17° 59' 0" North, 76° 44' 0" West. Down there is Augustown. It sits between two hillsides, and one of these carries on its face a scar. And when these two hills throw their shadow over the valley, it can feel as if it is the dark shadow of history. Here then is the boring bit—the actual history, as it were—the things that have been recorded in official sources.

History tells us that there was once a man by the name of H. E. S. Woods, an African-American who somehow ended up in Jamaica and who was more commonly called “Shakespeare”; the “S” of his initials may or may not have stood for Shakespeare, the records do not say. And that this man, Shakespeare, was quite a peculiar man who lived in caves between Spanish Town and the parish of St. David’s, which no longer exists. And that one day in 1888, this man, Shakespeare, journeyed from St. David’s to Augustown and prophesied a great and terrible prophecy: Behold, Shakespeare said, as if he had arrived in Augustown straight from the Old Testament, the sins of Augustown have come up before me and I will destroy this place as I did Dallas Castle, except the people repent. Yea, if they will come together, take their white cups and hold to Me a fast, I will not destroy them. But if they will not repent and obey Me, I will sink the valley and make the two hills meet. And so the people of Augustown repented and Shakespeare made another prophecy: that a man even greater than he would rise up from that ignoble valley—that valley which from the sky looks like a great big pot of cornmeal porridge—and that this man would lead a great religion and it would be a blessing unto millions.

History says that at the time of this prophecy, Alexander Bedward was a man of little distinction; that he was a cowherder on the nearby Mona Estate, and a gambler and an adulterer to boot. He had been afflicted with an unknown disease for many years and woke up each morning with a high fever, his broad forehead drenched with sweat and his insides feeling as if they were being turned inside out. And on such mornings he would hold his great big head in his calloused hands and bawl out, “Oh lawd! Oh lawd! Why de raasclawt dis here sickness won’t leave me be?” And then he would stumble into the yard, near to his fowl coop, and vomit until the lining of his stomach had torn and all that he was bringing up was blood. History says that the doctors were of no help to him and so he finally resolved, in the delirium of one of his fevers, to leave his wife, his girlfriends and his seven children and migrate; that he took up residence in Colon, where he worked as a labourer, and that there he suddenly enjoyed perfect health. He woke up each morning and chewed tobacco leaves, and smiled to himself and whispered, “Foreign life good nuh, fuck!” Then, after two years, he decided to visit Jamaica, with a thick gold chain round his neck. He walked into Augustown with two packed suitcases in his calloused hands, but before reaching home he leaned the luggage against the door of a rum-bar and there he sat, well into the night, buying quart after quart of white rum so that everyone was drunk from his charity, and by the end of that night he had spent a good deal of the money he had brought back for his wife, his girlfriends and his seven children. History records that he stumbled home at last, stinking of rum, and climbed into bed beside his wife, and before she could raise her voice against him, he put his hand against her mouth and pushed himself into her; that the next morning he woke up and felt a sickness that was more than just a hangover—it was the old disease come back—and he woke up groaning Raasclawt! Raasclawt! and stumbled out to the fowl coop where he vomited until he saw blood. That he fainted into the mesh of the coop, scraping his face, and stayed there for hours among the feathers and the birdshit and his own vomit; that the disease refused to leave, and so he took what strength he could muster and ran away again from Jamaica.

History says that this time the disease followed him; that he was constantly delirious; that he dreamed he would die there in Panama; but that in one of his most vivid dreams he saw an old man coming out of a cave with a whip, a very peculiar man who instructed him to return at once to Augustown. That Bedward began to cry, and complained that he could not go back. He could not. He could not. Mi naah guh back to dat raasclawt place! But the old man flicked the whip on Bedward’s back, a scoring he wore for the rest of his life; and then the man with the whip told him who he should go to and ask for money. History records that Bedward procrastinated; that the fever grew worse; that the man with the whip came to him a second time in his dream; that Bedward finally obeyed; that he got the money and returned to Jamaica and there, back on the island, he gave himself over to fasting and praying; that he cried in his wife’s lap and repented; and that in the years to come he became the greatest preacherman in Jamaica. Bedwardism became one of the most important religions across the island, and for thirty years people came from all around the Caribbean to Augustown to hear this man preach. He famously said, There is a white wall and a black wall, but the black wall is growing bigger and will crush the white wall. He was dearly loved by the black peasants of the island, but was sorely hated by the governor and the upper-class rascals who were mostly white and who worried over his stirring oratory and the crowds he inspired. History says that he gave himself many titles; it is likely that he began as Bredda Alex, but he soon became the Shepherd and Dispenser; he was the Earl of Augustown; he was also Lord Bedward. But mostly he was Master Bedward.

History tells us that one day this one-time cowherder, former gambler and adulterer now turned preacherman, announced his intention to fly. He declared he was going to heaven to gather bolts of lightning in his calloused hands and he would bring them back down with him to that island where he would smite the white wall, the white upper-class rascals who, even though slavery had ended, were still oppressing the poor black folk. From every parish in the island and also from overseas, from Panama and from Cuba, people came; they journeyed to Augustown to see this great thing happen, and the governor was gravely worried. A group of high-powered men went into the governor’s office and slammed their red fists on his Lignum vitae desk and told him, “This cannot happen! This must not happen!” And so, on the day that Bedward was supposed to fly, the police came and arrested him. He was locked up in the madhouse, Bellevue Hospital, and he remained there for the balance of his life. History says his followers were broken by this; that the ten years in which the preacherman withered away in jail were like years in the wilderness; but that his second in command, a fellow by the name of Robert Hinds, whose story is not told enough on the island, joined forces with another man, Leonard Howell. Bedward’s teachings were gathered up by these two men, mixed in with the teachings of Marcus Garvey and published in a little book called The Promised Key under the pseudonym G. G. Maragh; and you can buy this little book, even today, and this book is widely regarded as the first book of Rastafari.

You might stop to consider this: that when these dreadlocked men and women, when these children of Zion, when these smokers of weed and these singers of reggae, when they chant songs such as, “If I had the wings of a dove,” or “I’ll fly away to Zion,” these songs hold within them the memory of Bedward. Such songs, sung at the right moment, can lift a man or a woman all the way up to heaven.

Call it what you will—“history,” or just another “old-time story”—there really was a time in Jamaica, 1920 to be precise, when a great thing was about to happen but did not happen. Though people across the length and breadth of the island believed it was going to happen, though they desperately needed it to happen, it did not. But the story as it is recorded, and as it is still whispered today, is only one version. It is the story as told by people like William Grant-Stanley, by journalists, by governors, by people who sat on wide verandahs overlooking the city, by people who were determined that the great thing should not happen.

Look, this isn’t magic realism. This is not another story about superstitious island people and their primitive beliefs. No. You don’t get off that easy. This is a story about people as real as you are, and as real as I once was before I became a bodiless thing floating up here in the sky. You may as well stop to consider a more urgent question; not whether you believe in this story or not, but whether this story is about the kinds of people you have never taken the time to believe in.