The Blackwash
Making cultural & historical commentary on social issues. Laundry is the only thing that should be separated by colour!
The Blackwash
Colonial slavery vs. Buckra Slavery
We delve into the historical significance of the surname 'Brown' in Jamaica, unearthing connections to colonialism and the legacy of slavery through the figure of Hamilton Brown. The episode explores the misconceptions around colonial slavery compared to the harsher realities of Buckra slavery, drawing from Henry Whiteley's journal as a critical source of understanding.
• Tracing the origins of the surname Brown and its connection to Hamilton Brown
• Examining Hamilton Brown's role as a planter and politician in Jamaica
• Understanding the concept of colonial slavery versus Buckra slavery
• Highlighting key excerpts from Henry Whiteley's journal detailing the cruelties of slavery
• Discussing the implications of the term Buckra in historical and contemporary contexts
• Critiquing the portrayal of Caribbean narratives in modern media
• Emphasizing the importance of retelling untold stories of our ancestors
Hello and welcome to the eighth episode of the Black Wash. Yes, I'm back already and keeping it consistent for 2025. If you haven't already, make sure you check out last week's episode, squatters Whites. Before I share the title of today's episode, I'm going to take you on a journey of how I got to today's topic. You may have seen that recently I posted a contextual reel titled Brown the most popular surname in Jamaica where I deep dive into the origins of the surname Brown as it pertains to Jamaica.
Speaker 1:To summarise, the prominence of the name, brown is linked to a Scottish-Irish-born planter called Hamilton Brown, born in 1776, brookshane, which is the anglicised pronunciation, ireland. He began his working career, like many other newcomers to Jamaica, as an estate bookkeeper. Back then it had nothing to do with accounts. Instead, it was a job for illiterate white men positioned to get maximum work out of the enslaved. He went on to become a prominent politician, landowner, enslaver and agriculturalist, as he was known for starting a successful cattle fair held in St Elizabeth, jamaica, in 1829. By the time of emancipation, under the Slave Compensation Act of 1837, brown received a payment of approximately 24,000 pounds, which is equivalent to approximately 3, 3 million pounds in today's money. This was for 25 claims and 1,120 enslaved people, most of them on sugar plantations in St Anne, jamaica. Due to these numbers, it's likely people who bear his name will descend from those plantations or be relatives. His legacy recently came into prominence again to Darrell Kamala Harris, whose Jamaican father had already made the potential family connections.
Speaker 1:But be careful with the misinformation that this attention brought. For example, there's a picture that's being touted as Hamilton Brown and it's not him Fake news. Currently there are no verified photos of Hamilton Brown of Jamaica. Now it's important to note, although he did have a tremendous impact on the name Brown being prominent in Jamaica, he wasn't the only one, as the name Brown originated in Scotland and is very popular in the UK, canada, the US, etc. As a result, there were other white people on the island at that time who sported the name Brown. So, for example, if you go to the same compensation records and you type in Brown and Jamaica, 106 individuals are listed. Similarly, if you look at the Caribbean region in general, there's 355 individuals bearing the name Brown, so you may be related to them or perhaps descend from their plantations. Another contributing factor is Hamilton Brown gave his name to Brownstown in St Anne, jamaica, which he founded and in 1805 he paid for the construction of St Mark's Anglican Church where he is buried. So it may be your ancestors adopted the name from the area, or sometimes surnames are used as a descriptor, as a way of describing someone, perhaps someone who has brown skin and or brown hair. So if someone with Jamaican heritage tells you that their surname is Brown, you are now well versed.
Speaker 1:This is where my tangent began. As a historian, I'm very mindful of enslaver veneration. Despite written records often failing us, I always do my best to find the names of our ancestors and to speak them aloud. Failing that, I try my best to find specific resources detailing what the area or the enslaver or that period was like. This additional search to find what Hamilton, brown and St Anne was like led me to a 30-page journal by an Englishman called Henry Whiteley. His memoir is called Three Months in Jamaica in 1832 and it's available to read online for free in its entirety. His account is one of the few remaining records of the working conditions and methods of punishment that existed on Jamaica's sugar plantations. His journal led me to today's title, which is Colonial Slavery versus Bacra Slavery.
Speaker 1:When I said the word Bacra to my live audience. The large majority hadn't heard of it, and those who had it meant different things depending on their heritage. So if you're unaware of the word, don't worry, we're going to do a deep dive a little bit later. First, let's address how I got the first part of the title. Henry Whiteley starts by saying, on page one I had no clear concept of the nature of colonial slavery, which is by the first half of the title. It then continues, and my anticipations in regard to the treatment and condition of the slaves were favorable rather than otherwise.
