Archive: History
Years: 2023, 2022
2023
In 2023 Moray House Trust hosted four events about Guyana’s history.
From Canefield to Commerce: a brief history of the Portuguese in Guyana.
This is a short film dedicated to the work of the late Professor Sr. Noel Menezes. It was shown at a live event at the Trust in September 2023 and via Zoom in October 2023. The film takes the form of readings accompanied by images (photographs and illustrations). It draws on Sr. Menezes’ historical research. The readings also include research by Dr Jo-Anne Ferreira, who has studied the Portuguese migration to the Caribbean, with a particular focus on Trinidad. The film lasts about 45 minutes.
You Tube Link: https://youtu.be/BzBNDA8JYJ0
The Guyana Maroons (1796-1834): persistent and resilient until the end of Slavery.
As Emilia Viotti da Costa reminds us in her seminal work about the Demerara Slave Rebellion of 1823, ‘slaves were not the passive victims of oppression…They fought back in every way they could, always trying to gain more control over their own lives.’ Rebellions have soaked up much of the historical limelight in the history of slavery in Demerara, Essequibo and Berbice. Acts of resistance, ranging from running away to what da Costa calls ‘daily acts of defiance and sabotage,’ have perhaps received less attention from historians. As school children, we all learned of the existence (and significance) of Maroon settlements in Suriname and Jamaica. So Dr Alston’s research showing that Maroon settlements in British Guiana were well established and endured, in some cases for decades, is both timely and heartening. This event was part of the Moray House Trust Samaan Tree Series.
YouTube Link:https://youtu.be/1MHhCNLrnxA
Girmitiyas: shaping new lives in new lands
This film commemorated Arrival Day with a look at the lives of a few of those who came and their descendants. The readings draw heavily on the scholarship of the late Professor Brij Lal and Professor Brinsley Samaroo to provide a backdrop to the process of indenture and the experience of those who signed up for it, the girmitiyas. As with much of our history, the legacy of (what Professor Seecharan calls) ‘the supremacy of imperial institutions and definitions and the omnipotence of the colonial bureaucracy’, threatens to rob the indentured of agency, to obscure the intriguing course of individual lives and the validity of individual voices. The readings conclude with substantial extracts from the memoirs of two well-known Guyanese to give a flavour of the rich and varied experiences of those who came from India in service of sugar.
YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/hUNRn7itffc
The Berbice Uprising of 1814
In early February 1814 enslaved Africans across the West Coast of Berbice were ready to rise up against the colony’s white planters. As they prepared for an oath-swearing ceremony which would begin the war, they were betrayed and their plans were revealed – along with similar plans on the East and Corentyne Coasts. Over 100 people were seized and interrogated. The leaders were executed and many others were punished. Those involved had drawn inspiration and lessons from memories of the Berbice Rising of 1763 and this almost forgotten revolt was less than ten years before the Demerara Rebellion of 1823. Dr Alston is a historian and former museum curator and teacher.
YouTube: https://youtu.be/gNb2O71ZI8k
2022
In 2022 Moray House Trust hosted four events with a historical bent.
Scottish Names and African Roots: Resources for tracing Afro-Guyanese ancestry
In November 2022, we hosted a short talk by Dr David Alston. Dr Alston is a historian and former museum curator and teacher. He has compiled research about Scotland’s links to Guyana pre-1843 on the Slaves and Highlanders website for many years.
You Tube Links: https://youtu.be/zEW_u4HkWvk
Growing Up in Guyana, a memoir by A.J Seymour
A.J Seymour [1914-1989] is best remembered as the long-serving editor of the literary journal, Kyk-over-al. He was also an accomplished poet, essayist and memoirist. This is a pre-recorded reading of edited extracts from A.J’s memoir of his parents and childhood. The readers are Joan Seymour, Guy Seymour and the Rev J.T Seymour (three of A.J’s children). The reading is accompanied by photos that illustrate what Georgetown looked like a century ago.
YouTube: https://youtu.be/DX2fa058Mx8
The 1823 Slave Rebellion
In the Demerara Slave rebellion in August 1823, the main encounter between the slaves and the state occurred at Bachelor’s Adventure Plantation. This is a recording of readings and illustrations about the rebellion. The project draws on two main sources; Emilia Viotti da Costa’s Crowns of Glory, Tears of Blood and Joshua Bryant’s Account of an Insurrection of the Negro Slaves in the colony of Demerara. Bryant, an artist resident in Demerara at the time, was an eyewitness.
YouTube Link: 1823: https://youtu.be/qgXbkqpsvzU
‘I am a Coolie’: Identity and Indenture
“Proclaim the word! Identify with the word! Proudly say to the world: I am a Coolie.”
[‘I am a Coolie’, an essay by Rajkumari Singh [1923-1979]
In order to commemorate Arrival Day on 5th May 2022, Moray House Trust curated readings, poems and illustrations about indenture in British Guiana. The readings come from two sources; Gaiutra Bahadur’s Coolie Woman: the Odyssey of Indenture and Clem Seecharan’s Finding Myself: Essays on Race, Politics and Culture. Poems and prose extracts are from David Dabydeen and Brinsley Samaroo’s India in the Caribbean and the Peepal Tree Press Anthology, They Came in Ships.
YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/dUirPfa8Fjg
2021
Kala Pani (2021): https://youtu.be/U17dAhiGLu0