Tag Archives: Slavery

Africa, Christianity, General T&T, Religion

The Slave Bible

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 18, 2022

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIn 1970 while I was a faculty member at Fordham University, New York, I taught a course on the development of Afro-American literature. One of the books I used was William Wells Brown, Clotel or the President’s Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States, published in England in 1853.

The novel told the story of Clotel, a daughter of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who fathered three children by his slave, Sally Hemmings. Although the white power structure denied this incident for two centuries, in November 1998 the truth of this claim was authenticated by DNA evidence.
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Africa, General T&T, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

GLORIOUS DAYS OF THE HAPPY AND THE FREE

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 09, 2021

PART II

“Pas de six ans, Point de six ans!” (“No to Six Years. No more six years!”)

—The chant of the ex-slaves on Emancipation Day

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeMore apprentices came to Government House on Saturday, August 2, to assert their freedom. There was “a visible increase of insolence in the behaviour of the Negroes. The muster around Government House continued, and His Excellency again attempted to persuade them to return to their work, but his efforts were fruitless. They first laughed at, and then hooted [we would say heckled] him” (PoS Gazette, August 5, 1834).
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Culture, General T&T

Honorable Lives / Forgotten Worlds

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 26, 2021

By the rivers of Babylon/Where we sat down/And there we wept/When we remembered Zion.

But the wicked carried us away in captivity/Required from us a song/How can we sing King Alpha song/ In a strange land?

—Jimmy Cliff, “Rivers of Babylon”

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeTwo Fridays ago Brian Lehrer interviewed me on his radio show on WNYC (New York) about Jamaica’s most recent petition to Britain for $10.5 billion (US) in reparation for the damage done to our people during slavery. I informed Lehrer that Jamaicans have been battling Spain and Britain for the control of their lives and the product of their labor ever since those two countries enslaved and later colonized their country.
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Africa, General T&T, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

A Luta Continua

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 29, 2021

“Nations seldom listen to advice from individuals, however reasonable. They are taught less by theories than by facts and events.”

—Life and Times of Frederick Douglass

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeLast week I commended President Joseph Biden for signing into law a bill that made June 19 a national holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. It took two and a half years (that is, on June 19, 1865) to notify enslaved African Americans that “all slaves are free” and the 13th Amendment to free them officially on December 6, 1865.
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General T&T, International, Racism Watch, USA

Facing the Past

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 21, 2021

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn Thursday last, US President Joseph Biden signed into law an important bill (the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act) that makes June 19 a national holiday in the United States to commemorate the end of slavery.

In signing this bill President Biden reminded Americans: “The promise of equality is not going to be fulfilled until we become real—it becomes real in our schools and on our main streets and in our neighbourhoods” (NYT, June 18)
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Africa, General T&T, International, Racism Watch

Slavery, Education, Social Justice

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 16, 2019

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoePart of the excitement of being an educator is my having spoken in many places (such as Canada, the United States, Central America, South America, the West Indies, Japan, Africa and the Fiji Islands) about slavery, education and social justice. I am always excited to share my thoughts about these issues and learn what others have to say about their conditions.
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Africa, General T&T, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

Abolition of Slavery — Economic/Political Aspects

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By Dr Kwame Nantambu
Published: August 06, 2019

Dr. Kwame NantambuThis article was written before August 01, 2019

As Emancipation Day approaches, it is indeed apropos to delineate the economic and political aspects of the abolition of slavery, albeit the European enslavement of African people or MAAFA— the “great disaster.”
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Africa, Books, General T&T, Racism Watch

The Making of a Scholar…

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 16, 2019

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn Monday I presented a paper, “Writing the Slave Master of Trinidad,” at an important conference “Slavery and Its Afterlives: Blackness, Representation, Social Justice, Vision,” at the National Maritime Museum in London. The conference aimed “to extend our understanding of diaspora, to connect diaspora and, in the process, to forge new critical directions.”
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Africa, General T&T, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

Whose History Anyhow?

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 11, 2018

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn Thursday and Friday of this week I will launch my new book, The Slave Master of Trinidad, at the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago and the University of The University of the West Indies respectively. The first is a private affair, under the auspices of the Hon. Keith Rowley, Prime Minister; the later is a public affair, “featuring a review (of the book) by Sir Hilary Beckles, the Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies.” No one could think of a more auspicious way to introduce this book to the reading public of Trinidad and Tobago.
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General T&T, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

Reparative Justice

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 01, 2018

When we think of restorative justice we must think of who was harmed and how we make them whole again.

—Marc Lamont Hill, 2018

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn November 23, 1850, the San Fernando Gazette announced the death of John Lamont, the second-largest slave owner in the island. It noted: “Mr. Lamont had arrived at the age of 65, the largest part of which he passed in this island [or Trinidad] where he had accumulated a very large fortune, by care, perseverance, and intelligence, accompanied by the strictest integrity, and marked by humor in all his transactions.”
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