Many Belizeans can tell you who wrote the re-arranged lyrics we know as “Land of the Free” that has become our national anthem. But the majority of Belizeans who went to school in the colony of British Honduras and the nation of Belize know nothing about the life of the man who penned those revered words.
The UCLA academic, Robert Hill, delivered a stunning lecture to a capacity crowd at the Bliss Center for the Performing Arts last night, Sunday, August 17.
For most Belizeans, it is an accepted fact that our man Samuel Haynes wrote his famous poem – “Land of the Gods,” that the nationalist PUP, led by Premier George Price, altered into our national anthem, “Land of the Free.”
But this country and its educational institutions simply accepted Haynes lyrics without delving further into who this prolific British Honduran was. In so doing, a grave injustice was done to this man, his work and the philosophy of black internationalism that he espoused under the banner of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).
If nothing, Professor Hill’s illuminations upon the life of Samuel Haynes are nothing short of an indictment of Belize’s education system. Not only that, but in forging the Belizean nationalism of the early 1950s right up to the period just before our political independence in 1981, Belize’s rulers and educators neglected to include the contributions of the important people of color in the colony. The whole thing reeks of a colonial conspiracy packed with local collaborators
At a very early age, Samuel Haynes, who was a staunch Methodist, was on the frontlines in World War I, where he served in Italy and North Africa. Haynes was also a first rate journalist, whose writings about the front lines painted vivid pictures about life on the front.
Professor Hill, after dealing with Haynes in the uniform of the British Empire, began to focus his lecture on Haynes’ life in British Honduras after the soldier returned home and continued his contact with Marcus Garvey’s UNIA in its early years.
Haynes did not have to come home to BH to make contact with Garvey’s UNIA. His first contact came in 1918, when he was stationed in Egypt. He writes in a published article: “During those six months I studied profoundly the new philosophy which graced the pages of The Negro World. Two years after demobilization I made the personal acquaintance of Mr. Garvey in the summer of 1921.”
What cannot be missed, however, was the colonial authorities’ reaction to the idea that the natives in the colony had become interested in this man, Marcus Garvey, and his movement to liberate oppressed peoples in the Diaspora. Garvey was urging them to return to the motherland, Africa.
Gravey’s UNIA publication, The Negro World, quickly found an audience in British Honduras, after contacts were established and the first fifty copies were sent.
But from as early as February 1919, Professor Hill’s research shows in slides, the colonial authorities were dispatching a flurry of correspondence over the issue of the UNIA’s penetration of British Honduras.
Robert Walter, the officer administering the government of British Honduras, wrote to the British Ambassador to the United States, Rufus Isaacs, that: “I have the honor to invite Your Excellency’s attention to the enclosed copies of a paper entitled TheNegro World which has been finding its way to the colony.”
Walter’s letter went on to describe the contents of the UNIA publication as rubbish, and promised the ambassador that he would soon put an end to its circulation in the colony. He ended his letter by asking the British Ambassador to bring The Negro World to the attention of the American authorities.
The riots of July 1919 were another significant milestone in the life of Samuel Haynes, who prevailed upon his fellow citizens to keep the destruction of properties to a minimum.
In March of 1920, “at a meeting in the upper flat of the Oddfellows temple,” the UNIA finally established a chapter in the colony of British Honduras, with Samuel A. Haynes as its General Secretary.
Among the early correspondence that Samuel Haynes was to receive as General Secretary of the British Honduras branch of the UNIA was a letter from the Governor’s private secretary, H. D. Curry, informing him that the Governor was “unable to attend their Unveiling of the Charter of the Association at the C.Us theatre this evening.” Curry’s letter is dated April 22, 1920.
Haynes also lobbied the colonial governor, Eyre Hutson, for the release of a group of men who had been imprisoned following the riots of 1919. He writes on behalf of the UNIA that: “This committee desires to appeal to your Excellency for the liberation of these men on the following grounds: That the families of the majority of these men are solely dependent on them for their maintenance.”
The letter goes on to explain, “that since their admittance to prison such families have only been able to earn their livelihood under the most hazardous and trying circumstances.”
Haynes, who had a civil service job, eventually resigned his post to devote his time to the business of the UNIA. In a letter to Viscount Milner, Secretary of State at the Colonial Office, Governor Eyre Hutson wrote on June 16, 1920 that: “Mr. S.A. Haynes has resigned his temporary post in the Public Service, and is now touring the country in the interest of the Association. He is also a ‘snake in the grass.’”
According to a July 22, 1921 report filed by the Superintendent of British Honduras Police, H.J. Cavenaugh, “Marcus Garvey landed about 4:30 p.m. from the CanadianFisher….A good-sized crowd met him and his party. No demonstration of any kind was made and perfect order was maintained. Mr. Garvey was entertained at the house of Mr. I. Morter. I understand he will be staying there during his visit which will be for about four days.”
On July 5, 1921, it was the Assistant Superintendent of the British Honduras Police, H. McDonald, who was reporting on Samuel Haynes, who spoke at the farewell for Marcus Garvey. “S.A. Haynes then rendered a most inspiring address and was very applauded…. Undoubtedly Haynes’ head was full of racial questions and although his suggestions and insinuations were couched in diplomacy the theme cannot be misunderstood.”
Samuel Haynes left BH shortly after these activities and was never to return. He was only twenty-three-years-old, according to the New Orleans Passenger List; he arrived in the United States on July 21, 1923.
Samuel Haynes died in New Jersey in 1971, after rising in the ranks of the UNIA, which had seen its epoch of tribulation, beginning with the imprisonment of its leader Marcus Garvey, who was convicted of mail fraud in 1923 and sentenced to five years. After exhausting all his appeals, Garvey began serving his sentence in Atlanta State Penitentiary in February 1925. Marcus Garvey died in 1940 in obscurity, in London.
Professor Hill ended his lecture by explaining the decision of Chief Justice H.K.M. Sisnett in the probate case involving the will of Isaiah Emmanuel Morter that was contested by his wife, Ann Rebecca Morter, against Arthur Balderamos, Hubert Hill Cain, and the UNIA. The decision was read in court on 19 March 1926.
Sisnett wrote toward the end of his judgment that: “I find that the Residuary devise and bequest in the Will to the Parent Body of the UNIA is for an illegal purpose and contrary to Public Policy [a]nd consequently that such devise and bequest is void and of no effect, [a]nd that the Testator died interstate as to such Residuary devise and bequest.
Judgment must be for the plaintiff, and it is ordered that the Executors of the Will of the said Testator, hold the said Residuary devise and bequest subject to the orders of the Court as trustees for the persons legally entitled thereto.”