I was recently taken by surprise by the public announcement from the Ministry of Communications and Works that a portion of Jennings Hill Road would be closed to vehicular traffic from 5:30-10:30 p.m. on Nov. 5 — the purpose being “to facilitate the Guy Fawkes Night celebrations.” I couldn’t help pointing out to the Department of Culture the irony that this appeared at the same time as they were busy advertising a pending “Culture Week.”

 

I well remember the yearly Guy Fawkes Night bonfires from my childhood, of course, particularly the early 1950s on Virgin Gorda, and it was fun. But I was under the mistaken impression that the practice had died out in the territory. I suppose it would be said that it is part of our “culchaw,” and so it may be, in a sense, but considering the origin, we should re-think it. It is a very English (not British) thing, deriving from the 1605 “Gunpowder Plot” when Guy Fawkes and accomplices were arrested at midnight on Nov. 4 under the Houses of Parliament that they intended to blow up hours later, along with the king, who was to be present, with 36 barrels of gunpowder. Fawkes was brutally tortured and later publicly executed. The practice soon began of commemorating the event by bonfires, burning Fawkes in effigy. Because the conspirators were Roman Catholics and feelings between Catholics and the established Protestant religion ran high, anti-Roman Catholicism feelings were also a focus of the “celebrations.” (When as a boy I heard the men at those bonfires talking about “burning the Pope” I had no idea what it meant — nor, probably, did they. I thought it was just the central upright plank in the fire.) The English settlers brought the practice to the “New World,” slaves mimicked, and the rest is history – or “culchaw.”

Fires of VI history

The irony is sharpened by the fact that if we really want to celebrate civil rebellion with fires, our history provides a very suitable event, and probably more if we look. In 1853 between Aug. 1 and 2 an at-first-peaceful protest in Road Town against a new tax turned violent when, instead of trying to mollify the crowd, the authorities read the Riot Act and arrested two. The protest turned violent and before long, according to historian Isaac Dookhan, “The greater part of Road Town was burnt down.” All but four whites fled to St. Thomas. (The four included the president and the Methodist missionary). The tax was an extra tax or surtax of six pence on each head of cattle. As Dookhan pointed out, this fell most heavily on the black population in the countryside who were the ones who reared cattle. But this was the straw, or maybe plank, that broke the camel’s back: Following emancipation, the tax system was “adjusted to ensure a sufficiency of labour for the plantations” and “to prevent or discourage ex-slaves from establishing themselves in independent employments or, where this happened, to reduce the profits.”

Fires were also an element in the 1969 Positive Action protests against the Wickhams Cay giveaway.

Culture promotion

This history was not taught in our schools, but it would seem to be one of the purposes of a culture promotion programme to be intentional about retrieving or resurrecting significant events from our history and deliberately designing projects to bring them alive. In St. Croix, the great labour uprising of October 1878 (also known as “the Fireburn” because they burned Frederiksted and most of the West End after the Danish soldiers responded with gunfire to a mass demonstration) is commemorated annually in gatherings, lectures and the like. It is also commemorated in folk songs like “Queen Mary, where yuh goin to bun?” (Mary was leader of the four “queens” as they dubbed the ladies who led the revolt. A highway is named after her.) Admittedly, this agenda is pushed by community groups and not the government, but the United States Virgin Islands Education Department has put out a pamphlet subtitled “The Fireburn of 1878.” And if the Culture Department here were to call for songs or plays or other creative pieces on the 1853 “fireburn” here, who knows what you might get? That, and some fires on the night, might at least motivate learning of the history, add significance to Festival celebrations, and relegate Guy Fawkes to well deserved VI oblivion.

Martyrs

When the Danes sent a military contingent to suppress the rebellion, reinforced later by British troops sent from Antigua, they sentenced 20 people to “various terms of imprisonment” and three ringleaders to death. We do not know their names, but they should be considered martyrs. In his 1969 poem “Where are the martyred?” Dr. Quincy Lettsome concludes with:

“Surprisingly … they are here,

Their voices, their hopes, their dreams and ideals,

Are fulfilled in our world,

Have blossomed, in you and me.”

The 1853 martyred should be more “here” — in our consciousness — than they are though.

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