MAY 1 IS INTERNATIONAL WORKERS DAY

Murphy Browne © Thursday May 1-2014


MAY DAY 2014


May 1 is recognized internationally as International Workers Day or in some cases May Day. May 1 is also Labour Day in several countries including Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela.


May 1 as International Workers Day is recognized as the commemoration of the 1886 Haymarket Massacre in Chicago. On May 1, 1886 workers in Chicago held a parade and rally with over 80,000 participants as part of a national strike for an eight-hour work day. According to the Massachusetts American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO): “Over 65,000 workers rallied again in Chicago on May 3rd. This demonstration, like those two days earlier, advocated for workers’ rights and was completely peaceful. Eventually a large group of police officers arrived at the location. They drew their weapons and charged the workers. As the strikers tried to flee the scene, police opened fire. The shots struck men and boys in the back while they attempted to escape. Six were killed in the brutal police action, and many suffered serious injuries. The next day 3,000 people came together in Chicago’s Haymarket Square to protest police violence. Several speakers voiced their disgust at the actions of Chicago’s police force. The demonstrators were not alone as 180 police officers were on the scene, standing in military formation. After several speakers, the police drew their batons and demanded that the demonstrators disperse immediately.”
Stories abound that an agent provocateur planted in the workers ranks threw a bomb at the police which gave the police the excuse to attack the workers. When the dust cleared on the May 4 debacle there were 7 police and 4 workers dead while 70 workers and 60 police were wounded. Eventually 8 labour activists were put on trial for the “Haymarket Riots.” The trial lasted from June 21 to August 11, 1886 and 7 of the men were sentenced to death by hanging while one was sentenced to 15 years in prison. On November 10, 1887 the sentence of two of the men was commuted to life in prison, one of the remaining 5 condemned men committed suicide later that day and on November 11, 1887 the four remaining men were hanged. This is what is commemorated on May 1 as International Workers Day or Labour Day.




As a child growing up in Guyana, May 1 was more than Labour Day and a celebration for workers. There were Labour Day parades but that was not interesting for children. Dressed in our new, special for May Day clothes, we gleefully danced around the Maypole during May Day celebrations as we plaited the colourful ribbons attached to the Maypole. The crowning of the May queen was also a part of the celebration which was replicated across the country in various community centres. Surprisingly, I can remember feeling very proud and pleased looking at the Maypole after we finished plaiting as I saw the intricate pattern we had formed on the pole with the brightly coloured ribbons. The plaiting of the Maypole and the crowning of the May queen are part of the pagan spring rites from the British Isles that became part of British Guianese culture and subsequently Guyanese culture. So in Guyana May Day was also a day when the descendants of enslaved Africans and the descendants of indentured labourers imitated the antics of their former colonizers.




May Day in countries where it is observed as Labour Day, usually is a public holiday to honour workers and celebrate the social and economic achievements of the labour movement. Britain is said to have the oldest trade union movement in Europe, supposedly beginning in the 17th century with the organizing of workers in skilled trades like printing. The idea apparently gained momentum in the early 18th century with more categories of skilled workers, including tailors, shoemakers, weavers and cabinetmakers. Of course, none of these workers saw the irony of them fighting for improved working conditions and wages while the enslavement of Africans was a British institution. Similarly, in Canada, where the first trade union was founded by printers in Quebec City in 1827 White men organizing for better working conditions and wages did not see the irony of keeping a whole group of people working without pay. (Slavery was a Canadian institution until August 1, 1834.)




In the United States, where slavery was abolished on January 31, 1865 with the passing of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, the Mechanics’ Union Trade Association organized skilled workers in 1827. White workers were so incensed at the idea of Africans competing with them for jobs that there were several incidents of African-Americans being lynched and their homes burned. One of the worst cases occurred over a three-day period from May 1 to May 3, 1866 in Memphis, Tennessee. In his 1988 book “Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877” Eric Foner a White American historian wrote of the Memphis Massacre: “It is difficult to say which proved more threatening to local Whites – the large number of impoverished rural freedmen who thronged the streets in search of employment or the considerable group that managed to achieve modest economic success.” (Many of the African American victims were robbed of cash, watches, tools and furniture.) The many documented sources of this period of domestic terrorism against African-Americans emphasize that the victims of these crimes could not expect any help from the White, mostly Irish, police force whose members were, in many cases, also the perpetrators. On May 3, 1866 in the aftermath of the Memphis Massacre, it was documented that White Americans had raped and murdered many African-Americans, and destroyed four churches, 12 schools and 91 homes of African-Americans.



