On Sunday Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha was in Essequibo to attend a memorial and thanksgiving service to mark the 181st anniversary of the founding of Queenstown village. That he chose to go there was commendable, although it must be said it was unfortunate he contaminated the occasion with the customary political recitations. “We must beware of actions that are aimed at dividing us as a people and as a nation,” he said, amplifying this warning in more lurid terms. Not the way, one would have thought, to build the ‘One Guyana’ he claimed the government was committed to doing.
The purpose of the commemoration was to acknowledge “the rich legacy left by the founders”, as the Minister put it, going on to say that such events were important in helping to keep this alive. He is certainly right about that. He also commended the descendants in respect of the successive committees which worked to maintain the legacy. “It speaks to the importance of continuity and the need for enlightenment for generations over time,” he was quoted as saying.
Continuity and a consciousness of being part of a historical tradition are indeed important for any community, since among other things they confer a sense of identity. And the story of Guyana’s villages is a remarkable one which has no equivalent anywhere else in the Caribbean. It was Allan Young, the author of a book on the history of our local government which was published in 1958, but which still has relevance, who gave the statistics for the movement of people off the estates and into villages following emancipation.
These were first provided in a radio talk he gave in 1957, when he said: “I like to remember that for the sheer mass of people involved, the village movement in British Guiana bears comparison with some of the great movements of mankind that changed the course of history in early times … It equalled in size the army used by Alexander the Great in Asia Minor and India. It embraced more than four times the followers that were with William of Normandy on his invasion of England [in 1066]…” Young went on say that between 1839 when the movement started, and 1842 the emigrants from the estates who had moved to villages numbered 16,000. By 1848 that figure had reached 44,000. While the numbers declined thereafter, nevertheless the village population total in 1856 represented nearly half the population of the coastal belt.
The radio talk from which this comes was the first of six which were subsequently published by the then Government Information Services under the rubric ‘Some milestones in village history’. What was interesting is that these were then placed in at least some schools. The language and subject matter would have been well beyond most of the children, but the booklets would have provided information which the teachers of the coastal schools could have extracted for use in the classroom. Among other villages, this little publication provided some data on Queenstown.
Past generations have supplied some local historians, although their work is not necessarily very well known, in addition to which there are a few villages which have published histories, Victoria being fairly well served in that regard. But by and large not much attention is paid to local history nowadays; in fact little emphasis is placed on a knowledge of history in general unless it relates to post-war historical developments. All the emphasis is on subjects which have vocational or modern political implications. Modern trends notwithstanding, it is important to keep the spirit of a community alive, and with that in mind children should learn about their own environment, including their human environment and its history.
Nowadays young pupils are so hemmed in by assessments and/or tests and the like, which are based on general curricula issued from the Ministry of Education, that there is little space for them to explore very far outside these. One cannot help but feel, however, there is an argument for saying that pupils in Queenstown, for example, have more to gain from learning about their village at the age of 11, than about what Caricom does. Even in the case of very recent history there is something to be said for teachers inviting the older members of the community to come into the classroom and describe for the children what life was like when they were young, and to answer their questions.
Queenstown has a monument dated 1947, marking the hundred years since it was granted village status and at which the Minister laid a wreath. It is fortunate in that regard, for it is a focal point for remembering the past. Perhaps the authorities there could work towards having a room somewhere, where the background to how that came about is laid out, and where other information – some of it oral, perhaps – is available giving children, adult residents and interested parties information on the village, as well as related material on the surrounding plantations and events connected to these.
Queenstown itself, of course, was what is sometimes called a proprietary village. Founded in 1840, it came about because planter Edward Carbery laid out the front lands of his three adjacent plantations into a township with streets and residential lots that were bought by the workers for between $100 and $200. Further details on the origins and development of the village would require some research in the first instance, but what could start as a room, could eventually develop into a small museum.
The plans could also include general information on the village movement as a whole, which as already remarked has no parallel in this region, or perhaps anywhere. The overall total of what villagers spent on houses and land improvement, Young wrote, came to “two and a half million dollars … over the ten-year period in what still remains the largest unaided community self-help scheme this county has ever witnessed.”
With a history like that the villagers of our coast have something to be proud of and they should make the necessary moves to ensure it is not forgotten. For their part, politicians should make a distinction between modern politics and early history. Appreciating a tradition does not require the intrusion of divisive political interventions.
