Times of the Islands Fall 2021

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I sat down with local mariner David Douglas who has sailed these waters for more than 35 years in his locally built schooner, the Atabeyra, (suncharters.tc) and asked him if this route made sense. “Yes, from Ft. George Cay, Brown most likely would have sailed south of Providenciales to get to Southwest Reef. The other alternative would be to sail across Grace Bay to Northwest Point. And from there cross the channel to West Caicos. That would have taken quite a bit longer and leave them much more exposed to pirates. So the southern route makes much more sense.” Casting off from South Side Marina on Providenciales in Captain Ernesto’s boat MV Bonita (OceanFrontiersTCI. com), we followed Brown’s probable route heading to West Caicos. No doubt Brown and his crew would have stared in disbelief at the superbly comfortable and fast 37-foot fiberglass Axopar with two huge 300 hp outboard motors. As we closed in on Southwest Reef using the coordinates Mark had provided, Captain Ernesto cut the engines. Somewhere below lay the cannon. Agile, co-founder of visittci.com and a font of TCI historical knowledge, prepped his underwater camera while Lynn began filming. We took in the scene as our boat rocked in a sea awash with endless hues of blue and streaked with golden brown Sargassum seaweed reflecting off the midday sun. To the south, rows of cresting waves splashed over the shallow reefs that had claimed so many ships passing through. And further off lay the shore of West Caicos, a line of scrubby white bluffs mixed with sand and limestone stretching for miles without a trace of human presence. Unchanged over years, we could see what they saw and slipped for a moment back in time. “Burntfoot” Brown’s defiance Just who was Thomas Brown and what plight in his vastly different world brought him here? The man is no stranger to the pages of this magazine. Dr. Charlene Kozy’s four articles—“Hidden History” (Winter 2007/2008), “Revealing Thomas Brown” (Fall 2009), “All the King’s Men” (Fall 2010) and “The Rest of the Story” (Spring 2012)—provide illuminating portraits of the Loyalists in the Turks & Caicos and Brown in particular. As one of the most resilient, headstrong and paradoxical characters in TCI history, he warrants continued examination. In 1775, just shy of his 25th birthday, Brown sailed from the bleak but prosperous North Sea town of Whitby, England to Georgia in the American Colonies. Thanks to MAP COURTESY WAVEY LINE PUBLISHING/ BOB GASCOINE • ROUTE BY AGILE LEVIN–VISITTCI.COM This map of the Caicos Banks shows the route that Thomas Brown likely took to the pirate attack area off West Caicos. 52 www.timespub.tc
financial help from his prominent father and contacts made in Savannah, he bought land to establish a cotton plantation in the back country near Augusta. But this was also the year that calls for independence from Britain reached a fever pitch that sharply divided the Colonists between Loyalists and Patriots. Brown had not been shy about declaring his Loyalist support for King George III. In his book, The King’s Ranger, Edward J. Cashin describes a definitive moment in Brown’s life. One evening, a mob of 100 or so members of the fervent proindependence group Sons of Liberty gathered in front of his house and demanded that he swear allegiance to the revolutionary cause. Brown tried to steer a noncommittal path, saying that he did not want to oppose the country of his birth, but nor did he want to offend those in his new home. But Sons of Liberty boys would hear none of it and closed in on him. Brown fired a pistol and fended them off with a saber until one of the mob smashed him over the head with the butt of a musket. The Patriots then tied him to a tree, tarred and feathered him, partially scalped him and lit his feet on fire. Somehow, he survived, even after losing consciousness for two days. A doctor performed what passed for brain surgery in the 18th century to repair his fractured skull, but he would suffer severe headaches for the rest of his life. He also lost two toes in the fire, earning him the lifelong nickname “Burntfoot” Brown. The bitterness from the attack, as well as Brown’s commitment to king and country, led him to join the King’s Rangers, a Loyalist unit of the British Army fighting George Washington’s men in the American South. He displayed remarkable courage and leadership in battle, often forging alliances with native Indian tribes and fighting alongside them. He may also have sought revenge. Legend has it that Brown hanged 13 captured American Patriots so he could gloat while watching them die. Second chance in North Caicos After the war, the victorious Patriots forced Brown and tens of thousands of other Loyalists out of the new American republic and confiscated the property they left behind. Most Loyalists from the American South fled to eastern Florida before taking refuge in the Bahamas. Some, like Brown, made their way to North Caicos where Britain compensated Loyalists for the loss of their plantations with land grants and money. Brown soon became a successful cotton planter on North Caicos—made possible, of course, by the forced labor of men, women and children he had enslaved and This image of a Loyalist being tarred and feathered is similar to what was done to Thomas Brown by members of the Sons of Liberty. brought with him. In what was then called “Grand Caicos,” Brown is said to have permitted slaves to cultivate small plots of land for themselves. On occasion, if one of those he had enslaved wanted to marry someone held in bondage at another plantation, he “bought” that person so they could be together. Loyalist slaveholders, like their counterparts throughout the Caribbean and American South, portrayed their relations with the enslaved as paternalistic or benevolent to justify keeping them in oppressive bondage. Their narrative also served as an effort to offset growing abolitionist agitation to end slavery that Brown would be quite aware of. We have no written accounts of what the enslaved on North Caicos thought about Brown’s “generosity.” We do, however, have a first hand account by formerly enslaved Mary Prince that details the horrific treatment meted out by Bermudian enslavers on Grand Turk. Though conditions differed for the enslaved on North Caicos who toiled in fields rather than salt ponds, shards of oral history handed down from generation to generation from the 1800s present a different version of Brown, who is remembered as a cruel slave holder. These two contradictory versions of Brown are not necessarily mutually Times of the Islands Fall 2021 53
Page 1 and 2: TIMES OF THE SAMPLING THE SOUL OF T
Page 3 and 4: JAMAICA’S ULTIMATE VOTED WORLD’
Page 5 and 6: TurksAndCaicosProperty.com 5 Acre M
Page 7: WHEN OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS TWICE . . .
Page 11: LEADING THE INDUSTRY IN HEALTH AND
Page 16 and 17: TIMES OF THE ISLANDS MANAGING EDITO
Page 18 and 19: Author/illustrator Katherine Orr ha
Page 20 and 21: SHUTTERSTOCK Live and in the flesh
Page 22 and 23: SHUTTERSTOCK
Page 24 and 25: People were living in the Caribbean
Page 26 and 27: BILL KEEGAN Discovered at this site
Page 28 and 29: small effigy bowls brought from His
Page 31 and 32: feature Author Kelly Currington fel
Page 33 and 34: nection with the largest one of the
Page 35 and 36: in all the months I’d been monito
Page 37 and 38: green pages Newsletter of the Depar
Page 39 and 40: green pages newsletter of the depar
Page 47 and 48: poetry Summer in the Turks & Caicos
Page 49 and 50: feature Opposite page: This photo o
Page 51: RICHARD MCGHIE of the masts from th
Page 55 and 56: British ships to sink or capture (a
Page 57 and 58: Finding the cannon We only have two
Page 59 and 60: This summer, a crew of residents in
Page 61 and 62: Professor Cashin’s summary and th
Page 64 and 65: SHUTTERSTOCK
Page 66 and 67: Response to COVID is gold standard
Page 68 and 69: on June 22. Amenities include a Clu
Page 70 and 71: astrolabe newsletter of the Turks &
Page 78 and 79: The TCI has expanded COVID-19 testi
Page 80 and 81: Taxes There are currently no direct
Page 82 and 83: classified ads R E J O U V E N A N
Page 84: Your next move can be next level .

Times of the Islands Fall 2021

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