Hello. Glad you came. Adult ADHD demands that I ask everybody to stand up if you're able to stand, if you're not, just raise your hand.
What we need to, you know, it's been three. It's, you know, body.
Yeah. Just breathe a bit. Yeah, it's a bit.
I appreciate. White people sit down.
White people sitting down. Black folk, I'm talking to you hear this story that I'm sharing these excerpts.
Yes. These excerpts that I'm going to read are the story of your blood and bone.
Yes. The stories that I'm about to share come from your lineage.
So I want you in particular to pay attention to what is shared, I know I only have 10 minutes, what?
Probably nine and a bit.
But take it in viscerally, especially if you're black and female, because I'm sharing stories drawn from the lives of Sally Bassett and Mary Prince.
Two of our great martyred revolutionaries. Some of whose Ansett descendants are more than likely amongst those standing here.
I'm talking about your family, so everybody clear about that. OK.
Take a seat. OK.
This is. My Lord.
Yeah. You OK. I'm drawing a couple of excerpts from my upcoming book entitled A Tale of Two Women.
Sally Bassett Married Prince in a True Story of Slavery because history is here.
Hello. Yeah, it's good. OK.
Because the WHO gets to tell the story is the story of Bermuda is contested ground.
For so long, there have been writers and historians.
At least they were the guides of writers and historians who spun a very specific story of slavery in Bermuda,
which I feel is an affront to my ancestors. And part of my my moral obligation is to bring those ancestors stories into the room.
So this is what I'm to share here. This is from the chapter is simply called Kill Them All Wherever whites and impose chattel slavery upon Africans,
fierce resistance inevitably followed.
Bermuda, a tiny subtropical backwater more than 600 miles east of the Carolinas, was not exempt from this trend.
Some local and foreign historians have claimed that the relationship between the
enslaved Bermudian and the Bermudian enslavement was comparatively amicable.
They argued that the presence, the absence of the plantation system, combined with the fact that blacks and whites lived and worked closely together,
somehow fostered a refreshingly collegial atmosphere that magically dissolved any enmity between the owners and their shackled property.
These these historians repeatedly opined that relations between the races and Bermuda were so much better than in other, less enlightened locales.
If we take their statements to be true, it would logically follow that such a tranquil and harmonious social climate would
likely not trigger the viral spread of righteous bloodlust amongst the enslaved.
So why then, would the island's blacks plan to embark upon a premeditated orgy of mass murder
with the intention of slaying their white compatriots down to the last man,
woman and child? Put another way How do you reconcile the image of the happy black slave and the gentle white
master with the jarring reality of the conspiracy of seventeen sixty one in that year,
more than half of the island's enslaved black population conspired to murder their way out of bondage by killing all of the white people,
an action that would simultaneously abolish slavery in Bermuda and allow them to assume total control of the island.
Now, this was 30 years before it was liberated.
That's before they started the revolution that would lead to their their emancipation and the abolition of slavery,
and for inciting the scope of the conspiracy reflected a great deal of planning.
Firstly, poisoners would be enlisted to lace their owner's food and dwellings with poisons that would bring about their death.
This initial strike would be followed by the systematic killing of owners and their children in their beds,
along with the murder of those blacks who were adjudged to be on the side of the whites.
By the end of the bloodshed, all of Bermuda's nearly 5000 whites would be dead and the 4000 or so enslaved Africans would be free.
The unquestioned masters of the Realm.
On the evening of the 12th of October, however, a secret discussion related to the uprising was overheard by a white seaman named John Vickers,
who alerted others of the grave threat to white life posed by the plotting of the conspirators.
Vickers raised any of the alarm the following morning,
set in motion a series of events that the Whites desperately hoped would keep them out of harm's way.
Martial law was declared and each parish was required by law to assign teams a watchman to monitor free and enslaved blacks.
Legislation was also passed to further constrain the movement of the island's blacks and to facilitate the expulsion of free blacks from Bermuda.
