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Alec Ainsworth
ENG 471
Pinuelas
04/25/22
Atrocious Legacies Resisted in
Cliff’s Abeng
In 1492, Christopher Columbus was sent by Spanish King Ferdinand II to navigate from

Europe to the highly profitable Spice Trade in Asia. However, unbeknownst to Columbus, who

believed he had reached India, he landed in the Carribian islands of the Americas, where he

would create the ongoing misclassification of labeling all native/indigenous people as “Indians.”

Columbus would not set foot on Jamaica until his second voyage in 1494, where Michelle Cliff’s

Abeng takes place. In Abeng, Cliff mentions Columbus’ voyage and journey to Jamaica and its

slave-enriched history that the main character, Clare Savage, is a decedent as both enslaved

person and enslaver. Clare draws from both sides of her family. Clare learns about the Jamaican

Maroons that protested slavery and of her grandmother’s enslavement history. At the same time,

she learned of her ancestor Judge Savage’s slave plantation. The readers are exclusively told by

Cliff how Judge Savage treated the enslaved people on his plantation and how he chose to handle

the emancipation of enslaved people by the British Crown. Similarly, Cliff informs the reader of

Columbus and his legacy in Jamaica and Colonialism but ceases to inform the reader of his direct

conflict with the original Taino people of Jamaica. Specifically, Cliff negates to inform Clare of

Judge Savage and the reader of Columbus’ most heinous acts performed on the Jamaican people

to illustrate how they attempted to erase certain histories of Jamaica that are highlighted through

feminine resistance in Abeng. While Cliff does not explicitly state that Columbus decimated the

Tiano people of Jamaica or have Clare learn of her ancestors' crimes against humanity, it is

evident in Abeng's text that the atrocious accounts were linked to shaping Jamaican history due

to similar resistances.
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Christopher Columbus is arguably the most well-known explorer in history and is one of

the leading factors in Colonialism in the Caribbean. In Cliff’s chapter 10, the introduction

summarizes his importance when she mentions that he was “buried four times: twice in the

Americas, twice, and finally Spain” (Cliff, 66). Cliff does not mention the events that occurred

upon Columbus’ arrival and the indigenous Taino people who inhabited the island. Cliff does,

however, mention a few instances of the Arawak language that was spoken by the Jamaican

Tiano: “They knew of the legend of the Arawak -some time ago, a young brown man had come

to their area to dig for relics left by the Indians” (Cliff, 91). Cliff denied to inform the reader of

the tragedy that befell the Taino because if she did, that would be a confirmation of how

Jamaica’s history has been disregarded openly. “Cliff develops her narrative by exposing the

gaps and contradictions of official history. Cliff not only exposes the gaps in official history, but

she also fills them with a different accounting of history” (Amiel, 48). Thus, Cliff references the

ideology that Columbus was Jewish and sought a haven for Jewish people, which is highlighted

by Clare’s fascination with the Holocaust and not the actions of Columbus in Jamaica.

When Columbus first arrived in Jamaica in 1494, he was met by the Taino people of

Jamaica. Columbus had heard of Jamaica from “the Taino in Cuba; however, when he first tried

to land on the North Coast, over 40 war canoes repelled him” (Taino of Jamaica, Glenn

Woodley). Some of those Taino people were killed that day. The following day “six Indians

brought peace offerings of cassava, fruit, and fish, and for the rest of the Admiral’s stay supplied

him and his men with provisions” (Heroes of Jamaica, Michael Auld). The Taino people

attempted to make peace with Columbus but were met with “ intentional acts such as slavery and

other problems like disease” (The Taino People, Jamaican Experience). On Columbus’s second

voyage to Jamaica, “in 1503, Christopher Columbus and his crew became reliant on the Taíno
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village of Maima for provisions” (Latin American Antiquity, Burley). The same Taino people

Columbus gained aid from “would be conquered and virtually disappeared” (Latin American

Antiquity, Burley) by the end of the 16th century. However, many Taino people in Jamaica

“demonstrated defiance against colonizers” (Neeganagwedgin, 6) by resisting their oppressors. It

was discovered that “at every process and experience with European colonization, Taino People

expressed their governance and challenged both Spanish and British dominance”

(Neeganagwedgin, 9). While the Taino people of Jamaica are vaguely mentioned throughout

Abeng, the rebellious nature the Taino people had was inherited by the Maroons, who were both

descendants of Taino and enslaved Africans.

