The Story of Emancipation – The Emancipation of the British West Indies

Factors leading up to Emancipation

A significant event in the campaign was the preaching by Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London, of the 1783 Anniversary Sermon of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG), an occasion which he used in order to criticise the Anglican Church’s role in ignoring the plight of the slaves on its Codrington Estates in Barbados, and to recommend means by which the lot of slaves there could be improved.

As the movement began to gain momentum, a large group of British politicians, businessmen and churchmen, including members of the Clapham Sect, formed the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and in 1787 petitioned the government for gradual emancipation. At first, they centralized their efforts on the slave trade, but later turned their focus to slavery itself. The first attempts by this group failed, but with each failure more and more people began to support the cause. Uprisings and revolts within the islands perpetuated the situation, and pamphlets were given out describing the horrible conditions which slaves were being subjected to.

Abolition of the Slave Trade

As of August 1834, all slaves in the British Empire were “emancipated”, but still indentured to their former owners in an apprenticeship system. The apprenticeship system was a system implied to force the ex-slaves to return to the plantation. They were to give 401/2 hours free labour and any time after that they were to be paid for their work. The apprenticeship system was finally abolished in 1838 and there was complete emancipation. (www. wikipedia.org)

Emancipation Bill of 1833
The Bill giving freedom to the African slaves was passed in 1833, but was not enacted until August 1834 when the slaves were set free. The day was declared a day of rest and large crowds attended church services.

The declaration of freedom stipulated that slaves were to be registered as apprentices and were to continue to labour for their erstwhile masters for a further period of six years if they were field slaves and four if they were house slaves; but they did not seem to have understood. They were therefore genuinely surprised and became angry when they were called upon to work again. On many estates they refused to obey the law. The governor lost no time in going to the affected estates to explain personally what the position was.

Then, on August 5, he issued a proclamation calling for the “apprentices” to obey the law, which required that they must work 71/2 hours per day, or forty-five hours a week.

Full Freedom - 1838
As the years went by, the relationship between apprentices and their masters became more and more strained. Special magistrates, called stipendiary magistrates, who had been appointed by the British government to act as umpires between apprentices and masters, had their hands full in dealing with complaints.

As 1838 approached it became clear to the planters that to free one lot of apprentices and to keep the other in subjection was a most invidious exercise. Thus it came about that, in August 1838, the whole body of apprentices were freed. (Guyana Chronicle,- Monday, August 2, 1999).

The Coming of Smith
“The story of the trial and condemnation of the Rev. John Smith is one of the most exciting chapters of our history”. – Vere T. Daly.

From the first day of his arrival in the Colony, Smith became aware of the hostility of those in authority. He relates in his journal how, in his first interview with Governor Murray, he was asked what he had come to Demerara to do, and that on replying that he had come to teach the slaves to read, the Governor replied that if he ever heard that he had taught a slave to read, he would banish him from the colony.

The planters objected sharply to the teaching of the Gospel to the slaves, saying that Christianity and slavery were incompatible. However, the wishes of the British parliament could be ignored, but they were determined to make things difficult for the missionaries.

Back in England some important developments were taking place. The Anti-Slavery Society opened its campaign in the House of Commons in March 1823 with a petition from the Quakers presented by Wilberforce. A few weeks later, Buxton moved the following motion: “That the state of slavery is repugnant to the principles of the British constitution and the Christian religion and it ought to be gradually abolished throughout the British Colonies”.

It was a great and noble motion and it might have passed through the House: but Jacob Cannings, the leader of the House, felt it would be going too far to abolish slavery and to leave the planters without a labour force. He proposed that certain measures be implemented to ameliorate the conditions of the slaves. (1) That female slaves should not be punished by flogging (2) That drivers should not carry the whip in the field. The planters discussed these matters in the presence of the house slaves, who misinterpreted what they heard, causing a rumour that the slaves had been given their freedom but the planters were keeping it from them.

These rumours prompted certain actions by the slaves. On Sunday August 17, 1823 a number of slaves gathered on Success Middlewalk to plan a revolt. Smith overheard Quamina and other slaves discussing the revolt and immediately rebuked them and implored them not to join the rebellion.

On the night of Monday, August 20, at a time when many overseers and managers had been confined to the stocks, the revolt began. Smith was soon arrested and charged for various offences, which included: (1) Having stirred up the rebellion by exciting discontent in the minds of slaves (2) Conspiring with Quamina to bring about the rebellion (3) With having failed to give previous information to the Government of the intended rebellion (4) With failing to arrest Quamina, knowing him to be an insurgent.

Smith was imprisoned in the garret of colony House and after several weeks was brought to trial before a Court Martial.

He was found guilty and condemned to be hanged. This sentence was referred to the British government in London for confirmation. In February 1824, however, Smith died in prison in Georgetown from illness, while a response was on the way from London granting him a reprieve, but ordering his deportation to England.

Smith has been described as a Martyr. But he was not so much a Martyr as a scapegoat . He was made to pay for the misdeeds of all the missionaries in Demerara. (Guyana Chronicle, - Monday August 2, 1999).

