Different years – 1632 & 2025 – same oath, same name – Charles I & Charles III

0
163
big issues poster nov 28
big issues poster nov 28
- Advertisement -

By Barbara Arrindell

Pledging allegiance to Charles I is the only way that Edward Warner was able to assume the role of Governor of Antigua in 1632.

Three hundred and ninety-three years later, pledging allegiance to Charles III was accepted on  January 15, 2025 as the only way that Rawdon Nairobi Turner, a man of African heritage, could be sworn in as a servant of his own people in the independent nation state of Antigua and Barbuda.

Why have we as the descendants of the enslaved people, brought here by that same oath between Warner and the first Charles, continued to pledge allegiance to his heirs and successors in God’s name?

Why do we honour their king?

Why do we continue to honour all the brutality, all the indignity, all the raping of our women and abuse of our children, all the wrong done to our people in the name of their kings and queens?

This isn’t a difficult thing to change. My understanding is that at any point since 1981 some brave astute leader, having taken a second glance at something, perhaps not previously recognized as belittling, could have changed it.

Who will go down in history as the leader who says “time come to put an end to this foolishness”?

Who will be the first Antiguan and Barbudan leader to pledge allegiance to the people of Antigua and Barbuda, so help me God?

Sometimes a little history lesson helps us to put things in perspective.

Edward Warner was born an Englishman and had ventured with his father to what they called the New World. They later left Guiana and establish the first British Colony in these parts on St Christopher. Born around 1609 Edward would have been raised as a subject of first, James I and then Charles I. He had been raised to work for and celebrate his own, his King. While in service to King and country his father, Thomas, Brother Phillip *( 2nd Governor of Antigua) and other immediate family members, (excluding his half brother Thomas “Indian” Warner, born to a Kalinago woman) amassed wealth what would today be equivalent to one hundred million pounds.

Governor Warner enriched himself primarily through his involvement in the Slave Trade. Thousands of enslaved Africans were brought to British territories in the Caribbean under his watch. Both he and the English King he pledged allegiance to would have benefitted from the suffering of these people, our ancestors.

Some would eventually have been landed in Antigua through Parham Harbour (in St Peter) or Willoughby Bay. What we now know as Parham was at that time simply a growing fishing village. It became  a town in 1675 and was given the name Parham when a British naval officer by the name of Lord Willoughby de Parham returned to Antigua  with a patent from their King, Charles III ( he was England’s first King after their short stint as a republic). This allowed Willoughby to label Parham as one of six trading towns in Antigua. It had the distinction of being referred to then as  the capital of the colony.

Would the ancestors have willingly pledged allegiance to their oppressors? Can we imagine them being pleased with us for carrying on such a practice willingly, even when we are free to make changes?

The Emancipation Proclamation may have been read on August 1, 1834 but full emancipation is still a work in progress.

- Advertisement -

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

14 − 7 =