There are fewer recorded incidents of White Canadian workers murdering African Canadians and burning their homes. However, what they may have lacked in quantity, the Canadians made up for it in quality. Beginning on July 26, 1784, African Canadians in Shelburne, Nova Scotia were attacked and had their homes destroyed by their White neighbours. Those who managed to escape the 10-day reign of terror by fleeing to nearby Birchtown, were still the targets of attacks from the White mob, which continued the racially motivated attacks up to one month later. In his 1976 published book “The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone 1783-1870” White Canadian professor James W. St. G. Walker writes about the plight of African Canadian David George who fled to Birchtown: “Along with others of his colour, George sought refuge in Birchtown, but even here they were unsafe. While the force of the riot continued in Shelburne for at least 10 days, incursions into Birchtown were reported for up to one month.” The attacks were blamed on the inability of White men to compete with African Canadians in the job market as employers could exploit the Africans by paying them less than the White men were willing to take as wages. Whether in Canada or the U.S., these attacks were erroneously called race riots when White people attacked communities of Africans. These were not “riots” because one group with superior numbers and weapons was bent on eliminating another group based on skin colour. Competing for jobs may have been used as an excuse but these were racially motivated attacks on clearly outnumbered and vulnerable African communities. If the White people were interested in fighting for jobs, they should have recognized that who they needed to fight were those who could withhold employment or exploit their labour. The Africans in their midst were not in positions of power and were also being exploited by those who held power. The labour movement and worker solidarity has come a long way since those days when Africans in North America were brutalized and murdered because they dared to seek waged employment. Today, Africans in North America are members of unions alongside White co-workers.




Unfortunately although racialized workers pay the same union dues and should have the same access to services and leadership roles in their respective unions, this is not the case. It continues to be a struggle for Africans and other racialized people in the labour movement; hence the need for organizations such as Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU,) Asian Canadian Labour Alliance (ACLA) and Latin American Trade Unionists Coalition (LATUC.) While working in unionized workplaces may offer more security for racialized workers than in workplaces where workers are not organized, racialized workers sometimes do not have the same access to services from their unions as White workers do. Looking at the leadership of the labour movement, from the individual locals to the national bodies, it is quite obvious that we still have a long way to go for equity and equality in the labour movement. We need Employment Equity as much as we need Pay Equity!




Murphy Browne © Thursday May 1-2014

MUHAMMAD ALI APRIL 28-1967

MUHAMMAD ALI APRIL 28-1967


Fifty one years ago on April 28, 1967, African American world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the U.S. Army and was immediately stripped of his heavyweight title. The government of the USA did not give Ali that title, he earned it with skill and grit but the US government felt that they could strip him of his well earned title and they did. Ali, a Muslim, cited religious reasons for his decision to forgo military service.


Murphy Browne © Wednesday June 22-2016


This here’s the story of Cassius Clay
Who changed his name to Muhammad Ali
He knows how to talk and he knows how to fight
And all the contenders were beat out of sight
Muhammad, Muhammad Ali
He floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee
Mohammed, the Black superman
Who calls to the other guy I’m Ali catch me if you can
Now all you fight fans, you’ve got to agree
There ain’t no flies on Muhammad Ali
He fills the arena wherever he goes
And everyone gets what they paid for
Muhammad, was known to have said
You watch me shuffle and I’ll jab off your head
He moves like the Black superman
And calls to the other guy I’m Ali catch me if you can
He says I’m the greatest the world’s ever seen
The heavyweight champion who came back again
My face is so pretty you don’t see a scar
Which proves I’m the king of the ring by far


Excerpt from “Black Superman (Muhammad Ali)” by British singer Johnny Wakelin of Brighton, Sussex, England released in 1974 following the October 30, 1974 boxing match in Kinshasa between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.


The famous heavyweight boxer and civil rights activist Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Marcellus Clay on January 17, 1942 in segregated Louisville, Kentucky. He transitioned on June 3, 2016.
During his 74 years of life, Ali, who renounced the European “slave name” Cassius Marcellus Clay and was given the Arab name Muhammad Ali when he choose Islam over Christianity, was vilified by White America. Ali was never shy about expressing his opinions about the White supremacist culture of America. The morning after he defeated another African-American heavyweight boxer, Sonny Liston, on February 25, 1964 Ali spoke at a Miami Beach press conference where he was asked, “Are you a card carrying member of the Black Muslims”?


Ali’s reply had some White American sport fans almost foaming at the mouth with anger: “I believe in Allah and in peace. I don’t try to move into White neighbourhoods. I don’t want to marry a White woman. I was baptized when I was 12, but I didn’t know what I was doing. I’m not a Christian anymore. I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.”


The following day while speaking at a second press conference Ali expanded on his comments of the day before when he said in part: “Black Muslims is a press word. The real name is Islam. That means peace. Islam is a religion and there are seven hundred and fifty million people all over the world who believe in it, and I’m one of them. I ain’t no Christian. I can’t be when I see all the coloured people fighting for forced integration get blowed up. They get hit by stones and chewed by dogs and they blow up a Negro church and don’t find the killers. I’m the heavyweight champion, but right now there are some neighbourhoods I can’t move into. I know how to dodge booby traps and dogs. I dodge them by staying in my own neighbourhood. I’m no trouble-maker. I never have done anything wrong. I have never been to jail. I have never been in court. I don’t join any integration marches. I don’t carry signs. A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he’ll never crow. I have seen the light and I’m crowing.”