THE VILLAGE MOVEMENT
Immediately after Emancipation the European planters and the Government took a decision not to sell land to the free Africans. The general aim was to ensure that the Africans continued to be a source of labour on the plantations.

But economic circumstances forced the planters, shortly after, to change their position. Many cotton plantations in particular became unprofitable by 1838, because Britain began to purchase cheaper cotton from the United States, where there were very large cotton plantations which used African slave labour. The smaller cotton plantations in Guyana could not survive in such a situation and some of them were abandoned. The owner of Plantation Northbrook, a cotton plantation on the East Coast Demerara, decided to sell it to a group of 83 Africans for 30,000 guilders, equivalent to 2000 British pounds or $10,000. These Africans, like many others, had saved money that they had earned from over-time work over the years. They were mainly headmen and mechanics from Grove, Paradise, Hope and Enmore; and since much of the money they had saved was in the form of coins, they had to transport the payment in wheel-barrows to the seller.

Shortly after, Queen Victoria agreed to a request from the new owners to rename the plantation Victoria, in her honour.

By 1839, Africans purchased plantations of Lichfield, Golden Grove, St. John and Providence in West Berbice. Lichfield was bought by one person, Cudjoe Mc Pherson, for $3000, and he later divided the plantation into 12 sections, which he sold to other Africans for a profit.

By this time the planters realized that many Africans had accumulated much savings, so they immediately raised land prices. When 61 Africans bought Beterverwagting, a plantation smaller than Northbrook, they had to pay $22,000 for it. New Orange Nassau, a plantation of 800 acres, was purchased by 128 persons for $50,000 in 1840 and it was renamed Buxton in honour of Thomas Buxton, who championed the cause of Emancipation in the British Parliament. In 1841, another group paid $80,000 for Plantation Friendship, located next to Buxton.

Some planters used other methods to make quick money by selling portions of their estates to African labourers. On the Essequibo Coast, for instance, the owners of Dageraad, Mocha and Westfield divided the front lands into lots and sold them for $100 to $200 each. Soon, a thriving "proprietary" village of Africans developed in that area and was named Queenstown in honour of Queen Victoria. In the same manner, the front lands of Plantation Aberdeen were divided and sold to Africans who established the village of Williamstown. In a very short time, other "proprietary" villages were established throughout the coast of Guyana.

In 1840, the white sugar plantation owners decided to reduce the wages for African field and factory labourers. They claimed that they had to do so because the export price per ton of sugar had dropped below the cost of production. The owners also discontinued the allowances of food and medicine to the workers, most of whom had continued to live on the plantations. To deprive the workers of other forms of subsistence and to force them to accept the lower wages, they also prevented them from fishing in the canals, and destroyed their pigs and chopped down the fruit trees growing on their small cultivation plots. If the African labourers did not comply meekly with this new situation, they were expelled from the estates.

In response to these developments, the African workers on the Demerara and Essequibo estates went on strike from January to March. This strike greatly affected sugar production, since the indentured Indian, Portuguese and other imported African labourers were still insufficient to handle all the work.

The Africans were of the view that they had no economic future if they continued to reside on the sugar plantations. They were seeing other Africans buying up the abandoned cotton plantations, and they felt that they too must acquire their own land. During the period of the strike, 65 of them pooled their savings and purchased Plaisance for $39,000. The estates of Peter's Hall, Farm and Garden of Eden on the East Bank Demerara, and Danielstown and Bush Lot on the Essequibo Coast were also acquired in 1840 by groups of Africans.

Another strike in December 1847 to protest another cut in wages forced more Africans to abandon the sugar estates. Some of them moved to the existing villages, while others who had no savings squatted on Crown lands.

The moving away of Africans from the estates placed added pressures on sugar production and the planters used devious means to force them to return to work there. One of these means was to let loose water from the estate canals to flood the nearby African villages. The planters, no doubt, felt that if the Africans' farms were damaged, they would return to the estates to work.

The African villages also faced administrative problems during the 1840s. The shareholders, or proprietors, possessed no experience in cooperative management, and since they used up their savings to purchase land, they had nothing left for maintaining the roads, bridges, sluice gates, and drainage canals. As a result, the conditions of the villages and the communal plantations deteriorated.

The land buying by Africans continued until 1852. There were at this period over 82,000 Africans of working age and roughly half of them lived in villages and worked from time to time on the estates. By that time, too, Africans had established 25 villages on lands that they purchased for over one million dollars. Africans also owned over 2000 freehold properties. (org/features/guyanastory/chapter54.html)

At Public Building Libation Ceremony – Ancestral Spirits Summoned to bring the Nation Unity.
By Linda Rutherford
The late Presidents Forbes Burnham and Cheddi Jagan were among ancestral spirits summoned to bring the nation unity, peace and wealth, among other fortunes, at this years’ vigil and libation ceremony on Saturday night, in the forecourt of the Public Building, downtown Georgetown.

Among the seven elders seated at the ceremonial libation table were former Prime Minister Ptolemy Reid and former Mayor and city council Public Relations Officer Walter Jordan. Jordan also did a piece in tribute to Burnham, who died August 6, 1985.

