Rosemary C. Hanna

By Sir Orville Turnquest, GCMG, QC, LL.B., JP

Former Governor-General of The Bahamas

(A Grant’s Town Boy from “Over-The-Hill”)

I feel very honoured to have been given the privilege to read the Manuscript of this detailed text by Ms. Rosemary C. Hanna, and invited to write this Foreword.  This volume contains references to traditional Grant’s Town family names, such as Bullard, Coakley, Hanna, Johnson, Rolle, Turnquest and Williams.   Such surnames and many others were the names of well-known established families who for many years resided “Over the Hill” in Grant’s Town, in the Southern District of the Island of New Providence.

The story of “Over the Hill” is the history of a proud and aspiring people.   It is the story of freed slaves who had been forcibly taken from their native land in West Africa and settled in a new land across the Atlantic Ocean.   It is a story of the preservation of many aspects of an ancient culture, combined with the acquisition of modern skills, and quality education, in order to achieve success in a new land.   It is a story of an entire area in the centre of the Island of New Providence – an area which was a distinct Settlement known as Grant’s Town, and which was once the mecca of future leaders, builders, educators, politicians, business and professional people, as well as musicians, ordinary artisans and workers, all of whom lived there and developed the area as they established a fine record of black families and proud neighbourhoods.

Sadly, that reputation has changed in recent decades, as “Over the Hill” is now fast becoming a symbol of the deterioration of those same neighbourhoods “Over the Hill”.     It is still important, however, that as we reflect from time to time on who we are, we should also recall where we have come from.  In those early days, if you lived or hailed from an area like Grant’s Town “Over the Hill”, you were not only a black or coloured person, but you were also underprivileged and attached with an automatic badge of social inferiority and subservience.  Hence, one frequently was dismissed with the assessed and rhetorical condemnation, adapted from the age-old Biblical question: “Can any good thing come out of Grant’s Town?”

Apart from being the business and civic hub of the Island, the Town of Nassau was also the residential area of the white and mulatto population, as well as a middle-class minority comprising the racially mixed and most of the then affluent population.   As the population grew, these City dwellers correspondingly extended their residences both eastwards and westwards from the City limits, along or near the northern waterfront of the Island, but never southwards over the hill ridge……no, never “Over the Hill”.  On the other hand, the mass of the black population also expanded, as their numbers increased, into areas outside the original “Over the Hill” neighbourhoods into what became known as the new Subdivisions such as Coconut Grove, Shirley Heights, Culmersville, Sears Addition, Greater Chippingham, Pinewood Gardens and others.  “Over the Hill” was essentially a geographic description, but it was also a culture, a concept, an identity, a heritage, and a way of life.

Again, I am happy to congratulate the Author, Ms. Rosemary Hanna, for this historical compilation which should prove not only of great interest but of great sociological value in tracing our Bahamian roots.