It seems like yesterday, but five years have now passed since we began writing our column called “Talking Taíno” for Times of the Islands. Our goal has been to use the words of the original inhabitants of the Caribbean, known as Taínos when Europeans arrived, to highlight Caribbean natural history, then and now. Editor Kathy Borsuk embraced our idea, and has been a huge supporter of our musings. We’re so pleased to

announce that in November 2008, The University of Alabama Press will publish the complete collection of our essays, including several older essays on Columbus and several new essays written specifically for the book.  Just in time for Christmas!

The book contains 25 short essays about Caribbean natural history. Although many were revised to expand their scope, the heart of these essays is in the Turks & Caicos Islands. Over the years we have been fortunate to have a variety of excellent photographers contribute illustrations to our work. This publication includes 40 black and white photographs and 15 color plates, including several spectacular underwater photographs by Barbara Shively. The book is dedicated to our long-time, don’t call him old, friend and colleague — Brian Riggs.
If you will allow us an indulgence, we will skip the Taino words for the moment, and offer instead the Preface to the book. We’ll get back on track in the next issue of Times of the Islands:
The grey beard (Bill, not Betsy) is telling. Combined, the two of us have spent 45 years conducting archaeological research in the Caribbean. Bill started in 1978, and Betsy in 1992. Over the years we have directed research projects in Trinidad, Grenada, St. Lucia, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, the Turks & Caicos Islands, and throughout the Bahamas. We have also had the good fortune to visit many of the other islands in the Caribbean.
Our experiences have been remarkable. We’ve walked hundreds of miles of Caribbean coastline, dodged drug smugglers, camped on beaches miles from humanity, seen the night sky in the total absence of other light, SCUBA dived in pristine waters, searched for glass fishing floats on beaches that no one ever visits, and enjoyed the wonders of nature that surrounded us. Most of all, wherever we went, we were welcomed by the friendly people who today live in these islands. It is an understatement to say that we were welcomed with open arms; it is more accurate to say that they adopted us!
The main reason we made these trips was to study the lifeways of the peoples who lived in the Caribbean before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. Sadly, harsh treatment and European diseases extinguished their culture, a culture we today call Taíno (also known as Arawak). In an effort to repay our debt to the past and present we began writing a series of short essays called “Talking Taíno.” The bottom line for each essay was showing the relationship between the Taínos of the past, and the present natural history of the islands. Our goal has been to bring the past to life, and highlight commonalities between past and present. We did so by emphasizing Taíno words, and Taíno beliefs about the natural world.
Most of our essays have a Taíno word list and English translation, and these are compiled in three appendices. We also recommend the most comprehensive discussion of Caribbean languages in English, which was published by Julian Granberry and Gary Vescelius (Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles, University of Alabama Press, 2004). A significant difference between their work and ours is that they tend to exclude the names for plants and animals, which we do include in our appendices with their scientific and common names.
It should be noted that Taíno was not a written language, and thus there are a variety of spellings for the same word; for example, zemi and cemí, Xaragua and Jaragua. One issue is finding the letters that appropriately express particular pronunciations. In this regard, Granberry and Vescelius do an excellent job of capturing the proper pronunciation of Taíno words.
Initially, we wanted to call this collection of essays “Buffalo Sojourn.” The first meaning was a play on words that we hoped reggae fans would recognize immediately (“Buffalo Soldier”). A key line from this Bob Marley song is:  “If you know your history, then you will know where you’re coming from.” Our intent in writing these essays was to provide a more detailed introduction to the (natural) history of the islands and their peoples.
There was also a more personal connection. We began work on several archaeological research projects in the Turks & Caicos Islands in 1989, and were later invited to Jamaica by Mr. Tony Clarke in 1998. One of our first (non-archaeological) discoveries was that many of the feral donkeys that we had seen wandering the streets of Grand Turk had been airlifted to Jamaica, and were now thriving in the lush pastures of Tony’s Paradise Park dairy farm. Tony was looking for an archaeologist to investigate the sites on his property, and heard of us during the process of arranging the transfer of donkeys (thanks to Marsha Pardee). We have worked for donkeys in the past, but this is the first time one got us a job!
Several years later we encountered some new residents. Fidel Castro presented the Prime Minister of Jamaica with 12 water buffalos as a special gift in recognition of their many years of cooperation. This was a very practical gift, and shows that heads of state are not always motivated by pomp and circumstance. But no water buffalo would want to live on the streets of Kingston, so they were distributed to several farms in the country, and four of them were sent to Paradise Park. The hope was that they would eat the water hyacinth that was clogging the Dean’s Valley River, but they actually preferred pasture grass. We always thought that grass was grass, but these farms actually plant special pasture grasses for their dairy cows. The donkeys and water buffalos are thrilled! (We have heard that Bob Marley was also an aficionado of fine grass.) We spent five field seasons at Paradise Park working near our donkey friends from Grand Turk and the water buffalos from Cuba.
Cut to the chase. Very different worlds were thrust together into a common history 500 years ago. We hope you will appreciate with us the wonders of the Caribbean world, the peoples who lived there in the past, and those who live there today. They are, whether you know it or not, an integral part of who you are.

Dr. Bill Keegan is Curator of Caribbean Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. Dr. Betsy Carlson is an Archaeologist with Southeastern Archaeological Research, Inc., Jonesville, Florida.

Talking Taino is published by The University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380 (www.uapress.ua.edu), ISBN -13: 978-0-8173-5508-1.

Story & Photos By Michele Belanger-McNair

Salt Cay is known as the “island time forgot.” Prior to the 1990s, few travelers came to this small, remote island just south of Grand Turk. There was no electricity, no running water, a few shops to get basic food, no telephone and little work.

Yet, this tiny island is not just historic, it bears the history of the Turks & Caicos Islands. Salt Cay, along with Grand Turk and South Caicos, made up the Turks Islands (also known as the Salt Islands),  and salt was as precious as gold.

Salt Cay once was home to hundreds of people working in the salt industry. Homes were concentrated in the North and South Districts of the island. Salt businesses and the large homes of salt proprietors dotted the western shoreline. When the sun went down, you closed the door, had a light meal and went to bed. Saturday nights meant shopping, music and visiting with friends and family. Sunday was church and Sunday school.

When the salt industry dried up in the early 1960s, many of the residents left to make a living elsewhere.   Stores and shops closed for lack of customers. Homes were abandoned. Most homes were made of stone, cement and wood, with tin roofs. When you had the necessary materials, you cut a hole in the wall and added another room. Cooking was done on a fire-fed stone oven or kerosene cooker.

As the Turks & Caicos Islands became more well-known to travelers in the 1990s, a handful of intrepid explorers and adventurous divers visited Salt Cay. They stayed in such venerable establishments as Bryan Sheedy’s Mount Pleasant Guest House and Guy Lovelace’s Windmills Plantation, thrilling to dives on virgin reefs. And rather than bringing home a souvenir t-shirt or handcraft, some longtime visitors procurred the deeds to oceanfront property, and the crumbling salt raker’s homes that stood on them. By the turn of the millennium, renovations of these homes and cottages began in earnest.

Today, a number of the one and two story homes, many with walls a foot or more thick, have been or are being restored for modern use in both simple and grand styles. For instance, the historic salt proprietor home,  Sunnyside, has been completely refurbished in a most accurate and beautiful fashion. (Of course history is relative. An original old home on Providenciales was likely built after 1970, on Salt Cay, an old home may have stood since 1890.)

Other historic buildings on Salt Cay, such as the Government House and the Benevolent Brotherhood building, are rapidly deteriorating while awaiting restoration efforts and funds, or a wrecker’s ball and a developer’s planning table.

This story also involves change of a radically different sort. The arrival of developers, the sale and proposed demolition of the precious Windmills Plantation Resort on North Beach and blueprints for a reported “5 star” resort are on the drawing table. Plans include condominiums, estate sized homes and an 18 hole golf course.  A new airport facility and dock are moving forward, though slowly. There is even a proposal to cut a channel into the historic salinas, drain and somehow dredge them, and welcome 200 foot mega-yachts to a new upscale marina and shopping center.

The winds of change are blowing stronger than a Category 5 hurricane. Salt Cay has been “discovered” and the simple life of the residents, expatriates, and return visitors could be transformed. Osprey nests in the salinas and other natural habitats could be destroyed. The free- ranging donkeys and cows have been the subject of much controversy, having been slated to be sent to Haiti for work or slaughter.  A reprieve has been granted but their future is uncertain. There seems to be no room for history or its inhabitants, no matter the size.

Legendary Reggae singer Bob Marley said, “Don’t forget your history nor your destiny.” Will the people of Salt Cay have their precious history taken away and their destiny irrevocably changed by development?

Restoration, renovation and preservation

Dr. Neal V. Hitch, director of the Turks & Caicos National Museum, is an expert in the field of restorations and historical architecture. He clarified the restoration process as consisting of three approaches:  a restoration, a renovation or a preservation.

Dr. Hitch explains, “No one really wants to live in a restored house, as it is not conducive to modern living. It is like living in a museum. A renovation allows modern life to happen. A preservation is keeping enough of the original structure of the home so you could, in the future, go back and take it back to the original nature. It involves selective decisions on keeping appropriate older aspects. One can see parts of the building’s original nature, allowing the character and essence of the older building to show. In doing restoration work, it is a hard line in making it something you can be comfortable in and preserving the original character.”

Fortunately for Salt Cay, many people have been willing to not only do renovation of old homes and buildings, they are also willing to support public efforts to do so.

With the purchase of freehold property on Salt Cay, industrious lovers of this tiny island began the refurbishment of the old homes once lived in by the salt rakers. Built mostly in a Bermudan tradition of stone and cement, these sturdy homes feature simple cube rooms with hurricane season in mind. Some had stone first floors and wooden second floors. With hurricanes and termites, the second floors of many homes are now gone (as are many of the homes themselves.)

Some renovations may consist, in the beginning, of several existing walls with doors and windows, maybe the remains of the Bermuda kitchen. New walls, new configurations and complete makeovers are common, with only a portion of the original structure still included.

The story of these renovation efforts are many. But there are common threads to each of them: materials, labor, talent and money . . . and lots of it. Nothing on Salt Cay is simple. From the necessary staples to bake bread to repairing your plumbing or electricity: a simple ingredient or part can stop the project in its tracks. There is no Home Depot or Builder’s Square, there is not even a simple hardware store on Salt Cay. Maybe your neighbor will have it. Most likely you wait until you can take the ferry to Grand Turk and that is not easy either.

Following are the stories of several projects among many. All have varying degrees of complexity, none are simple and each reflects different objectives and means.

