Colonial slavery was the most significant, pervasive experience
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Colonial slavery was the most significant, pervasive experience
--says Mayor Hamilton Green
Guyana Chronicle
August 3, 2000
Remarks by Mayor Green at `Turning of the Sod' ceremony on Emancipation Day
MR Chairman, Excellency, Ministers, Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Councillors and fellow citizens.
My information is that, the idea for this `Turning of the Sod' to honour the slaves who were executed on this spot, came from the Hon.
Minister Gail Teixeira and former Acting Director General, Guyana National Service, now Permanent Secretary, Keith Booker.
They deserve our highest commendation, and fulsome praise! It demonstrates the delightful power you have, when the black and white keys are played together.
Let us give them a rousing round of applause.
We must, also, not lose the significance of the President's presence, among others nor the hour chosen for this function, it was about now that daily duties on the plantations started.
Coming as it does, in the midst of some neophyte historical engineering, this event is both propitious and timely.
Colonial slavery was the most significant, and pervasive of our experiences. All other events that followed explain contemporary Guyana.
Dr Cheddi Jagan, writing in The West on Trial, observed that slavery established "the pattern of a white oligarchy, possessing immense political and economic power, ruling over a population brought from other continents against their will, or descended from those brought to serve and enrich that oligarchy".
Strong, true words.
Inspired by the English admiral and coloniser, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the search for the Golden City of El Dorado Guyana, had become the favourite European frontier, as early as the 17th century.
Of interest to Guyana is the fact that towards the end of the 18th century, two and one half million African slaves were toiling in the New World Colonies.
Yet when slavery was officially abolished the slave population of Berbice, Demerara and Essequibo was a modest 109,000 compared to say, Jamaica 348,000 and the smaller territories.
In his introduction to "The overthrow of Colonial Slavery", Robert Blackburn reports that the low survival rate of Africans in much of the New World partly reflected the fact that they were concentrated in the tropical lowlands where disease took a heavy toll on all immigrants.
But overwork, and the consequent neglect of subsistence, certainly helped to kill the slaves. We're talking about harsh 14 to 18-hour work-days.
The relative cheapness with which new captives could be bought from the slave merchants, and the great value of slave produce - gave a terrible commercial logic to the practice of using up the lives of the slaves in a few years of intense labour.
On the plantations, slaves were subjected to, and threatened by, repeated floggings, torture and the use of the wheel or rab rack; slave women were abused by the white men. They fed us food they did not want or would discard - like pigtails, - so much so that a generation or two ago pigtails in soup or cook-up was the favourite meal among the Afro-Guyanese.
So long as slave crews were wracked by disease and overwork, they found it difficult to resist their oppression, collectively.
But it is the folly of people seeing others as fundamentally different, that is worrying, if not evil - Christian States ignoring the Creator's injunction that we're all God's children.
For centuries men preferred to emphasise their physical differences, to levels where the other person is unequal, and even worse, less than human.
One Portuguese, referring to Africans on sale in Europe wrote thus "Among them were some well nigh white, and were handsome and well made bodies.
Others were black as Ethiopians, and so uncomely, as well in countenance as in body, that those who were guarding them thought they beheld the creatures of the lower hemisphere."
(Eannes de Azurana - `Conquest and Discoveries of Henry the Navigator' ed Virginia de Castro and Almeida, London 1936 pg. 169).
This belief allowed newspaper advertisements to list Africans for sale along side furniture, horses and boats - owners branded, penned them, fed them, broke them in, and as at Dartmouth on the Essequibo Coast, bred them like animals. On the Berbice ferry boat, even after freedom they travelled among the sheep and cattle paying the same fare as the animals.
This was considered a great advantage for these "hewers of wood" and beasts of burden.
Utilising financial records, historians establish that, the use of African slaves had enabled Britain to vault to the premier position as a Colonial Power. This brutal institution produced fabulous fortunes for Europe.
In the mid 18th century, Britain was, perhaps the most splendid, and dynamic state in the world. Thanks largely to free Africa labour. The African, in a real sense, became the centrepiece of the Empire's social and economic development.
In Guyana, without machines but with blood, sweat and tears, African slaves built our entire Coastal infrastructure.
On this day as a descendant of that African, still carrying at least one scar, that is the name of the slave master, I, Hamilton Green, do solemnly declare that I have forgiven totally, those who committed, these acts of inhumanity. I ask all others to do the same.
But while we forgive, don't ask us to forget, or else we repeat the same mistakes.
This occasion offers those who benefited from slavery to consider meaningful reparation - in this way, they will receive the mercies, and Goodness of God.
Exodus, Chapter 3 - suggests that God intended that His people should receive just wages for all their hard labour. European Missionaries who came told us, and now verily believe that, we are all God's children.
Mr President when next you meet with British and European leaders, don't ask for debt write off, let's do the dignified thing and discuss reparation.
Mahatma Gandhi - "The human voice can never reach the distance of that covered by the still voice of conscience".
Friends and compatriots, the truth is, all other groups have turned their pain and sufferings to gain.
The Jews, The Irish, Catholics, Muslims, among others have all demanded and received forms of reparation - yet, those who suffered most, the African, has, over the years, failed to benefit for his suffering, and humiliation.
One reason, perhaps is an induced sense of shame, and a fear for the whole truth of slavery.
Prof. Ali A. Mazrui, speaking to Guyanese 12 years ago, put it succinctly "Blacks have neither sacralised their suffering into a sacred doctrine, nor exploited it as a political fund".
