Viomak Urges Change in Zimbabwe

I met Viola while working at Convergys Customer Management Inc. Viola was known to me as the Queen of o/t (overtime). We had something else in common we both have friends and love ones in Zimbabwe. I have a friend and her family in Harare who I had lost contact with and Viola tried unsuccessfully to help renew contact with my friend.

Viola’s music is the music of liberation and I endorse visits to her web site to share her music with you and while there listening to it please make a contribution.

Viomak holds a B.A General Degree (University of Zimbabwe), Graduate Certificate in Education (University of Zimbabwe), Diploma in Educational Foundations (University of Zimbabwe), Masters in Educational Psychology (University of Zimbabwe-pending), Masters of Arts in Education-Educational Psychology (Canada), and is hoping to defend her Doctorate thesis in Educational Psychology in the near future. She plans on returning to Zimbabwe to set up Viomak Academic College and Viomak Help Centre.


Congrats Viola. We hope that your efforts will be rewarded through the liberation of your homeland and the restoration of civil liberties.


To visit this web site, right click the link below or cut and paste it into your browser.

http://www.viomakcharitymusic.com/index.html

As always, Well wishes,

F. Stanley Boyd

Sid Poitier Honored at Cannes, France

France gave Sidney Poitier its highest honor Thursday (February 18, 2006) at the Cannes Film Festival, where cultural minister praised him for tearing down barriers for black actors in Hollywood.

Poitier was named commander in France's order of arts and letters.

Cultural minister Renaud Donnedieu de Varbes told the 79-year actor: "You are a champion of equity between men."

Poitier thanked hid parents, who were field workers in the Bahamas for giving him the sense of honesty, integrity and compassion. He also thanked directors who broke with convention to hire him, calling them: "men who chose to change the pattern because it was not democratic, it was not American, it was not human."

The ceremony took place in the Festival Palace, at the 59th International Film Festival in Cannes on Thursday.

As always, well wishes,

F. Stanley Boyd

The Balls in the 20th Century and Treasure Oak Island

The photos above left: Grandmother Laura Ball-List;

Centre Photo: left: Frederick Charles List (Laura’s second husband); seated, centre, Mary Elizabeth Ball-List and right: Howard Ball-List (Children of Laura Ball-List) the writer’s aunt and uncle;

Right Photo: Mae Winifred Ball-Boyd, the writer’s mother and daughter of Laura Ball-List.

Top centre Photo: The Wedding of Anne Jones to Howard Ball-List and in the back row on the left is: the Best Man, Bertrand Ball-Flint, Howard’s brother and both are uncles to the writer. The Matron of Honor, Ellen Callender-Johnston, Deacon Ralph Jones, the bride’s father, and the flower girl is the writer’s sister, Juanita M. Ball-Boyd-Seale.


A tragic aspect of this story is that my grandmother, Laura Ball, who died on February 26, 1936 in Halifax, never saw my mother’s first born, Juanita, my sister and her granddaughter, who was born six (6) months after her death, on 13 August 1936. As remarkable a woman as she was grandmother Laura did not live to see any of her youngest daughter’s children from her second marriage to Halifax teamster, Frederick Charles List, who arrived in Nova Scotia from Chatham, Ontario, he was a product of the underground railway. See his photo above with my Aunt Elizabeth and my Uncle Howard.

I cannot make peace with this subject until my grandmother’s character and memory is more fully described and preserved. Grandmother Laura was a determined woman who did not let life rule her; she ruled it. It would appear that both the Ball and Boyd women were strong personalities; perhaps back in the day they just came made that way. When it came to the home the women ruled the roost. Grandmother Laura Ball was as remarkable in as many ways as was Samuel, her grandfather. As a wife she gave birth to two families with very different but altogether gifted men: first Will Flint and then Frederick Charles List.

She managed to inspire all of her children and she deserves to be remembered as a family builder without who work the foundations of our family would not be the same. Laura was a dedicated mother who shouldered responsibility for her children and taught them the Christian way.

I cannot pinpoint in time exactly when I discovered the connection to the truth of my mother’s story, but I know it occurred on a research trip to the Public Archives of Nova Scotia and my chance introduction to Miss Helen Creighton, a now famous Nova Scotia folklorist. I cannot remember who did the introduction. It was on this occasion in the early 1970’s when I uttered to her my mother’s introduction to the subject of Oak Island.

My mother’s people came from treasure Oak Island in Chester and my mother’s maiden name was Ball. I looked at her and I saw a light go on. Helen said there was a settler on Oak Island by the name of Samuel Ball, a black man, and she gave me a citation to a book and an archival source, which confirmed it.

I stood corrected by my mother and not for the first time. I remember calling her on the telephone full of excitement. I admitted that she was right about treasure Oak Island. I also admitted that at the time I did not believe it but that I had become a convert.