Sunnyside

Sunnyside was built in the early 1800s by George Dickinson Jones (c 1823–1881). It appears that in 1896, the Jones heirs sold the home to the Harriott brothers —Edmund, Daniel and Howard — for the sum of 840 pounds sterling. Daniel Harriott, known as “Neil,” lived in the White House of Salt Cay until his death. Howard shared the home with his late first wife Rosalie, then with his second wife, Winnie Rigby. They lived in what they called Sunnyside until Howard Harriot’s death in 1945.

The house remained in the Harriott family until sold to an American investor. It was a private home for a number of years, then was turned into a guest house and restaurant for some time in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was then known as the “Brown House.”

By 2003, the home was in serious decline and in danger of collapse. It was purchased by American Helen Krieble of Colorado and the renovation and preservation process began.

Ms. Krieble fell in love with Salt Cay when she first came to visit in the 1990s. She was professionally educated as an art historian and learned her craft as a gallery owner dealing in forgotten artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She developed her sense of art and preservation in Connecticut restoration projects. When she first saw Sunnyside and considered purchasing it for restoration she recalls admiring, “the exquisite proportions of the rooms. They were big, airy and high ceilinged. The land was good-sized for the house and afforded views of the ocean, whales, Salt Cay, the osprey and salinas.” The sea air and sweet breezes through the house sealed the deal. Ms. Krieble also realized the potential to retain the history of the house as part of the heritage of the Turks & Caicos Islands.

Her purchase led into over three years of renovations and preservation. The most important part of the project was the complete rebuilding of the basement and core structure of the house. Enormous beams were imported to support the entire house’s structure from the bottom up. New cement footings support enormous posts. As with the White House, a salt proprietor’s home was also his warehouse — with salt stored, as if in the bank, in the basement. Sunnyside, too, has such a basement.

Upstairs, the house is surrounded on three sides by a gallery or veranda. The jalousied windows adjust to let light and breezes in. Doors open onto the gallery from the main house.

The  bedrooms, with modern baths, now line the hallway along the southern exposure. A refurbished, modern kitchen and dining area are along the western exposure. The old dining room is now a library. The lemon cypress doors that tucked away into pockets still work and have been restored to give many more years of service. Ms. Krieble explains, “The Bermudans who built these homes tried to maintain, in extremely difficult conditions, the lifestyle and culture to which they were accustomed.”

Ms. Krieble plans to use the home for a residence. But she also wants the people of Salt Cay to know that a home that was an integral part of their history is preserved. Into her home she welcomes the people of Salt Cay:  men who toiled in the salt pans and the women who maintained the homes during years of hard-fought existence.

Given Ms. Krieble’s love of Salt Cay and history she has involved herself in the historical preservation of Salt Cay. She believes there is a need for the renovation and public display of a salt raker home to show to visitors, historians and, most importantly, the country’s children, to bring forth an appreciation of the conditions that preceded the TCI’s current prosperity.

The Smith family salt raker, South District

Built in the South District on a low rise near Harriott Street, this now one-story home was built by the Smith family. Its building date is unknown.

One of the last inhabitants of the family home still living is Mrs. Lillian Isabella Smith Kennedy. She was born in the house on May 2, 1918 to Henry Smith and Alice Arabella Walkin. The home was occupied by her family, including one sister and three brothers. She lived there until her marriage to Adolphus Thomas “Ned” Kennedy in January, 1945. They now reside in their home in the North District of Salt Cay. Lillian Kennedy recalls, “I love that house, I didn’t want to leave. I wish we could have lived there forever.”

Her parents were very protective. “Miss Lily” did not attend public school and was taught in the home privately. When the movie “Bahama Passage” was filmed on Salt Cay in 1941, she was not allowed near the production site, as it was far too risqué for such a young lady (according to her parents). She was allowed to watch cricket matches from the veranda, from which whale-watching was another popular entertainment.

The home Lillian grew up in was actually a two story structure, with a cement and stone first floor and large wooden second floor. The house was painted white with green or gray trim, as Ms. Lillian now recalls. The wood was covered in shingles.

The major hurricane of 1945 destroyed the entire second story and the family moved to the first floor. A galvanized roof with rafters took the place of the second floor. (When she first saw the house being renovated, Ms. Lillian said, “I’m so happy, it seems the house looks just as it did after the hurricane.”)

The home originally had the boys’ bedroom downstairs, along with the dining room, kitchen and washroom. Upstairs, there was the girls’ bedroom, the parent’s bedroom, a sitting room and veranda. There was an inside stairway and a staircase that came to their upstairs door. The house had an outdoor privy. The kitchen had a hearth and fire oven with chimney. Ms. Lillian recalls her mother putting the coffee pot in the fire and coals.

Henry Smith was a master shoemaker and carpenter and owned salt ponds as well. Among families “of color,” they were considered among the “upper class.” The home was considered large by Salt Cay standards.

In 2006, Philip and Cynthia Johnstone of Houston, Texas, acquired the home site with the intention of restoring it. Visitors to Salt Cay for a number of years, the Johnstones’ love of the island compelled them to take on this daunting project themselves, using their own talents and local craftsmen to help.

Since there are no real street addresses on Salt Cay, homes take on their historic site names or adopt new names. The Johnstones call their property “Star Brite,” reflecting the incredible night sky views the home affords.

The Johnstones’ restoration project has proceeded in a methodical and practical manner. When they started Phase 1 in September 2006, the property was almost totally encapsulated with Acacia trees and old rubble. The cistern needed rebuilding and all existing doors and windows had to be replaced with on-site built island craftsmanship. The interior debris was cleaned up and some existing interior walls were removed to accommodate a two bedroom, two bath, Great room and kitchen floor plan.

Phase 2 began in early 2007 with electrical installations and the re-plumbing and re-flooring of the existing kitchen and bathroom. Interior and exterior walls were resurfaced with cement in the salt raker style. A new roof and painting followed, with continuing improvements on this labor of love to continue into the future.

Star Brite’s renovation has been a joy to many of the folks on Salt Cay. Men and women who spent time in the Smith home often come by and reminisce with the Johnstones, telling stories of growing up, Salt Cay style.

Halfway House

Located immediately south of Sunnyside and St. John’s Anglican Church, this restoration is literally at the halfway point between Salt Cay’s North and South Districts.

As was typical on Salt Cay, the first floor of the Halfway House is made of stone and cement. The second story was built of wood. Despite several significant hurricanes, the wooden second story survived and was later covered in stucco and cement.

The property sits immediately at the edge of the western shore with a refurbished seawall. Verandas grace both the front and back entrances of the home. White shutters protect each window. A large cistern with a wash basin for laundry is adjacent. Once connected was a separate Bermuda kitchen with two firepit ovens.

Rick and Holly Henemader of West Palm Beach, Florida purchased the home in 2002 from the family of the late Mrs. Irene Been. Mrs. Been, known as “Miss Irene,” was a baker and chef well known on the island. She ran a small café and guesthouse for a number of years before her untimely passing. She and her husband Lloyd Been bought the home from Benjamin Alfred Basset, a shop owner.

When Holly Henemeder first looked at the house, she says, “I could see the antique bones showing through, especially upstairs in the Great room and bedrooms. I remember seeing the beautiful hand-planed wood walls, original upstairs windows and high tray ceiling. We tried to remain calm and collected, as we knew full well how expensive an antique house can be to restore.”

In restoring the house, “We went with what the house told us to do”, Holly says. “We were trying to bring the house back to its original pre–1840 state. The old six-panel doors had been replaced with Victorian four-panel doors, so we had six-panel doors made. The house had been turned into a guesthouse sometime, it appears, in the 1880s to 1900s. We removed most of those features and other modern conveniences, then sympathetically renovated the upstairs.”

The Henemaders knew they wanted to preserve the home as closely as possible to its original craftsmanship, yet include some modern conveniences such as updated baths, kitchen and electrical work. To accomplish this, they brought to Salt Cay restoration specialist Daniel Boisvert of Ottawa, Ontario. Mr. Boisvert has taken on many a post and beam restoration from Maine to Florida in the U.S. (Post and beam is the method of construction primarily used in the 19th century.)

There is little information on the original builders or owners of the house. The Hanameders judge by the moldings upstairs and other details that the house could have been built in stages between 1820 and 1840. They can also tell by the use of beams and other characteristics that the house was probably built for a sea captain or merchant. The beams were of northern pine versus local southern pine. “Given the history of the Turks & Caicos, the Maritimes of Canada, and the use of the knee beams (or boat builder beams), the house could well have been built by a sea captain,” says Holly.

On the first floor, “end knees” still showing the marks of the ship’s ropes square the first floor and support the second story. The end knees were the second largest knees on the ship. “Main knees” support the center beam of the house. “Inner knees” and “horizontal knees” appear on the second story to lock and square as well.

Original ship’s door frames, moldings, headers made of double ribs, pegged flooring and hand-planed wood panels are restored throughout the home. Where the wood was too rotted, damaged or previously removed, Mr. Boisvert has personally fabricated the required wood replacement parts on-island. To fabricate the ceiling molding and balance the room’s finished design, he had a special router blade made in Boston.

Also from Boston came reproduction sash windows to match the original blown glass windows in the home. Doors and shutters were fabricated on site by Mr. Boisvert to exactly match known doors and shutters found in the storage areas. Brass reproduction hardware will be used throughout the restoration.

The second level floor is the original deck from one of the wrecks. Wooden pegs were used as fasteners. When the shifting of the deck, and later, the floor of the house created gaps and spaces, sailors would hand-carve a new peg to completely fill the enlarged hole. Now, stainless steel screws are imbedded and concealed to stop the shifting and movement of the floor. The floor is being completely repaired and more pegs fashioned to fasten it and retain the original look.

Cabinetry made on site to match that which was of the era and found in Salt Cay’s Government House graces the new, indoor kitchen. All the wood used in this project is cypress from Louisiana and Florida. Termites do not like the taste of cypress resin, preferring pine instead. Posts that were once part of the ship, but too old and decayed to support the structure, have been replaced with reproductions crafted to appear as solid wood.

Pointing out the wide, hand-planed panels on the home’s walls, Mr. Boivert stated, “These are the largest planks I have ever seen in such a restoration.” The walls have been taken down to the bare wood (through many coats of paint) and the caulking replaced. The final coat will be a period-style paint finish with brush strokes typical of the era. The hand-plane marks will remain visible, as well.

Because the home ran on a catchment and cistern water system, it had gutters. These were approximately  eight inches wide and rested in large hooks, still attached to the roofline. Mr. Boisvert said he will fashion new replica gutters from a metal alloy in the original style, and mount them in the original hook hangers.

When finished, hopefully this year, the Hanameders plan to furnish the upstairs in the British Colonial style, and keep the downstairs more modern. The house will be available for vacation rentals, but its time as a guesthouse is over. Holly Hanameder summed it up best, “Can there be anything more satisfying than bringing back a beautiful old building to its original glory?”

