An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­nal­isa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has wel­comed the move by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) to join hands with the Merikins Na­tion­al Com­mu­ni­ty to en­sure the sto­ry of African sur­vival and re­silience is in­clud­ed in the school cur­ricu­lum.

Ap­plaud­ing the ini­tia­tive as he de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress at the Merikin Na­tion­al Com­mu­ni­ty Award and Recog­ni­tion Cer­e­mo­ny at the South­ern Acad­e­my of the Per­form­ing Arts, San Fer­nan­do, on Thurs­day, he said it was “a note­wor­thy sto­ry which should be known by every cit­i­zen.”

Ad­vo­cat­ing for it to be “told truth­ful­ly and not white-washed,” the Prime Min­is­ter said it was an ex­am­ple of African re­sis­tance, de­ci­sive­ness, strength, courage, pride in their iden­ti­ty, and em­pow­er­ment in the face of colo­nial­ism, op­pres­sion and sys­tem­at­ic de­hu­man­i­sa­tion.

Au­gust 20 marked the 207th an­niver­sary of the ar­rival of a group of freed African-Amer­i­can slaves from var­i­ous parts of the At­lantic coast of the Unit­ed States to T&T.

This arose from an agree­ment and procla­ma­tion made be­tween the British Crown and an elite squadron of run­away slaves on April 2, 1814.

These sol­diers, known as the Merikins, ar­rived in Trinidad on Au­gust 20, 1816, as free men, al­though African slav­ery was still in ex­is­tence.

Per­son­al­ly de­clar­ing the sto­ry of the Merikins to be a mon­u­men­tal saga of a strong peo­ple, Row­ley said over the past 200 years, they had evolved in­to ded­i­cat­ed and dis­tin­guished cit­i­zens who had blend­ed in­to T&T’s na­tion­al fab­ric.

Dur­ing his brief ad­dress, he added, “Your coun­try is in­spired by your re­silience, your sense of fam­i­ly, your em­brace and re­spect for your an­ces­try.”

Prais­ing the sur­viv­ing heirs of the Merikins, the Prime Min­is­ter ac­knowl­edged the con­tin­ued cel­e­bra­tion of their past rather than let­ting them­selves be con­sumed by some sad ex­pe­ri­ences.

He en­cour­aged them to “con­tin­ue to be proud. In­spire the com­ing gen­er­a­tions and in so do­ing, con­tin­ue to be one of the jew­els of that star-stud­ded crown, the sto­ry of which is the his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Among those who al­so at­tend­ed the cer­e­mo­ny were Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, Trade Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon and Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice Min­is­ter Fos­ter Cum­mings.