‘Do mi mommy nuh beat mi kill mi
Sake a Merry-go-round’
from Linstead Market
Sake a Merry-go-round’
from Linstead Market
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries merry-go-rounds or carousels were a popular form of entertainment in Jamaica, even perhaps a 'craze' in the 1890s. This page will provide a little information on this phenomenon, based on reports in the newspapers at the time.
'When about forty years ago the first merry go round came to Jamaica, the peasants went mad about it and spent every threepence they could procure on merry go round rides. There was an outcry against this at the time, but these so called extravagant and foolish people were not stinting themselves of food, they were merely enjoying themselves more than they did before, and in order to have some luxury along with the simple necessities that had sufficed them they gave less time to indolence and more to productive exertion.'
Daily Gleaner, May 26, 1928, page 12, in editorial on the amusement tax. |
So far the earliest clear references to merry-go-rounds are found in 1887, but they must have been in use long before that, since no special comment is made on their presence then.
In The Capitals of Jamaica, edited by W Adolphe Roberts, F L Casserly referred to a 'merry-go-round' at the Emancipation Day celebrations on the Kingston Race Course in 1838. [What the source of this information is, or if the term 'merry-go-round' was actually used, is not clear.]
There are references in September and November 1877 which may point to the earliest appearance of a merry-go-round in Kingston. A Monsieur Gobron set up, with the permission of the Custos, what was essentially an amusement park on the south-west corner of the intersection of King and Tower Streets. Major attractions for adults were the shooting galleries and the Panoramas of operas, but aimed especially at children was the ‘Parisian Picnic [which] consists of a magnificent Circus of Flying Horses and coaches, on and in which the most Desirable Ride can be obtained’, and this attraction is described in the advertisements as an ‘entirely new amusement’. The ride, ‘whether on Horseback or in Coach’, cost 6d for 5 minutes. Although the ride was considered suitable for both sexes and all ages, it was opened especially for children from 12 to 4 p.m. It is of interest to note that the coaches, or carriages, were part of the carousel because in those days it was not considered proper for ladies to sit astride a horse, live or wooden. One reason for assuming that these are references to a carousel or merry-go-round is that the term ‘Flying Horses’ has been a synonym for carousel up to the present day, especially in New Orleans. Also, at Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, is the ‘Flying Horses Carousel’, a National Historic Landmark, the oldest continuously operating carousel in the U.S.A., which was originally handcrafted in 1876; this tallies well with the appearance of ‘Flying Horses’ in Jamaica in 1877. The use of the term ‘circus’ in this context is confusing, but apparently the earliest American carousel in 1799 was advertised as a ‘wooden horse circus ride’. Even if these are early references to a merry-go-round there is still, however, an inexplicable gap until the next reference in 1887. |