CHAPTER XV
COCKPIT COUNTRY—THE MAROONS
If there is one thing more interesting to the unbiassed traveller than others, it is to hear and analyse the various opinions expressed upon the subject he or she is attempting to master in the spirit of disinterestedness and liberal judgment, by those whose lives are being lived in that particular spot of the globe temporarily under review.
“England has treated Jamaica abominably,” I frequently heard. She had insisted on the liberation of the slaves, then inadequately compensated their owners, and when their emancipation upset all prevailing conditions of labour, instead of protecting sugar, the chief industry of her West Indian colonies, and fostering its growth, she fairly knocked it on the head by the introduction of free trade. When beetroot-sugar first arrived in Jamaica the nails were driven into its coffin. Annexation to the United States was not desirable, it was declared, but, so far as business was concerned, America would make things hum.
The negroes were emancipated too soon, thought certain of the grumblers. Had the Jamaican blacks been as well educated as their brothers in the States at the time they became freed, they would have a different race of peasants in the island to-day. “They will never make citizens,” I was told. They have no idea of the responsibilities of a civilised community; even those who had voting powers on local questions were too lazy or too callous to record their votes. If a white man suggested to them how better to cultivate their patch of land, or if the coffee-curers and shippers, for instance, advised them to bring their coffee when picked straight to their mills where they had the proper apparatus for curing the beans, the blacks would immediately suspect the white man had “something up his sleeve,” and was going to get the better of them in some underhand way.
Things, no doubt, are difficult in Jamaica under the very best of circumstances. The negro is unquestionably a low type of humanity, naturally unintelligent and lazy. People forget, however, he has, in the first place, only recently discovered that he has a soul as well as the white man, and, in the second place, but just learnt, the other day as it were, to call that soul his own.
Nearly two centuries of abject slavery, with its accompaniments of forced labour and hard usage, have passed over his head, since, as a free savage, he roamed the African forests, a fetich-worshipper, the victim of the lowest superstitions, and practising every vice known to humanity. Evangelising efforts were spasmodically made here and there to ameliorate the condition of the plantation slaves by those whose conscience was in advance of their times; but when in 1834 the yoke of slavery was removed with such an ancestry, such a history behind them, what could a reasonable person expect of the sons and daughters of Ham! The planters had regarded them as the necessary machinery for producing their princely incomes when the wealth of the West Indian merchant was a known quantity. To improve the breed the physically-fittest were, like cattle, carefully selected, and the women told off for this purpose given especially lighter work to perform. This practice alone might account for much of the indiscriminate living which called forth the blazing indignation and burning words of one of the Keswick delegates, whose work is mentioned on a former page.
The injustice of his wholesale indictment against the character of the women of this island is still felt by many.
One clergyman, of over thirty years’ experience in Jamaica, and whose church numbers 1300 communicants, expressed to me his strong disapproval of the way in which this island was held up as a “plague spot” for its wickedness, by persons who had no practical knowledge either of its history or its inhabitants.
If in the year 1902, 62 per cent. of the children born are illegitimate, in 1834, had a census been taken, probably there would have been over 90 per cent. Of the present 62 per cent., given by the latest returns, I was assured that fifty out of that number would represent the children of persons living together in faithful, though unwedded union.
It is a matter of history that white overseers on the estates were dismissed on their marriage for obvious reasons. Every obstacle was placed upon the marriage of slaves; I believe on many estates it was forbidden. Then the example set by the whites has been most shameful throughout the history of Jamaica in this respect. Considering these circumstances, and the very recent growth of any sort of moral standard, one is not surprised to hear many persons speak indignantly of the Keswick delegates and the superficial nature of their work.
