BGuthrie Photos: Cayman Islands -- Pedro St. James

Cayman Islands -- Pedro St. James:

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Description of Pictures: Kevin's pictures with my underwater camera.

Same Event: Wait! There's more! Because I took too many pictures, photos from this event were divided among the following pages: [Display ALL photos on one page]:

2012_CYM_Botanical: Cayman Islands -- Botanical Gardens (61 photos from 2012)
2012_CYM_George_Town: Cayman Islands -- George Town (39 photos from 2012)
2012_CYM_Cayman: Cayman Islands -- Miscellaneous (24 photos from 2012)
2012_CYM_Pedro: Cayman Islands -- Pedro St. James (79 photos from 2012)
2012_CYM_Reef_Wreck: Cayman Islands -- Reef and Wreck Snorkel (28 photos from 2012)
2012_CYM_Stingray_Ride: Cayman Islands -- Sailing out to Stringray City (21 photos from 2012)
2012_CYM_Stingray: Cayman Islands -- Stingray City (57 photos from 2012)
2012_INT_ReunionInt: Family -- Family Photos During Mom's Caribbean Cruise Family Reunion (47 photos from 2012)
2012_FL_Canaveral: FL -- Port Canaveral (views from the ship) (20 photos from 2012)
2012_HTI_Labadee: Haiti -- Labadee (127 photos from 2012)
2012_HTI_Labadee_Zip: Haiti -- Labadee Zip Line (18 photos from 2012)
2012_Jam_Dunns: Jamaica -- Dunns River Falls (32 photos from 2012)
2012_Jam_Jamaica: Jamaica -- Excursion driving along northern Queen's Highway route (23 photos from 2012)
2012_Jam_Falmouth: Jamaica -- Falmouth (67 photos from 2012)
2012_Jam_Grotto: Jamaica -- Green Grotto Caves (74 photos from 2012)
2012_MEX_Alux: Mexico -- Alux Unique Natural Cavern Restaurant (39 photos from 2012)
2012_MEX_Coba: Mexico -- Coba Ruins (113 photos from 2012)
2012_MEX_Cozumel: Mexico -- Cozumel (12 photos from 2012)
2012_MEX_Mexico: Mexico -- Miscellaneous photos to/from Coba ruins (14 photos from 2012)
2012_MEX_Puerto_De_Playa: Mexico -- Puerto De Playa Del Carmen (14 photos from 2012)
2012_INT_Backstage: Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship "Freedom of the Seas" -- Arcadia: Backstage Tour (61 photos from 2012)
2012_INT_Rehearsal: Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship "Freedom of the Seas" -- Arcadia: Rehearsal for Artur & Letitia (10 photos from 2012)
2012_INT_Cruise_Art: Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship "Freedom of the Seas" -- Artwork (144 photos from 2012)
2012_INT_Deck_Shows: Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship "Freedom of the Seas" -- Deck Shows (46 photos from 2012)
2012_INT_Freedom_Ice: Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship "Freedom of the Seas" -- Ice Show: Freedom-Ice.com (106 photos from 2012)
2012_INT_Cruise_People: Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship "Freedom of the Seas" -- People (58 photos from 2012)
2012_INT_Parade: Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship "Freedom of the Seas" -- Promenade Show: Parade (44 photos from 2012)
2012_INT_Rock_Britannia: Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship "Freedom of the Seas" -- Promenade Show: Rock Britannia (100 photos from 2012)
2012_INT_Cruise_Art_Demo: Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship "Freedom of the Seas" -- Promenade: Napkin, Towel, and Fruit sculptors (75 photos from 2012)
2012_INT_Cruise: Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship "Freedom of the Seas" -- Ship (193 photos from 2012)
2012_INT_Farewell: Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship "Freedom of the Seas" -- Stage Show: Farewell Extravaganza (139 photos from 2012)
2012_INT_Adult: Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship "Freedom of the Seas" -- Stage Show: Late Night Adult Comedy w/Graham Seymour (38 photos from 2012)
2012_INT_Marquee: Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship "Freedom of the Seas" -- Stage Show: Marquee (53 photos from 2012)
2012_INT_Drew_Thomas: Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship "Freedom of the Seas" -- Stage Show: Now You See It w/Drew Thomas (78 photos from 2012)
2012_INT_Once_Upon: Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship "Freedom of the Seas" -- Stage Show: Once Upon a Time (87 photos from 2012)
2012_INT_Boland: Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship "Freedom of the Seas" -- Stage Show: Paul Boland, The Man of a Thousand Voices (97 photos from 2012)

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. PEDRO_120628_090.JPG: Slave life at Pedro: At the time of emancipation, some 23 people were registered as slaves "in the possession" of William Eden II. Some of the slaves probably lived at Pedro St. James. Others had their homes and provision gardens nearby. At the house, two "head domestics" directed six "inferior domestics." Four women and two men were held labourers. There was one fisherman, sixty-three-year-old Peter Brooks, and a number of young children. Eden's slaves were his precious property. He was described as "a very strict man... loyal to [his] slaves in many ways." At Pedro St. James, domestic work would usually have been performed by slave women and children, as depicted in these contemporary scenes from Jamaica. This cartoon depicts a Jamaican planter being waited upon by slave [sic]. After emancipation (1835), William Eden II missed the services of his slaves, who "would not bring him a pail of water unless he paid a fivepences."
