by Wahoo » Sun Nov 29, 2009 12:05 pm
Appropriately named after the White Witch of Rose Hall. Here's the legend and truth of the White Witch of Rose Hall (according to my Lonely Planet travel guide):
Legend: John Rose Palmer, grandnephew of John Palmer, who built Rose Hall, Married Anne May Patterson in 1820. Although she was half English and half Irish, legend has it that she was raised in Haiti, where she learned voodoo. She alledgedly practiced witchcraft, poisoned John Palmer, stabbed a second husband, and strangled a third. Her fourth husband escaped, leaving her to dispose of several slave lovers before she was strangled in bed.
Truth: The famous legend is actually based on a series of distorted half-truths. Rose Palmer, the initial lady of Rose Hall, did have four husbands, the last being John Palmer, to whom she was happily wed for 23 years (she died before her husband, at age 72). Anne Palmer, wife to John Rose Palmer, died peacefully in 1846 after a long, loving marriage.
In 1929, the fable was developed into a suspenceful romance novel, The White Witch of Rose Hall.
Personally, I prefer to believe that--like many marriages gone bad--there're two sides to every story, with the truth somewhere in between.