The Not So Epic Story of Lady Musgrave Road
In Jamaica, there is the famous Devon House. A historical landmark, it is popular for its patties, the Devon House ice-cream and when the weather is suitable, it also serves as a public park for families. However, there’s a popular story that involves Devon House that most Jamaicans grow up hearing. The story goes that Lady Musgrave, the then governor of Jamaica’s wife, was so angry at seeing Devon House, this grand mansion owned by a black man, that she authorise the building of another road, to avoid driving passed it. And it’s for this reason why the road is known today as Lady Musgrave’s Road. However, as much as the story is popular and accepted by Jamaicans, it’s not true. Then there is the tale of Annie Palmer, the White Witch of Rose Hall - a woman who never existed but whose legend went mainstream when a racist novel was published in the late 1920's.
Additional Knowledge
BOOKS
Brand Jamaica: Reimagining a National Image and Identity edited by Hume Johnson and Kamille Gentles-Peart
Devon House Families by Enid Shields
Jamaica in Independence: Essays on the Early Years by Rex Nettleford
Jamaica Place Names by B. W. Higman and B. J. Hudson
Nationalism and the Formation of Caribbean Literature by Lean Rosenburg
The Things That Fly in the Night: Female Vampires in Literature of the Circum-Caribbean and African Diaspora by Giselle Liza Anatol
FICTIONAL BOOKS
Morgan’s Daughter by H. G. de Lisser
Revenge by H. G. de Lisser
The Cup and the Lip by H. G. de Lisser
The White Witch of Rose Hall by H. G. de Lisser
ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS
"An Act of Unruly Savagery: Re-Writing Black Rebellion in the Language of the Colonizer H.G. de Lisser’s The White Witch of Rose Hall” by Kwame S.N.Dawes
Herbert’s Career: H. G. de Lisser and the Business of National Literature by Leah Reade Rosenberg
Off White: The Horror of Abject Whiteness in H. G. de Lisser’s White Witch of Rosehall by Suzanne Lynch
The White Witch of Rosehall and the Legitimacy of Female Power in the Caribbean Plantation by Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert
The Ghost of Annie Palmer: Giving Voice to Jamaica’s White Witch of Rose Hall by Jennifer Donahue
ARTICLES
Jamaica Gleaner: Vendors Want Purge of Colonial-Era Street Names In Kingston
DATABASE