Skip to main content

The Dutch national archives are showcasing a unique set of letters sent by the leader of the first organised slave revolt on the American continent to a colonial governor, in which the newly free man proposed to share the land.

The offer from the man known as Cuffy, from Kofi – meaning “born on Friday” – is said to provide a new insight into attempts to resist the brutal regimes of the colonial period, often overlooked in histories of enslaved people.

“We will give Your Excellency half of Berbice, and all the negroes will retreat high up the rivers, but don’t think they will remain slaves. The negroes that Your Excellency has on his ships – they can remain slaves,” the rebel leader wrote to the local governor, Wolfert Simon van Hoogenheim.

Berbice, now part of Guyana, was a Dutch colony for two centuries, and in 1763 approximately 350 white Europeans were keeping an estimated 4,000 slaves on coffee, cotton and sugar plantations in increasingly barbaric conditions, even by the cruel standards of the time.

Read the full article at: https://www.theguardian.com/wo...rbice-slave-uprising

Replies sorted oldest to newest

@Prashad posted:

Cuffy is a white woman rapist.

Spoils of war, Prash! So were the Russians in Germany at the end of WWII! The Mongols in Europe! The Third World 'refugees' in Europe today! Life is both unpredictable and precarious!

FM
Last edited by Former Member
@Former Member posted:

Spoils of war, Prash! So were the Russians in Germany at the end of WWII! The Mongols in Europe! The Third World 'refugees' in Europe today! Life is both unpredictable and precarious!

You sound like Donald Trump's father.  According to Mary Trump. The elder Trump taught his children that life is a zero sum game for winners not losers.

Prashad
Last edited by Prashad
@Prashad posted:

You sound like Donald Trump's father.  According to Mary Trump. The elder Trump taught his children that life is a zero sum game for winners not losers.

Prash, in war the worse side of man comes to the fore! Kill or be killed! Freely ***k anything you can get away with ***king! Grandmothers, cripples, anything that has a *****, or even an ass*ole to demonstrate your power over someone! I'm not approving, just observing! Do you think rape is about love? It's about power over someone! Sex without love is masturbation, whether by one person enjoying it or both! Here, you weak thing, gimme your *****!

In business there is NO room for sentiment!

FM
@Former Member posted:

Prash, in war the worse side of man comes to the fore! Kill or be killed! Freely ***k anything you can get away with ***king! Grandmothers, cripples, anything that has a *****, or even an ass*ole to demonstrate your power over someone! I'm not approving, just observing! Do you think rape is about love? It's about power over someone! Sex without love is masturbation, whether by one person enjoying it or both! Here, you weak thing, gimme your *****!

In business there is NO room for sentiment!

You are crude. Delete this post. Not very civil.

R

Add Reply

×
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×
×