Submitted by Yardbroom
Bussa Statue
We know of Bussa as a Barbados “hero” an accolade bestowed on only a select few of our sons/daughters. A statue to represent him in all its nakedness and strength, has been erected on the busy Haggatt Hall highway in Barbados, to remind us of our past.
What do we know of Bussa? It is well documented that he was of African lineage and it is also believed he came to Barbados as an adult slave. He led a slave rebellion in 1816 at Bayleys Plantation in the parish of St Philip and was killed in the ensuing battle. He like some of those who were involved in the rebellion paid the ultimate price for the insurrection. Bussa’s life post the slave rebellion is part of Barbados’ history but I will – with much conjecture – in this short submission retrace his steps before Barbados. A tall order because of the lack of specific information that relates directly to Bussa.
It is best to tell you where I am heading, before you are taken on this short journey. I believe he, “Bussa” came from the village of Bussa which is between Birni Yauri and Jessao on the Niger River. Before you ask. It is not simply a matter of choosing a place in Africa with the name of Bussa and supposing he came from there. So a few feasible pointers are required to support my conjecture.
It is believed a large number of African slaves who were brought to the Caribbean were Igbo or Nigerian. Why was he called Bussa? He could have wanted to stamp his identity by stating how he wanted to be called. . . that is my name Bussa. He therefore choose as a name where he was born. Africans saw themselves at the time as being from particular tribes and not just being from a large continent.
People far from their native home abroad are often known to others for example: The Englishman, Scot, American, in Bussa’s case it could have set him apart and given him an identity. To other slaves he was not just a slave he was Bussa which in his mind and to other slaves would have meant something not known to or appreciated by slave masters.
We know that slaves were taken from the village of Bussa the capital of Borgu, we also know Bussa was on the slave route. Richard Lander the explorer 1803-1834 confirmed seeing slaves being taken away from there as late as 1830, despite the Blockade Squadron. We also know the River Niger was used by slavers as a route to the sea.
In one of Richard Landers encounters when he was captured in 1830 he relates: ” . . . “the palaver’s judgment was that they – Richard Lander’s party – should be taken to the Obi or king of the Ibo, who would decide what to do with them. They travelled for three days down the Nun, the delta’s main branch, until one of the Ibos pointed to a clump of high trees and said: “There is my country” he was pointing to the village of Bussa.
I have attempted here to place Bussa in an area in which he could have had a connection, as we know slaves came from there and it would be remarkable indeed if there was no connection. I have no birth certificate to be sure neither is there – to my knowledge – information of Bussa saying where in Africa he came from. I only have a hunch, no more than that but that is my belief.
For those with an interest in specific detail, the town Bussa in Borgu to which I refer in this submission is no longer there. In 1968 the town was flooded for the construction of the Lake Kainji Dam. The town was relocated and is nown called New Bussa.
Perhaps it is fitting that Lake Kainji’s gentle waves lap the earth he once trod and the statue representing “the man” Bussa at Haggatt Hall gazes to the skies, for in spirit at least the message is. . . . forever free, forever free, “Free” at last.
“John Braithwaite, proprietor of estates in Barbadoes and agent for the island, stated that prior to about 1768 the treatment of slaves was marked by much more cruelty than since that date. The wanton killing of a slave in Barbadoes remained nevertheless, by law of August 8, 1788, punishable by a fine of 15 Pounds Sterling only. It was not uncommon, he said, for slaves to suffer for food when corn [breadstuff] was high or a sugar crop failed. Industrious Negroes, of course, raised some provisions, hogs, and poultry about their own huts or on allotments”
Source..http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brbwgw/ArticleSlavery18thCentury.htm
David | July 26, 2012 at 2:05 PM |
@John
Don’t confine your thinking to what is physical.
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I am not, but at the same time I am not going to allow my imagination to fill in the blanks where no facts are available.
I would rather look for the facts and when I find them or they are shown to me to update my understanding and beliefs.
Yardbroom
If you look at the year Father Antoine Biet visited Barbados you will find that it was in 1654.
http://books.google.dm/books?id=kjd0aKY1YZ4C&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=biet+barbados&source=bl&ots=DyncBl29fq&sig=5Z-tKnLvqP7GmejcW7Vn5Hy-lAo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VqcRUM31I8PK6wHvvIDoDA&sqi=2&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=biet%20barbados&f=false
George Fox first appeared on the scene in 1648.
