336. Cork to Harcourt, confidential, 24 June 1912, CO 137/692. Report of the Island Medical Department, in Department Reports 1917–18, 337. See

Notes to pages 44–48

108.

109.

110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116.

117. 118. 119. 120. 121.

122.

123.

124.

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also Daily Gleaner, 21 July 1915; 19 April and 18 September 1917; 18 and 19 February 1918. “Ackee: A Fascinating Tree Jamaica”, Jamaica Gleaner, 6 July 2006; also Camille Bowen, “Ackee: More Than Just Food”, Jamaica Gleaner, 24 November 2005; and Damian Cohall, “Is Our Ackee Safe?” Jamaica Gleaner, 5 January 2006. See, for instance, letters to the editor by Aubrey L. Sloley, 30 July 1915 and Oscar Plummer, 2 August 1915, in Daily Gleaner, 4 August 1915; C.W Goodison, 4 August 1915, and Aubrey G. Facey, 2 August 1915, in Daily Gleaner, 6 August 1915. Not one letter has been found which accepted the scientific findings of Dr Scott. But the Gleaner fully endorsed them in its editorials. Daily Gleaner, 26, 29 and 31 July 1915; Manning to Bonar Law, no. 366, 25 August 1916, CO 137/716; Manning to Long, no. 326, 25 August 1917, CO 137/722; Probyn to Long, no. 382, 11 October 1918, CO 137/727; Bryan to Milner, no. 572, 8 November 1919, CO 137/734. Johnstone to Milner, no. 435, 11 August 1919, CO 137/733, and enclosures. Livingstone, Black Jamaica, 191. Editorial, Daily Gleaner, 1 February 1918. Daily Gleaner, 30 September 1914. Daily Gleaner, 1 February 1918, 13 August 1917. Daily Gleaner, 9 August 1917. Cundall, “West Indies”, 194. A wide variety of bush teas was made by boiling herbs in water. Many of these were used as medicines as well. Bessie Pullen-Burry, Jamaica As It Is, 1903 (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1903), 143–44. Daily Gleaner, 26 April 1892. Willis, “Buckra” Land, 35. Falmouth Post, 17 September 1867. See also Morning Journal, 14 and 15 April 1869. Colonial Standard, 2 August 1883; Daily Gleaner, 9 December 1899. See Steeve O. Buckridge, The Language of Dress: Resistance and Accommodation in Jamaica, 1760–1890 (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2004), 129–35. According to Buckridge, as Jamaican society became more Eurocentric after emancipation, many African dress forms were abandoned by vast numbers of women, especially those of the middle class. See, for instance, advertisements in Morning Journal, 14, 18 and 21 January 1861, 11 November 1872; Falmouth Post, 3 and 20 January, and 20 March 1860; Daily Gleaner, 25 August 1875, 1 November 1879; Colonial Standard, 6 January 1882, 23 May 1883, 24 January 1890; Jamaica Times, 9 January 1909. Daniel Roache, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/203; Susan Gunter, JA 7/12/70; Teresa Richards, JA 7/12/171; Clara Smith, JA 7/12/205; Una Wilson, JA 7/12/265; Joyce Richards, JA 7/12/238; and Jean Calvin, JA 7/12/181. See also Morning Journal, 1 September 1868. Jean Calvin, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/181. In 1899, for instance, it was reported that a young married woman named Davis died on the public road in St Catherine

428

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125. 126.

127.

128.

129.

130.

131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137.

Notes to pages 48–51

on her way home from market. A post-mortem examination claimed that it was because her corset was so tight that it inhibited her blood circulation (Jamaica Times, 4 February 1899). This demonstrates the extent to which even rural non-elite women adopted the Victorian dress code and its accompanying value of respectability. Joyce Richards, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/238; and Una Wilson, JA 7/12/265. See, for instance, advertisements in Falmouth Post, 3 January, 3 February 1860; Morning Journal, 14 and 18 January 1861, 20 December 1868, 18 November 1870, 9 March and 4 May 1872; Colonial Standard, 27 February 1889, 1 September 1892; Daily Gleaner, 25 June 1875, 17 and 18 January 1881, 4 and 18 December 1895, 11 January 1896, and 10 May 1913. G.A.E. Smith, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/23; Florie Burkley, JA 7/12/161; Susan Gunter, JA 7/12/59; also Daniel Roache, JA 7/12/203. S.C. Spencer Smith’s dress for church was as follows: white and buff waistcoat, cotton shirt, collar to button thinner vest. “One needs (to walk in) a very thin suit pyjama type only one upper garment.” (Rough Diary [of S.C. Spencer Smith], 1902 entry, JA 4/9/9.) Kennedy Crone, “Jamaica, Island Jewel of the Caribbean”, Canadian Geographical Journal (April 1932): 251. “Men wore white shirts with a stiff bosom with studs, sleeve links – standing collar stiff. . . . Then neck tie tied around collar.” Also “Jamaica Memories”, Miscellaneous, JA 7/12/164; also Una Wilson, JA 7/12/265. On leaving England for Jamaica, Spencer Smith packed ties, linen shirts and collars, and other necessities, fully cognizant that even materials that were regarded as light in England were often too hot for the tropics. Yet that did not prevent him and many others from travelling with, importing, and wearing woollen clothes. Rough Diary [of S.C. Spencer Smith], 1897 entry, JA 4/9/9.1. Newton, Glimpses of Life, 168; Crone, “Jamaica, Island Jewel”. See also Vaughn Cornish, The Travels of Ellen Cornish (London: W.J. Ham-Smith, 1913), 275. White (light-coloured) clothes, if more suitable to the tropics, were easily soiled as were Cornish’s trousers with green paint after sitting on a freshly painted garden seat. After trying, his black manservant reported that he “couldn’t get de paint off no-how”. Cornish suggested that he should use ammonia, to which he replied: “I ab taken de liberty to do so massa . . . and dey fit me beautiful.” Buckridge, Language of Dress, 139 Gladstone Burke, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/242; and Teresa Richards, JA 7/12/171. James, Mulberry Tree, 45; G.A.E. Smith, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/23; Susan Gunter, JA 7/12/59. Gaunt, Where the Twain Meet, 44. Livingstone, Black Jamaica, 190–91. E.C. Gardiner, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/94; Colonial Standard, 14 January 1880. J. Edmondson to Hoole, 20 April 1865, MMS Box 199 [mf no. 2396]; also Cundall, “West Indies”, 181.

Notes to pages 52–58

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138. Buckridge, Language of Dress, 138–41. 139. Sir Sibbald David Scott, To Jamaica and back (London: Chapman and Hall, 1876), 229–30; E.A. Hastings Jay, A Glimpse of the Tropics, or Four Months Crossing in the West Indies (London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co., 1900), 241–42; Pullen-Burry, Jamaica As It Is, 23; De Lisser, In Jamaica, 99–100; J. Edmondson to Hoole, 20 April 1865, MMS Box 199 [mf no. 2396]. Newton noted that boys’ clothing often consisted of a shirt or pinafore or sometimes a frock, torn and tattered. Newton, Glimpses of Life, 183–85. 140. Pullen-Burry, Jamaica As It Is, 23. 141. Livingstone, Black Jamaica, 106, 190–91. 142. Jay, A Glimpse of the Tropics, 241–42. 143. Harriet Phillimore, A Love Passage (London: Christian Knowledge Society, 1908), 85. 144. Scott, To Jamaica and back, 229–30. 145. Colonial Standard, 28 June 1880. Both women were arrested and fined 5s. each. 146. Livingstone, Black Jamaica, 190–91. 147. Buckridge, Language of Dress, 154. 148. See Mabel Blanche Caffin, A Jamaica Outing (Boston: Sharwood, 1899). 149. Stuart, Adventures, 176. 150. Willis, “Buckra” Land, 32–33; Una Wilson, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/265; Sylvester Richards, JA 7/12/228; Jane Thompson, JA 7/12/43. According to the Jamaica Times, the word sanpata was derived from the Spanish word zapato (Jamaica Times, 10 December 1898). Mrs B. Jolly also recalled a rope sole slipper in common use in the early twentieth century, called “Nathan bulldog”, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/120. Prior to 1906, Panama hats were imported into the island (see, for instance, advertisement of Charles Gadpaille in Morning Journal, 12 December 1870). In that year, however, the Catholics in Kingston began to sponsor their manufacture locally. Jamaica Times, 30 June 1906. 151. Henderson, West Indies, 29. Unlike the Indian women for whom the jewellery worn was essentially a form of saving, black women wore it in order to display it for sale. 152. Buckridge, Language of Dress, 180.

Chapter 3 1. See Morning Journal, 24 September 1868. 2. Philip Wright (ed.), Lady Nugent’s Journal of Her Residence in Jamaica from 1801 to 1805 (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2002), 123–24. According to Nugent, “the old black nurse brought a cargo of herbs, and wished to try various charms, to expedite the birth of the child, and told me so many stories of pinching and tying women to the bed-post, to hasten matters, that sometimes, in spite of my

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Notes to pages 59–64

3. 4.

5.

6.

7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16.

agony, I could not help laughing, and, at others, I was really in a fright, for fear she would try some of her experiments upon me. But the maids took all her herbs from her, and made her remove all the smoking apparatus she had prepared for my benefit.” On the birth of her second child in 1803, Nugent reported that she went into labour unexpectedly and “an express was sent for Dr. Clare”. Lady Nugent’s Journal, 175. Brian L. Moore, Cultural Power, Resistance and Pluralism: Guyana 1838–1900 (Kingston: The Press, University of the West Indies, 1995), 44. “Jamaica Memories” of A. McKay, JA 7/12/210; Susan Gunter, JA 2/12/70; Jane Thompson, JA 7/12/43; and Hilda Tate, JA 7/12/247. Also Martha Warren Beckwith, Black Roadways: A Study of Jamaica Folklore (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1928; reprint, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969), 57–58. Beckwith, Black Roadways, 55–57. For further information on Afro-creole beliefs and practices in relation to birth, see Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2004), 41–42. Charles Rampini, Letters from Jamaica (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1873), 88; Sir Sibbald David Scott, To Jamaica and back (London: Chapman and Hall, 1876), 277; and Beckwith, Black Roadways, 59. Rampini, Letters, 87–88; Scott, To Jamaica, 276; and Beckwith, Black Roadways, 59. Jamaican folk belief also had it that no duppy could hurt twins, especially those of opposite sex. Beckwith, Black Roadways, 58–59; Jane Thompson, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/43. Jamaican peasants did not keep accurate records of dates of birth. Thus in 1896 the Gleaner printed an anecdote of a christening of a three year old boy. In response to the minister’s enquiry as to his date of birth, the parents paused for about two minutes and then responded, “Him born when da habby weddar and sever blowing, Sir.” Daily Gleaner, 19 September 1896. H.G. De Lisser, In Jamaica and Cuba (Kingston: Gleaner, 1910), 110. Beckwith, Black Roadways, 58–59. Jamaica Times, 2 September 1905. Morning Journal, 9 April 1896; also 10 November 1871; Falmouth Post, 31 January 1865; and Daily Gleaner, 8 November 1884. Daily Gleaner, 27 January 1893; see also Colonial Standard, 28 January 1893. Daily Gleaner, 16 November 1905. See also Daily Gleaner, 16 August 1887, 13 December 1897, 4 December 1907, 20, 24 and 30 December 1915, 3 January 1916, 18 December 1918, 3 January 1919; Colonial Standard, 5 May 1887; Jamaica Times, 29 July and 14 October 1899, 16 February, 20 April, 12 October and 14 December 1901, 4 January, 22 February, 8 May, 14 June, and 25 October 1902, 25 April 1903, 30 March, 11 May, 24 August and 28 September 1912, 11 April 1914. Daily Gleaner, 5 June 1906. For accounts of Jewish weddings, see Daily Gleaner, 16 December 1899 and 21 August 1912.

Notes to pages 64–70

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17. Daily Gleaner, 23 May 1894. 18. See note 14. 19. Daily Gleaner, 23 May 1894. See also Daily Gleaner, 21 August 1912 for a list of presents and their donors at the wedding of L.V. Samuel and Rita D’Costa. 20. Mrs T.B. Butcher, A Peep at Jamaica and Its People (London: Charles E. Kelly, 1902), 23–24. 21. Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson, “ ‘Married but not Parsoned’: Attitudes to Conjugality in Jamaica, 1865–1920”, in Contesting Freedom: Control and Resistance in the Post-Emancipation Caribbean, ed. Gad Heuman and David V. Trotman (London: Macmillan Caribbean, 2005), 197–214. 22. Governor’s report 1880–81 (Anthony Musgrave), Department Reports 1880–81, xxx; also Beckwith, Black Roadways, 64. 23. Beckwith, Black Roadways, 64; Margaret Newton, Glimpses of Life in Bermuda and the Tropics (London: Digby, Long and Co., 1897), 177. 24. See Moore and Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven, chapter 4. 25. Daily Gleaner, 29 April 1916. 26. Frank Cundall, “The West Indies Today, 1908”, NLJ MST 934, 105. 27. A.A. Grant, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/188. See also Daily Gleaner, 29 April 1916. 28. Cundall, “West Indies”, 105. 29. This seems to have become part of the folklore of the country. See Daily Gleaner, 17 June 1892; and the “Jamaica Memories” of Daniel Roache, JA 7/12/203; and of Susan Gunter, JA 7/12/59. 30. Stephen Chalmers, “A Country Wedding”, Jamaica Times, 16 January 1904. 31. Daily Gleaner, 24 February 1900, and Jamaica Times, 14 February 1912. 32. These were supplied to Beckwith by informants. The meaning of the second one as explained by Alexander Townsend of Flamstead, St Andrew, is “ I stand on my feet, not in opposition but in brotherly love (Philadelphia). This I say unto you, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us but to the glory of thy name.” Martha Beckwith, Jamaica Folk-Lore (New York: American Folk-Lore Society, G.E. Stechert and Co., 1928; Kraus Reprint Co., 1969), 7–8. 33. Beckwith, Black Roadways, 64; Cundall, “West Indies”, 105; Friends Jamaica Mission 7, no. 7 (July 1899), JA 5/8/78/5917; C.W. Willis, “Buckra” Land: two weeks in Jamaica (Boston, 1896); and “Jamaica Memories” of A. Levy, JA 7/12/126; Clara Smith, JA 7/12/205; and Una Wilson, JA 7/12/265. 34. Beckwith, Black Roadways, 64–65. 35. Morning Journal, 8 February 1869, Daily Gleaner, 10 August 1877 and 7 June 1889. 36. Morning Journal, 4 May 1868. For other examples of death announcements, see also Morning Journal, 26 September 1861, 24 March 1868, 9 December 1870, and 4 May 1871; Daily Gleaner, 8 November 1884; Colonial Standard, 12 August 1881 and 28 December 1894. 37. Morning Journal, 29 July 1870. See also Moore, Cultural Power, 47.

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Notes to pages 70–74

38. Jamaica Advocate, 24 June 1905. One such announcement in 1870 read as follows: “Friends and acquaintances of the late Mrs. Charlotte Lawrence, are requested to attend her remains, from the Pen residence of her son (Sandy Park, St Andrew) to the place of interment at 3 p.m. The Funeral will reach North and Orange Streets, about 4 p.m. Please let your Carriage attend.” Morning Journal, 9 December 1870. 39. Daily Gleaner, 22 May 1878; see also 16 November 1893. 40. “The Critic”, “Some Social Institutions: Funerals”, Daily Gleaner, 5 June 1906. 41. See, for instance, Morning Journal, 30 September 1861; Daily Gleaner, 26 July 1878, 8 August 1882, 28 December 1891, 16 November 1893; Colonial Standard, 10 January 1887, 7 May, 9 and 10 September 1892. 42. Jamaica Advocate, 24 June 1905. 43. Daily Gleaner, 17 June 1881. 44. De Lisser, In Jamaica, 110; Cundall, “West Indies”, 105. 45. De Lisser, In Jamaica, 110. 46. Margaret J. Field, Religion and Medicine of the Ga People (Accra: Presbyterian Book Depot, 1961), 199–200. 47. Bessie Pullen-Burry, Ethiopia in Exile: Jamaica Revisited (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1905), 148. 48. David, “Experiences at a Negro Wake” [Pt. 1], Jamaica Times, 14 July 1900; also Daily Gleaner, 28 August and 23 December 1897. 49. Daily Gleaner, 28 August 1897. 50. Daily Gleaner, 28 August 1897. Rampini (Letters, 85) recorded the words of one song sung at wakes: Me len’ him my canoe, Him broke my paddle, (Chorus) John Joe, widdle waddle.

John Joe no hab None hat ’pon him head John Joe, widdle waddle.

Me len’ my fish-pot, Him tief my net, John Joe, widdle waddle.

John Joe no hab No shirt ’pon him back John Joe, widdle waddle.

Me len’ him my harpoon, Him tief my line, John Joe, widdle waddle.

If I catch John Joe I will broke him neck, John Joe, widdle waddle.

51. Beckwith, Black Roadways, 83. This observation was also made by the Morning Journal which differentiated between country wakes and those of Kingston. The former were reputed to be more subdued and less noisy than the latter. Morning Journal, 29 July 1870. Daily Gleaner, 23 December 1897; and David, “Experiences at a Negro Wake” [part 2], Jamaica Times, 21 July 1900. 52. Pullen-Burry, Ethiopia in Exile, 148; also Colonial Standard, 26 October 1891. 53. Daily Gleaner, 6 January 1886 and 23 December 1897; “Citizen” to editor, Daily

Notes to pages 74–75

54.

55. 56. 57.

58.

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Gleaner, 3 June 1881; and “Sleep” to editor, Jamaica Post, 18 February 1892; see also Jamaica Post, 5 July 1890; Jamaica Daily Telegraph, 31 January 1899; Jamaica Times, 25 April 1903. The Jamaica Post stated: “In the name of decency and order we protest against the continuance of these debasing orgies. They are essentially profane and demoralising as far as the ‘wakers’ themselves are concerned; and they interfere with the peace and liberty of all respectable citizens who live in the locality in which they are held. The room where the body of a departed friend is lying is not the place in which to drink, to yell blasphemously, the beautiful words of some hymns, and then indulge in obscene and abusive language, and ultimately to engage in quarrelling and fighting” (Jamaica Post, 5 July 1890). Likewise, the Colonial Standard asked, “Has not the time arrived when those immoral orgies known as ‘wakes’ should be put a stop to? It is all very well to talk of interfering with the liberty of the subject – but, there is such a thing as carrying this sentiment or desire to an extreme, especially among the ignorant, who are so apt to be led away, and become the dupes of the debased sanctimonious roughs in our community. . . . ‘Wakes’ are the inheritance of a demoralised, ignorant, enslaved country. . . . [It is the government’s duty to] quickly put an end to or at least largely mitigate, the prostituting, drunken influences of ‘Wakes’, for, not-withstanding this gross ignorance, the masses of our people are law-abiding. . . . The blame for their continued indulgence in this relict (Wakes) of savagery, slavery, and ignorance rests with the government and with those whose duty . . . it is to endeavour by their teachings and inculcation to induce our people to discard for ever such heathenism” (Colonial Standard, 17 February 1890). These views were wholly endorsed by “Layman”, who in 1902 appealed to all wake participants thus: “It is a disgrace to society, it is darkness in existing light, it is obstructive to the social, moral, religious life of the people, and most of all a great irreverence to Divinity. Such gatherings but help to lower the religious, moral and social life of the people.” He further noted that very often when the minister arrived for the burial service the people were worn out by the singing and drinking, “and the whole service is done with neither decency nor reverence, and very often men are seen drinking over the grave”. “Layman” to editor, Jamaica Times, 15 November 1902. Other readers registered their concurrence with Layman. Jamaica Times, 29 November and 6 December 1902. Morning Journal, 29 July 1870 and 18 June 1873. Daily Gleaner, 18 June 1873. Grant to Kimberley, no. 167, 29 September 1873, CO 137/472. Colonel Cox, a member of the select committee, argued that the bill did not go far enough and that all wakes should be prohibited. However, the majority of the committee and the Legislative Council felt that absolute prohibition of wakes would be an interference with the liberty of one class of the Queen’s subjects which could not be justified. Daily Gleaner, 18 June 1873.

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Notes to pages 75–79

59. Minute of Sir H. Holland, 3 November 1873, and Kimberley to Grant, no. 187, 10 November 1873, CO 137/472. 60. Daily Gleaner, 18 June 1873. 61. Rampini, Letters, 82. 62. Beckwith, Black Roadways, 70–71; Bessie Pullen-Burry, Jamaica As It Is, 1903 (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1903), 121. For West Africa, see Field, Religion and Medicine, 172n1. 63. Beckwith, Black Roadways, 70–71; Joseph John Williams, Psychic Phenomena of Jamaica (New York: Dial Press, 1934), 39. 64. Beckwith, Black Roadways, 71. Many of these rituals were very similar to those practised in Guyana. Moore, Cultural Power, 112–14. 65. Beckwith, Black Roadways, 72–75. 66. Joseph John Williams, Whisperings of the Caribbean: Reflections of a Missionary (New York: Benziger Bros., 1925), 235–36. 67. Williams, Whisperings, 229. For the West African antecedents of these funerary customs, see Field, Religion and Medicine, 200. 68. Pullen-Burry, Jamaica As It Is, 117–18; and Grey to Carnarvon, no. 60, 14 May 1875, CO 137/479. According to Rampini, “There is something almost poetical in the negro custom of burying their dead in the little yards attached to their huts, underneath the coffee trees and the bananas which they had worked at during their lives.” Rampini, Letters, 86. 69. Beckwith, Black Roadways, 74–75, and 84. Rampini, however, claimed that tombing was done on the first anniversary of the death. Rampini, Letters, 85. 70. Beckwith, Black Roadways, 75–77; Pullen-Burry, Ethiopia, 149. For further information on these customs, see Moore and Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven, chapter 2. 71. Beckwith stated that in western Jamaica, a “big wake” was held the day after the burial and was sometimes repeated for three days. The ninth night was the occasion merely of a “big singing”. Beckwith, Black Roadways, 77–78, and her Jamaica FolkLore, 8–9; also Pullen-Burry, Ethiopia, 148–49; Daily Gleaner, 10 April 1905. 72. Beckwith, Jamaica Folk-Lore, 9; Jamaica Times, 16 February 1901; Ernest Price, Banana Land; Pages from the Chronicles of an English Minister in Jamaica (London: The Carry Press, 1930), 162. “Stick licking” was a ritualistic form of combat between individuals or groups utilizing long pieces of wood. For a description of stick licking, see Moore and Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven, 156–57. 73. Jamaica Times, 24 May 1902. Among the Ga in West Africa, the widow was required to remain indoors for fifty days after the death. Field, Religion and Medicine, 202.

Notes to pages 81–82

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Chapter 4 The proverb “Duppy know who fe frighten” has been reproduced by several contemporary (and modern) observers with small variations: “Duppy (ghost) know who him frighten”, in Charles Rampini, Letters from Jamaica (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1873), 176, and “Duppy know who him frighten”, in an article titled “Jamaica and Her Proverb Lore”, Jamaica Times, 1 August 1908. See also Martha Warren Beckwith, “Jamaica Proverbs”, Jamaica Folk-Lore (New York: American Folk-Lore Society, G.E. Stechert and Co., 1928; Kraus Reprint Co., 1969), proverb 257, 43. According to G. Llewellyn Watson, whose reproduction of the saying is “Duppy know who fe frighten a dark nite”, the proverb means, “Ghosts know whom to frighten on dark nights.” Watson offered an expanded explanation of the Jamaican proverb: “People only attack those whom they are confident they can subdue, e.g., a small boy would not attempt to fight a man. This also indicates that people prey only on those who lend themselves to vulnerability.” G. Llewellyn Watson, Jamaican Sayings: With Notes on Folklore, Aesthetics, and Social Control (Tallahassee: Florida A&M University, 1991), 196. 1. We have elsewhere made a distinction between the mainstream and dominant cultural systems in colonial Jamaica. The mainstream system was the culture of the vast majority of Jamaicans, but it was accorded low status because its primary bearers were the black lower classes. On the other hand, the imported anglicized culture of the minority elite classes was ascribed high status and cultural dominance by virtue of the social preeminence and political influence of its mainly upper- and middleclass bearers. The whole culture war was based on the elite determination to impose their cultural power and dominance on the rest of the population, but we have shown that this failed; instead the low-status Afro-creole culture continuously expanded to consolidate itself as the mainstream culture of Jamaica. See Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2004), chapters 1 and 10. 2. As recently as June 2008, Prime Minister Bruce Golding referred to English as “the accepted language” of Jamaica. Jamaica Gleaner, 30 June 2008. 3. For these discussions, see Glenn A. Akers, Phonological Variation in the Jamaican Continuum (Ann Arbor: Karoma, 1981); Mervyn C Alleyne, Comparative Afro-American: An Historical-Comparative Study of English-Based Afro-American Dialects of the New World (Ann Arbor: Karoma, 1980); Beryl Loftman Bailey, Jamaican Creole Syntax: A Transformational Approach (London: Cambridge University Press, 1966); Pauline Christie, Barbara Lalla, Velma Pollard and Lawrence Carrington (eds.), Studies in Caribbean Language 2: Papers from the Ninth Biennial Conference of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics (St Augustine, Trinidad: School of Education, Uni-

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Notes to pages 82–84

4.

5.

6. 7.

8.

versity of the West Indies, 1998); Pauline Christie (ed.), Due Respect: Papers on English and English-Related Creoles on the Caribbean in Honour of Professor Robert Le Page (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2001); Frederick G. Cassidy, Jamaica Talk: Three Hundred Years of the English Language in Jamaica, 3rd ed. (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2007); Hubert Devonish, Language and Liberation: Creole Language Politics in the Caribbean (London: Karia, 1986); Hazel Simmons-McDonald and Ian Robertson (eds.), Exploring the Boundaries of Caribbean Creole Languages (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2006); Barbara Lalla and Jean D’Costa, Language in Exile: Three Hundred Years of Jamaican Creole (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1990); Mervyn Morris, “Is English We Speaking” and Other Essays (Kingston: Ian Randle, 1999); Gordon Collier and Ulrich Fleischmann, eds., A Pepper-Pot of Cultures: Aspects of Creolization in the Caribbean (Amsterdam: Matatu, 2003). For some of these discussions see Edward Brathwaite, The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770–1820 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971); Edward Brathwaite, Contradictory Omens: Cultural Diversity and Integration in the Caribbean (Kingston: Savacou Publications, 1974); Mervyn C. Alleyne, Roots of Jamaican Culture (London: Pluto Press, 1988); Sidney W. Mintz, “The Caribbean as a Socio-cultural Reality”, in Peoples and Cultures of the Caribbean, ed. Michael M. Horowitz (Garden City, NY: Natural History Press, 1971), 17–46; O. Nigel Bolland, “Creolisation and Creole Societies: A Cultural Nationalist View of Caribbean Social History”, Caribbean Quarterly 44, nos. 1 and 2 (March–June, 1998): 5; Jean Besson, “Euro-Creole, AfroCreole, Meso-Creole: Creolization and Ethnic Identity in West-Central Jamaica”, in A Pepper-Pot of Cultures, ed. Collier and Fleischmann, 169–88. Lalla and D’Costa relied on the records of seventeenth-, eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury observers such as Hans Sloane, J.B. Moreton and Matthew G. “Monk” Lewis, among others. Lalla and D’Costa, Language in Exile, 23, 100; see also Beverly Bryan, “Some Correspondences between West African and Jamaican Creole Speakers in Learning Standard English”, in Studies in Caribbean Language 2, ed. Christie et al., 100; Morgan Dalphinis, Caribbean and African Languages: Social History, Language, Literature and Education (London: Karia, 1985), 2; Mervyn C. Alleyne, “The Role of Africa in the Construction of Identities in the Caribbean”, in A Pepper-Pot of Cultures, ed. Collier and Fleischmann, 29–42. Rampini, Letters, 36–37. See for instance, Brian L. Moore, Cultural Power, Resistance and Pluralism: Colonial Guyana 1838–1900 (Kingston: The Press, University of the West Indies, 1995), 91–93; and John Rickford, Dimensions of a Creole Continuum: History, Texts and Linguistic Analysis of Guyanese Creole (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987). Emelia Russey Gurney, Letters of Emelia Russey Gurney (London: James Nisbet, 1903), 300. Bacon and Aaron did not think “there is a case on record where the stranger has been able at once to understand the English of the Jamaican of the

Notes to pages 84–84

9.

10. 11.

12.

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lower class”. Edgar Bacon and E.M. Aaron, The New Jamaica (New York: Walbridge and Co.; Kingston: Aston W. Gardner and Co., 1890), 75. Dorothy Mabel Bottle, Reminiscences of a Queen’s Army Schoolmistress (London: Arthur Stockwell, ca. 1911), 65. Verrill thought that the Jamaican patois was different from the language spoken by blacks in the United States and the other West Indian islands, claiming that the vocabulary was very limited, words were clipped, letters and articles omitted, genders confused, and no heed paid to verbs. Alpheus Hyatt Verrill, Jamaica of Today (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1931), 150. Frank Cundall, “The West Indies Today, 1908”, NLJ MST 934, 102. Walter Jekyll, Jamaican Song and Story: Annancy Stories, Digging Songs, Ring Tunes, and Dancing Tunes (Jamaica, 1906; reprinted by permission by the Folk-Lore Society, Nendeln/Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1967), 3. Ibid., 4. Other examples were: Jamaican The boy too trick. No make him get ’way Me go buy. A door. To warm fire.

English The boy is very tricky . . . Do not let him get away. I am going to buy. Out of doors . . . To warm oneself by the fire . . .

13. For a list of some of those linguists, see notes 4 and 5 above. According to Bailey, whose extensive study included analyses of phonology, morphology, word classes, sentence structure, morpheme variants and morphophonemics, there are nine main rules of grammar that distinguish Creole from English: 1. There is no subject-verb concord in Creole; the English verb must agree in number with its subject nominal; 2. The tense system in Creole is limited to the unmarked verb for general purposes, and a particle specifying “past”; English has a more fully developed tense system; 3. The Creole verb does not have a distinct passive form; 4. The English verb ‘be’ bifurcates in Creole into an equating verb and a locating verb, with no reflex for adjectival predication; 5. The Creole adjective, like the verb, predicates without use of copula; 6. The Creole nouns and pronouns have both an aggregate and an associative plural; English has the associative plural in the first and second person pronouns only; 7. In the generic phrase the Creole noun has no article; English nouns require either the singular form with definite article (the horse) or the plural form without article (horses); 8. There is no case system in either noun or pronoun in Creole, and no indication of sex in third person pronouns;

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Notes to pages 85–88

9. The inverted sentence type is basic in Creole; its use for emphasis in English is much more limited. See Bailey, Jamaican Creole Syntax, 146. 14. Akers examined the language’s phonological processes including nasalization, vowel epenthesis, final vowel insertion, vowel coalescence, glide formation, lengthening, final consonant deletion, initial consonant deletion, ‘h’ deletion, ‘r’ deletion. See Akers, Phonological Variation in the Jamaican Continuum. 15. R.B. Le Page, foreword to Bailey, Jamaican Creole Syntax, vii. 16. Akers, Phonoloical Variation, 8–9. 17. Leonard E. Barrett, The Sun and the Drum: African Roots in Jamaican Folk Tradition (Kingston: Sangster’s; London: Heinemann Educational, 1979), 17. 18. Joseph John Williams, Psychic Phenomena of Jamaica (New York: Dial Press, 1934), 36. 19. Mervyn Alleyne, Roots of Jamaican Culture (London: Pluto Press, 1988). 20. Beckwith, Jamaica Folk-Lore, 8–9. 21. Even at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Jamaica’s “intelligentsia” continue to privilege English as the language of progress and argue vehemently that to standardize Jamaican in writing is a waste of time and resources, and a backward step. See for instance, letters to the editor of the Jamaica Gleaner by Winnie AndersonBrown, 15 July 2008; Verona Wilson, 26 February 2008; Antonn Brown, 15 July 2008; and the following articles in the same newspaper: “Golding Questions Purpose of Patois Bible”, 30 June 2008; and R. Antony Lewis, “Patois, Bible and Translation”, 22 June 2008. See Anthony G. Gumbs to the editor, Jamaica Observer, 16 July 2008; and the following articles in this newspaper: “Patois Bible Debate Rages”, 24 June 2008; Franklin Johnston, “Patois, English and the Blood of Christ”, 31 July 2008; Mark Wignall, “Is the Patois Bible a Joke?” 22 June 2008; and Lance Robinson, “Patois Must Have No Place Over English”, 28 August 2008. 22. Verrill, Jamaica of Today, 150. 23. Mrs T.B. Butcher, A Peep at Jamaica and Its People (London: Charles E. Kelly, 1902), 20–21. 24. Moore, Cultural Power, 93. 25. For a full discussion on Jamaica’s street culture, see Moore and Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven, 148–66. 26. Winifred James, The Mulberry Tree (London: Chapman and Hall, 1913), 45–46. 27. D.V. Trotman, Crime in Trinidad: Conflict and Control in a Plantation Society, 1838– 1900 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986), 256; see also Roger D. Abrahams, The Man of Words in the West Indies: Performance and the Emergence of Creole Culture (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983). 28. Verrill, Jamaica of Today, 150. 29. Cundall, “West Indies”, 102; Verrill, Jamaica of Today, 151.

Notes to pages 88–93

30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

46. 47.

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Cundall, “West Indies”, 102; Verrill, Jamaica of Today, 150. Cundall, “West Indies”, 102. Verrill, Jamaica of Today, 150. Cundall, “West Indies”, 150. See Bailey, Jamaican Creole Syntax, 1–2. See also Akers, Phonological Variation, 3. Akers, Phonological Variation, 3 and 8. John Henderson, The West Indies (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1905), 224. Ibid., 221–25. Ibid., 103. Henderson presented another context where the creole oral culture was in evidence. On a visit to “Wild Man Street in Kingston”, he described “an abode of infamy” where “Jamaican dancing women” performed “only at the bidding of white men, the black man is not a welcome guest”. According to him, “[t]he women call themselves white; really they are brown or yellow or nearly black”. In addition, “they speak the pigeon English of an affected Eurasian, with a tincture of the singsong drawl of an educated negro. . . . They speak of the England they have never seen as home. White men are ‘chaps’ or ‘felhers’. . . . [When they drank their w]hite teeth flashed and the accent become more coloured and so more natural. It was not pretty talk, and it was lacking in the elements of refinement.” That these dancing women should seek to mask Jamaican in an “affected” accent spoke to the negative light in which the language was perceived. However, the cadence of their speech betrayed them, as did the pronunciations especially when their guard was lowered by alcohol. Henderson, 83–85. Jack Span, “Jamaicans and Bad English”, Jamaica Times, 15 March 1902. Ibid. Philip Wright (ed.), Lady Nugent’s Journal of Her Residence in Jamaica from 1801 to 1805 (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2002), 76 and 98. Span, Jamaica Times, 15 March 1902. See, for instance, advertisement in Morning Journal, 27 December 1869. “The Use of Dialect Language”, Daily Gleaner, 29 January 1915. C. Thornley Stewart and R.M. Murray (eds.), Pepperpot: A Magazine Depicting Mainly the Personal and Lighter Side of Jamaican Life (Kingston: Jamaica Times, 1915). The cover featured a colourfully dressed woman with a head-tie and a pot labelled “Hot Stuff”. Among the magazine’s contents were some poems written entirely in Jamaican, e.g., Claude McKay, “Cutliss Workers”, 44–45; Reginald M. Murray, “The Quadrille Invitation”, 16, and “Rushin’ Waters”, 35–36; and also two short stories or sketches in Jamaican: Sydney C. Nettersole, “De Car Riot Dem”, 50–51; and C.S. Morrison, “A Conversation Concerning the ‘Suffragette’ Question in Jamaica – ‘A Skit’ ”, 51–52. Daily Gleaner, 11 January 1915; Jamaica Times, 23 January 1915. Daily Gleaner, 29 January 1915. It is interesting that Simpson had not yet read Pepperpot.

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Notes to pages 93–98

48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

Jamaica Times, 23 January 1915. Daily Gleaner, 11 January 1915. H.S. Banbury to editor, Daily Gleaner, 3 February 1915. U. Theo. McKay to editor, Daily Gleaner, 28 January 1915. Jamaica Times, 23 January 1915. Jane’s Career: A Story of Jamaica (London: Methuen, 1914) was a novel authored by H.G. De Lisser, editor of the Gleaner. U. Theo McKay to editor, Daily Gleaner, 28 January 1915. Ibid. Claude McKay to editor, Daily Gleaner, 7 June 1913. Rampini, Letters, 180. See also Martha Warren Beckwith, Jamaica Folk-Lore, 109, who explained that the proverb meant, “Today is for me, tomorrow for you.” See his Lectures on Negro Proverbs (Kingston: M. de Cordova, McDougall and Co., 1866), vii. Radcliffe shared the prevailing Eurocentric idea that the African was idiosyncratic, but could best be trained and developed if his own cultural traditions were utilized. Errol Hill, The Jamaican Stage, 1655–1900 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992), 212–13. Rampini, Letters, 175–82. Ibid. Ibid. “Jamaica and Her Proverb Lore”, Jamaica Times, 1 August 1908. The proverbs and their meanings are as follows: • “Man hate you him gi [give] you basket fe carry water.” If a man hates you, he will assign you an impossible task such as transporting water in a basket. • “Someting poil [spoil] a morning carn [can’t] come good a night.” Something that has had a bad start (in the morning), cannot have a change in its later outcome (at night). • “Cunny [cunning] better dan [than] obeah.” Being cunning is better than being able to employ the powers of obeah. • “No call alligator long mout [mouth] till you pass him.” Don’t curse or antagonize a potential source of danger until you are out of harm’s way. • “Trouble ketch [catch] man, picnkey [a child’s] frock fit him.” In the face of trouble a person will seek any unlikely solution (even to squeeze into a child’s clothing). See “Jamaica and Her Proverb Lore”, Jamaica Times, 1 August 1908.

65. Martha Warren Beckwith, Jamaica Folk-Lore, 5–6, noted that versions of many of the proverbs she collected had been previously published by T. Banbury, Jamaica Superstitions, or the Obeah Book (Jamaica, 1894), 39–43; William C. Bates, “Creole Folk-lore from Jamaica. I. Proverbs”, Journal of American Folk-lore 9 (1895): 38–42;

Notes to pages 98–102

66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73.

74.

75.

76. 77.

78. 79. 80.

81.

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Frank Cundall (with Izett Anderson), Jamaica Negro Proverbs and Sayings (Kingston: Institute of Jamaica, 1910); Harry A. Franck, “Jamaica Proverbs”, Dialect Notes 5, no. 4 (1921): 98–108; Cyril F. Grant, “Negro Proverbs Collected in Jamaica, 1887”, Folk-lore 28 (1917): 315–17; Rampini, Letters, 175–82. Beckwith, Jamaica Folk-Lore, 5. Barrett, Sun and the Drum, 35, 39. Beckwith, Jamaica Folk-Lore, 6–7. Watson, Jamaican Sayings, 1–5. Ibid. Beckwith, Jamaica Folk-Lore, 7. The Guyanese proverbs were collected and published by James Speirs, The Proverbs of British Guiana (Demerara: Argosy, 1902). Beckwith points to a number of references including Carew W. Hazlitt, English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases (London, 1907), and Richard F. Burton, Wit and Wisdom from West Africa (London, 1865). Beckwith, Jamaica Folk-Lore, 10–11. Some of the connections to the British sources seem less clear than others. Watson, Jamaican Sayings, 2–3. Watson divided the proverbs into categories of animals, people, vegetation, miscellaneous sayings/short phrases and unexplained sayings. Richard Allsopp (ed.), Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2003), 29. See also F.G. Cassidy and R.B. Le Page (eds.), Dictionary of Jamaican English, 2nd ed. (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2002), 10. Cassidy and Le Page, Dictionary, 10. Rampini, Letters, 116. Quoting “Negro Literature”, Transactions Jamaica Royal Society 1, no. 65, new ser. According to these references, among the Jamaican people Anansi was equivalent to the Roman king of gods, Jove; the Norse god of thunder, Thor; the Hindu god of creation, Brahma; and the Greek sea-god, Proteus. Jekyll, Jamaican Song, 1–2. Alice Werner, introduction to Jekyll, Jamaican Song, ix–x, xvi. Radcliffe, as we have seen, advocated more systematic use of folk tales and proverbs to educate the people; while Jekyll dismissed criticisms of African and Africanderived animal stories which had claimed that “the animal-stories . . . [were] characteristic of and peculiar to these races”, as well as the “somewhat elaborate theory” that there was a “fundamental limitation in the Bantu race, which had prevented, and always would prevent, their advancing beyond a certain point”. This limitation was supposedly denoted by “the absence of grammatical gender in their languages, their supposed incapacity for personifying nature, and their worship of ancestors” (Jekyll, Jamaican Song, xviii). In 1890 Mary Pamela Milne-Holme published a book of Anansi stories called Mamma’s Black Nurse Stories (Hill, Jamaican Stage, 214). Morning Journal, 2 November 1868.

