David Comissiong column-- The Hurtful Truth About The Garrison Date: Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 10:43 AM THE HURTFUL TRUTH ABOUT THE GARRISON I have said it before, and I will say it again - black people cannot and should not celebrate the “Garrison” (the collection of British military buildings on the outskirts of Bridgetown). The Barbados Government, the so-called cultural authorities, and the sundry professional and amateur historians who are exulting in UNESCO’s designation of the Garrison as a world heritage site, and who are encouraging the Barbadian people to uncritically embrace and celebrate this physical edifice, are doing a tremendous disservice to our history, our ancestors, and to the current generation of Barbadians. Yes, Barbadians need to know about the Garrison and its history. But what we need to know about the Garrison is its deep, complicated, hurtful and profound history - not the superficial, tourist brochure version of its history that our Government and its collaborators are currently promoting! For it is only by knowing and coming to terms with the hurtful truth of our history that we Barbadians will mature as a people and develop genuine understanding and reconciliation among the racial groups that comprise our nation. So, what place does the Garrison really occupy in the history of Barbados? Well, first of all, the Garrison (properly known as “St. Ann’s Garrison” in honour of Britain’s Queen Ann), was one of the chief instruments utilized by our former British colonial masters to impose their colonialist and imperialistic domination on Barbados and the surrounding Caribbean territories. The construction of the Garrison military complex began in 1705, when the British military authorities established St Ann’s Fort as a critical military facility to be used in their contest with France over the colonial domination and control of the Caribbean. And then, in 1780, the British authorities decided to up the ante, and to establish a permanent Garrison in Barbados, centred around and incorporating St Ann’s Fort. This critical decision led to the construction, between 1789 and 1814, of the largest and most important British military base in the entire Caribbean - St Ann’s Garrison. So let us be very clear - the Garrison and the thousands of white British soldiers who were stationed there played a central role in maintaining the evil system of “chattel slavery” and in consolidating and defending Britain’s colonial domination and exploitation of Barbados and the many other British colonies of the Caribbean. And so, when Barbadians are encouraged to admire the historic buildings of the Garrison, and to prance up and down around them, they must be given the information that will enable them to understand exactly when these buildings truly represent. But there is another component of the Garrison story that is even more poignant and troubling. You see, the Garrison was used as the premier location for the enacting of one of the most profoundly evil psychological experiments even inflicted on black or African people! I refer to the fact that the Garrison was the home base and training quarters of several British regiments comprised of formerly enslaved black or Afican soldiers, who were used to impose the system of slavery on their black kith and kin in the Caribbean, and to wreak death and destruction on their brothers and sisters in West Africa! The Barbadians (black and white) who are being encouraged to celebrate the Garrison need to be told the tragic story of the predominantly black British West India regiments. The idea that Britain should establish a number of black regiments was the brainchild of Lieutenant - General Sir John Vaughan, and was a response to the terrible death toll that tropical diseases and French soldiers were inflicting on white British troops in the Caribbean. In a December 1794 letter to the British Home Secretary, Lieutenant General Vaughan stated as follows:- “I am of the opinion that a Corps of one thousand men composed of blacks and Mulattoes, and commanded by British Officers would render more essential service in the Country, than treble the number of Europeans who are unaccustomed to the climate.......” And so was born the experiment of the West India regiment - an experiment that proved to be so successful for the maintenance of Britain’s system of “white supremacy” that, at its peak, no less than 12 British West India Regiments were brought into existence! Imagine this scenario:- several thousands of enslaved or formerly enslaved Africans - some of whom had fought for their freedom in North America; some of whom had been taken off of slave ships; some of whom had been purchased at slave auctions in Barbados and other slave colonies - railroaded into military service as black British soldiers commanded by white officers, and thousands of them being stationed at the Garrison in Barbados. In the book entitled “The Empty Sleeve” - one of the most important explorations of the story of the West India regiments - the author, Brian Dyde, records that “the British Army became the biggest single purchaser of African slaves anywhere in the West Indies, and quite possibly anywhere throughout the Americas...... At least thirteen thousand were bought