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THE BAHAMAS
Pirates of the Caribbean and Junkanoo Goombay
By Jheri St.James
On
a map, the islands of The Bahamas resemble southern Atlantic
stepping-stones from Florida to Cuba. Nassau, the capital,
was long a pirate headquarters; it is now a world-famous
tourist resort.
An Ancient Castle Landmark
The
Bahamas were originally inhabited by a group of Arawak Indians
known as Lucayan. Originally from
the South American
continent, some of the Arawak had been driven north into
the Caribbean by the Carib Indians. Unlike their Carib
neighbors, the Lucayan were generally peaceful—more
involved in fishing than agriculture and . . . cannibalism.
When
Columbus reached the New World in 1492, he made his
first landfall in the New World on either San Salvador
or Samana Cay, in the Eastern Bahamas. After observing
the shallow
islands, he said, “baja mar” (shallow water
or sea) and effectively named the area The Bahamas, or
The Islands
of the Shallow Sea. The Bahamas are a nation of some
700 subtropical islands and more than 2,000 islets or
cays
(about 30 of which are populated), extending about 600
miles (970
km) from the coast of Florida, southeast toward Haiti.
Columbus and the Spaniards made no attempt to settle,
but operated
slave raids on the peaceful Arawak, depopulating the
islands which were uninhabited by the time the English
arrived.
In
1629 Charles I of England granted the islands to one
of his ministers, but no attempt at settlement was
made. In
1648 William Sayle led a group of English Puritans
from Bermuda to, it is thought, Eleuthera Island. This settlement
met
with extreme adversity and did not prosper, but other
Bermudan migrants continued to arrive. New Providence
was settled
in 1656. By 1670, the Bahamas were given to the Duke
of Albemarle and five others as a proprietary colony.
The
proprietors
were mostly uninterested in the islands, and few of
the
settlements prospered. Piracy became a way of life
for many.
The
pirate community was large and well established. Because
of its location relative to the British colonies
in North
America, it became a convenient location for smugglers
and pirates of every nation, and a major concern
for the Crown.
For this reason, the British set up a naval station
to combat the pirate activities. By 1717, the colony
reverted
to the
Crown and serious efforts were made to end the piracy.
The first royal governor, Woodes Rogers, succeeded
in controlling the pirates, but mostly at his own
expense. Little money
and military support came from England. Consequently,
the islands remained poor and susceptible to Spanish
attack.
Rogers became an exceptional pirate hunter and negotiator.
He offered pardons to pirates in an effort to get
them to
desist. While most were skeptical, they soon found
him
to be sincere and eventually 2,000 pirates accepted
the pardons
and made the Bahamas virtually pirate-free. Rogers
was certain that many of the pardoned pirates would
go back
to their
evil ways, so he wisely recruited men from among
those pardoned to hunt down the back-sliders. The move was
quite successful
and eventually many of the brethren of the coast
were “dancing
the devil’s jig” on the gallows.
Privateers
and pirates were essentially the same thing: privateers
simply carried a government license
called
a “Letter
of Marque.” Those whose ships were plundered
made little distinction, and when potential gain
increased, many privateers
turned to indiscriminate piracy. For the most part,
these marauders were beneficial to the Crown’s
interests, as they often ransacked enemy merchant
ships. However, once
a rogue, always a rogue, and the Crown’s
own ships became fair game when a convenient opportunity
arose. By
1700, the pirates actually ruled Nassau (insofar
as lawless riot and drunken revelry constitute
rule),
and chased off
most of what remained of the law-abiding citizenry.
Edward Teach, the notorious Blackbeard, took Fort
Nassau as his
residence and played cat and mouse games with the
British Royal Navy. He made himself magistrate
of the “Privateer’s
Republic,” without laws or government until
1714, when Britain outlawed pirates. At this time
the nation’s
motto was born: Expulsis Piratis—Restituta
Commercia (“Pirates Expelled—Commerce
Restored”).
He finally died in a legendary sea battle off the
coast of Virginia in 1718.
For
practical reasons, most pirates tried to avoid bloody close-contact
fighting, so flags were an
excellent tool
of first choice to wage war from afar on the
minds
and emotions,
weakening resolve and forcing a quick surrender,
the fine line between fight or flight. The “Jolly
Roger” was
the term for a solid red flag flown by early
pirates, which indicated that no mercy would
be offered
to the captured
prey. The flag was called “Jolie Rouge” in
French, meaning “pretty or beautiful red,” certainly
a tongue-in-cheek reference of buccaneers and
the like to blood. An equally colorful explanation
is that the phrase
came from the nickname given to the devil by
pirates
in the 1700’s of “Old Roger.” Jolly
Roger grew in meaning to refer to all of the
unique flags of the Golden
Age of piracy. The skull and crossbones image
may have either been taken from tombstones or
from
the popular crucifix in
that time, almost always depicting a skull and
crossed bones under the cross of Jesus. These
were symbolic of the death,
which He triumphed over, but also referred to
the outcropping of the crucifixion site, called
Golgotha
in Greek, meaning “the
skull.” This type of crucifix fell out
of favor in the 1800’s, after pirates corrupted
the intended meaning with their mass killing.
