Francis Williams
Jamaican Freedman 1702-1770
Francis Williams was born around 1702 to John and Dorothy Williams, a free black couple in Jamaica. In a society that considered most people of African descent to be human implements, only a limited number of free blacks were ever in a position to accumulate any property or gain any social status. Free people of color became increasingly outnumbered throughout the eighteenth century. For example in 1703 near the year of Francis Williams' birth, an estimated 45,000 slaves lived in Jamaica. By 1778 during the decade in which he died, that number had grown to 205,261. The status of the Williams' family was therefore extraordinary because through the private bill system of the Jamaica Assembly, they had gained rights accorded almost exclusively to whites. "Those who stood highest in the social scale," according to W. J. Gardner, "were such as had been manumitted by private acts of the assembly."
Of the 128 laws enacted by private bill during
the eighteenth century by a government that was patently reluctant
to grant privileges to any black people, only four laws pertained
to rights for white men. The first of these private bills was
passed into law in 1708 and referred solely to Francis' father
John Williams. "Acting on the petition of John Williams,"
the legislature conceded to him the right to be "tried according
to the known laws, customs, and privileges of Englishmen."
Why these rights came to John Williams remains obscure. "Someone
fairly high up in Jamaica must have been taking a special interest
in the Williams' family, and that interest in view of the collateral
facts must have been based on something of note in John Williams,
Senior." Clearly, Williams had attained an importance worthy
of special attention for some reason but not, however, without
stirring up a certain amount of rancor.
According to the historian W. J. Gardner, he "soon after nearly lost the social status he thus acquired through having incurred the displeasure of a member of the house of assembly. The latter had called him a `black negro.' Williams ... simply retorted by calling his antagonist a 'white negro.' Still the retort was thought of sufficient importance to engage the attention of the learned legislators, by some of whom it was proposed to revoke the act of 1708, so far as it related to the culprit."
The result can be traced in the records of the legislature for April 5, 1716, when another act was entertained that concerned the entire Williams family, who were mentioned member by member. The intent of the private bill was a protective one that sought "to prevent negroes being evidence against Dorothy the Wife and John, Thomas and Francis, sons of John Williams, a free negro." The attorney general's "report upon an Act passed in Jamaica" was read in May 1717.
Suffice it to say, the lot of the average disenfranchised
black person vis a vis life in the West Indies could hardly bear
comparison. In William Dickson's Letters on Slavery (1789), we
find disturbing accounts of violence against black people in Barbados.
"An elderly negro woman, who worked out in Bridgetown ...
looked up to me for protection. One evening she came to me, bathed
in her blood, from a very large gash in her head ... she said
she knew (and I am pretty sure, I know) the white man who cut
her, and that a great many negroes saw the deed done. This was
no proof. Her owner, therefore, was obliged to bear the expence
[sic] and the loss of her labour." The narrative continues
with a description of "a valuable and inoffensive negro man"
who "was attacked, one evening, when going on his owner's
business, by a white man, who, with one stroke of his cutlass,
severed one of his hands from his body. His owner, who could produce
no white evidence, was obliged quietly to put up with the damage
and the poor fellow with the loss of his limb."
For Francis Williams, however, life offered much rosier prospects.
"It appears that John, Second Duke of Montagu was anxious
to know whether a negro lad, trained at a grammar school and then
at a university would be found equal in literary attainments to
a white man." And so Francis was taken to England for schooling.
Read more about such social experiemnts.
Quickly embraced by the literary set in London, Williams became quite famous, in particular for a ballad he composed called Welcome, welcome, brother debtor. It was so popular in London that some minor composers, jealous of his success, tried to claim the song as their own.
Williams longed to return to Jamaica, even though he knew he would be treated with less tolerance. He set sail for Jamaica with the hope of securing a good position in government. This appointment, although being put forward by his benefactor Montagu, was turned down by white officials.
Stimulated by the appearance of black people in English households and schools, men like David Hume began to take note of the experiments of men like Lord Montagu. The experiments on these "guinea-pigs in the age of Enlightenment," as Janheinz Jahn puts it, brought with them notoriety. Francis Williams' learned accomplishments, which certainly sprang from some sort of higher training in Latin and mathematics, but not from the completion of the B.A. degree from Cambridge, for which there ii no proof, drew Hume's fire.