Organized by the National Emancipation Trust (NET), the libation marked the 165th year of emancipation and doing the honours was African National, Dr. John Caesar, Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Guyana (UG). Resplendent in Saffron coloured robes, Caesar, a Ghanaian, performed the ceremony in his native tongue - Adambe.

For the benefit of those who sniggered at the mention of Dr. Jagan, Caesar said “except for particular backgrounds, once people pass on, they are one and the same”, meaning that in the spirit world, race is no longer an issue.

He urged the younger generation to try to capture some of the wealth of indigenous knowledge held by their elders before they pass on, adding that it is important that such information be saved for posterity. Had not such knowledge been passed on to him, he pointed out, he would not have been able to perform as sacred a ceremony as a libation.

Guest speaker, Minority Leader Mr. Desmond Hoyte, who also had a word of advice for the youths, urged that they develop a love for education, for “Knowledge is Power”.

Hoyte, who had a previous engagement, put in his appearance at precisely 23:05 to the thunderous applause from a gathering small in comparison to previous years, understandably because of another function at the square of the revolution to rededicate the 1763 monument.

Another prominent figure to take centre stage, albeit briefly, to bring greetings on the auspicious occasion of emancipation was City Mayor, Mr. Hamilton Green.

Green, who was at the rededication of the 1763 monument, made up a contingent of “faithists”, known as the African Mystical Council. They made their grand appearance at around 23:00 hrs after circling the Public Building three times in a symbolic reclaiming of the area.

The Rastafarian group, Nyabinhi, went one better, just as in the olden days with the walls of Jericho. They went around seven times without a stop. History has it that it was at this very same Public Building the Emancipation proclamation was read out to the slaves back in 1834.

Amongst regular features was the Yoruba singers, which group is said to have never missed a “freedom night” at the Public Building in the last seven years. Guest artiste this year was Tempest, accompanied on keyboard by her husband, Oliver Basdeo.

Regular, too, was the comic relief provided by an old drunk and a young contortionist who had one thing in common - dancing. Last year the spotlight was held by “Rat” the man with the witty sales pitch for rat poison.
(Reprinted from GC: Aug. 2 1999)

Easy African Headwrap Instructions
All Pictures saved in Layout
During times when our hair needs to "rest" from braiding, or we need protection from dust, a headwrap (also called a gelee or geles) can be very handy.  Here are some instructions with illustrations for an easy and secure headwrap.  You'd see this one a lot in the summer months in the Mediterranean and in orthodox communities year round.

1. First, you simply center one of the long sides on your head, and toss the rest back.  You may have lots of extra left, but don't worry about it.  This will be what actually holds the hair in. (Photo saved as: wrap pic 1 )

2. Then you gather your hair inside the long ends of the scarf, and twist the scarf around it.  Do not twist your hair.  This would cause the same kind of tension as if you were pulling it into a tight bun or ponytail.  Use the scarf to wrap your hair. (Photo saved as: wrap pic 2)

3. Then feel to find where your hair ends, and start twisting tightly after that.  Twist almost to the very ends of the scarf. (Photo saved as : wrap pic 3)

4. Bring this twisted end under and up to the back of your head. (wrap pic 4 ).

5. Wrap this around to form a sort of enclosed ponytail.  Remember not to do this too tightly. (wrap pic 5)

6. Then tuck the ends into the underside or if you have a long end left, wrap it twice and tuck or pin it.

African Outfits

Gray Debonair dashiki outfit for the man who wants to look his best.

A blend of the traditional and the contemporary. These unisex dashiki tops look great with denim.

African Wedding-dress

African women’s beautiful, colourful kaftans

Beautiful white two-piece with glorious head-wrap is perfect for that formal occasion.

Beautiful white kaftan with gold design at breast.

African Proverbs
1. “Hapana fisi asiye na rafiki.” (Swahili) - “There is no hyena without a friend.” (English).

Explanation: This proverb is coined from the way the Meru relate among themselves. It implies the notion that everyone is important and has “value.” One should desist from looking down upon another person either because of their status or lack of material wealth. A hyena among the Meru people is seen as an ugly animal. Now if a hyena with its ugliness can have a friend therefore, in comparison, an ugly person (in this sense not only physically but more so behaviorally) can have a friend too. Meru (Kenya) Proverb.

2. “Mbwa aibaye yuajijua.” (Swahili). “A thieving dog knows itself.” (English).

Explanation: This Wanga proverb was used to warn thieving minds that even if they stole and were not caught, their guilty conscience would surely betray them. As Ambululi explains the proverb further, a thief will shudder and behave suspiciously on seeing law-enforcers. His own actions will prompt law-enforcers to suspect and investigate him and to subsequently find him guilty. Therefore those intending to steal were forewarned in this way, in that their own actions will betray them; so they better not do any thieving in the first place. Luyia (Kenya) Proverb

3. “Walya ékongyé tù kone m’moka” (Bembe) . “Ne rompez jamais la fraternité à cause de la bonne moisson du maï” (French). “Uvunapo mahindi, chunga usi haribu undugum” (Swahili). “If you get a fine harvest of maize don’t break your local brotherhood and sisterhood” (English).

