LEST WE FORGET

LEST WE FORGET:

Remember our history and our roots.

Doan get too uppity.

In this crucial time of Guyana’s history, nothing stops the desperate with their racist rhetoric. They have categorised this country as EAST INDIANS and OTHERS-creating subservient levels.

On a day like today (May 5), one hundred and seventy seven years ago a people came to this colony. The Indian Arrival Committee celebrates this day with the East Indians of the country. Perhaps the day was the same. As when the Whitby sailed into the Demerara River.

Sometime in December 1837, the Whitby sailed up the Hooghly River in West Bengal. As with every ship to the Port of Calcutta, it moored at the Landing –a site chosen and developed by Job Charnok, an Englishman in 1690. Nearby, the compound of Garden Reach Depot with several thatched roof, mud-walled structures. On the earthen floors, about half a foot higher than the surrounding compound, piled a layer of grass. The last monsoon rains made mud of the soil. And the cold weather had arrived. The human cargo of 249 secured under the watchful eyes of men armed with laths. Some freely choose, some tricked by false promises and some kidnapped.

The letter from John Gladstone had requested that number from Messrs Gillanders, Arbuthnot & Co.

As the Hooghly River rose on January 13, 1838, the men along with the few women and children walked single-filed onto the plank gangway and boarded the Whitby. Each carried a small bundle of their meagre belongings. Frail looking. Closely watched and guarded by the armed men. For they were paid on the numbers that boarded the ship. Receiving a small commission from Messrs  Gillanders, Arbuthnot & Co. for the recruiting service they performed. They had provided that service for many years, sending shiploads to Mauritius.

As with any seaport, smelly dead fish, crabs and weeds are part of the scenery. Seagulls flying overhead. Some perched on masts. Some scurrying along decks. All in quarrelsome shrilling sounds.

Calcutta, the city, not too distant, filled with activities as any city in the world. Busy. Musicians, singers and dancers. Over-crowded slums of Biharis escaping the burdens of Brahmin Zamindars. Famine never ceased since the Brahmins became civil servants to the East Indian Company.

With the tide of the river heading out to sea, the Bay of Bengal, that dusky evening. The moorings of the Whitby cast off. Stored in its cargo hold were barely enough provisions and water for the crossing. John Gladstone, an international trader of commodities owned the Whitby and many more ships. He was known to be a shrewd businessman, conscious of maximizing profits.

In the narrow spaces below deck, two hundred and forty nine passengers tightly packed.

Only four years previously, African slaves shipped in the similar manner. Rough sawn planks placed together in the hold. And as many levels to accommodate the number of human cargo. On deck, the crew cared less whether slavery was abolished. For the white men, it was just another group of dark-skinned slaves. “Instead from West Africa, it is now Calcutta”, they may have thought.

The Whitby manoeuvered away from shifting sandbanks of the Hooghly River passing barges of jute and coal commodore by Bengali men singing their river songs.

Below deck, the indentured would hear the passing voices.

During the crossing, they reflected many times on Pinjre ke panji re. A bhajan.

Lest We Forget.

Now all was not well as the tale spun by Governor Light, for the courage of a Negro schoolmaster living in Belle Vue Estate would urge him to hint at the cruelties meted out to the coolies. Berkley was an exceptional man. In 1838, such a man was not easily found in the colony-to sacrifice his well-being for the cause of humanity. Banished from the estate and forced to watch the slaughter of his live stock. Denied his salary and persecuted by every plantation owner in the district. His punishment for revealing the evil acts of, “when the portion of coolies arrived at Plantation Belle Vue, there were no building prepared for their reception. The four room sick-house was emptied of the sick Negro workers. And the eighty emigrants herded in-men and women, all together. For three months, they were kept in that loathsome den without regard to decency. The whip, the bamboo and involuntary confinement were regularly used on the coolies to compel labour or fulfill the vindictive habits of the estate’s manager.”   

Those on the Whitby and Hesperus were the first foot prints of East Indians in the Crown Colony of British Guiana. Men, women and children whose names did not matter, only numbers identified them. A system used to identify West Africans on slave ships ferrying the Middle Passage.  Sharks followed the ships between West African and the Caribbean. A feeding frenzy of the human remains cast over board due to their death.

Some fifteen years earlier, 1823, the Demerara Slave Rebellion occurred. Plantation Success, the estate on which Quamina was a slave. And owned by John Gladstone. The son of Quamina was one of the organizers of the revolt.

Reverend John Smith posted to the colony by the London Missionary Society, a replacement to Reverend John Wray who went to Berbice rather than Demerara on his return. John Smith came to the colony intent on teaching the slaves of Demerara to read and write. He challenge the Colonial Governor on the law passed in the British Parliament spearheaded by William Wilberforce.

Between a network of educated house and field slaves, they communicated information. Read from their Masters correspondences from England. Misinformed, the slaves concluded slavery was abolished but the Baccra refused to free them. And they revolted.

The Rebellion was planned at a Church gathering. Quamina was not present. When informed, he extracted a promise that no Plantation owner must be killed.

The revolt was put down quickly. Slaves loyal to their Masters, informed of the plans of the revolt. And the leaders of the rebellion was decapitated and displayed for all to see at the Parade Grounds.

The barbarism sent to shock waves back in Britain. Ordinary citizens boycotted West Indian made products. A campaign of signatures demanded the British Parliament put an end to slave practices in all British Colonies.

The Demerara Revolt brought the end of slavery.

Also, it created the opportunity for East Indian foot prints upon this land of which we have nourished ourselves.

This election day, I ask you to vote for civil liberties, justice for the impoverished and everything that sets us on the path of excellent governance.

Vote APNU+AFC.

www.timehritoday.blogspot.com      

Velutha Kuttapen

 e-mail:   timehri@golden.net

Twitter:   Velutha Kuttapen@VeluthaK