Introduction: Resistance and Early Rastafari Women
1. Orlando Patterson, “Rastafari: The Cult of Outcasts,” New Society 12 (1964): 15.
2. Delrosa Francis to the Officer Administering the Government, September 1, 1934, Jamaica Archives, Spanish Town, St. Catherine (hereafter cited as JA) 5073/34, 1.
3. Basil Walters, “The Story of the Rasta Woman,” Jamaica Observer, March 19, 2012, http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/The-story-of-the-Rasta-woman_10997495.
4. Asheda Dwyer, “Left Waiting in Vain for Y/our Love: Situating the (In) Visibility of Black Women of Rastafari as Lovers, Partners and Revolutionaries in Brooklyn Babylon and One Love,” Caribbean Quarterly 59, no. 2 (2013): 26; Lucille Mathurin-Mair, A Historical Study of Women in Jamaica, 1655–1844, ed. Hilary McD. Beckles and Verene A. Shepherd (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2006), 318.
5. Verene A. Shepherd, Maharani’s Misery: Narratives of a Passage from India to the Caribbean (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2002), xiii.
6. Maureen Rowe, “The Woman in Rastafari,” Caribbean Quarterly 26, no. 4 (1980): 17. Note that the capital “I” at the end of “RastafarI” is used by some Rastafari writers to emphasize the agency of the individual in the Rastafari movement. For other Rastafari practitioners, the capital “I” is also intended to show the world their belief that God or Jah is within them.
7. Makeda Silvera, “An Open Letter to Rastafarian Sistren,” Fireweed (Spring 1983): 116.
8. Ula Y. Taylor, “‘Negro Women Are Great Thinkers as well as Doers’: Amy Jacques-Garvey and Community Feminism in the United States, 1924–1927,” Journal of Women’s History 12, no. 2 (2000): 105. I have also used Taylor’s more recent studies which examine the operations of patriarchy as well as women’s resistance in the Black liberation struggle of the Garvey movement and Nation of Islam. See Ula Y. Taylor, The Veiled Garvey: The Life and Times of Amy Jacques Garvey (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002) and The Promise of Patriarchy: Women and the Nation of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017). Also see Katie G. Cannon, “The Emergence of Black Feminist Consciousness,” in Feminist Interpretation of the Bible, ed. Letty M. Russell (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985), 30. For further analysis of womanist theology, see Rufus J. Burrows Jr., “Development of Womanist Theology: Some Chief Characteristics,” Ashbury Theological Journal 54, no. 1 (1999): 53.
9. Douglas Kellner, Critical Theory, Marxism, and Modernity (Oxford: Polity Press, 1989), 54.
10. Boike Rehbein, “Critical Theory and Social Inequality,” Tempo Social, Revista de Sociologia da USP 30, no. 3 (2018): 57.
11. Hannah Durkin, “Finding Last Middle Passage Survivor Sally ‘Redoshi’ Smith on the Page and Screen,” Slavery & Abolition (March 26, 2019): 2, 4, https://doi.org/10.1080/0144039X.2019.1596397; Jon Sensbach, “Black Pearls: Writing Black Atlantic Women’s Biography,” in Biography and the Black Atlantic, ed. Lisa A. Lindsay and John Wood Sweet (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 99.
12. Monique A. Bedasse, Jah Kingdom: Rastafarians, Tanzania, and Pan-Africanism in the Age of Decolonization (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 6.
13. Sarah Evans, Personal Politics: The Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 21; Linda J. Nicholson, “‘The Personal Is Political’: An Analysis in Retrospect,” Social Theory and Practice 7, no. 1 (1981): 85; Christer Petley, White Fury: A Jamaican Slaveholder and the Age of Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 13. For other histories that use the biographical method, see Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003) and Colin A. Palmer, Eric Williams and the Making of the Modern Caribbean (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006).
14. M. G. Smith, Roy Augier, and Rex Nettleford, Report on the Ras Tafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica (Kingston: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University College of the West Indies, 1960), 23–25; Ennis B. Edmonds, Rastafari: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 53.
CHAPTER 1.
The First Women to Testify in Court for the Rastafari Movement
1. “Leonard Howell Being Tried for Sedition in Saint Thomas,” Daily Gleaner, March 14, 1934, 21.
2. Douglas Mack, From Babylon to Rastafari: Origin and History of the Rastafarian Movement (Kingston: Frontline Distribution International, 1999), 72.
3. Florence Stewart, interviewed by author, Tredegar Park, St. Catherine, Jamaica, July 19, 2016.
4. Mack, From Babylon to Rastafari, 72–73.
5. W. C. Adams to Owen F. Wright, December 23, 1933, JA 1B/5/79, 1.
6. Owen F. Wright to Arthur S. Jelf, December 28, 1933, JA 1B/5/79, 1.
7. Merriam Lennox, interviewed by Renee Romano and Elliott Leib, Old Harbour, St. Catherine, Jamaica, 1983.
8. W. E. Barclay to W. C. Adams, October 31, 1933, JA 1B/5/79, 1, 2.
9. James Martin to W. C. Adams, December 18, 1933, JA 1B/5/79, 1.
10. See M. G. Smith, Roy Augier, and Rex Nettleford, Report on the Ras Tafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica (Kingston: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University College of the West Indies, 1960). Note that the version used in this book was given the now conventional writing of “Rastafari,” a 1962 republication, or the same year as Jamaica’s independence. The slightly revised titled was the Report on the Rastafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica, published by the University of the West Indies, also previously known as the University College of the West Indies, formed during colonial rule in 1948.
11. “Sixaola in Yesterday from New York with Mails and Passengers,” Daily Gleaner, November 18, 1932, 9. Historian Robert Hill has stated that Howell had “received a two to four-year sentence in the state prison at Ossining,” and was “deported from America on November 12, 1932.” See Robert A. Hill, Dread History: Leonard P. Howell and Millenarian Visions in the Early Rastafarian Religion in Jamaica (Kingston and Chicago, IL: Frontline Distribution International, 2001), 54–55, 55 n. 25.
12. “Leonard Howell, on Trial says Ras Tafari Is Messiah Returned to Earth,” Daily Gleaner, March 15, 1934, 20. Emphasis in original.
13. Rachel Patterson to His Excellency, the Officer Administering the Government, September 3, 1934, JA 5073/34, 4.
14. William F. Lewis, Soul Rebels: Rastafari (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1993), 121.
15. Government of Jamaica, “The Seditious Meetings Act [1836]” (Kingston: Ministry of Justice, 1973), Legislation (hereafter cited as LN) 480/1973, S.2, 1.
16. “‘Ras Tafari’ Disciple Found Guilty of Sedition,” Daily Gleaner, March 16, 1934, 16.
17. “Leonard Howell, on Trial says Ras Tafari Is Messiah Returned to Earth,” Daily Gleaner, March 15, 1934, 20.
18. O. C. Francis, The People of Modern Jamaica (Kingston: Department of Statistics, Jamaica, 1963), 4, 5.
19. Arvel B. Erickson, “Empire of Anarchy: The Jamaica Rebellion of 1865,” Journal of Negro History 44, no. 2 (1959): 103.
20. Brigadier-General Nelson to Major-General O’Connor, Morant Bay, October 14, 1865, Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons, Colonies: Jamaica, Volume 51 (London: House of Commons, 1866), 30.
21. Ibid., 31; Governor Eyre to the Right Hon. Edward Cardwell, MP, October 20, 1865, Accounts and Papers . . . Volume 51, 3.
22. Howell’s Activities at Port Morant, Constable E. B. Smith, Port Morant Station, September 10, 1933, JA 1B/5/79, 1.
23. Ibid.
24. Minutes of Colonial Secretary, Charles Campbell Woolley, handwritten, February 26, 1937, JA 1B/5/79, 8.
25. Crown Solicitor to the Acting Colonial Secretary W. D. Battershill, January 2, 1934, JA 1B/5/79, 3.
26. “Leonard Howell, on Trial,” 1934, 20.
27. Ibid.; “Purchasing Power of British Pounds from 1270 to Present,” MeasuringWorth, 2020, www.measuringworth.com/ppoweruk/.
28. Crown Solicitor to the Attorney General, June 8, 1933, JA 1B/5/79. Also see Attorney General’s Confidential Memo, June 27, 1933, JA 1B/5/79; and W. C. Adams to Owen F. Wright, December 23, 1933, JA 1B/5/79, 1.
