#British Guiana

[the-cybersmith]

Squeezing One Last War into 2023

Well, well, well. Communism, Republicanism, and Decolonialism rear their ugly triple heads once more, like a horrid leftist King Gidorah.

The retreat of Empires, the overthrow of monarchs, and the establishment of command economies was supposed to bring peace to mankind. What has it actually brought? Ruin and bloodshed.

The socialist regime in Venezuela is trying to annexe the majority of its neighbour, a former British colony.

Marxism, Jacobinism... what have they ever brought but bloodshed and misery? Watch as thousands die, and anti-monarchist leninists such as @txttletale remain totally silent, just as they did during the brutal suppression in Kronstadt, or Tiananmen Square.

[pro-deo-et-imperio]

British Guiana (1831–1966)

[marialarouge]

Guyanese Coconut Buns This recipe was given to my best friend while she was living in British Guyana. If the thought of using a half pound of butter makes you queasy, you can use margarine instead of butter. These are really mouthwatering! 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1 cup butter cut into pieces, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 cup white sugar, 3/4 cup flaked coconut, 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 teaspoon salt

[tanuki-prince]

Guyanese Coconut Buns My best friend gave me this recipe she was given while in British Guyana. You can substitute butter with margarine if the thought of a half pound of butter terrifies you :- These are really delicious!

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"CANADIAN EDUCATION SOUGHT BY CHINESE SISTERS," Toronto Star. September 29, 1942. Page 3. ---- MODERN MISSES FROM BRITISH GUIANA ADD EXOTIC TOUCH TO U. OF T. CAMPUS ---- Three pretty Chinese girls from British Guiana, the Wong sisters, have come to Toronto to study a variety of subjects at the University of Toronto. Patricia, LEFT, is 22 and is taking up household economics and dancing. Nancy, CENTRE, 17, has enrolled, for a university arts course, and Pamela, RIGHT, is attending the Ontario College of Art. The girls belong to a family which settled in the New World five generations ago.

CANADA SO DIFFERENT SAY CHINESE SISTERS ---- Three From British Guiana Are Here to Study at U. of T. ---- Student guests in Toronto are three little Chinese sisters named Wong. They are residents of British Guiana, and the trio doesn't speak a word of Chinese.

It was five generations ago that the Wongs came out of China and went to British Guiana, They speak with a decided English accent. Two of them. Patricia. 22, and Pamela, 20, have been at school in England for some years. Pamela had hopes of Cambridge. then war came.

"This war does strange things to ail of us," said Patricia, who is here to study home economics, but who loves dancing and music and studies them both in her spare time.

"We arrived in Montreal nearly two months ago and there I was sent to a children's camp." laughed blue black haired Pamela, who looks 15 years at the most.

"I'm going to be a journalist," chimed in the baby, Nancy, 17.

Patricia, a composer and singer of her own music, spent some years at the Royal Academy, of Music. "I have travelled aloue since I was 14, so it is nothing new to me. But Canada is so vastly different," she said.

Pamela is a student at the Ontario College of Art. Nancy is also a university student.

DISCIPLE OF THE DANCE Patricia Wong has always wanted to be an artiste. She attended the Royal Academy of Music in England, but the war decided her parents to keep her on this side of the Atlantic. Now, as shown at RIGHT, she studies dancing under the direction of Boris Volkoff.

[cartoonmoney]

Guyanese Coconut Buns My best friend gave me this recipe she was given while in British Guyana. You can substitute butter with margarine if the thought of a half pound of butter terrifies you :- These are really delicious!

[fatehbaz]

[T]he Dutch Republic, like its successor the Kingdom of the Netherlands, [...] throughout the early modern period had an advanced maritime [trading, exports] and (financial) service [banking, insurance] sector. Moreover, Dutch involvement in Atlantic slavery stretched over two and a half centuries. [...] Carefully estimating the scope of all the activities involved in moving, processing and retailing the goods derived from the forced labour performed by the enslaved in the Atlantic world [...] [shows] more clearly in what ways the gains from slavery percolated through the Dutch economy. [...] [This web] connected them [...] to the enslaved in Suriname and other Dutch colonies, as well as in non-Dutch colonies such as Saint Domingue [Haiti], which was one of the main suppliers of slave-produced goods to the Dutch economy until the enslaved revolted in 1791 and brought an end to the trade. [...] A significant part of the eighteenth-century Dutch elite was actively engaged in financing, insuring, organising and enabling the slave system, and drew much wealth from it. [...] [A] staggering 19% (expressed in value) of the Dutch Republic's trade in 1770 consisted of Atlantic slave-produced goods such as sugar, coffee, or indigo [...].

