The pressures brought on the ex-slaves drove many away from the land and into low level urban employment

May 05, 2019 Letters

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Dear Editor,

In Kaieteur News of Thursday 2 May there is a letter from Oscar Ramjeet on the contributions of Indians to Guyana. While I agree with Mr. Ramjeet that Indians have made a significant contribution to Guyana, there are some statements which are historically inaccurate, and the Oscar Ramjeet that I know should know better.
For example, there is the statement that “ Indentured labourers were brought to the then British Guiana after the abolition of slavery because the ex-slaves and their offspring hated the land maybe because of their forced labour and moved into the towns and cities where most of them were employed as government employees…….”
Oscar, dear Oscar, as long ago as 1954, Rawle Farley, a distinguished Guyanese academic, published in the journal of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the UWI (then the University College of the West Indies) an article “The Rise of the Peasantry in British Guiana”, in which Professor Farley discussed the conditions in the post-Emancipation period. The “Peasantry” that he wrote about were not Indian peasants, but ex-slave African peasants. Those ex-slaves saved money they earned under the so-called “Apprenticeship System”, and proceeded to buy abandoned estates in order to establish villages. The first such Village, bought by 83 ex-slaves from 5 estates, was named Victoria (the ex-slaves were told, and believed, that Queen Victoria freed the slaves. She did, in the sense that she had to sign the Emancipation legislation; but by the Victorian era the monarch “reigned, but did not rule”. In other words, it was the British Parliament on the instigation of a number of dedicated supporters of the Emancipation movement, who freed the slaves. And borrowed money from banks – a loan that was not finally repaid until the late 20th century – in order to compensate the owners for the loss of their “property”). 140 slaves from Pln. Annandale purchased that estate for $50,000, and named it Buxton in honour of one of the foremost supporters of Emancipation. Have you any idea how much $50,000 in 1839 would be worth in today’s Guyanese currency?
Now explain to me, why a people who hated the land would have bought that very land with the hard earned money which they saved from their measly pay during their apprenticeship and from the selling of provisions in the markets. All along the sugar producing areas ex-slaves combined their earnings to buy abandoned estates, or estates whose owners faced growing financial difficulties due to competition from cheaper sugar, especially beet sugar. You’re telling me that they hated the land, so they bought land? Clearly there has to be some other explanation for the migration of former slaves and their descendants to the towns. And if you read any of the writings on the post-Emancipation period, you will see that it was because of the actions of many of the estate owners and/or their managers, who could influence the old Court of Policy (the Dutch legislative body retained until a constitutional change in 1928, when Crown Colony Government was established in B.G.) First they tried destroying the fruit and vegetable farms of the ex- slaves, in order to force them back to the estates. Then they flooded villages, again to destroy the livelihood of the new villagers. Then they taxed them. Indentured servants were entitled to a free passage back home at the end of their indenture. Taxes were levied on villages to raise the funds which were then used to pay for those return passages. It was the pressures brought to bear on the ex-slaves that drove so many of them into various avenues of usually low level urban employment (e.g., stevedores, garbage collectors, police constables, if they met the qualifications for the police service; but not the higher ranks, which were occupied by lighter skinned mixed race individuals from the former category of “free coloured”. The highest posts were occupied by British officers). Some, it is true, became teachers – in primary schools; most of the teachers, and certainly the Principals of schools like QC and BHS were imports from the UK. Lilian Dewar was the first local Headmistress of Bishops’, and she was appointed to the post AFTER I left in 1958. But even in the primary schools for an African descendant of slaves to become a Principal was a major step in the 19th century. I know. Among my ancestors is a great grandfather who achieved that status and he didn’t think saltfish about himself. He had a “suitable” wife – a descendant of the more valuable artisan slaves who were freed before the General Emancipation, and given land in the Die Winkel ward of New Amsterdam. For every funeral he attended he ensured that his name was published in the newspapers among the list of attendees, demonstrating I suspect, that he was a Very Important Person!

Pat Robinson Commissiong

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