Commemoration of Emancipation

Aug 02, 2011 Letters

Dear Editor,
At this time of commemoration of Emancipation, we note the outstanding contributions made by our forebears to achieve emancipation from African enslavement.
In 1763, Kofi, with Atta, Akara and others, mobilised over 3,000 Africans in Berbice to wage a revolutionary war against the Dutch colonists. Kofi was styled Governor of the Africans. He formed his own army, constituted his own governing Court of Policy and administered a significant portion of the Dutch colony for several months. He sent letters to the Dutch Governor, Van Hoogenheim, stating that the Africans would no longer be enslaved, and proposing a partition of Berbice.
The Dutch Governor stalled, whilst sending for reinforcements. Divisions developed in Kofi’s ranks, following which he took his own life. The Dutch later overcame the remaining African revolutionaries. Kofi’s action preceded the American, French and Haitian Revolutionary Wars of Independence.
In 1823, in East Coast Demerara, Rev. John Smith’s church deacon Quamina and his son Jack Gladstone, from Success plantation, mobilised approximately 13,000 Africans on the plantations, demanding from Governor Murray, unconditional emancipation. They had mistakenly believed that the British King had granted them emancipation. Success belonged to wealthy absentee plantation owner, British MP John Gladstone, father of William Gladstone, who later became British Prime Minister.
During the revolt, Jack rode a horse around the plantations, and the tables were turned on some of the plantation owners, who were confined in their own stocks, which they had used to punish enslaved Africans. The revolt was brutally suppressed by the British forces.
In 1834, in La Belle Alliance, Essequibo, Damon led about 1,000 men, women and children in an unarmed protest against the introduction of the “Apprenticed Labourer” system. This system had replaced enslavement and commenced on 1st August 1834. The protesters believed that the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 declared them to be free on that date, but it only declared the immediate freedom of children under 6 years of age.
The Act bound former enslaved Africans aged 6 years and over, who were praedial (land) labourers, to labour on the former plantations for 6 years, and those who were non-praedial labourers, to labour for 4 years. Damon was put on trial, and convicted of seditious riots and disturbances against the peace. He was sentenced to death and hanged on 13th October 1834, outside Public Buildings, Brickdam, the location of the National Assembly.
There were also protests against the “Apprenticed Labourer” system in some of the Caribbean colonies. Unqualified emancipation was granted on 1st August 1838, by the UK government’s Slavery Abolition Amendment Act 1838.

Colin Bobb-Semple

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