NO MORE!
Published on: 3/26/07.

by TREVOR YEARWOOD

AGAINST THE BACKDROP of pulsating drumming and Bob Marley's classic Redemption Song, hundreds of Barbadians yesterday marked the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.

"Never again must slavery in any form pollute the free air of this island," Acting Prime Minister Dame Billie Miller declared as Barbadians joined celebrations across the globe.

Dame Billie was addressing a two-hour "national gathering" that brought religious and political leaders and several hundred other Barbadians to the Bay Street Esplanade.

"Today we join with Britain and the rest of the world in commemorating this bicentenary, cognisant of the fact that Barbados led the Atlantic world in resisting slavery," she told the seaside gathering across the road from Government Headquarters.

"We deeply regret Barbados' role in the slave trade, but we are proud that of all the British Caribbean colonies in 1807, this island's government did not register official opposition to the Act of Abolition.

"Barbados can therefore be said to have expiated its complicity with Britain in the development of the ignoble commercial enterprise known as slavery."

Bruising contact

Dame Billie added that of 12 million enslaved Africans, about 390 000 had reached Barbados.

She spoke of the "bruising contact between white masters and black enslaved persons", but described Barbadian slaves as being "among the most industrious", who left "abundant evidence" of their labour in the form of large edifices – the great-houses and "the impressive parish churches".

Barbadians thanked them for making Bridgetown one of the busiest ports in the New World and for maintaining a rich African heritage "of which we are so proud", she said.

Other highlights of the ceremony witnessed by a number of Cabinet ministers, included laying of a wreath at sea and the unveiling of a plaque that read in part "as a tribute to the strength and resilience of those African enslaved persons who were transported across the Atlantic Ocean and . . . were sold as slaves to Barbadian slave masters".

The plaque, to be shifted to the Bridgetown wharf area where there used to be a slave market, was also "a tribute in honour and recognition of the efforts of those who fought in the cause of the abolition of the slave trade".