Explanation: Remember that, traditionally, no machinery is involved. Everything is done by hand by the immediate family. During harvest-time people would welcome close friends and families to help them harvest. The elderly, widows and strangers in the society could come without any invitation, especially in case of a large farm and a farm that is not far from the village; but, due to selfishness, some farm owners are rude and abusive. Some even mistreat these weak beggars by taking away everything they had collected, for the simple reason that nobody had helped them when they were struggling along, working only with their wives. Yet such behavior was not welcomed in this DRC community where everyone has a right to eat and sharing is a must. They forget that very soon the harvest period will be over, and one day they may need support from other people for an event such as a wedding, death or birth.

4. “Kicaa pa ladit pe dong non”. (Acholi). “Mkoba wa mzee hauishiwi kabisa.”(Swahili) “An elder's handbag is never completely empty” (English). Acholi (Uganda, Sudan) Proverb

Explanation: The Acholi people live mainly in Northern Uganda. Traditionally, elders were the source of wisdom. So the meaning of this proverb is that an old person, being wise, always prepares for difficult times.

Recipes from the African Continent

South African Babootee
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
2 teaspoons oil or butter
2 tablespoons curry powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons vinegar
2 pounds ground beef
2 thick slices white bread, soaked in 1 cup milk or water
2 eggs, separated
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Butter

Rice, for serving
Heat oven to 350 degrees. In a large skillet, fry onions in oil. Add curry powder, salt, sugar, vinegar and ground beef. Drain milk from bread, reserving milk. Mash bread with a fork and add to meat mixture.

Beat one egg and add to meat mixture, mixing well. Turn mixture into a greased ovenproof dish. Beat remaining egg with the milk drained from the bread (not less than 2/3 cup). Season with salt and pepper. Pour egg mixture over meat. Dot with butter and bake 30 to 40 minutes.

Remove from oven and serve over rice.

Kachumbari (Kenyan Salsa)
Makes 4 servings
1 very finely-chopped small red onion
2 very finely-chopped tomatoes
1 bunch of finely-chopped fresh cilantro
4 fingers of hot pepper (optional)
1/2 cup of freshly-squeezed lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1. Mix all the ingredients and refrigerate until ready to use.

(Kenyan Dish)

Sauce Nnani
Meat or Fish
Salt and Pepper
Onion
Banana Leaves

In an envelope of double or triple banana leaves, wrap meat or fish, salt, pepper and onion, plus a sufficient quantity of water. Cook this either in a pot, or directly over a fire low enough not to burn the banana leaves. One thus obtains a sauce called "nnani" which is eaten with manioc; one dips a handful of manioc into the sauce. It's excellent!
(Recipe from Gabon).

Guyanese Recipes with African Origins
KANKI
Ingredients:
· 1 lb fine cornmeal

· 1 Freshly-grated coconut

· 1pt. Fresh milk. [not needed if coconut was grated by a juicer - yields its own milk.]

· 4oz. Raisins [optional]

· 2oz. Margarine (melted)

· 4oz. Brown sugar

· 4tbsp. Water ..[this is increased based on the dryness of mixture]

· ¼ tsp. Nutmeg ; 1/2 tsp black pepper

· A few drops of almond or Vanilla essence

· Foil/banana leaves { leaves passed over fire to give pliability}

METHOD / DIRECTIONS:
Use a large mixing bowl and add all ingredients..mixing well.

Make a pocket from the foil/banana leaf, each approximately (8in x 6in)

Leave an opening in the short side and fold over well the edges of the remaining two sides, to ensure that they are sealed.

Put about one or two spoonfuls of the mixture into each pocket and fold over top.

To seal....tie with a piece of dried banana stalk.

Place in a large saucepan of boiling water and simmer for approximately 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

To serve, remove foil or leaf.

RECIPE NOTES:
This dish is of West African origin and is popular in rural Guyana around Emancipation month. There are other variations of this dish using tubers and pumpkin. We would like to hear from the sisters in the Islands on their variations.

Guyanese Cookup Rice
Ingredients:
1 cup parboiled rice

1 lb black eye peas

1 lb chicken

1 onion (chipped)

2 cloves garlic (chipped)

2 tbsp soya sauce

1 can coconut milk

6 okras

1 tbsp cooking oil *optional method to cook

Salt and hot pepper to taste

1 chicken bullion cube

Thyme

Sprinkle of black-pepper

Directions
Soak black eye peas overnight.

Boil/Pressure Cook chicken for 30min then season with salt, black-pepper and soy sauce or Season first and fry with oil for 5min.

Add coconut milk, rice, black eye peas, chicken, bullion cube, thyme, onion, garlic, whole okras and salt and pepper to taste.

Cover pot and cook with medium heat for about 40 minutes until rice is soft and liquid is absorbed.

Garnish with chipped shallot blades.

