Annie Palmer: The White Witch of Rose Hall
This story, which takes place on the beautiful island of Jamaica, tells a strange and horrific tale of black magic, torture, and murder all committed by a young woman who wasn’t even five feet tall.
Annie’s Early Years:
It all began in the 1700s when Annie Mae Patterson was born in Haiti to an English mother and Irish father. When Annie was very young, her parents died from yellow fever, and she was raised by her nanny, who also happened to be proficient in voodoo. Under her tutelage Annie, who was an eager student, excelled, soon becoming an expert in her own right.
Later after her nanny died in 1818, Annie moved to Jamaica, probably to escape the revolution in Haiti and also likely in search of a rich husband. Which, in her time, was the norm for young gentle born women who had no other way of making a living. Some of the stories conflict a little on this and say that she met John Palmer in Haiti when she was 18. Either way, she was soon married and moved into his Georgian Mansion Rose Hall, which is in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
Married Life:
Legend tells the much older man was an abusive husband, and within just a few months, Annie began taking lovers from amongst the male slaves. When her husband caught her in bed with a slave, he had the slave murdered, and he severely beat Annie with a riding crop. The next day John Palmer was dead, killed either by poison in his coffee or perhaps by black magic.
With John dead, Annie inherited the estate and could pretty much do whatever she wished, and she did. Stories say that with nobody to keep her in check, Annie was a total psychopath unleashed. She took many lovers from amongst the male slaves and sometimes had them killed when she grew tired of them. She also liked to punish and torture the slaves for the slightest infraction real or imagined. A tour guide who works in Rose Hall told me that Annie required the slaves who worked around the kitchen to always whistle so that Annie would know that they weren’t stealing food. And if any were caught not whistling, she would have their heads cut off for stealing food.
On the second floor of Rose Hall is a small balcony overlooking the courtyard. This is where, according to stories, Annie liked to stand every morning and watch the slaves beaten for whatever infraction they had committed. Apparently, she had an appetite for pain and enjoyed their suffering.
Jamaica is a pretty large island, but people tend to talk, and soon rumors started going around about Annie carrying on with the male slaves, so she took another husband in an effort to quell them. But this marriage was no happier than her first, and it’s been said that she stabbed her second husband in the heart while he was sleeping. She then poured hot oil into his ears in an attempt to make sure he was actually dead, which sounds a little like overkill if you ask me.
Annie then married a third time, but this husband didn’t last any longer than the other two. This time Annie had her lover Takoo to help to dispatch her latest husband by strangulation.
The Death of Annie Palmer:
There are several stories about Annie’s death, in one of the stories it’s been said that she was killed during a slave uprising by her own slaves who then destroyed all of her belongings. Another story says that Takoo, who was himself a powerful magician, used black magic and physical force to kill her because he feared she would dispose of him in the same manner as her previous lovers. Another story says that Takoo killed her out of revenge. It seems that he was related to one of Annie’s former lovers that she’d murdered.
The ghost of Annie Palmer is said to roam the grounds of Rose Hall, and several people have said that they saw her image in a mirror on the wall of her bedroom. She’s also been glimpsed riding a horse on the Plantation’s grounds and standing on the balcony where she liked to watch the slaves being whipped. Her body is supposed to buried on the grounds in a tomb that was sealed with a voodoo ritual that was supposed to seal her in forever. Still, something went wrong, and the ceremony has never been completed, which allows her spirit to roam freely.
Fact or Fiction:
Of course, this story is just a legend that inspired in part from a novel written in 1929 by H. G. de Lisser called The White Witch of Rose Hall. But whether you believe it or not, the legend does make for an interesting story and makes for a fun afternoon touring the beautiful old house.