Ali was a marked man from the time he unequivocally declared that he had rejected the role in which White America sought to cast him as a descendant of enslaved Africans who were once treated as property by White America. In Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties, published in 1999, White American writer Mike Marqusee wrote: “Reactions to Clay’s announcement were swift and hostile. The southern-dominated World Boxing Association (WBA) began moves to strip him of his title. His record album, ‘I Am the Greatest’, was pulled from the shelves by Columbia. A scheduled appearance on the Jack Parr ‘television talk’ show was canceled. Endorsement deals evaporated. Senators threatened to mount an investigation into the legality of the Liston fight. The syndicate of Louisville millionaires who sponsored Clay described him as ‘ungrateful.’ With a fine disregard for history, Jimmy Cannon, the doyen of boxing writers, declared that boxing had never before ‘been turned into an instrument of mass hate…Clay is using it as a weapon of wickedness.’


Harry Markson, the head of Madison Square Garden, warned Clay, ‘You don’t use the heavyweight championship of the world to spout religious diatribe. We’ve made so much progress in eliminating colour barriers that it’s a pity we’re now facing such a problem’.”
From there the hate was on for the man who seemed to have no fear of the White power structure of America or elsewhere. Appearing in Britain, Ali reiterated his position when he spoke about the racism to which African-Americans were subjected in the country where their ancestors’ unpaid labour enriched White slave holders.


When Ali made his pronouncements he was barely 22 years old. Today young and not so young African-American sports figures seem to be very reluctant to speak out about the victimization of African-Americans by White police and a White supremacist culture. Young African-Americans who are members of movements like “Black Lives Matter” are not supported by African-American athletes who have a public platform to raise awareness.


Ali, who lived through the turbulent period of African-Americans struggling to assert their humanity in a White supremacist culture had much to lose and did lose much. In today’s culture African-American sports figures seem to fear losing their millionaire status more than their humanity.
Muhammad Ali, who transitioned on June 3, 2016 earned and deserved the title “The Greatest” for more than one reason. We will not see another like him in our lifetime.


Murphy Browne © Wednesday June 22-2016

BUXTON VILLAGE EAST COAST DEMERARA GUYANA

Murphy Browne © April 19-2018


BUXTON VILLAGE EAST COAST DEMERARA GUYANA


In April 1840 Buxton Village was established on the East Coast, Demerara, British Guiana by 128 Africans who had been freed from chattel slavery on August 1st, 1838. The Africans pooled their money and bought a 500-acre plantation, New Orange Nassau from its owner James Archibald Holmes, for $50,000. They named the village Buxton in honour of abolitionist Thomas Fowell Buxton. Buxton was the second village established by Africans in British Guiana. Victoria Village, also on the East Coast of Demerara was purchased in November 1839, by a group of 83 formerly enslaved Africans.


This was an extraordinary achievement for Africans who had been enslaved in British Guiana for centuries (by Dutch and British colonizers.) Slavery in British Guiana ended on August 1st 1834, then a system of “apprenticeship” was instituted for another four years (until August 1st, 1838.) During their “apprenticeship” the Africans were forced to remain on the plantations and work without pay for 40 hours every week and then they were grudgingly paid a pittance for any work they did over 40 hours. The White slave holders and plantation owners were compensated for the loss of their property (by the British crown and government) while the Africans were forced to continue working on the plantations where they had been enslaved. The accumulation of wealth from those extra four years of unpaid work helped to bankroll the millions that were paid to the slaveholders as compensation for losing their human “property.”


Not satisfied with exploiting the labour of the Africans for centuries before August 1st, 1838, the British further marginalized the Africans by inviting European workers to increase the population of White people in British Guiana. In 1835, small groups of English and German farmers were recruited. In 1836, 44 Irish and 47 English labourers immigrated to Guyana and 43 Scottish labourers arrived from Glasgow in 1837. This population of European workers apparently did not survive working in the tropical climate.


Realising that the Africans would not continue working for a pittance after their freedom from chattel slavery, the British put in place a system to undercut the Africans’ access to fair compensation for their labour by importing larger numbers of labourers from Asia and Portugal. On May 3, 1835, 40 indentured labourers arrived from Madeira on the ship “Louisa Baillie” on a two to four year indentureship contract and by the end of 1835, 553 other Madeirans had arrived in British Guiana as indentured labourers contracted to work on various plantations. These labourers were recruited using public money (gained from the unpaid labour of enslaved Africans) made available by the British Government and was used to pay the planters for each immigrant transported to British Guiana. On May 5, 1838 a group of 396 labourers arrived in British Guiana from the Indian subcontinent aboard the “Whitby” and the “Hesperus.” The Indian labourers were encouraged to exchange their return passage to India after their 5 year contracts had expired, for a plot of land and a cow. The indentured labourers from India were encouraged to retain their language and culture unlike the Africans who had been prevented under pain of death from speaking their language, retaining their names or practicing their culture. In 1853 three ships (the Glentanner, the Lord Elgin and the Samuel Boddington) left Amoy in the Fujian Province of China with 1,549 labourers bound for British Guiana.