29. W. C. Adams to Owen F. Wright, June 14, 1933, JA 1B/5/79.
30. Detective Inspector R. C. Waters, [Report on] Leonard Howell, Charge of Sedition in St. Thomas, July 31, 1933, JA 1B/5/79/735, 7.
31. “Leonard Howell, on Trial,” 1934, 20.
32. Ibid.
33. “‘Ras Tafari’ Disciple Found Guilty,” 1934, 16.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. Barry Chevannes, Rastafari: Roots and Ideology (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1994), 127, 129.
37. John Carradine, “The Ras Tafarites Retreat to Mountain Fastness of St. Catherine,” Daily Gleaner, November 23, 1940, 54.
38. Gertrude Campbell, interviewed by Jahlani Niaah and Ishmahil Blagrove for “Roaring Lion, The Rise of Rastafari: A Documentary,” Kingston and Brampton, Frontline Productions and Knowledge Bookstore, 2001, 7.
39. Stewart, interviewed by author, 2016.
40. Alphonso Gallimore, interviewed by author, Tredegar Park, St. Catherine, Jamaica, April 24, 2011.
41. W. C. Adams to Owen F. Wright, December 23, 1933, JA 1B/5/79, 1.
CHAPTER 2.
Petitioning Government: Women and the Colonial Justice System
1. Sophia A. van Wingerden, The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain, 1866–1928 (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999), 177.
2. “The Women’s Federation of the Baptists,” Daily Gleaner, March 20, 1934, 17.
3. Beryl DeLeon, “Are We Rearing Trained Seals in Our Schools and Homes?” Daily Gleaner, November 2, 1935, 26.
4. “Women’s Work,” Daily Gleaner, April 15, 1944, 6.
5. Rhoda Reddock, “Diversity, Difference and Caribbean Feminism: The Challenge of Anti-Racism,” Caribbean Review of Gender Studies 1 (2007): 11.
6. “Dangerous Cults,” Daily Gleaner, January 19, 1937, 9; “Harm Rastafari Advocates Are Doing in Eastern Parish,” Daily Gleaner, May 23, 1935, 1. Also see, “St. Thomas Wars on the Ras Tafari Cult,” Daily Gleaner, January 18, 1937, 28.
7. Papers of Edward Brandis Denham, Western Library, Oxford University (hereafter cited as WLO) MSS. Brit. Emp. S. 232–239, 1934, vol. XXI, 15, 17; DelrosaFrancistotheOfficerAdministeringtheGovernment,September1,1934, JA 5073/34,1. Note that Arthur Jelf was acting colonial secretary of Jamaica before becoming the acting governor of the island in 1934.
8. Seymour Drescher, “Civil Society and Paths to Abolition,” Histó ria (São Paulo) 34, no. 2 (2015): 49, 35.
9. Jamaica, Eighth Census, LII.
10. Delrosa Francis to the Officer Administering the Government, JA, 1.
11. Ibid; Rachel Patterson to the Officer Administering the Government, September 3, 1934, JA 5073/34, 4.
12. Papers of Charles Campbell Woolley, WLO MSS. Brit. Emp. S. 276/Woolley, Box 4, Clipping from the Daily Gleaner, August 29, 1935, 1.
13. Anonymous letter to John Maffey, April 7, 1936, JA 68512/30/36, 1, 3.
14. Horace Campbell, Rasta and Resistance: From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1994), 200.
15. Kennetta Hammond Perry, London is the Place for Me: Black Britons, Citizenship, and the Politics of Race (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 4.
16. Delrosa Francis to the Officer Administering the Government, JA, 3.
17. Ibid., 1.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid., 2.
20. Owen F. Wright to Arthur S. Jelf, February 28, 1934, JA 1B/5/79, 16.
21. Delrosa Francis to the Officer Administering the Government, JA, 3; “Purchasing Power of British Pounds.”
22. Amelia Gordon and Augustus B. Gordon to the Officer Administering the Government, September 3, 1934, JA 5073/34, 3; “Purchasing Power of British Pounds.”
23. Errol Greene, “Report Corrupt JPs,” Jamaica Observer, October 15, 2018, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/editorial/report-corrupt-jps-_146914?profile=1234.
24. Government of Jamaica, “Judicature (Resident Magistrates) Act,” February 22, 1928, Ministry of Justice, Government of Jamaica LN146/1999, 15.
25. Francella McNish to the Officer Administering the Government, September 1, 1934, JA 5073/34, 2.
26. James Findley to the Officer Administering the Government, September 1, 1934, JA 5073/34, 2.
27. Elisa Janine Sobo, One Blood: The Jamaican Body (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 186.
28. Edith Clarke, My Mother Who Fathered Me: A Study of the Families in Three Selected Communities of Jamaica (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1957), 78.
29. Benjamin Schlesinger, “Family Patterns in Jamaica: Review and Commentary,” Journal of Marriage and Family 30, no. 1 (1968): 138.
30. Delrosa Francis to the Officer Administering the Government, JA, 1.
31. Jack Alexander, “The Role of the Male in the Middle-Class Jamaican Family: A Comparative Perspective,” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 8, no. 3 (1977): 371.
32. Stewart, interviewed by author, 2016.
33. Taylor, “‘Negro Women,’” 107–8. Here, Taylor is quoting from historian Elsa Barkley Brown. Also see Taylor, The Veiled Garvey, 87.
34. James Findley to the Officer Administering the Government, JA, 2; Amelia Gordon and Augustus B. Gordon to the Officer Administering the Government, JA, 3.
35. V. R. Cameron to Edward Denham, Font Hill, Trinity Ville P.O., May 19, 1936, JA 5073/34, 2.
36. Nathaniel Samuel Murrell, Afro-Caribbean Religions: An Introduction to Their Historical, Cultural, and Scared Traditions (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010), 257.
37. Denvil Price to the Officer Administering the Government, September 1, 1934, JA 5073/34, 1.
38. Gertrude Nathan to the Officer Administering the Government, September 1, 1934, JA 5073/34, 2.
39. Taylor, “‘Negro Women,’” 105.
40. Rachel Patterson to the Officer Administering the Government, JA, 1, 2.
41. “Three Freed in Pinnacle Camp Cases,” Daily Gleaner, July 23, 1941, 9.
42. Rachel Patterson to the Officer Administering the Government, JA, 2, 1, 2.
43. Ibid., 2, 3.
44. Papers of Edward Brandis Denham, WLO, vol. XXII, 36. Emphasis in original. Also quoted in Ken Post, Arise Ye Starvelings: The Jamaican Labour Rebellion of 1938 and Its Aftermath (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1978), 166.
45. Chevannes, Rastafari, 11–15.
46. “Fooling the Masses,” Daily Gleaner, August 6, 1934, 6.
47. Colonial Secretary to Delrosa Francis, Rachel Patterson, and Francella McNish, September 14, 1934, JA 5073/34; Colonial Secretary to Denvil Price, Gertrude Nathan, Augustus Gordon, and James Findley, September 14, 1934, JA 5073/34.
48. Chevannes, Rastafari, 45.
49. Post, Arise Ye Starvelings, 149–50.
50. Colonial Secretary to Delrosa Francis, et al., JA; Colonial Secretary to Denvil Price, et al., JA.
51. Ras Tafari Followers, Court at Seaforth on 4.8.34 and Trial, Confidential Minute Paper, 10.9.34, JA 5073/34, 1–2. Note that Camacho, who was previously the assistant attorney general, was now serving as attorney general.
52. Ibid., 2.
53. Ibid., 1.
54. “Mr. Abendana Strongly Urges That Court of Appeal Be Not Set Up Now,” Daily Gleaner, May 16, 1934, 8.
55. “Council Shows Concern in Respect to Audit of the Colony’s Accounts,” Daily Gleaner, April 3, 1935, 16.
56. Robert William Lyall-Grant to Edward Denham, January 4, 1935, The National Archives, Britain (hereafter cited as TNA) C0137/803/14, 3, 4.
CHAPTER 3.
The Middle-Class Woman: Reshaping the Rastafari Family and Community
1. Katrin Hansing, Rasta, Race and Revolution: The Emergence and Development of the Rastafari Movement in Socialist Cuba (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2006), 7.
2. Garry Steckles, Mark Meredith, and Nazma Muller, “The World of Rastafari,” Caribbean Beat Magazine 31 (1998), MEP Publishers, http://caribbean-beat.com/issue-31/world-rastafari#axzz4u71DTJpf; Jahlani Niaah and Ijahnya Christian, “Introduction: What Is Rastafari,” in Rastafari: A National Museum Jamaica Exhibition, ed. Jonathan Greenland (Kingston: Institute of Jamaica, 2013), 21.
3. Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), 11, 20.
4. Walter Rodney, The Groundings with My Brothers (London: Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications, 1969 / Kingston: Miguel Lorne Publishers, 2001), 24.
5. Anonymous letter to John Maffey, April 7, 1936, JA 68512/30/36, 1; Leonard E. Barrett, The Rastafarians (Boston: Beacon Press, 1997), 1.
6. Henrice Altink, “‘Marrying Light’: Skin Colour, Gender and Marriage in Jamaica, c.1918–1980,” The History of the Family (2019): 15, https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2019.1582433.
7. Florence Stewart and Delrietta Simpson, interviewed by author, Tredegar Park, St. Catherine, Jamaica, August 24, 2011.
8. “Judge’s Summing Up at Treason Felony Trial,” Daily Gleaner, October 31, 1960, 9.
9. Carradine, “The Ras Tafarites Retreat,” 1940, 54. Leonard Howell was the one who asserted that Rastafari symbolized the pursuit of a “socialistic life.”
10. “Mr. Edward Bent Dies at 79,” Daily Gleaner, July 18, 1950, 11. The Bent children were born in this order: Beryl, Vidalyn, Tenet, Louise, Arthur, Margaret, and Edward Jr.
11. Hélène Lee, The First Rasta: Leonard Howell and the Rise of Rastafarianism, trans. Lily Davis (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2003), 157.
12. Mervyn C. Alleyne, The Construction and Representation of Race and Ethnicity in the Caribbean and the World (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2002), 193.
13. “Read Across Jamaica at Mayfield All Age,” Jamaica Observer, June 5, 2017, http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/read-across-jamaica-at-mayfield-all-age_100895.
14. Geraldine E. Fong, personal communication, October 14, 2014; “Hampton School,” Jamaica National Heritage Trust, 2011, http://www.jnht.com/site_hampton_school.php.
15. Arthur Charles Dayfoot, The Shaping of the West Indian Church, 1492–1962 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999), 90; Bridget Brereton, “Women and Gender in Caribbean (English-speaking) Historiography: Sources and Methods,” Caribbean Review of Gender Studies 7 (2013): 5.
16. Howell, The Promised Key (Kingston: Headstart Books and Craft/Frontline Distribution Int., 1995 [Orig.1935]), 4.
17. Barrett, The Rastafarians, 2.
18. “Ras Tafari Priest Gets Nine Months: Found Guilty of Slugging Man with Iron; Appeals,” Daily Gleaner, December 30, 1938, 17.
19. “Cultist Sent to Prison for Assaulting Policeman,” Daily Gleaner, January 19, 1953, 5.
20. Montinol Howell, personal communication, June 9, 2018.
21. Estimate based on the following: Jamaica, Eighth Census, XXXII; Gisela Eisner, Jamaica, 1830–1930: A Study in Economic Growth (Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1961), 134; and G. E. Cumper, “Population Movements in Jamaica, 1830–1950,” Social and Economic Studies 5, no. 3 (1956): 275.
22. Bryan L. Moore and Michelle A. Johnson, “They do as they please”: The Jamaican Struggle for Cultural Freedom after Morant Bay (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2011), 14.
23. Jean Stubbs, “Political Idealism and Commodity Production: Cuban Tobacco in Jamaica, 1870–1930,” Cuban Studies 25 (1995): 61. For more information on the Machados, see Machado Tobacco Company Ltd., The Machado Story: A Pioneer Industry in Jamaica, 1874–1962 (Kingston: B. & J. B. Machado Tobacco Company Ltd., 1962).
24. Fong, personal communication, 2014.
25. Ada Ferrer, Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868–1898 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 3.
26. Stubbs, “Political Idealism,” 76.
27. Richard Hart, Labour Relations of the 1930s in the British Caribbean Region Colonies (Shrewsbury, UK: Caribbean Labour Solidarity and the Socialist History Society, 2002), 5.
28. Stubbs, “Political Idealism,” 61.
29. “Judge’s Summing Up,” 1960, 9.
30. Carradine, “The Ras Tafarites Retreat,” 1940, 54.
31. Campbell, Rasta and Resistance, 73, 74; Fong, personal communication, 2014.
32. Taylor, “‘Negro Women,’” 105.
33. Taylor, The Veiled Garvey, 80.
34. Len. S. Nembhard, “Mrs. Howell Believes Only in One Man,” Jamaica Times, July 19, 1941, 3.
35. Fong, personal communication, 2014.
36. Benjamin Schlesinger, “Family Patterns in Jamaica: Review and Commentary,” Journal of Marriage and Family 30, no. 1 (1968): 143–44; Jack Alexander, “The Role of the Male in the Middle-Class Jamaican Family: A Comparative Perspective,” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 8, no. 3 (1977): 369–89.
37. Raymond T. Smith “The Family in the Caribbean,” in Caribbean Studies: A Symposium, ed. Vera Rubin (Kingston: University College of the West Indies, 1957), 72, quoted in Schlesinger, “Family Patterns in Jamaica,” 147–48.
38. Alexander, “The Role of the Male,” 371.
39. Barrett, The Rastafarians, 88.
40. Lee, The First Rasta, 158.
41. Anell Howell to Montinol Howell, October 12, 1993, Leonard P. Howell Foundation (hereafter cited as LPHF).
42. Montinol Howell, personal communication, November 27, 2013.
43. Nembhard, “Mrs. Howell Believes,” 1941, 3.
44. Alexander, “The Role of the Male,” 374, 375.
45. Draft Confidential Letter to Malcolm MacDonald, MP, April 1940, JA 1B/5/79, 63A; Owen F. Wright to Alexander W. G. H. Grantham, July 15, 1939, JA 1B/5/79, 9.
46. Giulia Bonacci, “The Ethiopian World Federation: A Pan-African Organization Among Rastafari in Jamaica,” Caribbean Quarterly 59, no. 2 (2013): 76; Giulia Bonacci, Exodus!: Heirs and Pioneers, Rastafari Return to Ethiopia (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2015), 160.
47. Leo Spitzer and LaRay Denzer, “I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson and the West African Youth League,” International Journal of African Historical Studies6, no. 3 (1973): 446. For further information on the IASB, see James R. Hooker, Black Revolutionary: George Padmore’s Path from Communism to Pan-Africanism (New York: Praeger, 1967), 49–51.
48. Owen F. Wright to Alexander W. G. H. Grantham, November 11, 1938, JA 1B/5/79, 7/27.
49. R. A. Leevy, “Ras Tafarianism: Haile Selassie, Emperor of Abyssinia, Inspired a New Religion in Jamaica,” Public Opinion, February 20, 1943, 3.
50. “News of the Ethiopian World Federation, Inc,” The Voice of Ethiopia, December 31, 1938, 3; Bonacci, “The Ethiopian World Federation,” 74.
51. Owen F. Wright to Alexander W. G. H. Grantham, 7, 8/27; Secret Letter to Colonel Sir V. G. W. Kell, November 11, 1938, JA 1B/5/79/735, 29.
52. L. P. Howell to George Padmore, March 21, 1939, JA 1B/5/79, C74; George Padmore, “Hands Off the Colonies!” New Leader, February 25, 1938, 5.
53. Alexander, “The Role of the Male,” 371.
54. Henry Archibald Dunkley, interviewed by Robert Hill, Kingston, Jamaica, 1976, 10. Also published as Robert Hill and Boris Lutanie, “Le Troi-sième Homme: Interview de Henry Archibald Dunkley, par Robert Hill (1976),” Reggae Vibes 22 (2012): 68–73.
55. Gerald Lloyd Downer, interviewed by author, Tredegar Park, St. Catherine, Jamaica, August 24, 2011.
56. “Robber Leaves Pearls Behind: Lucky Woman Still Has Jewellery Valued £100,” Daily Gleaner, August 27, 1938, 23; “Purchasing Power of British Pounds.”
57. L. P. Howell to George Padmore, C74.
58. Carradine, “The Ras Tafarites Retreat,” 1940, 54.
59. Hélène Lee, personal communication, January 4, 2021.
60. Lee, The First Rasta, 127; Register Book, Office of Titles, Registrar General’s Department, Twinkenham Park, Jamaica, vol. 277, folio 52; “Ras Tafarites Won’t Quit Famed ‘Pinnacle,’” Daily Gleaner, August 16, 1946, 11.
