Not all brown Jamaicans are brown or “light skin” because their African ancestors were either raped or entered into sexual relationships with Caucasians from Europe.

After 60 years of Independence, colourism, also known as shadeism or discrimination based on skin colour, is a common form of prejudice and discrimination that continues to have a toll on some segments of the population, who despise the dark hue of their own skin, often manifested through acts of bleaching, treating others like themselves with disdain, and/or the type of person they choose for political leadership.

In the article, ‘PNP race too brown and too white?’ The Gleaner columnist Carolyn Cooper highlighted a fundamental question about racial politics in Jamaica black, brown, white, who is entitled to be a political leader? In reference to the national motto, “Out of Many, One People”, Cooper postulates:

“The ‘many’ in the motto does not refer to the largest racial group. It means that Jamaica is, supposedly, a multiracial society. But any sane person can see that this is not true. The population of Jamaica is predominantly black, with a relatively small percentage of minority groups.” (The Gleaner, November 1, 2020).

Yet, Jamaicans would be shocked to know that their blackness consist of a kaleidoscope of ethnic groups.

Another writer, Louis Moyston has recorded his own objections towards the motto. Edward Seaga in the article ‘From colony to Independence, Part 1’, shared that some members of the Independence Celebration Committee at the selection of the moto expressed objections as “it was not a declaration of reality”; however, Norman Manley and Alexander Bustamante both agreed to it as it embodies “hope for integration of the society”.

In an age of technological advancements we need as a nation to move beyond the surfaces of our history and include a prophetic reality that was unknown to our founding fathers and mothers. For example, the word “black” is often used as a morphological description, especially as a divisive tool, within a “predominantly black” population. Thus, writers like Cooper, Moyston, et al, interpret the motto from a morphological point of view, as “not a declaration of reality”.

Historical records of the transatlantic slave trade, alongside genetic studies of admixture from the Americas showed that most of the African ancestry can be traced to West-Central Africa, for example, similar to the Yoruba or Esan from Nigeria, with a smaller fraction being similar to south-eastern African ancestry; for example, Mbukushu-like from Botswana and/or Luhya-like from Kenya (Patin et al 2014; Gouveia et al 2020; Micheletti et al 2020). In Jamaica, we can add the Ashanti people of Ghana. In my own family I am connected to all the ethnic groups mentioned above, and wish to add my Galwa, an ethnic subgroup of Myénè. Myènè are living a long the Gabon coasts, lakes and rivers (Libreville, Port-Gentil and Lambaréné) of French West Africa.

It was my cousin Anne Thornley-Brown, a Jamaican-Canadian actor, who was featured in the news when she was elected to the Ontario Genealogical Society, who first connected our family to descendants of the Kassena people. The Kassena people are an ethnic group located along the northern Ghana and Burkina Faso border. They speak the Kasem language. Their king lives in the town of Tiébélé. The Kasenna are closely related to the people of Nankanni and were brought together to form the Kassena-Nankana administrative district in 1936.

In one of the oral history of the family, shared with us by our cousin Kugoriamo Gabriel from Ghana, we learnt how members of the community were captured by slave raiders in the late 17th century. In particular, the capturing of a woman named Kaduah, with her 3-year-old son Bam, wrapped and attached to her back, while traveling to a farm. In her unsuccessful effort to escape, Bam fell from her back to the ground and appeared dead. Kaduah was captured and sent to the slave camp located in Nania, called Pikworo, and eventually, alongside other victims, shipped to the Americas. It was a hunter from the Kasenna people who found the baby Bam, resuscitated him, continued to provide medical aid and care until he reached adulthood. Bam later led a rebellion against slave raiders in Pikworo in 1764 (The full story is available online, Kugoriamo Family History, TAKiR, August 19, 2021).

We have since then connected with other ethnic groups from Africa. I had the opportunity to meet with one of my Igbo cousins who visited Jamaica in May 2023. The stories are very interesting and experiences are different of these ethnic groups.

My Galwa descendants, according to the oral history told by my cousin Leo Ogandaga, were caught and sold into slavery because of inter tribal warfare.

“It was the most common practice, kidnapping was practised by rival ethnic groups,” he said. In their case, it was their own African people from a dominant tribe that caught and sold them into slavery.

Other groups have different stories. Just imagine the collective stories of other Jamaicans who have been connecting with their African families? It therefore concludes that both blacks (Africans) and whites (Europeans) were culpable for the crime against humanity.

Our different ethnic admixture and emotions are now “mixed up” in each of us, through our combined history of the past.

Earlier I mentioned that not all brown people have European blood running in their veins. There are anthropological studies about a group of “light skinned Sub-Saharan” Africans known as the “Yellow Men” in Central Africa. They have zero Eurasian ancestors. They are just light-skinned. The Igbo of Nigeria and the Luba of Congo also have the largest numbers of these “Yellow Men”.

Originating primarily from the Bight of Biafra in West Africa, the Igbo people were taken in relatively high numbers to Jamaica as slaves, between 1790 and 1809, during the transatlantic slave trade. They are people mostly populated in the north-western section of the island.

Among the Igbo population was a high percentage of light skinned Igbos called “Red Igbo” or “Red Eboe” by Jamaicans, as they were distinguished physically by their fair or “yellow” skin tones, a stereotype that persists to present-day Nigeria. Today, in Jamaica, “red eboe” is used to describe people with light skin tones with African features.

It is these stories and different ethnic groups that help to inform our motto. It’s reality in our ethnic make-up must now be realised in our hope as one people — Jamaicans.

Dudley C McLean II hails from Mandeville, Manchester, and is a graduate of Codrington College, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or dm15094@gmail.com.