It is under these conditions that villages were bought, owned and administrated by Africans in various parts of Guyana. It is a testament to the perseverance under very oppressive conditions that these villages survived and even managed to flourish. In 1841, another group of 168 formerly enslaved Africans pooled their money and purchased Friendship, a 500-acre plantation east of Buxton for $80,000 and the two communities merged to form Buxton-Friendship village. The founders laid out housing lots at the front of the village and corresponding farm lands at the back. The villagers built roads, dug drainage trenches and established farms. They also created an administrative body, the Buxton-Friendship Village Council to manage maintenance of the village’s infrastructure and collect property taxes.


In Guyana, Buxtonians are known as proudly independent and courageous people. This reputation was gained early in the history of British Guiana soon after Buxton Village was established. With the establishment of Buxton Village the White people who had formerly dictated every area of the lives of Africans tried every underhanded trick to continue doing so including sabotaging the growth of the recently established village. The Buxtonians survived the deliberate flooding of their farms and other attempts to dislodge them from their homes bought with blood, sweat and tears. The final straw was an unfair taxation of their land by the colonial government. Several attempts to dialogue with the British governor were rebuffed. When news reached the villagers that the governor would be passing by their village as he inspected the recently laid train tracks it was an ideal opportunity to engage the governor in conversation.


As the train approached Buxton, the women of Buxton strode onto the train tracks putting their lives on the line. The men followed when the train was forced to stop. The protestors immobilized the train by applying chains and locks to its wheels which forced the Governor to meet with the villagers. The villagers demanded that the governor listen to their genuine concerns about the exorbitant, unfair taxing of their land and repeal the tax law. Following that impromptu meeting at the train line, surprisingly the governor did repeal the tax. The story of the brave men and women of Buxton is hardly known outside of Guyana. However from the time of the Buxtonians stopping the “Governor’s train” to now they are known as a proud, fiercely independent and courageous people. In 2018 the people of Buxton, East Coast, Demerara, Guyana can be justly proud of their 178 years of history.


Murphy Browne © April 19-2018

UPRISING OF ENSLAVED AFRICANS IN BARBADOS APRIL 14-1816

UPRISING OF ENSLAVED AFRICANS IN BARBADOS APRIL 14-1816


Murphy Browne © Wednesday April 13 2016

“At eight o’clock in the evening, on Easter Sunday, the 14th of April 1816, a heap of cane-thrash was fired on Bayley’s plantation: this was the signal to revolt; it was promptly repeated by the setting on fire the thrash-heaps and cane-fields on every estate in the upper part of the parish of St. Philip. The fearful reality now burst upon the White inhabitants, and they awakened to the peril of their situation. The storm burst upon them wholly unprepared for such an event. The fire spread during the whole night from field to field, from one estate to another.”






Excerpt from The History of Barbados, by Robert Hermann Schomburgk, published 1848.






Robert Hermann Schomburgk was a German who travelled throughout the British colonized areas in the Americas (British Guiana and the Caribbean Islands) and documented his observations. Schomburgk’s account of what is now known as the “Bussa Rebellion” is the first published account of the fourth attempt of enslaved Africans in Barbados to free themselves from chattel slavery.
Unsuccessful attempts had been made in 1649, 1675, 1692 and 1701. The 1649 attempt was the result of enslaved Africans who were overworked and underfed but were expected to work from sunup to sundown and only included two plantations. The second attempt in 1675 was well planned over three years and included the entire island. Unfortunately an enslaved woman named Fortuna informed the White man who owned her. Enslaved Africans were arrested, tortured and executed.






In her 2005 book Sugar: The Grass That Changed the World, South Asian author Sanjida O’Connell writes: “Fortuna warned her master, a planter called Captain Giles Hall, two weeks before the uprising was due to take place. He in turn alerted the governor who asked a dozen officers to look into the allegations. Six slaves were burned alive, eleven others were beheaded and dragged through the streets of Speighstown. A total of 35 men were executed, and Fortuna was rewarded with her freedom.”






Other sources indicate that more than 100 enslaved Africans were killed during the repression of the 1675 uprising. In 1692 enslaved Africans in Barbados again attempted to free themselves of chattel slavery in an island-wide plan; there were hundreds of enslaved Africans involved. When the dust settled more than 200 Africans were arrested and over 90 executed after being found guilty of rebellion. The 1701 uprising ended with an equally brutal response from the British as the uprisings in the 1600s.