I know she was delighted by the confirmation and I felt so proud to have been able to admit my error and to let her know that our family had made a certain historical achievement.

Then, again, it really did not need the confirmation because I always knew that my family lived in the ‘Hood but I also had the firmest conviction that my family was not of it.

In fact I have always known that there was something of greater significance to my family and only time would prove that conviction right and the Oak Island confirmation was just the beginning.

It is all the more fitting that as I write this story I sit on grandmother Laura’s old, oak Bass-River-type chair which is older than I am, but whose legs have been shorten by a fire that occurred at grandmother’s residence, a flat, at 106 Maitland Street Halifax. The fire shortened the legs of the chair and they were leveled by a saw in the patient hands of a doctor. As I said, this is all the more fitting because now in my elder years I am sitting closer to the ground; I am well grounded in the reality of who I am and my knowledge of self and family is growing daily in leaps and bounds.

As always, Well wishes,

F. Stanley Boyd

The Black Settlers of “Treasure Oak Island” The Primary Generation

Samuel Ball’s Known History Prior to the American Revolution

According to Samuel Ball’s only extant biography he was born in South Carolina in or about the year 1864. He escaped the plantation where he was born about the time that the war broke out in America by joining the King’s troops in that part of the country. It seems certain that this occurred after November 1775 as the troops in South Carolina were under the command of Lord Cornwallis. Sam’s escape to the Kings troops was predicated upon a certain proclamation made in Virginia.

At Kemp’s Landing, Virginia, on November 14, 1775, John Murray, Earl of Dunmore and Governor of Virginia issued a proclamation in which he declared all Black males free who would join His Majesty’s Forces in the battle against rebel Black and White colonists of the newly minted, or about to be minted, nation called the United States of America. Samuel was a teenager when he made his bid for freedom by escaping to the protection of the British.

Soon after joining the King’s troops he was ordered to New York with General Clinton, who ordered Samuel to join troops under the command of Major Ward. Major Ward’s command was in the Jerseys at Bergen Point and where Samuel worked among the British troops until the end of the war when, after the Americans had won their freedom from the British, Samuel was forced to evacuate with other loyalists to British territories in order to obtain his own freedom. Of all the ironies in this story, this one is by far the most incredible.

In 1783 he came to Shelburne (Port Roseway) in Nova Scotia and remaining there two years. He left Shelburne and went to Chester, N.S. where at the time of his 1809 petition we learn that he had resided on Oak Island for some twenty-three (23) years.

In this Memorial, which today we would call a petition, Samuel, a Black loyalist, requested his allotment of land promised to Black people, who left the United States in allegiance to the loyalist cause. Samuel speaks to us through a justice of the peace, Thomas Thompson, who writes:

“Your Memoralist has no lands but, what he has purchased, never having got any from government, and there is a four acre lott vacant, No. 32, on Oak Island, joining a lott purchased by your Memoralist. ---------- Your Memoralist therefore prays, Your Excellency well be pleased to grant, or otherwise order him to have said Lott – your Memoralist has but one son living. ----------
Chester, 9th September 1809

This day the above named Samuel Ball came before me, and made oath on the Holy Evangelist, that what is stated in the above memorial is strictly true, which I verily believe to be so.

I do hereby further certify that I have known said Samuel Ball, above twenty years, and I believe he is an honest, sober and industrious settler, worthy of encouragement.


Thos. Thompson, Jus’ Peace.”

The lot was granted as a license of occupation and Samuel Ball owned nine (9) four (4) acre lots on Oak Island by number as follows: lot #s 6, 7, 8, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, and 32 as shown on the above map (Click on the map to enlarge it, and note that the name, Samuel Ball, is part of the original map.)

Samuel Ball and a “servant,” Isaac Butler, worked and cleared the 35-acre farm. Accounts of their lives by other writers indicate that there were silhouettes images of Mrs. Ball and others in the rooms of the house built by Samuel.

Samuel died on 14th December 1845; he was 81 years of age, leaving behind a wife, Catherine, a grandson, Simeon, and as well as Isaac Butler. Samuel’s recorded will left the land on Oak Island to Isaac Butler under certain conditions and hereby hangs yet another of Oak Island’s mysteries.

The confluence of many factors creates the charm and the allure of this romantic and unexpected saga that is unfolding as you read it. Among the compelling factors is the geography of Mahone Bay itself. It is truly a magnificent bay twenty (20) miles long and twenty (20) miles wide and the Tancook Islands which shelter the bay and also provide absolute security to those anchored ashore within its reaches. There are some 350 islands in the bay and Oak Island is but one of them.

The names associated with the mysteries of the island are another factor accounting for the international interest in and the long, enduring shelf-life of Oak Island. Associated with the island is the name, i.e., of Edward Teach, otherwise known as the infamous pirate, “Blackbeard.”

