Abolition Bicentenary Happy Freedom day?

Today my brother called me to wish me a happy Freedom day. He was of course referring to the marking today, of the 200 year anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade by the British Parliament in 1807.

Though I understood his sentiments, I was at pains to point out to him that in the case of our ancestors (in Jamaica at least) actual freedom or Emancipation didn’t actually arrive until August 1, 1838. The 1807 act abolished the trading of slaves by British subjects and companies, it did not free enslaved Africans, in Britain nor it’s colonies.

A second act was passed to abolish slavery in 1833 and was passed with little resistance, due in part to continued revolts by enslaved Africans, the decline of the sugar industry and the work of abolitionists. In Jamaica, all slaves were declared free on August 1st 1834.

Yet still the British instituted a system of ‘Apprenticeships’ designed to ‘prepare’ ex slaves for life as free people. This system was abandoned in 1838 and all apprentices were declared free. So you see, in terms of Bicentenaries, this one is not really for descendents of enslaved Africans, we have another 31 years (if we’re Jamaican descendants) more if you are descended from slaves in other colonies).

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