Remembering the brave, bold, black

Jerome Teelucksingh

EARLIER THIS year our prime minister changed Emancipation Day to African Emancipation Day. Some people believe it is semantics and were critical of this decision.

However, an alternative view is that this modification has enhanced the significance of this noteworthy day. In the future, students, citizens and people abroad will be able to more easily identify African Emancipation Day as being associated with a specific racial/ethnic group.

Many of us overlook the significance of the annual observance of African Emancipation Day in TT. Certain questions must be asked: What were the conditions of slavery and factors leading to the emancipation of the African slaves? What factors contributed to the eventual freedom of these enslaved? How did the ex-slaves respond to their new-found freedom?

The horrors and brutality of slavery in the Caribbean are unbelievable. Disobedient and seemingly stubborn slaves would endure the horrible punishment of having parts of their bodies – eg arms, feet or fingers – cut off. Many suffered a gruesome fate as they bled to death. The punishment for rebellious slaves included being tied or buried and covered with sugar and left to be eaten alive by insects.

The list of suffering was long as slaves were roasted over slow fires, horribly mutilated in boiling wax or sugar, burnt with a hot piece of wood, flogged, mercilessly tortured, raped and babies killed. Salt and pepper were poured into bleeding wounds. Those found guilty of planning revolts or poisoning the planters were murdered. And the Europeans who committed these atrocities were neither jailed nor punished because the slaves were their property. These elite and privileged people were guilty of participating in a massive genocide as the rest of the world remained quiet.

Added to the physical violence and separation from families, the enslaved endured a cultural genocide as they were forced to renounce their religious beliefs, languages, names, rituals and customs. They were continuously degraded and dehumanised. All policies of the planters and slave traders were designed to oppress these enslaved Africans.

These intolerable conditions in the West Indies fuelled the revolts and revolutions. The hearts of these wounded and brave slaves burned with anger and rage. Men and women such as Toussaint L’Ouverture, Boukman, Nanny, Cuffy and Daaga ignited the fires of freedom in the hearts of the enslaved and so were the real Caribbean emancipators.

The emancipation of enslaved Africans was a gradual process which eventually culminated in the passage of the Emancipation Bill in the British Parliament in 1833 by Thomas Buxton. Freedom was finally achieved after more than two centuries of continuous struggles. The cost of freedom was borne by the forgotten African martyrs whose blood, tears and sweat mixed with the fertile Caribbean soil and created kings of sugar, coffee and cocoa.

The Emancipation Act became effective on August 1, 1834, yet gave only partial dignity and freedom. The dreaded apprenticeship system was then introduced as a transition to freedom. The ex-slaves would be apprenticed to their former masters for six years. However, violent protests from these apprentices forced the House of Assembly (the governing body in each country, similar to our Parliament) to reduce the apprenticeship term to four years. At this time Trinidad had a population of approximately 17,000 slaves, which was small when compared to Jamaica with 254,000 or British Guiana with 70,000 slaves.

In Trinidad, on August 1, 1834, thousands of enraged slaves entered Port of Spain and assembled at Government House (later to be the site of the Treasury). This protest alarmed governor George Hill and he sought assistance from the militia. After six days of protests, in which ex-slaves were flogged and jailed, the governor reluctantly decided that complete freedom would be granted on August 1, 1838.

Not all Afro-Trinidadians/Tobagonians can trace their ancestry to these discontented slaves who marched in Port of Spain in 1834. There was an influx from abroad. During 1839-1849, an estimated 10,300 free blacks from Grenada, St Vincent and Barbados migrated to Trinidad. Interestingly, Trinidad also received 8,000 liberated Africans from the US, Sierra Leone and St Helena. Thus, many Afro-Trinidadians have a colourful and varied past which extends beyond TT.

Secondly, 1838 meant the abolition of slavery
only in the British West Indian colonies. Slavery continued in other parts of the Americas. A few decades later slavery ended in the French Empire, in 1848; later in 1865 the US abolished slavery; the Spanish Empire in 1880 and Brazil in 1888 also outlawed slavery.