Government House

Situated in the South District of Salt Cay, Government House was once the center of social, governmental and business life on Salt Cay during its heyday as a salt producing capital. The house was the primary residence of the Government Officer who was in charge of the entire island. It was built in the early to mid-1800s.

Parties, Easter celebrations, New Year’s events, weddings and Maypole dances were held here. In the home, teas were conducted by the wife of the Government Officer, often while the men played cricket matches just behind the property. Tea dances were regularly held where the folks of Salt Cay could demonstrate both their music ability and love of dancing. After church on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, wakes were held that lasted through the night, with singing and celebrating of the holidays, Alisha Wilson recalls.

Antoinette “Nettie” Talbot recalls the dances and met her husband at one such event. Ballroom dancing and polkas were the rage. Christy Jennings, one of the last Government Officers, always asked her to dance. He was a tall man and she a tall woman, who could do most any dance. “Life was good. Salt Cay was ‘saying something’ when it came to social life and music. Saturday nights were like Christmas Eve,”  Nettie relates. The stores, especially the popular ones in the South District, were open and folks went out on donkey carts or foot to shop for Sunday and the week ahead. They traveled from store to store, visiting and shopping.

The two-story Government House was entirely built of wood with a separate, stone Bermuda kitchen off the back of the house. The front is graced with large cement and stone Bermuda posts and wooden gates. Second floor windows afford views of the creeks on the eastern shore and the sea to the west. The veranda has views all the way to Grand Turk.

Dr. Neil Hitch describes the house as “West Indian Vernacular.” He describes this style as “when a building was built without an architect or designer, parts become stylistic elements that are consistent. West Indian porches for instance are called ‘piazzas’ in Charleston, South Carolina or ‘verandas’ in the Virginia basin. There are distinct elements of the West Indian architecture in the shutters as well. You can find the same elements in Aruba, for instance, and other islands. It is not necessarily Bermudan.” The White House, with its stepped gables and stone structure and kitchen, exhibits Bermudan style and influence.

When the salt industry collapsed in the early 1960s, there was no longer a need for the Government House and the officials who came with it. As with many homes on Salt Cay, the owners or occupants packed up, closed the doors and left the island. No one has lawfully resided in the house since the doors were closed and the last resident officer, Sterling Garland, left Salt Cay. The last function to occur was the wedding reception of Alisha Simmons to Clifford Wilson on December 18, 1976.

There were efforts by local citizens to restore the house, but never any funds on the island “time forgot.”     Soon the Government House was forgotten as well.

Now, through the efforts of Ethlyn Gibbs-Williams and U.S. citizen and Belonger Helen Krieble, a combined effort has been mounted to preserve this classic West Indian home. The Turks & Caicos National Preservation Trust, Inc., headed by Ms. Gibbs-Williams (who is also executive director of the Turks & Caicos National Trust), is charged with the actual preservation work on the home. The Trust has secured a 99 year lease of the property, thus far protecting it from falling into the hands of developers who have plans that do not include restoration. The Turks & Caicos Preservation Foundation Inc. was founded by Helen Krieble as a Charitable Trust to raise funds to restore Government House and aid in preserving the historic district of Salt Cay.

Daniel Boisvert, reviewing the Government House restoration project, says, “Government House can be saved with the proper materials, craftsmanship and funding. It will be an expensive proposition to restore it correctly. Work needs to be done soon to secure the building and try to stop further decay and destruction.”

Ethlyn Gibbs-Williams described the goal of the National Trust. “If we can restore Salt Cay’s Government House it will demonstrate the Trust’s carrying out the mission to safeguard the heritage of the Turks & Caicos Islands. The restoration is a tangible heritage of the Islands and the residents of Salt Cay.”

Ms. Gibbs-Williams added another benefit the restoration will provide for Salt Cay’s residents, “The finished Government House will not provide the amount of jobs a large development would, but it will develop jobs for the island’s residents. Managers will be needed as well as staff. It is planned that there will be a gift shop selling local products, a museum dedicated to the history of Salt Cay and an ecological display. The Bermuda kitchen will be rebuilt and actually work as it did in the 19th century. It will be staffed by local residents, demonstrating the way kitchens worked in the 19th and early 20th centuries.” Cultural heritage will thus be preserved.

Ms. Gibbs-Williams added, “There will be a café and garden area where guests and residents can enjoy traditional Salt Cay cream cakes, Queen Cakes, candies, tea and coffee. Residents can sit in the shade of the gardens and visit with each other. The people of Salt Cay will own this house.”

Plans are currently in development, as are fundraising efforts. The plan will be implemented in three phases. The first phase to begin this year will involve the front portion of the house and the roof. The second phase will be restoration of the Bermuda kitchen, walls, gates and the compound’s gardens. The third phase will tackle the remaining sections of the house.

It is hoped that the Government House project, when completed, will be a repository for Salt Cay artifacts and photographic displays and a place where visitors can see and understand the historical significance and culture of little Salt Cay. Upstairs, the building will be opened to its original grandeur and be made available for meetings, parties, receptions and other gatherings. As Ms. Krieble says, “Government House should belong, once again, to the people of Salt Cay for Salt Cay. It should not be a hotel, guesthouse or other private business.” To support the restoration effort of Government House and other buildings for the National Trust on Salt Cay, go to: http://saltcaypreservation.org.

Benevolent Brotherhood

The Benevolent Brotherhood is an old structure in the heart of the government area of Salt Cay, immediately north of the school and public library. Once it was the site of regular meetings and social gatherings. There is a little raised stage where songs and skits were performed for the entertainment of the salt workers and their families. Rosalie Harriott recalled how she performed her first song and dance routine on the Brotherhood stage as a small child in the 1930s. A small donation per year made it possible for the Brotherhood to provide a casket, funeral and band parade up Victoria Street upon a member’s death.

A sign at the front of the room announces “Fraternity” and “Reorganized March 29, 1913” next to a picture of a very young Queen Elizabeth II. Signs above each door state “Peace” and “Concord”. A parade sign pronounces “Guarding Our Heritage 1986.”

But is anyone guarding this historic building’s heritage? In 2004, the records showing who belonged and when they joined sat on a table, forgotten and weathering. The bass drum for parades sat decaying on a pew. It was if the members finished a meeting, blew out the lantern at the door and left, never to return.

Two small caskets, covered in decaying lace, sit in a back storage room, awaiting members that won’t be buried on Salt Cay anymore. There is rarely a funeral on Salt Cay these days, as it is financially prohibitive for a family to lay a lifelong resident to rest here. Folks are buried on Grand Turk now, even if they rarely went there.

Some of the men of Salt Cay attempted to renovate the Brotherhood Hall, but they could not get a permit to put the necessary wood siding back on the building, even though the building was a wood structure and had never been stone. Now the building sits, with no meetings, no membership and no future, except to be torn down and replaced with another cement-block, historically insignificant building.

Helen Krieble and the Salt Cay Preservation Foundation, seek to also purchase and restore the Brotherhood Hall. But members are now dead or quite old, and the younger men who were involved are mostly gone from the island. Getting answers and making progress on this restoration is made that much more difficult.

Conclusion

So much now hangs in the balance for Salt Cay.   Fundraising in difficult economic times is that much more problematic.  Concern over what will happen to Salt Cay development-wise remains surrounded in controversy and shrouded by private business interests.

Some government officials seek to preserve and maintain not only the historical Salt Cay, but also the reefs, ecological life, habitats and lifestyle of  Salt Cay.   Others, less so.

The question will remain to be seen, who is at the helm of Salt Cay’s future? The people of Salt Cay and those that love its unique charm and style . . . or those who seek to make it their own private domain?  Only time will tell.

Sidebar:
At a crossroads:  development on Salt Cay
By Michele Belanger-McNair

Salt Cay is at a crucial juncture in its future existence. It can be a historic preserve that honors the roots, heritage and very foundation of the Turks & Caicos Islands or yet another exclusive hideaway for the uber-rich and their 200 foot mega-yachts.

But first, Salt Cay must weather the effects of Hurricanes Hanna and Ike, which delivered a 1–2 punch during the first week of September, 2008. Salt Cay sustained massive damage.

I am happy to report that all of the buildings discussed in the article, including the Government House and Benevolent Brotherhood, survived intact. Many homes did not fare so well. Salt Cay has demonstrated once again its tenacity and long heritage of overcoming adversity.

But what happens next will remain to be seen. Now is the time to consider other options during the rebuilding process.

Salt Cay can foster sustainable, logical and environmentally sound growth that respects the historical and ecological heritage of the island. Or, it can grow in one massive plan that seeks only to create a financial success for one developer and few current residents. Jobs and opportunities will be created, but not necessarily for the people of Salt Cay.

Restoration or tear down? Which master plan approach should be implemented? Or, should a new master plan, with innovative “green” ideas, economic opportunities, historical considerations and eco-tourism available to any income level, be studied?

Presently, a marina is in the planning stages by developers, to be built within Historic Area 32 (HA-32) which will compromise the protected area of the old salinas and parts of the waterfront as well. The marina will cut a channel north of the White House, and open the salinas to the ocean as well as pollution from boats. The marina is primarily to house the large yachts of proposed wealthy homeowners. Many residents are opposed to this as it will affect the ability to move about the island and have an unknown impact upon the environment, including Atlantic Humpback Whale migration. The effects of this plan, after the hurricane’s demonstration of power, must be reevaluated.

All of this development is stated to be in the planning and approval stages. Much remains in doubt, controversy and without necessary approvals.

Salt Cay needs infrastructure such as a repaired dock, upgraded airport, roads and economic stimulus. Though this development promises all of these things, the cost is the destruction of yet another pristine island with potential for far more than another five star resort, marina, golf course and luxury homes.

Salt Cay could be a UNESCO World Heritage Site if the government will apply for it. There is no application currently before UNESCO.

The three mile long North Beach, which presently has two private accommodations, will become the private domain of a few select villas, five star resorts and condominiums. The entire North Beach property is slated to be developed.

The extended runway to accommodate private jets will affect the natural habitat of the endangered Turks Head Cactus and affect the historic salinas that are nearby. The basic peace and quiet of Salt Cay will become an approach course for large planes. Yet today, air service is iffy at best. The tarmac is closed due to potholes and broken asphalt while the runway is too short for most airplanes available to carry commercial passengers. Salt Cay needs a usable airport, not an international gateway.

Tourist income arrives in many forms and currencies. The Turks & Caicos Islands need to cater to every level of traveler when there are so many diverse islands. Eco-tourism, emphasizing diving, birding, boating and historical interests, to name a few concepts, should be a consideration for Salt Cay.

The Turks & Caicos Islands need to take a hard look at their “Beautiful By Nature” logo and make sure the last of the beautiful islands remains “natural”.

