Bahama Pundit

The Man Who Never Was—An Assessment

by Larry Smith

The Man Who Never Was, published in 1953 by former spy Ewen Montagu, told the story of a successful 1943 British plot to deceive the Germans about the Allied invasion of Sicily.

The war story itself is of no relevance to this column, but in my view the book's title is the perfect epitaph for Sir Cecil Wallace-Whitfield, the Bahamian politician who never achieved his burning ambition to be prime minister.

The Free National Movement - the party that Whitfield founded in 1971 - recently held a series of events on Grand Bahama to commemorate his birthday. So this is as good a time as any to look at the life and legacy of the man whose greatest achievement was to ensure the survival of our multi-party democracy.

Fault Lines Exposed by Haiti’s Earthquake

by Simon

•Simon is a young Bahamian with things on his mind who wishes to remain anonymous. His column 'Front Porch' is published every Tuesday in the Nassau Guardian. He can be reached at frontporchguardian@gmail.com.

The fault line that triggered the recent horrific earthquake in Haiti also exposed centuries-old fault lines -- which though not as ancient as the geographic one that ruptured weeks ago -- have deep historic roots which have produced more devastation than this tragic temblor, as deadly as it was.

Whatever the final number of the dead, many more have perished over the course of Haiti’s history through war and slavery, brutal rule and neglect, disease and poverty.  The graves of the many who drowned in the ocean expanse extending from the southern Bahamas to the Florida Straits, are marked not by personal signifiers but by the cay or island next to which they are entombed.

Of course, one of the greatest killers of the Haiti revolution, of her sons and daughters and their basic aspirations and longings for peace, has been the punishing isolation and neglect by the world’s powers, along with misrule by successive dictators propped up by a tiny wealthy elite and their foreign allies.

A Tour of Grand Bahama

by Larry Smith

Standing on the shore at the eastern tip of Grand Bahama you can gaze across the bight at the super-exclusive cottages of Deepwater Cay, an iconic fishing lodge created in the 1950s by Gil Drake and A J McClean - the two Americans who first popularised the sport of bonefishing.

Just beyond is Sweeting's Cay, Grand Bahama's easternmost settlement. This whole area is a patchwork of mangroves, sandflats, creeks, and lagoons. It is not the most attractive part of the Bahamas, but I guess fly fishermen are more concerned with the hunt for what they call the 'grey ghost' than they are with picturesque seascapes.

In fact, nearby McLeans Town (which was laid out in 1835 for freed slaves by an official named Donald McLean) owes its existence to this complicated marine environment. Before the construction of Freeport, this area had the only sheltered harbour on Grand Bahama. And today, this is where the ferries are based that make the 45-minute trip to Crown Haven on Abaco.

Who Was Dr Peter Solomon Townsend?

by Larry Smith

The American doctor whose 1824 diary of life among Nassau's social elite formed the basis of my article last week also wrote an account of his stay in Paris in 1828.

This diary was published for the first time in the 1951 edition of the Journal of the History of Medicine, a copy of which was loaned to me by COB librarian Virginia Ballance. It features an introductory biography of Dr Townsend, written by George Rosen.

"Wherever Townsend went, and he visited almost every hospital and educational institution in Paris, he recorded these experiences in his diary. As a result, his record contains a very detailed and vivid picture of medical conditions and establishments...Paris was the mecca of medicine during the first half of the 19th century."

Townsend was born in New York in 1796. His father served several terms in the New York legislature. After attending Columbia College he studied medicine as a private pupil of a practising physician, earning his MD from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1816 with a dissertation on the Influence of the Passions in the Production and Modification of Disease.

For the next half dozen years he took an active part in the medical and scientific life of New York and was a founder of the Lyceum of Natural History. He also wrote an account of a yellow fever outbreak in the city in 1822, which gained him a reputation as an expert in epidemic diseases.

Ill health, probably due to tuberculosis, led Townsend to move to the Bahamas in December 1823 to seek a more congenial climate. In addition to his diary of the year he spent in Nassau as the guest of the Honourable James Moss, he also wrote a memoir on the Topography, Weather and Diseases of the Bahama Islands. And his Bahamas sojourn was followed by trips to Europe.

In the 1830s Townsend became involved in New York politics and wrote on political matters for the Evening Star newspaper. Following this period of political activity he resumed his private practice. He died of tuberculosis on March 26, 1849.

A Window Onto a Long-Lost Age—But Some Things Never Change!

by Larry Smith

As John Cleese used to say..."And now for something completely different."

Tough Call enjoyed some esoteric reading last weekend that's worth sharing, even though it's unrelated to anything in particular that's happening today. It was a "delightful document" published by the Bahamas Historical Society in 1968. Other than history buffs, few are familiar with it today, and it opens a fascinating window on a long-lost age.

