JAMAICAN MAROONS IN NOVA SCOTIA JULY 21-1796

 JAMAICAN MAROONS IN NOVA SCOTIA 1796

Two hundred and twenty-six years ago, on July 21-1796, the first group of African Jamaicans arrived in British North America/Canada.

Murphy Browne © July 21-2019

On July 21 and 22-1796, three ships docked at the Halifax Harbour in Nova Scotia carrying between 550 and 600 African Jamaican men, women and children. The three ships, the Ann, the Dover and the Mary had sailed from Port Royal Harbour, Jamaica on June 26-1796, and arrived in Canada almost one month later in July 1796.

The passengers on the three ships had been forced to leave their homes in Jamaica, by the colonizing British. The group known as “Maroons” were the descendants of enslaved Africans who had seized their freedom when the British ousted the Spanish from Jamaica in 1655. This group of freedom fighters whose ancestors had fled slavery when the Spanish were forced to flee Jamaica had been fighting to remain free of enslavement attempts by the British, for more than 100 years.

The group repeatedly defeated the British attempts to capture and re-enslave them. The group of Africans who arrived in Nova Scotia in July 1796 were also known as the Jamaican Maroons. They were Africans whose ancestors had been enslaved by the Spanish before the British colonized the island. On May 10-1655, during the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604,)

the British invaded the Spanish colonized island and the Spaniards fled leaving behind the Africans they had enslaved, who seized the opportunity to head for the mountains and freedom. The Africans who escaped from slavery on the island of Jamaica established free communities in the mountainous interior and waged battles with the British who tried to re-enslave them.

The British, who invaded the island in 1655, also enslaved Africans to support their extensive development of sugar-cane plantations. The enslaved Africans in Jamaica continually resisted and some of them escaped from the British to join the Maroon communities established in the mountains.

The armed conflicts between the British and the Africans led to the “First Maroon War” between the warring groups in 1728. The British were unsuccessful in defeating the Maroons because the Africans were fearless, fighting for their freedom and led by military tacticians who knew the lay of the land. The Africans, using guerrilla warfare in the densely forested area of the Cockpit Country were at a distinct advantage against the heavily armed and unsuitably dressed British.

The war ended with signing of treaties between the British and the Maroons which not surprisingly benefitted the British, even though they did not win the war. The language of the signed treaties was written in English which gave the British colonizers a distinct advantage.

In 1795 tensions between the Maroons of Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town) and the British erupted into the Second

Maroon War. This second “Maroon War” which began in July 1795, lasted 8 months until March, 1796. Although the British with 5,000 troops and militia outnumbered the Maroons ten to one, the mountainous and forested area where the war was waged proved ideal for guerilla warfare. The British, however, with more fighting men than the Maroons, also had 100 bloodhounds and their handlers imported from Cuba. This gave the British a distinct advantage in many ways. The Cudjoe's Town/Trelawny Town) Maroons who were not supported by other Maroon communities in this war, decided to surrender rather than suffer a defeat.

In March, 1796 the Maroons agreed to accept open discussions with the British. The British colonial governor in Jamaica had promised leniency if the Maroons surrendered. He reneged and instead, captured and deported (to Nova Scotia) the entire Cudjoe's Town/Trelawny Town Maroon community. These proud African Jamaican freedom fighters who had managed to evade enslavement were forced to board three ships which sailed from Port Royal Harbour, Jamaica on June 26-1796, and arrived in Canada almost one month later, on July 21 and 22-1796.

The deported Maroons were unhappy with conditions in Canada, and in 1800, the majority left to travel to the British colony of Sierra Leone in West Africa. In 1800 they were back on the continent from where their ancestors had been kidnapped even though Sierra Leone was at that time (1800) a British colony. Some descendants of the Jamaican Maroon community remained in Nova Scotia. Some who were taken to Sierra

Leone, returned to Jamaica.

There were “Maroon” communities in every country where Africans were enslaved by Europeans including Brazil, Suriname and Mexico. In the English-speaking Caribbean, the Jamaican Maroons are the most well known as we were taught about these freedom fighters at home and in school.

Murphy Browne © July 21-2019

NELSON MANDELA JULY 18-1918

 Today July 18, 2022, Nelson Mandela would have been 104 years old.

Murphy Browne © Tuesday, July 18-2017

NELSON MANDELA JULY 18-2017

I was called a terrorist yesterday, but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists. I tell them that I was also a terrorist yesterday, but, today, I am admired by the very people who said I was one.

