Wednesday 26 April 2023

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS MAHAICA GUYANA - VANCOUVER B.C




 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 


Monday 19 September 2022

THE BRITISH MONARCHY 2022 - THE END?




 THE BRITISH MONARCHY 2022 - THE END?

Murphy Browne © September 14-2022

The recent death of the sixth female ruler of the British Empire (Mary I, Elizabeth I, Mary II, Anne, Victoria and Elizabeth II,) has many people mourning. However not everyone is mourning; complicated, conflicted and conflicting feelings have been expressed internationally. While there have been official condolences praising her longevity, there has been anger about the role her government played in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and elsewhere during her tenure on the throne. Some have chosen to take this opportunity to reflect on the brutal legacy of the British Empire and role of the British Royal family during slavery and colonization. Professor Mukoma Wa Ngugi associate professor of literatures in English at Cornell University is one of several people who have been interviewed by various media and have expressed dissatisfaction/unhappiness with the idea that the whole world should be mourning the death of Elizabeth II. She was on safari in Kenya while representatives of the British Empire were brutalizing Kenyans. She was in Kenya in 1952 when her father George VI, died and she became queen. The newly established monarch

Elizabeth II was in Kenya during the height of Kenyan resistance to British rule and the brutal suppression of the Maumau Uprising. Professor Mukoma Wa Ngugi whose ancestors were members of the people who were brutalized by the British government wrote: “My uncle was deaf. He was asked by British soldiers to stop. Of course he did not hear them. They shot him dead. My other uncle was in the Mau Mau. My grandmother hid bullets for him. Colonialism happened to real people. It is absolute madness to expect us to mourn the queen.” During that interview Professor Mukoma Wa Ngugi also said: “It’s one of the ironies, historical ironies that she became queen of Kenya, but at the same time, when the repression against Kenyans was actually becoming not just visible but also vicious, detention camps, murders, wanton shootings. I think it’s a degree of psychosis, that you can go to another people’s land, colonize them, and then expect them to honour you at the same time. The queen became the queen in Kenya at the same time there were murders, assassinations and just good old-fashioned corruption. And then, at the same time, we are expected to mourn the queen.



Caroline Elkins is a White American historian whose

research and subsequent publishing of the book “Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya” exposed Britain’s brutal suppression of the Mau Mau movement in Kenya in the 1950s. The information in “Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya was essential in a court case that resulted in reparations being awarded to more than 5,200 elderly Kenyans who survived the systematic torture and abuse to which they were subjected by representatives of the British government. Elkins was called as a witness to support the Kenyan claim. There are only 3 copies of “Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya in the Toronto Public Library system of 100 library branches, and 10 holds, although is one reference copy at the Reference library at Bloor and Yonge that can be read in the library. Alice Mugo a Kenyan lawyer shared a photograph of a fading document from 1956 online. It was issued four years into the reign of Elizabeth II, and well into her government’s brutal response to the Mau Mau resistance against colonial rule. “Movement permit,” the document reads. While over 100,000 Kenyans were rounded up in concentration camps, others, like Mugo’s grandmother, were forced to request

British permission to travel in their own country. “Most of our grandparents were oppressed,” Mugo tweeted hours after the death was announced on Thursday. “I cannot mourn.”




These sentiments are not limited to Kenya or Kenyans. In an interview, African Jamaican Pan-African dub poet Mutabaruka expressed similar thoughts. Mutabaruka said: “In 1952, that was when she ascended the throne of England. And if you check the history between 1952 and now, you will see that even though slavery was abolished, they redefined slavery and called it colonialism. And colonialism in this part of the world was represented by the throne of England. We’re not really talking about the individual person; we’re talking about a corporation, an institution, which is called the monarchy of England, that has totally devastated a lot of the progress we could have made if it wasn’t for this, colonialism, interpreted to us as slavery still.




There are 21 copies and 61 holds of Elkins’ most recent book “Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire” with one reference copy available at the Reference library. In Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire” Elkins quotes Edward Eyre who

was the British governor of Jamaica during the 1865 Morant Bay uprising led by Paul Bogle. Following a brutally vicious suppression of the 1865 Morant Bay uprising of African Jamaicans, Eyre who represented the British crown in Jamaica, boasted that “the retribution has been so prompt and so terrible that it is likely never to be forgotten.” It has not been forgotten and has been immortalized in the song “96 degrees in the shade” by the group “Third World.”




The death of Elizabeth II and the appointment of her son as the next British monarch, Charles III has caused various reactions from other African Caribbean communities. Dorbrene O’Marde, chair of the Antigua and Barbuda Reparations Commission, said: “I’m under no obligation, to be mourning her death. And that is simply because of, my understanding of history, my understanding of the relationships of the British monarchy to African people and Asian people, but to African people certainly, on the continent and here in the Caribbean. And so that my response is perhaps to recognize the role that the queen, Queen Elizabeth II, has played, how she has managed to cloak the historical brutality of empire in this veneer of grandeur and pomp

and pageantry, and graciousness.”