Of particular note? I think this is very important.
Of particular note is that whether enslaved or free black Bermuda held its collective tongue,
they refused to divulge any any details of conspiracy and its principal architects.
In spite of repeated offers of manning mission and financial reward,
and it is because of their willingness to remain silent that although the actual number of conspirators was surely greater,
only six people, five men and one woman were eventually found guilty, lynched and burned.
Yeah, now we're going to jump to a Mary Princess story, and I'm going to try to run through this quickly.
How am I doing for time? By golly, OK.
Both captain. This is called she stripped me and flogged me. He beat me till I was unable to stand.
This is in benign, peaceful Bermuda with slaves and slave masters, which just happy all the time.
Both captain Ingham and his wife, who was also named Mary,
revelled in the violence that they inflicted upon the enslaved people in their charge in the Ingham household.
Neither age nor sex could exempt the victims from their cruelty.
Mary witnessed many instances where kept the captain's wife terrorised Jack and Cyrus, two little enslaved boys.
Whenever she felt so inclined, she pinched them, peppered them with hard blows and beat them until the whip lacerated their flesh.
Mrs. Ingham's penchant for sexual sadism, a perverse interest shared by her husband,
revealed itself in the habit of torturing young Mary by stripping her naked, suspending her by her wrists and savagely whipping her.
Indeed, Mary's descriptions of Mrs. Miss Ingham's many acts of savagery put to rest the unfounded belief that white women were
not actively and enthusiastically engaged in carrying out the physical and sexual violence suffered by the enslaved.
Captain Ingham proved himself to be his wife's equal in terms of his capacity to abuse the vulnerable.
Mary describes in graphic detail the beating that he gave to the pregnant hatting,
during which time during which he had to stop several times because the force and frequency
with which he swung the whip and brought it down upon had it had his naked body left him.
All but spent so severe was the beating that had he went into premature labour,
ultimately giving birth to a stillborn baby whom she was not permitted to mourn with
her body bloated by infection and a heart heavy with the catastrophic loss of a child.
Hetty soon succumbed to her wounds.
Mary herself almost met the same fate after Mrs. Ingham blamed her for breaking a clear jar that was, in fact, already badly cracked.
For this crime, she whipped Mary unmercifully, only abandoning the assault when fatigue overtook her.
Mr. Ingham, upon hearing Mary's offence, promised to beat her the next day and true to his word.
At noon the following day, he whipped Mary until he was exhausted. He would likely have beaten to death after catching a second win were enough
of the providential intervention of an earthquake and the resulting chaos.
Mary was able to crawl under the steps of the veranda, where she remained clinging to life until morning.
Now in again, in light of the time I wanted, so I wanted to make clear the fact that slavery was not benign.
Never was it benign. When your humanity is ripped from you as a precondition for the establishment of what we know is Western civilisation.
When you're immutable, humanity is the. Foundation upon which white wealth has been built, you cannot.
Began a conversation talking about. The suffering of my ancestors, because I feel this very viscerally understand this,
I feel it very viscerally as something that wasn't as bad as in the United States because they had plantation slavery.
We are doing a disservice. In fact, we are doing a violence to our ancestors when we speak of their suffering.
As anything other than hellish, I think that's very important, a very important point to make because Bermudian historians and writers,
both Bermudian and foreign, have this habit of and I'll just give you an example of of minimising our suffering.
This is by James E. Smith writing in slavery in Bermuda,
he states that remediate black enslaved black comedians were treated more humanely than those in the Caribbean,
and that Bermudian enslavement encouraged the degree of intimacy and personal contact between master and slave.
I think Mary Prince would beg to differ. I'm fairly certain that Sally Bassett would as well.
I'm absolutely positively sure that if they could speak their heads that were on
affixed to the spikes along jemmied Island would would issue a dissenting opinion.
Thank you, Dennis.