By 1651, Quakers were in Barbados in small numbers and the year after Father Antoine Biet’s visit the first Quaker itinerants, two women, came to Barbados.
I believe that prior to Ligon and Biet anything went in Barbados where cruelties to slaves and indentured servants were concerned.
I believe the Quakers changed that and ultimately were responsible for the abolition of first t the slave trade in 1807 and slavery itself.
The practice of cutting off ears you will find was common in that early period.
Thus, if you look at the Suffering of the Quakers by Besse, you will find that John Rous, a Barbadian planter/Quaker lost his ears in of all places America, because of his beliefs.
I will leave you to figure out who John Rous was.
islandgirl246
I will leave you to to put John Braithwaite’s evidence into its proper context.
Start by first researching when the penalty of 15 pounds was first imposed by law.
Hi John
I did not mention Quakers in what I wrote, neither the year Antoine Biet visited Barbados, as the above were not germane to the points “I” made. I do not as a rule go around plucking events at random from the air expecting others to follow.
I made a comment in response to Colonel Buggy’s post on church pews and followed that up because “FREEDOM” was mentioned; there has to be some logic behind my setting out of a case.
Yardbroom
Here I was thinking your sarcastic comment about freedom to think was in answer to my “esoteric” theories!!
… and if you do get a chance to look at chronologies you will find the logic.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/barbados/1510213/Churchs-slavery-apology-is-not-enough.html
ac
I have often wondered why Christopher Codrington left his estates to the Church of England.
According to his will his nearest kinsman was a cousin, Lt. Col. William Codrington so he had no children.
I believe from reading his will that he was a Quaker, or closely associated with them, at the time he wrote it in 1702.
http://yourarchives.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php?title=Will_of_Christopher_Codrington_or_Coddrington,_Chief_Governor_of_Her_Majesty's_Leward_Islands_in_America_of_Dodington,_Gloucestershire._1710
[IMG]http://i975.photobucket.com/albums/ae236/Bradley432/Mt WiltonN-Yard.jpg[/IMG]
Mount Wilton old Tenantry Road -St Thomas Barbados
Up until the mid 1960’s there was a government direction sign pointing down this cart road, with a most derogatory place name. “Mt Wilton Nxxxxx Yard. ” Many of the labourers from the nearby Mount Wilton plantation lived on lands here which were owned by the plantation. (The physical gate shown ,came much later. The mental conditioning gate was always there).I recall ,as a boy, visiting this community one morning around 9 am. There was not a single soul around. If a resident was over school age , then he/she had to be on the plantation working, if he/she was of school age , he/she had to be in school or in the field. This plantation, in the 1950’s also had a ‘work gang’ of children ,age from 4 years up working in the fields, they were referred to as the “Third Class’ gang,and were whipped , by a usually stern woman ‘driver’ if thought to be slackening on the job.
Hope this photo which the above refers to comes through.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/83717797@N04/7663999196/sizes/m/in/photostream/
Colonel Buggy
I remember a plantation owner in the 1960’s deciding to change the name of a field from Negro/Nxxxx Yard to a new name, more politically correct and unconnected with the past.
Would you know that all and sundry continued to refer to it by the old name, including the labourers.
My suspicion is that you will find fields throughout Barbados today known by their historic names, including Negro/Nxxx yard. There probably will not be a sign but my guess is that people refer to fields by their names.
Here is how it seems to have worked at Mount Wilton in 1817.
There were 190 slaves owned by Reynold Alleyne Ellcock of Mount Wilton in 1817, starting at page 477 and continuing. Hopefully the link works.
http://search.ancestry.co.uk/Browse/view.aspx?dbid=1129&path=Barbados.+Unknown.477&sid=&gskw=Sammy+
The grass gatherers (third gang) ranged in age from 7 to 13.
Their Driver was Patience, a 38 year old woman.
The cook for the young negroes was Hagar, a 50 year old and Mulatto, a 67 year old woman was the atttendant on infants.
Infants ranged in age from 7 years to a few months.
