Lost in time

Daneslee Edmondson’s neighbour in Reader’s Pen, St Thomas, made chemicals that could remove the rust from metal like no other. And Edmondson, a welder in the community, was intrigued.

For years, he desired to learn the method, but his neighbour was unflinching in his reluctance to teach him. Five years ago, the neighbour died, taking that knowledge with him.

As Edmondson tells it, that neighbour was probably the last of people from the community with that skill which he now believes was passed down from the ancestors – enslaved Africans.

Research by Dr Jenny Bulstrode, a lecturer in history of science and technology at University College London (UCL), revealed that metallurgy – the art and science of working metals, separating them from other substances and removing impurities – was common in 18th century Reader’s Pen, then called Reeder’s Pen after then British enslaver John Reeder.

An analysis of correspondence, shipping records and contemporary newspaper reports disclosed that a groundbreaking technique to repurpose scrap metal, which led to Britain becoming the leading iron exporter during the Industrial Revolution, was first developed in the community located close to Morant Bay by 76 enslaved African metallurgists. These Africans were trafficked from countries that had a significant iron-working culture.

The new research, which was published in the Journal of History and Technology, aims to highlight the technology innovations of the enslaved.

“This innovation kicks off Britain as a major iron producer and … was one of the most important innovations in the making of the modern world,” Bulstrode concluded.

“Weh yuh a seh to me now, it makes sense,” Edmondson stated last week, reflecting on his neighbour’s expertise in ironworks.

He has lived in Reader’s Pen for the 20 years, and his workshop at the entrance to the community is the only evidence that this place had a once-bustling iron-making industry.

The community is now habitat to mainly returning residents and tenants who moved in from elsewhere, most of whom are ignorant of the history of the place they call home.

“’Yuh mek mi body start run cold ‘cause mi a seh, ‘Bwoy, dat originating thing start from St Thomas – Reader’s Pen weh mi deh right now. It looks like mi have some blessings from the metals also. Mi deh a di right place,” Edmondson said.

The 46-year-old has been working with metals since learning the skill at the Seaforth High School. He obtained up to level three certification in welding from the HEART/NSTA Trust and later went on to work in structural maintenance at the now-defunct Air Jamaica.

Edmondson’s workshop is a disarray of bolts, tools and scrap metals. Telling The Sunday Gleaner that this is now a hobby for him, he points to a truck that he built from scrap metal and shows off a bus he is currently rebuilding. His most prized possession is his lathe machine, which he uses to cut and bend the metals to create spectacular pieces.

Unlike his neighbour, he is “emptying out” what he knows about metals in his 14-year-old son and another youth from the community, who he has taken on as apprentices.

But he is concerned that not many people see the value in the industry that during the 18th century was turning a profit of £4,000 a year – equivalent to about £7.4 million or J$1.5 billion today – in Reader’s Pen alone. According to Edmondson, his workshop is the most resourced one in the parish.

The technique developed by the enslaved people in the then-named Reeder’s Pen was patented by British financier-turned-ironmaster Henry Cort, and up to today, he is widely credited as the inventor. But Bulstrode’s research revealed how Cort shipped his machinery and the innovation from the St Thomas foundry that was shut down in 1782 after the British placed Jamaica under martial law. The foundry was dismantled by the authorities out of fear that it could fall into enemy hands if the island was conquered by the Spanish or the French.

This resulted in the decline of the trade in St Thomas.

“Even though mi do this here so, a lot of persons don’t really know,” Edmondson shared.

Strengthens call for reparations

For Omar Ryan, administrative assistant at the Centre for Reparation Research at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, and an advocate for the development of St Thomas, revelations like these not only foster pride in African history, but also “adds fuel” to the call for reparations.

“What this will do is add more evidence that reparations is necessary, and there should be some reparations in regard to the transfer of technology,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.

Arguing that the reparations movement is at a high point, Ryan suggests that research such as Bulstrode’s are also influenced by it.

