The following is a lecture delivered by Mr. Timothy Hodge on Friday, February 8.
A well-known French saying“plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” translates “the more things change, the more they remain the same.” Permit you to give you an example of this truism from the history of the Anguillian people that might well involve some of your relatives, and that definitely includes some of mine.
Justice I. Don Mitchell served as Magistrate on Anguilla between 1976 and 1980, when there was precious little for a Magistrate to do. To relieve his boredom, he spent much of his days going through the dusty records in the Court House – old deeds, wills, case records, etc. He transcribed many of those early records by hand, and thus began his life-long research into the history of Anguilla.Beginning in 1978, he travelled annually to the UK and spent countless hours in the UK National Archives in Kew Gardens photographing and cataloguing documents. About ten years ago, while on a visit to London of my own, he arranged that I would meet him at the Archives, and off I went copying those documents which interested me. While he was firmly focused on pre-1825 Anguilla, my interest was in twentieth century Anguilla and the issues which led to the 1967 Revolution – when the Anguillian people rebelled against the plans of Great Britain to establish the Associated State of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla. The Anguillians had protested against any linkage with St. Kitts from the instant it was forced upon them in 1825, but their protests had fallen on deaf ears. When it seemed that there would be nobody left to protest to after the proposed Statehood, they took matters (and weapons) into their own hands, forced the St. Kitts Warden and his police force off the island, and declared that they would never again live under a St. Kitts administration.A 1969 invasion by British troops and police could not persuade nor force the Anguillians to go back on their resolve.
Little did I realize, during my own research on 20th century Anguillians, how closely their resolve echoed that of their 17th and 18th century forebears.And little did I realize that today I would be tracing my own direct family ties, and those of many present-day Anguillians, to those early pioneers. The research and writings of Don Mitchell have helped to bring the stories of the early Anguillians to the fore, and current and future generations will be forever grateful to him.
One such story is the attraction of the island of Vieques to the early Anguillians. In his “Anguilla From The Archives” series, Mitchell writes “One of the strangest chapters in the story of Anguilla’s earliest generations of settlers concerns their repeated efforts to settle Crab Island … now known as Vieques …a mere eight miles to the east of Puerto Rico. Anguilla lies approximately one hundred and forty miles further to the east. Although the Spanish were firmly established in Puerto Rico in the 16th century, they did not permanently colonize Vieques after demonstrating their presence. For the next three hundred years it remained a lawless outpost, frequented by pirates and outlaws. As European powers fought for control in the region, there was a series of attempts by the French, English and Danish to control the island in the 17th and 18th centuries … The Anguillians, initially the English who had settled on that island in 1650, wished to settle Crab Island because it was greener and more fertile than their drought-ridden island and had an excellent harbour. They knew it well as their ships had been in the habit of visiting it in search of dye-wood and building timber, which they traded with merchants in the other Leeward Islands.The Anguillians claimed that Crab was unoccupied by either the Spaniards from Puerto Rico or the neighbouring Danes, and therefore available for the English Crown to authorise settlement. They were involved in three attempts to colonize the island, first in 1683, then in 1688, and again in 1717”. I will retell the story from Mitchell’s writings, and attempt to determine what was that thing, that factor, which Mitchell calls “the lure of Crab,” which so beguiled the Anguillians. The examination of the three settlement attempts will focus on the individuals who were involved in those undertakings. And finally it will take us to the pursuits of the direct descendants of those early Anguillians, exactly two hundred and fifty years after that last attempt.
THE FIRST ATTEMPT AT SETTLEMENT
In August 1683,Sir William Stapleton wrote that he had been solicited by the inhabitants of Anguilla to let them settle Crab Island. He refused them permission for fear that the Spaniards and buccaneers of Puerto Rico might cut them off in one night, though, as he put it, “Anguilla is fit for little or nothing but goats”. He was generally supportive of the initiative to settle Crab Island. He recommended that if two or three hundred men could be found to put on Crab Island and build a fort, there was no doubt that it would be a successful settlement.
