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Re: Great Jamaicans in history

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2017 4:24 am
by mikesiva
'Roy Anthony "Tony" McNeill (1941–1996) was a Jamaican poet, considered one of the most promising West Indian writers of his generation, whose career was cut short by his early death.
McNeill was born in Kingston, Jamaica and educated at Excelsior School and St. George's College (where he was already known to his friends as a poet) before leaving to study in the United States. He studied creative writing at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, from which he graduated with a PhD. He returned to Jamaica in 1975, where he worked as a journalist and assistant editor of the Jamaica Journal (1975–81), as well as in a variety of other jobs, including civil servant, encyclopedia salesman, and janitor.
While a student in the US, McNeill began writing seriously. His first major collection of poems, Reel from "The Life Movie", appeared in 1972 and immediately established his reputation in Jamaica alongside his contemporaries Dennis Scott and Mervyn Morris. This was followed by Credences at the Altar of Cloud (1979) and Chinese Lanterns from the Blue Child, published posthumously in 1998. Other significant work remains unpublished. McNeill was known for his experimental style, influenced by contemporary jazz as well as American poets like Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and E. E. Cummings. He once said, of his first collection, "I don't think I could write if my first concern wasn't for the aesthetic." He also claimed that his greatest ambition was to be a jazz pianist. He was recognised by his peers as a prodigious talent, but McNeill was plagued by alcoholism and drug abuse. In one of his later poems he wrote, "I realised very early I had no gift for conducting a life. So I shifted my focus and sang a wreath." He died while undergoing surgery at the University Hospital of the West Indies on 2 January 1996. In an obituary essay, poet and literary scholar Mervyn Morris wrote: "We have lost one of the finest of our West Indian poets, an extreme talent, recklessly experimental, awesome in commitment to his gift."'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_McNeill" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Great Jamaicans in history

Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 5:28 am
by mikesiva
Another powerful champion of the plantocracy when Jamaica's whites were among the wealthiest in the world....

'Sir William Anglin Scarlett (1777-1831) was Chief Justice of Jamaica. Scarlett was the son of Robert Scarlett who owned property in Jamaica. His elder brother, James, was to become Attorney General. He was educated in Edinburgh and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1802. In 1809, Scarlett married Mary Williams of Luana estate in St. Elizabeth. Scarlett became Chief Justice of Jamaica in 1821. In 1823, Scarlett successfully descended a man against a charge of libel brought by the Duke of Manchester, the Governor of Jamaica. Scarlett was successful, but even as a Chief Justice, was abused as he left. He was involved again in another case where he opposed the governor. Scarlett released prisoners but they were rearrested and exiled from Jamaica. Scarlett's decision was in time upheld by the British Parliament. The case began when Louis Celeste Lecesne and John Escoffery were arrested on 7 October 1823 under the Alien Act by a warrant of the Duke of Manchester, the Governor of Jamaica. They were considered by the Attorney General, William Burge to be of a dangerous character and to be aliens as they were clained to be Haitians. Luckily they had time to raise a writ of Habeas Corpus in the Supreme Court of Jamaica. Scarlett released them, but it took Parliament to uphold his decision. Scarlett was knighted in 1829. Scarlett died in 1831. His obituary noted that he had been ill and that even his detractors noted his "love of justice". His wife died the following year.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Anglin_Scarlett" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Great Jamaicans in history

Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2017 2:58 am
by mikesiva
'Virtue was born in Kingston, Jamaica, was educated there and was employed by the Jamaican Department of Public Works. On his retirement from the civil service in 1960, he moved to London. He served as the assistant secretary, librarian and later vice-president of the Poetry League of Jamaica. He was a founding member and vice-president of the Jamaican Center of PEN International. He was also a member of the British Royal Society of Literature and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Virtue translated poetry by José-Maria de Heredia from French into English as well as poems in Spanish by other Caribbean and Latin American poets. He received the Silver Musgrave Medal from the Institute of Jamaica in 1960. On the occasion of the Commonwealth Arts Festival in 1965, he was commissioned to write a poem in honour of Marcus Garvey. His work appeared in various journals, anthologies and the collection Wings of the Morning (1938). He frequently appeared on the BBC's Caribbean Voices radio programme. Virtue died in London in 1998 at the age of 87 after an extended illness from heart disease and bronchopneumonia.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Virtue" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Vivian Virtue....