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Notes to pages 103 –107

82. 83. 84. 85.

86.

87. 88. 89.

90.

91.

92. 93. 94.

95.

Werner, introduction, xxv. Rampini, “Why the John Crows have Bald Pates”, Letters, 122–23. Ibid., 117. For example, at the end of “Annancy and Brother Tiger”, he explained that in the story “me a nyam” meant “I was eating, I ate. Nyam is one of the few African words which survive in Jamaica”; that “a wha’ me tell you” meant “What did I tell you?”; and where the phrase “have the same song playing” was concerned, “the past participle [was] again avoided, and its place supplied by the present participle. Song and tune are interchangeable terms.” Jekyll, notes to “Annancy and Brother Tiger”, Jamaican Song, 9–10. When a character said, “I see you dough [though]!” in the story titled “King Daniel”, Jekyll explained that “The first three words are high pitched and the voice falls as low as possible on the dough and dwells upon it”; while “somewhé dé” meant “somewhere there. The e’s are like French é, and dé is said with a strong accent and made very short.” Jekyll, notes to “King Daniel”, and “Brother Annancy and Brother Death”, Jamaican Song, 15 and 34. Rampini, Letters, 117–30. Jekyll, “Annancy and Brother Tiger”, Jamaican Song, 7–10. In this tale Anansi said, “Marnin’, Bro’er Tiger, I see you catch dat fellah; I was so glad to see you hold him so close in hand. You must eat him now. But before you eat him take you two hand an’ cover you face an’ kneel down with you face up to Massa God an’ say, ‘T’ank God fe what I goin’ to receive.’ ” Tiger complied; when he opened his eyes, Anansi and Monkey were both gone. Jekyll, “Annancy, Monkey and Tiger”, Jamaican Song, 77–78. As the story concluded: “From that day Annancy never can go where Cow is. Anywhere Cow see him he reach down with his mouth”, perhaps to eat the spider. Jekyll, “Cow and Annancy”, Jamaican Song, 104–8. Jekyll, Jamaican Song, 10. According to Isabel MacLean, “The expression ‘Jack Mandora’, or ‘Jack Mantora, I don’t choose none’, comes at the end of each story like an amen, and is supposed to mean that nothing personal has been meant to any of the audience.” See Isabel C. MacLean, Children of Jamaica (Edinburgh and London: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1910), 58. MacLean, Children, 63. Ibid., 57. For a full discussion of this idea see Pascale De Souza, “Creolizing Anancy: Signifyin(g) Processes in New World Spider Tales”, in A Pepper-Pot of Cultures, ed. Collier and Fleischmann, 339–63. Edward Brathwaite, Folk Culture of the Slaves in Jamaica (London: New Beacon Books, 1971), 31.

Notes to pages 108–112

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Chapter 5 1. See chapter 7 in Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2004). 2. Jamaica Advocate, 12 December 1896 and 25 April 1903. That Love should select English fish-women as his criterion for what was utterly vulgar speaks volumes of his embrace both of British symbols of good and evil, and of their patriarchal and misogynistic prejudices. 3. President’s address to the Universal Negro Improvement Association, Daily Gleaner, 26 August 1915. 4. Musgrave said he intended to appoint Messrs Newton (lieutenant governor and colonial secretary), O’Malley (attorney-general), Kemble (custos of Kingston), and C.B. Mosse (superintending medical officer), Dr Hamilton (member of the Legislative Council), Rev. J. Radcliffe (principal of the Collegiate School) and Dr J.C. Phillippo (physician) as the Institute of Jamaica’s first Board. Musgrave to Hicks Beach, 17 May 1879, no. 143, CO 137/489. 5. The Royal Society of Arts was renamed the Royal Society of Arts and Agriculture in 1869 in the hope of attracting the powerful plantocracy to its membership. That did little to sustain its life, and by the late 1870s it was more or less defunct. 6. Report of Attorney-General, 10 May 1879, enclosed in Musgrave to Hicks Beach, 17 May 1879, no. 143, CO 137/489. See also Frank Casserly, “Kingston in 19th century”, NLJ MST 317 no. 6, 20. 7. The ground floor of the building housed the entrance hall and the library; two staircases led to the upper floor which had a lecture hall, the secretary’s office, the West Indian library and boardroom. The frontage of the building was designed in the classic style of architecture while the internal fittings were made from cedar and mahogany. Daily Gleaner, 15 November 1911; Jamaica Times, 20 January 1912. 8. Daily Gleaner, 25 May 1889. 9. Ibid. 10. Attorney-General’s Report, 20 November 1889, enclosed in Blake to Knutsford, 13 December 1889, no. 358, CO 137/540. By this law, the Board of Governors was expanded from seven to eleven members, and all future librarians and curators were to be hired as civil servants. 11. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1896–97. 12. The new board members were Dr Barker, Dr F.H. Saunders, Dr M. Grabham, Ralph H.B. Hotchkin, C.H. Nicholls and R.E. Nunes. Under Cundall’s control, the public library extended its opening hours: 7:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.– 9:00 p.m., while the public museum was open from 9:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. Colonial Standard, 28 February and 9 November 1891. 13. Charles Washington Eves, West Indies (London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co., 1889), 46–47. See also Daily Gleaner, 30 October 1891.

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Notes to pages 112–115

14. Daily Gleaner, 28 February 1882. 15. “The Rules of the Institute of Jamaica” (Kingston: Institute of Jamaica, 1913), JA 7/32/27. 16. Daily Gleaner, 12 August 1881. 17. Jamaica Institute, Department Reports, 1904–5 and 1907–8. See also Daily Gleaner, 26 June 1908. 18. Whereas in 1897–98 the institution was able to report that its holdings of 10,445 volumes, of which 822 (7.9 per cent) dealt exclusively with Jamaica and 571 (5.5 per cent) with the rest of the West Indies, by 1908–9 the holdings had been expanded to 12,202, with 1,855 (15.2 per cent) in the West India Library, of which 1,089 (8.9 per cent of total holdings) dealt with Jamaica. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1897–98, 1907–8. 19. These included 122 volumes of West India pamphlets, each containing about ten pamphlets, “some of great rarity and some unique”. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1919–20. 20. Colonial Standard, 28 February 1891. 21. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1903–4. 22. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1896–97. 23. The Montego Bay branch was opened in 1883–84, while the Lucea branch was reported to be working well in 1892–93. By 1899–1900 the Mandeville branch was rated one of the best run rural libraries in the island and was quite popular, especially after it became attached to the Middle Grade School. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1880–81, 1882–83, 1892–93, 1899–1900. 24. In 1897–98 the Black River Men’s Reading Club was one of the first associations to join this programme, followed by the Young Men’s Association at Chapelton and associations in Manchioneal, Rio Bueno, Negril and St Ann’s Bay. In 1901–2 the scheme was expanded in Kingston (although it kept its “Literature in the Country” title). This enabled the Mico Training College, the Kingston Athenaeum, and the Kingston Technical and Continuation School, among others, to benefit. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1897–98, 1898–99, 1899–1900, 1901–2, 1902–3, 1903–4, 1907–8 to 1919–20. 25. Several rural areas participated in this programme including Frankfield, Central Cornwall, Vere, Above Rocks, Central St Mary, Port Antonio, East Portland, Chapelton, Santa Cruz Mountains, West Manchester, South Cornwall, and North Manchester. By 1914–15, East Portland, Mountainside, Porus, Bath, North West Manchester, Falmouth, Blue Mountain Valley and Claremont had joined the scheme, while by 1920 teachers in Darliston, Upper Trelawny, Montego Bay, St George’s, and Springfield were also involved. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1911–12, 1914–15, and 1919–20. See also Daily Gleaner, 11 August 1913. 26. Moore and Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven, chapter 7, especially 224–27. 27. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1895–96.

Notes to pages 115–117

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28. The Circle Leaders were: Rev. H.H. Kilburn, Rev. William Gillies, Rev. Baron Hay, and Mrs Lewis (in Kingston) and Rev. E.D. Tinling (St Mary). After 1909, subscribing members of literary associations and societies in Jamaica were allowed use of the institute’s library, along with members of the Kingston Athenaeum, the St Ann Athenaeum, the Trelawny Citizens Association, the Annotto Bay Institute, the Vere Young Men’s Association, the Porus Men’s Association and the Westmoreland Institute. By 1920 more of these clubs were affiliated, namely, the Santa Cruz Literary Association, the Wolmer’s Old Boys Association, Hampton Old Girls’ Association, Wolmer’s Old Girls’ Association, Mandeville Ladies Club, Liberal Association, Black River Young Men’s Social and Literary Club, Stony Hill Branch of the Agricultural Society, Spaldings Literary and Social Club, St Thomas Subscription Library, Frankfield Shakespearean Club, Kingston Teachers’ Association, East Queen Street Baptist Temperance and Literary Society, Kingston Young Men’s Guild, Claremont Social Club, Liguanea Agricultural Society, Titchfield Girls’ Club and the Portland Subscription Library. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1896–97, 1897–98 1909–10, 1910–11, 1919–20. 29. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1893–94. The journal’s second publication in 1895 included articles on other white male “Jamaican Worthies” such as John Roby, author and philanthropist; Rev. J. Wilson Bridges; Hon. J.C. Phillippo; Rev. J. Radcliffe as well as “Some further notes on William Beckford Historian”. Several of the other articles for that number were also of a scientific bent, and there was a piece on “The Painting of Rodney in the Town Hall, Kingston”. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1895–96. 30. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1894–95. 31. Ibid. 32. W.P. Livingstone, Black Jamaica: A study in evolution (London: Messrs Sampson Low, Marston and Co., 1899) was priced at 6s. Jamaica Times, 3 March 1900. 33. This was at a public meeting in August 1912 outside the Coke Chapel in Kingston. The gathered crowd passed a resolution calling the governor’s attention to the objectionable passages of the volume. Frank Cundall, Jamaica in 1912 (Kingston: Institute of Jamaica, 1912); Alexander Dixon to the editor, Daily Gleaner, 26 August and 5 September 1912. See also George C. Henderson, MD, to the editor, Daily Gleaner, 4 September 1912; D. Theo Wint to the editor, Daily Gleaner, 11 September 1912. 34. Frank Cundall was secretary to the institute and known to be a driving force in the institution’s development. “The Biographical Annals of Jamaica”, which he intended to serve as a guide to the portrait gallery (see chapter 6) at the Institute of Jamaica, came out in 1904–5 at a cost of 6d. He was the moving force behind the annual publication of the library’s catalogue. In 1904–5, the Journal of Education became the vehicle for a new series of articles entitled “Studies in Jamaica History”, which began with the capture of the island by the British in 1655. The following year, he published a pamphlet entitled “Political and Social Disturbances in the West Indies:

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Notes to pages 117–120

35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

42. 43.

44. 45.

a brief account and bibliography”, and another called “A brief guide to an Exhibition of Maps of the Sixteenth Century, illustrative of the Discovery of America”. Lady Nugent’s Journal was taken from a journal kept by Maria Lady Nugent from 1801 to 1815, that had previously been issued for private circulation in 1839. “An anonymous friend” defrayed the cost of the publication of the two pamphlets and the edited book. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1904–5, 1906–7. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1909–10. Ibid. The “Revised List of Birds in Jamaica” by Dr Sclater was also published in 1909. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1911–12. The war forced the board to suspend further publications for want of funds. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1914–15, 1917–18. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1887–88, 1899–1900. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1892–93. In 1898–99, these exhibits were joined by a kinkajou (Cerolep es caudivolvulus) from Belize, a pair of Cuban coneys and an iguana. By 1896, the museum’s activities had attained such a scope that they had to be further sub-categorized. In addition to usual administrative links with similar institutions, the museum reported on its involvement in zoology, botany, geology and anthropology; its housing of the “Imperial Institute Duplicate Collection” and “Live Exhibits”, as well as ongoing anthropological research into the indigenous Indian remains in the island, and also research in “Economic Entomology” whereby insects and pests were identified and suggestions made for their elimination. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1895–96, 1896–97, 1898–99. Daily Gleaner, 4 November 1912. See also Jamaica Guardian, 19 February 1909. In addition, the junior assistant in the institute’s library was permitted to undertake the duties of librarian to the Athenaeum; the assistant librarian of the institute provided general supervision as the Athenaeum’s honorary librarian; and the Athenaeum’s meetings were allowed to take place in the institute’s lecture hall. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1901–2, 1902–3 1904–5. Daily Gleaner, 26 October 1903, and 13 April 1904 By this law, the new board consisted of the governor’s nominees: Sir Fielding Clarke, Kt (chief justice), Rev. Canon William Simms, MA, G.C. Henderson, MD, A.B. MacFarlane, BA, who were members of the old board. Those nominated by the elected members of the Legislative Council were: R.S. Gamble, Captain W.P. Forwood, W.R. Durie and Hon. William Morrison. Those elected by members of the institute were: C.S. Chamberlin, Alfred Cork, Mrs H.C. Bourne, and J.R. Williams, MA. See Attorney-General’s Report, 31 March 1909, enclosed in Olivier to Crewe, no. 241, 26 May 1909, CO 137/671. The Guardian noted that in their promotion of popular lectures and debates, the Athenaeum had been able to attract a steadily increasing membership while that of the institute declined. It hoped that after the

Notes to pages 121–123

46.

47. 48. 49.

50.

51. 52.

53.

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amalgamation the lectures and debates would continue, and courses in history, English literature, mental and moral philosophy, among other things, would be started so that the institute would “carry out in this locality what is known as University Extension work in the Mother country”. Jamaica Guardian, 18 and 19 February 1909. Morning Journal, 26 September 1861 and 21 January 1868; and Blue Book 1865, CO 142/79; Blue Book 1866, CO 142/80. Judith Flanders notes that Victorian subscription libraries had their own premises and a membership that was admitted individually. They bought, for the most part, more serious fiction and a preponderance of non-fiction. See Judith Flanders, Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian Britain (London: Harper, 2006), 170. Falmouth Post, 2 May 1862. Blue Book 1869, CO 142/83; Morning Journal, 12, 17 November 1875. Gall’s library was located at Cooper Hall on Duke Street and opened daily from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. for lending or exchanging novels for subscribers or non-subscribers. According to the Gleaner the latest works of fiction from the English and American press, all catalogued, were available at this library. Each volume was loaned for three nights and a fine of 3d. was imposed for every night a volume was overdue. Subscribers were asked to pay 2s. 6d. per month, 5s. per quarter or one guinea per annum. Non-subscribers were asked to pay 6d. for each volume borrowed (Daily Gleaner, 11 January 1876). Matin and Gardner’s library was located at the stores of Messrs George Henderson and Co. Colonial Standard, 15 February 1881. Colonial Standard, 6 June 1882 and 12 May 1887. The Kingston Young Men’s Guild society managed to survive beyond the turn of the twentieth century. Jamaica Times, 11 March 1899 and 27 October 1900. Jamaica Times, 27 October 1900 and 14 February 1903; Presbyterian Church, St Paul’s Church Minutes, Report for 1909, NLJ MST 2089. Falmouth Post, 2 May 1862; Morning Journal, 19 July 1871, 12, 17 November 1875; Jamaica Times, 7 June 1902. Literary and reading societies were also formed in Hanover [1870s] (Falmouth Post, 17 November, 15 and 22 December 1871); Port Maria and Black River [1880s] (Daily Gleaner, 17 March 1881) – by 1899 though, the Black River club was in danger of extinction from a lack of support, and “a few prominent citizens” were encouraged to lend their support to the group (Jamaica Times, 21 January 1899); Spanish Town [1885] (Colonial Standard, 5 August 1886); Mandeville [1885 and 1892] – the Mandeville Young Men’s Literary Association was established in 1885, but it was short lived and a new Mandeville Literary Association was formed in 1892 (Daily Gleaner, 14 February 1885 and 4 May 1892); Morant Bay [1896] (Daily Gleaner, 22 October 1896); St Ann’s Bay [1898] (Jamaica Times, 24 December 1898); Westmoreland [1902] (Daily Gleaner, 13 October 1902); and Brown’s Town [1905] (Jamaica Times, 21 January 1905). Governor H.W. Norman, Governor’s Report and Department Reports 1883–84, x;

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Notes to pages 124–127

54. 55.

56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

62.

63. 64. 65.

Ethel Maud Symmonett, Jamaica: Queen of the Carib Sea (Kingston: Mortimer C. De Souza, 1895), 22. Colonial Standard, 26 March 1887; Daily Gleaner, 29 August 1887. The paper suggested that a more appropriate means of celebrating the jubilee should be sought, perhaps in a model industrial farm, a graving dock, or a lying-in hospital (Colonial Standard, 26 March 1887). In anticipation of the Victoria Institute’s launch, its directors obtained “suitable rooms in central Kingston” and sent off to London and New York for a large supply of newspapers, periodicals and a number of games (including a billiard table) for the entertainment of its members. Daily Gleaner, 23 July 1887. Daily Gleaner, 26 August 1887. The club was located at 95 East Street in Kingston. Daily Gleaner, 26, 31 August 1887; Jamaica Post, 17 March 1891. Daily Gleaner, 25 October 1887, 14 January 1888 and 16 January 1893. Daily Gleaner, 7 August 1890. Daily Gleaner, 10 August 1890, 1 September 1892, 19 May 1893; Colonial Standard, 6 November 1890; Jamaica Post, 13 May 1893. The old YMCA had been “in abeyance” since the retirement of Rev. Enos Nuttall from its presidency. Plans were in place to resuscitate it under the superintendence of Rev. George Sargeant, and to that end a meeting was held in the school room attached to the Coke Chapel in November 1869. The official launch of a new association took place on 1 October 1885 at their new and spacious premises at 63 Hanover Street. Resolutions were tabled and passed for classes to be offered in science, as was a class for the young men preparing for the civil service examination, and other literary classes. The premises, which were purchased for £900, were provided with rooms for reading and recreation. Within a month of its inauguration, a large, enthusiastic meeting of the YMCA was addressed by the governor at the St George’s School room, and a few months later the association opened its reading rooms at the Mico School. See Morning Journal, 9 November 1869; Daily Gleaner, 8, 10 February 1876, 30 October 1877, 13 April and 3 October 1885; and Colonial Standard, 16 May, 2 July 1885. The first lecture, entitled “Agricultural Openings for Young Men in Jamaica”, was delivered by D. Morris, Esquire, MA, FLS, FGS for an admission price of 6d. Colonial Standard, 18 February 1886, 30 June, 4 July 1887, 28 November 1888; Daily Gleaner, 9 December 1886, 30 January and 7 February 1889. Persons such as E.B. Hopkins took an interest in the Port Antonio branch of the YMCA, donating £30 to their coffers, while Sir Alfred Jones gave £21. Jamaica Times, 3 May 1902. Casserly, “Kingston”, 18. Falmouth Post, 31 January 1860. Some of the recommended texts in this category were several books by J.J. Aubertin including Across France in a Caravan; A Day in my life at Eaton; Wanderings and Wonderings in India, Manila, Burmah, Kashmir, Ceylon, Singapore, Java, Siam, Japan,

Notes to pages 127–134

66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80.

81. 82. 83. 84. 85.

86. 87. 88.

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Formosa, Corea, China, Cambodia, Australia, New Zealand, Alaska and the States as well as The Story of Africa and its Explorers by R. Brown. Jamaica Post, 6 July 1893. Jamaica Post, 6 July 1893. Daily Gleaner, 30 May 1894. Daily Gleaner, 31 May 1894. Daily Gleaner, 30 and 31 May 1894. Daily Gleaner, 30 May 1894. Moore and Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven, chapters 2 and 3; Daily Gleaner, 30 May 1894. Daily Gleaner, 31 May 1894. Morning Journal, 24 and 27 September 1861; Daily Gleaner, 31 May 1894. Daily Gleaner, 30 and 31 May 1894. Morning Journal, 24 and 27 September 1861. Jamaica Post, 6 July 1893. Morning Journal, 3 September 1873. Mary Eliza Bakewell Gaunt, Reflection in Jamaica (London: Ernest Benn, 1932), 21. “Are We a Reading People”, letter by “E.B.D.” to editor, Daily Gleaner, 21 July 1897. Frank Cundall, “The West Indies Today, 1908”, NLJ MST 934, 182. In 1895–96, the Board of the Institute of Jamaica announced that it “does not feel it would be doing right in spending public funds in the purchase of ephemeral novels”. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1895–96. Henry G. Murray, Tom Kittle’s Wake (Kingston: Messrs Jordon and Osborn, 1869); Morning Journal, 9 October 1869. Daily Gleaner, 1 January 1880. The best stories submitted for the competition were published in the newspaper. Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1896. Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1896. Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1896, 21 November 1911, and 7 May 1914; Jamaica Times, 31 October and 7 November 1903, 1 July 1905, 7 and 21 March, 4 April, and 2 May 1908, 16 December 1911, and 20 January 1912. Morning Journal, 21 October 1861 and 26 October 1871. The genre and title(s) of Rodrigues’s work were not stated, but it is reasonable to assume that it was poetry. Daily Gleaner, 31 January, 14 and 28 February 1880. “H.G.D.” [Herbert G. De Lisser], “Jamaica ‘Nancy Story’ Books”, Jamaica Times, 24 December 1899. De Lisser felt that Smith’s book was the better of the two because it presented the stories as “related by the peasants of Jamaica” and “the dialect in her book is much more like the dialect spoken by the ordinary negro peasant”. Nevertheless “Wona’s” book, “in point of literary merit”, rose far above Smith’s. “Wona’s” stories were also more complete although her dialect seemed stilted, but she maintained the original oral traditions more accurately. De Lisser praised both attempts for trying to preserve the folk stories.

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Notes to pages 134–139

89. In addition, the reviewer thought that the book had no plot, the characters were illdrawn and the chapters seemed to have little to do with each other. Jamaica Times, 9 December 1899. 90. Jamaica Times, 18 February 1915. 91. Daily Gleaner, 23 May 1912. According to this newspaper, “Here is a girl born and bred in the tropics. Yet her characteristic qualities as a writer are essentially Scottish, or rather Gaelic. She has the mysticism of the Gael – the sense of the interpenetration of earthly events and experiences by spiritual and Divine forces. She is also influenced largely by the haunting melancholy of the Gael . . . . [B]lood tells even more than environment.” 92. Jamaica Times, 13 December 1913 and 16 December 1916; Edna Manley to Astley Clerk, 7 April 1925, Astley Clerk Papers, JA 7/17/9. 93. Jamaica Times, 1 August 1914; Robert Noble (resident magistrate for St Thomas), “Praise for a Jamaican Novel”, Daily Gleaner, 20 November 1916; for other positive reviews see Lewis Ashenheim, “Mr. De Lisser’s Lastest Novel”, Daily Gleaner, 20 October 1916; William Morrison, “Entertaining and Amusing Story”, Daily Gleaner, 23 October 1916; H.I.C. Brown and William Cowper, “A Jamaican Work of Fiction”, Daily Gleaner, 28 October 1916; Robert Noble, “Mr. H. De Lisser’s Latest Story”, Daily Gleaner, 9 January 1920; Casserly, “Kingston”, 52. 94. Daily Gleaner, 24 November 1892; Jamaica Times, 24 February 1900. The editor of the Gleaner, H.G. De Lisser, was a harsh critic and opined that Redcam’s work had many faults. “It suffers in the first place from a lack of artistry. . . . [W]hat the Germans would call the architecture of the book leaves much to be desired; we must also confess that the author’s moralisings are too frequent and too obtrusive”, while the story had too many similes. He nevertheless found the book humorous and its representations of “Negro scenes and characters are simply wonderful”. Daily Gleaner, 31 August 1909. 95. Daily Gleaner, 7 October 1911. 96. Ibid. See also Claude McKay’s poem “Papine Corner”, Daily Gleaner, 28 October 1911; and his Songs of Jamaica (Kingston: Aaron W. Gardner and Co., 1912; London: Augener, 1912). This collection was on sale for 1s. 6d., post free 1s. 8d. Rev. W. Marwick’s review of Songs of Jamaica, originally published in The Christian Commonwealth, was reprinted in Daily Gleaner, 30 April 1912. 97. Jamaica Times, 13 January and 14 December 1912; Daily Gleaner, 20 August 1912. See also Claude McKay, Constab Ballads (London: Watts and Co., 1912). 98. Daily Gleaner, 26 October 1920. 99. Claude McKay, Spring in New Hampshire and Other Poems (London: Grant Richards; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1920). 100. Daily Gleaner, 13 July 1893. 101. Colonial Standard, 2 May 1888. 102. See Morning Journal, 13 May 1869, 3 March and 16 April 1875; Daily Gleaner, 21 Sep-

Notes to pages 139–140

103.

104.

105. 106. 107.

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tember 1878, 13 January and 18 April 1885, 9 May and 7 July 1888, 13 July 1893, 19 November 1896, 4 December 1900; Colonial Standard, 2 and 21 May, 21 June, 8 and 31 August, 29 September and 1 November 1888; Jamaica Times, 18 February, 25 March, 6 May and 10 June 1899, 10 March 1900 and 20 April 1901, 25 April 1903. Debating societies in Kingston included the Kingston Debating Society, the Truthseekers’ Club during the 1870s; the Victoria Institute’s Debating Society, the Jamaica/Kingston Law Students’ Debating Society, the Young Men’s Literary and Debating Society, the (Church of England) Theological College Debating Society, and the Kingston Athenaeum in the late 1880s and early 1900s. Like so many others, the Kingston Law Students’ Debating Society became moribund during the early 1890s, but was resuscitated in 1899. The Kingston Athenaeum sponsored monthly debates, preferring the “impromptu” format. At their meetings, subjects were chosen by the committee, written on slips of paper and handed around in a hat (Jamaica Times, 18 February 1899). In the rural areas, the Reading and Recreation Club of St Ann’s Bay was formed in 1899 with plans to hold debates on the last Friday night of each month. The Holy Trinity Church Literary Guild was organized in Montego Bay in 1899 in connection with the brotherhood of St Andrew. At least two societies were formed in Westmoreland: the Young People’s Debating Society (1899) in association the Hephzibah Baptist Church (Jamaica Times, 13 May and 10 June 1899), and the Bethel Town Debating Society in 1905. Generally, debating topics were quite far ranging: from religious issues like predestination, to education, English history, the press, immigration, gender, and legal issues such as breach of promise, capital punishment, and trial by jury. Up to the end of the twentieth century, only one reference has been found of women participating in debates, and that was at the Kingston Athenaeum (Jamaica Times, 20 April 1901). The Gleaner reported on an elocution contest in Porus in 1912 and published the pictures of the three top speakers (Daily Gleaner, 18 November 1912). St George’s College was one of the schools that held annual elocution contests. Daily Gleaner, 22 December 1916. The winners of the 1913 contest indicates the wide geographical range from which candidates were drawn; first prize to P. Burke of Port Antonio, second place to A. Norman Palmer of Harewood, and third place to A.M. Lamont of Port Royal. Jamaica Times, 5 July 1913. Daily Gleaner, 22 December 1916. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1880–81. A full list of the lectures is obtainable in the annual reports 1884–1920. Falmouth Post, 27 June 1862, 10 and 17 February 1865; Morning Journal, 11 October 1869, 28 July 1870, 12 and 17 November 1875; Daily Gleaner, 17 and 20 September, 4 and 6 October 1880, 18 January 1898; Colonial Standard, 21 January, 14 and 17 August, 18 and 22 September 1880, 7 September 1882, 3 April and 18 December 1888, 24 June 1889, 15 July 1892, 17 December 1894; Jamaica Times, 2 May and 5 December

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Notes to page 140

1903, 28 January, 28 October and 18 November 1905, 24 February 1906, 25 January 1908, and 21 May 1910. 108. For instance, in November 1861 Rev. Kelley lectured on the “American Civil War” and on the “The manners and customs of the North American Indians, and the present condition of the remnant of the six nations that formed what is now the Northern half of the United States”. This was as much theatre as it was lecture. According to the Morning Journal, “Mr. Kelly represented himself to be of the Mohawk nation, one of the most powerful of the Indians . . . was attired as a Mohawk Chief and wore the feathered head-dress of the tribe, and the embroidered vest and kirtle of many colours, not unlike a Tartan kilt, with the mocassins and golden belt-buttons of a Chief attending the National Council.” The venue, the Spanish Town Baptist church, was crowded and great numbers gathered outside (Morning Journal, 21 November and 17 December 1861). See also, Morning Journal, 26 April 1873. 109. These included: on Asia and the Pacific, Rev. W.M. Robertson’s “Hindoo Life” (1866); Rev. Baron-Hays’s “Religious History of India” (1893); Rev. Dr Brown’s “Palestine” (1882); and Rev. Dr Turner’s “New Guinea” (1887); on Africa, special war artist of the Illustrated London News Melton Prior’s “The Soudan War and the Nile Expedition, including the disastrous defeat of General Baber Pasha” (1888); Rev. William West’s “Western Africa” (1872); E.A. Brew, originally of Lagos, on “Africa, His Native Land” (1900); and Mr Pinnock (a returned Afro-Jamaican missionary) on “The Habits and Custom Which Now Obtain Among the People Along the Congo”; on Europe, Major Smith’s talk in 1899 on his experiences in the Crimean War; Father Burn on “England and America Contrasted”, and C. Kelly on “A Visit to Rome” (1901). The Caribbean region was also the subject of some lectures: for example, Rev. Kerr’s “Social and Religious condition of Haiti” (1883), Rev. Hathaway’s “A trip to Turks Islands and back” (1886), and Dr Stern and Mr Verdereau’s “Some notes on the Panama Canal” (1889). See also Falmouth Post, 2 January 1866; Colonial Standard, 8 March 1882, 26 September 1883, 29 April and 2 May 1885, 8 April 1886, 6 September 1887, 21 March 1888, 1 April 1889, 18 and 19 October 1889, 19 December 1893; Morning Journal, 4 December 1872; Jamaica Times, 1 April 1899, 8 September 1900, 11 May 1901, 4 May 1912; and Reports and Statistics of the Moravian Church in Jamaica (Broadleaf), 1909, 8–9. 110. During the 1880s, D.D. Morris, MA, director of the public gardens and plantations, delivered several such lectures, including “Some objects of productive industry” (1881); “Cacao: How to grow and how to cure it” (1882); and “Tropical Gardening” (1886). Bancroft Espeut spoke on “The timbers of the island” (1881); Archdeacon Roxburgh on “Stock and stock raising” (1881); J.J. Bowrey FCS, FIC, on “Vegetable Chemistry” (1883); Dr J. Neish on “Cultivation of the Orange” (1883), and on the medicinal uses as well as the appeal of the extract of the “Kola Nut” (1887); Rev. W. Griffith on “The Vine and its Culture” (1883); and Dr J.C. Phillippo on “Cultivation

Notes to pages 140–142

111.

112.

113. 114. 115. 116.

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of the Ramie”, and “Rhea Fibre” (1883–84). Daily Gleaner, 22 February, 8 March and 19 April 1881; Colonial Standard, 2 May 1882, 26 May 1884, 16 February 1886, and 8 September 1887; Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports 1883–84. Other lectures on agricultural topics included Mr Fawcett’s on “Botanical Classification” before the Horticultural Society at the Public Library (Colonial Standard, 11 March 1889); Mr Dodge’s on “Bee-keeping” at the Santa Cruz school house; and Mr Kellogg’s on “Birds” at the IOJ. Jamaica Times, 2 December 1899 and 4 May 1901. Lectures on electricity included Jose Mayner’s on “Static Electricity” and “Atmospheric Electricity, lightning rods, etc.” in the late 1880s; and by Mr Davidson, an engineer of the Electric Railway Company, one of the earliest industries to use electric power in Jamaica, who spoke at the East Branch schoolroom to a fairly large audience in 1899. Colonial Standard, 21 July 1887; Daily Gleaner, 18 February and 5 March 1889; Colonial Standard, 19 February, 25 April and 29 November 1889, 22 October 1890, and 3 December 1892; Jamaica Times, 28 January 1899. For reports on astronomy lectures, see Falmouth Post, 17 January 1862, and 3 September 1869. Colonial Standard, 3 February 1890, 9 September 1892. See also references to Dr D.E. Anderson, FRSE, BSc, MD, “The Carriers and Parasites of Tropical Disease”, Jamaica Times, 15 February 1913. In 1881, Dr J.C. Phillippo lectured on “the Mineral Springs of the Island” at the Kingston Town Hall; and in 1889, Rev. Horace Scotland spoke on “the Geology of Jamaica” at the Public Library, and on “the Mining Resources of Jamaica, Retrospect and Prospect”, at the Mico school room. F.R. Orth spoke on “The aborigines of the West Indies” at the rooms of the Victoria Institute in 1888. When Rev. John Radcliffe spoke about “A Forty Years Reminiscence of Kingston” in 1889, a large audience was on hand, which included Governor and Lady Blake. In 1892, Rev. D.J. Reynolds lectured on the “Proverbial Philosophy of Jamaica”, while in 1900. Dr Love critiqued W.P. Livingstone’s Black Jamaica in a lecture attended by a large group. In 1903, the moving force at the institute, Frank Cundall, delivered a lecture on “The History of Jamaica” where he used the portraits of “Jamaican Worthies” displayed at the institute to set up the outline of his remarks on the island’s story. Colonial Standard, 2 and 5 May 1881, 30 October 1888, 4 February and 5 March and 9 May 1889, 13 July 1892; Jamaica Times, 1 September 1900 and 28 February 1903. See also references to lectures on “Jamaican Music” by Astley Clarke, Jamaica Times, 10 January 1914. Falmouth Post, 18 July 1862. See also Morning Journal, 3 September 1873. See, for instance, Morning Journal, 26 July 1875 and Jamaica Times, 13 February 1904. A list of many of these lectures and readings is provided in chapter 8. Morning Journal, 15 October 1872 and 14 January 1873. Rev. John Radcliffe was the lecturer on “Evolution” and the session was chaired by the governor; H.J. Burger spoke on “Our Home” in an event chaired by Major General Mann, R.E.; and Valentine Bell, C.E., spoke on “Railways” in a session presided over by Hon. George Solomon. Colonial Standard, 15 February, 27 March and 15

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Notes to pages 142–143

117.

118.

119.

120. 121.

122.

123. 124.

April 1882. See also references to the lecture by Dr Stern, “Shakespeare as a Physician and Physiologist”, Colonial Standard, 6 April 1882; and that by Henry Vendryes, on “Conchology” with special reference to the land, marine and fresh water shells of Jamaica and an account of edible species, chaired by Hon. Sir J. Lucie Smith, KCMG, Colonial Standard, 22 May 1882. Colonial Standard, 12 May 1883. This lecture was one of “A Musical Lecture Series” under the patronage of the governor of Jamaica, Sir Anthony Musgrave and Lady Musgrave, and the governors of Barbados, the Leeward islands, Trinidad and British Guiana, as well as the bishops of Jamaica and Barbados. The series of thirteen lectures in 1891 cost 6s. for non-members of the institute (Colonial Standard, 14 and 17 October 1891); the series of eight lectures in 1891 cost them 5s. (Colonial Standard, 1 February 1892). In both instances, members paid half price. In 1868, a lecture, accompanied by the new “Oxycalcium light”, was delivered in the Mico schoolroom “for the benefit of the Wesley Chapel Dorcas Society” (Morning Journal, 22 September 1868). The lecture on “The prose writing of Lord Macaulay” by Rev. Campbell Mackinnon, island curate of the Town of Port Royal, was in aid of the St George’s Church Mutual Relief Society’s funds; while the admission price of 6d. for Rev. J.W. Lewis’s lecture “On the Bible” was to help with the repairs to the Wesleyan Church Chapel at Port Royal (Morning Journal, 7 November and 17 December 1868). In 1872 the proceeds from a lecture that was delivered by Christian L. Hider at the courthouse in Port Maria on “Ancient and Modern India” went to the fund for the purchase of a harmonium for the parish church (Morning Journal, 22 February 1872). For other similar examples, see Falmouth Post, 21 March 1871; Morning Journal, 28 August 1872; Colonial Standard, 31 January and 5 February 1880, 18 December 1882, 29 April, 2 May and 11 June 1885, 8 April 1886, 6 September 1887; and Jamaica Times, 11 May 1901. Daily Gleaner, 13 January 1876. According to the Standard, Miss Anderson was the daughter of the late highly esteemed Wemyss W. Anderson. She was a part of the Zenana Mission which was established “with the object of reaching the womanhood of India by sending out among them pious and well-educated women qualified for missionary work”. (Colonial Standard, 6 February 1888, quoting the St James Gazette on the lecture at St Paul’s; Colonial Standard, 3 May 1888.) When Mary C. Leavitt lectured on “Woman, her place and Power” at the Collegiate Hall in January 1897, admission was free but the organizers hoped to collect contributions for the creche at 47 George Street. Daily Gleaner, 26 January 1897. Jamaica Times, 21 March 1903. Miss Pullen-Burry went on to write about her experiences in Jamaica in 1903. Bessie Pullen-Burry, Jamaica As It Is, 1903 (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1903). Jamaica Times, 24 February 1906. Jamaica Times, 25 January 1908. See also references to “Warning Lecture to Girls”

Notes to pages 143–149

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by Mrs James (Jamaica Times, 22 March 1913); and “Some Indian Lore” by Mrs F.A. Steel (Jamaica Times, 4 April 1914). 125. The Jamaica Scholarship for Girls was inaugurated in 1912.

Chapter 6 1. For excellent examples of these early art works, see the displays and exhibitions at the National Gallery of Jamaica, 12 Ocean Boulevard, Kingston, Jamaica. http://about.galleryjamaica.org, accessed 26 June 2008. 2. Brian L. Moore, Cultural Power, Resistance and Pluralism (Kingston: The Press, University of the West Indies, 1995), 57–59. 3. Darling to Newcastle, no. 12, 12 January 1860, CO 137/348 (enclosure: Table of Duties, 125–28). 4. Daily Gleaner, 11 February 1888. 5. Advertisement for “Lovers of Fine Art” to get their engravings, lithographs and prints from David Martin. Morning Journal, 5 December 1861. 6. Daily Gleaner, 11 February 1888. 7. Diary of William Browne, 1822–1882, 15 February 1855, JA 7/251, no. 1. 8. Gall’s News Letter, 8 May 1884. 9. Daily Gleaner, 12 October 1895. 10. Daily Gleaner, 5 April 1902. 11. Frank Cundall, “The West Indies Today, 1908”, NLJ MST 934, 183. 12. This may have been the same grouping as the Jamaica Society of Arts. Membership fell sharply in 1866 to just eighty, most probably the consequence of fear and anxiety created by the tragic happenings at Morant Bay in 1865, but in 1867 it again rose to 145. Blue Books 1865–67, CO 142/79–81. 13. Morning Journal, 11 October 1861. 14. Falmouth Post, 17 January 1862. 15. It commented in glowing terms on Mrs Hall’s painting of “Ophelia” (while noting for some reason that Hall “is a widow” of Rev. Clarence Hall, BA). The other pieces mentioned were US consul Aaron Gregg’s “Landscape of Port Antonio”, as well as “A Scottish Interior” and “The Harvest Field” by unnamed painters from the Art Union Society of Edinburgh, and sketches of public buildings at Spanish Town. Morning Journal, 7 and 13 January 1868. 16. Creighton and the Cottage were the country retreats of the governor and the colonial secretary, respectively, the two most senior colonial administrators in the colony. 17. Morning Journal, 16 January 1868. 18. The newspaper enquired about the absence of displays by Mrs Nash of Manchester, whose handicraft had contributed to the success of previous exhibitions of the Society of Arts. Morning Journal, 16 January 1868.

