…Barbados
In case ya’ll forgot, Caricom Day is actually July 4, when the treaty was actually signed at Chaguaramas in TT by Barbados, Jamaica, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago.
Today, your Eyewitness remembers Barbados, which has always been closest to us of all our fellow Caricom relations. Never mind that Guyanese Bench!! See how Mia and Pressie getting on like a house on fire – but it goes waaaaay before that!! Back when the Dutch decided to move from their Essequibo River settlements to the coast and into Demerara, they invited BRITISH planters from that island – who enthusiastically took up the offer. And, then again, when our formerly enslaved Africans decamped our plantations following Emancipation, it was mostly freed Bajans who first took up the slack!! So, there’s a bit of Bajan in most of us – somewhere!! Just listen to those who drop their aitches – “Hs”!
Barbados has always been ahead of the game. After St Kitts, it was settled by the Brits in 1625. This marked the real beginning of the British Empire – and hence Caricom!! Now, Barbados is only 166 square miles, but back then, it was more valuable as a colony to the Brits than the thirteen American colonies! Sugar was then king…and Barbados was the home of the King – until it was surpassed by Jamaica. At the time, its earliest labourers were po’ whites – from Ireland and elsewhere. They were the first indentured labourers to come to the Caribbean!! These white Indentureds later worked alongside enslaved Africans in the sugar and tobacco plantations, and are the ancestors of the “Redlegs” who remain in Barbados to this day – but not so po’ anymo’!! Like the white convicts who were sent to populate Australia…and who’re ironically now so racist! “Race” – as a matter of fact – was introduced to distinguish the Redlegs from the African slaves!
So, man’s inhumanity to man was codified right there in Barbados, when they adopted their Slave Code in 1661!! They followed the earlier Spanish and Portuguese models – and, in turn, became the model for the rest of the British colonies, including here in BG. In fact, in addition to African slavery, Barbados set the standard in so many ways. One was to actually boast about imitating all things British – even though the BRITS snickered at their pretentious – as can be gleaned from novels of the era, and proudly declaring they were “Little England”!!
But they finally removed slave-defender Lord Nelson’s statue from their capital two years ago, and removed the British Monarch as their head of state to become a Republic half a century after us!! But have they lost their slickness, lampooned by Lord Kitch in “Tek yuh meat out me rice”??
…Beryl
Beryl – the earliest category 4 hurricane in the history of our Caribbean – just brushed past Trinidad and Tobago, skirted Barbados; hit Grenada, St Vincent and the Grenadines; and will be roiling Jamaica later this morning. That pretty much takes care of most of Caricom, innit?? Now, we in Guyana shouldn’t be smirking because these natural disasters are missing us. In addition to those tremors we felt last week, notice that Beryl’s early arrival might auger some other changes in the paths of hurricanes!!
For quite a while, we used to explain to our fellow Caricom brothers and sisters that we were spared these natural disasters because we had Burnham – which was more destructive than all the earthquakes and hurricanes in history!! But Burnham’s been long gone, and the PPP’s bringing us out of that tragedy by wisely spending our oil bonanza – focusing on infrastructure rather than eating it all out!!
And yet we haven’t forgotten to lift our brothers and sisters hit by Beryl!!
…Haiti’s rescue?
Meanwhile, Haiti, the first Caribbean (and Caricom) island to seize independence, can start hoping. The Kenyan troops are patrolling, and it’s clear their reputation in shooting protestors in their homeland has reached Haitian gang members.
They’ve gone quiet!!
