In the News: Haunted Caribbean: Do You Dare

Photo: Jamaican Tourist Board

The Caribbean is fertile ground for restless ghosts. Colonial-era Europeans, far from home, lay on their death beds in huge great houses, homesick as they drew their last breath, surrounded by resentful slaves. Pirates died in violent clashes or through skullduggery and betrayal. Ships were wrecked off the coast during sudden hurricanes, with all hands lost at sea. There's little wonder that Caribbean ghost stories have shown amazing staying power over the centuries.

Whether a person believes in ghosts or not, even a skeptic would have to admit that some phenomena are shrouded in mystery and defy simple explanation. In The Bahamas, some claim to see Blackbeard's ghost haunting Old Fort Nassau. Haiti has a well-known voodoo heritage, the country of the original walking dead, and frightened onlookers have been stopped in their tracks when they've come face to face with corpses staggering through the City Cemetery of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital city.

Maybe the most enduring ghost story of all is the White Witch of Jamaica, Annie Palmer, the Caribbean's most evil spirit. Annie Palmer presided over the Rose Hall Great House in Montego Bay, a Georgian mansion built in 1770. According to this tale, she was a ruthless mistress, practicing voodoo and torture, murdering her three husbands and then taking up with her slaves, who she would poison when she grew tired of them. The accounts of her eventual death are murky, although some attribute it to a showdown with a powerful voodoo priest, with Annie Palmer coming out on the losing end. The Rose Hall Great House still stands and has gone through a full renovation, with tours being regularly held. Even today, there are accounts of mysterious bloodstains appearing on the floors, whispers, footsteps and the wailings of distressed infants. Some claim to have seen a ghostly rider clad in green velvet, galloping across the grounds at night astride a black horse. Local scuttlebutt in Montego Bay claims that in decades no one has dared spend a full night alone in the house.

Residents in Barbados still struggle to explain the mystifying moving coffins in the Chase crypt in Christchurch, Barbados. Thomas Chase, by all accounts a cruel patriarch, buried his two young daughters in the crypt. He died soon after, in 1812, and when the crypt was opened to receive its new occupant, pallbearers saw that the coffins of the two daughters looked as though they had lurched violently around the room. At first residents thought vandals had broken into the crypt. But even after the crypt was mortared shut, subsequent openings revealed the coffins had moved about, with the coffin of one daughter having shattered into bits. By 1820 the remaining members of the Chase family had seen enough, and the three coffins were buried elsewhere. Some claim that Thomas Chase was such an evil father that his two daughters couldn't abide being in the same room with him, even after they'd had been reduced to unhappy spirits.

Those living on the island of Nevis take their ghost stories seriously. For a century and a half, no one has dared live on the Eden Browne Estate. The plantation property was built in the 18th century and thrived on sugar and cotton crops. Walter Maynard was preparing to marry his bride, Julia Huggins, at the estate. At the time, the two families were two of the most powerful families on the island and the marriage would be as much a business merger as a romantic union. The plan after the nuptials was to rechristen the estate, "Eden Browne's Eden." On the day of the wedding, Huggins and his best man, Julia's brother, had an argument that escalated into a duel. There was no winner and both perished in the contest. The would-be bride never married, heartbroken over the deaths of her betrothed and brother, and lived out the rest of her years as a recluse at the estate. Over the years, there have been numerous accounts of seeing the ghost of Julia Huggins wandering forlornly across the plantation grounds. Today visitors can visit the abandoned plantation and crumbling walls of the estate. If they don't see any ghosts, they will at least be treated to magnificent sea views.

Hotel El Convento is a former Carmelite convent dating back to the 17th century. The hotel is in Puerto Rico's Old San Juan and is said to be haunted by the founder of the convent and its Mother Superior, Doña Ana de Lansos y Menéndez de Valdez. She wasn't always conducting her life on a spiritual plane; before donating her house for the convent, Doña Ana was happily married. It was the sudden death of her husband that led a grieving Doña Ana to become a "Bride of Christ." Guests at the luxury hotel report that they can sometimes hear the sounds of the swishing of nun's robes on the floors and corridors of the hotel. Today the hotel is one of the finest on the island, so ghost hunters can be assured it will be time well spent, even if they fail to hear Mother Superior Doña Ana and her fellow nuns roaming the halls.

Jamaica's port city of Port Royal was once known as "The Wickedest City on Earth." The port lies across from Kingston Harbour, and was once thick with bloodthirsty pirates. Port Royal was destroyed in an earthquake in 1692, with many claiming it was just desserts for the town's evil ways. Most ghost stories take place at night, when shadows add an element of confusion and mystery to sightings of apparitions. Not in Port Royal; locals believe ghosts of those killed in the earthquake still roam the earth, appearing on days when the sun is at its brightest.

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