Re: Great Jamaicans in history

Posted: Mon May 08, 2017 5:24 pm
by mikesiva
'After 10 years in Haiti, Love moved to Jamaica in 1889. There he started the Jamaica Advocate, which became an influential newspaper on the island. Love used the paper as a forum to express his concern for the living conditions of Jamaica's black population. He was a staunch advocate of access to education for the majority of the population. He believed that girls, like boys, should receive secondary school education. In 1906, Love won the St. Andrew Parish seat in Jamaica's general elections. He also served as chairman of the St. Andrew Parochial Board, as well as a justice of the peace in Kingston, the Kingston General Commissions and as a Wolmer's trustee. Love published two works, Romanism is Not Christianity (1892), and St. Peter's True Position in the Church, Clearly Traced in the Bible (1897). In 1906 Love's health began to deteriorate, and by 1910 he had been forced to end his political career. He died on 21 November 1914, and was buried in the parish church yard at Half Way Tree, near the city of Kingston. Love's activism in favour of Jamaica's economically depressed black majority influenced later Jamaican and Caribbean activists, including Marcus Garvey.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Robert_Love" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Great Jamaicans in history

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 3:00 am
by mikesiva
The wealthy slave-owning planter Peter Beckford, who founded St Jago High School....

'Colonel Peter Beckford (1643–1710) was acting Governor of Jamaica in 1702. Peter was the son of another Peter Beckford, of Maidenhead. Sir Thomas Beckford, Sheriff of London was his uncle as was Captain Richard Beckford, who was trading in Jamaica from 1659. Peter emigrated there in 1662, afterwards becoming President of the Jamaican Council and acting Governor in 1702. He arrived in Jamaica with two or three enslaved Africans shortly after it became an English colony and engaged himself as hunter and horse catcher. When he died suddenly in a fit of passion in 1710, he was the wealthiest planter in Jamaica, and it was claimed he was "in possession of the largest property real and personal of any subject in Europe." Having served as a seaman, he was granted a thousand acres (4 km²) of land in Clarendon by Royal Patent on 6 March 1669. He took an active part in island politics, representing St. Catherine in the Assembly in 1675, and was later called to the Council where he was appointed President. He was appointed Chief Justice of Jamaica in 1703. He was the first Custos of Kingston, and a street was named after him there. He was renowned for being haughty with a strong temper and was involved in many heated debates. He was twice married - to Bridget who died in 1691, and to Anne Ballard in 1696. He had two sons. Peter was the elder. The death of Peter senior resulted from an accident when he rushed to the defence of his son, who had caused such a commotion in the House of Assembly that swords were drawn.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Beckford" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Jago_High_School" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Great Jamaicans in history

Posted: Wed May 31, 2017 2:39 am
by mikesiva
Morris Cargill CD (10 June 1914 – 8 April 2000, Kingston) was a Jamaican lawyer, businessman, planter, journalist and novelist. Educated at Munro College, a prestigious Jamaican secondary school, and the Stowe School in England, Cargill was articled as a solicitor in 1937. During World War II, he worked for the Crown Film Unit in Britain. After the war, he played a role in the development of the coffee liqueur Tia Maria. Returning to the Caribbean he worked as a newspaper editor in Trinidad, and, having acquired a banana plantation in Jamaica, began a career as a columnist for the Gleaner newspapers in 1953 which was to last, with some interruptions, until his death. Until the late 1970s, his articles appeared under the pseudonym "Thomas Wright". In 1958, he was elected to the parliament of the Federation of the West Indies, as a candidate of the Jamaica Labour Party, and served as deputy leader of the opposition in that legislature for the next four years. In 1964 he persuaded his friend Ian Fleming to write the introductory article for a guidebook to Jamaica called Ian Fleming introduces Jamaica. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he collaborated with novelist John Hearne, under the pseudonym 'John Morris', on a series of three thrillers -- Fever Grass, The Candywine Development, and The Checkerboard Caper—about an imaginary Jamaican secret service. Cargill makes an appearance, in the surprising guise of a high court judge, at the end of Fleming's novel The Man with the Golden Gun. For two years in the late 1970s, he left Jamaica because of his opposition to the government of Michael Manley, returning in 1980 to join the campaign against Manley. During this period he lived in the United States and worked for the publisher Lyle Stuart, editing a study of the Third Reich in Germany called A Gallery of Nazis, and writing a memoir called Jamaica Farewell (an expanded version of which was reissued in 1995).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Cargill" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Great Jamaicans in history

Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 10:45 am
by mikesiva
'Peter Beckford (junior), (1672/3 – 1735), was the son of Peter Beckford, founder of one of the most powerful families in colonial Jamaica. Peter joined the Jamaican House of Assembly and became the Speaker. In 1710, during a debate at the Assembly, things became extremely heated and some members drew their swords and threatened Peter, the Speaker. The Governor responded to shouts for assistance and the doors of the chamber were forced open. The Assembly was dissolved in the name of the Queen. The aged Peter Beckford senior was amongst those who had come to his rescue. In the general confusion, he slipped and fell down the long staircase. Suffering a mortal injury, he died soon after. Like his father, Beckford suffered a severe temper. As a young man, he was accused of killing the Deputy Judge Advocate of Jamaica in a fit of temper. He was finally acquitted after a lengthy court case. In 1720, he was one of the prominent people in Jamaica about whom the governor Sir Nicholas Lawes complained had "anarchical principles". He went into business with Alexander Grant, leasing a storehouse from which the partners sold supplies to other plantation owners. Peter married Bathshua Herring and they had thirteen children. He died in 1735. His will included a legacy of £2,000 to found a school in Spanish Town, which was started there in 1744. This school merged with another school started with £3,000 donated by Francis Smith forming the Beckford and Smith School in 1869. His son, William was born in 1709. William emigrated to England and had a prominent career in politics, defending the West Indian interest as a Member of Parliament and Lord Mayor of London.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Beckford_(junior" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

Correction: It was Peter Beckford the son who founded St Jago High School.

Re: Great Jamaicans in history

Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2017 10:11 am
by mikesiva
'William Beckford (19 December 1709 – 21 June 1770) was a well-known political figure in 18th-century London, who twice held the office of Lord Mayor of London (1762 and 1769). His vast wealth came largely from his plantations in Jamaica and the large numbers of slaves working on these plantations. He was, and is, often referred to as "Alderman Beckford" to distinguish him from his son William Thomas Beckford, the author and art collector. Beckford was born in Jamaica the grandson of Colonel Peter Beckford. He was sent to England by his family in 1723 to be educated. He studied at Westminster School, and made his career in the City of London....As a rich patron, he used his 'interest' in favour of William Pitt the Elder, sponsoring and encouraging his political rise, supporting the Whig cause in general and the West Indies sugar industry (from which his fortune came)in particular.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Beckford_(politician" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

Re: Great Jamaicans in history

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2017 9:08 am
by mikesiva
William Robinson Clarke was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on 4 October 1895. With the outbreak of war, ‘Robbie’ Clarke paid his own passage to Britain and joined the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) on 26 July 1915. At first, he served as an air mechanic, but on 18 October he was posted to France as a driver with an observation balloon company. Clarke wanted to fly, however, and in December 1916 he was accepted for pilot training in England. On 26 April 1917, Clarke won his ‘wings’ and was promoted to Sergeant.

On 29 May 1917, Sergeant Clarke joined 4 Squadron RFC at Abeele in Belgium and began flying R.E.8 biplanes over the Western Front. While on a reconnaissance mission on the morning of 28 July, he and his observer, Second Lieutenant F.P. Blencowe, were attacked by enemy fighters. He described the action in a letter to his mother:

“I was doing some photographs a few miles the other side when about five Hun scouts came down upon me, and before I could get away, I got a bullet through the spine. I managed to pilot the machine nearly back to the aerodrome, but had to put her down as I was too weak to fly any more … My observer escaped without any injury.”

Robbie recovered from his wounds, and after the war returned to Jamaica to work in the building trade. He was an active veteran and became Life President of the Jamaican branch of the Royal Air Forces Association.

William Robinson Clarke, the first Black pilot to fly for Britain, died in April 1981.

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/o ... larke.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Great Jamaicans in history

Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2017 3:17 am
by mikesiva
My penultimate entry, Cuffee, the leader of a group of runaway slaves, who successfully resisted the Jamaican colonial authorities, and the Maroons....

Just two years after the conclusion of the Second Maroon War, the planters and Governor Balcarres were complaining about a community of runaway slaves that was terrorising western Jamaica. In 1798, a slave named Cuffee escaped from the Peru estate, owned by James McGhie, and led his runaways to the mountains of south Trelawny, at a place that was formerly under the control of the Trelawny Town Maroons. Balcarres believed that a number of Cuffee’s runaways either fought on the side of Trelawny Town, or secured their freedom during the Second Maroon War. It is very likely that the men of Cuffee’s community received weapons from the Trelawny Town Maroons. They were well armed, and planters expressed the concern that, ‘the maroons must have left in the woods…an immense quantity of ammunition.’ In late 1796, Balcarres had complained that the Trelawny Town Maroons had only surrendered weapons of poor quality, and, ‘that they left in the woods other arms’. Since it is likely that the Trelawny Town Maroons gave arms to Cuffee’s runaways, then there is not enough evidence to support Campbell’s claim that these Maroons betrayed the runaways who fought on their side. Rather, the evidence seems to show that the Trelawny Town Maroons, upon surrendering, left most of their weapons with the runaway slaves who fought on their side, and that these runaways joined other runaway communities, such as those led by Cuffee.

