Celia E. Naylor - Unsilencing Slavery: Telling Truths About Rose Hall Plantation, Jamaica

UNSilencing Slavery

GENDER

AND

SLAVERY

SERIES EDITORS

Daina Ramey Berry, University of Texas at Austin

Jennifer L. Morgan, New York University

ADVISORY BOARD

Edward E. Baptist, Cornell University

Kristen Block, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Sherwin Bryant, Northwestern University

Camillia Cowling, University of Warwick

Aisha Finch, University of California, Los Angeles

Marisa J. Fuentes, Rutgers University

Leslie M. Harris, Northwestern University

Tera Hunter, Princeton University

Wilma King, University of Missouri

Barbara Krauthamer, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Tiya Miles, Harvard University

Melanie Newton, University of Toronto

Rachel OToole, University of California, Irvine

Diana Paton, Newcastle University

Adam Rothman, Georgetown University

Brenda E. Stevenson, University of California, Los Angeles

UNSilencing Slavery

TELLING TRUTHS ABOUT ROSE HALL PLANTATION, JAMAICA

Celia E. Naylor

Published in partnership with the Center for the Study of Southern Culture University of Mississippi, Oxford

JAMES G. THOMAS JR., EDITOR

The University of Georgia Press

ATHENS

Published by the University of Georgia Press

Athens, Georgia 30602

www.ugapress.org

2022 by Celia E. Naylor

All rights reserved

Set in 10.5/13.5 Garamond Premier Pro Regular

by Kaelin Chappell Broaddus

Most University of Georgia Press titles are available from popular e-book vendors.

Printed digitally

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Naylor, Celia E., author.

Title: Unsilencing slavery : telling truths about Rose Hall Plantation, Jamaica/Celia E. Naylor.

Description: Athens : The University of Georgia Press, [2022] | Series: Gender and slavery | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021056425 | ISBN 9780820362144 (hardback) | ISBN 9780820362151 (paperback) | ISBN 9780820362137 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Rose Hall Plantation (Jamiaca)History. | SlavesJamaicaMontego BaySocial conditions. | Plantation lifeJamaicaMontego BayHistory. | De Lisser, Herbert George, 18781944. The White Witch of Rosehall.

Classification: LCC HT1099 .R67 2022 | DDC 306.3/62097292dc23/eng/20211207

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021056425

To my father, Cecil Anthony Naylor (19272017), a storytellers storyteller who enjoyed hearing the stories in the musical notes of a jazz standard as much as he relished telling the stories of the old days in Jamaica.

To my mother, Fay Patricia Naylor, ne Hornett (19292020), who listened to all of my fathers stories and continued to tell her own stories about the past and present as a keeper of our familys history, traditions, and aspects of Jamaican culture.

To my daughter, Ayanbi Yejide Naylor Ojurongbe, who refuses expectations and assumptions about which stories should be told and conjures up her own in her poetry.

For Celia, Cecelia, and all the enslaved girls and women at Rose Hall, as well as all of my own ancestors enslaved in Jamaica whose names appear in Jamaican slave registers and those who remain unnamed in the archives yet recognized and remembered here.

And for all the free generations of Jamaicans in the future.

CONTENTS

What a labor of love at the very endtrying to include everyone who supported and encouraged me during the process of writing this book and the journey of living my life. So many people to remember, and no doubt many who will erroneously not be mentioned in this offering of thanks. To truly do justice to everyone and everything would require countless pages. Innumerable persons and villages loved, supported, and nurtured me over the past several years as I worked on this book. Some of these people consistently inquired about how the book was progressing, and others were entirely unaware that I was even writing a book or taught at a college.

We sometimes do not recognize the impact one person, one teacher, one spirit has on our lives until they are no longer with us in physical form. Although that is the case for some who have joined with me on this journey called life, this is not the case for my first teachers, my parents, Fay Patricia Naylor and Cecil Anthony Naylor. They both passed during the time period I worked on this project, my father on August 23, 2017, and my mother on March 15, 2020. More than any archival document, poem, song, dance, book, or university course, they were my first teachers about the power of love, the magnitude of principles, and the importance of living a purposeful and joyful life. Even as I write this, I remain moved to tears by their physical absence, though still comforted by their infinite presence beyond their bodies. In their respective and collective passing, I have been reminded about the force of stories and storytelling, of the indescribable joy of loving others and being loved by others, and of the necessity of love, gratitude, and appreciation. My brother, Stuart, and my sister, Kathryn, are the only other people named here who have known me for my entire life. Even through the separation of physical distance and life circumstances, I hold them within me and beside me always, and whenever I am in their company, I am reminded of the healing I receive from them in shared stories, vivacious laughter, and a deep, abiding love. The family member I have known for her entire life is my daughter, Ayanbi. She is mentioned at different points in the book, and she was the person who encouraged this project from the very first tour at Rose Hall Great House. Beyond this project, though, Ayanbi has extended consistent encouragement and support. I will always be grateful for her loving, kind, compassionate, and fierce spirit, even though she is often annoyed by me.

Although they were seemingly not directly involved in this project, the seeds for this work were planted during my many moons as an undergraduate and graduate student. I extend my love, gratitude, and appreciation to my teachers in the traditional setting of universities. Now that I have been a full-time professor for over twenty years, I recognize more and more how much my teachers invested in me and so many others. I continue to feel truly fortunate to have been taught by incredible professors who were devoted to the practice and principles of teaching and learning with their students. As an undergraduate at Cornell University, I could not have asked for or possibly imagined a group of professors who demonstrated the art and absolute love of teaching in the classroom and beyond: Locksley Edmondson, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Robert L. Harris Jr., Carolyn Biddy Martin, Mary Beth Norton, Hortense Spillers, and James Turner. Not all of the teachers who inspired me at Cornell were professors. Although I did not have the pleasure of living at Ujamaa, I will always cherish the lessons shared by Ken Glover (then Ujamaa housing director) in intense discussions at Ujamaa and at the Africana Studies and Research Center. No matter how much I questioned and challenged him as I grappled with my place at Cornell and in the world, he remained a consistent supporter and demonstrated what it truly meant to be a teacher, an advocate, and a mentor.