The
movement of the ship was more than he could stand. It overwhelmed the fear, the
disorientation and the certainty that his life was now forever altered. The
movement of the ship dominated his thinking. It affected him with the terrorising
sensation of perpetually dying. The motion of the ship formed the central
aspect of an association of ideas that remained with him all his life, whenever
he smelled vomit, unwashed bodies, and odours emitted by humans when they are
convinced of their own imminent death.
This
permanent alteration of his life had occurred without warning. This itself was
highly unusual, inasmuch as he was albeit his young age a highly respected
member of the society of diviners.
The
circumstances leading to his capture by the merchant Ahmed Abdou had arranged
themselves as the result of his preoccupation with clandestine encounters with
the merchant’s great niece, which had turned into an obsession. The indignity
of his capture and subsequent sale to the Portuguese slaver had now placed him
in this perilous box, the ship, upon this vast and mindless ocean on a journey
of no return. In the midst of never-ending motion, explosions not dissimilar to
thunder cracked the sky. The slaver was being attacked by a British Man-o-War!
The shackled slaves were marched up onto the heaving deck and with kicks and
curses loaded into long boats that were bobbing and spinning upon this ever
shifting body of water to be taken to another, even more enormous ship.
Already,
the Portuguese slaver was dropping to the stern of the British Man-o-War,
seeming smaller by the second on the vast bosom of wetness. The British ship
now set its sails for Trinidad.
Several
hundred Africans were thus liberated on the high sea by Great Britain during
the 1850s, when that country ran a blockade against the Portuguese slave
traders. The slave trade had been abolished by the English in 1807, and the
slaves had become fully set free in 1838. Now, it became an economic necessity
for the British to force other nations to do away with slavery as well, since
sugar and other imports from slave territories like Brazil were flooding the
market at much cheaper prices than from the British colonies.
Amongst
the hapless Africans, one stood out and proceeded to make his mark on the lives
of many in Trinidad. He took the name of Robert, or Jean Antoine. He was,
however, known as Papa Nannee or Mah Nannee. A significant leader, he created a
new home for his tribe, the Rada people, who had found their way to this
island. They were in the majority from Dahomey in West Africa (now Benin), and
most of them had been liberated from Portuguese slave ships just like himself.
Papa
Nannee was not a priest, however. He was a diviner. He had been born at Whydah
around the year 1800 and upon arrival on this island, he was sent to work at an
estate near to Champs Fleurs. By the 1860s, he had saved sufficient money to
purchase lands in the Belmont valley, and there founded a compound dedicated to
the worship of Dangbwe, Serpent, God of Dahomey. He named the compound Dangbwe
Comme (House).
Nannee
possessed an extraordinary knowledge of the supernatural, and as he grew older,
was much sought after for his advice and healing powers.
He
gathered around him a trained priest and two male ‘voduns’, or people who are
possessed by the Gods. The compound created by him in Belmont Valley Road
consisted of a chapel, called a vodunkwe, a covered area for dancing and
several shrines, one of which was dedicated to Papa Legba and another to Ogun,
both deities of the Dahomean people.
Within
a few years, the lives of many in the Belmont Valley Road area were touched
by the work of this remarkable
good and selfless man. Other African people settled there to be near to him and
compounds for Ibos, Congoes and Mandingoes (all African tribes) took root and
grew. Newspapers of the day, such as the “Chronicle”, described the Rada people
as industrious men and women who saved their money and ran a private bank to
provide funds for those in need.
During
the 1870s, the colonial authorities felt the need to monitor and in fact put
pressure on this group of activists. Charges of obeah and the practice of black
magic were brought against members. In one case, Quervee, Papa Nannee’s
brother, was convicted of obeah and had been given to 20 strokes for the
offense. He appealed and won the case, receiving $10 for each lash in
compensation. He was represented by the eminent barrister of the day, Charles
Warner.
The
Rada compound was so successful that it not only attracted the suspicion by the
authorities, but also the envy of other religious organisations. As such, it
was raided by Catholic priests, who took away religious objects, drums and
costumes used in rituals. Dr. Bridget Brereton observes:
“The
Rada were practicing the ancestral beliefs of their homeland. But to the
authorities, there was no distinction between obeah practices for money and the
Rada ceremonies. Any ‘African worship’ was automatically classified as obeah,
and the practice of obeah had been made an offense by the 1868 Ordinance,
punishable by jail and flogging.”
Papa
Nannee himself was also arrested at age 86 and sentenced to six months and 36
lashes. He too appealed. Represented by the distinguished Q.C. Vincent Brown,
he was acquitted. To the Creoles, African practices, religious or otherwise,
were barbaric and obscene, in fact dangerous. To the Europeans, it was
objectionable and alien. For the coloureds, it was a little too close for
comfort, hanging on as best they could to respectability and in perpetual
pursuit of acceptance in white circles. They liked to put a great distance
between themselves and obeah!
Notwithstanding,
in time of trouble, in fear of the death of loved ones, or in desperate need,
the coloured middle class often found their way back to their African roots.
Sometimes a black relative of their own, or a friend of the family, had access
to people of power, invoking the old deities and bringing comfort to the
African aspect of the soul of the coloured people.
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