The first thing that strikes the visitor about the place names of
Anguilla is their apparent lack of imagination.
There is the Long Path, and Long Ground, and Long Road,
and Long Bay. The name of the
capital town, The Valley, is an embarrassment. If North Hill and South Hill
are not boring enough, there is always East End and West End, and
Waterswamp of all things. Stoney
Ground must have been a hard place to cultivate. But, the assumption of a lack of imagination
on the part of the early namers of Anguilla would be wrong. It takes some wit to ensure that an almost
perfectly flat island comes to have nearly every place in it named either a
hill or a valley.
Actually, North Hill and South Hill
have an interesting tale to tell. At
first blush there seems to be something perverse about naming two adjoining
stretches of the cliff on the north coast of Anguilla 'North Hill' and 'South
Hill'. But, an old sailor, Sir Emile
Gumbs, once told me his theory of how those two spots got their names. He pointed out that they are north and south
respectively of only one place, and that is Road Bay. If you were a sailor on a ship anchored out
in Road Bay in the seventeenth century you could not have helped but notice
that there was a hill to the north of you and another one to the south. So, the naming of these two villages is most
probably a relic of Anguilla's maritime past.
The prepositions up and down
as used in giving directions and naming places in Anguilla have a similar
heritage. As shortened versions of
“upwind” and “downwind” they refer to the compass points 'east' and
'west'. They do not in any way relate to
the inclination of the slope either up or down which the Anguillian giving you
directions is pointing. When the elderly
man in Welches point firmly down the hill and tells you that you must go “up”
the road to reach Island Harbour, he means that you will have to drive in an
easterly direction to get to Island Harbour.
It will not seem incongruous to him that he is at the time pointing
'down' the hill.
This apparently strange use of
prepositions flows from one of the most noticeable weather features of
Anguilla, the Trade Winds. The winter
Trades blow from November to March, while the summer Trades blow from May to
September. The winter Trade Winds blow
out of the north-east, with more than a memory of Siberia in them it sometimes
seems in December and January. The summer
Trade Winds on the other hand blow out of the south-east, sometimes carrying
the tropical waves off the coast of Africa that sometimes turn into Hurricanes
as they approach the West Indies. Generally,
except for the Doldrum months of April and October, the wind blows steadily out
of the east. How obvious it would seem
to a farmer or a fisherman to refer to the east as “up wind” or “up”. Similarly, the west is obviously “down wind”,
or just “down”, or even “lower”.
There are very few names that hint at an
exciting or exotic past. Brimegin
is one of them. There is no certainty
how that rocky area east of Blackgarden Bay and west of Shoal Bay
got its name. ‘Brummagen’
is an English dialect name for a native or inhabitant of the city of Birmingham
in England. The Anguillian name Brimegin
and the English name Brummagen are almost identical in sound. Only the spelling is different. They appear to be the same word. It is not difficult to see that the word
Brummagen has become Brimegin in Anguilla.
There was never any person named Birmingham resident on Anguilla long
enough to leave his name in the public records.
The only Birmingham we know who is connected in the historical record
with Anguilla arrived here during the year 1711 when one Captain Birmingham, a privateer for the French,
landed three spies on Anguilla. We do
not know where exactly Captain Birmingham landed his spies, but the area now
called after his name was as good a place as any. The coast is rocky, but there are several
small bays where a boat might come in and land one or two persons without being
observed. The place is situated far from
the hamlets and estates of Anguilla. I
like to think that it was this Captain Birmingham who has left a trace of his
visit. When captured by the Anguillians
under deputy governor George Leonard, the spies confessed that they had been
landed by Captain Birmingham to find out what the strength of the island's
defences were. Governor Hamilton took
the three spies captured by the Anguillians to Antigua where they were tried,
convicted and hung. All that remains of
this adventure is the place name “Brimegin”.
No other person named Birmingham has ever been in any way connected with
Anguilla, far less been recorded as owning an estate in Anguilla.
While we are on names that have evolved we
might as well mention Meads Bay, Katouche Bay, Sachasses
and The Quarter. An elderly
resident of Long Bay Village some years ago told me his father's theory about
the origin of the bay now spelled “Meads”.
