A grave site

by HEATHERLYN EVANSON

THEIR POINTS are almost diametrically opposite, as the crow flies, from one place in Christ Church to another.

But, that's where the similarities end.

For the two locations tell the tale of Barbados' history and the gulf between its rich, upper classes and its slave population.

The places are the Christ Church Parish Church cemetery in Church Hill and the African slave burial ground in the gentle, rolling hills at the back of what was once Newton Plantation.

Seen on the same day, the differences are startling; in the cemetery, the rich revel in their richness, even in death, while nothing but a lonely sign stands guard where the remains of hundreds of slaves rest.

The inner, older section of the Christ Church Parish Church's cemetery is home to some of the most elegant tombstones - so grandiose are they, that not even the weathering by time could diminish their features.

"In England, and it was transferred to all her colonies," explained noted historian Dr Karl Watson, "the higher you were up in social rank, the closer to the altar you were buried.

"In death as in life there are economic differences and it does not matter where in the world you live," he said of the difference in the two resting places.

And so in the cemetery overlooking Oistins, there is the all-marble resting place of former prime minister Sir Harold St John; its surface reflecting images of those who stare and the light which filters through the trees.

Meanwhile, standing by itself in a corner, wreathed in magnificence, is the stone celebration to the life of Ambrose Howard Carner. Towering above the reader, the tombstone is elaborately carved; its crowning glory reminiscent of stone work atop a rampart. An imposing guardrail keeps all but the most adventurous at bay.

However, this church yard is arguably most famed for the 1800s unexplained occurrences in the Chase Vault - a mere shadow today of what it must have looked like then.

According to legend, the members of the Chase family could not get along with the patriarch of the family neither in life nor, it appeared, in death.

Lead coffins were presumably strewn about as if made from wood as the family continued their strife below earth. Not even the strewing of white sand on the Vault's floor, nor the brick, mortar and Governor's seal could shed any light on the mysterious necropolis happenings.

Only the disinterment of the coffins and the reinterment of them in different parts of the graveyard put to rest the deathly dispute.

Meanwhile, about 45 minutes walk away, across the ABC Highway to a spot not regularly visited in Newton, a single sign overlooks a gently undulating field of ratoons.

And that is all that marks probably the only excavated communal burial ground within a plantation setting in the Western Hemisphere.

The sign proclaims that somewhere in the 4 500 square metres of hillside, are the remains of about 570 slaves.

There are no elaborate tombstones; no head markers, not even a single white cross.

But it might not always have been so.

"The markers would have disappeared over time. There might have been conch shells or bottles marking the graves," Watson said.

What sets the Newton slave burial ground apart was that it survived! This was due mainly to its location.

"That slave cemetery survived because of its location on the hills," Watson explained. "Most of the others would have been on flatter ground which would have been ploughed under."

The Newton slave burial ground dates from around the 17th century, while mass burials there probably took place in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The sign is part of the Barbados Slave Route Signage Project.

Meanwhile, Christ Church Parish Church is the fourth parish church on the site, having been built after the first three were destroyed by natural disasters.

The original parish church was located in Dover - that was destroyed by floods - and there today remains a part of the original graveyard.