A comprehensive effort was made to destroy the Afrikan presence in business

Nov 24, 2013 Letters

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Dear Editor,
What does Mr. Ramracha mean when he speaks of black impediments” and “black inadequacies” in the letter “Indians still strive for progress …..”? Kaieteur News, November 18 2013.  Such references to ethnic groups are not  only out of vogue but betray the disrespect of a bygone era in which it was okay to ridicule by negative stereotype and racial profiling Afrikans without sanction.
I would be inclined to go along with Ramracha’s accusation of black lethargy if it could be shown that there is another people in Guyanese history who accomplished the following (a) working without pay for close to 200 years, to (b) move one hundred million tons (90,700,000 metric tons) of earth to build up the coastland of Guyana (c) to reclaim 15,000 square miles(38,850 sq. km)  of Guyana’s territory from forests and swamp (d) dig 2.58 million miles of drainage and irrigation canals and clear the cane fields in establishing the cane industry, (e) lay three and a half thousand miles of roads and footpaths  and   (f) and built 2.2 thousand miles of sea and river defence.
The current no show by Blacks in business in a significant way is neither the result of a culture of state dependency nor an outdated leadership approach in the Afrikan community.  It is not an indication of an unparalleled lethargy, being stocked in the military and public service, and a refusal by blaks to embrace some offer of business development by the Jagans.   These things are not the cause of but rather the effects of our absence from business. The cause is due by and large to 19th century European interest in Guyana which destroyed the fledging but significant Afrikan Entrepreneurial Movement.  Not only would it have hurt their economic interests, it was an embarrassment to Europe propaganda which paraded as education, science and profession.  But for a fleeting reference to the acquisition of Buxton and Victoria Ramracha shows a complete ignorance of the movement in which the freed Afrikans having recently acquired some degree of political freedom attempted to complete that political freedom by working towards their own economic freedom.  It is this absence from business which is one of the powerful indicators used to justify the malicious maligning of our character and is proffered as the evidence to elicit support for the negative stereotyping hurled at us.
In 1854, there were one hundred and seventy three plantations producing sugar in the colony.  By the end of their acquisition of land in the form of plantation purchases, Afrikans had acquired approximately 188 estates more than were under cultivation in 1854.  Their own business/economic outlook and capacity was just as grand as the Europeans.   That these now called villages were once production co-operatives or rather business ventures with a pronounced social component, is attested to by a description given to them by Walter Rodney.  “The villages were collectives, communal arrangements that had a total aspect to them.  They were not merely units of production. …”.  Such was the vibrancy of this entrepreneurial movement that while the sugar factories were paying 32 cents per day for field labour in 1842, at the beginning of  beginning of 1841 Victoria was paying “$1.50 a day for trench cleaning”.   New Orange Nassau (Buxton) paid a dividend to the original shareholders of $26 approximately currently valued at G$30,000.  B.V. was returning $1,000 (G$1.2M) per month from selling plantains.  Afrikan land purchase and development led to an appreciation in land prices.  In 1840 Plantation Thomas which was sold for $45,000 at abolition appreciated to $100,000 and Vigilance which was bought in 1831 for $15,000 was now being offered at $90,000. Afrikan business it is recorded was so vibrant that by 1848 Afrikans in Berbice had “produced so much ground provisions as to have manufactured a glut on the market.”  Such was the scale and impact of Afrikan entrepreneurship.
This kind of industry and presence in business (a) presented a threat to the European interest of keeping the Afrikan as a labourer on the sugar plantations (b) was an embarrassment to European academic/education, religious and professional circles which had propagandized the Afrikan as lazy and dependent and (c) brought about a comprehensive socio- economic- political response from the whites  who, armed with state, judicial and legislative power proceeded to decimate the Afrikan business presence in British Guiana.  The result is that the 188 estates co-operatives (businesses) acquired in the 19th century have now diminished to the few Afrikan villages that we know today.  Nothing captures more succinctly the European thinking and the importance they paid to destroying the Afrikan business expression than The Reverend John Sterling’s report of 1835 which perceived that “The stability of the colonial society in the West Indies will be at stake once full freedom is attained.” Halting the movement to full freedom was to be embarked upon immediately and education was to be used as the medium for this purpose through achieving “power over their minds” …ironically he said with the aim of “bettering their condition.”