61. Lee, The First Rasta, 128; “Purchasing Power of British Pounds.”
62. Rules and Constitution of the Ethiopian Salvation Society, Friendly and Benevolent Society, Kingston, Jamaica, January 11, 1939, JA 5073/34, 1. For other mention of the Ethiopian Salvation Society, see Price, Becoming Rasta, 63.
63. “E.S.S. President Plans Busy Tour,” Daily Gleaner, June 5, 1939, 4.
64. Carradine, “The Ras Tafarites Retreat,” 1940, 54.
65. “E.S.S. President Plans Busy Tour,” 4.
66. Rules and Constitution, 5, 8, 9; “Purchasing Power of British Pounds.”
67. “Society Celebration,” Daily Gleaner, April 4, 1939, 6.
68. “Help the Drought Stricken People of St. Elizabeth,” Daily Gleaner, July 22, 1939, 45.
69. Carradine, “The Ras Tafarites Retreat,” 1940, 54.
70. Montinol Howell, personal communication, November 27, 2013.
71. Lee, personal communication, 2021.
72. Nembhard, “Mrs. Howell Believes,” 1941, 1.
73. Carradine, “The Ras Tafarites Retreat,” 1940, 54; Stewart and Simpson, interviewed by author, 2011.
74. Stewart and Simpson, interviewed by author, 2011.
75. Chevannes, Rastafari, 123.
76. Downer, interviewed by author, 2011.
77. “Police Hold Chief of Pinnacle Ras Tafarians,” Jamaica Times, July 26, 1941, 1.
78. Nembhard, “Mrs. Howell Believes,” 1941, 1.
79. Ibid.
80. Ibid., 1, 3.
81. Stewart and Simpson, interviewed by author, 2011; “EarthLight Ises to Queen Mother of the Rastafari Movement Tenet Bent Howell,” March 7, 2015, LPHF.
82. “Detained in Connection with Woman’s Death,” Daily Gleaner, December 24, 1943, 10.
83. Fong, personal communication, 2014.
84. “Howell Remanded,” Daily Gleaner, January 14, 1944, 7.
85. “EarthLight Ises,” LPHF.
86. Alexander W. G. H. Grantham, April 4, 1944, Minutes, JA 5073/34, 18.
CHAPTER 4.
The Rastafari Religion: A Womanist Perspective
1. See Joseph Owens, Dread: The Rastafarians of Jamaica (Kingston: Sangster, 1976); William David Spencer, Dread Jesus (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1998); Noel Leo Erskine, From Garvey to Marley: Rastafari Theology (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004).
2. Graham A. Duncan, “Ethiopianism in Pan-African Perspective, 1880–1920,” Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 41, no. 2 (2015): 199.
3. Other examples include the Ethiopian King of Kings Salvation, Youth Black Faith, the African Reform Church of God in Christ, Twelve Tribes of Israel, and the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church.
4. The Ethiopian spelling of her name is Wayzäro Mänän, but throughout this book, I use Menen, the spelling more familiar to Western audiences.
5. Renee Romano and Elliott Leib, “Rastafari: Conversations Concerning Woman,” filmed in Jamaica, Eye In I Filmworks, New Haven, Connecticut, 1983. The quotations are from the interview for this documentary film, hereafter referred to as Lennox, interviewed by Romano and Leib, 1983. All quotations from Lennox are from my transcription of the raw footage of this interview, most of which did not appear in the documentary film. This footage is stored at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum Support Center in Suitland, Maryland, which houses the collections of the National Museum of Natural History and anthropological research. Also see Renee Romano and Elliott Leib, “Rastafari Voices,” filmed in Jamaica, Eye In I Filmworks, New Haven, Connecticut, 1979.
6. Katie G. Cannon, “The Emergence of Black Feminist Consciousness,” in Feminist Interpretation of the Bible, ed. Letty M. Russell (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985), 30.
7. Ibid., 40.
8. Rufus J. Burrows Jr., “Development of Womanist Theology: Some Chief Characteristics,” Ashbury Theological Journal 54, no. 1 (1999): 53, 41.
9. Ella Maria Ray, “Standing in the Lion’s Shadow: Jamaican Rastafari Women Reconstructing Their African Identity,” PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 1998, 19.
10. Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983), xi.
11. Burrows, “Development of Womanist Theology,” 45, 46.
12. Owens, Dread, 93.
13. Erskine, From Garvey to Marley, 189, xiv, xv.
14. Lennox, interviewed by Romano and Leib, 1983.
15. Diana O’Gilvie, “Tug of War: Traditional Rastafarian Women in Modern Jamaican Society,” Griots Republic, February 6, 2018, http://www.griotsrepublic.com/tug-war-traditional-rastafarian-women-modern-jamaican-society/.
16. Carole D. Yawney, “To Grow a Daughter: Cultural Liberation and the Dynamics of Oppression in Jamaica,” in Feminism: From Pressure to Politics, ed. A. Miller and G. Finn (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1983), 119; Chevannes, Rastafari, 260.
17. Alphonso Gallimore, interviewed by author, Tredegar Park and Pinnacle, St. Catherine, Jamaica, July 20, 2016.
18. Clarke, My Mother, 21.
19. R. T. Smith, The Negro Family in British Guiana (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1956), 258.
20. Florence Stewart, interviewed by author, 2016.
21. Canute Swaby, interviewed by author and Yvonne McLean, Tredegar Park, St. Catherine, Jamaica, October 22, 2015.
22. Mimi Sheller, “Quasheba, Mother, Queen: Black Women’s Public Leadership and Political Protest in Postemancipation Jamaica,” Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, 2003, http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/papers/Sheller-Quasheba-Mother-Queen.pdf, 2, 3.
23. Diana Paton, “Enslaved Women and Slavery Before and After 1807,” History in Focus 12 (2007), https://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Slavery/articles/paton.html.
24. Howell, The Promised Key, 27.
25. Jake Homiak, interviewed by author, Smithsonian Institution, Suitland, Maryland, June 23, 2015.
26. Binghi Glen Porter, “The Watch Lion Roars,” unpublished communication, October 2015, 3.
27. Lennox, interviewed by Romano and Leib, 1983.
28. Homiak, interviewed by author, 2015.
29. Tricia Redeker Hepner and Randal L. Hepner, “Gender, Community, and Change among the Rastafari of New York City,” in New York Glory: Religions in the City, ed. Tony Carnes and Anna Karpathakis (New York: New York University Press, 2001), 348.
30. Carole D. Yawney, “Review of Women, Race and Class in a Cultural Context, Many Voices, One Chant—Black Feminist Perspectives, and Rastafari: Conversations Concerning Woman,” Canadian Woman Studies 7, nos. 1–2 (1984): 208.
31. Amy Bailey, “Our Women—Their Status,” Public Opinion, December 28, 1940, 14.
32. Lennox, interviewed by Romano and Leib, 1983.
33. Hugh Foot to M. Phillips, September 10, 1956, TNA C01031/1958, 1.
34. Lennox, interviewed by Romano and Leib, 1983.
35. Barbara Winslow, “The First White Rastafarian: Sylvia Pankhurst, Haile Selassie, and Ethiopia,” in At Home and Abroad in the Empire: British Women Write the 1930s, ed. Robin Hackett, Freda Hauser, and Gay Wachman (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2009), 178.
36. Kathlyn Dodd, ed., A Sylvia Pankhurst Reader (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), 238.
37. Lennox, interviewed by Romano and Leib, 1983.
38. Homiak, interviewed by author, 2015.
39. Ibid.
40. Romano and Leib, “Rastafari Voices,” 1979.
41. Rex M. Nettleford, Caribbean Cultural Identity: The Case of Jamaica, An Essay in Cultural Dynamics (Kingston: Institute of Jamaica, 1978), 8.
42. Joseph Beaumont, The New Slavery: An Account of the Indians and Chinese Immigrants in British Guiana (London: W. Ridgway, 1871), 14.
43. Writing in the 1970s, for example, Joseph Owens stated that the Rastafari used the term “Babylon” for “the whole complex of institutions which conspire to keep the black man enslaved in the western world and which attempt to subjugate coloured peoples throughout the world” (Owens, Dread, 70).
44. Homiak, interviewed by author, 2015.
45. “Leonard Howell, On Trial,” 1934, 20.
46. Lennox, interviewed by Romano and Leib, 1983.
47. Joseph Franklin Rutherford, “Birth of the Nation,” The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence, March 1, 1925, 67. Also see International Bible Students’ Association, The Watch Tower, April 2, 1910, 119, 120.
