PELICAN ISLAND, also known as Bignall’s Point, was said to be located some 100 yards to the west of Fontabelle.
The island was 250 yards long by 150 yards wide, rugged on one side and sheltered with a lot of beach on the other.
Pelican Island was also found in Ogilby’s Map of 1670 records as being to the north of Carlisle Bay. It was also stated that it was possible to walk across to Pelican Island when the tide was low.
There were many species of birds found there, but the main bird attraction was the Brown Pelican, while the nesting sea turtles took second place, hencethe name Pelican Island and not Turtle Island – though it was sometimes referred to as Bird’s Island.
We can now only imagine what this place looked like, and wonder why the Deep Water Harbour was placed there. As the “new world” started to emerge, Barbados developed into a transitioning point, bridging the two worlds:the old and the new.
As the terror of small pox, cholera, yellow fever, the plague and other sicknesses began to escalate through travel without inoculation at this point, the island was “renovated” and seen as an ideal location for a quarantine.
It became a facility for sick passengers and to house and control diseases before they reached mainland Barbados. There was obviously, also a morgue on the island, a caretaker’s house and large cauldron where the clothes of those under quarantine were boiled, hopefully to dispose of any trace of diseases their belongings would “hold on to”.
Pelican changed as time passed in respect of how it was used.
The present generation might ask, where is it now located? Unfortunately, the answer is not where it is, but where it was, since it no longer exists. Anyone born after the 1960s would not have had that enchanting experience our ancestors had, or be privileged to enjoy.
As mentioned, it was also the home for the mainly green or loggerhead turtles that nested there.
From some interviews with persons who would have had the privilege to see and go there in earlier times, it was possible to walk across to the island in low tide. This made you wonder what would happen if you were there and high tide caught you. Was there a way to get back to the mainland?
Well, there were a pair of jetties on the island which made it accessible for small boats to stop off. There was also a bathing hut with three enclosed toilets with wooden seats and buckets, which sounds almost modern for its time. These facilities were located in close proximity at the end of the 20-foot jetties.
The buildings on the island reflected “class” consciousness, which meant there was a certain built-in permission for some, and designated areas for others. Two areas of the island were labelled Above The Wall, and Below The Wall. The area above the wall contained administrative buildings. There was also a long building divided into three sections supplied with canvas for third-class passengers.
At the beginning of the 20th century, many patients were still on the island, but the numbers were being reduced, with fewer people being referred there.
The end of World War 1 in 1918 sounded the “bell” for the end of patients on Pelican Island. During World War II, between 1939 and 1945, it was made into an internment camp, used mainly for people of German, Italian or Japanese descent.
• Matthew Holder is a student in the Division of Fine Arts of the Barbados Community College.