Cuffee and his men were a bigger problem to western planters than any runaway community since the Leeward Maroons signed the treaty of 1739. Planters received reports that, ‘the mountains where the rebellion exists are covered with provisions’. As a result, Cuffee’s community was able to thrive for years outside the control of the colonial authorities. Because of Cuffee’s attacks, ‘many of the back settlements are already abandoned, and the families of some of the proprietors of the estates in that vicinity are removing to situations of more safety.’ Cuffee and his band of runaway slaves, ‘descended from his haunts in the Trelawny mountains, and committed depredations on the settlements in the neighbourhood’. Balcarres complained that, ‘upwards of 30 Settlers have been driven from their Habitations’. More runaways rallied to Cuffee’s banner, and some planters even expressed the fear that this group might be more dangerous than the Second Maroon War. In London, the Colonial Office worried about the rise of Cuffee, and the Duke of Portland expressed his concern about, ‘the increased alarm occasioned by the outrages committed by the runaway slaves’. While the communities of the Congo Settlement and Brutus barely got a mention in colonial records, Cuffee’s community attracted the concern of the British government. The attacks launched by Cuffee’s group of runaways caused significant disruptions to the way of life of the inhabitants of coastal western Jamaica, who were only just recovering from the economic setbacks of the Second Maroon War.

Colonial writers differed on the number of runaways who supported Cuffee, and Balcarres initially downplayed the threat posed by the community to the Jamaican government. At first, the governor said that, ‘the force of Cuffee I have every reason to think is 43.’ Later, he added that, ‘it is supposed that there is another party very near him, of 30 rebels more, under the command of a Negro who has been out since the Maroon Rebellion.’ Planters filed reports of a party of 50-60 ‘well armed’ runaway slaves attacking plantations. In addition to these numbers, there were other reports that Cuffee’s men were joined first by ‘twenty other negroes,’ and then by ‘twenty more’. There were complaints that slaves ran away on a daily basis to join Cuffee. In the first three months of 1798, more than twice as many slaves ran away in Trelawny than in all of 1797. The writings of contemporaries referred to Cuffee’s community of runaway slaves numbering about 100, and causing problems to the planter class of western Jamaica. It seems possible that most of the runaways who fought on the side of Trelawny Town eventually secured freedom by joining Cuffee’s community.

The governor’s attempts to subdue Cuffee’s community came to naught. An initial party of militia from the parish of St James, ‘came up with the rebel Negro Cuffee and his gang,’ but Balcarres reported with regret that, ‘this very favourable opportunity of putting an end to the rebellion was entirely lost’. The governor did not provide any further details, but we can assume that the runaways escaped into the Cockpit Country, and that they re-formed the community once the militia left. Urged on by the planters, Balcarres put together a force, including Maroons from Accompong Town, because of, ‘their knowledge of the country,’ after ‘high rewards’ were offered to them. This party came across, ‘a little town of huts, capable of holding more than 100 Negroes, with many well-beaten trails leading to it and from it in various directions’. The Accompong Maroons only found a group of uninhabited huts, and they were unable to subdue the members of Cuffee’s community.

The number of runaways was large enough for them to occupy several makeshift villages. The colonial authorities found out that Cuffee’s community was located at High Windward, and that it, ‘had a small stream running near it,’ which served the purpose of providing the runaways with a regular supply of water. High Windward was located in that part of the Cockpit Country that was at the junction of the four parishes of Trelawny, St Ann, Clarendon, and what was then a larger St Elizabeth, in what would later become Manchester. However, upon interrogating a captured runaway named Patty, the colonial authorities later discovered that while this was the main town, it was only one of four or five towns that Cuffee’s group utilised, and that, ‘wherever they walk, they build little Huts’. The runaways called one of their towns Bellyfull-Town, because that is where they would eat their provisions after successful raids on Edward Fleming’s estate. The colonial authorities had difficulty tracking down the runaways, because, ‘Cuffee’s party are by no means stationary, (and) that they move about frequently from place to place.’ While the colonial authorities classified Cuffee as ‘their Headman’, Patty informed her captors that the male runaways, ‘are all occasionally Headman’. Cuffee’s community had a rotating leadership, and because they did not have a fixed location, the colonial authorities and their Maroon warriors had difficulty tracking them.

