Bogle name was mud after Morant Bay Rebellion

Sunday, March 21, 2010

PAUL Bogle's fight in the bloody 1865 Morant Bay Rebellion to get better treatment for black Jamaicans in St Thomas is said to have caused his descendants to be chased from that parish and out of some schools, even up until the 1950s.

Nearly 50 years after the massacre of more than 400 blacks, triggered by the rebellion, persons with the name Bogle were said to have come under great verbal attack by people in the parish who blamed Bogle for the oppression felt under the hands of the militia as a result of the rebellion.

Phillip Bogle, said to be a grandson of Paul Bogle, died at age 82 without ever learning to read or write as he was often labelled by his teachers as wicked because of his relationship to the man who was later named a national hero.

Phillip's widow, Patricia, said he would often lament the injustice done to him and many other Bogles who either had to change their names or flee the parish when the threats became too much.

According to Patricia, up until he died in 1995, Phillip was constantly haunted by the treatment he received at school, which resulted in him missing out on an education.

"Him tell me that when him go school the teachers dem point him out as wicked and bad because he was a Bogle, and so him (great) grandmother never send him back," she said.

"Him teachers would run him out of them class and beat him because them say the Bogle dem wicked," she said.

And when his great-grandmother -- Paul Bogle's mother -- died, the situation only became worse, according to Patricia, who explained to the Sunday Observer that he was abused by the family that he later went to live with.

"Him say them would tie him up and beat him and work him out just because him was a Bogle," she said.

This, she added, affected him even as an adult as he would sometimes sit by himself and lament the difficult life he had as a child.

"Sometimes him would sit with him head bow and would say to me 'Sista, sometimes when me remember how them ill-treat me it is like them wanted to kill me'," Patricia recalled.

However, she said it was quite ironic that Paul Bogle was later recognised as a national hero and Phillip's facial features were used to create the statue of Paul Bogle -- a historical landmark in Morant Bay.

But with all the recognition Phillip would later receive in life, Patricia said nothing could compensate for the education he lost.

"After them recognised him as Paul Bogle grandson, he could get a job in Morant Bay but because him couldn't read him never get it," she told the Sunday Observer.

Dorette Abrahams, president of the African Heritage Development Association and herself a native of that parish, confirmed that many Bogles were forced to flee the parish or change their names, many years after the rebellion.

She recalled having a friend in high school in the early 1960s who would recount the treatment she received in elementary school just because she was a Bogle.

"She was always very withdrawn in school and didn't talk to anyone, and when I later spoke to her I found out this was because of how she was treated because she was a Bogle," Abrahams recalled.

According to Abrahams, there was a time in those early days when schools could not admit a Bogle, and those who did had to hide such a child when the school inspector came around.

"You have to remember that after the rebellion the militia went about massacring the people for no reason," she explained.

"Also, as a result of the rebellion, St Thomas was never developed like the rest of Jamaica, and so the people used to blame it on the rebellion," she added.

Zedekiah Inglington, another resident of St Thomas, said he too remembered the days when the Bogle name was taboo in that part of the island.

"As a child growing up, the Bogle name was a disgrace because people use to claim that them kill white people, and so nuff people never want to say dem is a Bogle," he said.

This, however, changed after Bogle was named one of Jamaica's national heroes.

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COMMENTS (2)

Verna Kitson
3/22/2010

What a truly sad story. Jamaicans are simply not the fearless warriors we often claim to be. Too often, ignorance and lack of courage places us on the wrong side of history. We insist on championing the cause of those who oppress and steal our future from us, and seem to think that wallowing in dirty, nasty spiteful behaviour is better than taking the moral high ground even if we have to suffer for it. I definitely have to teach my children to look elsewhere in the Caribbean for the kind of courage it takes to overcome adversity and speak truth to power, because there aren't too many examples of that here in Jamaica.

Jay Brown
3/21/2010

We are indeed a bunch of waggonist !!

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Bogle name was mud after Morant Bay Rebellion