JAMAICAN MAROONS IN NOVA SCOTIA 1796-1800
Murphy Browne © July 7-2024
JAMAICAN MAROONS IN NOVA SCOTIA 1796-1800
Murphy Browne © July 7-2024
Murphy Browne © June 14-2024
COUNTRY MUSIC WAS INFLUENCED BY AFRICAN MUSIC
Murphy Browne © May 10-2024
“I was wondering about our yesterdays,
and starting digging through the rubble
and to say, at least somebody went
through a hell of a lot of trouble
to make sure that when we looked things up
we wouldn't fare too well
and that we would come up with totally unreliable
portraits of ourselves.
But I compiled what few facts I could,
I mean, such as they are
to see if we could shed a little bit of light
and this is what I got so far:
First, white folks discovered Africa
and they claimed it fair and square.
Cecil Rhodes couldn't have been robbing nobody
'cause he said there was nobody there.”
Excerpt from Black History/The World
by Gil Scott-Heron
In 1980, African American jazz poet, singer, musician,
author and spoken-word artist Gilbert Scott-Heron
released “Black History/The World” on the album:
“Moving Target.” Gil Scott-Heron deconstructed
colonialism, racism, and African history as told and
documented by people who were not African. Those
“historians” told their version of our story. In “Black
History/The World,” Gil Scot Heron illuminated the
African proverb: “Until the lions have their historians,
tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.”
Similarly, until the Africans from the African continent
and in the Diaspora began documenting their own stories,
everyone else told and wrote their version of African
stories. Gilbert Scott-Heron wrote and performed “Black
History/The World” in 1980. In 2024, several decades
later some people who do not know the African stories are
telling their version.
I was reminded of Gil Scott-Heron’s “Black History/The World,” when I read about Asa Blanton, a white Indiana State University nursing student who said Beyoncé is "not country" because Beyoncé is not white. Blanton said in a video shared on TikTok: “I’m sorry, but if you’re Black, you’re not country. I don’t care, I wish I meant that in the nicest way, but babe, I know you were raised in the country or your grandparents were… but they was picking, OK? They wasn’t planting. Just keep that in mind. They wasn’t making money. They were getting sold for money. You ain’t country.”
Asa Blanton and many others like her do not know of the
historical African influence on country music, even
during the enslavement of Africans. "In reality, just like
most popular music genres, country music in the U.S.
began with Black People.” The story of country music
begins with the banjo. The modern-day banjo is a
descendant of a West African instrument, made from
gourds, called the Akonting. When Africans were taken
from Africa and enslaved in America, the knowledge of
making their instruments were with them. Enslaved
Africans created their own music, hymns, spirituals, and
field songs—all with roots in African music. The banjo
was seen as an exclusively African American instrument.
White people did not play the banjo during that time.
In the 1850s, minstrel shows became popular with the
racist satirical form of entertainment where white
performers in Blackface mockingly used the banjo as a
musical instrument as they imitated the music and dance
of enslaved Africans. The minstrel shows brought the
banjo to white audiences and gave rise to hillbilly music
during the 1920s.
Hillbilly music was renamed country and was claimed as
the music of the south. The performers drew inspiration
from slave spirituals, field songs, hymns, and the blues,
which were African American music. In the 1920s and
30s, despite segregation, some white hillbilly performers
collaborated with African American artists to record
music. Patrick Huber, a White history professor at
Missouri University of Science and Technology
acknowledges, “Nearly 50 African-American singers and
musicians appeared on commercial hillbilly records
between those years — because the music was not a white
agrarian tradition, but a fluid phenomenon passed back
and forth between the races.”
In 1778, James A. Bland, an African American from New
York wrote “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny” which
became the official state song of Virginia in 1940. An
African American minister wrote a hymn “When the
World is On Fire.” That hymn became a 1928 hit “Little
Darling, Pal of Mine” by “The Carter Family,” a White
family of musicians. That song inspired “This Land is
Your Land” sung by White performer, Woody Guthrie.
In Nova Scotia Canada on May 12, 1785, under the heading "Negro Frolicks" Prohibited: “Officials in Nova Scotia ordered "50 Handbills [to] be immediately printed forbidding Negro Dances & Negro Frolicks in [the] town of Shelburne."
“Libya and Egypt used to be in Africa,
but they've been moved to the 'middle east'.
There are examples galore I assure you,
but if interpreting was left up to me
I'd be sure every time folks knew this version wasn't mine
which is why it is called 'His story.'”
Excerpt from Black History/The World
by Gil Scott-Heron
COUNTRY MUSIC WAS INFLUENCED BY AFRICAN MUSIC
Murphy Browne © May 10-2024
ALDWYN ROBERTS LORD KITCHENER APRIL 18-1922
Murphy Browne © April 16-2024
“I can’t stand the cold in winter
I want to buy an incubator.”
