FAIRY TALES FROM THE PAST

We all know that what we are provided with as (so-called) history in this country is only what that particular historian would like to have happened, or maybe what the historian would find most useful in promoting some other agenda. And one agendum, popular on the university political scene, is the progressive diabolisation of the tiny (3%) minority of whitish Bajans.

Among that endangered species I have the misfortune to find myself, and to wonder whether I should get to hell permanently out of the island before I find myself in a concentration camp. Before the last German War, German Jews thought that the Germans would never be really nasty to good German citizens like the Einsteins and themselves. How very wrong they were!

Should I rely upon those many blackish Bajans who seem to be good friends of mine to protect me and my relatives from such a fate? Or would it be better to lurk behind our tourists, who are mostly whitish, rich and choosy, and likely to indicate that any such behaviour on the part of Bajan politicians would send them (the tourists) to safer and less racially prejudiced  destinations.  Commonsense suggests that I should choose the tourists.

I have, for example, recently been informed that in1966 we Bajans had to fight for our Independence. In reality, at that time the UK was giving independence to any colony which applied for it and had (or pretended to have) a sort of, maybe, possibly believable democratic system of government. Luckily we were one of the few colonies where democracy lasted and even thrived. Look at the alternatives in Africa.

According to two people who were present at the relevant meetings in London, one of the  more important considerations which troubled the meetings was which member of the extended Royal Family might be available to do the ritual dropping of the Union Jack. The likely weather never came up for discussion at all.

You will remember the pictures of that first Independence Day, with Errol Barrow and Sir John Stow bravely looking cheerful without mackintoshes or umbrellas, as their fine clothes were drenched by torrential rain. So Independence will always be twinned with mud.

I have even been told that before Independence Belleville and Strathclyde were prohibited to blackish  people, and that Independence changed all that. How astonishing that sensible people could believe that fairy story! What gates and guards were there to enforce these regulations? How did the domestic staff reach the houses where they worked? Were the houses occupied exclusively by whitish families?

Actually there used to be a wall in Strathclyde. This towering bastion of  privilege ran down the middle of a road (Strathclyde Drive), not across it, and was, perhaps, as much as eighteen inches high. North of the wall, the half-road gave unimpeded access between Barbarees Hill and Bank Hall. South of the wall, the other half-road ran into the Strathclyde area itself. Any man, woman or child could and did step over this fearsome Bridgetown Wall without causing gunshots or even shouts. However, I suppose that if you planned to have a family picnic on the road or to have a road-tennis competition south of the fearsome wall (the one which had machine-gunners at regular intervals) there would probably have been some vocal protests. I suspect that Bajan good manners normally prevailed. Certainly the machine-gunners have been added only this year.

As for Belleville, it was wide open to all comers in every direction. Along George Street and in the avenues nearer Government House many houses were and are occupied by blackish people. Summerhayes, the exclusive Tennis Club on Fifth Avenue had members of every pigmentary shade except whitish.

Who could be spreading these ridiculous rumours? Surely not the noble Mr. C.O.Missiong!

But yes! I confess I am vulnerable. My ancestors owned some slaves. The slaves were bought from entrepreneurial Africans originally, to the commercial advantage of African Chiefs, European ship owners, and Bajan auctioneers. They were put to work under conditions almost as bad as coal miners in England or field labourers in Ireland. I suspect that my ancestors were ordinary, kindly fellows who gave fairly decent treatment to their hens, their dogs, their horses, their mules and their cows. I would guess that perhaps they lost their tempers sometimes, but would also guess that they gave reasonably decent treatment to their fellow-humans, as well as to fellow-vertebrates.

But after Emancipation in 1834  (it was much later,1864, in the USA) slaves needed surnames. And if you look in the phone book you can count 167 Leacocks.  We had, I believe, only one small plantation in 1834 and only a few slaves. In the book there are 900 Alleynes, 850 Brathwaites and 600 Williamses.

Were these surnames the result of the slaves' own free  choice, or, do you think, the consequence of extreme philoprogenitivity on the part of the sexy, under-employed slave owners? Don't all speak at once! Why not try, instead, to forget about this somewhat embarrassing subject. All together! Now!!

Let me hear your comments: e-mail me at jackleacock@jackleacock.itgo.com