Who really build Guyana?

Jun 08, 2016 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Please allow me a space in your paper to give my expression on a most important topic “ Claims About Guyana Slavery Reparation”, a matter for the people in Guyana and the world to learn and know the truth. I am a regular reader of your paper. I know most paper will not want to take this up because of the racial insensitivity in Guyana. But people must know and learn the truth.
INDIANS are here in Guyana from time memorial. INDIANS are in Guyana, South America and all over the world for more than 50,000 years. They were tribal people, slaves and servants since the Portuguese explored PINDO-RAMA later called BRAZIL of which the Indians were latter called AMER-INDIANS and INDIGENOUS-PEOPLE, which means living naturally in a particular region. PINDO-RAMA is an Indian name, RAMA is an Indian God. These Indians are the people that are really responsible for the making and building Guyana, before the African slaves came.
Reparation claimed for  African Slaves by Dr. David Hinds,  Dr. Eric Philips,  Dr. Norman Ng-A-Qui, the Guyana Reparations Committee and  12 CARICOM  countries  instigated by  the America Black Muslim  Leader Louis Farrakhan, for African Slaves in Guyana and  all CARICOM countries are all false. They say INDIANS were not here before SLAVERY.
Anthropologists and archaeologists recorded that Indians are here for more than 50,000 years. In South America, including Guyana, the Caribbean, North America and all over the world. Dr. David Hinds, is a Professor in “African Studies only” at the University of Arizona; Dr. Eric M. Philips, is a Professor in African Studies at University of Guyana with other specialties and  Dr. Norman Ng-A-Qui, professor at the University of Guyana specializing in African studies.
They focus their claims on saying that “EAST INDIANS and others were not in Guyana before Africans Slaves 1623-1834” and only African Slaves developed Guyana, THIS IS NOT TRUE. For their Reparation claims from the British and other European Countries, they said that only the Africans Slaves dug all the water ways, only they built the sea and rivers defense and cleared  and cultivated all the lands  on the plantations and the country. They claimed that only the African Slaves develop the Sugar Plantations and all infrastructures, and there were no Indians and others in British Guiana at that time. This is not true.
“Therefore self- determination”, Dr. Ng-A- Qui urged, “has to be done and totally managed by Africans because the rest of the people were not here; no East Indians, no Chinese. Remember they came to a slavery free environment which was paid for by the blood of Africans who built the foundations of this country, and all the economic foundations including sugar plantations and so forth between 1638 and 1838.
From the inception of introducing Africans Slaves in joining other Indian slaves by the Portuguese in 1530 to help in cultivating the land including sugar canes in Brazil which was their main source of revenue, these slaves started to run away, especially in Guyana. Remember, the African Kings were capturing Indigenous Africans for slave trade.
At that time in Brazil, Indians cultivated maize, beans, squash, gourds, peanuts, cotton and sugar canes using irrigation from the rivers. The Europeans captured these Tribal-Indians enslaving them, form communities and try to build a new society.
Tribal-Indigenous Indians along with Indenture Indians made and built Guyana. The history of Guyana has been shaped by the participation of many national and ethnic groups, as well as the colonial policies of the Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch and British.
The Indians later called Ameer-Indians, mainly Caribs and Arawak’s, were used by these national groups in rendering invaluable assistance to the Dutch in helping quell “slave revolts and capturing runaway slaves”. The Amerindians, tribal people acted not only as allies and soldiers of the Dutch but also ‘their servants’, being employed as boatmen, pilots, guides and field laborers. Many were also employed in established fisheries along the coast from the Essequibo to the Orinoco, including the mouths of Wayne, Baima and the Amacuro Rivers.
History shows that the early Dutch planters, Indians laid the foundation for “Guyana’s sugar industry”. They started “cultivating sugar-cane” on a small scale around 1630 near KYK-Over-AL. With the passage of time, sugar became the most important and profitable crop. The sugar industry has endured to this day as one of Guyana’s main foreign-currency earners, which was managed by the Dutch and the labor of Indians.
Later, when Dutch sugar planters moved their estates from KYK-OVER- Al to other locations towards the coastal belt, they had to spend large sums of money and organize an army of manpower on “sea defense, drainage and irrigation”. Dutch are the best in the world in managing all types of water ways. To say that only African Slaves built Guyana, by digging all the water ways, building the sea defense, the sugar plantation and everything else and no one else was in Guyana before African Slaves is just “FABRICATION”. It is just not so. Most of them were runaway slaves and was revolting against working in the field. How could they build Guyana? It is a false claim for African Guyanese Reparation advocates. Indians are progressive people who helped to build Guyana.
S.N.Singh                                                                     
Florida, USA

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