Richard Hart

"Richard Hart was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, on 13 August 1917, of mixed heritage that included Sephardic Jewish and African. He was the son of Ansell Hart, a Jamaican solicitor and author of a 1972 historical study of George William Gordon. Hart was educated in Jamaica and in England, where he was sent to boarding-school at Denstone College in Staffordshire. He returned to Jamaica in 1937, and became a founding member of the People's National Party (PNP) in 1938; he was on the party's Executive Committee from 1941 to 1952. He had the responsibility of drafting a model trade union constitution as a member of Norman Manley's 1938 Labour Committee assisting Alexander Bustamante in the formation of a trade union, and in 1940 was arrested for organising a demonstration demanding Bustamante's release from prison. Hart sat the English Law Society examinations in Jamaica, qualifying as a solicitor in 1941. In 1942 he was imprisoned without trial by the British colonial government for his political activities. In 1954, Hart – who self-identified as a Marxist – was one of four PNP members who were expelled from the PNP for their (alleged) communist views. The other three members were Frank Hill, Ken Hill and Arthur Henry, and they were collectively referred to as "the four Hs". Hart was also very active in the trade union movement in Jamaica in the 1940s and 1950s, and worked as a member of the Executive Committee of the Trade Union Council from 1946 to 1948. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Caribbean Labour Congress from 1945 to 1946 and Assistant Secretary from 1947 to 1953. Believing in the importance of popular education to empower people and raise the level of political consciousness in the community – to which his first book, The Origin and Development of the People of Jamaica (1952), was dedicated – Hart helped establish the People's Educational Organisation (PEO), which organized a bookshop and held meetings and debates, including on the type of political party that was needed. Together with other radical thinkers and activists he then formed the People's Freedom Movement (which was later renamed the Socialist Party of Jamaica). The party disbanded in 1962." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hart_(Jamaican_historian_and_politician)

St William Grant

'In 1934 he served as a delegate to the UNIA convention in Jamaica, where he was expelled from UNIA by Marcus Garvey himself for "misrepresenting the aims and objectives of the organisation". Remaining in Jamaica, Grant continued both to earn his living as a cook and participate in activism, this time as a labour leader. In May 1938 the dockworkers of the United Fruit Company were on strike. Bustamante and Grant were known as orators promoting and directing the strike. Both were arrested on 24 May, and remanded in custody by a police inspector. While Bustamante submitted to arrest, St. William Grant protested and was badly beaten. Both were charged with inciting unlawful assembly and obstructing the police, were refused bail and as a form of humiliation were stripped down to their underwear. The events led to further strikes and riots, until Bustamante and Grant were freed by a court on 28 May. According to Dr Orville Taylor, a senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies, "had it not been for St. William Grant, history might not have known Bustamante". Grant had a falling out with Bustamante and never became part of the Jamaica Labour Party. In 1947 he contested the West Kingston division for the People's National Party in the first Municipal (KSAC) elections after adult suffrage and was beaten by more than 2 to 1. He never resurfaced in any other political contest. However, in 1950 Bustamante recommended that Grant be appointed watchman at the central Housing Authority (later the Ministry of Housing) in which post he remained until his death.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._William_Grant

Claude McKay

"Festus Claudius "Claude" McKay (September 15, 1889[1] – May 22, 1948) was a Jamaican-American writer and poet, who was a seminal figure in the Harlem Renaissance. He wrote four novels: Home to Harlem (1928), a best-seller that won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature, Banjo (1929), Banana Bottom (1933), and in 1941 a manuscript called Amiable With Big Teeth: A Novel of the Love Affair Between the Communists and the Poor Black Sheep of Harlem that has not yet been published.[2] McKay also authored collections of poetry, a collection of short stories, Gingertown (1932), two autobiographical books, A Long Way from Home (1937) and My Green Hills of Jamaica (published posthumously), and a non-fiction, socio-historical treatise entitled Harlem: Negro Metropolis (1940). His 1922 poetry collection, Harlem Shadows, was among the first books published during the Harlem Renaissance. His Selected Poems was published posthumously, in 1953." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_McKay