2. PEDRO_120628_093.JPG: Slave life in the Cayman Islands: The slaves' work day began at sunrise and ended at sunset. As in all slave societies, manual labour was the domain of the slaves. Days were hard and long and physical coercion was used to maintain order. Generally, domestic work was considered to be lighter and less demeaning that that of a field laborer. In Cayman, the small scale of agricultural activities demanded that most slaves and owners worked and lived in close association. Often close relationships developed between the slaves and the family while, on other occasions, the proximity led to constant correction and cruelty. Field laborers tended livestock and raised yams, plantain, sugar cane, and cassava for domestic consumption. They also cultivated cotton, sarsaparilla, and coconuts for export. Some slaves were employed in specialized trades, such as midwifery, coopering, carpentry. A few slaves worked in the island's turtle industry. They received whatever portion of the proceeds that Master chose to give them -- usually a quarter or a third of what a hired freeman received. A West Indian plantation overseer with a whip, which was used in all slave colonies to extract labour. The slaves usually "couldn't dance in their master's yard," so when they got "their little freedom" (time off) they danced in their own yards.
3. PEDRO_120628_096.JPG: Slavery in Grand Cayman: Grand Cayman had a slave economy for at least a century. The earliest records of slaves being brought to Grand Cayman date from the 1730s. Shipping records show that most slaves came as a result of the "occasional intercourse between this island and Jamaica." By 1802 some 388 free people and 545 slaves lived here. In 1834, just before emancipation, 985 out of a total of 2,000 people were registered as slaves on the Cayman Islands. This greatly contrasted with Jamaica, where the ratio of slaves to free people was at times greater than 10 to 1. The slave return fro 1834 tells us that most owners on the Grand Cayman had fewer than ten slaves. On more prosperous islands, such as Jamaica, a single plantation could have hundreds of slaves. A rare photograph, taken in Bodden Town at Christmas 1910 of men and women who had been slaves.
4. PEDRO_120628_105.JPG: Early Government: "The inhabitants may truly be said to live in a state of nature. Whatever differences arise among them are generally submitted to the arbitration of neighbours, but if the Parties do not choose to stand by the Award... they finally determine the matter by coming to blows, and the victor gains the cause." -- George Gould, 1773 In theory, the Cayman Islands were subject to the laws of Jamaica. In reality, Caymanian magistrates, who were appointed by the Governor of Jamaica from 1798 onwards, were not schooled in that law. To maintain order, they established local laws ratified by the "united voice" of the "leading inhabitants." This arrangement could work while the population was small, but with the doubling of the population between 1802 and 1831, to about 2,000, civil order was in jeopardy and it became clear the ordinary people needed a voice. And so it was agreed that local representatives would be elected in a new assembly, to work with the appointed magistrates. Six weeks before the momentous decision to form an elected assembly, the appointed magistrates of Grand Cayman signed this letter -- outlining many if [sic] their frustrations -- and delivered it to the Governor of Jamaica.
