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centuries.
    Some of those paths led to small food plots often set on stony hillsides, which amazingly had been cultivated by the enslaved Africans to feed themselves. At the end of fourteen-hour working days cultivating cane, and on Sundays, their one day off, they had planted vegetables like pumpkins, okras, dasheens, plantains, and yams, the food of their native Africa. For some reason, the soil of the parish of Hanover produced the best yams known to the palate. The moon-white Lucea yam was surely the monarch of all yams, my mother always said. Every time she cooked and served Lucea yam, she would tell us the same story that Jamaica’s first prime minister, Sir Alexander Bustamante, who was himself a native of Hanover and a man who claimed to have been descended from ArawakIndians, would say that “Lucea yam is such a perfect food that it can be eaten alone, with no fish nor meat.” She too subscribed to the belief that the Lucea yam needed nothing, no accompanying “salt ting,” as the Africans referred to pickled pig or beef parts, dried, salted codfish, shad, and mackerel which was imported by estate owners as protein for their diet.
    The clearing, which was later to become the village of Harvey River, was near the hillside plots farmed by some of the formerly enslaved Africans, many of whom now worked as hired labourers on nearby estates. The two Harvey brothers decided to “settle” the land, and, giddy at the prospect of imitating men like Christopher Columbus, Walter Raleigh, and Francis Drake, they named the river after themselves. They had spent the night sleeping on its banks, having come upon the place towards evening.
    â€œDo you think this river has a name?” said William.
    â€œAye, it has one now,” said John.
    They had bathed in it, and caught fat river mullets and quick dark eels which they roasted on stones. Then they had fallen asleep to the sound of the rush of the waters they now called by their name.
    The Harvey brothers built their first small house of wattles and daub. Later they built a larger house of mahogany, cedar, and stone. Then William had sent for his wife, Lily, and his six children whom he had left behind in London when he and his brother had come to Jamaica. Nobody knows where their money came from, but they were able to acquire considerable property in the area, and to live independently for the rest of their days.
    In time the village grew. Grocery shops were established, there were at least two rum bars, a church, and a school. But no matter who came to live there, the Harveys were considered to be the first family of the village. And when the governmentbuilt a bridge over a section of the Harvey River and tried to name it after some minor colonial flunky, William Harvey himself went and took down the government’s sign and erected a sign of his own saying Harvey Bridge.

    He was a tall, big-boned man
    the earth shuddered under his steps
    but the caught-quiet at his centre
    pulled peace to him like a magnet.
    Whenever she spoke of her paternal grandfather, my mother would say that he was one of the biggest, tallest, quietest men that anybody had ever met. Actually, because she had a love for imagery, she would say something like, “When he walked, the ground would shake, but he was silent as a lamb, a giant of a man with a still spirit.” True or not, there was something remarkable about the character of William Harvey, who was one of the few Englishmen in his time to legally marry a black Jamaican woman. By all accounts he was a very moral man who would not have countenanced living in sin with Frances Duhaney. He took her as his legal wife in the Lucea Parish Church, and none of his English neighbours attended the wedding. Some of them even cautioned him that black women were only fit to be concubines. William’s response to that particular piece of advice was that any woman who was good enough to share his bed was good enough for