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Notes to pages 149–153

19. The first presidents were governors Sir John Peter Grant (1869–73); Sir William Grey (1876); and Sir Anthony Musgrave (1877–78). Blue Books 1869, CO 142/83; Blue Books 1870, CO 142/84; Blue Books 1871, CO 142/85; Blue Books 1872, CO 142/86; Blue Books 1873, CO 142/87; Blue Books 1876, CO 142/90; Blue Books 1877, CO 142/91; Blue Books 1878, CO 142/92. 20. Report of Attorney-General, 10 May 1879, encl. in Musgrave to Hicks Beach, no. 143, 17 May 1879, CO 137/489. 21. The “men of mark” collection included likenesses of elite whites like Sir Anthony Musgrave, a former governor, Anglican bishop Enos Nuttall, Dr Arthur Saunders, and Messrs Valentine Bell, Marescaux, and Fred Sullivan. The prizes offered consisted of six American organs, two magic lanterns with complete outfits, one ornamental garden fountain, ten sewing machines, fifty Waterbury watches, one hundred clocks, fifty framed pictures, one hundred bound volumes, and sixty Albertype engravings. Gall’s News Letter, 8 May 1884. 22. Daily Gleaner, 4 June 1885. 23. Ibid. 24. Daily Gleaner, 11 February 1888. 25. Daily Gleaner, 21 June 1892. 26. Jamaica Times, 10 July 1909. 27. In group 1 (Painting) the classes included figures in watercolour, landscapes in oil, landscapes in watercolour, fruit/flowers/still life in oil, fruit/flower/still life in watercolour, for which the first prize was £3 and the second prize £1. In group 2 (Photography) the classes included landscape, architectural subjects, portraits (single or group) and animal (single or group), for which the first prize was £2 10s. Colonial Standard, 13 November 1891. 28. For the 1892 competition fourteen prizes were offered, amounting to £30 for the best paintings, waters colours and photographs. Colonial Standard, 6 April 1892. See also Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1892–93. 29. Jamaica Times, 20 December 1902. See also Daily Gleaner, 10 March 1901, 31 March 1903. 30. Jamaica Times, 21 November 1903; see also Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1902–3. 31. The display also included photographs of Alexander Bedward at his church in August Town and of the famous baptisms in the Hope River. Jamaica Times, 19 February 1910. See also Jamaica Times, 20 March 1920. For a full analysis of Bedward’s ministry, see Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2004), chapter 3. 32. For a full list of the portraits in the gallery see Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1892–93. 33. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1893–94. During the second year of its operation, the gallery acquired nine portraits, including one of Sir John Peter Grant

Notes to pages 153–155

34.

35.

36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

42. 43.

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(governor), as well as engravings “representing Rodney’s great victory over the French in 1782” which the institute counted “amongst the principal additions to the Art Gallery during the year”. It was hoped that these portraits and engravings, “illustrative of Jamaica history”, would prove interesting to visitors and locals alike. In December 1899 the portraits of David Lindo, chemist, Sir Henry Barkly, KCB, Sir William Maynard Gomm, and Alan Lord Gardner were added (Daily Gleaner, 13 December 1899). A portrait of Robert Love, and a second of George William Gordon, were added in 1914–15; and the bust of Mary Seacole, together with portraits of George III and Queen Charlotte, in 1915–16 in what was then curiously called the “Jamaica History Gallery”. By 1917–18 when the portrait of Simon Bolivar, “the South American Liberator who visited Jamaica in 1815” was added, there were complaints that the walls of the gallery were “sadly overcrowded” with its three hundred images. See the annual reports of the Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1894– 1918. The Kirkpatrick paintings were one watercolour and the other in oils, namely, “The Summit of the Blue Mountain Peak”, and “The Fringe of the Liguanea Plain”, respectively. During the following year, the gallery received two additions, “View on Hodges Estate, in St. Elizabeth” by Miss Nora Shaw, and “Girl’s Head” by Mrs Lionel Lee, both of which were oil paintings. Institute of Jamaica, Department Reports, 1904–5 and 1905–6. The classes for adults met every Thursday and/or Friday between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Children’s classes were held on Saturdays. Adults paid £2 2s. for one lesson or £3 3s. for two lessons per week (the term lasted for twelve weeks). Children’s lessons cost £1 1s. for one lesson per week and £1 11s. 6d. for two lessons per week. Colonial Standard, 7 September 1889. Colonial Standard, 16 November 1891 and 5 December 1892. Colonial Standard, 18 December 1894. Charles Rampini, Letters from Jamaica (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1873), 61. W.P. Livingstone, Black Jamaica: A study in evolution (London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co., 1899), 207–8. Colonial Standard, 14 February 1881. Lucie Smith was the chief justice of Jamaica. The exhibition included three or four “impressive” crayon drawings and some “very good” work by a young artist named Atkinson, which included portraits of the late Queen Victoria and the current governor, Augustus Hemming. There were also watercolours, including one of “the cocoanut lined beach at the Asylum”, Mrs Lionel Lee’s “Candidate of confirmation”, engravings, and a collection of antique and silver articles. Jamaica Times, 21 December 1901. Jamaica Times, 14 July 1906. Francis was born in Kingston in 1850, the son of an Englishman, educated at Mico under William Pearce, a member of the Sketching Club organized by Lady

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Notes to pages 155–158

Clarke and the holder of a bronze Musgrave medal. Jamaica Times, 7 April 1917. 44. Falmouth Post, 18 February and 22 April 1862. 45. Falmouth Post, 18 July 1865. The paper remarked that new technological innovations meant that Duperly and Tomford did not need a “room with skylight” because they had brought with them “a Canvass Pavillion [sic], or Marquee, into which the sunlight descends at every variation of its rising or declension”. By this method the sharpness of the image was secured in a manner “not attainable by ordinary means”. 46. The subjects of these large photographs included “Views of the Island, 40 beautifully mounted, for 20s; namely Bog Walk, Rio Cobre, Linstead, Rodney Hall, Newcastle, Kingston, Spanish Town, Port Royal, Port Antonio, Lucea, Montego Bay, Port Maria, W.I. Regiment on Parade – an endless variety, too numerous to mention.” They also produced views of visiting warships, stereoscopic slides of Jamaican scenery, cartes of Jamaican celebrities and all the distinguished personages of Europe at only 6s. per dozen. Morning Journal, 14 January 1871. 47. Daily Gleaner, 28 May 1875. 48. Colonial Standard, 21 May 1880. 49. Daily Gleaner, 9 July 1887. 50. Daily Gleaner, 17 January 1896. 51. Within a number of cultures, there is a belief that photography is potentially spiritually dangerous, since in its capture of an image, it can capture the soul. William Bobos, “The Art of Stealing Souls”, http://www.weddingphotographydirectory.com/ wedding-photo/for-wedding-photographers/bleeding-edge-column/art-of-stealingsouls.aspx, accessed 25 June 2008. 52. Daily Gleaner, 20 August 1896. 53. Rampini, Letters, 148. 54. Cundall, “West Indies”, 110. 55. “Milamone” to editor, Daily Gleaner, 20 December 1903; Charles A. De Montagnac to editor, Daily Gleaner, 8 January 1904. 56. Villiers Stuart, Adventures amidst the Equatorial Forests and Rivers of South America (and Jamaica Revisited) (London: J. Murray, 1891), 216. 57. Colonial Standard, 20 April 1892. 58. Daily Gleaner, 9 January 1894. 59. Cundall, “West Indies”, 110. Cundall seems to have imitated the position previously advanced by L.E. Broadway, “English Airs and Motifs in Jamaica”, appendix to Walter Jekyll, Jamaican Song and Story: Annancy Stories, Digging Songs, Ring Tunes and Dancing Tunes (London: David Nutt for the Folklore Society, 1907), 285. C.S. Myers, “Traces of African melody in Jamaica” also believed that the majority of songs sung by black Jamaicans had European origins which they adopted and adapted (appendix to Jekyll, 278). 60. Jekyll, Jamaican Song, 157–58. 61. Verrill further observed that they sang at work and play, expressed “the most beau-

Notes to pages 159–161

62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75.

76. 77.

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tiful sentiments”, improvised music and words to suit any occasion, and had “a predilection for syncopated music”. Alpheus Hyatt Verrill, Jamaica of Today (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1931), 143–45. Cundall too commented on their calland-response style of singing. The first recitation was delivered by “one or two strong-lunged persons” and this was followed by a chorus in which all joined. Cundall, “West Indies”, 110. Jekyll, Jamaican Song, 216. Cundall, “West Indies”, 110. Jekyll, Jamaican Song, 190–97. Cundall, “West Indies”, 110. Ethel Maud Symmonett, Jamaica: Queen of the Carib Sea (Kingston: Mortimer C. De Souza, 1895), 21. Verrill, Jamaica of Today, 143–45. Jekyll, Jamaican Song, 6. Roderic Knight and Kenneth Bilby, “Music in Africa and the Caribbean”, in Africana Studies: A Survey of Africa and the African Diaspora, ed. Mario Azevedo (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1998), 243–73. Colonial Standard, 12 January and 30 August 1886. Colonial Standard, 1 December 1890. Copies of the waltz were sold for 2s. and 2s. 1d. postpaid. Colonial Standard, 2 March 1891. Astley Clerk papers, JA 7/17/96, JA 7/17/98. Astley Clerk, Jamaican School Songs (Kingston: Astley Clerk, 1920); Astley Clerk Papers JA 7/17/94; and 7/17/1, 7/17/3, 7/17/86. According to Clerk, “Hop Off Contingent” was a West African tune, sung by the men of the West India Regiment on the march in Sierra Leone. The words had been changed by the West Indians and admonished the volunteers to “Hop off of you contingent / Hop off of you / Everything you ask / Contingent give unto you.” Astley Clerk Papers, JA 7/17/107. The “Jamaica Contingent Rag” was published under the distinguished patronage of Brigadier General S.L. Blackden, Commander of the Forces in Jamaica. Astley Clerk Papers, JA 7/17/108. Dedicated to Brig. Gen. Blackden, “Jamaica Marches On” was written by Tom Redcam while Stanley G. Owen wrote the music; the piece was published by Clerk: “Tramp, tramp, tramp, we tread the road to Glory / Tramp, tramp, tramp, Jamaica marches on.” Astley Clerk Papers, JA7/17/109. Advertisement by Louis Winkler and Co. (18 King Street). Colonial Standard, 16 November 1891. A.B. Lowe, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/16. Norman Manley was one of those who had the symbol of middle-class culture (a piano) in his home, as his note to Astley Clerk, enclosed with “£8 on a/c of my bill for Piano Hire” refers. N.W. Manley to Astley Clerk, 7 August 1925, Clerk Papers JA 7/17/12.

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Notes to pages 161–162

78. 79. 80. 81.

82.

83. 84. 85.

86.

Cundall, “West Indies”, 111. Julia Mullings, Manchester, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/118. Verrill, Jamaica of Today, 145–46. Astley Clerk, “The History of Music in Jamaica”, Jamaica Times, 10, 17, 24, 31 January 1914. Astley Clerk pointed out that Jamaican songs were previously published in Isabel Cranstoun MacLean, Children of Jamaica (Edinburgh and London: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1910); H.G. De Lisser, In Jamaica and Cuba (Kingston: Gleaner Co., 1910); Alice Spinner, A Study in Colour (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1894); R. Thomas Banbury, Jamaica Superstitions or the Obeah Book (Kingston: Mortimer C. De Souza, 1894); Mary Pamela Milne-Home, Mama’s Black Nurse Stories (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1890); and H.G. Murray, Manners and Customs of the Country, a Generation Ago (Kingston, 1869). In 1860, for example, the Italian Warehouse was able to put on sale quadrilles such as S. Glover’s “The Gypsy” and H. Laurentz’s “Saturnalia”; waltzes like Bruckhardt’s “The Zuluka” and Schneider’s “Queen of the Night”; as well as polkas such as H. Walker’s “The Rifleman” and Schneider’s “The Witching Hour”. Falmouth Post, 3 January 1860. Concerts connected with the churches were sometimes held at parochial court houses, theatres and other venues like the Conversorium in Kingston. A. Westphal (Fairfield), Reports and Statistics of the Moravian Church in Jamaica 1904, JA 5/5. See also Daily Gleaner, 26 November 1884. See, for instance, Morning Journal, 31 July, 17 September, 28 November 1868 and 7 December 1868, 28 July and 21 September 1869, 26 September 1871, 1 March 1872, 19 August 1873, 7 April 1875; Colonial Standard, 14 July and 20 October 1880, 26 April and 24 November 1881, 3 May and 5 December 1882, 9 June 1884, 25 July and 22 October 1885, 11 May 1886, 22 January and 1 November 1887, 6, 19 and 31 January, 4 February and 24 July 1888, 23 May, 5 August, 13 and 26 September 1889, 24 February, 11 and 18 April, 21 June and 25 November 1890, 12 December 1891, 10 May, 5 June, 29 July and 3 August 1892, 17 and 30 January 1893, 4, 15 and 19 December 1894, 17 January 1895; Daily Gleaner, 4 August 1881, 2 September 1882, 5 January and 12 July 1888, 7 September 1889, 5 March 1890, 9 December 1891, 4 and 19 December 1896, 12 January 1897, 15 December 1900, and 12 December 1907; Jamaica Times, 3 and 10 December 1898, 14 January, 22 April and 9 September 1899, 31 March 1900, 4 and 11 May, and 3 August 1901, 15 February and 1 November 1902, 14 and 28 November and 5 December 1903, 9 January and 24 April 1904, 21 January 1905, 20 January 1906, and 23 January 1909; also H.S. Cambridge (Dober), Reports and Statistics of the Moravian Church in Jamaica, 1905, JA 5/5; and Minutes of St Paul’s Presbyterian Church, 5 April 1910 and 3 July 1911, NLJ MST 2089. Morning Journal, 5 October 1869; Daily Gleaner, 11 January 1876, 19 January and 18 February 1881, 25 and 28 April 1885, 16 May, 4 July and 1 October 1887, 23 February 1890, 20 October 1891, 28 January and 14 April 1892, 14 December 1895, 9 and 14

Notes to page 162

87.

88.

89.

90.

91. 92.

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January, 5 and 17 December 1896, 7 December 1897; Colonial Standard, 27 November 1880, 14 January and 18 February 1882, 9 December 1884, 6 June, 14 July and 16 November 1885, 28 July and 18 November 1886, 5 March and 23 July 1887 and, 17 and 19 January, and 31 October 1888, 24 July 1890, 25 February, 1 July and 19 August 1892, 15 January 1895; Jamaica Times, 11 February, 29 April, 29 July, 5 August, 9 and 16 December 1899, 24 February, 14 April 1900, 11 May, 5 October, and 14 December 1901, 4 January, 7 June and 18 October 1903, 12 January, 7 February, 18 and 25 April, and 16 May 1903, 8 July 1905, 27 January and 13 October 1906, 5 January 1907, 6 June 1908, 3 July 1909, 9 August 1913. In 1861, the admission fee to Mr Simonsen’s concerts was reduced to 2s. 6d. for adults, and 1s. 6d. for children, to facilitate people with large families. Morning Journal, 17 September 1861. For instance, the programme at a concert held at the Conversorium in March 1892, under the patronage of Governor Sir Henry Blake and Lady Blake, featured Fosca’s “Sonata”– first movement (piano and violin), Verdi’s “Di Provenza” (baritone solo), Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2” (piano solo), Bellini’s “Casta Diva” (soprano solo), Vieuxtemps’s “Fantaisia Appassionata” (violin solo), Leonard’s “Souvenir D’Haydu” (violin solo), Chopin’s “Andante Spianato and Polonaise” (piano solo), Rossini “Largo al Factotum” (baritone solo), and ended (as they all did) with “God Save the Queen”. See advertisement, Colonial Standard, 29 March 1892. Morning Journal, 2 February, 1 and 17 April 1869, 24 October and 8 December 1870, 20 April 1872, 4 February and 5 November 1875; Falmouth Post, 5 March 1869, 7 March 1871; Daily Gleaner, 6 July 1875, 18 May 1887, 2 and 27 November 1889, 14 December 1895, 18 January 1898, 9 December 1899; Colonial Standard, 16 December 1881, 25 September 1883, 4 April 1888; Jamaica Times, 5 May 1900, 24 August and 21 December 1901, 10 March 1906 and 27 January 1912. For the visits of the Tennessee Jubilee Singers, see Daily Gleaner, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 20, 25, 31 August, 3 and 26 October, and 6 November 1888, and 22 March 1890; Colonial Standard, 13 August 1888, 12 April 1890; Gall’s News Letter, 15 August 1888. For that of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, see Daily Gleaner, 25 November 1893, and Colonial Standard, 13 December 1893. Livingstone, Black Jamaica, 207. Daily Gleaner, 22 April 1884, 16 May 1885, and 5 January 1893; Colonial Standard, 19 December 1884, 18 June 1889, 19 September 1890. According to Joy Lumsden, Jackson was a singer and violinist, and was the choir master at the Scots Kirk in Kingston. He established the choir “to provide tuition to its members, so that they might study and practise the works of the great composers, and to improve choral singing in the island”. The original group numbered thirty. In order to keep it alive, he later offered free tuition to five hundred boys and girls aged ten to sixteen. It was he who led the choir on their two British tours. One of the leading singers in the group was Adeline McDermott, who was called “Jamaica’s Patti” after the well known African American operatic soprano, Adelina

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Notes to pages 162–165

93.

94.

95. 96.

97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102.

103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109.

Patti, who had toured the West Indies in 1888. See Joy Lumsden’s “Jamaican History February 2004”, webpages on T. Ellis Jackson and Adeline McDermott, respectively, http://www.joyousjam.info/jamaicanhistoryfebruary2004/id32.html and ——/id36. html, accessed 6 September 2008. See, for instance, Daily Gleaner, 16 July and 16 November 1904, 2 September 1905, 1 October 1906, 15 May and 1 June 1907, 8 August and 23 December 1908, 13 June 1911, 5 August and 10 December 1912. It disappears from the newspapers after 1912. Daily Gleaner, 13 October 1909, 31 January 1912, 7 February and 15 September 1913, 21 May 1914, 12 July 1917, 11 and 27 June, and 2 August 1918, 26 June and 4 July 1919, 10 January and 28 June 1920. See also Jamaica Times, 11 December 1915. Falmouth Post, 7 and 17 March, 28 April, 27 June 1865, 23 January and 13 April 1866. This society was formed under the presidency of Fred Lindo, with a membership of forty, and twelve playing members. At first the society had a fairly active programme of engagements. Daily Gleaner, 1 and 5 March, 30 October 1880, 20 January 1881; Colonial Standard, 27 April, 26 June, and 23 October 1880. Daily Gleaner, 22 April and 1 and 4 October 1884; Colonial Standard, 26 September and 4 October 1884. Daily Gleaner, 23 May 1890, 11 May 1891; Colonial Standard, 24 May and 24 November 1890, 15 March 1892. Colonial Standard, 21 February 1890. Daily Gleaner, 22 August 1895. This orchestra was still in existence in 1899. Jamaica Times, 22 April 1899. “Bands in Jamaica: [Part] V – String Bands”, Daily Gleaner, 9 August 1893. Daily Gleaner, 14 June 1875, 10 January 1876, 26 July 1880, 25 August and 18 October 1881, 9 January 1884, 15 August, 11, 12 and 25 September 1889, 22 January and 22 October 1891, 12, 22 and 28 April, 3, 5, 14, 17 May, 16 and 23 June, 8 and 14 July 1892; Colonial Standard, 25 June and 10 July 1880, 9 July and 25 October 1881, 3 May, 7, 9 and 21 June, and 16 August 1886, 15 and 22 August, and 9 November 1889, 4 September 1890, 8 July 1892, and 20 December 1894; Julia Munroe, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/91. Daily Gleaner, 23 November 1892 and 14 February 1895; Colonial Standard, 11 January 1893. Daily Gleaner, 14 May, 2 September 1892, 14 January 1896, 2 February 1903; Colonial Standard, 7 December 1892 and 20 December 1893. Colonial Standard, 25 October 1881. Daily Gleaner, 7 December 1891. Morning Journal, 11 November 1868. Morning Journal, 20 June and 16 July 1870; Daily Gleaner, 3 December 1875, 22 and 26 December 1876, 20 December 1881; Colonial Standard, 27 December 1883. Colonial Standard, 27 December 1887; and Lucretia Lorman, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 1/12/244.

Notes to pages 165–168

110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116.

117. 118. 119. 120. 121.

122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130.

131. 132.

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Daily Gleaner, 4 November 1879. Daily Gleaner, 7 December 1907. May Jeffrey-Smith, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/261. Colonial Standard, 20 March 1891; and Joy Lumsden, “Jamaica International Exhibition, 1891”, Jamaica Historical Society Bulletin, 10, nos. 3–4 (October 1991): 20. Hubert Brown, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/299. Colonial Standard, 6 and 8 December 1892; Jamaica Times, 17 December 1898; Daily Gleaner, 30 September 1908. For a comprehensive examination and analysis of Jamaican theatre in the post-emancipation nineteenth century, see Errol Hill, The Jamaican Stage, 1655–1900 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992). Frank Casserly, NLJ MST 317 no. 10. Hill, Jamaican Stage, 46–65. Reprinted in Daily Gleaner, 13 June 1876. Daily Gleaner, 28 February 1880. Colonial Standard, 18 December 1880. The governor refused to approve a loan from the treasury for the repair of the theatre. It was speculated that he was influenced in his decision by the dissenting clergy (Daily Gleaner, 12 January 1880). So the actual repairs were effected by the theatrical manager of the McDowell Dramatic Company which came to Jamaica to stage a season of performances. Daily Gleaner, 14 December 1880. Daily Gleaner, 18 December 1880. Colonial Standard, 28 September 1882. Daily Gleaner, 28 January 1886. Daily Gleaner, 28 January 1893. Daily Gleaner, 15 July 1893. Daily Gleaner, 29 July 1893. Daily Gleaner, 1 August 1893. Daily Gleaner, 30 January 1897. “On approaching the structure one cannot fail to be struck by the imposing yet graceful appearance of the facade, which follows the style of the Italian Renaissance as nearly as possible with the materials available. The rusticated portions of the lower story, the Ionic mouldings of the upper, the handsome concrete cornices and beautiful brickwork united to form a pleasing architectural effect which is enhanced by the three allegorical figures, representing Comedy, Tragedy and Drama, that are erected on pedestals to mark externally the divisions of the auditorium from the stage.” Extract from The Souvenir Messiah Festival, February 1904, Theatre Royal (Kingston: Louis Winkler and Co., 1904), JA 7/86/1. Ibid. The churches, in particular, were opposed to the construction of a new theatre on

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Notes to pages 169–170

133.

134.

135. 136. 137.

138. 139. 140. 141.

the basis that a majority of taxpayers of Kingston were unfavourable to it. Colonial Standard, 5 November 1890. Jamaica Times, 19 November 1910; Daily Gleaner, 16 November 1910. Ward made it a condition of his gift that the new theatre should be managed by a special committee, and that the proceeds were to be devoted to a fund for distribution among Kingston’s poor who were unable to attend the theatre. Daily Gleaner, 18 November 1910. Daily Gleaner, 17 December 1912; also H.G. De Lisser, Twentieth Century Jamaica (Kingston: Jamaica Times, 1913), 77–78. A grand opening ceremony was held on 16 December 1912, when the theatre was formally handed over by Ward to the people of Kingston. The architect was a Jamaican, Rudolph Henriques. Daily Gleaner, 17 December 1912. The seating capacity may seem rather large, but the author (Graham Judah) provided precise measurements of the theatre. Daily Gleaner, 4 December 1879; also Hill, Jamaican Stage, 55–56. Falmouth Post, 27 October 1865, 10 July, 7 August, 30 October, 30 November, and 28 December 1866, 22 January, 22 February, 8 March, 30 April, 17 May, 14 June and 25 October 1867, 17 January 1868, 3 October 1871, 9 July 1872, 4 September 1874; Morning Journal, 6 December 1861, 4 January, 21 and 24 August, and 1 July 1868, 11 March 1869, 22 November and 5 December 1870, 5 May and 15 August 1871, 26 February 1872, 20 and 29 October, 10 21 and 25 November 1873; Daily Gleaner, 8 June, 31 July and 21 November 1876, 8 January 1878, 2 February and 13 July 1880, 20 and 21 May, 2 July, and 29 September 1881, 15 and 17 April, and 28 August 1882, 16 and 17 January 1884, 10 April and 1 June 1885, 4 February 1886, 30 January 1897; Gall’s News Letter, 4 January 1878; Colonial Standard, 6 August 1880, 6 July 1881, 30 March 1882, 13 October, 29 November and 13 December 1883, 23 April and 26 December 1884, 11 April, 19 and 28 May, 17 June, 8 October and 17 December 1885, 7 August 1886, 12 February, 4 and 25 August 1887, 12 and 13 January, 23 April and 14 September 1888, 18 May 1889, 7 July 1890, 3 February, 2 and 6 December 1892, 30 January 1893; Jamaica Times, 11 and 18 February, 20 May and 17 June 1899, 13 January, 17 and 24 February 1900, and 25 April 1903; also Hill, Jamaican Stage, 61. Daily Gleaner, 15 September 1913. Gall’s News Letter, 20 January 1883. Gall’s New Letter, 14 November 1881. For a partial record of foreign dramatic companies in Jamaica, see Morning Journal, 3, 6, 12,13 and 14 December 1861, 6, 23, 25, 28 and 30 April 1868, 4 and 13 May 1872; Falmouth Post, 14 March 1862; Daily Gleaner, various issues from December 1876 to January 1877 re the May Fisk Dramatic Company; also 18 January 1881, 18 and 21 February, 4 and 7 March 1889; Gall’s News Letter, 14 November 1881; Colonial Standard, 1 November 1881, various issues from 28 October to 29 November 1882 re the Burrough’s New York Ideal Combination Company; also 19 October, 9, 12 and 14 November 1883, 4 August and 21 November 1884, 7 September and 16 November 1885, 6 and 25 September, and 1 October 1886, 2 May 1887, 3 March 1888, 15 and 19

Notes to pages 170–171

142.

143.

144.

145. 146. 147.

148.

149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154.

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January 1889; 19 January 1893; Jamaica Times, 26 October 1901, 21 and 28 January 1905, and 15 March 1913. Visits by opera companies were fewer than those by dramatic companies, and most were English. In fact Jamaican elite audiences preferred English operas because they understood the language in which the dialogue/songs were sung. For some of both English and Italian companies, see Morning Journal, 28 and 30 January, and 2 February 1869, 5, 14, and 21 February 1871; Daily Gleaner, 24 September 1875, 12, 17, 19 and 21 March, 27 September and 31 October 1881; Colonial Standard, 14 February and 6 May 1885, 14 December 1887, 4 May 1888, 12, 14 and 18 March 1892; Jamaica Times, 5 October 1901, 4 January 1902, 21 November 1903 and 12 August 1905. Morning Journal, 26 March, 1, 3, 8 and 9 April 1873; Falmouth Post, 18 September 1874; Daily Gleaner, 5, 11, 12, 19 January, 13 May, 1 June, 9 and 11 September, 11 and 13 October 1875. Effie Johns, who was married to Holland, was reported to have died suddenly in New York in 1876 (Daily Gleaner, 23 May 1876), but she returned to Jamaica with her own company the following year. The company failed to attract audiences and went bankrupt, its members having to beg in the local press for contributions for their passages back home. Holland seems to have been in and out of Jamaica for several years until about 1886 (Daily Gleaner, 11 August 1880 and 15 February 1881; Colonial Standard, 18 August 1880 and 1 February 1886). Daily Gleaner, 1 January 1881 and 2 February 1886; Colonial Standard, 13 and 14 January, 14 and 15 February 1881, 24 and 28 December 1885, 5 January 1886, and 12 February 1891. Hill, Jamaican Stage, 65 and 116. Ibid., 268. A few minstrel companies visited the island during the period. See Colonial Standard, 4 July 1865, 10 January, 8,9, 13 and 15 February 1872, and 9 June 1884; Morning Journal, 9 November 1870, 13 and 17 February, and 2 March 1872; Daily Gleaner, 7 June 1884. See Frank W. Sweet, A History of the Minstrel Show (Palm Coast, FL: Backintyme, 2000); Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Mel Watkins, Annemarie Bean, James V. Hatch and Brooks McNamara (eds.), Inside the Minstrel Mask: Readings in Nineteenth-Century Blackface Minstrelsy (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1996). Hill, Jamaican Stage, 269. Gall’s News Letter, 14 November 1881. Daily Gleaner, 30 May 1877. Morning Journal, 2 December 1861; Falmouth Post, 14, 21 March 1862. According to the Morning Journal, Ince’s readings from Artemus Ward produced “considerable mirth”. Morning Journal, 12, 15, 17 November 1870. Morning Journal, 13 February 1871.

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Notes to pages 171–172

155. 156. 157. 158. 159. 160. 161.

162.

163. 164.

165.

Daily Gleaner, 21 May 1886. Morning Journal, 9, 13 April 1868. The event had admission prices of 2s. and 1s. Falmouth Post, 1 and 5 December 1871. Daily Gleaner, 4 February 1886. Daily Gleaner, 4 August 1886 Falmouth Post, 29 April 1862; Jamaica Times, 4 November and 9 December 1899. No physical description of Henry Murray has been found, but Errol Hill thinks he was black since both Andrew and William were described separately as “negro” (Hill, Jamaican Stage, 205–10). Their father, however, could have been a brown/coloured man who married/cohabited with a black woman and sired dark-skinned children. Morning Journal, 27 January, 4 and 10 March, 27 May, 5, 7 and 16 June, 20 October, 8, 10, 15 and 29 November, and 18 December 1869, 31 August, 15 September, 15 and 21 December 1870, 4 and 17 January, and 2 June 1871, 17 April, 15 May, 13 and 17 June 1872, 8 January, 13 June, and 24 October 1873, 20 March, 15 April, 6 and 28 May 1875; Falmouth Post, 18 and 22 June, and 29 October 1869; Colonial Standard, 7 May 1880, 13 and 20 November 1884, 14 February and 2 September 1890, 19 March, 14 and 15 October 1891, and 22 June 1892; Daily Gleaner, 21 July 1880, 10 January 1884. Henry visited the United States in 1872 but did not enjoy much success. See his letter from Boston, 23 October 1872, in Morning Journal, 6 November 1872. The Falmouth Post later claimed that he did three successful readings in Boston. Falmouth Post, 26 November 1872. Morning Journal, 17 June 1872. Falmouth Post, 18 June 1869. The following is a partial list of Henry Murray’s pieces: “Manners and Customs of the Country a Generation ago”; “The feast of the New Yam”; “Tom Kettle’s Wake”; “Boney and the Duke/The chase of Boney by the Duke of Wellington”; “Busha Sincox”; “Gordon, The walk foot buckra”; “Miss Molly/Matty the fat lady of the household”; “Muster day in the olden time”; “Drummer Fray’s march through the town”; “The stuttering captain”; “Fair eyed Jeremy”; “Mass John”; “Fresh Water”; “Sacrifices to Pedro”; “Mister Topping, the foppish, smart, sharp, cute free man from the Bay”; “Bra Guava, a tale of myal”; “Cuffy’s Wedding”; “Grunting Fishe”; “Captain Cuffy’s last voyage”; “Shadow catching”; “Stealing the Gree-gree”; “Pedro Pee”; “Meke tan”; “Cracra Sarah”; “The ordeal of the broom”; “Anancy’s grave”; “Congo Sammy”; “Coromantee William”; “Bob Key”; “The Pine Groves of the Point”; “Mama Daniel and the Jackass Lions”; “Buying Hogs in Spanish”; “Sambo Jack”; “Tricking the ordeal”; “Leetel Bucky”; “Big mouth Bessy”; “What I saw in America”; “How Joe Pinto tricked the Purah”; “Brown Sammy finds a wife and finds trouble”; “Edward Jordon – his life and its lessons”; “Doctoring dogs”. Henry G. Murray died in January 1877. Daily Gleaner, 21 July 1880. The following are a few of the pieces performed by Andrew Murray: “Some man don does ded befo dem time”; “Jackie Jeams”; “Puss Twenga”.

Notes to pages 172–179

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166. Colonial Standard, 5 September 1890. 167. Hill, Jamaican Stage, 206–9. Hill further asserts that William differed from his father and brother in his satirizing of living folk, whereas they only made fun of people from the past. 168. Jamaica Advocate, 12 February 1898.

Chapter 7 1. Blake to Ripon, no. 201, 25 May 1893, CO 137/555. This holiday law was 8th Victoria, chapter 30 (1845). For holidays in Britain, see Judith Flanders, Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian Britain (London: Harper, 2006), 208–10 and 498– 500; for the United States, see Roy Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 2. Jamaica Post, 21 July 1890. 3. Daily Gleaner, 31 July 1878 and 30 May 1901. “Alex” to editor, Daily Gleaner, 23 May 1902. In 1901 the clerks petitioned the legislature for a ten-hour working day. For the change in working hours, see Law 23 of 1912; also Attorney-General’s Report, 6 June 1912, in Cork to Harcourt, no. 212, 4 June 1912, CO 137/692. 4. Daily Gleaner, 25 and 26 September, and 9 October 1876, 3 April 1877; Isiah Cox to editor, Daily Gleaner, 7 June 1898. For the 1910 change, see Daily Gleaner, 16 August 1910. 5. From 1901, all businesses in the commercial section of Kingston voluntarily closed at 2:00 p.m. on Thursday. See E. Astley Smith to editor, Daily Gleaner, 18 April and 4 June 1898, 18 April 1901, 6 May 1902; Jamaica Post, 6 May 1898; Jamaica Times, 29 July 1899 and 13 June 1902. 6. Daily Gleaner, 31 May 1893. 7. “Hard Work” to editor, Daily Gleaner, 10 June 1893. 8. Ibid. 9. Daily Gleaner, 13 April 1893. 10. Blake to Ripon, no. 164, 15 May 1893, CO 137/555. 11. Law 36 of 1893. See also Daily Gleaner, 25 July 1893. Law 9 of 1894 amended the 1893 law by omitting the day after Good Friday from the holiday schedule. This amended version was renewed by Law 11 of 1895. Daily Gleaner, 18 March 1895; and Blake to Ripon, no. 123, 2 May 1895, CO 137/566. 12. “Hard Work” to editor, Daily Gleaner, 10 June 1893; and John V. Calder to editor, Daily Gleaner, 21 June 1893. 13. Quoted in Daily Gleaner, 20 June 1893; protest by J.H. Levy, MLC for St Mary, 25 April 1893, enclosed in Blake to Ripon, no. 164, 15 May 1893, CO 137/555. Levy also protested against the law on the grounds that

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Notes to pages 179–183

1. It would adversely affect the fruit trade as people in the fruit growing areas travelled long distances to the interior to buy and cart fruit to the wharves, sometimes 25–30 miles away; and that when a public holiday intervened it would affect this trade and delay the fruit steamers by two days; 2. The closing of the Post and Telegraph offices for four consecutive days over the Easter holiday period would be prejudicial to the public interest; 3. The closing of printing offices over the same period would mean the suppression of news for five days. 14. The attorney-general observed that in section 2 of the 1893 law “only the higher classes in the community” were called upon to take holidays. See his report dated 26 April 1893, enclosed in Blake to Ripon, no. 164, 15 May 1893, CO 137/555; and Daily Gleaner, 20 June 1893. 15. Jamaica Advocate, 2 March 1895. The Advocate also had doubts about a law which forced a person not to work on a certain day if she or he wished to. It saw this as a violation of personal liberty. Notwithstanding those reservations, it critically supported the legislation. 16. Hemming to Chamberlain, no. 293, 28 May 1902, CO 137/627. The laws were numbered 1 and 30 of 1902; Cork to Harcourt, no. 173, 15 May 1911, CO 137/684. 17. For Great Earthquake day see, Falmouth Post, 29 June 1866; Morning Journal, 7 June 1871; Colonial Standard, 4 May 1880, 6 June 1882, 7 June 1889; Daily Gleaner, 9 June 1884, 7 June 1888. For Great Storm day, see Falmouth Post, 31 August 1860, 5 September 1862, 30 August 1870; Daily Gleaner, 29 August 1881, 27 August 1884; Colonial Standard, 28 August 1880, 28 August 1884, 30 August 1887, 29 August 1889, 29 August 1892. For Ash Wednesday, see Morning Journal, 18 February 1871; Daily Gleaner, 3 March 1881, 23 February 1887, 14 February 1888, 7 March 1889; Colonial Standard, 3 March 1881. For Whit Monday, see Jamaica Times, 3 June 1899, 11 and 18 May 1901, 17 and 24 May 1902, 5 June 1909. 18. For full details on the celebration of imperial holidays, see Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2004), chapter 9. 19. Falmouth Post, 3 April 1866; Daily Gleaner, 16 April 1881, 8 April 1882, 12 April 1884, 29 March 1888; Colonial Standard, 6 April 1882; Jamaica Times, 13 April 1901. 20. Colonial Standard, 1 April 1880. 21. Jamaica Times, 18 April 1903. 22. Falmouth Post, 10 April 1860. Dignity balls were events for which participants dressed up in their finery and danced European-styled dances. But since they were often characterized by noisy exuberance and sometimes raucous behaviour, they were deplored by the elite classes who saw no “dignity” in them. 23. Daily Gleaner, 18 April 1892. 24. Morning Journal, 2 April 1872; Daily Gleaner, 18 April 1881, 12 April 1884, 7 April

Notes to pages 183–186

25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

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1885, 19 April 1892; Jamaica Times, 13 April 1901, 22 March and 5 April 1902, 25 April 1903. Daily Gleaner, 13 April 1876, 19 April 1881, 3, 5 11 and 12 April 1882, 12 and 16 April 1884, 4 March 1885, 25 January, 24 and 29 April 1886, 18 April 1889, 7 and 10 April 1890, 20 April 1892, 18 April 1899, 18 and 19 April 1911; Colonial Standard, 12 April 1882, 27 March and 12 April 1883, 6 and 12 April 1887, 23 April 1889; Jamaica Times, 1 April 1899, 14 April 1900, 13 April 1901, 22 and 29 March, 5 and 12 April 1902, 25 April and 2 May 1908, 2 April 1910; and Friends Jamaica Mission 7, no. 5 (May 1899), JA 5/8/78/5946. Jamaica Times, 6 April 1901 and 30 March 1912; also Daily Gleaner, 10 March 1884 and 15 April 1911. Diary of Henry Plant (1864–66), JA 4/64, no. 1. See, for instance, Morning Journal, 5 July 1873. Falmouth Post, 1 May 1860. Falmouth Post, 3 August 1866, 2 August 1867, 3 August 1868 and 4 August 1871; Morning Journal, 7 August 1869 and 17 August 1870; Diary of Henry Plant, 1864– 1866, JA 4/64, no. 1; and Daily Gleaner, 14 August 1918. Morning Journal, 3 August 1871, 8 August 1872, 5 July and 20 August 1873; Falmouth Post, 17 August 1873 and 7 August 1874. Colonial Standard, 3 August 1880, 11 August 1884; Daily Gleaner, 28, 29 and 30 July, and 2 August 1881, 3 August 1886, 30 July 1887. Colonial Standard, 2 August 1889, 5 August 1890, 28 July 1892; Daily Gleaner, 10 August 1891, 2 August 1892, and 8 August 1893, 6 August 1912, and 4 August 1914; Jamaica Times, 29 July and 5 August 1899, 6 July 1901, 16 August 1902, 1 August 1903, 12 August 1905, 11 August 1906, 10 August 1907, 29 July 1911. B.W. Higman has argued that the formal establishment of Emancipation Day as an official holiday in 1893 was promoted largely as an opportunity for commerce in keeping with the emerging commodity culture of the late nineteenth century. B.W. Higman, “Remembering Slavery: The Rise, Decline and Revival of Emancipation Day in the English-Speaking Caribbean”, Slavery and Abolition 19, no. 1 (April 1998): 92. Colonial Standard, 14 July and 2 August 1888; Daily Gleaner, 19, 21, 26, 30 and 31 July, 3, 6, 16 August 1888. C.E.A. Roberts to editor, Jamaica Times, 22 July 1905. Jamaica Times, 5 August 1899, 20 July and 10 August 1901, and 11 July 1903; also Jamaica Advocate, 5 August 1898. Jamaica Times, 12 August 1916. Both Higman and Bridget Brereton have shown that many in the upper and middle classes in Guyana, Trinidad, Barbados and elsewhere were either contemptuous of the celebration or ashamed of the memory of slavery, and sought to engage in a process of collective amnesia. Higman, “Remembering Slavery”, 92–93; and Bridget Brereton, “A Social History of Emancipation Day in the British Caribbean: The

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Notes to pages 187–189

39. 40. 41. 42.