It is not inconceivable that the forefathers of these gentlemen, who were so incredibly shocked at the immorality of Jamaica, might have been planters themselves in distant times; and if their lot were cast in such homes as house the peasantry of Jamaica they might not escape that fall which seems the common lot of unregenerated humanity. Let the ardent reformers who advertised the island as a “plague spot,” and who would dragoon this childish race into a code of morality, remember that a great deal is attributable to the cupidity of the white man who violated the principles of humanity to procure the “foul tissue of terrestrial gold.”
The very handsome marble monuments sent out from England, erected to the memory of many of these, adorn the walls of the island churches, and speak from their sacred precincts to the silent observer. Here other than the poetic-minded may gather as he wanders
“Wisdom from the central deep,
And, listening to the inner flow of things,
Speak to the age out of eternity.”
Now, it appears to my limited range of vision that from brute animalism both Church and State, working into each other’s hands, are making the race into useful men and women. They know now something of the sacredness of marriage and family life, as well as of the arts of civilisation. In an interesting article entitled “Among the Jamaican Negroes,” by an American lady, Mrs K. J. Hall, published in the October issue 1902 of a magazine known as The World To-day, the situation is admirably summed up in these words: “Deceitfulness and untruthfulness are the besetting sins of the race, though the educated are bravely struggling with their less enlightened kinsmen. Each year witnesses some forward step taken by these people so lately freed from bondage.”
It was with regret that I took leave of my kind friends at N——, and prepared to extend my journey to the extreme limit of the railway, which ends at Montego Bay, a port on the northern coast. I had first, however, to traverse that part of the island known as the Cockpit Country, parts of which being remarkably beautiful. From an agricultural standpoint, this mountainous stretch is practically useless. Isolated peaks covered with tropical foliage form a background to a vast labyrinth of glades and valleys separating precipitous cliffs. Here and there a few smoother tracts occur, and at other places a whole series of impassable sink-holes, called cockpits, prevent further progress. At the bottom of these deep valleys the inhabitants grow a banana-patch, and very sparsely over this hilly country-side does one catch glimpses of the wattled huts of the blacks. I believe the country has never yet been thoroughly explored; it offers first-rate facilities for a traveller to lose himself in. At the present day it is the home of the Maroons, but these latter have no distinguishing facial characteristics by which to recognise them, the negro type being everywhere predominant. There is very little water in these parts, for the rain is carried off directly by numerous crevices. Springs, long distances apart, form underground water-courses, and, coming to the surface, disappear again. These are sink-holes; they are generally to be found deep down in some valley. The character of the ground around them plainly indicates their existence; but occasionally such openings are to be met with on more level ground, where nothing whatever gives a sign of danger, grass and brush growing over the edge of the aperture and concealing it from observation, until the unwary victim steps unconsciously over the brink of the treacherous chasm, and disappears, to be seen no more. Persons have been known to drop out of life thus into a deep unfathomable grave.
In the south-western part of St Ann’s Parish, which for its exquisite beauty has been called the “Garden of Jamaica,” there is an opening into the subterranean passages amongst the mountains, associated with the most shocking tragedies attended by circumstances of unusual horror. This sink-hole is called “Hutchinson’s Hole.” Near by is the ruined home of the monster, who was at length brought to justice for a whole catalogue of atrocities; it is still known by the name of “Hutchinson’s Tower.” Travellers who sought hospitality at this house, which was miles away from any other habitation, obtained it, but they invariably met with the cruel fate which their host had in reserve for all who approached his domain, their bodies afterwards being thrown down “Hutchinson’s Hole.” At length, being discovered, he fled; the whole country rose up in pursuit. At Old Harbour Hutchinson found a boat, and put off to sea. Lord Rodney was then in command of the fleet at Port Royal; hearing of the miscreant’s flight from justice, he set sail in his own ship, and speedily overhauled the merchantman which had taken the fugitive on board, captured him, and he was afterwards hung at Spanish Town.