The Anguillians under the leadership of Deputy Governor Abraham Howell sent settlers to occupy Crab without waiting for permission. The Danish Governor of St Thomas dispatched a military force and delivered a formal diplomatic protest. Probably more related to the Danish Captain and his military force than to the protest, the Anguillians showed discretion. Howell returned to Anguilla with his men, frustrated, but, still determined to claim Crab Island for the Anguillians. Some of them instead moved to settling the Virgin Islands, most notably Tortola and Virgin Gorda.
THE SECOND ATTEMPT AT SETTLEMENT
Leeward Island Governor-in-Chief Sir Nathaniel Johnson reported in February 1688 that some of his poorer subjects had been seeking his permission to settle Crab Island in the name of the English Crown, and stated his qualms that such a settlement so close to Puerto Rico would be destroyed by the Spanish there. A few months later the second attempt on Crab Island took place. He wrote that he had permitted about fifty men to go to Crab Island from Nevis. He had granted them no commission, so that they were without the protection of official sanction for the settlement. A Scots adventurer in Nevis, William Pellet led this second attempt. He landed there together with a group of his fellow Scots settlers, and with some persons from Anguilla and others from Tortola. The first 50 settlers were followed by over 200 women, children and slaves. including many Anguillians. On 23 December 1688, two Spanish ships arrived at Crab from Anguilla, where they had been beaten off by Abraham Howell and the Anguilla militia. Pellet refused to allow his men to defend the settlement. A number of them who refused to surrender took to the woods and hid themselves until the Spaniards had departed. Among the Anguillians who managed to save themselves were Mannin Rogers and Abraham Howell’s eldest son, but anotherson perished. Between 40 and 50 survivors, both white and black, were shortly after transported by a friendly trading vessel to the various islands they belonged to, including Anguilla. However,the Spanish took about 250 men and women, white and black, asprisoners to Santo Domingo where they were kept for several months and treated as slavesbefore they werereleased. In1689 HMS Drake broughtthe prisoners back from Santo Domingo. How many of them survived and returned is unknown.
THE THIRD ATTEMPT AT SETTLEMENT
As a long drought persisted into the eighteenth century, Anguillians continued to migrate westwards towards the Virgin Islands. Howell, in spite of his repulse from Crab by the Danes in 1683, and the destruction of the subsequent settlement in 1688 by the Spaniards, still had his eyes set on Crab. He wrote trying to persuade the authorities to extend the protection of the Crown to the English settlers on Crab Island by declaring it a part of the colony of the Leeward Islands. He described Crab Island as the best of the Virgins with extraordinarily good land, nearly all of it being cultivatable, two good roadsteads and two better harbours, while he downplayed down the attributes of the remainder of the Virgin Islands. His brief supported the argument that the Governor should permit the starving Anguillian settlers to emigrate to Crab Island.Governor Hamilton’s response was that though the land was good for agriculture, it was very close to Puerto Rico.The Spanish claimed sovereignty over it and no settler would be safe there.He put forward an alternative for the Anguillians be resettled in the formerly French half of St Kitts.
Howell then submitted a petition containing a formal application for a commission to found the settlement on Crab Island, which would have bought the settlement under the full protection of the Crown, or at least of the man-of-war stationed in Antigua.The petition was signed by 42 persons, most of their names still common in Anguilla today, 300 years later.These include Hodge, Harrigan, Gumbs, Bryan, Lloyd, Richardson, Smith and Lake.
Governor Hamilton however refused their pleas. On 26 August 1717 with several sloops, Abraham Howell moved half the men of Anguilla to Crab Islandagainst the express wishes of the colonial authorities. Anguilla’s Deputy Governor George Leonard reported that Howell had gone off to Crab Island without consulting him. He had used all his arguments to keep the people of the island together untilthe Governor had an answer from London on the question of giving them land in St Kitts, but nothing would work with desperate men. They had held on to the one small chance they saw of survival. Their attempt to occupy Crab Island was a desperate move, driven by drought and starvation in Anguilla. As they saw it, their only chance of survival was to take and hold an alternative place of settlement. He wished them well, but as he wrote prophetically, the success of such a rash action was to be doubted.
