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COMMUNICATION
BY THE HON. FRED
MITCHELL MP
TO
THE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
Wednesday 9th August 2006
I have the honour
today to thank the Government of The Bahamas for another successful Fox
Hill Festival. This year
the Festival was named after our late friend and brother and a former
member of the House of Assembly George Mackey.
I wish to thank the
members of the Fox Hill Festival Committee for their hard work and
dedication for what I believe is the best Festival ever.
The Chairman of the Committee is Charles Johnson.
Other members are Eric Wilmott, Maurice Tynes, Paula Tynes,
Charlene Curry, Gwendolyn Pratt, Olive Mackey, Barry Wilmott, Leon
Taylor, Michelle Johnson, Trevor Pratt, Jan Davis, Craig and Clinton
Pearce.
I want to thank the
Government for the financial and logistical support given to this
Festival which we believe is the premier festival in the country,
focused as it is exclusively around the Emancipation of the slaves in
the then British Empire in the year 1834. I
think it is important for us not to forget why we celebrate that day.
The Festival
encompasses a week of activity that is designed to reinforce the history
of this country and its development and to focus attention on Fox Hill
and the other free African villages on this island.
It is clear to me
that more research has to be done on this subject and the results of the
research shared with the public at large with a view to deepening our
ethos and better understand who we are and where we have come from.
Mr. Speaker, during
the Festival I told the story to my constituents of Thomas Dorsett Jr.,
a Bahamian who is now the Vice Mayor of the city of Winter Park,
Florida. He said that his
research revealed that his great grandfather was interdicted on a slaver
headed to South America from Sierra Leone.
He was put off in the free African village of Fox Hill and since
he was minor he was raised by the Dorsett family, and he adopted their
name. At the age of 19, he
left Fox Hill to move to Williams Town in Little Exuma.
Now his great grandson is a Vice Mayor in a city in Florida.
I think that this is a story that is worth repeating so that
others might do the research to discover just who we are as a people.
I wish to thank the
Ministry of Tourism and the Minister of Tourism my colleague the Member
of Parliament for West End who supported the work of the Festival. In
particular, I must mention Janet Johnson of the Ministry of Tourism, who
coincidentally is a cousin of mine, who organized the public discussion
live on television on Thursday 3rd August.
That discussion seemed to awaken in many Bahamians a hunger to
know about Fox Hill and its history as a free African Village, and more
generally about the history of the people of The Bahamas.
I want to make this
intervention while the Festival is still fresh in our memories because
it is important not because of the parties and the fun and food but it
is important that the young people of this country know from whence they
have come and why we celebrate what we celebrate.
In marking the
Emancipation Day and Fox Hill day, we reaffirm each year a tradition
that stretches back 172 years. We
reaffirm who we are. We
unite in that practice with all of our ancestors, the men and women of
goodwill who fought to make us free.
It is a date that is next in historical importance to
Independence Day and Majority Rule Day. Those days could not have been possible were it not for
Emancipation Day.
It is always
therefore sad to hear that after the Festival is closed; our young
people do not depart immediately to their habitations but often descend
into violent and idle skirmishes that often lead to injury and the loss
of life. This has nothing
to do with the Festival because the Festival closes at midnight but the
proximity in time puts an unfortunate pall on the celebratory events
that are peaceful and successful.
The Fox Hill
Festival is a brand name that means clean, family fun for the people who
want to come to Fox Hill for the two days and who can expect an
authentic cultural experience that they can share with their children
and pass on by that means to the next generation.
Mr. Speaker, Fox
Hill Day, sometimes known as Party Day is a day set aside by the Baptist
Community now the churches of St. Paul’s, Macedonia, Mount Carey and
St. Mark’s. It is the
second Tuesday in August. There
is a newspaper clipping from the Nassau Guardian that shows that this
has been going on at least since the mid 1800s.
And Fox Hillians have gotten their debut on the public stage on
Fox Hill Day. It is a day for recitations and programmes, followed by a
special treat for the children. On
that day the wider community joins the people of Fox Hill.
My father remembered and Cleveland Eneas wrote about the journey
that was made from Bain Town to Fox Hill.
My first experience
with it was as a child when my mother took all of he children with her
to visit first the churches in Fox Hill, going from church to church for
the various recitations and programmes and then there used to be a kind
of open house where the Fox Hill residents provided food and drinks and
I remember a free and happy time as child.
It was like Christmas in the summer time.
I have added to
this tradition by hosting the Lunch Bunch a group of men who meet for
lunch from place to place that was founded by the late Dr. Cleveland
Eneas and Dean William Granger. I
host a lunch of crab and dough at Fox Hill on Fox Hill day.
For some Fox
Hillians even today, wherever in the world they are, they take vacation
and spend the time on the park and in the village with their family and
friends.
The Prime Minister,
first as Leader of the Opposition, and now as Prime Minister has joined
us every year in that experience.
Last night, the
police estimated that 20,000 came to Fox Hill.
I wish to thank the
Royal Bahamas Police Force under the direction of Superintendent Stephen
Seymour, Chief Inspector Davis and Acting Inspector Richardson and the
whole team.
I want to thank the
Member of Parliament for Marathon for the assistance of the Department
of Environmental Health for making sure the grounds were clean and
prepared.
I must also thank
the scores of volunteers who simply pitch in to make it clean and fun.
We must thank the
young women under the direction of Charlene Curry for plaiting the
maypole and the men who climb the greasy pole to the great entertainment
of the crowd.
The Fox Hill
Basketball teams who provide a great outing for the community during
these weeks.
Then there are the
musicians like the Soulful Groovers who put together a show each year
and Visage under the direction of Obie Pindling.
The musicians like KB and Ancient Man, Elon Moxey all of whom
make the event the authentic cultural experience it is, again
reinforcing who we are as a people.
This morning I had
a call from the Chairman of the Cultural Commission Winston Saunders who
said that he was giving voice to his concern that perhaps there is too
much going on which dilutes from the central historical focus of
emancipation, that we are in some ways making it too commercial the
weekend and losing sight of its primary focus. He
says that over the coming days he will be voicing these observations
with a view to sparking the public debate.
I would like to be part of that debate.
Mr. Speaker, I must
also thank the Governor General H.E. Arthur Hanna who visited this time
for the first time as Governor General.
I pointed out in my remarks that I am the third member of my
family to represent the Fox Hill village.
Sammy Isaacs, a cousin, was the first in 1956 and in 1960 the
Governor General succeeded him. He is another cousin who spent his high
school years in my grandmother’s home in Armstrong Street.
My grandmother’s maiden name was Hanna. Now I have the
privilege. It is an enormous privilege to be a Member of Parliament
along with the Member for Delaporte who represents the free village of
Gambier and the Member for Adelaide who represents the free village of
Adelaide. We must all
pledge to work together to reinforce this message of freedom that
resonates in our history.
We need to reduce
some of this history to simple tracts so that people can take it way
with them and keep it: how Fox Hill got started in 1790 with a grant to
Samuel Fox in the vicinity of what is now St. Anne’s; the role of
Judge Robert Sandilands the ruins of whose farm house still stand in Fox
Hill today; the history of the Sandilands Primary School that is over
100 years old, the history of Emancipation.
Mr. Speaker, next
year we will get that opportunity when we mark the 200th
anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade.
This is when the British decided in law to put a stop the trade
as opposed to slavery itself.
And so we find
ourselves today, the successors to the Africans brought here as slaves,
today a free people in a free nation.
My role as the
Member of Parliament for Fox Hill is to preserve, protect, support and
defend the image of Fox Hill as a free African village. I shall do that
with every fibre of my being, the Lord being my helper.
Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
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