5. PEDRO_120628_106.JPG: Slavery is Dead: The Parliament of Britain voted to abolish slavery in the colonies in 1833. Two years later, all slaves in the Cayman Islands were free. A group of about 25 slave-owning Caymanians were the first to hear the proclamation of emancipation from Lord Sligo, Governor of Jamaica, who, fearing trouble, visited the island. The slave owners, Sligo reported, were "thunderstruck" at the suddenness of it all. One former owner despaired that he had been a "wealthy man possessing all that I desired, and I am at this moment a beggar." At Bodden Town, the former slaves rejoiced with "wild.. demonstrations of joy, shooting, fiddling, dancing," but elsewhere, people seemed calm, more, or even indifferent. The Proclamation of Emancipation was declared at various places in the Cayman Islands, including Pedro St. James, where it was read on 6 May 1835. This is a modern impression of Captain Anthony Pack, of the 84th Regiment of Foot, reading the Proclamation of Emancipation on Grand Cayman. Emancipation was celebrated by slaves throughout the British West Indies.
6. PEDRO_120628_109.JPG: Caymanian Government after 1831 The system of government established at Pedro St. James in 1831 remained relatively unchanged for more than a century. At the edge of the British empire, the Cayman Islands received little attention from colonial officials in Jamaica or London. The initiative taken by Caymanians in 1831 to establish a legitimate local government did not receive the sanction of Parliament until 1863, when Britain confirmed the status of the Cayman Islands as a dependency of Jamaica, with limited self-governance. This arrangement lasted until 1959, when the Islands received their first written constitution and woman [sic] finally obtained the right to vote. Three years later, the Cayman Islands became a British colony district [sic] from Jamaica, and in 1972 a new constitution increased the responsibilities of the elected members of government. Demand Parsons, the Custos (Chief Magistrate), was appointed by the Governor of Jamaica in 1888 to be the first full-time chief executive of the Government of the Cayman Islands. Commissioner George Hirst (left), who wrote Notes on the History of the Cayman Islands, poses with the Justices and Vestrymen in 1911. The Commissioner and the Justices were appointed by the Governor of Jamaica, whereas the Vestrymen were elected. The courthouse (now the National Museum), George Town, in 1911. The legislative meetings were held here for many years. The Legislative Assembly building which opened in 1972. The Justices and the Vestry were renamed the Executive Council and Legislative Assembly in 1959. Both bodies now have elected and appointed members.
7. PEDRO_120628_118.JPG: The Architecture of Pedro Castle: Looking beyond Cayman: Pedro Castle was unique on the Cayman Islands, but followed prevalent trends in Caribbean architecture. As the Cayman Islands' largest historic house, and the first to be built of stone, Pedro Castle has some features of Caribbean great houses but the scale only of a mid-size residence. The external double-staircase and the generous open and louvered verandas, which let in cool breezes, are customary. Pedro Castle is less typical for its ground-level corner rooms, but even they are found in Jamaica and, earlier, in Scottish castles. Eden I's brother-in-law, William Bodden Jr., a stone mason with extensive experience in Jamaica, may have been in charge of building Pedro Castle. Labour was provided by slaves. Built around 1700, during a period of prolonged unrest in Jamaica, Stokes Hall has four defensible corner towers. The lower level has narrow openings, or embrasures, as at Pedro Castle. This drawing was created around 1900.
8. PEDRO_120628_120.JPG: The Governor's House in Kingston, Jamaica, has a stone first floor and two story [sic] of louvered verandas. Clarence House, English Harbour, Antigua, has an external double staircase, a raised principle floor with broad veranda, and square stone rooms at the corners, similar to Pedro Castle. The stone external staircases at Stony Hill, St. Andrew, Jamaica, is similar to that found at Pedro Castle. The old Salvation Army Hostel in Kingson, Jamaica, has verandas on both the raised main floor and the upper floor, as at Pedro Castile. Jamaican and Caymanian woodcarvers produced attractive and intricate detail on verandas.
9. PEDRO_120628_127.JPG: Interpreting the Clues: A history of fires, scavenging, and alterations obscured such evidence of Pedro Castle's original form. The Castle's likely appearance in the 1830s, the period to which it has been restored, has to be put together by careful examination of the surviving structure and by extensive research. The pieces of the puzzle included early photographs of the castle as a ruin, archeological investigations, published descriptions, the memories of Caymanians, and comparable building[s] in Jamaica and other Caribbean countries. Pedro Castle as it looked in 1994, before restoration began.
10. PEDRO_120628_129.JPG: This postcard, mailed in 1911, shows that Pedro Castle, which had fallen into ruins, was already considered a tourist attraction. The image reveals the stone gables and other original features. Pockets in the stonework revealed the exact position of roof and floor beams, and surviving plasterwork showed the placement of internal walls and their early treatment. A section of wall in the room you are standing in has been left as it was found. This image of Greenwood House, Jamaica, illustrates the Caribbean tradition of placing living spaces on the verandas, which were open in some parts and louvred in others.
