Shirebooks

Saint Helena edits

Hello Shirebooks, please do not remove material from the article that has been supported by a citation from a source that is commonly used in the encyclopedia and deemed reliable and authoritative , the CIA factbook is such a source. Your reasoning for removing it, based on what appears to be your own "original research", does not constitute a valid basis according to our policy regarding "verifiability" (please see WP:VERIFY). Please do not remove the material again until further discussion has taken place on the article's talk page regarding the matter. cheers Deconstructhis (talk) 14:00, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Hello Deconstructhis

The claimed ethnic split in St Helena’s population (African descent 50%, white 25%, Chinese 25%) is sourced from the CIA’s World Factbook. Their source for this information is probably “Serendipity in St Helena” by Dr Ian Shine (Pergamon Press, 1970) which analyses the genetic diseases prevalent on the island as a result of interbreeding within the population. Page 16 of this book quotes these precise statistics for the population for a century to a century and a half before that time, ie. about 1820-1850. Unfortunately these statistics are contradicted by all known historical facts. Most importantly, they completely fail to take account of the fact that slaves mainly came from Asia, not Africa.

The tendency for historic documents to describe all slaves as “Negro” irrespective of their place of birth certainly adds to the confusion, that term implying to modern readers that they came from Africa. St Helena was mainly visited by ships returning from Asia and thus the slaves they carried tended to come from the Spice Islands, India and Madagascar. For example, in one of the earliest visits to the island in 1588 (by Cavendish in the “The Prosperous Voyage of M. Thomas Candish esquire into the South Sea, and so around about the circumference of the whole earth, begun in the yere 1586, and finished 1588”, Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations Voyages Traffiques & Discoveries of the English Nation, 1598-1600, Volume XI.), one of the “Negroes” found there came from Java. A few African slaves were brought into the island in 1661 from the Guinea coast early after the English settlement (St Helena 1502-1938 by Philip Gosse, 1990, p 50), but by 1684 they were being imported from Madagascar (Gosse, p 79). Indeed, by 1676, all ships trading with Madagascar were obliged to leave one slave from that place (Gosse, p 81). Early records also show slaves being brought back from Surratt in the Spice Islands (Janisch, Extracts from St Helena Records, 1673-1716).

That slaves continued to be sourced from Madagascar up to 1760 is demonstrated by the comment in the records that “. . . of all blacks, those from Madagascar had always proved the best and most docile” (Gosse, p 192). In 1763 two ships were specifically sent out to the far east to fetch slaves from that region (St Helena, the historic Island by E. L. Jackson, Ward Lock & Co, 1903, page 52). The inclusion of a St Helena slave to act as interpreter (Janisch, 1750-1799) is indicative of numbers of other slaves on the island of similar ethnic origin.

The importation of slaves was interdicted in 1792 (Jackson, page 54), but it is hopefully clear from the above that the assumption that 100% of the black population came from Africa is wrong. They mainly came from Asia.

Some African ethnicity certainly entered the population from the earliest years of the island, but more significant was the African Liberation period 1839-1874 during which time the British navy seized all slave ships crossing the Atlantic between Africa and the Americas, bringing African slaves to St Helena for recuperation (Gosse, pp 310-311, 320 & 329). It is estimated that 16,287 Africans were liberated at St Helena and then removed from there to other British colonies (William A. Green, “British Slave Emancipation: The Sugar Colonies and the Great Experiment, 1830-1865”, Oxford Clarendon Press, 1976, page 273). Only a few were allowed to stay at St Helena (A. Schulenburg, The Wirebird, No 26, 2003, page 24). Most liberated Africans were sent to the West Indies, although most wanted to return to Africa – toward the end of the period in 1871, 200 were indeed returned to the Cape; a further 260 petitioned to go to homeland but were variously returned to Lagos or Siera Leone (Jackson, page 89).

Only two very rare photographs are known to have been taken of liberated Africans and can be found be found in books by Jackson and by Oswell Blakeston (“Isle of St Helena, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1957, opposite page 49). The paucity of photos has been commented on in the literature (Schulenburg, page 25) and reflects the small numbers of Africans remaining on the island. The number of resident Africans is mentioned by John Mellis (“St Helena: A Physical, Historical & Topographical Description of the Island”, Reeve, 1875) in which he mentions “The negroes, or pure West Coast Africans, who constitute about one-sixth of the population”. His estimate of one sixth is the only quoted estimates of actual numbers that I can find and seems high compared with other general descriptions. Nevertheless, even this figure would only equate to about 17% of the population, considerably less than the 50% quoted by the CIA.

Next comes the question of Chinese ethnicity. The first consignment of Chinese itinerate workers arrived in St Helena about 1810 (Gosse, page 245). The history of these workers has been published in some detail by Barbara L. George (“St Helena: The Chinese Connection”, Printsetters, 2002). The numbers reached a maximum population of 645 in 1818, falling to 442 in 1821, 233 by 1826. A final 103 left the island in 1835, only 27 Chinese workers being allowed to stay. Even at their peak of numbers in 1818, the Chinese only represented about 15% of the population and rapidly fell to a much smaller number. From these numbers, it is difficult to understand how a Chinese ethnicity of 25% can be quoted.

So far as European ethnicity is concerned, the 1817 census showed a white population of about 50% and a letter from Governor Elliott in 1868 (Barbara George, page 93) also estimates that about half the population was of European origin. However, the same letter goes into some detail in describing the difficulty of discriminating “between the various strains of blood of which the body of the population is composed . . . beyond the two plain distinctions of black and white. . . . We have a considerable mixture of Chinese, Hindu [please note this mention of Indian extraction] and other races mixed with European, part European, African and part African blood in various proportions”. Over a 140 years later, the impossibility of splitting the population into its ethnic origins remains true. In short, the figures quoted by the CIA cannot be correct.

I therefore hope you will agree that the quoted ethnicity statistics in Wikipedia should be deleted. There are no statistics to replace them. Incidentally, I have separately written to the CIA asking them to edit or remove the information on their web page.

Shirebooks (talk) 01:18, 1 June 2009 (UTC)Shirebooks

Hello again Shirebooks, sorry for the delay, please see the "talk" page of the St. Helena article for a continuation of this discussion. I've taken the liberty of copy and pasting our current comments to there so that other editors will be more likely to contribute. cheers Deconstructhis (talk) 14:13, 2 June 2009 (UTC)