Joanne Haynes, a 7th-generation member of the famous Philip family of Grenada and Trinidad in the 19th century, has written an illuminating biography, Profiles of Another Rule: A Philip History by a Philip, that chronicles her family’s contributions to Trinidad, Tobago, and Caribbean intellectual thought. It is the first work that examines the lives of Honoré and Jeanette Philipe, Jean-Baptiste, St Luce, Michel Maxwell, Joachim, and Jean-Baptiste Louis in a chronological manner.
Haynes takes her theme from two important personages: Martin Heidegger (“A boundary is not that at which something stops … but is that from which something begins its presencing”) and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s warning: “The consequence of the single story is this: it robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasises how we are different rather than how we are similar.”
These observations led Haynes to construct her own thesis of the Philip family’s position in these islands: “In the black-and-white version of colonial history, my Philip ancestors are simplified as a ‘coloured wealthy slave-holding family’. My research for this book revealed that this identification of Philip [family] was a lie ... The impersonalisation of colonial history ignored the fact that from its first generation, members of the Philip family rejected the wealth derived from ‘owning’ enslaved Africans.”
Haynes calls her method “A Colour-in-History” approach, which examines the silence of the Philips in Trinidad and Grenada’s history. This approach allows her to unearth many hidden sides of her family history “by looking beyond the textbook to the unconventional spaces of learning, such as oral histories, to tell WE stories–stories of the people, by the people, for the people”.
This reservoir of memory underlies her family’s thrust toward greatness or sometimes even sorrow. She says, “The inheritance of memory goes beyond place and circumstance, whether as conscious memory or as knowing without knowing.” The latter phrase may allude to the unconscious dimension of her family’s lives.
Haynes’s approach parallels that of Maurice Halbwachs, a French sociologist who reminds us that “memory is acquired within social frameworks and reflects a social process situated in the present rather than the past”. He also argues that individual memories “are not purely personal but are shaped by social groups to which a person belongs”.
Ultimately, Haynes is concerned primarily with clarifying–and I suppose updating–the works and actions of Jean-Baptiste, St Luce, and Michel Maxwell. Jean-Baptiste wrote the enormously important book Free Mulatto (1823); St Luce became the first Black member of our Legislative Council; and Michel Maxwell, the author of Emmanuel Appadocca, wrote the first novel of Trinidad and perhaps of the Anglo-Caribbean. He was also our first Black Solicitor General, who dealt with the legal aspects of Tobago joining Trinidad to come together as a political unit.
Haynes says that Free Mulatto was written “as a creative nonfiction that combines historical data, political blows, social commentary, name-calling, innuendo, and colourful episodes of marginalised people who were not considered during colonisation and even after emancipation”. She says that “Jean-Baptiste’s pen was as dangerous as Toussaint’s sword.”
In 1882, JJ Thomas described Free Mulatto as “a work of high literary ability. It was singularly well suited for its purpose and lofty withal, not only in general tone but also, as regards mere style, in many of its remarkable passages”. I have argued that Free Mulatto drew on Enlightenment ideals and the French essayists and pamphleteers of the 18th century to make its case.
On August 1, 1827, St Luce presented his doctoral thesis, “Tetanus”, at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. By 1837, life in Trinidad became tumultuous when Daaga led a mutiny in St Joseph. Anticipating the danger of the moment, Lord Gleneig, Secretary of State, informed Governor Hill that he would approve the nomination of a Black person to the Colonial Legislature. Thus, in 1838, St Luce was appointed to the Legislative Council (called the Council of Government then), making him the first Black member of Trinidad’s Legislative Council.
Michel Maxwell also receives enormous attention in this family biography. He tells us that Emmanuel Appadocca “was written at a moment when the feelings of the author are roused to a high pitch of indignant excitement by a statement of the cruel manner in which the slaveholders of America deal with their slave children”. He was reaching out to his brothers and sisters in America.
He also reflected his approach to life when, like Emmanuel Appadocca, he affirmed that the idea “imparted to him under all adversities [was] courage and valour in the fight, unscrupulousness in according judgement, boldness in working retribution, and stoicism in imprisonment.” His important legal achievement led to his inclusion in “England’s 2019 Black History Month in Middle Temple’s list of its notable Black members.”
In Part 2 of this article, I will deal with the important aspects of this marvellously written book.