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One point that deserves considerable emphasis is that [this slave-based Dutch wealth] [...] did not just depend on the increasing output of the Dutch Atlantic slave colonies. By 1770, the Dutch imported over fl.8 million worth of sugar and coffee from French ports. [...] [T]hese [...] routes successfully linked the Dutch trade sector to the massive expansion of slavery in Saint Domingue [the French colony of Haiti], which continued until the early 1790s when the revolution of the enslaved on the French part of that island ended slavery.

Before that time, Dutch sugar mills processed tens of millions of pounds of sugar from the French Caribbean, which were then exported over the Rhine and through the Sound to the German and Eastern European ‘slavery hinterlands’.

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Coffee and indigo flowed through the Dutch Republic via the same trans-imperial routes, while the Dutch also imported tobacco produced by slaves in the British colonies, [and] gold and tobacco produced [by slaves] in Brazil [...]. The value of all the different components of slave-based trade combined amounted to a sum of fl.57.3 million, more than 23% of all the Dutch trade in 1770. [...] However, trade statistics alone cannot answer the question about the weight of this sector within the economy. [...] 1770 was a peak year for the issuing of new plantation loans [...] [T]he main processing industry that was fully based on slave-produced goods was the Holland-based sugar industry [...]. It has been estimated that in 1770 Amsterdam alone housed 110 refineries, out of a total of 150 refineries in the province of Holland. These processed approximately 50 million pounds of raw sugar per year, employing over 4,000 workers. [...] [I]n the four decades from 1738 to 1779, the slave-based contribution to GDP alone grew by fl.20.5 million, thus contributing almost 40% of all growth generated in the economy of Holland in this period. [...]

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These [slave-based Dutch commodity] chains ran from [the plantation itself, through maritime trade, through commodity processing sites like sugar refineries, through export of these goods] [...] and from there to European metropoles and hinterlands that in the eighteenth century became mass consumers of slave-produced goods such as sugar and coffee. These chains tied the Dutch economy to slave-based production in Suriname and other Dutch colonies, but also to the plantation complexes of other European powers, most crucially the French in Saint Domingue [Haiti], as the Dutch became major importers and processers of French coffee and sugar that they then redistributed to Northern and Central Europe. [...]

The explosive growth of production on slave plantations in the Dutch Guianas, combined with the international boom in coffee and sugar consumption, ensured that consistently high proportions (19% in 1770) of commodities entering and exiting Dutch harbors were produced on Atlantic slave plantations. [...] The Dutch economy profited from this Atlantic boom both as direct supplier of slave-produced goods [from slave plantations in the Dutch Guianas, from Dutch processing of sugar from slave plantations in French Haiti] and as intermediary [physically exporting sugar and coffee] between the Atlantic slave complexes of other European powers and the Northern and Central European hinterland.

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Text above by: Pepijn Brandon and Ulbe Bosma. "Slavery and the Dutch economy, 1750-1800". Slavery & Abolition Volume 42, Issue 1. 2021. [Text within brackets added by me for clarity. Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[cocteautwinslyrics]

i literally cannot for the life of me understand people who engage with fiction to insert their own familiarities into it. if I'm reading something that feels the same as what im used to i almost start feeling caged. the only time i really read things related to my experiences is to see someone articulate feelings i have better than i ever could because for the most part reading isnt supposed to be about your experiences its supposed to be about discovering others especially if you're privileged in the global north. i loved reading adiga's the white tiger precisely because i could compare the similarities and differences between the way class works in india and in the uk and possibly examine the way colonialism may have affected that. basically i think for the most part it is better to read in order to learn through fiction than it is to read for fun to be honest like read some fun books i dont care knock yourself out but like there have been bodies of work translated into your language from around the world and you can take advantage of that by broadening your mind with the help of a compelling story and if you turn that down well i think you're making the wrong call but that's just me. this is literally just a string of semi related ideas because its 1am but whatever

[witekspicsbanknotes]

Fancy banknote of British Guyana..

