Today, August 1, 2023 there will be remembrance, celebrations and contemplations of the future as people of the Caribbean pay tribute to the day universally recognized as the end of slavery in the British colonies. The passing of Emancipation Acts was said to be a “slow, drawn-out process” (Beckles and Shepherd 206). However, it is believed that August 1, 1834 marked a special day for Africans in British colonies as it was the day, they received freedom from slavery.
The Bill for the Abolition of Slavery
The bill for the abolition of slavery in British colonies received the royal assent on August 28,1838. It stated:
“Be it enacted, that all and every one of the persons who on the first day of August one thousand eight hundred and thirty four, shall be holden in slavery within such British colony as aforesaid, shall, upon and from and after the said first day of August, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-four, become and be to all intents and purposes free and discharged from all manner of slavery, and shall be absolutely and forever manumitted.”
The passage of this bill in the British Parliament in England enabled approximately 311,000 enslaved Africans in Jamaica and hundreds of thousands more across the colonies the freedom for which many of their predecessors had fought and died. However, the Africans did not receive full freedom until four years later, as all slaves over six years old were subjected to a mandatory six-year period of apprenticeship. The ex-slaves would work without pay for their former masters for three-quarters of the week (40 hours), in exchange for lodging, food, clothing. medical attendance and grounds on which they could grow their own provisions. They could also, if they chose, hire themselves out for additional wages during the remaining quarter of the week. With this money, an ex-slave could then buy his freedom. (Excerpt: National Library of Jamaica)
Freedpeople collectively celebrated their liberty, especially after general abolition occurred in such places as the British Caribbean (in 1834), French Caribbean (1794, then again in 1848) and the United States (in 1865). Caribbean people adapted celebrations begun in slavery, such as Jonkonnu in Jamaica and Canboulay in Trinidad (as well as various crop-over festivals resembling post-harvest holidays in pre-emancipation Louisiana). “August First” commemorations in the Caribbean marked the legal abolition of British colonial slavery on that day in 1834 but came to be celebrated outside the British colonial world, including in Haiti. In Jamaica and Trinidad, freedpeople’s commemorations of emancipation clashed with formal August First commemorations managed by British administrators and missionaries, who marked the end of legal slavery in 1834 with the beginning of a transitional four-year-long “apprenticeship” system.
https://slaveryandremembrance.org/articles/article/?id=A0079
How do Trinidadians and Tobagonians celebrate this holiday?
The celebration of Emancipation Day has grown tremendously, so much so that Trinidad and Tobago is now known as the Emancipation Capital of the world. Thousands of Trinbagonians and a significant number of external visitors from around the World come to Trinidad and Tobago, to what is recognized as one of the world’s foremost African festivals.
The build up to the 1st August includes weeks of activities by various community based and non-governmental organizations, libraries and cultural organizations, corporate and government entities. These can include exhibitions, panel discussions and lectures often featuring well known Pan African scholars, cultural performances, music, songs and dance. Many organizations host African fashion shows depicting not only African based dress but local customs based on Caribbean and local African culture.
