Cruising for trouble | On this day By James Ferguson | Issue 160 (November/December 2019) Some people love cruise ships, some people hate them. But, personal preferences aside, the fate of the SS Columbus — scuttled by her captain eighty years ago — suggests the dangers of tourism in a time of war. James Ferguson tells the tale
Get a kick | On this day By James Ferguson | Issue 158 (July/August 2019) Kick ’Em Jenny sounds like a comic name, but for the scientists who study this underwater volcano, first recorded eighty years ago, it’s no laughing matter. The Caribbean was shaped by its volcanoes, says James Ferguson, which created our mountainous island landscapes — but can also wreak havoc
Football holiday | On this day By James Ferguson | Issue 157 (May/June 2019) When two English football clubs toured the Caribbean fifty-five years ago, local teams in Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados were no competition. Haiti was a different story, writes James Ferguson
A flag on the island | On this day By James Ferguson | Issue 156 (March/April 2019) When a British military force landed in Anguilla fifty years ago, it was a strangely anachronistic moment in Caribbean colonial history — but one that Anguillans welcomed with open arms, suggests James Ferguson
“Papa Doc” Duvalier: When the bogeyman is real | On this day By James Ferguson | Issue 155 (January/February 2019) Sixty years ago, Haitian dictator “Papa Doc” Duvalier set up a fearsome paramilitary corps to dispatch political opposition. James Ferguson looks back at the sinister history of the Tontons Macoutes
The war after the war | On this day By James Ferguson | Issue 154 (November/December 2018) Thousands of men from the British West Indies enlisted in the armed forces during the First World War, playing a crucial but often thankless role in the Allied victory. And when the fighting was over, another struggle for respect and recognition began — feeding a new wave of self-determination in the Caribbean. James Ferguson remembers the events of a century ago that set it all in motion
A plague from above | On this day By James Ferguson | Issue 153 (September/October 2018) It’s not just a story from the Bible: thirty years ago, thanks to unprecedented weather conditions, a massive swarm of locusts crossed the Atlantic and ended up in the Caribbean. James Ferguson investigates how, and what became of them
Arthur Wint: long before Bolt | On this day By James Ferguson | Issue 152 (July/August 2018) Usain Bolt may be Jamaica’s most famous Olympic medallist — but he was far from the first. James Ferguson looks back at the life of Arthur Wint and his extraordinary achievements both on and off the track
FIFA World Cup: Caribbean footballers by proxy | Snapshot By James Ferguson | Issue 151 (May/June 2018) For sports fans around the world, the arrival of June means the start of the 2018 FIFA World Cup finals. No Caribbean team qualified this year, James Ferguson writes, but that doesn’t mean our region won’t be represented
Sin city: Jamaica’s Port Royal | On this day By James Ferguson | Issue 151 (May/June 2018) It was once known as “the Sodom of the New World” — until a catastropic earthquake sent it tumbling into the sea. On the 500th anniversary of its founding, James Ferguson recalls the history of Jamaica’s infamous Port Royal
A madman’s rant By James Ferguson | Issue 52 (November/December 2001) James Ferguson on The Lunatic by Anthony Winkler
Walter Tull — over the line | On this day By James Ferguson | Issue 150 (March/April 2018) A century ago, as the First World War drew to a close, a Barbadian-British man named Walter Tull was killed on the battlefield. He was one of many thousands dead in the “Flanders clay,” but also unique: as James Ferguson writes, Lieutenant Tull was the first officer of colour ever appointed in the British Army, in defiance of race prejudice
The Orchid House — end of an era By James Ferguson | Issue 42 (March/April 2000) James Ferguson on The Orchid House, Phyllis Shand Allfrey’s portrayal of a period that marked the decline of the colonial order, and the beginning of the new era in Caribbean history
Memories of Martinique By James Ferguson | Issue 47 (January/February 2001) James Ferguson on Lafcadio Hearn’s Caribbean travel classic
Happy Day in Haiti — the Duvaliers remembered By James Ferguson | Issue 107 (January/February 2011) Twenty-five years ago, the Duvalier dynasty came to an end. James Ferguson explains why that date remains a red-letter day in the troubled country that Baby Doc left behind
Bill Morris: a social conscience By James Ferguson | Issue 52 (November/December 2001) James Ferguson talks to the British trade union leader, Jamaican-born Bill Morris
A New World Odyssey By James Ferguson | Issue 51 (September/October 2001) James Ferguson on Omeros, by Nobel Prizewinner Derek Walcott
Slavery Revisited By James Ferguson | Issue 50 (July/August 2001) James Ferguson on Cambridge by Caryl Phillips
Saga of A Rude Boy By James Ferguson | Issue 45 (September/October 2000) Remember the movie The Harder They Come? It was turned into a book, and became a classic of the Jamaican experience, as James Ferguson explains
Shaka Hislop: gentleman at the goalpost By James Ferguson | Issue 45 (September/October 2000) James Ferguson profiles one of his favourite players in English football - West Ham and Trinidad and Tobago goalkeeper Shaka Hislop - and discovers there's much more to him than being a brilliant footballer
A slave speaks By James Ferguson | Issue 46 (November/December 2000) James Ferguson takes a look at Miguel Barnet's Biography of a Runaway Slave, the story of Cuban ex-slave Esteban Montejo
Sombrero Island — a distant light | On this day By James Ferguson | Issue 149 (January/February 2018) A small speck of land at the northern end of the Leewards, Sombrero Island is known to few — but has a surprisngly colourful history. James Ferguson tells tales of shipwrecks, guano mines, and the 150-year-old lighthouse that saved countless sailors’ lives in the dangerous Anegada Passage