Quote from Nelson Mandela on Larry King Live, May 16, 2000

Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18th, 1918, in Mvezo, a village in the Mtata district of South Africa. His parents were Gadla Mphakanyisawa, the chief of Mvezo and his wife Nosekeni. Mandela is a member of the Thembu people of the Xhosa nation. In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela details the history of his ancestry. That is something most Africans in the Diaspora cannot do because of the legacy of slavery. In Long Walk to Freedom he explains; “Each Xhosa belongs to a clan that traces its descent back to a specific forefather. I am a member of the Madiba clan, named after a Thembu chief who ruled in the Transkei in the eighteenth century. I am often addressed as Madiba, my clan name, a term of respect."

When Mandela was an infant his father was stripped of his hereditary chieftainship by a white colonial magistrate. Chief Gadla Mphakanyisawa of Mvezo did not recognize the assumed power of the white interloper settlers in his country and he suffered for that principled stand. Refusing to accept that the magistrate representing the king of England had any legitimate power over him, he was charged with insubordination. In Long Walk to Freedom Mandela writes: “There was no inquiry or investigation; that was reserved for white civil servants. The magistrate simply deposed my father, thus ending the Mandela family chieftainship. My father who was a wealthy nobleman by the standards of his time, lost both his fortune and his title. He was deprived of most of his herd and land and the revenue that came with them.” His family was forced to move to Qunu, the village where Mandela spent his childhood.

Mandela was educated by his people before he entered the white supremacist school system when he was seven years old. He has written that the education he received was a British education, in which British ideas, British culture, British institutions, were automatically assumed to be superior. On his first day of school he was given the name “Nelson” to replace his African name, Rolihlahla. The education Mandela received in the British education system is obviously not the education which inspired him to become a leader in the African National Congress (ANC). The education he received from his community before he entered the education system came from his father who refused to abandon the traditions of his people.

“My father remained aloof from Christianity and instead reserved his own faith for the great spirit of the Xhosas, Qamata, the God of his fathers.”

Mandela wrote about the influence of the stories his mother told him as well as the history of his people that he learned from an elder griot, Chief Joyi. “Chief Joyi railed against the white man, who he believed had deliberately sundered the Xhosa tribe, dividing brother from brother. The white man had told the Thembus that their true chief was the great white queen across the ocean and that they were her subjects. But the white queen brought nothing but misery and perfidy to the black people, and if she was a chief she was an evil chief. Chief Joyi's war stories and his indictment of the British made me feel angry and cheated, as though I had already been robbed of my own birthright. Chief Joyi said that the African people lived in relative peace until the coming of the abelungu, the white people, who arrived from across the sea with fire-breathing weapons. Once, he said, the Thembu, the Mpondo, the Xhosa, and the Zulu were all children of one father, and lived as brothers. The white man shattered the ubuntu, the fellowship, of the various tribes. The white man was hungry and greedy for land, and the black man shared the land with him as they shared the air and water; land was not for man to possess. But the white man took the land as you might seize another man's horse.” The queen referred to in Chief Joyi’s reminiscences was Victoria who ruled the British Empire, including the African countries that had been colonized, from 1837 to 1901.

In spite of the British education he received at the several schools he attended, Mandela was educated in the knowledge of his people’s system of governance partly through his father’s involvement with the Thembu royal family. “My father has sometimes been referred to as the prime minister of Thembuland during the reigns of Dalindyebo, the father of Sabata, who ruled in the early 1900s and that of his son, Jongintaba, who succeeded him. As a respected and valued counselor to both kings, he accompanied them on their travels and was usually to be found by their sides during important meetings with government officials. He was an acknowledged custodian of Xhosa history and it was partially for that reason that he was a valued adviser.”

Refusing to be contented living as a second class citizen in the country of his birth cost Mandela dearly. In his struggle to ensure the human and civil rights for Africans in South Africa, Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment on June 11, 1964, where he remained until February 11th, 1990. He was not allowed to attend his mother’s funeral in 1968 or the funeral of his eldest son Thembekile who died in a car accident in 1969. Spending almost three decades in prison, Mandela may well have been forgotten by the world except that the amazing woman he had married shortly before being sentenced to life imprisonment would not allow that to happen. Mandela has acknowledged the role that Nomzamo “Winnie” Madikizela-Mandela played in the anti-apartheid struggle. “My former wife is a remarkable person whom I respect even today. She suffered a great deal and kept the name Mandela alive when I

was in jail. She also looked after my children and played a very prominent role in the struggle.” In “Part of My Soul Went With Him” published in 1985, Madikizela-Mandela documented that struggle including the years of police brutality, false imprisonment and harassment by the white supremacist culture of the minority settler community of whites in South Africa. Since Mandela’s release from prison and his election as South Africa’s first legitimate President, the world has celebrated his capacity for forgiveness and reconciliation. He has received accolades, honorary degrees and statues have been erected in his honour. A birthday celebration to recognize his 90th birthday was held at Hyde Park in London, England on Friday, June 27, 2008. I wonder how many of those at the birthday party had once labelled Mandela a terrorist when he was fighting for the freedom of his people.

