Patricia Green | Reparation of Jamaica’s ancestral lands

April 18 is recognised as the ‘International Day for Monuments and Sites’ with ‘Heritage and Climate’ as its 2022 theme. This call stems from the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) advocating through open, constructive, and intergenerational dialogues.

One key Jamaican inter-generational dialogue is the endangered traditional wooden architecture that we call nog-/nogg-/knog-buildings. These are timber-framed with infill of either ‘wattle’ (platted timber strips) and ‘daub’ (lime-based masonry), or stone-nog sometimes called ‘Spanish walling’, or brick-nog. Walls were finished on the outside and inside in a variety of ways -timber siding, or very fine stones creating a rough-textured finish called pebble-dash, or marked to resemble a stone building. Some timber siding may receive a water-proofed and termite-proofed finish where sea sand is thrown on to the wet paint, a technique termed ‘sand-dashing’. Sometimes this architecture is decorated with ’fretwork’, ornamental timber cutwork patterns on roof eaves, verandahs, or door transoms.

One can find this kind of architecture across Jamaica – and such buildings are landmarks.

This architecture, especially in the rural context, is primarily located on ancestral land holdings. As inter-generational Jamaican legacy of ‘free villages’ established after the 1834 emancipation from slavery, these are valuable.

James Phillipo’s Jamaica: its Past and Present State says: “… total cost of land purchased by the peasantry in the course of four years [1834-1838], and of cottages erected by them, £170,000 …”

The colonial Secretary reported on March 22, 1842, to the House of Commons, according to Phillipo, listing free-Africans holding purchases in one parish in Jamaica, for year 1836 - 317; 1840 - 1,321; 1841 - 1,866; who “… become freeholders by their accumulations and industry in the island of Jamaica, was in 1838, 2,114; and in the space of two years, in 1840, their number had increased to 7 340 …”.

VALIDITY

What is the validity of current historic underpinnings of ‘squatting’ and ‘informal’ settlements? ‘The beginning of the end of squatting (Part 1)’ in the Daily Observer of November 28, 2021, reported “… Jamaica has been haunted by the issue of squatting from post-Emancipation. Upon the abolition of slavery, no land or housing provisions were made for the slaves and thus they occupied whatever free land they could at the time … .”

‘Free land’ never existed during enslavement or afterwards. Persons of African descent were denied privileges to live on unassigned lands, especially in rural environments. The settlement pattern in Jamaica outlines lands purchased by freed persons of African descent, inhabiting them inter-generationally, creating historic footprints of ownership today.

The Advocates Network on March 20, 2022, presented “60 reasons for apologies and reparations from Britain and its royal family”. Item #34 reads: “… for instituting laws that prevented and restricted land titling to free Africans thereby forcing them and their descendants to become labelled as squatters today …”.

The CARICOM ‘Ten-point Plan for Reparatory Justice’ emphasises under #10, “… engage in the business of cleaning up the colonial mess in order to prepare for development … to confront colonial legacies …”.

A reparation cry is rising across Jamaica, and this should resonate strongly over land and rights that should be returned to families.

SUBSUMED INTO LARGER HOLDINGS

Today, much of the freed-African land purchases have become subsumed into larger surrounding land holdings. Others are also integrated into ‘crown lands’ under the domain of government. Erroneously, freed-African landowners and their descendants are today being called ‘squatters.’

This disenfranchisement is continuously being escalated around current land-development issues.

What is the true historic background over ‘Little Bay land squabble heats up’ carried in the Daily Observer April 6? “… We are ready and willing to finance the cost of the regularisation process … ,” wrote Ricardo McKenzie. “... a check within the division will reveal numerous settlements with the majority of persons wanting to have their communities regularised … some of those have been occupying these lands for over 70 years … .” For over 20 years, McKenzie has been trying to regularise land in Portland, making a plea to the prime minister in ‘Use housing solutions to create a safer Jamaica,’ according to the letter to the editor in The Gleaner of January 20.

Be mindful that bauxite mining activities in the Cockpit Country and elsewhere have erased and continue to destroy ancestral post-emancipation holdings of the hard-working ex-enslaved purchasers. This is occurring concurrently with Maroon Treaty land contentions.

Pauline McHardy and Michael Donovan in The State of Social Housing in Six Caribbean Countries, report that the Guyana government transferred former plantation sugar lands as a ‘Deed of gift’. This “… improved the functioning of the land market and lowered rent and property sale prices, making housing more affordable ...”.

SLIGOVILLE

Why has the National Land Agency placed Sligoville in St Catherine, along with a number of other ‘Free Villages,’ into its ‘Systematic Land Registration’ programme, requiring persons to repay some costs before the certificate of title is issued?

Historic records abound over land ownership in Sligoville, the first ‘Free Village’ that was founded 1835.

A medical doctor recounted in Phillipo, after visiting Sligoville, “… every allotment of land is now sold, and many of the people are applying in vain for more. This township is in a very prosperous condition. The canes, provisions, and fruit, are equal, if not superior, to any in the island. Many of the settlers had not a penny when they came; but they worked, and paid for the land by its produce. They have erected comfortable cottages … .”

Andrew Wooten, historian, states that National Hero Paul Bogle (1822-1865) owned a home in Stony Gut, another in Spring Garden, also a 500-acre farm at Dunrobin, being prosperous enough to pay the fee to vote.

Architects and other experts globally gathered in person in Santo Domingo and online from March 23-26 to discuss wooden architecture of the Greater Caribbean. The organisation, celebrating its 40th anniversary, Monuments and Sites of the Greater Caribbean (CARIMOS), participated in this conference. We established a declaration, of which one clause reads, “… to advance social education to destigmatise negative narratives surrounding wood architecture in its use and presence in the common landscape …”.

Wooden architecture evolved on the Jamaican landscape as a traditional resilient response to hurricanes, also with design elements for climatic comfort controls. There was cross ventilation naturally encouraging breezes to overcome humidity, and during hurricanes, prevented roof uplift or window blow-out.

The Wattle and Red Earth (WARE) Collective, Jamaica seeks to preserve and restore historic structures that were built by enslaved or newly freed Africans and their descendants. Their project ‘A Regenerative Museum,’ won the 2022 award from ILUCIDARE, the European-funded project promoting heritage for innovation and international cooperation.

As Jamaicans, let us begin to read our cultural landscape. Traditional wooden architecture may be used as a landmark for ancestral lands. It is the inter-generational key to anchor boundaries of property purchased by Jamaicans as free post-emancipation Africans. Preserving Jamaican traditional wooden architecture in its setting would help to enable the identification of ancestral lands significantly as properties of inter-generational land ownership.

- Patricia Green, PhD, is a registered architect, a graduate of the Architectural Association School of Architecture and former head of the Caribbean School of Architecture in the Faculty of the Built Environment at University of Technology, Jamaica. Send feedback to patgreen2008@gmail.com.