PALMIRA EXPOSED
The origin of the name "Palmira" (
pal-MEER-a
) is obscure. While it obviously refers to palm trees, when and how it was first adopted remains a mystery. A recently discovered map shows the name already in use in the early 1600s, in the Spanish form, Palmeras. Place names, such as Régate and Grandin, are mostly derived from the French heritage. The accepted adjective is "Palmirene" (
pal-MEER-een
). The variants "Palmiran" and "Palmirian" fell out of common usage in the late nineteenth century.
In pre-Columbian times, Palmira was inhabited by a succession of peoples. Between sixteen- and twelve-hundred years ago, the island was occupied via waves of migration from South America. These populations have left their legacy in coastal burial sites which have yielded pottery showing several different cultural styles. They introduced maize and cassava, and took part in an extensive cotton trading network. By the year 1000 the relatively peaceful Arawak (or Taino) people had settled, but were later conquered by the warlike Caribs. The latter successfully resisted attempts at colonization by the Spanish and French until the mid-1600s. Decimated by war and disease, the Caribs have since disappeared as a distinct ethnic group.
European settlement was slow and disorganized. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Palmira was a haven for Caribbean pirates in the tradition of such notorious buccaneer strongholds as Petit Goave and Tortuga. Many of its residents hailed from Jamaica's Port Royal, either fugitives who had decamped following the crackdown on piracy by the English authorities in 1687, or refugees from the town's destruction by earthquake five years later. The island offered a good anchorage and fresh water supplies, and was ideally situated for attacks on shipping and settlements throughout the region.
Colonial rivalries at the time proved a bonanza for the Caribbean region's "wicked lairs of thieves, cutthroats and whores." Nevertheless, by the year 1700 piracy appeared to be on the wane. As the volume of bullion shipped back to Europe from the New World declined, so did the number of treasure ships on which to prey. The maritime powers, in particular England and France, had already been reducing their dependence on privateers like Henry Morgan and William Kidd, who were regarded as at best unreliable and too often downright treacherous. Naval squadrons based permanently in the West Indies now patrolled the sea lanes, and freebooting was increasingly viewed as a plague to be eradicated, rather than a pest to be tolerated and occasionally exploited.
However, the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 which brought an end to the War of the Spanish Succession unleashed upon the region thousands of unemployed seamen and soldiers, and many of these turned to piracy for their livelihood. This was a new golden age of buccaneering, when murderous rogues such as Blackbeard and Black Bart terrorized the seas. They became so emboldened as to attack towns and plantations on the shores of North America, in the Carolinas and as far north as Virginia. As well as material plunder, the pirates took hostages for ransom.
In 1715, a French-born adventurer, Christophe Peyrefitte, led a daring expedition from his base of operations on Palmira to pillage a number of major towns including Havana, and to raid the coasts of Florida and South Carolina. The boldness of his exploits made him, for a while, the most infamous of all the Caribbean swashbucklers, and the most hunted. In particular, the French government was stirred into action following assaults on its settlements in Hispaniola and on its Spanish allies in Cuba and Florida.
In 1720, Palmira was claimed by France and invaded. With their ships defeated and destroyed in a sea battle off Frigate Island, the pirate defenders withdrew to a fortified position overlooking their encampment at Regatta Bay. The French fleet bombarded the stronghold, and a force of soldiers and turncoat pirates disembarked nearby. Lacking land-based artillery, the French commander invested the fort in a siege which dragged on for weeks. All trees in the vicinity were chopped down to give the besiegers a clearer view of the enemy's defenses, but this proved counterproductive, as it removed cover for a surprise attack. Eventually, in the finest tradition of pirate perfidy, the citadel was betrayed from within. The final battle was ferocious, but the survivors were offered amnesty. They were permitted to remain on the island and quickly resumed their old ways, employed as mercenaries by the French in much the same manner that they and the English had once utilized the services of the privateers.
The resilient Peyrefitte had come through the fighting unscathed, and accommodated quickly to the new régime. He ruled his tropical fiefdom with an iron fist, imposing order, promoting an
esprit de corps
which held together the rambunctious mob, and avoiding friction with the French authorities. One of the means he employed to keep his men in line was to provide them with wives, kidnapping women from nearby colonies and intercepted ships. Expecting a fate worse than death, these captive women were generally accorded decent treatment. Nonetheless, life on the island was arduous and unhealthy, at first. Conditions were primitive, disease rife, food in short supply, medical facilities non-existent. But as conditions gradually improved the women adapted. Their children were assimilated into the buccaneer culture. Sons followed in the footsteps of their fathers, and even some daughters, such as Peyrefitte's beautiful, dauntless descendant Élisabeth. While few modern Palmirenes can authentically trace their heritage back so far, almost every native claims one of these hardy females as an ancestor.
