The five movements of Guyanese history

Aug 11, 2013 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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(This article is an abridged version of an Address to the Forum on the State of Black African Guyana)

The history of Guyana for four centuries has been marked by five major movements “ emancipation, village, political, labour and cultural. Each movement was driven by a powerful ‘idea.’ Each had a transformative effect on the country. Each involved a significant mass of the population.
The first and most important was the ‘Emancipation Movement’ “ driven by the passionate desire for liberation from the bondage of European enslavement. Africans rejected their enslavement and ceaselessly rebelled, resisted or ran away from the plantations in a bid to be free. There were several serious revolts during the era of enslavement, but the most remarkable of these erupted in Berbice in February 1763; in West Demerara in April 1795; in East Demerara in August 1823 and in Essequibo in August 1834. These broke the back of the slave mode of commodity production and ushered in total Emancipation which came into effect on 1st August 1838.
The consequences of Emancipation are inestimable. It triggered the indentured immigration scheme in which over 340,000 Europeans, West Africans, West Indians, East Indians and Chinese labourers were brought into Guyana.  The new immigrants, together with the Amerindians, Africans and European planters already here, were woven into the ethnic tapestry of what we recognise as Guyanese society today.
The ‘Village Movement’ was the most significant, immediate consequence of Emancipation. Free people started to quit the plantations a year after Emancipation, in response to provocation by planters. Free Africans spent more than one million dollars to buy 6,070 hectares of land between 1839 and 1848 to initiate the ‘Village Movement.’ The village population surged to 15,906 by 1842 and nearly trebled to 44,443 by 1848.
The exodus of Africans from the plantations was followed by a period of reaction by the European planters through the ‘legislative encirclement’ of the villages. The general idea was to prevent the expansion of the peasantry. European planters tried to prevent the free Africans from establishing a viable, rival village economy. They reasoned that labour was already in short supply and, if the freed men and women worked on village farms instead of in the plantation canefields, labour would become more scarce and more costly.  The emergent African peasantry and the European plantocracy, therefore, were set on a collision course from the outset.
The beginning of free village life nevertheless initiated the infrastructural development of rural areas.  Early efforts at village administration laid the foundation of the Guyanese system of local democracy. Village councils became the school-houses where many national politicians had their apprenticeship.
The ‘Cultural Movement’ began largely with the evangelizing mission of the Congregational, Lutheran and Presbyterian Churches, the introduction of Islam and Hinduism, the opening of elementary schools, the formation of ethnic associations among the Africans, Chinese, Indians and Portuguese, and the launching of newspapers.
People started to establish themselves as artisans, hucksters, teachers, nurses and clergymen. Compulsory education, introduced in 1876, emphasised academic attainment and vocational skills as means of self-actualisation and social mobility.  Education fostered the embourgeoisement of a small literate class out of which emerged a number of this country’s most talented citizens – artists, poets, writers, musicians, educators, trade unionists, scientists, attorneys, doctors, clergymen, public servants and sportsmen.
The ‘Labour Movement’ mobilised and organised the labouring classes in trade unions from the first quarter of the 20th century.  Guyana’s first trade union was founded for urban, waterfront workers “ people whose employment was irregular and who were wholly dependent on their meagre wages for their subsistence. The celebrated founder of the British Guiana Labour Union (BGLU) in 1919 was Hubert Critchlow.
The Union was registered in 1922, a time when workers’ standards of living were being eroded by the inflation and depression which afflicted the colony in the wake of the First World War. The Man Power Citizens Association (MPCA), based in the sugar industry, was the first significant rural workers’ union.
The ‘Political Movement’ began with the quest for constitutional and political rights which had been denied to the bulk of the non-European population in the 19th century. Some limited reforms were achieved by 1891 but, as more educated and salaried non-European citizens qualified for the restricted franchise, momentum for reform was generated. The British Guiana People’s Political Association and the more successful Popular Party were supported by African, Indian and Portuguese candidates who were elected to the Court of Policy.
The formation of the original People’s Progressive Party in 1950 was a logical outcome of the continuation of agitation of progressive elements. The original PPP was a party of a new type. It benefitted from the militancy and mass consciousness stimulated by the trade union movement, the proto-parties and the ethnic associations, which had been formed in the late 19th and earlier 20th centuries.
The original PPP was Guyana’s first modern, mass-based party. Its success at the general elections of 1953 was attributed to the keen leadership and ‘dual charisma’ of its chairman, Forbes Burnham, and leader of the legislative group, Cheddi Jagan. It appealed to African and Indian masses and nationalists of all ethnic groups, but the party eventually split into two factions – the `Jaganites’ and the `Burnhamites’ – which formed the bases of the PPP and PNC of today.
These five movements propelled Guyana’s history over the centuries. They helped to transform the plantation economy into one which children of all ethnic groups could live without exploitation, domination and discrimination.

 

 

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