A record maintained by the Maroon Office of the Secret Service.
On the first day of July in the year two thousand and fourteen, at a signing ceremony conducted in Accompong Town, David Errol of the Family Holmes accepted appointment as Secretary of State of the Sovereign State of Accompong. The ceremony was held in keeping with the Treaty of 1738, concluded under the Kindah Tree between Colonel Cudjoe and the British Crown, which has remained the foundation of the State from that day to this.
The appointment was thereafter acknowledged in person by His Excellency the Most Honorable Sir Patrick Linton Allen, ON, GCMG, CD, Governor-General of Jamaica, who conveyed congratulations on the recent appointment and offered best wishes for a successful tenure. Notice of the appointment was subsequently published in the national press.
The appointment of Mr. Holmes marked the formal re-establishment of this Office, which had remained dormant for eight years following the passing in 2006 of Henry Octavius “Mann O” Rowe, the First Secretary of State and the Office’s founder. Under Mr. Rowe’s stewardship, from 1923 until his passing, the Office had held custody of the records of the State and stood guard over its treaty, its institutions, and its standing. The eight-year interregnum that followed was not a lapse of the Office but a period in which its functions awaited the succession.
That succession was taken up by Mr. Holmes on behalf of the Council and the people of Accompong, under the direction of Colonel Ferron Williams. Present at the ceremony — and photographed together for the record — were Mr. Holmes, Dr. V. Cornish, granddaughter of the First Secretary and a continuing witness to the Office’s lineage, Colonel Ferron Williams, and Council Member Mark Wright.
The mandate taken up in 2014 extended beyond the Office itself. Under the direction of Colonel Williams, the State undertook the implementation of computer systems to support the functional government of Accompong. The first of these was a Civil Registration and Vital Statistics system, developed in keeping with the standards of the World Health Organization, and intended to form the foundation for a Voter Registration System and a Maroon Identification System. Civil registration under the new system commenced on the third day of January, 2015.
These were not symbolic works. A State that is continuous in treaty and in council must also be continuous in its records. The 1738 Treaty grants the lands and the standing of the Maroons for themselves and posterity for ever. Posterity requires registration. It requires that the people of the State be known, named, and recorded under the seal of their own authority — not only under the administrative instruments of any successor government.
The selection of Mr. Holmes reflected the practical character of the work ahead. A technical officer by training and practice, Mr. Holmes is the inventor of record under international patent WO2008095291, covering a method and system for registering and verifying the identity of wireless networks and devices. The application of such expertise to the civil registration functions of the State was neither incidental nor ornamental. It was the condition of making those functions work.
From July 1, 2014 forward, the Office of the Secret Service has continued its historical charge: the maintenance of the records of the State, the custody of the Treaty, and the vigilant watch over the offices and standing of Accompong. The eight-year dormancy ended. The lineage resumed.
What was founded under the Kindah Tree in 1738, and established in this Office in 1923, was carried forward in 2014 — and endures.
For the Born and the Unborn.
Filed under seal of the Office. For corrections or supplementary records, contact the Secretariat.
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