Mandela transitioned and joined the ancestors on December 5, 2013. He would have been 99 years old today Tuesday July 18, 2017.

Murphy Browne © Tuesday, July 18-2017

Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada JULY 9-1793

Murphy Browne © July 1-2022 

On July 9, 1793, “An Act to Prevent the further Introduction of Slaves and to limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude” also known as the “Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada” was given Royal Assent.

 It is considered the first anti-slavery law in the British colonies.

The July 9, 1793 “Act” did not free any enslaved African in “Upper Canada/Ontario” it only “prohibited the importation of enslaved persons into Upper Canada.” As much fuss as is usually made, even that language was a farce because it did not prevent the sale of enslaved Africans across the border to the United States. Many slave holders in Upper Canada continued to sell enslaved Africans to buyers in New York State until 1799, when that state introduced a similar “gradual abolition law.” The 1799 gradual abolition law of New York State declared that children born after July 4, 1799, to enslaved mothers in New York would be born free. However, even though “free born” those children, would have to provide free services to the enslavers of their mothers until they reached 25, if female and 28 if male. The law applied only to those

born after 1799, so those enslaved Africans who were born before 1799 had no hope of freedom.

The Upper Canada/Ontario “Act” did not come from the goodness of any White slaveholder’s heart or a guilty conscience. That July 7, 1793 “Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada” was the result of the struggles of enslaved African woman, Chloe Cooley, to free herself from being sold. On March 14, 1793, Chloe Cooley, an enslaved African woman in Queenston, Upper Canada/Ontario was brutally beaten by three White men, (including Adam Vrooman, her enslaver and his brother Isaac Vrooman) thrown into a boat, taken across the Niagara River and sold in New York State. She was loud and physical in her resistance, but she was vastly outnumbered. Chloe Cooley did not go quietly. She resisted so fiercely that Peter Martin, a free African Canadian man took note of her screams and struggles and made an official report to Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe and the members of the Executive Council of Upper Canada. To his credit, on hearing of the atrocity, Simcoe made an “attempt” to abolish slavery in Upper Canada/Ontario. He was unsuccessful because many members of the “Family

Compact” including William Jarvis, Peter Russell, Alexander Grant, James Baby, Richard Cartwright and Robert Hamilton – were slave holders. In 1793 when Simcoe unsuccessfully attempted to end slavery in Ontario, he was blocked by powerful White men who were slaveholders. These powerful slave holders and politicians were members of the Executive Council of Upper Canada on March 21, 1793, when Peter Martin made his report about the brutalizing and sale of Chloe Cooley.

On July 9, 1793 “An Act to Prevent the further Introduction of Slaves and to limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude” was passed in the House of Assembly of Upper Canada. Simcoe had to make compromises to get the Act passed. Chloe Cooley was not saved from slavery, but her resistance was the catalyst that led to the first piece of anti-slavery legislation in Canada. The legislation did not free any enslaved African but at least it gave them hope that their descendants would one day be free. Life did not change for those enslaved Africans living in Upper Canada/Ontario, but the passing of the Act meant that any enslaved African who escaped slavery in the U.S.

and made their way to Ontario was a free person.

Chloe Cooley and other enslaved Africans were brought to Canada after the British were defeated in the American Revolution and were forced to retreat to British North America/Canada. The British slave holders brought the people they had enslaved when the British government in North America/Canada passed the “Imperial Statute of 1790,” which allowed United Empire Loyalists to bring in “negros, household furniture, utensils of husbandry, or cloathing” duty-free. Thousands of enslaved Africans were forcibly transported into British North America, to locations that included New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and Québec.

It is ironic that when the history of slavery in Canada is told, complete with August 1, 1834, as Emancipation Day, the name of Chloe Cooley is hardly mentioned. Contrary to the popular narrative, there were American states where slavery was abolished before slavery was abolished in Canada. Seven years before Canada, on July 4, 1827, slavery was abolished in New York State. If Chloe Cooley was still alive 34 years after she was

sold from Queenston, Ontario to New York, she would have been free on July 4, 1827.