43. 44. 45. 46.

47.

First Fifty Years”, in August 1st: A Celebration of Emancipation Day, ed. Patrick Bryan (Kingston: Department of History, University of West Indies, 1995). See also Jamaica Times, 11 August 1900 and 25 July 1903. Daniel B. Tait, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/31. Daily Gleaner, 14 August 1918. Jamaica Times, 25 July 1903. Christina Hole has observed that the idea of a saturnalia emanates from ancient Rome. During the saturnalia candles and green wreaths were given as presents, and the streets crowded with noisy processions of garlanded men and women carrying lighted tapers. At this festival all distinctions of rank were temporarily forgotten and customary rules of conduct loosened in memory of the golden age of liberty when Saturn ruled the world. “Masters and servants changed places; slaves wore their owners’ clothes and were waited upon by those they normally served, and rich and poor, bond and free joined together as equals in a seven-day round of feasting and drinking, games, dances, masquerades and boisterous frolics of every kind.” Utmost licence of speech and action was permitted to all. A mock king was chosen by lot from among slaves to preside over revels – and he was obeyed without question for the duration of the festival. This custom was reflected in medieval England in the form of the Lords of Misrule. Christina Hole, Christmas and Its Customs (New York: M. Barrows and Co., 1958), 10–11. According to Golby and Purdue, the “Lords of Misrule were usually persons of humble rank and were often jesters or fools of court or manor. For the season the world was turned upside down – a necessary release from the disciplines of rank and place which prevailed at other times but one which could yet, by violent paradox, draw attention to the importance of that same rank and discipline.” J.M. Golby and A.W. Purdue, The Making of the Modern Christmas (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986), 26. Robert Dirks, The Black Saturnalia: Conflict and Its Ritual Expression on British West Indian Slave Plantations (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1987), ix. Ibid., x and 2. Ibid., 2–4; and Judith Bettelheim, “The Afro-Jamaican Jonkonnu Festival: Playing the forces and operating the cloth” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1979), 7. Edward Long, The History of Jamaica: Reflections on its Situation, Settlements, Inhabitants, Climate, Products, Commerce, Laws and Government (London: T. Lowndes, 1774), 2:424. Dirks, Black Saturnalia, 5; also Bettelheim, “Jonkonnu Festival”, 13–19. Bettelheim asserts that the African theatrical element was slowly replaced by a European one which coincided with increased white patronage of these festivities. However, according to Beckwith, as late as 1919 revellers were wearing animal masks such as horse-heads and ox-heads. Martha Beckwith, Christmas Mummings in Jamaica (Poughkeepsie: Vassar College, 1923), 8–17.

Notes to pages 190–193

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48. Dirks, Black Saturnalia, 6–7. The sets were composed strictly along lines of skin colour. There was no mixing even in celebration. 49. Edward Brathwaite, The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770–1820 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 229. 50. Hole, Christmas, 12–13; and Golby and Purdue, Modern Christmas, 24–36. According to the latter, “Christmas, in the first decades of the nineteenth century, was neither a major event in the calendar nor a popular festival” (p. 40). This was replicated in New England, where Puritan influences were very strong. 51. Golby and Purdue, Modern Christmas, 42–51. 52. Colonial Standard, 22 December 1881; Daily Gleaner, 27 December 1886 and 6 January 1919. In 1877 Lyon’s store hired the town band to play in the wholesale department, which was thrown open as a promenade for the public. On Christmas evening, Lyon’s Restaurant was brilliantly illuminated and again, the town band was in attendance (Daily Gleaner, 2 January 1877). In 1919, the business places were decorated with flags, crotons, buntings, Chinese lanterns, and garlands. Daily Gleaner, 6 January 1919; also 29 December 1919. 53. Daily Gleaner, 7 December 1880 and 13 December 1897. During “the whole of the week preceding Christmas day . . . we saw ‘the sex’ in such large numbers crowding the thoroughfares in Harbour street, flitting from store to store”. Morning Journal, 27 December 1871. 54. Jamaica Times, 24 December 1898; also Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1895. 55. Daily Gleaner, 27 December 1880; Jamaica Times, 24 December 1898; Colonial Standard, 26 December 1884. In Falmouth the show of beef in 1869 totalled no less than 3,000 pounds (Falmouth Post, 1 January 1869; also 1 January 1867). Mention was made of the “prime cattle” which were slaughtered for the sale in the Christmas market (Falmouth Post, 29 December 1876). In Spanish Town, the show of beef in the market and the several stalls laden with food were the focus of Christmas morning (Daily Gleaner, 2 January 1877). In 1892 the meat offered at Victoria market for Christmas was reportedly “of exceptionally high quality” with “Mr. Gordon [offering] 1200 lbs., Chas. Palmer 1000 lbs., St. Ann Butchery 1200 lbs., O. Drysdale 980 lbs. and O. Bethune 975 lbs.”. Colonial Standard, 27 December 1892. 56. Varvill de Fosse, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/143. There was a wide variety of toys in the market. Daily Gleaner, 26 December 1876 and 27 December 1886. 57. W.A. Parker, “My first Christmas in Jamaica”, Colonial Standard, 28 December 1893. 58. The Christmas market was considered “an innocent and simple carnival which everyone would regret to see abandoned”. Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1895. 59. Christmas cards from “New York and Boston . . . and from London, Pari, Leipsic, Drisden, Berlin, and Belfast . . . Leamington, Bath and Glasgow . . .” were available from Gall’s store in Harbour Street and Gall’s Bazaar in Myrtle Bank. Daily Gleaner, 15 December 1879.

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Notes to pages 193–196

60. Golby and Purdue, Modern Christmas, 69–71; Hole, Christmas, 39–41. 61. The Daily Gleaner observed that a greater number of cards had been sold in Kingston in 1876 than ever before, and that one stationery store alone sold more than eighteen hundred such cards (Daily Gleaner, 26 December 1876). George Lyons (99 Harbour Street) offered cards for 1s. 3d. per packet (Colonial Standard, 2 December 1892). Arthur Hylton (128 Harbour Street) offered various packets: Fine Art (16 cards), Elegant (12 cards), Excelsior (15 cards), Wonderful (30 cards) which cost from 1s. 6d. to 2s. per packet (Colonial Standard, 14 December 1894). An advertisement by George Levy offered an assortment of “Raphael Tuck and Co.” cards (Colonial Standard, 2 December 1892). 62. Colonial Standard, 21 November 1886; George H. Pearce, postmaster for Jamaica, Colonial Standard, 17 December 1894. A notice in 1915 listed 11 December as the last day to send mail by the New York mail. Daily Gleaner, 10 December 1915. 63. Daily Gleaner, 13 December 1880. 64. Colonial Standard, 23 December 1890. 65. Ibid. 66. Golby and Purdue, Modern Christmas, 61–63. According to Hole, greenery and lights have a special significance in traditional European Christmas customs. Evergreens symbolize enduring life in the depth of winter, and were used by early Europeans in magical rites to ensure the return of vegetation. Plants like the holly and mistletoe thus became very popular symbols in European homes. She further notes that in Europe, Christmas is essentially a feast of lights, and yule log fires, candles and bonfires were much used. Firecrackers are also important fire symbols. Hole, Christmas, 21–33. 67. Gall’s Bazaar and the Alhambra, both in Kingston, were two of many stores which used Christmas trees as attractions for shoppers. Daily Gleaner, 2 January 1877, 13 December 1880; see also Morning Journal, 21 and 22 December 1869, 23 December 1870; and Colonial Standard, 7 January 1886, 27 December 1892 and 19 December 1893. 68. The Alhambra’s advertisement offered decorations in the store “to suit the taste of all” (Morning Journal, 23 December 1870). King Street usually had a “particularly gay and animated appearance”. Daily Gleaner, 26 December 1876, 27 December 1880. 69. Morning Journal, 26 December 1872; Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1895. 70. Morning Journal, 24 December 1872. 71. Golby and Purdue, Modern Christmas, 71–75; Hole, Christmas, 42–44. 72. For instance, in 1899 he was among the Christmas attractions at a children’s treat at St Anne’s School under the direction of the Sisters of the Duke Street Convent (Daily Gleaner, 21 December 1899). Drawings of Santa varied during this period. The advertisements were generally along the lines of Gardner’s advertisement in early December 1897: “Santa Claus’ Mistake. Quite Pardonable Tho’: He has arrived

Notes to pages 196–199

73. 74.

75. 76.

77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84.

85.

86.

87. 88. 89.

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so early! If he is wrong in this, he is right in leaving all his Stock at Gardner’s” (Daily Gleaner, 9 December 1897). The Times Store advisory used “Father Christmas” and “Santa” interchangeably. Daily Gleaner, 16 December 1918. Golby and Purdue, Modern of Christmas, 57–61; Hole, Christmas, 58–62. Special carol services were held during the season, while carols were also sung at normal services including New Year’s watch night. Daily Gleaner, 5 January 1886 and 3 January 1919; and Morning Journal, 21 December 1869. Morning Journal, 26 December 1872. Allan C. Geddes emphasized that “everyone” went to the early morning church service on Christmas Day. “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/216. For a general description of Christmas activities, see Daily Gleaner, 28 December 1896. Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1895. Mary O’Sullivan, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/266. Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1895 and 30 December 1899. Morning Journal, 24 December 1872. Falmouth Post, 1 January 1867. Geddes, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/216; and Mrs Mary Campbell, 7 November 1959, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/38. Golby and Purdue, Modern of Christmas, 57; Hole, Christmas, 51–54. Colonial Standard, 27 December 1883. Until the end of the nineteenth century, beef sold in the markets was notoriously tough: “In fact it was generally compared to elastic, mastication having no effect on it. The only way to eat it was to cut it into small pieces and bolt them. . . . [N]o one who could afford to buy mutton, fowl or other meats would attempt to tackle Kingston beef”. Improved cattle rearing methods by some pen keepers led to better quality beef (Jamaica Times, 24 December 1898). The beef eating public, particularly in Spanish Town and other rural areas, were also at the mercy of unscrupulous butchers who sold the contaminated beef of diseased cattle. Colonial Standard, 17 December 1892. Colonial Standard, 19 December 1891. According to this newspaper, “those parties requiring Christmas dinners to be supplied from Merritt’s Restaurant [should be aware that] numerous orders have been already received and it would therefore be advisable that families requiring to be supplied should send in their orders early, as only a certain number can be attended to.” Clara Smith, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/205; and May Jeffrey-Smith, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/261. Other games played were “Postman”, “Trades”, and “The Huntsman”. Jamaica Times, 8 December 1900. Golby and Purdue, Meaning of Christmas, 42–51. F.A. Lumley, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/29; Mary O’Sullivan, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/266. Morning Journal, 24 December 1872; also Colonial Standard, 18 December 1894; Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1895 and 15 December 1919.

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Notes to pages 199–200

90. Morning Journal, 21 and 22 December 1869; Colonial Standard, 21 and 28 December 1892; Daily Gleaner, 2 January 1877, 3 January and 7 December 1880, 3 and 6 January 1919. The menu at the Linstead dole in 1919 consisted of ham, turkey, beef, rice and peas, plum pudding, fruits, wines, and aerated waters. 91. In 1881, for instance, there was a “very successful ball” in Kingston at the Town Hall, which was “elegantly decorated” with evergreen garlands, flags, flower baskets, and vases, ferns in pots, etc. arranged chiefly by seamen from Port Royal. Dancing began soon after 9:00 p.m. and continued until after 5:00 a.m.; and, at one time, no less than one hundred couples were dancing to the excellent music of the Second West India Regiment band. For the guests, who numbered about 350, supper was served a la Russe in the Court House (Daily Gleaner, 30 December 1881). In 1919, there was a dinner and dance at the South Camp Road Hotel that was described as the best function of its kind yet held at that hotel. The dinner was sumptuous: “Hors d’oeuvre, Green Turtle Soup a la Madere, Queen Olives, Rolls, Baked Red Snapper in Tomato, Parisienne Potatoes, Filet de Boeuf a la Duchese, Compote of Peas with Rice, Roast Young Turkey with Bread, Sauce, Boiled Premium Ham, Mashed New Potatoes, Petits Pois au Jus, String Beans, Baked Yams, Plum Pudding, Brandy Sauce, Ice Cream, Cheddar Cheese, Saltines, Demi Tasse”. The band of the West India Regiment was also in attendance at this event. Daily Gleaner, 12 December 1919. See also Colonial Standard, 24 January 1894. See also Falmouth Post, 31 December 1872; Daily Gleaner, 31 December 1881, 3 January 1885, 5 January 1886, 22 and 28 December 1915, 3 January 1916, 2 and 6 January, and 27 December 1919. The dinner-dance at the Myrtle Bank was a late development during the second decade of the twentieth century. 92. Among the attractions in 1880 was a “great race cake”, borrowed from Scotland where it was known as “currant loaves”, in each of which was a small fortune teller: a thimble indicating “single blessedness”, and triumph for those who found either a lucky sixpence indicating “good luck and a fortune” or a ring indicating “early marriage”. Daily Gleaner, 13 December 1880. 93. Admission to the Conversorium was 1s. for adults and 6d. for children. It was located on Church Street. Colonial Standard, 6 December 1894. 94. Colonial Standard, 27 December 1889. The public was informed that there would be some variation to the nightly programme, including an amusing competition, with a prize attached, where blindfolded persons tried to fix the tail on to a donkey painted on a sheet. On the last night of the festivities, Streadwick encouraged the public to return to his gardens by offering a prize of two guineas to “any lady or gentleman who produced the best curiosity, whether local or foreign”. Colonial Standard, 4 January 1890. 95. Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1888. 96. For Kingston events, see Colonial Standard, 22 and 27 December 1892, 4 and 17 December 1894; Daily Gleaner, 28 December 1896, 16 and 29 December 1897, 16,

Notes to pages 200–203

97. 98.

99. 100.

101. 102.

103.

104. 105.

106.

w 475

20, 23 and 27 December 1899, 7 and 19 December 1907, and 28 December 1915, 2 January and 27 December 1919; Jamaica Times, 17 December 1898. The notable events which marked the season in the city were also available in many rural areas. Daily Gleaner, 8 January and 15 December 1896, 22 December 1897, 15 December 1900, 12 December 1907, 6 January 1919; Jamaica Times, 10 December 1898. Daily Gleaner, 30 November, 12 and 16 December 1918. In the Montego Bay Court House in 1895, quartets, duets and solos were performed in costumes such as “Butterfly, Flower Gil, Highlander, Toy Girl, Fairy [and] Mrs. Hooligan’s Xmas cake”. Daily Gleaner, 17 December 1895; see also, 15 December 1896, 12 and 22 December 1899, 6 January and 27 December 1919; Colonial Standard, 16 December 1895. Daily Gleaner, 4 and 22 December 1915, 20 and 29 December 1919. Daily Gleaner, 14 December 1896 and 21 December 1899. Children’s treats were a key part of the Christmas charity and entertainment both in town and country by and after the turn of the twentieth century (Colonial Standard, 13 December 1894; Jamaica Times, 17 December 1898; Daily Gleaner, 12 January 1897, 18 and 31 December 1915, and 23 December 1919). The sisters of the Duke Street convent held annual Christmas treats for poor children. Daily Gleaner, 28 January 1897, 16 and 23 December 1899, 1 and 29 December 1915, and 3 January 1919 (letter by Sister Madeline). Joseph De Souza, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/17; L.B. Cameron, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/206; also Daily Gleaner, 27 December 1886. See, for instance, Colonial Standard, 27 December 1892; Daily Gleaner, 3 and 8 December 1896, 1 December 1900, 4 December 1907, 31 December 1915; Jamaica Times, 10 December 1898, 24 December 1898, 3 December 1898, 31 December 1898, 7 and 14 January 1899. Colonial Standard, 7 December 1892, 4 and 10 January and 9 December 1893, 3 January 1894; Daily Gleaner, 17 December 1895, 4 January 1896, and 2 January 1900; Jamaica Times, 17 December 1898. Colonial Standard, 10 January 1893, 2 and 3 January 1894. Rifle-shooting competitions were held in Spanish Town and other rural areas as well. Colonial Standard, 30 December 1884, 3 January 1885, 22 and 23 December 1892, 6 and 12 January 1897; Daily Gleaner, 31 December 1881, 5 January 1882, 2, 8 and 15 December 1896, 2 January, 3, 15 and 31 December 1897, 4, 5, 8, and 10 January 1898, 21 and 29 December 1899, 2 and 6 January 1900, 5 December 1907, 27 January and 19 December 1919; Jamaica Times, 3 December 1898. The train to Port Antonio left Kingston at 9:45 a.m. and started its return journey at 3:30 p.m. (Daily Gleaner, 19 December 1896). By 1920, it was customary for the railway company to publish a schedule of trains specifically for the Christmas holidays (see, for instance, Daily Gleaner, 15 December 1919). Special trains were scheduled to take visitors to these shows from Kingston and Spanish Town. See, for instance, Daily Gleaner, 4 December 1884, 8 December 1887, 21 December 1899.

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Notes to pages 203–206

107. Falmouth Post, 1 May 1860. 108. Falmouth Post, 15 and 29 December 1865; Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1878; Beckwith, Christmas Mummings, 17. 109. Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1895. 110. Julia Mullings, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/118. 111. A. Levy, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/126; Cyril Lyons, JA 7/12/201. 112. Florie Buckley, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/161. The Gleaner claimed that the work of the Jonkonnu masquerader “seems to consist in frightening women and girls on the way and in receiving the admiration of his followers”. Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1895. 113. Beckwith, Christmas Mummings, 8–17; Daily Gleaner, 3 January 1919. 114. C.D. Rowe, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/185. 115. Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1878. 116. C.D. Rowe, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/185. 117. J.L. Lawrence, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/76; Joyce Richards, JA 7/12/238. 118. Morning Journal, 27 December 1871. As late as 1919, however, shooting matches were still being held in some rural areas such as Linstead. Daily Gleaner, 6 January 1919. 119. Morning Journal, 27 December 1871. 120. Colonial Standard, 14 January 1882. 121. A fire in Barry Street in December 1879 was attributed to the sparks from a firecracker. Daily Gleaner, 23 December 1879. 122. Morning Journal, 30 December 1872. 123. W. Collman Murray, “A Christmas Gift”, Daily Gleaner, 23 December 1893. 124. “[W]e had the twelve days of raffling (cups, plates, spoons, toys, etc.) all over the city. The masses went in for this wholeheartedly.” G.V. Barton, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/233. See also Daily Gleaner, 27 December 1886 and 12 January 1897; also Murray, “A Christmas Gift”. 125. In 1876 the custos of St Andrew urged the police to enforce the law against lotteries and other forms of gambling (Daily Gleaner, 26 December 1876). The practice nevertheless persisted albeit “not to the reckless extent that formerly prevailed” (Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1895) until the end of the nineteenth century, and necessitated a more stringent law before it appeared to have had an effect. Daily Gleaner, 27 December 1899. 126. Colonial Standard, 7 January 1886. 127. Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1878. 128. Colonial Standard, 8 January 1880, 14 January 1882, 7 January 1886; Daily Gleaner, 3 January 1898. 129. Daily Gleaner, 12 January 1897, 4 and 6 January 1919. There were isolated incidents of disorder such as at Montego Bay in 1909, when Sgt-Major Phillips was assailed by a shower of squibs and stones. Four arrests were made and the streets cleared. Daily Gleaner, 4 January 1900.

Notes to pages 206–213

130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141.

142.

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Daily Gleaner, 10 January 1898. Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1895. J.O. Brown, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/215. Falmouth Post, 24 January 1868; Morning Journal, 15 February 1868 and 11 February 1871; Daily Gleaner, 3 February 1876; Gall’s News Letter, 29 January 1880. Daily Gleaner, 9 February 1875. Morning Journal, 14 February 1871. Jamaica Times, 20 February 1904. Daily Gleaner, 5 February 1916 and 15 February 1917. Daily Gleaner, 2 May 1899 and 12 May 1917; Jamaica Times, 15 May 1907 and 4 June 1910. Jamaica Times, 22 May 1909; and Daily Gleaner, 12 May 1917. Daily Gleaner, 2 May 1899; Jamaica Times, 22 May 1909. Jamaica Times, 6 May 1899, 5 June 1907, 22 May 1909, 4 June 1910; Daily Gleaner, 5 May 1896, 2 May 1899, 2 and 3 May 1900, 31 May 1910, 6 May 1911, 15 May 1916, 12 May 1917, 2 May 1919. Jamaica Times, 2 May 1903; Daily Gleaner, 11 May 1911.

Chapter 8 1. For the period between 1860 and 1920, the coloureds comprised between 18 and 20 per cent of the total population. See the decennial censuses. 2. Daily Gleaner, 17 July 1875. 3. Gall’s News Letter, 8 October 1883. 4. Francis Dodsworth, The Book of Jamaica (Kingston: Sollas and Cocking, 1904), 17. 5. “Mountain Man” (Porus) to editor, Daily Gleaner, 18 March 1915. 6. Charles Rampini, Letters from Jamaica (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1873), 33. 7. Sir William Coaker, Sketches of Jamaica (n.p: R. Hibbs, 1928), 9. 8. Martha Beckwith, Jamaica Folk-Lore (New York: American Folk-Lore Society, G.E. Stechert and Co., 1928; Kraus Reprint Co., 1969), 5. 9. Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2004), 191–92. 10. Cundall, “The West Indies Today, 1908”, NLJ MST 934, 105. Also Florie Burkley, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/161. The most popular route was King Street, East Queen Street, Paradise Street, and back to the terminus via Tower and Harbour Streets. As we have seen many also rode the trams to and from Rockfort Gardens and Papine. 11. Cundall, “West Indies”, 105.

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Notes to pages 213–219

12. Clara Smith, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/205. 13. Beckwith, Jamaica Folk-Lore, 5–6. 14. Ibid., 9. From the mouths of illiterate peasants such tales were dismissed as silliness, but from the pen of Englishman Captain James Cutteridge, director of education in Trinidad (1934–1942), similar fanciful stories would later become staple educational materials in six levels of West Indian Readers he authored for use in primary (elementary) schools in the British Caribbean colonies. 15. Ibid., 9–10. 16. Walter Jekyll, Jamaican Song and Story: Anancy Stories, Digging Songs, Ring Tunes and Dancing Tunes (London: David Nutt for the Folklore Society, 1907), 190–91. 17. Beckwith collected many folk-games and their accompanying music. Beckwith, Jamaica Folk-Lore, 11–79. 18. May Jeffrey-Smith, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/261. 19. Coaker, Sketches, 9. 20. See especially “Jamaica Memories” of May Jeffrey-Smith, JA 7/12/261, and Gladstone Burke, JA 7/12/242. Also Una Wilson, JA 7/12/265; C.D Rowe, JA 7/12/185; Lucida Norman, JA 7/12/244; Joyce Richards, JA 7/12/238; and J.A. Bubb Clarke, JA 7/12/224. 21. Jamaica Times, 13 May 1899. 22. See, for instance, Daily Gleaner, 26 March 1898, 2 February and 15 December 1899; also Cundall, “West Indies”, 180. 23. Daily Gleaner, 21 December 1886 and 15 September 1904; Jamaica Times, 17 September 1904 and 13 October 1906. 24. Cundall, “West Indies”, 180. 25. “The Critic”, “Some Social Institutions: ‘At Homes’ ”, Daily Gleaner, 30 May 1906. 26. Jamaica Times, 13 May 1899. 27. “The Critic”, Daily Gleaner, 30 May 1906. 28. Mary Eliza Bakewell Gaunt, Reflection in Jamaica (London: Ernest Benn, 1932), 21–22. See also Cundall, “West Indies”. 29. David Brandon, Some Amusing Reminiscences of a West Indian Barrister (Kingston: Jamaica Times, 1911), 22–23. 30. Marianne North, Recollections of a happy life (London: Macmillan, 1892), 105. 31. See, for instance, Colonial Standard, 13 September 1883, 16 February 1888, 19 February 1889, 20 December 1889, and 21 May 1892; Daily Gleaner, 6 May 1884; Jamaica Times, 24 June 1905. 32. Daily Gleaner, 6 March 1891. 33. The first reported smoking concert was held in Kingston at Merritt’s Café in Harbour Street by the Association of Land Crabs. Daily Gleaner, 3, 6 and 15 October, 9 and 11 December 1891, 4 January, 25 April, 26 May, 4 July, and 3 December 1892, 14 March 1893, 30 October 1894, 22 March and 9 December 1895, 11 January and 11 August 1896, 21 March 1899; Colonial Standard, 6 July and 3 December 1892, 22

Notes to pages 219–221

34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

44. 45.

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January and 11 December 1894; Jamaica Post, 7 September 1898; Jamaica Times, 16 December 1899, 16 September, and 21 October 1905. Daily Gleaner, 23 October 1891. Daily Gleaner, 27 July 1899. Daily Gleaner, 20 July 1899. See for instance, Daily Gleaner, 24 July 1899; 7 February 1900; 19 and 22 February, 9 October, 23 November, 10 and 23 December 1901; 19 July 1902; 2 and 29 July, 5 August 1903. Jamaica Times, 21 April 1906. Jamaica Guardian, 19 March 1909. Daily Gleaner, 24 July 1906. Jamaica Times, 21 July 1906; Julia Munroe, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/91; and Clara Bryan, JA 7/12/303. Daily Gleaner, 30 January 1909. See, for instance, Falmouth Post, 14 February and 17 April 1868, 31 August and 1 October 1869; Morning Journal, 27 January and 4 October 1869; Daily Gleaner, 7 February 1876, 29 November 1879, 12 and 21 May 1881, 13 September 1882, 21 August and 13 December 1886 (letter by “A Portlander”), 14 February 1887, 23 January 1888, 4 March 1891, 16 February 1893, 16 January 1896, 15 January 1897, 2 December 1915; Colonial Standard, 30 October 1880, 22 August 1883, 19 December 1887, 19 and 23 January 1888, 23 January and 17 December 1891, 17 January 1894, 14 December 1899; Jamaica Times, 14 October 1899, 29 March 1902, 17 March and 13 June 1903, 11 March 1911. Also H.G. De Lisser, In Jamaica and Cuba (Kingston: Gleaner Co., 1910), 107; and Ethel Maud Symmonett, Jamaica: Queen of the Carib Sea. Kingston: Mortimer C. De Souza, 1895, 22. Winifred James, The Mulberry Tree (London: Chapman and Hall, 1913), 31. Jamaica Guardian, 9 February 1909. Also Colonial Standard, 6 August 1887, 19 November 1890; Daily Gleaner, 7 December 1909; Jamaica Times, 13 March 1909, 12 February 1910. Costumes were generally elaborate and expensive. For instance, Mrs Lewis Ashenheim, who won the first prize in 1903, wore “a beautiful chain bracelet of gold with pendant padlock, and studded with turquoise. . . . The gown is made of white and crimson mercirised [sic] material, the front being an exact counterpart of the flag of the Direct Line [which she represented]. Scattered all over it are coloured prints of the several ships of the line, the names of which are in gold. Pretilly stitched on is a label for a trunk, on which is written ‘Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, passenger per S.S. Port Royal for Jamaica’. The back of the gown consists of a real flag of the line, which makes a handsome drapery, falling as it does in folds, and forming the train. The bodice of the dress is of a design similar to that of the skirt; it is trimmed with white ribbons on which are printed the names of all the Direct Line boats. On the one side are hand-painted pineapples and bunches of bananas, – on the other are miniature flags of the line. And finally, the headdress is

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Notes to pages 221–225

46.

47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

55.

56.

57. 58.

a bunch of bananas, hand-painted and trimmed with flags and ribbons, on which is the inscription, ‘The Direct Line’ ” (Daily Gleaner, 8 January 1903). In this case, the link between commerce and entertainment was plain for all to see. All sectors of the elite establishment were united in the culture war to bring civilization to Jamaica, although they might differ over the methods. Colonial Standard and Daily Gleaner, 9 January 1890. Among the children’s costumes were: Court of Louis XV, Mikado of Japan, Little Bo Peep, Jockey, Fairies from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Milk Maid, Mexican Girl, Robin Hood, etc. See also Daily Gleaner, 4 November 1881; and Colonial Standard, 8 January 1890. James, Mulberry Tree, 31–32. Falmouth Post, 7 September 1860. De Lisser, In Jamaica, 108; Cundall, “West Indies”, 110; Daniel Roache, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/203; Emma Wood, JA 7/12/248; and B. Jolly, JA 7/12/120. De Lisser, In Jamaica, 109. Ibid. Cundall, “West Indies”, 112. See, for instance, Daily Gleaner, 28 July 1875 and 3 June 1876; and 8 March 1887. Falmouth Post, 3, 6, and 13 January 1865, 16 and 19 July 1867, 13 May 1873, 13 March and 1 December 1874; Morning Journal, 16 and 19 March 1868, 19, 22 and 26 July 1873, 27 March 1875; Daily Gleaner, 29 January and 3, 11 and 27 September 1877, 3 August 1880, 18 and 20 April 1881, 25 February 1885, 19 December 1888, 26 January and 25 July 1893, 8 December 1897, 11 December 1899, 6 August 1904, and 9 April 1912; Colonial Standard, 28 April 1880, 18 March 1887, 1 and 3 March 1888, 5 August 1890, 12 February 1891, 1 February 1892, 30 January 1893; Jamaica Times, 14 October, 25 November and 16 December 1899, 27 January 1900, 17 and 24 May, 14 June 1902, 6 April 1912. One notable exception was “Professor” Barclay who was Jamaican, but who had learned his craft and practised in the United States. Among his feats in October 1906 was the live burial of his wife at Rockfort Gardens, after hypnotizing her, for six days and reviving her at the end of that period. Jamaica Times, 13 and 20 October 1906, and Daily Gleaner, 15 October 1906. Admission fees to these shows ranged between 2s. and 3s. in the 1860s and 1870s. Falmouth Post, 8 May 1863, 9 March 1869, 1 March 1870, 29 August 1871; Morning Journal, 23 November 1868; Daily Gleaner, 16 July 1877, 11 December 1900; Colonial Standard, 16 February 1880, 27 March, 2 and 3 June 1885, 19 December 1891; Jamaica Times, 18 October 1902, 30 May 1903. Daily Gleaner, 21 May 1875. Daily Gleaner, 30 October 1879, 31 January 1884, 19 May 1890, 14 December 1895; Colonial Standard, 29 December 1886, 7 June, 28 July, 25 August and 1 September 1892, 13 and 25 January 1893, 12 January 1894, 11 January 1895; Jamaica Times, 8 April and 9 September 1899, 18 October 1902, 2 May 1903.

Notes to pages 225–228

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59. Daily Gleaner, 29 June 1906. On 19 March 1909, the projector caught afire and caused a panic among the patrons. However, not much damage or injury was done (Daily Gleaner, 20 March 1909). According to John Massias, however, the first projector was brought to Jamaica by Egerton Massias, and after giving shows in Kingston, Spanish Town, and other towns, and touring Haiti, he sold his equipment to two Americans, the Ireland brothers. John Massias, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/298. 60. Daily Gleaner, 6 December 1907. 61. Daily Gleaner, 28 July 1913 – advertisements. 62. Jamaica Times, 17 October 1914. 63. See advertisements in the local press. Also Daily Gleaner, 25 July 1913 and 23 May 1914. The Rose Garden was damaged by fire in June 1914, but reopened in September. Daily Gleaner, 23 June and 19 September 1914. 64. Daily Gleaner, 16 October 1913. 65. See advertisements in the Daily Gleaner, for example, 19 January 1918 and 21 January 1919. 66. Olivier to Harcourt, no. 312, 18 August 1913, CO 137/698. 67. Daily Gleaner, 7 February 1914. 68. Jamaica Times, 30 May 1914. Likewise, an anonymous writer to the Jamaica Times protested against the caricatures of British institutions and ideals of American films: “An occasional dig in the ribs is all very well in its way, but we have not as a community, any taste for the crude, and to our eye, rather juvenile jokes against our own Empire that pass muster in certain classes in America. It is a pity, to deal with a further point, that more is not done in our moving picture shows to illustrate British subjects, whether taken from history or from everyday life.” Letter to the editor, Jamaica Times, 9 October 1915. 69. Probyn to Milner, no. 801, 8 December 1920, JA 1B/5/18, vol. 75. 70. Jamaica Times, 25 October 1913. 71. Morning Journal, 23 January 1861. 72. Daily Gleaner, 15 February 1881. 73. Jamaica Post, 17 February 1896. 74. The Colonial Standard urged that “every-one who is free from the straight laced trammels of religious bigotry” should support these Sunday entertainments. Colonial Standard, 29 February 1892. Also Jamaica Post, 27 February 1892, 29 April and 2 May 1893; and Daily Gleaner, 23 September 1892. 75. Jamaica Times, 11 October 1902, 28 April and 9 June 1906, 13 July 1907 and 24 October 1908. 76. Daily Gleaner, 26 June 1906. 77. Daily Gleaner, 26 July 1906. 78. Jamaica Times, 28 July 1906. 79. Jamaica Post, 12 May 1898.

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Notes to pages 228–233

80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86.

87.

88. 89. 90.

91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99.

100.

Daily Gleaner, 30 June 1906. “N.Y.Z.” to editor, Daily Gleaner, 31 July 1906. Daily Gleaner, 20 August 1906. Ibid. Jamaica Guardian, 23 January 1909. Daily Gleaner, 28 April 1914. See also 7th Victoria, chapter 14. Captain Alfred Roser, proprietor of the Rose Gardens theatre, started the movement to defy the prohibition on the grounds that less than a mile away the Movies theatre at Cross Roads could remain open. Also, since the law extended to all places of business, it affected ice cream saloons which had become popular, and when one proprietor was prosecuted it aroused such a public outcry that the legal action was withdrawn. Daily Gleaner, 16 May 1914. William Pratt and W. Graham to the directors of the Palace and Movies Co., 20 May 1915, in Daily Gleaner, 13 October 1915. The Kingston Ministers’ Fraternal represented the clergy of the Anglican, Baptist, Congregational, Disciples of Christ, Moravian, Presbyterian, and Methodist churches in Kingston. William Wilson to Pratt and Graham, 21 May 1915, in Daily Gleaner, 13 October 1915. J.W. Wright to Mayor (H.A. Laselve Simpson), 12 July 1915, and Wright to InspectorGeneral, 12 October 1915, in Daily Gleaner, 13 October 1915. Daily Gleaner, 4 October 1915. The police also warned the cinema directors against Sunday shows, and eventually arrested Audley Morals for permitting moving pictures to be shown on Sunday night at the Movies theatre. Daily Gleaner, 30 October and 2 December 1915. Daily Gleaner, 12 October 1915. Jamaica Times, 6 and 16 October 1915. Daily Gleaner, 2 May 1914. Daily Gleaner, 28 April 1914. Daily Gleaner, 30 April 1914. Presbyterian Church Synod Papers, NLJ MST 2089, 1914. Le Mot, “Papine on a Sunday night”, Jamaica Times, 8 February 1919; and “Papine Re-visited”, Jamaica Times, 12 April 1919. Morning Journal, 22 July and 18 August 1870, 7 August 1875. Falmouth Post, 28 February 1865, 15 May and 23 October 1868, 25 December 1873; Morning Journal, 13 July, 22 November and 6 December 1870, 17 December 1872, 27 November 1875; Daily Gleaner, 5 December 1876, 13 June 1881, 7 December 1882, 18 May 1887, 24 January 1890; Colonial Standard, 2 April 1880, 7 September and 28 November 1882, 7 January 1886, 28 October 1891; Jamaica Times, 19 August 1899. Unlike many other forms of elite entertainment which were organized by “ladies”, the organizing committee of the Kingston Garden Party consisted entirely of men, namely, Hon. H.J. Kemble, Messrs H. Barrow, Alfred Pawsey, W.H. Lewis, H.

Notes to pages 233–236

101.

102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109.

110. 111. 112.

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Romero, J. De Cordova, Dr J.C. Phillippo, J.C. Fegan, John Perry, James Verley, R. Livingstone, W. Bailey, Osmand Delgado, A.H. Pinnock, C.A. Smith, E.E. Auvray, W.H. Macglashan, and G.J. De Cordova. Daily Gleaner, 7, 8 and 9 January 1886. In 1889 a garden party was held at Healthfield Pen in Vere in aid of the Rectory fund (Colonial Standard, 7 August 1889). Garden parties were generally held for charity, mainly in connection with churches’ fund-raising activities. These were generally the work of ladies (Daily Gleaner, 25 February 1882, 18 July 1885, 26 August 1889, 19 March 1890, 8 April 1893, 6 and 8 December 1900; Colonial Standard, 26 September 1885, 7 June 1886, 12 April 1887, 22 December 1888, 6 December 1889, 28 August 1890, 14 January 1894; Jamaica Times, 11 March 1899, 10 November 1900, 13 April 1901, 18 October 1902, 4 July 1903, 6 February and 21 May 1904, 25 February 1905, 12 September and 14 November 1908, 23 January 1909, 15 April 1911, 15 February, 29 March and 5 July 1913, 17 January and 11 April 1914; also Alan C. Geddes, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/216). Sometimes these parties were called “lawn parties”. See Colonial Standard, 24 July 1888; Jamaica Times, 27 May 1899. Colonial Standard, 19 November 1884, 12 May 1887, 19 September 1888, 31 October 1889, 1 November 1890, 14 November, 22 and 30 December 1891, 4 December 1894, and 16 December 1899; Daily Gleaner, 5 November and 17 December 1889, 7 December 1897, 16 and 27 December 1899, 5 December 1900, and 28 December 1915; Jamaica Times, 2 December 1899, 28 September 1901, 15 November 1902, 24 April 1910, and 21 October 1911. The garden party at Clovelly, held over two days in January 1894, appears to be unrelated to the Roman Catholic fairs. The Anglicans later on held garden parties also at Clovelly. Daily Gleaner, 2 January and 27 December 1919. Daily Gleaner, 18 December 1889. Daily Gleaner, 18 December 1889 and 9 December 1897; also Colonial Standard, 25 and 27 November 1890. See Joy Lumsden’s excellent website “Jamaica’s Merry-Go-Rounds” at http:// jamaicamerrygoround.moonfruit.com/. See, for instance, Daily Gleaner, 18 November 1887, 28 and 29 June 1900, 11 May 1916, 17 August 1920; also Lumsden, “Jamaica’s Merry-Go-Rounds”. Lumsden, “Jamaica’s Merry-Go-Rounds”. Daily Gleaner, 7 January 1891. Lumsden, “Jamaica’s Merry-Go-Rounds”. Louis Bopp came from New York to manage the carousel at the Jamaica Exhibition in 1891. When the exhibition closed in May, he started his own business on land on the race course leased from the city council which he called the Alton Ville Pleasure Park. See Lumsden, “Jamaica’s Merry-Go-Rounds”. C.W. Willis, “Buckra” Land: two weeks in Jamaica (Boston, 1896), 38. Daily Gleaner, 18 December 1890. Quoted by Lumsden, “Jamaica’s Merry-Go-Rounds”.