Another well-known place to find
the skull image was in a ship’s log next
to any “departed” crewmember’s
name. This flag in all its variety was only flown
for around 20 years during the height of the
Golden Age of Piracy and
even then almost exclusively by pirates of British
descent. Other examples of the death fixation
in flag iconography
were: a pierced heart, a heart with drops of
blood, a dart or spear, a skeleton with or without
horns,
and a cutlass
in a hand or empty fist. Blackbeard’s flag
showed a muscular skeleton with horns holding
an hourglass in one
hand and spear in the other that is pointing
to a heart letting out three drops of blood.
Held
for a few days by the U.S. Navy in 1776,
and for almost a year by Spain in 1782-83,
the islands
reverted
to England
in 1783 and received a boost in population
from loyalists and their slaves who fled the United
States after
the American Revolution. For a time, cotton
plantations brought some
prosperity to the islands, but when the soil
gave out
and slavery was
abolished in 1834, the Bahamas’ endemic
poverty returned. Two other periods of prosperity
followed: the years 1861-65
when the Bahamas became a center for blockade
runners during the American Civil War, and
in 1920-33 when bootlegging became
big business during the years of American Prohibition.
But these were economic accidents. Not until
the tourist industry
was developed after World War II did any form
of permanent prosperity come to the islands.
The need to secure political representation
for the islands’ black
majority led to the formation of the Progressive
Liberal Party (PLP) which was able to form
a government in 1967.
The POP worked to end racial segregation and
secure independence for the islands, which
was granted in 1973. Among the problems
the government had to cope with after independence
were drug trafficking in the Out Islands, and
the illegal entry of
many Haitian refugees.
The
Bahamas’ economy
today is based on international banking,
investment management, tourism, fishing, and the
export of wood products, cement, salt and
crayfish.
*
* *
Many
Bahamians have an artistic side, which they express through
colorful art, infectious
music
or exuberant
dancing. The traditional music of The
Bahamas is “goombay,” which
combines the musical traditions from
Africa with those of the European colonists. Goombay,
the Bantu word for “rhythm” also
refers to the type of drum used to produce
the rolling rhythm of this type of music.
Rake
and scrape bands have been playing
goombay music since the time of slavery,
when African
slaves had
few resources
to create music. Typically, “rake
and scrape” bands use a drum fashioned out of wood
and goatskin, a carpenter’s
saw scraped with a metal rasp, and a homemade bass violin
(a washtub with a string in it, tied to a three-foot stick).
Traditionally rake and scrape music was used
to accompany the Quadrille and the Heel and Toe Polka dances—another
example of how African and European influences blended
together. Today’s rake and
scrape bands use saxophones, electric guitars and other
instruments in addition to saws and goombay drums. However,
the music
retains the original rake and scrape
style. In a Jankanoo festival parade, the music is a louder,
more exuberant version of goombay music, and the parade
participants practice rushin’, a lively
parade movement of two steps forward, followed by one step
back. This creative musicality extends into the religious
music of The Bahamas. Bahamian sacred music
resembles American slave songs merged with American gospel
and European classical harmonies in places where in all
but the strictest churches, congregational singing
is accompanied by clapping, rhythmic possession and spiritual
dancing.
A Happy Festival Face
Junkanoo is The
Bahamas’ most famous festival, called “the
centerpiece of Bahamian culture”. The event is hosted at
various venues around Christmas and New Year, when streets and
settlements resound with cowbells, whistles and goatskin goombay drums. Costumes at one time or another have been made of sponges,
leaves fabric and shredded paper. Today crepe paper is meticulously
placed on fabric, cardboard or wood and a headdress, neckpiece
and skirt are the main garments, elaborate and brilliantly colored.
It may take up to a year to produce the intricate creations.
Costume design is tied to a theme and is a carefully guarded
secret. Junkanoo costumes that may have once been discarded are
now being preserved for posterity. The winning costume is placed
in the Junkanoo Museum.
A Brilliant and Complex Junkanoo Costume
The
Bahamas are a colorful place of dramatic historical events
and theatrical personal expression. Art plays
a big part in
the festival life of its inhabitants. The soil from The Bahamas,
which was kindly collected by Brian Vitek of Laguna Niguel,
California, has been the platform for Indian, Spanish, English,
U.S. and pirate footsteps. And even though pirates are romanticized
in literature and media, aren’t they after all just murderous
thieves—similar to those who wage war everywhere on
this planet for more real estate? Common Ground 191 proudly
adds
the special land sample of the Bahamas to its peace project.
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