In 1655, the British won over Spanish control of Jamaica, and many Spanish colonizers

fled to Cub and freed their slaves. The enslaved people who could escape created a coalition with

the surviving Taino people of Jamaica. “Maroons of Jamaica are the original custodians of the

African/ Jamaican Culture. This charge had been bestowed on them by the Taino Native Indians

of Jamaica when they shared cultures and a fellowship of brotherhood/sisterhood during the days

of resistance” (Simms, 245). Those formerly enslaved people then became the Jamaican

Maroons that Cliff aligned elegantly into Clare’s understanding of Jamaican history and the

feminine prowess of the original queen of the Maroons, Queen Nanny, and other Maroon

descendants like Inez and Mma Alli, who Judge Savage enslaved. Cliff chose to integrate three

critical Maroon female characters that shaped not only Jamaica in Clare’s eyes, but Nanny, who

lived and fought for freedom, was one of the primary resistances that Jamaica experienced in

Colonialism. “Maroon Girl, a poem that both Kitty and Zoe recite, associates a history of female

resistance with the larger struggle for independence on the part of Jamaica as a whole”

(Montgomery, 72). Cliff specifically chose to utilize Nanny and Inez and Mma Alli as Maroon
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female protagonists that rebelled against both enslavement and colonialism, which inspired Clare

and rendered the monstrous activities of Judge Savage and Columbus null and void. To further

that resistance, before the enslavement of Inez and Mma Alli, two Maroon wars broke out in the

18th century, where Nanny, who was born in Africa, led the rebellion in Jamaica. In the first war,

nearly “300 Maroons in Trelawney Town held out against 1500 troops and 3000 local volunteer

troops. After five months of fighting, the undefeated Maroons were offered an agreement for

peace” (Maroons of Jamaica, PortCities Bristol). After the first war, Nanny became both a

cultural and political leader in Jamaica, where “tales of Queen Nanny and her valiant military

exploits among the Windward Maroons in the struggle against colonial rule also offer an account

of black female insurgence deeply rooted in spirituality and sexual difference, a counter-narrative

at odds with a largely masculinist history of Jamaica’s beginnings as part of Britain’ imperialist

acquisitions in the commonwealth region” (Montgomery, 68). Cliff had mentioned that Nanny

had magical abilities whereby she was “famed both for her strategic prowess and for her ability

to catch a bullet between her buttocks and thereby return it whence it came” (Murdoch, 75). One

of the profound attributes of Cliff, specifically using Nanny, Inez, and Mma Alli as leading

feminine figures, is to dismantle the eradicating facets of Columbus and Judge Savage by giving

Clare and the audience a voice of hope through the Maroons. They fought for freedom against

enslavement and colonialism. “Nanny provides an alternative genealogy for Clare that has the

potential to serve a liberatory purpose in her life” (Saunders, 189). The mere mention of the

Maroons supports the diminishing legacies of colonialism because they were the main force that

fought effortlessly against such oppressions that Cliff highlights through female characters.

Nanny passed away nearly an entire century before abolishing slavery in Jamaica, in Abeng Inez
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and Mma Alli carry the embodiment of the rebellion of the Maroon lineage that Nanny fiercely

fought for the enslaved people of Jamaica.

Like Columbus, Judge Savage came on behalf of a country and found himself in a

position that favored his evil character. Judge Savage was Clare’s ancestor that owned and

tortured enslaved people as he sought fit. Torture was Judge’s primary form of enjoyment in life

that he felt responsible for on his plantation. Cliff illustrates vividly the abhorred treatment some

individuals underwent on the plantation:

The recaptured slave was strung up in front of the quarters, where the queen’s Justice applied the

cat-o’-nine tails to his or her back. The number of lashes depended upon the exertion the justice

was capable of on a given afternoon, or morning. Usually about a hundred strokes or so. After the

whipping, the slave had salt rubbed into the wounds on his or her back. Then the slave was

hanged by the neck until dead, from the large cotton tree in the backyard. Finally, the rebel was

cut down and the justice dissected the naked body of the African man or woman into four parts.

Each quadrant if this human body was suspended by a rope from a tree at a corner of the property

where it stayed until the vultures, called John Crows, or bluebottle flies finished it off. (Cliff, 30)

Judge Savage’s crimes were not unique nor sparse in Jamaica and slaveholders. However, like

Columbus, who eradicated populations through disease and enslavement, when Judge Savage

discovered that the crown wished to abolish slavery in Jamaica, his savage nature turned into

something even more subhuman. To Judge, enslaved people were not people and mere chattel

property. To Judge Savage: “These people were slaves and would not know how to behave in

freedom. They would have been miserable. He was a justice…These people were Africans. Their

lives obviously of less value. They had been brought here for one purpose, and one purpose

only—and this was about to be removed. At that moment, these people were his property, and

they were, therefore, his to burn” (Cliff, 40). While Clare is aware of his father’s side of her
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history, Clare never learns of the horrific murders that took place at the Paradise Plantation when

the enslaved people on his plantation were burned on the eve of their emancipation. One

enslaved person in particular who was away at the time of the burning and was the most

important enslaved person to Judge Savage was Inez. Inez, like Nanny, was a Jamaican Maroon

who sought liberation and emancipation for the people of Jamaica. Inez suffered a different kind

of punishment than the other enslaved people because she was Judge’s mistress.