The geological explanation is that the foundation of the limestone hills is probably coral reef, the rough country lying between these reefs a formation caused by the sedimentary deposit produced by the action of the sea. After the volcanic upheaval of Jamaica it is thought that these limestone basins gradually found drainage under the surrounding mountains, and this, through successive ages of disintegration, has brought these districts to their present rough almost impassable structure. The railway affords most beautiful views as it curves round the mountains after having skirted, for some miles, the Black River on the level country. After crossing the third bridge, it commences to ascend into this wild and picturesque region. Some of the gradients are very steep, and the curves very sharp; but the views to be obtained from apparently perilous heights into the deep valleys below are well worth the journey.
I have mentioned that this is the home of the Maroons, and I cannot do better at this part of my travels than sketch the events which led to their segregation in these mountains. This involves a dip into the origin of modern slavery. Since the fall of the Roman Empire, and the rise of Christendom, slavery was almost unknown in Europe excepting in the serfdom of Moscovy until, in 1442, the Portuguese explorer, Prince Henry, whilst sailing down the African coast, compelled Antony Gonsalez, his countryman, to restore some Moors to their home whom he had seized as prisoners, some two years previously, in the neighbourhood of Cape Bojador. The wily Gonsalez obeyed the prince, but received in exchange ten blacks and some gold dust, which he took back to Lisbon. His friends and acquaintances evidently thought to do a roaring trade in following his footsteps, so they fitted out thirty ships to pursue this traffic.
In 1481 the Portuguese built three forts, one on the Gold Coast, one on an adjacent island, the other at Loango—their king assuming the title of Lord of Guinea! From this date the western continent, so recently discovered, was furnished with slaves. In 1502 the Spaniards employed them to work in the mines of Hispaniola, but we read that the governor forbade the traffic, as the negroes taught the Indians knowledge of their evil ways. But the latter becoming scarcer, owing to the cruelty of their conquerors, the Emperor, Charles V., granted a patent to certain persons giving them the monopoly of supplying four thousand negroes annually to Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica, and Porto Rico. Herrera, the Spanish historian of those days, tells us that this patent was assigned to Genoese merchants. From that time the slave trade was an established and regular business.
Nor have we, nationally speaking, clean hands in this respect. Sir John Hawkins Knight, commander of Queen Elizabeth’s navy, found, says Hakluyt, “that negroes were very good merchandise, and that stores of negroes might easily be had on the coast of Guiney”; he resolved to make trial thereof, and communicated that device with his worshipful friends of London. He sailed to Sierra Leone in 1562. Two hundred years later, so great a trade had this become, that a list was prepared by the Liverpool merchants for the Privy Council 1772. In it we find in one year 74,000 slaves were exported. The British headed the list with 38,000, the French followed with 20,000, the Dutch 4000, Danes 2000, and the Portuguese 10,000. They were captured from Gambia, Sierra Leone, Cape Palmas, Gold Coast, Whydah, Lagos, and Benin, Bonny, and New Calabar, the Cameroons, Loango and Benguela principally.
It was Homer who said: “The day which makes a man a slave takes away half his worth,” and in the nature of things it must be so.
Surely our complicity and share in these dark days is being atoned for in the efforts to benefit the black race. The stings of the national conscience have been severe, but the growth in grace of our legislators a certainty.
Cheap cotton fabrics, specially manufactured to clothe their dusky limbs, come from Manchester. Food of the best and of the cheapest is within their reach; and I was even told by a landowner not long since, that it was no good going to law for the petty thieving which is so irritating, because “the judges favoured the blacks”!
The Maroons, who inhabit the Cockpit Country as well as a town called Moore Town, near Port Antonio, on the north coast, are still known by that name, although there is practically nothing in their appearance to differentiate them from the rest of the black and coloured races. The word is derived from the Spanish marrano, signifying, “a young pig.” The hardy-looking mountaineers one sees from the carriage window of the train, clad in the very sketchiest of clothing, are the descendants of fierce and warlike slaves of mixed African and Indian blood who, on the conquest of Jamaica by the Cromwellian troops, escaped to the hills, and defied the new possessors of the island to conquer them.