11. PEDRO_120628_137.JPG: The Edens of Pedro St. James: The Edens were the owners and occupants of Pedro St. James for nearly two centuries. Five generations of Edens have lived here, beginning with William Eden I, who built Pedro Castle around 1780. The first two generations were planters and slaveholders, who were counted among the "principal inhabitants" of the island. When William Eden II died around 1850, he left the property to his adopted son, John Samuel and Joseph Eden. The brothers raised large families here. They abandoned the "Big House" after a violent storm in 1877, during which a child was killed by lightening and they built smaller houses near it. Matilda Eden continued to live here, as a tenant, after the property left the family's ownership in 1954. Born in 1737 in Devizes, Wiltshire, England, William Eden I emigrated to the West Indies as a young man. In 1765, he settled on Grand Cayman. His first wife was Dorothy Bodden, the daughter of the "governor" of the Cayman Islands. Sometime after building the Castle, Eden left Cayman for Pearl Lagoon, Nicaragua, where he died and is buried. By 1773, when surveyor George Gauld drew this map, William Eden I was well established at Spotts, 3 miles west of here. Artist's impression of William Eden II relaxing. After emancipation in 1835, he lived quietly and was known to have been particularly fond of reading on the veranda. Caroline Hurlston, the grand-daughter of both Joseph and Samuel Eden, was born in Pedro Castle in 1910. At that time her family lived in a house on the property, but had fitted up a room in the Castle. "Miss Carrie" generously devoted considerable time relating her memories of Pedro St. James.
12. PEDRO_120628_142.JPG: James Coe: "The most considerable person at the Grand Caymanas": James Coe bought Pedro St. James from his brother-in-law, William Eden II, in 1800. Self-described as a "mariner," English-born James Goodchild Coe was one of the "principle inhabitants" of Grand Cayman. He served at different times as magistrate, public recorder, militia captain, and "chief officer" (also known as "custos"). In 1824 he was described by the Governor of Jamaica as "the most considerable person at the Grand Caymanas." Coe owned Pedro Castle for approximately 20 years, before he sold it back to the Eden family. He probably carried out some of his public duties here.
13. PEDRO_120628_173.JPG: Constitutional Modernization Initiative: This Mahogany tree represents growth, strength and prosperity for the Cayman Islands. It is planted here at Pedro St. James Castle, the birthplace of democracy, by the people of the Cayman Islands, as a symbol to mark the beginning of the Public Consultation phase of the Constitutional Modernization Initiative on January 12, 2008 Shaping Our Future Together
14. PEDRO_120628_197.JPG: Dedicated by the people of The Caymans Islands on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of H.M. Queen Elizabeth II, 26th Day of May 2012.
15. PEDRO_120628_207.JPG: Making Do: With a dormant economy and small agricultural potential, Caymanians had to acquire a variety of skills and techniques to meet their needs. Many families would regularly set fishpots to get fresh fish, but salted and dried fish were stored to be used when the weather was bad. Foods cooked in coconut milk (from dry coconuts) were served often along with "bread kind" (cassava; yams; pumpkin; plantains; etc.) Many acquired specialist skills teaching themselves to fix gas engines; to repair a ship's gear; to do carpentry; and to build houses including the plumbing and electrical work. In very hot weather, sea-grape leaves were used as fans in church or at meetings, and before window screens the mosquitoes were kept away by fires in "smoke pots."
16. PEDRO_120628_209.JPG: Until the 1940s, the only continuous source of revenue was the exported thatch rope made from strips of dried silver thatch palm leaves tightly wound on a home-made device. The light but strong rope was one of the country's few exports. Most of the laborious thatch work (rope; baskets; hats) was done by women who also made soap for washing clothes and produced starch from grinding the root of the cassava plant. Farmers going to their plantations strapped thick leather strips to their feet, held on by thatch string, to traverse rocky areas. In later years, these "wompers" were made of strips from car tyres. Cayman Bracker Burnard Tibbetts recalls: "Up until the 1960s, imported chicken feed came in colourful 100-lb cloth bags. After thorough washing, the cloth was used to make dresses and shirts. Underwear and bedding was made from the white bags used to import flour and cornmeal."