Cuffee’s group was not the only community of runaways to come to prominence in the years following the Second Maroon War. In May 1798, a recaptured runaway slave informed the colonial authorities that there were three separate groups of runaways. In addition to Cuffee’s main group, there was one led by, ‘a young Congo Negro man, who was a shipmate of one of those of Mr McGhie’s Negroes that were hanged after the Maroon War’. Contemporary writers later reported that the name of the Congo runaway was Peter, that he had escaped from a plantation owned by a man named Franklyn, and that his community was located in the western hills of the Cockpit Country. In the aftermath of the deportation of the Maroons of Trelawny Town, several communities of runaway slaves established themselves in the mountainous forests of the Cockpit Country. It is possible that members of these three runaway communities came from the escaped slaves who fought on the side of Trelawny Town during the Second Maroon War, but did not surrender at the conflict’s conclusion.

One contemporary writer downplayed the significance of Cuffee’s community, but evidence from the planter records shows that Cuffee’s runaways caused a lot of trouble to the white inhabitants of western Jamaica. Edwards claimed that because fear was, ‘a wonderful magnifier of danger,’ this group was, ‘the cause of much anxiety,’ out of proportion with the damage they inflicted. However, the planters whose estates suffered from Cuffee’s attacks would have disagreed with Edwards. Cuffee and his men destroyed plantations in the parish of Trelawny, such as Venture, Cox-heath pen, Pantre-Pant and Oxford estate. Cuffee’s attacks in the months of March through to June 1798 ruined the estates of more than a dozen planters, and burnt down the homes of a number of white and free coloured inhabitants. Some planters claimed that the hardship caused by Cuffee’s rebels was, ‘much worse than (that) occasioned by the maroons,’ and a number of whites were killed and ‘severely wounded’ by Cuffee’s men. Balcarres offered a reward of £300 to anyone who could bring Cuffee to justice. Unlike the runaway communities of the Congo Settlement and Brutus, which received very little attention from colonial records, Cuffee’s community was the subject of significant coverage in the Journals and Votes, as well as the governor’s correspondence and local newspapers. Contrary to Edwards’ assertion, the damage caused by Cuffee and his band of runaway slaves significantly disrupted the business of planters in western Jamaica.

The colonial authorities employed slave soldiers in the Black Shot against Cuffee’s community, but with mixed results. The white planters who captained the Black Shot complained of a number of desertions to Cuffee’s community. While members of the Black Shot did not join the Trelawny Town Maroons during the Second Maroon War, they fled in significant numbers to join Cuffee’s rebels. In June 1798, Captain Lauchlan McLaine of the St James Black Shot, complained that, ‘five of my men deserted me, in a most cowardly manner last night, when I expected to come into action with the rebels.’ In July, those Black Shot members who did not desert reportedly killed a couple of the ring-leaders of the runaway community, named Prince and Hercules, and captured three women. Hercules had previously escaped slavery to join the Trelawny Town Maroons during the Second Maroon War. There is no record of any Black Shot securing their freedom because of this minimal success, but a planter named George Murray received £160 from the Assembly, ‘compensation of a negro named Manuel, a cart-man, who died when on service against the negro rebels, Cuffee and his associates’. Planters who lost slaves who died fighting for the Black Shot received generous compensation for their losses. A number of slaves from the Black Shot deserted to join Cuffee’s community, much as they did in the First Maroon War, when they fled to become a part of the Maroons.

The colonial authorities retained the Maroons of Accompong Town for the time-consuming task of hunting down Cuffee and his men. They eventually captured another member of the runaway community named Major. Patterson and G.W. Bridges accept the reports by Captain John Grant of the Trelawny Black Shot to the Assembly that the militia, ‘with the assistance of the Accompong Maroons, scoured the forests, reduced the rebels, or drove them into their interior recesses, where they could be heard of no longer’. Edwards claims that Cuffee’s, ‘rebels were entirely hunted down, and that part of the island was restored to tranquillity’. However, evidence not previously utilized by historians reveal that while Cuffee’s rebels no longer attacked plantations, the Maroons never captured Cuffee. By August of 1798, after trying for half a year, Balcarres admitted that, ‘the Parties in search of the Negroe Cuffee have not been able to lay hold of him.’ The colonial records reported that the Maroons and their allies captured and killed no more than half a dozen rebels. This failure to apprehend Cuffee meant that most of the settlers who had suffered at the hands of Cuffee’s men refused to return to their lands. One planter who did return to his plantation, a Peter Scarlett, ‘was shot dead, sitting in his parlour,’ by an assailant who was never caught, and was probably from Cuffee’s group. The colonial authorities and the Accompong Maroons only killed and captured a handful of Cuffee’s community, and throughout the nineteenth century the vast majority of Cuffee’s group remained at large, and continued to live in the Cockpit Country.

Taken from my draft PhD....