Marie Francis
It is not easy to find pictures or photographs of identifiable ordinary Black and Coloured Jamaican women before the early years of the 20th century. This picture which comes from a newspaper of that period is especially interesting, because we know who the subject was, and something of her life.
Marie/Rachel Francis was a Black woman born around 1809; her mother had come to Jamaica from Haiti during the period of the Haitian Revolution and died in Jamaica at the advanced age of 90. When Marie/Rachel Francis died in 1893 she was living at 151 Princess Street, her occupation was given as seamstress and her age as 84. Her death was reported by her grand-son, Charles Phillip Lazarus, Junior.
We know something of her life because her son, Charles Phillip Lazarus, born in 1836, was a notable citizen of Kingston from the 1860s until his death in 1917. He was a 'self-made man' who by sheer hard work and determination made himself into one of the most respected iron-founders and engineers in the island.
He gave his mother great credit for inspiring his success. He said of her: 'My mother was a black woman not possessing education, but she was very wise and extremely industrious. Her character was strong and determined and she had great self-respect. The counsel, advice and direction that she gave me from the very beginning of my life were of inestimable value to me. She was very shrewd. She would say to me, "my son don’t trouble to go as clerk although it may seem more attractive at first. Learn a trade and master it well; they will need you; they must have you".
She encouraged me to make myself thorough, and reliable, to use my time to the best advantage, to improve my mind. She taught me to choose simple food and to eat to live, not to live to eat. I owe a great debt to my mother in every way. Her strength and wisdom have been with me right through life and I often sit by myself in silence and think of her in the same room where she used to bless me, her son, very solemnly every New Year's Day. Shame, I say, on those young men in our Island, who, as they get on in life strut about in fine clothes, trying to be recognised socially while they despise and neglect the old black mother and push her out of sight in some miserable hut and grudge to care for her.'
Lazarus said little of his father, except that he received no support from him after the age of 12; however it seems from Roman Catholic baptismal records that his father was a Jewish property owner, Abraham Lazarus, about whom little is known. Marie Francis epitomises the sound good sense, strength and determination of generations of ordinary Jamaican women who have been the foundation and inspiration of their children's lives.
We know something of her life because her son, Charles Phillip Lazarus, born in 1836, was a notable citizen of Kingston from the 1860s until his death in 1917. He was a 'self-made man' who by sheer hard work and determination made himself into one of the most respected iron-founders and engineers in the island.
He gave his mother great credit for inspiring his success. He said of her: 'My mother was a black woman not possessing education, but she was very wise and extremely industrious. Her character was strong and determined and she had great self-respect. The counsel, advice and direction that she gave me from the very beginning of my life were of inestimable value to me. She was very shrewd. She would say to me, "my son don’t trouble to go as clerk although it may seem more attractive at first. Learn a trade and master it well; they will need you; they must have you".
She encouraged me to make myself thorough, and reliable, to use my time to the best advantage, to improve my mind. She taught me to choose simple food and to eat to live, not to live to eat. I owe a great debt to my mother in every way. Her strength and wisdom have been with me right through life and I often sit by myself in silence and think of her in the same room where she used to bless me, her son, very solemnly every New Year's Day. Shame, I say, on those young men in our Island, who, as they get on in life strut about in fine clothes, trying to be recognised socially while they despise and neglect the old black mother and push her out of sight in some miserable hut and grudge to care for her.'
Lazarus said little of his father, except that he received no support from him after the age of 12; however it seems from Roman Catholic baptismal records that his father was a Jewish property owner, Abraham Lazarus, about whom little is known. Marie Francis epitomises the sound good sense, strength and determination of generations of ordinary Jamaican women who have been the foundation and inspiration of their children's lives.
When Marie Francis died in 1893, the notice of her death gave her name as Rachael Francis, and revealed that she was also the mother of another prominent Kingston business man, John Cassis, whose father was identified in other records as Pedro/Peter Casis/Cassis.
