Verene A. Shepherd, Contributor

Shepherd

Why mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic trade in Africans? This question has been posed over and over again by Jamaicans who feel that we ought to ignore the bicentenary. As far as many people are concerned, March 25, is a British anniversary, imposed by Government fiat with no groundswell from the people. The Abolition Act changed very little, they maintain. The trade continued, albeit this time deemed illegal, with 16 ships arriving in Jamaica after March 25, 1807; intra-regional relocation/trading in peoples intensified and the slave system remained firmly in place, not being abolished until over 30 years later. This 'long postponement' of freedom is one reason that Richard Gott in his article in the Manchester Guardian, urged people in the U.K., "who might find themselves caught up in the prolonged bout of self-congratulation imposed by Government fiat to celebrate the bicentenary in a minor, not major key."

Haitian anti-slavery politics

People supportive of this side of the debate add that, faced with the prospect of carrying on the productive processes of the sugar economy with a diminishing supply of labour after 1807 - and a labour supply radicalised by Haitian anti-slavery politics at that - the slave regime became more brutal. The year 1807, then, signified greater repression. For all these reasons, the argument goes, Caribbean governments should focus not on a celebratory event, not even on the pain of slavery, but on urging current political regimes to eradicate the contemporary legacies of slavery, like the prevailing pigmentocracy, the alleged return of imperialism via World Cup Cricket, with 'creole aspects' marginalised; and the problems of under-development.

opposite view

But the opposite view is that for so long, so much repressed memory; somuch silence and shame have surrounded the topic of the trade in Africans via the Atlantic, the facts of the abolition campaign and the experiences of African peoples, that one should seize the occasion of the bicentenary to engage in public education and focus on the efforts of the Africans themselves to force Britain's hand towards abolition. Indeed, over four decades after Guyanese historian Elsa Goveia observed of Jamaica that:

"... In a country such as ours, where shame about the past too often fills the place that should be held by knowledge, knowledge of the past must play its part in our liberation from the bonds of the past, " denial, shame, ignorance and silence continue to surround the human tragedy that was the trans-Atlantic trade in Africans; and pride in the past has not replaced shame about the past.

Anne Bailey, author of African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade, in supporting this idea that silence surrounds the history of the transatlantic trade in Africans on all sides of the Atlantic elaborated: "Growing up in Jamaica, I was engulfed by this silence. Slavery and the slave trade were not exactly taboo subjects, but they were not subjects that many Jamaicans readily discussed" she was aware of a few "whispers'.

Despite the conflicting views, a dominant perspective has emerged insisting that Jamaica needs to celebrate the fact that by the Abolition Act, perhaps millions more were saved from the dehumanising Middle Passage and slavery in the Caribbean; that even though abolition has traditionally been presented as a benevolent act by British humanitarians, intellectuals and politicians, thousands of Africans and Creoles in Jamaica participated in the long anti-slavery struggle. They were the early political activists intent on eradicating all forms of injustices and creating free societies in the Americas.

increasing instability

After 1807, there was an increase in maritime marronage, encouraged by Haiti's 1805 emancipatory constitution, and a greater awareness of the importance of their labour power among the enslaved, especially females, who formed the majority of all field gangs, and, therefore, increasing instability in Jamaican society; for the more the British enslavers tightened military control and made punishments for so-called crimes even more horrific, even stepping up deportation, the more the enslaved found ways to resist. So effective was resistance that by 1832, and the suppression of the Jamaica war, the writing was on the wall. 'Full free' had to be legislated so that the descendants of the enslaved could imagine and actualise the freedom for which they struggled; a freedom that they passed down to present generations, who enjoy the rich cultural traditions of their African ancestors.

Prof. Verene Shepherd is chair of the Jamaica National Bicentenary Committee and also chairperson of the Jamaica National Heritage Trust.