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Notes to pages 236–240

113. Ibid. 114. Daily Gleaner, 31 May 1888. He was charged under the Towns and Communities Act 7 Victoria, Section 14. Loza, however, appealed his sentence, which was quashed on the ground that the offence for which he was charged did not come within the meaning of the section of this law. 115. Daily Gleaner, 28 December 1889, and 20 May 1895. 116. Daily Gleaner, 26 May 1928, quoted in Lumsden, “Jamaica’s Merry-Go-Rounds”. 117. Daily Gleaner, 19 August 1892. 118. Lumsden, “Jamaica’s Merry-Go-Rounds”. 119. Morning Journal, 11 June 1868, 12 January 1875. 120. Falmouth Post,10 January 1862, 6 January 1863, 3 January and 24 April 1868, 23 July 1869, 5 September 1871; Morning Journal, 3 and 8 January 1868, 12 and 16 November 1870; Daily Gleaner, 2 September 1876, 17 June 1878, 1 and 29 July 1884, 14 October 1887, 7 July 1888, 11 September 1889, 2 February 1898; Colonial Standard, 29 July 1884, 8 August 1892; Jamaica Times, 5 August and 24 December 1899, 24 November 1900, 25 May 1901, 2 May 1903, 30 May 1908. 121. Daily Gleaner, 4 August 1886, 15 February 1887, 25 February 1892, 21 April 1900; Colonial Standard, 26 February 1892; Jamaica Times, 28 April 1900, 7 February and 9 May 1903. “Post office” was a popular kissing game, one of several Victorian parlour games. 122. Beckwith, Jamaica Folk-Lore, 6–7. 123. Ibid.; Jamaica Times, 13 December 1902; also Julia Mullings, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/118; Sara Bryden, JA 7/12/10; Erna Brodber’s interview with Martha, SALISES, University of the West Indies at Mona, 74StTFc. 124. Errol Hill, The Jamaican Stage (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992), 261. 125. Daily Gleaner, 7 July 1888. Some tea meetings were actually broken up on account of fighting. Jamaica Times, 2 September 1899, 15 August 1908. 126. Morning Journal, 3 August 1868 and 5 August 1872; Falmouth Post, 8 August 1873; Daily Gleaner, 31 July 1875, 20 July 1885, 16 January 1896; Colonial Standard, 20 January 1889, 16 January 1893; Jamaica Post, 28 May 1898; Jamaica Times, 1, 15 and 29 July, 5 and 19 August, 23 September, 18 November and 16 December 1899, 18 April and 2 May 1903, 16 September 1905, 23 January 1909 and 5 October 1912. See also L.B. Cameron, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/206; Florie Burkley, JA 7/12/161; and Cundall, “West Indies”, 105. 127. Daily Gleaner, 25 March 1893. 128. De Lisser, In Jamaica, 110; and Erna Brodber’s interview with Uncle B, SALISES, 77StTMc. 129. Jamaica Times, 1 July 1899. 130. Daily Gleaner, 9 January 1882 and 25 January 1892; Colonial Standard, 26 January 1892; Jamaica Times, 5 October 1907.

Notes to pages 240–243

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131. Colonial Standard, 31 May 1881. 132. Colonial Standard, 12 April, and advertisement in 13 June 1892. Streadwick’s Marine Gardens were located at the end of Hanover Street, and it is probable that it incorporated the old bath. 133. Daily Gleaner, 31 May 1897 and 6 April 1906. 134. Villiers Stuart, Adventures amidst the Equatorial Forests and Rivers of South America (and Jamaica Revisited) (London: J. Murray, 1891), 193; and Richard Henry Parnell Curle, Wanderings, A Book of Travel and Reminiscence (London: Kegan Paul; New York: E.P. Dutton, 1920), 26. 135. Daily Gleaner, 9 February 1894. 136. Daily Gleaner, 13 December 1900; “Brass versus Modesty” to editor, Morning Journal, 2 October 1869; Morning Journal, 27 July 1871; Colonial Standard, 24 November 1885. 137. The law to which Swettenham was alluding was 7th Victoria, chapter 14, section 1, subsection 11. Jamaica Times, 16 September and 21 October 1905. 138. Alice Michelin, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/250. 139. Several of these laws were passed during the period under review, namely, Laws 32 of 1885, 4 of 1886, 4 of 1887, 38 of 1888, 18 of 1899, 43 of 1908, 33 of 1914, and 35 of 1920. 140. Daily Gleaner, 16 October 1882, 13 and 16 January 1891, and 29 May 1911. See also, Frank Cundall, Jamaica in 1895 (Kingston: Institute of Jamaica, 1895), 74; and “West Indies”, 210. 141. Daily Gleaner, 27 March 1901. 142. Falmouth Post, 18 November 1862; Cundall, Jamaica in 1895, 73–74; Symmonett, Jamaica: Queen of the Carib Sea; James Johnston, Jamaica: The New Riviera: A Pictorial Description of the Island and Its Attractions (London: Cassell, 1903), 28; Daily Gleaner, 16 December 1905. 143. The closed season for the white-belly duck, partridge and ringtail pigeon was April 1 to August 31, and for the others April 1 to July 25. The starting date was later made March 1. 144. A.E. McLean to editor, Daily Gleaner, 24 March 1914. 145. Daily Gleaner, 20 March 1901. 146. Daily Gleaner, 5 September 1895. 147. Johnston, Jamaica, 28. 148. Falmouth Post, 25 September 1874; Daily Gleaner, 1 November 1876, 16 November 1886, 7 December 1888, 26 November 1889, 4 December 1891, 13 February 1896, 16 December 1899; Colonial Standard, 18 November 1881, 10 January and 11 September 1882, 9 August, 17 and 25 September, 29 November and 7 December 1883, 21 October and 4 December 1884, 23 November, 2, 5, and 10 December 1885, 10 December 1886, 6 December 1888, 7 December 1889, 4 and 5 December 1891, 1 December 1893, 1 December 1894; Jamaica Times, 22 April 1899, 1 December 1900, 13 January, 23 Feb-

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Notes to pages 243–245

149. 150.

151. 152.

153.

154.

155.

156.

157. 158. 159.

ruary, 4 May, 3 and 16 August, 26 October, and 14 December 1901, 22 March, 25 October and 20 December 1902, 7 March, 2 May, 4 July and 14 November 1903, 13 August 1904, 18 February, 6 May and 8 July 1905, 14 April, 26 May, 30 June, 7 July and 1 December 1906, 18 April and 28 November 1908, 19 June and 3 July 1909, 15 January, 23 July, 6 August and 12 November 1910, 18 February and 29 July, 1911, 9 and 30 March, and 10 August 1912. See also Allan C. Geddes, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/216. In 1903, a horse show was held at the Hope Show Grounds in Kingston. Daily Gleaner, 12 February 1903. Daily Gleaner, 7 July 1881; Colonial Standard, 6 July 1881. Daily Gleaner, 4 June 1884, 18 June 1885, 29 January and 11 May 1887, 16 June 1888, 9 April 1891, 12 January and 9 July 1892; Colonial Standard, 12 June 1882, 15 June 1883, 18 June 1884, 19 June 1885, 3 February 1887, 13 June 1888, 14 and 15 November 1889, 8 July 1892; Jamaica Times, 13 May 1899, 22 June 1901. See also May JeffreySmith, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/261; Daily Gleaner, 3 October 1885. Handbook of Jamaica, 1886 (Kingston: Government Printing Office, 1886). The contemporary Gleaner credited Fawcett with the idea (Daily Gleaner, 28 January 1891), but Joy Lumsden suggests that it might in fact have originated with A.C. Sinclair of the Government Printing Office, and then was pursued by Fawcett and Blake. Her paper provides the best account of the exhibition available. Joy Lumsden, “Jamaica International Exhibition, 1891”, Jamaica Historical Society Bulletin 10, nos. 3 and 4 (October 1991): 17. Blake to Knutsford, no. 303, 4 November 1889, no. 314, 5 November 1889, and no. 339, 27 November 1889, CO 137/540; no. 15, 13 January 1890, CO 137/542; no. 15, 27 January 1891, CO 137/545. According to Lumsden, the British government only offered £1,000, so the remaining £30,000 was raised by public “subscription”, half being put up by three men namely, Louis Verley, a wealthy merchant, George Steibel, custos of St Andrew, and Col. Charles Ward, custos of Kingston. Each gave £5,000. Frank Casserly, “Kingston in 19th Century”, NLJ MST 317, no. 6, 55; and Lumsden, “Jamaica International Exhibition, 1891”, 17. Blake to Knutsford, no. 314, 5 November 1889, CO 137/540; no. 109, 5 May 1889, and no. 15, 27 January 1891, CO 137/545; Daily Gleaner, 21 February 1890, and Lumsden, “Jamaica International Exhibition, 1891”, 17. Daily Gleaner, 28 January 1891. According to Lumsden, the exhibition, spectacular though it was, was a financial loss, and the building itself was sold to the Public Works Department for £800 and dismantled for its timber. Lumsden, “Jamaica International Exhibition, 1891”, 21. Daily Gleaner, 28 January 1891. Blake to Knutsford, no. 51, 9 March 1891, CO 137/545; and Daily Gleaner, 28 January 1891. All sorts of unfounded rumours were circulated about the exhibition which made

Notes to pages 245–250

160.

161. 162. 163. 164.

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rural folk suspicious. One was that the government asked how much the peasants were producing so that they could be taxed more; another was that their savings in the Penny Savings Banks would be used to pay for the exhibition; the most sinister was that when they went through the turnstiles at the exhibition, they were to be re-enslaved. Lumsden, “Jamaica International Exhibition, 1891”, 19. The Colonial Standard printed reports of persons journeying long distances from remote rural areas to visit the exhibition, and to encourage this further, the governor announced that entrance would be free on April 24. Colonial Standard, 4 March and 15 April 1891. Blake to Knutsford, no. 75, 7 April 1891, CO 137/545. Colonial Standard, 2 March 1891. See advertisements in Colonial Standard, 29 November 1890 and 13 January 1891; and Lumsden, “Jamaica International Exhibition, 1891”, 20. Blake to Knutsford, no. 109, 5 May 1891, CO 137/545; Casserly, “Kingston”, 55; Colonial Standard, 11 February 1891, 3, 10, 11 and 23 March, 10, 15, 16 and 17 April 1891; and Lumsden, “Jamaica International Exhibition, 1891”, 20–21.

Chapter 9 1. Martha Beckwith, Jamaica Folk-Lore (New York: American Folk-Lore Society, 1928), 5. 2. Peter Bailey, Leisure and Class in Victorian England (London: Routledge Kegan and Paul, 1987), 69–153; Keith A.P. Sandiford, “The Victorians at Play: Problems in Historiographical Methodology”, Journal of Social History 15, no. 2 (1981): 271–78; Timothy J.L. Chandler, “Games at Oxbridge and the Public Schools, 1830–80: The Diffusion of an Innovation”, International Journal of the History of Sport 8, no. 2 (1991): 171–201. See also Richard Holt, Sport and the British: A Modern History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989); J.A. Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism (Harmondsworth: Viking, 1986), and his Pleasure, Profit and Proselytism: British Culture and Sport at Home and Abroad, 1700–1914 (London: Frank Cass, 1988); and Brian Stoddart, “Sport, Cultural Imperialism, and Colonial Response in the British Empire”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 30 (1988): 649–73 and Clem Seecharan, Muscular Learning: Cricket and Education in the Making of the British West Indies at the End of the 19th Century (Kingston: Ian Randle, 2006). 3. Sandiford, “The Victorians at Play”; also his “Cricket and the Victorian Society”, Journal of Social History 17, no. 2 (1983): 305; Stoddart, “Sport, Cultural Imperialism”, 653. 4. Daily Gleaner, 26 September 1896. 5. Holt, Sport, 207–8. Mike Huggins too argues that “Sport became imperial baggage, and by 1901 organised sport had become central to the daily life of the English-

488

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Notes to pages 250–253

6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12.

13.

14. 15.

speaking countries. It held the empire together. . . . For colonists, sports aided the creation of an imagined imperial community and reinforced a British frame of reference.” Mike Huggins, The Victorians and Sport (London: Hambledon and London, 2004), 219. Bailey, Leisure and Class, 69–153; Sandiford, “The Victorians”, 279–80. Holt, Sport, 221. Stoddart, “Sport, Cultural Imperialism”. Daily Gleaner, 9 December 1918. Kathleen E. McCrone, “Play Up! Play Up! And Play the Game! Sport at the late Victorian Girls’ Public School”, Journal of British Studies 23, no. 2 (1984): 107–8. See also, Sandiford, “The Victorians”, 281–82; and J.A. Mangan, “The Social Construction of Victorian Femininity: Emancipation, Education and Exercise”, International Journal of the History of Sport 6 (1989): 1–4. McCrone, “Play Up! Play Up!”, 108–34; Mangan, “The Social Construction”, 4–7. Jihang Park, “Sport, Dress Reform and the Emancipation of Women in Victorian England: A Reappraisal”, International Journal of the History of Sport 6, no. 1 (1989): 11. According to the Gleaner, “The muscles of the merchant who is closely confined to his desk get little or no exercise and become soft and flaccid. The leading vital organs suffer and there results a general enfeeblement of the system. The man of business breaks down. . . . Many a lady goes through at home the same life history. She has not had proper physical exercise, the balance of the system has been disturbed, and she is a constant sufferer in consequence . . . the cure for a large number of the evils of life is healthy exercise in or out of the home, and better in both ways.” Daily Gleaner, 17 January 1891; also, 28 May and 28 October 1892. Daily Gleaner, 14 April 1903. According to the Falmouth Post, “Cricket . . . is a sport which is mostly prized by those who [are] accustomed to confined and sedentary occupations, – and it is clear that where healthy bodily relaxation is required there is nothing to equal it. Not only does it afford exercise, to hands and legs, but it offers an agreeable mental stimulus in the emulation and competition which are engendered between the rival clubs. . . . There are few prettier sights to be seen at the present time than a well contested game at Cricket in which youth and manhood contend for an honorable [sic] mastery under circumstances which promote good fellowship and mental exhilaration, and which neither financially nor morally, leave any bad results behind, however the game may eventuate. Whatever side wins, it wins by virtue of some quality inherent in the players, and this quality whatever it may be is sure to be afterwards imitated and turned to good account by the losing side.” This paper regarded cricket as a manly sport which should be encouraged because it would lead to the social, moral and intellectual improvement of the Jamaican people. Falmouth Post, 27 August and 5 October 1869, and 3 October 1873.

Notes to pages 253–254

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16. Article in “Denison’s Cricketing Companion”, quoted in Falmouth Post, 5 October 1869. 17. Jamaica Times, 28 October 1916. 18. Falmouth Post, 27 August 1869. 19. Douglas Hall, In Miserable Slavery: Thomas Thistlewood in Jamaica 1750–86 (London: Macmillan, 1989), 256. This account shows that cricket was being played in Jamaica in the 1770s. 20. See, for instance, Falmouth Post, 11 July 1862, 13 March 1868, 27 July and 6 August 1869, 21 February 1873; Daily Gleaner, 28 October 1879, 31 August 1880, 15 March 1888, 18 January 1896, and 13 January 1897; Colonial Standard, 6 January, 27 February, 12 March, and 26 August 1880, 22 February and 28 December 1881, 28 February, 23 March, and 14 June 1882, 20 July 1883, 30 June 1884, 8 May 1886, 9 July, 23 August, 19 November, and 29 December 1887, 7 and 20 March, 18 May, 5 September 1888, 19 February, 15 May, 8 and 19 November 1889, 30 September 1890, 2 February 1891, and 23 February 1892. 21. The founding members of the KCC were Caleb Hall, James Allwood, R.S. Haughton, George Pearce (postmaster for Jamaica), W.A. Payne, Lawrence R. Fyffe, E. Sanguinetti, Thomas Harty, A.H. Jones, S.R. Whitehorn, R. Livingstone, F.L. Harris, J.B. Jones, and W. Smith. John Coleman Beecher, Jamaica Cricket 1863–1926 (Kingston: Gleaner, 1926), 10 and 18–24. Some of the other elite cricket clubs that were formed during the nineteenth century were: Falmouth (1868); St Ann, St James, and Hanover Western Interior Club (ca. 1869); Lucea and Plantain Garden River Club of St Thomas (ca. 1872); Vere and Clarendon, Manchester and Phoenix of Trelawny (ca. 1873); Spanish Town and Westmoreland (ca. 1875); St Elizabeth and Paradise of Westmoreland (ca. 1876); Santa Cruz (ca. 1877); Vere (1878); Kensington, Jamaica Cricket Club and St Andrew (ca. 1879); Old Harbour (ca. 1880); Portland, Linstead, and St Thomas ye Vale (ca. 1880–81); Manchester Union (ca. 1885); Norman (ca. 1888) of Kingston (named after Governor Henry Norman); Blake (ca. 1891) of Montego Bay (named after Governor Henry Blake); Port Antonio, Asylum of Kingston and, in Port Royal, the Victoria and United Service clubs (ca. 1892). Falmouth Post, 25 August 1868, 8 June and 27 August 1869, 29 November 1872, and 11 November 1873; Morning Journal, 3 September 1869, 26 September 1872, 21 November 1873, and 5 November 1875; Daily Gleaner, 10 March 1875, 6 July and 20 October 1876, 7 August 1877, 29 May 1878, 15 January 1880, 24 and 30 May 1881, 2 April 1885, 3 August 1888, and 3 August 1892; Colonial Standard, 27 January and 10 February 1880, 20 April 1891, 16 February, 21 April and 5 December 1892. 22. Falmouth Post, 3 October 1873; Colonial Standard, 6 March 1880; Daily Gleaner, 3 August 1892. 23. Colonial Standard, 23 September 1887. 24. Jamaica Post, 13 September 1890; Daily Gleaner, 19 December 1919 and Handbook of

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Notes to pages 254–255

25.

26. 27.

28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

Jamaica, 1921 (Kingston: Government Printing Office, 1921), 549. The subscription fee had of course risen. In 1886, for instance, it was £1 1s. for honorary members and £1 16s. per annum for playing members. At that time the membership was 191. Handbook of Jamaica, 1886 (Kingston: Government Printing Establishment, 1886), 482. Membership rose to as high as 275 in 1894. Daily Gleaner, 25 January 1894. Daily Gleaner, 12 June 1894. The ground floor of the new pavilion was 35 by 17 feet, and contained an entrance hall, lavatory, dressing room, store room and locker, and bar. The floor was of cement and from the entrance hall were doors leading to all the other rooms and to the back. In front was an open verandah of cement running along the entire width of the building. The upper storey was the same size and contained a general meeting room and a verandah. The exterior was painted and above the first floor verandah was the shield in the club’s colours bearing the letters KCC. There was also a flagstaff with the club’s flag. Volunteer militias were formed by a law of 1879. See, for instance, Daily Gleaner, 11 July 1881 and 5 October 1893; Falmouth Post, 5 October 1869; and Jamaica Post, 19 November 1894; Colonial Standard, 1 March 1882 and 23 September 1887. English public school graduates were so very prominent among the professional, intellectual and administrative classes that during the 1880s and 1890s an annual match was played between the Kingston club and the “Public Schools”. A fairly wide range of such schools were represented in the colony, e.g., Cheltenham, Glenalmond, Harrow, Malvern, Marlborough, Rugby, Sherbourne, Uppingham, Westminster, and Winchester. Falmouth Post, 5 October 1869; Daily Gleaner, 5 March 1889 and 26 August 1892. Colonial Standard, 30 November 1883; “Jubilee Dinner of Kingston Cricket Club at Myrtle Bank Hotel”, Daily Gleaner, 8 January 1913. Falmouth Post, 25 August 1868, 5 October 1869 and 11 November 1873; Daily Gleaner, 29 May 1878; Jamaica Post, 25 October 1890. See, for instance, Colonial Standard, 10 September 1889. Two, Norman and Blake, have been cited in the text above. The third was Musgrave of Ipswich (ca. 1902). Jamaica Times, 22 March 1902 and 6 June 1903. “Jubilee Dinner”, Daily Gleaner, 8 January 1913. Jamaica Advocate, 5 October 1901. It is ironic that this newspaper, under the editorship of the black “radical” Robert Love, should have upbraided the governor for playing cricket on the grounds that by doing so with “inferior officers of the service and others who are not his equals”, he was lowering his prestige in the eyes of everyone. As governor he had no equals, and as such “[i]t is not dignified to see a Governor bowling for Peter Jones, the bar-keeper, or stripped to the shirt and shouting huzzahs for the batting of Thomas Claxton, the book-keeper. Still less comfortable is it to see the Governor laughed at like an ordinary clown for his awkwardness, or scorned, like a dolt for his ignorance. And nothing would surpass the disgrace of

Notes to page 256

35.

36. 37.

38.

w 491

seeing a Governor slip and sprawl on the ground, as the result of an unsuccessful attempt at agility.” The occasion was a luncheon in honour of a visiting English cricket team to the island. Hemming said that “we know that the greatness of our Empire, and the success which has attended the Anglo-Saxon race wherever it has spread, are largely due to the manner in which it has always known how to combine a love of sport with the sterner business of life. I say that the words that I have quoted are an insult not only to the sportsmen of Great Britain, but to all our colonies also. Who have been more ready to come forward to offer their hard work and their lives in the service of their country than the cricketers of Great Britain, of Australia, of Canada and of South Africa. . . . I do say that the sports and games of Great Britain have, far from doing harm, largely contributed to make our race what it is.” Daily Gleaner, 10 February 1902. Daily Gleaner, 17 January 1900. Falmouth Post, 5 October 1869. This newspaper said that “[There are] many instances where the dissolute have, by being allowed to meet their pastor and the gentlemen of their neighbourhood at Cricket, become excellent members of society. . . . [T]hose who instead of attending to religious worship, [and] have on the contrary, spent most, if not the whole, of a Sunday in a public house, [subsequently] turn from their ways and become regular recipients of religious instruction by a constant occupation of a seat in the Parish Church. . . . [M]en whose dispositions have from untoward circumstances been of a wavering character as between honesty and dishonesty, by being permitted to mingle with those above them in point of wealth and station [have] become fixed in the former. Surely, then, the Clergyman who adopts such a course as shall lead to the accomplishment of these objects does no more than perform one portion of the duty of his sacred calling.” Among the clergymen who played cricket in Jamaica were Thomas Harty (later Canon) – one of the founding members of Kingston club, C.T. Husband for Vere (Daily Gleaner, 7 January 1880), Hogan and MacCormick for Stoneyhurst and Beaumont College (Colonial Standard, 21 November 1891). In 1880, one E. Nuttall played for Rugby against St Andrew’s (Colonial Standard, 2 April 1880). It is probable that this might have been Enos Nuttall who in the same year was elected Anglican bishop of Jamaica and later archbishop of the West Indies. See also Falmouth Post, 5 October 1869. See, for instance, Minutes of St Paul’s Presbyterian church, 6 July 1909, NLJ MST 2089; and Report and Statistics of the Moravian Church In Jamaica – for Salem, 1912, JA 5/5 Periodicals. The rules of one church-linked club, the Nazareth (Moravian), specifically forbade indecent language, foul expression and unnecessary shouting on the grounds, on pain of instant dismissal; and members were required to abide by the laws of the Marylebone Cricket Club. The entrance fee was 4s., and the monthly subscription was 6d. Moravian Church Records: Rules of the Nazareth Cricket Club ca. 1923, JA 5/5/S/6.

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Notes to pages 256–260

39. Daily Gleaner, 12 June 1894. Potsdam was renamed Munro at the start of the first world war. 40. Colonial Standard, 1 March 1882. See also Morning Journal, 20 August 1872. 41. Colonial Standard, 1 March 1882, 3 December 1880, 5 March 1881, 7 March, 5 April, 7 November and 7 December 1882, 23 April, 13 and 17 June 1883, 29 June 1886, 27 June 1888, 27 November 1889, 21 November 1891, 5 May, 6 July 1892, 5 December 1893, 15 January 1895; Daily Gleaner, 23 June 1875, 7 October 1876, 20 November 1879, 18 February, 4 and 5 March 1881, 24 September 1889; and Jamaica Times, 12 June 1909. 42. Falmouth Post, 22 and 25 February 1870. 43. See, for instance, Falmouth Post, 11 July 1862, 13 March 1868, 27 July and 6 August 1869, 4 March and 22 April 1870, 25 September 1874; Morning Journal, 21 November 1873; Colonial Standard, 27 February and 13 September 1880, 31 March 1881, 22 April 1882, 6 August 1887, 16 February 1892. 44. Morning Journal, 26 September 1872. 45. In this instance, a batsman was adjudged “out” off an alleged no-ball, but the umpire called “no-ball” after the stump had been dislodged. One of the St James’s players “made use of very insulting language respecting the Captain of the Falmouth Club”, who attacked the offender and provoked the general disturbance. Falmouth Post, 17 June 1870. 46. Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson, “Challenging the ‘Civilizing Mission’: Cricket as a Field of Socio-cultural Contestation in Jamaica 1865–1920”, in In the Shadow of the Plantation: Caribbean History and Legacy, ed. Alvin Thompson (Kingston: Ian Randle, 2002). 47. Jimmy Richards and Mervyn Wong, Statistics of West Indies Cricket 1865–1989 (Kingston: Heinemann Caribbean, 1990). 48. Colonial Standard, 11, 20–23 January and 2 February 1888; Daily Gleaner, 14 and 18 January 1888. 49. Daily Gleaner, 15 February, 1–4 and 16 April 1895. 50. Daily Gleaner, 30 March 1895. 51. Daily Gleaner, 24 September 1896. Jamaica lost the first match by an innings and 45 runs, and the second by one wicket. 52. Jamaica Post, 30 March 1897. 53. Daily Gleaner, 30 March 1897. The poem read as follows: 1 Charge your glasses ye sons of Jamaica and drink, To the sons of old England we are bound by the link, Of common affection for Country and Throne, Their Island is ours and ours their own. We are sons of that banner which sports in the breeze,

Notes to page 260

The ruler of wintry and tropical seas Our Kingdom is one on which sun never sets, Its sovereign one, whom no Briton forgets. Chorus: Then stand up! Stand up, and pledge it, Stand up with a hip, hip, hip, hurrah! To the toast of the night, our glasses we’ll drain, We’ll fill them and drink it again and again. 2 A welcome as warm as the tropical sun, Has been theirs since the day our acquaintance begun; We’ve pledged them the hand, we’ve pledged them the heart, ’Tis joy to have met, ’twill be sorrow to part; Though as foemen in battle we’ve fought on the field, Our friendship as kinsmen, for ever is sealed; For every man ‘Jack’ is a Son of a gun, A Briton, a Sportsman and second to none. Chorus 3 To battle they’ve been with the willow in hand, Breaking duck’s eggs, on West Indian land; Catching mosquitoes, grasshoppers and gnats, Not above catching West Indian Bats; Game in the morning, and game all the day, Game, but now crowing, though game in the play; Wickedly toasting the Indian host At cricket, by having him neatly on toast. Chorus 4 “On Stanley on”! Is their motto they say, Their fight in the leeside in Priestley array; With willow in hand and in Cricketing hoods, They drive all our balls straight to Bush or to Woods; With Stout Heart they play, every man on the tour, Is equally good; not a “Pal-a-rite” lower; When Williams and Elliot, have “Balled ’em” at play, All meet at the “Bar-at” the end of the day. Chorus

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494

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Notes to pages 260–261

5 Then here’s to the Captain and here’s to his men. We Indians hope that we’ll meet them again, And when next they play a West Indian Match, May they raise a farm-yard with the ducks that they hatch, Jamaica will furnish the land for the farm, To raise their young ducklings and keep them from harm; In comfort and safety, in features they’ll walk, For the Isle of Jamaica will harbour no “Hawke”. Chorus 6 Then fill your glasses and give them one cheer, Though the joy of the toast may be marred by a tear; Life’s a strange combination of joy and of pain, We meet and we part and meet not again. Though often in Cricket they have shouted “good bye”, With a laugh, when they know they were wiping their eye. We are perfectly sure when we bid them adieu, They’ll be wiping the eye with a sentiment true. Chorus. 54. Jamaica Daily Telegraph, 10 July 1899. These were the same people who, despite Jamaica’s poor record of performance against all “international” competitors, were aghast that only one Jamaican, M.M. Kerr, was selected to tour England with the West Indian team in 1900. Jamaica threatened to withdraw if it was not accorded more than one representative on the touring team. A minor crisis was created by Jamaica’s threat to withdraw from the tour (Daily Gleaner, 26 February 1900). “Interested” argued that to accept only one team member was an insult to Jamaica, and would be a humiliating admission of its inferiority to Demerara (Guyana), Barbados and Trinidad which he could not concede. The storm blew over when Barbadian H.G.B. Austin withdrew from the team to go to South Africa, and Jamaica was offered another place. The second Jamaican on this tour was G.V. Livingstone. Daily Gleaner, 12 March and 9 April 1900. 55. Daily Gleaner, 8, 10, 13, 14, 17, and 24 February 1902; and Jamaica Times, 8 February 1902. 56. Jamaica Times, 1 March 1902. 57. Daily Gleaner, 13–14, 16–17, 20–22 January 1905. 58. Daily Gleaner, 13, 16–20, and 22 February 1909; and Jamaica Guardian, 11 February 1909. 59. Daily Gleaner, 25, 27–30 March, 4 and 6 April 1911. 60. In 1880 the Gleaner chided the Trinidadians for refusing to play against a team from

Notes to pages 261–264

61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

67.

68. 69. 70.

71. 72.

73. 74. 75.

76. 77.

w 495

St Vincent because some of the players were coloured/black. Said the newspaper: “We had no idea that complexional prejudices ran so high in Trinidad or that one class of Creoles could not compete in friendly rivalry with another at a game of cricket without loss of dignity. Such conduct inevitably stamps the objectors as parvenus. The same may be said of other Colonies in the West Indies.” Daily Gleaner, 9 December 1880. Colonial Standard, 29 February 1892. Daily Gleaner, 4 November 1910. In this instance, the five were acquitted when it became apparent that the arresting constable had lied. Howard Pyle, “Jamaica, New and Old”, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine no. 80 (January–February 1890): 391. Friends Jamaica Mission 7, no. 1 (January 1898), JA 5/8/78/5949. Bessie Pullen-Burry, Jamaica As It Is, 1903 (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1903), 119. “Jamaica Memories” of C.G Bailey, JA 7/12/160; Jean Calvin, JA 7/12/181; and L.U. Williams, JA 7/12/288. In one instance, David Brown was apprehended and taken to court for stealing a cricket bat worth 10s. He was sentenced to three months’ hard labour. Daily Gleaner, 8 March 1889. Rough diary of S.C. Spencer Smith, March 1899, JA 4/9, no. 9.1. In cricket, one is supposed to bowl the ball with one’s elbow straight. It is illegal to bowl with a bent elbow. That is called “throwing” or “shying”. Jamaica Advocate, 8 October 1898. Daily Gleaner, 8 September 1900. Beecher, Jamaica Cricket, 27 and 38. The founding members of Melbourne were G.C., G.M. and L.H. Gunter, R.H. Fletcher, J.S. Campbell, M. Dunn, et al. David Ellington was the principal person behind the establishment of Lucas. Lucas won the Senior Cup in successive years between 1904 and 1906, in 1911, and again from 1913–15. According to Beecher, Lucas was regarded by the black masses of Jamaicans in town and country as heroes: “everyone felt the effect of the new injection of iron into our cricket life and every eleven feared them. They strode along victoriously.” Beecher, Jamaica Cricket, 38. “Jubilee Dinner”, Daily Gleaner, 5 January 1913. Frank Cundall, “The West Indies Today, 1908”, NLJ MST 934, 206. Jamaica Times, 28 February 1903 and 12 February 1910; and J. Nelson Barclay to editor, Daily Gleaner, 3 October 1914; Daily Gleaner, 21 October 1904. This type of behaviour was not confined to Kingston. In 1903, for instance, a free fight broke out between two teams from Collington and Crook River which ended in the court room. Jamaica Times, 2 February 1903. Daily Gleaner, 28 April 1905. See, for instance, Jamaica Times, 22 August 1908. In a match between Melbourne and Lucas, a decision that the crowd disputed led them to abuse the umpire with

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Notes to pages 265–269

78. 79. 80.

81. 82. 83. 84.

85. 86.

87. 88. 89. 90. 91.

92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100.

such terms as thief, robber, cheat etc. See also Daily Gleaner, 28 April 1905 and 3 October 1914. Jamaica Times, 22 August 1908. Daily Gleaner, 6 June 1907. Daily Gleaner, 4 and 6 May 1909. In his letter to the Jamaica Cricket Challenge Cup Committee, Lieutenant T.B. Nicholson, captain of the Garrison Club, claimed that since the introduction of cup competition, cricket had become very competitive and was no longer being played for the sake of the game. Besides, “[c]up competition also seems to affect a portion of the crowd of spectators whose actions are at times not entirely impartial. It is a game which can, and should be played without bias, and the too keen feeling which on occasions almost amounts to unfriendliness should be absent.” Jamaica Daily Telegraph, 24 June 1899; Daily Gleaner, 24 July 1913, 21 September 1917, and 15 March 1918. Daily Gleaner, 22 September 1896. Daily Gleaner, 6 May 1897. Daily Gleaner, 15 February 1893. Miss Long believed in developing the bodies as well as the minds of young girls. Physical drill (called Ling Swedish Drill), aimed at toning the muscles of the girls, was compulsory at her school. “The higher education of our girls”, Daily Gleaner, 30 March 1892. Daily Gleaner, 23 August 1899. Miss Barrows was a strong advocate of physical exercise for girls, which she saw as important for assisting in the development of their intellectual, moral and spiritual well-being. See her speech to the Mothers’ Union, Daily Gleaner, 17 June 1899. Jamaica Daily Telegraph, 5 July 1899. Daily Gleaner, 26 September 1896. Daily Gleaner, 27 September 1880, 13, 14 and 18 July 1881. Daily Gleaner, 23 December 1892, 18 October 1893, 3 and 6 September, 24 October and 14 December 1895, and 26 September 1896. Daily Gleaner, 3 and 6 September 1895. After the Challenge Shield competition was started in 1898, matches lasted for one hour, still 30 minutes less than in Britain. Cundall, “West Indies”, 208. Jamaica Times, 16 October 1909. Daily Gleaner, 10 May 1894. Jamaica Times, 16 October 1909. Daily Gleaner, 5 November 1892. R.H. Smith, “Football Is a Splendid Game”, Daily Gleaner, 10 November 1914. Daily Gleaner, 13 September 1895. Daily Gleaner, 6 September 1895 and 26 September 1896. Daily Gleaner, 3 September 1895. Daily Gleaner, 14 October 1896.

Notes to pages 270–271

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101. The committee was comprised of Sir Fielding Clarke, chief justice, as president; the vice-presidents were Colonel Dorward (Royal Engineers); surgeon-general the Hon. C.B. Mosse; Hon. Lieutenant Colonel C.J. Ward (custos); Commodore W. B. Henderson; Hon. E.A. Northcote (judge); Dr A.A. Robinson, mayor of Kingston; Commander F.A. Gartforth (navy); Captains J.E. Edmonds (Royal Engineers) and A. Jenour (Royal Artillery); Hon. Dr John Pringler, member of the Legislative Council; A.H. Pinnock and H.M.C. Cobbold. Daily Gleaner, 5 October 1898. 102. Daily Gleaner, 10 October 1898. The Challenge Shield was 27 by 21 inches, made of oak and bronze, with the Jamaica coat of arms, a scene on the football field with the ball in play, and various other symbols all embossed in silver, and extensive silver work in the shape of association footballs and shields surrounding the frame. The league initially consisted of six clubs: Kingston, Winchester, HMS Urgent, Royal Engineers, Royal Artillery and the Leinster Regiment. The competitive football season ran from October to March. 103. The winners of the shield were: 1898–1902: 22nd Company SD Royal Garrison Artillery; 1902–4: 47th Company Royal Garrison Artillery; 1904–5: 4th Worcester Regiment; 1905–7: 66th Company Royal Garrison Artillery; 1907–8: Kingston CC Football team; 1908–10: 66th Company Royal Garrison Artillery; 1910–11: Department Corps; 1911–12: Royal Engineers; 1912–14: Royal Garrison Artillery; 1914–15: Kingston; 1915–18: Camp United; 1918–19: Jamaica Garrison; and 1919–20: Kingston. Daily Gleaner, 6 October 1920. 104. Some of the new clubs formed as a result of the Martinez Cup competition were: Port Royal, Rovers, Kingston Cricket Club Football (KCCF) team, Clovelly, the Anglican Church, Wolmer’s, St George’s, New College, Melbourne CCF, Jamaica College and St Peter’s. The winners of the Cup were: 1907–9: Kingston CCF; 1909– 10: Jamaica College; 1910–11: Kingston CCF; 1914–15: Kingston; 1915–16: Melbourne; 1916–18: Kingston; 1918–19: St George’s College; 1919–20: Jamaica College. Daily Gleaner, 28 November 1911 and 6 October 1920. 105. Daily Gleaner, 28 November 1911 and 6 October 1920. The winners of the InterScholastic competition were: 1909–11: Jamaica College; 1911–12: Potsdam; 1912–13: St George’s; 1913–14: Jamaica College; 1914–15: Jamaica and Munro Colleges; 1915– 19: Jamaica College; 1919–20: Jamaica and Munro Colleges. Jamaica College also won both the Manning and Wilson cups consistently from 1914–20. 106. Daily Gleaner, 10 November 1914. 107. Daily Gleaner, 6 October 1920. 108. Rugby Union football is played by fifteen players a side. The eight forwards form a “scrummage”. The ball is oval in shape and is punted, dropped, or passed from hand to hand, the object being to “touch down” behind the opponents’ line (called a “try”), and to kick the ball over the crossbar and between the side-posts of the goal. In some ways it resembles American football.

