Each week we post an article or paper submitted by a member or "silent participant" of Guyana Caribbean Network. The featured article runs from Monday to Sunday each week. To submit an article for feature of the week contact us at admin@guyanacaribbeannetwork.com This week's feature is brought to you by "BK".

Happy Emancipation day to all Afro-Guyanese: A day of celebration and remembrance to honor the memories of those who slaved till they breathe their last breath. by "BK"

PART III Free at last - well just for a handful

In 1831, three years prior to emancipation, a number of slaves in Berbice were granted full freedom (as opposed to those who were forced to serve under the slave like apprenticeship system until 1838 and some until 1840). These men were highly skilled and best known for their great craftsmanship and occupational talents - many were experienced artisans in carpentry, masonry, cooperage etc. Upon attaining their manumitted status many of them relocated to Winkle New Amsterdam where they worked under an officer, the equivalent of the current Director of Public Works. The fruits of these endeavours resulted in the creation of the New Amsterdam Public Works Department. From time to time these Africans were contracted by the Company, private individuals and other plantation owners to work on 'special projects'. Some of their handiworks are still visible in "historic New Amsterdam" today.

Emancipation, Apprenticeship, Revolt and "White" Sabotage

Although the British Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, it was not until August 1st 1834 that slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire. As a precursor, in early 1834 Mr. William Hillhouse (an officer in the British Navy and who also served as the Quarter Master General of Amerindians in British Guiana) wrote a letter to the local press, in Georgetown, warning the plantation owners of the possible economic fallout due to a likely labor shortage following emancipation. This prompted Governor Lyght to issue an appeal urging them to treat the Africans more humanely and to provide better conditions of service as an incentive for them to continue working on the plantations. However, the estate owners did not take the Governor's warning very seriously and as Hillhouse predicted there was a mass African migration from the plantations following emancipation.

August 1st 1834, however, did not spell automatic freedom for the slaves, since the British Crown instituted an apprenticeship system in order to encourage the Africans to continue working on the sugar plantations. It was required that all slaves over six years old would have to serve an apprenticeship of six years in the case of field slaves, and four years in the case of other slaves. The apprentices were expected to work for not more than 45 hours per week without pay; they were paid only for hours worked beyond the required 45 hours. The plantation owners were also obligated to continue providing them with their weekly food quotas of rum, sugar and salt-fish as well as the necessary clothing. By the end of this system plantation owners were faced with a severe labor shortage since many of the Africans refused to work for their previous masters mainly because of the cruel and inhumane treatment that they were subjected to under slavery and which continued during their apprenticeship. About half of the men opted to continue working on the plantations; most of whom were trained factory workers such as - pan boilers, electrician, welders, etc. And about one-third of the women also choose to remain, most of them were house servants. This reduced workforce, especially the cane-cutters, resulted in a continued drop in production levels on the estates.

Following emancipation, several Africans pooled their money and purchased some of the abandoned estates on East Coast Demerara. In November 1839, 83 of them from five neighbouring estates - Douchfour, Ann's Grove, Hope, Paradise and Enmore - bought Plantation Northbrook for 30,000 guilders, with each of the 83 owning one plot of land. They "Christened" the village Victoria, most likely after Queen Victoria, whom they felt was had helped them to attain their freedom. Buxton, named after the British Abolitionist Thomas Fowell, was another such village purchased in a similar manner. Buxton is known for its fertile backlands and its spice mangos. The acquisition of abandoned estates by Africans continued until 1852 and over the years they established more than 25 villages (purchased for over one million dollars - paid for in coins which they carted in wheel barrows), they also owned over 2,000 freehold properties in the three counties.

