The real story on Bedward

THE EDITOR, Sir:

We should perhaps be grateful that Daraine Luton's May 20 lead story, 'Déjà vu', did not repeat the 90-year-old canard that Alexander Bedward attempted to fly and suffered trauma as a result.

But Bedward, the forerunner among post-1865 Jamaican public figures who protested against racial oppression and injustice in our society, is too important a part of the nation's history to have his story distorted.

Mr Luton's account is inaccurate and misleading. Bedward did, indeed, declare himself two parts of the Holy Trinity - the Son and Holy Ghost - and announced that he would ascend to Heaven and would later return to lead a mass flight of Bedwardites to escape the destruction by fire of cities, countries and continents. However, contrary to Mr Luton's account, he was not "reportedly preparing for the rapture when he was arrested and taken to a mental institution".

Ironically, it was The Gleaner that reported Bedward's five postponements of his ascension - first from Christmas Eve to New Year's Eve 1920, and then on the fateful new date, when he sat on a platform in an armchair with sculpted wings, from 10 a.m. to noon; then to 3 p.m; 10 p.m; and finally for 17 years.

Naturally, morale in August Town nosedived as thousands had literally sold all their belongings to ascend with him. There was a series of atrocities in Bedward's garrison called Union Camp, culminating on April 26, 1921 in attacks on a secular woman of a neighbouring community who entered the camp to repossess a pumpkin that she had accused a female Bedwardite of stealing from her garden; on a census enumerator who went to collect data for the 1921 census; and on two policemen intent on investigating the attack on the census enumerator.

When a police inspector and a sergeant major arrived later, Bedward, citing police harassment, grandly announced a march on the city of Kingston the following morning "for a manifestation". Having failed to dissuade Bedward from marching, the inspector reported to the inspector general, then head of the constabulary force.

taking action

The governor convened a meeting at King's House late that night with the inspector general, the attorney general and the resident magistrate for Half-Way Tree who would then lead a combined military and constabulary party to apprehend the marchers and later preside over their trial.

The march was intercepted and diverted, and Bedward, charged with "assaulting a constable in execution of his duty", was remanded for a week under medical observation.

On May 4, 1921, Resident Magistrate Sam Burke dismissed Bedward on the assault charge, asserting that, as a person of unsound mind, he was not responsible for his actions. However, as soon as Bedward stepped out of the courthouse on to the road, he was rearrested, returned to the dock, charged with "being a lunatic ... found wandering at large", and committed to the Bellevue mental asylum, where he sang and prayed until his death on November 8, 1930.

That is the gospel truth, according to The Gleaner.

I am, etc.,

LOUIS MARRIOTT

Kingston 8