You know you have a growing legend when the name, Captain William Kidd surfaces and his treasure trove is believed to be stashed somewhere on the island. Then, you pile on many other names and name after name of famous adventurers, and politicians, such as U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, wealthy businessmen and treasure hunters become associated with the growing legend.

Add also the accounts of failed hunts for the treasure that goes unrewarded but, for finds of some exotic artifacts, uncommon to Nova Scotia but associated with south seas pirates and you have a colossus, a litany of strident personalities confessing their many failures to find the treasures for many centuries and you wind up with a magnificent obsession, Oak Island.

Among these names and legends one unexpected name, the name of Samuel Ball arises above the rest, primarily for its simplicity – notably for farming some 35 acres of the magnificent obsession, Oak Island. Land that this Black man assembles, year after year, while others were vainly treasure hunting. Samuel’s life seems so far removed from the realities of life as defined by the high and mighty. He was a man of no great stature or social position, or class rather, he was a lowly man of Africa, a former Black American slave, who exhibited all of the accomplishments of a truly remarkable man, who might have, under different circumstances, been referred to as a major actor in a truly great adventure story and mystery that has become known as Oak Island.

Though unacknowledged, he is all of this, and more. The time has come to recognize what he managed to accomplish. Samuel’s life shows that no matter whom you are you have a contribution to make and you can excel in some, if minor, way; he was a “stand up” Black man who has come to symbolize what is truly great in the pioneering spirit of Black people in this region. What his life demonstrates is that you can become a “someone,” no matter who you are, if you stick to your goals and work steadily hard to a plan, without expecting acknowledgement.


The graphics above:

The lots on the map above in green are those owned by Samuel Ball of Oak Island. If you right click this map above you will see the name of Samuel Ball on lot 32 that was on the map and not superimposed on the map by this writer.

The photo above was taken by the writer on Oak Island on July 6, 2005 with the principle owner of the lots today on Oak Island, Dan Blankenship.

As Always, Well wishes,

F. Stanley Boyd

The Black Settlers of Treasure Oak Island - This Generation

The Black Settlers of “Treasure Oak Island”

This Generation

Recently, a friend I and were talking about events in Black community history. I was encouraging Michael Glasgow to talk about his grandfather who operated a large hog farm in East Preston. He was telling me about his grandfather’s farmhouse and how he was renovating it.

I was so proud of him and his story because he delighted in telling me about it and truly I like to listen to stories of Black family history.

I said to Michael that I would like to chronicle his family history on my web log. In the spirit of sharing stories I began to chronicle some of my own family’s historical past -- the loyalist side of my mother’s family. Michael found that interesting as well.

When I confided that I had not yet published it on my web log, he turned to me and said: “Why don’t you publish your family’s loyalist history before you publish mine.” I thought about why I had not published it. Michael’s remark made me think back to 1975 when I published McKerrow’s history and at that time there was very little else available on the Black community’s history that wasn’t negative in some way. I published McKerrow because some local sociologists had absurdly written in their books that Blacks had no history.

This story is a clear example of how prejudice, passed onto us and taught to us by our “teachers,” becomes part of the shared prejudices of another generation, their students. Of course, it’s the students’ responsibility to liberate their minds, to open them up to other and truer realities which the students may later discover for themselves. As you will see this happened for me but at such a high price that it is just now, decades later, that I am able to put it into thought and place it on electronic paper. The years and decades do pass on you so very quickly you do not notice.

From Michael’s comment I realized that I had not published my loyalist family history for much the same kind of reason and, that is, that people might say they do not believe it. I admit that decades ago when my mother told me about HER, I mean, OUR family history, I really didn’t believe it either. So I reasoned that if I had difficulty believing my own family history why won’t others. It was a serious question that required a serious answer and the answer is ignorance.

Ignorance is a common affliction in Nova Scotia when it comes to knowledge of the history of African people. African people have the burden of proving everything beyond a higher reasonable doubt than do white historians because they have a history which so few have been taught to doubt. Such nonsense shouldn’t be given space here but it must be part of the intellectual liberation of African people. We must compel ourselves to doubt what White people tell us of Black history.

So Michael’s question challenged me for more reasons than he understood at the time. I was reluctant to record it because at first I had great difficulty believing it myself. Even now, I believe I will be challenged just as I knew I would have been had I shared my discovery with my peers living in the Hood when my mother proudly recited what she knew. Regardless, it is time I shared this history with others even though they might challenge it, or even if they might say it is not true, or that they do not believe it at all. What it is, truth or falsehood, becomes the non-believers’ burden, which formerly had been my own all these many years, so telling this story, which I know is true, does truly set me free.

