Lloyd Goodleigh, Guest Columnist
I FIRST encountered Priscilla following upon the death of a relative, and her copy of Gardner's 'History of Jamaica', fell into my hands. Rossana would follow when a friend gave me a copy of 'The Many Headed Hydra'.
British inhumanity to our foreparents has been well-documented, but Rossana and Priscilla have stayed with me because, not only were they Jamaican women, but they had been singled out by name, thereby, lifting them from that vast impersonal word 'slaves'.
Think of your mother, your aunt, your grandmother, wife and daughter and the horror of their circumstances will stay with you.
I harbour no rancour for the British people and their nation. But I read their history with a very critical eye and am often sceptical about their motives in military, trade, and foreign policy matters. Having accepted their content with that, Whitehall has no perpetual friends on economics, but only perpetual interest.
Rossana was a Jamaican woman, legally owned by James Wedderburn, a doctor, who had extensive estate holdings in Westmoreland. Robert Wedderburn, their offspring, born in 1762, would later write: "I have seen my poor mother stretched on the ground, tied hands and feet and flogged in the most indecent manner, though pregnant at the time."
LEARNED PEOPLE
In 1776, the doctor would sell Rossana. One can assume that the doctor and his family thought of themselves as Christian, learned people. So much for that notion.
Both Rossana and Priscilla had lived under the Slave Code passed in 1696. It lasted until 1831 a code, that defined the relationship between slaves and owner. It sanctioned and gave slave owners unlimited power over slaves.
It also sanctioned the "most horrid enormities ever tolerated by law". In essence, it elevated torture to a principle primarily by establishing a Slave Court, peopled by owner magistrates who enforced the Code and made legal sanctions that were barbarous cutting off both legs, cutting off ears and nose, putting out of eyes, the splitting of the nose, cutting of Achilles tendon, branding, hanging, burning and flogging.
In that context, Priscilla was charged with trying to escape from her owner. Her punishment was the cutting off of both ears and the receipt of 39 lashes every first Monday for a year.
Just in case, you have been brought up on a steady diet of American and British outpouring on the barbarity of Hitler's Germany here is a comparison of sanctioned Gestapo practice.
"Prisoners were routinely beaten until their kidneys were turned from their protective cover. The Gestapo tool kits included a small vise for crushing testicles, electrodes which sent a current from penis to anus and a ring to tighten around the skull and a soldering iron for searing flesh."
I am aware that there are those who think that slavery was but a walk in the sun and some who contend that it was a necessary evil on the way to a greater good. The latter are subscribing to 'Shulsky's' law that "The height will not be conquered if no grave is on the slope". They are entitled to their views.
I do not dwell on slavery, but I don't forget it either and make sure my children are aware that it existed. I use it as a marker, a reminder of what can happen to a people who are technologically un-prepared and to re-affirm my belief in the human rights of all the individuals on the planet.
In case you are of the opinion that British sponsorship of slavery occurred during some 'dark age' in English History, you would be wrong. When Robert Wedderburn was born in 1762, England, around that time was experiencing a flowering of Arts, Science and Military affairs, Jane Austen, William Wordsworth, Walter Scott, Jeremy Bentham, Edward Gibbon, James Watt, Adam Smith, Horatio Nelson and Joshua Reynolds. As a matter of fact, the list of individuals for the period 1775-1845 is almost a 'who is who' in English history. I will argue that despite their achievements in the arts science and military affairs, that in the last 250 years the three worst examples of barbarity are the:
British sponsorship of slavery in the name of mercantilism
Stalin's liquidation of millions of Russian citizens in the name of Communism
Hitler's extermination of 10 million Jews, in the name of the Third Reich.
I am sure you might have another listing, but then, that is mine.
For those of us on both sides of the Atlantic, who would argue, that 1831 is far removed from 2003. I have an aunt that celebrated her 102nd birthday in December. My wife's grandmother is 96 years old. You do the mathematics and you will be surprised at how close it is. Traditionally, we have been taught that Wilberforce/et al, are the champions of the anti-slavery movement, I will give them their due, but I reserve the right to make up my own honour roll.
FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY
It would include all those men and women of African descent in the Caribbean and North America who were in a continuous state of rebellion against slavery; the Black pirates who manned the ships and found more freedom and democracy in piracy than they did on land; the Irish rebels; England's Adam Smith and the French physiocrats, who as economists, provided the economic argument against slavery; Black Methodist and Baptist Ministers Robert Wedderburn, Moses Baker, George Liele, John Morant, Lewis Nicholson, Thomas Nicholas Siegle, Richard Allen, Absolam Jones, John Lea and Gerry Gibbs and all those Priscillas and Rossanas who endured unimaginable horrors by supposedly Christian and learned men and women.
What of us? The next time you turn a blind eye or tolerate the equilateral triangle of the drug trade guns and murder and those Colombians Bahamians and Jamaicans, willing to destroy our society for their personal gain; or tolerate corrupt or incompetent officials in the private and public sectors and harbour rapists gunmen men who cut old ladies' throats and kidnap and murder our children, or you personal, indulge in 'runnings' think of Priscilla and Rosanna, as their graves lie on the slopes and Jamaica is their gift to you your family and your descendants.
May their spirits perpetually shadow you.
Lloyd Goodleigh is general secretary of the Jamaica Joint Confederation of Trade Unions.