48. Fitz Balintine Pettersburgh, The Royal Parchment Scroll of Black Supremacy (Kingston: Frontline Books and Miguel Lorne Publishers, 2003 [orig.1926]), 31.
49. Howell, The Promised Key, 27, 29, 7, 25, 20, 21.
50. Prince Emmanuel Edwards, “Love in Black Supremacy Internationally Through all Human Rights in Righteousness of Salvation,” Rastafari Movement Pamphlet, Kingston, 1979, University of the West Indies Library, Mona, Jamaica, 9, 11.
51. John Africa, “Black Woman,” Rasta Voice 86 (1979): 21.
52. Samuel Elisha Brown, “Treatise on the Rastafarian Movement,” Caribbean Studies 6, no. 1 (1966): 39.
53. Lennox, interviewed by Romano and Leib, 1983.
54. Colin Kidd, The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600–2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 41, 43; Numbers 12.1, Holy Bible, New King James Version, 1987 printing.
55. Kidd, The Forging, 41; Numbers 12.1, Holy Bible.
56. Number 12.15, Holy Bible.
57. Lennox, interviewed by Romano and Leib, 1983.
58. Imani M. Tafari-Ama, “An Historical Analysis of Grassroots Resistance in Jamaica: A Participatory Research on Gender Relations in Rastafari,” MA thesis, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands, 1989, 114; Tafari-Ama, “RastawomanasRebel: Case Studies in Jamaica,” in Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader, eds. Nathaniel S. Murrell, William D. Spencer, and Adrian A. McFarlane (Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, 1998), 105.
59. Ray, “Standing,” 150–51.
60. Lennox, interviewed by Romano and Leib, 1983.
61. Galawdewos, The Life of Walatta-Petros: A Seventeenth-Century Biography of an African Woman, trans. Wendy L. Belcher and Michael Kleiner (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), ix.
62. Sister Farcia, “Forward Up Daughters,” Rasta Voice 86 (1979): 16.
63. Ray, “Standing,” 151.
64. Empress Yuajah, How to Become a Rasta: Rastafari, Rasta Beliefs, Rastafarian Culture (North Charleston: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012), 18, 26.
65. Lennox, interviewed by Romano and Leib, 1983.
66. Ibid.
67. Tracye A. Matthews, “‘No One Ever Asks What a Man’s Role in the Revolution Is’: Gender Politics and Leadership in the Black Panther Party, 1966–71,” in Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement, ed. Bettye Collier-Thomas and V. P. Franklin (New York: New York University Press, 2001), 233.
68. Lennox, interviewed by Romano and Leib, 1983.
69. Ibid.
70. Ibid.
71. Ibid.
72. Ibid.; Jeanne Christensen, Rastafari Reasoning and the RastaWoman: Gender Constructions in the Shaping of Rastafari Livity (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014), 69.
73. John [Jake] P. Homiak, “Dub History: Soundings on Rastafari Livity and Language,” in Rastafari and Other African-Caribbean Worldviews, ed. Barry Chevannes (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998), 133–34.
74. Lennox, interviewed by Romano and Leib, 1983.
75. Frank Loris Peterson, The Hope of the Race (Nashville: Southern Publishing Association, 1934), 281–83, 286. Emphasis in original. For more information on Peterson, see F. L. Bland, “Life Sketch of Frank Loris Peterson,” Review and Herald: General Church Paper of the Seventh Day Adventists 146, no. 46 (1969): 8.
76. Lennox, interviewed by Romano and Leib, 1983.
77. Miriam Lennox, August 18, 1915–September 19, 1995, Half Way Tree, Saint Andrew, Jamaica, Death Registration Form, Registrar General’s Department, St. Catherine, Jamaica, no. BA 580.
CHAPTER 5.
Women and the “Holy Herb” Dilemma
1.“Disturbances by Followers of the Ras Tafari Cult,” Daily Gleaner, July 20, 1934, 6.
2. Ibid.; “Daniel of Ras Tafari Cult Is Put in New Den,” Daily Gleaner, July 25, 1934, 3.
3. “Disturbances by Followers of the Ras Tafari Cult,” 1934, 6.
4. “Man Gets Four Months for Ganja: Women Fined,” Daily Gleaner, October 24, 1939, 15.
5. Nikolaas J. Van der Merwe, “Cannabis Smoking in 13th–14th Century Ethiopia: Chemical Evidence,” in Cannabis and Culture, ed. Vera Rubin (The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1975), 78; Chris S. Duvall, “Cannabis and Tobacco in Precolonial and Colonial Africa,” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, ed. Thomas Spear (Oxford: University of Oxford Press, 2018), 8.
6. Brian M. Du Toit, “Dagga: The History and Ethnographic Setting of Cannabis,” in Cannabis and Culture, ed. Vera Rubin (The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1975), 88; John Edward Philips, “African Smoking and Pipes,” Journal of African History 24, no. 3 (1983): 303.
7. John W. Commissiong, Ganja (Marihuana) (Kingston: Cultural Studies Initiative and Caribbean Quarterly, University of the West Indies, 1997), 6; Vera Rubin and Lambros Comitas, Ganja in Jamaica: The Effects of Marijuana Use (Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1976), 11, 12.
8. Dennis Forsythe, Rastafari: For the Healing of the Nations (New York: One Drop Book, 1999), 135.
9. Brian M. Du Toit, “Man and Cannabis in Africa: A Study of Diffusion,” African Economic History 1 (1976), 26.
10. Charles Price, “Cleave to the Black: Expressions of Ethiopianism in Jamaica,” New West Indian Guide 77, nos. 1–2 (2003): 38; Barrett, The Rastafarians, 2.
11. Du Toit, “Man and Cannabis,” 18.
12. J. Edward Chamberlin and Barry Chevannes, “Ganja in Jamaica,” in Smoke: A Global History of Smoking, ed. Sander L. Gilman and Zhou Xun (London: Reaktion Books, 2004), 147; Elisa Janine Sobo, One Blood: The Jamaican Body (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 18.
13. Mukesh Kumar and Rajani Kumari, “Indian Culture in Jamaica—Past and Present,” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress60 (1999), 1028.
14. Jamaica, Eighth Census, XLIX.
15. Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94, vol. IV (Simla: The Government Central Printing Office, 1894), 11.
16. Robert A. Hill, Dread History: Leonard P. Howell and Millenarian Visions in the Early Rastafarian Religion in Jamaica (Kingston and Chicago: Frontline Distribution International, 2001), 42. Hill noted that William Powell, a Howellite, recalled in an interview that an East Indian man known as “Laloo” was also considered “one of Howell’s direct bodyguards.” He was probably related to Albertha Lalloo.
17. Rastafari embraced attitudes toward cannabis also found in Hinduism, such as the reference to the smoking of cannabis as sadhana, that is, the ability to communicate with God, and the reference to the high from smoking as prasad, or that which is sanctified. Ajai Mansingh and Laxmi Mansingh argue that the term used by Rastafari for the most “potent” form of cannabis was “kali, after the black, terrifying earth mother of Indian mythology.” See Ajai Mansingh and Laxmi Mansingh, “Hindu Influences on Rastafarianism,” in Rastafari, ed. Rex Nettleford and Veronica Salter (Kingston: Caribbean Quarterly, 2008), 111, 106.
18. Forsythe, Rastafari, 132.
19. Casey J. Roulette and Barry S. Hewlett, “Patterns of Cannabis Use among Congo Basin Hunter-Gatherers,” Journal of Ethnography 38, no. 4 (2018): 521.
20. Forsythe, Rastafari, 134.
21. In a general study of cannabis use done in 1978, Commissiong asserted, for example, that “marihuana abuse in the West Indies is predominantly a male affair,” and the “small percentage” of women who “smoke” cannabis do so mainly “as a sign of urban sophistication,” since “women as yet,” he added, “do not abuse marihuana nearly as much as men.” See Commissiong, Ganja, 12–13.
22. Stewart, interviewed by author, 2016.
23. Sasha Turner, Contested Bodies: Pregnancy, Childrearing, and Slavery in Jamaica (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 129, 157.
24. Judith Carney and Richard N. Rosomoff, In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa’s Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 124. Emphasis in original. Also see Pablo F. Gómez, The Experiential Caribbean: Creating Knowledge and Healing in the Early Modern Atlantic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 120.
25. Londa Schiebinger, Secret Cures of Slaves: People, Plants, and Medicine in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017), 62.
