By Francis Quamina Farrier

IT IS well known that the present is extremely important. But let us recognise that the past is also of importance. As I type this, my latest Pepperpot feature, what I already know from the past, is important for me to write an article which some readers may learn something from, and hopefully, enjoy reading.

Some may also be moved to send me some feedback, especially on any aspect of this article which they feel strongly for or against. What I am writing now, is also hopefully, going to influence future thinking about the 1763 Berbice Slave Revolution. So here I am, combining the past, with the present and the future, in this article about a vital aspect of Guyana’s exciting and dramatic history.

During my years of in-depth study and research of the 1763 Berbice Slave Revolution, I have come to the conclusion that both African Governor Cuffy and Dutch Governor Hoogenhime, were geniuses in their own right. Heading a war against each other, they both had tremendous challenges to claim, to maintain and to resist the abominable system of slavery of Africans in the Dutch colony of Berbice, during the mid-18th century.

As we know, Hoogenhmine was appointed by the Dutch Government as Governor of the South American colony of Berbice. We also know that at the commencement of the Slave Revolution of 1763, Cuffy appointed himself Governor of his people. So there it was, two strong men, each as a governor of Berbice at the very same time, and with a mission. Very resolute in what they believed in, one was for the support and protection of the slave owners, the other with a mission to put an end to slavery and the freedom and self-determination of his people. It was a sort of a “Clash of the Titans.”

Before I continue this feature, I have to mention that slavery did not begin with the African Slave Trade but was part of the human activity since the days of the first Book of the Holy Bible, Genesis, when we read of the youngest sibling, Joseph the Dreamer, being sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. We also know of Spartacus and so many other stories about slavery.

Meanwhile, we need to recognise two facts; that the African Slave Trade was the worst in history, with millions of Africans brought from their homeland to the West, and enslaved for over 400 years making others rich, while they had nothing, except their will to be free. What is also noteworthy is that thousands of Africans were captured and sold into slavery by their very own brothers, (as was the case with the Biblical Joseph), died on board the slave ships, and their bodies were dumped overboard, where their bones now litter the bottom of the Atlantic Middle Passage.

There are some parallels between the Berbice Slave Revolution of 1763/64 and the American Civil War of 1861/65. Both conflicts were primarily about the enslavement of Africans and the efforts in both locations to put that barbaric system to an end. In Berbice, they enslaved themselves and took the initative. In America, it spawned a brutal Civil war in which whites fought against each other; in some cases, brother against brother, resulting in the deaths of thousands.

From my research over the years, I found out that Hoogenhime, the Dutch Governor of Berbice back in 1763, was a young man; probably in his mid-thirties. Leader of the 1763 Berbice Slave Revolution, Cuffy, was a “house slave”; the type of enslaved individual who is usually considered as being a sort of “Uncle Tom”, who worshipped the : White Massa”, and scorned his fellow enslaved Africans who worked in the fields.

Nothing could be further from the truth in the case of Cuffy, a house slave. It was he who hatched a revolution which is still regarded as one of the most ambitious and brutal in the history of Slave Revolts in the Western Hemisphere. It was a war of liberation to put an end to the brutal system of one group of human beings being owned as property by another group, and considered as being sub-human and treated almost less than animals.

On my two separate visits to the Dutch established Fort Nassau which is located about 50 miles up the Upper Berbice River, I submerged my thoughts into the spirit of the environment where Governor Cuffy dwelt for some period of time during that 1763 Revolution.

It was an effort for freedom, which sadly for the enslaved Africans, ended in disaster. The revolution headed by Cuffy was crushed, and the briefly freed Africans were returned to slavery for another 75 years. However, during that 75-year period, there was another Slave Revolt. That one was headed by the enslaved Deacon Quamina, of the Congregational Church at Success in Demerara, in 1823. That, too, ended in disaster for the enslaved African people.

Full Freedom finally came to the enslaved Africans of British Guiana (the British had taken the colonies from the Dutch) and the rest of the British Empire, in August 1838. Almost immediately some of the formerly enslaved groups pooled their financial resources and purchased a number of former estates, establishing villages such as Victoria and Buxton on the East Coast of Demerara, and Queenstown on the Essequibo Coast.

But back to Governor Cuffy and the almost successful Slave Revolution of 1763, in the Dutch Colony of Berbice, in South America. In my painstaking research of over five decades, I discovered that Cuffy had a bit of the Nelson Mandela spirit of almost saintly fairness to his former oppressors who brutalised his people and raped the women with impunity.

At the early stages of the War of Liberation in 1763, Cuffy offered the lower flat lands of Berbice, neighbouring the Atlantic Ocean, to the Dutch. Cuffy decided to establish his African Republic some miles further inland. There the land is high above the Berbice and Canje Rivers, so he established large agricultural areas of the New Republic, where the land is fertile and conducive for successful agricultural enterprises.

Cuffy displayed a discipline of Agriculture to ensure that his people were well-fed and healthy. His was a vision of prosperity for a once-enslaved people who were brought from a land far away on the other side of the Atlantic; Africa,

However, while the revolution for freedom from slavery and the vision for a successful agricultural-based Republic were being established, Cuffy was partly engaged in a personal battle of revenge; he constantly abused one of the Dutch female captors in revenge for what the Dutch males had done to the enslaved African females for centuries.

As a house slave, Cuffy would overhear the young Dutch males boasting about their sexual conquests on the hapless African women, and so he thought that revenge of a similar nature was absolutely warranted, now that the war for freedom was going in his favour. That sub-war by Cuffy took an important measure of his focus from the principal war effort of liberation and what proved to be an exercise in futility.

Meanwhile, the young Dutch governor had many problems of his own; the fact that his well-trained soldiers were far out-numbered by the revolting Africans was most depressing for him. Added to that, some of the Dutch soldiers were deserting their fellow Dutch and going over to the Africans and fighting with the Africans against their own fellow Dutch soldiers.

In all of that almost hopeless situation for the Dutch, Governor Hoogenheim remained resolute. He engaged Cuffy in a number of written correspondences, as he bided his time awaiting military back-up and support from Suriname and Holland, for his depleting army. Hoogenhime sent letters to Cuffy which necessitated a written response. A lesser man would have given up and fled either to neighbouring Suriname or to his mother country Holland. But he stayed and fought what was for him, a war which had to be won. And win he did.

In as much as Cuffy lost his war for liberation, he set the blueprint for other wars including those lead by Quamina in 1823, and Burnham and Jagan in the 1950s and 1960s. The outcome of the latter was the granting of Independence for British Guiana in 1966, and the elevation to Republican status in 1970. Guyana now celebrates the 48th Anniversary of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana; and at this time, there is word about the resuscitation of Cooperative Societies in Guyana.