Orville Taylor, Contributor
It might have been New Mexico or El Paso, I am not quite sure, but it is a Spanish town. Riding west across the border, you pass two sets of lawmen fixed in their bases. Don't pass too late though, because long before midnight, they are locked up tighter than a secret but looser than a high-profile suspect.
The air is tense; no one is on the streets and if a face peers out of a doorway, the eyes look away. This town, the former base of Spanish conquistadores and viceroys, has two tribes, who are physically indistinguishable unless they wear their 'ethnic' colours. They have an uneasy peace treaty and are united in their belief that the law from the new capital across the municipal boundary is a shackle, which they have long shaken off.
As with the Native American Indians in the 1700s and 1800s, they are armed with non-native high-powered weapons that they could not have possibly manufactured or even purchased with their own resources two decades ago. To the teeth they are armed, and one cannot help but recall that the Indians got their first set of guns from 'traitors' to the fledgling democracy, who figured that arming them would create some sort of loyalty.
Sheriff removed
Who shot the sheriff? The script reads like those Westerns that we watched as children. A new marshal is appointed to clean up 'Dry Gulch'. A sheriff was removed after he allegedly had a showdown with a member of the cavalry. Whatever might have been the reason, there had been a round-up of human cattle and the visiting troops were not taking any bull. In rode the army in the thick of night, overriding the partying lawman, saying that they were not taking even one order from him, his kinfolk or his clansmen. Perhaps because he was too fraternal with the 'natives', he was 'bungled' out in a 'harried' way, and that does not happen 'daley'.
The following week, under the watch of a new, or rather, returned lawman, the outlaws struck and the governor appointed to clean up the sludge with the messy stagecoaches, horses and carriages, was gunned down. Bushwhack or ambush, we know not, but he was slaughtered in plain view of witnesses, one of whom is himself now dead. Rumours abound that he had shady deals with both tribal groups. They are not at war, but he was a half-Indian, whose blood was closer to one tribe. Such irony, he was placed on the 'hate line', just as the Europeans did to slave drivers when they conquered the Caribbean.
Black drivers
Take someone - a slave, from the same category of the enslaved - and have them do the dirty work of beating the rebellious darker-skinned captives into submission. Did you know that here in Jamaica, drivers were mostly black? They did the unpleasant whipping of the slaves on the plantation, keeping them in check and making them comply with production targets. Drivers were only victims themselves, but they beat mercilessly. In this stagecoach company, some drivers were sent home and another set wanted. The slave driver was killed, but perhaps they wanted another driver.
Any attack by the Indians or uprising by the slaves on the white authorities or their representatives was, and is still, seen as an attack on the state. When that occurred, the ringleaders were tortured, killed or made to be less than men, to such an extent that they could never morally lead another revolt. Here in 'The Land of Wood and Water', recalcitrant slaves were often sodomised either with cocomaque sticks or the phallic protrusions of the white or mulatto gay overseer. In a population of marginalised males, who have nothing but their fragile masculinity, the worst thing to do to them is to 'gyalify' them. Even a rumour of being 'conquered' kills one's manhood. Once bowed or made into less of a man, he loses all authority and his close friends go down with him.
Last-resort option
The most famous black cowboy of the 1800s, Nat Love, alias 'Deadwood Dick', would control bulls by putting rings through their noses. Castrating them was another last-resort option.
One tribe got the blame for the killing of the governor. Its elders vehemently deny it, but the other Indians remain silent. A report in a newspaper cited 'highly reliable sources' that fingers them, and their chief is taken off the streets and sent to the 'hoosegow'. The fingers find a device allegedly concealed in a place not blessed by sunshine. Questions are then raised as to whether palms were also 'greased'.
Smuggling into jails
In the old West, messages were often passed through jail rails or vents. Sometimes a bottle of whiskey, a box of snuff or chewing tobacco bought the help of a venal jailer or deputy. Many jailbreaks occurred as a result of the corrupt jailers smuggling in metal files, daggers or even guns. A phone in 21st-century Jamaica is much smaller than the telegraph transmitters of the 1800s, but there are enough 'licky-licky' warders.
It is not unusual that contraband finds itself inside the prisons. Politicians issue contracts to their friends, votes are bought, pastors get rich from the collection plates, cops sell out cases, judges give bail to dangerous crooks, and businessmen underinvoice and evade customs duty,. and some media personnel push the agenda of particular interest groups or individuals.
A maverick bull from one tribe is being tamed, rendering him less powerful. It will shift the balance. But suppose his gang is innocent? Will the power of the other tribe be curtailed as well? Are they brave enough? Sun setting! Driver wanted.
Dr Orville Taylor is senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work at UWI, Mona. Feedback may be sent to orville.taylor@uwimona.edu.jm or columns@gleanerjm.com.
