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Juanita De Barros, ‘Order and Place in a Colonial City: Patterns of Struggle and Resistance in Georgetown, British Guiana, 1889-1924’, Montreal and Kingston, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002, 251 pp. ALTHOUGH ‘Order and Place: Patterns of Struggle and Resistance in Georgetown, British Guiana, 1889-1924’ looks like a Ph. D. thesis, it is strange how its very academic trappings of diligent research and meticulous scholarship transform it into a text that is both learned, in the sense of revealing new knowledge, and accessible to the general reader.
The subtitle, ‘Patterns of Struggle and Resistance in Georgetown, British Guiana, 1889-1924’, explains its subject: A study of Georgetown that reflects patterns of struggle between ordinary or poor Guyanese and their British colonial rulers in the last decade of the 19th Century and the first two of the Twentieth.
Sample chapter titles give an idea of what to expect: “Cesspool City: Sanitarianism in Colonial Georgetown”, “Hucksters, Markets, and the Struggle to Control Public Space”, and “Riot and Struggle to Control the Street”.
Before 1834, when slavery was abolished in all British territories, the population of Georgetown, capital city of British Guiana, consisted largely of sugar plantation owners, government officials, professionals, merchants, and their families, while the majority of Guyanese — African slaves — lived on plantations.
After Emancipation, when the indenture system introduced increasing numbers of Portuguese, Chinese, Indians and others into the country, the population not only became more ethnically mixed, but, for a variety of reasons, gradually began to shift more and more to the capital city.
In due course, urban problems developed, involving criminals, gangs and social unrest culminating in riots. Professor De Barros concisely sums up her thesis as one which: “examines the struggle for cultural hegemony in Georgetown’s public spaces — a battle over which vision would triumph… that of the city’s poor or that of the local elites (p. 4).”
To begin with, two major slave rebellions, in 1763 and 1823, both cruelly repressed by the British (White) colonial government, illustrate deeply ingrained patterns of struggle and resistance in pre-Emancipation Guyanese society. So we really should not be surprised by a similar pattern in the post-Emancipation period, in 1856, when Portuguese homes and businesses in Georgetown were attacked by freed Africans who believed that their control of the petty retail trade was being taken over by newly-arrived, ex-indentured Portuguese.
These attacks, known as the Angel Gabriel riots, were named after John Sayers Orr, an itinerant preacher, nicknamed Angel Gabriel. Three other riots followed in Georgetown, in 1889, 1905 and 1924, and when they are combined with eleven riots staged in rural areas by indentured Indian workers, between 1869 and 1913, leave no doubt at all of a distinct, if incoherent pattern of struggle and resistance in Guyana, well before 1950, when the People’s Progressive Party was formed, and a more coherent struggle for freedom and Independence began in earnest.
Like the riot in 1856, the one in 1889 was inspired by the hostility of Africans toward Portuguese, while discontent in 1905 and 1924 expressed long-held economic grievances directed, more generally, against ruling élites.
Shops and houses were attacked, and businesses in the commercial district of Water and Main Streets in Georgetown became a battleground. Professor De Barros uncovers superabundant details, painstakingly culled from myriad sources — colonial government records and reports, parliamentary papers, statutes and newspapers, as well as from less arcane published sources such as books and articles — in her discussion of these riots; and one of her main discoveries is their festive, ritual or carnivalesque nature.
Crowds not only looted establishments, but ate and drank from the houses they invaded; and there were street parades: “…accompanied by dancing, chanting, singing, stick wielding and drum playing (p.148).”
Equally important is the revelation that the riots of 1905 and 1924 “drew on the rites [labour parades] of the incipient labour movement in British Guiana (p.146),” suggesting a growing inter-dependence between spontaneous eruptions of public dissatisfaction and more organised trade union activity.
Even more important, perhaps, is the appearance of elements of the Muslim tadjah festival, such as stick wielding and drum beating, in the riots of 1905 and 1924, implying signs, however faint, of incipient multi-ethnic nationalism.
The main thing about ‘Order and Place’ is that it is not simply a survey of riots or other historical examples of violence or social disturbances. More interestingly, the volume delves beneath the surface of events in search of common motives, patterns and practices; for racial stereotypes inherited from past slave rebellions, when white masters treated black slaves little better than beasts, influenced attitudes after Emancipation, and helped to create a stigma of Portuguese shopkeepers as dishonest and greedy, and of Indians either as dirty scavengers or as milk vendors who carried disease and threatened public health.
Such racial stereotypes also strengthened prejudices, and inspired fear in established groups or élites as the author succinctly states: “Racial and class terror filled the colonial élites (p.160),” or again when she refers to “the traditional élite terror of the non-white masses (p.160).” Thus, suspicion and fear among the élites were countered by resentment and hostility among the poor, driving them to acts of resistance: “manifested in festivity and play, for cultural hegemony in public places (p.167).”
Georgetown proves to be the decisive site of resistance, because it is “more than the hub of the colony’s political, economic, and administrative world (p.169).” But it is not Georgetown alone. The true value of ‘Order and Place’ is its aim: “To uncover new, urban paradigms that… reflect wider Guyanese and West Indian patterns (p.3).”
That it succeeds is confirmed by examples of the Jonkonnu riots in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1840 and 1841; the carnival riots in Trinidad in 1881, 1883 and 1884; and the Guy Fawkes riot in St. George’s, Grenada, in 1885. Nor should we be at all surprised by the similarity in patterns of resistance or defiance from people who were colonised in the Caribbean, and suffered identical forms of exploitation and injustice.
