(EDITOR’S NOTE: While doing some research in the archives of BAHAMAS CHRONICLE, I ran across this article we published in July of 2019 about the annual BACK TO ANGOLA FESTIVAL that was started by Daphney Towns, a Bahamian living in the Florida diaspora. Because of the impact of Hurricane Dorian on The Bahamas in September of 2019, the Festival was not held in 2020 and, of course, the effects of COVID-19 world-wide resulted in it again not being held in 2021. This event is so inextricably interwoven in the fabric of Bahamian history – particularly Andros, the island of my birth – that I strongly encourage Mrs. Towns and her organizing committee to renew their presentation of the BACK TO ANGOLA FESTIVAL in 2022. Here is the article published in July 2019.)
By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., July 27, 2019 — Although the central focus of the second annual BACK TO ANGOLA FESTIVAL 2019 held July 19 – 21 on the grounds of the Curry Museums in Bradenton, Florida, was the strong historical ties between Florida’s Manatee County and The Bahamas, another aspect of the festival that further underscores just how close those historical ties are is the fact the idea for the festival was conceived by Daphney Towns, a Bahamian living in the Florida diaspora.
It was not by accident that Mrs. Towns developed a special interest in assuring that the rich history of the connection between Manatee and the settlement of Red Bays, Bahamas, received wider recognition in both the United States and The Bahamas. She undoubtedly was motivated by the fact that she is a Bahamian with deep ancestral roots in Stanyard Creek, Andros, which also happens to be the settlement in which I was born.
When I was a young boy growing up at Andros in the 1940s and early 1950s, Stanyard Creek was deservedly referred to as the Garden of Andros, with a tranquil creek separating the West and East ridges. During high tide, as a young boy I was able to “throw my line out” from a cove known as “Pa Ben’s Landing” and catch broad shads, pogeys, snappers and other species of fish. The cove got its name because it was where a narrow track road through the property of my grandparents, Ben and Mabel Elliott, ended at the creek. See article in BAHAMAS CHRONICLE at https://bahamaschronicle.com/back-to-angola-festival-and-its-strong-andros-connection/
CAPTION: FLASHBACK: Gwendolyn Mortimer, a “festival team member” from The Bahamas, lives in Nassau, where she has her own business, Gwen’s Alterations. Her mother, Louise Riley, is from Stanyard Creek, Andros, and she is a first cousin of festival organizer Daphney Towns. The blouse the little girl is wearing was made at the festival as part of a workshop session along other workshops on basket-weaving and wood carving from Red Bays.