Phibbah, a 52 year old woman was the Sick Nurse.
Within the population of 190 slaves were Bennebah, a woman of 38 who was a cripple, and Old Kitty and Howay aged 70 and described as infirm.
You will probably find in the population you remember living on the plantation descendants of these 190 slaves.
Yardbroom
….there has to be some logic behind my setting out of a case.
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Did you notice in the return Reynold Alleyne Ellcock made of the slaves that he owned in 1817 that there was one named Bussoe?
He is listed as a Barbadian, not an African.
He was 45 years old.
The 9 slaves of the 190 who are listed as African were Chattah, James, Quashey, Jackey, Prince, Harry, John, John Groom and Old Nelly.
Old Nelly is also listed as coloured, meaning that she was of European and African ancestry although she was born in Africa!!
…. like the slaves from Africa in 1654 who Father Biet ministered to who brought as their African religion, Roman Catholicism, the merging of Africa and Europe is apparent from earliest times.
Humans are humans!!
Would be interesting to look at all of the slaves named Bussoe, Busso or Bussa in 1817 and determine if they were African born.
Not a very difficult task.
…. in fact, I managed to find a slave named Bussoe in the 1817 Returns who was indeed born in Africa.
He was 30 years old and listed as one of seven slaves owned by a Free Mulatto, Frances Hannah Pendral Padmore of St. Michael.
@John
You really should stop trying to insult Black people.
@ David | July 29, 2012 at 8:13 AM |
“ @John: You really should stop trying to insult Black people. ”
Leave him be! The higher the proboscis monkey (orang belanda) climb the longer his nose grows to smell his dirty racist behind.
But I blame black people for allowing the likes of John and “harry” to insult them.
The quicker black people bury the shackles called white man Christianity the faster they would be able to see the light to reject the insulting propaganda of their racial inferiority.
Let the white evangelists go to China or India and propagate the European Christian gospel. Black people have given the white man enough of their continent’s resources. They have allowed their minds bodies, and souls to be corrupted, pillaged, abuse and subject to genocide with their labour exploited free of cost. It’s time the white man takes his leeches elsewhere.
You hear us, dear John and dirty harry?
David | July 29, 2012 at 8:13 AM |
@John
You really should stop trying to insult Black people.
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You published a blog entitled “Searching For Bussa: An African Slave And A Barbados Hero “.
The blog is based on certain beliefs held by its author based on his sources of information.
I have shown that there are other sources of information that exist which can be accessed easily on the internet to assist in the search.
These sources take us bact to source data, original documents.
I raised up in the country where “it is what it is” hence my natural tendency to reduce any search to known facts.
I am sorry if you take this logical approach as “an insult to Black people” but I am too old to start searching for another way of searching and will continue using methods I learnt from childhood.
I like facts, …. but that’s just me.
@John | July 29, 2012 at 1:22 PM |
“.. I like facts, …. but that’s just me. ”
So you like facts and solid research? That’s all fine and good and very academically interesting.
While you are at it why don’t you research what the white man did to the indigenous people and their culture on this island and present it as “facts”?
Define “white man” and “indigenous people”.
@ John | July 29, 2012 at 1:53 PM |
“Define “white man” and “indigenous people”.”
Is this a red herring or delaying tactic? If you want to be pedantic then here goes:
The white man: those who came from England and settled after the pirate scout Powell andhis brother Henry and 80 other crooks on the “privateering” ship The Oliver Blossom under the sponsorship of mafia man William Courten with the blessings of the English monarchy who later sold out to James Hay who purchased the title Earl of Carlisle. The wretched earthly remains of many of their descendants are buried in the “hallowed” grounds of St. John, St. James & St. Peter parish churches. There is even one in the All Saints graveyard close to the path where only white angels thread.
The indigenous people: The same caring human beings we called Amerindians or Arawaks and Caribs who welcomed the sorry, filthy, thirsty hungry wretched souls from the wayward ship blown of course by the trade winds. Yes the same ones that had large settlements, communities or villages at Spring Garden, St. James (Jamestown), Long Beach Ch Ch, Three Houses in St. Philip and the natural springs of St. Lucy and the fertile lands of Indian ground St. Peter.
