The 40th anniversary of Bob Marley’s death, which was marked on May 11, generated a kind of ‘Uprising’ across the globe, with a flood of music, articles, conversations, and wonderful nostalgia in memory of Jamaica’s most celebrated artiste. This newspaper carried a series of articles, ’40 Days of Marley’, which included commentary from close friends reflecting on their personal relationships and intimate association with Marley. The different stories revealed intriguing insights about his life and career which had been hitherto undisclosed.

But, even with all the personal accounts and interviews and testimonies surrounding this extraordinary personality, Marley, in spite of his enormous stage appeal and magnetism, was a quite secretive person in that not even his closest friends were ever allowed to get into the deep recesses of his mind and thinking.

Tutored by his grandfather, Omeriah Malcolm, who was well respected as the leading herbalist and mystic in his birth community Nine Miles, he kept a private part of himself for his own recluse cabinet to which he often retreated and charged his batteries before opening up again to his friends and audiences. The only ones allowed into that private spot would be his immediate family, who were his circle, his embrace, his strength.

I learnt a lot about Marley from those recent newspaper articles, but I go one-up on a story which I have not seen written elsewhere, and that is the romance of how Bob met Rita around 1963, and how they got together. I gleaned this one from Timothy White’s Catch A Fire biography of Marley, which is the most exhaustive and detailed compilation on that subject yet, and in which he gives credit and acknowledgement to both Rita and Cedella for time and assistance and for allowing him to interview them over years.

Still in their teenage years, but breaking into the music world as The Wailers, Bob, Bunny Livingston, and Peter Tosh were on their way to Coxone’s Studio for rehearsal one evening. While taking their customary shortcut, a lane that ran alongside Calvary Cemetery, the group was stopped by a pretty nurse who introduced herself as Rita Anderson.

She playfully told them she watched them pass the same way every day, as her house was across the road, and she knew them as the Wailers. Bob did not pay her any mind, but when Rita one day showed up at the same studio to try for a recording he started sending her love notes via Peter.

It took a while for her to believe he was serious because this “shy guy” rarely spoke to her. It was several weeks before he broke the ice, acknowledged her presence, and eventually moved in with her on what was at first a non-amorous basis, which involved sneaking in through Rita’s window to avoid waking her aunt. As it turned out, and according to Timothy White’s version of the story, Auntie Viola did sweep into the room one night, turned on the light, and with her eyes wide and voice shrill, expostulating: “Strike mi soul dear God, what vileness do me see in me very house!”

Bob was back out of the window in no time. But so started one of the most romantic and long-lasting relationships in the history of Jamaican recording artistes’ love stories.

It was inevitable that during this period of reflection on Bob’s life that the national hero argument should turn up. It did, as it has done almost every year since his death, with the usual arguments for and against.

I have my own debates with my younger friends, who believe he should be made a national hero. They know more about modern music than I do, but I disagree with their assessment of Bob. I consider myself a better authority on him than they, having dropped legs myself to the original Simmer Down, Judge Not, Rude Boy and One Love, as these and other 45 RPMs ruled the Hit Parade.

I regard Bob as the man who has done more for Jamaica than any other human being in terms of reggae and tourism. More than any other person or national hero he has made Jamaica a household name around the globe, and every country in the world has rocked to his One Love music which was named Song of the Millennium by the British Broadcasting Corporation ( BBC).

These are strong arguments in favour of a national hero designation, but I don’t believe that Bob would ever have regarded himself as a national hero. He was too confident in himself and his mysticism to believe that he needed or deserved the official accolade of heroism when he already had the people’s award for same in his lifetime.

Only a few months before his death Rita had him baptised in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Not known to many, he died as a Christian Rasta.

The Rastas look to Genesis 45: 5 – 8, where Joseph reveals his identity to his confused and fearful brothers. As they weep in shame, Joseph forgives each of them for what they did to him and, in a soft voice he tells them, “Be not grieved, for it was not you that sent me hither, but God.”

