Last week this newspaper reported on a picketing exercise protesting the decision to locate the monument commemorating the 1823 rising along the seawall opposite Camp Ayanganna. The monument has been commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, and was designed by Ivor Thom, who was also the sculptor responsible for the Damon Monument at Anna Regina. The protestors included members of the African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA), among other organizations and individuals, and the Mayor of Georgetown Hamilton Green.
Matters to do with monuments which relate to the history of particular ethnic groups are sensitive, of course, and the ministry would have been well advised to proceed with caution. To its credit, it did invite submissions from the public on possible sites for the monument in March, and it said at the time that after wide consultations, areas between Mahaica and Georgetown were short-listed based on criteria such as ambience, emotional and physical connection to the rebellion, adequate land space with an eye to a future park, accessibility, parking for vehicles and public viewing. These criteria, of course, fall into different categories, and geographical cum practical considerations should only become subjects for deliberation after a review of the “emotional and physical connection to the rebellion” had thrown up initial possibilities.
It is the history, of course, which gives rise to the emotional connection, and before even the ministry sat down to look at possible sites, it might have been worth its while to hold a meeting attended by any interested parties, where a historian of the period identified some major locations associated with the insurrection. In this instance, that would have to have been Dr Winston McGowan. If the historical issues have been clarified, then it becomes possible to consider what the more appropriate sites for commemoration of the event would be, and after that, which of those would fulfil practical requirements. Some of the discussion in the letter columns in the press has been driven by inaccurate information.
Why the rising of 1823 was not considered for commemoration with a monument before this is perhaps surprising. It is one of the great rebellions of the slavery period in the Caribbean, and had an enormous impact in the metropolis, reviving the anti-slavery movement which had fallen into abeyance after the abolition of the slave trade. It involved several thousands of those enslaved on plantations from Mahaica to Georgetown, and despite the fact that the rebels acted with extraordinary restraint towards the planters and their families on the estates, it was put down with considerable savagery.
It had nothing of the military organization of 1763-64, and the rebels’ largest confrontation with the forces of the plantocracy at Bachelor’s Adventure could not compare to any of the battles of the previous major uprising, as a consequence of which it was very brief. However, that did nothing to stop the colonial military and militia from shooting a large number of people on the plantations after the most perfunctory of ‘trials’, which were really just a farce and frequently seized on those who had not been intimately involved. Some of those who were ‘executed’ were decapitated after death, and their heads put on poles along the East Coast road. It was all about terrorization, so the old order could reassert itself psychologically as much as physically.
Following that phase, 72 people were brought down to Georgetown to face a court martial and were tried between August 1823 and January 1824. According to the Brazilian historian Emilia Viotti da Costa, who has written on the rebellion, 51 were condemned of whom 33 were executed. Of these, 10 were decapitated after death and in Joshua Bryant’s contemporary account, their heads were placed on stakes which were erected in the fort area. This seems to have been done at the waterfront (there was no seawall at the time) to the east of the lighthouse. Sixteen were spared and flogged, and the remainder acquitted. The probable leader of the rising, Jack Gladstone and fourteen others had their death sentences commuted by the Lieutenant-Governor and were transported – in Jack Gladstone’s case to St Lucia.
Those who were condemned by court martial were hanged in the Parade Ground, although a word of caution is in order here. In 1823 the Parade Ground included the portion that is now the Promenade Gardens; there was no Middle Street, although there was a pathway down the centre called the Middle Walk, which later became Middle Street. It may be a moot point, therefore, whether the gallows were erected in what is now Independence Park, or in the present day Promenade Gardens. Unlike what some have maintained, however, no heads on poles were erected here; apart from anything else, even in those days there were buildings around, and the residents of Cummingsburg represented a rather better-heeled section of the citizenry than those in some other parts of the capital. In any case, as stated above, the sources are clear about the ultimate destination of the unfortunate ten men selected for this fate.
Da Costa observes that punishment was directed not at the plotters of the rebellion, so much as at those who had behaved in an “openly aggressive way” during it. No one, for example, from Le Resouvenir (inexplicably nowadays spelt Ressouvenir) where the Bethel Chapel was located suffered punishment. (The Bethel Chapel was associated with the Rev John Smith who was charged with inciting the rising and failing to report the conspiracy to the authorities, among other things. He was tried by court martial and handed down a death sentence. Granted a pardon by the King he died of tuberculosis in prison before it arrived.)
In addition, Da Costa writes, no one living beyond around eighteen miles from the Chapel had to endure punishment either, which suggests that the epicentre of the insurrection was the plantations within walking distance of Success.
In our Friday edition we reported that earlier in the year the Ministry of Culture had considered the following locations for the monument site, namely, Independence Park (the Parade Ground); an area at Montrose, East Coast; and an area north of the public road at Melanie Damishana. It is not altogether clear why a decision was taken in the end to erect it opposite Camp Ayanganna; after all, as far as anyone knows that spot does not have any particular historical link to the rising, which is its major disadvantage. It may be that in the end a decision was made simply to take practical issues into account, rather than historical connections, although even on practical grounds that area has some obvious drawbacks. One of them is that it is a ‘liming’ area, situated as it is close to Celina’s and its overspill, and one might have thought that over the longer term the authorities might have had it in mind to develop the larger location into a boardwalk or something of that ilk. As such, therefore, it does not seem like quite the right place to locate a monument of this kind. If they want to develop a little park around the spot, it will still be taken over by those who want beer and merriment rather than history or a quiet place to be. There are too, other possible difficulties, such as with parking.
While the ministry might have started off the right way, it was overly sanguine about the consequences of ploughing ahead and making a decision without feedback from interested groups. Since preparation of the site has now begun, exactly what can be retrieved from this situation is not clear, although presumably the possibility may still exist for a change of location. At the very least the officials involved should begin by issuing some statement indicating on what grounds the present site was chosen, and why other apparently more deserving sites were dismissed as not suitable.