The subtitle, ‘Patterns of Struggle and Resistance in Georgetown, British Guiana, 1889-1924’, explains its subject: A study of Georgetown that reflects patterns of struggle between ordinary or poor Guyanese and their British colonial rulers in the last decade of the 19th Century and the first two of the Twentieth.
Sample chapter titles give an idea of what to expect: “Cesspool City: Sanitarianism in Colonial Georgetown”, “Hucksters, Markets, and the Struggle to Control Public Space”, and “Riot and Struggle to Control the Street”.
Before 1834, when slavery was abolished in all British territories, the population of Georgetown, capital city of British Guiana, consisted largely of sugar plantation owners, government officials, professionals, merchants, and their families, while the majority of Guyanese — African slaves — lived on plantations.
After Emancipation, when the indenture system introduced increasing numbers of Portuguese, Chinese, Indians and others into the country, the population not only became more ethnically mixed, but, for a variety of reasons, gradually began to shift more and more to the capital city.
In due course, urban problems developed, involving criminals, gangs and social unrest culminating in riots. Professor De Barros concisely sums up her thesis as one which: “examines the struggle for cultural hegemony in Georgetown’s public spaces — a battle over which vision would triumph… that of the city’s poor or that of the local elites (p. 4).”
To begin with, two major slave rebellions, in 1763 and 1823, both cruelly repressed by the British (White) colonial government, illustrate deeply ingrained patterns of struggle and resistance in pre-Emancipation Guyanese society. So we really should not be surprised by a similar pattern in the post-Emancipation period, in 1856, when Portuguese homes and businesses in Georgetown were attacked by freed Africans who believed that their control of the petty retail trade was being taken over by newly-arrived, ex-indentured Portuguese.
These attacks, known as the Angel Gabriel riots, were named after John Sayers Orr, an itinerant preacher, nicknamed Angel Gabriel. Three other riots followed in Georgetown, in 1889, 1905 and 1924, and when they are combined with eleven riots staged in rural areas by indentured Indian workers, between 1869 and 1913, leave no doubt at all of a distinct, if incoherent pattern of struggle and resistance in Guyana, well before 1950, when the People’s Progressive Party was formed, and a more coherent struggle for freedom and Independence began in earnest.
Like the riot in 1856, the one in 1889 was inspired by the hostility of Africans toward Portuguese, while discontent in 1905 and 1924 expressed long-held economic grievances directed, more generally, against ruling élites.
Shops and houses were attacked, and businesses in the commercial district of Water and Main Streets in Georgetown became a battleground. Professor De Barros uncovers superabundant details, painstakingly culled from myriad sources — colonial government records and reports, parliamentary papers, statutes and newspapers, as well as from less arcane published sources such as books and articles — in her discussion of these riots; and one of her main discoveries is their festive, ritual or carnivalesque nature.
Crowds not only looted establishments, but ate and drank from the houses they invaded; and there were street parades: “…accompanied by dancing, chanting, singing, stick wielding and drum playing (p.148).”
Equally important is the revelation that the riots of 1905 and 1924 “drew on the rites [labour parades] of the incipient labour movement in British Guiana (p.146),” suggesting a growing inter-dependence between spontaneous eruptions of public dissatisfaction and more organised trade union activity.
Even more important, perhaps, is the appearance of elements of the Muslim tadjah festival, such as stick wielding and drum beating, in the riots of 1905 and 1924, implying signs, however faint, of incipient multi-ethnic nationalism.
The main thing about ‘Order and Place’ is that it is not simply a survey of riots or other historical examples of violence or social disturbances. More interestingly, the volume delves beneath the surface of events in search of common motives, patterns and practices; for racial stereotypes inherited from past slave rebellions, when white masters treated black slaves little better than beasts, influenced attitudes after Emancipation, and helped to create a stigma of Portuguese shopkeepers as dishonest and greedy, and of Indians either as dirty scavengers or as milk vendors who carried disease and threatened public health.
Such racial stereotypes also strengthened prejudices, and inspired fear in established groups or élites as the author succinctly states: “Racial and class terror filled the colonial élites (p.160),” or again when she refers to “the traditional élite terror of the non-white masses (p.160).” Thus, suspicion and fear among the élites were countered by resentment and hostility among the poor, driving them to acts of resistance: “manifested in festivity and play, for cultural hegemony in public places (p.167).”
Georgetown proves to be the decisive site of resistance, because it is “more than the hub of the colony’s political, economic, and administrative world (p.169).” But it is not Georgetown alone. The true value of ‘Order and Place’ is its aim: “To uncover new, urban paradigms that… reflect wider Guyanese and West Indian patterns (p.3).”
That it succeeds is confirmed by examples of the Jonkonnu riots in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1840 and 1841; the carnival riots in Trinidad in 1881, 1883 and 1884; and the Guy Fawkes riot in St. George’s, Grenada, in 1885. Nor should we be at all surprised by the similarity in patterns of resistance or defiance from people who were colonised in the Caribbean, and suffered identical forms of exploitation and injustice.
NOTE: Professor Emeritus Frank Birbalsingh is an anthologist and the author of many scholarly publications, including ‘From Pillar to Post: The Indo Caribbean Diaspora’, ‘Passion and Exile: Essays in Caribbean Literature’, ‘The Rise of West Indian Cricket: From Colony to Nation’, and two anthologies of Indo-Caribbean writing, ‘Jahaji’ and ‘Jahaji Bhai’.
(To respond to this author, either call him on (592) 226-0065 or send him an email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com)
WHAT’S HAPPENING:
• World Book & Copyright Day 2013 will be celebrated on Tuesday, April 23 by the National Library with a book exhibition (focusing on Guyanese books), and a presentation by Dr Joyce Jonas. Tme: 12:00hours – 13:00 hours. All are invited.
