Sandvoort

– the village Cuffy made his home

By Andrew Carmichael

After some 200 years of slavery, it was Cuffy, a house slave, who made a bold attempt to end it in then British Guiana.

In 1763, he led the Magdalenenburg Uprising and after some amount of success, he declared himself Governor of Berbice.
However, when the white slave masters got help from neighbouring Suriname, Cuffy was forced to hide in a village called Sandvoot on the West Bank of the Canje River, in what is now called Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne).
While the slaves were free in 1834, they still had to work for their old masters for low wages. However, after four years of apprenticeship, the slaves were finally given their full of freedom on August 1, 1838.
This journey to freedom had started 75 years prior to Cuffy’s rebellion.
Although 250 years have already passed, Sandvoot still stands as an emblem of what our fore-parents went through pre-emancipation.
The village was bought and established in 1774 after Cuffy’s passing.
Thorold Sinclair is 81 years old and although he was not around in those days, he learned a lot from his father.
Back in the 18th century, there were four African tribes living in the village.
“The Jukas were, to me, the most scientific. They had a leaf but I was not able to get from the older folks what was that leaf. They would put the leaf into their mouth and you would look where they are and you will not be able to see them. They were also very scientific in handling the health system… They were good. There was an uprising but I cannot remember in what year but during the uprising they left and went to Suriname,” Sinclair noted. The other groups were the Oakoo, the Congo and the Kwashie.
“These three used to come together. The Oakoo, the Kwashie and the Congo. The Congo were good at drums. They were drummers that would send messages by beating the drums and even when the balata bleeding stopped and they had to go to something else to take care of their children because in those days you had to pay for schooling. They were able to do things that were just amazing.”

When many of the former slaves became free, they refused to work for their former masters on the sugar plantation and started collecting balata. This they got by bleeding the trees at the Upper Canje River and along the Corentyne River. Back then the men would leave in groups and go in search of balata, returning days after.

Beginning of hardship
The balata was exported to Europe and used for the making of shoe soles and other such products. However, Britain soon found other cheaper material to produce shoe soles and the balata industry became unprofitable.
According to Sinclair, the men would normally ensure that they brought some balata for their children so they could make their own cricket balls.
“We would boil it and use the cork and put it in the middle so that when the ball goes into water it will float,” Sinclair explained.

Bush rum
With the balata industry no longer being profitable, many villagers, Sinclair said, left and went as far as Africa to seek employment. His father was one such person who travelled to Africa and also to other Caribbean islands, along with all his fellow villagers, in search of work.
Others made bush rum to earn a living.
The bush rum industry became profitable since persons flocked the village to consume. Though illegal, even senior police officers went to Sandvoot to drink bush rum. Although there were other communities in which the alcoholic beverage was available, it was a striving business in Sandvoot.
“They use to use fruits, sugar and molasses to set up the thing and they put it in drums then they boil it and even to the policemen use to come. They come with the jeep to Sandvoot to buy bush rum. The difference was the type of fruits that you put in the system to make the wash. Once you put the fruits inside the thing, it is a different rum altogether. So, everybody used to come up here. Things have changed now. The big companies are making more rum now so people aren’t coming here for bush rum anymore,” the village elder notes.
Sandvoot was traditionally known as the village that strives and for its agriculture.
Even until what could be considered modern times then, in the 1980s former Prime Minister Ptolemy Reid went to the village and gave Sinclair three plants. The sapodilla tree still stands to this day.
Today, Sandvooth is a small village with just about 105 houses, one school, a health centre, three churches, one shop and a cemetery.
The cemetery tells part of the village’s great history.
Sinclair did not hold back from telling stories about the cemetery. His stories are not folklore.
In one of his stories, he related an experience where he witnessed villagers entombing a man into the same tomb his father was placed 47 years prior.
“I saw no box. In those days they used to make their own box. A person would have the wood in the house and as soon as the person dies, the villagers will come together and make the box and they would bury the person in that box. When the tomb was open there was no box. All I saw is the suit in which the guy was buried in just there blotted up just as if someone was in it. No skull, no ankle bones or anything but the suit blotted up alone in the tomb.
“The place was quiet and then there was a gush of breeze that flush inside the tomb and everything just fall down to dust. I saw that with my own eyes. I can’t forget that and then they take the box and push it. They didn’t sweep it or anything,” he recounted.
Sinclair said he was ten years old at that time.
Over the years, Sandvoot became known as a place where deadly snakes reside. Many villagers have died as a result of snake bites. So of course, the village has a snake doctor.
Sinclair is that doctor.
“One of the secret thing is to use charcoal,” he said while reluctantly saying that it has to be consumed.
“You have to get it into a powder and it sucks in the poison from the body and passes through the digestive system and gone,” he revealed.
He related that this charcoal has to come from special wood. However, that is the only part of the secret Sinclair was willing to divulge.
“If you have the medicine and you can handle it right away it is an easy situation. Once you can get that pain to stop and that is what the charcoal does. It goes into the system and sucks up the poison,” he explained.
His knowledge, he said, came from his interactions with the older folks while he was still a child. He referred to Sandvoot as being a very nice place when he was growing up.
Today, he said, younger persons do not have the same respect for the elderly as they did when he was a boy.
“The whole lifestyle has changed. Alcoholism is one of the things that ruin our society. Alcohol should be used for just the purpose it is good for,” he said while noting that hand sanitisers are made with alcohol.