Africans had been enslaved by the British on the Caribbean island beginning in 1627. In his 2000 book Denmark Vesey: The Buried History of America’s Largest Slave Rebellion and the Man Who Led It, White American author David M. Robertson wrote about the conditions of enslaved Africans in Barbados and the attitude of the White people who enslaved them: “The slave-generated wealth of Barbados came at an appalling cost in African lives. Throughout the seventeenth century, the island had one of the highest mortality rates for Blacks in the Western Hemisphere and, whether from disease, malnutrition, or torture, more died annually than were imported to work the great sugar plantations. Unlike their English contemporaries in Massachusetts, Barbadians seldom looked inward to their consciences, and so long as the supply of African slaves seemed illimitable, their economy appeared untroubled.”






On Easter Sunday April 14, 1816, the enslaved Africans in Barbados under the leadership of Bussa decided that it was time to seize their freedom. Africans had been enslaved in Barbados by the British since 1627. The island had previously been inhabited by Arawaks who had named the island Ichirouganaim when they arrived from Venezuela in 400 BC; the Caribs in 800 AD.






The first Europeans on the island were the Portuguese who stopped in on their way to Brazil in 1536. The island presumably received its name Los Barbados (bearded ones) from the Portuguese explorer Pedro a Campos because of the island’s fig trees, which have a beard-like appearance. The first British ship arrived on the island on May 14, 1625 under the command of John Powell who “claimed” the island on behalf of the monarch James I and named the area on which he landed Jamestown.






On February 17, 1627, Henry Powell landed with a party of 80 settlers and 10 Africans (“stolen” from a captured Portuguese ship) to occupy and settle the island. This expedition landed in Holetown, formerly named Jamestown. The British established a House of Assembly in 1639. White men and women from Britain who travelled to Barbados were given land to establish cotton and tobacco farms. To establish the cotton and tobacco plantations the British needed the land cleared and since they could not do the required backbreaking work in the sun, Africans were enslaved and forced to do the work. Within a few years much of the land had been cleared by enslaved Africans to allow the establishment of tobacco and cotton plantations.






In 1642 the British in Barbados were introduced to large scale sugar production. A group of Jewish slave holders from Brazil arrived in Barbados with enslaved Africans and knowledge of sugar production and sugarcane became a major crop in Barbados. By 1644 plantations were exporting sugar and Barbados at one point dominated the sugar industry in the Caribbean. The planting, harvesting of sugar cane and production of sugar was labour intensive and enslaved Africans were worked to death within a few years and replaced by others.






Enslaved Africans resisted their enslavement in various ways including malingering, breaking tools, self-inflicted injuries, fleeing and armed insurrection. In Haiti the Africans who had waged a war since 1791 against the French enslavers had successfully expelled the French from the island by January 1, 1804. The African victory in Haiti unsettled Europeans everywhere, including those in Britain and Barbados. In 1807 Britain abolished the slave trade which was supposed to end the practice of taking Africans from the African continent to any British colony. Ending the slave trade did not stop the buying and selling of enslaved Africans in British or any other European colonies. Enslaved Africans were still overworked and brutalized by the British in Barbados and elsewhere.
In November 1815 the Barbados House of Assembly rejected the Imperial Registry Bill which would have registered enslaved Africans to prevent them being sold to other territories and prevent smuggling of enslaved Africans. In her 2014 book Empire’s Crossroads: A History of the Caribbean from Columbus to the present day, White American author Carrie Gibson writes: “The Rebellion arose following a misunderstanding over a bill aimed at changing slave conditions. The slaves thought that they were to be emancipated by Parliament under the Imperial Registry Bill of 1815, which had been drafted in response to the confusion over slavery in Trinidad.”






When the Bill was rejected a group of enslaved Africans led by Bussa began to plan a fight to claim their freedom. Bussa, the recognized leader of the uprising, is believed to have been an Igbo man kidnapped from Nigeria. He was a head-ranger on the Bayley plantation where the uprising began and because of his position wielded some influence among the enslaved on the plantation. The triumph of the Africans from Haiti also seems to have caught the imagination of the Africans in Barbados. According to Gibson: “During the unrest, some slaves thought soldiers from Haiti were going to arrive and help them fight the planters.”






On the night of Good Friday, April 12, 1816, the leaders met to plan the final preparations for Sunday April 14; Bussa and King Wiltshire, a carpenter from Bayley’s estate; Jackey, a coach driver and Nanny Grigg, a senior domestic slave on the neighbouring Simmonds estate and Washington Francklyn, who was a free person of colour. On Sunday night, Bussa gave the signal and led the attack on the Bayley plantation while the leaders on the Simmonds estate did the same.




