Bahamian teachers discover new island history in South Florida

Dr. John C. Nordt, a Miami resident, gives a presentation about his personal experience with the history of the Grove and its development to a visiting group of Bahamian educators at the Coconut Grove Women's Club. Photo by Jesse Swanson

Annafaye Ferguson-Knowles, a social studies teacher in the Bahamas, thought she knew everything about the history of the Bahamian people.

But after spending four days in April touring the historical sites of Coconut Grove and listening to stories about the first Bahamians to arrive in the area, Ferguson-Knowles and nine other teachers have gained new information for the Bahamian history books.

“We were here on a fact-finding mission. Our curriculum has so much to do with the migration of Bahamians to Florida,” Ferguson-Knowles said.

The teachers were hosted by The Crystal Parrot Players, a Miami-based performing arts group, and the Women’s Club of Coconut Grove.

They visited cemeteries and churches in Coconut Grove and listened to speakers such as John C. Nordt, III, who introduced the teachers to the story of King Arthur Lafayette Jones and Sir Lancelot Garfield Jones, the sons of a Bahamian national who migrated to Key West in 1875. The two boys are believed to be the first African American to be born on Key Biscayne.

Nordt and Sir Lancelot Jones were good friends before the latter passed away in 1997.

Born in the late 1890s, King Arthur and Sir Lancelot were the sons of Israel Lafayette Jones and Bahamian national Moselle Albury. The couple met at The Peacock Inn, which was built in 1882 as Miami’s first hotel and served as a place of employment for several Bahamian immigrants.

Today, it is the site of Peacock Park where the Coconut Grove Chamber of Commerce has its headquarters.

After buying land and settling on Porgy Key in Caesar Creek, Israel Jones started planting limes. He and his sons soon earned the title of “The Lime Kings of Porgy.”

“I am blown away. I didn’t know any of this,’’ said Gladys Johnson-Sands, the Bahamian consul general in Miami who attended Nordt’s presentation.

She said she was also impressed by another speaker, David “Imhotep” Jones, who gave a presentation at the Women’s Club on the origin of the first Americans, who Jones said were Africans that came over in 56,000 B.C.

David Jones, who lived in Miami for 20 years and was Muhammad Ali’s nutritionist, went on to complete a Ph.D. in African-Caribbean Studies and is currently working on a book.

Johnson-Sands invited him to speak to students in the Bahamas and said she hopes the schools there will continue to find funding to send teachers to Coconut Grove.

“I am someone who was brought up to appreciate history. It gives people grounding,’’ Johnson-Sands said.

“There is a history outside of what we were told. And until you have an understanding of who you are, you can never be complete,” she added.

Other guests at the lecture included Coconut Grove Village Council member Renita Ross Samuels-Dixon, community historian Leona Cooper Baker and Cornelia Dozier, a committee member of the Goombay Festival.

Left to right, Renita Samuels, Glady's Johnson Sands and Dr. Freddie Young listen to a presentation about the history of Coconut Grove for a group of visiting Bahamian social studies educators in the Coconut Grove Women's Club. Photo by Jesse Swanson