Michele Belanger-McNair divides her time between her California home and her Salt Cay home. Having all but retired from her practice of law, she now writes, does travel photography and chronicles the history of Salt Cay. On her Salt Cay stays Michele records the oral histories of the elders who were once salt rakers and sailors, wives and mothers. Michele is active in the responsible development of Salt Cay and hopes it can develop in a manner fitting its unique history and pristine nature. She owns Salt Cay Photography and her work can be found at  www.SaltCayPhotography.com.

By Margo Maddison-MacFadyen

My new master was one of the salt pond owners or holders of the salt ponds, and he received a certain sum for every slave that worked upon his premises, whether they were young or old. This sum was allowed him out of the profits arising from the salt works. I was immediately sent to work in the salt water with the rest of the slaves. This work was perfectly new to me. I was given half a barrel and a shovel, and had to stand up to my knees in the water, from four o’clock in the morning till nine,
when we were given some Indian corn boiled in water, which we were obliged to swallow as fast
as we could for fear the rain would come on and melt the salt. We were then called again to our tasks, and worked through the heat of the day; the sun flaming upon our heads like fire, and raising
salt blisters in those parts which were not completely covered. Our feet and legs, from standing
in the salt water for so many hours, soon became full of dreadful boils, which eat down
in some cases to the very bone, afflicting the sufferers with great torment.

Mary Prince, 1831
Mary Prince, perhaps the best-known British black woman to walk away from slavery and to survive it to narrate her autobiography, The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself, suffered ten years, approximately 1802–1812, in the salt ponds of Grand Turk under the ownership of the now infamous “Mr. D.” and his equally barbaric son Master Dickey. Her vivid descriptions of life in the Grand Turk community and arduous work in the salt ponds make it all too clear that she and thousands of other Marys, along with their male counterparts, toiled miserably in the Bermudian-based salt industry of Grand Turk, Salt Cay and South Caicos. Each did his or her time for a period spanning some 70 years, when black slaves were used in the enterprise, from approximately 1764 until Emancipation on August 1, 1834.
Upon the slaves’ backs, substantial profits, indeed fortunes, were made for their Bermudian owners, some of whose names can still be seen today gracing signposts marking quaint alleyways that intersect with Front and Middle Streets on Grand Turk. Two centuries have passed since the years that Mary Prince raked, trimmed and bagged salt on Grand Turk, yet aspects of her story still lie buried and untold, waiting to be unearthed, not unlike remarkable artefacts awaiting discovery in an archaeological dig.
Once revealed, an incredibly rich history that has hitherto been hidden will not only empower the descendants of these salt pond slaves who have, in the main, become established as a distinguished citizenry, but will also add to the growing body of knowledge of the larger history of British colonial slavery. This knowledge will inform the world and mark the history of slavery in the Turks & Caicos Islands, as well as the transatlantic slave trade of which it was a part, as nothing less than a crime against humanity.

Slavery in Bermuda: a brief background
Surviving records of the 1600s give an, albeit fragmentary, story of a multiracial society in a British colony where land was scarce but slaveholding was widespread. Whites and blacks, mulattos and First Nations (or Indians as these persons were then called), masters, slaves and servants lived in the same houses, pursued the same economic pursuits, worshipped together and shared some of the same laws. Many of the early Bermudian households contained not only black and Indian slaves but also young white persons who had come to the colony as apprentices or as indentured servants.
Initially, the word “slave” was not widely used, negro servant being the preferred term for blacks. These disenfranchised persons were indentured for 99 years, not for life, which may have eased the consciences of a few of their slavers as these persons were technically not owned, but paying off a debt with a life’s worth of work. It is more likely, however, that the 99-year indenture was to extend for the longest possible period access to free labour. Although the indenture did not entail on the servant’s children and he or she was allowed to keep personal property, the value of the indenture was extended to Bermudian wills, with longer remaining terms increasing the value of the servant.
Over time, indenture evolved into slavery for the obvious reason of absolute ownership of the body and property of the disenfranchised person, including his or her children. More often than not, these persons were not captive Africans brought straight to the colony on slave ships from the African coast but came instead from West Indian colonies or the continent, and were, therefore, already “seasoned” for life as “unfree” persons.
Slavery was, in fact, disliked by many of the early English settlers in Bermuda and this sentiment may have prevailed for an equal number of citizens right through to Emancipation. Whereas some white families did not have any slaves on their premises, others had one or two and the wealthy had far more slaves than they actually needed to run their multiple ventures. Possibly, this was because the wealthy could afford to keep members of their slave families and preferred to do so rather than to split families up. However, keeping slave families together was a powerful incentive for conformity to the social order of the day, a social order with white Bermudians in control. If an owner was displeased, he or she could sell a member of the family as punishment. Perhaps this was the fate of Mary Prince when she was sold to Mr. D. of Turks Island—still owned, she was exiled from her family to a much harsher life working in the salt ponds of Grand Turk.
The slaves, therefore, fared differently depending upon circumstances and upon owners. Whereas some slaves maintained families alongside those of their masters, staying with the same Bermudian family through succeeding generations, others did not fare so well and were either sold within the colony or overseas to West Indian colonies or to the continent.
The naming of slaves in Bermuda, when compared to other British slaving colonies is perhaps symbolic of a different attitude towards slaves taken by some Bermudians. Whereas in Bermuda slaves were given Christian names and took the last names of their masters, in other British colonies women were often given the names of flowers such as Rose, Lily or Iris and men were named after mythological gods and heroes such as Thor, Zeus or Hercules. The Trimmingham family, however, was an exception, paying their slaves at Emancipation not to take their family name. Interestingly, Mary Prince’s father, Prince, who was a skilled sawyer owned by the Trimmingham family of Crow Lane, Bermuda, would, therefore, not have born the name Trimmingham, nor would have his descendants.
Children born to a slave woman and her Bermudian master were given the woman’s last name. Thus, Rose Taylor (b. 1808/d. 1890) was given her mother Eve’s last name and not that of her father John Ingham (sometimes spelled Ingraham), who was either Captain John Ingham himself, Mary Prince’s third owner, or a relative of the same name. Rose, who was later given her freedom, married Benji Wood (b. 1800/d. 1859), a free black man and a skilled carpenter, and they lived and prospered on Grand Turk in the years just prior to Emancipation and beyond.
Despite comparisons with other British slaving colonies of the time which substantiate that slavery was, perhaps, not as harsh in Bermuda as elsewhere in the British slaving network, there is evidence of unrest in the slave population which demonstrates that although gentler lives for slaves may have prevailed in Bermuda than in other colonies, the society was still decidedly oppressive. As early as 1623, an act was passed to “restrain the insolence of the negroes” and, at the same time, legislation was passed ensuring that no black person could engage in trade without the consent of his or her master. This was followed by the uprising of 1656 which was foiled but which resulted in the banishment of all blacks previously given their freedom. Five years later, in 1661, a conspiracy of black slaves working with white indentured servants was also foiled, resulting in the initiation of a night watch.
There were, in fact, ten reported slave uprisings in all, the last being in 1761 when half the black population had laid plans in a bid for freedom. Each time a plot was foiled there was a backlash from the white community: acts were passed and new prohibitory legislation enacted. Most times, punishment was meted out, including imprisonment, public whipping of a person’s back and/or buttocks, nose slitting, castration, and even public execution. The very notable Sally Basset, an elderly slave, although she claimed innocence, attacked the Forsters with a poisoning plot in 1729, and was burnt at the stake  in 1730.
Individual slaves would also have been rebellious, but reports of this are less frequent as they were dealt with by their masters rather than by tribunal. Rebellious slaves were meted out physical punishments by their owners and were often sold out of the colony. Mary Prince, who was owned by five slaving families in her lifetime—Myners, Williams, Ingham, D., and Wood—reports being severely beaten and lashed by four members of these families: Captain Ingham, his wife Mary Spencer Ingham (nee Albuoy), Mr. D. and Mr. Wood. Additionally, Mr. Wood’s wife Margaret Gilbert Wood (nee Albuoy), though she did not beat Mary Prince with her own hand, incited her husband to do so, and she once had Mary Prince sent to the magistrate to be put in the cage overnight and flogged the next day.

The Bermudian elites
The Bermudian elites, with whom Mary Prince and her family are intimately interconnected, made their fortunes not in agriculture but in maritime pursuits, including the salt industry of the Turks Islands. Many of these families had been in Bermuda since the 1620s, and by the 1660s had become firmly established there, trading, oftentimes illegally, in the great transatlantic network linking Bermuda, the North American continent, the Caribbean and Britain. They profited handsomely from “wrecking” or salvaging goods from hapless vessels that struck Bermuda’s reefs. Indeed, prime land in Bermuda was not a lush valley where tobacco, sugar cane and other foodstuffs could be grown; it was a few acres atop a ridge where a little necessary agriculture could be undertaken but, more importantly, from where wrecked vessels could be easily espied and quickly preyed upon.
Lightbourne, Stowe, Wood, Albuoy, Butterfield, Trimmingham, Gibbs, Outerbridge, Jennings, Frith and Darrell are but a few of the 40 households that comprised the elite in the 1660s. These 40 families intermarried frequently, entered into business one with the other, sat on the same church pew come a Sunday, saw each other well buried and served as executors of one another’s wills. A hundred years later, their descendants had, in the main, increased the wealth they had inherited. Most, if not all, of these families had slaves.
For example, Horatio Wood, a relative of John Adams Wood (Mary Prince’s last owner) in a 1773 census had in his household his wife and 7 children, 6 boys and a girl, and 38 slaves, 12 men, 12 women, 8 boys and 6 girls. He was undoubtedly one of Bermuda’s largest slave owners and used his slaves as crews for his ships, listing 10 black and 4 white sailors in his employ. Another member of the Wood family, perhaps Horatio’s brother, was Stowe Wood, whose name demonstrates the bond between the Stowe and Wood families over the decades. In the same 1773 census, he lists a wife, 3 sons, a daughter and 10 slaves.
Of interest to our story is the Albuoy family, as there is a distinct connection between Mary Prince and three Albuoy women. Besides the two women already mentioned—Mary Spencer Albuoy, wife of Captain Ingham, and Margaret Gilbert Albuoy, wife of John Adams Wood— Sarah Williams, the wife of Mary Prince’s second owner Captain Williams, also had an Albuoy family connection: her mother, Jane Albuoy, had married the wealthy George Darrell.
George Darrell, a descendant of the merchant John Darrell who resided in Bermuda’s Warwick Tribe in 1663, but who also owned 25 acres in Pembroke Parish, was a wealthy merchant himself when the 1773 census was taken. He had taken 2 wives, the first having died in 1758. At the time of the census, he had 3 sons old enough for the muster, 3 listed as boys, 3 older daughters and 2 girls. He also had 10 slaves, 3 men, 3 women, a boy and 3 girls.
These families and others like them profited from the sale of slaves as well as from other legal and illegal commercial ventures. Many affluent Bermudian families—Stowe, Jennings, Trimmingham and Darrell amongst them—owned ships that carried slaves to the North American continent, not only from Bermuda, but from St. Thomas, St. Christopher, Nevis, Antigua, St. Eustatius, Jamaica, Barbados, Turks Islands and as far afield as the Dutch islands of Curaçao and Bonaire. Women as well as men had interests in ships and profited from the sale of slaves outside the colony.
Therefore, it was not unusual for Mary Prince to have been sold to her fourth owner, Mr. D., and be taken to the Turks Islands, nor was it unusual for her to be sold to her fifth owner Mr. Wood, and taken to Antigua. What is of interest is that it appears her sales from one family to another were between a larger network of an extended family, though money did change hands. Possibly, Mary Prince had become a little too rebellious for her owners to handle and, as with other rebellious slaves, she was sold out of the colony.
It is also highly probable that she encouraged movement between slaveholders, wishing to leave the colony as her primary objective was, ultimately, freedom. Although her situation in the salt industry of the Turks Islands was far worse than it had been in Bermuda, she was geographically much closer to Haiti whose revolution would have been extremely attractive: any black person who could make it to Haiti was automatically free and was endowed with citizenship. Likewise, when she travelled with the Wood family to Antigua, the lure of potential freedom may have drawn her, for free black men could vote there. Although this law did not apply to Mary Prince, its relative spirit of freedom in the Caribbean would have been significant.

