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| The Stone that the builder refuse....... |
Recently I have been involved in some renovation work in "my" garden. As the picture suggests I have had to do some physically demanding work.Now this may not seem to be a momentous event, however, for someone such as myself who has fallen into office work and has managed to avoid strenuous work for several years, it did make me contemplate my journey and that of my forbears.
The fact of the matter is that I found it very difficult to swing my sledgehammer for much more than 6 - 7 minutes at a time. I wanted to stop, take a break, get a drink, whatever. Then I felt ashamed of myself , as I remembered the souls who lived through chattel bondage and colonisation.
Every Time I hear the sound of the whip.........
You may rightly ask where is all this leading, well here it is. Tomorrow 1 August 2014 is Emancipation Day. That is, it is the anniversary of the day in 1833 when the Abolition of Slavery Act [Emancipation Proclamation] came into force. On this day Afrikans in the British carried beyond were declared free. There was great rejoicing and families gathered together and gave thanks to the creator that they had lived to see this day. Yet, what was the reality of this event. True, they were in some sense no longer compelled to work for their slave master from "can't see in the morning 'til can't see at night." Officially they could govern their own lives, but the actuality was this, on the Monday morning after the declaration, most had to return to their "former" master and beg for some work, as they were now solely responsible for providing food, clothes and shelter for themselves and their families. No land was handed over to them, no monies were made available to them to get started, no effort was made to assist them in becoming self sufficient. Instead, the planters were given a gift of £20,000,000 as compensation for loss of stock. In fact if you read the Hansard of 24 July 1833 Mr Fowell Buxton said,