Alan Coombs

'Coombs, who was also a product of this environment, described the very modest circumstances in which he and Buchanan started the JWTU. "On the 17th day of May, 1936, I contracted six labourers in the Kingston Race Course and they pledged themselves to be members of the society, which they asked me to find a suitable name for." He could hardly have known that within a year this organisation would attract islandwide support and lay the foundations for what would emerge from the labour rebellion of 1938. The first phase of organisational effort climaxed in October with the JWTU participating in a labour conference at Liberty Hall along with members of the UNIA, the ex-servicemen and the Masons' Co-operative Union. Finally, on December 30, Coombs and his union felt confident enough to challenge the colonial administration by staging a march of the unemployed. After disregarding the advice of the Deputy Mayor to turn back, the marchers were charged by the police. A description of this event was provided by Coombs in his memorandum to the Moyne Commission: "The people, all unarmed, were only carrying flags and banners bearing the words 'Starvation, Nakedness, Shelterless'. The Union Jack was torn in pieces ? while the poor and unfortunate people received their floggings which necessitated many going to the hospital for treatment." Coombs responded by threatening a larger demonstration, and, more importantly, called on progressive persons island-wide to become representatives of his organisation. It was at this point in the development of the union that Coombs set out to enlist the support of men of "education and intelligence." Alexander Bustamante was one of the very few to respond and, after attending his first meeting, he became the union's treasurer. Both men now moved more decisively to organise dock workers, railway men and employees of the KSAC in the city, as well as workers in Spanish Town and the banana ports of Pt. Maria and Oracabessa. In return for his financial support, Bustamante quickly became the dominant personality with his energy, flamboyance and the status which automatically accompanied a near-white man of affluence. This was the platform which facilitated Bustamante's direct access to the masses and provided him with the opportunity to parade his genius for demagogy and to demonstrate his genuine empathy for the poor, his absolute fearlessness of the colonial authority and his love of country. By October, Bustamante made Coombs an offer that he could hardly refuse - continued financing of the union in exchange for the presidency. Coombs accepted and in handing over the presidency declared, "It gives me sincere and heart felt pleasure to voluntarily relinquish my position as president ... to our esteemed and devoted friend Mr. Alexander Bustamante."' http://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060507/focus/focus3.html

George Liele

"Liele, unlike all other 'religionists' to visit Jamaica before, came voluntarily, not part of the 'establishment', of the same colour as the majority, and did not operate as a landowner or slave trader. His presence excited the masses, and within a few years his first congregation at East Queen Street swelled to approximately 500 members. This was the first Baptist church established in Jamaica. Liele had come from the USA where already his life and witness made indelible mark upon US history. He is recognised today as the first ordained black preacher in America, the pioneer of the Black Church in the USA. His conversion at age 23 so transformed his life that his master freed him to preach the gospel. He came to Jamaica as America's first missionary overseas thirty-three years before Adoniram Judson sailed for Burma and became hailed in missions history as the Father of American Missions. In his native Georgia he had preached throughout the War of Independence, and attracted an impressive number of followers. This led to his establishing, in 1779, along with one of his followers, Andrew Bryan, the first Black Baptist Church in America. When he came to Jamaica in 1783, he began preaching in the dusty streets of Kingston, and gradually reached into the canefields in neighbouring parishes, eventually witnessing islandwide. Three Moravian missionaries had preceded him, but they were from Germany, white, kept slaves, operated in one parish (St. Elizabeth), and enforced such restrictions that their growth was slow and minimal. They did not excite the masses. The impact of Liele approximately 30 years later was startling and substantial. The plantocracy were so alarmed that they began to fear the uprising of the slaves. Not surprisingly then, the local Legislature passed a law to effectively put an end to all non-conformist preachers, for Methodists had arrived in 1798 and had begun to make an impact among mulattos. The law required all non-conformists (non-Anglicans) to get a licence to preach, from the Bishop of London, in London. While the white non-conformists were prepared to challenge the law, the blacks (Baptists) were in no such position. However, one of their member made a master move by writing to the British Baptists for help. In response, the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) in England sent their first missionary to Jamaica ­ John Rowe. He arrived in 1814 but died of a fever in 1816. The BMS sent successors, and they did noble, spiritual work, leading in the struggles that led to the Emancipation of slavery in 1838." http://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20030408/mind/mind4.html

