Thomas C. Famous. Photo: Provided

Recent words spoken by American entertainer Kanye West that speak to the complete lack of knowledge of the true horror of 400 plus years of European Colonialism and slavery. It is a time like this that a reminder of historic facts are needed.

For thousands of years there were three main tribes of indigenous persons populating the archipelago we now call the Caribbean Islands. The Taino, the Arawaks and the Caribs from which these island groupings are now aptly named. These relatively peacefully people built their civilisations on farming and fishing.

Then somewhere around the year 1492 onward, things changed drastically for them with the advent of European explorers.

Apocalypse

Unfortunately, for the indigenous populations, these explorers did not come to just visit and study the ecology and environment. They had grandiose ambitions of coercion, control and ultimately, complete colonisation.

History will record that the indigenous population of the entire Caribbean region was decimated to the point of near extinction within the space of one century.

What caused this apocalyptic series of events?

The European powers, inclusive of but not limited to; Spain, France, Holland, Denmark and Great Britain systematically; enslaved, tortured, raped and out right killed millions of these indigenous persons.

Essentially, it was mass genocide that eclipsed anything the world has ever seen or will ever see.

He definitely saw profit in enslaving and selling native peoples kidnapped from Caribbean shores. Once he made allies among what he called “good Indians,” Columbus advocated fighting and enslaving native groups he presumed to be cannibals. By 1500, he and his brothers had sent nearly 1,500 enslaved islanders to European markets to be sold. Even “friendly” indigenous peoples were forced to mine gold en masse, speeding death from malnourishment, overwork and disease.

Washington Post October 8, 2015

Alas, the Europeans were only on phase one when they eradicated those millions of persons.

African Holocust

Phase two of their colonisation was the importation of enslaved Africans to work their agricultural plantations across the region. Over the course of 300 years over 20 million enslaved Africans, spread from Guyana to Jamaica and every point in between, were forced to grow crops such as; tobacco, sugar cane, arrowroot, bananas, citrus fruits, coconuts and yes, Bermuda onions.

You see, for over 300 years these Africans had no choice in the matter of where they were migrated to, what sort of work they would be doing, who they could marry or even who they could have a child with.

“The death rate on the plantations was high, a result of overwork, poor nutrition and work conditions, brutality and disease. Many plantation owners preferred to import new slaves rather than providing the means and conditions for the survival of their existing slaves. Until the Amelioration Act was passed in 1798, which forced planters to improve conditions for enslaved workers, many owners simply replaced the casualties by importing more slaves from West Africa.”

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism/slavery/archaeology/caribbean/

Post Emancipation neglect

History will once again show that these Europeans essentially fleeced both the land and the enslaved Africans right up to the 1960s-1980s when most of the English-speaking colonies eventually gained their independence. Here are some prime examples of how British colonies were truly treated:

• In their class-based structure, purposely built little to no schools, hence denying the populations proper basic education. My grandparent’s generation were provided with no public education, whilst in my father’s childhood 1,000 students were forced to share chairs and desks at Central School now known as Victor Scott Primary School in Bermuda.

• The English, in their disregard of our medical wellbeing, provided no proper health care for the masses. Such was the case in the [British] Virgin Islands where there was no hospital until the late 1950s.
• The English provided no form of public housing for the masses as seen in Jamaica were most of the population lived in rural areas in wooden homes.

Perhaps, most significantly, through their race based economic structures, the only persons allowed to own and operate major businesses where those who were of direct European descent and or mixed-race populations.

Essentially, even post 1834 emancipation, most persons of African descent were locked in a state of perpetual economic poverty.

Given all the above realities, would it come as any surprise that those persons in the Caribbean would seek to find a way towards a better life for themselves and their families? For some, it came by way of migration to other islands that may have had slightly better economies.

Such was the case with many from the lesser Antilles who headed to the Dominican Republic to work on Sugar Plantations in the 1930s-1960s. For others, particularly Jamaicans, they saw a way forward by migrating to Central America to work on the building of the Panama Canal. In the early 1900s. Closer to home, there was a mass migration of persons from St. Kitts to Bermuda in the late 1800s

Then came the unintended consequences of World War Two.

European Migration

Having lost millions of men in battle, alongside of massive devastation of their cities and infrastructure via mass bombing, Britain was in dire straits and heading back towards being a Third World nation. Then came the idea of importing manpower from the British colonies of the Caribbean and India. In order to move such a monumental amount of persons they decided to use former troop ships

One such ship was named the Empire Windrush which transported persons from across the Caribbean, including Bermuda, to the docks of London.

Over the course of nearly a decade, tens of thousands of persons from throughout the Caribbean sought to escape their 400 years of; enslavement, lack of housing, lack of medical care, lack of education and abject poverty by migrating to what was then their colonial motherland.

To their shock and dismay upon arrival they were met not with open arms from the people of Britain.

As documented in the BBC Two special ‘Windrush’, they were met with open hostility by much of the English population. Often denied proper housing, with many landlords putting signs in their doors stating, “No Irish, No Dogs, No Blacks”.

Subsequently they were forced to life in squalor in tenement housing in areas such as Notting hill and Brixton. Additionally, many were denied proper health care benefits and paid on an unequal wage scale as their English counterparts.

Despite the racism, over the years, many of them still brought their spouses and children, born into then British colonies, up from the Caribbean.

Racist Policies

As of 2014, the British government had put in a policy that sought to revisit the worst of colonial behaviour by declaring open war on those of the Windrush generation. Untold hundreds of persons were systematically:

• denied the right to work
• denied access to public health care benefits
• denied entry back to the UK
• deported to the Caribbean.

Only once exposed via various media houses and held to account by CARICOM leaders on Tuesday April 17, 2018, did UK Prime Minister Theresa M. May make a U-turn and apologised for this policy.

Then on Sunday April 30, 2018 her Home Secretary Amber Rudd resigned in disgrace.

No Surprises

These are but snapshots of what the people of the Caribbean have had to endure for the last 500 years. It would be fair to say that no one would ever chose to face genocide, slavery and outright racism.

Let us look at the historic track record of Great Britain over the last 500 years:

• Genocide of indigenous tribes of the Caribbean
• Enslavement of millions of Africans
• Enrichment of British landowners
• Compensation of British landowners for their loss of their slaves, post-Emancipation
• Blatant neglect of the masses post-Emancipation
• Racist treatment of Caribbean persons arriving in UK
• Recent policy aimed at mass deportation of British citizens of Caribbean heritage

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the British Parliament is now attempting to once again starve her colonies in the Caribbean. To many in the UK, they have never viewed us as anything more than slaves.

My fellow Virgin Islanders, please stay vigilant.