Emancipation – a time for recollection

Aug 02, 2008 Editorial

Yesterday was a significant day in the lives of a significant number of Caribbean people, the descendants of a people whose ancestors came to this part of the world as slaves.

These were the people who worked in the fields to produce for everyone but themselves and when they lagged they were beaten.

Some were killed for challenging the then establishment for the very things that we take for granted today—the right to speak, to assemble, to worship and even to entertain. One could only imagine what August 1, 1834 in this country must have been like.

Certainly there would have been no buntings and streamers in the form of decorations; there would have not been any roaming the streets, limited as these were in the colony. And of course, there would have been apprehension.

The people would have heard by word of mouth and perhaps from the various missionaries, that they would be freedmen by midnight of July 31, 1834.

But in those days, unlike now, people counted each day from sunrise so that the slaves would have waited with bated breath for the dawn.

Yet, and this is what is causing some confusion with the reckoning, there was word that while the slaves were to be free as from today, they were to be taught to work for themselves.

This could be nothing more than an insult. These were the people who were doing all the work.

Unless the belief was that they were incapable of thought and therefore could only work under supervision only then could the white overlords decide that the slaves needed to be trained to live as free men and women.

This period was to have been for four years but it did not last the full four years. During that time the newly freed slaves were still whipped for perceived infractions.

However the history of the freed African-Guyanese begins either from August 1, 1834 or from August 1, 1838. The villages emerged with Plantation Victoria being the first.

These purchases accrued from the saving of those people who had buried their money in the ground, waiting for a chance to own property.

One could imagine the period of imitation when the freed slaves decided that the only way to survive was to emulate the colonial rulers.

They began to dress like the rulers and later, when they were free to access education, they studied to become their former rulers.

They did come along way from the people who fashioned the canals and the sea defence; who laid out the various fields and who kept the colonial masters alive by feeding his vast wealth.

The descendants of the slaves were not only land owners, they became the doctors and the teachers and the nurses and the lawyers and the civil servants.

There were those who hated the land so much that they moved away. But for the vast majority in the villages, the land was their salvation.

They fed themselves and their families; they kept the markets alive and fed so many others. They were the backbone of the villages.

Today, 170 years after the end of the proposed period of apprenticeship but 174 years after abolition so much seems to have gone wrong.

The farmlands aback of the villages are veritable jungles and the children of these landowners are almost mendicants.

They walk the streets and beg rather than till the soil and not only put food on their table but also put money in their pocket.

No longer can the African Guyanese lay claim to the public service which he once predominated. Other race groups are now in the public service.

To get there they pursued their academic programme—burned the midnight oil— while many African Guyanese hit the streets.

We cannot help but note that each year the observance of emancipation becomes more muted. It is as if the descendants of the Africans are at a loss about the reason for the activity.

And this would only change if the parents and elders make a special effort to let the young remember the lessons of the past.

There is a saying that those who forget the mistakes of the past are bound to repeat them. The African Guyanese seems to be forgetting the mistakes of the past.

He is forgetting the days when he laboured for nothing but for a place to rest his weary head and a mess of pottage.

He seems to be gravitating to those things that are so ethereal, so nebulous—the riches from the high life of wine, women and song.

But for those who remember the lessons there is a lot that they need to do to consolidate their place on this plot of land called Guyana.