Today,
February 23-2019 Guyanese are celebrating the 49th year of Guyana
becoming the Cooperative Republic of Guyana. On February 23-1970 independent
country Guyana (formerly British Guiana until May 26-1966) became a Republic.
On becoming a Republic, Guyanese celebrated with the Mashramani Festival.
Murphy
Browne © 2013
KOFI GUYANESE NATIONAL HERO
On
February 23, 1763 a group of enslaved Africans in Berbice, Guyana seized their
freedom from the Dutch men and women who for more than a century had kept them
enslaved as an unpaid workforce. At the time Guyana was a Dutch colony occupied
by men and women from the Netherlands who bought, sold and brutalized enslaved
Africans. As a child growing up in Berbice, Guyana I heard stories from my
elders about the brutality and barbarism of the Dutch slaveholders who they
deemed worse than the British. Not that the British were not brutal and
barbaric in their treatment of enslaved Africans but the elders were unanimous
in their condemnation of the Dutch as worse. From the pen of the Dutch governor
of Berbice Wolfert Simon van Hoogenheim: “On 14 April 1764 Rebel Pikenini
captured I listened in the greatest astonishment as his captors explained why
his back had been cut up hanging in pieces. They stated that just to amuse
themselves they had cut his back up with a saw.” George Pinckard a doctor
visiting Demerara in 1796 described his observation of a Dutch woman
brutalising an enslaved African man: “We suddenly heard the loud cries of a
Negro smarting under the whip. Mrs ____ expressed surprise on observing me
shudder at his shrieks and you will believe that I was in utter astonishment to
find her treat his sufferings as matter of amusement.”
It
is not surprising given the barbarity of the slaveholders that the enslaved
Africans in Berbice decided as a group to seize their freedom. The story as
told in many history books identifies the Africans as “rebels” instead of
freedom fighters and their struggle as a “rebellion” instead of a revolution.
It is interesting to note the words used by Henry G. Dalton, a British author who,
in 1855, published two volumes of “The History of British Guiana, Comprising
General Description of the Colony.” Writing of the Berbice Revolution, which
started on February 23, 1763 and lasted until March 1764, Dalton notes: “1763,
a terrible insurrection burst out, which convulsed the whole colony, and
threatened its very existence.” Some writers have tried to position the freedom
fighters of the Berbice Revolution as a group of disorganized Africans who were
forever squabbling with each other. However, even Dalton in his telling of the
story acknowledges that “the Negroes had organized themselves into a regular
government, had established a complete system of military discipline, and had
chosen Cuffy, a young slave of courage and judgment, as their governor.” Kofi
whose name has been distorted and Anglicized as “Cuffy” for generations was an
Akan man from the area of modern-day Ghana. His name identifies him as an Akan
male who was born on a Friday. He was chosen as the leader of the revolution
and the African governor of Berbice on par with the Dutch governor van
Hoogenheim with whom he corresponded during negotiations for the freedom of the
enslaved Africans. This correspondence was one of the reasons the Africans were
not successful in gaining their complete freedom. While Kofi was negotiating
with van Hoogenheim in good faith, the Dutch governor was biding his time until
he could gain reinforcements to destroy the Revolution and the Africans.
The
Africans were superior in numbers and could have crushed the Dutch and either
driven them out of what is now Guyana or exterminated the lot of them. The
Dutch did not hesitate to brutally suppress the Revolution and displayed
extreme barbarity in destroying the revolutionaries when their reinforcements
arrived in the region. At the time of the Revolution on February 23, 1763 there
were in the entire colony of Berbice (which at the time was separate from
Demerara and Essequibo) 346 White residents and 3,833 enslaved Africans.
Imagine if those Africans had done to the Whites what the White population
eventually did to the Africans. Africans in Guyana would have been completely
free since 1763. At least by the end of April 1763 the colony would have been
free of the White enslavers. However, while the Africans were negotiating in
good faith, the Europeans were marking time until troops from neighbouring
French, Dutch and British colonies arrived. Once reinforcement arrived in the
colony and the Europeans regained control of Berbice many of the Africans were
brutally killed as a warning. Forty were hanged, 24 broken on the wheel and 24
were burned to death. Some fled to neighbouring Suriname while others were
re-enslaved, but Kofi was never captured. Many of the Africans preferred to die
fighting, rather than surrender and become re-enslaved.
