Olga - A Daughter's Tale

Copyright © 2007 by Marie-Thérèse Browne

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The majority of events that I have written about were told to me by my mother, Olga with gaps filled in by my Aunt Ruby Shim (nee Browney) during my first visit to Jamaica to meet my extended family. Other events are assumptions based on my knowledge of relevant facts and circumstances. Regarding my research, particularly relating to the historical and social background of Jamaica as well as its culture, I would like to acknowledge the following:

The Newspaper Archives of The Jamaica Gleaner

The National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, UK

Jubilee Library, Brighton, East Sussex, UK

BBC Archive Department

The Times Archive (London)

Jamaica in 1905 by Frank Cundall

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PART ONE

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Christopher Columbus, the explorer, had been so mesmerized by Jamaica’s beauty he had described it in 1494 as "…the fairest land my eyes have ever seen" and had been greeted by a kind, friendly, gentle people known as the Arawaks who gave the island its name, Xaymaca – meaning “land of wood and water”. But the Arawaks suffered great ill-treatment at the hands of their Spanish conquerors and by the time Britain took Jamaica from Spain in 1655 they had all died.

Throughout the entire period of British rule and, not including the huge numbers born into slavery, it was estimated that upwards of 1,000,000 Africans were imported against their will into Jamaica. People forced to work as slaves on plantations owned by rich white men and women and subjected to extreme cruel and brutal treatment.

During slavery the plantation remained the most important unit and a rigid class system existed. You were judged to be important according to the type of work you did, the colour of your skin and how much money and land you owned.

There were three groups of people – the whites, the coloureds and the slaves who were black. Among the whites, the most important in society were the planters who were very rich from the sale of sugar and owned vast areas of land on which they built great houses usually on a hill overlooking the plantations and slave houses. Built by expert slave labour, they were manorial with fine wood panelling, vast rooms, and opening one into another, windows that reached to the floor and wide staircases modelled on the Georgian style. Below these ample living-rooms gleaming with their shining smooth wood polished floors were the quarters of the slaves who lived in cramped airless conditions behind stout iron bars at small windows.

Next in importance were the traders who sold merchandise to the people; tools for the estates, food items such as flour, fish, salt beef, cheese, wine, clothing and candles. They were very wealthy people but because they didn’t own any land they were considered less important than the planters.

After the traders, came the coloureds, half white and half black – ‘mulatto’ the result of a white man having a child by a black woman, although it was against the law for white women to have children with a black man. The coloureds thought they were better than the slaves mainly because they were not fully black, their reasoning being that the closer they came to being white, the more important they were. But some planters did free their mulatto children and in this way a large number of coloureds were free to start their own businesses.

Then there were skilled slaves. Among these people were midwifes, wheelwrights, masons and carpenters.

Next came the house slaves, the Blacks who worked as butlers, cooks, nurses, ladies’ maids, and coachmen in the kitchen, stable or garden. They worked close to their master and were frequently beaten particularly if he or she was upset about something. Punishment was often brutal, for example when a little girl was beaten and nailed through her ears to a tree for having broken a special cup belonging to her master.

The lowliest, and they amounted to more than half the slaves in Jamaica, were field slaves and it was primarily on their backs Jamaica became a jewel in the British Empire. They prepared the land, planted, cut and carried the canes to the mills, then ground it, made the sugar and carried it to the ships.

Jamaica reinvented itself when slavery ended in 1838. The workers legally had their freedom and now the owners of the sugar plantations had to pay the men who had once been their slaves. But many refused to work for the planters. Because they were free the black workers went into the hills and either squatted on Government property or bought small pieces of land from the missionaries who bought land from the Government specially for the purpose of selling it back to the freed blacks and coloureds at a fair price so they could become independent and grow their own crops.

They established themselves as free settlers and grew coconuts, spices, tobacco, coco, pimentos and, of course, bananas. They formed hardworking, independent small businesses, selling their produce to local markets and, not only were they financially successful themselves, their efforts went some considerable way to making Jamaica economically solvent again after the demise of the sugar market.

The planters needed workers so now free, but poor, immigrants arrived from Africa, Portugal, China, India, Syria and the Lebanon to work. The new immigrants were neither black nor white and many didn’t adapt to plantation work so some, like the Chinese, started their own businesses. These people brought with them their religion, language and cultures and enriched an already complicated society.

New shipping routes opened up between London and the West Indies and there was a lot of commercial activity in Jamaica. The British Government and the Institute of Jamaica encouraged men and women from Great Britain to move to Jamaica. Together they instigated a scheme whereby young men could pay a premium to plantation owners in exchange for instruction in the cultivation of crops indigenous to Jamaica. Once they had served an apprenticeship they would be able to buy government land well below the market price.

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CUTTING FROM “THE TIMES” LONDON - July 1900

Opportunity for Hard Working Reliable Young Man

Kingston, Jamaica

ARTICLE PUPIL SCHEME

Pupil for pen-keeping, banana and coffee plantation. Pupil will be required to assist in the management of coffee fields, surveying and laying out roads for plantation purposes, keep the plantation books and accounts in order and superintend labourers. In exchange pupil will receive practical instruction in coffee planting and preparing coffee for market, and instruction in the cultivation of bananas.

Pupil must be sober and honest, write a fair hand. A horse and forage will be supplied. Must have good outfit for working and other clothes, strong boots, riding breeches, leggings, waterproof cloak. Linen, etc. supplied. Polo, shooting, lawn tennis, other British sports. Good society. Will be required to furnish first-class references.

