After looking at this weeks post I decided to do things a little different for this blog. Take the time to look at the pictures and take a listen to the links.....it will tell its own story better than I ever could.
Lecture By Selwyn R Cudjoe
http://media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php/william-hardin-burnley-caribbean-slavery/
William Hardin Burnley, the biggest slave owner in Trinidad, did everything in his power to prevent the emancipation of Africans in the colony. When slavery ended, he was convinced that only Africans who had tyrannical masters would benefit from emancipation. The rest, he opined, ‘Were too ignorant to understand the real position in which they were placed ’(1). The link above talks about one man that was a planter on Trinidad during the time of the British government abolishing slavery.
The video that I have posted above I found on YouTube, it is slave narratives from the Southern area of the United States. There were no slave narratives that I could find coming from the Caribbean but when I watched this I had to share it because after hearing the words of these men and women that were slaves, it was almost no different than what would have been found on the islands in the Caribbean (including Trinidad).
Yet Africans were not the only people who were subjected to the work and brutality of the Caribbean plantations. Trinidad was a British colony and as such was one of the islands where Indians from the sub-continent were brought in as a labour force after "slavery". Yet if you listen to the next video that I have decided to post you will learn that the indentured servitude of these Indians were just another form of slavery.
I know that this a little different format then what I normally do, but I believe that I could personally not do this particular subject justice without the words and the voices of others. I hope that you take the time to not only listen but to hear what is being said about how the colonies made their money and who's back the colonies were built on. . .
1) http://media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php/william-hardin-burnley-caribbean-slavery/
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