Number of Servings: 6

Metemgee (Metagee)

Ingredients
1 dry coconut

1 lb mixed meat

1 lb (approx.) fried fish or salt fish

1lb cassava (yucca)

1lb plantain (your choice of ripeness)

1lb eddoes, yam or dasheen

1 large onion -- cut in rings

1/2 lb ochroes (okra)

Dumplings (optional)

Preparation
Cover the mixed meat with water and boil for 30 minutes. Put salt-fish to soak in water. If using fresh fish this may be fried or placed on top of vegetables about 10 minutes before the end of the cooking time.

Grate the coconut, pour one pint of water over, squeeze well and strain to extract the coconut milk. Pour over the meat.

Peel the vegetables, and then put the meat and vegetables to cook in the coconut milk. Cook until almost tender.

Put the salt fish with the skin and bones removed, or fresh fish or fried fish on top of vegetables. Add the onion and ochroes.

Cook until the coconut milk is almost absorbed.

If dumplings are used they should be added about 8 minutes before the vegetables are finished.

Mauby
Ingredients
12 cups water

4 pieces mauby bark (you can add a few more if desired)

1 piece cinnamon

3 cups sugar (or to taste)

1 – 3 tablespoons Angostura bitters (to taste)

Method
1. Place all ingredients (except bitters) and 4 cups water into a saucepan and boil for 30 minutes.

2. Strain the mauby and add the additional 8 cups water. Then taste for sweetness.

3. You can add additional sugar to it if it is not sweet enough for you.

4. Add bitters

5. Bottle

Serve ice cold with ice.

Makes 3 bottles

African Wedding Traditions
Africa is a large and varied continent containing some of the oldest civilizations on earth. It is home to a wide diversity of religions and cultures, and this diversity is reflected in its many colourful traditions, especially weddings.

If any one tradition might be said to be indicative of the African continent, it would be the importance of family, with particular emphasis on weddings. An African wedding is, more than anything, the bringing together of two people as a single family, or the combining of two families, or even the mixture of two tribes into one family unit. The concept of family is one of the unifying ideas of the African continent.

There are more than 1,000 cultural units in Africa and each culture, each tribe has its own wedding and marriage traditions and rituals, many of which can trace their origins back hundreds, or even thousands of years.

There are also many different religions represented in Africa. Many northern Africans, especially, have been influenced by Muslim traditions, while further south there are more Christian, Hindu, and even Jewish influences, interspersed with more ancient traditions.

In many places in Africa young girls are trained to be good wives from an early age. They may even learn secret codes and secret languages that allow them to talk with other married women without their husbands understanding what is being said.

Depending on which part of Africa you are in, wedding ceremonies can be extremely elaborate, some lasting many days. Often communal ceremonies are held during which many couples are united at the same time.

In Sudan and in other areas along the Nile a man must pay his wife’s family in sheep or cattle for the loss of their daughter’s labor in support of the family. A wife may cost a man as many as 30 to 40 head of cattle. Often it is difficult to pay the family yet still have enough cattle left to support his new wife.

In Somalia a man is allowed to have as many as four wives if he can support them all, and it is not uncommon for a girl to be engaged before she is even born.

Bright festive colors, song, dance, and music are vital elements of many African wedding ceremonies. Common to all wedding ceremonies is the concept of transitioning between childhood and adulthood. In many African cultures children are encouraged to marry as young as 13 to 15 years of age, as soon as they have reached physical adulthood.

Divorce is rare in African marriages. Problems in a marriage are often discussed with both families and solutions found. Often entire villages join in to help a couple find solutions to their problems and keep a marriage from failing.

Marriage is sacred the world over, and that is definitely true in Africa, no matter which region or which culture you come from, and no matter what your religious beliefs. In fact, many cultures have a special totem that is designed to remind a couple that cultural and tribal differences must be allowed for in order to make a marriage succeed.

A Handful of Dates
I must have been very young at the time. While I don't remember exactly how old I was, I do remember that when people saw me with my grandfather they would pat me on the head and give my cheek a pinch - things they didn't do to my grandfather. The strange thing was that I never used to go out with my father, rather it was my grandfather who would take me with him wherever he went, except for the mornings, when I would go to the mosque to learn the Koran. The mosque, the river, and the fields - these were the landmarks in our life. While most of the children of my age grumbled at having to go to the mosque to learn the Koran, I used to love it. The reason was, no doubt, that I was quick at learning by heart and the Sheik always asked me to stand up and recite the Chapter of the Merciful whenever we had visitors, who would pat me on my head and cheek just as people did when they saw me with my grandfather.

Yes, I used to love the mosque, and I loved the river, too. Directly we finished our Koran reading in the morning I would throw down my wooden slate and dart off, quick as a genie, to my mother, hurriedly swallow down my breakfast, and run off for a plunge in the river. When tired of swimming about, I would sit on the bank and gaze at the strip of water that wound away eastwards, and hid behind a thick wood of acacia trees. I loved to give rein to my imagination and picture myself a tribe of giants living behind that wood, a people tall and thin with white beards and sharp noses, like my grandfather. Before my grandfather ever replied to my many questions, he would rub the tip of his nose with his forefinger. As for his beard, it was soft and luxuriant and as white as cotton wool; never in my life have I seen anything of a purer whiteness or greater beauty.

