Peter Jackson - "The Black Prince"
by
Tony DeBolfo
On the afternoon of February 17, 1909, eight weeks after he had savaged the
Canadian pugilist Tommy Burns over 14 rounds at Ruschutter's Bay, Jack
Johnson filed through the gates of Brisbane's Toowong Cemetery to pay his
respects to a man who had gone before.
Johnson, whose Boxing Day annihilation of Burns ensured his place in
sporting lore as the first black heavyweight champion of the world, had
that morning disembarked the Makura, which had moored in Moreton Bay.
"The Galvestone Giant" had come to Brisbane to fulfill a series of public
engagements, before re-boarding the vessel for Vancouver that very night.
But Johnson also took what precious little time he had to seek out the
final resting place of a fallen black heavyweight.
As flamboyant a character as there ever was, Johnson surely cut a solemn
figure as he cast his eyes across the splendid two-metre high tomb of Peter
Jackson and contemplated the words from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, etched
into the sandstone.
"This was a man".
In the romantic prizefighting era of John L. Sullivan, James J. Corbett and
Bob Fitzimmons, Peter Jackson - "The Black Prince" as he was known - was
deemed by many to be the greatest pugilist of them all.
And yet this same man, through no fault of his own, fell foul of a greater
enemy than any protagonist he ever encountered within the roped circle. His
nemesis was a long-standing racial divide, which ravaged America throughout
the late 19th century.
I had stumbled onto the lost story of Peter Jackson by sheer chance. It
came whilst flicking through the pages of the outstanding narrative of
Muhammad Ali, King Of The World, penned by Pulitzer Prize-winning author,
David Remnick in 1998.
On page 277 of Remnick's book, the author compares and contrasts the
characters of Ali and the then world champion of 1962, Floyd Patterson, at
a time where Ali's political activism ignited by the Black Muslim movement
drew public criticism from the righteous Patterson.
The philosophical differences between the two protagonists drew Remnick to
pen the following;
"If Ali was playing the defiant role of Jack Johnson, Patterson was
summoning the memory of Peter Jackson. When John L. Sullivan was champion
he drew the color line against Jackson, who was acknowledged as one of the
greatest fighters of his time.
Observers at the time believed Jackson surely would have won the world
heavyweight title had he not been denied the opportunity to fight for it.
Frederick Douglass and, later, the writer James Weldon Johnson were among
the black leaders who admired Peter Jackson for his forbearance, for the
dignity with which he bore the racism of his era. "Peter Jackson was the
first example in the United States of a man acting upon the assumption that
he could be a prizefighter and at the same time a cultured gentleman,"
Johnson wrote in the book Black Manhattan. "His chivalry in the ring was so
great that sportswriters down to today apply to him the doubtful compliment
'a white colored man'. He was very popular in New York. If Jack Johnson had
been in demeanor a Peter Jackson, the subsequent story of the Negro in the
prize ring would have been somewhat different."
This indeed was a man. But who was he?
Peter Jackson was born 140 years ago, on July 16, 1861. His place of birth
was Christiansted on the tiny island of St Croix, situated between the
Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, east of Puerto Rico. St Croix
is now part of the US Virgin Islands, but was back then a Danish colony.
Jackson's father was apparently a carpenter by trade, his mother a caring
woman to Peter, his three brothers and four sisters. The boy's early years
on the family's Orange Grove plantation are unclear, although it is
understood he attended schooling at the neighbouring town of Frederiksted
and immediately displayed a tremendous sporting prowess, particularly in
the water.
The story goes that Jackson had not long passed his tenth year when Captain
Hearing, master of a Danish merchantman, persuaded Jackson senior to allow
the boy aboard the vessel as an naval apprentice. On a number of subsequent
occasions, the lad accompanied Captain Hearing on expeditions to and from
Denmark, remaining with the captain for two or three years on an island off
the coast of Copenhagen.
Jackson subsequently took up his employ on the Danish corvette Dagmar -
again as an apprentice - for a further two years. Then when St Croix
beckoned, the 16 year-old returned to his island home only to learn that
one of his brothers had died and another had relocated to New York.
Intent on discovering his brother's whereabouts, Jackson made for New York.
