elanya

I was reminded in a conversation earlier today about the time I was almost arrested in the Bahamas while trying to buy terrible shack food. I found the original LJ entry, which I realize doens't mention the fact that the cops told me that they had been told a "woman with a tattoo/tattoos" had been working for (implied running drugs for) Steve-o. And that he claimed that he was being harassed because the woman who ran the neighboring hair-braiding shack didn't like him. I also missed out the part where I think I accidentally saw a couple banging in the water >.>

While I was hunting that up, I also found a write up of one of my wackier dreams, about Matlock. Or, rather, the actor that didn't play Matlock >.>

So, Emancipation in the Bahamas (and the rest of the British colonies) happened in 1834. In the Bahamas there was a 4 year 'apprenticeship' program where slaves were expected to work for their old masters for wages while they adjusted to their freedom or some crap.

I was just looking at a list of registered ships built in Harbour Island between 1796 and 1843, and I noticed that beginning in 1836, ships start becoming larger on the whole. Before that most are one-masted, and after that, the ratio almost flips so that two-masted are more common and single-masted are the occasional outliers on the pattern.

Does this represent some different way in which labour was being organized? The increase in shipbuilding is certainly linked to the pineapple boom that was happening at this time (exports start going up in 1835) which relied on a truck system of blacks and poor whites growing pineapples and rich white merchants and shipowners making money off their backs... But I don't know if that's *enough* to explain things, and in any case it is all clearly tied together. An interesting side note for future research, perhaps, I'm afraid I don't have the data resources to explore it more thoroughly at this time...

Deposition of Capt. Edward Holmes. Late an inhabitant of the Bahama Islands and one of the Lords' Deputies there, he did about Aug. 27 last arrive with his own sloop in Harbor Island under that Government with his wife and some of his family, when a vessell under French colours fired a valley of small armes upon him, and at the same time another valley was fired from the shore, and imediately the captain of the said vessell, whose name was Martell (a Frenchman) with a canoe and armed men and his Lieutenant in another canoe like wise came on board in a violent manner, and took hold of deponent's wife and stript her, and the Quarter-Master presented a loaded pistoll att her breast, thereby to force her to discover deponent's wealth, and searcht her very haire of her head, and threatned to fling her overboard. Then Capt. Martell ordered them to bee carried on shore and there tyed deponent's wife fast to a tree, and one of his men struck her with a sword, deponent being then bound on shore. Next morning hee was carryed on board his own vessell and his hands seized to the mast, and the quarter-master belonging to Capt. Martell with his naked cutlass beat him on his back, as was guessed, 500 blows, untill all thought him dead, the quarter-master still continueing to push the deponent in the face with, the point of his sword upon every groane hee made. And then deponent comeing to himself Capt. Martell's gang lighted eight peeces of match about 3 inches long and tyed them betweene his fingers and burnt them about half an hour by the glass, to force him to confess his wealth, and afterwards they tyed him with his back to the scuppers and brought lighted matches to tye to his toes, and swore they would burne his privy members, and so they cruelly extorted deponent's discovery of what he had and took itt from him, and so turned him and his wife and child on shore, striped, about 8 leagues from their habitation in great necessity, and many other cruelties and barbarities Capt. Martell and his gang did then and there comitt. Signed, Edwd. Holmes. Endorsed, Recd. 12th, Read 15th Sept., 1709. Recd. with duplicate of Col. Bennet's letter of March 1st, 1708/9. 1 p. [C.O. 5, 1264. No. 74.]

I am so excited! naryrising managed to find an article that tells me George Phenney's wife's name! (That link goes back to a 2009 lj entry wherein I first got obsessed by this mystery @_@)

The answer is Mary, and we know this because she applied for an apprentice from Christ Church and listed her husband's occupation as Governor of the Bahamas :D From "Married Women's Occupations in Eighteenth-Century London" by Amy Louise Erickson, Continuity and Change (2008), 23 : pp 267-307.

In additional Internets Weirdness, this random Pirates of the Caribbean fanfic contains references to a couple in Nassau named George and Mary Phenney. I skimmed enough of the chapter to be able to decisively say that the author knows (or okay, I will be fair) or is not using any other pieces of historically accurate information to describe Nassau in the vague period during which the PotC franchise is set.

(The Life and Times of Bootstrap Bill, by Istani).

Bedtime for me :)

"They come of a fine stock, for they are nearly all the descendants of Loyalist soldiers, who fought for the king in the War of Independence, and were rewarded by grants of land in this island. Their one idea has been to keep the stream of their white blood pure, and they have married in and in till nearly all the whites in the island are related by ties of consanguinity. They are now in such a debased condition that they have lost all trace of their origin, and men with good old English and Scotch names have no idea where the cradle of their race is to be found. Probably their apparent want of brain power is due to in-breeding."

L.D. Powles. The Land of the Pink Pearl: Recollections of Life in the Bahamas, 1888, p. 71.

... I also am amused by the follow up line, though it carries a different kind of snark: "Or was it, perhaps, that all of America possessed of intelligence was enlisted in that struggle on the side of independance, and that these who fought for the "Old Régime" had no brains to transmit?"