My grandfather must also have been extremely tall, for I never saw anyone in the whole area address him without having to look up at him, nor did I see him enter a house without having to bend so low that I was put in mind of the way the river wound round behind the wood of acacia trees. I loved him and would imagine myself, when I grew to be a man, tall and slender like him, walking along with great strides.

I believe I was his favorite grandchild: no wonder, for my cousins were a stupid bunch and I - so they say - was an intelligent child. I used to know when my grandfather wanted me to laugh, when to be silent; also I would remember the times for his prayers and would bring him his prayer rug and fill the ewer for his ablutions without his having to ask me. When he had nothing else to do he enjoyed listening to me reciting to him from the Koran in a lilting voice, and I could tell from his face that he was moved.

One day I asked him about our neighbor Mahsood. I said to my grandfather: “I fancy you don't like our neighbor Mahsood.” To which he answered, rubbing the tip of his nose: “He's an indolent man and I don't like such people.” I asked him: “What's an indolent man?” My grandfather lowered his head for a moment; then, looking across the wide expanse of field, he said: Do you see it stretching out from the edge of the desert up to the Nile bank? A hundred feddans. Do you see all those date palms? And those trees - sant, acacia, and sayal? All this fell into Masood's lap, was inherited by him from his father.

Taking advantage of the silence that had descended on my grandfather, I turned my gaze from him to the vast area defined by words. I don't care, I told myself, who owns those date palms, those trees or this black, cracked earth - all I know is that it's the arena for my dreams and my playground.

My grandfather then continued: Yes, my boy, forty years ago all this belonged to Masood - two-thirds of it is now mine. This was news for me, for I had imagined that the land had belonged to my grandfather ever since God's Creation.

I didn't own a single feddan when I first set foot in this village. Masood was then the owner of all these riches. The position had changed now, though, and I think that before Allah calls me to Him I shall have bought the remaining third as well."

I do not know why it was I felt fear at my grandfather's words - and pity for our neighbor Masood. How I wished my grandfather wouldn't do what he'd said! I remembered Masood's singing, his beautiful voice and powerful laugh that resembled the gurgling of water. My grandfather never laughed.

I asked my grandfather why Masood had sold his land. Women, and from the way my grandfather pronounced the word I felt that women was something terrible. Masood, my boy, was a much-married man. Each time he married he sold me a feddan or two. I made the quick calculation that Masood must have married some ninety women. Then I remembered his three wives, his shabby appearance, his lame donkey and its dilapidated saddle, his galabia with the torn sleeves. I had all but rid my mind of the thoughts that jostled in it when I saw the man approaching us, and my grandfather and I exchanged glances.

We'll be harvesting the dates today, said Masood. Don't you want to be there? I felt, though, that he did not really want my grandfather to attend. My grandfather, however, jumped to his feet and I saw that his eyes sparkled momentarily with an intense brightness. He pulled me by the hand and we went off to the harvesting of Masood's dates.

Someone brought my grandfather a stool covered with an ox hide, while I remained standing. There was a vast number of people there, but though I knew them all, I found myself for some reason watching Masood: aloof from that great gathering of people he stood as though it were no concern of his, despite the fact that the date palms to be harvested were his own. Sometimes his attention would be caught by the sound of a huge clump of dates crashing down from on high. Once he shouted up at the boy perched on the very summit of the date palm who had begun hacking at a clump with his long, sharp sickle: Be careful you don't cut the heart of the palm.

No one paid any attention to what he said and the boy seated at the very summit of the date palm continued, quickly and energetically, to work away at the branch with his sickle till the clump of dates began to drop like something descending from the heavens.

I, however, had begun to think about Masood's phrase, the heart of the palm. I pictured the palm tree as something with feeling, something possessed of a heart that throbbed. I remembered Masood's remark to me when he had once seen me playing with the branch of a young palm tree: Palm trees, my boy, like humans, experience joy and suffering. And I had felt an inward and unreasoned embarrassment.

When I again looked at the expanse of ground stretching before me I saw my young companions swarming like ants around the trunks of the palm trees, gathering up dates and eating most of them. The dates were collected into high mounds. I saw people coming along and weighing them into measuring bins and pouring them into sacks, of which I counted thirty. The crowd of people broke up, except for Hussein the merchant, Mousa the owner of the field next to ours on the east, and two men I'd never seen before.

I heard a low whistling sound and saw that my grandfather had fallen asleep. Then I noticed that Masood had not changed his stance, except that he had placed a stalk in his mouth and was munching at it like someone sated with food who doesn't know what to do with the mouthful he still has.

Suddenly my grandfather woke up, jumped to his feet, and walked toward the sacks of dates. He was followed by Hussein the merchant, Mousa the owner of the field next to ours and two strangers. I glanced at Masood and saw that he was making his way toward us with extreme slowness, like a man who wants to retreat but whose feet insist on going forward. They formed a circle around the sacks of dates and began examining them, some taking a date or two to eat. My grandfather gave me a fistful, which I began munching. I saw Masood filling the palms of both hands with dates and bringing them up close to his nose, then returning them.