There seems every reason to believe that when Columbus first discovered Jamaica it was thickly populated by the Arawaks.
Bartholomew de las Casas, Bishop of Chiapa, compares the aboriginal Indians to “ants on an ant-hill”; probably this referred to the inhabitants of the lowlands and savannahs on the coasts.
This Spanish prelate, who figured in history as the protector and advocate of the Indians, gave, however, his episcopal consent to the patent issued by Charles V., granting to the merchants of Genoa the monopoly of the slave trade with the Indies. A writer, noting the inconsistency of character in the man who, in order to preserve and protect one of the most interesting aboriginal races of the world, concurred in the subjugation and slavery of another, says of him: “While he contended for the liberty of the people born in one quarter of the globe, he laboured to enslave the inhabitants of another region, and in the warmth of his zeal to save the Americans from the yoke, pronounced it to be lawful and expedient to impose one still heavier upon the Africans.” Such are the extraordinary contradictions the page of history reveals to us. It is equally curious to read of a plantation with its complement of slaves in Barbadoes having been left to The Society in Great Britain for the Propagation of the Gospel, by a certain Colonel Codrington, which, says Bryan Edwards, “had to continue the disagreeable necessity of supporting slavery bequeathed to than, still more to occasionally purchase more slaves to keep up the stock.” It would scarcely be profitable or edifying, possibly, in these days, to search too closely as to how certain moneys left to charitable institutions were first obtained, but the idea of funds devoted to the lofty and elevating purposes of extending a knowledge of the Bible amongst the heathen coming from West Indian slave plantations, appears to me of unique interest.
The way in which the Spaniards treated the harmless and inoffensive Indians is well known, and has never been better described than by Charles Kingsley in “Westward Ho!” To the rough-and-ready sailor of the days of Queen Bess, to fight the Spaniard and to fight the devil were one and the same thing. Nor, so far as their character for cruelty goes, is the modern Spaniard one whit better than his ancestors. The writer of these pages spent a few weeks travelling in Spain, in the spring of 1902, and was impressed by the national bloodthirstiness, as exhibited in the great ardour and passionate enthusiasm displayed over everything connected with the peninsular pastime of bull-fighting. The callousness to suffering, and the innate love of cruelty, shown by the labouring classes and by the aristocracy of Spain, as when looking round the crowded amphitheatre to escape from the disgusting sights and sounds of the arena, one noted the expression of absorbed interest over every gory detail of the fight, were painfully apparent. Old women pawn their beds, and girls sell their tresses of hair, to be able, at least once a year, to attend a bull-fight. The Pope has expressed his abhorrence of it, whilst, it is well known, Queen Christina equally detests it; but such is the force of the national love of the sport, that any dynasty endeavouring to suppress it might count its days as numbered. It is no matter of surprise to read amongst the island chronicles that in Jamaica and the adjacent islands the Spaniards destroyed, within less than twenty years, more than 1,200,000 of the native Indians, when one rightly appreciates the devilry of the Spaniard. It was on account of the disappearance of these aborigines that African labour was first brought across the Atlantic, and owing to the gradual extermination of the Indians in Hispaniola, and in the Spanish-American possessions generally, slavery became a systematised traffic. Naturally these persons, who had so inhumanly treated the poor Arawaks—and they seem to have been a mild and gentle type of savage, very different from the Caribs, who were cannibals, and who confined their attentions to the eastern islands of the Caribbean Sea—could not be expected to treat the African with greater consideration. When one thinks of the blood-curdling stories of the atrocities committed by the subjects of the Spanish Crown, both on Indians and Africans alike, and then of the ferocity and native savagery of the negro in his reprisals—for when the blacks got the upper hand their uprisings against and massacres of their white masters are amongst the most horrible in the history of the world—one shudders at the thought of what, if they could speak, the mountain fastnesses, the waving cane-fields, could tell!