When his search proved fruitless, he opted to ship with the barque HJ Libby
as an able-bodied seaman on a vessel bound for Java, en route to Australia.
But it would not be the last time "Uncle Sam" would bid adieu to "The Black
Prince".
Jackson cited his age as 22 (in reality he was only 17) when he boarded the
ship bound for Java, sometime in 1878. Significantly, he opted to remain
aboard for the final leg and after he strode down the gangway at Lane Cove,
resolved to remain in the Harbour City.
Soon after, Jackson was introduced to John Waterhouse, keeper of the Green
Gate hotel on Lane Cove Road. It was Waterhouse who arranged work for the
young Islander - by day at his son's orchard, by night at the hostelry.
Within the walls of the Green Gate Jackson became aware of the fight game
for the first time, not only because the Waterhouse family had made an
impression on the Colonial pugilism world, but also because the hotel's
hardened patrons practiced and preached little else.
Jackson's first years in Australia saw him take on a variety of tasks, at
first working the wharves, and then as a deck hand aboard the tugboat
Prince of Wales and later the Manly, which, under the command of Captain
Dick Taplin, made regular trips to the Bellinger.
Captain Taplin was at the helm one time when the Manly began to labour, as
a result of its propeller becoming badly entangled in thick rope. The
captain required urgent assistance from anyone prepared to dive into the
shark-infested waters to free the propeller. Jackson answered the call with
spectacular success.
"I always knew," Captain Taplin told a reporter, "that Peter would make a
name for himself in the world; the material was there, the man was there,
no more is ever necessary - that sort of individual will always make
opportunities".
Later, during another stint back on the wharves, Jackson took up lodgings
at premises at the foot of Market Street near the Pyrmont Bridge. Once,
when he had an evening to spare, he accompanied a fellow boatman Fred
Thelwell to Mick Dooley's boxing hall in Engine Street off Sussex Street,
where for the first time he saw boxers ply their craft.
This inspired him to purchase his first pair of gloves.
Jackson's first experiences with the fisticuffs involved a fellow Market
Street lodger named Blundell, with whom the former would spar in the
basement of the boarding house.
A boxing almanac penned by Ned Donnelly then became the subject of
Jackson's fascination, as he studied the various moves required, and
imagined that he was landing them on an unsuspecting foe.
"I thought Donnelly's book a wonderful production," Jackson once told his
friend William H. Corbett, (a journalist for the old Sydney sporting
weekly, The Referee who penned articles under the nom-de-plume "The
Amateur") "because I didn't know overmuch myself at the time.
"Since then I have discovered, and now tell you without the slightest
reserve, that any and every boxer in the world might write books on the
subject, but no man, be he ever so apt, can learn boxing - that is, boxing
as an art - properly unless he is taught by someone capable of teaching him."
For Jackson, that someone was Laurence Foley.
Larry Foley, who also trained the legendary featherweight "Young Griffo"
and another prospective world heavyweight champion in Fitzimmons, was the
patriarch of Australian boxing. Born in Sofala, New South Wales in 1847,
Foley's early years were spent in the sectarian battles of the Pushes
around the inner suburbs of Sydney, where he raised his fists for the
Greens against the Orangemen. It was the Negro ex-convict, "Black Perry"
who first taught Foley to box.
In Echuca in March 1879, Foley took on the Wolverhampton-born Abe Hicken
for the Championship of Australia in what history also records as the last
bareknuckle heavyweight bout staged in the Southern Hemisphere. Foley took
the honours in the 16th round of what was a spirited contest and later, on
his triumphant return to Sydney, was presented with a gold and silver
championship belt originally crafted by the Sydney silversmiths JJ Cohen
and Sons sometime between 1839 and 1853.
Jackson was introduced to Foley by Harry Sallars, who had seen the Islander
take on all comers at Dooley's gym. Foley was awed by Jackson's boxing
intelligence (which bellied his tender years and inexperience) on top of
his natural ability as a sharp mover, not to mention his long left and
wicked right. Slowly, but surely, Foley worked on Jackson's technique and
imparted upon him the necessary instruction required to further his boxing
career, to the point that boxing became Jackson's be-all and end-all.
