Perspectives of Controversy on Slavery

To tell a story which may not be the most pleasant to relate is the right thing to do. It would be an intellectual travesty to suppress same because of shame or guilt.

Slavery was abominable but the story has to be told. Must be told for what it was … it would even be intellectually dishonest to pretend that this dark era in our history as people of colour never existed. There are many lessons to be learnt even from this dark Chapter of our history. Oh! It was a dehumanizing activity, that slave trade that was. People rounded up like cattle, shackled in the hulls of ships …the filthy conditions in the middle passage, the deaths, those thrown overboard when water and food went low, the outbreaks of some “foreign” diseases not endemic to Africa etcetera.

Our children must be told through oral and the written word how slaves escaped in CANADA and elsewhere by the “underground railway” as a prime example of a route well used.

Maroons

In Jamaica slaves ran away from plantations known as Maroons … burnt sugar plantations, and engaged in guerrilla warfare. The British were forced to grant many autonomy by Treaty in the 1700s long before Emancipation and abolition in 1838. Accompong was one such enclave in Jamaica. Vision has been carrying their annual January 6, celebration of the Accompong Maroons.

Our forefathers resisted slavery, some died in revolts and at least two have been named National Hero and heroine in Jamaica. Sam Sharpe who was later hanged for leading a uprising against slavery and Nanny for her skills as a female warrior. They have been so decorated with Jamaica’s highest National Award … that of National Heroes.

Many fought to unshackle themselves from slavery … this fact is well documented. Any notion of glorification because the stories are being illustrated is wrong thinking. This is not glorification … some slaves may have been well treated … this fact does not polish a tarnished abominable system as slavery was.

We must “emancipate ourselves from mental slavery” by not wanting to tell our story to our children. They are not stupid. They will understand how to view our past slave masters. Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser- Pryce to name a few have done us proud. Like sugar cane that is burnt in harvesting yet remains sweet so has been our success as a people who burnt in the sun to enrich slave masters many of whom were absentee landlords … residing in foreign lands. Despite the odds and the mental scars … we rise up like Phoenix from the ashes to greater heights.

Reparations

That is why we now seek reparation as compensation for the atrocities of slavery.

Amen!