Then I saw them dividing up the sacks between them. Hussein the merchant took ten; each of the strangers took five. Mousa the owner of the field next to ours on the on the eastern side took five, and my grandfather took five. Understanding nothing, I looked at Masood and saw that his eyes were darting to left and right like two mice that have lost their way home.

You're still fifty pounds in debt to me, said my grandfather to Masood. We'll talk about it later.

Hussein called his assistants and they brought along the donkeys, the two strangers produced camels, and the sacks of dates were loaded onto them. One of the donkeys let out a braying which set the camels frothing at the mouth and complaining noisily. I felt myself drawing close to Masood, felt my hand stretch out toward him as though I wanted to touch the hem of his garment. I heard him make a noise in his throat like the rasping of a sheep being slaughtered. For some unknown reason, I experienced a sharp sensation of pain in my chest.

I ran off into the distance. Hearing my grandfather call after me, I hesitated a little, then continued on my way. I felt at that moment that I hated him. Quickening my pace, it was as though I carried within me a secret I wanted to rid myself of. I reached the riverbank near the bend it made behind the wood of acacia trees. Then, without knowing why, I put my finger into my throat and spewed up the dates I'd eaten.

A Handful of Dates, reprinted in this lesson in its entirety, is a short story published, originally in Arabic in 1964, in a collection of stories by El Tayeb Salih called The Wedding of Zein. The action of this story, as with many of the stories written by El Tayeb Salih, occurs in the fictional setting of the village of Wad Hamid, which is in Central Sudan.

Emancipation Celebrations in Trinidad

Trindad Children celebrating Freedom Day

Victoria
The village Victoria is located on the Atlantic coast of Guyana, 18 miles east of Georgetown. Victoria was the first village in Guyana bought by the combined resources of Africans who had recently won their freedom from slavery.

The community was initially established as a plantation called Northbrook. In November 1839, eighty-three ex-slaves from five nearby estates (Douchfour, Ann’s Grove, Hope, Paradise and Enmore) pooled their resources and bought Plantation Northbrook for 30,000 guilders, or $10,283.63. Each of the eighty-three owned one lot of land. After its purchase it was renamed Victoria, presumably in honor of England's Queen Victoria, although some suggest it may have been named as such in honor of the freed slaves' victory.

It is credited with one of the first codes of local government in Guyana, established in 1845. The village evolved to become one of the leading exporters of products made from coconuts and cassava.

The first church built there, a Congregationalist church, named after Wilberforce, the abolitionist, was erected in 1845. A memorial tablet was placed in the church honoring William Africa Baptiste, known as 'Boss Africa', who became accepted as the Father of the village. Baptiste, who died in 1881, was the first village schoolmaster. Wilberfore Congregational church at Victoria still stands today.

History of Victoria Village by William Nicholas Arnos gives a useful account of the origins and development of the village. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria,_Guyana)

REDEMPTION SONG
By Bob Marley
Old pirates, yes, they rob I.

Sold I to the merchant ships

minutes after they took I from the bottomless pit.

But my hand was made strong

By the hand of the Almighty.

We forward in this generation triumphantly.

Chorus:
Won’t you help to sing

these songs of freedom?

‘cause all I ever had,

Redemption songs

Redemption songs.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;

None but ourselves can free our minds.

Have no fear for atomic energy,

Cause none of them can stop the time.

How long shall they kill our prophets,

While we stand aside and look? ooh!

Some say it’s just a part of it:

We’ve got to fulfill the book.

Chorus
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;

None but ourselves can free our minds.

Have no fear for atomic energy,

‘cause none of them can stop the time.

How long shall they kill our prophets,

While we stand aside and look? ooh!

Yes, some say it’s just a part of it:

We’ve got to fulfill the book.

Wont you help to sing

These songs of freedom?

Cause all I ever have

Redemption songs.

Redemption songs.

Songs of freedom.

Fettered I came

With head unbowed

A heart enflamed

A soul un-cowed

Though flesh may die

In the world of men

The strong links tie

The now to then

Bravely he strides

My bold grandson

Head high with pride

Of victories won

My fathers came

From African lands

But we carved our name

On Guyana’s strands

THE SLAVE TRADE – A BLESSING IN DISGUISE?
BY PARVATI PERSAUD-EDWARDS

That day was observed by the 192 member states of the United Nations General Assembly as the International Day for the Commemoration of the 200th Anniversary of the Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

This initiative was led by Jamaica and supported by the entire CARICOM regional block.

The report of the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, held in Durban, South Africa from 31st August – 8th September 2001 states, inter alia:

Slavery and the slave trade, including the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, were appalling tragedies in the history of humanity, not only because of their abhorrent barbarism, but also in terms of their magnitude, organized nature, and especially their negation of the essence of their victims; and further acknowledges that slavery and the slave trade are crimes against humanity, and always should have been deemed so.”

The unrelenting brutality, reaching the levels of bestiality, that coloured the treatment of slaves by slavemasters could be garnered from an incident which occurred in the early nineteenth century, which involved the whipping of a pregnant female slave.

