The road to Emancipation

Dear Editor,

It was this month, the month of August, 192 years ago that the enslaved people from Africa were promised their freedom. However, before I tell you about the African Emancipation in more detail, I would like to start with how the Dutch came to British Guiana.

We must remember that Walter Raleigh heard some drunken English sailors in a bar in England talking about gold and the golden king in South America. On hearing this, he equipped three ships with ration, supplies and volunteers and set sail to South America in 1595.

On his way to South America, he learnt that most of South America was owned by the Dutch, The French, The Spanish and the Portugese.

However, he found what looked like an abandoned land on the north coast of South America. He sailed through and turned left into another river where he saw about 40 ‘Red Indian’ families living in tents, which he later learnt were Benabs. They welcomed him, since he was flying the English flag.

Those ‘Red Indians’, who we now know as Amerindians (were our First Peoples).

The ‘Red Indians’ (Amerindians) greeted him and asked what brought him here. Said Walter Raleigh, “I’m looking for wealth (gold).” To which the ‘Red Indian’ Chief replied, “Yes, we have hills of gold around here. And we even have a golden King, who lives in a Golden Palace over the hill.” Unfortunately, this was all lies.

Walter Raleigh never saw any gold, and neither the King nor the Golden Palace.

But he went back to England and told the people of England he found hills of gold and saw the King and the Golden Palace, after which he was knighted by the Queen as Sir Walter Raleigh.

On learning this, the French, the Spanish, the Dutch, the Irish, and some Germans all came searching for wealth, and they, too, found nothing.

But it was the Dutch who found something of value. They found fertile land to plant sugarcane. They initially started by enslaving the Amerindians as labourers to plant sugarcane, but they refused and fled into the jungle. They then tried some Europeans as paid contractual slaves, but that, too, did not work. The sun and the work were very tedious.

By 1636, the Dutch began to look elsewhere for labourers. They wanted a large amount of reliable strong and disciplined men to work. The Dutch heard of the Slave Trade from West Africa, run by African Chiefs. They made contact and realised that many African labourers were available.

Not so long after, slaves began to arrive on Plantation Kyk-Over-Al and Pomeroon. Over the years, the African people; man, woman, and child, endured much suffering. There were several slave rebellions and non-cooperation, as brothers were being taken from their brothers, men being taken away from their wives, brothers and sisters being cruely taken away from each other, women and children crying for each other. There was no mercy.

There were some notable Europeans who fought in the English Parliament for the slave labour to be abolished. There were people like Sir Thomas Buxton and Reverend John Smith. Sir Thomas Buxton, a white European, got the village of Buxton named after him, and Reverend John Smith mysteriously died in prison.

The entire 18th Century was marked by more arrival of slaves and more slave rebellions. Slavery must be the greatest sin committed by Man; even greater than murder, even though that’s my belief. Forcing men and women to wear and eat what the masters want them to is a life of misery.

There were many calls that massa day must done. It eventually came in 1838, even though they were promised in 1834.

The planters used their financial power to change slavery to apprenticeship and indentured labour, however, the actions and attitude of the Europeans remained the same. On Monday, August 1, 1838, the curtains finally came down on slavery and apprenticeship.

The Africans of old initially celebrated that day as plain August Monday, or Freedom Day. Today, the preferred name is Emancipation Day. The foregoing information was taken from the National Archives and Vere T. Daly’s The Making of Guyana.^[1]

References

1. The making of Guyana — www.amazon.com ↩