Be­gin­ning in 1904 and con­tin­u­ing in­to the 1980s, Eman­ci­pa­tion Day in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean was com­mem­o­rat­ed as “The First Mon­day in Au­gust”, a pub­lic hol­i­day. Few peo­ple know why. In 1902, hav­ing de­feat­ed the Boers in South Africa, Britain was at its im­pe­r­i­al zenith. Au­gust Mon­day was a new pro­pa­gan­da to re­vive an old con­cept of Britain as a moral em­pire and im­pe­ri­al­ism as a civil­is­ing mis­sion. The plan need­ed the res­ur­rec­tion of William Wilber­force as the pri­ma­ry mas­cot of British con­science. There was no role for African eman­ci­pa­tors in this cel­e­bra­tion.

In the year pre­ced­ing the first de­c­la­ra­tion of Au­gust Mon­day, the Trinidad Gov­ern­ment had in­sid­i­ous­ly be­gun in­sti­tu­tion­al­is­ing the glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of Christo­pher Colum­bus by pro­claim­ing “Dis­cov­ery Day” an an­nu­al pub­lic hol­i­day. Oth­er colo­nial gov­er­nors were quick to em­u­late Trinidad. The date of “dis­cov­ery” co­in­cid­ed with Colum­bus’ first vis­it or sight­ing of their re­spec­tive is­lands. For Trinidad and To­ba­go, this date was Ju­ly 31.

Au­gust Mon­day and Dis­cov­ery Day were both tagged to Em­pire Day, which was first pro­claimed in 1903 to glo­ri­fy the achieve­ments of the most suc­cess­ful im­pe­ri­al­ist monarch, Queen Vic­to­ria.

In T&T, Dis­cov­ery Day of­ten clashed with Au­gust Mon­day, for no oth­er rea­son than they are con­sec­u­tive days in the year and these pub­lic hol­i­days were all cel­e­brat­ed on a Mon­day. To avoid cel­e­brat­ing the two events in one day, Eman­ci­pa­tion was in­vari­ably pushed back to the Sec­ond Mon­day of Au­gust.

T&T firm­ly dis­card­ed Au­gust Mon­day in 1962 with the amend­ed “Pub­lic Hol­i­days Act”, which de­clared In­de­pen­dence Day as the next hol­i­day to fol­low Dis­cov­ery Day.

Fol­low­ing the Black Pow­er Rev­o­lu­tion of 1970, the Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee re­lent­less­ly ad­vo­cat­ed for a pub­lic hol­i­day for Eman­ci­pa­tion. They changed the nar­ra­tive of Eman­ci­pa­tion from an An­glo-Sax­on cel­e­bra­tion of Evan­gel­i­cal hu­man­i­tar­i­an­ism to an African-cen­tred cel­e­bra­tion of hero­ism and mil­i­tan­cy. In this sce­nario, Tou­s­saint Lou­ver­ture re­placed William Wilber­force as the true rep­re­sen­ta­tive of African eman­ci­pa­tion. In 1985, the T&T Gov­ern­ment re­lent­ed, and leg­isla­tive­ly fixed the first day of Au­gust as Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, no mat­ter the day of the week. It was a first for the Caribbean.

Over time, the rest of the an­glo­phone Caribbean fol­lowed T&T’s ex­am­ple, ex­cept Bar­ba­dos. In Bar­ba­dos, Au­gust Mon­day con­flict­ed with the Crop Over fes­ti­val or Kadoo­ment. Be­cause of the im­por­tance of Kadoo­ment to the tourism mar­ket, Bar­ba­dos com­mem­o­rates Eman­ci­pa­tion on Au­gust 23, the first day of the Hait­ian Rev­o­lu­tion and the day recog­nised by the Unit­ed Na­tions as the In­ter­na­tion­al Day for the Re­mem­brance of the Slave Trade and its Abo­li­tion.

The Hait­ian Rev­o­lu­tion is in­ti­mate­ly con­nect­ed to the strug­gle for eman­ci­pa­tion in the British colonies, and more so in T&T. The Hait­ian Rev­o­lu­tion was Britain’s blood­i­est and most cost­ly colo­nial war, up to the First World War.

Where­as Britain had de­ployed some 50,000 troops to fight the North Amer­i­can colonies in their War of In­de­pen­dence, she lost some 70,000 men (army and navy) in Haiti and oth­er Caribbean colonies that had re­volt­ed against the slav­oc­ra­cy at the same time as Haiti, and ac­tu­al­ly con­tributed to Britain’s de­feat in Haiti.

The fi­nan­cial cost of the war was equal­ly stag­ger­ing. Where­as Britain had spent some £80 mil­lion (equiv­a­lent to £1 tril­lion at 2018) in the North Amer­i­can war, the An­glo-Hait­ian war cost £150 mil­lion (equiv­a­lent to al­most £2 tril­lion in 2018).

White British abo­li­tion­ists feared Hait­ian ex­pan­sion­ism in the Caribbean. Black abo­li­tion­ists wel­come it. Haiti had eman­ci­pat­ed neigh­bour­ing San­to Domin­go and as­sist­ed Si­mon Bo­li­var with weapons and cash to lib­er­ate South Amer­i­ca, so the fear was ground­ed on fact. To counter Hait­ian in­flu­ence, Britain ac­cel­er­at­ed the abo­li­tion of her At­lantic slave trade and em­barked on a pol­i­cy of scal­ing down the plan­ta­tion mod­el of coloni­sa­tion to one of small farms, while cre­at­ing buffer pop­u­la­tions be­tween the white slav­oc­ra­cy and the en­slaved pop­u­la­tion.

The Chi­nese im­mi­gra­tion scheme, launched in 1802, was the first such ex­per­i­ment. When that failed, Britain passed a Mutiny Act in 1807 eman­ci­pat­ing the 10,000 black sol­diers in the Twelve West In­dia Reg­i­ments cre­at­ed dur­ing the Hait­ian Rev­o­lu­tion. Af­ter the Napoleon­ic War, the Trinidad Gov­ern­ment set­tled the Third West In­di­an Reg­i­ment in North Man­zanil­la and Va­len­cia and gave each vet­er­an land for cul­ti­va­tion.

Dur­ing the An­glo-Amer­i­can War of 1812-1815, the British en­ticed en­slaved Africans in the US with promis­es of eman­ci­pa­tion to es­cape to the British lines. Six hun­dred of these run­aways were con­sti­tut­ed in­to a Black Corps and for­mal­ly eman­ci­pat­ed. They were set­tled main­ly in south Trinidad and be­came known as the Merikins.

Self-eman­ci­pa­tion was com­mon in Trinidad. In 1804 a group of Mandin­ka Mus­lims led by Imam Jonas Mo­ham­mad Bath pur­chased their free­dom and es­tab­lished a ja­maat in Port-of-Spain. Be­tween 1821 and 1834, over 1,000 oth­er en­slaved Africans pur­chased their free­dom for some £60,000 (equiv­a­lent to about £4,000,000 or $40,000,000 TT at 2018), paid out of their own pock­ets.

The courage and tri­umph of these African free­dom fight­ers and free Africans are all part of our Eman­ci­pa­tion sto­ry in T&T.

Dr Claudius Fer­gus is the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee of T&T's di­rec­tor of Ed­u­ca­tion and Re­search.