Murphy Browne © July 1-2022 

VIOLA IRENE DAVIS DESMOND JULY 6-1914

 Murphy Browne © June 24-2022

VIOLA IRENE DAVIS DESMOND JULY 6-1914

Viola Irene Davis was an African Canadian social justice activist, born on July 6, 1914, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She was one of 15 children born to James Albert Davis and Gwendolyn Irene Davis (née Johnson.) At 32 years old Viola Desmond was a successful entrepreneur and owner of a beauty parlour and beauty school.

On November 8, 1946, the 32-year-old African Canadian businesswoman was arrested at the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia because she sat in a seat that was designated for white people only. Desmond was traveling on business from her Halifax, Nova Scotia home on November 8, 1946, when she experienced car trouble in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. After taking her car to a garage she decided to see a movie at the Roseland Theatre. She bought a ticket for the main floor of the theatre, unaware of the theatre’s policy that the main floor was a “Whites only” seating area because unlike the blatant White supremacist Jim Crow laws of the USA, there were no “Whites” and “Colored” signs posted and she did not know that

African Canadians were relegated to the balcony. When Desmond was ordered to move, she replied that she could not see from the balcony, that she had paid to sit on the main floor and that she would not move.

The manager left the theatre and returned with a policeman and the two burly White men dragged the slim, 4’ 11” Desmond out of the cinema, injuring her in the process. She spent the night in jail in the same block as male prisoners. The following day she was tried without legal counsel and found guilty of tax evasion. The sentence was 30 days in jail or a fine of $20, plus $6 to the manager of the theatre. Viola Desmond paid the fine and then challenged the guilty verdict in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. Desmond was supported in her struggle for justice by fellow African Canadian and civil rights activist Carrie Best who publicized the case in The Clarion newspaper. The Clarion was established in 1946 and was the first African Canadian owned and published newspaper in Nova Scotia.

Despite the efforts of Viola Desmond, Carrie Best and

the support of the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NSAACP) the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia upheld the guilty verdict. Desmond remained guilty of defrauding the government of one cent until April 15, 2010, when she was granted a posthumous pardon. Viola Desmond’s case did not receive much publicity outside of Nova Scotia, unlike the similar case of Rosa Parks to whom she is compared although her struggle took place more than 9 years before Parks’ case. Desmond’s story has been told in several books including Sister to Courage published in 2010 by Desmond’s younger sister Wanda Robson.

Wanda Robson spent decades advocating for a pardon for her sister. On April 15, 2010, a posthumous apology was offered to Viola Desmond by the Premier of Nova Scotia, who wrote: "On behalf of the Nova Scotia government, I sincerely apologize to Mrs. Viola Desmond’s family and to all African-Nova Scotians for the racial discrimination she was subjected to by the justice system in November 1946. The arrest, detainment, and conviction of Viola Desmond is an example in our history where the law was used to

perpetuate racism and racial segregation - this is contrary to the values of Canadian society. We recognize today that the act for which Viola Desmond was arrested, was an act of courage, not an offence." Viola Irene Davis Desmond would have been 96 years old when the apology was made and a posthumous pardon was granted in 2010. The official apology offered posthumously by the Premier of Nova Scotia on Thursday, April 15, 2010, was a long time coming. The apology was 64 years overdue from an incident that took place on November 8, 1946.

Viola Desmond transitioned to the ancestral realm on February 7, 1965, in New York City. Desmond was honoured with a Canadian postage stamp, her name on a ship and in 2018 her image appeared on the Canadian 10-dollar bill. In spite of this most Canadians know more about Rosa Parks than they do about Viola Desmond. This is because of the covert/undercover nature of Canada’s White supremacist culture and the myth of a successful Canadian multiculturalism.

The history that is taught in the Canadian education

system is Eurocentric not multicultural. We know about the enslavement of Africans in the USA since it is well documented but in Canada a discussion about the enslavement of Africans is mostly about those who fled slavery in the USA and sought refuge in Canada. We do know the names of some of the Africans who resisted their enslavement in Canada including Chloe Cooley, Marie Joseph Angelique, Peggy Pompadour and others whose names appear in “for sale” advertisements and bounty hunter type advertisements. Some Africans enslaved in Canada fled south of the border to states in the USA where slavery was abolished (e.g. Vermont 1777) before slavery was abolished in Canada on August 1, 1834.

The resistance of enslaved Africans contributed significantly to the abolition of slavery. Viola Desmond did not win her case, but her fight encouraged successive generations to continue the fight. In the 21st century the struggle continues on various fronts and freedom fighters emerge regularly. Like Desmond they may not win their battle, but they inspire successive generations to continue the struggle.

Murphy Browne © June 24-2022