The Darrell family of
Turks Island and Salt Cay
The Turks Islands were in effect a colony of a colony, the Bermudians having arrived to rake salt in the naturally occurring salt ponds, some scholars say, as early as the 1650s. Others give the date as 1670, stating that a John Darrell was aware of salt ponds on the Bahamian island of Little Exuma and that, thereafter, the Bermudians began exploration of harvesting salt from the Turks Islands.
This same John Darrell (b. 1610/d. 1677) of Little Chart, Kent, England was the first in the family to settle in Bermuda. His 1677 will shows that he was one of the wealthiest residents of the Warwick Tribe in Bermuda, a prosperous merchant and a ship owner. In 1657, he bought “seventeen servants” for ₤238 and, since they were not defined as “negroes,” it is likely that they were Irish captives, a number of whom were brought to Bermuda in the 1650s, and that he sold them there. He also owned a number of slaves, an adult man, 2 adult women, 2 boys and a girl. In 1670, he and a business partner, Hugh Wentworth, financed the settlement of some Bermudians in New Providence, Bahamas.
The extended Darrell family was huge. John Darrell had 9 children—6 boys and 3 girls—and many of them prospered as merchants, ship owners and salt proprietors in their own rights, and they had many children of their own. George Darrell, for example (mentioned previously), was but one of his many descendants. However, for the purpose of this story, our interest lies in the following paternal lineage: his son, also named John Darrell (b. 1648/d. 1683); his grandson Moore Darrell (b. about 1667/d. about 1733); his great grandson, yet another John Darrell (b. before 1715/d. 6 September 1794); his great great grandson Robert Darrell (b. 3 October 1755/d. October 1821); and his great, great, great grandson Richard Darrell (b. 20 August 1790/d. 4 September 1853).
Interestingly, the third John Darrell mentioned is the first in the line to be buried on Grand Turk, in 1794.  Previous to this, the family burials had been in Bermuda. It is unknown where his son Robert was born, but when he died he had returned to Bermuda and was buried there. Richard Darrell, however, was bred, born and buried on Grand Turk, indicating that there was an increasing emphasis on permanency in the Turks Islands for this family of slavers, and this fits with the history of the evolution of the salt industry in the Islands.
Very likely, all the generations of Darrells from the first John Darrell to leave Little Chart, Kent participated in the salt industry. First, they were opportunistic rakers who arrived happenstance upon a naturally occurring ripe pond in the various islands of the Bahamian archipelago where they would have raked it, loaded it as cargo onto their ships and taken it to port to trade. Later, they acted as seasonal participants who had annually planned drops where they would have left white men to rake salt, heading off themselves in their ships to engage in other commerce, such as turtling and trading, and returning a few months later at the end of the season for both their men and the product of their men’s labour, the precious salt. Finally, they became permanent residents in the Islands.
At the outset of the industry, these men would have employed white men to rake salt or they would have procured white indentured servants to do the work. Although they may have had black slaves back in Bermuda, it would have been unlikely that they would have taken the risk of bringing them to the Salt Islands: pirates or nationals from other European countries who wanted to control the islands and have access to the valuable salt were a constant worry and would have undoubtedly stolen any slaves they found.
However, 1764 was a turning point in the development of the industry. In June, at the end of the salt season, the French invaded Grand Turk, destroying the rakers’ huts, tools and supplies and taking them prisoner before heading to Salt Cay to do the same. William Shirley, the then-governor of the Bahamas, was quick to complain to the British throne, pointing out the importance of the islands to British commerce, as salt was fundamental in preserving both meats and fish. Parliament responded by claiming the islands for England but giving stewardship  to the Bahamas.
The Bermudian rakers were incensed at this development, arguing that they had occupied the islands for over 90 years and had possessory claims, but Parliament remained firm in its decision. As a result, the Bermudians resisted any legislation and fiscal control imposed by the Bahamians, and proved to be a troublesome lot in general well into the 1800s.
The islands had become a rendezvous of lawless folk from the continent, Bermudian rakers and French and Spanish contrebandiers. Brigantines, sloops, and schooners arrived with holds full of diverse goods to trade for salt: lumber, staves, bricks, shingles, spices, flour, sugar, coffee, rum, molasses, mackerel, herring, cod, candles, and slaves. Bermudians did not want to see an end to this trade, as by it their wealth was increased enormously.
However, after the landmark date of 1764, it was safe to bring slaves, such as Mary Prince and her counterparts, to the Turks Islands and movement of these disenfranchised persons from Bermuda to its satellite colony began.

The infamous Mr. D.
The utter brutality of Mary Prince’s fourth owner Mr. D. and his son, both Grand Turk salt proprietors and slavers, led Thomas Pringle, the editor of Mary Prince’s narrative, The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself, to conceal his identity, possibly because he did not want to be sued for libel. Likewise, he concealed the identity of her third owner Captain I., later identified by scholars and historians as none other than Captain John Ingham of Spanish Point, Bermuda. To date, there has been speculation about the identity of Mr. D., but no name given.
However, four strong reasons exist for the very plausible assumption that Robert Darrell is none other than the infamous Mr. D. of Bermuda and Turks Island and his son Richard Darrell the cruel tyrant, Dickey. First, the Slave Records of 1822 list both Robert Darrell and his son Richard as being involved in the salt industry on both Grand Turk and Salt Cay. The only other salt proprietors listed in the records whose last names begin with “D” are other members of the Darrell family—brothers, uncles or cousins—and members of the Dean, Dunscomb, Dickson and Dill families, and there are no other father/son proprietors listed. Secondly, we now have birth and death dates for this pair of father and son slavers showing they were present on the Islands in the years 1802–1812, Richard Darrell being close to the same age as Mary Prince.
Thirdly, the son’s name, Richard, matches with the abbreviated form of the name, Master Dickey, Mary Prince’s Turk Island tormentor. Finally, a member of the Darrell family by extension, Sarah Williams, the wife of Captain John Williams, who was Mary Prince’s second owner and also an owner of Mary Prince’s mother, is the daughter of George Darrell and, as noted earlier, it appears the sales of Mary Prince from one family to another were actually between a larger network of an extended family.
The ten years that Mary Prince spent as a slave toiling in the salt ponds of Grand Turk under these two slavers were by far her worst. Not only did the labour bring salt boils to her feet and legs and sun blisters to her face and hands, but she witnessed the torture of other slaves, Old Daniel and Ben, the murder of one, Sarah, and she was herself tortured. Additionally, she was severely chastised, put in stocks and subsequently flogged for not being able to keep up with the rest of the gang.
Of Mr. D., she says that, “nothing could touch his hard heart—neither sighs, nor tears, nor prayers, nor streaming blood; he was deaf to our cries, and careless of our sufferings.” Mr. D., she says, “often stripped me naked, hung me up by the wrists, and beat me with the cow-skin, with his own hand, till my body was raw with gashes. Yet there is nothing very remarkable in this; for it might serve as a sample of the common usage of the slaves on that horrible island” (Prince, 72).
Perhaps the worst treatments of all for Mary Prince were the sexual assaults of Mr. D. He took her with him when he handed the reins of the family salt business over to Richard, his son, when he returned to his Bermudian home in 1812. Back in Bermuda, she refused to wash him while he stood naked in his bathtub. Very likely, this behaviour had been ongoing while on Turks Island but, when she refused him there, he was able to beat her mercilessly until she gave way.
In Bermuda, she was able to refuse him without the same severity of consequence, as his barbarities would not be so easily tolerated as they had been in the relative isolation of Turks Island. Again, censorship came into play in regard to her narrative. Clearly, other activities of a sexual nature were ongoing, but they could not be stated overtly in the narrative, only intimated, for fear of losing public appeal. Since the ultimate purpose of the publication of Mary Prince’s narrative was the support of the Emancipation movement, its objective would have been defeated if any of her potential readership had been lost.
Master Dickey was cut from the same cloth as his father. Mary Prince attests that he, “was a cruel son of a cruel father—he had no heart—no fear of God; he had been brought up by a bad father in a bad path, and he delighted to follow in the same steps” (Prince, 75). Although it was Mr. D. who tormented the slave named Old Daniel by lashing his back with a rough briar and then ordering a bucket of salt water to be thrown on his wounds, it was Master Dickey who stuck a bayonet through the foot of a younger man, the slave named Ben, and it was he who beat and, subsequently, threw an older woman, the slave named Sarah, into a prickly-pear bush that inflicted gashes all over her body so that it swelled, festered and eventually she died.