As Jackson himself said - "it [boxing] came as natural to me as if I had
been to the manner born".
"He was absolutely wrapped up in the game. Morning, noon and night it was
in his mind, to the total exclusion of everything else," Corbett later wrote.
"Small wonder then that he reached the top of the tree and proved himself
before the world the greatest and cleverest pugilist that ever traversed
the globe; and threw down the gage to all comers in the three civilized
continents where Nature's weapons take the place of the ever-ready knife,
club or gun of the other two."
Jackson remained under Foley's tutelage for about 12 months before facing
Melbourne foundryman, Bill Farnan in his quest to secure the Australian
heavyweight title. The bout was postponed when the crowd rioted at the end
of the sixth. But Jackson ultimately earned a title shot when he took on
Tom Lees, whom he outpointed over 20 rounds on September 25, 1886 - in
doing so, becoming the first black man to win a national boxing crown.
So proud was Foley of Jackson's stirring victory over Lees, that the
now-retired pugilist presented his young charge with the 24-ounce belt he
himself had earned for that victory, hard won and dear, over Hicken.
The belt's buckle originally carried the inscription "This belt is
presented to Larry Foley, Champion Boxer of Australia", but Foley himself
altered the inscription to read: "This belt is presented by Larry Foley to
Peter Jackson, Champion Boxer of Australia, 2nd October, 1886."
The 150 year-old belt is now in the possession of a private collector in
Sydney.
It was at about this time that Jackson first encountered racial
discrimination in the form of Jack "The Irish Lad" Burke, who insisted that
his reputation would not be lowered by fighting a black man. Disheartened
with Burke's indifference to the Negro, and having gone as far as he could
against the best fighters on offer in Australia, Jackson set sail on a
9000-mile journey to America aboard the Alameda, arriving in San Francisco
in April 1888.
But as he was to discover to his chagrin, America's black community at that
time was subjected to the harshest strictures since slavery, with
lynchings, beatings and all manner of violent behavior rising to
unprecedented levels.
Not long after his arrival, in an address to the gentlemen of the
California Athletic club, Jackson said:
" . . . I don't know whether I'll experience the same disappointments here
that have been mine these past two years in my own country - the land of my
adoption, Australia. If no-one here will agree to fight me, then I will
have to travel on to some other part of the globe. I am a fighting man by
occupation and I believe that here in your America, the opportunity which I
have been seeking will come to me."
That August, Jackson scored an impressive victory over the The Police
Gazette's "Coloured champion", the Boston boy, George Godfrey, knocking
Godfrey out in the tenth round. The outcome precipitated much interest
amongst the public, and the press-led calls for Jackson to mix fists with
the Californian champion, Joe McAuliffe.
McAuliffe duly accepted and the fight was staged four months later, but not
before he had fired a preliminary verbal broadside at his adversary. "I'll
fight the nigger for a purse of £600, winner take all. And no gloves. I'm
going to teach that impudent nigger a lesson," McAuliffe was quoted as saying.
In a fierce contest over 24 rounds, Jackson prevailed - dispensing
McAuliffe with a tremendous blow between the eyes, which sent the latter to
the canvas to be counted out.
Jackson
took on all comers through 1889 - from Paddy Cardiff in San
Francisco, Shorty Kincaid in Virginia City and Sailor Brown in Chicago,
through to Mile Lynch and Paddy Brennan in Buffalo, and Ginger McCormick in
Hoboken - dispatching each man in emphatic fashion.
By now he was ready to take on America's first-ever sporting hero, John
Lawrence Sullivan - the great John L. But Sullivan would have nothing of
it, shamefully drawing the coloured line as his excuse.
"I will not fight a Negro. I never have and never shall," he was quoted as
saying.
Jackson then set sail for London where, after partaking in a series of
exhibition bouts, knocked out Jack Watson to earn the right to challenge
Jem Smith for the British title. Jackson was 28 years of age, stood 6'1,
weighed in at 192 pounds and boasted a 73-inch reach in the old measurement
when he took the title of "Champion of the British Empire" from Smith
within two rounds, on Remembrance Day 1889.