Premium required £100 p.a. for 1 year or 2 years payable quarterly in advance.

(Reference in England. Henry N. Pollock, Esq. Ravenswood House,Windsor, Surrey.)

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Letter - from Henry Pollock, Esq., Windsor, Surrey, England

to

Hon. Lt. Col. Bertram Pollock, Kingston, Jamaica

September 1900

My dear Bertie

Good news! There has been a splendid response to your recent advertisement in The Times for an articled apprentice and I have been busy all week interviewing a variety of young men for the position. But I have now finally made a decision on your behalf and I think you will be well pleased with my choice. His background is thus:

John Sinclair, a young man of some financial means, not excessive, but certainly enough for him not only to be able to pay the premium, but also to buy a small estate in Kingston. Both his parents are dead and his money has come from the sale of a small farm they owned in Inverness in Scotland.

He is a tall, strapping young man, with a pleasant demeanour, 25 years of age and recently married to Lucy Ross (there are no children!). Sinclair has had a reasonable education, is quite well read and I must say I thought he held a good conversation. I sensed in him an eagerness to learn new things and gain new experiences which is why I feel sure he will make an industrious and apt pupil and both of you will benefit.

Sinclair and his wife have been temporarily living with her family in Droop Street, Paddington, while they decide what they want to do with their future. He is adamant that he doesn’t want to return to Scotland. Says he’s had enough of the freezing winters and being knee deep in snow! (He’ll be alright in Jamaica then, won’t he, old boy?) Naturally, I wanted to meet his wife as well, so I arranged a visit to her at the family home. I felt it would be a good idea to see them in situ, so to speak, in order to form a better opinion as to their suitability.

The head of the family is Samuel Ross, a constable with the Metropolitan Police, and a pillar of the community. I found him a bit overbearing and his wife, Harriet, the opposite, timid but pleasant enough. I suspect they are a church going family since what looked like the family bible was prominently displayed along with a number of other religious artefacts in the house – Catholics, I think.

I must say Bertie I was very impressed with Sinclair’s wife, Lucy. A sweet, gentle and intelligent young lady who obviously adores her new husband and vice versa. They both impressed me with their knowledge of Jamaica, its politics and social structure. I believe she paints watercolours, so she should be well occupied painting the abundance of beauty and variety of scenery there is in Jamaica, particularly while Sinclair is out at work on the plantation.

Mrs Sinclair has two unmarried sisters, Martha and Becky and clearly has a very close relationship with her younger sister, Becky, who is similar in both looks and demeanour to Lucy tall, slender with fair hair, blue eyes.

Martha is the oldest and most unlike the other two, short and stout, with a badly pockmarked face, result of chicken pox I suppose. You know, Bertie, how every now and again in a family, nature produces an offspring that bears little resemblance to either its parents or siblings, well that’s Martha Ross. She works as a seamstress for the Drury Lane Theatre in London and didn’t hesitate to tell me she is the best they have.

I came away from the meeting with a most favourable opinion of Sinclair and his wife’s suitability and adaptability to moving to the tropics. Sinclair’s references are exemplary (enclosed herewith) and I have told him that you will write direct to him offering the position assuming, of course, you concur with me.

Yours ever
Henry

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Letter from Lucy Sinclair, Constant Spring Hotel,

St Andrews, Jamaica

to

Becky Ross, Droop Street, Paddington, London, England

March 1901

Dearest Becky

Bertram Pollock is a charming man, born and bred in Jamaica. I like him a lot and John speaks favourably of him as a man who is fair and reasonable. The plantation is a few miles outside of Kingston, at the foot of the Blue Mountains. Because our new home is not ready to live in, John is boarding in a room above the stables on the estate and I am staying here at the Constant Spring Hotel, which is quite nearby.

I have been here a short amount of time Becky and have seen little of the island, but already I have discovered so much beauty here.

Jamaica attacks one’s senses, the sight of brightly coloured parrots, mocking-birds, sugar birds or to use their more common name, the banana quit and right now, Becky, as I sit here in the hotel’s gardens writing to you, flying in and out of the trees and shrubs are beautiful long-tailed hummingbirds.

The other day I saw a sinister looking blue black bird with a huge beak. I’m told it’s called a john crow bird and is the most often seen bird on the island. It’s a great scavenger, very clumsy and ugly on the ground but so beautiful and majestic in flight Becky.

Jamaica is full of vibrant colour and beauty and is a naturalist’s paradise. The spectacular scenery is enriched by the vivid flowers and scent of the roses that abound, roses and bourgainvillea in every conceivable colour, as well as bright yellow allamandas, the annatto which has rose coloured flowers and purplish pods, the ebony which has yellow flowers and always comes out after rain and the pale blue flower of the lignum-vitae which grows over most of the island. To wake early and see the stars fade away and in their place watch a glorious sunrise and at sunset every night the frogs, crickets and fireflies all make their presence felt and voices heard.

From the fruit trees which are everywhere Becky, you can just pick and eat mangos, guava, papaw, oranges and other more exotic fruits that I have never heard of like ackee, which is very popular here. And if you can find something sharp and heavy enough to crack open a coconut, you can drink the milk from it.

I long to be settled in our house so I can explore the island more and paint instead of the pencil sketches I continually do whenever I’m out and about.