Part 3

On this subject Long wrote: “From the resemblance which the language of these islanders bears in some respects to the Spanish, I am apt to suspect that many of their words have been altered by the Spanish mode of pronunciation, and the difficulty which the discoverers found in articulating and accenting them without some intermixture of their own patronymic. In some this is exceedingly obvious, where the letter _b_ is used indiscriminately for _v_, agreeably to their idiom. This perversion may easily lead us to ascribe a Spanish or Moorish origin to the names of places, such as rivers, mountains, headlands, &c., which in fact are of Indian derivation. Thus the article _gua_, so commonly met with both in these islands and on the Southern continent, was often prefixed or appended to the Indian names of places and things; and even of their provincial _caciques_. Of the latter were Gua-rionexius, Gua-canarillus, Gua-naboa, and others. Of the former a vast multitude occurs, as Gua-nama, Xa-gua, Gua-há-gua, Camayá-gua, Aicayazá-gua, Má-gua, Nicará-gua, Verá-gua, Xará-guo, Gua-ríco, Ni-gua (Chigger), etc., which may seem to confound them with derivatives from the Spanish or Moorish word _agua_ (water). So the terminations, _ao_, _ana_, _coa_, and _boa_ or _voa_, as Manabax-ao, Cib-ao, Gu-ana, Magu-ana, Yagu-ana, Ligu-ana, Zav-ana (Savannah), Furac-ana (Hurricane), Caym-ana, Guaiac-ana (Guiacum), Haba-coa, Cuana-boa, and so forth. The names therefore occurring in our island of Liguana, Cagua, Tilboa, Guanaboa, Guadibocoa, and others of similar finals are with more propriety to be traced from the Indian than the Spanish dialect.”

With regard to the Spanish occupation of the island both history and archæology are almost as scantily supplied as in the case of the Arawâks.

It is estimated that when Jamaica fell into the hands of the English the population of the capital was half Spanish and Portuguese or their descendants and half slaves; but it is a curious fact that a negro is mentioned as holding the position of priest of the Roman Catholic church.

The more important islands of Cuba and Hispaniola, to say nothing of the rich mines of South America, offered greater attractions to the Spaniards than did Jamaica, where—then, as now—the field had to be ploughed before the harvest could be reaped. They utilized for their _hatos_, or pastures, the low-lying lands on the sea-coast, which had formerly been used by the native Arawâks for the cultivation of Indian corn and cassava.

Of these hatos the principal were, going from east to west, Morante (the name of which still lives in Morant Bay), Ayala (Yallahs), Lezama (where Mona now is), Liguanea (Lower St. Andrew), Guanaboa (the name of which still exists), Guatabaco (about Old Harbour), Yama (in Vere), Pereda (Pedro Plains), El Eado (behind Bluefields) and Cabonico (near Savanna-la-Mar).

They had settlements at St. Jago de la Vega (the present Spanish town, established in 1520), Puerto de Esquivella (Old Harbour, named after the first governor about 1501), Parattee (still bearing the same name), Oristan (Bluefield, named after a town in Sardinia then subject to the crown of Spain), Savanna-la-Mar, Melilla (in the north-west corner of St. James, named after a town on the coast of Barbary, then in the possession of Spain), Sevilla Nueva (St. Ann’s Bay), Chireras (Ocho Rios), Rio Nuevo and Hibanal (somewhere near Buff Bay).

Roads ran from Puerto Antonio westerly along the coast to Punta Negrilla, connecting their townships of Santa Anna, Melilla and Manteca. From Manteca a road ran southerly to where Savanna-la-Mar now is, and thence easterly to Old Harbour, and thence northerly to Santa Anna.

There are but scanty remains of Spanish masonry in the island; none of great importance. The “Columbian Magazine” in 1796 recorded that an old Spanish tavern, with laths of bamboo, was taken down to make way for Rodney’s statue, and the adjacent buildings, but there is, of course, no certain proof that this was Spanish work. The only known relic of Spanish Jamaica is the church bell from Port Royal now in the Institute of Jamaica.

