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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