during this period, from selected merchants who dealt with the owners and masters of slave ships”. The unfortunate and traumatized black man was given a freedom of sorts - the “freedom” of a miserable, exploited, racially oppressed existence as a black British soldier. And the price that he had to pay for that “freedom” was that he was obliged to use his strength and military skills to maintain the British system of slavery, and to assist Britain to carve out a colonial empire in West Africa. And so, it was the black soldiers of the 1st West India Regiment who marched out of their barracks at the Garrison, and played the key military role in putting down the 1816 Bussa slave rebellion in Barbados. Bryan Dyde informs us in “The Empty Sleeve” that “Colonel Edward Codd, commander of St Anne’s Garrison, ordered the 1st West India Regiment under Major James Cassidy into the field.... Just to the east of Bridgetown Cassidy came across a dense mob of half armed slaves crowning the summits of the low hills in Christ Church parish..... the 1st West India Regiment stormed the heights, and..... drove the rebels from their position....... the rebels had been led to believe by some of their leaders that troops of their own colour and ancestry would not be used against them.......” Thus, it was mainly black soldiers of the West India regiment who broke the back of the Bussa Rebellion, with the local white militia merely playing the lead role in the subsequent “mopping up” operations. One can only imagine the horrific psychological turmoil that these black soldiers and rebels must have found themselves ensnared in! The Garrison-based black soldiers of the 1st and 2nd West India regiments also found themselves pressed into service in a broad band of territory on the west coast of Africa that, today, constitutes the African nations of Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Gambia. Between the years 1820 to 1896 the British military establishment regularly shipped battalions of the West India regiments from their home bases in Barbados and Jamaica across the Atlantic ocean to assist in conquering and pacifying the indigenous nations and tribes of West Africa. Black soldiers from the Garrison in Barbados, under the command of white officers, were required to attack and destroy towns and villages populated by their own African countrymen and women, and to help reduce to colonial servitude such proud African nations as the Ashanti of Ghana. Let us go once again to “The Empty Sleeve” for the story of how in 1860, six companies of the Garrison-based 2nd West India Regiment punished and subdued the people of Badibu in present day Gambia:- “ The force moved inland on 17th February to the village of Kerewan, drove off some halfhearted defenders and burnt it to the ground before moving on to the town of Suwarracunda and repeating the exercise......Two more towns, Saba and Kinti Kunda had been destroyed by 20th February, and plans were made to attack a third...... No sooner had Saba been reduced to ashes...... messengers came....... from the ruler of Jokadu, the small chiefdom to the west of Badibu.... obviously concerned about the devastation and carnage taking place.... he offered to mediate... the armistice was duly arranged and on 26th February a treaty was signed by the ruler of Badibu.” But perhaps a more graphic picture of the human cost of the devastation that these Garrison-based soldiers wrought on West Africa is provided by a contemporary description of the 1883 destruction of the town of Talia in present day Sierra Leone:- “Inside the town the sight was ghastly in the extreme. In a small space one officer counted eighty-two dead; in another part twenty-three bodies were lying huddled together, evidently the work of a single shell; and here and there were scattered groups of threes and fours, while a single corpse supported by a fence, stood up, grim in death......” It would also be remiss of me to fail to mention that the black soldiers of the West India Regiments mutinied on three occasions:- in 1801, the 8th WI Regiment, stationed at Fort Shirley in Dominica staged a revolt that was put down by a white British regiment, resulting in 70 black soldiers killed or wounded and 7 sentenced to death; in 1808, the 2nd WI Regiment, stationed at Fort Augusta in Jamaica mutinied; and in 1837, the 1st WI Regiment commenced a revolt from their St. Joseph barracks in Trinidad, resulting in 40 black soldiers being killed in battle and 5 being sentenced to death. No mutiny ever took place at the Garrison in Barbados. This, then, is a picture of the devilish, mind-numbing horror that the Garrison military facility represented for the black people of Barbados, the Caribbean and Africa in the 19th century. At the heart of it all was the phenomenon of Africans being organised and led by Europeans to inflict death and destruction on fellow Africans. Surely there is a profound message in this historical story for all Barbadians, but it seems to have totally escaped our governmental and cultural authorities. Understand and come to terms with the history of the Garrison, we must. But celebrate and exult in it? Never! .................................... David A. Comissiong David Comissiong column-- The Hurtful Truth About The Garrison