From the calypso “The Cold In Winter” by Aldwyn Roberts, the Lord Kitchener.
Aldwyn Roberts, the Lord Kitchener, was born on April 18, 1922, in Arima, Trinidad and Tobago. Aldwyn Roberts, better known as Lord Kitchener or “Kitch”, is regarded as the “Grandmaster” of calypso music. Calypso originated on the plantations of Trinidad in the 17th century at a time when social interaction of enslaved Africans was banned. Calypso became an important means of communication to share news and to protest. Enslaved Africans sang about their desire for freedom and to warn other enslaved Africans of impending danger. They covertly and overtly protested their enslavement.
Calypsonians with their evocative and witty singing style, and sometimes satirical, scathing, and provocative lyrics, have educated and entertained for centuries. Music was an avenue for enslaved Africans to express their feelings. The calypso was used even after slavery was abolished, to voice grievances against colonial overlords and even government after independence.
Calypsos were also used to criticize and mock those in political power. Calypsonians risked much to speak out for working class citizens as they criticized the powerful. African Trinidadian historian Errol Gaston Hill, thought that “Calypso originated in West African griots and developed alongside other traditional Caribbean songs to incorporate ‘elements of digging songs changed by people at work; belair and calinda songs when they play; shango and shouter baptist revival songs when they worship; and insurrectionary songs such as were sung by slaves in revolt.’” As Hill pointed out "The one great leveller was the calypsonian. He sang with courage and wit, debunking and defending the small."Music has sustained Africans dealing with myriad oppressions. Enslaved Africans used various means, including music, to protest and resist their enslavement. They sang songs to arrange secret meetings and songs which encouraged escape and sabotage. Oral history passed from generation to generation was always part of sustaining culture which included storytelling and songs. From this history of storytelling, music and dance as a way to sustain the African culture, came various forms of music including calypso. Calypso is one of several musical genres with roots on the African continent. Calypso is a popular Caribbean genre of music that was created by Africans enslaved in the Caribbean. Calypso is resistance music. African Caribbean scholars have opined that “The calypso, which has attained its highest form of expression in Trinidad, is recognized as a re-interpretation of a traditional African topical song.”
On June 21, 1948, the 26-year-old calypsonian Aldwyn Roberts/Lord Kitchener introduced calypso to the British Isles when he arrived at Tilbury Docks on HMT Empire Windrush. Kitch was featured on the documentary of the arrival of the ship Empire Windrush. He introduced himself to British audiences by singing “London is the Place for Me” a calypso that expressed the hopes and dreams that many of the excited Windrush passengers likely felt as they landed in the UK.
It’s a shame it’s unfair but what can you do
The colour of your skin makes it hard for you…
If you brown they say you can stick around
If you white well everything’s all right
If your skin is dark, no use, you try
You got to suffer until you die.”
“A ha my first misery, is when I embark at Piccadilly,
I went down below, I stand up in the crowd don’t know where to go.
I decided to follow a young lady, well I nearly met with my destiny,
That night was bad luck for Kitchener, I fall down on the escalator.”
Perhaps by 1957 Kitch had embraced Pan-Africanism after living in London for almost a decade in a racist culture. He released “Africa, my home” in 1957, acknowledging/embracing his African ancestry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LXKWYrKYcA
In 1957 when Ghana became an independent nation Kitch sang:
“The national flag is a lovely scene, with beautiful colours red, gold and green,
And a black star in the centre, representing the freedom of Africa.
Ghana, Ghana is the name Ghana we wish to proclaim,
We will be jolly, merry and gay, The sixth day of March, Independence Day.”
In 1962, Lord Kitchener returned to independent Trinidad and Tobago. Kitch lived the rest of his life in Trinidad and Tobago, where he was very influential in the world of calypso. He transitioned to the ancestral realm on February 11, 2000, Trinidad and Tobago. The Lord Kitchener of calypso has been honoured in the UK and in Trinidad and Tobago. He has been honoured with two statues in his home country: one in Arima and another in Port of Spain. His former home, Rainorama Palace, is a museum, an auditorium is named after him in the National Academy for Performing Arts in Trinidad and a street in Arima named Lord Kitchener Avenue. In 2023 he was honoured in the UK with a plaque placed at his former UK home site. The calypso legend Aldwyn Roberts/Lord Kitchener would have been 102 years old on April 18-2024.