In James Rodway's "Story of Georgetown", we note that "Under the Dutch rule a 100 guilders was paid for each captured runaway, dead or alive; in the first case the claim was vouched for by bringing back barbecued right hands. It was not uncommon to see a returning bush expedition marching through Stabroek with several such trophies fixed on the points of their bayonets."
The story of how in 1795, a maroon chief was burnt to death in front of the then jail (now Brickdam Police Station) after he had been tortured with red-hot pincers, was not an unusual event.
The Great Encyclopedia Dictionary describes a maroon as one of a class of Negroes, chiefly fugitive slaves, or their descendants living wild in the mountains of some West Indian islands and of `Guiana'.
The valiant African ancestors who dared to oppose their harsh circumstances were regularly, like cattle, rounded up and slaughtered. After the East Coast uprising of 1823, some were hanged right here then their heads fixed on poles, and limp bodies hung in chains.
This ground was the execution site identified by the civilised European administrators.
While a few blacks cried and pleaded for mercy, the majority faced heir final moments, stoically, and with dignity.
No lessons were learnt. Eleven years later, Damon led a protest on the Essequibo Coast, against their continued captivity. He had been told they were now free - for that he was arrested.
On Monday 13th October, 1834, he was brought to Georgetown and, on a specially erected gallows, in front of the Public Buildings - he was hanged. His offence, the hoisting of his flag of Independence.
On the 31st July, 1988, a statue of Damon was unveiled at Anna Regina. Earlier, it was on display in the city on the very spot where he was executed.
It was a large crowd at Anna Regina including the then head of Nigeria General Gowan and his wife Victoria.
Allow me to repeat what I said then. "As I entered my office situated within the Public Buildings, there was excitement.
I looked out and saw this magnificent statue of Damon on Brickdam between St Andrew's Kirk and the Public Buildings.
The eyes of Damon appeared deep and earnestly fixed on an object atop of the Public Buildings - a crowd of people from all walks of life surrounded this bronze sculpture. I followed the direction of Damon's eyes.
They were fixed on the huge Golden Arrowhead - Our National Flag, a symbol, his symbol, born of his sacrifice.
Yes, the National Flag of Guyana was flying majestically, swaying with titillating rhythm from the gentle morning winds above the building in which the laws of an independent Guyana are made.
The full symbolism of Damon's death and the story of why he died came to me - Damon's flag hoisted 154 years ago was now flying atop of our Parliament - not in revenge, but in vindication".
Our illustrious historian and academic, professor James Rose, has told us about the significance of this spot. It was about persecution.
Persecution, by one group of another, has its origins in the mind, a perverted evil judgement, that says that there are us and, that there are the others, a lesser breed.
During the 20th century, we have seen this sowing of inequity produce a harvest of blood, wars, hate, poverty and anger.
We have seen this curse in the form of Apartheid, Nazism, ethnic cleansing, segregation, ideological arrogance and cultural aggression.
With modification, some of these attitudes still linger here, and elsewhere. To overcome this evil, and to be strong, we need a thorough knowledge of our past. Hence our presence here.
Despite all the changes, unless we remove this curse of persecution, and racial bigotry from our civilisation, we cannot expect to realise our full potential as a people, and the quest for a better world.
Linden Forbes Burnham, in the preface to the International Round Table, to commemorate the 150th Anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery reminded us that
"To look back to the past, to understand the mechanisms that were in place, to learn from those experiences is to prepare for the obstacles still to overcome". Sensible, and solid words.
The event, underpinned with moral uplift, and a renewed spirituality, can help in the process to overcome, all the while vindicating the hardships of our noble ancestors, be they Chinese, African, Portuguese, Indian, European or Amerindian.
We must all now with great purpose honour the 1823 Martyrs also Damon, Cuffy, Accra, Quamina, the great uncles and great aunts, my great great great grandmother - who gave birth to my fore-parent in an earthen hole, dug with her own hands - we survived - my heart is full, but I have forgiven.
Let their brave spirit guide us to overcome all odds and with others, make us strong, make Guyana good, great and truly free.
Let us sing with a renewed understanding, the words from our National Anthem.
"We are born of their sacrifice, heirs of their pain and ours is the glory, their eyes did not see - one land of six people united and free" and so let our Chinese, Portuguese, Amerindians, Indians and Europeans, dougla, sansantone, boviander, compatriots, also remember and together celebrate August 1.
Before I conclude, I wish to say three sets of things to my Afro-Guyanese brothers and sisters. First, to recall something my respected brother Rev. Dr Dale Bisnauth said at a rally celebrating the arrival of Indians. He talked about the importance of deferred gratification. I recommend this philosophy to you.
My second message is to recapture the zeal for education, in order to harness your enormous latent intellectual energy to effectively foster links between industry, business and science. Tomorrow's society will be knowledge-based.
My third message is subtly contained in Prophet Kalil Gibran's reply, when asked about freedom, "At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom. Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.
Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadows of a citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke, and a handcuff.
And my heart bled with me, for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.
You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care, nor your nights without a want and a grief. But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbounded."
A little later he muses "And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?"
"In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes."
Mr Chairman, Excellency, compatriots, join me and share in a prayer, and, if you don't pray in a hope that all people, particularly, our youths, help make Guyana a land of true freedom and timelessness, refusing to discard, or allowing to be severed, any portion of our tantalisingly rich heritage - be it from Europe, South America, India, Africa, China or Madeira.
Incidents 200 years ago, with those of just yesterday, must today, with love and understanding, melt us into a wholesome single whole. There need neither be divisions, nor subtractions, only additions.
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