Speaker 1:It so happened that, expecting what I had seen in newspapers, I had never read a single publication against colonial slavery and had never even attended a public meeting or heard a lecture delivered on the subject. I was, in fact, one of those individuals who believed that there is more real slavery in England than in any of her colonies. Bearing in mind this was written in 1832,. When reading this I thought why did these sentiments still ring true for some people close to 200 years later, individuals being informed by biased newspaper and media. Anyone experienced that? Individuals who have never read a single publication or book against colonial slavery and or and or slavery, never heard a lecture delivered on the subject and yet they will still offer up their unseasoned opinion. In my time I've heard what about my nordic ancestors? What about modern day slavery? What about blacks sold other blacks.
Speaker 1:Retrogressively, looking back at this 1832 example, he believed that there were more real slavery in England than in any of her colonies. To 2025, we still have the same uneducated comparisons and whataboutisms, and they're all rooted in this idea of colonial slavery, ie one side of the story. He many a time I had blamed such gentlemen as Mr Buxton and Dr Lushington and others for making so much ado in Parliament about colonial slavery and neglecting, as I conceived, the slavery of the poor factory children at home, with whose condition I was well acquainted, having been all my life resident in a manufacturing district and concerned with some of my relatives in this blanket business near Leeds. He continues the conclusion which I came to all things considered, the condition of the negro slave was much preferable to that of the factory child, and with these impressions I landed at St Anne Bay in Jamaica. With that one line you can feel the foreshadowing right. You can feel that his perception of colonial slavery ie what he's been fed through media, of colonial slavery ie what he's been fed through media. You can tell that you know he's gonna be in for the real bakra slavery. He continues.
Speaker 1:I proceeded on horseback to new ground estate the next day. On my way there I came in sight of a gang of negroes at work. Most of them were females and they were superintended by a driver with the cart whip in his hand. Just as I rode past, the driver cracked his whip and cried out work, work. I'll stop there momentarily.
Speaker 1:So far, this is colonial slavery, meaning that it isn't anything that we don't know or haven't seen depicted. But here is when it gets buckra. If I had to establish the difference between the two, colonial slavery and buckra slavery, it's like the popular meme expectation versus reality. The expectation of Henry Whiteley, the expectation of Britain, is colonial slavery. However, the reality is Baccarat, is the details, is what the individuals actually went through. This was the reality for those in St Anne around the time of Hamilton Brown in Jamaica, back to his first person account. They were manuring the cane and carrying the manure in baskets on their heads. It appeared to me disgustingly dirty work, for the moisture from the manure was dripping through the baskets and running down the bodies of the Negroes. This sight annoyed me considerably and raised some doubts as to the preferable condition of the West India slaves to the factory children in Leeds. You see, already on his first day he is doubting his comparisons.
Speaker 1:Later he goes on to recount the first whipping he witnessed. He says the first was a man of about 35 years of age. He is what is called a penkeeper or a cattle herd, and his offence was, having suffered a mule to go astray. At the command of the overseer, he proceeded to strip off part of his clothes and laid himself flat on his belly, his back and buttocks being uncovered. One of the drivers then commenced flogging him with the cart whip. This whip is about 10 feet long and is an instrument of terrible power. It is whirled by the operator around his head and then brought down with a rapid motion of the arm upon the recumb victim groaning under the infliction. I felt horror struck. I trembled and turned sick. The sufferer, every time the lash cut across his body, cried out Lord, lord, lord, lord, lord, lord. When he received about 20 lashes, the driver stopped to pull up the poor man's shirt. When the man rose up from the ground, I perceived the blood oozing out from the lacerations. He appeared greatly exhausted, but he was instantly ordered off to his usual occupation. End quote this that I just read this is Bacra. This is the detail. This is the first-hand account.
