TODAY, Guyanese of all races, creeds and walks of life heartily observe the bicentenary of the Demerara Rebellion of 1823, an important milestone in this nation’s continuing struggle for freedom.

The Demerara Rebellion was in fact a revolution by enslaved Guyanese of African descent, whose forebears had laboured beyond imagination to create the physical conditions for the establishment of the British-owned plantations, and it was followed by John Gladstone’s introduction, 15 years later, of Indentureship, on May 5, 1838.
One year later, four years after Emancipation, former enslaved Africans pooled their resources, remarkably, to purchase plantations up for sale and start the Village Movement that housed many on their own lands across Demerara.

One doesn’t have to have a university degree to know that John Gladstone was the biggest link between Slavery and Indentureship in Guyana and the Caribbean, from his ownership of enslaved Africans to his landing of the first Indian immigrants in Demerara, also four years after Emancipation, on Arrival Day.
Africans, then freed, concentrated on living free and building their own lives in liberty, while the plantocracy invented Indentureship to guarantee continued free or cheap labour on their sugar estates.

Gladstone was, therefore, the lynchpin between the Slave and Indentureship systems of exploitation, as he ensured the continuity of the availability of exploited human labour to keep the sugar mills running here, and eventually in neighbouring Trinidad & Tobago and across the British West Indies.
The Gladstone family’s apology, to be delivered today, therefore, is not only to the descendants of the enslaved Africans, but equally, and no less so, to the descendants of the indentured Indians who also arrived, like the Africans, to work the plantations and create wealth across Guyana for the European slave masters who benefitted from both the enslavement of Africans and misleading contractual inducement of Indians.

It’s nothing but misleading, therefore, to argue, as some still do here quite loudly, that enslaved Africans “suffered more”, while indentured servants suffered “less pain”.
Both Africans and Indians suffered the most extreme degrees of exploitation, far away from home, each paying the same prices in British Guiana in different ways, and all contributing to our continuing struggles for the betterment of all.

Such unequal measurements of human suffering, according to continent of origin, are utterly disrespectful to and a dismissal of the blood, sweat and tears that both enslaved Africans and indentured Indians suffered in common to keep the plantation economy running on free labour, to guarantee maximum profits for the European enslavers after the abolition of slavery.
The Gladstones are accompanied by the Trevelyans, another English family that owned 1,000 enslaved Africans in Grenada, and in February offered an apology and opened a seed fund with 100,000 British Pounds; and likewise, the Gladstones have publicly apologised for their forebears’ sins of commission during slavery.

Now here to make humble Christian atonement, the Gladstones must be warmly embraced and welcomed by all Guyanese, irrespective of race, religion or culture, because what these Heirs of Slavery are doing is absolutely commendable, and ought to be encouraged, and not politicised racially or ethnically.

The Gladstone Apology has to be seen as part of the family’s atonement which comes with two sets of cash contributions, one to a UG project and the other to a related legacy project, adding-up to 160,000 Pounds Sterling or US Dollars.

But the apology and cash are all part of the Heirs of Slavery’s indication of a willingness to pay penance for their fore-parents’ mortal sins, as they share the joint pain of the dual impact of Slavery and Indentureship, and the need for shared, common healing.
This shared pain needs common approaches to healing, and also applies to Guyanese and Caribbean citizens of Indian descent, whose fore-parents also shared the pain of ensuring maximum profits for the enslavers after slavery.

The discussions today will necessarily focus on the 1823 Rebellion, remarkably celebrated by the national monument erected by an earlier PPP-Civic administration, which also established the Guyana National Reparations Committee (NRC) in 2013, and continues to provide it with an annual budget.
The apology will also, therefore, have to be followed by continuing the conversation about also making a case for Reparations for Guyanese and Caribbean citizens of Indian descent.
Slavery and Native Genocide were the two greatest crimes against humanity ever, but their costs in lives must not be used to try to erase or downgrade the suffering of indentured labourers brought to Guyana and the Caribbean on the same slave ships.

The Gladstone Apology, therefore, is to the entire Guyana population, and should not be seen or treated as a partial recognition of one aspect of the Gladstones’ British Guiana legacy.
It is to all Guyanese, at home and abroad, bar none!