Augustown: A Novel

In December 1920, William Grant-Stanley, a light-skinned journalist from Kingston, arrived in Augustown under the fake name Mattias Marcus to investigate Bedward’s flight. He attended a church service at Union Camp and, though the community could tell he was a journalist, he was welcomed in. He watched the service, took notes, and was pulled in to dance by one of the churchgoers. He made weak attempts at patois but still stood out. Bedward appeared and gave a sermon. There were chains around his waist, and he noted the understandable negative view his Black congregation has of chains but said they were there to hold him to the Earth. He told the congregation that on December 31, he would perform a miracle: He would fly into the sky and stay there with the prophets for three days before returning with “lightning” in his hands to bring “ruination” to the “wicked” Kingston and the governor Leslie Probyn.

Governor Leslie Probyn was the British governor of Jamaica during Bedward’s flight in 1920. He sat in his office and read a copy of Roaming Through the West Indies, a nonfiction text in which Harry Franck, an American travel writer, lambasts the leadership of many of the Caribbean colonial territories as “unsafe” for white people due to the “multitude” of Black people. Probyn felt irritated by Franck’s criticisms and by the anger of local businessman Richard Azaar, who, as a mixed-race man, felt superior to the Black people of the community. Azaar felt threatened by Bedward and the number of people leaving Kingston to see the miracle in Augustown, leaving the stores and businesses with few workers as the Christmas season approached. Azaar thought a revolution was coming, but Probyn dismissed his fears. Azaar told him that he would regret it, saying that history would tarnish his reputation.

This chapter transcribes two news stories from Kingston newspapers that cover the topic of Bedward and his flight. Both present Bedward as a false prophet, a charlatan obsessed with power, and portray his followers as weak-minded adherents to folk tradition who fail to understand the reality of the situation.

When Gilzene was young, she was ugly—even her great-grandmother Miss Lou thought so. Miss Lou was a formerly “loose” woman, but she later found faith in her 60s and became baptized. She raised Gilzene, and though she worried about Gilzene going through puberty and becoming pregnant, she thought her looks would protect her. Despite her looks, Gilzene had a beautiful singing voice and sang Bedward into the clouds.

Ma Taffy begins to tell Kaia the final part of the story. Christmas came and went, and on December 31, the community gathered to see Bedward fly. The community honored him by wheeling and bowing to him until Babylon and Governor Probyn arrived. During the tense standoff, Bedward began to fly. Babylon ridiculed him, calling his floating a “circus trick.” Bedward faltered, but Gilzene began to sing, and the whole community joined in the song. Bedward flew higher and higher until a member of Babylon grabbed a stick and pulled Bedward down to the ground by the neck of his robes, which Ma Taffy compares to “plucking fruit.” Ma Taffy identifies the foul smell that accompanied Kaia when he came home from school: it’s the smell of picking jackfruit. She rubs Kaia’s head to show her love for him and tells him the story is not what Kaia has heard. It’s not the story of a foolish man but the story of a man pulled down by the country of Jamaica.

The narrator shares the story of H. E. S. Woods, also known as Shakespeare, who, in 1888, journeyed to Augustown and prophesied a tragedy that would befall Augustown. The townsfolk repented, so Shakespeare made a second prophecy: A man greater than him would rise from the Augustown valley and lead a great religion. Alexander Bedward used to be a cow herder and a man with problems with both gambling and adultery. He suffered from chronic illness. During a delirious dream he suffered from while sick, he saw an old man who whipped him and demanded that he return to Augustown. He procrastinated, but the man with the whip visited him in a dream again. Bedward finally returned to Augustown and started Bedwardism, after giving himself over to fasting and prayer. Bedwardism grew in popularity with the “black peasants,” but was reviled by the upper class and white people. The narrator then briefly retells the story of Bedward’s flight. Bedward’s teachings were combined with the writings of Marcus Garvey and published in The Promised Key, which is referred to as the first book of Rastafari.

The narrator shares that the Rastafari songs about flight all call back to the memory of Bedward. The narrator issues a challenge to view the characters in the story as real people, not characters in a magical realism story. It’s instead a story of the people of Augustown and the event they needed to happen and the flight they yearned to see, though it did not actually happen.