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Reply to "The Guyana Story by Odeen Ishmael"

Originally Posted by caribny:

BTW all praises to Odeen for investing lots of time to develop snippets of Guyanese history.  Not only is it easily digested (you do not have to read an enitire history book to get specific pieces of info) but Guyanese history is poorly reported. 

 

I am sure that most Guyanese kids taking CXC History know more Jamaican or Bajan history than they do Guyanese.  This is why there is so much ignorance about Guyanese heritage and we have been led to believe that Guyanese weere a docile people prior to the "GODS" of Cheddi and Burnham. 

 

How many know anything about Nathaniel Critchlow and others?

 

How many know the real reason why indentures were brought in?  No it was NOT because the freed slaves abandoned the estates as indentures weree even taken to labor surplus islands like Jamaica and St Kitts.

 

How many knew that the estates used a reserve of creole and Bajan blacks to ensure that Indian indentures didnt get out of hand? Just as the indentures were used to undermine the efforts of the Guyanese creole blacks.  This being why the plantation system worked hard to under mine the black free villages and their attempts at peasant farming and petty trading and as independent tradesmen.

 

How many know the origins of the African middle class in Guyana, and that Guyana was one of the FIRST countries in the Caribbean or Latin America to develop an African property owning middle class?

 

How many know that the first occupational choice of freed slaves was NOT to work in the civil service, but to engage as peasant farmers and small traders, the very occupations which blacks are now accuse dof shunning?  How many know why Afro Guyanese (and their counterparts in Trinidad, and maybe Suriname) abandoned those occupations seeking employment heavily in the civil service or as teachers, nurses or police men.

 

Lots of that is relevant to today's Guyana, but we do not know our history, so fall prey to lies, and stereotypes.

So Caribny with all of this how come the Indians became wealthier?  What stopped the African progress? 

FM
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