By the 1730s, Williams had returned to Jamaica with the idea of taking, under the aegis of his patron, a seat in the Jamaica Assembly. But the incumbent governor Edward Trelawny objected to this. Williams therefore "set up a school in Spanish Town where he taught reading, writing, Latin and mathematics for a number of years."
Long described Williams' efforts to run the school in unflattering terms and asserted that "Whilst he acted in this profession, he selected a Negroe [sic] pupil, whom he trained up with particular care intending to make him his successor at the school; but of this youth it may be said, to use the expression of Festus to Paul, that `much learning made him mad.' The abstruse problems of mathematical institution turned his brain; and he still remains, I believe, an unfortunate example, to shew [sic] that every African head is not adapted by nature to such profound contemplations. The chief pride of this disciple consists in imitating the garb and and [sic, i.e. the] deportment of his tutor. A tye perriwig, a sword, and ruffled shirt, seem in his opinion to comprehend the very marrow and quintessence of all erudition, and philosophic dignity. Probably he imagines it a more easy way of acquiring, among the Negroes, the reputation of a great scholar, by these superficial marks, which catch their eye, than by talking of Euclid, whom they know nothing about."
In a footnote to his essay, "Of National Character" (1748), he stated that "I am apt to suspect the Negroes to be naturally inferior to the Whites. There scarcely ever was a civilized nation of that complexion, nor even any individual, eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the Whites, such as the ancient Germans, the present Tartars, have still something eminent about them, in their valour, form of government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction between these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are Negro slaves dispersed all over Europe, of whom none ever discovered the symptoms of ingenuity; though low people, without education, will start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession. In Jamaica, indeed, they talk of one Negro as a man of parts and learning; but it is likely he is admired for slender accomplishments, like a parrot who speaks a few words plainly."
Hampered as we are by lack of information about educated black people in the West Indies, we do know that there were other educated black people like Williams' protege. They might may have lost their names in terms of the historical record, but not their mental faculties. A passage from William Dickson's Letters on Slavery published in 1760 told of "a very valuable negro" called "John." "He was master of one of our fishing boats," and "my father placed unlimited confidence in him. John was a tolerable scholar. He could read very well. He gave me in my infancy a great deal of good advice, and particularly just before I was coming to England for education in the year 1761 ... he gave me a pretty good notion of the customs and manners of England, and of the things which would be taught at school."
Williams is best remembered for being a poet of merit, who specialized in Latin verse. He enjoyed composing Latin odes to every new governor of Jamaica. One of his best pieces was 'An Ode to George Haldane,' which was written at the time of Haldane taking the post of governor:
Rash councils now, with each malignant plan,
Each faction, in that evil hour began,
At your approach are in confusion fled,
Nor while you rule, shall raise their dastard head.
Alike the master and the slave shall see
Their neck reliv'd, the yoke unbound by thee.
Long also described Williams as unattractively as he had portrayed the would--be successor. "In regard to the general character of the man," wrote Long, "he was haughty, opinionated, looked down with sovereign contempt on his fellow Blacks, entertained the highest opinion of his own knowledge, treated his parents with much disdain, and behaved towards his children and his slaves with a severity bordering upon cruelty; he was fond of having great deference paid to him; he affected a singularity of dress, and particularly grave cast of countenance, to impress an ideas of his wisdom and learning; and, to second this view, he wore in common a huge wig, which made a very venerable figure. The moral part of his character may be collected from these touches, as well as the measure of his wisdom and learning, on which, as well as some other attributes to which he laid claim, he had not the modesty to be silent, whenever he met with occasion to expatiate upon them."
No doubt in the eyes of Edward Long, Williams was the living embodiment of a Eurocentric caricature. Long found "a very strong example" of William's vanity "in the following poem, which he presented to Mr. Haldane, upon his assuming the government of the island; he was fond of this species of composition of Latin, and usually addressed one to every new governor." Let us try to read, ut pictura poesis, the poem as we did the portrait:
|
TRANSLATION: To a most upright and brave man, George Haldane, warrior,
governor of the island Jamaica for whom all the gifts of character
and warlike courage have been accumulated. |
When the Reverend Robert Boucher Nicholls, Dean of Middleham, read the ode his fury at the colonists that had compared blacks to apes was so strong that he exclaimed,
"I have never heard an orang-utan has composed an ode. Among the defenders of slavery we do not find one half of the literary merit of Francis Williams."
