The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Universal Negro Improvement Association founder Marcus Garvey, George William Gordon and Paul Bogle were the first three recipients of Jamaica’s Order of National Hero in 1969 – the year it was created by the Jamaica Labour Party administration via its National Honours and Awards Act. Six years later, under the government of Prime Minister Michael Manley of the People’s National Party, Samuel Sharpe was officially made a Jamaican National Hero. Bogle and Gordon figured prominently in the Morant Bay Rebellion of October 1865, some 27 years after the British Empire officially ended slavery in 1838 – four years after the apprenticeship experiment commenced, aimed at transitioning slaves to full freedom. Gordon, a wealthy Jamaican mulatto, was instrumental in getting Bogle a deacon position at the Stony Gut Baptist Church in Morant Bay, St. Thomas. Sharpe was the key figure in the Baptist War or Christmas Rebellion of 1831 -1832. This full scale rebellion involved 60,000 Jamaican slaves, and would lead to the passing of the Abolition Act in 1833 by the British Parliament. Sharpe, Bogle and Gordon were all executed by the British, who violently suppressed both rebellions, in some cases, killing scores of innocent slaves indiscriminately. The name John Edward Eyre comes to mind. Of particular interest to this writer are Bogle and Sharpe, as both reminds him of famed Bahamian slave Pompey. Unlike Bogle, who used violent means to achieve his goals, Pompey was nonviolent. Bogle’s violence would serve as an ominous precursor for Jamaicans. The first set of African slaves were brought to Jamaica by the Spaniards after the Arawak Indian Holocaust. Dubbed the Maroons, these Coromantee Africans, such as Tacky, Queen Nanny, Quao and Cudjoe, were far more aggressive than their African Bahamian counterparts. The Maroons’ protracted armed resistance to the British, known as the First Maroon War, would lead to a 1739 treaty under Governor Edward Trelawny. It was the basis of this treaty that would lead to the Maroons assisting the British in capturing the fugitive Bogle. The British, in their 1739 negotiations with the Maroons, had granted the group autonomy in their own territories, with certain strings attached. One condition was that they were to return runaway slaves.

Pompey, along with approximately 350 other African slaves, were owned by Lord John Rolle, a wealthy British aristocrat who was, for all intents and purposes, an absentee slaveowner. Rolle’s slaves resided on Exuma in the settlements of Rolleville, Mount Thompson, Steventon and Rolle Town. The Exumian slaves were the descendants of 150 Africans imported by Denys Rolle, Lord Rolle’s father, from East Florida in 1784. By 1825, the disgruntled Rolle was haemorrhaging £500 annually. The fiscally prudent decision was made to transfer his slaves to Trinidad, where they would earn their freedom. Coincidentally, Governor Grant, who approved the proposed transfer, was reassigned by the British government to Trinidad.

Rolle had also entertained the idea of sending them to Cuba, Jamaica and Demerara. Rolle’s proposal was outright rejected by his slaves, who would engage in open rebellion. Under the command of Captain Thomas McPherson, the Second West Indian Regiment was promptly dispatched by Governor Lewis Grant in order to quell the rebellion. The slave ringleaders were forcibly transferred to Grand Bahama in 1829, according to historian Michael Craton. This rebellion, which occurred in 1828, apparently did not involve Pompey, as far as the historical records show. However, about two years later, the young slave would lead scores of slaves into hiding, after they got wind of A.J. Lees’ plans to relocate 75 of Rolle’s slaves to Cat Island to work for a plantation owner named Thompson. Five weeks later, some 44 members of the group would steal Rolle’s salt boat, fleeing to New Providence, where they were apprehended, tried and convicted. According to Craton, Lees had misled the Colonial government about Lord Rolle owning real estate on Cat Island. It was under this pretext that he was granted official permission to relocate his slaves. Governor Carmichael Smyth ordered the slaves back to Exuma. He would also suspend Lees and terminate Police Magistrate Robert Duncombe and two justices of the peace, John Anderson and William Vass – men involved in the trial of the Rolle slaves. Subsequent to his return to Exuma, Pompey would receive 39 lashes for resisting the colonial administration in another rebellion, euphemistically called an industrial action by Craton. While it may be true that there were no violent Coromantee slaves residing in The Bahamas, the colony had its fair share of violent resistance, although not to the degree as the aforementioned Morant Bay and Christmas Rebellions. A classic case in point would be the Golden Grove uprising on the Hunter estate on Cat Island in 1831, in which a slave named Black Dick attempted to murder his owner, Joseph Hunter. Black Dick would suffer the same fate as Bogle, Gordon and Sharpe. Another lesser known slave rebellion was the 1787 Abaco Slave Revolt. Pompey’s activism played a minor role in the achievement of emancipation, according to certain Bahamian historians. In this regard, the Advisory Committee for National Honours should give serious consideration to enshrining Pompey as a Bahamian National Hero. If Bogle and Sharpe are deserving of such a prestigious recognition in their fight against institutional slavery, then surely Pompey is equally deserving of such an honour, as his mild rebellion represents a seminal contribution to succeeding generations of Black Bahamians.

KEVIN EVANS

Freeport, Grand Bahama.

August 2, 2021.