William Knibb

"William Knibb, OM (7 September 1803 – 15 November 1845) was an English Baptist minister and missionary to Jamaica. He is chiefly known today for his work to free slaves. On the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, Knibb was posthumously awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit. He was the first white male to receive the country's highest civil honour. Knibb's elder brother Thomas was a missionary-schoolmaster in Jamaica. When Thomas died at 24, William volunteered to replace him. A dedication service was held in Bristol on 7 October 1824, two days after he had married Mary Watkins (or Watkis). The newly-weds sailed to Jamaica on 5 November 1824. William was aged just 21. Knibb found six English Baptist missionaries, African-Caribbean Baptist deacons, and thriving congregations already in Jamaica when he arrived. Together they were following the pioneering work of the African preacher George Lisle, a former slave from Virginia who had arrived in 1782 and founded a Baptist church in Kingston. Knibb began work as the schoolmaster of the Baptist mission school in Kingston and worked closely with fellow missionaries Thomas Burchell and James Phillippo, who formed a trio. In 1828 he moved to Savanna-la-Mar. In 1830 he became the minister responsible for the Baptist church at Falmouth, which had regular congregations of 600 when he arrived. He remained there as minister until he died." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Knibb

Michael Manley

In the election of 1972, Manley defeated the unpopular incumbent Prime Minister, Hugh Shearer, running on the slogans "Better must come", "Giving power to the people" and leading "a government of truth". He instituted a series of socio-economic reforms that produced mixed results. Though he was a Jamaican from an elite family, Manley's successful trade union background helped him to maintain a close relationship with the country's poor majority, and he was a dynamic, popular leader. Unlike his father, who had a reputation for being formal and businesslike, the younger Manley moved easily among people of all strata and made Parliament accessible to the people by abolishing the requirement for men to wear jackets and ties to its sittings. In this regard he started a fashion revolution, often preferring the Kariba suit, a type of formal bush or safari jacket with trousers and worn without a shirt and tie. Under Manley, Jamaica established a minimum wage for all workers, including domestic workers. In 1974, Manley proposed free education from primary school to university. The introduction of universally free secondary education was a major step in removing the institutional barriers to private sector and preferred government jobs that required secondary diplomas. The PNP government in 1974 also formed the Jamaica Movement for the Advancement of Literacy (JAMAL), which administered adult education programs with the goal of involving 100,000 adults a year. Land reform expanded under his administration. Historically, land tenure in Jamaica has been rather inequitable. Project Land Lease (introduced in 1973), attempted an integrated rural development approach, providing tens of thousands of small farmers with land, technical advice, inputs such as fertilizers and access to credit. An estimated 14 percent of idle land was redistributed through this program, much of which had been abandoned during the post-war urban migration and/or purchased by large bauxite companies. The minimum voting age was lowered to 18 years, while equal pay for women was introduced. Maternity leave was also introduced, while the government outlawed the stigma of illegitimacy. The Masters and Servants Act was abolished, and a Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act provided workers and their trade unions with enhanced rights. The National Housing Trust was established, providing "the means for most employed people to own their own homes," and greatly stimulated housing construction, with more than 40,000 houses built between 1974 and 1980. Subsidised meals, transportation and uniforms for schoolchildren from disadvantaged backgrounds were introduced, together with free education at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. Special employment programmes were also launched, together with programmes designed to combat illiteracy. Increases in pensions and poor relief were carried out, along with a reform of local government taxation, an increase in youth training, an expansion of day care centres. and an upgrading of hospitals. A worker's participation programme was introduced, together with a new mental health law and the family court. Free health care for all Jamaicans was introduced, while health clinics and a paramedical system in rural areas were established. Various clinics were also set up to facilitate access to medical drugs. Spending on education was significantly increased, while the number of doctors and dentists in the country rose. Project Lend Lease, an agricultural programme designed to provide rural labourers and smallholders with more land through tenancy, was introduced, together with a National Youth Service Programme for high school graduates to teach in schools, vocational training, and the literacy programme, comprehensive rent and price controls, protection for workers against unfair dismissal, subsidies (in 1973) on basic food items, and the automatic recognition of unions in the workplace. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Manley

