(This article was first published by The Anguillian newspaper in 2004, but the issue it raised then is still relevant today, some eight later.)
The splendour of the parade of troupes, highlighting the best of our carnival, is now only a memory. And so too are the many exciting shows which drew some relatively large crowds to Landsome Bowl. Also etched in people’s memories is the last lap jam. As well as the j’ouvert morning jam when the sight of Drug Store Olive bogeying down to the pulsating sounds of the jam bands left some people speechless. But I don’t blame Olive. I blame the music – the power of music. And there was plenty of it.
There were also plenty of picnics and parties for families and friends. All in the spirit of carnival. Evalie had a pigtail soup party for her friends. Sister Vee (Vyrone) and dem loved it. Also Jew. She is a Seventh-day Adventist so they had to take the pigtail out of her soup. Jew, therefore, had pigtail soup without the pigtail.
Surely, the carnival season has left many people with fond memories, and congratulations are in order for the Festival Committee and for all the winners and participants in the several competitions. Actually, congratulations are in order for all Anguillians because we are all winners.
Carnival is basically a cultural showpiece. It is also an economic activity with tremendous potential. It is a significant creator of employment, though only temporarily, during that time of the year when our tourism season is closed and many people are out of work. It brings visitors to our shores and allows us to fill some of our unoccupied hotel rooms. As I wrote elsewhere, because of the multiplier effect other types of businesses, especially restaurants, nightclubs and car rentals, are able to make some money. Carnival is also an important foreign exchange earner.
I also wrote that carnival is one of our society’s better painkillers. It does for our society what Aspirin, Advil and Tylenol do for our bodies. And despite its side effects, carnival eases some of our pains, reduces tension and wipes away some of our tears. It is an escape valve for social discontent and pressure. It provides timeout to relax and recharge.
Having written thus, it has troubled me that in the midst of all our celebrating and merry-making, over the years, there is hardly any mention of the historic event which gave birth to carnival. I refer, of course, to the emancipation of slavery inAnguilla, and the British Caribbean, on Monday 1st August 1834. Throughout that historic day, the ex-slaves, our forebears, celebrated their freedom through dance, song and drink. The feting went on well into the night. Thereafter, every first Monday in August, subsequently called August Monday, was a day of celebration in recognition of freedom from the dehumanising experiences of slavery.
August Monday has remained a public holiday ever since and as time passed its celebration took numerous forms including fairs and boat racing. During the last thirty years, August Monday has evolved into a week of activities called carnival but its significance as the day set aside for celebrating our freedom from slavery has long been lost.
But I am not too surprised because some Anguillians are of the view that this island was never a slave society. And there are others who do not like admitting it, either through ignorance or because of a deliberate effort to deny that part of their history. The question we need to ask ourselves is: If Anguilla did not have slaves, how did we all get here? Or why is our population predominantly African? The answer: it is predominantly African because our ancestors were brought here as slaves to work on the sugar plantations owned by white English planters. According to our slave register, there were 2,354 slaves on this island at the time of emancipation in 1834.
Prior to emancipation our ancestors had no rights. There were not supposed to be people but rather property for the production of wealth. And they were subjected to the harshest treatment imaginable, with no recourse to the legal system – or the courts system – which was weighted heavily against them. I will now use a record of one of the Court’s sittings to highlight the savagery and humiliation that our forefathers endured in a most repressive institution of forced labour.
The Court sitting resulted in the hanging (within the space of two hours) of six slaves (five men and one woman) atCrocusBay, on Monday 25th September 1820. They were found guilty of burglary by an all white jury and sentenced by a Court comprising white planters. The Court’s sentencing proceedings are now quoted almost in full:
“ANGUILLA
“At a Court of Oyer and Terminer, held by adjournment, at the Mansion House of the Mount Pleasant Estate of Jonathan H. Hodge of the said island on Friday the 22nd day of September 1820.
“Present
His Honour William Richardson Esquire, Lieut. Governor
The Honourable Benjamin Gumbs Esq. (President)
The Honourable William Hughes Esq.
The Honourable John Richardson Esq.
The Honourable Jacob Gumbs Esq.
The Honourable Richard Carty Esq.
The HonourableJosephPeterLakeEsq.
The Honourable William Carty Esq.
The Honourable Jacob Hardtman Esq.