This migration from the estates placed added burden on sugar production and the planters used various devious methods to force the Africans to return to work the fields. They flooded their villages and farmlands damaging their ground provisions and other crops, cut down their fruit trees as well as killing their livestock, to compound the situation the villages were later faced with administrative problems. The new property owners had no experience in how to manage or maintain their villages - the roads, bridges, sluice gates and drainage canals (although they did most of this work when they were slaves) - gradually fell into disrepair and since they used up all their savings to purchase the land, they had nothing left to pay others to do the maintenance work (naturally the estates were not prepared to help them). They also were not versed in trying to get the work done on a self-help basis the same way they pooled their resources to purchase the land; as a result, the overall conditions in the villages and the communal plots that they farmed deteriorated very quickly forcing many of them to return to the estates seeking employment (which was the aim of the plantation owners when they destroyed their sources of livelihood).

Notwithstanding, the impact of the labor shortage dealt a severe economic/financial setback to plantation owners and many were forced to abandon their estates. Ironically, with the end of slavery, the plantation owners in Guyana received very high compensation from the British Government for the "loss" of their slaves. For each free male/female the plantation owners receive an average of 52 British pounds and for a driver they received as much as 230 pounds. On the other hand, the former slaves who had laboured to produce enormous wealth for their white massas and the British Government received not a single penny in compensation for their years of involuntary servitude.

1834 Essequibo Revolt, forced labour and more "White" Sabotage

August 2nd 1834, the day after the Abolition Law came into effect, slaves on plantations La Belle Alliance and Richmond, on the Essequibo believing that they had been granted the day off did not report for work. Charles Bean, owner of plantation Richmond, and other plantation owners reminded the labourers of their "obligations". The following day, Bean and several armed men slaughtered about 65 pigs belonging to his workers, claiming that the pigs destroyed the young cane roots. The real reason was to cut off any alternative livelihood for the workers so that they were forced to return to plantation work. Some plantation owners throughout the country even went so far as to cut down the fruit trees on their estates which they felt would provide free meals for the Africans. On Monday August 4th 1834, Damon from Richmond plantation staged a peaceful demonstration inside the yard of the Trinity Parish Church; he unfurled a flag and was prepared to spend the entire day "at church". He was joined by labourers from other plantations. The Minister of the church appealed to the crowd to disperse, but they argued that since they were free they did not wish to return to the plantations to be forced to work under slave conditions any longer. They told the Minister that they were taking refuge in the church which belonged to the King. They held their ground until a face-to-face meeting was arranged with Governor Carmichael Smyth to listen to their grievances and complaints.

Governor Smyth arrived in Essequibo the following Monday the 11th August, and explained to the crowd what the apprenticeship system meant and ordered them to return to work. Damon's flag which flew proudly for a few days in the church was pulled down. Damon, who was referred to as the "Captain" and seen as leader of the group, together with about 32 other Africans were arrested and taken to Georgetown, they were tried and found guilty of rebellion. Four of them were sentenced to terms of imprisonment and severe floggings while two were sentenced to serve time in New South Wales, Australia. On Monday October 13th 1834, Damon was hanged on a scaffold in front of the new Public Buildings (which is now Parliament Buildings) - his crime - staging a peaceful protest. None of the men had threatened (or attacked) a single white plantation owner or damage any of their property they had simply stopped working for a few days and assembled under their own flag demanding 'justice'.

Meanwhile, the owners on nearly all the plantations, in their craftiness, devised different methods to control the "apprentices" who were forced to remain on the plantations. They could decide if an apprentice's work was satisfactory or not, thus forcing the apprentice to do extra work when he could have been working for wages. Those who refused to work overtime had their rations reduced or were not given the free weekly food quotas. A usual practice that some planters engaged in was 'imprisonment' of apprentice(s) on trumped-up charges to await the arrival of the magistrates on the plantation. However, the charges are usually dropped just before the magistrate's arrival, but the apprentice would still have to work the extra time equivalent to the time he was jailed. All these practices left a bitter taste in the Africans' mouths and hence the desire of many to never return to work on the plantations.

