We Shall Rise and Stand Upright By Peter Cruchley and Michael Jagessar
Psalm 20:8
These words of the Psalmist remind us that rebellion is also one of the legacies of Slavery; and it is central to how God’s people meet oppression and injustice. In the face of war horses and chariots and all the paraphernalia of militarised police and state violence, David announces God’s commitment to the uprising of the oppressed.
The violent racism of these days is rooted in 400 years of White colonial history in North America, as it is in the 500-year history of the transatlantic slave trade, and the wider practice of European and US empire, globally. White power has had its knee in the backs of its colonial subjects, lifting it only to allow its co-opted lieutenants to place their weight there instead. Council for World Mission (CWM) knows this acutely because of our legacies and complicities in enslavement, and especially our connivance with violent racist repressive power during the life of our forebear, the London Missionary Society (LMS). These moments of uprising in the US, and the UK as well as in related struggles, like Hong Kong, transport us to Demerara, Guyana, nearly 200 years ago in 1823. On Saturday 16 Aug 1823, Quamina, a Deacon of the LMS chapel, Bethel, came to see the LMS missionary, Rev John Smith. He came to Smith to seek support, for Quamina along with other enslaved people working the Guyana Plantations who could bear their oppression no longer. Quamina came because he and his fellow enslaved people had heard that the King of England had authorised the emancipation of enslaved people; but they observed that the Plantocracy and Governor Murray were refusing to comply. Smith received them sympathetically, but told them to go home and wait for their freedom to be granted. Quamina returned to his son, Jack, and Quamina along with fellow deacons of that chapel and others began the Demerara Rebellion. Governor Murray immediately declared martial law and put down the uprising brutally using a mix of Colonial militia and Plantocracy vigilantes. This is an extract from what he wrote in his communique to the British Government: The Lieutenant-Colonel having in vain attempted to convince these deluded people of their error, and every attempt to induce them to lay down their arms having failed, he made his dispositions, charged the two bodies simultaneously, and dispersed them with the loss of 100 to 150. On our side, we only had one rifleman slightly wounded. (Other contemporary accounts put the number at nearer 400 rebels were killed)
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INSiGHT | June 2020