Christophe Peyrefitte ruled for another seven years until his assassination, in 1728, by one of his lieutenants. The renegade English naval officer Jonathan Rogers now assumed command. Distrustful of the Englishman, Paris dispatched a force to put down the anticipated rebellion; but the pragmatic Rogers proved his loyalty to his French overlords. Thereafter, under his ruthless but capable leadership, Palmira was transformed. The ramshackle village of Régate was rebuilt as a fully functioning town, with proper streets and a decent drainage system, a hospital and even a church. Roads were constructed connecting the capital with outlying settlements. The port's defenses were built up with formidable batteries of cannon placed on the hills overlooking Regatta Bay. To populate the community, soldiers and sailors were recruited from all over the Americas, mostly deserters and convicted criminals. Prostitutes were brought in from other islands and from the slums of Paris. African slavegirls were imported from neighboring West Indian colonies.
The most significant of his reforms was to overhaul the economy. Rogers understood that the days of unrestrained buccaneering were past. In Peyrefitte's time, raids on British and Dutch settlements had threatened to upset the uneasy relations among the colonial powers. Rogers substituted legitimate trade for commerce raiding, and drove out men reluctant to abandon their old ways. The former outlaws who stayed put their navigation and ship-repair skills to good use. A small but thriving boat-building industry developed, although this largely died out as the island became denuded of trees.
Jonathan Rogers died in 1739, of natural causes. Over the next several decades, the French contested British control in the Caribbean region. However, unlike many other islands during this tumultuous period, Palmira did not suffer invasion and despoliation. In 1763, as part of the political settlement following the Seven Years' War, it was one of those West Indian islands ceded to Britain. Despite half-hearted French recovery attempts during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period, Palmira would remain in the possession of the British Crown until almost the present day.
The Palmirans, having renounced their allegiance to France, remained faithful to their new colonial masters. In return, the British government pursued a policy of non-interference. The Governor of the Windward Islands supervised the island's affairs during the whole of the colonial period, but he rarely intervened. As a result, and on account also -- it must be conceded -- of the largely white population, Palmira enjoyed considerably more autonomy than its Caribbean neighbors, the islanders electing their own parliament. The population of around 2000 pursued agriculture and livestock-raising, as well as seafaring. Smuggling became an unofficial but important source of income. In the twentieth century, tourism emerged as the major source of revenue, and its main attraction is a legacy of the swashbuckling era.
That inheritance is, of course, female nudity, persisting in custom and enforced by law. The tradition remained intact at the height of the puritanical Victorian era and the more progressive Edwardian period. It survived the modernizing reforms and female emancipation of the twentieth century. Indeed, though it seems paradoxical to all but those familiar with local ways, the notorious nude law can be held responsible for the dramatic improvement in the status of women over the past few decades.
Yet its origins are obscure. According to local folklore, universal female nudity can be traced back to Christophe Peyrefitte's time. In a somewhat romantic version of events Lady Claudia Beresford, a beautiful Anglo-Irish noblewoman, was abducted
en route
to Jamaica
circa
1715. Ending up in Peyrefitte's harem, she spurned the fine silk dresses offered by her captor, vowing that she would wear no clothing at all until she was freed. She never was, and she never did.
Although the woman of legend appears to be a composite of several characters, Claudia Beresford certainly existed. (She's my great-great-etcetera-grandmother.) A high-spirited girl, she had been sent abroad by her parents to end her affair with a married man. Following her alleged abduction -- which may in fact have been staged -- she was ransomed, but disowned by her family when found to be pregnant. Sent off to a convent, she shortly thereafter fled to Kingston, Jamaica, becoming a prostitute. She eventually ended up as Peyrefitte's concubine. Yet by 1720 Claudia had vanished. She may have died prior to the French occupation, or during the invasion. Whatever her fate, it has not been explained how or why her private vow to remain unclothed, assuming its historical veracity, should have created a lasting tradition.
A more plausible explanation for the nude law is that, during the Peyrefitte-Rogers era, Palmira's female population was sharply divided between slaves and free women.
Slavery, and in particular female servitude, was a mainstay of the island's economy long before the arrival of Europeans. Throughout the region the Caribs had traded in slaves, mainly women captured from the peaceful Arawak tribes. These were put to work in the fields growing cassava, to produce bread in times when grain was scarce. However, the introduction of African slaves and the European occupation ended the Caribs' dominance. In a short time, they were driven to near-extinction.
The African slave trade on Palmira was promoted by Jonathan Rogers, who saw the profits to be made from this lucrative enterprise as a way of diverting his men from piracy; but it quickly petered out. The buccaneers had always been an egalitarian lot. When taking over a slave ship, it was common practice to liberate the human cargo, who joined the crew. Indeed, many of the pirates were themselves runaway slaves, and any man of whatever race who knew the ropes -- was proficient in sailing skills -- was held in far higher esteem than any landsman who did not. This spirit of brotherhood survived the passing of the pirate age.