Beyond apprenticeship and the British divide and rule strategy

On the occasion of Guyana's independence in May 1966, Guyanese historian P.P. Dial wrote an article which briefly touched on the Shia Muslims Tazia celebrations in 1866 (100 years earlier). The stated that the celebrations were one of the biggest of its kind ever held in the colony where a growing number of Africans (or Creoles as the Whites referred to them) took part in the revelry. The Creoles' participation in the festival was a great concern for churchmen and Christian priests who feared that their 'flocks' were gradually converting to the Muslim (and Hindu) faiths with their growing participation in the East Indian religious celebrations (especially Tazia, Kali Mai puja and Phagwah) with the beating of the drums, singing and dancing in the streets. It was suggested that Creoles who took part in these celebrations should be jailed and whipped, and greater efforts were made by the churches and the government to prevent the Creoles from joining in Hindu and Muslim festivals.

In March of the same year (1866) one churchman expressed the opinion, which was also held by most Christian priests, "that they have seen the Creoles taking part in the East Indian festivals and at all events it should not be and that they cannot afford to allow the Creoles of the colony who are removed ever so little from heathenism and savagery to relapse." Mr. Dial further went on to speculate that although the Christian priests may have meant well they "unconsciously retarded Guyanese acculturation" another viewpoint which is debatable by some Guyanese. An interesting fact was that Africans used to help make the drums for these celebrations. It was also the belief that many Afro-Guyanese who took part in the celebrations were probably trying to reconnect with their Fulani roots and African celebrations from respective tribal villages - which they later started to observe cumfa and queh queh celebrations. It was also suggested that this led to the emergence of the masquerade bands usually around Christmas time.

Both East Indians and the Africans who made Guyana their home in the 19th century were subjected to varying degrees of soul-destroying conditions at the hands of the White plantation owners. While those experiences obliterated, for the most part, the cultural identity of the African slaves (including the lost of their religion and their native languages), bearing in mind that most of the African cultural traditions brought to Guyana were oral as opposed to those of the East Indians which were not only oral, but they brought with their written texts which was easier for perpetuation. Hence, the East Indian retained, albeit to varying degrees, much of what made up their cultural heritage, which form part of their daily routine today and included elements of their religion, religious celebrations, dress (note: the burka was never a part of the Indo-Muslim women dress code, this mode of dress is from the Arab World which some faction of the Muslims in Guyana wants to impose on the women in Guyana) food, and music. These 'links to the ancestral land' of the East Indians have always been a point of much controversial debates between Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese scholars. Some have claimed that Indo-Guyanese are living in a house that the Africans built, while it is also claimed that Guyana might be the house that African built but it is the East Indians who have upkeep it, much to the consternation of others on both sides of the debate.

Sources:

Africa Guide, available online at: http://www.africaguide.com/culture/tribes/fulani.htm

A.J McRCameron, "The Berbice Uprising, 1763" http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/berbice.html

Berbice Official Gazette, 1803.

Dalgety Tom, Letter to the Editor, Stabroek News, November 24, 1998

Guyana Rice Development Board: http://grdb.gy/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=44

Odeen Ishmael, The Beginning of the Berbice Slave Rebellion, http://www.guyana.org/features/guyanastory/chapter30.html

Odeen Ishmael, "Rumors of Freedom" http://www.guyana.org/features/guyanastory/chapter42.html

Odeen Ishmael, "The Growth of Education before 1840" http://www.guyana.org/features/guyanastory/chapter59.html

P.P. Dial, "Guyana in 1866": Guyana Chronicle, 1966, available online at www.silvertorch.com/arts/ppdial.htm

Ruhomon, Peter. Centenary History of the East Indians in British Guiana, 1838-1938, Daily Chronicle, British Guiana Edition Series, No. 10.

Smith, T. Raymond: http://home.uchicago.edu/~rts1/chapter_ii.htm and http://home.uchicago.edu/~rts1/chapter_iii.htm

Sylviane A. Diouf, Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas: New York: NYU Press, 1998, pp. 133 & 134.

Thomas Staunton St. Clair, A Soldier's Sojourn in British Guiana, London: Richard Bentley Publishing 1834, p. 232.