BERBICE REVOLUTION FEBRUARY 23-1763

MURPHY BROWNE © AFRICAN HERITAGE MONTH

On Wednesday February 23, 1763 a group of enslaved Africans in the Dutch colony Berbice, South America made the first strike in what became known as the Berbice Revolution. The Africans were led by Kofi (Cuffy) an enslaved African who had worked as a domestic servant ("house slave") and was a skilled cooper. The man who owned Kofi was a cooper and had trained him in the trade. Kofi a member of the Ashanti people had been kidnapped from his home in present day Ghana when he was a child and enslaved on plantation Lillienberg a plantation on the Canje River in Berbice that was owned by a Dutch family. The uprising/revolution began as a reaction to the cruelty to which the Africans were subjected by the Dutch who in 1763 had colonized Berbice, Demerara and Essequibo as separate Dutch colonies.

The enslaved African population was exploited as if they were "beasts of burden." The White plantation owners forced the enslaved Africans to live in wretched and degrading conditions while working them to death sometimes in seven years. With the harsh treatment and brutal punishments inflicted on them by their owners, some of the enslaved Africans occasionally rebelled by various means including breaking tools and from time to time escaping into the forests. Those who were recaptured were subjected to torturous punishment and in many cases brutal deaths meant to deter others who might have been planning to escape. In the 1855 published "The History of British Guiana: Comprising a General Description of the Colony Volume 1" White British surgeon Henry G. Dalton wrote "The African negro was imported into this country for the purpose of toil. We have seen a company established to buy and use him as a species of cattle. The very contemplation of such a scheme shows us at once the prevailing features of society at the time. No enlightened object of civilisation, no urgent feelings of philantrophy, no Christian zeal led to his introduction. The race from whence he sprang had long been regarded by more civilised Europe as brutalised and benighted. The poor African, the child of ignominy and scorn, was found a helpless victim."

The White people who colonized Berbice and enslaved Africans may have been of the same mind but they received a rude awakening beginning in 1762. The February 23, 1763, uprising came about 7 months after an unsuccessful attempt by 36 enslaved Africans on July 5, 1762. On July 5th, 1762, 36 Africans from plantations Goed Land and Goed Fortuin seized the opportunity to fight for their freedom in the absence of plantation owner Laurens Kunckler. While Kunckler was absent (at fort Nassau attending a meeting of the Court of police), the 36 African men and women took muskets, gun powder and shot from the plantation house then burned the house before fleeing into the forest. Governor van Hoogenheim sent lieutenant Thielen with a corporal and 12 soldiers, after the fleeing Africans. The Africans who had retreated into the forest were attacked by Thielen and his men. Twice the Africans repelled the attacking Dutchmen killing two soldiers and wounding five. A few weeks later however, the Africans were lured into an ambush and only a few managed to escape further up into forest. One of them was later captured and sent to fort Nassau, where he was executed.

On July 20, 1762 the slave ship “Unity” commanded by Captain Jan Menkenveld landed at Fort Nassau which was the capital of Berbice at the time. Kunckler who had lost 36 of the Africans in the recent uprising of July 5, bought many of the Africans for his plantations Goed Land and Goed Fortuin. The commander of Fort Nassau fearing another uprising requested the loan of 6 cannons from the captain of the “Unity” who noted in his Logbook dated 28 July 1762: “We left our 6 breech pieces on the shore because the governor needed it for his land. After he had used them, he would send them after us on a different ship.”

On February 23, 1763 the uprising began at plantation Magdalenenburg on the Upper Canje River. The burned the plantation house and moved on to neighbouring plantations. They encouraged other enslaved Africans on those plantations to join them. Some of them joined the revolutionaries or escaped into the forest. The group of African freedom fighters were quickly organised into a fighting force by Kofi.

