[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 13]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 17884-17885]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             RECOGNIZING EMANCIPATION DAY IN THE CARIBBEAN

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                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 12, 2006

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in order to pay tribute to a 
significant national holiday recognized by the nations of the Caribbean 
that commemorates the emancipation of the slaves in the British Empire 
on August 1, 1834. This day celebrates arguably one of the most 
important events in the history of mankind to that date, preceding the 
end of slavery in the U.S. by some thirty years. It certainly was the 
beginning of the freedom of people of African descent in the British 
Caribbean.
  Slavery has existed in various forms throughout most of recorded 
history. Because of its widespread nature, emancipation was not a 
single occurrence, but rather an action that took place at different 
times in different locations depending on the colonial power. Set aside 
as an anniversary marking the birth of liberty from legalized control, 
violence and enforced labor, the first day of August, Emancipation Day, 
serves as a reminder of how long and arduous the Caribbean's long walk 
to freedom actually was, encompassing the years leading up to the 
liberating act and the many years of colonialism which followed as a 
struggle to secure the promise of freedom.
  The values and freedoms we exercise daily have come with a price. 
Freedom is never given freely. The emancipation of slaves in the 
Caribbean signified the emergence of a more civil and just society. 
However, there is unfinished business in regards to the recognition and 
atonement given to this important period in history. We must continue 
to look for ways that adequately address the legacy and history of 
slavery and lead to an appreciation of the struggle for liberation.
  It behooves all of us, jointly, as well as individually, to mark one 
of the most significant events in world history. I enter into the 
Congressional Record the Carib News opinion editorial written by Dr. 
Harold Robertson, Trinidad and Tobago's Consul General in New York and 
thank him for providing a very detailed account of the path many 
Caribbean nations took to freedom. Although there still remains a lot 
to be done, by celebrating our past and our accomplishments, we are 
building a stronger foundation to build the future upon.

                 [From the NY Carib News, Aug. 2, 2006]

              Statement for Emancipation Celebrations 2006

                       (By Dr. Harold Robertson)