17. PEDRO_120628_211.JPG: Diversions: In undeveloped Cayman, social gatherings were often family affairs, sometimes featuring "kitchen dances" in the separated kitchens of the time. Musicians would also go house-to-house at Christmas time, playing for food and drink, in a merriment that would last for days. There were occasional public dances at the Town Hall (blacks one night; whites a different night) and dances for the elite folks at Petra (Grand Old House).
18. PEDRO_120628_213.JPG: Eventually, Commissioner Andrew Gerrard broke the colour division at the Town Hall by inviting black people to the dance for whites. The musicians in those times -- Kitchener; James Thomas; Charlie Bantick -- played fiddles, guitars, drums, grater (a fork rubbed across perforated metal) and the chac chac. Said Otto Watler: "When I came to rememberance we played marbles, of course, and we'd get the metal bands from old oil drums and make a 'swifter' which we would roll down the road and race one another -- you'd run yourself to death."
19. PEDRO_120628_216.JPG: Changes: As the economy began to improve from the late 1950s, the transformation of the face of Cayman was under way. After contentious debate, the country had chosen Crown Colony status instead of links with independent Jamaica in 1962, and the foreign investment input into tourism accommodations and land began to develop. Far more jobs were now available at home and creature comforts were becoming more available. "Prior to 1950," said Burnard Tibbetts, "clothes were generally washed with well water on washboards in tubs which were usually made by cutting a wooden barrel in half. Clothes were dried by spreading them on small trees or clean rocks. In the 1950s, people started getting washing machines powered by gasoline engines."
20. PEDRO_120628_218.JPG: Former sea captain Paul Hurlston remembers the first indoor plumbing being at Petra Plantation House (later Grand Old House). "It was installed by Ralph Joyce, and he knew as much about it as I did, which wasn't much. Ralph was basically learning as he went." In the early '60s, however, Cayman was still far from catching up to the rest of the developed Caribbean; only George Town had electricity and the country's residents still relied on cisterns for potable water. Said Brainard Watler: "Our development is very recent: I had been away working -- I came back in 1959 -- and I am here to tell you I got in the house I grew up with kerosene lamps, and I was confused; I had become accustomed to electric lights away, and I found everything here so dark; I couldn't find my way around the house at night." -- Brainard Watler "From the '40s and '50s our entire way of living has changed. Our dress code, our manners, our discipline, our habits; you talk to the children today and you ask them about a sweet sop, or a starapple, they don't have a clue what it is. What is even more distressing is they don't know their people; outside of their brothers and sisters they don't know their relations. In the '40s and '50s that was what bound us together; we knew our extended family members wherever they were and we were in touch. Family was the cement of the society, and we were one community; that's how it was." -- Brainard Watler, 2003.
21. PEDRO_120628_220.JPG: How Cayman Was
22. PEDRO_120628_222.JPG: Nothing to Do: "When I finished school in 1937, I couldn't get a job in Cayman, apart from chopping maiden plum bush. There were three posts in the Government service and they were filled. I stayed in school for a year helping the teacher because I had nothing to do. In 1945, I gave up and left the country." So said Warren Connolly, later to be the country's first Minister of Tourism, and businessman Brainard Watler remembers the same scenario: "To show you how long this continued," said Watler, "when I came out of school 20 years later it was still as Mr. Warren described it; the economy had not moved one bit. There was no work whatsoever. We went to sea, not because we wanted to but because we had to."
23. PEDRO_120628_224.JPG: Characters: Small as it was, Cayman had its share of unusual personalities. Residents recall police Inspector Roddy Watler, known for his intimidating left hook; the speeches of firebrand politician Ormond Panton that would last for hours; the German who lived here quietly but was suspected of spying on behalf of German U-boats; Captain Tom Diaz, from Rock Hole, who piloted Lord Mountabatten's yacht back to England, after the captain fell ill, and was invited to dine at Buckingham Palace as a result. Residents recount some other enduring memories: * "There was a huge cotton tree at the junction of Fort Street and Harbour Drive that was used as a lookout for when the Cimboco and other ships were coming in. It was about 50-60 feet high and this fellow Nathan Ebanks used to climb up there and call out "Sail Ho!" when he spotted a ship on the horizon. One day he fell from the top of that tree; it had huge roots and one space in the middle where there was sand; he missed the roots and fell flush in the sand; didn't break a single bone." * "Reverend George Hicks was a respected preacher and teacher, but he was the craziest driver. We had no traffic, but he was always speeding. One day he was coming through South Sound -- the car was loaded, and Ena Watler's father was on the running board. Hicks swerved from some cows in the road, grazed the barbed wire fence, and ripped Mr. Watler's jacket from top to bottom. He never took his foot off the gas." * "Commissioner Alan Cardinall did a lot for Cayman -- he got that road from Bodden Town east going -- but he could be cantankerous. People were afraid of him. During the Second World War, when blackouts were on, he would drive around and stop in at different houses to tell people to douse their lamps. He carried a walking stick, and he drank, and sometimes he would swing his stick and knock off the lamp shade from a lit lamp." * Everybody knows taxi driver Benny Ross. He is a pure Damon Runyon character, although it was unusual when he started taking his younger child everywhere with him. When somebody asked him about it, he explained that the child had swallowed his mother's wedding ring, and Benny did not wish to run the risk of not recovering it."