The Darrell holdings
The residence of John, Robert and Richard Darrell was a low wooden structure situated across from the Grand Turk Salt Yards on the corner of Middle and Market Streets. Though demolished approximately 50 years ago, from its windows, doors and upper veranda, they and other family members would have watched their wealth accumulate as huge piles of “white gold,” or sea-evaporated salt, were mounded ever higher by their slaves, Mary Prince amongst them. It is thought that their land extended all the way from the ponds to the ocean shoreline and, therefore, to the docks for shipping salt. Thus, their land was in a prime location when the salt industry was flourishing and, since their family had been rakers for generations, it makes sense that they would have acquired such an excellent situation.
The development of their land, as with that of other white rakers in the community, would have evolved in stages. Small buildings to house the early white rakers dropped annually on the islands plus their tools and other accoutrements would have been erected first, followed by other small, but necessary outbuildings, such as latrines, kitchens, and more sleeping and storage sheds. Eventually, main houses would have been built, but these, too, may have been built in stages as the need for more space developed and the availability of materials evolved. Eventually, families would have occupied the main houses, and other persons would have been given shelter in the outbuildings.
After 1764, when it was safe for these slaving families to bring black slaves to the colony, the first slaves to arrive may have occupied the original rakers’ shacks. After 1834, when the slaves were freed, it is thought that paid servants, possibly previous slaves, then occupied these dwellings.
Tucked in behind the original Darrell house, between it and the Wood mansion situated further up Middle Street, is a slave dwelling which may have once housed two slave families. A wooden partition divides its interior in equal measure and there are two separate entrances, one to each of two small rooms which would have been cramped quarters for a family of any size. Local lore suggests that this is the dwelling that housed Mary Prince, her mother and her younger sister Rebecca when they were also brought to Grand Turk to work in the salt ponds. Nearby, just across Darrell Alley on the Wood property, lies the foundation of a one-time church and near to this is thought to be a small graveyard wherein the bones of white rakers, members of these slaving families, may lie.
Interestingly, there are no known graves of slaves in the Islands. It does not take a huge leap of imagination to grasp the possibilities of what may have happened to the bodies of deceased slaves. Certainly, the inhumane treatment of these disenfranchised persons by their white slavers bespeaks of an equally inhumane end.
A building of note is the historically important dwelling located on the Rose Neith property of Middle Street. It has a long rectangular shape and barred windows; local lore suggests that it is the oldest building in the nation, and this is probably true. Were an archaeological dig to take place at the site, many layers of items, telling a tale of a long series of residents and uses, would unfold. Perhaps Mary Prince herself was locked up and kept in this very shack. Certainly, it fits the description of the “long shed” she reports to have slept in along with other slaves. And it is in the near vicinity of the Darrell holdings.

Historical significance
This unique building and others near it in the Middle Street area of Grand Turk are not only of historical importance to the Turks & Caicos Islands, but also to the world. Indeed, when combined with the White House of Salt Cay and the naturally occurring “salt spring” or Boiling Hole of South Caicos, they make an irreplaceable set of sites that provide insight into not only the Turks Islands salt industry, but the transatlantic slave trade of which it is a small but important part. In fact, the transatlantic slave trade is now considered to have been a crime against humanity, even by those countries on both sides of the Atlantic that participated in it.
Perhaps these sites need further attention and are worthy of UNESCO heritage designation? Certainly, related sites have already been recognized on the West African coast—sites which are treated by some pilgrims as necessary visits to a horrific past in which both African elites and opportunistic Europeans traded one with the other, engaging in raiding villages and capturing, imprisoning and transporting African peoples westward across the Atlantic Ocean in order to procure incredible wealth for themselves.
Visits to such sites impart knowledge and heal wounds. In understanding our pasts, individually and collectively, we can be inspired to stand strong, be guardians of our own spirits and be warriors for freedom, dignity and justice. Let us not forget Mary Prince, whose life was filled with violence of the worst kinds, and whose grimmest years were those spent on Grand Turk toiling in the salt ponds of her slavers. The hardships she suffered, her fight for justice and, finally, her triumph—sweet freedom—can serve as a vanguard for our own paths as individuals, as a nation and as world citizens.

Sources
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Beckles, Dr. Hilary McDonald. (2008). A UNESCO document: Slave Voyages: The Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans. Retrieved March, 2008, from http://www.amistadamerica.org/content/view/1645/204.

Bermuda Genealogy and History, Surname Studies, Descendants of John Darrell. Retrieved March, 2008, from http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bmuwgw/darrellgen.htm.

Bernhard, Dr. Virginia. (1999). Slaves and Slaveholders in Bermuda, 1616-1782. (Columbia: The University of Missouri Press). Retrieved April, 2008, from http://www.questia.com/read/109328461.

Kennedy, Dr. Cynthia M. (2007). From The Historian: “The Other White Gold: Salt, Slaves, the Turks and Caicos Islands and British Colonialism”. Retrieved February, 2008, from http://www.encyclopedia.com/printable.aspx?id=1G1:165193156.

Jarvis. Dr. Michael. Spirit of Bermuda Lecture Series, Grand Turk Island. May 17, 2008.

Maxwell, Dr. Clarence. Spirit of Bermuda Lecture Series, Grand Turk Island. May 18, 2008.

Prince, Mary. (1831). The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself. Edited with an Introduction by Moira Ferguson. Revised Edition. (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1997) pp. 57-94.

Sadler, Nigel. (2001). Slave History of the Turks and Caicos Islands: The Problems Encountered Researching Slave History. Grand Turk Island: Turks and Caicos National Museum.

The author of this piece gratefully thanks Deborah Annema, Oswaldo Ariza, David Bowen, Colin Brooker, Shirley Brown, Dr. Neil Hitch and Brian Riggs for their thoughtful contributions towards its content, but especially thanks Dr. Clarence Maxwell who read it for accuracy and whose knowledgeable comments brought it to final fruition.

The Turks & Caicos Islands are blissfully free of dangerous land animals. Our largest native land animal is a humble vegetarian, the Turks & Caicos Rock Iguana. No large predators lurk in the bush. Our three small snake species are all non-venomous and shy. Possibly the only creature throughout these tropical islands that will willingly attack a human is the occasional mosquito.

Being tropical islands, the Turks & Caicos do have their share of creepy-crawly life. Without the restrictions provided by short summers and winter freezes, insects, spiders, and other arthropods here can grow considerably larger than their temperate counterparts. Luckily, very few of these animals pose any threat to humans. Three of the most alarming of these “big bugs” are the giant centipede, the Caribbean scorpion, and the wandering spider. Though all three can bring a fright to people, they are rarely encountered by visitors and few people see them. Even a foray into the bush will only rarely reveal these three secretive nocturnal animals. Therefore, few people are aware not only of their typical behaviour, but also that all three share an unusual and fascinating characteristic in the invertebrate world — they are all excellent parents that provide doting care to their young.
Wandering spiders, or banana spiders, (Heteropoda venatoria) get their name from their habit of hitching rides to temperate countries in imported bananas. They are active hunters and are also called “huntsman” spiders. Banana spiders do not spin webs to catch their prey. They rest by day under rocks or in crevices (a favourite haunt is in stacks of empty flowerpots) and emerge at night to hunt, usually cockroaches and other spiders. However, with a potential leg span of two inches, these spiders will also eat small lizards on occasion.

Females are much bigger than males, and they need to be. Most invertebrates rely on the quantity strategy when reproducing — make as many young as possible, leave them alone, and hope a few survive — rather than the quality strategy of producing a few young and providing protection and care. Banana spiders use both tactics to ensure success. The female lays her eggs in a tightly woven silk pouch that she carries in her jaws wherever she goes until the eggs hatch. If she drops the pouch, she will stop to pick it up before going on her way. Her care does not end when the eggs hatch. The hatchling spiders cling tightly to her back, and she will carry them with her, allowing them to share her meals until they are big enough to hunt on their own. The male spiders do not assist with the child-rearing — in fact, the female sometimes eats her mate during or immediately after their mating!

A distant and much larger cousin of the banana spider is the giant centipede Scolopendra gigantea. They are reddish-brown in colour and can reach a stunning length of eight inches. Centipedes get their name from “centi” meaning hundred, and “ped” meaning foot; however they actually have 42–46 legs, depending on the species. They are active hunters of insects, spiders, and even lizards, but also feed on some vegetation and carrion. Typically found in deep, moist leaf litter, their bodies dry out quickly if they are exposed to sun or wind. Giant centipedes have powerful jaws and can inflict a painful bite, and can also pinch with their hindmost legs, so they should not be handled.
Despite their rather bad dispositions, giant centipedes make excellent parents. Like banana spiders, they use a combination of both quantity and quality reproduction. Females lay masses of eggs in deep burrows in moist earth, and then remain coiled tightly around the eggs until they hatch. During incubation, they will aggressively defend their eggs from any potential predators.
Giant centipedes guarding eggs are vulnerable to their most dangerous predator, the Caribbean scorpion Centruroides testaceus. Though this tiny yellow scorpion is much smaller than the giant centipede (reaching a maximum of two inches), it possesses a venomous sting that is lethal to centipedes — and a hearty appetite for them. Though this sting is painful to humans, it typically results only in a small local swelling that vanishes quickly. Luckily, these scorpions spend their daylight hours wedged into thin crevices and come out at night to hunt centipedes, insects, and spiders. Because of this hiding technique, Caribbean scorpions coil their tails to the side rather than over the back, and when on the move they hold their tails straight out behind them.
Like most of the 1,000 species of scorpions in the world, female Caribbean scorpions take their parental care further than banana spiders or giant centipedes. A female keeps her eggs inside her body until after they hatch. When the young are born, at which time they are perfect tiny replicas of the adults, they crawl onto the female’s back and cling on tightly. She will not only defend them from predators, but will actually feed them by passing bits of her prey to them with her dainty pinchers. The young remain with her until they moult and have a hard exoskeleton and an active stinger with which to defend themselves. This exoskeleton is coloured with a special pigment that makes scorpions glow bright yellow-green when exposed to a black light, and so such a light is one tool scorpion researchers will use when looking for them on the ground at night.
Due to their secretive habits, all three of these special island animals are unlikely to be seen by visitors. If you do see them, appreciate them by observing but not handling, and remember that they are not interested in hurting us. They are, like many humans, simply doing their best to give their offspring a healthy start before sending them off into the world. a

To learn more about these and other unique island animals, please visit the National Trust office in downtown Providenciales at Town Centre Mall. Several publications featuring local wildlife are available for sale. You can also e-mail us for more information at tc.nattrust@tciway.tc.

The surge was particularly strong along the fringing reef off Northwest Point, Providenciales, as James Hunter, Joe Lamontagne and I dropped over the side of our inflatable boat. We were there to look for the remains of the U.S. Navy brig Chippewa. It was the second attempt of the day. Hurricane Bertha was well out in the Atlantic, but its huge swells still raced across the open

ocean, wrapping around the point and creating 12-foot waves on the reef. This meant that the remote sensing team, which had been out surveying earlier, could not get as close to the reef line as they needed to for fear of becoming its newest victim. The fact that they had not yet found any noteworthy targets in the deeper water outside the reef, and could not get inside until the seas calmed, meant it was up to us swimmers to see what we could find.

We’d already given up using small boats to tow us because of the many shallow coral outcrops, so we were reduced to free swimming. As snorkelers we had a few things going for us, even in the rough surf. We could float on top of the surge or dive down under the waves. In spite of the conditions the visibility was pretty good, and the large staghorn and huge pillar corals — with a good dose of fire coral mixed in — were relatively easy to avoid if you were quick and paying attention.

