MASHRAMANI FEBRUARY 23-2020

Murphy Browne © February 22-2020


MASHRAMANI FEBRUARY 2020

On February 23-2020 the people of Guyana will celebrate 50 years of Republic status. February 23 was chosen because on February 23, 1763 a group of Africans in the Dutch colony of Berbice, (modern day county in Guyana) South America seized their freedom in what was the first uprising of enslaved people in Guyana. The Africans decided that they had had enough of being treated inhumanely by the Dutch colonizers and enslavers of the area. The Africans had been kidnapped from their homes and transported across the Atlantic under barbaric and horrific conditions in the holds of ships manned by White Christians who claimed to worship a God of love. When later these Africans were told of hell as imagined by White Christian missionaries, they could very well imagine that it would be comparable to their journey from Africa to the New World. Kofi, an Akan man born in Ghana is the recognized leader of what many consider the first Revolutionary War of Independence in the Americas, which was waged in the Dutch colony of Berbice, South America from February 1763 to March 1764.

On February 23, 1970 the former British Guiana became the Co-operative Republic of Guyana. Guyana had gained its independence from Britain on May 26, 1966 but became a republic on the 207th anniversary of the beginning of the Berbice Revolution. Kofi, who had worked as a “house slave,” (so much for the myth of the docile “house slave”) and his lieutenants struck their first blow for freedom. To put the lie to the myth of the docile “house slave” Kofi is one of several enslaved Africans who led their people in their fight for freedom; Toussaint L’Overture who is one of the leaders of the Haitian Revolution was also a “house slave.” 

It is important to recognize that enslaved Africans had no choice in where they were forced to labour. Africans had no say in which positions they were put to work; so being forced to work in “Massa’s” house or “Massa’s” fields, was never an indication of the enslaved African’s state of mind. So, whether it was as a domestic worker or a field worker could not determine the feelings of an African towards their unfortunate state of captivity. It has been surmised that Kofi was captured from his home in Ghana as a child and taken to the Dutch colony of Berbice. This is not surprising since the Dutch had been involved in the European slave trade from Ghana since 1598 in competition with the Portuguese.

On February 23, 1763 Kofi led the Berbice group of enslaved Africans in what would become a yearlong struggle that they almost won except that they trusted that the Dutch were engaging in talks that would lead to a negotiated settlement. The Dutch however were biding their time, waiting for military reinforcements while engaging in a meaningless negotiation process. The Africans with superior numbers could have effortlessly wiped out the Dutch but they trusted the manipulating, underhanded Europeans. When the reinforcements arrived, the Dutch struck, cruelly and mercilessly slaughtering the Africans. Kofi (his name Anglicized to Cuffy) was never captured and is the National Hero of Guyana. 

His legacy has been immortalized in bronze with the 1763 Monument located in the Square of the Revolution in Georgetown, Guyana which depicts Kofi with his lieutenants Atta, Akara, Accabre and other Africans who held the county of Berbice as free African people for one year. The monument was unveiled by former Guyanese President Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham on May 23-1976. The monument designed by sculptor Philip Moore is 10.1 meters (33 feet) high and is built on a concrete plinth designed by Albert Rodrigues. The celebration of Guyana’s Republic status includes the Mashramani parade which is similar to Toronto’s Caribana parade. 

The first Mashramani celebration took place in 1970, on Arvida Road, Mackenzie, now Republic Avenue, Linden. The following year, President Forbes Burnham, acknowledging the leadership of the community, wrote: “I congratulate the community of Mackenzie, Wismar and Christianburg not only for having presented one of the most comprehensive programmes for the first anniversary celebrations but also for having provided the title for the celebrations – MASHRAMANI.” Guyanese celebrating Republic Day and Mashramani 2020, acknowledge Kofi and the Berbice Revolution.

Murphy Browne © February 22-2020

FREDERICK DOUGLASS FEBRUARY 14-1818

FREDERICK DOUGLASS FEBRUARY 14

Murphy Browne © February 14-2020

Frederick Douglass claimed February 14th as his birthday because his mother called him her “little valentine.” As an enslaved African he did not have access to a record of his birth date. Douglass was also one of the few formerly enslaved Africans who wrote an autobiography. Douglass had to choose a birthday because like many enslaved Africans he had no written record of his date of birth. In his autobiography “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,” which was published in 1845, Douglass wrote: “I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time, harvest- time, cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time. A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege.” With such “radical and revolutionary thoughts” even as a young child it is not surprising that Douglass as a 16 year soundly thrashed a brutal slave holder (to whom he had been sent to be “broken”) and eventually made his escape to freedom.