Cliff’s decision to revoke the knowledge of Judge Savage burning his slaves before they

could be emancipated and allowing Inez to go unscathed and represent her as a hero like Nanny

highlights the image that Cliff creates for Clare. “The two historical locations focus particularly

on female historical and fictional figures and the role they played in slave resistance” (Saunders,

41). Inez and Mma Alli were both enslaved people on Judge's plantation and were both Jamaican

Maroons following in the path of Nanny and the Taino people. “By the very structure of her

novel, Cliff contests the traditional history of Jamaica, recreating erasures and writing over them

a counter-history” (Amiel, 46). Nanny is a Jamaican hero of the Maroon people. While the

portrayal of Inez and Mma Alli are fictional, they represent the history of Jamaica that Clare sees

and visualizes for herself in the face of being of both enslaved person and enslaved descent in a

nation torn by its colonization and racism. Inez was in particular unique because, unlike most

enslaved people in Judge’s care, Inez was spared severe punishment in his eyes and was

subjected to rape at an astronomical level. “Massa Shelby brought her into the courtroom, where

she would have her hands cut off at the wrist, or been given a hundred strokes of the cat, but the

judge intervened and took her joke where he raped her. He raped her for six weeks until he left

on one of his trips to London. She was eighteen” (Cliff, 34). While Judge Savage is a fictional

character, his character is the embodiment of evils that occurred in Jamaica and throughout the
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enslavement that was undergone in Jamaica. Judge’s crimes and punishments were praised by his

family and seen as detrimental to keeping the Savage family name worthy of its stature. These

characteristics were generalized by many other plantation owners who had the ability to belittle

human life on a daily basis. “Slave owners needed to show that they were strong, violent, virile

men who ruled the little kingdoms of white autocracy that were Jamaican plantations as they

pleased. What better way for white men to show who was in control than for them to have the

pick of black women whenever they chose.” (Bufacchi, 205). When Inez was 20, she was

impregnated by Judge Savage, which was critical to mention in Cliff’s text. The Savage family

could not impregnate or bear children with a woman of color, which was the Savage way of life.

However, while Judge Savage was away on business, Inez turned to Mma Alli to rid the child

that grew inside of her. “When Inez came to Mma Alli to get rid of the mixed-up baby she

carried, Mma Alli kept her in her cabin overnight” (Cliff, 35). Cliff explicitly mentions the use of

herbal remedies and dynamic interactions that occurred in the process of eradicating Judge

Savage's child within Inez that Mma Alli performed. “Cliff’s fictional representation of the erotic

relationship between Inez and Mma Alli, two enslaved women on Judge Savage’s plantation, and

the various forms of slave resistance they pursue plays a similar role of historical retrieval”

(Saunders, 44). Inez’s resistance came in the form of denying Judge Savage's child within her,

which to her bore no soul as a rape creation, whereby Mma Alli was able to not only peacefully

and near painlessly remove the child from her body but to pleasure and create a romantic

relationship that Clare admired immensely. The elimination of the child and the creation of

companionship between Inez and Mma Alli is the most profound resistance in Abeng due to the

nature of a woman of color eliminating a product of a white, powerful man. Additionally, it is the

action of two colored Maroon women that perform a loving and traditional act during and after
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the experience. Judge Savage could not eliminate or tarnish Inez as he desired. Out of immense

frustration from no longer being able to own “property,” he revoked their ability to live. “The

real world-that is, the world outside country-could be just as dreamlike as the world of

make-believe–on this island which did not know its own history” (Cliff, 96). Cliff only

administers the compassionate variation of the history because Clare is the future of Jamaica that

Nanny, Inez, and Mma Alli have been hoping to achieve for centuries. Clare is aware of her

history and uses it to her advantage in her coming of age story by using Jamaican history to

explain her own insecurities that Columbus and Judge Savage could never reach.

Clare serves as the ultimate and final testament to both Columbus and Judge Savage

Clare’s birth and the fact that her father is a Savage who married and had a child with a woman

of color and no less a descendant of slavery serves as the ultimate form of resistance to the

ideologies of the Savage family history. Judge Savage is fictional, but his legacy is real, and his

ideologies and cruel demeanor were nothing short of the truth and potentially even worse in

some plantations. His legacy lives on in racist and bigoted individuals who support white

supremacy in Jamaica and wish to negate the colonization policies that were diminished in the

events of Abeng. Columbus’ legacy will never cease. He has left a mark on this earth of

devastation and accomplishment that leaves individuals fascinated and disgusted by his actions.

However, both men are detailed in Abeng but have had their histories erased from Clare and the

reader, where only the aspects of empowerment are administered. Cliff’s choice to negate

specific accounts to both the reader and Clare is unquestionably practical because the theory of

omission is a critical writing ability embodied in Cliff’s Abeng. The decision to eradicate

abdominal histories while holding people accountable and enabling histories of dire importance

assists Clare in her character’s growth and the reader with crucial points in Jamaican history.
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Work Cited

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Michelle Cliff’s “Abeng.” ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2012.

Burley, David. “JAMAICAN TAÍNO SETTLEMENT CONFIGURATION AT THE TIME OF

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS | Latin American Antiquity.” Cambridge Core,

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ent-configuration-at-the-time-of-christopher-columbus/AE417F7D917635FF7DDD99E1

8828F2FC. Accessed 16 May 2022.

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vol. 48, no. 2, 2017, pp. 197–211. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.1111/josp.12182.

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