The document in question was a personal journal kept by an American physician named P. S. Townsend, who lived in Nassau from December 1823 to September 1824. It is, according to historians Michael Craton and Gail Saunders, one of "the three earliest sets of private documents still surviving...from the Loyalist slavery era."

Townsend's 68-page diary - lodged between well-worn, marbled board covers that also enclosed a 113-page medical day book - was found decades ago in a Boston bookshop by one William Miller, a New York college professor who happened to have been born in Nassau. After his death, Miller's widow gave the journal to the Bahamas Historical Society, which transcribed the handwritten notes and published it as a slim booklet.

Swine Flu Outbreak Caused by Descendent of 1918 Pandemic Virus

by Larry Smith

“So vast was the catastrophe...that our minds, surfeited with the horrors of war, refused to realise it. It came and went, a hurricane across the green fields of life, sweeping away our youth in the hundreds of thousands and leaving a toll of sickness and infirmity which will not be reckoned in this generation.” -- article in the Times of London on the 1918 influenza pandemic.

One of the most devastating fires in human history began smouldering in March 1918 in the American midwest, and exploded that August to affect more than a third of the world's population.

New research confirms that the virus that caused the 1918 influenza pandemic is directly linked to the current swine flu virus, which has the potential to cause a new pandemic.

Scientists say the 1918 virus spread in pigs and eventually produced the current H1N1 swine flu virus, which has led health authorities to declare an international emergency.

PLP Contradictions Over the Pindling Legacy

by Larry Smith

Just over 20 years ago, a group of top British investigative journalists left their jobs at the Sunday Times to piece together the fantastic tale of the cocaine trade in Colombia, the Bahamas and Miami.

Their explosive 1988 book - the Cocaine Wars - described how Carlos Lehder, the Colombian cartel's transport chief, took control of an island in the Exumas "while the government of Prime Minister Sir Lynden Pindling did its best to help him feel at home."

The story goes back to the early 1970s. Within a year of independence, Bahamian police were warning that drug trafficking was a "serious«problem," a US Senate report noted, "and by 1979, that problem was a crisis....both narcotics smuggling and government corruption grew at an extraordinary rate."

Could San Salvador be Captain Kidd's Treasure Island?

by Larry Smith

My name is Captain Kidd, God's laws I did forbid
And most wickedly I did, as I sailed, as I sailed

I'd ninety bars of gold, as I sailed, as I sailed,
I'd ninety bars of gold, and dollars manifold,
With riches uncontrolled, as I sailed.

If you believe the noise in the market, the good folks of San Salvador have unimaginable wealth in their grasp, and are taking advice from an international media figure named Roberto Savio - an Italian part-time resident since the 1980s - on how to divvy up the spoils.

Lending a stamp of authenticity to the story, Dr Savio recently presented a document appropriately entitled "From Individual Greed to Collective Happiness" to a standing room-only public meeting in Cockburn Town. It offers a blueprint on how to share out billions in gold, silver and gems believed to lie in a collapsed cave at Fortune Hill, on the island's barren east coast.

Nassau Should Learn From Florence—Where Historical Tourism Earns Big Bucks

by Larry Smith

Several weeks ago Tough Call was in Savannah - a 200-plus-year-old city in Georgia that is about the size of Nassau, with an impressive level of historical preservation that earns billions of tourist dollars a year.

But Savannah can't begin to compete with Florence - a 2000-plus-year-old city in Italy that I had the opportunity to explore a few days ago. The past is overwhelmingly present throughout this historical treasure house of some 365,000 people - and it sends a crystal-clear message to Bahamians.

In Florence there is scarcely a modern building to be found and, in a curious reversal of conditions in Nassau, it is the contemporary buildings that are most likely to suffer from neglect. In Florence, a historic building (the earliest date back to the 11th century) is a ticket to affluence rather than an encumbrance to be razed under cover of darkness.

Privatisation and the General Strike

by Larry Smith

Union leader Robert Farquarson has raised the spectre of a general strike for the first time in 50 years, in a bid to derail privatisation plans for the Bahamas Telecommunications Company.

Workers blocked Bay Street and engaged in noisy demonstrations to register their concern over the privatisation process. BTC is the first public corporation to be put on the chopping block - although it has taken a decade for the axe to fall.

The threat of a national walk-out by some 45,000 union members was meant to invoke memories of the 1958 general strike, which shut New Providence down for almost three weeks. So it is worth taking a look at what happened then.

Sir Clifford Darling's 2002 book, A Bahamian Life Story, provides most of the background necessary to form an appreciation. In addition to his personal perspective as a strike leader, the book features secret reports by the colonial authorities, as well as contemporary newspaper accounts.