So our national heroes head-hunters will continue to look and continue to press for more names to be added to our illustrious list of seven. Robert Nesta Marley will continue to head that list, as will the Louise Bennett-Coverley and George Alphonso Headley, for whose case much argument has been made by this writer.

I would also like to add another whose name is already in the mix, and who was a freedom fighter of great renown. He was known simply as Chief Tacky.

Minister of Transport and Mining Robert Montague has said the people of St Mary intend to start the process of having Tacky declared a national hero as soon the Bill to absolve certain national heroes is passed in the House of Representatives.

In 1760, Tacky launched the famous Easter Slave Rebellion in Port Maria, which was a revolutionary anti-slavery insurgency that proved to be the catalyst for Emancipation 74 years later. Tacky’s rebellion took down several estates in the parish, including the Frontier, Heywood Hall, Esher, and Trinity plantations, and waged war against the British island regiments. The soldiers were supported by a strong contingent of Maroons, who were bound by treaty to suppress uprisings.

And so they did, as Tacky’s forces were routed within a week, with Tacky himself shot by a legendary Maroon marksman, Davy, while running at full speed. The rebellion was over in quick time, but spurred other rebellions across the island, including Westmoreland, St Elizabeth, and Clarendon.

It was regarded as the most significant slave rebellion in the Caribbean at that time and, according to Professor Trevor Burnard, “In terms of shock to the imperial system, only the Tacky Rebellion surpassed the American Revolution in the 18th century.”

For over a decade, Derrick “Black X” Robinson, chairman of the Tacky Heritage Group, has been walking barefoot around the island on a mission to convince the Government to make Tacky a national hero. On the face of his bravery, leadership, and the cause of freedom that he fought for, Montague, who is also the Member of Parliament for St Mary Western, Brother Black may yet see their dreams come true.

Three-Finger Jack

There is yet another name that has been put up for consideration, but who, because of his banditry and limited outreach, is not likely to make the grade.

I have not driven on the Annotto Bay to Castleton main road recently, and so we have missed our ‘Three-Finger Jack’ plantains which we used to buy at the Broadgate vendor’s stalls. These huge plantains, measuring two feet in length, came as a surprise when we first bucked them up five years ago while using the road as a shorter trip to Kingston from St Ann.

It’s a certainty that the fruit is named after the legendary 18th-century folk hero Jack Mansong, aka Three-Finger Jack, runaway slave, outlaw, bandit, and daring rebel who was born at Scott’s Hall in St Mary. Jack was of the stuff of which heroes are made, and was somewhat in the mode of a Robin Hood. He was resistant to authority, defended women and children, had great physical strength, was seven feet tall, and a natural leader who was always encouraging his fellow slaves to revolt and to seek their freedom.

He was hunted by the British militia, the Maroons, and other slaves who were after the reward of 300 pounds on his head. He was a real highwayman who would lie in wait on the road from Kingston to St Thomas near Cave River, Eleven Miles, where he ambushed, robbed and killed soldiers and travellers, although never harming a woman or a child.

Three-Finger Jack was so named because he lost two fingers of one hand in a fight with a Maroon. Perhaps it was that same Maroon, Quashie, who eventually killed him, stuck his head on a pole, and marched with it into Morant Bay in 1780, followed by a vast crowd of people singing and beating drums — another case of the people’s hero betrayed by his own and dying in disgrace.

His name was rescued, however, many years later by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust Commission. In 1978 the commission erected a monument to Jack on the St Thomas road halfway between Kingston and Yallahs, near Bull Bay. The sign was placed during a period when Jamaica was establishing a series of national heroes. Although Jack was not considered as a candidate to be a national hero, he was considered sufficiently important to warrant this sign, which explains that he “fought, often single-handedly, a war of terror against the English soldiers and planters who held the slave colony”.

Lance Neita is a public relations professional and a writer. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or lanceneita@hotmail.com.