Of their buildings in general, Sir Hans Sloane, who was here in 1687–88, only thirty-three years after the conquest, says that they were “usually one storey high, having a porch, parlour, and at each end a room, with small ones behind. They built with posts put deep in the ground; on the sides their houses were plastered up with clay or reeds, or made of the split trunks of cabbage trees nailed close to one another and covered with tiles or palmetto thatch. The lowness, as well as fixing the posts deep in the earth, was for fear their houses should be ruined by earthquakes, as well as for coolness.” It seems strange, according to modern ideas, to build a house one storey only for coolness; although one might do so for fear of earthquakes.

Long tells us that “a certain number of posts of the hardest timber, generally _lignum vitæ_, brazilletto, or fustick, of about 18 feet in length and 6 to 8 inches in diameter, being first well-seasoned and hardened in smoke, were fixed at proper distances to the depth of 2 or 3 feet in the ground; then a wall of brick, enclosing these posts, was carried up with very strong mortar to the plate, which was pinned with wooden spikes to the tops of the posts. The main rafters were small, but being of the like hard wood, and perfectly well-seasoned, were sufficiently strong; these were likewise pinned upon each other, and at their angle of intersection at top formed a crutch to receive the ridge pole. The smaller rafters were of the lesser ebony trees, stripped of their bark, hardened in smoke, notched at bottom, and being placed at the distance of about 18 inches from each other, were pinned to the plate. Athwart these on all rafters a stratum of the wild cane (_Arundo Indica_, bamboo species), previously smoked, was tied on by way of wattling with straps made of the bark of mahoe or mangrove trees. Upon these wattles some mortar was laid, to the thickness of about 4 inches; and the whole covered with large pantiles, well bedded in. The thickness of these roofs, from the outward shell or tile-covering to the ceiling within, was about 8 or 10 inches. A canopy of so solid a texture was certainly well contrived to shelter the inhabitants from the disagreeable effects of a vertical sun,” and accordingly it is found by experience that these old Spanish houses are much cooler than our modern ones covered with shingles. After regretting the failure to establish a manufacture of tiles, and the importation of North American shingles, Long goes on to say: “The chief error the Spaniards committed in their buildings was the placing their ground floors too low; these were nearly on a level with the surface of the earth out of doors, or at most raised only a few inches higher.” In his time there were, he tells us, upwards of fifty Spanish houses remaining in Spanish Town “very little the worse for time or weather.”

Of Spanish names given to towns and villages, St. Jago de la Vega (St. James of the plain) still survives in custom, although supplanted officially by Spanish Town. So also do Ocho Rios, Savanna-la-Mar (the plain by the sea) and Oracabessa; Esquivel became Old Harbour soon after the British occupation.

Of the Spanish names of rivers, many survive; the principal being Rio Alto (deep river), Rio Cobre (copper river), Rio Grande, Rio Minho, Rio Bueno (the good river), Rio Magno (the great river), Rio Novo (new river), Rio d’oro (golden river), Rio Pedro (Peter’s river). It is thought that Rio Pedro may be a corruption of Rio Piedra (stony river). The Rio Minho is said to have been named after a river in Portugal or, as Long says in another place, after some mine in the neighbourhood. It is thought by some that it should be Rio Mina, (the river by the mine). Others are named after rivers in Spain.

Amongst districts we have Santa Cruz (Holy Cross); as well as Pedro both in St. Ann and in St. Elizabeth. The former is said to have been named after Pedro Esquivel, the Spanish governor.

The following derivations of Spanish names in Jamaica are given by Long. Notes by the present writer are added between square brackets:

_Auracabeza._ Aura, air or breeze; Cabeza, head or high land. [This is now Ora Cabessa in St. Mary. Others derive it from Oro Cabeza, the golden head.]

_Alta Mela._ Deep Gap. (Alta Mela, Savannah, St. James.)

_Agua Alta Bahia._ Deep water Bay, corruptly Wag-Water. [Still known as Wag Water.]

_Los Angelos._ The Angels. [Angels in St. Catherine was the first terminus of the railway.]

_Rio Bonito._ The Pretty River.

_Cabo Bonito._ The Pretty Cape. [In St. Catherine.]

_Cabarita Punta._ Kid or Goat Point. [In Westmoreland, where there is a river of the same name; there is another Cabaritta Point in Old Harbour Bay, and a Cabaritta Island in Port Maria Harbour.]

_Rio de Camarones._ Perhaps from Gambaro, a crab, from the abundance of black crabs hereabouts.