498

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Notes to pages 271–272

109. Colonial Standard, 14 April 1892, also 10 April 1880; and Daily Gleaner, 13 July 1881, 15 and 17 March, 12 April and 13 May 1892. 110. Daily Gleaner, 3 September 1898. 111. Rugby was, however, promoted in Fiji and other British South Pacific colonies, but this was done primarily by Australians and New Zealanders rather than by the British. 112. Colonial Standard, 18 May 1892. 113. James Ryan broke his collarbone and two ribs; G. Scott fractured his left elbow; G. Mosley and Captain Knight their collarbones; A. Newell suffered a shoulder injury, and J. Dickenson had internal injuries from a kick. Daily Gleaner, 23 February 1893. 114. Colonial Standard, 6 January 1893. 115. Cyril Lyons, “Jamaica Memories”, n.d., JA 7/12/201. 116. Una Wilson, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/265. 117. Jamaica Times, 14 December 1901. 118. Colonial Standard, 10 December 1890. 119. Daily Gleaner, 11, 12, and 13 August 1875, 2 August 1884, 31 July 1886, 6 August 1887, 19 March 1892; Morning Journal, 11 August 1875; Colonial Standard, 2 August 1883, 7 August 1884, 6 August 1885, 12 August 1886, 11 and 12 August 1887; Jamaica Times, 8 August 1903; Colonial Standard, 29 April 1886; Alfred Leader, Through Jamaica with a Kodak (Bristol: John Wright, 1907), 26–27. The first midsummer “Dull Day Race” meeting was held over three days on 10–12 August 1875, and annually thereafter. These meetings were not nearly as appealing as the December meetings, perhaps because of the sweltering midsummer heat. In addition, both the Kingston Polo and occasionally the Garrison Clubs organized race meetings in Kingston. Daily Gleaner, 26 January and 16 February 1881, 21 January 1890, 2 January 1891, 2 November 1892; Jamaica Times, 10 June, 24 and 30 December 1899, and 13 June 1908. 120. These were held at Cumberland Pen in St Catherine, Spanish Town, Montego Bay, Black River, and Falmouth. Smaller race meetings were held from time to time at Savanna-la-Mar, Mandeville, Port Maria, St Ann’s Bay, Vere, Old Harbour, Bog Walk, Annotto Bay and Port Antonio. Falmouth Post, 24 February, 20 March and 9 November 1860, 10 January, 4 and 18 March 1862, 13 January 1863, 3, 7 and 17 March and 14 April 1865, 22 May, 2 June and 11 September 1868; Morning Journal, 2, 3 and 5 December 1861, 12 September 1868, and 7 June 1869; Colonial Standard, 27 May 1890, 2 February 1892 12 January, 6 and 9 March, 14 and 16 August and 6 September 1880, 1 December 1881, 16 January, 6 April and 11 August 1882, 16 and 24 July, and 27 November 1884, 27 November 1885, 22 May, 27 and 30 August 1890, 1 and 9 September 1892; Daily Gleaner, 4 and 16 June, 8 September and 30 November 1877, 16 May, 13 and 28 August 1878, 3 and 4 December 1879, 2 January, 4 and 29 November 1880, 11 May and 25 August 1881, 12 April and 1 May 1882, 11 January 1884, 26 June 1885, 12 January 1887, 7 July and 23 August 1888, 20 April and 28 August 1889, 3 February, 22 April, 16, 23, 27 and 31 May and 14 June 1890, 2 and 17 August,

Notes to pages 272–276

121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132.

133. 134. 135. 136.

137. 138. 139.

140.

w 499

and 29 December 1892, 29 July 1893, and 20 April 1897; Jamaica Times, 15 April, 5 August and 28 October 1899, and 8 December 1900; Leader, Through Jamaica, 27. Leader, Through Jamaica, 26–27. Villiers Stuart, Adventures amidst the Equatorial Forests and Rivers of South America (and Jamaica Revisited) (London: J. Murray, 1891), 198. Daily Gleaner, 12 December 1880. Daily Gleaner, 6 August 1885. Daily Gleaner, 12 August 1886. H.G. De Lisser, In Jamaica and Cuba (Kingston: Gleaner Co., 1910), 103. Stuart, Adventures, 198–99. Daily Gleaner, 6 August 1885. John Henderson, The West Indies (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1905), 206 and 208. Morning Journal, 3 and 5 December 1861. Morning Journal, 5 December 1861; Daily Gleaner, 2 January and 4 November 1880, 1 May 1882, and 14 July 1887. See, for instance, A.L. Bodfish, Moravian Reports, 1906 – Ballard’s Valley, JA 5/5 Periodicals. Again in 1912, the Kingston Ministers’ Fraternal, representing all the Protestant bodies, petitioned the city council against the increase in racing, and strongly protested against the racecourse being used on Sunday for trial heats. Jamaica Times, 7 December 1912. “The French Pool Case”, Daily Gleaner, 17 May 1899; “What Is a Lottery?” Daily Gleaner, 29 May 1899, and 12 August 1886. Stuart, Adventures, 199. Daily Gleaner, 29 July 1893; Jamaica Times, 19 August 1899. Falmouth Post, 2 June and 11 November 1868. This paper complained that the governor refused to grant money for the Queen’s purse in that year as had been previously done for the Kingston races. Daily Gleaner, 11 December 1914. For instance, see Colonial Standard, 27 November 1884, 12 December 1888, and 11 December 1889. Cundall, “West Indies”, 205. The importation of horses from England and the United States, however, generated much controversy in racing circles. See letters to the editor by “Fairplay”, Daily Gleaner, 10 April 1896, and “Turfite”, Daily Gleaner, 17 April 1896. Although generally smaller, Jamaicans thought that their horses were hardier, and were considered faster, of greater stamina and better-looking than any in the other Caribbean islands. Francis Dodsworth, The Book of Jamaica (Kingston: Sollas and Cocking, 1904), 53–56; Leader, Through Jamaica, 27; Daily Gleaner, 24 April 1884. Letters to the editor by “Black Beauty”, Daily Gleaner, 4 December 1877, and by

500

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Notes to pages 276–279

141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147.

148.

149. 150.

151. 152.

153. 154. 155. 156.

157. 158. 159.

“Native”, Daily Gleaner, 5 December 1877 (also the commentary in the same edition). Stuart, Adventures, 197–98. Henderson, The West Indies, 209. Leader, Through Jamaica, 26–27. “Turfite” to the editor, Daily Gleaner, 30 July 1896. Henderson, The West Indies, 205–6. Daily Gleaner, 31 May 1890. “Turfite” to the editor, Daily Gleaner, 4 September 1886 and 30 July 1896; Daily Gleaner, 5 January 1894 and 30 July 1896, 9 and 27 May, 19 and 25 October 1905, 14 February and 15 December 1906; Colonial Standard, 3 January 1894; Jamaica Times, 3 June 1905; Leader, Through Jamaica, 26. The Jockey Club bought the race stand at Knutsford Park from the Kingston Race Stand Company in 1905 for £2,500. Justice Curran was the most regular of the civilian players. Daily Gleaner, 15 January, 16 March and 30 September 1884, 9 January, 14 and 17 February, 9 March, 18 April, 8 and 22 May and 19 June 1885, 1 February 1886, 29 January, 30 April, 7, 21 and 28 May, 11 and 18 June, and 2 July 1887, 14 and 23 January, 25 February, 3 and 27 March, 7, 14 and 28 April, 16, 21, 23 and 30 June, 14 and 28 July, 4, 11 18 and 25 August, 1 and 8 September, 16, 20 and 30 October, 10 and 24 November, and 15 December 1888, 9 and 11 December 1899; and Colonial Standard, 11 March 1890. Stuart, Adventures, 200. Colonial Standard, 7 June 1892; Daily Gleaner, 9 June 1892, 2 March 1894, 14 May and 16 June 1897, 25 May 1899 and 26 July 1906; Jamaica Times, 6 May 1899. The Garrison, Kingston and St Ann clubs staged a tournament at St Ann’s Bay in July 1894 which generated considerable interest among the spectators of all classes. Daily Gleaner, 3 August 1894. Daily Gleaner, 3 July 1911. Daily Gleaner, 16 January 1920. Members of the old Kingston Polo Club were made honorary members of the Garrison Polo Club, and the KPC was reorganized. See also Daily Gleaner, 6 March 1920. Daily Gleaner, 16 June 1897. Cundall, “West Indies”, 206. Jamaica Times, 16 February 1901. Daily Gleaner, 16 and 19 October 1886, 15 April 1887, 17 October and 11 October 1892, 16 October 1893, 15 January 1894, 16 January 1897; Colonial Standard, 15 April 1887, 14 January 1894; and Jamaica Times, 9 May 1903. A series of these paper chases was organized in 1891. Daily Gleaner, 18 May 1891 and 15 May 1894. Gall’s News Letter, 24 December 1883. Dorothy Mabel Bottle, Reminiscences of a Queen’s Army Schoolmistress (London: Arthur Stockwell, ca. 1911), 68; James Johnston, Jamaica: The New Riviera: A Picto-

Notes to pages 279–282

160.

161.

162. 163.

164. 165.

166. 167.

168.

169.

w 501

rial Description of the Island and Its Attractions (London: Cassell, 1903), 29; and Cundall, “West Indies”, 207. The prices of tennis racquets, for instance, rose from between 9s. and 16s. each in 1886 to between 12s. 6d. and 22s. in 1895. In the latter year, balls cost from 12s. to 22s. per dozen. See advertisements in Daily Gleaner, 6 April 1886, 18 March 1890, and 3 December 1895. Daily Gleaner, 25 October 1884, 20 May and 26 June 1886, 6 July, 20 and 24 August 1888, 2 September 1889, 22 June 1892, 5 December 1895, 13 August 1896, 12 September and 14 October 1898, 2 and 13 December 1915; Colonial Standard, 20 August 1888, 27 June 1890, 22 June and 6 September 1892; Jamaica Times, 19 August 1899 and 13 January 1900. Among the leading tennis clubs were Vere, St Andrew’s, Clarendon, and Liguanea. Daily Gleaner, 27 March and 31 May 1886; Jamaica Times, 13 January 1900, 6 January 1906 and 5 March 1910. Daily Gleaner, 18 June 1895. Rev. R.G. Ambrose preached a strong sermon against Sunday tennis. Although recognizing that the sport helped to develop the body and mind of players, he urged his congregation to keep the Sabbath day holy. Daily Gleaner, 13 November 1900. See also Jamaica Times, 18 April 1903. Daily Gleaner, 21 November 1905; and Cundall, “West Indies”, 207. The winners of the first inter-club tournaments were: 1900–1901: Garrison; 1902–4: St Andrew; 1905: Garrison. M.P. Tennant, “Golf in Jamaica”, Daily Gleaner, 1 April 1911; Daily Gleaner, 16 May and 15 August 1894. The committee members were Colonel Bosworth, Hon. Pipon Schooles (attorneygeneral), Hon. E.A. Northcote (judge), Police Inspector Wedderburn, Captain Lucie Smith, Hon. E.A.B. Haggart and Mr Cobbold. Daily Gleaner, 22 October and 14 November 1896. As “Belger” pointed out, “One of the greatest drawbacks to the club is its exclusiveness. If one ventures up to the links, who is it that he sees playing? The Attorney General, Mr. Justice Northcote, the Major-General, the Auditor General, one or two officers from Camp, and occasionally the Governor and the Chief Justice – all officials or military people. It is the rarest possible thing to see a professional man (who is not connected with the Government) on the links, far less a man engaged in mercantile pursuits.” Letter to the editor, Jamaica Daily Telegraph, 23 January 1899. Although membership of the Kingston and St Andrew Golf Club was just seventy in 1905, it more than doubled to 180 by 1910. New clubs were also formed, such as the Clarendon (Daily Gleaner, 9 August 1908) and the Liguanea. The latter boasted the longest course in the island, and was reputed to be the finest course in the West Indies (Tennant, “Golf in Jamaica”, Daily Gleaner, 1 April 1911). Annual tournaments were held by the Mandeville and Kingston and St Andrew clubs (initially), for a

502

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Notes to pages 282–284

170. 171. 172.

173. 174.

175. 176.

177.

178.

Challenge Cup presented by Governor Augustus Hemming in 1900. Monthly medal competitions were also held for both ladies and gentlemen. Daily Gleaner, 15 February 1898, 12 May and 21 August 1899, 25 January 1900, 7 December 1907, 16 March 1908, and 23 February 1913. Morning Journal, 7 March 1871; Daily Gleaner, 29 August 1892. Daily Gleaner, 12 October 1895. Daily Gleaner, 12 September 1882, 14 July 1885, 15 August 1892, 3 May, 6 and 11 October 1893; Colonial Standard, 4 January and 2 December 1882, 20 June and 2 December 1885, 4 and 14 May 1886, 5 July 1890, 20 December 1893; Jamaica Times, 30 December 1899. The Kingston Athletic Club obtained grounds at Emmaville on South Camp Road for a gymnasium and a race track, and started with about fifty members. Daily Gleaner, 21 March 1898. Jamaica Times, 11 May 1901, 22 August and 17 October 1908, 3 July and 11 December 1909, and 8 March 1912; Daily Gleaner, 14 August 1908. Athletics had become so well established that in August 1908 a major meeting was organized at Sabina Park in aid of the Gleaner Earthquake Memorial Fund in the aftermath of the disastrous earthquake the previous year. Jamaica Times, 6 March 1909. V. Drisdale, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/260; Daily Gleaner, 26 May 1890, 16 August 1892, 8 December 1899; Colonial Standard, 29 and 31 August 1892; Jamaica Times, 7 June 1902, 18 April and 11 July 1903, 21 April 1906, 19 December 1908, and 15 May 1909. Among the schools which adopted athletics were: the Kingston Grammar School, Jamaica High School (later called Jamaica College), St George’s, Rusea’s, Beckford and Smith’s in Spanish Town, Wolmer’s, Montego Bay Secondary, Kingston High and Mico. Daily Gleaner, 24 April 1894. In the interscholastic sports meeting held at Sabina Park on 27 November 1912, Manley won the long jump, the 100 and 440 yards flat races, the 120 yards hurdles, and placed third in the high jump, – all in one day’s competition! He was also, for the record, a brilliant all-round cricketer, footballer and rifle shooter. For his prowess on the athletics field and in the classroom, he won the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University in 1914. Daily Gleaner, 28 November 1912, 7 and 9 May 1914. Like Manley, G.C. Foster was the product of the elite boys’ school system, having been initiated into the sporting culture at Wolmer’s High School. According to Arnold Bertram: “In 1904, he ran the 100 yards in 10 seconds before his nineteenth birthday, a time, which was clearly comparable to the 11 seconds run by Archie Hahn of the United States to win the Olympic 100-[yards] finals that same year. Two years later in 1906, Jamaica staged its first open Track & Field competition and ‘GC’ won the 100 & 220 yards . . . . While preparing for the 1908 Olympic Games to be held in White City, London, ‘GC’ ran 9.7 seconds for the 100 yards and set off for the

Notes to pages 284–287

179. 180.

181. 182.

183. 184. 185.

186. 187. 188.

189.

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games on a banana boat.” Foster went to England in 1908 at his own expense to try out for the Olympics but failed to make the qualifying time. When he returned, the Gleaner urged the public to make a subscription to help defray his expenses (Daily Gleaner, 5 September 1908). After that disappointment, he shifted his sporting activity towards cricket, playing for Kensington and later for Melbourne, and also representing Jamaica. He “made the Jamaica Senior cricket team in 1909 as an allrounder, and [made] his last appearance for the national team in 1926.” Arnold Bertram, “Foundations of Track and Field Athletics in Jamaica”, unpublished manuscript, kind courtesy of the author. Jamaica Times, 9 April 1910, supplement. Jamaica Times, 9 April 1910, supplement; Daily Gleaner, 7 April 1910. Another “ladies” cycle and athletic meeting was held at Melbourne Park on 23 November 1910. This was hosted by the Young Women’s Association. The events were similarly genteel as the April meeting: egg and spoon, thread and needle, skipping, potato, handkerchiefs and glove satches, and obstacle races. But there were a few more vigorous athletic events, e.g., 100 yards, quarter mile walk, and half mile, one- and twomile bicycle races. Daily Gleaner, 23 November 1910. Daily Gleaner, 7 April 1910. In 1912 new events were added, but the emphasis remained on generating fun rather than promoting athleticism among girls: “wheel barrow”, “donkey”, “cigarette” and “goose” races. Daily Gleaner, 29 October 1912 and 21 May 1918. Daily Gleaner, 27 June 1917. Daily Gleaner, 27 March 1915. Daily Gleaner, 7 July 1880 and 9 October 1896. This first reaction was confirmed by Susan Gunter, who recalled a story about children fleeing in fear on first seeing a man riding a bicycle. They thought he had wings and was flying. Susan Gunter, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/70. Daily Gleaner, 15 May 1894 and 9 October 1896. Daily Gleaner, 9 October 1896. Jihang Park, “Sport, Dress Reform and the Emancipation of Women in Victorian England: A Reappraisal”, International Journal of the History of Sport 6, no. 1 (1989), 18–20; and David Rubenstein, “Cycling in the 1890s”, Victorian Studies 21, no. 1 (1977): 47–72. Mary O’Sullivan, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/266. Up to 1895, Jamaican women remained aloof from bicycles (Daily Gleaner, 26 August 1895). But that soon changed. According to one anecdote published in the Gleaner, a gentleman bought his wife and two daughters bicycles and soon regretted it. For on returning home one night, he was annoyed to find his house deserted and no supper prepared. He enquired of his domestic, not too politely, the whereabouts of everyone. She told him that “mistress and the young ladies had gone for a mid-night run, and had left word as how master wasn’t to sit up for ’em”. Daily Gleaner, 2 November 1896.

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Notes to pages 287–290

190. Colonial Standard, 8 and 13 May 1886, 21 and 23 March, and 7 September 1887; Daily Gleaner, 15 April, 17, 19 and 27 May 1886, 18 and 19 March and 3 August 1887. 191. Daily Gleaner, 20 February, 11 and 22 May, 6 July and 5 September 1893, 12 December 1896, 7 and 12 January 1897, 2 February 1903; Jamaica Times, 2 September 1899; John R.V. Massias, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/298; and J.O. Brown, JA 7/12/215. 192. “Ecsracer”, “Sports and Pastimes”, Daily Gleaner, 1 March 1899. 193. By 1911, clubs affiliated with the Jamaica Amateur Athletic and Cycling Association included the Melbourne Cricket Club, Kingston Cricket Club, Kensington Cricket Club, Wolmers School Club, Jamaica College, Kingston Athletic and Bicycle Club, Mandeville Athletic Association, the Spanish Town Guild, the Royal Jamaica Yacht Club, and the Holborn Yacht Club. Daily Gleaner, 3 February 1911. 194. Daily Gleaner, 3 February 1911. 195. Cundall, “West Indies”, 210; Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1909. 196. Daily Gleaner, 9 May 1911. 197. The Jamaica Times rated Weir the premier cyclist in the entire British West Indies (Jamaica Times, 28 May 1910). There were other outstanding black cyclists such as M.L. Morais and A. Johnson. 198. Falmouth Post, 20 January 1863, 25 May 1865, 23 September 1870; Morning Journal, 2 and 27 September, 15 October 1870 and 12 August 1871; Daily Gleaner, 1 January and 10 May 1881, 5 February 1884, 17 June 1885, 12 October 1893; Colonial Standard, 6 and 11 June 1885. 199. Colonial Standard, 2 March 1880; also 14 February 1880 and 22 February 1881; Morning Journal, 22 February 1872; Daily Gleaner, 14 February and 11 March 1880, and 22 February 1881. 200. Colonial Standard, 28 March and 10 April 1885, and 11 May 1886. 201. Handbooks of Jamaica, 1886–1921. 202. Johnston, Jamaica, 28. 203. Colonial Standard, 25 May 1886 and 21 August 1890. 204. Handbook of Jamaica, 1921 (Kingston: Government Printing Office, 1921), 538. 205. Originally instead of the crown, the burgee had a red diamond in the centre. In 1886, the subscription fee was one guinea (£1 1s.) per annum, and this increased by 1921 to two guineas for members residing within ten miles of Kingston, and one guinea for country members; junior members below twenty-one years of age paid 10s. 6d. per annum. Members of the club were elected by the committee of management (headed by the governor), “two black balls excluding”, that is, if a nominee was “black balled” twice, he was excluded. Handbooks of Jamaica 1886–1921. 206. In June 1886, the club received another trophy, the Gladys Cup, which was offered as a prize for boats of four tons and under. As this sport was very expensive, the number of yachts owned by members was quite small, generally between twelve and fifteen in any given year; but several rowing boats were kept by members. A special regatta was put on for the coronation of King George V. Daily Gleaner, 27 April, 13,

Notes to pages 290–293

207. 208. 209. 210. 211. 212. 213.

214.

215. 216. 217. 218.

219.

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20, and 21 May and 24 August 1885, 27 March, 4 and 14 June, and 29 December 1886, 9 April 1887, 28 February 1888, 5 March and 23 May 1890, 25 and 26 May, and 16 June 1891, 24 May 1892, 21 February 1893, 16 January 1894, and 16 June 1911; Colonial Standard, 28 August, 26 September, 16, 17, 19 and 23 October 1885, 21 April, 15 and 22 May, 8 and 19 June, 25 September, and 30 December 1886, 15 February, 28 March, 25 April, 23 May, 8 November, and 30 December 1887, 21 January, 1 April, 24 May, 15 August, 26 September, and 7 November 1889, 6 March and 23 May 1890, and 25 May 1892; Jamaica Times, 27 May and 24 December 1899; Handbooks of Jamaica 1886–1921; and Bubb Clarke, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/224. Daily Gleaner, 9 April and 17 September 1890; Colonial Standard, 19 October 1891, 13 July and 3 August 1892. Colonial Standard, 21 August 1890. Jamaica Daily Telegraph, 6 February and 25 May 1899. Daily Gleaner, 1 February 1894. Field Marshal Lord Roberts, quoted in Jamaica Times, 5 September 1914. Morning Journal, 7 March 1871. Maycock to Eyre, encl. in Eyre to Newcastle, no. 245, 23 October 1863, CO 137/375; Falmouth Post, 4 September 1863, and Eyre to Newcastle, no. 120, 8 April 1864, CO 137/381. See, for instance, Falmouth Post, 14 February 1865, 21 and 28 August 1866, 30 August and 29 October 1867; Morning Journal, 28 December 1870; Colonial Standard, 23 March 1882, 2 August, 17 September, 19 October and 11 December 1888, 10 September, 15 October, and 2 November 1889, 7 and 18 March, 13 May, 26 June and 15 September 1890, 11 April and 11 November 1891, 6 May, 7 July and 3 December 1892,; Daily Gleaner, 30 July, 1 August and 20 October 1888, 9 May, 29 June and 8 November 1889, 25 April 1890, 7 May and 5 December 1892, 3 January 1894, 6 December 1895; Jamaica Times, 13 January 1900, 3 August and 16 November 1901, 18 April 1903, 9 January 1904, 16 December 1905. Norman W. Manley of Jamaica College, for instance, emerged as a very talented marksman in these competitions. Daily Gleaner, 14 and 28 January 1888. Colonial Standard, 11 December 1888. The executive committee was composed of the military and civil elite in the island. It was comprised of Major-General Wilson Black as president, Colonel White as vice-president, Colonel Macglashan, Major Pinnock, Captains Gruchy, Smith, Roxburgh and Abraham, Messers J. Allwood, J.C. Silburn and Dr Henderson. Daily Gleaner, 24 February 1896. This association also received tangible support in the form of prizes from the legal profession and the merchants of Kingston. Daily Gleaner, 1 February 1894. Swettenham was such a keen supporter of rifle shooting that despite the devastation of the 1907 earthquake on 14 January, he urged a team from the Kingston Rifle

506

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Notes to pages 293–296

220.

221.

222.

223. 224. 225. 226. 227. 228. 229. 230. 231.

232. 233. 234.

Corps to practice for the intercolonial competition; and on the day of the shoot, 9 February, he and his wife were present from the first to the last shot. E.A. Hodge, “A History of Rifle Shooting in Jamaica”, Daily Gleaner, 15 June 1916. Hemming to Chamberlain, no. 240, 6 May 1902, CO 137/627; no. 153, 26 March 1903, CO 137/633; and Olivier to Crewe, no. 299, 29 June 1908, encl., AttorneyGeneral’s Report, CO 137/664. A government communiqué stated that the governor was unable and did not think it desirable to authorize the supply of rifles free of charge to members of rifle clubs, but he was prepared to grant to each member 120 rounds of ammunition per annum. Daily Gleaner, 23 March 1900. Rifle associations were established in St Elizabeth, St Catherine, Clarendon, St Thomas, St James, Kingston and St Andrew, and Portland. Daily Gleaner, 18 February and 20 December 1893; Jamaica Times, 16 May 1903; Blake to Ripon, no. 228, 6 June 1893, CO 137/555; no. 148, 19 May 1895, and no. 201, 7 June 1895, CO 137/566; no. 278, 14 August 1895, CO 137/567; Bengough to Ripon, no. 243, 9 June 1894, and no. 375, 22 October 1894, CO 137/561; Blake to Chamberlain, no. 155, 15 April 1896, no. 169, 20 April 1896, no. 173, 22 April 1896, no. 200, 12 May 1896, and Hallowes to Chamberlain, no. 194, 5 May 1896, CO 137/573. Colonial Standard, 27 January 1880; Jamaica Times, 5 September 1914; C.G. Bailey, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/160; and James Henry, JA 7/12/255. Olivier to Crewe, nos. 531 and 532, 14 November 1908, CO 137/666. Daily Gleaner, 29 May 1902. Daily Gleaner, 17 October 1902, 7 April 1906, 19 October 1911. Two matches were organized in 1915 between some young women of Mandeville and the girls of Hampton school. Daily Gleaner, 8 and 25 February 1915. Daily Gleaner, 6 November 1912. Daily Gleaner, 12 November 1912. Colonial Standard, 15 June 1892. Daily Gleaner, 8 October and 9 December 1892, and 2 April 1894. In the 1894 fight, on entering the ground each person was presented with a candle which he was asked to light and hold near the ropes so as to give the fighters light. The Queensbury rules were established in 1867. Among other things, they stipulated a stand-up fight in a 24-foot ring with gloved fists, and rounds of three minutes with one minute in between; forbade wrestling or hugging; banned seconds from the ring during the round, as well as boots with springs; and protected boxers who were knocked down or hanging on to the ropes by requiring a count of ten seconds in order to give them a chance to recover. Daily Gleaner, 20 December 1892. See, for instance, Daily Gleaner, 5 March 1903. Daily Gleaner, 4 January 1916. The Palace cinema showed the Willard-Johnson fight on its screen.

Notes to pages 296–301

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235. Daily Gleaner, 13 December 1915, 6 January, 22 and 30 May, 14 June, 1 September, 21 October 1916, 8 February, 21 March, 19 June, 3 September, 9, 13, 23 and 31 October, and 13 November 1919, and 15 March 1920; Jamaica Times, 25 March and 4 November 1916, and 13 March 1920. 236. Daily Gleaner, 16 and 17 February 1881, 2 November 1905, and 27 December 1912, 17 February and 28 April 1919. 237. Daily Gleaner, 22 September 1917. 238. Daily Gleaner, 17 October 1918 and 8 March 1920. 239. Daily Gleaner, 2 October 1919. 240. Cundall, “West Indies”, 211. 241. Colonial Standard, 10 February 1880. In 1888, Mr Desporte kept a billiard saloon at Tower Street and Temple Lane. 242. For instance, see Daily Gleaner, 27 September 1884, 25 August 1892, 6 May 1893, 7 November 1895, 24 November 1905, 31 January 1918. 243. Daily Gleaner, 3 July 1902. See also Daily Gleaner, 29 May 1902; Jamaica Times, 10 May, 18 and 25 October, 8 November 1902, and 14 February 1903; and Cundall, “West Indies”, 208. 244. Daily Gleaner, 29 November 1905, 8 and 14 February, 25 June, 7 and 9 July 1906. 245. Daily Gleaner, 24 November 1886, 21 and 22 February 1906, 6 January 1912; also Cundall, “West Indies”, 211. 246. Daily Gleaner, 31 December 1877, 14 and 26 January, and 20 November 1880, 21 April and 16 December 1884, 14 October and 6 November 1886, 23 February and 2 April 1887, and 10 August 1896; Colonial Standard, 16 December 1893; Cundall, “West Indies”, 211.

Chapter 10 1. Tricia Foley, The Romance of Colonial Style (London: Thames and Hudson, 1993), 114–47; Brian L. Moore, Cultural Power, Resistance and Pluralism (Kingston: The Press, University of the West Indies, 1995), 54–57; Bridget Brereton, Race Relations in Colonial Trinidad 1870–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 57. 2. Colonial Standard, 2 August and 6 September 1889; Daily Gleaner, 18 May 1894. The St Ann’s Club had as its first president Hon. Michael Solomon, CMG (who was also a leading member of the Jamaica Club), and numbered among its first members C.W. Steer, E.N. Hart and W.G. Nunes. The Porus Club started with a membership of twenty-five gentlemen, with H.S. Braham as president. See also Patrick Bryan, The Jamaican People 1880–1902 (London: Macmillan Caribbean, 1991), 203. 3. For instance, ladies were admitted to the Liguanea Club just to play lawn tennis, golf and croquet. See Handbook of Jamaica, 1921 (Kingston: Government Printing Office, 1921), 538.

508

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Notes to pages 302–306

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

Handbooks of Jamaica, 1886–1921. In 1873, the membership was just seventy-seven. Falmouth Post, 6 March 1874. Daily Gleaner, 23 July 1885. Handbook of Jamaica, 1886, 472–73; Daily Gleaner, 23 July 1885. Among the founding members were Alexander Berry, A. McDowell Nathan and Henry E. Davis. Handbook of Jamaica, 1921, 537–38. Ibid. Falmouth Post, 6 March and 4 August 1874. The Kingston Club was located at 29 Charles Street (Daily Gleaner and Colonial Standard, 23 July 1885), the St Andrew Club on the Up-Park Villa estate near Cross Roads (Daily Gleaner, 22 July 1895), the Liguanea Club was at Knutsford Park, while the St George Catholic Club had its premises at Winchester Park. See Handbook of Jamaica, 1921, 536–37. Daily Gleaner, 24 July 1890. These were the Royal (1794), Friendly (1797), Sussex (1816), Collegium Fabrorum (1879), Kingston (1881), and Moore-Keys in Kingston (1894), the Phoenix in Port Royal (1862), the Hamilton in Spanish Town (1860). P.A. Cole, “Friendly Societies in Jamaica”, part 1, Jamaica Times, 18 February 1899; and Daily Gleaner, 15 May 1894. For a very detailed chronicle of Jamaican freemasonry, see F.W. Seal-Coon, An Historical Account of Jamaican Freemasonry (Kingston: Golding Printing Service, 1976). The principal lodge in the north was the Friendly in Montego Bay. Daily Gleaner, 15 May 1894. Three new lodges were added: the Hope at Savanna-la-Mar, the Ewing at Mandeville, and the Harmony at Lucea. Handbook of Jamaica, 1921, 530–31. Daily Gleaner, 15 May 1894; Handbook of Jamaica, 1921, 531. Seal-Coon claims, however, that the Royal Arch ceremonial was recognized and organized ever since 1788 (Historical Account, 20). Daily Gleaner, 15 May 1894; Cole, “Friendly Societies”, part 1; Handbook of Jamaica, 1921, 529–32. The Masonic order has three degrees. These are “Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason. Each of the degrees requires the candidate to participate in the drama being presented. They are all of a very serious nature and not in the least demeaning of the candidate. Masonic catechisms are a series of memorized questions and answers pertaining to a specific degree. Usually, the candidate meets with a lodge member who knows these catechisms and helps him to memorize the work. The catechisms simply reiterate the degree work that the candidate recently completed and proves his proficiency with them. Once a catechism is completed the candidate can proceed to the next degree.” “The Three Degrees of Freemasonry”, http://www.mastermason.com/jjcrowder/threedegrees/threedegrees.htm, accessed 2 June 2010.

Notes to pages 306–310

w 509

19. John Corson Smith, My Winter in the Tropics (Chicago, 1897), 18–22. 20. P.J. Rich, Elixir of Empire: English Public Schools, Ritualism, Freemasonry and Imperialism (London: Regency Press, 1993), 93. 21. Ibid., 83. 22. Cole, “Friendly Societies”, part 1; also Smith, My Winter, 18. 23. Bryan, Jamaican People, 204. 24. The list of masons in attendance included E.X. Leon, J.C. Macglashan, R.S. Haughton, W. Andrews, F.G. Sale, A.H. Jones, H. Priest, C.L. Campbell, R.A.W. Holwell, H. Boyle, George Duff, J. De Cordova, G.H. Pearce, C.A. Solomon, J.S. Lyon, T.E. Briscoe, Hart J. Brandon, W.F. Feurtado, O. Delgado, J.Curphy, D.I. Motta, C.W. Tait, C. Plummer, William Duff, J. Milholland, E.A.H. Haggart, Dr R.S.G. Bell, Dr Ogilvie, H. Garcia, J.H. Kennedy, J.W. Kerr, J.P. D’Aguilar, A.M. Nathan, A.L.P. Lake, J.M. Sherlock, W. Morrison, E.H. Sanguinetti, M.J. McPherson, E. Wolfe, M.C. De Souza, H.R. Walters, M. Delgado, J. Cox, W. R. Ryder, W.B. Hylton, S.W. McCollock, C.T. Burton. Daily Gleaner, 15 May 1894. 25. Rich, Elixir of Empire, 88. 26. Ibid., 83. 27. Falmouth Post, 22 July 1862. 28. Falmouth Post, 14 August 1868, 19 February 1869; Morning Journal, 13 December 1872, 12 April 1873; Colonial Standard, 9 April 1880, 14 February 1881, 19 February 1885, 23 January 1885, 28 July 1886, 15 April 1891; Daily Gleaner, 12 December 1919. 29. Falmouth Post, 14 August 1868. 30. Seal-Coon, Historical Account, 35. 31. P.A. Cole, “Friendly Societies in Jamaica”, part 2, Jamaica Times, 25 February 1899; Handbook of Jamaica, 1921, 533. 32. They were established in Kingston, Spanish Town, Porus, Montego Bay, Linstead, Black River, Savanna-la-Mar, Falmouth, Lucea and Port Antonio. Cole, “Friendly Societies”, part 2; Handbook of Jamaica, 1921, 532–33. 33. Cole, “Friendly Societies”, part 2; Handbook of Jamaica, 1921, 534. 34. Cole, “Friendly Societies”, part 2; Handbook of Jamaica, 1921, 534–35. 35. Daily Gleaner, 1 May 1882. 36. Cole, “Friendly Societies”, part 2; also the annual Blue Book reports (CO 142). 37. Blue Book Reports (CO 142); also Falmouth Post, 29 October 1867; Morning Journal, 25 August 1869; Daily Gleaner, 30 January 1875, 30 October 1876, 11 May 1897. Others included the Kingston Benevolent Society (1888), the Olive Branch Friendly Society (1888), Kingston Philanthropic Society (1889), Kingston Friendly Aid Society (1893), Labourers’ Benevolent Society (1893), and the Bethany Lodge of the Labouring Union Friendly and Benevolent Society (1895). 38. Daily Gleaner, 26 April 1901. 39. Daily Gleaner, 26 May 1890.

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Notes to pages 311–313

40. 41. 42. 43.

44. 45.

46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

52.

Preamble to 6th Victoria, chapter 27. Cole, “Friendly Societies”, part 2. Daily Gleaner, 26 May 1890. P.A. Cole argued: “The man who lives to help his fellowman, who endeavours to remove every barrier that impedes his progress, who tries to improve the social, the moral and the intellectual condition of the people, whose heart is drawn out to poor suffering humanity, whose ear is open to the cry of the widow and orphan, whose heart is in touch with every movement for the uplifting of the race, is the man who realizes life in its truest and best sense. . . . The greatness of a nation depends upon the purity and sanctity of its home life, upon the number of its law-abiding citizens, upon the peace, happiness and contentment of its people, and above all in that Christian spirit which recognises that the Great Creator has made of one blood all the natives of the earth, and that man, that community, that nation can alone be great, in so far as its life is spent in dignifying humanity, and in seeking the happiness, comfort and prosperity of the people.” Cole, “Friendly Societies”, part 2. Morning Journal, 14 June 1875; and Colonial Standard, 8 July 1880, also Bryan, Jamaican People, 204. Church services were held for the opening of new lodges, for example, Oddfellows lodges in Savanna-la-Mar in 1892 (Daily Gleaner, 14 May 1892), and in Falmouth in 1901 (Jamaica Times, 28 December 1901); as well as on their anniversaries, for example, the fiftieth anniversary of the Masonic Montego Bay Friendly Lodge, no. 383 in 1868 (Falmouth Post, 14 August 1868); the centenary of freemasonry in Jamaica in 1894 (Daily Gleaner, 15 May 1894), and the fiftieth anniversary of the Good Samaritans in 1897 (Daily Gleaner, 8 March 1897). See also Daily Gleaner, 12 and 18 December 1899, for church services in connection with the anniversaries of individual Good Samaritan lodges. On the other hand, in March 1880, the Westmoreland freemasons marched in full regalia to Green Bay to lay the foundation stone of the Anglican school house (Colonial Standard, 10 April 1880); and likewise in February 1889, the Scottish freemasons took the train to Old Harbour to lay the foundation stone of a new chancel for the parish church (Colonial Standard, 8 February 1889). Cole, “Friendly Societies”, part 1. Daily Gleaner, 25 June 1897. Cole, “Friendly Societies”, part 2. T.W. Cumming of the IOOF to editor, Daily Gleaner, 17 February 1897. Ibid. Morning Journal, 3 February, 28 April and 16 June 1873 and 8 July 1875; Colonial Standard, 25 April and 3 September 1881, 9 January 1883; Daily Gleaner, 4 January, 18 April and 6 October 1881, 21 May 1887; Jamaica Times, 15 December 1900. Daily Gleaner, 10 April 1889, 19 February and 21 May 1897. See also T.W. Cumming, 17 February 1897.

Notes to pages 313–318

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53. Daily Gleaner, 16 August, 8 and 10 December 1900, 26 April and 16 November 1901, 12 January and 25 November 1910, 27 March and 5 April 1919. 54. Law 23 of 1886. 55. “Interested” to the editor, Daily Gleaner, 3 March 1905. 56. Jamaica Post, 16 October 1897. 57. Daily Gleaner, 30 November 1897. 58. Hemming to Chamberlain, no. 666, 22 November 1901, and enclosure, Robinson to Roxburgh, CO 137/622. 59. Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2004), 188–89, 301–6. 60. Ibid, 185, 190. According to Olive Senior, the practice of “partner” or “sou sou” was Yoruba-derived and functioned according to networks of kin, friends or co-workers. In the partner, at each set time period, “a network of people contribute a ‘hand’ or a set sum of money to the banker. Each set period, the total take is paid out to one person in turn. . . . By this means poor people can count on getting their ‘hand’ or ‘turn’ to meet heavy obligations.” Senior notes that the practice was still very popular across the Caribbean in the late twentieth century. Olive Senior, Working Miracles: Women’s Lives in the English-Speaking Caribbean (Cave Hill: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies; London: James Currey; Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991), 146. 61. Ronald Hyam, “Empire and Sexual Opportunity”, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 14, no. 2 (1986): 54–63.

Chapter 11 1. See Brian Harrison, Drink and the Victorians: The Temperance Question in England, 1815–1872 (Staffordshire: Keele University Press, 1994); W.R. Lambert, Drink and Sobriety in Victorian Wales, c1820–c1895 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1983); Lilian Lewis Shiman, Crusade against Drink in Victorian England (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1986); Brian L. Moore, Cultural Power, Resistance and Pluralism (Kingston: The Press, University of the West Indies, 1995); Kenneth S. Inglis, The Australian Colonists: An Exploration of Social History 1788–1870 (Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 1974); Craig Heron, Booze: A Distilled History (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2003); and Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson, “ ‘Drunk and Disorderly’: Alcoholism and the Search for ‘Morality’ in Jamaica, 1865–1920”, Journal of Caribbean History 42, no. 2 (2008). 2. According to Craig Heron: “Temperance had become a cornerstone of emerging middle-class identities through which . . . growing numbers of professionals, businessmen, white-collar workers, master artisans, and their families differentiated

512

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Notes to pages 318–319

3.

4. 5. 6.

