“[…] The continuous revolts and burning of the plantations by the Africans, following the Haitian Revolution, removed the profits from the sugar industry and forced England to end the system. This culminated in the Emancipation Proclamation of 1 August 1834. “Trinidad and Tobago, as well as the rest of the …
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 »Gilkes: Message to the Barbergreen; the continuing struggle for emancipation
Despite my shameless semi-appropriation of Malcolm X’s “Message to the Grassroots,” this in no way suggests that I place myself close to the same league of this giant ancestor. This is just my paltry message to those in my country, particularly those who live where there isn’t much grass, far …
Read More »CARICOM is two-faced on Haiti; Baldeosingh slams Beckles’ flawed logic in “s**hole” response
“Haiti is the only member of CARICOM whose citizens require a visa to travel to any other CARICOM nation. In other words, although CARICOM leaders pay lip service to Haiti, they also know that Haitians might leave their failed state—which is the diplomatic way of calling a country a ‘shithole’—and settle …
Read More »Balderdash and intellectual acrobatics; Fergus responds to Baldeosingh on race and Afro-history
“[Kevin] Baldeosingh […] uncritically regurgitates the defunct racist hypothesis that ‘darker-skinned people’ are judged less intelligent and ‘more primitive’ than ‘fairer-skinned people’. “[…] During the first century of this era, Ethiopians were the majority in the town of Barygasa (now Baruch) in western India. By the time of the Mughal …
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