Date: Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 10:43 AM THE HURTFUL TRUTH ABOUT THE GARRISON I have said it before, and I will say it again - black people cannot and should not celebrate the “Garrison” (the collection of British military buildings on the outskirts of Bridgetown). The Barbados Government, the so-called cultural authorities, and the sundry professional and amateur historians who are exulting in UNESCO’s designation of the Garrison as a world heritage site, and who are encouraging the Barbadian people to uncritically embrace and celebrate this physical edifice, are doing a tremendous disservice to our history, our ancestors, and to the current generation of Barbadians. Yes, Barbadians need to know about the Garrison and its history. But what we need to know about the Garrison is its deep, complicated, hurtful and profound history - not the superficial, tourist brochure version of its history that our Government and its collaborators are currently promoting! For it is only by knowing and coming to terms with the hurtful truth of our history that we Barbadians will mature as a people and develop genuine understanding and reconciliation among the racial groups that comprise our nation. So, what place does the Garrison really occupy in the history of Barbados? Well, first of all, the Garrison (properly known as “St. Ann’s Garrison” in honour of Britain’s Queen Ann), was one of the chief instruments utilized by our former British colonial masters to impose their colonialist and imperialistic domination on Barbados and the surrounding Caribbean territories. The construction of the Garrison military complex began in 1705, when the British military authorities established St Ann’s Fort as a critical military facility to be used in their contest with France over the colonial domination and control of the Caribbean. And then, in 1780, the British authorities decided to up the ante, and to establish a permanent Garrison in Barbados, centred around and incorporating St Ann’s Fort. This critical decision led to the construction, between 1789 and 1814, of the largest and most important British military base in the entire Caribbean - St Ann’s Garrison. So let us be very clear - the Garrison and the thousands of white British soldiers who were stationed there played a central role in maintaining the evil system of “chattel slavery” and in consolidating and defending Britain’s colonial domination and exploitation of Barbados and the many other British colonies of the Caribbean. And so, when Barbadians are encouraged to admire the historic buildings of the Garrison, and to prance up and down around them, they must be given the information that will enable them to understand exactly when these buildings truly represent. But there is another component of the Garrison story that is even more poignant and troubling. You see, the Garrison was used as the premier location for the enacting of one of the most profoundly evil psychological experiments even inflicted on black or African people! I refer to the fact that the Garrison was the home base and training quarters of several British regiments comprised of formerly enslaved black or Afican soldiers, who were used to impose the system of slavery on their black kith and kin in the Caribbean, and to wreak death and destruction on their brothers and sisters in West Africa! The Barbadians (black and white) who are being encouraged to celebrate the Garrison need to be told the tragic story of the predominantly black British West India regiments. The idea that Britain should establish a number of black regiments was the brainchild of Lieutenant - General Sir John Vaughan, and was a response to the terrible death toll that tropical diseases and French soldiers were inflicting on white British troops in the Caribbean. In a December 1794 letter to the British Home Secretary, Lieutenant General Vaughan stated as follows:- “I am of the opinion that a Corps of one thousand men composed of blacks and Mulattoes, and commanded by British Officers would render more essential service in the Country, than treble the number of Europeans who are unaccustomed to the climate.......” And so was born the experiment of the West India regiment - an experiment that proved to be so successful for the maintenance of Britain’s system of “white supremacy” that, at its peak, no less than 12 British West India Regiments were brought into existence! Imagine this scenario:- several thousands of enslaved or formerly enslaved Africans - some of whom had fought for their freedom in North America; some of whom had been taken off of slave ships; some of whom had been purchased at slave auctions in Barbados and other slave colonies - railroaded into military service as black British soldiers commanded by white officers, and thousands of them being stationed at the Garrison in Barbados. In the book entitled “The Empty Sleeve” - one of the most important explorations of the story of the West India regiments - the author, Brian Dyde, records that “the British Army became the biggest single purchaser of African slaves anywhere in the West Indies, and quite possibly anywhere throughout the Americas...... At least thirteen thousand were bought during this period, from selected merchants who dealt with the