 

In his autobiography Douglass wrote about the horrors of slavery he had witnessed as a child as an adult. Douglass wrote about witnessing his aunt being brutalized by the White man who enslaved many of his relatives: “He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin.” Douglass’ autobiography was used by abolitionists and the anti-slavery movement in which he was very actively involved. He is credited with playing a major role in the eventual abolition of slavery in the USA. 

Douglass (February 14, 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an abolitionist, human rights and women’s rights advocate. He was definitely a man before his time. When the history of the abolition movement is written the heroes are invariably White. Not surprising as Chinua Achebe, the late Igbo author is famous for this quote: “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” Fortunately, Douglass wrote his autobiography and much of his work is archived at the American Library of Congress. It is important for us to know our history not only during February but very day. Because our names and languages were taken away from us during the centuries of enslavement many Africans in the Diaspora are lost and disconnected. Now is a good time to start reconnecting. Attend African History events and read, read, read!!

During African Heritage Month, there are significant people and milestones we can commemorate/remember. Similar to the story of Douglass and many other enslaved Africans in the USA, in Canada there is also a history of resistance by enslaved Africans. Those enslaved Africans in Canada were also brutalized and their owners sought to get rid of them by selling them. The well-known advertisement of the sale of Peggy Pompadour and her son Jupiter is a case in point. Peggy and her children were owned by Peter Russell (he replaced John Graves Simcoe in 1796 as the top politician in Ontario) and his sister Elizabeth. Russell placed an advertisement dated February 10, 1806 in an Upper Canada (Ontario) publication offering for sale Peggy Pompadour and her son Jupiter. Elizabeth Russell wrote in her diary about her dissatisfaction with the enslaved Pompadour family. Elizabeth Russell thought that Peggy, her daughters and her son Jupiter were not subservient enough to match their role as enslaved people. This is documented in several books including “The Freedom Seekers” published 1981, “We're rooted here and they can't pull us up: essays in African Canadian Women's History,” published 1994, “The Underground Railroad: Next Stop Toronto,” published 2002 and “The Hanging of Angelique: The untold story of Canadian slavery,” published 2006. In “The Hanging of Angelique,” the author Dr Afua Cooper writes about the experience of the enslaved Pompadour family: “Peggy, the mother of three children Milly, Amy, and Jupiter, and the wife of a free black man named Pompadour, was a disobedient and recalcitrant slave who bucked the Russells’ authority by talking back to them and running away whenever she felt like it. Jupiter, her son, was also a runaway and “disobedient.” Cooper also notes that even though Peter Russell was a slave holder in Upper Canada: “He behaved like a typical American slaveholder: he separated families if he saw fit, he punished and imprisoned his slaves, and when they would not “obey” he sold them.”

Usually when slavery is mentioned in Canadian history it is about enslaved Africans fleeing slavery from the USA to freedom in Canada. Hardly a word about slavery as a Canadian institution from the 1600s until August 1, 1834 when it was abolished here. Although our history did not begin with slavery, the enslavement of our people is part of our history that cannot be ignored because the consequences are felt to this day. The fact that African Canadians are only 2.5 per cent of the Canadian population yet are approximately 20 % of the federal prison population bears testament to the legacy of slavery. Racial profiling is a legacy of slavery. According to the “Colour of Poverty” campaign http://www.colourofpoverty.ca/  their research has unearthed that: African-Canadian students in Toronto are four times more likely to be stopped and eight times more likely to be searched than white students in the same places. • In a large sample of Toronto youth who had no police records, more than 50 per cent of blacks had been searched by police in the previous two years, compared to only eight per cent of whites. • A study in Kingston showed that police were 3.7 times more likely to stop black people. • In Ontario, black suspects are 5.5 times more likely to be killed or seriously injured from police use of force than white suspects, and they are 10 times more likely to be shot by police.