26. Carney and Rosomoff, In the Shadow of Slavery, 2, 81.
27. Barbara Bush, “Towards Emancipation: Slave Women and Resistance to Coercive Labour Regimes in the British West Indian Colonies, 1790–1838,” Slavery & Abolition 5, no. 3 (2008): 49; Affette McCaw-Binns and C. O. Moody, “The Development of Primary Health Care in Jamaica,” West Indian Medical Journal 50, no. 4 (2001): 7–8.
28. Montinol A. Howell, personal communication, February 13, 2020.
29. William “Bill” Howell, interviewed by Hélène Lee, May 1998.
30. Commissiong, Ganja, 5.
31. Obiagele Lake, Rastafarl Women: Subordination in the Midst of Liberation Theology (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1998), 76.
32. Barrett, The Rastafarians, 123.
33. Owens, Dread, 157.
34. Lake, Rastafarl Women, 77.
35. Barrett, The Rastafarians, 92.
36. Christensen, Rastafari Reasoning, 61.
37. Mack, From Babylon to Rastafari, 82.
38. Barrett, The Rastafarians, 123.
39. Christensen, Rastafari Reasoning, 68.
40. Owens, Dread, 160.
41. Barrett, The Rastafarians, 129.
42. Anne E. Cudd, Analyzing Oppression (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 199.
43. Dennis Forsythe, The Law Against Ganja in Jamaica (Kingston: Zaika Publications, 1993), 2.
44. Forsythe, Rastafari, 133.
45. Carradine, “The Ras Tafarites Retreat,” 1940, 54.
46. Yasus Afari, Overstanding Rastafari: “Jamaica’s Gift to the World” (Kingston: Senya-Cum, 2007), 48.
47. “Victims Tell of Ras Tafarians’ Reign of Terror in St. Catherine,” Jamaica Times, July 12,
1941, page unknown. Also see, Christensen, Rastafari Reasoning, 59, n. 13.
48. Homiak, interviewed by author, 2015.
49. Chevannes, Rastafari, 219.
50. Barrett, The Rastafarians, 17.
51. “Ganja Smoking as a Danger to the Natives of This Colony,” Daily Gleaner, June 10, 1913, 8, 9; Forsythe, The Law, 8.
52. Rubin and Comitas, Ganja in Jamaica, 177; “Purchasing Power of British Pounds.”
53. “Pleas Taken Yesterday. Trial to take Place Monday and Tuesday,” Daily Gleaner, July 23, 1941, 9; “Ras Tafari Movement Rose from the Dungle,” Daily Gleaner, August 4, 1960, 12.
54. Rubin and Comitas, Ganja in Jamaica, 177, 178.
55. Audrey Elizabeth Lewis, interviewed by author, Salt River, Clarendon, Jamaica, May 5, 2013.
56. Barbara Bush-Slimani, “Hard Labour: Women, Childbirth and Resistance in British Caribbean Slave Societies,” History Workshop 36 (1993): 89.
57. Ibid., 92.
58. Lewis, interviewed by author, 2013.
59. Mack, From Babylon to Rastafari, 61.
60. William “Bill” Howell, personal communication, June 14, 2013.
61. Lewis, interviewed by author, 2013.
62. Mack, From Babylon to Rastafari, 70.
63. “Pleas Taken Yesterday,” 1941, 9.
64. “Pinnacle Case: Woman, 70, Among 32 More Sentenced,” Daily Gleaner, June 17, 1954, 5.
65. “Pinnacle Case: 21 Guilty Pleas,” Daily Gleaner, June 18, 1954, 5.
66. Ibid.
67. See Peter Tosh, “Legalize It,” from the album Legalize It, Treasure Isle and Randy’s, Kingston, 1976; Bob Marley, “Kaya,” from the album Kaya, Island Studios, London, 1978.
68. Rita Marley, “One Draw,” from the album Harambe: Working Together for Freedom, Shanachie Records, United States, 1982.
69. Dionne Jackson Miller, “Jamaican Marijuana Reform, Rastas and Rights,” OxHRH Blog, March 18, 2015, http://humanrights.dev3.0neltd.eu/jamaican-marijuana-reform-rastas-and-rights/.
70. Barry Chevannes, Webster Edwards, Anthony Freckleton, Norma Linton, DiMario McDowell, Aileen Standard-Goldson, and Barbara Smith, “A Report of the National Commission on Ganja,” Office of the Prime Minister of Jamaica, Kingston, August 7, 2001, http://addictionstudies.dec.uwi.edu/Documents/generic%20drug%20information/.
71. Jiachuan Wu and Daniella Silva, “Map: See the States Where Marijuana Is Legal,” NBC News, November 4, 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/map-see-if-marijuana-legal-your-state-n938426.
72. Madison Margolin, “Now Decriminalized, Could Jamaica Become Destination for Legal Weed,” Rolling Stone, August 20, 2018, https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/jamaica-legal-weed-rastafari-criminalized-711745/.
73. Ibid.
CHAPTER 6.
Audrey Lewis and the History of the Early Rastafari’s Development
1. Nicole N. Aljoe, Creole Testimonies: Slave Narratives from the British West Indies, 1709–1838 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 95.
2. Monique A. Bedasse, Jah Kingdom: Rastafarians, Tanzania, and Pan-Africanism in the Age of Decolonization (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 10.
3. M. G. Smith, “The Plural Framework of Jamaican Society,” British Journal of Sociology 12, no. 3 (1961): 249, 257.
4. Edward Brathwaite, The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 306, 307; Viranjini Munasinghe, “Theorizing World Culture through the New World: East Indians and Creolization,” American Ethnologist 33, no. 4 (2006): 549.
5. Lee, The First Rasta, 127.
6. “Ras Tafarites Won’t Quit Famed ‘Pinnacle,’” 11; Register Book, Office of Titles, Registrar General’s Department, Twinkenham Park, Jamaica, vol. 277, folio 52.
7. Dianne M. Stewart, “Womanist Theology in the Caribbean Context: Critiquing Culture, Rethinking Doctrine, and Expanding Boundaries,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 20, no. 1 (2004): 64; Kenneth Bilby and Elliott Leib, “Kumina, the Howellite Church and the Emergence of Rastafarian Traditional Music in Jamaica,” Jamaica Journal 19, no. 3 (1986): 22, 26; Christensen, Rastafari Reasoning, 60.
8. Stewart, “Womanist Theology,” 64, 73.
9. Lucie Pradel, African Beliefs in the New World: Popular Literary Traditions of the Caribbean (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2000), 112.
10. Olive Lewin, Rock It Come Over: The Folk Music of Jamaica (Kingston: The University of the West Indies Press, 2000), 307.
11. Stewart, interviewed by author, 2016.
12. Clinton A. Hutton, “Leonard Howell Announcing God: The Conditions that Gave Birth to Rastafari in Jamaica,” in Leonard Percival Howell and the Genesis of Rastafari, ed. Clinton A. Hutton, Michael A. Barnett, D. A. Dunkley, and Jahlani A. H. Niaah (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2015), 34.
13. Lewin, Rock It Come Over, 298, 310.
14. Bilby and Leib, “Kumina,” 23.
15. Homiak, interviewed by author, 2015.
16. E. S. P. McPherson, Honoring Our Original Ancestors: A Royal Ethiopic Salute to ‘The Gong’/The Howellites. An Introduction to Kulungu . . . Vols. 1–4, Ethio-Rastaology Audio Series No. 1, May 1995, 6.
17. Holy Bible, New King James Version, 1987 printing.
18. McPherson, Honoring Our Original Ancestors, 6, 7.
19. Erin C. MacLeod, Visions of Zion: Ethiopians and Rastafari in the Search for the Promised Land (New York: New York University Press, 2014), 8.
20. Lennox, interviewed by Romano and Leib, 1983.
21. Obiagele Lake, “The Many Voices of Rastafarian Women: Sexual Subordination in the Midst of Liberation,” New West Indian Guide 68, nos. 3–4 (1994): 244.
22. Lewis, interviewed by author, 2013.
23. Barrett, The Rastafarians, xiii.
24. Ennis B. Edmonds, Rastafari: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 53.
25. Lewis, interviewed by author, 2013.
26. Carradine, “The Ras Tafarites Retreat,” 1940, 54; U.D.S., “Plight of Ras Tafarians at Camp Pinnacle in Saint Catherine,” Daily Gleaner, December 22, 1940, page unknown.