Now tell us what became of these quiet simple souls who thought the bearded guys were returning like the mythical or legendary sky gods “those that first came from the skies or heavens”.
millertheanunnaki | July 29, 2012 at 2:43 PM |
Now tell us what became of these quiet simple souls who thought the bearded guys were returning like the mythical or legendary sky gods “those that first came from the skies or heavens
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You are describing the Aztecs who lived in Mexico and Quetzcoatl.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcoatl
Have a look at the section entitled “Belief in Cortés as Quetzalcoatl and the fall of Tenochtitlan” and you will see that perhaps your belief is misplaced.
The Incas are a different story.
I found a good account in a book entitled “The conquest of the Incas”
http://www.amazon.com/The-Conquest-Incas-John-Hemming/product-reviews/0156028263
Both of these conquests by Spain took place in the early 1500’s, long before the English found their way to the Caribbean.
You see, it is a good thing I asked for a definition.
@John | July 29, 2012 at 3:17 PM |
They are all racially and culturally related including the various tribes of the Northern Americas and share the same basic belief system just like how Western & Northern Europeans shared the same pagan or druid system before the advent of Christianity.
Putting aside the con game the ‘conquitadores’ Cortes and Pizarro played on the their Southern American mainland brethren are you trying to say that when the English sailed haphazardly to to the shores of Barbados there were NO people inhabiting the Island i.e the land was bereft of humans and organization?
Get to the point and stop straying to impress those easily fooled.
Pizarro had 160 men yet defeated an army of 30,000!!
What con game?
Had he come to Peru a few years later after the civil war between two supporters of two half brothers over the succession to the throne he would have found an established Inca. Had he come a few years earlier he would have found the same.
Had Atahualpa not underestimated the tiny force of Spaniards and the effect of the steel sword and the horse he would never have allowed Pizarro to get to Cajamarca …. and then deliver himself on a platter to them expecting his forces to slaughtern them and castrate the few survivors for use as guards of his harem.
The Incan Empire did not achieve its conquests by being nice, peaceful and funloving peoples.
Atahualpa’s mistakes and the belief system of the Quechan Indians that the Inca was a god sealed their fate.
It was an Empire capapble of the same brutalities of that of Spain.
Having said that it was wrong of Spain to destroy the culture of that Empire.
I have never seen evidence linking the indigenous peoples that were believed to have been present on Barbados when the English arrived a century later to the Aztecs or Incas.
You seem to know of a link so reveal your sources of fact.
Ligon’s map of 1657 suggests a presence as does his text.
Were they killed, did they die of disease, did they pack up and leave ….. I don’t know.
Point me to your source of facts.
@ John | July 29, 2012 at 4:21 PM |
“Were they killed, did they die of disease, did they pack up and leave ….. I don’t know.”
They suffered even a worse fate than their brothers and sisters in the Greater & Lesser Antilles. There were no hills or deep forests to escape to other than try to set sail in dugout canoes to St. Vincent & St. Lucia.
In Barbados there were initially enslaved to grow tobacco and other root crops but the imported white man diseases had the greatest toll on them that not even physical maltreatment, violence and rape could ever match.
smillertheanunnaki | July 29, 2012 at 4:42 PM |
@ John | July 29, 2012 at 4:21 PM |
“Were they killed, did they die of disease, did they pack up and leave ….. I don’t know.”
They suffered even a worse fate than their brothers and sisters in the Greater & Lesser Antilles. There were no hills or deep forests to escape to other than try to set sail in dugout canoes to St. Vincent & St. Lucia.
In Barbados there were initially enslaved to grow tobacco and other root crops but the imported white man diseases had the greatest toll on them that not even physical maltreatment, violence and rape could ever match.
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…. and you know this because ……..!!!!
@ John | July 29, 2012 at 5:49 PM |
“…. and you know this because ……..!!!! ”
The same way I know that Columbus “discovered” the West Indies.
Intelligent people know that the early history of the Caribbean was written by European people to suit their own agenda as they have done about Africa, the Native Americans and other parts of the colonized World as have all conquering nations done throughout history. Do you think you would find in an early History book any accounts of the exploitation and brutal decimation of the indigenous people of Barbados? Neither would you find in any early History book writings of the millions of the dead slaves from West and Central Africa that were thrown overboard and shark food during that 5 star hotel-like 3-4 week cruise across the Atlantic.