_Cobre Rio._ Copper River, or Cobra Port, Snake River. [Still known as Rio Cobre.]

_Caborido._ _Quasi_ Caba Arido, the dry or withered cape (part of Healthshire highlands.)

_Carvil or Caravel Bahia._ Caravela signifies a light round kind of a ship formerly used by the Spaniards.

_Diablo Monte._ Devil’s Mount. [Now called Mount Diavolo.]

_Escondido Puerto._ The hidden harbour. [In Portland; now called Turtle Crawle Harbour.]

_Flora Ria._ Flower River.

_Fortaleza Punta._ Fort Point. [On Blome’s map there are two in St. Ann.]

_Gallina Punta._ Hen Point. [Galina Point is in St. Mary.]

_Guada Bocca._ Guada, brook of water; boca, mouth.

_Hoja Rio._ River of leaves, now corruptly Riho Hoa. [Now called Rio Hoe.]

_Jarisse Punta._ Cross-bow or arrow, probably refers to some action with the Indians.

_Javareen._ Rustic expression, signifying a wild boar.

_Lacovia._ _Quasi_ Lago-via, or the way by the lake. [A village in St. Elizabeth. Elsewhere Long suggests it may be a corruption of La agua via, the watery way. It was once in the possession of the Gladstone family.]

_Liguanea._ Lia-withe-guana, the name of an animal, probably one frequent in that part of the island. [That part of Lower St. Andrew, bordered by the Long Mountain, the St. Andrew Mountains and the Red Hills.]

_Moneque or Monesca Savannah._ Savannah of monkeys. [Now confined to the village of Moneague.]

_Mari bona._ Maria-buena, Mary the Good. [Maria Buena Bay is in Trelawny.]

_Multi-bezon Rio._ Multi, many; buzon, conduit.

_Macari Bahia._ Macari, a tile, such as is made for floors, which the Spaniards universally used here and probably manufactured them near this bay, the soil being proper for that purpose. [Long adds as a footnote to Macari: “Or perhaps it may derive more properly from the Indian word Macarij (which signifies bitter), and allude to the tree commonly called the Majoe, or Macary-bitter which grows in great abundance along this part of the coast, and with whose leaves, bark and root, which are all of them extremely bitter, some very notable cures in cases of inveterate ulcers, the yaws, and venereal distempers, were some years ago performed by an old negress named Majoe, in commemoration of whom it took its name.” Macary Bay is in Vere. Majoe Bitter, or Macary Bitter (_Picramnia Antidesnia Sus._) is a shrub about 8 feet high, with small whitish green flowers, and berries first scarlet, then black.]

_Mantica Bahia._ Butter (now Montego Bay). This part abounding formerly with wild hogs, the Spaniards probably made here what they called hog’s butter (lard) for exportation. [In a very old deed of conveyance of land in St. James a road is marked as leading to Lard Bay.]

_Ocho Rios_ said to mean eight rivers. [In St. Ann. It was more commonly called Chareiras in Long’s time; and indeed as late as 1841, William Rob wrote “Ocho Rios, called to this day by the old inhabitants ‘Cheireras,’ its early and appropriate name ‘the Bay of the Water-Falls,’ but has now gone back to Ocho Rios.” It is not unlikely that the present form Ocho Rios and the derivation from eight rivers is wrong, and that the real name is Chorréra, a spout. There is a Chorréra River in Cuba, near Havannah.]

_Perexil Insula._ Samphire Island.

_Sombrio Rio._ Shady river. [Now called the Sambre.]

_Yalos._ Frosts (whence, perhaps corruptly, Yallahs), the high white cliffs having the appearance of a frosty covering. [Now called Yallahs. Long was probably wrong in connecting Yallahs with Yalos. The Hatô de Ayala extended from Bull Bay nearly to Morant Bay, and the name is probably a personal one. Pedro Lopez de Ayala was a celebrated poet and politician in the fourteenth century; Pedro de Ayala was Spanish envoy to the Court of St. James in 1498; and, curiously, a recent Spanish representative at Havana bore the name de Ayala. There was a Captain Yhallahs, a privateer who flourished in Jamaica in and about 1671, and the locality may have been named after him.]

_Luidas._ Perhaps from Luzida; gay, fine. [Lluidas Vale is in St. Catherine.]