Approximately 400 enslaved Africans under Bussa’s leadership set fire to houses and cane fields from Bayley’s Plantation in St. Philip and moved to Christ Church, St. George, St. Thomas, St. Lucy and St. Thomas. The White plantation owners were caught by surprise. The Africans advanced across the land until about half of the island was on fire. After four days the British managed to regain control; Bussa was killed in battle.






In June 1816 a White man living in Barbados wrote: “The disposition of the enslaved persons in general is very bad. They are sullen and sulky and seem to cherish feelings of deep revenge. We hold the West Indies by a very precarious tenure – that of military strength only. I would not give a year’s purchase for any island we now have.”






On August 1, 1834, the British abolished slavery with four years of “apprenticeship” which ended on August 1, 1838 with full emancipation. The slave holders were compensated but no African was paid for a lifetime of working without pay to enrich White men and women. In 1985, the Emancipation Statue was erected at the roundabout in St. Michael to honour Bussa. In 1999, Bussa was named a National Hero of Barbados.






In every generation since the African continent was first invaded by the Arabs and then by the Europeans there have been Africans willing to put their lives on the line fighting for freedom. During the hundreds of voyages between Africa and the Americas there were Africans fighting for their freedom. We may never know the numbers or the names but we must know our history of resistance. Today in the 21st century many Africans are still willing to lay their lives and livelihood on the line as they fight carding, racial profiling, White supremacy and racial micro-aggressions.
BLACK LIVES MATTER!




Murphy Browne © Wednesday April 13 2016

UPRISING OF ENSLAVED AFRICANS IN BARBADOS APRIL 14-1816

UPRISING OF ENSLAVED AFRICANS IN BARBADOS APRIL 14-1816

Murphy Browne © Wednesday April 13 2016

“At eight o’clock in the evening, on Easter Sunday, the 14th of April 1816, a heap of cane-thrash was fired on Bayley’s plantation: this was the signal to revolt; it was promptly repeated by the setting on fire the thrash-heaps and cane-fields on every estate in the upper part of the parish of St. Philip. The fearful reality now burst upon the White inhabitants, and they awakened to the peril of their situation. The storm burst upon them wholly unprepared for such an event. The fire spread during the whole night from field to field, from one estate to another.”


Excerpt from The History of Barbados, by Robert Hermann Schomburgk, published 1848.
Robert Hermann Schomburgk was a German who travelled throughout the British colonized areas in the Americas (British Guiana and the Caribbean Islands) and documented his observations. Schomburgk’s account of what is now known as the “Bussa Rebellion” is the first published account of the fourth attempt of enslaved Africans in Barbados to free themselves from chattel slavery.
Unsuccessful attempts had been made in 1649, 1675, 1692 and 1701. The 1649 attempt was the result of enslaved Africans who were overworked and underfed but were expected to work from sunup to sundown and only included two plantations. The second attempt in 1675 was well planned over three years and included the entire island. Unfortunately an enslaved woman named Fortuna informed the White man who owned her. Enslaved Africans were arrested, tortured and executed.


In her 2005 book Sugar: The Grass That Changed the World, South Asian author Sanjida O’Connell writes: “Fortuna warned her master, a planter called Captain Giles Hall, two weeks before the uprising was due to take place. He in turn alerted the governor who asked a dozen officers to look into the allegations. Six slaves were burned alive, eleven others were beheaded and dragged through the streets of Speighstown. A total of 35 men were executed, and Fortuna was rewarded with her freedom.”


Other sources indicate that more than 100 enslaved Africans were killed during the repression of the 1675 uprising. In 1692 enslaved Africans in Barbados again attempted to free themselves of chattel slavery in an island-wide plan; there were hundreds of enslaved Africans involved. When the dust settled more than 200 Africans were arrested and over 90 executed after being found guilty of rebellion. The 1701 uprising ended with an equally brutal response from the British as the uprisings in the 1600s.


Africans had been enslaved by the British on the Caribbean island beginning in 1627. In his 2000 book Denmark Vesey: The Buried History of America’s Largest Slave Rebellion and the Man Who Led It, White American author David M. Robertson wrote about the conditions of enslaved Africans in Barbados and the attitude of the White people who enslaved them: “The slave-generated wealth of Barbados came at an appalling cost in African lives. Throughout the seventeenth century, the island had one of the highest mortality rates for Blacks in the Western Hemisphere and, whether from disease, malnutrition, or torture, more died annually than were imported to work the great sugar plantations. Unlike their English contemporaries in Massachusetts, Barbadians seldom looked inward to their consciences, and so long as the supply of African slaves seemed illimitable, their economy appeared untroubled.”


On Easter Sunday April 14, 1816, the enslaved Africans in Barbados under the leadership of Bussa decided that it was time to seize their freedom. Africans had been enslaved in Barbados by the British since 1627. The island had previously been inhabited by Arawaks who had named the island Ichirouganaim when they arrived from Venezuela in 400 BC; the Caribs in 800 AD.