Back in 1701, the people of the Bahamas rebelled against their governor, Elias Haskett. They deported him, Attempting to ship him back to England, but he escaped in New York. There are some fascinating accusations and counter accusations about who was involved in what kind of illegal business (answer: all of them). There are allll kinds of ridiculous stories surrounding this rebellion, but the following is part of Haskett's responses to a number of accusations made of him by the inhabitants*:

When I arrived at Providence, there were not above 20 people lawfully married, and the wives of part of those 20 were taken from them by those that had more strength and riches than the husbands, which occasioned great animosities. For example, Elding** forcibly took away the wife of one Perryman (sic) Trott.*** Lightwood**** deserted his own wife and took the reputed wife of the late Governor Trott. One Holmes took one Harris' wife, and drove him off the Island. Samuel Thrift forcibly took away the wife of one Starr, and detains her from him, and most of the rest live after the same manner by daily changing of wives and mistresses. I ordered the Grand Jury to enquire into all such disorders, so that upon their first meeting they presented about 20 such persons, and some proceedings being set on foot to punish, several petitioned me to grant them licence to marry the women they had lived with. Their charges amounted to three or four pounds, but for any licence granted by me I never took more than five pieces of eight, which fee is taken by all the Governors throughout the whole Indies. But the Minister was so covetous, he refused to marry these poor people if they could not present him with 24s. I myself paid for several of them.

*The particular accusation he is addressing here is as follows: He demands and receives from 6l. to 9l. for each licence to marry, and denies the banns of matrimony to be published in Church according to the Canons thereof. By which means the honest intentions of several poor people, who cannot comply with his unreasonable demands, may by such methods be (in a manner) forced to live disorderly and incontinent lives.

**Read Elding, an ex-Red Sea pirate (not necessarily an ex-pirate) of mixed race who had been the locally-elected acting governor before Haskett showed up. Haskett had him arrested on various charges, which led directly to the rebellion. That's right, the eighteenth-century Bahamians rebelled because of the mistreatment of their half-black pirate governor. <3

***Trott's uncle (or father, I forget) had been governor before, and he was also hilariously corrupt.

**** Ellis Lightwood was elected governor after they deported Haskett. If you are wondering whether the inhabitants had any legal authority whatsoever to be electing their own governors, you may not be surprised to hear that the answer is no, not even a little.

Leaving tomorrow for what will proooobably be my last trip to the Bahamas for anything related to my Dissertation research. I'd love to spend more time in the archives, but I just don't see it happening - too expensive :/

I'm trying to make sure I have everything I need - this includes electronic copies of various documents I need to submit. So... a list then!

To scan:
Updated artifact log book
Photo log - complete 2009 and 2010

To make sure I have copies:
Field bag log
Shovel test forms
Field logs (2)

Leaving Harbour Island today... Taking Catherine to the dock in about half an hour, and I'll probably head out between 2:30 and 3.

Get to Nassau around 5:30, hopefully without any issues, and I'll be sure to let folks know how things are going once I'm there :)

I have a game tomorrow afternoon, but nothing much else to do on Sunday.... we'll see how things go.

Things are great!

So far, we have dug on 4 properties - Yellowbird, which has some material on an old property but a lot of disturbance in the accessible areas (4 shovel tests only); The Methodist House, where we had one day... really half a day... to dig, and managed to get 6 tests in), the Old Barry House ,in the old old part of town, around an exposed foundation, up into a gravel yard with lots and lost of chickens and some run down trucks (12 shovel tests), and Java House - another old house currently under historic-minded renovations (6 pits on two short transects where we could find bare yard, the second leading to where they found an old outdoor toilet (in local parlance ;) they have since filled in).

So that's a total of 28 tests! I know some of you who do CRM are probably laughing at such a poor turnover of tests for two people over 8 days of work but hey, we're actually finding stuff! Lots of stuff @_@ Lots of small things that require careful screen sorting - there is *Always* another fish bone, for instance! In addition to the piles of your typical historic small finds (glass, ceramics, bones... not as many pipe stems as you might expect...), we've found a handful of cool more unique things. The first (only @_@) day at the methodist House (MDH, as we call it around here), we found a cool little bone..... thing. It is clearly meant to be held, but its purpose remains enigmatic!

We found a cool pewter broach at the Old Barry House (OBH).... of course, it is in four pieces, but whatcha gonna do? Java House (JVH - do you see a trend here?) was especially kind, and we uncovered an iron, sans handle, the bone handle to some kind of implement, possibly a whisk (two pieces), and a fork! We've also got a handful of cool buttons, though none quite as snazzy as the kissing birds from last year.

In addition to digging the tests, we've also been keeping up with cleaning the artifacts (well, mostly... I think we are only 2 bags behind, just ognore that the last one probably has a hundred fish bones in it -_-), and mapping the sites. It is a fair amount of work, I promise! We're hoping to get one more in, which gives us time to dig, clean and log artifacts, and pack everything up before leaving on Saturday.

Of course, we are in a nice little property, right on the harbour, with a private dock home to probably a dozen different species of fish and other marine life, so there has been some evening swims, the lightning and star gazing, and the three evenings we got to watch the bermuda fire worm bioluminescent mating ritual :D

So that's basically what Catherine and I have been up to... now it is time for BBQ burgers and a dark and stormy. Or, since they have no dark rum and I'm making due with gold, an overcast and windy.

If anyone wants more info... I'll catch you in the morning :)

Reading for Atlantic History, Morgan and Horn on Migrations...

And it occurs to me that it is very significant that the Bahamas were not settled from Europe - settlers (white and exiled free blacks) came from Bermuda, and then they came from the Carolinas ant Jamaica, and other Colonial locations. Occasionally people came over, especially government people (most of the governors) from England. And Rogers brought his German palatines -but they all died. Some slaves, who were few enough in the early period, came from Africa, certainly - check Craton and Saunders for references. I am fairly certain about this but I should double check.

I'm not sure what all this mean, but it seems that it is something worth thinking about - what are the implications, in terms of the relationships of the colony to the home government, and the tensions between locals and the colonial government in its various forms?