Kamala kinship with Irish slave owner rekindles stories of four brave women
● Mary Ann McCracken, Susy O’Toole, Croppy Biddy and Betsy Gray had roles in the history of this island
Much has been made of the claim that US presidential candidate Kamala Harris is a descendent of a man named Hamilton Brown, a slave owner from Northern Ireland. However, some people, especially in the US, might be surprised to know that when this Antrim man was using slaves on his sugar plantation in Jamaica, an Antrim woman was campaigning for the abolition of slavery.
A Presbyterian, Brown was born in 1776, the year the US declared its independence from Britain. Twenty-two years later, the United Irishmen rebelled in an effort to win Ireland’s independence from Britain. And another Presbyterian — a woman who featured in that uprising — was opposed to everything Brown stood for.
Her name was Mary Ann McCracken.
Born in 1770, she was a sister of the famous Henry Joy McCracken. Both were heavily involved in the formation and activities of the Society of United Irishmen, which championed the rights of Presbyterians and Catholics who, among other things, were not allowed to hold public office or be members of parliament as they refused to accept that the king of England was head of their church.
Following the execution of her brother, who had led the United Irishmen’s attack on Antrim town, Mary Ann spent the rest of her life championing the rights of women, helping the poor, educating under-privileged children and petitioning for prison reform.
She was also a life-long abolitionist, and would have welcomed the day in 1807 when the slave trade in the British empire was finally abolished.
However, slaves in most of the colonies, including the Caribbean, were not freed until 1838, and then only after slave owners — rather than the slaves — received compensation.
Nevertheless, it would have been a sweet moment for Mary Ann to see Brown having to spend much of the compensation he received on recruiting hired labour from his native Co Antrim.
Her work, however, was not yet finished. When she was in her 80s, she could be seen on the docks in Belfast, handing out leaflets to emigrants and sailors, calling on them to support her call for America to abolish slavery. In 1865, a year before she died, she would have thanked God that she lived to see the day when America officially did so.
Mary Ann’s support for the United Irishmen may seem strange in that it was an organisation of men, but she was not alone.
During my research into the life of General Joseph
Holt, a Church of Ireland man from Co Wicklow who was the last commander-in-chief of the United Irishmen, I came across two women who were actively involved in the rebellion.
Holt mentions one of them quite often in his memoirs, calling her his “Moving Magazine”. She was said to be Susy O’Toole, daughter of Phelim O’Toole, a blacksmith who lived near Annamoe, Co Wicklow.
Although only about 30, she was able to take on the appearance of an old woman by wearing a dirty, pepper-and-salt frieze cloak and adopting a stoop.
It was said she had been injured while working in her father’s forge and could drop her jaw in such a way that changed her countenance. But, when it was necessary to act with vigour, her powerful muscles and brawny limbs were more than a match for any man.
Holt recounts that by adopting this disguise, she could wander through the British camps collecting musket balls and gunpowder, which she hung in small bags under her cloak, and something that was of even more value — information.
The other woman was a 19-year-old camp follower named Croppy Biddy. Her real name was Bridget Dolan, daughter of a local thatcher from Carnew, Co Wicklow.
Kildare local history groups quote her as recalling that she attended a meeting of the United Irishmen at which women as well as men were sworn in.
“Women,” the historians say, “acted as couriers and carried messages, intelligence reports and supplies to the rebels. They also nursed the wounded.”
Dolan, we are told, taught herself how to ride horses when she was a teenager, and during the rebellion was probably engaged in reconnaissance, raiding and foraging. They say she also took part in an ambush of a military supply convoy at Kilballyowen, which resulted in the “piking” of two drivers.
We don’t know when she came to be called Croppy Biddy. Holt himself makes merely a passing reference to her in his memoirs, and then only as “a young woman, a friend of mine”. However, one former insurgent described her as “Holt’s miss”, while another said he saw her riding behind Holt with “a feather in her hair and she barefooted”.
However, far from being remembered as a “heroine in green” as one account called her, she became a notorious informer, giving evidence against many former rebels — some of whom were executed.
Another young woman said to have ridden into battle in 1798 was Betsy Gray, the legendary heroine of the Battle of Ballynahinch in Co Down.
In a highly romanticised account of her exploits called Betsy Gray or Hearts of Down, published in 1896, WG Lyttle wrote: “Mounted on a magnificent horse, dressed from head to foot in green silk and waving aloft a slender sword to cheer on the men in their deadly work, rode Betsy Gray.”
Historian ATQ Stewart pours cold water on this account, saying the most likely explanation for her presence at the rebel camp was to bring food and clean linen to her brother George and her fiance Willie Boal.
In Summer Soldiers, Stewart described how, as the three of them fled the scene, they were ambushed by a party of yeomen cavalrymen. These were groups of tenants and others of “proven loyalty” recruited by landlords and magistrates.
Uniformed and armed, they rode from one trouble spot to another to engage with the rebels and are remembered for their acts of brutality.
Gray had gone ahead and was taken by the yeomen first. When her brother and fiance went to her aid, they were shot down. Then, as she reached out to them, one of the yeomen struck off her gloved hand with a sabre and another shot her through the head.
Almost at once, Stewart said, legend began to weave its tendrils round this brutal killing, leading to the story that Betsy Gray, a young woman of extraordinary beauty, had led the insurgents at Ballynahinch while mounted on a white horse and carrying a green flag or sword.
Thus, he added, “she became Ulster’s own Joan of Arc”.