owners and masters of slave ships”. The unfortunate and traumatized black man was given a freedom of sorts - the “freedom” of a miserable, exploited, racially oppressed existence as a black British soldier. And the price that he had to pay for that “freedom” was that he was obliged to use his strength and military skills to maintain the British system of slavery, and to assist Britain to carve out a colonial empire in West Africa. And so, it was the black soldiers of the 1st West India Regiment who marched out of their barracks at the Garrison, and played the key military role in putting down the 1816 Bussa slave rebellion in Barbados. Bryan Dyde informs us in “The Empty Sleeve” that “Colonel Edward Codd, commander of St Anne’s Garrison, ordered the 1st West India Regiment under Major James Cassidy into the field.... Just to the east of Bridgetown Cassidy came across a dense mob of half armed slaves crowning the summits of the low hills in Christ Church parish..... the 1st West India Regiment stormed the heights, and..... drove the rebels from their position....... the rebels had been led to believe by some of their leaders that troops of their own colour and ancestry would not be used against them.......” Thus, it was mainly black soldiers of the West India regiment who broke the back of the Bussa Rebellion, with the local white militia merely playing the lead role in the subsequent “mopping up” operations. One can only imagine the horrific psychological turmoil that these black soldiers and rebels must have found themselves ensnared in! The Garrison-based black soldiers of the 1st and 2nd West India regiments also found themselves pressed into service in a broad band of territory on the west coast of Africa that, today, constitutes the African nations of Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Gambia. Between the years 1820 to 1896 the British military establishment regularly shipped battalions of the West India regiments from their home bases in Barbados and Jamaica across the Atlantic ocean to assist in conquering and pacifying the indigenous nations and tribes of West Africa. Black soldiers from the Garrison in Barbados, under the command of white officers, were required to attack and destroy towns and villages populated by their own African countrymen and women, and to help reduce to colonial servitude such proud African nations as the Ashanti of Ghana. Let us go once again to “The Empty Sleeve” for the story of how in 1860, six companies of the Garrison-based 2nd West India Regiment punished and subdued the people of Badibu in present day Gambia:- “ The force moved inland on 17th February to the village of Kerewan, drove off some halfhearted defenders and burnt it to the ground before moving on to the town of Suwarracunda and repeating the exercise......Two more towns, Saba and Kinti Kunda had been destroyed by 20th February, and plans were made to attack a third...... No sooner had Saba been reduced to ashes...... messengers came....... from the ruler of Jokadu, the small chiefdom to the west of Badibu.... obviously concerned about the devastation and carnage taking place.... he offered to mediate... the armistice was duly arranged and on 26th February a treaty was signed by the ruler of Badibu.” But perhaps a more graphic picture of the human cost of the devastation that these Garrison-based soldiers wrought on West Africa is provided by a contemporary description of the 1883 destruction of the town of Talia in present day Sierra Leone:- “Inside the town the sight was ghastly in the extreme. In a small space one officer counted eighty-two dead; in another part twenty-three bodies were lying huddled together, evidently the work of a single shell; and here and there were scattered groups of threes and fours, while a single corpse supported by a fence, stood up, grim in death......” It would also be remiss of me to fail to mention that the black soldiers of the West India Regiments mutinied on three occasions:- in 1801, the 8th WI Regiment, stationed at Fort Shirley in Dominica staged a revolt that was put down by a white British regiment, resulting in 70 black soldiers killed or wounded and 7 sentenced to death; in 1808, the 2nd WI Regiment, stationed at Fort Augusta in Jamaica mutinied; and in 1837, the 1st WI Regiment commenced a revolt from their St. Joseph barracks in Trinidad, resulting in 40 black soldiers being killed in battle and 5 being sentenced to death. No mutiny ever took place at the Garrison in Barbados. This, then, is a picture of the devilish, mind-numbing horror that the Garrison military facility represented for the black people of Barbados, the Caribbean and Africa in the 19th century. At the heart of it all was the phenomenon of Africans being organised and led by Europeans to inflict death and destruction on fellow Africans. Surely there is a profound message in this historical story for all Barbadians, but it seems to have totally escaped our governmental and cultural authorities. Understand and come to terms with the history of the Garrison, we must. But celebrate and exult in it? Never! .................................... David A. Comissiong
Posted on: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 00:43:41 +0000
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