By Mohamed Khan

THE official results published in 1842 show there were 37 sugar estates on the Essequibo Coast. These sugar estates stretched from Walton Hall in the north to Spring Garden in the south. Creolese or natives were usually of African descent.There was a rallying cry of most planters throughout the post-Emancipation years, and there were even serious attempts to restart slavery after it had been brought to an end on August 1, 1834. The slave owners fought hard against the emancipation of their slaves.

When the Emancipation Act was finally passed in 1833, it did not automatically give the slaves their freedom. Slaves therefore became apprentices, and continued to work with their former masters for low wages. Because of the way this system worked, the end of slavery did not mean freedom for the slaves.

Apprenticeship was seen by the slaves as another form of slavery. True freedom came in 1838 when the apprenticeship system was abolished.
But even then, those former slaves who were on the plantations from Richmond to Walton Hall had no option but to continue working for their former masters.

Africans were reservoirs of plantation labour. Damon was one of those apprentice slaves who worked on Plantation Richmond in the north. Trouble started when Mr. Charles Bean, the proprietor of Richmond sugar plantation, began to create strife by killing the pigs and cutting down the fruit trees of the former slaves, which was a subsistence income for those ex-slaves. Bean claimed that the pigs were destroying the roots of the young canes.

Damon became enraged when he saw what Bean was doing, and called upon the other freed slaves from Richmond to Walton Hall to oppose him. He got 700 of the apprentices from Richmond to Walton Hall to down tools. They were forced to work by their former masters although slavery was ended.

On August 3, 1838, they protested the apprenticeship scheme. The following morning, the freed slaves were more than surprised, and became angry when they were ordered by their former masters to return to work.

By August 9, the labour situation worsened when ex-slaves from Richmond to Devonshire Castle downed tools and gathered in the Trinity Churchyard at La Belle Alliance.

In the meantime, the white planters called for back-up troops to quell the quiet and peaceful demonstration. About 40 soldiers from the West India Regiment, headed by Captain Groves, arrived and took up position around the churchyard. Damon, who was considered one of the ringleaders of the workers, hoisted a flag on a pole as a sign of their freedom and independence from the planters.
The minister of the Trinity church appealed to Damon and the ex-slaves to go home, but they refused, saying that they were free and did not wish to return to the plantations to do forced labour.

Bean aggravated and worsened the situation when he used threats to arrest the ringleaders. He ordered the soldiers to open fire on the unarmed crowd, but the captain refused after recognising that it was no mob, but just a crowd of peaceful workers gathered under their makeshift flag to show that they were a free people.

Governor Smyth addressed the workers at Plantation Richmond, telling them that the apprenticeship period was still in force and they should go back to work. He arrested the leaders of the peaceful demonstration. Damon was referred to as the “Captain” and ringleader of the unrest; and at noon on October 13, 1834, he was hanged for rebellion in front of the Parliament Buildings which now house the National Assembly in Georgetown.

At La Belle Alliance Christian Cemetery, there still stands a tall white cross where Damon and his 700 apprentice workers had gathered and protested against the forced labour system.

In 1988, a bronze monument created by sculptor Ivor Thom was erected next to the Anna Regina Town Hall in honour of Damon, the fallen hero from Essequibo.