A1717 Crab Island census shows that 46 white men and 62 black men had emigrated from Anguilla in what appears to have been an attempt to make Crab an Anguillian dependency. The Anguillian men had not moved with all their family and possessions, but left them at home in Anguilla until they were sure that it was safe. Several wives and children later joined the men on Crab Island. These names show that support for the new settlement ran the length of Anguilla, with the principal families from each of the three Divisions all represented, and including Richardsons, Hodges, Chalvilles, Coakleys, Lakes, Gumbs, Lloyds, Arrindells, Harrigans, Howells, and Downings.
On 10 February 1718, the Spanishfrom Puerto Rico arrived at Crab Island with one man-of-war, six sloops and 300 soldiers.They were in such force that they went immediately on shore and demanded the surrender of the island. The Anguillians resisted but were overwhelmed. Seven or eight of them were killed including one of Howell’s sons. Some, with their wives and children and black and white servants, were taken as prisoners to Puerto Rico. Many others, apparently the majority, were able to save themselves by flight to the eastern side of Crab, and were subsequently rescued by several Leeward Island sloops that luckily came upon them. The fort that the settlers had constructed was destroyed and the town and fields of corn,cotton, sugar and tobacco were burned. The cannon was taken to Puerto Rico and installed in the Castillo de San Geronimo. Howell was among those taken prisoner.Apparently he had organized for the escape of the majority of the Anguillians before giving up himself, and it would be several months before he could make his escape and find his way back to Anguilla.
On 13 June 1718, Governor Hamilton issued a proclamation prohibiting any future settlement in Crab Island.In December 1718 the prisoners, who had been dragged through all the Spanish ports at PuertoRico, Hispaniola and Cuba, were released and returned to Anguilla. While most of the settlers on Crab returned to Anguilla, they had lost all of their personal belongings. The loss of life and property for the struggling colony in Anguilla must have been devastating.
It is one of the characteristics of the Anguillians that they did not then, and still do not now, rely on expressions of official concern. They have always sought their own solutions to national problems. There is no record of their ever having received compensation for their destroyed property. There is no evidence even of the authorities ever having demanded of the Spaniards such compensation. The settlement had been illegal, so that was not to be expected. It was eventually accepted by both the Danes and the British that Vieques, to give Crab Island its modern name, was a dependency of Puerto Rico,and not politically a part of the Virgin Islands. The Anguillians never again showed any interest in settling Vieques.
SO WHAT WAS THE REAL LURE OF VIEQUES?
Mitchell uses the term “lure” to describe the attraction to Vieques which the Anguillians perpetuated in spite of great losses. The Spanish term for lure comes from “seducer”. The Anguillians were obviously literally seduced by Crab Island/Vieques. The question is “Why?”
Vieques was not much larger than Anguilla. It is 21 miles long, 4 miles wide, as compared to Anguilla being 16 miles long, and 3 miles wide. Vieques, at 52 square miles, is just under once and a half the size of Anguilla, at 35 square miles. So it could hardly be said to offer the economies of scale advantages that an island with many large plantations, for example, could offer. The Anguillians had consistently refused the offers of lands in St. Kitts, Bahamas, Jamaica, Barbuda, St. Croix,etc., etc. They chose to settle in the Virgin Islands, which were not much more productive than Anguilla. And they were certainly seduced by Crab Island/Vieques.
Mitchell claims the lure of Crab Island was the more fertile soil and the more abundant rainfall. That is certainly true. However,I believe that the real lure was the absence of governmental structure, such as existed in the established colonies. Crab Island had been abandoned to its own devices, just like Anguilla had been. I believe it was the fact that Vieques attracted the type that Anguilla had attracted, especially those with a healthy disrespect for colonial authority and a strong dose of independent spirit, which seduced the Anguillians.
