Dear Editor,
In your editorial ‘Emancipation’ dated July 31, 2011, you stated “So tomorrow we
should remember the forebears of pre-1838 …” One of these forebears was Damon of Plantation Richmond in Essequibo, who led a protest against the introduction of the apprenticed labourer system introduced on August 1, 1834. The system amounted to a form of economic bondage. It was established by the UK Parliament’s Abolition Act of 1833, which provided for the abolition of enslavement throughout the British colonies and for compensation for the former enslavers, in the sum of £20 million. The Act provided for the immediate freedom of a limited number of enslaved Africans, ie, children under the age of 6 years. Enslaved Africans aged 6 years and over, were bound by the Act to continue working for their former plantation owners for periods up to 6 years.
They were divided into three classes of apprenticed labourers: Class 1 comprised praedial labourers, who were engaged in cultivation of lands, had been attached to the soil during slavery, and were bound to work on the plantation for 6 years. Class 2 consisted of praedial labourers, who were engaged in cultivation of lands not belonging to their former ‘owners’ during enslavement, and who were bound for 6 years. Class 3, non-praedial labourers, did not fall into either of the first two classes, and included carpenters, coopers and other workers, who were bound for 4 years.
Damon and several hundred others protested against the new law. They did not accept that the British King had not declared that they were fully emancipated. They went on strike. They hoisted flags in Trinity Churchyard in La Belle Alliance in Essequibo in August 1834. Damon and many others were put on trial in Georgetown in September 1834 and convicted of seditious riots and disturbances against the public peace. The court record of the evidence given states that they were unarmed and that Damon said that “he was a freeman… he would not work for … anyone; he would not be bound for anyone.” There was also evidence that the planters killed several pigs which had been privately reared by the former enslaved Africans.
Damon was sentenced to death, not in accordance with English common law, but in accordance with the more severe Roman-Dutch law. Justice John Walpole Willis wrote a dissenting judgment, supporting a sentence of 9 months’ imprisonment, with hard labour every other week on the treadmill. Damon was hanged outside the Public Buildings, Brickdam, the location of the present-day National Assembly, on October 13, 1834.
There were also protests in some of the Caribbean colonies.
Yours faithfully,
Colin Bobb-Semple