The
Easmon family or the
Easmon Medical Dynasty is a
Sierra Leone Creole medical dynasty of
African American descent originally based in
Freetown, Sierra Leone. The Easmon family has ancestral roots in the
United States, and in particular
Savannah, Georgia and other states in the
American South. There are several descendants of the Sierra Leonean family in the
United Kingdom and the
United States, and in
Accra, Ghana and
Kumasi, Ghana. The family produced several medical doctors beginning with
John Farrell Easmon, the medical doctor who coined the term
Blackwater fever and wrote the first
clinical diagnosis of the disease linking it to
malaria and Albert Whiggs Easmon, who was a leading
gynaecologist in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Several members of the family were active in
academia,
politics,
the arts including
music,
cultural dance,
playwrighting and
literature,
history,
anthropology,
cultural studies, and
anti-colonial activism against
racism.
The surname Easmon is a variation of the English surname 'Eastman' derived from 'Eastmond'. The Easmon family descends from the 1,192
African Americans known in Sierra Leone as the
Nova Scotian Settlers who established the Colony of Sierra Leone and the city of Freetown. The earliest known progenitor of the Easmon family was
William Easmon, (d. 1831), an African American trader possibly from
North Carolina, who was among one of the original
Nova Scotian Settler emigres from
Nova Scotia,
Canada who established
Freetown, Sierra Leone on 11 March 1792.
[1] William Easmon had at least one son with his first wife, Mary Easmon and had several children including Walter Richard Easmon (1824-1883) with his second wife, Jane Easmon. Walter Richard Easmon was a merchant based in the Republic of Guinea who was married three times. Walter Richard Easmon was the father of three children with his second wife, Mary Ann MacCormac, including
John Farrell Easmon. Walter Easmon was also the father of
Albert Whiggs Easmon with Mah Serah, a Susu woman from the Republic of Guinea.
Several branches of the Easmon family intermarried with
Creole families of
African American,
Jamaican Maroon,
Northern Irish,
French, and
English descent including the
Boyle,
Cuthbert,
Elliott, George,
MacCormac,
Maillat, and Smith, and Spilsbury families. The Easmon family also extends to Ghana and branches of the family in Ghana intermarried mainly with
Ga-Dangme families of
Sierra Leone Creole,
Danish,
Scottish, and
Welsh descent including the
Dove,
Augustt, and
Evans families.
Members of the Easmon family were prominent in the medical field in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Foremost among the nineteenth century doctors of the family were
John Farrell Easmon and
Albert Whiggs Easmon. The twentieth century was largely dominated by the careers of
Macormack Charles Farrell Easmon, who served in the colonial medical service and
Raymond Sarif Easmon who established himself in
private practice.
The Easmon family contributed to medical field following the qualification of
J.F. Easmon and
A.W. Easmon in 1879 and 1895 respectively.
John Farrell Easmon coined the term '
Blackwater Fever' and was the first to link the disease directly to
malaria. J.F. Easmon was also the first and only
British West African in the nineteenth century to be substantively appointed as a
Chief Medical Officer or
Principal Medical Officer of a British West African territory.
Albert Whiggs Easmon was a pioneering
gynaecologist in
Freetown who received a purse of £100 from the ladies of
Freetown.
Edward Mayfield Boyle (1874-1936), the son of Charles Boyle and Sarah Easmon, was a
medical practitioner who attended
Howard University College of Medicine and was also one of a select group of
African American medical doctors who completed courses at
Harvard Medical School. Boyle wrote a pamphlet that criticised the discriminatory practices of the British colonial administration towards medical doctors.
Edna Elliott-Horton, a niece of
Edward Mayfield Boyle, was reportedly the second
British West African woman to attend a university when she enrolled and completed her studies at
Howard University and the first West African woman to earn a liberal arts degree.
Macormack Easmon was the first
West African to receive a Medical Doctorate from
London University and challenged colonial racism in the
British West African medical service.
Macormack Easmon was the founder of the Sierra Leone Museum and as Chairman of the
Sierra Leone Monuments and Relics Commission designated several heritage sites in
Sierra Leone including
Bunce Island long before international interest in the slave fort.
Kathleen Mary Easmon Simango was a talented cultural dance performer, artist and musician, and intended missionary who was the first
West African to earn a diploma from the
Royal College of Arts.
Kathleen Easmon was an active supporter of her maternal aunt,
Adelaide Casely-Hayford, and travelled to the
United States with her aunt to raise funds for Casely-Hayford's proposed school. Alongside her aunt, Easmon was an honorary member of the
Zeta Phi Beta, an
African-American sorority.
Raymond Sarif Easmon was a prize-winning scholar at
Durham University who wrote several critically acclaimed plays and novels and was a critic of successive governments in Sierra Leone, in particular the governments of
Albert Margai and his successor,
Siaka Stevens.
Professor Emeritus Charles Syrett Easmon, the grandson of J.F. Easmon, was appointed as a professor in his early thirties and a high-ranking medical administrator, who received a
CBE for his contributions to the medical field in 2000.
Charles Odamtten Easmon, a grandson of J.F. Easmon, was the first
Ghanaian to qualify as a
surgeon and was a pioneer
cardiac surgeon and
gynaecologist.