_Martha Brea._ Martha, a woman’s name; Brea, tar; perhaps a nickname of some Spanish sailor’s Dulcinea like the English vulgar appellation _Jack Tar_. [Martha Brea village and river are in Trelawny. The name is a corruption of Rio Matibereon.]

No traces are to be found to-day of the following: Alta Mela, Rio de Camarones, Caborida, Carvil Bahia, Guada Bocca, Jarisse Punta, Javareen, Multi Bezon Rio, Perexil Insula.

Of corruptions of Spanish names the best known are: Agualta (Agua Alta, the deep river); Bog Walk (Boca d’Agua, water’s mouth); and Mount Diablo. Cagua became with the English Caguay, then Cagway when it was renamed Port Royal.

Those who see in Porus a survival of the name of Columbus’s companion, Porras, are probably drawing on a fertile imagination. Columbus and his companions saw little of the interior of the island. It is more probably called after some well sunk there, or from the porous nature of the soil, “pitted with holes.” In the English edition of Ferdinand Columbus’s “Historie,” we read that the Morant Cays were called by Columbus _Los Poros_ because “not finding water in them they dug pits in the sand”; but in the Italian edition (Venice, 1571) they are called “le pozzi” (the pits), and in the Spanish edition of 1749 they are called “Las Poças” (the pits). It is possible that in the case of Porus, as in that of the Morant Cays, there has been a confusion between _Poros_ and _Pocas_; and that the town in Manchester should be called Poças. The Spaniards called the Black River, el Caovana (the Mahogany River).

In the English section of Jamaica history for the two centuries from 1655 to 1855, there is a wide field of exploration.

What with earthquakes, hurricanes and floods, the march of time, and rebuilding, the typical old-time planter’s houses are getting scarcer. Then, again, there are the monuments and gravestones which contribute to our knowledge of Jamaica genealogy and history. Captain Lawrence-Archer, in the middle of the last century, did much in his “Monumental Inscriptions of the British West Indies,” to put this information in a handy form, but his work, which is often inaccurate, by no means covers the whole field. Something of late years has been done in that direction by Mr. Oliver in “Caribbeana.”

Although Jamaica is probably no worse than other countries in its disregard for ancient monuments, that there is need for improvement cannot be denied by those who have looked into the matter. The Spanish invaders burned the Arawâk huts; the old-time English planters despoiled Spanish buildings to find material for their sugar works; and in our own day a ruined seventeenth-century building which withstood the recent earthquake was later pulled down by peasants for the sake of its stones. When Lawrence-Archer wrote less than fifty years ago, he recorded a statue by Bacon to Richard Batty in the cathedral. Only a fragment of it remains to-day. The author of his epitaph little thought that the literal truth of part of it would be so early established when he wrote in 1796:

“Yet vain the Record, which sculptured stone Would raise to those pre-eminently known.”

The most strongly constructed building will wear out with time and, in the tropics especially, vegetation is apt to interfere with monuments and gravestones; but a little care without much expense should be all that is needed to render unnecessary an expensive restoration, which many individuals and bodies find themselves unprepared to meet and which, after all, can never take the place of preservation.

In 1672 Port Royal contained 800 well-built houses, “as dear rented,” Blome tells us, “as if they stood in well-traded streets in London.” Twenty years later, when it was at its zenith, the number was 2000, “the greatest number of which were of brick, several storeys in height.” In 1692, as is well known, a large part of the town perished by an earthquake, and from that event Kingston dates its origin, Port Royal being partially destroyed again, by fire, in 1703 and by hurricane in 1722.

Charles Leslie, writing in 1739, says of Jamaica: “One is not to look for the beauties of architecture here; the public buildings are neat but not fine. The churches in the town are generally in form of a cross, with a small cupola a-top, built high in the walls, paved within, and adorned with no manner of finery.” The churches, he says, except those at Spanish Town and Halfway-Tree, are “decent small houses, scarce to be known for such,” and he adds, “the clergy trouble them little, and their doors are seldom open,” in marked contrast to the present state of affairs. “The gentlemen’s houses,” he says, “are generally built low, of one storey, consisting of five or six handsome apartments, beautifully lined and floored with mahogany.... In the towns there are several houses which are two storeys, but that way of building is disapproved of because they seldom are known to stand the shock of an earthquake or the fury of a storm.”