One of the punishments which existed among the Spaniards was, that a slave failing to fulfil the task assigned to him, was liable to be buried up to his neck, and to be left to be devoured by insects!
Historians have unanimously declared the Arawaks to have been a simple, quiet folk, neither ferocious nor treacherous, their government patriarchal and dignified. They smoked tobacco from a quaint sort of pipe, consisting of a straight tube branching off into two others, which they inserted up their nostrils. Why, indeed, so kindly and so superior a race should, in the foreknowledge of Providence, have been permitted to be superseded in this island by the unintelligent and degraded black of tropical Africa is an inscrutable problem to human ken. The Arawak was an enlightened savage. He mixed very little superstition with his theology. He believed in the existence of a Supreme Being, all-powerful and invisible, whom he worshipped under the name of Iocahuna; besides, he venerated a lower order of household and other gods. One reads that these people had peculiar ideas of the creation of the world, and I have already alluded to the veneration in which they held the cotton-tree as the throne of the Creator, also that they, in common with many aboriginal races, had traditions about a deluge. They believed in a future state of existence which, if it differed from the happy hunting-ground of the North-American Indian’s paradise, was to be a place of perfect happiness. To the limited faculties of the Arawak, that would be represented by sensual enjoyments more than anything else.
An anecdote, giving an idea of the estimation in which the Spaniards were held by the native Indians, is related by the Rev. J. B. Ellis: “A cacique or chief fled to Cuba, to escape his European tormentors, having in his possession a valuable casket of gold. When pursued by the Spaniards, he conceived the idea of propitiating the Spanish Deity. ‘Behold,’ he said, pointing to the golden box, ‘the God of the Europeans’; and summoning his friends and attendants, he held a mighty feast in honour of this deity, offering sacrifices, and singing and dancing around the precious box. Still the Spaniards approached in their pursuit; and Hatuey, the cacique, told his companions that they must be rid entirely of the God of the Spaniards before they could hope to be free from their persecuting presence. Accordingly, the golden casket was solemnly buried in the sea. Nevertheless, Hatuey was captured, and promptly condemned to be burned alive. While the necessary preparations for his execution were being made, a friar attempted to convert and baptise the unhappy cacique, enlarging much on the happiness of a future heaven. ‘In this heaven of yours,’ asked the condemned man, ‘are there any Spaniards?’ ‘Certainly,’ answered the friar, ‘but they are all good Spaniards.’ ‘The best of them are good for nothing,’ retorted Hatuey, ‘and I will not go where I am likely to meet one of that awful tribe.’”
Let us return to our Maroons, who retreated into the hills before the English conquerors of the island. In after years, runaway slaves and disaffected persons fled to them, thus making them, for over a century and a half, a formidable antagonist to the colonist in the lower-lying plains near the coast. From the mountain fastnesses they harassed the English soldiery. Those who carelessly rambled from camps, or from the protection of their companions, were mercilessly slaughtered with that refinement of cruelty, in most cases, which makes the annals of the history of this island written, as it were, in human blood. How they intimidated the peaceful dwellers by their incessant and bloody raids, their burnings, and their hideous slaughtering, it can do no good to describe. To be “marooned” was a fate too horrible to contemplate, even in those days when life was of not so much account as we estimate it to-day. Their dialect was a barbarous mixture of African and Spanish. They practised polygamy; the women did what labour was requisite, and Obeah-worship was the only religion they knew. They had been a thorn in the side of the English military occupation for many years. At last, in 1734, Captain Stoddart attacked them in the Blue Mountains so skilfully and so successfully that for a time they could do no more mischief in those parts; but the snake was only “scotched,” not exterminated. Again it raised its hydra-head, and in 1736, a formidable movement under a leader named Cudgoe had to be suppressed. After this there seems to have been a desultory guerilla warfare, the enemy never appearing in the open, but sneaking round the plantations; many whites were killed in this way. However, in 1738, Governor Trelawny made a treaty with them, assigning them certain lands to live in.