The
occupation and settlement of Guiana began in earnest with the founding of the
Dutch West India Company which was chartered in 1621and through this company
the Dutch were encouraged to settle in numbers first in Essequibo, Guyana.
There were Dutch settlers in the region before the founding of the Dutch West
India Company. For instance, in 1613 a group of Spaniards surprised the members
of a Dutch settlement on the Courentyne in Berbice and destroyed that
settlement. To ensure the successful operation of their plantations the Dutch
were involved in the kidnapping and transporting of enslaved Africans to their
colonies in the New World which included Guiana. The Dutch had been involved in
the trading of Africans for a few years before they established the colony in
Guiana. In 1598, the Dutch began building forts along the West African coast in
competition with the Portuguese. In 1637, they captured ElMina from the
Portuguese. Members of other European tribes including the Danes, English,
Spanish and Swedes, also became involved in the exploitation of Africa and
Africans. It eventually became a free-for-all with the Europeans fighting each
other for the opportunity to make their fortunes on the backs of Africans.
The
Africans resisted their enslavement in various ways from the time they were
captured on the African continent and continuing with struggles on board
several slave ships. Once they were transported to the plantations, they
continued the struggle for freedom including fleeing the plantations and
establishing Maroon communities. The Dutch expeditions to capture the members
of these Maroon communities were also exercises in displaying the barbarity of
the White colonisers. A visitor to Guiana in 1796 wrote of witnessing the
capture and destruction of some of the Maroons in what is now the capital city
Georgetown: “Most of the ringleaders were taken and brought to Stabroek, where
they were afterwards tried and executed. One in particular Amsterdam was
subjected to the most shocking torture, in the hope of compelling him to give
information but in vain. He was sentenced to be burnt alive, first having his
flesh torn from his limbs with red hot pincers; and in order to render his
punishment still more terrible, he was compelled to sit by and see thirteen
others broken upon the wheel and hung and then, in being conducted to
execution, was made to walk over the thirteen dead bodies of his comrades.
Being fastened to an iron stake to be burnt alive. When the destructive pile was
set in flames, his body spun round the iron stake with mouth open, until his
head fell back, life extinguished.”
In
spite of the White slaveholders’ attempts to keep enslaved Africans docile and
oppressed through such barbaric acts the Africans continued to resist. Although
the Revolution which began on February 23, 1763 in Berbice is the most
well-known because of its extent and the longevity it was by no means the sole
attempt by Africans in Guiana to seize their freedom. There were actions in
Demerara and Essequibo by Africans determined to be free of chattel slavery.
Today Guyana is a Republic having gained its political independence from
Britain on Thursday, May 26, 1966 under the leadership of then Prime Minister
the Honourable Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham. The country which encompasses the
former Dutch colonies of Berbice, Demerara and Essequibo later (taken from the
Dutch 1814 became one colony in 1831) the British colony of British Guiana
became the Co-operative Republic of Guyana on February 23, 1970 on the 207th
anniversary of the Berbice Revolution. Guyana which is located on the northeast
of the South American continent is the only South American country where
English is the official language. Slavery was abolished on August 1, 1834 but
after four years of “apprenticeship” the Africans were finally free on August
1, 1838. Guyana is known as the Land of Six Peoples which includes Africans
(kidnapped, enslaved and taken to Guyana by the Dutch beginning in the 1600s)
Amerindians (the native people of Guyana) Chinese (immigrated as indentured
labourers from January 12, 1853 aboard the SS Glentanner) East Indians
(immigrated as indentured labourers from May 1, 1838 aboard SS Whitby and SS
Hesperus) Europeans (first the Dutch1600s, then the British seized the
territory 1800s) Portuguese (immigrated as indentured labourers from May 3,
1835 aboard SS Louisa Baillie.) The nation celebrates February 23 Republic Day
with a Mashramani celebration reminiscent of Trinidad’s Carnival and Toronto’s
Caribana. It would be helpful if the Berbice Revolution was also recognized on
that day.
Murphy
Browne © 2013
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