…of Indian Guyanese
Well, today is “Indian Arrival Day” in our dear land of Guyana. 184 years ago, on May 5th 1838, two ships – the Whitby and the Hesperus — arrived off Port Georgetown bearing their human cargo from the other side of the world in India. They were joining the Portuguese from Madeira who’d arrived three years before on May 3rd 1835 and to be followed by the Chinese, who’d would land on Jan 12, 1853. They were all brought as “indentureds”, to labour on the sugar plantations after African slavery had been abolished on Aug 1st 1834 – but would be followed by 4 years of “Apprenticeship” during which they’d be paid like the indentureds.
Most of this is very well known, of course, but what is stubbornly – and deliberately – wiped out of our national remembrance is that a very large number of Africans – from both the West Indies and Africa – were also brought in as indentureds!! Overall, while 239,756 Indians were brought, 75,792 returned to India after serving their indentureship – meaning actually 163,964 remained. In comparison, 101,843 Africans, Portuguese and Chinese arrived to join the approximately 88,000 slaves who had been freed.
Continuing into the present, there’s been the claim that “Indians undercut the wages of the freed slaves and this is a cause for the hostilities between the two groups”. But this account doesn’t do the freed Africans justice for the agency they displayed in seeking to be independent of the plantations – which had been such a scene for their humiliations. The Planters had started to bring in the indentureds even before the period of Apprenticeship was over: they were hedging their bets on cheap labour. Unlike the case of Barbados and the small islands where the free slaves had no alternative, in Guyana there was abundant land for them to move off sugar. And move they did in addition to striking for higher wages.
They were successful in their strike of 1842, but by the time they struck again in 1847/48, the 15,848 Portuguese, 12,898 Africans from the WI and 6957 from Africa plus the 8692 Indians broke the strike!! The Africans from the WI and Africa were the greatest number of “strike breakers”!! Wages in Barbados were worse than in Guyana. Within another decade, most freed Africans had departed the plantations and there was no real competition between them and the indentureds. Those who remained were generally factory workers and other skilled tradesmen who earned more than the indentureds.
Today, we’ve come to a full circle in Guyana where the PNC has broken the back of the sugar industry and it is doubtful after this COVID-19 crisis, it will survive at all.
Imagine that: Indians without sugar!!
…denied to US Carter Center
The PNC really has “spunks”!! The last time the US was treated so shabbily by them was during the Burnham years. He could get away with murder since at the slightest hint of disapproval at some of his excesses – like rigging elections – he’d ask with a smirk, “Do you really want Cheddi back with his Russians?”
Burnham, who could boast he’d been horseback riding at President Johnson’s ranch in Texas, even ran roughshod over the then US Ambassador Delmar Carlson. But what’s the source of the PNC’s chutzpah now?? That the Americans are distracted by COVID-19??
Ironically, they couldn’t have denied entry to the Carter Center because they’re a client of the US Government. In 2012, when the US insisted Venezuela was a dictatorship, Carter had announced: “As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”
They just want to stick their fingers into the US’ eyes!!
…and departure?
The PNC and its acolytes are really giving stick to the Canadian High Commissioner. And this could be a case of familiarity breeds contempt. The Canucks have traditionally been very low keyed.
But the PNC think they’re pushovers.