Returning to the United States and frustrated with Sullivan's reluctance to
sign for the world championship contest, Jackson turned his attentions to
the rising James J. Corbett. A world record purse of £2000 was put up and
on May 21, 1891, at San Francisco's California Athletic Club, "The Black
Prince" confronted "Gentleman Jim". It proved the former's most famous
contest - an adjudged "no-contest" stopped by the referee after 61 rounds
over four hours and three minutes because the protagonists could go no
further.
Significantly, Jackson had allowed himself barely a month to train for the
Corbett fight and a week into training sprained an ankle after being thrown
from a buggy. The injury severely restricted his movement in the ring and
Corbett's fancy evasive footwork only exacerbated Jackson's problem.
The memorable battle with the Maitland blacksmith, Francis Patrick "Paddy"
Slavin came next, at the National Sporting Club of London. In what was
described by one historian as "one of the most viciously-contested fights
ever held in England", Jackson won with a tenth-round knockout, which
impressed a large and representative assemblage of sportsmen, including
many members of the nobility, such as Jackson's timekeeper, Lord Lonsdale.
But even before Paddy had hit the deck, fate had already dealt "The Black
Prince" its cruelest hand.
The Jackson-Corbett "no-contest" of 1891 ultimately proved pivotal in the
lives of both men. Corbett overwhelmed Sullivan a year later to become the
first glove-fighting heavyweight champion, but he emulated John L. in
drawing the coloured line against Jackson - thus depriving him of the
realization of a lifelong dream and triggering his rapid downward spiral.
Corbett too deprived Jackson of an opportunity to wrest the title from him,
cruelly taunting the heartbroken man upon his departure for England for
having "sneaked out of the country like a cur".
Perhaps Corbett's decision not to allow Jackson his deserved chance
wrestled with "Gentleman Jim's" conscience, for in his 1925 biography he
would write of the "no-contest":
"That night I thought Peter Jackson was a great fighter. Six months later I
thought him still a good one. And today, after thirty-three years, I still
maintain he was the greatest fighter I have ever seen."
Following the Corbett stoush of '91, Jackson vainly sought his date with
destiny. His most passionate plea came in a lengthy letter published in the
July 3, 1893 edition of the Rocky Mountain News of Denver, Colorado, which
read in part;
"Before age has impaired my powers I hope to have the pleasure of again
meeting James J. Corbett in the ring. Not that I have a feeling of
animosity for him. On the contrary, I like him very much . . . Corbett
defeated the best fighter that ever lived, John L. Sullivan . . . So it
comes about that Corbett being champion of America, and your humble servant
practically holding the championship of England and Australia, the three
fight-countries of the universe, either of us, should one defeat the other,
would be the champion pugilist of the world. Age is now coming on me - I am
thirty-two [and] I hope to get a match on with him."
In the months following the Corbett bout, Jackson, like so many pugilists
of his time, took to the American theatre where he starred in the lead role
of the stage production of "Uncle Tom's Cabin". His company of thespians
included his manager Charles "The Parson" Davies, the heavyweight Joe
Choynski and the latter's wife, who played the part of "Little Eva" in the
traveling show.
When Jackson, oblivious to the American culture, subjected himself to be
"whipped to death" in nightly performances as Uncle Tom, never again would
he be seriously regarded as a legitimate heavyweight contender.
By the mid 1890s, Jackson was a mere shadow of the once great "sable
warrior". Frustrated in his failures to earn that richly deserved break,
Jackson grew increasingly melancholy and took to the demon drink. In his
final contest of any note, at 'Frisco's Woodward's Pavilion on March 22,
1898, the pathetic figure of Jackson, now 37 years of age, was laid
prostrate by the 23 year-old James J. Jeffries, who would himself become
heavyweight champ by defeating Fitzimmons.
One more fight was left in Jackson, involving the Cornishman Jim Jeffords
at Vancouver's Savoy Theatre in August 1899. The contest rendered Jackson
the hopeless victim of a fourth round knockout.
On Easter Sunday 1900, the penniless and pitiful Jackson returned to
Australia, his passage paid for by subscription. He managed to referee a
few bouts, which was where he believed his future lay, except that he had
no future. The once mighty hero was already in the advanced stages of
tuberculosis, apparently contracted during a brief gold-fossicking foray
into the Arctic regions of the Klondike.