Edward Jordon

Newspaper editor, statesman, and political activist, Edward Jordon helped galvanize public opinion against slavery in Jamaica among the free mulatto class using his newspaper The Watchman. Jordon, a Jamaican mulatto, enjoyed more privileges and a higher social status than the slaves, but was barred from enjoying basic civil rights, such as voting or giving evidence in court, because of his non-white status. Jordon emerged as an outspoken member of the mulatto group, actively using his newspaper to lobby for their interests. He surprised many, however, by also being very sympathetic to the slaves, regularly publishing articles criticizing the harsh treatment they experienced. In 1832 he printed an editorial calling for the planters to "knock off the fetters, and let the oppressed go free". In response the Jamaican planters had Jordon tried for sedition, which carried the death penalty. Though the charge was eventually dropped, Jordon spent six months in prison before his release. Jordon continued campaigning against slavery even after his release, and after winning the Kingston seat in the House of Assembly in 1835 he helped implement the articles of the Emancipation Act of 1834. Jordon went on to have a prolific career in public and private service. He founded another newspaper, The Morning Journal, and became manager of the Kingston Savings Bank, and director of the Planters' Bank. At various times he held the offices of Mayor and Custos of Kingston; Speaker of the House of Assembly and Colonial Secretary. A memorial statue of him was unveiled in Kingston in 1875, and can be seen today in the St. William Grant Park in downtown Kingston. http://jis.gov.jm/stalwarts/

Three-Fingered Jack

'ON THE MAIN road leading to St Thomas in the vicinity of Bull Bay stands a historic marker mounted by the Jamaica National Trust Commission (which was replaced by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust in 1985) dedicated to the memory of Jack Mansong. A slave who also became known as Three Finger Jack, his exploits as a guerilla fighter, starting in 1780 until his death in January 1781, sparked a wave of literary works which kept his legend alive well beyond the shores of Jamaica....Describing him as a "folk hero-villain", L. Alan Eyre, writing in the Jamaica Journal Volume 7, Number 4, in 1973 said: "It is a fact that more 'biographies' of Jack have been published than of any West Indian before or since - somewhere approaching 20 in all, almost all written in Britain and almost all anonymous!" In the article titled 'Jack Mansong Bloodshed or Brotherhood', Eyre notes: "Not only did books about him become popular, and one or two are known to have been bestsellers in Britain, but a pantomime of his life had the rare distinction of being a sensation at Covent Garden, Haymarket and Victoria theatres in London. This musical Obi - or Three Finger Jack - had a run of at least nine years!"...Described as "the terror of Jamaica", the exploits of this slave bandit-outlaw struck fear into the hearts of many up to 50 years after his death. The truth about his life seems to have been overtaken by fanciful stories, with the many and varied accounts making it difficult, if not impossible, to untangle the facts from the legend....Believed to be a giant in stature, standing close to seven feet tall, he became known as Three Finger Jack after losing two digits in a fight with a Maroon known as Quashie, who would eventually be credited with killing him. Alone and unarmed, he reportedly had time only to seize a machete before being shot three times, when attacked by Quashie and six others, according to Eyre's account. Mortally wounded, Jack threw himself off a precipice and Quashie followed. The two engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Jack putting up a good fight before succumbing to Quashie.' http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20110604/lead/lead5.html

