Of slave songs and Lodge School ‘sacrifices’: The Barbados Museum Journal VOLUME LXV – A Bajan Treasure

Did you know that the oldest song sung in English in the Americas by slaves originated in the 1770s in Barbados? It was a work song called Massa Buy Me. Did you know that it has been recorded that one group of slave owners in Antigua would take weak and disabled slaves out to sea and throw them overboard? Did you know that anthropologist Professor Jerome Handler of Virginia has been conducting research in Barbados for almost 60 years and has just published his 28th article in the Museum journal? Did you know that The Lodge School had an ancient tradition of “burying” the term at the end of the school term, with a ritual parade of the school boys around the grounds, with the biggest boys bearing a coffin (a wooden crate) containing one of the smallest boys as the “sacrifice”? And did you know that in the middle of the 19th century a craze for growing ferns swept Britain (and Barbados) – known as pteridomania or “fern fever” – and that old Barbadian gardens almost all had a special little building called a fernery?

This year’s issue of the Barbados Museum & Historical Society (hereafter called The Journal for short) maintains the high standards set by Dr Karl Watson over his 20 years of stewardship, but with some new approaches by Professor Pedro Welch, who has taken over this major task.

First of all, let me state at the outset that although the editorial committee is not listed in the journal nor the protocol stated, there is an Editorial Committee of eminent local historians and The Journal is now peer reviewed. This means that the publication will not be at the mere whim of an editor, but submissions will be reviewed by qualified reviewers for quality, accuracy and suitability for publication in what is now the well-established and long-standing historical and socio-cultural flagship publication of Barbados.

In his lucid editorial, Professor Welch provides insight and a brief analysis of the articles, including the submission about the historic event We Gatherin’ 2020. And he assembles the main articles in an interesting temporal sequence, beginning with Dr Tara Inniss’s insightful article on the status of the disabled and too-ill-to-work slaves during our 200 years of chattel slavery.

This is of enormous interest to all of us in the medical and health care field as we strive to provide the best and fairest care for the ill and disabled today… because all is still not well! Unfortunately, there appears to be not a lot in written records about the problem in Barbados, and one of the few, overlooked and ignored relics of the health care system of the Amelioration period is the ruined slave hospital at Blackman’s, the site of the Grantley Adams Secondary School. This beautiful relic, gutted by fire ten years ago, has enormous potential when, hopefully, it is finally restored.

The editor follows this with An Early Edict on Slavery in English America: the Barbados Resolution of 1636… by Professor Handler, and then a splendid article on the wonderful African game warri, Warri’s Warriors: From West Africa to Barbados, Men’s Social Space from Slavery to Post-Colonial Times.

While still played around the Caribbean, its popularity has long given way to dominoes – sadly, I think!  Warri is a brilliant game, and it’s been championed by Lee Farnum-Badley, but I think it deserves much more attention, support and organisation, because it is one of the most brilliant survivors of our African heritage. Dr Stoffles’ analysis is fascinating, and I hope it will help to promote this wonderful game.

The work song mentioned above – Massa Buy Me – was recorded in the 1780s by a Dr William Dickson, Secretary to Governor Hay. It was brought to public attention by Professor Jerome Handler at the third conference of Caribbean Historians in Guyana in 1971. Musician and musicologist Roger Gibbs (of the 1970s band, Sandpebbles) describes how he “rediscovered” its existence and the process of successfully getting it inscribed in the UNESCO Memory of the World register.

John Fraser writes a frank and personal history of The Lodge School in the 1950s, when it was emerging from its role as a “School for gentlemen” as one venerable headmaster had described it, with some primitive traditions and a reputation for bullying, into a modern school, rivalling Harrison College in games and scholarship. Politics has taken its toll on the Lodge, and as a lodge alumnus, it’s refreshing to read of the triumphs and the teachers we saw as heroes in the halcyon days of the fifties.

Other papers describe the Duke affair – the prejudiced sacking of Colonel Duke, a Commissioner of Police, by David O’Carroll and The Windrush Scandal by Guy Hewitt. The final paper is Traditional Ferneries in Old Barbadian Gardens, by yours truly. Ferns are the most fascinating plants, and I confess that I suffer from pteridomania or fern fever!

Ferneries were structures built with a base of coral stone blocks and a superstructure of lattice, to provide the shade and high humidity ferns favour. They were commonly the centrepiece or pride of place in old time gardens, but most of them have disappeared. One of the best is the octagonal fernery at Wildey House, the National Trust headquarters, which is in need of having its lattice roof replaced. So if anyone who loves ferns has a bit of spare cash, a donation would be welcome! I would also be grateful if any reader would inform me of any other surviving ferneries beside those I’ve described in the journal.

The bottom line is that if you didn’t have the journal already for your holiday reading, go to the Museum shop quickly before they all sell out!