Jackson managed one last public appearance with Fitzgerald's traveling
circus in Gippsland, before a bout of pneumonia forced him to cancel all
future engagements.
On doctor's advice, and following a brief stay in the Old Geelong Hospital,
the desperately ill Jackson was advised to head north to the warmer
climate. He made for Brisbane, renewed acquaintance with a fellow pugilist
and Barbadian friend, "The Black Diamond" Jack Dowridge who, with the
financial assistance of a well-known Queensland bookmaker named Mooney and
a few others, sent the poor fellow onward to Roma as a last resort.
In May 1901, the dying man was admitted to a sanatorium called Argyle
Cottage - a "quiet, homely farmstead, situated on the edge of a pleasant
hill lying about a mile to the north-west of the town of Roma" according to
one local correspondent.
There an unnamed carer of Jackson's, in a letter to The Referee's William
Corbett, wrote;
"He is one of the finest characters I have ever met. Someday I'll tell you
of the way he was speaking of his past life and the people he had by force
of circumstances been thrown among. All through his words the one idea was
ever foremost to do the straight thing. That old Norman motto, 'Fay le
Droit', used by the nobility, might well have been Peter's, for in all that
makes a man he is one of Nature's noblemen."
The local Roma minister, the Rev. Mr. J. Stewart was not untouched by
Jackson's wonderful persona either.
He and Jackson had spent a precious hour together, during which time the
Reverend imparted upon the gravely ill man something of his own life - to
which Jackson responded: "You have delightful memories of your home, your
godly parents and your general environment . . . I have very few memories
of my parents and I was out upon the world when I was only a youth, and I
have never known much of the comforts of a real home. Ay, we live in a very
funny world."
"As I passed from the little room where we had spent so pleasant an hour,"
said Reverend Stewart, "I thought as I recalled the soft, pleasant voice so
peculiar to the Negro race; the pure speech, with every sentence like a
well-cut jewel; the quiet, thoughtful manner; and as I thought of what a
splendid physique he must have had in his earlier prime, what a philosopher
or preacher he would have made had he been led into such an avenue of life."
Peter Jackson passed away at thirteen minutes to ten o'clock on the night
of Saturday, July 13, 1901. Before he died, he was reported to have said:
"Corbett understands me - if I should never see him again."
Upon Jackson's death, tributes poured in from around the globe. The editor
of the New York Police Gazette wrote: "Throughout his whole career Peter
held the respect of foemen and friends alike. He never flinched under
punishment or threw a fight and when defeat found him at last he did
inflict upon a long-suffering public weak-kneed excuses for his downfall,
after the fashion of most modern glove artists."
And this, from a correspondent for the London Sporting Times.
"Peter had a soul above all the miserable tricks that so frequently degrade
the professional pugilist; in short, he was at heart a gentleman and
Boxiana would be all the better today for a few more like him. Peace to his
ashes."
The local tributes to Jackson were just as heartfelt, if not, moreso.
His dear friend, William Corbett, wrote in The Referee;
"Remembering the dead man's deeds during the past 20 years, and thinking of
him as he is now, one feels tempted to slightly alter Shakespeare, and say;
'Oh, mighty Peter! Dost thou lie so low? Are all these conquests, glories,
triumphs, shrunk to this little measure?'.
From the time this man - whose name was destined to be on the lips of the
world, and whose deeds were to form eagerly sought-after 'copy' for the
Press of the universe - first became known to the public, he was the same
straight-going well-behaved, generous-hearted, modest-bearing fellow to the
end. Success never turned Peter's head. Hero worship he thought as little
of as it was worth. At the moments of his greatest triumphs, when any man
might be excused for forgetting all but the success achieved, he never
omitted to tell the applauding thousands that it was all due to Australia
and those of his friends there who had helped him in the struggling days.