It is universally pronounced “Maids”.
He pointed out that no one named Mead or Maid ever lived in
Anguilla. He suggested that the name is
most likely an anglicisation of the Spanish 'La Baia de Maiz', or Maize
Bay. This is not fanciful or
unrealistic. The older people of Long
Bay Village pronounce the name of their bay as “Mays Bay”. The original
Amerindian settlers were growing maize in the West Indies when Columbus
arrived. He recorded the word “maiz” in
the Bahamas on his first voyage. It grew
throughout the islands including Anguilla.
The likelihood is that as the centuries passed and the origin of the
name became forgotten, it gradually began to be pronounced “Maids”. The spelling was only changed to Meads in a
recent mapping exercise.
Katouche Bay was part
of Governor Benjamin Gumbs' estates during the eighteenth century. He called it ‘Catouche Bay Plantation' with a
“C” when he left it to his daughters Anne Warner and Katherine Payne in his 1768
Will. There is no such word in English
as ‘catouche’ nor is any person named Catouche associated with Anguilla. The nearest equivalent is the French
‘cadeaux’, the plural for 'gift'. The
English-speakers of Anguilla shared the common practice of pronouncing French
words phonetically in English. The
French word 'cadeaux' would have been pronounced 'caduce'. It is an easy morph to Governor Gumbs’
spelling 'Catouche', and the later 'Katouche'.
In some of the early deeds it is even spelled 'Cuttous'.
On the Ordnance Survey Map of Anguilla, Katouche
Bay is presently spelled Latouche with an “L”.
We know where this error came from.
In the 1950s, the late Rev Leonard Carty wrote an article in a Methodist
Church commemorative booklet. He
speculated that the word Katouche may have derived from Mr De la Touche, the
French Commander who led an invasion force to Anguilla in 1745. Rev Carty thought it was possible that this was
the bay that De la Touche landed at. In
fact, we know from contemporary documents that he anchored his boats and
disembarked his men either in Rendezvous Bay or in next door Crocus Bay, where
the Anguillians massacred them as they tried to ascend the steep path up to the
top of Crocus Hill. The modern mapmakers
were given Rev Carty's speculation as the true story of the origin of that
bay's name, and they changed the spelling from the original Katouche to
Latouche. However, no one in Anguilla
calls the place 'Latouche Bay'.
Crocus Hill is named
for the lovely little yellow crocuses that up to the 1970s used to come out
with the start of the rains. Before the
bush took over, the entire slope from the top of the hill to the coast at
Crocus Bay was pasture, and with the start of the rain, the entire pasture
would become a field of yellow crocuses.
The pasture is now replaced by a jungle of Mimosa and White Cedar.
Sachassas is equally
easy to explain. The name “Sagers” or,
more often, “Zakers” has long been a common surname in nearby St Maarten. Richard Richardson in the 1760s employed a David
Sagers as manager of his Anguilla plantation. The Sagers family eventually came to own a
part of Governor Richardson’s South Valley Plantation. Their land would have commonly been called
Sagers' land. Ralph Hodge, at one time
our Accountant General, told me the story of how the name change occurred. He was a youngster working part-time with the
Cadastral Survey team that visited Anguilla to survey it in 1974. Ralph lived then as now in South Valley. When the surveyors were working in the area,
the members of the team were not sure how to spell its name. They turned to Ralph for assistance. Ralph says he made up that spelling on the
spur of the moment, and now the spelling of Sachassas instead of Sagers’ is
written in concrete.
The Quarter is also an
evolved name. When the old Valley
Plantation of Anguilla's first deputy governor, Abraham Howell, was broken up
into four parts in the mid eighteenth century, it became North Valley, South
Valley, Wallblake, and the Upper Quarter Plantations. It was 'upper' because it was the easternmost
part of the estate. The word 'upper' was
quietly dropped, and now we are left with 'The Quarter'.