“The Court being called, the prisoners were brought up when the sentence of the law was pronounced from the Bench by the Honourable Jacob Hardtman in the following words:
“Jacob Brookes, Scipio Brookes, London Brookes, Miranda Brookes, Bacchus Derrick and Scipio Bryan, you have been arraigned at the Bar of this Court upon a Bill of indictment found against you as principals in a burglary committed on the dwelling house of Elizabeth MacDonnah on the night of sixteenth of August last, and Bacchus Rogers as an accessory to the same after the fact. You have been all tried for this offence by a jury of the country and by that jury you have been found guilty.
“Bacchus Rogers, the portion which you bear in this offence is defined by the law to be a misdemeanour only and visits the punishment short of death, and to be only corporal. And the jury having recommended you to [our] mercy, we have reduced the number of lashes which you would otherwise receive to twenty-five which we now sentence you to receive.
“Jacob Brookes, Scipio Brookes, London Brookes, Miranda Brookes, Bacchus Derrick and Scipio Bryan, your guilt is of a deeper dye and so very heinous that the law measured the punishment of it with death. There is no circumstance com[ing] out of your trial, in any way, to mitigate the atrocity of your offence, or to entitle you to mercy at our hands sitting here as Ministers of Justice and supporters of the laws. On the contrary, it is aggravated by the time, the place and the manner which you perpetrated your detestable crime in the dead of night when the whole creation is at rest except beasts of prey.
“You, like beasts of prey, stark naked I have understood, broke into the dwelling house of a lone woman to rob her of her property and deprive her of the means of her subsistence. And when she attempted to defend it one of you beat her with a stick, but you succeeded in carrying off your ill-gotten plunder.
“It is clear you could not have had the fear of God before your eyes for, if you had, reason would have told you that you were doing a great wrong and injury to the peace and happiness of another who had never offended you, and [were] in violation of the laws of your country. It would have told you that at a future day you would have to appear before the awful Majesty of the Almighty God and at his tribunal answer for all your sins. If sudden death had overtaken you in your attempt . . . [there would have been no] . . . time for repentance . . . But fortunately, for you, it has pleased divine mercy by protecting your lives a little longer to favour you with that time.
“I would therefore recommend you to seize the opportunity, in the short space of time you have yet to live, in offering up your prayers and supplications to your offended God in the hope of obtaining his pardon. We shall request Mr Hodge, the Methodist Missionary, to attend you and endeavour to impart to your minds some spiritual consolation and comfort. ‘I can give you comfort and tell you, without diminishing the weight of your doom in this world, that you can turn your eyes to the Judge of us all whose mercy has no tenets and whom no sinner can implore in vain, if his penitence and remorse is deep and sincere.’ You must have expected your fate and I hope in God that you have prepared yourselves for a better world.
“It now remains for me to perform the painful duty, delegated to me by the President of this Bench, of pronouncing the sentence of law against you – Jacob Brookes, Scipio Brookes, London Brookes, Miranda Brookes, Bacchus Derrick and Scipio Bryan – which is that you be carried from hence to the place of confinement and there well secured until Monday next, the twenty-fifth day of this month of September, and then you shall be carried thence to the place of execution where between the hours of ten and twelve in the forenoon you shall each of you be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and the Lord God have mercy on your souls.”
The penalty for burglary committed by slaves was plainly barbaric. And to add insult to injury, the Court, in passing sentence, exploited religion to make those whom it condemned to die – to feel comfortable while being hung by their necks. The Court told them that if they had prepared themselves properly they were on their way to “a better world.”
Undoubtedly, slavery was a great indignity but our ancestors survived it. It was in the midst of slavery that they developed a peasant sector and provided food for their families. At the same time they contributed to the hastening of their own emancipation through passive resistance. And they left a legacy of which we should be proud and from which we should learn.
It is against that background that I suggest that we as a people take time out, during our August festivities, to reflect on our roots and the contributions that our forefathers made towards the realisation of the freedoms that we now enjoy. I suggest that in future our August Mondays include activities which remind us of the experiences which contributed to making us the kind of people we are.
Such activities must be reflective of, and draw upon, our history. It is our history that will provide us with a sense of common identity. It is our history that will provide us with a sense self: an understanding of who we are, from whence we came and where we are at present. It is our history that will provide us with a sense of direction – with a perception of where we should be heading and where we should never return. Thus my plea for time out, beginning August Monday 2005, to observe what is perhaps the most important day in the history of Anguillian people. As someone once wrote, “A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.”
