The Cent Bread Riots in Guyana: On the 19 March 1889, a fourteen-year-old African boy surnamed Nurse went to Portuguese shop in Stabroek Market to purchase a small loaf of bread which cost one cent. After he paid for it, he took another larger loaf valued two cents and attempted to leave the shop. Vieira, the Portuguese shopkeeper, attempted to stop him, and in an argument that ensued, he struck the boy with a stick. Vieira was promptly arrested by the market constables who took him to the nearby police station where he was quickly released, but he was shortly after re-arrested and held in custody. The boy was also taken to the police station and then to the Colonial Hospital where he was admitted. While all this was happening, a rumour circulated that a Portuguese man had killed an African boy and that the police had been instructed to release the man. Within a short while a full scale riot broke out and groups of Africans attacked Portuguese shops and people of Portuguese descent in the Stabroek Market. After police cleared the market, the rioters, comprising mainly of women and youths from the poorer sections of Georgetown, ran through the city stoning the houses owned by Portuguese and attacking people on the streets. Portuguese shops were broken into and looted, and Portuguese citizens were pulled out from tram cars and beaten.
Posted on: Sun, 11 May 2014 21:20:04 +0000
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