Buxton celebrates 170th anniversary

Jul 27, 2010 News

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From a Buxton Ball to an economic summit, the activities are varied but they have one purpose in mind – celebrating 170 years since the East Coast village of Buxton was bought by a group of freed-African slaves.
There are rumours of a red-carpet type event being hosted by the state, but there has been no confirmation of that just yet.
The initiative to celebrate the village’s anniversary was taken by a group of overseas-based Buxtonians looking to erase the bloody-image the village developed, especially the violent events of the past decade.
In the four years leading up to the abolition of slavery on August 1, 1838, a group of slaves who enjoyed a period of apprenticeship saved the small amounts of money they were paid.
Following the first such purchase of what is now Victoria Village, in November 1839, by 83 former slaves, 128 of their fellow labourers from plantations between Lusignan and Non Pareil, East Coast Demerara, pooled their resources to acquire the 500-acre Plantation New Orange Nassau from its proprietor, James Archibald Holmes, for $50,000, in April 1840.
The newly established village was renamed Buxton in honour of Thomas Fowell Buxton, a British Member of Parliament, who had campaigned tirelessly for the abolition of slavery in the British colonies. Although Victoria was purchased before Buxton, Buxton obtained its transport first-2nd January, 1841.
In 1841, another 168 former slaves purchased Friendship, a 500-acre plantation adjacent east of Buxton for $80,000. They then merged the two communities to form the largest village in the country.
The founding fathers proceeded to lay out housing lots at the front of the village and corresponding farm lands at the back. They worked tirelessly building roads, digging drainage trenches and planting crops.
They also created an administrative body, the Buxton-Friendship Village Council to oversee the maintenance of village infrastructure, collect property taxes, and to ensure residents adhered to a strict code of decency and morality by imposing fines on violators who committed such offences as public intoxication, use of profane language, gambling and fighting.
Religious worship and education were also very important to villagers. Places for the establishment of Christian churches and schools were allocated to the Congregational, Methodist and Roman Catholic Churches.
The Anglican Church had already planted roots in the community before it was acquired by the former slaves. According to Eusi Kwayana’s Buxton Friendship in Print and in Memory, “They made it clear that this was in gratitude for what God had done for them in relieving them from their captivity.”
These institutions were later followed by the Seventh Day Adventist Church, the Church of God, The Lutheran Church, Brethren Church, the Jordanites, the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, Assemblies of God, Full Gospel Church, and a number of small ‘Faithist’ groups.
Except for a small number of East Indians who reside around the northwestern border of the village, Buxton-Friendship has remained largely a village of African descendants. As a result, it boasts a culture deeply rooted in African and Christian traditions.
It is thought that Buxton-Friendship once boasted one of the best education systems in the country with three secondary schools-Buxton Government Secondary School, County High School and Smith’s College.
It also housed four primary schools—St. Augustine’s Anglican School/Friendship Government School, Friendship Methodist (Wesleyan) School, Arundel Congregational (Missionary) School and St. Anthony’s Roman Catholic School.
Early education was provided by a host of bottom-house Kindergarten schools, while skills and craft were taught to adolescents at the Trade School. The community shares a proud history of scholastic excellence through its many illustrious sons and daughters, some of whom were beneficiaries of the Buxton Scholarship, and who went on to serve in prestigious positions around the world.
Buxton is also the original home of the popular Buxton Spice Mango. This distinctly sweet fleshy yellowish-red fruit, when ripe, grows abundantly in the fertile backlands of the village.
Buxton is also famous for the legend that villagers stopped a train. This goes back to 1862 when villagers, arming themselves with cutlasses, axes, sticks and other implements, laid wait along the railway line to intercept a locomotive train carrying the governor, whose audience they fiercely sought.
It was the last resort in a series of efforts by them to secure the abolishment of a repressive tax that was imposed on the properties of several villagers. As the train approached the village, several men and women formed themselves into a human shield, forcing the driver to bring the train to an immediate halt. The protestors then proceeded to immobilise the engine by applying chains and locks to its wheels.
There are fresh efforts by a group of Buxtonians, led by Malcolm Parris and Bertrand Booker to mobilise interest and resources for the redevelopment of essential infrastructure in the Village.
The first project earmarked is the erection of a multi-purpose community centre at the site where stood the legendary Tipperary Society Hall. It is targeted for completion by 2012.
Activities to mark the 170th anniversary continue through this month. On Wednesday evening, there will be a night symposium.
The Buxton Ball is billed for Friday evening while a village jamboree is slated for Saturday.
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Jurors hear closing arguments at JFK bomb plot trial

Abdool Kadir

(From The Washington Post)
Two men accused in a terrorist plot hoped to cause a spectacular explosion that would kill thousands at New York’s Kennedy International Airport and avenge U.S. oppression of Muslims, a prosecutor said yesterday at the men’s trial.
The defendants allegedly wanted to blow up jet fuel tanks at the sprawling airport, causing an explosion “so massive … that it could be seen from far, far away,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Zainab Ahmad said in closing arguments in federal court in Brooklyn.
Their vision prompted them to code name the plot “The Shining Light,” the prosecutor said.
Defense attorney, Mildred Whalen, countered by accusing a government informant of manipulating a ragtag crew of delusional dupes who had “seen too many Bruce Willis movies.” She called her client, Russell DeFreitas, a “weak-minded, foolish man with a big mouth.”
Defreitas, 66, a former JFK cargo handler, and Abdul Kadir, 58, once a member of Parliament in Guyana, were arrested in 2007 after the informant – a convicted drug dealer – infiltrated the plot and made a series of secret recordings.
Prosecutors say DeFreitas did reconnaissance on the airport, sought the help of a militant Muslim group in Trinidad along with Kadir and dreamt of delivering a devastating economic blow to the United States.
DeFreitas, a naturalised U.S. citizen from Guyana, “is a classic homegrown extremist,” Ahmad said.
At trial, the government’s evidence included tapes of DeFreitas that showed he was determined to avenge the mistreatment of Muslims in the United States and abroad with an attack that would “dwarf 9/11,” Ahmad said yesterday. He also told the informant that his U.S. citizenship gave him cover, the prosecutor added.
“They don’t expect nobody in this country to do something like this,” she quoted him as saying. “They have their eyes on foreigners, not me.”
As part of the plot, DeFreitas and the informant traveled to Guyana to try to meet with Kadir and show him homemade surveillance videotapes of the airport’s so-called fuel farms, the prosecutor said. The plotters also discussed reaching out to Adnan Shukrijumah, an al-Qaida operative and explosives expert who was believed to be hiding out in the Caribbean at the time, she added. DeFreitas’s bragging about his inside knowledge of JFK “doesn’t mean he’s breaking the law,” his attorney said Monday. “He’s just acting like a fool.”
Kadir, while testifying on his on behalf, has denied he was a militant Muslim who spied for Iran for years before joining the JFK scheme. He told jurors he warned the plotters they were violating their religion.
“Islam does not support aggression or killing innocent people,” he recalled saying to them.
Shukrijumah, an FBI-most wanted terrorist, was indicted in federal court in Brooklyn this month on charges he was involved in a failed plot to attack the New York City subway system with suicide bombers.

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