We had just finished our third sweep inside the reef and joined the other snorkeling team when I heard someone shout, “Cannon! Cannon!” It took a couple of seconds for me to realize that it was Jack Crowe, a member of the Turks & Caicos Explorer II crew, shouting, waving his arms, and nearly jumping out of the water with excitement. I had a muffled chuckle to myself remembering that only a few minutes before he had asked me, “How will I know when we’ve found something?” “You’ll know, Jack, you’ll know!” In less than a minute we were all looking at the first of what would turn out to be a string of ten cannons on the sea floor.
We’d found the proverbial “smoking gun” — the clue every archaeologist hopes to find that will positively identify a site. It was the culmination of more than a year of planning and hard work. The snorkeling team was like a group of children on an Easter egg hunt, shouting and giving a high-five as each additional cannon was found in a line running from southwest to northeast — out to those enormous breakers.
But why were these discoveries so important? To understand that we have to look back nearly 200 years to a little-known episode in U.S. Naval history, and an event in the history of the Turks & Caicos Islands that has been entirely forgotten. Until now.

The U.S. Navy and the anti-piracy patrol
“At 10 minutes past 7 whilst steering the latter course heard the Noise of breakers on the larboard beam, when the helm was ordered up but Scarcely had the order been issued when She Struck with much violence upon a rocky bottom.”

Thus did Master Commandant George C. Read describe the fate of the US Navy brig Chippewa which, while attempting to enter the Caicos Pass, slammed into an uncharted reef off the northwest point of “Providence or Blue Caycos” and became a total loss. The date was two weeks before Christmas, 1816. Having departed Boston on November 27 for the Gulf of Mexico with orders to rendezvous with the United States Navy frigate Congress and participate in anti-piracy patrols in the Caribbean Sea, Read’s mission was what we would today call a “policing action” in a lawless region. An incident reported on January 15, 1806 in The London Times conveys the magnitude of the problem:

New York Dec. 10
Captain Luckett, arrived at Alexandria from Cap Francois, says, “that three days before he saw a boat belonging to one of the British frigates cruising off there, came in, and the Purser informed him, that a brig, of 14 guns, from Gonaives, supposed to be the Owen, of Baltimore, had fallen in with two French privateers in the Caicos passage, and, after a desperate engagement, had been captured, and every person on board massacred.”

From 1798 to 1819 the fledgling U.S. Navy was battling piracy and slavery in its own territory, in the Caribbean, and on the high seas. In terms of design, speed and firepower, the brigs and schooners used by pirates and smugglers rivaled the best American privateers then in service. In an effort to neutralize this advantage, Chippewa was one of only three fast, well-armed clipper brigs specially designed and built to break the British blockade of American ports during the War of 1812. The construction and outfitting of the ship was done under the direction of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, who led American forces in a decisive naval victory at the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813. His battle report is now famous: “We have met the enemy and they are ours . . .” During the Napoleonic Wars, the American Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812, the Caribbean was virtually unpoliced. Privateering, encouraged by the warring nations, gradually descended into outright piracy. As a result, small, well-armed enclaves in Cuba and other Spanish and French colonies routinely preyed on American merchantmen. Regular visits by American merchant ships with their precious cargos of food, lumber, clothing, and other goods were vital to the survival of the Turks & Caicos Islands and the economy of the fledgling Republic. The U.S. Navy’s presence in the Caribbean and the island chains that run in a long arc from Florida south toward Brazil began in earnest in 1816 in response to the necessity of maintaining order, protecting legal commerce, and interdicting illegal trade. Such action did not come without cost. Provo’s northwest reef claimed not only Chippewa, but 32 years later the U.S. Navy schooner Onkahye went down nearby, having made virtually the same mistake in navigation (see sidebar).

The wrecking of Chippewa
Our knowledge of where and how Chippewa was lost comes mainly from the sworn testimony of several witnesses appearing in the minutes of the proceedings of the Naval Court of Inquiry convened to determine the reason for the loss of the vessel and whether the officers were to blame. It is quite detailed, including accounts of the wrecking event and even references to a local planter, Wade Stubbs, who seems to have served as the official “Receiver of Wreck.” As soon as it struck the reef the crew tried to lighten the brig by jettisoning its shot, and possibly some of its artillery. In the rough seas and pitch dark they struggled to carry one of the ship’s massive anchors into deep water in the hope that the stricken vessel could be hauled off the rocks, but the cable parted and water filled the hold.

“The getting off now would have been useless even though it had been practicable, I therefore turned the attention of the officers to getting as many of the crew into the Boats as they would carry and send them to find the Shore. And shortly after their departure the Brig being in the Act of turning over on her Starbd. Bilge, I was under the necessity of cutting away the Masts, the preservation of those left on the wreck had now become some what precarious, the wind and Sea had increased considerably from the period of her first taking the ground and there were no Boats to take them off.”

Amazingly, all members of the crew were eventually saved, but the ship itself was a total loss and the crew was unable to “get any thing of any consequence owing to the Roughness of the Sea.”

Identifying the remains
Ships of Discovery and the Turks & Caicos National Museum included the U.S. Navy vessels Chippewa and Onkahye in its plan of work for the 2008 Search for Trouvadore expedition, which took place July 5–26, 2008.
Two lines of research led us to believe we already knew where to look for them: archival records and local knowledge. The archival records tell us what to look for and how to make a positive I.D. from artifacts that are found. Information from local divers tells us where artifacts that might have come from those vessels have been found in the past.
Existing archival sources describe Chippewa in detail. In addition to the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry proceedings these include a facsimile of its construction drawings, and its sail plan. Plans developed by shipwright William Doughty for Chippewa and its sister brig Saranac describe an 18-gun clipper brig with a length between perpendiculars of 108 feet; an outside beam of 29 feet, 9 inches; and a depth of hold of 13 feet, 9 inches. Contemporary accounts suggest Chippewa’s maximum draft was 16 feet, 6 inches, and that it displaced between 390 and 410 tons. But given the circumstances of how and where Chippewa wrecked, we knew it was unlikely that we would find much in the way of articulated hull structure. A more important potentially diagnostic feature would be the vessel’s cannons and anchors.

Although most secondary historical sources describe its battery as consisting of 16 guns, there is some disagreement in official naval correspondence regarding its actual compliment of artillery. Originally, all of the Doughty-designed brigs were to be armed with two long 18-pounder cannons, two long 12-pounder cannons, and twelve 32-pounder carronades (also called cannonades). Interestingly it seems that, Saranac and Chippewa were armed with 14 carronades apiece, which would have increased their actual total complement of artillery from 16 to 18 guns. Regardless of exactly how many guns Chippewa carried, the 14 carronades alone would constitute sufficient evidence to make a positive identification because of their very distinctive shape and brief time period during which they were used.

The carronade was a type of short, light, chambered ordnance of high caliber characterized by the presence of a central pivot loop cast on its underside, rather than trunnions (the cylindrical pivots on either side of a “normal” cannons barrel) and an elevating screw behind the breech instead of a cascabel (the round button behind the breech). Carronades came into being around 1770, were most popular around 1800 and declined in popularity afterward. A 32-pounder carronade fired a 32-pound solid iron ball or shot, which would have had a diameter of about 6.3 inches.

The Caicos connection
More than a year before our expedition began, Mr. Gale Anspach told Dr. Donald H. Keith, expedition director and Museum trustee, he had seen a carronade and an anchor on Northwest Reef many years ago and, after some prodding, put an “X” on our chart where he remembered seeing them. A few months later, Mr. Bengt Soderqvist recalled a time in the early 1970s when cannons and anchors were not only sighted on the reef, but even salvaged and incorporated into the landscaping around people’s homes — and he produced the photographs to prove it. We immediately recognized that at least some of these artifacts could have come from the U.S. Navy ships, and entered into negotiations with the current owners to arrange their donation to the Turks & Caicos National Museum.

So even before the expedition began, we knew there was an excellent chance we would be able to locate at least one of the Navy ships . . . if the weather cooperated! Conditions in the area we wanted to search were too rough for the Turks & Caicos Explorer II, but not for our dauntless magnetometer team from Southeastern Archaeological Research aboard volunteer Robert Krieble’s 27 ft. whaler, Cheesecake Marine. When no promising targets were found after two days searching the accessible parts of the survey area with their instrument, which can detect the presence of iron objects even when completely covered by sand or coral, it was apparent that it was time to get wet.

On to the reef
The snorkeling teams quickly discovered that although the top of Northwest Reef is shallow, flat, and swept clean by a strong current and constant wave action, corals flourish along the reef’s margin where it drops into deeper water. Our first discovery was a small mound of ballast stones garnished with a few concreted iron objects…not very exciting, but definite evidence of a shipwreck in the vicinity. Not long after, Jack sighted the first of the carronades. Over the next several days we swam much of the northern end of Northwest Reef, finding more carronades and other artifacts, including an anchor lodged in water so shallow one arm is visible in the surf. Jean-Francois Chabot, captain of the Turks & Caicos Explorer II, shot underwater stills while James Hunter, our underwater draughtsman, measured and drew each of the guns. The bores of every carronade we measured (some bores were filled with coral or buried in the sand) were 6.4 inches, confirming that they were 32-pounders. This also confirmed we had identified the final resting place of the long forgotten U.S. brig Chippewa.

What’s so special about Chippewa?
In 1820, shortly after its loss, slavery and piracy were equated and punishable by death under U.S. law. It was clear that many of the perpetrators of one were also guilty of the other. The efforts of the U.S. Navy in the Caribbean, as illustrated by Chippewa, sheds light on this largely unstudied period in the history of slavery and piracy and demonstrates the resolve of the nascent Republic to act in unison with Britain to abolish piracy and slavery.
The fast, sleek, well-armed Chippewa is one of only a handful of U.S. Navy anti-piracy patrol ships whose wreck location is now known. The U.S. Navy never decommissions its ships, even when they are lost in battle or shipwrecked. Knowing that, even before we applied to the Turks & Caicos Department of Environment and Coastal Resources (DECR) for a license to look for the Navy ships we contacted the U.S. Navy Historical Center to tell them of our intentions. With their blessing for our successful search, we were also given a permit to collect diagnostic or fragile artifacts from the site should it be necessary to help with its identification.
And what about the other Navy vessel, the schooner Onkahye? We ran out of time before we could investigate a suspicious target detected by the magnetometer team a mile or two away from the Chippewa site, but we have every intention of returning next summer to continue the search. At some point in the not too distant future, after the National Museum establishes itself on Provo and with the approval of the U.S. Navy and the DECR, it may prove worthwhile to raise and conserve artifacts from Chippewa and Onkahye and put them on display along with those from the slave ship Trouvadore to help tell the story of the part the Turks & Caicos Islands played in the international struggle to stamp out piracy and slavery and restore peace on the high seas.