On Craskell and Simpson’s large map of Surrey, of the year 1763, is shown a view of a presumably typical Jamaica house, two storeys high, with an open veranda in front only. It is evident from what Long says that, at all events for the first century of the island’s occupation by the British, not much attention was paid to domestic architecture by the planters of the island. “It is,” he says, “but of late that the planters have paid much attention to elegance in their habitations; their general rule was to build what they called a makeshift; so that it was not unusual to see a plantation adorned with a very expensive set of works, of brick or stone, well executed, and the owner residing in a miserable thatched hovel, hastily put together with wattles and plaster, damp, unwholesome, and infested with every species of vermin. But the houses in general, as well in the country parts as in the towns, have been greatly improved within these last twenty years.”

In this connection mention may be made of the aqueducts on some of the sugar estates, which are amongst the best pieces of architectural work in the island. They and some of the old stone bridges compare more than favourably with the modern bridges, many of which—excellent monuments of engineering skill as they may be—their best friends would never venture to call works of art. Moreover the stone bridges will probably be standing when the iron ones have perished by decay.

Peter Marsden, writing a little later (1788), says: “Except a few excellent houses which have lately been built of brick and two or three of stone, after the English fashion, by rich merchants, the houses are in general of wood, very often mahogany, which is plentiful in this island. They consist but of a room or two below stairs, with piazzas all round and a storey above.” Stewart, whose account of the island was published in 1808, gives much the same account of the domestic houses, but goes on to say: “As for bridges and other public structures of the kind, in this part of the world there are few that deserve mention, except a neat cast-iron bridge imported from Great Britain and some years ago thrown across the Rio Cobra. There is, indeed, often a marked deficiency here of public spirit in undertakings of this sort.”

Many of the houses on the sea-coast were, in the eighteenth century, made defensible with loopholes and fortified by guns, so as to guard against the attacks in war time of the enemy’s privateers. In other cases a like precaution was taken against the risings of slaves; houses in some instances being supplied with towers at the corners, each of which commanded two sides of the building.

Of direct records of slavery days there are not many prominent relics.

Here and there a punishment cell is found, with indications of the fixing of shackles; but of stocks and such-like implements no traces remain. A few examples of branding-irons exist. In this connection it may be of interest to quote Bryan Edwards’s account of the method adopted in branding slaves:

“A gentleman of my acquaintance, who had purchased at the same time ten Koromantyn boys and the like number of Eboes (the eldest of the whole apparently not more than thirteen years of age) caused them all to be collected and brought before him in my presence, to be marked on the breast. This operation is performed by heating a small silver brand composed of one or two letters, in the flame of spirits of wine, and applying it to the skin, which is previously anointed with sweet oil. The application is instantaneous and the pain momentary. Nevertheless, it may be easily supposed that the apparatus must have a frightful appearance to a child. Accordingly when the first boy, who happened to be one of the Eboes, and the stoutest of the whole, was led forward to receive the mark, he screamed dreadfully, while his companions of the same nation manifested strong emotions of sympathetic terror. The gentleman stopt his hand, but the Koromantyn boys, laughing aloud, and, immediately coming forward of their own accord, offered their bosoms undauntedly to the brand, and receiving its impression without flinching in the least, snapt their fingers in exultation over the poor Eboes.”

A branding-iron such as that mentioned above, in the Institute of Jamaica, is shown in the accompanying illustration. It is 6⅞ inches in length.

Doyley’s Council had been elected by the people, and so, in a sense, was a forerunner of the Assembly. But the first regular Assembly was summoned by Lyttelton and met at Spanish Town on January 20, 1664, and from that day until the Assembly of the time resigned its powers to the Crown on December 21, 1865, the political destiny of the colony is to be read in the pages of its Journal and its Votes.

The first Assembly chose as its speaker Robert Freeman, who represented Morant, one of the then twelve districts that returned members.

The troubles which Doyley, the first governor, had had in inducing adventure-loving soldiers to become planters had given place to a more settled state of affairs, and when the House rose on February 12, 1664, it “parted with all kindness and feastings, having passed as good a body of laws as could be expected from such young statesmen.” But this peaceful condition was not destined to last. Familiarity with legislative functions bred contempt for the opinions of others, and unreasonable demands on the part of these young statesmen were met by high-handed actions on the part of the Crown.