Ferries, Forts and Slaves

I have a week left. Today I finish the last of the land based activities I had in mind to do, leaving the rest of my time here for - hopefully- whale sharks, dolphins and diving, things put off so far because of an unsettled sea state.

A bus into town - following an even more circuitous route than usual for this island - took me to a drizzly Jamestown and coffee in a small, colonial-fronted hotel to await the sun. It was then down to the quay to take a five minute ride on a tiny boat - the locals call it the ferry - around the headland separating Jamestown from Ruperts, the next bay along. Nowadays there is a small, one boat wharf on the waterfront along with a handful of industrial units, while a short walk up the valley takes you to a tiny community. But none of these were why I came.

Ruperts has a tragic history. And it is a history linked to the slave trade. After the Napoleonic Wars the Royal Navy carried out extensive operations to disrupt the transatlantic slave trade and over 26,000 liberated slaves from over four hundred slaver ships were taken to St Helena.  They were brought to Ruperts Valley, a dry, arid and wind blown place, where a receiving depot was set up with a small hospital and quarantine centre. Many received here were in an extremely poor state of health and some 8000 died, to be buried in unmarked graves along the valley; at the time a missionary described the area as 'a valley of dry bones'. After the depot closed in 1860 the graves merged into the local landscape. 

That history was brought to prominence again when work started in Ruperts in 2008 as part of constructing an access road for building the airport. Three hundred and twenty five bodies were excavated in individual and multiple graves, of which only five were in coffins. In addition a large number of separate bones from an unidentifiable number of bodies were also recovered. Grave artefacts gave some indication of the life of these people although the cause of death in most cases was impossible to ascertain since the usual causes from diseases of the period would have left no mark. The remains have since been re-buried. 

Ruperts has been described as 'the most significant physical remaining trace of the transatlantic slave trade on the Earth'. Yet as I wandered along the valley road it was impossible to see the history. I ended up asking a local and was pointed to the church, behind which is a memorial set up by school children. And I now know the old, vegetation encrusted and slightly dilapidated building I passed was a depot infirmary. I did find an information board, but only the one, and it seemed to be part of a series. Yet despite my searches I never found any of the others. It is sad that something so tragic, so important to these islands and so significant a reminder of the slave trade is not better commemorated. 

Ruperts Settlement 

Rather than catch the ferry back I took a path high around the headland giving good views of the sea and Jamestown. It also took me to the crumbling remains of Mundens Battery, a fort on the headland separating the two communities. Originally built in the mid 1600s it was developed and expanded over the centuries and saw most recent use, albeit not in a military guise, as the place where the three Bahrainis exiled to the island for four years from 1957 were accommodated.

After lunch I caught a taxi to a hilltop out of town upon which sits yet another fort. High Knoll is the biggest and most complete of the various forts in St Helena and looms over Jamestown. It was built at the turn of the nineteenth century originally to provide protection against the French and act as a final location of protection for the islanders in the event of invasion.  One or two barely legible signs told a little of the history but it is the scale of the place compared to other military structures on the island and the superb views that made an impact on me. More recently it was used as a place of quarantine for imported chickens, sheep and cattle although now it stands empty, a reminder of the fortress island St Helena once was.