Politics
Wilberforce was not the great liberator
Published 04 December 2006
Who really started the process to outlaw slavery?
It would be churlish of me not to say quietly and simply "I accept" to Tony Blair's grand apology for the slave trade. I am a direct descendant of slaves, born on the very terrain in which this barbaric institution took root. My great-grandfather was born only 15 years after slavery had been abolished. He left an enduring stamp on our family. During my childhood, year after year, I would make the pilgrimage to his grave to light candles on All Saints' Day. My grandmother's advice to me, as an eight-year-old, flowed from the slave experience. "Never, ever," she said, "accept inferiority to any white person as long as you live."
The impact of the injustices of slavery is still palpable today among the black descendants of slaves. The British, French and Spanish scoured the Gulf of Guinea, moved east, around the Cape of Good Hope and up to Mozambique. The slavers moved into the interior, plundering as they went, capturing all, regardless of age and sex, setting tribe against tribe, murdering and looting.
The slaves were marched in columns, carrying stones of up to 50 pounds to stop them escaping; they walked hundreds of miles in some cases, thousands dropping dead along the way. For the first time in its history, Africa experienced murder and plunder on an industrial scale. The white man had arrived in all his pomp. We who are alive today shall never forget. Then came the murderous journey to America and the Caribbean, shackled all the way, beaten and spat upon. Disease claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands during the Atlantic crossing.
The slavers cared little; they had secured an inexhaustible supply of humans on the African continent. The Caribbean islands were at once transformed into a sea of sugar-cane fields where black people experienced unspeakable brutality. The least hint of disobedience led to whipping, alternating with application of burning wood to the buttocks. Salt, pepper, citron, aloes and hot ashes were poured on to the bleeding wounds. Mutilation was common: limbs, ears, private parts all included. All of this was justified in the name of white European civilisation. In the words of one Englishman, Negroes were "unjust, cruel, barbarous, half human, treacherous, deceitful, thieves, drunkards, proud, lazy, unclean, shameless, jealous to fury, and cowards".
Some of these terms persist against black folk in Britain today. What we, the people of the Caribbean, did not know until fairly recently was that it was our ancestors who defeated slavery. We had constantly been told that it was William Wilberforce who was responsible for our freedom, even though it is now on record that, from 1791 to 1804, slaves launched guerrilla warfare, culminating in defeat for the Spanish, French and British, and the declaration of independence by Haiti.
On every West Indian island the revolt was intense. The slogan that sped throughout the Caribbean was precise: "Let's kill all the white men and be masters of our land." We were at the heart of our own liberation. No imperial force could contain us in slavery. It was this movement, and this movement alone, that set Wilberforce and his friends in motion. Slavery was not ended by an act of charity for some downtrodden folk. Blair's apology is not worth the paper it is written on if this liberation movement is not recognised as the central force that drove slavery out of the Caribbean. A luta continua!
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