24. PEDRO_120628_226.JPG: How Cayman Was
25. PEDRO_120628_228.JPG: In its isolation, the word about Cayman was still being spread going back to the Saturday Evening Post article in 1926 describing it as "a place you cannot find on most maps... where it is always afternoon." Another US magazine, National Geographic, wrote extensively in its August 1943 issue of the skill of Caymanian seamen trapping turtles in Nicaragua and described them as "hard-bodied but soft-spoken, seldom at home yet devoted to their families." In a return visit to Cayman in April 1950, the Saturday Evening Post magazine was to coin the phrase, "the islands that time forgot," that encapsulated those early times. The article described Cayman as a place where "parrot pot-pie is a favourite Sunday dish, there are three comely girls to every available young man, rum is cheap, and breadfruit is to be had for the picking." The Houston Chronicle, in 1957, recommended Grand Canyon as a "perfect out-of-the-way vacation spot," and a high-quality booklet from the Cayman government assured potential visitors that "parents do not allow their offspring to beg or annoy; the children smile in a friendly way to their elders; and every one is willing to do his best to make one's sojourn happy." Although tourism was on the rise, a 1958 leaflet from the Commissioner's office asserted that "the principal business of the Dependency is not tourism but that of exporting seamen. Caymanians are first-class sailors and are to be found on tankers and merchant vessels all over the world."
26. PEDRO_120628_233.JPG: The Door Opens: Noticeable development for Cayman began to happen in the mid-1950s with the building of the airport -- partial assistance came from Jamaica and the UK -- and with the development of the main east-west road, in 1957, also with Jamaican PWD help. Pivotal, also, was the Mosquito Control and Research Unit (MRCU) under Dr. Marcus Giglioi. "Without Giglioli's work to combat the mosquitoes we would have not been able to get tourism going here," said Sir Vassel Johnson former Financial Secretary. George Town resident Dick Arch: "Up until 1964, George Town had three telephone lines, but there was only one line for East End, West Bay and North Side. It was a party line; you would answer depending on the number of rings. I did the first commercial phone call from George Town to Bodden Town from the Assembly here to Anton Bodden in Bodden Town -- we weer both representatives in the Legislative Assembly -- and it was the official opening of the Assembly. Warren (Conolly) made one to East End. That was in 1964." By the 1960s, things had started to change as wealthy Americans began buying homes here and as the tourism industry stirred with Englishman Benson Greenal putting up the Galleon Beach Hotel on Seven Mile Beach. Some Caymanians were then staying home sustained by work in the construction industry and by savings from merchant marine work. Said Carey Hurlston: "Many of us thought Greenal was crazy building a hotel up there in that bush -- no road -- but he had this vision."
27. PEDRO_120628_235.JPG: Veteran seaman Paul Hurlston who worked at sea for 40 years recalls the lean times: "There was nothing here, nothing. A job at sea was like gold. You didn't even both to ask where the ship w3as going: if they offered you a berth you got on as fast as your legs could carry you." Earlier on, with few imported goods and no way to earn money, Caymanians had lived almost totally by the barter system which didn't end when the cash economy arose. In those early days, the export of thatch rope, made from woven thatch palm leaves, was a mainstay of the economy, and as later as the 1950s it was still being bartered to local merchants for goods that could not [be] produced here.