The following sources present the data which demonstrate the comprehensiveness of the effort to destroy the Afrikan presence in business. (a) Chapter 20 -The Negro Struggle for Economic Freedom in “Short History of the Guyanese People” by Vere T. Daly , “Themes in African- Guyanese History”  edited by Winston F. Mc Gowan, James Rose, and David A. Granger, (c) “The Approaches to Local Self Government in British Guiana”  by Allan Young, (d) “From Nigger Yard to Village” by Walter Rodney, (e) “The Colonial Foundations of Race Relations and Ethno-Politics in Guyana”  by Percy Hintzen…etc.
These writings reveal the process by which the Afrikan Entrepreneurial Movement was brought to a crushing halt.   None other than Governor Light declared in 1842 that should the Creole “be forced to keep up roads in protection of his acreage and (that) should (he) be taxed according to his acres, he will …find his possession not so desirable.” They reveal how denial of credit, sabotage of agricultural production, education, slander, immigration, the legislature, taxation  transfer pricing and bad governance were all used against the Afrikan to oust them from business.  The result was, that “As Guyana approached independence, the foundations of its political economy were firmly entrenched on the economic side to the advantage of external and other business interests and a small, domestic comprador group of other business interests, derived primarily from the Portuguese, Chinese and East Indian sections of the population.”  As a result of the economic sabotage leveled against the Afrikan Entrepreneurial Movement Afrikans found themselves in “… the largely urban based state sector, comprising the general civil service, including the security forces, and the relatively small public enterprise sub-sector, (which) was preponderantly staffed by the African racial group.  This latter group was also preponderantly involved in mining activities, particularly in the bauxite industry.”  Dr. Melissa Ifill completes the description “Members of the East Indian community are heavily concentrated in agriculture, hunting, forestry and the various service trades while the heaviest concentration of the African community is in the public service and mining and quarrying.” Gone was the Afrikan presence.  This then is how Afrikans came to be out of business not lethargy and dependence.
Indian presence in business in not due purely to Indian thrift and sacrifice, the history of land distribution in Guyana proves this to be true.  Land distribution and attitudes towards land are key foundations of presence and hence visibility in business as it is “a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth”.  An analysis which ignores this variable is severely faulty.  Allan Young in “The Approaches to Local Self-Government in British Guiana” p.149-161 points out several means by which Indians and Chinese were able to acquire land.  These include:  (a) poaching on plantations left unattended by Afrikans chiefly in Berbice by the Indians; (b) government assistance in the area of land acquisition to the Chinese and Indians.  For example Huis t’Dieren an estate of over 600 acres was acquired in 1880 by Government acquired and laid out into village and cultivation lots. The project began with 73 immigrants.  Each settler paid an annual tax of $1 for each lot for which the Government was responsible for the upkeep of roads and drainage.  By 1894 Plantation Helena on the East Coast of Demerara was purchased for $7,000 and converted into a settlement in which 1206 Indians received allotments, 573 men, 394 women 121 boys and 118 girls.  Each immigrant over 10 years received a grant of 1/5 acre for house lot and 1 acre as a cultivation plot. Those under 10 years received half the amount.  Similarly favorable conditions were made available to Indians at Unity, Lancaster, Clonbrook, Windsor Forest, La Jalousie, Hague Nooten Zuil, Whim, Bush Lot, Marias Pleasure, and Bloomfield.  This trend of discriminatory land continued to the 1950’s, Dr. Melissa Ifill in the E.R.C.  “Study to Assess Whether There is any Discrimination in the Award and Distribution of Economic Opportunities in Guyana Report” informs us “During the PPP reign in the mid to late 1950s, it was revealed in the ICJ (1965) report that in the land settlement agricultural schemes, lands were allocated by the state to 3,854 Indians as compared to 550 Africans and that the state was investing heavily in rural development.”  The revelations of the Kaieteur News “Heist of the Nations Series” and the revelations of the Bharrat Jagdeo vs. Freddy Kissoon case follow the colonial pattern of resource allocation.
In spite of these restrictions coming on the heels of close to 200 years of enslavement, Afrikans purchased between 1838 and 1850 and developed property to the tune of $2.5 million.  The value of which in today’s dollars is approximately $ 1.3 trillion.
The evidence does not fit your assumption of the Afrikan as the ones in the comfort zone of un-paralled lethargy and the Indian as the back breaking worker and the virtuous purveyor of thrift and sacrifice, what appears to be thrift and sacrifice has been more a case of state discriminatory state patronage and subterfuge.
Social justice, equity and precedent demand that some form of affirmative action be applied to correct this historical wrong.  A consciousness of and willingness of our historical needs to be the subject of discussion advocacy and programmes  pursued by our religious, academic, education, political, labour, and cultural leaders.  The gut to demand same is also necessary if Afrikans are to rise economically again.  Can we do it? Yes we can realize the great vision which Buxton and Victoria stand as memorials of.
Jonathan Adams

 

 

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