Richard Hill

'Richard Hill, one of Jamaica's most famous sons, was born at Montego Bay on the first of May, 1795. In 1779 his father, also namel Richard, came to Jamaica from Lincolnshire, where the family had lived for several centuries, and along with a brother settled at Montego Bay. There he became a substantial merchant, and on his death in 1818 left his property in Jamaica to his son and two daughters, Ann and Jane. Hill's mother, who had East Indian as well as Negro blood in her veins, survived her husband many years, her son being constant in his attention to her up to the last. At the early age of five Hill was sent to England to reside with his father's relations then living at Cheshunt, there to remain till his fourteenth year when he was sent to the Elizabethan Grammar School at Horncastle to finish his education. Upon the death of his father in 1818 Hill returned to Jamaica. Although his property came into the possession of his son and two daughters the father's death in some way involved Richard Hill in irksome money obligations which harassed him for many years, and even after he had discharged them left a gloom over his life. His father was a man in advance of his times, hating and deploring the intolerance and the tyranny that grew out of slavery as it then existed in Jamaica. On his death-bed he made his son solemnly pledge himself to devote his energies to the cause of freedom, and never to rest until those civil disabilities, under which the Negroes were laboring, had been entirely removed ; and, further, until slavery itself had received its death-blow....In the year 1826 Hill visited Cuba, the United States and Canada, and then went on to England, landing there in September. In 1827 he was deputed by the organization in Jamaica to use his efforts in England to secure the assistance of the leading members of the Anti-Slavery party. During his stay there he was on terms of close intimacy with Wilberforce, Buxton, Clarkson, Babington, Lushington and Zachary Macaulay, 8 all members of the Anti-Slavery Society, as well as Pringle and other men eminent for their philanthropy and talents and noted for the deep interest they took in all that related to the elevation and welfare of the Negroes of the British West Indian colonies. The petition from the people of color of this island to the House of Commons for the removal of their civil disabilities, was entrusted to Hill, who upon the occasion of presenting it was permitted "within the bar" of the House. On that occasion Canning delivered his last speech a splendid effort in favor of the petitioners. Hill remained several years in England and contributed largely by his pen and his speeches to enlighten the public mind of England as to the real character of West Indian slavery. But the remittances from the "people of color" in Jamaica, never very large, soon became few and far between. So Hill, always independent in every way, even in his friendships and political alliances, maintained himself and his sister, Jane, almost entirely by his contributions, literary and scientific, to several popular newspapers and periodicals....On the third of February, 1834, Hill was appointed one of a number of forty stipendiary magistrates whose duty it was to adjudicate between the former slaveholders and their "apprentices." 6 This appointment he held until the first of January, 1872. In this connection it may be interesting to quote the opinion of Hill expressed by the Rev. James Thome and J. H. Kimball, who in 1838 published for the American Annti-Slavery Society an account of Emancipation in the West Indies: a six months' tour in Antigua, Barbadoes and Jamaica in the year 1837. They say: "We spent nearly a day with Richard Hill, Esq., the secretary of the special magistrates ' departments, of whom we have already spoken. He is a colored gentleman, and in every respect the noblest man, white or black, whom we met in the West Indies. He is highly intelligent and of fine moral feelings. His manners are free and unassuming, and his language in conversation fluent and well chosen. . . . He is at the head of the special magistrates (of whom there are sixty (sic) in this island) and all the correspondence between them and the governor is carried on through him. The station he holds is a very important one, and the business connected with it is of a character and extent that, were he not a man of superior abilities, he could not sustain. He is highly respected by the government in the island and at home, and possesses the esteem of his fellow citizens of all colors. He associates with persons of the highest rank, dining and attending parties at the government house with all the aristocracy of Jamaica. We had the pleasure of spending an evening with him at the solicitor general's. Though an African sun has burnt a deep tinge on him he is truly one of nature's nobleman. His demeanor is such, so dignified, yet so bland and amiable, that no one can help respecting him."' https://archive.org/stream/jstor-2713500/2713500_djvu.txt

Stuart Hall

'Academics, writers and and politicians have paid tribute to one of Britain's leading intellectuals, the sociologist and cultural theorist Stuart Hall, who has died age 82. Known as the "godfather of multiculturalism", Hall had a huge influence on academic, political and cultural debates for over six decades. Jamaican-born Hall was professor of sociology at the Open University from 1979 to 1997, topping off an academic career that began as a research fellow in Britain's first centre for cultural studies, set up by Richard Hoggart at the University of Birmingham in 1964. Hall would later lead the centre and was seen as a key figure in the development of cultural studies as an academic discipline. Martin Bean, vice-chancellor of The Open University said: "He was a committed and influential public intellectual of the new left, who embodied the spirit of what the OU has always stood for: openness, accessibility, a champion for social justice and of the power of education to bring positive change in peoples' lives."' https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/feb/10/godfather-multiculturalism-stuart-hall-dies

Charles Hyatt

"The actor, comedian and broadcaster Charles Hyatt, who has died of lung cancer aged 75, derived his inspiration from the folkways of rural and inner-city Jamaica. And, like the poet and performer Louise Bennett-Coverley (obituary August 1 2006) - he became a cultural symbol of the island. Based in Britain from 1960 to 1974, Hyatt's lusty, ribald, live performances attracted large numbers of his compatriots - not least when he played with Bim & Bam (the Jamaican Morecambe and Wise) on British tours (1969-70) - giving Jamaicans a taste of home. In 1960 a British Council bursary took Hyatt from Kingston, Jamaica to the Theatre Royal, Windsor. He performed regularly at the Oxford Playhouse and the Leicester Phoenix. His TV and film performances began with a BBC Wednesday Play, Fable, and, also in 1965, an appearance in Public Eye and in the film A High Wind in Jamaica. Later television parts included Rainbow City and The Saint, (both 1967). From 1968 to 1971 he narrated (and also wrote) episodes of Jackanory. In 1973 he played Joe, father of Bill Reynolds (Rudolph Walker), in Love Thy Neighbour." https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/feb/24/guardianobituaries.television

