Emancipation Is Also the Courage to Speak

Aug 02, 2026 News

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By Dr. Karen Abrams, MBA, AA

(Kaieteur News) – On Emancipation Day, we honour the men and women who endured one of the most brutal systems ever constructed. We remember the rebellions, uprisings and heroic figures whose names have survived in our history. Yet there is another story of resistance that deserves to be told. It is the story of ordinary enslaved people who resisted in quieter ways, day after day, often with no expectation that freedom would come within their lifetime.

They resisted by running away for a few hours or days. They arrived late, worked slowly, left tasks unfinished, protected one another, sheltered runaways, visited relatives without permission and refused demands they considered unreasonable. They complained about inadequate food, excessive punishment, forced labour while ill, denial of rest and separation from their families. Some walked for miles to place their grievances before colonial officials, knowing they might be dismissed and returned to the plantation for further punishment.

Their resistance did not always take the form of organised rebellion. Sometimes it was simply the decision not to surrender every remaining fragment of their humanity.

This is one of the most powerful lessons found in the historical complaints of enslaved people in nineteenth-century Berbice. Preserved in colonial records and examined by historian Trevor Burnard in Hearing Slaves Speak, these accounts allow us to hear, however imperfectly, the voices of enslaved Guyanese challenging the daily exercise of plantation power.

The records describe thousands of alleged offences involving “bad work,” unfinished tasks, absence, lateness, disobedience and refusal to work. These were categories created by slave owners and colonial authorities, so they must be interpreted carefully. What a manager called “bad work” might have been exhaustion, illness or an impossible assignment. Yet the sheer number of disputes reveals constant tension over how much labour could be extracted from people whose bodies were treated as property.

One enslaved man, Frederick, expressed this struggle with remarkable clarity. After working throughout the week, he believed that Sunday belonged to the enslaved. He and others visited friends on a neighbouring estate on Sundays, for which they were placed in the stocks and flogged. Still, they complained. Their assertion that Sunday belonged to them was a declaration that the plantation could not rightfully own every hour of their existence.

At Plantation Highbury, sixteen women cutting cane stopped at eleven o’clock to cook and rest. When ordered to resume working, they insisted upon the two-hour break they believed was theirs and collectively withheld their labour. These women possessed no trade union, constitutional protection or independent court to which they could confidently appeal. Nevertheless, they acted together and asserted a boundary.

Making a complaint was also resistance. During 1824 and 1825, hundreds of enslaved people in Berbice brought complaints against those who controlled them. They knew the authorities were part of the same system that oppressed them. They understood that they might not be believed. Yet they appeared, named the wrongs committed against them, called witnesses and demanded to be heard.

The records show that enslaved people continuously contested the extent of the master’s power. Even when they could not dismantle the system, they resisted its demand for complete submission. They preserved whatever pieces of freedom, dignity and self-determination they could claim, often at tremendous personal risk. That is among the most important lessons our ancestors left for us. Their courage demands more than remembrance on Emancipation Day. It places a responsibility upon those of us who inherited the freedom for which they struggled.

Modern Guyanese are not living under slavery, and we should never trivialise our ancestors’ suffering through careless comparisons. We possess constitutional rights, the vote, access to courts, independent organisations and the ability to speak publicly. Yet formal freedom does not automatically remove fear from a society. If our ancestors found ways to resist when speaking could bring the whip, the stocks or death, we owe it to them to guard our freedom against the quieter forces that persuade citizens to remain silent today.

Too many Guyanese believe that breaking unwritten social or political rules can bring consequences. A paper may remain unprocessed. An approval may never be granted. A contract may disappear. A business may encounter unexplained difficulties. An employee may fear for a job. A professional may worry that speaking honestly will close future opportunities. A family may remain silent because someone depends upon the State.

Whether every fear is justified is almost beside the point. When enough citizens believe criticism brings punishment, fear begins to govern behaviour. People censor themselves before anyone has to silence them. They whisper what they are afraid to say publicly, wait for someone else to speak first and calculate what telling the truth might cost them.

Following the sinking of the MV Barima, citizens have called for the resignation of ministers whom they believe should accept political responsibility. Others disagree. That disagreement is legitimate in a democracy. Citizens have the right to demand resignations, and ministers have the right to defend their records. Evidence must be examined; investigations must be credible and responsibility must be determined fairly. The larger democratic question is whether Guyanese feel free to participate in that debate without fearing retaliation.

This column is an appeal to the conscience of the nation, including those who hold power today and those who may hold it in the future. Governments are strengthened when citizens can identify failures without fear. Public institutions improve when professionals can give honest advice, journalists can investigate, workers can report unsafe practices and families can demand answers.

Silence may protect officials from discomfort for a time, but it can also allow weaknesses to deepen until the consequences become catastrophic. Our ancestors resisted in circumstances far more dangerous than ours. They did not always resist because they believed victory was near. They resisted because there were parts of themselves, they refused to surrender.

This is the inheritance Emancipation Day places before us. Freedom is weakened whenever fear becomes the price of participation in national life. It is weakened when professionals know something is unsafe but remain silent, when public servants are afraid to place proper advice on the record and when citizens believe they must choose between conscience and livelihood.

Those who speak must also act responsibly. Freedom of expression does not excuse recklessness, dishonesty or cruelty. We must seek evidence, correct mistakes and respect the humanity of those with whom we disagree. But responsibility cannot mean silence, and civility cannot require citizens to abandon legitimate demands for accountability.

Emancipation was declared on a particular day, but freedom was built through generations of resistance. It was built in the great uprisings remembered by history and in thousands of smaller acts that history nearly forgot; an unfinished row, a Sunday visit, a hidden runaway, a mother protecting her child, a sick worker refusing the field, sixteen women putting down their tools, and an enslaved person walking miles to make a complaint that might not be believed.

Our ancestors did not yet possess freedom, but they practised it whenever and however they could. One hundred and eighty-eight years after full Emancipation, that responsibility belongs to us. We honour our ancestors through celebration, remembrance and cultural pride. We honour them even more deeply when we refuse to surrender the rights for which they risked everything.

If they found the courage to speak under slavery, we must find the courage to speak in freedom.

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• Courage to Speak, Emancipation, Emancipation Day, Karen Abrams, MV Barima

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