Speaker 1:You see, the problem with Caribbean colonial slavery from former British colonies is that it's sanitized. All the images we have depicting enslavement in the Caribbean are stills, they're cartoons, they're drawings. They're replicated after the fact, not within the moment, making it seem fantasy-like and, as a result, colonial slavery to many is seen as a fantasy. And when you think about those depictions that we've been offered through colonial slavery, do those stills, those drawings, those cartoons, slavery? Do those stills, those drawings, those cartoons, do they depict female enslaved women with manure dripping down their backs as they're whipped? No, they do not. They depict a cart whip people picking cotton. Whereas within the US they have actual photographic evidence, such as the image of Whipped Pete, also known as Gordon. That image, from 1860, is Baccarat. It's real depiction. It's of a black man with his back facing the camera, showing the lacerations on his back. That brutal image made chattel slavery in the States undeniable and it travelled the world, whereas in the Caribbean, the former colonies of Britain, we don't have such photographic evidence. As a result, our chattel slavery within the Caribbean did not travel as far, and it's evident in Henry Whiteley's approach to colonial slavery and it's evident today in our approach to colonial slavery. This, the lack of the full picture that allows many in Britain to remain ill-informed and to compare it to other types of slavery, when it is incomparable.
Speaker 1:Coming back to that meme depiction that I shared earlier, the expectation versus reality colonial slavery is the expectation meaning it's linear. People have expected it to commonwealth. Where we are currently at, the truth of the matter is bakra slavery. The reality. It's not linear. So if we start at a to get to b, you literally have to grab your pencil and go around in a very messy, squiggly circle before we get to be. Because when chattel slavery ended a number of things happened. In colonialism a number of things happened and even in present day Commonwealth windrush scandal things are still happening and still informed from the past. But colonial slavery will have you believing that it's linear. You should be over it by now. Forget about it. It was so long ago. No one today living in the caribbean is a chattel slave. That's how they perceive it to be linear. But the real bakra slavery is the repercussions that was created through the colonial system, things such as colorism, texturism, broken relationships, lack of marriages, lack of education, lack of health care. That's the real bakra from it all. And now.
Speaker 1:Now, of course, it's time for me to let you know what this term means. This term is the term that those of the time would have been using In Jamaican Patois, specifically BAKRA. As I'm saying it with B-U-C-K-R-A, please note that there are different spelling variations, so there's also b a k r a or b a c k r a, and depending on what region you are from is how it will be pronounced. There's bakra, more of a buck bakra, and then, of course, there's bakra. The origin of this word is believed to derived from two possible origins. The first one is back, as in my back, and raw, as in my back is raw from the cart whip and the lacerations, and over time it's transformed into bakra. The other is mbakra, with an M at the beginning.
Speaker 1:This word is from West Africa, specifically Nigeria, and it's found in a number of languages within Nigeria, and it's found in a number of languages within Nigeria, and this word Mbakra is used to describe the relationship between West Africans and Europeans. The word Mbakra with Ankara also means divide and rule. What's interesting is that within the Caribbean we only have the Mbakra influence, the divide. We don't have an equivalent to the rule. So I give you that context to say within the Caribbean. Historically it would have been used in Jamaica to refer to an enslaver, and in different regions within the Caribbean In present day it can be used to describe a white person or an elder white person, depending on what region.
Speaker 1:Now, depending on whichever way you want to look at it, if you want to look at it in terms of the etymology, meaning back raw, as in my back is raw from the cart whip and the lacerations. Or if you want to look at it from the West African approach, in Baccarat, where it's talking about the relationship between West Africa and Europeans, it still includes, includes us, it centres us. It centres those who went through it, it venerates those who experienced it and, as such, it gives you a truer reflection of what actually transpired. To further demonstrate the real bakra, I'm going to give you the fourth and fifth example from Henry Whiteley's journal. He says on another occasion I saw two girls from 10 to 13 years of age flogged by order of the overseer. They were employed in cane weeding and were accused of having been idle. That morning, two other girls of the same age were brought up to hold them down. Both girls received 39 lashes. That right, there is real buckra slavery and it's not something that you will see depicted. What you will see depicted is a sanitised version, a strong, athletic black man that can quote-unquote handle it. What you won't see is 10 and 13-year-old girls being subjected to 39 lashes for being idle. Further to that, the trauma runs deeper, as two other females who are enslaved have to hold down those who are being cut, whipped. That is Bacra slavery the reality.
Speaker 1:Let me give you a further example, example 9 and 10 within Henry Whiteley's journal. Bearing in mind, I've gone from 4th and 5th to now 9th and 10th, so I am skipping out some incidences, and the reason being is because I want you to check it out in its entirety, because what I'm sharing here is not even the tip of the iceberg. He continues Two young men were mule drivers and it then being crop time, they had been two days and a night previously at work without sleep. Previously at work without sleep, as the overseer and I were going out at daybreak. The sun was not yet up. We found them only putting the harness on their mules. They ought, according to the regulations then prescribed on the plantation, to have been out half an hour sooner and for this offence they received a severe flogging.
