A foundational text deserving of inclusion in schools’ social studies curriculum

Aug 23, 2020 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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(A Review of David Granger’s The Village Movement: 1839-1889. The cradle of the nation.)
David Granger’s The Village Movement: 1839-1889 is an informative and richly-illustrated book written for children. The book’s subject highlights the efforts of Africans, Chinese and Indian indentured immigrants and the country’s indigenous peoples in building a nation from the bottom-up through the establishment of villages.
Granger wrote this book in 2010, prior to becoming the President of Guyana. He has produced another book with the same title and which celebrates the historic Village Movement triggered after the abolition of African enslavement in 1938.
The establishment of villages was not unique to Africans. Indigenous peoples lived in village even prior to the arrival of the Dutch in the late 15th century. Chinese and Indian indentured immigrants also were engaged in establishing villages even though there efforts never surpassed, in speed and scale, that of the African village movement.
The only ethnic group which did not pursue such an enterprise was, surprisingly, the Portuguese. They preferred to settle within the existing villages and towns, despite creating their own social organizations.
Villages were an integral, but often overlooked, aspect of nation-building. Granger addressing an Emancipation celebration in 2016 recalled how Emancipation led to the transformation of villages into a nation. One of the instruments of this transformation was the village movement. He has related the central role of villages in economic enterprises, education, housing and the fostering of social cohesion and communal solidarity, in other addresses which he delivered as President of Guyana.
Granger has been in the forefront of highlighting the role of villages in nation-building. He moved a motion in his country’s National Assembly on 7th November 2013. The motion called on the then government-of-the-day to designate the 7th November “as a ‘National Day of Villages’ in order to honour and respect the pioneering purchasers [and] to promote national appreciation of the village movement at all levels. The motion, though carried, had to wait until Granger was President in November 2016, to be implemented.
Granger has belaboured, consistently, the importance of villages to nation-building. He has highlighted the role of villages in triggering economic emancipation and as an agent of socializing free people and feeding the country’s population. The village, he noted, helped to train and hone the skills of artisans. It has nurtured generations and still does today. The village is described, aptly, as the cradle of the nation.
The Village Movement: 1839-1899 is divided into 30 one-page sections. Each provides a concise but rich source of information about the various village movements – African, Chinese, Indian and Indigenous.
Granger writes that that the village movement was a movement of ordinary people who sought to improve their lives and build strong communities. He described the village movement as orderly process of great achievement.
The book Introduction’s summarizes the significance of the Village Movement and how it subsequently spawned the construction of churches, homes, schools, bridges, road and farms. The book examines the antecedents to the Village Movement, the arrival of indentured immigrants and the historic purchase of Plantation Northbrook, by freed Africans. This purchase led to mass migration of Africans off the plantation and the erection of free communities. It goes to examine the economic enterprises engaged in by free villagers as well as the monumental challenges which they faced within the villages, including the effects of flooding, poor drainage and high taxes. The response to these challenges helped to birth the system of local government but also triggered protests.
The book also examines non-African attempts at establishing villages. It examines the protections which were offered to Indigenous villages – Guyana’s first villages which were established long before colonization. Granger proceeds to examine Indian and Chinese attempts at establishing villages and settlements, including at Hopetown on the Kamuni Creek, Helena, Whim, Bush Lot and Maria’s Pleasure. It ends by examining social aspects of village development, including education, religious worship and sport.
The Village Movement 1839-1889 is richly illustrated with drawings by Barrington Braithwaite. The drawings are vivid and provide a picturesque commentary to the book’s varied themes, providing a smooth and seamless narrative.
The book is a product of extensive and scrupulous research. Granger, again, has mined a wealth of sources in researching the book. Among the references which he recommends for further reading are works by Alan Adamson, Dale Bisnauth, Basdeo Mangru, Winston Mc Gowan, Mary Noel Menezes, Brian Moore, Walter Rodney, Trev Sue-A-Quan and Allan Young.
Villages as physical and social constructs remain vital to national development. Granger has argued elsewhere that the majority of Guyanese still live in villages and can trace their roots to villages.
The Village Movement 1839-1889 is a foundational text deserving of inclusion in the school’s social studies curriculum for both primary and secondary school students. It represents a valued source of information on the quinquagenarian following Emancipation. This period saw the most transformative demographic changes in British Guiana’s history with the introduction of indentured immigrants, the mass migration of Africans off the plantations and the establishment of African, Indian and Chinese villages and settlements.
The village movement reminds us yet again that not all great movements are the product of a top-down process. David Granger with this book ensures that villages, their role in nation-building and the ordinary folks who pioneered their development are accorded their due and deserved recognition.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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