The following is the last in a four part series by historian Dr Claudius Fergus on the enduring—and arguably unjustifiable—heroic standing of Christopher Columbus in modern society: Socialist thinker Karl Liebknecht compared European imperialism to a cyclone spinning across the globe, driven and sustained by its militarism that “crushes people …
Read More »From romance to reality (Pt 2): how Compte de Lopinot forcibly enslaved free Africans
The well known, formerly enslaved, black abolitionist, Mary Prince, cogently argued in her autobiography in 1831: “How can slaves be happy when they have the halter round their neck and the whip upon their back?” Prince was directly confronting the lie of slave owners and other apologists for slavery that …
Read More »From romance to reality: Why we deserve the truth about Compte de Lopinot and his “contented slaves”
Responding to the National Trust’s declaration to elevate the Lopinot Historical Complex to a heritage site, a Trinidad Guardian article in 2013 commended the villagers for preserving vital elements of the built landscape of early nineteenth century. Presumably, the “colourful history” to which the writer alluded is the abstract on …
Read More »