28. PEDRO_120628_238.JPG: How Cayman Was: 1940's - 1960's Produced and written by Dave Martins [who apparently doesn't know that you don't apostrophes in dates like "1940's" unless they're possessive]
29. PEDRO_120628_239.JPG: "... my father would send us to fetch the cows from the back pasture a long walk to a far off place it seemed for boys so young. Lost again for a moment in that simple place, I fling apples from a stick and look for snakes in the gullies. There is a music to the past, the sweet tones of perfect octaves even though we know it was never so." -- Robert Kinsley (American poet)
30. PEDRO_120628_241.JPG: A Different Pattern: A development graph of most of the countries in the Caribbean region would generally show a fairly steady upward slope from the 1700s, with a slight dip due to labour shortages following Emancipation, and a generally steady upward slope since for many countries. However, one of the exceptions to this model was the Cayman Islands with a history of development moving at a snail's pace (little arable land; no plantation economy; no natural resources) until the late 1950s when the economic surge began, driven by the emerging tourism and financial sectors, leading to the country's present affluence. That period from the 1940s, when Caymanians went overseas to find jobs as seamen, to the 1950s and 1960s when tourism began developing, was the era of most change in the country's history. In those years, the airport was opened, roads were built, mosquito control efforts began, the decision to remain a Crown Colony was taken, a land distribution system came in, and the foundations of our tourism and financial industries were laid. Today, in modern affluent Cayman, reflecting on that era, many people who lived through that time of accelerated change recall the strong sense of community that pervaded this very small society. "We were like a family then," said a George Town resident. "That's how it was."
31. PEDRO_120628_245.JPG: From the Ocean: "There is no industry in the Cayman Islands except banking the money which the Caymanian seamen send back from all round the world. It is time the encyclopaedias and guide books get these things right." -- Ian Flemming: Sunday Times, April 1957 To talk to Caymanians from the era of the merchant marine is to discern that the reputation of the Caymanian men as good seamen was based on their nautical skills but also from their character with a resolve that had been moulded from their spartan existence and on the lack of opportunity at home. They showed, time and again, a willingness to take instruction well, to put up with long hours, or even double duty, and to persist in conditions where other seamen would complain or drop out. In the words of Captain Paul Hulrston, "They didn't make trouble for the people who employed them." Said one ex-seaman, "We came out of this hard tough existence that made you realise the need for discipline and to hang in there, so when the Caymanian men went to sea they had the perfect background to be good seamen -- patient, determined, deal with hardship, and most of all for a ship's crew, be dependable. They knew there were no sweet jobs waiting for them at home, so [they were willing to] keep this one." A US ...
32. PEDRO_120628_248.JPG: Church on the Rock (cont): There was also a view that the much vaulted Caymanian hospitality to visitors was fuelled in part by the surrounding Christian ethic. North Side residents, for example, would have house parties in the district and all visitors staying at Cayman Kai would be invited. "I suspect those visitors went home talking about that," said Sharon Lee McCoy.
33. PEDRO_120628_251.JPG: The Three R's: Although economically in the doldrums, Cayman enjoyed relatively good literacy levels in the '40s and '50s due, in large measure, to the vigorous contributions to teaching from the church. In addition, the pupil-teacher system, in which senior pupils were conscripted to teach, was used to good effect here. Pupils from the higher years, identified as potential pupil-teachers, would sit annual examinations leading to scholarships in teacher training college in Jamaica. Early secondary education in Cayman owes to the initiative of the Triple C School, established in 1941 by the Church of God, and to the Cayman High School, originally operated by the Presbyterian Church with the Reverend George Hicks as principal. It was renamed the John Gray High School after its later principal, the Reverend John Gray. The discipline of the early years extended to school children with many of them having to tackle chores before going to school. "I remember having to chop wood and fetch water before school every morning," said Ormond Panton, "and lots of us went to school barefoot -- shoes were for Sunday."
34. PEDRO_120628_253.JPG: Mosquitoes too, were a menace with children having to walk to school, even at midday, carrying smoke pots to restrain the hordes in the rainy season. The mosquito menace, later to be brought under control by a Government programme, was simply "part of life," said Savannah resident Otta Wayler. "Of course, you could never get used to them; on cloudy days, in particular, going to school was hell," said Watler.
35. PEDRO_120628_259.JPG: "After spinning gigs made from guava wood; you'd spin yours and try to break the other fellow's gig. We also spent a lot of time fishing." The church also produced various social activities. Said a George Towner: "Each church had two or three concerts a year, and every Friday night you had Christian Endeavour -- young boys and young girls -- if you had your eye on a girl that's where you'd go. Almost every full moon, we would have picnics on Sports Beach. At Easter we'd have all-day picnics, that same beach, string hammocks under the grape trees; we'd go out and fish and catch conch."
