Activity: Samaan Tree Series
Topics: History, Slavery
Host: Moray House Trust
Date: Tuesday 10th October 2023
YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/1MHhCNLrnxA
Many thanks to those who attended the tenth talk in the Samaan Tree Series:
Title: The Guyana Maroons (1796-1834): persistent and resilient until the end of Slavery.
Speaker: Dr David Alston (author of Slaves and Highlanders)
Date: Tuesday 10th October 2023
Time: 11.00 AM Guyana
YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/1MHhCNLrnxA
As Emilia Viotti da Costa reminds us in her seminal work about the Demerara Slave Rebellion of 1823, ‘slaves were not the passive victims of oppression…They fought back in every way they could, always trying to gain more control over their own lives.’ Rebellions have soaked up much of the historical limelight in the history of slavery in Demerara, Essequibo and Berbice. Acts of resistance, ranging from running away to what da Costa calls ‘daily acts of defiance and sabotage,’ have perhaps received less attention from historians. As school children, we all learned of the existence (and significance) of Maroon settlements in Suriname and Jamaica. So Dr Alston’s research showing that Maroon settlements in British Guiana were well established and endured, in some cases for decades, is both timely and heartening.
Dr Alston is a historian and former museum curator and teacher. He has compiled research about Scotland’s links to Guyana pre-1843 on the Slaves and Highlanders
website for many years. He has also recently published a book entitled Slaves and Highlanders: Silenced Histories of Scotland and the Caribbean.
LINKS AND FURTHER READING:
Slaves and Highlanders: https://www.spanglefish.com/SlavesandHighlanders/
Dutch Archival Records for Berbice, Demerara, Essequibo: https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/archief/1.05.21
Guyana Colonial Newspapers: https://www.vc.id.au/edg/index.html