If I have depicted the mildness of character of the extinct Arawak, I will here mention what Bryan Edwards says of the West African black:—
“The distinguishing features of the Gold Coast negroes are firmness of mind and body, ferocious dispositions, but, withal, activity, courage, and stubbornness, which prompt them to enterprises of difficulty and danger, enabling them to meet death, in its most horrible shape, with fortitude or indifference.” This, he goes on to relate, was shown in the rebellion of 1760. A negro, who had been a chief of his tribe in Guinea, was imported with a hundred of his countrymen into Jamaica, and sold together to the owner of a plantation, on the frontier of St Mary’s Parish. At his instigation, although they had received no ill-treatment since their arrival, they revolted. Gathering themselves together in a body they proceeded at midnight to Port Maria, where they slaughtered the sentinel, and went off with all the arms and ammunition they could lay hands on. Here they were joined by many runaway slaves, and, retreating to the interior of the island, they killed everybody they met, leaving desolation in their track.
At a plantation called Bellard’s Valley they surrounded the overseer’s house at four in the morning, butchered every soul on the place with the utmost savagery, and actually drank the blood of their victims mixed with rum. Wherever they went the same ghastly tragedies took place. In one morning they murdered forty whites and mulattoes.
At length Tacky, the chief, was fortunately killed in the woods; some of the principal ringleaders were taken at the same time, but, as there was every appearance of a general insurrection breaking out in the various adjacent plantations, the authorities decided to make a few terrible examples of the most guilty.
However horrible the details are, one feels that no more blame can be attached to those who framed such sentences than to those officers in the Indian rebellion of 1858 who condemned Sepoys to be blown from the cannon. One of these Guinea slaves was condemned to be burnt, two others to be hung up in irons and left to perish. The former was compelled to sit upon the ground, his body being chained to an iron stake.
One wonders if he had such a thing as a nervous system at all, for he complacently looked on as the fire was first lighted at his feet, and without a groan saw his legs reduced to ashes, after which, says Bryan Edwards, “one of his arms getting loose he flung a brand from the fire into the face of the executioner.” The two which were hung up alive were indulged, at their own request, with a hearty meal just before being suspended on a gibbet which was put up in the parade of Kingston. From the time they were first placed there until the time they died, not a word of complaint did they utter, excepting to remark upon the chilliness of the night. All day long they amused themselves in talking to their brother Africans, who were permitted by the authorities, “very improperly to surround the gibbet. On the seventh day,” says Edwards, whose description is that of an eye-witness, “a notion prevailed amongst the spectators that one of them wished to communicate an important secret to his master, my dear relative, who, being in St Mary’s Parish, the commanding officer sent for me. I endeavoured by means of an interpreter to let him know I was present, but I could not understand what he said in return. I remember that both he and his fellow-sufferer laughed immoderately at something that occurred—I know not what. The next morning one of them silently expired, as did the other on the morning of the ninth day.”
In the Museum which is attached to the Institute and Library of Kingston a gruesome relic is exhibited. It represents an iron cage, and was unearthed some years ago in the parish of St Andrews. It encloses the bones of a woman, and is constructed so as to fit the human body with bands around the neck, breast, and loins; there are bars to confine the legs, and stirrups for the feet, which have sharp pikes to press into the soles of the occupant’s feet. There is a ring at the top of the structure to suspend it gibbet-wise. One can well understand the reluctance and the dread with which the sugar-planters regarded the passing of the Emancipation Bill.
To be overrun by a newly-liberated race of semi-savages was not an exhilarating thing to contemplate. Their standpoint was a very different one in all its bearings than that of the benevolent aristocrats in England, who discussed the measure at their ease, mutually congratulating themselves and the nation that at last they had obeyed the promptings of conscience.