Mitchell records that until 1825 when Anguilla was subsumed into the Presidency of St. Kitts – Nevis (note that the name does not include Anguilla), the Deputy Governor and his Council acted as Executive Legislature and Judiciary for Anguilla. Anguilla was treated differently from the other Leeward Islands. It was not viewed as a Virgin Island or part of any other territory in the Leeward Islands. Between 1650 and 1825 it had no elected assembly. No local statutes were passed. There was no financial assistance from outside. Anguilla was too poor to be bothered with, and the Anguillians were viewed as causing more problems than what they were worth. Governor Matthews in 1735 described the Anguillians as living “like so many bandits in open defence of the laws of God and man.” The Deputy Governor, he wrote, had no more authority over them but what he was able to enforce with a cudgel. And the Virgin Islands had much in common with Anguilla, and were equally unprofitable to the crown. Vieques was also viewed as a haven for bandits and pirates. Thus – my belief as to the true lure of the Virgins and Vieques.
Although the Anguillian seventually gave up on Crab Island, they had not lost that spirit of adventure and their willingness to pursue their own strategies to subjugate other lands. In 1744, Governor Arthur John Hodge, who had been among the 1717 Vieques settlers, defeated an invading French force on Anguilla. It is not surprising that shortly after, he led a group of Anguillians to neighbouring St. Martin and captured it from the French. When England agreed to return the territory to France in settlement of a war waged in Europe, the Anguillians thought otherwise. Governor Hodge spent his last earthly days in 1748 in London arguing for the Anguillians to keep St. Martin.
FAST FORWARD TO 1967
I have already mentioned the events which led to the 1967 Revolution, when Anguillians took control of their island, after deciding they would never again be a colony of a colony – St. Kitts. Colville Petty, Nat Hodge, David Carty and others have written about those events, and they too have to be recognized and honoured for their work. I have not, however spoken of the names of the persons who led that rebellion: Ronald Webster and Atlin Harrigan, with Walter Hodge, Bob Rogers, Collins Hodge, Emile Gumbs, Jeremiah Gumbs and other persons with surnames straight from the Crab Island settlements. And, as if to prove that they were their true flesh and blood, equally as bold, the Anguillians invaded St. Kitts in June 1967 in a strategic pre-emptive move to defend Anguilla against itself being invaded from St. Kitts.
I have been able to trace a direct connection to those whose names featured so prominently 250 years before. This is due to the fantastic research over the last 10 years or so of Heather Nielsen of the UK and Martha Burrows of Canada, who have for many years been photographing, cataloguing the Anguilla Civil records and Church records before they became forever unreadable. It is upon the foundation of their work and the research of others including myself that the Anguilla Genealogical Society is being launched, and I trust that like-minded people will join and support the Society’s work.
From that research, we know that Governor Arthur John Hodge (1685-1748) had a daughter, Anne, who married the infamous Reverend Jonathan Fleming. Their daughter, Rachel, married a Peter Webster, who climbed the ranks in the 3rd Regiment of Foot (the East Kent Regiment) to become Ensign, Lieutenant, and then a Captain in the Third West India Regiment, the regiment which took St. Lucia from the French for the final time. Peter Webster and Rachel Fleming had a son, John Hodge Webster, who had a son Peter Abraham Webster. Peter Abraham Webster fathered eight children, three of whom who were grandparents to Ronald Webster, AtlinHarrigan, and Walter Hodge! Six generations and 250 years between Governor Arthur John Hodge and the 1967 revolutionaries had not washed away one iota of the hatred for government that was not of the Anguillian people, for the Anguillian people, and by the Anguillian people.The more things change, the more they remain the same!
This is an abridged version ofthe Lecture to launch the Anguilla Genealogical Society in Anguilla on February 8, 2013,It was adapted from the Paper prepared and delivered by Timothy Hodge at the 2nd Caribbean Genealogical Association inPuerto Rico on December 6, 2012. Interested persons may contact Mr. Hodge at timhodge71@gmail.com