Long's verbal descriptions can be compared to a small oil portrait of Francis Williams, 26 inches by 20 inches in size. Here we see the work in the naive style of an unknown artist of the British or American school about the year 1740. Francis Williams stands in the middle of his library in Spanish Town "surrounded by the handsomest contemporary furniture that money could procure." He is "surrounded by his books, standing on a black and white marble floor, most fashionably dressed in white wig, black velvet silk-lined coat and breeches, and white silk waistcoat and stockings."(23)
Behind him in the window is a landscape with an uncertain subject. It has been suggested that it is the Spanish Town Square or the Spanish Town Prison. It might well be the latter, if any credence can be put in the unproved statement that Williams was the author of the song, "Welcome, Welcome Brother Debtor." Near him is "a very fine mahogany chair and carved tripod table with an open book upon it (headed Newton's Philosophy), also the pair of celestial and terrestrial globes on the table and the floor; the terrestrial globe is inscribed The Western or Atlantick Ocean."(24)
The portrait was presented in 1929 by Viscount Breasted M.C. and Messrs. Spink and Son Ltd. through the National Art Collections Fund to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Without a doubt, one can see a certain similarity to the details mentioned by Long. The wig, the expensive clothing, the marks of learning, and the self-assured manner are all clearly visible. Nevertheless, a closer look at the dynamics of the painting reveals the artist's real message about his sitter. In his eyes, Francis Williams was a divided man, who lived the life of "double-consciousness," so well described by W.E.B. Du Bois in his essay "Of Our Spiritual Strivings." "It is," Du Bois tells us, "a peculiar sensation this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness."(25)
The elements of this bipolar opposition in the painting are many. Williams stands on one of the lines that separate the black and white marble tiles and literally stands between several different worlds. On the left side of the painting, we look out to the sparkling blues and greens of the sunny Jamaican landscape--the outside realm, the sensual, pleasurable world of the vita activa. These details locate Williams in terms of physical geography. The relative unimportance of this information in terms of the larger scheme of things, however, is indicated by the globe of the Atlantic Ocean, which has been placed in front of the window in the foreground of the painting.
The higher realm is depicted on the right side of the painting. Here is the inner world of learning, the life of the mind, the vita contemplativa. Hovering above the tripod table and its instruments of science and literacy--the text, the compass, and the quill pens--is the celestial globe, which represents the loftier sphere of life. Behind it is an impressive array of books arranged on tall floor-to-ceiling shelves. The volumes, touched here and there with gilt, are partly concealed by a black curtain that has been pulled back by a long chord tied in a complicated knot. Williams, whose over-size head indicates intellectuality and whose small hands and feet indicate his status as a gentleman, points with his right arm toward a space on the sixth shelf, which in turn represents both a hole in the system of bookish knowledge, and the space that is needed to accommodate new ideas. The black curtain like his black coat and black skin conceals its interior wealth. The dots of gold on the spines of the books, the gold color of the thin chord, and the wide strips of gold trimming that run down the edge of his coat tell us where Williams' true values lie--in books, of course, for this is the room of a scholar, but more so in his heart.
These details point out the extremely marginalized position Williams occupied during his life. With a foot set firmly neither in the world of the whites nor that of the blacks and unable to claim full-fledged membership in Old World England or in New World Jamaica, Williams was truly a tertium quid, a third thing. He was born black and free in a privileged family on an island mainly populated by black slaves and had obtained an education that exceeded that of the average Jamaican, regardless of color. The artist has well perceived the precarious yet elevated nature of his sitter's position, for all the objects in the painting are up on legs of some sort, and Williams maintains this position like the white stockings that hang loosely on his legs. He is both a native and an exile.
In the late 18th century, the theories of Hume on this topic were attacked in an essay "Strictures on Mr. Hume's Character of the Negroes," published in Gentleman's Magazine in May 1771. The author maintained that "Blacks, if properly educated are capable of the same improvements as Whites. About forty years ago, Mr. Williams, an African of fortune, who dressed like other gentlemen in a tye wig, sword, etc. and who was honoured with the friendship of Mr Chelselden, and other men of science was admitted to the meetings of the Royal Society and, being proposed as a member, was rejected solely for a reason unworthy of that learned body, viz. on account of his complection [sic]. The vulgar; indeed, used sometimes to jeer and insult him in the streets; but such philosophers as Mr Hume, and those of Crane-Court, might have known, that souls are of no color, and that no one can tell, on viewing a casket, what jewel it contains." Williams' friend and probable sponsor, Mr. Chelselden, was none other than one of Britain's finest surgeons, William Chelselden.
