Today my brother called me to wish me a happy ‘Freedom Day’. He was, of course, referring to the marking of the 200th 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) real freedom or Emancipation didn’t actually arrive until August 1, 1838. ...