[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 ______ 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. ____________________