27. Lewis, interviewed by author, 2013.
28. Gertrude Campbell, interviewed by Jahlani Niaah and Ishmahil Blagrove for “Roaring Lion, The Rise of Rastafari: A Documentary,” Kingston and Brampton, Frontline Productions and Knowledge Bookstore, 2001, 8.
29. Ibid. For the initial estimate of 700 people, see Carradine, “The Ras Tafarites Retreat,” 1940, 54.
30. Stewart, interviewed by author, 2016.
31. Reports of Medical Officer F. W. Aris, St. Catherine, Copy of Reports, M.O.H., JA 5073/34.
32. Ibid.
33. Copy of Reports, M.O.H., Report of December 31, 1940, JA 5073/34, 2.
34. Ibid.
35. Copy of Reports, M.O.H., Report of January 11, 1941, JA 5073/34, 2.
36. J. Hall, Assistant Director of Medical Services, to Colonial Secretary, January 16, 1941, Minutes, JA 5073/34. Hall based his conclusions on Aris’s reports.
37. “The Raid Didn’t Seem to Bother These Juvenile Ras Tafarians,” Jamaica Times, July 19, 1941, 1.
38. Post Office Telegraph (Inland), Hon. McNeill, 5 Portland Road, Kingston, to Hon. Colonial Secretary, December 23, 1940, JA 5073/34, 1–3. For the 1948 amendment to the Dangerous Drugs Act, see Suzette A. Haughton, Drugged Out: Globalization and Jamaica’s Resilience to Drug Trafficking (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2011), 48; Forsythe, Rastafari, 140; and Rubin and Comitas, Ganja in Jamaica, 177, 178.
39. Colonial Secretary to A.C.S., January 17, 1941, Minutes, JA 5073/34, 10.
40. Letter to the Hon. Colonial Secretary, April 15, 1941, Minutes, JA 5073/34, 13–14.
41. Attorney General to the Colonial Secretary, July 2, 1941, JA 5073/34 Minutes.
42. James Robertson, “‘That Vagabond George Stewart of England’: Leonard Howell’s Seditious Sermons, 1933–1941,” in Leonard Percival Howell and the Genesis of Rastafari, ed. Clinton A. Hutton, Michael A. Barnett, D. A. Dunkley, and Jahlani A. H. Niaah (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2015), 105. Also see “£50 Fine for Ganja,” Daily Gleaner, September 1, 1938, 10. The Gleaner report stated, “James Nelson of Duckensfield was fined £50 or six months’ hard labour for having ganja in his possession. He made a very impressive plea for time to pay but it was found that he failed to pay a fine of 8/ [shillings] in the lower Court a few months before. He was offered time with a surety which he could not find.”
43. “110 Dead as Hurricane Hits South Coast,” Daily Gleaner, August 26, 1951, 1.
44. Lewis, interviewed by author, 2013.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid. Lewis said, “a killer for black,” which I have changed to “a killer [of] black” for clarity.
47. A. Bustamante, Duke Street, Kingston, Jamaica, to the Colonial Secretary, July 6, 1939, JA 1B/5/79/735.
48. Lewis, interviewed by author, 2013.
49. Ibid.
50. Woodville K. Marshall, “The Emergence and Survival of the Peasantry,” in General History of the Caribbean, Vol. IV, The Long Nineteenth Century: Nineteenth-Century Transformations, ed. K. O. Laurence (Paris and London: UNESCO, and Macmillan Education, 2011), 173.
51. Ibid., 176, 177.
52. Veront M. Satchell, From Plots to Plantations: Land Transactions in Jamaica (Kingston: Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1990), 119.
53. Jay R. Mandle, “Review of From Plots to Plantations: Land Transactions in Jamaica, 1866–1900, by Veront M. Satchell,” Journal of Economic History 51, no. 2 (1991): 503.
54. Altamont Reid, Philip Walker, and R. N. White to Governor Edward Brandis Denham, circa January 1937, JA 5073/34, 1; Commander R. N., Private Secretary, to Mr. Altamont Reid, February 3, 1937, JA 5073/34.
55. Yvonne McLean, interviewed by author, Miami, Florida, July 28, 2018.
56. D. A. Dunkley, “Occupy Pinnacle and the Rastafari’s Struggle for Land in Jamaica,” Jamaica Journal 35, nos. 1–2 (2014): 42. In 2017, the Rastafari organization known as the Millennium Council objected to the Jamaican government’s attempt to declare the other five plots at Pinnacle as a protected National Monument. The Council has argued that the declaration should be as a protected National Heritage site, as was done in the case of the plot that was declared as protected in 2013. So far, only one plot has been designated as a protected site.
CHAPTER 7.
A Prototype of Pinnacle: Edna Fisher and the African Reform Church
1.“The Rastafarite Cult,” Headquarters, Jamaica Constabulary, Kingston, January 13, 1959, Appendix 1, TNA C01031/2767.
2. Gallimore, interviewed by author, 2016.
3. “Judge’s Summing Up,” 1960, 9.
4. “The Rastafarite Cult,” Appendix 1 & 2, TNA C01031/2767.
5. Barrett, The Rastafarians, 92. Note that the Rastafari organization known as Youth Black Faith was formed in the 1940s, and the Nyahbinghi and Bobo Shanti organizations were established in the 1950s, followed by the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church, formed in Mountain View, Kingston, in 1960, which was described as “deracialized.” Its leadership “prophesied the unification of black and white.” See Michael Barnett, “Differences and Similarities Between the Rastafari Movement and the Nation of Islam,” Journal of Black Studies 36, no. 6 (2006): 876; and Walter Wells, “History of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church,” Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church, 2017, http://www.ethiopianzioncopticchurch.org/Home/History. In 1968, the Twelve Tribes of Israel was formed and continued the trend to deracialize Rastafari organizations with branches formed even in Britain, Europe, United States, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries. See Monique Bedasse, “Rasta Evolution: The Theology of the Twelve Tribes of Israel,” Journal of Black Studies 40, no. 5 (2010): 961–62.
6. Paulette Sweeney, interviewed in “Omega Rising: Woman of Rastafari,” filmed in Jamaica and Britain, directed by D. Elmina Davis and produced by Imruh Bakari for Ceddo Film and Video Workshop, London, 1988.
7. “Current Items,” Daily Gleaner, February 26, 1970, 4.
8. “Sentences of 3 to 10 Years on Treason Felony Accused,” Daily Gleaner, October 31, 1960, 4.
9. Frank Jan van Dijk, “Sociological Means: Colonial Reactions to the Radicalization of Rastafari in Jamaica, 1956–1959,” New West Indian Guide 69, nos. 1–2 (1995): 67; Brian Meeks, “Obscure Revolt, Profound Effects: The Henry Rebellion, Counter-Hegemony and Jamaican Society” Small Axe 2 (1997): 39.
10. Anthony Bogues, Black Heretics, Black Prophets: Radical Political Intellectuals (New York: Routledge, 2003), 166, 170. Other studies with very little or no information on Fisher include, for example, Orlando Patterson, “Rastafari: The Cult of Outcasts,” New Society 12 (1964): 15–17; Barry Chevannes, “The Repairer of the Breach: Reverend Claudius Henry and Jamaican Society,” in Ethnicity in the Americas, ed. Frances Henry (The Hague: Mouton, 1976), 263–90; and Terry Lacey, Violence and Politics in Jamaica, 1960–1970: Internal Security in a Developing Country (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1977).
11. “Treason Felony Trial,” Daily Gleaner, October 25, 1960, 4.
12. “Judge’s Summing Up,” 1960, 9.
13. Kathryn Wirtenberger, “The Jesuits in Jamaica,” MA thesis, Loyola University, Chicago, Illinois, December 1942, 125.
14. “Sought-After Primary Schools Top Grade 4 Literacy, Numeracy,” Jamaica Observer, January 14, 2018, http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/career-education/sought-after-primary-schools_122274?profile=1270.
15. “Judge’s Summing Up,” 1960, 9.
16. Frank Jan van Dijk, Jahmaica: Rastafari and Jamaican Society (Utrecht: ISOR, 1993), 128; Van Dijk, “Sociological Means,” 85; Giulia Bonacci, “The Ethiopian World Federation: A Pan-African Organization Among Rastafari in Jamaica,” Caribbean Quarterly 59, no. 2 (2013): 78, 80; Giulia Bonacci, Exodus!: Heirs and Pioneers, Rastafari Return to Ethiopia (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2015), 159, 163.
