 Exuma
- Gentle Voices From the Past
Just a few miles from the massive Emerald
Bay development, amidst the tall grasses swaying in the balmy
ocean breeze, the crumbling stone ruins of an early plantation
slowly return to the earth, the sound of construction in
the distance.
Laid as rock set into mortar, then with
hand-hewn floor beams cast in at the same time, the ancient
foundations still tell the story of the buildings they once
supported.
Here, a stone door step where once rang
the footsteps of the families who had come to work the plantations
of cotton and sisal. Over there, an outline of a garden wall,
once containing a rich bounty for their tables. In the distance,
a wall made of loose stone, barely discernible among the
jumbay and cottonwoods trails into the distance over a hill.
The stones silently echo the story of the early slaves who
cleared the fields, piling them in long lines
across the Exuma landscape.
As you stand gazing, the remains from long
ago seem to be voices gently whispering the story of Exuma's
first days.
South of George Town is particularly rich.
Many reminders of days gone by dot the landscape, and the
observant Exuma traveller still sees many artifacts left
by Exuma's settlers of the mid 18th century.
The quiet village of Rolle Town is made
up of 500 people named Rolle - fruit and vegetable farmers,
following in the tradition of their ancestors since settling
on the island nearly two centuries ago.
 A
small sign in the community leads the way to the Rolle family
burial plot. Two small boys from the town offer to show the
way to the tombs, reciting without prompting the story of
the people who lay there as we walk over a hill and down
an overgrown road. Three tombstones appear in the middle
of a secluded pasture.
The biggest is shaped like a large carriage
bed with headboard and footboard. The epitaph inscribed on
the marble reads, "Within this tomb lie interred the
body of Ann M. Kay, the wife of Alexander M. Kay who departed
this life the 8th day of November 1792 aged 26 years and
their infant child." She was the young wife of a slave
overseer during the plantation days. To the settler family,
her early departure was likely a harsh reminder of the unforgiving
land they had come to. The stories earn the boys each a dollar,
and they take us back to where they had first spied us.
 Also
in the south, another small sign points the way to the Hermitage
Estate. Within the former grounds of the old estate stands
the Cotton House, the oldest building in the Exumas, built
in the 1750s by the Kendall family as part of a 970 acre
cotton plantation. The plantation thrived for just a few
years, languished, then failed as the thin soil depleted.
The foundations of the old main house and some old tombs
remain.
 Near
Williams Town, a large concrete column marks the site of
large salt flats and the location of the once-thriving salt
industry.
The old boundaries of the salt pans are
now barely able to be made out. As you stand on the hill
overlooking the azure blues of the ocean on one side and
the salt flats on the other, it is not hard to think of the
difficult work it must have been to collect the deposited
salt with horse and cart in the hot sun.
The buildings of the salt plant also are
still visible, and are mute testimony to the size that the
industry must have once been.
As an old community that for a time was
being considered to be the capital of the Bahamas, George
Town itself has many points of historical interest.
A few steps away from the centre of the
community, St. Andrews Anglican Church sits splendidly atop
a little hill. Built in the 1840's, this beautiful old white
church is a testimony to the craftmanship of its early worshippers.
Today the original doors and shutters are trimmed with bright
blue. It seems so natural that one can imagine they were
always painted so brilliantly, setting off the stained glass
windows as they glow in the sunlight.
Toward the north end of Great Exuma, in
Rolleville, the quaint little Church Of God Of Prophecy was
built with hand-cut rock, quarried and carried by a small
group of Catholic nuns. It is still in use today and welcomes
visitors.
 Today,
we can see the early settlers in the faces of the island's
people, and their gentle ways show us the lessons of patience
that can only come from generations of island life.
Exuma is a land of contrasts. Poised on
the edge of exciting rapid growth, its feet still remain
firmly planted in an old and rich story of early island life.
If one looks carefully, there in the shadow of modern life
and change transforming the main island of Great Exuma, one
will still catch glimpses of a fascinating past.
Exuma Facts:
Population: 3,571
Size: 72
Sq. miles (Great & Little Exuma)
40
Sq. miles (Exuma Cays)
Highest Point:
Great & Little
Exuma – 125 Ft.
Exuma
Cays: 130 Ft.
Location: Lat.
N23 30’ 00 – Long. W75 45’ 00
Distance from Nassau:
35 miles southeast
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