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When the Past Is a Venue: Plantation Weddings, Diasporic Memory, and the Fire at Nottoway
As a Canadian of Jamaican descent, I can’t even count how many times I’ve been back to the island of sunshine, reggae, good food and vibes — the land of wood and water. I loved visiting my aunts, uncles and staying at my maternal grandparents’ house in the Jamaican countryside. But among my most memorable activities was visiting the Rose Hall Great House when I was twelve years old.
When I heard that Nottoway House burned down last week, and when I saw Black people rejoicing (rightfully and understandably, might I add), and when I saw the ensuing conversation around turning plantations into resorts and wedding venues, I immediately thought of Rose Hall.
Rose Hall Great House in Montego Bay, Jamaica is one of the more memorable and well-known “great houses” on the island of Jamaica. A notorious site of colonial brutality and lore, it was the home of the “White Witch of Rose Hall” — the widow Annie Mae Palmer. During a tour of the site, tourists learn about the ways that she brutalized and killed her husbands and enslaved lovers. (White women held just as much power over and were just as brutal to the enslaved people as their husbands, as the book They Were Her Property describes).