17. Smith, Nettleford, and Augier, The Ras Tafari Movement, 13.
18. Hill, Dread History, 20.
19. “Accused: No Subscription Was Taken from Members of the Church” Daily Gleaner, October 22, 1960, 4.
20. Meeks, “Obscure Revolt,” 41.
21. Bogues, Black Heretics, 166; “Judge’s Summing Up,” 1960.
22. Besentie Thompson, interviewed by author, Green Bottom, Clarendon, Jamaica, December 16, 2017.
23. “Claudius Henry Tells the Court,” Daily Gleaner, October 25, 1960, 4.
24. “Judge’s Summing Up,” 1960, 9.
25. Johnathan Reid, interviewed by author, Green Bottom, Sandy Bay, Clarendon, Jamaica, December 16, 2017.
26. Robyn C. Spencer, The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016), 45. Also see Matthews, “‘No One Ever Asks,” 233.
27. “Accused: No Subscription,” 1960, 4.
28. R. A. Leevy, “Ras Tafarianism: Haile Selassie, Emperor of Abyssinia, Inspired a New Religion in Jamaica,” Public Opinion, February 20, 1943, 3.
29. “Accused: No Subscription,” 1960, 4.
30. Douglas McKay, interviewed by author, Green Bottom, Sandy Bay, Clarendon, Jamaica, December 16, 2017.
31. Honor Ford-Smith, “Women and the Garvey Movement in Jamaica,” in Garvey: His Work and Impact, eds. Rupert Lewis and Patrick Bryan (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1994), 77.
32. Ibid., 75, 79.
33. Tony Martin, “Women in the Garvey Movement,” in Garvey: His Work and Impact, 70.
34. Stanley Haughton, interviewed by author, Green Bottom, Sandy Bay, Clarendon, Jamaica, December 16, 2017.
35. “Treason-Felony Trial: Keeping of Sabbath,” Daily Gleaner, October 25, 1960, 4.
36. Hugh Foot to M. Phillips, November 19, 1956, TNA C01031/1958, 3.
37. Monthly Intelligence Report, April 1960, TNA C01031/3994, 16.
38. Ibid.
39. Norman Girvan, “Assessing Westminster in the Caribbean: Then and Now,” Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 53, no. 1 (2015): 97.
40. Extract from Personal Intelligence Report of the Governor of Jamaica for August–September 1960, TNA C01031/3995, 82.
41. King’s House, Jamaica, H. L. Lindo, Governor’s Deputy [Drafted by the Governor], to J. E. Marnham, Colonial Office, April 12, 1960, TNA CO1031/3998, 7.
42. Ibid.
43. Carradine, “The Ras Tafarites Retreat,” 1940, 54.
44. Extract from Local Standing Intelligence Committee Report March, 1960, TNA C01031/3994, 9. Emphasis in original.
45. Inward Telegram, To the Secretary of State for the Colonies, from Jamaica (Sir K. Blackburne), April 14/15, 1960, TNA C01031/3998, 5.
46. May 17, 1960, TNA C01031/3998, 8. Handwritten notes, author unclear.
47. Sylvia Wynter, “A Dream Deferred: Will the Condemned Rasta Fari ever Return to Africa?” TNA C01031/3995, 51.
48. O. Nigel Bolland, The Politics of Labour in the British Caribbean: The Social Origins of Authoritarianism and Democracy in the Labour Movement (Kingston, Oxford, and Princeton: Ian Randle, James Currey, and Markus Wiener Publishers, 2001), 307. In the 1950s, Richard Hart, Ken Hill, Frank Hill, and Arthur Henry were expelled from the PNP on the grounds of constituting a Marxist threat to the party. This incident is referred to as the ouster of the 4Hs. They went on to form the PFM, whose involvement with Rastafari was also noted by Jamaican anthropologist M. G. Smith. Smith was a member of a “rehabilitation” committee authorized by Manley’s cabinet in 1960 to address the Rastafari problem. But Smith quickly abandoned this committee to lead his own research on the Rastafari movement after the arrests of Fisher, Henry, and other key members of the ARC on treason-felony charges. Historian Robert Hill has argued that Smith was interested in the Rastafari movement because he was secretly working for the Manley government to undermine the spread of communism in Jamaica. See Robert A. Hill and Annie Paul, “Our Man in Mona: A Conversation between Robert A. Hill and Annie Paul,” September 27, 2013, https://anniepaul.net/our-man-in-mona-an-interview-by-robert-a-hill-with-annie-paul/.
49. Extract from Report of Local Standing Intelligence Committee Jamaica for June, 1960, TNA C01031/3994, 70.
50. Extract from Report of Local Standing Intelligence Committee Jamaica for July, 1960, TNA C01031/3994, 75; Rupert Lewis, via Christopher Charles, personal communication, April 10, 2018; M. G. Smith, “Robotham’s Ideology and Pluralism: A Reply,” Social and Economic Studies 32, no. 2 (1983): 112.
51. Extract from Local Standing Intelligence Committee Report March, 1960, TNA C01031/3994, 8.
52. “Letter to Castro Put in Evidence,” Daily Gleaner, May 6, 1960, 16.
53. “Accused: No Subscription,” 1960, 4.
54. “Treason-Felony Trial: Keeping of Sabbath,” 1960.
55. “Sentences of 3 to 10 Years,” 1960, 4.
56. Thompson, interviewed by author, 2017.
57. “Treason Felony Trial,” 1960, 4.
58. Ibid.
59. “Accused: No Subscription,” 1960, 4.
60. Extract from Report of Local Standing Intelligence Committee Jamaica for April, 1960, TNA C01031/3994, 17.
61. “Letter to Castro in Court,” Daily Gleaner, May 6, 1960, 1.
62. “Letter to Castro Put in Evidence,” 1960, 16.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid.
65. Ibid.; “Accused: No Subscription,” 1960, 4.
66. “Accused: No Subscription,” 1960, 4.
67. Uncataloged-CID Exhibit Stores, Kingston, Statement of Eldred Morgan, August 5, 1960, JA Ex. No. 93, 1; “Reynold Henry, Gabbidon, Morgan, Jetter to Hang,” Daily Gleaner, October 1, 1960, 1.
68. Rupert Charles Lewis, Walter Rodney’s Intellectual and Political Thought (Kingston and Detroit: The Press University of the West Indies and Wayne State University Press, 1998), 96.
69. Ibid.
70. Thompson, interviewed by author, 2017.
71. Lewis, Walter Rodney’s Intellectual, 97.
72. Ibid.
73. Reid, interviewed by author, 2017.
74. McKay, interviewed by author, 2017.
75. Ibid.
76. Reid, interviewed by author, 2017.
77. Burnett Hall, interviewed by author, Green Bottom, Sandy Bay, Clarendon, Jamaica, December 16, 2017.
78. “Henry and 15 Committed,” Daily Gleaner, May 11, 1960, 16. Emphasis in original.
79. Ibid., 1.
80. Ibid., 16.
81. Hill and Paul, “Our Man in Mona.”
82. See Smith, Augier, and Nettleford, Report on the Ras Tafari.
83. Thompson, interviewed by author, 2017.
84. Filmore Alvaranga and Douglas Mack to Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of Britain, April 4, 1961, TNA C01031/3995, 142/E1.
85. Brother Mortimo Togo Desta Planno, “Maniaphopia of the Invisible Establishment,” Unpublished Lecture, given to the Black Community Movement, York University, Toronto, November 1973, 25.
86. Claudius V. Henry, “The New Creation International Peacemaker’s Association: Violence in Jamaica,” Kemps Hill District, International Peacemakers Association, Jamaica, April 28, 1969, 1. Emphasis in original.
87. Yvette Clarke, interviewed in “Omega Rising: Woman of Rastafari.”
Conclusion: Disrupting the Status Quo
1. Shepherd, Maharani’s Misery, xiii.
2. Owen F. Wright to Alexander W. G. H. Grantham, January 15, 1940, JA 1B/5/79, 35.
3. Taylor, The Promise of Patriarchy, 122, 123, 124.
4. Jacquelyn Grant, “Black Theology and the Black Woman,” in The Black Studies Reader, ed. Jacqueline Bobo, Cynthia Hudley, and Claudine Michel (New York: Routledge, 2004), 423.
5. Taylor, “‘Negro Women,” 105.
6. “Jamaica’s Great Ras Tafarite Kingdom Comes to an End,” Daily Gleaner, October 14, 1945, 8.
7. Lennox, interviewed by Romano and Leib, 1983.