Origins: “Nanny” and Her Issue[1]
Col
Benjamin Gumbs was Deputy Governor of Anguilla during the French Invasion of
1798. As a Colonel in the local militia,
he led the Anguillians in the holding off at the Sandy Hill Fort of the French
invading forces from St Martin. Every
school child is taught of the rout that ensued when the French militia was
chased back to their landing ground at Rendezvous Bay. There, the invading forces re-embarked, only
to be destroyed in the channel between St Martin and Anguilla by HMS Lapwing in the ensuing
encounter. Col Gumbs’ story of the 1798 battle
for Anguilla, and a description of conditions in Anguilla in 1825 when he was
still alive, can be read at page 225 of the well-known travel book of the time –
Six Months in the West Indies by author
HN Coleridge.
In 1825, the island Council of Anguilla, in existence since 1650,
was dissolved. Government was henceforth
provided from St Kitts as a result of the St Kitts statute called the Anguilla
Act 1825. The arrangement between
the two islands was that an Anguillian representative would be elected to the
St Kitts legislature, called the Assembly.
No law affecting Anguilla could be introduced into the St Kitts Assembly
unless the Anguilla representative was present.
This arrangement was to last until the Anguilla Revolution of 1967, when
the Anguillians cast off the rule of St Kitts and declared themselves an
independent republic. The British army
intervened in 1969, to impose direct rule, and Anguilla regained her own
separate legal and constitutional identity only in 1982 when St Kitts went into
independence, leaving Anguilla a fully-fledged British Overseas Territory.
In 1825, the first representative from Anguilla to the St Kits
Assembly was Benjamin Gumbs-Hodge MD. Dr
Gumbs-Hodge was a medical doctor, a native of St Marten and Anguilla, the son
of Thomas Hodge and his wife Deborah, the sister of Col Benjamin Gumbs. Dr Gumbs-Hodge married his cousin, the third
child of Col Gumbs, named Mary after her mother. Dr Gumbs-Hodge, from the evidence in the
records, lived and worked in Anguilla during this period, and visited St Kitts
from time to time to take his place in the Assembly. There is some indication that in later years he
settled more permanently in St Kitts, where no doubt there was a greater demand
for his professional services, and a better chance of earning a living.
In 1830, Col Benjamin Gumbs, now well into his eighties, executed
his last will and testament. The Will is
preserved amongst the deeds and wills in the Anguilla Registry of Deeds. The year 1830 was in the closing days of the
era of slavery in the British West Indies.
The old gentleman mentions the names of his slaves in his Will,
particularly the slave women who bore children for him. And, he gives the names of each of his slave
children, as he provides for their freedom after his death, and leaves property
to them and their mothers.
Col Gumbs leaves all his property to his various families. As a social commentary, this Will is an
invaluable document. Col Gumbs owned
property at Upper Quarter Estate, Statia Valley, Roaches Estate, Flat Caps, and
Dog Island. Some of his property he
leaves to his wife and his children by her.
The greater part of his property he divides among his families by
various slave mothers. Each of these
families is described in the same terms and with the same detail as that of his
lawful family. There is no shred of
shame or dissimulation in the bequests the old patriarch makes to his various
children.
One of the slave women was Nanny.
We know nothing of Nanny except that she was alive and well in 1830. From her name we can deduce that in her youth
she had helped look after the children in the main household. Nanny bore five children for Col Gumbs. They are Richard, Ann, Tabitha, Elizabeth,
and Sara. They are all mentioned in the
Will.
Nanny’s eldest child and only son, Richard, is mentioned in several
of the Deeds from time to time between the years 1825 and 1855. We can assume he was born sometime before
1800. By his wife Mary, Richard had two
sons, Samuel and John. There is a
suggestion that in their later years, Samuel and John lived with their mother
Nanny in the Danish Virgin Islands. They
appear to have engaged in the inter-island trading business. They also lived for a while in St Barths, an
important French smuggling and trading entrepot, then as now.
Richard’s eldest son, Samuel, was born in 1847 and died in
1932. In 1866 he married a poor white
girl, Charlotte Maria Owen of North Hill.
Charlotte bore him three children, Anna Eliza Rebecca Gumbs, Richard
Benjamin Roberts Gumbs, and John Frederick Gumbs. In his later years, Samuel is found living at
North Hill where he was engaged as a clerk in some small business. He was a lay preacher in the Methodist
Church, and a letter writer for the neighbours around.
Samuel’s last child, John Frederick Gumbs, a great grandchild of
the slave Nanny, was born in 1874. In
his youth he was a sailor, the captain of the Schooner Harrington, owned by one Shervington of The Quarter in
Anguilla. He later made his money
working as a boson on boats of the Harrison Line in the first decades of the
20th century.[2] In 1896, John Frederick married Catherine
Josephine Carney, the daughter of the St Kitts-born merchant and property owner,
John Joseph Carney. John Frederick died
in 1951, having served for many years as the Customs Officer of Sandy Ground.
John Frederick and Catherine had one child, Emile Johnson
Gumbs. Emile Johnson was born in 1896,
and lived and worked for most of his life in Kingston, Jamaica, where he died. In 1924 he married Inez Beatrice Carty. They had three children, John Eric, who
emigrated as a young man to Ecuador; Esme, who married a US officer stationed
at Coolidge, the US military air base in Antigua, and moved with him to the USA
when he was transferred; and Emile Rudolph Gumbs, who remained at home. When John Frederick died in Jamaica, his sons
John Eric and Emile Rudolph brought his body back to Anguilla, and he is buried
just inside the entrance of the old Anglican cemetery in Sandy Ground. His three children are the great great
grandchildren of Nanny.
Emile Rudolph we all know.
He took up the family tradition of sailing and trading throughout the
islands. In later years he joined the
revolutionary struggle against the St Kitts administration, and in time became
Chief Minister of Anguilla. Queen
Elizabeth knighted him in 1994 for services to Anguilla, shortly before he
retired from public service. He lives quietly
with his wife Lady Josephine Gumbs in the house built by his grandfather John
Frederick Gumbs on Carney land at Sandy Ground.
And so, Nanny’s issue have closed the circle of the government of
this little community. Sir Emile was not
the first, nor will he be the last of the sons of the slaves and the slave
owners in whose hands the destiny of Anguilla will lie in the years to
come. We must reflect from time to time
on who we are and where we have come from.
It is in this way that we can choose best where we want to go in the
future.
First
published in “Anguilla Life” magazine in 1998
[1] The story of the descent of Chief
Minister Sir Emile Gumbs from his forebear Deputy Governor Benjamin Gumbs
through his slave Nanny, as constructed from conversations by the author with
Sir Emile and a study of the deeds and wills in the High Court Registry
