This Sunday, August 18, marks the 201st anniversary of the great 1823 slave rebellion in the colony of Demerara –before the British unified it with Berbice and Essequibo in 1831 to create British Guiana. After a series of exchanges of government with the Dutch and the French from 1796, the British had finally taken possession of the three colonies in 1812. During their stint in 1807, they had abolished the trading of African slaves, who had been used as labour on the cotton, coffee and sugar plantations.
While British historians and officialdom have traditionally presented the abolition of the trade as a symbol of their enlightened civilization, it was actually part of larger historical forces that undermined the institution in the evolving capitalistic relations of production. Marx would later dub slavery as a “primitive mode of accumulation”. In Britain, those forces created social movements that demanded the abolition of the entire institution of slavery, as proponents of free trade such as Adam Smith (1776) insisted that free labour would accumulate capital more efficiently. Following the abolition of the slave trade, the British Government in 1823 enacted measures to “ameliorate” the conditions of slavery – which continued in her colonies. Some of these measures were that slaves were to be given Christian instruction; Sunday markets were to be abolished to encourage religious worship on that day; and marriages were to be encouraged; while slave families were not to be broken up by sale.
These measures were announced by the Governor of Berbice, but not by the Governor of Demerara. However, knowledge of them was gleaned by Jack Gladstone, a slave from Plantation Success on the East Coast of Demerara, who, because of his profession as a cooper (barrel maker), could travel freely to Georgetown. He informed his father Quamina, who was active in the Church, where a pastor, John Smith, had been sent by the London Missionary Society. Smith confirmed the amelioration measures, and this spurred Quamina and his son Jack to plan a rebellion to force their implementation. At no time did the leaders attempt to seize the colony, and in fact were very non-violent to the planters.
As the eminent historian and Trinidad PM Eric Williams pointed out, “The revolt was so carefully and secretly planned that it took the planters unawares.” The historian Emilia Viotta da Costa, in her 1994 book Crowns of Glory, Tears of Blood: The Demerara Slave Rebellion of 1823, described the uprising well:
“The rebellion started at Success and quickly spread to neighbouring plantations. Beginning around six o’clock in the evening (of Aug 18), to the sound of seashell horns and drums, and continuing through the night, between 9,000 and 12,000 slaves from about 60 East Coast plantations surrounded the main houses, put overseers and managers in the stocks, and seized their arms and ammunition. When they met resistance, they used force. Years of frustration and repression were suddenly released. For a short time, slaves turned the world upside down. Slaves became masters, and masters became slaves. Just as masters had uprooted them from their traditional environment and culture, appropriated their labour, given them new names, forced them to learn a language, and imposed on them new roles, slaves appropriated their masters’ language and their symbols of power and property. Slaves spoke of laws coming out of England. They spoke of “rights”. They spoke of the king, (of) Wilberforce, and “the powerful men in England”. They used their masters’ whips and put their masters in the stocks. They broke doors and windows, destroyed furniture, and set buildings afire. They whipped managers and masters, stole their clothes and money, drank their wine. When whites fired at them, they shot back. By the middle of the night, the old African shells and drums were silent. Only the sound of European guns was heard.”
At Bachelors Adventure, 200 slaves were shot and killed by the militia when they refused to disperse, and later the government sentenced another 45 men to death, and 27 were executed. Quamina was hunted down and shot; Jack Gladstone was banished to St Lucia. But the spirit of freedom continued.