The perceptions of Africans that were established during the days when our ancestors were enslaved are still in the minds of many of those who are in authority today. That is why we have seen a 52% increase in the incarceration rate of African Canadians since 2000. Many of our youth are captured and held in the prison industrial complex, with that experience beginning for some of them at the tender age of 12 years, before they even have an opportunity to live. Many of them are also failed by the education system where racial profiling is a reality. In spite of this, some manage to survive just as our ancestors found ways and means of surviving the brutality of chattel slavery. Statistics Canada under the heading “The African Community in Canada” has acknowledged: “Those in the African community in Canada are somewhat more likely than the rest of the population to be university graduates. In 2001, 19% of African people aged 15 and over were university graduates, compared with 15% of those in the overall adult population. Yet the same study also found that: Canadians of African descent are generally more likely to be unemployed than those in the overall workforce. In 2001, 13.1% of African labour force participants were unemployed, compared with 7.4% of all labour force participants.” While reading that study, I was reminded of the infamous “ghetto dude” incident of 2007 summer when Evon Reid a young African Canadian University of Toronto Honours student was cavalierly dismissed when he applied for a position with the provincial government. His qualifications were not important; his race was the deciding factor. And just imagine this was happening in the midst of what remains of the British Empire (of which Canada is a member) commemorating the 200th anniversary (1807-2007) of the abolition of its slave trade.

However, in spite of the trials and tribulations here we are still standing as the Honourable Nesta Robert “Bob” Marley (whose birthday is celebrated on February 6) sang on his song Survival released in 1979 on the album also titled Survival: We’re the survivors, yes, the Black survivors.

Murphy Browne © February 14-2020

SELLING PEGGY AND JUPITER: FEBRUARY 10, 1806

Murphy Browne © February 10-2020

Two hundred and fourteen years ago, on February 10-1806, Peter Russell, who was the successor of his friend and colleague Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, advertised for sale, Peggy Pompadour, a 40 year old enslaved African woman and her 15 year old son, Jupiter.

SELLING PEGGY AND JUPITER: FEBRUARY 10, 1806

TO BE SOLD

A BLACK WOMAN, named Peggy, aged about forty years; and a Black boy her son, named JUPITER aged about fifteen years, both of them the property of the subscriber.

The woman is a tolerable cook and washer woman and perfectly understands making soap and candles.

The boy is tall and strong of his age, and has been employed in County business, but brought up principally as a House Servant - They are each of them Servants for life. The price for the Woman is one hundred and fifty Dollars - for the Boy two hundred Dollars, payable in three years with interest from the day of Sale and to be properly secured by Bond &c. - But one fourth less will be taken in ready Money.

PETER RUSSELL

York, Feb. 10th, 1806

Peter Russell was the successor of his friend and colleague Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe. When ill health forced Simcoe to leave Upper Canada (Ontario), Russell was appointed the provincial administrator. Russell was a member of the Executive Council of Ontario and the “Family Compact” (small group of officials who dominated the executive and legislative councils, senior bureaucratic positions and the judiciary of Upper Canada until the 1830s) before he was appointed provincial administrator in July 1796. He remained acting in the position of administrator until 1799 when Simcoe's permanent replacement, Lieutenant Governor (Peter Hunter) was appointed. Russell and his sister Elizabeth were also slave owners who for many years enslaved Peggy, her son Jupiter and her two daughters, Amy and Milly, even though Peggy was married to a free African Canadian man, Mr. Pompadour. The law designated that children born of enslaved African women were also enslaved at birth even if (as in many cases) the children were sired by the white owners of the enslaved women. Since Peggy was the property of Peter Russell and his sister Elizabeth, her children at birth automatically became the Russell’s property.

Peggy occasionally practiced what Dr Verene Shepherd in her book “I Want To Disturb My Neighbour: Lectures on Slavery, Emancipation and Postcolonial Jamaica” terms “petticoat rebellion.” Dr. Shepherd writes that the term was first used by Matthew Gregory Lewis, the owner of Cornwall estate in western Jamaica in a January 26, 1816 entry in his diary as he described the resistance of an enslaved African woman who when confronted by an abusive overseer on the plantation: “flew at his throat, and endeavoured to strangle him.” Although Peggy Pompadour in Upper Canada was never accused of physically defending herself or her children against the brutal slave system they endured, she and her son were accused of and were punished for being “insolent.” Peggy and Jupiter occasionally left the Russell’s property to assert some form of ownership over their own bodies, as a form of their resistance to their enslavement. On one occasion a notice from Peter Russell appeared on September 2, 1803 in the Upper Canada Gazette stating: "The subscriber’s black servant Peggy not having his permission to absent herself from his service, the public are hereby cautioned from employing or harbouring her without the owner’s leave. Whoever will do so after this notice may expect to be treated as the law directs." 