       The Trinidad and Tobago Consulate, in collaboration with 
     TATIC (Trinidad & Tobago Independence Celebrations, Inc.) 
     recently marked their Emancipation Day on Friday, July 28, 
     with a celebration at the T & T Consulate in New York. The 
     Consul General Dr. Harold Robertson was the keynote speaker 
     who delivered the following address: ``Today's event is the 
     Consulate's annual celebration of what is arguably one of the 
     most important events in the history of the British Caribbean 
     and indeed in the Western Hemisphere--the Abolition of 
     Slavery and the legal transformation of African slaves to 
     free individuals.
       Emancipation as a legal decision was not restricted to the 
     British Caribbean since slavery was also not restricted only 
     to that region. Slavery existed in virtually the entire 
     western hemisphere (with the notable exception of what is now 
     Canada), in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Moreover, 
     because of its widespread nature, abolition of the 
     institution was not a single occurrence but rather, an action 
     which took place at different times in different locations, 
     dependent upon the colonial power.
       What cannot be gainsaid is that in this hemisphere slavery 
     was instituted for two basic reasons. Eric Williams in his 
     seminal work Capitalism and Slavery postulates that the 
     impetus was economic; and that the economic trigger was the 
     decision by the metropolitan powers to develop the new world 
     as a source of sugar. Sugar plantations required labor, cheap 
     labor, without which the great development of the Caribbean 
     in the 17th, 18th and early 19th Centuries would not have 
     been possible. There is certainly much evidence to support 
     this view; but one can take some issue with Williams' other 
     assertion that the use of Africans as slave labor in the 
     Caribbean and elsewhere ``in no way implied the inferiority 
     of the Negro''.
       Based on these two pillars, the institution of African 
     slavery began with the importation of a dozen Africans to 
     serve as personal slaves to wealthy Portuguese in 1441, and 
     went on to subsist for some four centuries during which it is 
     conservatively estimated that approximately 50,000,000 
     persons were transported from Africa to the new world.
       By the late 18th Century, early 19th, slavery in the 
     British Empire however was under sustained attack on two 
     fronts. One was the economic--the plantation system had 
     embarked upon a long slow decline, it was still profitable 
     but the world was changing, with the industrial revolution 
     exerting stronger influence. This was coupled with the 
     growing sentiment of humanitarianism in Britain. Economic 
     decline and humanitarian agitation in and out of Parliament 
     led to the great day, 1 August, 1834, when the abolition of 
     slavery was encapsulated in the coming into effect of the 
     Emancipation Act.
       It is worthy of mention that Britain was not the first 
     country or place to end slavery in the western hemisphere; 
     that distinction belongs to the then Colony of Rhode Island 
     which, caught up in the revolutionary fervor of the time, 
     abolished slavery in 1774. Revolutionary France abolished 
     slavery in 1789, only to have it re-instituted by Napoleon. 
     Again in our hemisphere the next country to abolish slavery 
     was Haiti which in defiance of France drafted its own 
     Constitution in 1801, which abolished slavery in Saint 
     Domingue for all time. In spite of efforts by Bonaparte's 
     France to recapture St. Domingue the end result was failure 
     and on 1 January, 1804 Dessaline's Government adopted its 
     declaration of independence, changed the name of the country 
     to Haiti and confirmed Toussaint's ending of slavery. Simon 
     Bolivar's campaigns led to the end of slavery in Spain's 
     mainland colonies in South America in the early 19th Century.
       These were the precedents to the Emancipation of Slaves in 
     the British Colonies--but what in practical terms did the end 
     of slavery mean for the British Caribbean. The first and most 
     obvious effect was the transformation of 540,559 African 
     Slaves from chattel slavery to legal freedom. For those of us 
     familiar with the economic and demographic reality of the 
     Caribbean today, the picture on 1 August, 1834, doubtless 
     makes for interesting observation. The number of slaves set 
     free in the individual British territories reveals the 
     following: Jamaica--255,290; British Guyana (now Guyana)--
     69,579; Barbados--66,638; Antigua--23,350; Grenada--19,009; 
     St. Vincent--18,114; Trinidad--17,539; St. Kitts--15,667; 
     Dominica--11,664; St. Lucia--10,328; Tobago--9,078; Bahamas--
     7,734; Nevis--7,225; Montserrat--5,026; British V.I.--4,318.
       The second critical factor was the decision of the British 
     Parliament not to compensate the former slaves for their 
     oppression, humiliation and degradation but rather to pay the 
     slave-owners for the loss of their property. Parliament in 
     London allocated 20,000,000 (over 1 billion dollars in 
     today's currency) for that purpose.

[[Page 17885]]