Murphy Browne © April 16-2024
APRIL 25-1858 JAMES DOUGLAS
Murphy Browne © April 21-2022
On April 25, 1858, a group of 35 African Americans from San Francisco arrived in Victoria, British Columbia. They had been invited by Governor James Douglas. Reportedly some members of the scouting party were so impressed that on returning to San Francisco they said, "The climate is most beautiful; the strawberry vines and peach trees are in full blow... All the colored man wants here is ability and money... It is a God-sent land for the colored people." Following this glowingly optimistic description, approximately 800 African Americans later moved to British Columbia.
The exodus of African Americans who accepted Douglas’ invitation were fleeing the California Fugitive Slave Act of April 1852. In 1850 California joined the Union as a state free of slavery. In 1852, the state legislature passed the California Fugitive Slave Law, legalizing the re-enslavement of those who arrived with their enslavers before statehood. The California Fugitive Slave Act in 1852, mandated that government officials and ordinary White citizens help slaveholders recapture people who escaped. This led to widespread abuse where any African American man, woman or child (enslaved or free) could be seized by any White person and be enslaved or re-enslaved because African Americans could not testify against White people in court. Longing to live as free people, members of the African American community began exploring opportunities to move from California.
Governor James Douglas was aware of the plight of the African American community in California and wanting to increase settlement in B.C to discourage a possible U.S. annexation, he sent an invitation to the African American community of San Francisco in 1858. On April 25, 1858, a scouting party of 35 African Americans from San Francisco arrived in Victoria harbour on the steamship Commodore. A plaque was installed on August 18, 1978, to commemorate the arrival of this pioneering group. The plaque reads: “In commemoration of the arrival in 1858 of the first group of Black settlers to the Colony of Vancouver Island.”
The scouts returned to San Francisco and confirmed that living in the British colony of British Columbia, African Americans would have political and economic rights once they became British subjects. Approximately 800 African Americans settled throughout Victoria, Saanich, and Saltspring Island following the April 25, 1858 expedition. Many of these settlers were free men and women from the northern and southern U.S., while others had fled slavery from various areas in the US.
Douglas had some idea of slavery because some of his ancestors were enslaved Africans. He was born (August 15, 1803) in Mahaica, East Coast Demerara, British Guiana (Guyana) during slavery in the British colony. He was the second of three children born to Martha Ann Ritchie, an African Caribbean woman and John Douglas, a Scottish plantation owner in British Guiana. John Douglas did not marry the mother of his three children because she was not a White woman. The first child, Alexander was born in 1801 and then James two years later. John Douglas returned to Scotland and on January 15, 1809, he married Jessie Janet Hamilton, daughter of a prominent Scottish merchant. In 1811, John Douglas returned to British Guina. During the year he spent in the country Martha Ann Ritchie gave birth to his daughter, who John Douglas named Cecelia after his mother and sister. When John Douglas returned to Scotland in 1812, he took 9-year-old James and 11-year-old Alexander with him. It seems that their mother had no choice in the matter and she never saw her two sons again.
In Scotland, Alexander and James were not allowed to live with their father and his family. They were boarded out to a Scottish family (Mrs. Glendenning in New Lanark) and attended Lanark Grammar School. They soon learned that they could not live with their father because they were not White and their existence was not acknowledged by any family members except their father who visited occasionally. James adapted to their new life, while Alexander languished. Eventually they were both apprenticed to the North West Company, (Alexander in 1818 and James in 1819) a fur trading business in Montreal (1779 to 1821) and rival of the Hudson's Bay Company. On March 26, 1821, the two fur trading companies were forced to merge. In 1824 when his contract with the fur company was fulfilled Alexander Douglas was happy to leave Canada and returned to Britain. James Douglas remained with the company and thrived becoming chief trader in 1835. Douglas, a dedicated Company man loyal to the British crown was made governor of Vancouver Island in 1851. In 1858, he became Governor of the British Colony, British Columbia. During the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, there was fear that the colony could become an American state, but Douglas asserted the authority of the British Empire. He remained governor of both colonies until his retirement in 1864.
Douglas encouraged the African Americans to settle in B.C because he wanted people who would be loyal to the British Empire and resist US colonization. The British had abolished slavery in 1834 and African Americans felt safer living in a British colony.
Living in the relatively free British colony did not protect the African American pioneers from racism. In 1859, when the volunteer Fire Department was being created in Victoria, the White organizing committee refused to admit African Americans. The rejected volunteers met with Governor Douglas to offer their services as a volunteer militia unit. A war between the United States and Canada over ownership of San Juan Island seemed imminent so Governor Douglas allowed the formation of the Victoria Pioneer Rifle Company also known as the African Rifles.
James Douglas transitioned to the ancestral realm on August 2, 1877 and is buried at Ross Bay Cemetery on Vancouver Island, B.C. In the 21st century, two matching statues were unveiled in honour of James Douglas; one in B.C, Canada and the other in the village where he was born, Mahaica, Guyana.
Murphy Browne © April 21-2022