The lives of Peggy, Jupiter and Peggy’s younger children Amy and Milly were not an anomaly in Canada. Even though Canada was the destination of thousands of enslaved Africans fleeing their enslaved status in the USA, slavery was also practiced in Canada. The first named enslaved African to reside in Canada was a six-year old boy who was kidnapped from his home in Madagascar and was first owned by David Kirke in 1628. The child was sold several times, was baptized Catholic and given the name Olivier Le Jeune; one of his owners was Father Paul Le Jeune. There is no record of the African name of the kidnapped and enslaved child renamed Olivier Le Jeune by his enslavers.

The infamous 1806 advertisement offering Peggy and Jupiter Pompadour for sale is proof that slavery was a Canadian institution. Although our history did not begin with slavery the enslavement of our ancestors is very much a part of our history and affects how the descendants of those enslaved Africans are treated today wherever they live. It affects how they think, how they behave how they view themselves and others who look like them. It also affects how they are treated in places like Canada where the people in power are White and their mindset is influenced by that history. Slavery in Canada was just as brutal and dreadful as slavery in Brazil, Cuba or the USA. Enslaved Africans were sold away from their families, were beaten to death, enslaved women were raped by their owners, their owners’ relatives, colleagues and friends. Thomas Thistlewood documented his systematic rape of enslaved African females on his plantation in Jamaica. His diary was published in the book “In Miserable Slavery: Thomas Thistlewood in Jamaica 1750-1786” by Douglas Hall. Thistlewood like Russell left England to seek his fortune in the “colonies.” While he went to Jamaica, Russell came to Canada. Unlike Thistlewood, Russell did not leave a diary of his abuse of the Africans he held in slavery; although his sister Elizabeth did keep a diary of sorts (housed at the Baldwin Room, Toronto Public Library.) In her 2007 published book “The Hanging of Angelique: The Untold story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal,” Dr Afua Cooper surmises on page 96; “Who knows what was going on in the Russell household that led Peggy to run from it. Was she sexually abused by either owner? It seems that her relationship with Elizabeth Russell in particular was strained.” Enslaved Africans were regularly advertised for sale in the Upper Canada Gazette. When Peter Russell died in 1808, his sister Elizabeth inherited his property including the Pompadour family, Peggy and her children. Elizabeth Russell eventually gave away Peggy’s child Amy to her goddaughter Elizabeth Denison as a gift. 

One of the most well-known life stories of an enslaved person in Canada is that of Marie Joseph Angelique. Her life story is documented in Dr. Afua Cooper’s 2007 published book “The Hanging of Angelique: The Untold story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal.” Marie Joseph Angelique was an enslaved African woman who had been born in Portugal but sold a few times before ending up in Montreal as the property of Quebecois merchant Francois Poulin de Francheville and his wife. After his death de Francheville’s widow planned to sell Angelique again. She had already been sold from her birthplace in Portugal, to the USA then to New France (Quebec.) In the space of a few short years she had to learn English (in the USA) and French (in Quebec). Enslaved people were brutally beaten when they did not understand the language of their enslavers and needed time to decipher instructions, commands and demands made in the strange new language. Angelique was accused of setting fire to her owner's home to cover her attempted escape from the de Francheville widow on April 10, 1734. Raging out of control the fire destroyed forty-six buildings. Angelique fled during the commotion of the efforts to contain the blaze but she was hunted and captured. She was tried, found guilty and sentenced to have her hand cut off before being burned alive. The sentence was reduced to hanging and burning. On June 21, 1734, she was tortured until she confessed, she was driven through the streets of Montreal in a rubbish cart, then publicly executed by hanging, her body was burned and her ashes scattered in Montreal. She was 29 years old.

The lives of enslaved Africans like Peggy Pompadour, her son Jupiter and Marie Joseph Angelique are part of Canadian history that is becoming better known. In the 1980s when I bought Daniel G. Hill’s book “The Freedom Seekers” the stories were not as well known. During this month; African Heritage/Black History Month and this United Nations declared “Decade for People of African Descent” (2015-2024) we need to read and educate ourselves, our children, family, friends, colleagues, co-workers about our history. Our history did not begin with slavery but we did suffer four hundred years of enslavement and disconnection from our roots and the effects are felt to this day. 

On August 24, 1833 the Slavery Abolition Act was passed by the British Parliament and became law on August 1, 1834. The mindset that allowed Africans fleeing slavery from the USA to be free once they reached Canada and continued to allow enslaved Africans in Canada to remain in bondage until August 1, 1834 when slavery was abolished by the British Parliament is still in operation today.

