Haunted by history Flat Bridge surrounded by stories of spirits

On a good day, the Rio Cobre gives little indication of the stories that have followed it for generations. Beneath Flat Bridge, the water is clear and blue, almost still. When no vehicles are passing, the old bridge becomes strikingly quiet, with a towering cotton tree standing across from it.

But when the weather turns, so does the river.

The tranquil blue gives way to murky, reddish-brown water rushing through the gorge, and 59-year-old Kent Village resident Robert Larmond has seen it become so rough that he wondered whether the centuries-old bridge would survive.

“That bridge survive some real hell. One time I remember the river come down, I never expected to see that bridge again,” he said.

Yet, it is not only the force of the Rio Cobre that has kept residents wary of Flat Bridge. Larmond believes the spirits of those who came before are still there.

“People seh dem see duppy a walk pan it, and when they see the duppy them drop off in the bridge, and so,” he said.

Larmond has his own history with the river.

As a grade-three student in the 1970s, he was travelling in a truck carrying schoolchildren when the vehicle rounded a corner and plunged into the Rio Cobre.

He could not swim.

“I remember being down in the water and I tell myself that it is the end of my life,” he recalled.

For what felt like an eternity, Larmond remained beneath the water. Those above could not see him resurface and feared the worst.

“No one knew how I manage to come out,” he said.

The experience later pushed him to learn to swim, and every trip across Flat Bridge still brings the memory back.

Larmond’s belief in spirits is part of a much wider body of stories surrounding River Road, stories sociologist and cultural analyst Professor Donna Hope knows both professionally and personally, having grown up in the Linstead-Bog Walk area.

“We call that area River Road. We don’t call it the Bog Walk Gorge,” she said.

The stories attached to River Road are also tied to the history of Flat Bridge itself.

Built sometime after 1724, the bridge was constructed by enslaved Africans, many of whom are believed to have died while undertaking the dangerous project. Historical records indicate that the 16 plantations in the Bog Walk area were required to send one enslaved person for every 50 on the estates to work on its construction.

“River Road comes with a lot of beliefs and stories about ancestral spirits,” Hope said.

Within those stories, she explained, those believed to have died while working on the road remain connected to the people and landscape that came after them.

“Those who died making the road are your ancestors. They will protect you, they will also warn you and they can also harm you, depending on the situation,” she said.

Whether present-day residents are directly descended from those who worked on the road or bridge is difficult to establish. But for Hope, the significance of ancestry in these stories goes beyond tracing a family tree.

“It’s almost a way not just for keeping them alive, but keeping your own heritage connected through time,” she said. “A lot of these beliefs come from mainly West African traditions.”

As Jamaica marks Emancipation Day, those beliefs tell another story about what Africans and their descendants carried through enslavement and into freedom.