7.

themselves in various ways from the rougher elements of the manual workers below them and the decadent aristocracy above. . . . Its members were not simply creating a narrow class culture, as the older aristocracy had done. The middling classes’ promotion of and support for this ideology of self-improvement became part of a hegemonic way of viewing the world, an approach intended to suffuse the whole social and economic structure and influence its development.” Heron, Booze, 60. George Robson, The story of our Jamaica Mission (Edinburgh: Offices of the United Presbyterian Church, 1894), 93; Samuel Smythe (Gordon Town) to W.B. Boyce, 7 May 1873, MMS Box 201 [mf no. 2447]. Jamaica Post, 18 August 1887. Robson, Jamaica Mission, 93. Francis Dodsworth, The Book of Jamaica (Kingston: Sollas and Cocking, 1904), 37– 38. Of the more popular sources of the rum that was fundamental to the drinking culture was Appleton rum, produced by J. Wray and Nephew. Daily Gleaner, 13 June 1876. Falmouth Post, 14 February 1860; Daily Gleaner, 17 February 1876; also Isaac Lewin, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/202. While drinking was done all year round, it was at Christmas time that it reached its peak. The merchants imported large stocks of alcoholic and other beverages for this season and advertised them in the press: Bordeaux Clarets, Sauternes, Champagne, and Malaga, Moscatel, and Porto wines. Fred L. Myers and Son on Port Royal Street offered the best Champagne (Moet and Chandon’s), “Dry Imperial” Duc de Barmont (Carte Blanche), Sir Edward Lee’s Famous Old Scotch Whisky, “Eagle” London Stout and Burton Ale, and Ballantine’s American Lager Beer. Also, patrons could buy “Strong Ale . . . Pale Ale . . . [or] Stout”. For those who wanted “softer” drinks, T.H. Geddes offered “Champagne Cyder [sic], Strawberry Cream, Fruit Squash, Dry Ginger Ale, Kola Stout” at his Jamaica Water Factory on Orange Street. While it was not clear whether or not these soft drinks were imported, some of the drinks on offer definitely were not. In 1915, merchants offered high quality aerated drinks made by the West India Aerated and Mineral Water Co. Ltd, which had created new flavours such as a pineapple champagne, “a delicately flavoured drink and is delightfully refreshing”, and Dandy Shandy, both of which were in great demand for Christmas. The company also had in stock Welsh’s carbonated grape juice, kola wine, sherry and port as well as fruit syrups in several flavours. Especially popular was their plain soda water which, according to the Gleaner’s reporter, “possess[ed] a bite that [was] at once exhilarating” and was able to hold its own against the best English brands. See advertisements for E. Schoess and Co., Colonial Standard, 14 December 1893; Burke’s Liquor Store, Port Royal Street, Daily Gleaner, 8 December 1899; Fred L. Myers and Son, Daily Gleaner, 9 December 1899; T.H. Geddes, Daily Gleaner, 24 December 1915. Also Daily Gleaner, 22 December 1915; Colonial Standard, 12 May 1885; and Dodsworth, Book of Jamaica, 37–38.

Notes to pages 320–32 3

w 513

8. Heron, Booze, 11. 9. According to some of the missionaries, the rum shops went a far way “to account for the numerous defections from the church which have taken place in the course of years”. Periodical Accounts Relating to the Missions of the Church of the United Brethren established among the Heathen, 1870, JA 5/5. 10. “Peace” to editor, Jamaica Guardian, 15 September 1865. 11. Ibid. 12. In fact, based on the low sales from the legitimate sales of “quattie drinks”, and “three-penny glasses of ale or porter”, Rampini speculated that the proprietors would be hard pressed to pay for their annual £10 licences. Charles Rampini, Letters from Jamaica (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1873), 72–73. 13. Morning Journal, 1 September 1868. 14. Heron, Booze, 112–13. 15. Daily Gleaner, 1 September 1875. 16. Colonial Standard, 25 July 1884. 17. Daily Gleaner, 4 April 1908. There was the interesting case in 1880 of a Chinese shopkeeper, Charles Emmanuel, and his wife, “a creole girl”. According to the Colonial Standard, there were regular reports of disagreements between this shopkeeper, who operated on Beckford Street, and his wife, who alleged that Emmanuel was “drenching” her with liquor. Upon investigation, the police found the woman, “an emaciated person evidently young”, who admitted that she drank. Her mother, who was present, confirmed this, saying that she had “a bad head which [a] glass of wine could upset”. Although Emmanuel denied the charge, and in spite of her admission, the police continued the investigation because she had a black eye which she said she acquired when she fell while drunk. For his part, Emmanuel claimed that his wife was violent and showed to the police a cut in his coat that he claimed she had made with a knife she had thrown at him. Colonial Standard, 18 June 1880. 18. Mary E. White, Report of Port Antonio, Friends Jamaica Mission, June 1915, JA 5/8/2/421; reports (Prospect, Burlington, Fellowship), Friends Jamaica Mission 1922 and 1923, JA 5/8/55/3862; United Free Church of Scotland, Report on Foreign Missions 1911, Missionary Record of the United Free Church of Scotland 12 (1912). 19. The correspondent did not explain how he arrived at these figures. Jamaica Times, 14 February 1903 and 30 March 1912. 20. Jamaica Times, 19 October 1912. According to C.S. Shirley: “The rum shops are the chief causes of degradation, the leading channels to destruction; money spent in the rum shops by most individuals makes them 100 per cent worse off; and brings them to poverty which will without doubt end in pauperism.” C.S. Shirley to editor, Jamaica Times, 19 October 1912. 21. “Correspondent”, “The Jamaica Cow”, Jamaica Times, 27 June 1914. 22. Daily Gleaner, 14 July 1876.

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Notes to pages 323–325

23. “Kingston’s Temperance Bars and the Harm They Are Doing to the City”, Daily Gleaner, 7 June 1913; Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson, “ ‘Fallen Sisters’: Attitudes to Female Prostitution in Jamaica at the turn of the Twentieth Century”, Journal of Caribbean History 34, nos. 1–2 (2000). Also J.H. Cartwright, “Temperance in Jamaica”, Foreign Field of the Wesleyan Methodist Church 16 (1919): 227. 24. Jamaica Times, 30 October 1915. 25. Periodical Accounts, June 1881, JA 5/5; Pastoral Address [Edwin J. Southall] of Methodist Western Conference, 1893, JA 5/6/7/2. 26. Colonial Standard, 28 March 1885; Return of Spirit Licences issued in 1906–1907, encl. in Olivier to Elgin, no. 460, 21 August 1907, CO 137/659. 27. Colonial Standard, 13 March 1890. 28. The 1860 law was basically a renewal of the Spirit Licence Act of 1855 (which was due to expire in March 1860). Darling to Newcastle, no. 13, 25 January 1860, CO 137/348. 29. Under this law, the opening hours for retail rum shops were from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Its disallowance led to the restoration of the original closing hour of 9:00 p.m. and this was retained by Law 31 of 1905 which remained in force beyond the end of the First World War. Hemming to Chamberlain, no. 195, 23 May 1898, CO 137/590 [encl., copy of Law 21 of 1898]. 30. Bishop Charles Gordon, 29 April 1898, encl. in Hemming to Chamberlain, no. 195, 23 May 1898, CO 137/590. 31. The Colonial Office was highly critical of the bill. Seeing the issue largely in racial terms, A.C. Pearson, who had not visited Jamaica, said that the “Jamaican Negro is I fear a very low specimen of humanity, and if he has the virtue of sobriety thanks partly perhaps to climate and partly to a strong head why test it in this way. At the best it is increasing inducements to waste and improvidence.” He pointed out that the previous bill had been in existence for too short a time for its evaluation, that the 1898 bill was passed hurriedly, sweeping objections aside, and that its main thrust was for revenue as opposed to the welfare of the whole community. Moreover, “the main object of the law is to raise additional revenue by increasing the consumption of rum to such an extent as will more than cover the reduction of the licences; that such legislation is utterly opposed to the principles followed for some years past not only in this country but throughout the empire generally where the object of similar legislation has been to reduce the inducement for the consumption of intoxicating spirits rather than increase them.” Under-secretary Edward Wingfield concurred, noting that although revenue was sorely needed, the law should be disallowed “as a measure tending to induce a temperate people to become intemperate”. Likewise, the secretary of state argued that there were two ways to raise the needed revenue by spirit licences – one was to increase the consumption of alcohol (which the 1898 bill seemed bent on doing), and the other was to raise the duties on the liquor. The first method was “immoral” and at least “impolitic”, and ought not to be allowed.

Notes to pages 325–327

32.

33. 34. 35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

w 515

The Jamaican government could try the second method if they wished. Minutes of A.C. Pearson, 16 June 1898, Edward Wingfield, 7 July 1898, and Joseph Chamberlain, 8 July 1898, appended to Hemming to Chamberlain, no. 195, 23 May 1898, and Chamberlain to Hemming, no. 200, 12 July 1898, CO 137/590. Hallowes to Secretary of State, no. 240, 28 May 1900, CO 137/610. On this occasion the Colonial Office did not find the law objectionable, and so it was approved. Minute of A. Robinson, 19 June 1900; and Secretary of State’s reply, 10 July 1901, CO 137/610. “The Drink Habit in Jamaica”, Baptist Reporter, reprinted in the Daily Gleaner, 3 October 1910; “The Drink Question in Jamaica”, Jamaica Times, 29 October 1910. Jamaica Times, 5 June 1920. Attorney-General’s Report in Cork to Harcourt, no. 208, 1 June 1911, CO 137/685; Attorney-General’s Report in Manning to Harcourt, no. 150, 21 April 1915, CO 137/709. Return of Spirit Licences issued in 1906–7, encl. in Olivier to Elgin, no. 460, 21 August 1907, CO 137/659. In 1920–21, the government issued 1,888 spirit licences, of which 1,729 (91.6 per cent) went to retailers, and earned £23,646 14s. 6d. in revenue. Report of Customs and Internal Revenue, Department Reports, 1920–21, 309; Presbyterian, reprinted in Daily Gleaner, 2 December 1911, 11 March 1912. Appendix V: Memorial on Intemperance: To the President and Members of the Honourable Legislative Council, Synod Minutes, Presbyterian Church, 1913, NLJ MST 2089. Noting that it was the attorney-general who first advocated the desirability of the government taking over the retail liquor trade in 1917, Governor Probyn procured the support of resident magistrates who argued that the main defect in the system lay in the fact that the licensing authorities (the Justices of the Peace) were still too liberal in granting licences, especially in the country districts. But while they proposed that the state should assume greater control over the granting of licences in order to curb the growing drunkenness and the associated crimes, the governor saw this as a golden opportunity to propose that the government itself should monopolize this lucrative milch cow for purposes of revenue. Probyn to Long, Secret, 8 February 1919, CO 137/730; and Probyn to Milner, Secret, 17 June 1919, CO 137/732. However, not convinced by this proposal, the Colonial Office stalled the process by referring it to the British Liquor Control Board for advice. See CO minutes appended to Probyn’s despatch of 8 February 1919. The churches which stood in opposition were the Jamaica Baptist Union, the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Jamaica, the Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, the Congregational Union, the United Methodist Free Churches and the Jamaica Association of Christian Churches. According to the Census of 1911, these churches together accounted for 373,429 members. Persons or groups who opposed the issue of a licence to a retailer were required to file their objection in writing and to deposit a

516

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Notes to pages 327–331

40. 41.

42. 43.

44.

45. 46. 47. 48.

49.

50.

51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

sum of £1 as security for any costs incurred by the objection. This was intended to deter frivolous objections. If the objection was denied by the officiating justice of the peace, a part or all of the deposit could be awarded in costs to the licence applicant. If any of the deposit was left, it was refunded to the objector. Jamaica Times, 17 May 1913. Daily Gleaner, 13 November 1913. Baptist Reporter, excerpt reprinted in “The Drink Question in Jamaica”, Jamaica Times, 29 October 1910. Also, for a view supporting the end to alcohol advertising, see Charles S. Shirley to editor, Jamaica Times, 11 July 1914. Heron, Booze, 58. Pastoral Address [George Lockett] of Western Conference to the Methodist Societies, 1888, JA 5/6/7/1; Temperance Report in Minutes of the District Synod of the Jamaica District [Methodist], 1908, JA 5/6/7/2; Temperance Report in Minutes of the District Synod of the Jamaica District [Methodist] 1909, JA 5/6/7/2. Synod Minutes, Presbyterian Church, 1906, NLJ MST 2089. By 1907, the Presbyterians reported that they had eight Bands of Hope for the young, five associations for men, six for women with an aggregate membership of 568. Synod Minutes, Presbyterian Church, 1907, NLJ MST 2089; Synod Minutes, Presbyterian Church, 1909, NLJ MST 2089. H. Alma Swift, Friends Jamaica Mission (Orange Bay), 1918, JA 5/8/4/527; and her 1919 report, JA 5/8/4/538. Heron, Booze, 12. Falmouth Post, 14 February 1860. Daily Gleaner, 26 January 1875; Synod of the Church of England, 1883, JA 5/1/11A; Friends Jamaica Mission (Burlington/Fellowship), 1921, JA 5/8/4/565; Friends Jamaica Mission (Amity Hall) 5 (12 December 1897): 47. Friends Jamaica Mission 6 (9 September 1898), JA 5/8/78/5912. John Dunkley was arrested in November 1910 and charged 10s. 6d. for drunkenness. It was his eighteenth conviction in that court and the magistrate commented that he had seen him in other jurisdictions. “Evil of Drink”, Daily Gleaner, 23 November 1910. “Some Words on Temperance, no. 1”, Jamaica Times, 24 August 1907; Colonial Standard, 4 May 1880; Daily Gleaner, 18 August 1876, 26 January and 6 December 1892, and 22 January 1896. Synod Minutes, Presbyterian Church, 1909, NLJ MST 2089; Synod, Church of England, 1896, 1897, 1899, 1901, JA 5/1/11A. Morning Journal, 26 November 1875. Morning Journal, 5 May and 11 November 1873. Daily Gleaner, 28 July 1876; Jamaica Times, 11 October 1913. For instance, they held a public tea party in 1876 at St George’s church in order to encourage temperance among Kingston’s young people. In 1880 there was “an entertainment, literary and musical” under the auspices of St Michael’s Lodge of

Notes to pages 331–335

56.

57. 58.

59. 60. 61.

62. 63. 64. 65.

66. 67.

68.

69.

w 517

Good Templars at the East Branch schoolroom where readings, songs etc. were delivered to a large and appreciative audience. Later that year the Pioneer Lodge of the Independent Order of Good Templars held a banquet along with their installation of officers which was also well attended, as was a musical and literary entertainment open to the public. In 1881, the Congregational Lodge of Good Templars was also active. Morning Journal, 10 August 1875; Daily Gleaner, 12 April 1876, 2 and 17 June 1881; Colonial Standard, 14 April, 4 May and 19 August 1880. Daily Gleaner, 22 August 1888. Some of the other organizations that were formed around the issue of temperance included the Independent Order of Good Samaritans and Juvenile Templars. Colonial Standard, 4 December 1894. Colonial Standard, 12 January 1880; Synod, Church of England, 1899, JA 5/1/11A. Jamaica Times, 2 April 1910. See also, editorial, “The Struggle for Temperance Reform”, Jamaica Times, 28 March 1914; W.B. Esson to editor, “Y.P.S.C.E. Societies supporting calls for temperance”, Jamaica Times, 11 April 1914; “Meeting at St. George’s schoolroom . . . against drink”, Jamaica Times, 9 May 1914. Colonial Standard, 3 August 1880. Synod, Church of England, 1900, JA 5/1/11A. Anonymous response to a report by J.S.A. Bennett of the Band of Hope Society in Parry Town, Ocho Rios, who urged every man in Jamaica to sign the temperance pledge. Jamaica Times, 21 November and 5 December 1908. H.S. Banbury to editor, “About Prohibition”, Daily Gleaner, 13 November 1913. “Topics of the Times: Our Social Habits”, Daily Gleaner, 12 September 1913. According to the temperance advocate, he got his figures from the government. “Good Templar” to editor, “Our Drink Bill”, Jamaica Times, 24 January 1914. “Topics of the Times: Our Social Habits”, Daily Gleaner, 12 September 1913. Since many of these temperance bars also harboured prostitutes, one might conclude that middle- and upper-class men were among their main clients. For a fuller treatment of prostitution in Jamaica during this period, see Moore and Johnson, “Fallen Sisters”, 46–70. J.S.A. Bennett (Parry Town, Ocho Rios), Jamaica Times, 21 November 1908. August edition of the Presbyterian, reprinted in the Daily Gleaner, 30 July 1910. See also Appendix V: Memorial on Intemperance: To the President and Members of the Honourable Legislative Council, Synod Minutes, Presbyterian Church, 1913, NLJ MST 2089. Report of the Inspector-General of Police 1912–13, in Department Reports 1912–13; also cited in Appendix V: Memorial on Intemperance: To the President and Members of the Honourable Legislative Council, Synod Minutes, Presbyterian Church, 1913, MST 2089; also Jamaica Times, 12 June 1920. In another incident in 1880, William Brown, “a powerful looking man”, went into a liquor shop on Orange Street, at the corner of North Street. After taking a drink, he took up a pan lying on the counter and “dealt the bar woman, Margaret Da

518

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Notes to pages 335–337

70. 71. 72. 73.

74. 75. 76.

77.

78.

79. 80.

Costa, a blow which he aimed at her face but which she barred off and received on the left arm”. This violence was because she refused to supply him with free matches and allegedly threw water on him. He was about to “ ‘brain’ her with a brick” when she called in a soldier who took away the brick and escorted Brown to the nearest police station. He was sentenced to sixty days’ hard labour. Colonial Standard, 24 May and 12 June 1880. Periodical Accounts Relating to the Missions of the Church of the United Brethren established among the Heathen, 1870, JA 5/5. Reports and Statistics of the Moravian Church in Jamaica, 1905, JA 5/5. Reports and Statistics of the Moravian Church in Jamaica, 1913, JA 5/5. “A Quiet Sunday”, Jamaica Post, 10 August 1890; “Sunday Drinking”, Jamaica Post 15 September 1890. According to the Colonial Standard, the problems had already become very noticeable by 1880: “Peter’s Lane, with its environs, is a den of iniquity. In the neighbourhood of this lane there are some liquor shops, not licensed to be open on Sunday, but which, nevertheless throw their doors wide open on that day not only for the sale of liquor, but the better to facilitate the carrying on of what is perhaps a more objectionable offense [sic] against society.” Colonial Standard, 15 June 1880. Pastoral Address [Edwin J. Southall] of Methodist Western Conference, 1893, JA 5/6/7/2. Jamaica Times, 30 March 1901. In 1908, John Penndley, Thomas Lewis and William Hinds were arrested in the Occidental Bar while drinking on a Sunday morning in September. All were charged between 10s. and 20s. or else were ordered to serve seven or fourteen days in prison. “Sunday Drinks”, Daily Gleaner, 26 September 1908. The Gleaner questioned the licensing of drinking establishments in locations such as Papine, as well as the rationale for legally permitting taverns to open on Sunday as opposed to rum shops which could not. “Perhaps in the country districts, the existence of superfluous taverns does very little harm. But in the vicinity of a populous city, such licensed premises, as a general rule – and there are exceptions to every rule – work nothing but harm. They draw to themselves (particularly on Sunday nights and holiday nights) the lowest, roughest, loosest characters in the community, and unquestionably encourage vice in some of its most degrading forms.” “Attempt to Suppress Rowdyism on the Hope Garden Cars on Sundays”, Daily Gleaner, 22 May 1913. Morning Journal, 8 and 29 July 1870. In 1883 there was a notice that the London Tavern was to be reopened by its new proprietor, Egbert De Pass, after it had been destroyed by fire. The Standard wished success upon the enterprise for De Pass’s “investment and energy”. Colonial Standard, 19 May 1883. “Tavern Licences”, Jamaica Post, 25 September 1890. Heron states for Canada that “[e]ventually, by the early twentieth century, many

Notes to pages 337–339

81.

82. 83. 84.

85.

86. 87. 88. 89.

90. 91.

92.

93. 94.

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among the upper classes had crafted a new bourgeois morality based on pleasure through consumption and pursued with moderation and refinement rather than constraint and denial”. Heron, Booze, 12. Harbour, North, and James Streets; Luke Lane; King Street between Barry and Tower Streets, and to the west of Church Street, were reputed to be havens for gambling. Morning Journal, 18 January and 15 April 1875; Gall’s News Letter, 24 June 1875; Daily Gleaner, 6 October 1875, 15 March 1894; Colonial Standard, 7 July 1880. “Gambling”, Jamaica Post, 8 December 1890. [Report of a crusade against gambling by Rev. H.H. Kilburn.] Jamaica Advocate, 14 March 1896. George Isaacs to the editor, “On Gambling”, Daily Gleaner, 21 April 1896. According to Enos Beckford of Tower Street, the way to deal with offenders was through prayer and legislation. Daily Gleaner, 28 June 1898. Report of speech by J.E. Randall at the Conversorium, “Knaves and Fools”, Jamaica Times, 2 May 1903. He asserted that it was better for a man to be poor yet happy and noble than be self-indulgent. L.B. Marsh (pupil teacher, Annotto Bay), “The Need of Thrift in Jamaica”, Daily Gleaner, 5 January 1918. “Gambling Crusade”, Daily Gleaner, 5 September 1908, reprint from the September issue of the Baptist Reporter. Morning Journal, 18 January and 15 April 1875; Gall’s News Letter, 24 June 1875; Daily Gleaner, 6 October 1875, 15 March 1894; Colonial Standard, 7 July 1880. Colonial Standard, 30 June 1880; also, the Gleaner reported in March 1881 that James Morrison was severely wounded in a gambling brawl by Alfred Aarons, who was sentenced to one month’s hard labour; and in another gambling fight in Princess Street one protagonist was wounded quite severely by the other. Daily Gleaner, 6 May and 22 March 1881; see also Jamaica Times, 19 June 1915. “Accused of Murder”, Jamaica Times, 5 August 1916. Annual Reports of the Moravian Church in Jamaica 1890, JA 5/5. So chronic was the habit, said one correspondent, that the stakes in the gambling in Watson Hill was biscuits. Jamaica Times, 5 July 1902; Friends Jamaica Mission 6, no. 2 (November 1898), JA 5/8/78/5913. “Vulcan” to the editor, Daily Gleaner, 30 December 1891; “Writer from a Country District”, Jamaica Times, 25 December 1909. These sentiments were echoed about the state of Port Maria in 1896, where a section of the town was reportedly taken over by a number of disorderly gamblers, “much to the annoyance of all the respectable citizens”. Daily Gleaner, 8 December 1896. Report of the Life and Work Committee, Presbyterian Church Synod Report 1913, NLJ MST 2089. Jamaica Times, 20 December 1913; Annual Meeting of Congregational Union, 1913, NLJ MST 2089; Jamaica Post, 20 December 1888. The Gleaner pointed out that

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Notes to pages 340–341

95.

96.

97.

98. 99. 100.

101.

gambling was not a sin since almost every aspect of life involved some chance taken, but that it was the overindulgence (similar to the case of drinking) that was the problem. “Gambling, Raffling, Lotteries”, Daily Gleaner, 4 February 1905. See also, Kenneth A. Robinson to the editor, “Question of Lotteries”, Daily Gleaner, 16 September 1913; and “Est Modus In Rebus” to the editor, “What is Gambling?” Daily Gleaner, 23 January 1892. “J.H.P.”, “Are the Churches Gambling?” Jamaica Times, 22 August, 5 September 1908; “Free Wheel” to the editor, Jamaica Times, 5 September 1908. Also, “The Question of Gambling”, Baptist Reporter [reprint of September issue]; “Church Member” to the editor, Jamaica Times, 12 September 1908; “Gambling, Great Social Evil”, Daily Gleaner, 7 May 1912 [reprint of the Baptist Reporter, May issue]. Reprint of December issue of Baptist Reporter in Daily Gleaner, 10 December 1915; “Gambling Crusade”, Daily Gleaner, 5 September 1908, reprint of September issue, Baptist Reporter; “Moral Reform”, Daily Gleaner, 6 April 1914, reprint from the April issue of the Baptist Reporter. J.W. Wright (president of the Kingston Ministers’ Fraternal) to the editor, Daily Gleaner, 9 October 1913; reprint of governor’s reply (signed by Robert Johnstone, assistant colonial secretary, 7 August 1913); “Gambling Law”, Daily Gleaner, 2 October 1913 [reprint from the Presbyterian, October issue]; “Gambling Law”, Daily Gleaner, 8 October 1913 [reprint of Baptist Reporter, October issue]; “The Lottery Question”, Daily Gleaner, 10 October 1913. Daily Gleaner, 7 November 1877. In one week, five lads were arrested and a number of cards and some money were seized. Colonial Standard, 28 July and 4 August 1880. Daily Gleaner, 23 September 1895. Imprisonment was no deterrent to Stennett who, in the very next year, was again arrested for allegedly stealing three rings valued at 30s. 4d. from Sarah Porter in a three-card game. He and a large group were playing on the piazza at Orange and Barry Street in Kingston when Porter passed by. Stennett accosted her, insisted that she participate in the game and took the rings from her fingers, as well as a dollar coin which she had. On refusing to return the items, she reported the matter to the police and had him arrested. Daily Gleaner, 28 July 1896. When, in December 1894, Joseph Williams was charged by Constable Thomas Bell with gambling in the thoroughfare (at the corner of West and Barry Streets in Kingston) where he invited gamblers calling “shilling you don’t draw the ace”, although someone shouted “police, police” in Spanish on the approach of the constable, Williams was not swift enough and was apprehended with his three-card board on his knees. James Williams was likewise unable to make good his escape from the police in 1895, although he managed to tear up the cards and pocketed 5s. from the board when he saw the detective approaching him. He was nevertheless arrested and charged with playing “three card monte” on a piazza in Luke Lane. Daily Gleaner, 5 November 1895.

Notes to pages 342–344

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102. Daily Gleaner, 2 May 1896. In 1875 Gall’s News Letter reported that one gambler sent an “epistle” to another inviting him to participate in taking advantage of a gullible visitor: “My dear D-ne-n, we have ‘a pigeon’ on hand, from the country, come and help us to ‘pluck him’, we shall divide the spoil. Yours E-g-t.” The “pigeon” was plied with champagne for several days and the money that he had in trust for his constituent was lost while gambling. He was arrested and jailed. His “pluckers”, however, remained free to roam and perhaps to carry out the scam again (Gall’s News Letter, 24 June 1875). In another instance, in 1896, a man from St Thomas who had arrived in the Kingston parade square to buy a horse, was instead inveigled into a “gambling den” on Princess Street to play a three-card game and lost £7 10s. (Daily Gleaner, 21 May 1896). In this way the “three card monte sharpers” allegedly robbed many “country people” especially in the upper part of Peter’s Lane “where those who played departed as sadder and wiser men” (Daily Gleaner, 31 August 1898). See also Jamaica Times, 8 June 1901. 103. “On Gambling in the Island”, Daily Gleaner, 21 May 1918; Daily Gleaner, 13 July 1918. 104. Jamaica Times, 18 October 1902. 105. Jamaica Times, 14 January 1905. 106. For instance, in 1897 the Gleaner reported that one such “den” was established in a yard at the west end of Water Lane near Wherry Wharf in Kingston where a number of men and boys congregated, and gambling was carried on from morning until late at night, and on several occasions rows and fights occurred. When police constables approached, the “gang” appeared to play an innocent game, for amusement sake; but as soon as the constables moved on, the dice and money were brought out. Daily Gleaner, 26 April 1897. 107. Jamaica Times, 31 March 1900; Daily Gleaner, 4 November 1903. 108. Colonial Standard, 7 August 1885. Likewise, in 1903 seven young men were found gambling at seven-eleven in a burial ground at the western end of Barry Street in Kingston. One of them is reported as saying, “I am in a penny”, and when the policemen rushed the group, three were initially held, but two escaped. Samuel Muir was arrested with 4s. 6d. in his pocket, and 8½d. in nickel coins were found on the ground. Muir was fined 12s. or fourteen days’ imprisonment. Daily Gleaner, 4 November 1903. 109. Daily Gleaner, 7 January 1903. 110. Jamaica Times, 31 March 1900. 111. Daily Gleaner, 6, 7, 8 and 13 September 1894. 112. Said the Gleaner: “There are transparent dice [sic] which are ‘loaded’ in a very clever way; that besides being thus ‘loaded’, they are made, not square but with one of the sides smaller than the other three. By this combination of ‘loading’ with overbalance, the ‘expert’ gambler who has a knowledge of the special properties possessed by the dice he holds is able to fleece out the unfortunate person or persons with whom he plays.” Daily Gleaner, 28 June 1904.

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Notes to pages 344–348

113. “The French Pool Case”, Daily Gleaner, 17 May 1899; “What is a Lottery?” Daily Gleaner, 29 May 1899. See also Daily Gleaner, 12 August 1886. 114. Daily Gleaner, 12 December 1880; Jamaica Times, 8 April 1899. 115. Daily Gleaner, 24 October, 10, 11 and 12 December 1884, and 13 December 1886; Colonial Standard, 10 December 1884. 116. “Eye Witness” to the editor, “The Spreading Evil of Gambling”, Jamaica Times, 7 June 1913. 117. Daily Gleaner, 30 May 1881, 25 August 1893, 9 July 1894, 24 August 1893, 29 October and 18 December 1897; and letter by Chin Tang Kow, Daily Gleaner, 25 August 1893. 118. Dorothy Mabel Bottle, Reminiscences of a Queen’s Army Schoolmistress (London: Arthur Stockwell, ca. 1911), 67. 119. Jamaica Times, 15 June and 23 March 1912. 120. Daily Gleaner, 30 May 1881. 121. Daily Gleaner, 26 January 1876 and 1 December 1906. 122. Daily Gleaner, 20 October 1891, 28 June 1893, 18 December 1897, 14 June 1916; Jamaica Times, 23 March 1912. 123. Marjorie Nelson, How They Live: Sketches of Jamaican Life (Kingston: West Indies Publishing Co., 1940), 25. 124. “Our Chinese Colony”, Jamaica Times, 26 November 1898; “Sunday at the Chinese Lottery”, Daily Gleaner, 1 July 1897. See also “The Other Side: The Chinese Opinion of Gambling”, Daily Gleaner, 2 November 1897. 125. For example, one riddle for “parson”, otherwise called “right foot” or number twenty-nine, was “He joy as the angels: the God Straw plant in the Garden”; while “The General Officer of honour had strength to frighten the people for he fight with the other strongman” meant “Rat” or the number fifteen (left foot).“N.E.M.O.”, “ ‘Drop Pan’, a sordid form of gambling”, Daily Gleaner, 5 October 1918. 126. Jamaica Times, 26 November 1898. 127. Jamaica Post, 11 April 1896. 128. Ibid. 129. Daily Gleaner, 9 July 1894; C.P. Wynter to editor, Daily Gleaner, 29 October 1897. 130. As the Jamaica Times put it, “the astute Celestial continues to take in the coppers of the lovers of the game, despite the protests of the pulpit, press and public, who are all scandalised and indignant that this species of gambling should be carried on in the broad light of day and under the noses of the police”. Jamaica Times, 26 November 1898. 131. Letter from a “Chinese man”, Daily Gleaner, 19 March 1897. 132. “The Other Side: The Chinese Opinion of Gambling”, Daily Gleaner, 2 November 1897. 133. “On Gambling in the Island”, Daily Gleaner, 21 May 1918. 134. According to “N.E.M.O.”, “we learnt among other things that there are innumerable persons in and around the city who call themselves bankers and who pay on whatever

Notes to pages 348–351

135.

136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147.

148.

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letter the Chinese drop. Very often a banker will find that so many tickets have been sold on a particular number that his bank becomes swamped, and in such cases it is a task to find him. Indeed, it is said that an evening this week the Chinese brought down their pans a little earlier than usual, with the result that some outside bankers went under.” Daily Gleaner, 5 October 1918. Indeed, at the turn of the twenty-first century, so established was the Chinese lottery that it became part of the national lottery options. According to the Gleaner, in January 2001, “Supreme Ventures Limited was awarded a ten-year contract to conduct and promote lottery games, and that company now operates as Win Jamaica Lotteries. The company’s principals include businessmen, Peter Stewart, Ian Levy and Paul Hoo. . . . At launch, Win Jamaica Lotteries will introduce two exciting games – a version of the popular Drop Pan and a live daily lotto-type draw game. ‘Drop Pan is already a part of the Jamaican gaming culture, so we’re coming in with the public already having a high level of understanding of the game. What we’re doing is reinforcing the entertainment value of the games with some of the world’s best technology, making ours a fun, easy, but secure game,’ said Peter Fallis, executive vice-president of Win Jamaica Lotteries.” Jamaica Gleaner, 13 May 2001. Report of Annual District Meeting of Wesleyan Methodists, 23 January 1880, MMS Box 201 [mf no. 2476]. “The Lord of Misrule”, Daily Gleaner, 31 December 1891; Enclosure in Blake to Secretary of State, no. 232, 9 June 1893, CO 137/555. “Public Gambling”, Daily Gleaner, 9 January 1892. Falmouth Post, 2 and 5 May 1865; “Est Modus In Rebus” to the editor, “What Is Gambling?” Daily Gleaner, 23 January 1892. One machine seized belonged to a Canadian resident. Report in Daily Telegraph, cited by Jamaica Times, 14 January 1905. Jamaica Times, 30 March 1901. Jamaica Times, 19 October 1912; Daily Gleaner, 12 May 1913. Jamaica Times, 9 May 1908; and A.S. Robinson to the editor, “The Spreading Gambling Evil”, Jamaica Times, 1 November 1913. See, for instance, Daily Gleaner, 23 November 1886. The report noted that “local sports are trimming up their game cocks for a set-to at Christmas”. Daily Gleaner, 4 February 1875. The paper accused the small Cuban community in the city for these activities, especially on Sundays. John F. Gartshore to the editor, Daily Gleaner, 13 May 1913. Daily Gleaner, 27 June 1916. On 9 December 1886 Peter Carr was arrested for larceny of a game cock valued at 12s. belonging to Charles McNeil. The case was tried in the Police Court. Daily Gleaner, 21 February 1887. “A Lottery or What?” Daily Gleaner, 22 October 1914; “Helping Gambling to Grow”, Jamaica Times, 31 October 1914.

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Notes to pages 351–353

149. The two gaming laws were 13th George III, Chapter 19 (1773–74); and 39th George III, Chapter 7 (1799–1800). 150. Daily Gleaner, 1 April 1898. 151. The British colony of the Straits Settlements consisted of Penang, Malacca and Singapore. Hemming to Chamberlain, no. 319, 20 June 1899, JA 1B/5/18 V.51, [enclosure Law 25 of 1898, The Gambling Law 1898]. The Gleaner reported that the governor gave his assent to Law 25 of 1898, the Gambling Law (Daily Gleaner, 4 February 1899). See also “The Gambling Law”, Daily Gleaner, 21 February 1899, “The Gambling Law”, Daily Gleaner, 2 March 1899, “The Gambling Law 1899”, Jamaica Advocate, 11 and 18 March 1899. 152. See in particular sections 5–10 of Law 25 of 1898. 153. “The Gambling Law 1899”, Jamaica Advocate, 11 and 18 March 1899. 154. “The Gambling Law”, Daily Gleaner, 16 March 1899. 155. Daily Gleaner, 24 May 1898 and 27 February 1899. 156. Daily Gleaner, 27 February 1899; “The Gambling Law”, Daily Telegraph, 20 April 1899. 157. “W.D.T.” to the editor, Jamaica Times, 18 March 1899. According to the Times minor gamblers such as coal carriers throwing dice in their breakfast hours or boys playing pitch and toss were being persecuted while gambling in higher circles “escapes scot free”. Jamaica Times, 6 February 1904. 158. Jamaica Times, 18 March and 1 April 1899; Daily Gleaner, 15, 16 and 23 March 1899. 159. Hemming to Chamberlain, no. 319, 20 June 1899, JA 1B/5/18 V.51, and encl., Law 25 of 1898, The Gambling Law 1898. As a result of this lenience granted to the horse racing fraternity, in May 1899 a case was brought against Reuben A. Alexander, a member of the syndicate which had the concession for conducting the French Pool at the Cumberland Pen races for a breach of the Gambling Law. Judge J. Leach ruled that the betting on a horse race was not purely left to chance, was not pure lottery, since factors such as the qualities/merits of the animal and the skill of the rider came into the picture and that the outcome was not totally uncertain. The French Pool, therefore, was not, strictly speaking, gambling and did not fall under the law of 1898. “The French Pool Case”, Daily Gleaner, 17 May 1899; “What Is a Lottery?” Daily Gleaner, 29 May 1899. After the 1899 amendment to the gambling law, the French Pool was so secure that when in 1903 Mr Judah, the proprietor of the French Pool at the Kingston Races, was summoned before the courts, it was not for a breach of the gambling law, but for how the pool had been run in that year. According to the Gleaner, the Kingston Race Stand Company and Judah were in court over the December 1902 races because Judah claimed a rebate of £15 of the amount that was prepaid since one of the twenty races was not run. The company made a counterclaim against Judah for an alleged breach of contract on the grounds that he had collected more than the agreed 10 per cent remuneration on each race, although the amounts were to have been limited by contract, and that by this action, the public

Notes to pages 353–357

160. 161. 162.

163. 164.

165. 166. 167. 168. 169.

170. 171. 172.

173. 174.

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did not get the full value of their money on the winning tickets. In its ruling, the court awarded Judah £15 plus costs of 29s. 3d., and awarded Kingston Race Stand Company £37 15s. 6d. for Judah’s breach of contract. Daily Gleaner, 21 and 28 January 1903. Perhaps in an attempt to prevent the kind of advantages that were taken by Judah, a group of “racing men” signed a petition later in 1903 addressed to the Stand Committee advocating that the Committee should run the French Pool themselves to save a considerable amount of money and to benefit the racing men. “Racingman” to the editor, Daily Gleaner, 21 October 1903. Daily Gleaner, 23 November 1899. J. Wareham, member of the city council, to the editor, Daily Gleaner, 14 November 1905. In the opinion of the Jamaica Times, “The matter must not be considered only in view of the apparently trifling attitude proposed by the defunct measure. It must be borne in mind that granting the privilege sought would be fostering the gambling spirit. This is not wise in any case, but it becomes dangerous in a country where gambling is already increasing at a lamentable rate.” Jamaica Times, 5 May, 12 May 1906. Daily Gleaner, 10 October 1918. Falmouth Post, 16 and 23 September, and 10 October 1862. This is precisely what happened the following month when “a gang of gamblers” was surprised and arrested in Falmouth. They were tried and sentenced to between five and thirty days in the Falmouth District Prison. But no corresponding arrests were made of the middleand upper-class gamers who were also gambling simultaneously elsewhere in the town. Morning Journal, 2 July 1868. R.E. Clarke to the editor, Daily Gleaner, 3 May 1897. Jamaica Times, 19 October 1912; Daily Gleaner, 28 June 1904. Jamaica Times, 26 November 1898. H.A.L. Simpson represented four “gentlemen” who were found gambling in a licensed premises, and were each fined £5. Jamaica Times, 29 July 1911. Also see Falmouth Post, 2 and 5 May 1865; Morning Journal, 15 February 1871. Falmouth Post, 2 and 5 May 1865. Jamaica Times, 19 October 1912; Daily Gleaner, 28 June 1904. Another Chinese man, Chin Tow Kow, was fined 10s. For details of these cases and the appeals, see Daily Gleaner, 2, 3 and 13 October, 20 and 22 November 1900. Ah Sin was again arrested and charged with gambling in 1904 (Daily Gleaner, 14 July 1904). See also Jamaica Times, 8 April 1899 and 10 October 1908; Daily Gleaner, 28 June 1904, 17 September, 8 and 10 October 1908, 23 July and 2 August 1912, 29 September 1915, 28 March 1916, and 15 October 1917. Jamaica Daily Telegraph, 13 March 1899. The policemen on the beat did not seem too keen to enforce the new law. They

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Notes to pages 358–363

175. 176.