36. PEDRO_120628_261.JPG: Church on the Rock: Church developed here because there were very few alternatives. It was battle mosquitoes, or stay in the house, or go to church; there was nowhere else to go," said a George Town resident. Also the influence began at an early age because the church was the only provider of education in the early times. The Presbyterian Church played that role for many years with Mr. John Gray as the principal. "We all went to that school," said Warren Conolly. Eventually the Government began paying the school principal before taking over the school in full in the 60's. Said Brainward Watler: "The church took root here because the missionaries who came in those times didn't come looking for something; they came to give of their all and that's what they did. John Gray, for example, took the trouble to go to Mosquito Cay in order to understand what was going on so that when he was preaching to their families here he was part of them and could relate to them."
37. PEDRO_120628_264.JPG: Caymanian Resolve: One of the noticeable aspects of the Caymanian personality in the early years was a discipline and quiet resolve, probably fostered by the hard times, to tough it out. "It was drilled into you at home," said Brainard Watler. "You were taught that you were going to be responsible for your actions. You were told that when you came home from school you'd better go look [for] some firewood to make some smoke, you'd better dip up water from the well. You weren't asked; you were told. You were told that every tub sat on its own bottom. They were determined people; they had a hard life and they learned from that hard life." This determination was in play in a 1969 incident when, with a highly contentious land distribution before the Legislature, the Governor of the day ordered the windows of the meeting room to be boarded up with planking to keep out the members of the public who opposed the bill. Warren Conolly recalls: "The planking was fastened with ten-penny nails, and I remember seeing the people -- Craddock Ebanks was one of them -- pulling that wood off with their bare hands. The Governor didn't know whom he was playing with. People in those days stood up for what they believed in; the consequences didn't matter. Those days you weren't eating fast food; it was plantain and bottler and fish. You were tough."
38. PEDRO_120628_267.JPG: "Without engineering education, blue prints, or machinery, they construct vessels that are unsurpassed for workmanship and speed," said the Saturday Evening Post writer David England. "Before they had instruments, Caymanian seamen would navigate using a stick with one notch cut for the horizon and another marking the North Star. They could almost smell their way over the ocean."
39. PEDRO_120628_270.JPG: Retrospective: Time and again, solicited or otherwise, Caymanians who lived in those times remark on the deep feeling of community that existed. The lean conditions had produced a people highly dependent on each other -- frequently for the essentials of life -- and this notion of "the people together" would later be seen as the most salient feature of life up to the '60s and early '70s. Said George Town resident Brainard Watler: "I don't believe another generation will see what we saw in those days. We were raised in a good time. We knew some of the hard, we knew some of the good, we had discipline, and we were taught good manners. To me, my childhood was a happy and secure time. I consider myself to be blessed an doubly blessed to be born in this little island at the time that I was and to live with the people. It was the people that made this place; we lived and go along so well." In 2003, Farmer Otto Walter offered an interesting perspective: "The days when you had the donkey and the horse, Cayman was twice as small as it is now because we used to spend time with one another. People those days didn't die from stress; now everybody is so busy making that dollar that they have no time for themselves, never mind their relatives or friends. Yes, we have gained a lot of conveniences, but we have lost time for one another; Caymanians have lost time."
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2012 photos: Equipment this year: My mainstays were the Fuji S100fs, Nikon D7000, and the new Fuji X-S1. I also used an underwater Fuji XP50 and a Nikon D600. The first three cameras all broke this year and had to be repaired. Trips this year: three Civil War Trust conferences (Shepherdstown, WV, Richmond, VA, and Williamsburg, VA), a week-long family reunion cruise of the Caribbean, another week-long family reunion in the Wisconsin Dells (with lots of in-transit time in Ohio and Indiana), and my 7th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including side trips to Zion, Bryce, the Grand Canyon, etc). Ego strokes: I had a picture of Miss DC, Ashley Boalch, published in the Washington Post. I had a photograph of the George Segal San Francisco Holocaust memorial used as the cover of Quebec Francais (issue 165). Not being able to read French, I'm not entirely sure what the article is about but, hey! And I guess what could be considered to be a positive thing, my site is now established enough that spammers have noticed it and I had to block 17,000 file description postings for Viagra and whatever else.. Number of photos taken this year: just below 410,000.
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