Speaker 1:Two more examples that I'm not going to give you the full detail of. There's one of an older gentleman over the age of 60 and he is flogged. There's also another example of a woman accused of stealing a fowl. She's flogged, but she's flogged over the legal limit. The legal limit of lashes was 39. And that has a long history rooted biblically. In Deuteronomy it said that Jesus received 39 lashes. This woman, as Henry Whiteley recalls it, actually received more over the legal limit. He recalls it to be around 50 lashes limit. He recalls it to be around 50 lashes. So you see the law, they made the law and they are the law.
Speaker 1:Now, you know, often there's this colonial picture that's painted that, oh, you know, if you were in the house, if you had a certain occupation, if you were married, if you could read, if you were married, if you could read, if you were a christian, you were exempt. Well, within henry whiteley's journal he speaks directly to mr burrows, who is the head bookkeeper, and he asked him if he could point out a single working negro on the state, male or female, single or married, who had not been flogged. After some some reflection he replied that he could not specifically single out one person who had not been punished with a cartwhip. Now there were 277 slaves on that estate, of whom a very small proportion were children, and yet a man who had been among them for only two years did not know of one, the exception of a mere child, who had not been once subjugated to cruel, degrading and revolting punishment. So bakra slavery wasn't the reality of some, it was the reality for all. Bear in mind thus far I've only spoken about the floggings. He continues.
Speaker 1:The openness of the plantation whites disgusted me almost as much as the cruelty of the system. At Newground, the overseer bookkeepers and head carpenter all lived in the habitual practice of gross the tremendous moral tyranny that he had 12 negro wives within six months. Can you imagine the trauma from that essay and DA? All of this was enough for Henry Whiteley to start seeking work elsewhere. So what do you think our naive colonial slavery, henry Whiteley, who thought that kids in Leeds were worse off than West Indian slaves? What do you think our Henry Whiteley was trying to do? He was trying to get himself up out of there. He was writing to contacts in Kingston explaining what was happening and writing to contacts in Kingston explaining what was happening and trying to move to Kingston and get a job working in a store. He was done with the planters life.
Speaker 1:Now here is the full circle moment. I noticed a great deal of whispering among them. The overseer introduced themselves and mr dickin and mr brown yes, that's the same hamilton brown that I mentioned earlier in the episode which led me going down into this deep dive and finding this journal. He says the former I had previously met with, but to my salutation he made no response. Yeah, so Hamilton Brown is going on, wicked and bad. You know when someone says hello to you and you just look at them plainly and blankly. Yeah, that's how Hamilton Brown's getting on.
Speaker 1:Mr Brown was a spokesperson and commenced by informing me that he came, as more than a hundred gentlemen at St Anne Bay, to state to me. Firstly, they had heard that I was leading the minds of the slaves astray by holding forth doctrines of a tendency to make them discontented with their present condition. So Mr Hamilton Brown is out here reading firstly. Secondly, thirdly, he's come with receipts. He's told henry whiteley. Secondly, that you are a methodist.
Speaker 1:Thirdly, that I had said to a slave who had opened the gate to me at a certain place the lord bless you. Yeah. So hamilton and these hundred people that's backing him? He's saying no, you can't say lord bless you. Yes, so Hamilton and these hundred people that's backing him. He said, no, you can't say Lord bless you to the enslaved people when they open a gate for you.
Speaker 1:Fourthly, that I'd asked the drivers of the workhouse gang questions regarding the offences of the Negroes of that gang. Fifthly, that I had made private remarks about the way in which I had seen Mr McLeaner treat the slaves. Sixthly, that I had preached to 150 slaves at one time. To all these charges I pleaded guilty, except the last one, which was without foundation, without even a shadow of truth, though if it had been true, it would have been difficult for me to admit its criminality. Dickin, the person who was with Mr Hamilton, then drew his hand across my throat and swore by his maker that he would be the first man to cut it if I should dare talk to the slaves in the same way again. He then pulled out a pistol, which he cocked and held out but did not point it at my person, saying that if he was to fire it off there would be 20 men in the house in one minute ready to do whatever they chose with me. Yep, they are going on wicked and bad as a result.