177. 178. 179. 180.

stood at the very doors of the clubs at which the transactions were being done without interfering. When asked what was going on inside one of these clubs, a policeman simply replied that he did not know. Jamaica Daily Telegraph, 27 March 1899. Daily Gleaner, 28 June 1904. In 1910 two mounted policemen were arrested in Kingston for gambling with cards. One was sentenced to fourteen days’ imprisonment, and the other was fined ten days’ pay and confined to barracks. Daily Gleaner, 18 January 1910. “N.E.M.O.”, Daily Gleaner, 5 October 1918. Daily Gleaner, 2 December 1918. Others estimated that the figure might be as high as £300 per day. Daily Gleaner, 1 October 1918. Daily Gleaner, 10 October 1918.

Chapter 12 1. Verene Shepherd, Transients to Settlers: The Experience of Indians in Jamaica 1845– 1950 (Leeds: Peepal Tree, 1994), 34. 2. Decennial censuses, 1881–1921. 3. Walton Look Lai, The Chinese in the West Indies 1806–1995: A Documentary History (Kingston: The Press, University of the West Indies, 1998). 4. Decennial censuses, 1881–1921. 5. Report of the Protector of Immigrants for 1883, Department Reports 1883–84, 198–200; and Governor H.W. Norman’s report for 1883–84, x–xi. 6. Decennial censuses 1881–1921. 7. Reports of Sub-Agents of Immigration Richard Hill, W.Y. Garsia, Henry Laidlaw, and M. Bravo, in Eyre to Newcastle, no. 106, 8 November 1862, CO 137/368. 8. Ibid. Also Helen M. Farr, “Our Premium Picture”, in Friends Jamaica Mission 7, no. 5 (May 1900), JA 5/8/78. 9. Ibid. 10. Report of the [1867] Commissioners. 11. Grant to Kimberley, no. 67, 9 April 1872, CO 137/463. 12. Under Law 23 of 1879, the sizes of apartments were to be no less than 50 square feet for one adult, or 120 square feet for three single men, or for one man, his wife and two children. 13. Olivier to Crewe, no. 91, 11 March 1910, CO 137/677. 14. Howard Pyle, “Jamaica, New and Old”, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 80 (January–February 1890): 385; Edgar Bacon and E.M. Aaron, The New Jamaica (New York: Walbridge and Co.; Kingston: Aston W. Gardner and Co., 1890),

Notes to pages 364–367

15. 16.

17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29.

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99–100; Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson (eds.), The Land We Live In: Jamaica in 1890 (Kingston: Social History Project, 2000), 121–22. Small Indian communities also developed in Vere, Portland and St Mary. H.P. Smith might have been more accurate in identifying it as brown calico (“Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/128). C.W. Willis, “Buckra” Land: two weeks in Jamaica (Boston, 1896), 75. According to Farr, “The Indian woman never wears a hat but she has a long stip of cloth – usually bright red or white – which she wraps around her body, brings up over her head and throws over the shoulder.” Helen M. Farr, “Our Premium Picture”, Friends Jamaica Mission 7, no. 5 (May 1900), JA 5/8/78, no. 5946. Willis, “Buckra” Land, 75. Ibid. Bacon and Aaron, The New Jamaica, 58. Willis was more detailed: “[S]he stands before us in her simple, graceful dress, silver jewelry [sic] hanging from the entire rim of each ear, silver necklace and pendants of coins closely encircling her neck, another chain fitting more loosely, then another, and still another, until her whole chest is covered. Her arms are wound about with silver bracelets from wrist to shoulder, silver rings on every finger, her ankles bound with very heavy silver anklets, and silver rings again on every toe.” “Buckra” Land, 75. According to Farr, “The nose is also pierced and what looks like a silver button, beautifully carved, fastened in it.” Farr, “Our Premium Picture”. Hilda Perkins recalled that because some Indians wore rings in their noses, they were disparagingly labelled “bore nose coolie”. “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/222. Grant to Kimberley, no. 67, 9 April 1872, CO 137/463. Report of Henry Laidlaw (for Manchester and St Elizabeth), 16 July 1863, in Eyre to Newcastle, no. 202, 24 August 1863, CO 137/374. Report of sub-agent Richard Hill, 25 June 1862, in Eyre to Newcastle, no. 106, 8 November 1862, CO 137/368. Report of sub-agent W.J. Garsia, 4 June 1863, in Eyre, no. 202. Report of Richard Hill, 25 June 1862. Brian L. Moore, Cultural Power, and Pluralism Resistance (Kingston: The Press, University of the West Indies, 1995), 207–8; Steven Vertovec, Hindu Trinidad (London: Macmillan Caribbean, 1992), 106. K.L. Gillion, Fiji’s Indian Migrants: A History to the End of Indenture in 1920 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1962), 149. United Free Church of Scotland, Second Report on Foreign Missions for 1901, 81. Moore, Cultural Power, 209–13. Friends Jamaica Mission 8, no. 7 (July 1900), JA 5/8/78/5920; and 8, no. 11 (November 1900), JA 5/8/78/5954. “The image of the deity serves as a means of gaining access to the divine. This icon is not the deity itself; rather, it is believed to be filled with the deity’s cosmic energy. It is a focal point for honoring and communicating with

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Notes to page 368

the god. For the devout Hindu, the icon’s artistic merit is important, but is secondary to its spiritual content. The objects are created as receptacles for spiritual energy that allow the devotee to experience direct communication with [the] gods.” http://www.asia.si.edu/pujaonline/puja/background.html, accessed 17 July 2008. 30. “Launching Forth”, Women’s Missionary Magazine of the United Free Church of Scotland 1 (1901): 86. Kali earned her reputation for being blood-thirsty and destructive when she successfully exterminated demons that were threatening to take over the world; but in the process she also killed anyone who came her way. Chaos ensued and to stop her rampage, Lord Shiva/Siva threw himself under her feet. Shocked at this sight, Kali stuck out her tongue in astonishment, and put an end to her killing spree. The well-known image of Kali Ma with her dark tongue hanging out, actually depicts the moment when she steps on Lord Shiva and repents. In Hindu iconography, she is fiercely represented, having four arms, with a sword in one hand and the head of a demon in another. The other two hands, however, bless her worshippers. The scene for true Kali worship takes place in a cremation ground where the air is smoke-laden and little specks of ash from burning funeral pyres fall on white, sun-dried bones scattered about and on fragments of flesh, gnawed and pecked at by carrion beasts and large black birds. However, the majority of people are terrified by the Divine Mother’s awe-inspiring grandeur, backlit by the fires in the cremation ground. Most people prefer to worship her in a less threatening place, where reality is a symbol rather than the truth. Instead, they go to temples, worship at roadside shrines, or worship in their own homes. An open space on an estate like Mona would have been a suitable place to do so in Jamaica. Worshippers pray to the Divine Mother to grant them the boon of a child, money to feed the mouths of a hungry family, to grant them devotion and liberation from existence in misery. http://www.indialife.com/Festivals/shivratri.htm, accessed 17 July 2008. 31. Jamaica Times, 15 February 1902. 32. Maha Shivratri or Maha Sivaratri or Shivaratri or Sivaratri (Night of Shiva) is a Hindu festival celebrated every year on the thirteenth night/fourteenth day in the Krishna Paksha of the month Maagha (as per Shalivahana) or Phalguna (as per Vikrama) in the Hindu Calendar. In India, the ceremonies take place chiefly at night, and the festival is observed in honour of Shiva, the lord of destruction, who it is believed was married on this day to Parvati. The day is marked by prayer and strict fasting. Some devotees do not even take a drop of water and they keep vigil all night. The Shiva Lingam is worshipped throughout the night by washing it every three hours with milk, curd, honey, rose water, etc., while the chanting of the mantra “Om Namah Shivaya” continues. Offerings of bael leaves are made to the Lingam as bael leaves are considered very sacred and it is said that Goddess Lakshmi resides in them. Hymns in praise of Lord Shiva, such as the “Shiva Mahimna Stotra” of Pushpadanta or Ravana’s “Shiva Tandava Stotra” are sung with great fervour and devotion. People repeat the “Panchakshara” mantra, “Om Namah Shivaya”. He or

Notes to pages 368–373

33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41.

42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

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she who utters the names of Shiva during Shivratri, with perfect devotion and concentration, is freed from all sins. He or she reaches the abode of Shiva and lives there happily. He or she is liberated from the wheel of births and deaths. Many pilgrims flock to the places where there are Shiva temples. http://www.indialife.com/ Festivals/shivratri.htm, accessed 17 July 2008. Jamaica Times, 22 March 1902. Ibid. Ibid. Moore, Cultural Power, 221. David Brandon, Some Amusing Reminiscences of a West Indian Barrister (Kingston: Jamaica Times, 1911), 19; Marjorie Nelson, How They Live: Sketches of Jamaican Life (Kingston: West Indies Publishing Co., 1940), 16. Martha Warren Beckwith, The Hussay Festival in Jamaica (Poughkeepsie: Vassar College, 1924), 5–6. Brandon, Amusing Reminiscences, 19; Nelson, How They Live, 16. Beckwith, Hussay Festival, 4. See also Nelson, How They Live, 16; Gladstone Burke, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/242. Brandon, Amusing Reminiscences, 19; Nelson, How They Live, 16. The Gleaner in 1887 spoke about Indians from nearby estates taking “the gaudily dressed images, which they worship as idols” to the Savanna-la-Mar festival. Daily Gleaner, 3 October 1887. Also Beckwith, Hussay Festival, 5. Beckwith, Hussay Festival, 6–7. Daily Gleaner, 18 July 1908. Beckwith, Hussay Festival, 6–7. Brandon, Amusing Reminiscences, 19; Burke, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/242. Jamaica Guardian, 6 March 1909. Beckwith, Hussay Festival, 7–9. Friends Jamaica Mission 4, no. 7 (July 1896), JA 5/8/78/5918. Beckwith, Hussay Festival, 9. “One Who Went to See”, Jamaica Times, 1 November 1902. Daily Gleaner, 18 July 1908. Daily Gleaner, 8 May 1917; Jamaica Guardian, 6 March 1909; Jamaica Times, 29 March 1902. Daily Gleaner, 18 July 1908. Jamaica Guardian, 6 March 1909. The Jamaica Guardian claimed in 1909 that the Port Antonio festival “had been arranged for the benefit of visiting tourists”. Jamaica Guardian, 22 February 1909. Daily Gleaner, 3 October 1887; Jamaica Guardian, 6 March 1909. Daily Gleaner, 18 July 1908. Jamaica Times, 29 March 1902; Brandon, Amusing Reminiscences, 19; Beckwith, Hussay Festival, 7–8; Burke, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/242. Sometimes small Indian

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Notes to pages 373–376

59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77.

village communities held their own Hosay festivals, as for instance those at Fellowship in Portland, who disposed of their Hussay in the Rio Grande (Jamaica Times, 3 May 1902), and at Rio Magno (Jamaica Times, 1 November 1902). Brandon, Amusing Reminiscences, 19; Nelson, How They Live, 19. Jamaica Guardian, 22 February 1909. Daily Gleaner, 3 October 1887. “One Who Went to See”, Jamaica Times, 1 November 1902. Jamaica Times, 13 April 1901. Friends Jamaica Mission 4, no. 7 (July 1896), JA 5/8/78/5918. Inspector W. McLeod (Port Antonio) to Inspector-General, 20 April 1902, in Hemming to Chamberlain, no. 241, 6 May 1902, CO 137/627. According to Beckwith, “Since any man may set up a Hussay for himself and different families or ‘castes’ think it desirable to have their own Hussay, several processions may start out on the same day in some one district and if they meet there is likely to be a bloody fight, each company trying to get right of way for his Hussay over the others.” Beckwith, Hussay Festival, 2. Daily Gleaner, 18 July 1908. Charles Doorly to Colonial Secretary, 24 April 1902, in Hemming to Chamberlain, no. 241, 6 May 1902, CO 137/627. Burke, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/242. Inspector McLeod, 20 April 1902; Jamaica Guardian, 6 March 1909. At Vere in 1908, 22 policemen were on hand to prevent disorder. Daily Gleaner, 18 July 1908. Inspector McLeod, 20 April 1902, and Sub-Inspector W.N.A. Adams (St Mary), 24 April 1902, in Hemming to Chamberlain, no. 241, 6 May 1902, CO 137/627; also Report of the Protector of Immigrants for 1915–16, in Daily Gleaner, 11 September 1916. Brandon, Amusing Reminiscences, 19–20; Report of the Protector of Immigrants for 1915–16; Beckwith, Hussay Festival, 2. Report of Lora Arms (Trinity and Highgate, St Mary), 2nd quarter 1919, JA 5/8/55/3842. Decennial censuses, 1881–1921. Report of the Immigration Department for 1913–14; reprinted in Daily Gleaner, 3 September 1914. Extract from the MacNeill-Chinman Lal report (1914) quoted in Jamaica Times, 8 May 1915. A.H. Alexander to Colonial Secretary, 19 October 1871, in Grant to Kimberley, no. 161, 8 November 1871, CO 137/459. As late as 1921, the Quakers reported that there was “much race prejudice between the Negroes and East Indians”. See Annual Report of the Friends Mission (Orange Bay, Cedar Hurst, Spicy Grove, Burlington, Fellowship and Prospect), 1921, JA 5/8/4/567.

Notes to pages 376–380

w 531

78. Zenana was the name given to the women’s quarters in a Hindu home in India. No male stranger was allowed to enter it, not even to give medical attention. Because wives were required to move into the households of their husband’s parents, their mothers-in-law ruled supreme in the zenanas. According to Martha Croll, however, they were generally “a dirty cheerless place, void of furniture, and always at the top of the house. The stair leading up to them is steep, dark, and narrow.” The Presbyterians (and presumably other denominations as well) were obliged to send female missionaries in order to reach Indian women in the zenanas, hence the term “zenana missionaries”. The Islamic custom of purdah effectively placed a woman in seclusion and required her to wear a veil. According to Croll, she could show her face only to her husband and her very nearest male relatives, but never in the presence of male strangers; and she could speak to her children when alone, but had to remain silent in the presence of her mother-in-law. See an address by Martha Croll at St Andrew’s Kirk on 16 October 1899 in Daily Gleaner, 21 October 1899. 79. Extract from the MacNeill-Chinman Lal report (1914) quoted in Jamaica Times, 8 May 1915. 80. “Wife murders” were sometimes reported in the press. See, for instance, Morning Journal, 14 April 1869; Daily Gleaner, 28 August 1878, 24 October 1880, 17 March 1885, and 17 February 1894; Jamaica Times, 14 November 1914. 81. Daily Gleaner, 8 July 1878. 82. Nayeck, was convicted and hanged in November 1881. Daily Gleaner, 1 October, 3 and 9 November 1881; Colonial Standard, 1 November 1881. 83. Daily Gleaner, 22 May 1882. 84. Jamaica Times, 12 November 1910; also Report of the Immigration Department for 1910–11, in Department Reports 1910–11, 160. 85. Jamaica Times, 16 November 1912. 86. Circular letter of the Agent General of Immigration, 17 July 1869, in Grant to Granville, no. 205, 25 August 1869, CO 137/443. 87. See Laws 23 of 1879, 3 of 1883, 4 of 1889, 20 of 1891, 2 of 1899, 13 of 1905, and 20 of 1916. 88. Law 22 of 1896. Also Blake to Chamberlain, no. 130, 8 April 1896, CO 137/573. For press reports on Indian divorces, see Daily Gleaner, 14 September 1896, and Jamaica Times, 7 September 1907. 89. This law used the Guyana ordinance 25 of 1891 as its model. See also Attorney-General’s Report, 9 April 1896, in Blake to Chamberlain, no. 227, 26 May 1896, CO 137/573. 90. “The Stranger Within Our Gates: At an East Indian Wedding”, Jamaica Times, 12 March 1910. 91. Ibid. The description of this Hindu wedding conforms with those in Guyana, Trinidad and Suriname. The “cross” marked on the forehead of the bride, was more

532

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Notes to pages 380–382

92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98.

99.

100. 101. 102.

103. 104. 105. 106.

107.

likely a straight line made with vermilion or red ochre. Moore, Cultural Power, 182–87. Friends Jamaica Mission 8, no. 5 (May 1900), JA 5/8/78/5955; also 8, no. 6 (June 1900), JA 5/8/78/5940. Presbyterian Church, Synod Report 1913, NLJ MST 2089. Friends Jamaica Mission 4, no. 2 (November 1896), JA 5/8/78/5967. Friends Jamaica Mission 8, no. 5 (May 1900), JA 5/8/78/5955. Presbyterian Church, Synod Report 1913, NLJ MST 2089. Friends Report, 3rd quarter (Sada F. Stanley, Annotto Bay), 30 September 1915, JA 5/8/2/423. Friends Jamaica Mission 5, no. 4 (April 1897), JA 5/8/78/5916. See also Report of Jennie M. Hoover, 31 March 1917, JA 5/8/2/439; and Friends Reports (Fellowship and Prospect), 1st quarter 1920, JA 5/8/4/551. Daily Gleaner, 22 February 1899. A similar scene was witnessed in May 1901 at Salt Ponds, when three Indian couples were married. “Every thing was done in orthodox fashion: the brides wore simple white dresses and veils; the bridegrooms were attired as any Jamaican in their station of life would be on his wedding day. . . . Most of the East Indian women present wore heavy earrings and massive chains, but the brides wore very little, if any jewellery.” Daily Gleaner, 25 May 1901. See, for instance, advertisements in Colonial Standard, 15 December 1891; Daily Gleaner, 3 December 1900 and 22 February 1919. Daily Gleaner, 28 July 1904. “Rute”/roti is a flat Indian bread cooked on an iron griddle. Report of the Protector of Immigrants A.H. Alexander, in Department Reports for 1882–1883, 95; and for 1883–84, Department Reports 1883–84, 199; M.E. White, Friends Reports, 3rd quarter 1919, JA 5/8/4/533; Nelson, How They Live, 16; A.M. Jackson, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/239; also Jamaica Times, 15 February 1902. Report of Richard Hill to Agent-General of Immigration, 25 June 1862, in Eyre to Newcastle, no. 106, 8 November 1862, CO 137/368. Helen M. Farr, “Our Premium Picture”, Friends Jamaica Mission 7, no. 5 (May 1900), JA 5/8/78, no. 5946. Report of Richard Hill to Agent-General of Immigration, 25 June 1862, in Eyre to Newcastle, no. 106, 8 November 1862, CO 137/368. Allan Kennedy of Somerset estate, Manchester, speculated that many Indians who committed suicide did so after finding out that they had eaten beef or pork contrary to their religion “and so lost caste, and became callous of life”. Evidence of Allan Kennedy, July 1867, Appendix C2 (Hospitals), Report of the Commissioners (1867). Report of Sub-Agent Richard Hill, 25 June 1862, in Eyre to Newcastle, no. 106, 8 November 1862, CO 137/368; and report of Sub-Agent Henry Laidlaw, 16 July 1863, in Eyre to Newcastle, no. 202, 24 August 1863, CO 137/374; Friends reports, 4th quarter 1919 (Port Antonio), JA 5/8/55/3908; “Italean” to editor, Daily Gleaner, 30

Notes to pages 383–386

108. 109. 110. 111. 112.

113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120.

121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126.

127. 128.

w 533

July 1915. A.M. Jackson admitted to having eaten curried goat and rice with Indian workers on Winchester estate in the Plantain Garden River district (“Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/239), and this must have been replicated wherever in the island Indians lived amidst the creole population. Certainly curried goat has become a favourite dish throughout Jamaica. Gilbert L. Farr to B.F. Trueblood, 4 June 1892, JA 5/8/10/963. Report of Mary E. White (Port Antonio, 1915–16), JA 5/8/2/431. Report of Mary E. White in Friends Jamaica Mission 8, no. 6 (June 1900), JA 5/8/78/5940. J.O. Brown, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/215. Report of Richard Hill (St Thomas in the Vale and St John’s), 25 June 1862, in Eyre to Newcastle, no. 106, 8 November 1862, CO 137/368. Hill noted that the Congo Africans also preferred ganja to tobacco. They called it fuomo. Daily Gleaner, 31 July 1896. “Interview with the Protector of Immigrants”, Daily Gleaner, 17 September 1896. Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, cited in Daily Gleaner, 18 November 1896. http://www.glass-pipes-water-bongs.com/dictionary/chillum.html, accessed 17 July 2008. Comments of an anonymous East Indian missionary in Jamaica Times, 5 July 1913. Oscar Plummer to editor, Daily Gleaner, 16 August 1911. Daily Gleaner, 31 July and 17 September 1896. Daily Gleaner, 28 September 1896. In 1898 the Synod of the Presbyterian Church petitioned the legislature, calling for prohibitive measures similar to those introduced by law 22 of 1894 in Trinidad, on the grounds that ganja had “debasing consequences moral and physical” (see petition dated February 1898 in Daily Gleaner, 10 September 1898). Daily Gleaner, 31 July 1896. “Interview with a Coolie Missionary”, Daily Gleaner, 22 September 1896. “Interview with the Protector of Immigrants”, Daily Gleaner, 17 September 1896. Cited in Daily Gleaner, 18 November 1896. Oscar Plummer, Daily Gleaner, 16 August 1911. Daily Gleaner, 17 September 1896 and 28 November 1896. According to the paper, “The report reproduces in a curious way this state of things. It decides that ganja is ordinarily harmless and yet recommends measures of effective control and restriction. The Commissioners evidently believe in their own minds that the stuff is injurious and are thus led into a compromise which says little for their judgment. Either the ganja is harmless or it is not. If it is it should be left alone; if it is not its use should be prohibited.” Letter to the editor, Jamaica Times, 11 September 1915. Port Antonio correspondent, Jamaica Times, 27 July 1912. The Gleaner added: “We

534

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129.

130. 131.

132. 133. 134.

135.

Notes to pages 386–389

have seen a coolie gardener – by nature a quiet, retiring, polite and most respectful man – behaving like a raving maniac while under the influence of the weed. And we have seen other equally amiable, inoffensive East Indians labouring under intense excitement – talking volubly, gesticulating wildly, with flashing eyes and quivering nerves – from the same cause. Naturally a poison so powerful affects the brain of every victim of the habit and gradually deprives him of all moral sense; and it is a well known fact that a large percentage of the murders committed by imported coolies has been directly traceable to the excessive use of ganja as a substitute for tobacco.” Daily Gleaner, 10 June 1913; also 26 January 1910. Jamaica Times, 20 April 1912. The Gleaner was even more alarming: “[I]f there is evidence (as we are told there is) that native cultivators are now beginning to grow some in increasing quantities – are taking to the smoking of the weed in increasing numbers themselves – and are commencing to exhibit the symptoms characteristic of confirmed victims of the habit – should not the question of prohibiting the cultivation and importation of ganja be faced seriously by the Government of the colony with the least possible delay?” Opium, it argued, was not as serious a problem in Jamaica as ganja because it was not manufactured locally, and the high price put it beyond the reach of the lower classes. “But ganja is cultivated in many parts of this island, and its cultivation is said to be spreading at an alarming rate. Moreover, the dried or prepared weed is so cheap as to be within the reach of the very poorest labourers in the country. Under those conditions, does not a great responsibility rest upon the Government – especially if it be true that natives are now succumbing to the vile and deadly habit? Why not forbid the cultivation of the plant absolutely?” Daily Gleaner, 10 June 1913. Report of the Immigration Department for 1916, Department Reports 1917; Law 15 of 1913; Daily Gleaner, 13 March 1914. Deputy Inspector-General to Inspector-General of Police, 25 November 1913; minute of Inspector-General, 13 December 1913; Acting Detective Sergeant-Major to Detective Inspector, 18 October 1923; Minute of Detective Inspector, 19 October 1923; and Minute of Acting Attorney-General 24 October 1923, JA 1B/5/76/3, no. 274. Moore, Cultural Power, 237–38. Daily Gleaner, 17 June 1899, 4 May 1900, and 10 December 1909. On May 2, two lads pleaded guilty to consulting an Indian woman reputed to be working obeah. “The Chinese in Jamaica”, Jamaica Times, 8 July 1916; and Jamaica Times, 3 December 1898. Also Jacqueline Levy, “The Economic Role of the Chinese in Jamaica: The Grocery Retail Trade”, Jamaica Historical Review 15 (1986): 31–49. For allegations of Chinese commercial malpractice, see, for instance, Jamaica Times, 2 March 1901, 21 December 1907, and 8 August 1908. In the early twentieth century there was enormous hostility against Chinese immigration into Jamaica. See, for instance, a report of a resolution of the Citizen’s Association of Montego Bay in Jamaica Times, 20 June 1908. In 1913, R.H. Ferguson proposed the formation of a

Notes to pages 389–390

136.

137. 138. 139.

140.

w 535

league to prevent Chinese from entering Jamaica (see his letter, Jamaica Times, 14 June 1913). The Gleaner and its readers were generally quite hostile to the Chinese. See the following editorials and articles: “Immigration That Is Getting Beyond Bounds”, 22 June 1912; “Chinese and Syrian Traders”, 15 October 1912; “Chinese Influx”, 28 May 1913; “An Important Topic of the Day”, 17 July 1913; “Chinese Influx”, 14 October 1913; “Public Issues”(p. 6), untitled editorial (pp. 8–9), and “Chinese Influx to Jamaica” (p. 17), 11 July 1914. The following are a sample of anti-Chinese letters in the Gleaner: T.A. Thomas, 7 October 1912; “K.G.”, 19 October 1912; R. Benjamin, 26 October 1912; A. Leo Rankin, 31 October 1913; H. Gordon Martin, 1 October 1913; “A Citizen”, 4 October 1913; “A Poor Jamaican”, 20 October 1913; D. Lynch Meikle, 4 March 1914; “Interested”, 7 November 1917; J.W. Graham, 9 July 1917; “Truth”, 2 October 1917; “Australian”, 15 October and 6 November 1917; A.G. Helps, 16 October 1917; A.S. Clarke, 23 October 1917; “Anti-Chink”, 29 October 1917; “Jamaica for Jamaicans”, 21 November 1917; and A. Gordon Tennant, 26 November 1917. For an analysis of the 1918 riots, see Howard Johnson, “The AntiChinese Riots of 1918 in Jamaica”, Immigrants and Minorities 2 (1983). See also Jamaica Times, 20 and 27 July 1918; Daily Gleaner, 10, 11, 12 and 13 July 1918; Probyn to Long, no. 283A, 22 July 1918, JA 1B/5/18, vol. 23; and no. 337 and enclosures, 5 September 1918, CO 137/727. The usually sympathetic Jamaica Times condemned this action on the grounds that first, it implied that Jamaica was a half-civilized country with wild savages and without reliable courts. Second, the Chinese were awarded 75 per cent of their damage claims without Jamaicans being given an opportunity to ascertain if the claims were just (Jamaica Times, 28 December 1918). The compensation money was to be paid by the very people, many of whom felt “cheated” and “shut out” of the lucrative retail trade by the Chinese (see note 135). Jamaica Times, 26 November 1898. “Our Chinese Colony”, Jamaica Times, 20 November 1898. “Jamaican” to the editor, Daily Gleaner, 26 June 1908. In 1909, for instance, Martin Brown who cohabited with Anita Leon, returned home one day to find a Chinese man “paying his attention to Anita, who seemed to appreciate the advances”. An argument and fight ensued in which Anita stabbed Martin with a knife. She was sentenced to six months in prison. Daily Gleaner, 19 August 1909. Jamaica Times, 9 April 1904, 13 June 1908, 14 June 1913 and 24 November 1917. It also printed a series of articles entitled “The Exclusion of Aliens” in its issues of 2, 9, 16, 23 and 30 November 1907, arguing against their exclusion. Several persons also defended the Chinese, for example, “M”, Jamaica Times, 13 June 1908. And in the Gleaner, “Amelia Scroggings”, 17 October 1912; T.H. Sharp, 31 October 1912; William James, 6 April 1914; J.W. Chin, 20 November 1916; T. Allison Reddie, 3 October 1917; W.A. Harris, 11 October 1917; John Bull, Jnr. and Wilf F. Duhaney, 22 October 1917; “Fairplay”, 23 October 1917; “A Jamaican”, 26 October 1917; W.

536

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Notes to pages 391–394

141.

142. 143. 144. 145. 146.

147. 148. 149.

150. 151.

152. 153. 154.

155. 156.

Theo Bailey, 29 October 1917; “Chinese Girl”, 30 October 1917; “A Jamaica Leaguer”, 31 October 1917; “You know who”, 6 November 1917; A. Chang, 12 November 1917; “Facts”, 26 November 1917; H. Vincent Hopwood, 6 December 1917; and T. Leahong, 20 September 1918. On occasions such as the reopening of the Chinese temple in 1908 and the opening of the Chinese Freemasons hall in 1917, Kingston’s political establishment (including the mayor) was present. The freemasons hall was actually “christened” by the rector of the Kingston Parish Church. In 1895 (Chinese New Year) and again in 1909, on the occasion of the visit of the Chinese ambassador to the United States and Cuba to the island, the governor visited the temple. Jamaica Times, 13 October 1906. “Sunday at the Chinese Lottery”, Daily Gleaner, 1 July 1897. Ibid. “Our Chinese Colony”, Jamaica Times, 26 November 1898. See the court testimonies of John Harris Carr and Charles Emanuel (both Chinese), and the addresses by Philip Stern, counsel for the Chinese defendants in the cases Regina vs Ah Chin and Regina vs Chin Tow Kow. Daily Gleaner, 2, 3, 13 October, 20 and 22 November 1900. With respect to the buildings in the compound, the Gleaner reported the formal opening of a clubhouse on the premises, complete with a flag-raising ceremony “according to the eastern custom” on 29 June 1898, quite separate from the temple. Daily Gleaner, 30 June 1898. Jamaica Times, 26 November 1898. Ibid. It was incorporated under the Incorporated Companies and Societies Law 23 of 1886, and its first president was James Solomon. Daily Gleaner, 11 December 1897, 18 March 1898. Daily Gleaner, 19 August 1909. The rebuilt temple was opened with great eclat on 5 February 1908. Daily Gleaner, 6 February 1908. In 1901, for instance, several members applied to the local court of law to have the treasurer, Chin Tow Kow, compelled to appoint two accountants to examine the books of the society. Daily Gleaner, 9 October 1901. “A Chinese Luncheon”, Jamaica Times, 26 March 1910. Daily Gleaner, 13 June 1907. Daily Gleaner, 11 September 1909. This was a red-letter day for the Chinese community and it culminated with a dinner and reception at the South Camp Road Hotel. Jamaica Times, 27 May 1911; Cork to Harcourt, no. 200, 31 May 1911, JA 1B/5/18, vol. 66. Daily Gleaner, 24 June 1911; also (Mrs) T.B. Butcher, A Peep at Jamaica and Its People (London: Charles E. Kelly, 1902), 21–22. Whereas there had been comments about the Chinese reticence to participate in things British in 1902, on this occasion, they

Notes to pages 395–399

157. 158. 159. 160. 161. 162. 163. 164.

165. 166.

167. 168. 169. 170. 171. 172.

w 537

seemed more anxious to display evidence of their loyalty to their newly adopted land and empire. As “aliens”, the Chinese did not want to be left out of this British moment lest they be accused of not appreciating the hand of kindness that had been extended to them by “allowing” them to settle and even to succeed at their various enterprises in Jamaica. Daily Gleaner, 21 June 1897. Ibid. David Brandon, “In the Eye of the Lawyer”, Jamaica Times, 7 November 1908; also Brandon, Amusing Reminiscences, 13. Jamaica Times, 26 March 1910; Daily Gleaner, 23 April 1910. Daily Gleaner, 1 February 1908. Jamaica Times, 23 February 1901, 8 February 1919; Daily Gleaner, 20 January 1903 and 22 January 1909; Jamaica Guardian, 22 January 1909. Daily Gleaner, 1 February 1908 and 22 January 1909; Jamaica Post, 22 January 1898; Jamaica Guardian, 19 and 22 January 1909. Daily Gleaner, 20 January 1886; “Sunday at the Chinese Lottery”, Daily Gleaner, 1 July 1897. A Chinese steward on a steamer trading with Jamaica reportedly said that opium smoking was very prevalent among the Chinese immigrants, especially in Kingston and Port Antonio; and when he went ashore, he was begged by poor Chinese for money to buy the drug (“Correspondent” to editor, Daily Gleaner, 9 June 1916). Addicts had to have their regular supplies of opium. Thus in 1890 “Ahyang” who visited his friend “Aken” at the Sutton Street jail, took him a loaf of bread which contained about eight grains of opium in it. “The opium was inserted very cleverly by raising a portion of the top crust and pressing it down with the finger. . . .” Colonial Standard, 9 August 1890. No statistical records seem to have been kept for the period 1880–1906 so, as the Gleaner observed, no one knew how much of the substance was imported during this time. Daily Gleaner, 15 April 1896. Inspector-General to Colonial Secretary, 5 February 1920, JA 1B/5/76/3, no. 274; Daily Gleaner, 10 June 1913. “Patriot” to the editor, Daily Gleaner, 8 December 1906. At the turn of the twentieth century, Chinese immigrants to the Witwatersrand in South Africa were widely accused of sodomy both among themselves and with Africans, and some who went to Australia had homosexual relationships. Moore, Cultural Power, 273. Daily Gleaner, 15 April 1896 and 1 July 1897. Long after his arrest he was not able to move a limb, but was retching considerably. Daily Gleaner, 27 July 1875. Daily Gleaner, 15 April 1896, 18 February 1897. Cork to Harcourt, no. 276, 19 July 1912, CO 137/692. Olivier to Harcourt, no. 310, 24 August 1912, JA 1B/5/18, vol. 67. Law 15 of 1913; Manning to Harcourt, no. 313, 18 August 1913, CO 137/698; Super-

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Notes to pages 399–410

173. 174. 175. 176. 177.

178. 179. 180. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185. 186. 187.

intending Medical Officer (hereafter SMO) to Colonial Secretary, 6 February 1914, JA 1B/5/76/3, no. 274; Daily Gleaner, 21 November 1913. SMO to Colonial Secretary, 6 February 1914, JA 1B/5/76/3, no. 274. Minute of Charles Don, 8 October 1918, JA 1B/5/76/3, no. 274. Detective Sergeant Atkinson to Deputy Inspector-General, 6 December 1918, JA 1B/5/76/3, no. 274. Minutes of the SMO, 12 and 26 February 1920, JA 1B/5/76/3, no. 274. In 1922 the SMO sought the advice of the attorney-general to have this adopted under the law. See SMO to Colonial Secretary, 15 February 1922, JA 1B/5/76/3, no. 274. Malcolm Deleviugne (Home Office) to Under-Secretary of State (Colonial Office), 28 March 1922, JA 1B/5/76/3, no. 274. Daily Gleaner, 1 June 1878. Jamaica Times, 8 July 1916. Daily Gleaner, 22 December 1917. Ibid. Morning Journal, 16 September 1873. Maggie Jakes, “Jamaica Memories”, JA 7/12/1; Brandon, Amusing Reminiscences, 13; Daily Gleaner, 5 October 1910. Daily Gleaner, 3 January 1917. Jamaica Times, 6 January 1917. Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2004), chapter 8.

Chapter 13 1. For a full discussion of obeah beliefs and practices, and of Christianity in post-emancipation Jamaica, see Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2004), chapters 2, 3 and 6. 2. In 2008, a public debate was aroused over the plan of the Bible Society of the West Indies and Wycliffe Bible Translators Caribbean to translate the Bible into Jamaican Creole. Ironically, even Jamaica’s prime minister, Bruce Golding, signalled his opposition to the idea of Jamaican as the national language. Although the cultural elites have now broadened socially to include a large number of educated blacks and coloureds, the colonial mind set remains in place. Jamaica Gleaner, 22, 29 and 30 June 2008; and Jamaica Observer, 22, 24 and 28 June 2008. 3. R.T. Smith, “Social Stratification, Cultural Pluralism and Integration in West Indian Societies”, in Caribbean Integration, ed. S. Lewis and T. Mathews (Río Piedras: University of Puerto Rico Press, 1967).

Notes to pages 411–414

w 539

4. In addition to the debate over Jamaican creole language usage that arose in 2008, a new hullabaloo arose in 2009 over music and dance. The moralistic elite minority from among the middle and upper classes successfully pressed the Broadcast Commission to ban the lyrics of songs played on radio which they deemed vulgar; and the Jamaica Council of Churches called on the authorities to ban dancehall parties where dances called “daggerin’ ” (that simulate the sex act) are performed. 5. Some of the same language that was employed by the cultural elites in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has resurfaced. Senator Hyacinth Bennett has called for a moral rearmament campaign to address “a moral vacuum that has been created in the country”. The aims of the campaign would be “to develop a reverence for life and to civilise [our emphasis] and humanise more of the nation’s young”, enabling them to, among other things, love and not hate. Bennett’s is not a lone voice from among the new cultural and political elite. Two former prime ministers also sought to address the same issue. Edward Seaga advocated the teaching of character education, and P.J. Patterson implemented a “values and attitudes” programme during the 1990s. Jamaica Gleaner, 21 June 2008. 6. Edward Brathwaite, Contradictory Omens: Cultural Diversification and Integration in the Caribbean (Kingston: Savacou, 1974), especially pages 11, 30–31, and 62–64. 7. Lloyd Braithwaite, Social Stratification in Trinidad: A Preliminary Analysis (Kingston: Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1975); “The Problem of Cultural Integration in Trinidad”, Social and Economic Studies 3 (1954): 82–96; and “Social Stratification and Cultural Pluralism”, in Social and Cultural Pluralism in the Caribbean, ed. Vera Rubin, Annals of the New York Academy of Science 83, Art. 5 (1960), 816– 35; Raymond T. Smith, “Race and Class in the Post-Emancipation Caribbean”, in Racism and Colonialism, ed. Robert Ross (The Hague: M. Nijhoff for the Leiden University Press, 1982); Stuart Hall, “Pluralism, Race and Class in Caribbean Society”, in UNESCO, Race and Class in Post-colonial Society (Paris: UNESCO, 1977); Malcolm Cross, “On Conflict, Race Relations, and the Theory of the Plural Society”, Race 12, no. 4 (1971): 477–93; Patrick Bryan, The Jamaican People 1880–1902 (London: Macmillan Caribbean, 1991); William A. Green, “The Creolisation of Caribbean History: The Emancipation Era and the Critique of Dialectical Analysis”, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 14, no. 3 (1986). 8. O. Nigel Bolland, “Creolisation and Creole Societies: A Cultural Nationalist View of Caribbean Social History”, in Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century Caribbean, vol 1., Spectre of the New Class: The Commonwealth Caribbean, ed. Alastair Hennessy (London: Macmillan Caribbean, 1992). 9. See in particular, chapter 10 “Britannica versus Africana”, 311–25. 10. Burton defines “resistance” as “those forms of contestation of a given system that are conducted from outside that system, using weapons and concepts derived from a source or sources other than the system in question”. Thus he argues that Afrocreole culture was not a culture of resistance, certainly not after emancipation,

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Notes to page 415

because it utilized cultural elements borrowed from the dominant system itself, contested that system on its own ground, and did not overthrow or fundamentally alter that system. Accordingly, he distinguishes it as a culture of “opposition” rather than one of resistance. Richard D.E. Burton, Afro-Creole: Power, Opposition, and Play in the Caribbean (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 6–12. 11. Édouard Glissant concurs, arguing that the process of creolization produces unpredictable results. See his “Creolization in the making of the Americas” in Race, Discourse, and the Origin of the Americas: A New World View, ed. Vera Lawrence Hyatt and Rex Nettleford (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995), 269–75.

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WEST INDIES (MONA) LIBRARY

Department Reports, 1879–1920 Laws of Jamaica, 1860–1920 Decennial censuses, 1861–1921

SIR A RTHUR LEWIS INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES Brodber, Erna. “Life in Jamaica in the Early 20th Century: A Presentation of 90 Oral Accounts”. Original transcripts.

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