We Shall Rise and Stand Upright

By Peter Cruchley and Michael Jagessar

Psalm 20:8 hese words of the Psalmist remind us that rebellion is also one of the legacies of Slavery; and it is central to how T 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)

Will we rise up and stand upright? Or will we go home, stay quiet and do as we are told?

Quamina was executed along with some of the other LMS deacons and chapel folk, and their bodies publicly displayed to dissuade any further such rebellion. Quamina’s son, Jack, was deported as the case quickly became an embarrassment to the owner of the Plantation, where Jack was enslaved, Sir John Gladstone, father of the British Prime Minister, Sir William Ewart Gladstone.

Smith was very instrumental in educating the slaves, against the will and wishes of the plantocracy; and he is to be credited for his part in enabling the courage of the enslaved people to come to the fore. However, he failed to rise up and stand up with his chapel, with the people with whom he shared the good news of life and liberation in Jesus Christ. Why was this? He clearly succumbed to the pressure of the LMS, empire’s co-opted partner; because he had already received a letter of instruction from the LMS:

Not a word must escape you in public or in private, which might render the slaves displeased with their masters or dissatisfied with their station. You are not sent to relieve them from their servile condition, but to afford them the consolation of religion …

Will we rise up and stand upright? Or will we go home, stay quiet and do as we are told? Outrageously the power figures, especially the white power figures, like the LMS and Smith took the latter in 1823.

So, what about now? CWM has agreed that we must repent for our part in the transatlantic slave trade; but our repentance for the legacies of slavery is a mere sham and our Christian witness as a partnership of churches is at stake if we fail to press for radical change to the systemic manifestations of racism in our life and world; and if we fail to stand with those whose lives, bodies and rights are treated as though they don't matter. Maybe the question for us at this critical juncture in history, is not why are people on the street protesting; but why are we not? The world and the communities in which we are located, are waiting to believe us – to see our words embodied in action!

Babylon’s might is arrayed around us. So, this is the moment to rise with David; to affirm that the Shepherd walks with us “through the valley of the shadow of death”; and that the Shepherd sets in the midst of our foes, a table of comfort and encouragement for all who rise up for dignity and justice.