Story & Photos By Dr. Joanna Ostapkowicz

During the second half of the 19th century, nine elaborate wooden ceremonial stools — or duhos —were recovered from caves in the Turks & Caicos Islands. In their time (ca. AD 1000–1500), these low stools — often carved in the form of a creature on fore-shortened limbs, the head between its two front legs — were among the most recognisable symbols of chiefly authority, distinguishing those whose privilege it was to own them. They were indispensible during ceremonies and political situations, when being seated on a duho not only elevated and set the individual apart, but also linked them to the supernatural, the source of knowledge and power. These were coveted objects — prized in gift exchanges between high-ranking individuals — such as the 14 duho presented by the Haitian cacica (chieftess) Anacaona to Bartolomé Columbus in 1496. Many became personal items, intimately linked with their owner even in death — an early 16th century Spanish account mentions the burial of a cacique (chief) seated on his duho. The few that survived have been found in caves, seemingly secreted away for safekeeping.

Sometime before 1893, two duhos went on display at the newly opened Victoria Library on Grand Turk. The date and other circumstances surrounding their discovery are unknown, although it is believed that they were found together with the two wooden platters also displayed at the library. One was a substantial “high-back,” the other smaller and damaged, missing its hind legs and “tail.” They were to remain on display until the late 1970s, when they were stolen from the library and sold to private collectors. Their whereabouts remained unknown until 2003, when one of the pieces came to light, and was successfully repatriated back to Grand Turk (see Astrolabe Spring 2004). It is currently on display at the Turks & Caicos National Museum (TCNM), the only duho to remain in a public collection on the Islands. A new study, developed in cooperation with the TCNM and supported by the Getty Foundation, aims to explore the history of this national treasure in greater detail.
Discovery, display and disappearance:
a brief duho history
The first published reference to the TCNM duho was made in Frederick Ober’s 1893 book, In the Wake of Columbus, which noted several duhos on display at the Public Library, Grand Turk. The library had officially opened some four years previously, in 1889, and appears to have been the main public venue on the Islands for displays of Lucayan artefacts until the opening of the TCNM museum in 1991. It is unclear exactly when the duhos entered the collections, who donated them, how many there were, or where they were found, as any relevant archival records kept in the library were lost to water and termite damage in the early 1990s. However, at the time, cave guano “mining” was a thriving business on the Islands — especially on East and Middle Caicos — and several chance discoveries of Lucayan material, including rare wooden artefacts, were made as a result. Other reported finds were made by people simply exploring caves — two impressive duhos, now in the Smithsonian Institution, were recovered by Providenciales residents from local caves in the late 1870s.
Over the following years, reports by archaeologists such as Theodoor de Booy (1913) and Julian Granberry (1955) noted the pieces on display in the library, but only described them briefly. Photos emerged in the 1950s and 60s, including one that shows the librarian, Lloyd Roberts, sitting on the larger duho. By February 1974, concerns were being raised about the security of the displays: the Canadian newspaper Ingersoll Times featured an article entitled, “Island heirlooms in need of protection.” At the time, the duho was displayed in a “rickety glass-fronted cabinet” that wouldn’t close properly, in a building that had no locks. Given the rumour that the Smithsonian Institution had offered a substantial amount for the duho, concerns were raised over “why so valuable a chair [could still be] handled by the public.”
By this time, there was a growing awareness of the importance — and value — of the objects: indeed, in 1974 TCI’s Philatelic Bureau issued a stamp series featuring three of the library artefacts on their 10, 18 and 35 cent stamps (above). Surprisingly, an illustration of the large, complete duho — the highlight of the collections — is missing from the set. Instead, one of the Smithsonian duhos recovered in the 1870s from Providenciales features on the 6 cent stamp. Our last — and clearest — glimpse of all the wooden pieces before their disappearance from the library is a series of 25 colour photographs on file at the TCNM, taken by the archaeologist Shaun Sullivan in 1976/77 (at right). These show all four wooden artefacts photographed together and individually, as well as images of four stone celts and five ceramic lugs that may also have been part of the library’s collection.
The theft of the duhos and platters from the library in the late 1970s was a major loss not only to the Turks & Caicos islands and the wider Caribbean region, but to the world’s cultural heritage. So few of these pieces survive —and each has a unique and invaluable story to tell — that each loss is significant, diminishing our understanding of the Caribbean past. It was subsequently learned that they were stolen to order by an American collector (Astrolabe Spring 2004), this disappearance into private hands undermining the civic spirit of their original display in the library. The return of the large duho in 2003, and its prominent display in the TCNM, has sparked the hope that the other pieces might also be found and returned, to be interwoven back into the histories of the Islands.

Lucayan wooden artefacts
from the Turks & Caicos
The library pieces join only a handful of other wooden artefacts known from the Turks & Caicos — several duhos and large wooden bowls, an axe with a wooden handle and a fine paddle. Of these, two remain in public collections on the Islands — the duho and paddle currently displayed in the TCMN. The rest are dispersed in major US museums: three are housed at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (two at the National Museum of Natural History and one at the National Museum of the American Indian) and one is held at the American Museum of Natural History, New York. Apart from the paddle, which was discovered in 1996, all pieces were found within a few years of each other — from about 1874 until the 1890s — a time when guano mining was at its height on the Islands.
It was also a period of great interest in the region’s archaeology, when artefacts were coming to light and garnering international interest, such as the display of Lucayan material in the Jamaica Exhibition of 1891. Influential individuals, among them commissioners and governors, were vying with each other to acquire these pieces of island history, often with the aim of sending them to museums. For example, Mr. Frith, a resident of Grand Turk, had two duhos in his possession in 1876, intending to deposit one in the British Museum and the other in the Smithsonian Institution. But local politics —especially his soured relations with the island’s British Commissioner over the ownership of the duhos — dissuaded him from sending one to London (Frith, 2nd April 1897, letter on file at the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C.).
Of the nine duhos currently known from the Turks & Caicos Islands, four have long, extended backs (termed “high-backs”), two are low-backs and the styles of three are, unfortunately, unknown. Three are reportedly from Providenciales, two from Middle Caicos, one from East Caicos, while information for the remaining three is somewhat obscure, but suggestive of Grand Turk.  Unfortunately, none of the duhos were recovered from an archaeological context, so any associated information has been lost, and in some instances valuable evidence was thrown out — such as the human remains apparently associated with two duhos from Conch Bar, Middle Caicos. Also, some of the pieces have conflicting information as to provenance, making it difficult to conclusively unravel their complex histories.

The Lucayan legacy: a unique heritage
Lucayan duhos, both those from TCI and the Bahamas, share broad similarities with their Hispaniolan (Haiti and Dominican Republic), Puerto Rican and Cuban counterparts, but feature a stylistic cohesion suggestive of a local style, something entirely unique to the archipelago. They are substantial carvings — many measuring over a meter in length — the largest duhos from the entire Caribbean region. Their distinctive features include, for those with extended backs, a long, gently tapering “tail” extension that remains fairly low to the ground and a narrow, terminal end that is cut horizontally across the tip. Those that do not feature the tail are carved with a deeply arched centre ending with a curved terminal end immediately above the hind legs. The facial features of the human and animal-like heads appear more rounded and artistically freeform than the highly stylised and angular conventions seen in southern duhos. In addition, some of the Turks & Caicos examples feature among the most complex and elaborate two-dimensional design panels seen in any Caribbean duhos.  It is fair to say that the elaboration of the duho reached new heights among the Lucayans.
Given that only about 80 wooden duhos are currently known — the majority from Hispaniola and Puerto Rico —the fact that the Turks & Caicos yielded at least nine examples is a reflection of the important role of the Islands within the wider Caribbean context. The Lucayan caciques who commissioned and used these seats were clearly integrated into a wider circum-Caribbean chiefly iconography and ideology — utilising them to establish and reaffirm their central role as powerful leaders, with links to the larger islands to the south. Shared use of resources, trade and quite possibly political alliances bound the Lucayans to their Taíno neighbours: high-status goods circulated between the islands (such as the impressive stone pendant currently on display at the TCNM), and people travelled between islands to harvest turtles and fish, and to make use of specific resources such as seen in the shell bead manufacturing site of GT2. Archaeological investigations over the last few decades are changing our understanding of pre-Hispanic lifeways on the islands, suggesting that these were not isolated island communities, but were engaged with one another in a wide network of relations.
How can the TCNM duho contribute to building our understanding of this complex picture, especially as it has so little associated information? The research currently underway looks at the information inherent in the object itself, identifying the wood it was carved from, where it may have come from, how it was carved and its age. Despite today’s predominantly dry, low-lying scrub vegetation, in the past the Islands had a great variety of trees, including such durable hardwoods as guayacan (Guaiacum sp.) and mahogany (Swietenia mahogani), which still survive in some areas. Such dense woods are often a challenge for today’s carvers, even with their metal tools, so their selection by the Lucayans provides insights into the level of indigenous carving skills and craftsmanship. The geochemical “signature” of the wood, studied through stable isotope analysis, can provide information about the environment in which the tree originally grew, potentially determining whether the piece was indeed made on the same island on which it was found. A radiocarbon date provides an indication of when the tree was felled, hence the age of the carving. The results for these analyses will be forthcoming soon. Collectively, this information will offer not only specific insights into the piece itself, but enhance our understanding of the place of the TCI duhos in the wider corpus of Caribbean wooden sculpture. Over 50 carvings from the Caribbean region have been selected for this study — including four other TCI duhos — and comparing the information gained from each will open new avenues into the study of Lucayan heritage.
Although many of these analyses are still underway, there are other aspects to the TCNM duho that provide more immediate insights on how the object must have looked when originally used. The eyes, ears and mouth of the anthropomorphic face show evidence of resins, which would have held a bright, lustrous inlay of shell or possibly guanin (a gold-copper alloy). The wood surface appears quite bleached from exposure to the elements after its deposit, but shows small areas of dark pigment suggesting that the piece may have once been stained. This darker surface would have contrasted dramatically with the inlays, making a visually striking display when the duho was brought out for use. The lack of two-dimensional design panels may suggest that other, more perishable decorative elements may have been added to the surface, such as woven cotton bands.
The duho is also impressive in size — the third largest currently known — with unusually high legs and back. The posture of the four-legged creature, as if leaning forward under the weight of the sitter, and its intense expression, all suggest a finely crafted, well curated object that would have been present at every important event its owner took part in.
Now, some 500 years later, it is central to another display — taking its place among the most important pieces of island heritage at the Turks & Caicos National Museum. From its recent repatriation back to the Islands, to its ancient “life,” it has many stories to tell, and with careful investigation these will emerge.

All photos, unless otherwise noted, are by Joanna Ostapkowicz, and were taken as part of the Pre-Hispanic Caribbean Sculpture project, funded by the Getty Foundation.

Acknowledgements: Over the years, the staff at TCNM — Dr. Neal Hitch, Deborah Annema, Nigel Sadler and Brian Riggs — have been most generous with their time and assistance during my previous correspondences with the museum, and my recent visit to study the duho.