Tom Redcam

'Thomas Henry MacDermot was born in Clarendon Parish, Jamaica, of Irish ancestry, and spent much of his childhood in Trelawny. He was educated at the Falmouth Academy and at the Church of England Grammar School in Kingston, Jamaica. He was a teacher before taking up journalism, at The Jamaica Post, The Daily Gleaner and the Jamaica Times, of which he was editor for 20 years. He worked to promote Jamaican literature through all of his writing, starting a weekly short story contest in the Jamaica Times in 1899. Notable among the young writers he helped and encouraged are Claude McKay and H. G. de Lisser. In 1903, MacDermot started the All Jamaica Library, a series of novellas and short stories written by Jamaicans about Jamaica that were reasonably priced to encourage local readers. Alongside his work as a journalist, he wrote two novels. The first, Becka’s Buckra Baby, is said to mark the beginning of modern Caribbean writing. MacDermot's poems were not collected into a single volume until 1951. He was posthumously proclaimed Jamaica's first Poet Laureate for the period 1910-33 by the Jamaican branch of the Poetry League. MacDermot retired because of illness in 1922. He died in an English nursing home in 1933, aged 63.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_MacDermot

Henry Fowler

Henry Fowler's parents were Horace and Agnes Fowler, white planters from Moneague in central Jamaica. Henry was educated at Jamaica College in Kingston. An academic achiever, he went on to Worcester College, Oxford University in 1935, as a Rhodes scholar. Fowler became one of Jamaica's leading educationalists. He started his teaching career at Wolmer's Boys School in Kingston, specialising in English literature. In 1942, Henry Fowler opened his eponymous private school in Kingston, and then in 1944, launched the Priory School, remaining as headmaster until his retirement in 1973. He was appointed as Visiting Professor (Comparative Education) Western Carolina University in 1982, and President of the Inter-Regional Centre for Curriculum Development from 1985-90. He continued as a distinguished advisor on education, serving as Chairman of Jamaica Ministry of Education’s Committee for preparation of Youth for Independence and Chairman of the National Council on Libraries, Archives and Documentation Services. He was a Visiting Senior Associate at Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford and was a member of the Council of the University of the West Indies. Fowler became active in politics at Oxford, where he was chairman of the Oxford University Labour Club. A supporter of the League of Nations, he took part in international student delegations, including the Brussels International Peace Conference in 1936; the British delegation led by Lord Robert Cecil to the World Students Conference in Paris in 1937; and the 1937 British universities mission to Prague. At the outbreak of World War II, Fowler returned to Jamaica, where he joined Michael Manley's People's National Party (PNP). From 1939 to 1943, Fowler edited "Public Opinion". Fowler had a lifelong interest in theatre. He was active in the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS) as a student. He founded the Little Theatre Movement (LTM) in Kingston in 1941 with his first wife, Greta Bourke. Together they set up the Jamaica Theatre School, now the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts and the Ward Theatre Foundation. The Fowlers were friends of Noël Coward. Fowler served as Chairman of the All-Island Art Exhibition Committee and Vice-Chairman of the Caribbean Arts Festival. He became founder Chairman of the Board of the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation and also served as Jamaica's appointed ambassador to Unesco. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Fowler_(educator)

Leonard P Howell

Leonard Percival Howell (June 16, 1898 – February 25, 1981), known as The Gong or G.G. Maragh (for Gong Guru), was a Jamaican religious figure. According to his biographer Hélène Lee, Howell was born in an Anglican family. He was one of the first preachers of the Rastafari movement (along with Joseph Hibbert, Archibald Dunkley, and Robert Hinds), and is sometimes known as The First Rasta. Born in May Crawle River, Jamaica, Howell left the country as a youth, traveling amongst other places to New York, and returned in 1932. He began preaching in 1933 about what he considered the symbolic portent for the African diaspora—the crowning of Ras Tafari Makonnen as Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. His preaching asserted that Haile Selassie was the "Messiah returned to earth," and he published a book called The Promise Key. Although this resulted in his being arrested, tried for sedition and imprisoned for two years, the Rastafari movement grew. Over the following years, Howell came into conflict with all the establishment authorities in Jamaica: the planters, the trade unions, established churches, police and colonial authorities. He formed a town or commune called Pinnacle in Saint Catherine Parish that became famous as a place for Rastafari. Nevertheless, this movement prospered, and today the Rastafari faith exists worldwide. Unlike many Rastas, Howell never wore dreadlocks. Leonard Howell died February 1981 in Kingston, Jamaica. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Howell