But then again you know what people like you say about the stupid black peeps. “If you want to hide something important from black people, put it within the pages of a book”. Knowledge, my friend, is power!
John you haven’t and CAN”T convince me and many here that the African Slaves had freedom of choice. You are sooo way off based that you no longer make any sense at all. You claim that it was their choice to accept the white man’s God THAT is just what any HYPOCRITE CHRISTIAN would say!
I would like to meet John in person .. I would give he a slap …
islandgal246 | July 29, 2012 at 7:11 PM |
John you haven’t and CAN”T convince me and many here that the African Slaves had freedom of choice. You are sooo way off based that you no longer make any sense at all. You claim that it was their choice to accept the white man’s God THAT is just what any HYPOCRITE CHRISTIAN would say!
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There was also freedom of choice not to accept Chritianity.
Many did not.
Remember as well, Yardbroom’s source Father Biet in 1654 shows that slaves came from Africa having already been exposed to Christianity through the efforts of Roman Catholic missionaries.
http://books.google.dm/books?id=XWDSZCoTQxEC&pg=PA98&lpg=PA98&dq=father+biet+1654+portuguese+missionaries&source=bl&ots=S0AMUKdQgu&sig=b4sviPy_9eHUScPYztTzUJwqKls&hl=en&sa=X&ei=F8gVUOKxA9Ko0AH4y4G4CQ&sqi=2&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=father%20biet%201654%20portuguese%20missionaries&f=false
Followers of Islam also came out of Africa to the West Indies as well.
This is historical fact and whether you can or cannot be convinced is immaterial.
Barbadians do not know their history,despite the availability of the net,they prefer to think of themselves as the progeny of the oppressed and that is where the error starts.They wish to look at the 1600’s through the eyes of 2012,by virtue of that the majority of bajans do not understand the symbiotic relationship that existed between chattel and owner,which allowed this country to progress against the odds.The history of Barbados shows us that we had free blacks and mullatoes,who owned bussineses and also owned slaves.
@Vincent Haynes
Does it matter the ‘symbiotic relationship’?
What matters is that people of a certain colour (Black) had to be subjected to a way of life that was institutionalized. One that classified them as inferior. This occurred even during the apprenticeship period. Because Blacks and Whites had a good thing going at that time so what.
islandgal246 | July 29, 2012 at 7:11 PM |
John you haven’t and CAN”T convince me and many here that the African Slaves had freedom of choice. You are sooo way off based that you no longer make any sense at all. You claim that it was their choice to accept the white man’s God THAT is just what any HYPOCRITE CHRISTIAN would say!
_________________________________________
There was a freedom of choice,like in the caption in the Mount Wilton N**** Yard gate I posted earlier, where it was stated that children of school age living on the plantation lands, had a choice at 4/5/6 years old (late 1950’s early 1960’s). To be either in school or in a Third class work gang weeding the plantation fields. The slaves probably had a similar choice,either be in Church on Sundays or work in the fields.
I was fortunate when growing up to have a neighbour, an old lady, whose mother was an actual slave. She passed on many an account of her mother’s experiences on to us.
Colonel Buggy
I have read that Sunday was an off day for slaves, no work!!
Part of Saturday as well.
Can’t remember where, possibly Ligon.
I doubt whether any of the three gangs worked on Sunday.
… and you are confusing the physical Church building with the Church!!
… and you are confusing the physical Church building with the Church!!
…………………………………………………………………………………….
Quite true,as the slaves were not allowed into the established church building on Sundays, or any other day, to worship. Hence the street name of Amen Alley in Bridgetown between the Cathedral and Marhill St.
Colonel Buggy
I was fortunate when growing up to have a neighbour, an old lady, whose mother was an actual slave. She passed on many an account of her mother’s experiences on to us.
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I have a couple of questions about the lay of the land at Mount Wilton.
Looking at old maps of field names at Mount Wilton and the aerial photos from 1951 I see a canefield named Negro Yard and one named New Ground between the main road by Mount Wilton Plantation yard and the Gully on the Bloomsbury side.
The field to the south of Negro Yard is Craig and to the north is Big Orchard.