Since the death of Elizabeth II there have been growing calls to dismantle the Commonwealth of Nations which was established as the British Empire began to crumble and shrink. There are 56 countries across the world that maintain ties to the royal family as members of the Commonwealth of Nations, an international organization composed mainly of former British colonies. The Commonwealth of Nations was born out of the slow disintegration of the British Empire, which covered a fifth of the world’s surface at its peak in the late 19th century. Its holdings spanned from Hong Kong to the Caribbean to a wide swath of southern and East Africa. Queen Victoria, whose reign was critical to consolidating the empire, became Empress of India in 1877. The empire shrank as British colonies declared their independence. The slow dissolution of the British Empire began in the late 19th century as predominantly white colonies such as Canada and Australia were granted dominion status—meaning they could pass their own laws, which would be subject to royal approval. In 1926, Britain and the dominions formed the British Commonwealth of Nations, agreeing they

would all be "united by a common allegiance to the Crown." When India declared its independence in 1947, it chose not to swear fealty to the crown—opening the floodgate for other countries to join the Commonwealth under the same conditions. The organization officially became the Commonwealth of Nations. Now with the wind of change blowing through much of the populations of the Commonwealth of Nations, that organization is at risk. The legacy of the once “glorious” British Empire which once “ruled the waves” seems to be coming to an end with the death of the longest reigning British monarch.

Murphy Browne © September 14-2022







Wednesday 3 August 2022

DELOS ROGEST DAVIS AUGUST 4-1846

 DELOS ROGEST DAVIS AUGUST 4-1846



Murphy Browne © August 1-2022


Delos Rogest Davis was born on August 4-1846 and was the first person of African ancestry appointed as King’s Counsel in the British Empire. A King’s Counsel was a lawyer who was selected to serve as counsel to the British crown and that was considered a great honour bestowed on any lawyer of the time. During this period of history, George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, (which included Canada) and Emperor of India. He was the grandson of Victoria and grandfather of the present British monarch Elizabeth II. The British royal family has an interesting history that every child living in a British colony was forced to learn. On July 17, 1917, George V issued a royal proclamation that changed the name of the British royal house from their German name “House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha” to the more British “House of Windsor.” This was at the height of the first European tribal conflict (first world war) when the British and their German kin were slaughtering each other and doing their best to destroy each other’s countries. George V and all his British relatives relinquished their German titles and adopted British surnames.


The history of Delos Rogest Davis and African Canadians is not as well known and that is a sad fact which needs to be addressed and corrected. Delos Rogest Davis was born in Maryland, to an enslaved African couple, Anne Davis and James Davis. In 1849, James Davis escaped enslavement and lived in Fort Erie for a short time.

In 1850, James Davis bravely made the terrifying journey back to the area of his enslavement and rescued his family from the plantation where they were enslaved. The Davis family arrived at Malden (Amherstburg) on October 15, 1850, when Delos Rogest Davis was 4 years old. During the spring of 1851, the Davis family moved from Amherstburg when James Davis purchased the west half of lot 14 on the south side of Malden Road, in the African Canadian settlement of New Canaan in northern Colchester Township.


Education for enslaved Africans in the US and British North America/Canada was forbidden so neither Anne Davis nor James Davis were literate. However, they were determined that their three children, living in freedom in Upper Canada as refugees from US slavery, would have the opportunity to be educated. James Davis, along with other residents of Colchester North, hired a “private lady teacher” to educate the children of the community. A school was later established in the area, and James Davis was elected as one of its trustees, a position he held for several years.



The African Canadian children of Colchester North benefited from the education James Davis and others initiated for their community. In 1871, James Davis’ son, Delos Rogest Davis began studies to become a lawyer. To further his education, Delos Rogest Davis had worked at a paper mill in Michigan, as a deckhand on the steamer Forest City and as a fireman on the tug Castle.


Delos
Rogest Davis obtained a teaching certificate, and taught school for four years. Becoming a lawyer was a bit of a struggle for Delos because of the white supremacist culture of British North America/Canada where people of African descent were viewed as inferior. Fortunately, in 1871, county judge Gordon Watts Leggatt and attorney Charles Robert Horne, agreed to tutor/instruct Delos. In December 1871, Delos Rogest Davis was appointed a commissioner of affidavits, affirmations, and recognizances. On June 19, 1873, he became a notary public.


Davis was prevented from becoming a lawyer because the Law Society of Upper Canada required that individuals studying law must article for a period of time with a lawyer before taking the entrance exams for admission to the bar of Ontario. For eleven years, Delos Davis studied and practiced law at the level of legal clerk — he was prohibited from handling most legal matters because he had not been admitted to membership in the Ontario bar as no lawyer would hire him to article under them. Davis eventually applied to the Ontario Legislature to pass a private member’s bill to authorize him to practice as a lawyer. The bill was introduced by W.D. Balfour, M.P.P. for Amherstburg. On May 25, 1884, "an act to authorize the Supreme Court of Judicature for Ontario to admit Delos Rogest Davis to practice as a solicitor" received Royal Assent. This act provided that Davis be permitted to take his final law examination in order to obtain admission to the Law Society of Upper Canada, notwithstanding the fact that he had not complied with the articling requirements of the Law Society.

Balfour’s bill stated in part “in consequence of prejudices against his colour, and because of his being of African descent he had not been articled to any attorney or solicitor.” Davis placed first in the class of thirteen candidates and was admitted to the Ontario bar on November 15, 1886.


In 1887 Davis established a law practice in Amherstburg focusing on criminal and municipal law. He was counsel in six important murder cases but specialised in drainage litigation. Delos Rogest Davis, born on August 4-1846 as a child of enslaved Africans in the US, transitioned to the ancestral realm on April 13, 1915, after achieving his ambition, against many odds, becoming one of the first African Canadian lawyers and first African Canadian called to the bar of Upper Canada.


Murphy Browne © August 1-2022