What do we still carry from our past?

Photo Credit: author’s own photograph (with edges and shadows) Image left: personal gift from the Bailey family, see more @ https://baha.co.za. Image right: African Beauty by Phindile Mamba, see more @ https://yeboartgallery.com

This month of September has given me the opportunity to read around what I can source, so far, of my own heritage and that of black Guyanese. These are the daughters and sons of warriors, freedom fighters, idealists, thinkers, leaders, activists, healers and the many other roles taken on by our ancestors, even before finally leaving the shores of West Africa.

The rich economies created from the business of colonialism, slavery and European industrialisation together with the continued profiteering of royal families, landowners, industrialists and individual fortune seekers has now created an uncomfortable situation for some of them. Individuals and their families are being forced to answer questions about the source of their actual wealth. Others have had nation states demand an apology for the atrocities committed against humanity and for their part in the slave-trade together with providing channels to support the healing of ancestral wounds through reparations and reconciliation. Charles Gladstone and some of his family members’ recent visit to Georgetown, Guyana, in marking the 200^th Anniversary of the Demerara Slave revolt that was initiated on one of the Gladstone plantations, is one such gesture. The piecemeal offerings, the not-quite admissions, the refusals to admit and the denial by many cannot begin to expose the huge suffering inflicted on black Africans on both sides of the Atlantic for a greater and long-lasting profit. None of their declarations come anywhere near to answering the questions that may lead to a future of healing. 

As researchers have found, it is not easy to understand the past that is often located in manuscripts, letters, recorded statements, implements, drawings, maps, ledgers and a whole plethora of artefacts held around Europe in different languages and scripts. I am grateful that as documents become declassified, we begin to piece together our lives. The rest … have been lost or destroyed leaving no trace. Except that we are here, because you were there. 

I looked back into my immediate past, a year ago in my home in eSwatini, Southern Africa. On a night like this, Friday at the end of the week and the end of September 2022, I lit these candles and contemplated the lines and shadows in my room, warmed by an open log fire marking the end of winter and time of regrowth, new growth, and the possibilities October would bring to be, to do and to belong in the world; carrying with me, my past forward. 

There are still more questions than answers and I am grateful to those who continue to seek out the evidence that may give some insight into my own heritage, buried deep in the silt and sand, the rivers and oceans, the trees and roots.  Above all, the answers that lie with my ancestors, my elders whose bodies lie buried in the ancient lands of both Guyana and some place in West and Central Africa, or even sunken in the Middle Passage – unknown. What do you still carry from your past?

As always, thank you for reading my post this month. Leave your own thoughts in the comments to share with others. Scroll down to the end of the Blog Page to ‘follow’. Do check out my Kamhlaba Challenge when you can.  https://www.kamhlabachallenge.com/campaigns/from-luxembourg-to-mpaka