Of all the valuables, mementoes, souvenirs or such like that Peter owned
throughout his career, he never lost sight of that champion belt which Mr
L. Foley put up for the fight with Lees. It never left his hands and he
bought it home again - intact - and bright as on the night it was buckled
round his waist in the famous old ring at the back of the long-since
demolished White Horse Hotel . . . "
A local Brisbane undertaker, John Smith, saw fit to pen the following
dedication to Jackson. The prose, part of which was etched into Jackson's
sandstone tomb, appeared in the Brisbane Sportsman of July 13, 1901
"Time, Peter, Time! A distant call
Has echoed softly from above;
The peerless Champion of the Glove
Goes down before the King of All;
Time, Peter, Time! The fight is done,
And now, as ever, Death has won.
Time, Peter, Time! At length is fought
The last fierce, grim, decisive round.
And bravely calm, you smite the ground
Before all-conquering Death's onslaught;
Time, Peter, Time! The fight is done,
And Death, the Welcome foe, has won.
Sleep, Peter, Sleep! Brave Champion!
All hushed we gather round the Ring.
While snow-white flowers, moist-eyed we fling
Within a grave . . . The fight is done.
Sleep, Peter, Sleep! The hero's rest
Be thine in mother Earth's broad breast."
Arrangements had been made for Jackson's burial in Roma Cemetery, but
Dowridge would have nothing of it. He wired Jackson's physician, Dr
L'Estrange, requesting that the body be embalmed and placed on a train for
the 250-mile trek to Brisbane. This was done, with the cortege to Roma
railway station accompanied by the Hibernian Band playing a Funeral March
to the man regarded by one American boxing critic as "the greatest
heavyweight to ever run a shoe in resin".
Jackson's mortal remains arrived in Brisbane the following Tuesday and were
at once conveyed to Dowridge's Theatre Royal Hotel where a number of
wreaths were placed upon the coffin.
That afternoon, the funeral procession made for Toowong Cemetery - the
hearse preceded by a band playing the Dead March and about thirty vehicles
forming a cortege stretching nearly a mile long. On what would have been
his 40th birthday, Jackson was laid to rest on the highest point of the
cemetery, in a plot paid for by Dowridge.
Following Jackson's burial, The Referee called on the people of Australia -
of the world in fact - "to help keep the dead man's memory green by
raising a monument over his earthly tenement such as Australia may point to
with pride."
London's Sporting Life, at the behest of The Referee, sought a whip around
of the dandies of the National Sporting Club where Jackson was so well
loved. Sadly none of them, not even the boxing devotee Lord Lonsdale, was
forthcoming with coin.
But local donors - including old captain Taplin - rallied to the cause, as
did George L. Knox, proprietor of The Freeman newsletter for the Negro,
because "Peter Jackson was indeed the idol of the coloured people in America".
Accordingly, the commanding tombstone was unveiled before thousands of
onlookers on May 10, 1903. Nineteen years later, Dowridge himself was laid
to rest at Jackson's feet.
To mark the centenary of his death, Jackson will be inducted into the Roma
sporting Hall Of Fame and his photograph hung in a prominent place at the
local pavilion - not far from the site of what was once Argyle Cottage,
where Jackson spent his final days.
Thousands of miles away, on the tiny island of St Croix where Jackson was
born, the occasion is likely to be marked in a simple ceremony involving
the local governor.
As a welcome postscript, Dr Bob Petersen of Sydney, who as a child
remembers his father telling tales of "Peter the Great", has conducted
extensive research for a welcome biography of Jackson to be published in 2003.
Dr Petersen's contribution is indeed timely, for with the probable
exception of William Corbett's touching series of articles for The Referee
in 1901, entitled "From Orange Groves to the Pugilistic Championship of the
World", no-one else has seen fit to document with any accuracy or depth
Jackson's heartrending life story.
Not even the great Jack Johnson acknowledged Jackson's contributions on the
public record during his lifetime and it is true (notwithstanding the
glorious African physique they shared) that Jackson was everything Johnson
was not. Whereas Johnson was ostentatious in his lifestyle and seen as
arrogant by the white establishment, Jackson was a pacifist - a gentleman
whose traits were indeed modest.
But "The Galvestone Giant's" precious few moments by the tomb of "The Black
Prince" surely defined Johnson's deep veneration for a man robbed of the
opportunity of reaching the pinnacle of his profession by the prejudices of
his time.
- © Tony De Bolfo
Melbourne, July 2001