John Boyd (Bahamas)

John Boyd was a free person of color in the 19th century, born on New Providence island in the Bahamas. He was self-taught with a beautiful hand writing. Governor James Carmichael-Smyth of the Bahama Islands, made him Clerk of visitors of the King's School.

Governor James Carmichael-Smyth commenting on John Boyd's beautiful penmanship told the colonial office "If your Lordship has time to look at the minutes herewith enclosed; your Lordship will not look at them with less interest for their being in the handwriting of a free black man of the name of Boyd whom I have appointed Clerk of the Visitors."[1]

John Boyd had what may be the first book published by a native born black from the Bahama Islands in 1834 called "The Vision and Other Poems in Blank Verse."[2]

References
  1. Race Relations in the Bahamas,1784-1834: Nonviolent Transform Slave to Free (C). 2000. ISBN 9781610753340.
  2. "A Dictionary of Books Relating to America, from Its Discovery to the Present Time: Bedinger to Brownwell". 1869.


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