Emancipation Day 175 Years After: What Lessons?
By Eddi Rodney
There is an ever increasing degree of in-depth researches that focus on the period of the 19th century Emancipation of Africans who were made captive and slaves of Europeans as well as the ‘plantocracy’ – Bourbons and others in United States of America.

Much of this important work has already appeared in the United States of America formulated as Black Studies and these are invested with genuine historical legitimacy. In Britain, France, Italy and Holland as well as Portugal and Spain, a broad categorisation of anthropological and social-economic studies, set within the Napoleonic era and the French upheaval of 1897, have revealed important reference source material relevant to emancipation.

For the purpose of this article, an attempt will be made to evaluate 1834 – 1838/40 as but one stage in the protracted struggle against the slave system known as the Middle Passage.

All the evidence from Capitalism and Slavery (Eric Williams) and Studies in a Dying Colonialism (Frantz Fanon), confirm that European trade in African slaves concentrated on statist coercion of a captive, able-bodied labour force. This mass of social labour constituted ‘slave factories’ or ‘complexes’; the procurement of chattel slaves was actually a precondition if we can agree on such a descriptive, to or for the industrialisation as well as technological advances attained by the bourgeoisie in Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Hull, Amsterdam, Oporto, Marseilles and Rotterdam.

The construction of forts along vast stretches of West Africa, the manufacture of steel or metal devices, the contracting-out of the various ocean going vessels no less than the supply of muskets and ammunition, comprised elements in this ‘internationalisation’ of African slavery over a period of more than two centuries.

Emancipation in the West Indies and the Guianas
The connection between Capital and Slavery and Neo-Colonialism the Highest Form of Imperialism (Kwame Nkrumah) is borne out in the most striking way perhaps by the ‘agreement’ recently between Italy’s Prime Minister Mr. Berluscone – as a representative of the oligarchy that profited from Italian colonisation of Libya and Colonel Muammar Gadhafi, the Leader of Libya. The Italian ruling class proposes to compensate the Libyans to the tune of several hundreds of million dollars. All for the sake of good relations and atonement.

Emancipation in Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, the Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius and British Guiana, it has been noted, was characterised by the intensification of rebellions launched throughout the Plantation structure in the West Indies including the Greater and Lesser Antilles.

So regular were these acts of slave uprising that the slave traders allocated substantial resources to ensure that information concerning these rebellions was muted.

The crews of slave vessels were rotated regularly and many, the more luckless ones were often left ashore or jumped ship whenever slave consignments were delivered.

Emancipation was also greatly influenced by the support courageous Abolitionist received within political Europe, in England and in United States of America.

But it was the structural demise of West Indian slave plantation production at the competitive level within the world market for primary raws (sugar, cotton, dyes and spirit alcohol) in an ‘international division of labour’ determined by the American Civil War and the expansion of mercantile exchanges (itself only possible as a consequence of massive profits from the slave system) in those state systems Lenin described as “the legions of the East” - China, India and Burma) that accelerated the process further, leading to Emancipation.

Semi-proleriat formations as a consequence of slavery
Emancipation in the New World was if anything an uneven process (Guerin, The West Indies and their Future).

In Brasil slavery continued in many locations well into the 1880s, in Cuba the large sugar producing monopolies maintained a sub or semi-proletariat system that differed in no essential way from slavery up to 1864-66.

Now these were countries where the slave population outnumbered the plantocracy and the others (whites, mulattos) who were not amongst the slave population.

Even more interesting at least from the Guyanese perspective, is the fact that 1826 – 1858 during which African slaves won their freedom in the West Indies, in political Africa there emerged as a consequence of Portuguese, German and Boer expansion, a new slave trade defined as the manamba migration of semi-proletariats.

Often compared to slavery as practiced in West Africa, the manamba migratory labour was a variant of forced labour. The colonists (Fanon) coerced the tribal chiefs and local headmen to supply willing ‘labour power’ (Shivji Issa G cf Investment of German Firms in German East Africa, 1886-1909) - see also Africa Communist, First Quarter, 1980, Notes and Comments, pp 8-82).

Within Guiana, Emancipation served to liberate the broad masses of the population from plantation serfdom. An African peasantry, dominated by a de facto criminal capitalist class, sought to extend its options from the enclaves of the “freed villages” (Munro Aileen 8:2006)

This freed African producer was at every stage constrained by exorbitant, arable land prices, by high rating licence fees and most damaging, the deliberate neglect of necessary drainage and irrigation to assist agricultural production by this newly freed producer.

The plantocracy tried to coerce, to force the former slaves to return to the plantation to work...they imposed high levies (taxes) on the necessities of life. All of this resulted in serious wage conflicts between ex-slaves and the plantocracy, as the former sought to extract from the latter a living wage”. (Stabroek News History Page, Munroe A. 2006 3-07).

In his West on Trial, Dr Cheddi Jagan addresses the whole issue of slavery and its consequences in British Guiana (Ch Two, pp 31 – 41).

In conclusion it is also very evident that Emancipation laid the basis for the process of an emerging elite, nurtured by the coloniser. That there was also a corresponding trend that witnessed the emergence of a national proletariat, as well as, the rudiments of a radical anti colonialist movement.