It looks as though there were dwellings to the north of New Ground, boardering on the gully.
Did the old lady whose mother was an actual slave ever told you of burials in the area and were the houses by the gully?
It is very easy to duck and dive as some have done on this thread as much as they like; this also applies to their cladestine supporters, but until they can bring “EVIDENCE” of BLACK Slaves in BARBADOS systemically mutilating, flogging, whipping, subjecting to torture or enslaving WHITE plantation owners or other WHITES to such inhuman, degarding and barbaric treatment. . . . any words they use are without merit.
“Degrading”
“Followers of Islam also came out of Africa to the West Indies as well.”
Yes I am aware that some slaves were followers of Islam yet I have never read of them practicing their religion and tell me why there were no Islamic places of worship built. There are Synagogues and Christian churches.
Dear John, what do you mean by “came out of Africa”?
Did the Islamists paid their fares and boarded ships destined to the West Indies and the Americas?
Did they voluntarily emigrate to these lands paved with molasses and cotton seeds in the same way many of their descendants boarded the SS Empire Windrush and the SS Surriento headed for the streets of London paved with gold?
Those same “followers of Islam’ were Africans captured by the Islamic slave traders and sold in exchange for European made simple weapons, cloth and trinkets especially mirrors that the chiefs could look into and admire themselves and their many wives. Unfortunately many of these captured followers of Islam ended up in the guts of sharks during the voyages of no return.
Legend has it that the big shark populations following the death ships were so well fed during these crossings it was a joke among the sailors that the sharks were so obese from overfeeding that were given the nickname ‘seahorses’ since the brave sailors would jump onto the backs of the sharks and ride the ocean for nautical miles only to climb back to the mother ship when it was dark. Legend also has it that even t the sharks’ skins would turn black and to show their appreciation to the white captains they (the sharks) would put on a black minstrel show in the water just for the crews’ entertainment after getting drunk and raping the black female slaves.
So John, how come a great historian and researcher like you don’t know these things?
Colonel Buggy
I was hoping you might have been told something about slave burials on Mount Wilton by the old lady who cared for you.
Why am I interested?
The answer is simple.
No one knows where the majority of slaves was buried in Barbados and no one seems to care.
Here is an account of research of one such attempt to discover locations where our ancestors might have been buried.
You will see that field names played a crucial part in informing the research and the digs done on several plantations in Barbados, including Newton.
http://jeromehandler.org/1989/06/searching-for-a-slave-cemetery-in-barbados-west-indies-a-bioarchaeological-and-ethnohistorical-investigation/
I hear horror stories of developers who come across human bones and fail to report the find because of feared delays in development and cost overruns.
These bones may well have belonged to slaves although I know of one case for sure where they belonged to a Quaker family.
Quakers were by and large not buried within the Anglican Church and many were buried in unmarked graves.
John | July 30, 2012 at 1:58 PM |
Colonel Buggy
I have a couple of questions about the lay of the land at Mount Wilton.
————————————————————————————
No mention was made of burials at Mt Wilton, by the old lady.
The Negro Yard (a polite way to put it) was directly west of Mt Wilton Plantation Yard, and was on the edge of the Bloomsbury Gully. The Orchard, from my knowledge was a field to the north of the plantation yard. Somewhere on that map should also be a field named Free Harry, which I believe is to the east of the orchard. It was so named, as this was the location that many of the slaves were working when the news of emancipation was passed on to them, they threw their hoes and forks in the air and shouted, ” we are free harries.”
@John
I hear horror stories of developers who come across human bones and fail to report the find because of feared delays in development and cost overruns. ____________________
Many of the Plantations had fields Call Cholera Ground, where many were buried during the great outbreak of 1854.
Colonel Buggy
Thanks.
Free Harry seems to have been lost as a field name.
I see Horse Pond, Old House Pond, Jonnie Welch, Banana Pond, Tenant Field as fields around the Orchard Fields.
Harry was a common slave name found in many locations. Until I started looking I never linked that name with slavery.
http://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?MS_AdvCB=1&db=BritishSlaves&rank=1&new=1&so=3&MSAV=2&msT=1&gss=ms_db&gsfn=harry&gsfn_x=1&gsln_x=1&gskw=1817&gskw_x=1&uidh=ud5
Not all plantations have a field called Negro Yard, in fact there are relatively few.
