THE BUILT environments of London and other cities in the United Kingdom (UK) were significantly destroyed during World War II which lasted from September 1, 1939 to September 2, 1945. Many Caribbean people, regarded as British citizens living in...
SINCE THE Windrush Compensation Scheme’s launch in 2019, £65.78 million has been paid to 1,757 claims and a further £11.98 million has been offered, according to the UK government. Now, for the past several months there are reports in the media...
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR of the Jamaica Business Development Corporation (JBDC), Valerie Veira, wants a vibrant and sustainable Jadire batik textile cottage industry. She expressed that desire at the recent opening of Alao Luqman Omotayo’s solo...
‘No long talk’ is a phrase used in Jamaica to reflect our impatience and, sometimes, arrogance. But, in another place and time, ‘No long talk’ simply means ‘let’s chill, let’s eat, let’s dance’. The place is Miss Lily’s in Manhattan, New York, and...
ON MONDAY, August 28, at 5 p.m., ‘From Adirè to Jadirè – A Transition of Textile Culture from Southwest Nigeria to Jamaica’ unfolds at The University of the West Indies Regional Headquarters along Mona Road in St Andrew, as a variety of Jadire (...
The 13th staging of the Jamaica Poetry Festival inside the Louise Bennett Garden Theatre on August 13 was a Sunday dessert of spoken words, songs and movements. And the piece de resistance for the evening was Professor Edward Baugh’s poetic verve...
Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett is Jamaica’s biggest tourism cheerleader. Every opportunity he gets he is singing and dancing about Jamaica’s tourism healthy status, products and the people and stakeholders who buttress the industry. And since...
Attorney-at-law M. Georgia Gibson Henlin has a long string of letters behind her name, a glorious testament to her academic and professional achievements. She got called to the Jamaican Bar in 1993, the New York Bar in 2018, the Bar of Ontario in...
AT THE recent UWI Principal’s Research Awards Ceremony, a study, titled ‘The Socio-economic Impact Assessment of COVID-19 and Policy Options in Jamaica’, conducted jointly by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Sir Arthur Lewis...
AT MIDNIGHT on August 1, 1834, Governor Sir Lionel Smith read the Emancipation Proclamation on the steps of the portico of the governor’s mansion. Yet, that was not the beginning of full freedom. The enslaved were still tied to the plantations...
The Atlantic Trade in Africans was officially abolished in 1808. But, from then until 1823, the antislavery campaign train seemed to have run out of steam. Abolitionists showed little interest in abolishing slavery itself. In 1823, the Anti-Slavery...
Samuel Sharpe, an enslaved man, lived on Croydon Estate in St James, but frequented Montego Bay. He got his owner’s full name, and was treated well by his owner and his family. Yet, in his book, ‘Death Struggles of Slavery’, Methodist Reverend...
While the slave trade was effectively abolished on January 1, 1808, British slavery in the West Indies was not. So, the abolitionists, bearing in mind that slavery should be gradually abolished, did not sit on their laurels. They were now...
The fight against slavery started with the Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers. In 1671, their founder, George Fox, strongly told the members of his society in Barbados to set the enslaved Africans free. By 1774, any Friends who were...
THOUGH AFRICAN drumming was outlawed on the plantations during slavery days for awhile because the colonists considered it to be seditious, it did not die. It survived during and after slavery. Thus, Jamaica has a rich drumming culture. The drums...
Under British plantation slavery, enslaved people were regarded as chattel – the property of their holders, who subjected them to their whims and fancy. The enslaved had absolutely no right to self-determination, and could be sold or repossessed at...
For over 300 years, Europeans enslaved Africans on the plantations of Jamaica and other Caribbean islands. Slavery was a brutal system of hard labour, the loss of lives and limbs of hundred of enslaved people, some of whom resisted from day one....
TIMES ARE hard, and so some people have more than one stream of income. This has given rise to a wide variety of cottage industries in Jamaica. For some, their small business is the only source of income. And there are those who are even using...
HER PETITE frame and intellectual depth give credence to the Jamaican maxim, ‘She likkle, but she tallawah’. She is small, but powerful and useful. She regards herself as a warrior, advocate, activist, spiritual leader, and healer, among other...
On Saturday, July 15, at 5 p.m., the Alliance of Yorubas in Jamaica (AYJ) will be launched inside St Andrew High School’s Margaret Gartshore Hall at 10 Cecelio Avenue, off Half-way Tree Road. Dr Maureen Tamuno, Nigeria’s high commissioner to...
The energy. The spirit. The dexterity. The militant look on his face. That is what you see when Delano ‘Ras Padam’ Douglas is around the Maroon drum. He can also sing and dance. Hear the poignant and dramatic cadence of his voice when he leads a...
Member of Parliament for West Portland Daryl Vaz has applauded the efforts of the organisers of the annual International Charles Town Maroon Conference and Festival, noting its cultural, historical and tourism value to the parish. The event was...
SINCE 2008, THE Charles Town Maroons in Portland have been producing and hosting the Charles Town International Maroon Conference, and a few years ago ‘Festival’ was added to reflect the festive elements of the event, where scholars from all over...
On Saturday, June 3, Queen Nanny Legendary Maroon Chieftainess, Roy T. Anderson’s second full-length documentary, premièred on American television via The African Channel. Last Saturday, Akwantu: The Journey debuted on the said channel at 1 p.m....
Queen Nanny: Legendary Maroon Chieftainess, a film by Jamaica-born Hollywood stuntman/filmmaker Roy T. Anderson, will be airing on American TV for the first time on Saturday, June 3 at 8 p.m. EDT on The African Channel (TAC). This landmark one-...
