OVER the last week, we have had a number of commemorative activities to mark the Emancipation of our Guyanese ancestors from plantation slavery on August 1, 1834. Though slavery existed everywhere in the ancient world and in Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries, such slavery was entirely different from plantation slavery. Slavery in the 17th and 18th century Africa was humane when equated with West Indian plantation slavery. Slaves often became part of their owners’ families and were always treated as human beings. And in ancient Greece and Rome, slaves were often the teachers, writers and intellectuals.

In the West Indies, including Guyana, slaves were regarded not as human beings but as property. Their masters regarded them solely as machines to supply labour and they were provided with the minimum of shelter, clothes and food so as to be able to continue surviving to continue to work. The regime of work was extremely harsh and cruel and slaves were almost all savagely beaten. This surrealistic ambience of the plantation often made the white population, and particularly those who directly dealt with the slaves such as the overseers, into psychopaths and sadists and they practised the most horrible tortures on the slaves.

The slaves fought back against their oppressors in a variety of ways, by both passive resistance and violently. They would skulk from work, pretend to be sick, malinger and carry out quiet sabotage against the plantation. The two most well-known of the violent protests were the Berbice Rebellion of 1763 led by Cuffy and the Demerara Rebellion of the 1820s led by Quamina. Slavery, despite its cruelties and dehumanising oppressions, was never able to destroy the indomitable African spirit which manifested itself with unsuspected creativeness and resilience on Emancipation.

That creativeness was evidenced in many ways: The freedmen were transformed into self-respecting wage- earners who were willing to continue working on the plantations for a livable wage. The planter class could not understand this phenomenon and continued to offer poor wages which resulted in two serious unsuccessful strikes in the 1840s. After these strikes, the freedmen left the plantations for the new villages and for the two towns. It was this desire of the planter class, never to pay a livable wage which led them to seek indentured labour.

It is, however, in the establishment of the villages (The Village Movement) that the unsuspected creativity of the freedmen was most evident. Groups of freed men and women pooled their savings and bought abandoned plantations. Their savings came from the poor wages they earned during the apprenticeship period which ended in 1838. They paid for these abandoned estates with small coins which had to be transported by wheelbarrows. The estates bought were renamed as an indication to their erstwhile masters that a new era had arrived. Among the most well-known of these villages was Queenstown in Essequibo and Buxton and Victoria in Demerara.

In these villages they created a new life for themselves: They constructed houses, built up farms, established village governments and provided community services, as far as they were able and established primary education with the help of the churches, particularly the Anglican. They were far-sighted enough to realise that education held the key to upward mobility and economic betterment. In the next generation, the villages began to produce first-rate scholars and legendary schoolmasters. The Village Movement was quietly spawning a veritable social and economic revolution.

Emancipation is an event to be celebrated and indeed it has been celebrated countrywide in style with dances, cultural shows, fairs and feasts in the villages and in the towns. But Emancipation is not merely a celebratory event. It is an event that opens the door to vibrant economic and social progress and those on whom the mantle of leadership has fallen must begin to map out ways in which the descendants of the freed men could improve their economic conditions by their own efforts. Such involves the encouragement and support of those who are already engaged in small businesses and encouraging others to enter self-employment constantly imparting the essence of entrepreneurship. Self-reliance must be the watchword and must be cultivated and the inclination of looking to the State for handouts which were inherited from our socialist indoctrination must be eschewed.

Another facet of Emancipation which needs to be emphasised is that Emancipation is an anniversary and an event which belongs to the whole nation and must be supported and rejoiced in by all. At the moment, Emancipation is portrayed as a purely African Guyanese affair and little effort has been made so far in involving the other segments of the Guyanese population. Ways of involving other segments must be worked out as for example pointing out how intertwined Guyanese history and life are and that all strands of them make a unity. Or to show that indentured immigration was qualitatively the same as slavery and was indeed described by historians as “the new slavery”. This should help to develop an empathy and understanding of Emancipation among descendants of indentured servants.

Once efforts are made to achieve such solidarity. Emancipation would be commemorated and celebrated with greater gusto and enthusiasm by every segment and its implication for further social and economic progress becomes easier to achieve. Work in this direction could start immediately for next year’s commemoration. The Guyana Consumers Association would be willing to assist in such an effort.