***********
This sort of "social experiment" was in vogue in England at this tine. Williams, however, was not alone. Perhaps 50 black boys made the same trip for the same reasons during the eighteenth century. A few years later, the duke of Montagu and his duchess sponsored two other blacks. The first was "Job Ben Solomon who had been redeemed from slavery in Maryland on the discovery of his claimed royal status and literacy in Arabic." The second, Ignatius Sancho, "whose literary works provided one of the period's most discussed publishing events," included Lawrence Sterne among his correspondents. Black people were perceived as exotic "others" and were kept like house pets by some of the British aristocracy. This alluring quality of "otherness," based in the main upon differences in physical appearance like skin color or facial features, was as potent then as it is now and forms a fairly common theme in European literature. Giovanni Gioviano Pontano (1429-1503) provides a good example of its erotic charge in his poem Loquitur Puella Fuscula:
Quod sim fuscula, quod nigella, et ipsae Fusco in pectore nigricent papillae, Quid tum? Nox nigra, fusculae tenebrae, Nocturnis colitur Venus tenebris, Optat nox Venerem Venus tenebras Et noctes Venerem tenebricosae Delectant, pueri in sinu locata Lusus dura facit improbasque rixas. Ergo his in tenebris latebricosis, His nos in latebris tenebricosis, Lecto compositi, quiete in una Ductemus veneram, toroque vincti Condamus tenebras, sopore ab ipso Dum solis Venus excitet sub ortum.
TRANSLATION:
So what if I am dusky, what if I am a little dark and on my dark chest the nipples themselves are black. What then? Night is black and the shadows are dark. Venus is revered in the darkness of the night. Night hopes for Venus, Venus hopes for darkness and the shadowy nights delight Venus, held in the embrace of a boy as long as she teases and brings on shameless spats. Therefore, we in these hidden shadows, in these shadowy hiding places, ready for bed, together in repose, let us make love, and bound to our couch let us store up the shadows until Venus awakens from sleep itself under the rising sun.(10)
This "beauty in blackness" was brought with great splendor to the English stage during the reign of Queen Anne, who asked Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones in 1604 to create a masque for female blackamoors who were to be played by the Queen and the ladies of her court. The result was A Masque of Blackness in which "the actors actually painted themselves black at the first performance." Regardless of the merit the masque had as a spectacle, its theme conformed "in most respects to the convention of white superiority." The beautiful daughters of Niger,
Who though but black in face, Yet are they bright And full of life and light. To prove that beauty best, Which not the colour, but the feature Assures unto the creature (102-8),
felt certain levels of anxiety about their skin color. They therefore journey to Britannia, where the sun that blackened their skin in the first place "doth never rise, or set (191)," in order to be "washed white" by the moon.(11) There is, of course, Shakespeare's Othello.
The question of skin color and its relation to moral worth appeared in many other arenas. There is, to be sure, almost no end to the writing on the contrast between the moral equation of whiteness with "goodness" and of blackness with "evil." In the Latin language, Roccho Pirro described Benoit of Palermo (fl. 1550) "the son of a negress slave," as nigro quidem corpore sed candore animi praeclarissimus quem et miraculis Deus contestatum esse voluit (truly outstanding with a black body in fact, but with a whiteness of soul--whom God wanted tried by miracles).(12)
In England, we have the epitaph from the second half of the eighteenth century on Sambo's grave. "Of all of the graves of black servants perhaps the most remarkable is near Lancaster, at one time a flourishing slave-port ... The local story has it that Sambo died of grief when his master returned to the West Indies without him. The sentimental tale seems hardly likely and the inscription makes no mention of it, stating in fact that Sambo died on arrival." It reads:
By the late eighteenth century, the question of blackness was an economic, religious, and academic issue. At times, however, the issue could draw a laugh as it does in passages from Olaudah Equiano's best-selling autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African (1789). Equiano wrote "a Black cook, in melting some fat, overset the pan into the fire under the deck, which immediately began to blaze, and the flame went up very high under the foretop. With fright, the poor cook became almost white, and altogether speechless." Concerning his first glimpse of some white slavers and their ship, he remarked, "I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me. Their complexions too, differing so much from ours, their long hair, and the language they spoke (which was very different from any I had ever heard) united to confirm me in this belief ... I asked ... if we were not to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces and loose hair."(4)
But the discussions mostly remained serious, and as the slave population grew in the colonies during the eighteenth century, arguments to determine whether black people "were things or humans were no mere abstractions debated in the ratified atmosphere of the courts." Many of the "more grotesque" views came "from the pens of the slavery lobby," and during the period, "slavery became synonymous with blackness."(15)
