Hundreds attend 175th Arrival Day celebrations at Highbury

May 06, 2013 News

…monument unveiled

A monument was unveiled yesterday at the very location at which the first batch of East Indians arrived in British Guiana at Plantation Highbury, way up the East Bank corridor. The monument was built specifically to commemorate the 175TH Anniversary of the arrival of the Indian indentured servants to work on the sugar plantations. The unveiling ceremony followed a rich cultural programme at the Highbury commemoration compound, an event that was organized by the Berbice Indian Cultural Committee.

A depiction of the MV Whitby, one of the ships that brought the first batch of Indian immigrants to British Guiana 175 years ago

Skits, dances, songs, quaseedas, Taan singing, as well as tassa drumming, were among the cultural items performed. In the audience were Indian Commemoration Trust President, Dr. Yesu Persaud; Region 6 Chairman, Mr. David Armogan; Vice- Chairman, Mr. Bhupaul Jhagroo; Mr. Moses Nagamootoo; Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan; Minister of Culture, Youth & Sports, Dr. Frank Anthony as well as Guest Speaker, Chancellor of the Judiciary, the Hon. Carl Singh.
Mr. David Armogan stated that East Indians, like Guyanese of other ethnicities, have achieved a lot especially in the areas of medicine, business, nursing, politics, “all of the descendants of East Indian immigrants occupy many, many great positions in the world”. He urged that Guyanese continue to remember their traditions and culture.
Mr. Nagamootoo stressed how significant the day was for all of Guyana. “We share the belief that our foreparents and ancestors—East Indians
as well as Chinese, Portuguese, Africans, Europeans—all made the sacrifice for us to become Guyanese and for us to have a national identity of our own and therefore,
it is our duty—it was a burden of our ancestors to dream that one day they could become a nationality of their own.”
Dr. Anthony added his bit by saying that when the ship, the Hesperus arrived at Highbury. “It marked a new beginning because after that first ship came to Guyana, it brought the first set of indentured labourers, but the conditions under which they labored—it was horrendous! And while some people said that we cannot equate it with what happened during slavery, Historian Hugh Tinker, author of a book about slavery, spoke about indentureship and he actually spoke about the horrors of indentureship”.
Guest speaker, Chancellor Singh, chronicled the historical aspect of the arrival of the indentured servants and spoke about their living conditions as well as conditions experienced on the sugar plantations. He linked the historical aspect to the present day.

The monument which was unveiled

“The pain and suffering of the ancestors of our African brothers and sisters must never be forgotten”, he stated. He quoted Nelson Mandela, who opposed apartheid, “never, never, and never again must that happen”. “The emancipation of African slaves resulted in the disruption of available labour and this labour was demanded with uncaring, brutal exactitude. The planters have devised the legal scheme, calculated to lock the Indian immigrants within the plantation.
The enacted labour and vagrancy laws were schemes of control. The labour laws facilitated production and punishment at the whims of the employer, for offences such as absence from work or unfinished work”.
Our Indo and Afro Guyanese and other ethnic groups, he stated, must call Guyana their home. “Exchanges about who came first, who suffered most, who worked the hardest, are sterile exchanges and serve no useful purpose as we strive for a common destiny. We all are perfectly entitled to cherish our ancestry and pursue and preserve our cultural values and tradition”, he stated.
He added that Guyanese should never allow our different ancestries and cultural values to impact negatively upon our quest for national unity. “We must each resolve to reach out to each other across the ethnic spectrum and see ourselves as first and foremost at Guyanese”, Mr. Singh said.