The first Europeans on the island were the Portuguese who stopped in on their way to Brazil in 1536. The island presumably received its name Los Barbados (bearded ones) from the Portuguese explorer Pedro a Campos because of the island’s fig trees, which have a beard-like appearance. The first British ship arrived on the island on May 14, 1625 under the command of John Powell who “claimed” the island on behalf of the monarch James I and named the area on which he landed Jamestown.


On February 17, 1627, Henry Powell landed with a party of 80 settlers and 10 Africans (“stolen” from a captured Portuguese ship) to occupy and settle the island. This expedition landed in Holetown, formerly named Jamestown. The British established a House of Assembly in 1639. White men and women from Britain who travelled to Barbados were given land to establish cotton and tobacco farms. To establish the cotton and tobacco plantations the British needed the land cleared and since they could not do the required backbreaking work in the sun, Africans were enslaved and forced to do the work. Within a few years much of the land had been cleared by enslaved Africans to allow the establishment of tobacco and cotton plantations.


In 1642 the British in Barbados were introduced to large scale sugar production. A group of Jewish slave holders from Brazil arrived in Barbados with enslaved Africans and knowledge of sugar production and sugarcane became a major crop in Barbados. By 1644 plantations were exporting sugar and Barbados at one point dominated the sugar industry in the Caribbean. The planting, harvesting of sugar cane and production of sugar was labour intensive and enslaved Africans were worked to death within a few years and replaced by others.


Enslaved Africans resisted their enslavement in various ways including malingering, breaking tools, self-inflicted injuries, fleeing and armed insurrection. In Haiti the Africans who had waged a war since 1791 against the French enslavers had successfully expelled the French from the island by January 1, 1804. The African victory in Haiti unsettled Europeans everywhere, including those in Britain and Barbados. In 1807 Britain abolished the slave trade which was supposed to end the practice of taking Africans from the African continent to any British colony. Ending the slave trade did not stop the buying and selling of enslaved Africans in British or any other European colonies. Enslaved Africans were still overworked and brutalized by the British in Barbados and elsewhere.
In November 1815 the Barbados House of Assembly rejected the Imperial Registry Bill which would have registered enslaved Africans to prevent them being sold to other territories and prevent smuggling of enslaved Africans. In her 2014 book Empire’s Crossroads: A History of the Caribbean from Columbus to the present day, White American author Carrie Gibson writes: “The Rebellion arose following a misunderstanding over a bill aimed at changing slave conditions. The slaves thought that they were to be emancipated by Parliament under the Imperial Registry Bill of 1815, which had been drafted in response to the confusion over slavery in Trinidad.”


When the Bill was rejected a group of enslaved Africans led by Bussa began to plan a fight to claim their freedom. Bussa, the recognized leader of the uprising, is believed to have been an Igbo man kidnapped from Nigeria. He was a head-ranger on the Bayley plantation where the uprising began and because of his position wielded some influence among the enslaved on the plantation. The triumph of the Africans from Haiti also seems to have caught the imagination of the Africans in Barbados. According to Gibson: “During the unrest, some slaves thought soldiers from Haiti were going to arrive and help them fight the planters.”


On the night of Good Friday, April 12, 1816, the leaders met to plan the final preparations for Sunday April 14; Bussa and King Wiltshire, a carpenter from Bayley’s estate; Jackey, a coach driver and Nanny Grigg, a senior domestic slave on the neighbouring Simmonds estate and Washington Francklyn, who was a free person of colour. On Sunday night, Bussa gave the signal and led the attack on the Bayley plantation while the leaders on the Simmonds estate did the same.


Approximately 400 enslaved Africans under Bussa’s leadership set fire to houses and cane fields from Bayley’s Plantation in St. Philip and moved to Christ Church, St. George, St. Thomas, St. Lucy and St. Thomas. The White plantation owners were caught by surprise. The Africans advanced across the land until about half of the island was on fire. After four days the British managed to regain control; Bussa was killed in battle.


In June 1816 a White man living in Barbados wrote: “The disposition of the enslaved persons in general is very bad. They are sullen and sulky and seem to cherish feelings of deep revenge. We hold the West Indies by a very precarious tenure – that of military strength only. I would not give a year’s purchase for any island we now have.”


On August 1, 1834, the British abolished slavery with four years of “apprenticeship” which ended on August 1, 1838 with full emancipation. The slave holders were compensated but no African was paid for a lifetime of working without pay to enrich White men and women. In 1985, the Emancipation Statue was erected at the roundabout in St. Michael to honour Bussa. In 1999, Bussa was named a National Hero of Barbados.