Francis Williams

"Francis Williams was born around 1700 to John and Dorothy Williams, a free black couple in Jamaica. John Williams had been freed by the will of his former master and within ten years was able to acquire property. As free blacks the Williams family were increasingly in the minority as Jamaica's sugar industry, which relied on the labour of enslaved Africans, grew over the course of the 18th century. Even less common were educated black people. However, John Williams' independent wealth ensured that Francis and his brothers received an education....Contemporary sources report that for several years Francis kept a school in Spanish Town, Jamaica, where he taught reading, writing, Latin and mathematics. However, it is his writing and poetry on which his later reputation is based. The only surviving work by him is a poem in Latin addressed to George Haldane on his assuming the governorship of Jamaica in 1759 (a popular convention). Francis may also have written the words of the song 'Welcome, welcome, brother debtor'." http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/f/francis-williams-a-portrait-of-an-early-black-writer/

Juan de Serras

'The Karmahaly band under Juan de Serras is a Maroon group that deserves special attention, not only because they have nowhere else been systematically treated, nor because of their great skill in guerrilla warfare, but also because of their particular skill in negotiation and their diplomatic subtlety. From scanty data, Juan de Serras appears to have been a man of extraordinary ability, strongly seated in his leadership position, with a vigorous, disciplined organization based on a hierarchical ordering typical of Maroon communities....He governed his people with consensual authority, recognizing those with particular skills in his group and delegating functions accordingly. Thus some were used as emissaries, the specific qualifications for these delicate positions being tact, finesse, and bilingualism in Spanish and English....By June 1664 their harassment of plantations became so alarming to the planters that Captain Rutter and a party of volunteers were sent out against them, but with no success. By the following year reports of their plundering plantations, killing whites, and taking off slaves reached alarming proportions....About a year and a half after the posture of war we find a Karmahaly black, Domingo Henriques, suing for "peace". This peace overture, however, was nothing more than a ploy to gain time in order to consolidate their position, to select strategically new positions, and to lull the whites into a state of security. The ruse could not have been more successful. The astute Karmahaly chief, Juan de Serras, arranged to have Domingo "captured" by one of the parties sent out against them....The result of de Serras's ingenuity was that the whites were lulled into a state of false security, and as soon as the Maroons found themselves in a secure position, some took the offensive and resumed hostilities just two years after the charter....The activities of Morgan and his Buccaneers, as well as the rounding up and slave of the Spanish blacks and mulattoes, may have had some inhibiting effect on the Maroon bands, whether Karmahaly or others in their mountainous retreats.' Mavis Campbell, "The Maroons of Jamaica 1655-1796: A History of Resistance, Collaboration & Betrayal", pp. 25-34.

Henry Morgan

"Because the sack of Panama violated the 1670 peace treaty between England and Spain, Morgan was arrested and conducted to the Kingdom of England in 1672. He proved he had no knowledge of the treaty. When Spanish and English relations deteriorated, Morgan was knighted in 1674 before returning to Jamaica the following year to take up the post of Lieutenant Governor. By 1681, then-acting governor Morgan had fallen out of favour with King Charles II, who was intent on weakening the semi-autonomous Jamaican Council, and was replaced by long-time political rival Thomas Lynch. He gained considerable weight and a reputation for rowdy drunkenness. In 1683, Morgan was suspended from the Jamaican Council by the machinations of Governor Lynch. Also during this time, an account of Morgan's disreputable exploits was published by Alexandre Exquemelin, who once had been his confidante, probably as a barber-surgeon, in a Dutch volume entitled De Americaensche Zee-Roovers (About the Buccaneers of America). Morgan took steps to discredit the book and successfully brought a libel suit against the book's publishers William Crooke and Thomas Malthus, securing a retraction and damages of two hundred English pounds. The book nonetheless contributed much to Morgan's reputed fame as a bloodthirsty pirate during the time he was in Newport. When Thomas Lynch died in 1684, his friend Christopher Monck was appointed to the governorship and arranged the dismissal of Morgan's suspension from the Jamaican Council in 1688. Morgan's health had steadily declined since 1681. He was diagnosed with "dropsie", but may have contracted tuberculosis in London, and died on 25 August 1688. He is buried in Palisadoes cemetery, which sank beneath the sea after the 1692 earthquake." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morgan