The story begins where I was born in the heart of the Black ghetto of Halifax; I was actually born at 117 Creighton Street on a cold December morning just before Christmas in 1943. My father was steadily employed on the waterfront and this was due to his dependability and very much due to his ability to think things through that needed to be done.

For as long as I can remember my family consisted of my two older sisters and me. From my perspective my entire family life began with the five of us. Mother told us stories and so did father and both of them were so good at it that I was enthralled by those wonderful tales. Every family has its storyteller (s) and in some cases that has been the only way family history has been passed on.

So, this was my universe: my parents and my two older sisters, the fundamental unit in which I was socialized. Although my family grew in number from there, it was from these four people that I learned who I was and they help set my expectations and help me define my place in the world.

One day, when I was older, I asked mother from where her people had come. This is when I thought mother began a tall tale; at least what I thought was a very, very tall tale. Each time I asked her that question she began the same way.

“My people came from treasure Oak Island in Chester where they owned land.” She said, adding, “That is what Mama told me.” Everyone in Nova Scotia and, perhaps the world, knew something about the famed Oak Island: it was famous to say the least for romantic tales of gold bullion, pirates, Captain Kidd and those marooned ones, “what buried the treasure.”

I could imagine my grandmother, Laura Ball, telling my mother, Mae, this story with more detail than my mother could remember. Mother couldn’t be right; at least that’s what I thought at the time. Then I asked myself: “How could it be?”

Over the intervening years since she uttered those words: “treasure Oak Island” I thought about those words, and each time I just dismissed the thought. I didn’t think my mother was lying to me because I knew she would not. The entire idea seemed to me so bizarre. In fact, I now know that we (Black people) are socialized to think that we had no past worthy of note, as if history had past us. Of course that isn’t true either.

Most of the Black families in my hood had come from nearby Black communities -- towns and small villages, like Africville. I didn’t know anyone who could claim that their family owned land and once lived on treasure Oak Island. What a story but, of course, it couldn’t be true.

Back in the day the Christian believers of old would say about themselves that “they were in the world but not of it;” similarly, I always knew that I was in the hood but I also knew that by destiny I was not part of it. Not because there was anything about which to be ashamed but I was taught always to “think” larger, and to “act” larger. As if I needed another reason to standout from the crowd; I can tell you with utmost certainty that wasn’t true either.

How could I tell my peers, my gang, that my family came from treasure Oak Island? In spite of the many times that they asked that question I couldn’t tell them what I was told by my mother. I would say Preston and that is true because my dad’s people were from the part of Preston then known as New Road. The name Boyd is not a common name either, so that didn’t help. As a child the question of who the five of us really were was never far from my consciousness; anymore than the question is now, that I am an adult.

Perhaps, the fact that my father was adopted by a family in Hammonds Plains and later discovered his true identity has only served to heighten my search for identity, as though slavery and being uprooted from Africa and the United States were not enough to compel my lifelong search. Events compounded my thirst to know.

Even if my family’s legacy could be proven beyond a shadow of doubt, my peers in the hood would not have believed it; they would not have been able to resist convulsing from the laughter at my expense. Don’t tell me you can’t hear their youthful gales of laughter.

You see when members of a small visible minority, who have banded for decades together for support, do not believe its members stories of common hardship and national origin it is not of commonplace, it is of major importance; it is a tragedy of major significance, leaving its members without solace and mutual understanding and without a safe place to find comfort. We often refer to this as life’s rat-race.

To this day I am reluctant to tell anyone. But for Michael’s challenge, I may not have even offered this on my web log except as fiction. Many times I was tempted to tell this story and could not. But when Michael challenged me by saying it’s your web log so write your own story first, then write the story of my family.

What was my ancestor’s name who lived and own land on treasure Oak Island? His name is Samuel Ball.

In truth, I did mention it once when I was director of the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia on the occasion of the 200 century mark of the Loyalist landing in Nova Scotia. I have a photo that was published in the newspapers at that time. To this day, I am not sure anyone among the unchallenged Loyalists actually believed me.

The main point is though that we are the descendents of Samuel Ball and as far as proof is concerned my grandmother, Laura Ball’s word that her people came from “treasure Oak Island in Chester,” is good enough for me.

We have no pictures of Sam but we do have one of his records that have survived -- a will, and maps depicting his lots on treasure Oak Island and pictures of his foundations at the Ball Homestead on Oak Island.

The Photos above:

The picture above is Oak Island in Mahone Bay on the south shore of Nova Scotia where millions of dollars and many lives have been spent seeking a famous pirate’s booty which, so far as we know, has never surfaced.

The next photo is of my two older sisters and I.

The next post, The Last Generation, will describe the Ball family in photos and words and how I discovered the truth of our Ball family legacy on treasure Oak Island.

As always, Well wishes,

F. Stanley Boyd