“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
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
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
Defenders of the faith | On this day By James Ferguson | Issue 148 (November/December 2017) Exactly a century ago, anti-African prejudice prompted Trinidad and Tobago’s colonial legislature to ban the indigenous Spiritual Baptist religion. But, as James Ferguson explains, the draconian law never dissuaded the Baptist faithful
The Lüders affair | On this day By James Ferguson | Issue 147 (September/October 2017) One hundred and twenty years ago, a minor dispute in Port-au-Prince escalated into an international incident, with the German navy threatening to bombard the city. James Ferguson remembers this episode in the long history of foreign powers meddling in Haiti’s affairs
Twisting Rhodes | On this day By James Ferguson | Issue 146 (July/August 2017) It’s an irony of history that the legacy of arch-imperialist Cecil Rhodes includes the education of many Caribbean intellectuals — like Jamaican Rex Nettleford, who arrived in Oxford sixty years ago, writes James Ferguson
John James Audubon: The Birdman | On this Day By James Ferguson | Issue 145 (May/June 2017) It’s considered a landmark of ornithology, and it was published one hundred and ninety years ago: John James Audubon’s massive Birds of America. Born in Haiti, Audubon had a restless life spread across continents, but along the way he transformed himself into a leading expert on the birdlife of North America. As James Ferguson explains, his legacy in science and conservation still endures
Harry Belafonte: calypso with a conscience By James Ferguson | Issue 144 (March/April 2017) A beloved musical icon since the 1950s, Harry Belafonte has an equally long reputation as a political activist. And the parallel themes of his public life, entertainment and activism, both have their roots in Belafonte’s childhood in Jamaica. James Ferguson finds out more
The remains of the Danes By James Ferguson | Issue 143 (January/February 2017) Exactly a century ago, the Kingdom of Denmark sold its Caribbean possessions for $25 million to the United States. Commemorated in the US Virgin Islands, the anniversary is little remembered elsewhere — but, as James Ferguson writes, the story behind the event reminds us about the ambitions that drove European colonisation of our region
Who’s your granny? By James Ferguson | Issue 142 (November/December 2016) Sixty years ago, a squadron of battle-hardened guerrillas landed on Cuba’s south-east coast, launching the revolution that would soon grip the world’s imagination. And the heroically leaky boat that got them there? It was named for someone’s grandmother. James Ferguson remembers the story of Granma
The Bianca C: into the deep By James Ferguson | Issue 141 (September/October 2016) One Sunday fifty-five years ago, residents of St George’s, Grenada, woke up to a disaster unfolding in their harbour. More than six hundred people on board the liner Bianca C were in grave danger — so dozens of Grenadians leaped into action. James Ferguson remembers the story
Historic gold: the earliest Caribbean Olympic heroes By James Ferguson | Issue 140 (July/August 2016) At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Caribbean sports fans will have dozens of home-grown champs to cheer on. But the region’s history of Olympic success stretches back more than a century. James Ferguson looks back to the earliest Caribbean Olympic heroes, and how today’s athletes have kept their victorious legacy alive
Wilson Harris — into the interior By James Ferguson | Issue 139 (May/June 2016) The Guyanese writer Wilson Harris, celebrating his ninety-fifth birthday in 2016, has lived far from his home country for many years — but Guyana’s landscape and history continue to haunt his magical imagination. James Ferguson explains how Harris’s novels bring together reality and dream
Voyager among gods By James Ferguson | Issue 138 (March/April 2016) Eighty years ago, an African-American anthropologist stepped off a boat in Kingston, at the start of a journey to investigate Caribbean religion and spirituality. Zora Neale Hurston is better remembered for her fiction, writes James Ferguson, but her book Tell My Horse remains a fascinating record of Jamaica and Haiti in the 1930s
When London was the place By James Ferguson | Issue 137 (January/February 2016) Sixty years ago, in the aftermath of the Second World War, London Transport faced a labour shortage. The solution? Recruit employees in the Caribbean to run the city’s buses and trains. James Ferguson explains how these migrants survived difficult times, and changed the old imperial capital for ever
The artist of Carriacou By James Ferguson | Issue 136 (November/December 2015) When Canute Caliste died ten years ago, he was Carriacou’s most celebrated artist. His “naive” paintings record everyday life in his island, says James Ferguson, with a touch of the magical
On holy ground: Noel Dyer By James Ferguson | Issue 135 (September/October 2015) When Jamaican Noel Dyer arrived in Ethiopia fifty years ago, he discovered the promised land for Rastafarians was a work in progress. James Ferguson tells the story