Blowing Point was
originally deeded to Ensign Thomas Rumney in 1673 as 'Blown Point Plantation',
but over the years it has evolved into 'Blowing Point'. The people of the village still pronounce it
“Blown Point”. The surname ‘Romney” is a
common one in Blowing Point, but the locals still insist on pronouncing it
“Rumney”.
Badeziel Cox was the eponymous owner of the
estate now known after him as Bad Cox.
His neighbour, Richard Richardson Jr, must have been known as “Little
Dick”. His land must have been known as
Little Dick's plantation. Now, it is
officially spelled Little Dix, with an “X”. Another eighteenth century planter, Thomas
Caul, has given his name to the nearby Caul's Pond.
We all know where Abraham Chalville lived. The place is called Chalvilles. The Anguillians pronounced and spelled his
name with a “w” instead of a “v”. When
he emigrated to Tortola, he took that pronunciation with him, and the name continues
there as Chalwille.
We know why the pronunciation of a “v” was
sometimes confused with a “w”. Students
of sociolinguistics have written about the sound called by them the 'unvoiced
bi-labial fricative'. It is a cross
between a 'v' and a 'w'. This sound is
quite commonly heard among English speakers.
We still hear the older people of Blowing Point saying that they are
going to 'The Walley'. And, they always
claim they are “werry fine, thank you”. Past
Chief Minister Hubert Hughes to this day will tell you that he is the head of
the “gowernment” of Anguilla.
That is how Valentine Blake's land, as it was written
in an early patent to land from the 1690s, came to be known as Wallblake. The Anguillians referred to Valentine Blake
as Wal Blake. In time, after he had died
and become forgotten, the name of his property morphed in to Wallblake.
Places named after the persons that owned them
at one time are common. The Hughes
family was an important one in the history of Anguilla, persons of that name having
resided here since the earliest days of settlement. They gave their name to the Hughes' Estate
in Lower South Hill. That word 'lower', you will realise by now, signifies in
Anguilla that the place is “down from”, ie, to the west of, South Hill. Robert Lockrum in turn gave his name to the Lockrum's
Estate located between Blowing Point and Little Harbour on the south
coast. The land of Mr Waters, originally
Waters' land, is now spelled Wattices.
An unknown Mr Roache once lived on a hill at North Valley, and we still
call it Roaches Hill. John
Farrington was a Quaker who went away in the 1740s to join the Quaker community
in Tortola. All he has left behind is
his name attached to his land at The Farrington. An unknown Mr Gibbons left an estate east of
Blowing Point named after him, but we do not at present know the first name of
the owner of Gibbons Estate.
The cutely sounding Merrywing Pond is
not so cutely named. The word is the
seventeenth century name for the vicious little biting sandflies that must have
made it such a pain to pass nearby.
The origin of some place names is unknown to
me. These include Benzies on the
north coast of the Shannon Hill; George Hill; Old Ta, said to be
named after an unknown “Old Thomas”; The Forest; Statia Valley; Sile
Bay; True Loves up on Crocus Hill; Maundays Bay; and the ever
mysteriously named Corito.
Among the names that have fallen into disuse
are the three 'divisions' into which the island was long divided. Nor is it clear what administrative function
these divisions played. These were
Joan's Hole, subsequently named Junks' Hole Division, probably named by
reference to the Great Spring or the Big Spring as it is now more
commonly known; Spring Division, probably named by reference to the Fountain
Cavern; and the Road Division.
It is not surprising that two of the island's administrative divisions
were named by reference to springs, given the long droughts under which the
island suffered for decades at a time.
An unfailing source of potable water would have been a very important
reference point for the early settlers.
I conclude by admitting that the very locations
of many of the places named in the early Anguillian deeds have now been lost,
at least to me. Someday, with more
research, I may discover exactly where they were. These include Arrowsmith's; Barlows
Plantation; Bralahans; Diggeries; Great Cockpit; French
Ground; Hazard Hill; Kidney's; Robbin's; Thatch
Garden Hill; and many others. If you
know where they are, please let me know.
A Speech given at the 16
June 2010 AGM of the Anguilla Archaeological and Historical Society
Revised
24 November 2018