“I don’t think it’s coincidence that something like this is published now. It’s just one of the signs that say, ‘Hey, reparations is a must’. So people can deny and deny all they want, but at the same time, the movement [continues] – the research coming out, the collaboration, the consciousness of people being more aware of what justice means and the need for people to recognise rights, individual and collective rights,” he said.

And as a symbolic gesture of reparations, he wants the process renamed, which, he says, will allow future generations to be able to identify with that period in history and take pride in it.

“The uncovering of this information, it also begs the question as to what else have Africans contributed to that they have not been credit for,” he said.

Dr Louis Moyston, lecturer of political philosophy at UWI, Mona, told The Sunday Gleaner that the work of enslaved metallurgists in St Thomas was something he learned of 20 years ago while conducting research on the parish.

But as this new research continues to garner attention, like Ryan, he believes it should serve as an impetus for a deeper look into the enslaved African tradesmen’s contribution to development.

“What we are looking at is this whole question of decolonisation of history, in which that we can look and see the extent in which the whole slavery experience really contributed more than what they are talking about in history,” he said. “What we need to look into now is the extent to which technology – high technology at times – was used in the plantation system here and the extent to which these technologies have contributed to industrial development.”

Moyston, who is a St Thomas native, pointed to research that showed that the canons in Port Royal were made in St Thomas. He noted that the British closed the foundry as, at the time, the Spaniards were still trying to retake Jamaica and they wanted to reduce the risk of them utilising the technique to create arms.

However, emphasising that there is no a shortage of research from Jamaicans on these issues, Moyston expressed his frustration with what he says is the ignorance of it in society and in the education system, and calls for a “decolonisation of mindset”.

“Even government policies and educational policies, everything become dependent on what the people them – either World Bank or EU (European Union) say – and not dependent on what we the Jamaican thinkers say. It’s not that we have not been forceful enough, but people don’t listen to us; people ready to listen people from abroad,” he said.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com

Timeline of events from Bulstrode’s research

1775: Navy financier Henry Cort takes over the Portsmouth works of one of his debtors. His losses are substantial.

Dec 1780: John Reeder’s foundry reaches ‘perfection’: 76 Black metallurgists, equipped with water-powered rolling mills, remanufacturing several thousand tons of scrap into valuable bar iron. Foundry turns a clear profit or £4,000 a year, equivalent to a relative income of J$1.5 billion today. Among other apparatus, Reeder’s foundry manufactures grooved sugar rollers.

Dec 1780: Cort, struggling to break even, invests substantial sums to erect a rolling mill. His losses are substantial, amounting to nearly £10,000.

Dec 1780: Windward Maroon Kwasi takes the name John Reeder.

Jan 1781: Kwasi, who was employed by enslaver Reeder for his metallurgical expertise, kills the famed Three-Finger Jack, a runaway slave and freedom fighter.

Nov 1781: John Cort arrives in Portsmouth with news from Jamaica and finds his cousin, Henry, facing bankruptcy and drowning in scrap iron from a Navy contract. He shares tales of Three-Finger Jack’s death at the hands of a baptised Maroon, christened John Reeder after a profitable foundry where a team of 76 Black metallurgists had developed an ingenious way to turn scrap metal into valuable bar iron.

Nov/Dec 1781: Henry Cort begins to experiment.

Spring 1782: Reeder’s foundry is dismantled and loaded on to ships set for Portsmouth.

1782: Cort lays out £27,000, equivalent to the value of Reeder’s foundry.

Dec 1782: Cort declares he has ‘found some grand secret in making iron’ using grooved rollers, normally associated with sugar mills, in his Portsmouth Navy works.

January 7, 1783: Cort applies for first in a series of patents to cover what he had ‘found out’.

August 1789: Cort’s financial partner Adam Jellicoe dies suddenly and the partnership was discovered to have been founded on £39,676 of embezzled Navy funds. The Navy Board seizes Cort’s property and goods, including his patents. All ironmakers are now free to use ‘the Cort process’, a turning point in the Industrial Revolution.

September 25, 1789: Cort files for bankruptcy. Friends help him pay debts and secure a small pension, and in their efforts launch the myth of the heroic inventor.