Speaker 1:Henry Whiteley says he was hurried off accordingly, and on my way from St Anne to Antonio Bay I saw the attorney once more. He told me that it was necessary for both his sake and mine that I should leave the country, and he did, and of course he recorded his journals and published them once he got back in England. I couldn't find any further information on Henry Whiteley. His parting words were this I leave the facts thus plainly related, as they fell under my observation during this short residence, to the reader's calm reflection. They will sufficiently display the character of Negro slavery, or what I call Bacra slavery, as it now exists in Jamaica. I left England with a persuasion that the general condition of the West India slave was, on the whole, much preferable to that of the children in our factories. The condition of the factory children is certainly very deplorable and calls loudly for amelioration, but between the cases of the factory child and the plantation slave. There can be no comparisons. The former is very bad and the latter the slavery is indefinitely, infinitely worse.
Speaker 1:Our job here is to stop with colonial slavery. Our job is to give the real bakra, the real back raw, the detail, the reality, not the expectation. The reality, the 10 year old, the 13 year old, the 60 year old, the manure, the not sleeping for two and a half days, the reasons why they were punished for being idle, for losing a donkey, the fact that everybody, within a two-year period, over 277 people, not one of them had not been flogged where in the caribbean. Our images of colonial slavery, where they lack. This is where the Bacra storytelling comes in, and I want to point out something that irks me a little bit in regards to our Caribbean storytelling. I looked at BBC iPlayer, I looked at ITVX, channel 4, my5 and Netflix. Our Caribbean storytelling Is a perpetuation of colonialism. We are abiding by the expectation Type in Caribbean To any of your online players BBC, itv, etc.
Speaker 1:And you will find adventure and food. I'll read a few out for you Caribbean food, made easy. Caribbean with Simon Reeves, lenny Henry's Caribbean, britain, clive's Caribbean Adventure Holidaying with Jane MacDonald. The Caribbean Now I get it. Tourism is a big part of the Caribbean. So I understand that.
Speaker 1:However, where is the balanced reporting? We can't just continue to smile up and dance up and merriment and give people rum and bomali and a good time and, you know, a spliff. We have to give them the real BAKRA that some black people today in Jamaica cannot access their own beaches. So the fact that that is a fact. How can we come and be creating Caribbean adventures? Because it's not an adventure for the locals. Why is that? Because of colonial laws that were placed in place by Britain. We need the real Baccarat storytelling, the real Baccarat storytelling. When I looked at Netflix, they have over 5,000 films and 250 TV series and countless documentaries, but when you look at the Caribbean documentaries you've got you could probably guess reggae and or Bob Marley. There was something called the Lost Pirates. You have mention of Cuba, but bear in mind that's spanish. You've got haiti, but bear in mind that's france, but nothing as it pertains to former british colonies, although you did have surfing in barbados.
Speaker 1:Now, I'm not talking about dramatizations. I'm not talking about long song. I'm not talking about black cake. I'm not talking about Black Cake. Remember that, although those things are great, I love the Long Song book. Although those things are great, remember they still create a version of fantasy and or reality.
Speaker 1:I'm talking about historical documentaries, someone that's on the ground retelling the real Baccarat slavery. Retelling the real Baccarat slavery. Things such as Antigua, betty's Hope. The Codringtons from Britain had that plantation up until the 1940s, then used that money to build Doddington Park in the UK. They then sold it in the late 80s for over a million. They then sold their archives and made money off that and they still exist that and they still exist today and they benefited from enslavement.
Speaker 1:I'm talking about those stories. The only example that I could find was by david olisoga shout him out and I believe this documentary would have been a response to blm and it's called britain's forgotten slave owners and I and it's called Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners and I believe it's about four years old. But what about the other former British colonies and their stories? Because all the stories are unique, unique and largely untold and forgotten. And what's interesting is that when you look at the historical documentaries, black Britain is covered. You know you've got our black history heroes. You've got black and british a forgotten history, covered. You've got britain's history in general, a history of ancient britain covered, you've got egypt, you've got europe, you've got rome, you've got africa, but when it's the Caribbean it's lacking. And that's because of this idea of colonial slavery and not wanting to own up and not wanting to connect the dots and not wanting a revolution and seeing it as linear, chattel, slavery, colonialism, commonwealth linear when in actuality it bakra.
Speaker 1:That concludes today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Next week there will not be a drop, and the reason being this is actually a good reason, because it is my birthday week and I will be out of the country living my best life. So next week there won't be a drop, but within two weeks time you can get on to me and be like Kane. Where's the next drop? Because I'm looking to keep these weekly. So if you like today's episode, make sure you share it to help me beat the algorithm. And there's nothing more for me to say other than thank you for listening to the blackwash.