Key West Music And Happenings: February 2020

Paulie Walterson - A True Conch

Photo by Ralph DePalma

Before we go anyplace here, lets nail the pronunciation down. Conch is pronounced :Konk”. The CH in Conch is a hard CH, just as it is in my first name, Chris. In the movie “To Have and Have Not” the boat of the protagonist is named “The Queen Conch” and my favorite actor in the world, who played said protagonist Harry Morgan, actually pronounced it incorrectly with a soft CH...Oh, the humanity! Again, for the record, the correct pronunciation is “Konk”.

So, what is a Conch anyway?

Of course it's a mollusk, related to mussels, clams, and oysters, and interestingly enough, squid and octopi. It's the shellfish that one puts to their ear to hear the ocean.

However, it is also the nick name for people. The irony is, very few of the Florida Keys“Conchs” actually know what Conch's, as a race, if you will, actually are! In the last thirty to fifty years the meaning has been made more open, yet closed at the same time. As you will see in a moment, the term and the people have been around for hundreds of years. I've heard all sorts of erroneous definitions that went so far as saying it all depends on which high school one attended. Truly amazing.

If we're going to look at how the name and definition came about, we have to look at history and the reality is, Conch's go back long before the Keys were settled.

The term “Conch” is a Bahamian nick name for a white Bahamian. I don't know how this came about to begin with, but as I say, it's been in use for hundreds of years and it's an affectionate term at that, I will add.

Now the British colonized The Bahamas in 1648. The slave trade came after that and at some point subsequent to that the name Conch was adapted to those of European heritage. So, it was and so it remains.

So, lets zoom up to the year 1882 and the island of Green Turtle Cay (say: Green Turtle Key). The American Revolution had just ended and anywhere between 15% and 25% of people living in what was now The United States, were loyalists and had supported The King. You may recall from your history that these people were known as Tories?

Well, life in what was now the United States for Tories wouldn't be easy, so many left for British territories. One group left from Plymouth, Massachusetts and set sail for Green Turtle Cay, in the Abicos, Bahamas.

Here they set up new lives and raised their families. These people and their families were white and consequently became Conchs.

Over the years many of these Conchs would fish off the Florida Keys and set up fishing camps from Key West to Key Largo. To this day, Islamorada is so highly regarded it's known as “The Sport Fishing Capital of the World”. Fishing was good here.

Somewhere around 1815 - 1820 the Conchs started settling throughout the Keys. As we're talking 35 – 40 years after the original group left Plymouth, those coming to the Keys were the children and grand children of the original settlers to Green Turtle Cay. As I've mentioned in previous blogs, Green Turtle Cay may on paper be our sister city, but in reality, Green Turtle Cay is our Mother Key!

In Key West up until about 35 – 50 years ago, sometimes less, in Key West a Conch was someone of white Bahamian ancestry. If someone was Cuban, they were Cuban, not a Conch. If they were Black, they were Black (interestingly, the African American population in Key West trace their ancestry to the Bahamas, not the South).

In the recent years, at least in the Keys, those here have relaxed the rules to the point that as long as you are born in the Keys, you're a Conch, regardless of your ethnic background. A few will argue that one has to be born in Key West to be a Conch, however, when it all boils down to it, you can never take someone's heredity away from them, be it if they were born in Key West, Key Largo, or anywhere in between.

It's even gone one step further in that if one moves to the Keys and lives here seven years you are a “Fresh Water Conch”. Crazy as it may seem, your author of this blog you're reading hit that milestone five years ago.. It was a great excuse for a fabulous party!

Also, Throughout the Bahamas, white Bahamians are still, and always will be “The Original Conchs”!

As an interesting note, again, the original group emigrated from Plymouth, Massachusetts. If you hear an older Conch talk today, you can hear the root dialect from New England in their accent. It's very regretful however, the Conch accent is falling by the wayside.

So, there you go! Now you know what a Conch is!

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