I was wondering whether the use of the name Yard might have been linked to Graveyard.
@John I was wondering whether the use of the name Yard might have been linked to Graveyard.
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The name Yard most likely denoted a place of dwelling /activity as opposed to a field. On one hand there was the Mill Yard, which comprised the grinding machinery, the Managers and overseers homes,as well as the horse stables and mule pens.It was the heart of the plantation . On the other side was the Negro Yard which housed the slaves.
Is that map of Mt Wilton accessible on line?
I once uploaded some jpgs of Graeme Hall as it looked in 1951. I will try and see if I can repeat the process …. if I can remember what I did back then!!!
@John.
Looking back at it, I doubt very much that Mt Wilton had its own burial ground. A high percentage of Mt Wiltons lands were arable, except for that rocky,grassy 8/10 acre lot on which Lammings Housing Area is now located. The Negro Yard was also very rocky. In those days no plantation would have given up good cane producing lands for the burial of the dead or the accommodation of the living. Over to the north of the plantation near what is now known as the Flower Forest, was what could be term the tenantry where many of the newly liberated slaves might have been moved to from the Negro Yard,after emancipation. This village situated between a crumbling cliff on the eastern side and steeply sloping lands on the western side was known as Mount Wilton Scotland. This village met its demise, when under the pretext of looking after the safety of the residents , the government of the day relocated the families to Welchman Hall and Lammings, sometime in the 70’s. The dreadful landslide expected, never came, but quickly after the relocation, a few upscale homes belong to the gentry of this island were erected at nearby Richmond.
I think I have figured out how to make the images available.
This storm, the two test matches and work (not necessarily in that order) have been keeping my mind occupied.
I tend to go along with the yard signifying where slaves lived but I see a couple of plantations with fields called Negro/Nxxxx House so I am keeping an open mind.
Some plantations have neither.
The field name New Ground also intrigues me as it suggests that for a time it was not in sugar cultivation. Remember that before tractors plantations had to depend on Oxen so land had to be allocated to feed them. Not all was cultivated.
Only a third of any plantation I have read was cultivated in sugar in the days of slavery, the other two thirds were used to produce food for people and animals or left fallow for crop rotation.
New Ground (I have seen them on other plantations) may have been grass lands where slaves may have been buried but as time elapsed, people forgot until one day it seemed like a waste to have perfectly arable lands lying in grass for which there was no more use.
The plough then went in.
People forget.
The Negro Yards at Apes Hill and the adjacent Spring were obliterated by quarrying first and now are part of a golf course and development.
Family members of the deceased in Barbados and
West Africa believed that if you were to unearth the dead
or not place them in a location that was close to their home
that they would come back to haunt you, and that their
spirits could not rest until they were buried properly, meaning
near their family, their home, or close to the things that
they most loved and cherished. Documentary evidence in
Barbados had established that “most slaves were buried in
either plantation communal burial grounds or under houses
in the slave villages” (Handler and Lange 1999:104).
Handler and Lange (1999:196) also note that in
some instances, when digging a grave in a communal burial ground “if they were to find a stone that they could not
easily get out, they would conclude that the deceased is
unwilling to be buried there, and therefore dig somewhere
else (it is not known if this custom was also practiced when
attempting to bury a loved one under the floorboards of a
house).”
According to Mechelle Kerns-Nocerito (Kerns
1999), former Lost Towns historian, “nearly one-third of
the trade with Annapolis was with the Caribbean, almost
half of which was with Barbados.” This is the second
most numerous port of origin after London, Engl
(http://losttowns.com/publications/articles/londontownburial.pdf)
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Bussa is in Niger state in Nigeria. I am Igbo and Nigerian, and Igbos/Ibos are not from Bussa, what is probable in my opinion is that Bussa was probably “Igbuzo/Ibusa” which is Igbo speaking and in Delta state, also close to the River Niger.
Bussa could have been BUSIA, a name among the Ashanti/Akan tribal group in present day Ghana.
If he was indeed of Igbo origin as many believe, then the name “Bosah” is a more plausible explanation. It’s a name that’s still given to males especially amongst Anambra folks.