       The British abolition was followed by similar actions among 
     European powers--France ended slavery in 1848 following 
     another period of revolutionary activity; Sweden in 1846, 
     Holland in 1863. Slavery in the remaining Spanish Caribbean 
     was ended not from Madrid but within the colonies themselves, 
     with Puerto Rico ending slavery in 1873 and Cuba in 1880. The 
     last major regional country to emancipate its slaves was 
     Brazil which ended the institution in 1888.
       All of this brings us to the USA. Emancipation did not come 
     to the United States until 1 December, 1865, when Congress 
     ratified the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the 
     United States. It was that amendment, eight months after 
     Lincoln's death which abolished slavery in the United States.
       The foregoing, in snapshot, provides a picture of the 
     events which we celebrate today. For us in the Caribbean, 
     emancipation and its repercussions served to trigger the 
     events leading to the emergence of modern society. In those 
     islands and colonies where land was available, the freed 
     slaves generally refused to work for their former owners. 
     They abandoned the plantations in favor either of forming 
     their own free villages or engaging in other activity.
       Faced with a labor crisis, Caribbean plantation owners 
     reacted in the only way they knew--importation of more labor. 
     Initial efforts were concentrated on Chinese and Portuguese 
     workers, leading to thriving communities of these ethnicities 
     in countries like Jamaica, Trinidad and Guyana. Indeed, this 
     year the Chinese Community will be celebrating the 150th 
     Anniversary of their arrival into Trinidad and already in 
     some quarters the call has gone out for official recognition 
     of a Chinese arrival day.
       The greatest influx of new labor in the post emancipation 
     period, however, came from India and interestingly virtually 
     the same race-based philosophy that was used to justify the 
     enslavement of Africans featured in the importation of 
     Indians. Indians had been introduced to Mauritius and Fiji 
     and in early discourse over the suitability of the Indian for 
     labor in the Caribbean, officials of the East India Company 
     described the Indians as being ``more akin to the monkey than 
     the man. They have no religion, no education and in their 
     present state no want beyond eating, drinking and sleeping.''
       The Indians were not to be seen as slaves--Indian labor was 
     classified as indentureship--they were to work for specific 
     periods of time at the end of which they exercised the choice 
     of either returning to India or accepting a tract of state 
     land to remain as freemen in the Caribbean. As the time 
     rolled by the option of returning to India was gradually made 
     more and more difficult. Thus, it was that beginning in 1838 
     and extending to the end of the First World War in 1918 over 
     1,000,000 Indians were introduced into the Caribbean to work 
     on the sugar plantations. Today, the largest Indian societies 
     in the Caribbean are to be found in Guyana and Trinidad and 
     Tobago, but the immigration of Indians was widespread 
     throughout the Caribbean; 238,000 went to Guyana; 145,000 
     were sent to Trinidad; 39,000 to Guadeloupe; 34,000 to 
     Suriname; 21,500 to Jamaica; smaller numbers went to 
     Martinique, Grenada, St. Lucia and St. Vincent.
       The repercussions of these events are of course still being 
     felt today. In the Caribbean, emancipation still remains a 
     work in progress, since it has taken on aspects which extend 
     beyond the mere end of slavery. Many Caribbean societies face 
     the struggle of blending different cultures and ethnicities 
     into a coherent social whole. Of course, the infusion of 
     different peoples has led to the development of a pluralistic 
     culture, perhaps best exemplified in Trinidad and Tobago 
     where calypso and soca exist side by side with chutney, the 
     steelpan with the tassa and the cuisine ranges from pastelles 
     and arepas to sancoche and peleau, provisions and oil down, 
     bake and shark and buljol, roti and phouloorie, fried rice 
     and chow mein. It is also reflected in the general antipathy 
     of blacks to agricultural endeavor and the stereotype of the 
     Chinese laundry or the Portuguese rum shop. It is reflected 
     in sport, as in politics as we continue to strive to develop 
     the society which we all desire.
       The Jamaican icon Bob Marley has exhorted us to emancipate 
     ourselves from mental slavery and nowhere is this exhortation 
     more apposite than in the incongruous situation where 
     politically independent countries of the modern Caribbean 
     continue to maintain the British Privy Council as their final 
     arbiter in jurisprudential matters. Emancipation will not be 
     fully achieved until that is corrected.
       Whether in the Caribbean or in America the abolition of 
     slavery unleashed the compendium of forces out of which 
     modern society emerged. Still however, there is unfinished 
     business, not least of which is the increasing clamor for the 
     righting of a historical wrong--the payment of reparations to 
     the heirs of those who endured this most heinous institution. 
     So far, the concept of reparations is a notion which has 
     engaged the attention only of activists and academics. That 
     is changing; others are becoming conscious of the need for 
     atonement. For example, at its 75th General Convention held 
     this past June, the Episcopal Church of the United States 
     adopted a Resolution entitled ``Slavery and Racial 
     Reconciliation''. The Resolution acknowledged the Church's 
     participation in the fundamental betrayal of humanity 
     represented by slavery, observed that the repercussions of 
     slavery continue to plague our life and culture and called 
     upon Congress and the American people to initiate a study and 
     dialogue about the history and legacy of slavery and of 
     methodologies for the provision of monetary and non-monetary 
     reparations to the descendants of the victims of slavery.
       There is much that still remains to be done. Only when 
     there is universal understanding of and reparations for the 
     blight of slavery will we be able to speak of complete 
     emancipation. For now, it behoves all of us, jointly as well 
     as individually, to mark one of the most significant events 
     in our history and indeed in world history; and to rededicate 
     ourselves to working for its total achievement. Trinidad and 
     Tobago has done its part; in 1985, Trinidad and Tobago was 
     the first country to declare Emancipation Day as a national 
     holiday. Other Caribbean countries have followed.

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