In every generation since the African continent was first invaded by the Arabs and then by the Europeans there have been Africans willing to put their lives on the line fighting for freedom. During the hundreds of voyages between Africa and the Americas there were Africans fighting for their freedom. We may never know the numbers or the names but we must know our history of resistance. Today in the 21st century many Africans are still willing to lay their lives and livelihood on the line as they fight carding, racial profiling, White supremacy and racial micro-aggressions.
BLACK LIVES MATTER!


Murphy Browne © Wednesday April 13 2016

JULIUS KAMBARAGE NYERERE

Murphy Browne © April 12-2018


JULIUS KAMBARAGE NYERERE 


Kambarage Nyerere, the first President of Tanzania, was born in Butiama, Tanganyika on April 13, 1922. He would later add Julius to his name when he converted to Catholicism. At the time of Nyere’s birth the country was a British colony. Just a few years before Nyerere was born (1885 - May 7, 1919) the East African country was a German colony, German East Africa and included modern day Burundi and Rwanda. This area of 994,996 square kilometres (384,170 square miles) was three times larger than Germany.




Although the Europeans seized African territory beginning mostly in the 1800s, they were not the first colonizers who had seized African land from the Africans. The Arabs had been ahead of the Europeans by several centuries. The Arabs had left Oman, “an Arab country on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia” officially known as the Sultanate of Oman and seized and colonized vast areas of East Africa. In 1698, Zanzibar, Tanzania became part of the overseas holdings of Oman under the control of the Sultan of Oman. A ruling Arab elite was established and with the forced unpaid labour of enslaved Africans the ruling elite was enriched with the development of plantations.




In the 1800s when the European enslavement of Africans in the Caribbean, Central America, North America and South America was forced to end, the Europeans turned their attention once more to the African continent. Following the three month (November 15, 1884 – February 26, 1885) “Berlin Conference” also known as the Scramble for Africa where a group of White men representing 14 countries parcelled out African land among themselves, the German Empire “established” German East Africa. When the Arab Sultan of Zanzibar objected, the Germans threatened to bombard his palace with their warships. Faced with the might of the Germans who were backed by other European tribes, the Sultan was forced to acquiesce. Britain and their German cousins then agreed to divide the area between them.




In the Guyana of my youth there was a local saying that would describe this situation: “Teef from teef mek Gawd laff.” I cannot be sure that the God of either the Arabs or the Europeans was laughing at the Europeans stealing African land from the Arabs who had stolen the land from the Africans in the first place but the Africans were not laughing. They were once again at the mercy of interlopers who stole and colonized their land and forced them into subservient positions in their own land. This covetousness was backed by the almighty machine gun which had been developed in 1884. Described as “the first practical self-powered machine gun” and "the weapon most associated with the British imperial conquest" the invention of the machine gun is credited to White American inventor Hiram Maxim. At the end of the first European tribal conflict (1914-1918) the Supreme Council of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference (May 7, 1919) awarded German East Africa to their British cousins. The British named their newly acquired African territory "Tanganyika."




It was in this colonial situation that the man who would eventually become known as Baba wa Taifa, “Father of the Nation” was born. Nyerere was born the son of the Zanaki chief Nyerere Burito. Julius Kambarage Nyerere completed his primary and secondary education in Tanganyika and then attended Makerere University in Uganda before attending Edinburgh University in Scotland. He obtained a Masters of Arts degree in Economics and History in 1952 from Edinburgh University. Nyerere left Britain and arrived in Dar Es Salaam in October 1952. He married Maria Gabriel Majige on January 24, 1953 and was offered the position of history teacher at St Francis' College in Pugu. While teaching history at St Francis' College Nyerere was also involved in political activism and was elected president of the Tanganyika African Association (TAA.) As leader of the TAA Nyerere advocated for the independence of Tanganyika from the British Empire. On July 7, 1954 the name of the party was changed to Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) and Nyerere was elected the first president of TANU. Consequently the Roman Catholic leadership asked him to choose between teaching at their school and continuing his political work. Nyerere decided to resign his teaching position and continue his political work.




In 1958 Nyerere made a presentation to the United Nations Organization (UNO) about independence of Tanganyika from British colonization. Independence was granted on December 9, 1961 and Nyerere became the first Prime Minister of Tanganyika. On December 9, 1962, Nyerere was elected the first President of the Republic of Tanganyika. When Tanganyika and Zanzibar united to form the United Republic of Tanzania on April 26, 1964, Nyerere became the first President of Tanzania.
Nyerere proposed the philosophy of Ujamaa to establish self-sufficient communities in Tanzania. He advocated the political, social and economic ideals that inspired African socialism and the idea of an end to economic dependence and systemic underdevelopment. Nyerere is a symbol of African freedom because he advocated and supported the liberation of the continent from colonial rule. Julius Kambarage Nyerere who transitioned to the ancestral realm on October 14, 1999 would have been 96 years old on April 13-2018.


Murphy Browne © April 12-2018