Within a few days the Africans on most of the 125 plantations (113 privately owned and 12 owned by the Dutch Company of Berbice) had joined the revolutionary freedom fighters. The White inhabitants of the plantations fled. Van Hoogenheim gathered the few White men who were left at Fort Nassau. At the time there were approximately 3,833 Africans and 346 White people (including women and children) in Berbice. With the numbers at their disposal compared to the number of White people in the colony complete victory of the African revolutionaries was possible. However, the Africans showed human compassion and instead of destroying their enemies tried to negotiate a settlement of sharing the land with their former enslavers. The Dutch, like the proverbial fox, were cunning and crafty luring the Africans into a false sense of security as they pretended to negotiate. The Dutch were actually waiting for reinforcements to arrive from other European colonies in the area as well as from Europe. When those reinforcements arrived in the persons of European soldiers the Africans were hunted, rounded up and put to death in the most horrifically barbaric manner.

In 1616 the Dutch became the first Europeans to establish colonies in what was later British Guiana beginning with Essequibo. In 1627 they colonized Berbice followed by Demerara in 1752. In 1602, a charter had been given to Jan van Peere by the States General of the Dutch Republic to found a colony on the Berbice River. Seven years, later in 1627 Jan Van Peere's son Abraham van Peere founded the colony of Berbice. The Dutch had colonized Berbice beginning in 1627 with the Van Peere family gaining sovereignty over the area through the Dutch West India Company. Abraham van Peere was a Dutch merchant from Vlissingen in the County of Zeeland, Netherlands. The Van Peere family treated the colony of Berbice as if it was their own fiefdom similar to the manner in which Leopold of Belgium treated the Congo. A charter was signed which established Berbice as a hereditary fief of the Dutch West India Company, in the possession of the Van Peere family. Until 1714, the colony remained the personal possession of Van Peere and his descendants. Little is known about the early years of the colony, other than that it succeeded in repelling a British attack in 1665 during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. After being a hereditary fief in the possession of the Van Peere family, the colony was governed by the Society of Berbice in the second half of the colonial period, similar to the neighbouring Dutch colony of Suriname, which was governed by the Society of Suriname. In November 1712, Berbice was briefly occupied by the French under Jacques Cassard, as part of the War of the Spanish Succession. The Van Peere family did not want to pay a ransom to the French to free the colony and in order to not cede the colony to the French, the brothers Nicolaas and Hendrik van Hoorn, Arnold Dix, Pieter Schuurmans, and Cornelis van Peere, paid the ransom on October 24, 1714 and acquired the colony. In 1720, the five owners of the colony founded the Society of Berbice to raise more capital for the colony. In the years following, Berbice's economic situation improved, consisting of 12 plantations owned by the society, 93 private plantations along the Berbice River and 20 plantations along the Canje River. Those plantations were attacked and many destroyed during the year that the Africans were battling to regain their freedom.

With the end of the Revolution the leaders including Akkabre, Atta, Akara, Kwaakko, Baube and Goussari were executed. Many other Africans were killed between March and April 1764, including 40 who were hanged, 24 broken at the wheel and 24 burned to death. Many others were re-enslaved to suffer the inhumane system of chattel slavery. Slavery was eventually abolished on August 1, 1834 with an “apprenticeship” period that lasted until August 1, 1838. Kofi is said to have committed suicide rather than be re-enslaved but since his body was never found it is possible that he escaped to live in Suriname with the Djuka community. The story of Kofi’s heroic deeds was a part of my childhood storytelling and some of my elders insisted that we were descendants of Kofi.

On February 23, 1970 when Guyana became a Republic, the Honourable Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham who was Guyana’s Prime Minister named Kofi (Cuffy) Guyana’s National Hero. The legacy of the African freedom fighters led by Kofi has been immortalized in bronze with the 1763 Monument located in the Square of the Revolution in Georgetown, Guyana. The 1763 Monument honours Kofi and others who held the county of Berbice as free African people for more than a year. The monument unveiled by Burnham on May 23, 1976 was designed by Guyanese sculptor Philip Moore, is 10.1 meters (33 feet) high and is built on a concrete plinth designed by Albert Rodrigues. On Tuesday February 23, 2016 Guyanese will celebrate the Berbice Revolution and Guyana’s National Hero Kofi (Cuffy) and the 253rd year of the Berbice Revolution.

 

 

Copyright © by Murphy Browne