Stimulated by the appearance of black people in English households and schools, men like David Hume began to take note of the experiments of men like Lord Montagu. The experiments on these "guinea-pigs in the age of Enlightenment," as Janheinz Jahn puts it, brought with them notoriety. Francis Williams' learned accomplishments, which certainly sprang from some sort of higher training in Latin and mathematics, but not from the completion of the B.A. degree from Cambridge, for which there ii no proof, drew Hume's fire.(16)
In a footnote to his essay, "Of National Character" (1748), he stated that "I am apt to suspect the Negroes to be naturally inferior to the Whites. There scarcely ever was a civilized nation of that complexion, nor even any individual, eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the Whites, such as the ancient Germans, the present Tartars, have still something eminent about them, in their valour, form of government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction between these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are Negro slaves dispersed all over Europe, of whom none ever discovered the symptoms of ingenuity; though low people, without education, will start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession. In Jamaica, indeed, they talk of one Negro as a man of parts and learning; but it is likely he is admired for slender accomplishments, like a parrot who speaks a few words plainly."(17)
About twenty years later, the theories of Hume on this topic were attacked in an essay "Strictures on Mr. Hume's Character of the Negroes," published in Gentleman's Magazine in May 1771. The author maintained that "Blacks, if properly educated are capable of the same improvements as Whites. About forty years ago, Mr. Williams, an African of fortune, who dressed like other gentlemen in a tye wig, sword, etc. and who was honoured with the friendship of Mr Chelselden, and other men of science was admitted to the meetings of the Royal Society and, being proposed as a member, was rejected solely for a reason unworthy of that learned body, viz. on account of his complection [sic]. The vulgar; indeed, used sometimes to jeer and insult him in the streets; but such philosophers as Mr Hume, and those of Crane-Court, might have known, that souls are of no color, and that no one can tell, on viewing a casket, what jewel it contains." Williams' friend and probable sponsor, Mr. Chelselden, was none other than one of Britain's finest surgeons, William Chelselden.(18)
By the 1730s, Williams had returned to Jamaica with the idea of taking, under the aegis of his patron, a seat in the Jamaica Assembly. But the incumbent governor Edward Trelawny objected to this. Williams therefore "set up a school in Spanish Town where he taught reading, writing, Latin and mathematics for a number of years."(19)
Long described Williams' efforts to run the school in unflattering terms and asserted that "Whilst he acted in this profession, he selected a Negroe [sic] pupil, whom he trained up with particular care intending to make him his successor at the school; but of this youth it may be said, to use the expression of Festus to Paul, that `much learning made him mad.' The abstruse problems of mathematical institution turned his brain; and he still remains, I believe, an unfortunate example, to shew [sic] that every African head is not adapted by nature to such profound contemplations. The chief pride of this disciple consists in imitating the garb and and [sic, i.e. the] deportment of his tutor. A tye perriwig, a sword, and ruffled shirt, seem in his opinion to comprehend the very marrow and quintessence of all erudition, and philosophic dignity. Probably he imagines it a more easy way of acquiring, among the Negroes, the reputation of a great scholar, by these superficial marks, which catch their eye, than by talking of Euclid, whom they know nothing about."(20)
Hampered as we are by lack of information about educated black people in the West Indies, we do know that there were other educated black people like Williams' protege. They might may have lost their names in terms of the historical record, but not their mental faculties. A passage from William Dickson's Letters on Slavery published in 1760 told of "a very valuable negro" called "John." "He was master of one of our fishing boats," and "my father placed unlimited confidence in him. John was a tolerable scholar. He could read very well. He gave me in my infancy a great deal of good advice, and particularly just before I was coming to England for education in the year 1761 ... he gave me a pretty good notion of the customs and manners of England, and of the things which would be taught at school."(21)
from 100 Great Black Britons; audio portait on Francis Williams; Francis Williams: An Eighteenth-Century Tertium Quid, Negro History Bulletin, April-June, 1998 by Michele Valerie Ronnick;
references:
Return to Special Articles
Since opening 5/25/97,
visitors to
MATHEMATICIANS OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA
is brought to you by
The Mathematics Department of
The State University of New York at Buffalo
was created and is maintained
by
Dr. Scott W. Williams
Professor of Mathematics
