Who is Mr Mango?
Jamaica is a unique place, when Christopher Columbus first saw the island on 5th May 1494, he referred to it as, "the fairest isle that eyes have beheld," today, that uniqueness must also include the island's people. With the motto on its coat of arms, "Out of many one people," it offers a history and culture so bizarre, that it always seems unbelievable to those who are used to "normal" structured ways of life.

Today, one of the many extraordinary mysteries of Jamaican is its oral history, stories so amazing that they stretch even the most flexible mind. On one of my many visits to my family's home in Jamaica, in a small village in the hills of the Blue Mountains in the east, I was told the full story of Mr Mango.

The story of Mr Mango is well known amongst the elderly people who live in the area north from Morant Bay, but my grand mother was able to offer me the full story, which I am able to pass on to others. It is not known the precise date Mr Mango was born, because he was born a slave. At that time of his birth, slaves were regarded as cattle, therefore, their birth were rarely recorded, but it is assumed that it was likely to be around 1780.

Mr Mango, who was given the name Charles, was born in the slave settlement of Sedgrick Pen, near Stoney Gut in the hills of the Blue Mountains in the east of the island, three miles north of Morant Bay. A shortage of written records relating to Sedgrick Pen makes it difficult to offer general information about the settlement, but through oral history, indications are that it was used like a cattle pen, but for slaves. The settlement was used as a place where slaves were bred to be sold to plantations in the local area that grew sugar cane, coconut or tobacco. Today this settlement area is still the home for the descendants of Mr Mango.

When the slave Charles was born, he did not seem special in any way, rather the opposite, he was physically a small weak sickly child, not expected to live to adulthood. With Charles being such a sickly child, he was not forced to work in the plantation fields with the other slaves, but spent his youth assisting the female slaves with domestic work.

Fortunate female slaves were sometimes given jobs that offered them a moderate amount of freedom and variety, one sought after job being to deliver rum, spices and letters to other plantations in the local area. Charles, being seen as no more a threat than the women, was allowed to do "womens' work," which led him to travel around the eastern Blue Mountain doing all kind of tasks, but also learning the area's secrets.

Only four miles west of Sedgrick Pen, in the forest of the Blue Mountains, were the settlements and encampments of the Maroons. The Maroons were organized communities of escaped slaves, their name, derived from the original Iberian description for cattle that had escaped from farms to live in high mountainous peaks, were brilliant and successful fighters against slavery. After many years of fighting and defeating soldiers sent by the governor of Jamaica to capture them, the Maroons were finally left to rule themselves as free people, and flourished.

Charles relationship with the Maroons started soon after he became a teenager, he was asked by three slaves from a nearby plantation to aid them in running away to the Maroons encampment from their brutal master. One dark night, Charles and the three slaves met in a nearby cane field to start their journey as runaways. Their journey to the Maroons encampment was quick and uneventful, thus started for Charles, an activity that was to last for many years and end with freedom for many slaves.

Charles quietly and efficiently carried on with his double life, but slave owners were constantly suspicious, knowing that the escaping slaves were getting help to run away, but did not know who was responsible. One particular dark night, Charles was leading two slaves away from bondage, to their horror, they found themselves being pursued by slavers with hunting dogs. They could here the men and their dogs getting closer and closer, certain that their luck was over and that they would be caught. Just when it seemed that all their hopes of escaping was gone, Charles led the fleeing group into a thick orchard of mango, breadfruit and sowersap trees. They ran as far into the orchard as they could and climbed the tallest bushiest mango tree they could find.

This was the middle of the mango season and the ground was carpeted with rotting fermenting fruits, the rich, pungent aroma filled the orchard making it almost impossible to breath. The slave catcher's dogs approaching the orchard became confused and disoriented, the smells were too strong for the dog's sensitive noses. The group of slaves were safe, to the dogs, it was as if they had disappeared into thin air.

Charles gained almost cult status amongst the slaves, he was seen as being mystical with his ability to disappear right under the very nose of slave hunters and their dogs, but he was seen as the very disciple of the devil by the slave owners. Charles became known as Mr Mango because many superstitious slaves and slave owners thought that he had magical powers, they saw him as having the ability to turn himself and the slaves into mangoes and thus disappear, when they enter a mango orchard.

Over a period of four years, it is claimed that Mr Mango helped hundreds of slave to "steal away to freedom," but this was not to last. While leading a group of slave out of bondage, he was betrayed and captured by a band of mercenary Maroons when he was heading north between Middleton and Soho. He was handed over to slave hunters who killed him, dismembered his body, throwing the body parts into the bushes along dirt tracks in that area.
There is a simple moral to this story, which is relevant to us all, it shows how something that may seem irrelevant, can have a profound impact on our lives. After telling me this amazing story about Mr Mango, the very next day, my grand mother slipped on wet grass, fell and broke her hip and died aged ninety six years. What I find truly amazing is that I came so very close to losing knowledge about a very important part of my history. This makes me wonder, just how much of our history is being lost each and every day.

Britain's Black History Database will help us to ensure that some of our amazing history and experiences are save for prosperity, for us all to share. Let us remember never to forget.
Finally, the story of Mr Mango is my story, Mr Mango was my grand mother's grand father's great grand father, the slave Charles.

I offer this true story to all who wish to know, in memory of my grand mother Mrs Edna, born 1900, died April 1996.