The White witch of Rose Hall - Know who you marry. A Jamaican folklore

I and my brother used to talk about ladies, we were fascinated about having a girlfriend, though we have been raised to know that we don't have girlfriends for company sakes.
My parents would say

if you must have a relationship, it must be marriage driven. Why go from Jss 1- Ss3 if you will not write waec?

So on this particular day we were discussing about a pretty endowed girl in church and i told my brother i was going to make a move on her, who wouldn't?
This girl was dark in complexion, heavy breasted, curvy with a nice legs. Her voice was so beautiful with polished British accent, i was already day dreaming, i imagined her being mine, i thought of how emasculating sex with her would be, i dreamed of raising beautiful kids with her, seriously, I WAS IN LOVE.

Mothers will be mothers, they are well experienced to know the changes in their growing children. She saw that i was always hanging around this girl in church and laughing loudly, she noticed i was on the phone with this girl - call her Desire. One day, my mum stumbled over my discussion with my brother about Desire and she leaned on our conversation, then she asked a question from the blues that jolted i and my brother, "Do you know her well enough?" I actually didn't have an answer to that.

She sat us down to counsel her sons.
Note: My mum(and maybe most typical mums) has this uncanny way to instill the fear of God on us with mind boggling stories or illustrations.

She said,

"you don't just get involved with any lady just because she is attractive, marriage is way more than that."

Let me tell you a story.

I and my brother adjusted ourselves on the sofa to listen attentively, then my mum began..

There was a woman called Annie Palmer(surname acquired when she got married), she was so beautiful, looked innocent and was well endowed, she was born in Haiti and Her parents died of yellow fever when she was quite young and she was raised by a nanny who taught her witchcraft and voodoo. When She was grown, she moved to Jamaica.

Now there was a place called Rose Hall, it is an eighteenth century plantation manor house, of the 700 great houses that once served as the homes of Jamaica's wealthy plantation owners, only fifteen remain today, the others having been burned to the ground by slaves during the Great Jamaican Slave revolt of 1831-32. Of these remaining manor houses, Rose Hall is the most well known and the most infamous.

Rose hall at the moment belonged to a rich man called John Palmer, he has been quite unfortunate with women. John Palmer has two kids from two different women who left him with the sons in his care. When he met Annie, she was 18 years old and looked so ravishing, when he made his intentions known to his friends, they warned him to look deep into the background of this girl. They opined that ladies from the supposed location in Haiti where Annie was born come with ill luck but John Palmer would have none of it, without any background checks, John married Annie.

By this time, i and my brother where looking stunned and scared at the same anticipating the evil that would fall on this young man, my mum saw the looks on our faces and she took her time to give us details.

She continued..

Shortly after John married Annie, things began to go bad, she started disrespecting him, she afflicted him with various diseases and his plantation business was failing, but John Palmer never knew she had something to do with his ill fate.

Annie Palmer began to use her voodoo on her slaves, she was unfaithful, committed adultery that John Palmer got wind of and began to beat her. On one occasion, he caught her sleeping with a slave on their matrimonial home and he beat her with a whip and later that night, she used voodoo on him and killed him.

All John Palmer's properties and wealth became hers, Annie continued her lascivious ways with her male slaves. But to quell potential rumors from emerging about her promiscuity, she re-married. Her other two husbands reportedly died under mysterious circumstances. One of the husbands went and jumped into a lake on a cold winter morning and died, the other took a knife and slit his own wrist then died.

Now, The slaves of Rose Hall plantation despised Annie and knew that she was involved in the mysterious deaths of her husbands. She was described as a mean, cruel plantation mistress who tortured her slaves and treated them very poorly. After the death of each of her husbands, she increased the terror upon her slaves and continued her love affairs with certain male slaves. When she grew tired of them, she is said to have either cursed them with black magic or killed them.

There was slave called Takoo, he was related to one of her lovers. Annie used black magic to kill Takoo’s relative and he returned the favor with a little black magic of his own. His spell supposedly weakened Annie and while in a vulnerable state he strangled her in one of the bedrooms in Rose Hall. Takoo then placed her in a concrete coffin on the plantation and marked it with crosses to keep her spirit from wandering and haunting the land.

That's the end of the story, but people said her ghost was still heard or seen moving around Rose Hall at night.

My mum looked at us, by now fear had gripped us, she said, before you marry, make sure you have done a thorough check, it is not about being beautiful or you being in love.

We agreed we will talk to her about our choices, because her experience will aid us make good choices.

As for the lady i liked called Desire, strange enough, one day in church, while pastor was praying, she fell on the ground and started saying dreadful things, she said she was a witch and her target was to destroy young men.

All my affection for Desire who had the desire to kill me ended in smokes.

Moral of the story:

Marriage is not about beauty or money, it is about building capacity, it is about becoming better, it is about raising godly kids who will in turn make our world a better place. So, KNOW WHO YOU MARRY.

All photos was taken from Google

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