roots

It’s hotter in NYC than it is here in Nevis. For the past three mornings I’ve woken before dawn to the sound of pouring rain. Then the rain stops as suddenly as it started, the clouds pass, the sun comes out, and when I finally open the door there’s a beautiful breeze blowing in off the blue, blue sea. I realized a few days ago that I painted my front room the color of the sea. I don’t have many vibrant colors in my home, nothing that might look distinctly Caribbean. Yesterday evening my cousin Charlene drove us around the island and I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful the homes are—they’re immaculately painted in sorbet colors and most yards are very tidy with lots of flowering shrubs. Land is a big deal here in Nevis—owning it, buying it, selling it. Land is a form of legitimacy; I can remember my father grumbling about the land he never inherited from his grandfather and father. Buying land wouldn’t make me an automatic insider; lots of expats come here and earn citizenship by purchasing million-dollar villas that they only occupy for a couple of weeks. But my other cousin is looking to sell some of her land and there’s a part of me that would like to hold onto land that’s been in my family for generations—land that somehow eluded my father’s grasp. We passed my great-grandparents’ house last night, the house my father grew up in, and it’s fallen into total disrepair since being sold. That never would have happened had it stayed in “family hands.” The other part of me doesn’t want to be a landowner—not here, not anywhere. I don’t want to be bound to any one place. I still have my dream of opening a slavery museum here in Nevis, but for the most part I lack that very Caribbean drive to own a home. Or in the case of Nevis, to buy some land and build a home. Yesterday my cousin Beverley and I took a guided tour of the Montravers Estate (once managed by the infamous Huggins who ordered 32 enslaved people to be taken to town and publicly whipped). It was amazing to follow the path into the rainforest and suddenly come upon evidence of another era—a stone bridge or crumbling wall. The Huggins family eventually sold the estate to the Pinney family (another prominent slave- and landowning family) but over time it fell into other hands. Now a descendant of the Pinney family has bought the estate back and there’s talk of turning it into a hotel. Will they preserve the existing structures? I’d hate to see them destroyed and yet I don’t want white tourists living out their Gone with the Wind fantasies on this terrain. It’s sacred ground—to me, at any rate. As we walked along the rock-strewn path I couldn’t help but wonder who had walked there centuries ago. This was my second hike in the rainforest and once again I was struck by the quiet. The estate is secluded and so the 90-minute walk was rather serene and largely bug-free except for ants and donkey spiders, which fortunately remained hidden inside their burrows. We stopped for a mango break and then went on until we were standing before the ruins of a three-storey stone building. The counting house was also standing and the kitchen’s brick chimney. We walked without talking so as not to disturb the nearby hive and saw the rusted iron evidence of sugar production (a plow, coppers for boiling), all overgrown by plants and vines. What does it mean to own a piece of the past? If it were up to me, I’d have the estate designated a national heritage site. I’d love for there to be a working sugar plantation in Nevis. It would be a huge tourist draw but unlike a hotel, it wouldn’t cast Afro-Caribbean people in the role of servants to wealthy whites. Instead they would serve as docents who could educate tourists (and locals) about plantation life—the reality, not the fantasy.

I’m running out of energy. I haven’t written enough since I’ve been here and perhaps that explains my lingering headache. This morning I got up and took the ferry to the National Archives in St. Kitts. As I crossed the courtyard I noticed boxes and files stacked along the wall and I wondered to myself if they ever got wet during a sudden downpour. Then I met a woman who told me that when she first started working there, workers were using records to stand on as they fixed the building’s wiring. She found no trace of Rosetta in her files but gave me some good suggestions and I agree with her conclusion that oral history will likely provide more information than official records. There’s more to share but I need to crash. Once I write up my notes for this conference in St. Lucia, I’ll be sure to post the paper in here for those who are interested. This has been a great week but I am ready to go home. Back to the heat and humidity of Brooklyn, which has its own pockets of serenity…