The police celebrate “Black History Month” with great pomp and ceremony yet are guilty of racial profiling and in some cases horrible brutality of African Canadians. The ongoing case of a white police officer accused of brutally beating an African Canadian youth, causing the youth to lose an eye, is a case in point. Police officers in some areas regularly play basketball games with African Canadian youth yet in those same areas will target and brutalise African Canadian youth. The more things change the more they remain the same.

Peggy Pompadour, her son Jupiter and her two little girls, Amy and Milly, lived and toiled in the Russell household. Yet Peter Russell and his sister Elizabeth just viewed them as property, to be brutalized, gifted and sold.

Murphy Browne © February 10-2020

BOB MARLEY FEBRUARY 6-1945

BOB MARLEY FEBRUARY 6-1945

Murphy Browne © February 6-2020

Nesta Robert Marley was born on February 6, 1945 in St Ann Parish, Jamaica, which is also the birthplace of the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Marley transitioned to the ancestral realm on May 11, 1981 when he was 36 years old. During his relatively short life, Marley achieved superstar status internationally, performing reggae music. Marley also became an unofficial ambassador of the Rastafari faith, a Pan-African religion. He inspired many Africans on the continent and the Diaspora to proudly wear their natural hair in locs. Even some who do not adhere to the Rastafari faith proudly sport their locs.

Some of Marley’s lyrics educated about the history of Africans. “Buffalo soldiers” tells the story of enslaved Africans throughout the Americas. “Buffalo soldier, dreadlocked Rasta. There was a Buffalo Soldier in the heart of America. Stolen from Africa, brought to America. Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival. If you know your history then you would know where you're coming from, then you wouldn't have to ask me who the heck do I think I am. Driven from the mainland to the heart of the Caribbean.” Our ancestors were stolen from Africa, kidnapped and transported in the filthy holds of ships to work their entire lives enriching the White men and women who worked them to death in places like Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Canada, Cuba, Chile, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Peru, Suriname and the USA. The wealth that the coerced, unpaid labour of enslaved Africans generated for White people is still being enjoyed by their descendants in the 21st century.

In 1979 Marley sang: “Africa, Unite

'Cause we're moving right out of Babylon

And we're going to our father's land

How good and how pleasant it would be

Before God and man

To see the unification of all Africans”

 “Africa Unite” is Bob Marley’s Pan-African anthem. For those who want to remember Marley as merely the man who sang “One Love,” the image of a Pan-Africanist Marley is hard to take. Similar to the whitewashed “dreamer” image of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., there is a movement to strip Marley of his Pan-African reality. Many songs Marley wrote and sang, clearly illustrate his philosophy. Listening to the lyrics of songs from his “Survival” album is to hear his protests against “Babylon System.”

The lyrics of Marley’s “Babylon System” leave no doubt that he adhered to the philosophies of his fellow Jamaican and Pan-Africanist, the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. “We refuse to be, what you wanted us to be. We are what we are. That's the way it’s going to be (if you don't know.) You can't educate I, for no equal opportunity. Talking 'bout my freedom, people freedom and liberty. Yeah, we've been trodding on the winepress. Much too long rebel, rebel. Babylon system is the vampire. Sucking the children day by day. Sucking the blood of the sufferers.” The “Babylon System” to which Marley refers is the same system that racially profiles Africans in Canada, the USA, the UK etc., Those people who claim to love Marley’s music yet are part of the system that racially profiles our youth here in Toronto need to listen to Marley’s “Uprising,” “Survival” and “Confrontation” albums. The lyrics of Marley’s “War” where he uses the words of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, will certainly give them something to talk and think about.

His Majesty made his speech to the United Nations in 1963 and the speech was published in 1972 in the book “Important Utterances of H.I.M. Emperor Haile Selassie I 1963-1972.” The lyrics of Marley’s song “War” from the album “Rastaman Vibrations” which was released in 1976, include: “Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned. Everywhere is war, me say war. That until there’s no longer first class and second class citizens of any nation; until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes. Me say war. That until that day, the dream of lasting peace, world citizenship, rule of international morality, will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued, but never attained.”



Bob Marley would have celebrated his 75th birthday on February 6, 2020. His birthday is celebrated wherever his music is heard. Almost 30 years ago, in 1991, former Toronto Mayor Art Eggleton made a “Bob Marley Day” proclamation from City Hall. Marley is one of our heroes who contributed to the cause of Africa and Africans worldwide and deserves to be remembered.

Murphy Browne © February 6-2020