Tall Tales or missed signs?
Can you imagine being threatened with jail for warning about a volcanic eruption?
This is exactly what happened to one of the "fishsellers" of St Vincent when she tried to raise the alarm in Georgetown after spotting unusual activity at the crater of the volcano...but there's more to this story than a posse of overzealous police officers!
This tale is written about in the field notebooks of Anderson and Flett who visited St Vincent shortly after the 1902 eruption, they were not the only scientists on the island (National Geographic Magazine sponsored several from the USA, and Frank Hovey sent and funded by the American Museum of Natural History), and in our records it sometimes feels like they were competing with each other for information, and certainly trying hard to be the first to share it with the wide world...
Tempest Anderson and John Flett did a remarkable job in a very short space of time of gathering photographic, geological and eye-witness testimony to reconstruct the events of the catastrophic 1902 eruption of St. Vincent.
In their ensuing report Anderson and Flett fastidiously named and thanked many of the people on island, but they were a little better at thanking or naming some more than others.
Being black or being a woman was the gateway to anonymity and a lack of acknowledgement.
This is exactly what happened to the fishsellers of St Vincent, something the Curating Crises team have started to correct through examination of Anderson and Flett's handwritten notebooks. For the first time, we have been able to unravel new details about the fishsellers tale and even put uncover the names of some of these fantastic women!
At the time of the 1902 eruption there were communities living in the far north of the island on both the Leeward and Windward sides. Families and communities were still separated by the island’s volcanic backbone and it was not uncommon to traverse the path that went from near Chateaubelair on the Leeward side, wound around the edge of the crater and it glistening lake and then snaked its way to the Windward village of Orange Hill via ‘Lot 14’, an area that still bore the name of its original plantation number when the island was carved up and sold by the newly colonising force of the British in 1763.
From the scattered second and third hand accounts of landowners and gentry as well as direct quotes gathered from the women themselves we begin to weave together the story of the fishsellers...
What the Islanders saw...
The constant tempo of the Trade Winds in the Eastern Caribbean mean that catches of fish are more easily landed on the Leeward side, and further traffic across the volcano was often generated by people, often women, taking produce (provisions) and fish to sell on the Windward side of the island. The 6th and 7th of May in the run up to the catastrophic eruptions of St. Vincent were no exception!
A principle character in this tale is Mary Ann Robertson from Walliabou village. She initially set out on Tuesday the 6th of May, taking fish to Georgetown, and returned early on the morning of the 7th climbing up towards the crater. There, she was alarmed when she looked into the crater and it appeared as if the water was level with the lip and boiling, she also observed a large sulphurous crack, which she crossed on the way to the crater rim. Seeing this, she headed back towards Georgetown. She met a party of two (Bertie Grant from Orange Hill and Wellington Frazer) heading up to report on the activity; sent by those sceptical of earlier reports and warned them not to go up.
By this time Grant and Frazer encountered showers of ash and terrible rumblings. They were on horseback so on their retreat downhill promptly overtook Mary Ann Robertson and warned her and some other women of the danger that they themselves had been warning about.
Even then, when Mary Ann Robertson reached a police station the Constable there did not believe her!
In and around Richmond Estate another three women were discussed by Mr Frederick the Estate manager as having encountered activity. They passed the crater on Tuesday morning and saw the crater lake boiling up and when they shared the news the people of Lot 14 laughed at them.
The policeman even threatened to lock them up for for giving false information!
Another group referenced in the notebooks were interviewed in a refugee camp at Barouallie after the eruption. As far as we can decipher from Flett's notebook their names were Samson Edwards, Rebecca Brown and Martha Cork and may have been acocompanied on their journey by an Emmieline Miller (uncertain transcription) and a Wilhemina Patterson.
The group also travelled up and over the volcano just prior to the eruption and made some crucial observations.
Rebecca Brown notes that at Robertson’s Cave they heard noises and felt something. Samson Edwards described the crater lake at this time as one part of water being red, one part like milk – and with water boiling up around this area, he describes a big stone in the middle which was surrounded by boiling water. This was possibly a small dome already sufficiently high that it had emerged from the crater lake, although Martha Cork describes these as floating. Rebecca Brown also mentioned the red colour of the water and notes the boiling looked like that when boiling a yamstock. She also mentions a strong smell of sulphur.
The following morning (Wednesday 7th) according to Rebecca Brown they left Lot 14 at daybreak and on the way up noticed ‘stones’ that had been on the path and thrown out through the night, and when they saw boiling water in the crater they turned back and ran away. Rebecca Brown described a roaring and smell of sulphur. Samson likened the behaviour of the boiling water to sugar boiling over the coppers during the process of making muscovado sugar from cane. At this point the boiling water was so high the stones they had observed yesterday were no longer visible. Rebecca Brown said it was hard to see the crater for the steam, but also described the ‘smoke’ as being black like chimney smoke at this time.
Emmieline Miller (from Richmond) also noted a boiling roaring shaking crater with a changed water level on the Tuesday and turned back when she met the others coming down on the Wednesday. Wilhelmina Paterson also saw boiling and stones rising and falling back into water.
These first-hand accounts contain extremely valuable observations about activity at the crater of La Soufrière St Vincent in the run up to an eruption that led to a devastating loss of life on the island. Their observations gave Anderson and Flett key data for their reports, but their contributions went unacknowledged in official records.