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Word List: Flower

beautiful words with "flower" to plant in your next poem/story

Blanketflower - gaillardia—i.e., any of a genus (Gaillardia) of American composite herbs with showy flower heads

Cuckooflower - a bitter cress (Cardamine pratensis) of Eurasia and North America; ragged robin (i.e., a perennial herb, Lychnis flos-cuculi, of the pink family cultivated for its pink flowers with narrow-lobed petals)

Dayflower - any of a genus (Commelina) of herbs of the spiderwort family having one petal smaller than the other two

Flowerage - a flowering process, state, or condition

Floweriness - of, relating to, or resembling flowers; marked by or given to rhetorical elegance

Foamflower - a spring-flowering herb (Tiarella cordifolia) of eastern North America that has white flowers with long stamens and no stem leaves; also called: false miterwort

Gillyflower - carnation (i.e., a plant of any of numerous often cultivated and usually double-flowered varieties or subspecies of an Old World pink, Dianthus caryophyllus, found in many color variations; also: a moderate red; archaic: the variable color of human flesh)

Globeflower - any of a genus (Trollius) of plants of the buttercup family usually with globose yellow or orange flowers

Nonflowering - producing no flowers; specifically: lacking a flowering stage in the life cycle

Pasqueflower - any of several anemones with palmately compound leaves and large usually white or purple early spring flowers

Passionflower - any of a genus (Passiflora) of chiefly tropical woody tendriled climbing vines or erect herbs with usually showy flowers and pulpy often edible berries

Satinflower - honesty; blue-eyed grass; common chickweed; flannelflower; a plant or flower of the genus Godetia

Strawflower - any of several plants having everlasting flowers

Twinflower - a prostrate subshrub (Linnaea borealis) of the honeysuckle family that is found in cool regions of the northern hemisphere and has fragrant usually pink flowers

Waxflower - a climbing plant (Stephanotis floribunda) of Madagascar often cultivated in the greenhouse for its fragrant white flowers; an epiphytic tree (Clusia insignis) of British Guiana; indian pipe; spotted wintergreen

If any of these words make their way into your next poem/story, please tag me, or leave a link in the replies. I would love to read them!

More: Word Lists

[pregnantseinfeld]

"The winning of constitutional independence in any given African territory has to be correlated with winning of independence everywhere else on the continent and in Asia, so as to determine to what extent the so-called peaceful handover of power was really peaceful and was due to the goodness of the colonizers, and to what extent it was an option forced on them by examples of violence in particular colonies and by the threat of violence implicit in any nationalist movement which had shaped the people into a single resolute force. It is, for example, palpably obvious that the French learned from defeats in Vietnam that they should quit the whole of Indochina 'peacefully', rather than perish at other Dien Bien-Phus. The French repeated their high-handed actions in Africa and found that the national war of liberation threatened to reduce the French 100-franc note to a piece of worthless paper, and had already bequeathed the National Assembly in Paris with a succession of jack-in-the-box premiers. There was clearly a connection with the unsuccessful French wars of repression in Algeria and the haste with which they tried to establish acceptable African governments in West Africa.

As for the British, Malaya haunted them in Asia and the example of Kenya gave them diarrhoea in Africa. True, they did suppress the Mau Mau land and freedom army, but at what cost! Imperialism is not imperialism if it costs more to suppress the exploited than the imperialists receive in surplus. The British knew that it was wise to proceed with African independence rather than court more Mau Mau. Even in far-off British Guiana, the popular movement of the 1950s could exert some leverage on the British by threatening them with Mau Mau.

India is often given as the classic example of non-violent transfer of power from the imperial power to the indigenous nationalist forces. But it should be remembered that India had a powerful current of mutinous soldiers and other political traditions opposed to the non-violence of Gandhi. The British retreated as much from the threat of millions of Indians lying peacefully on the roads and railways as from the possibility that they might get up and strike back, given the example of those nationalists who were attacking British life and property before and during the Second World War."

Walter Rodney, The British Colonialist School of African Historiography and the Question of African Independence

[clawmarks]

Fishes of British Guiana - Robert H. Schomburgk - 1840 - via Internet Archive

[fallinginaforrest]

you're on your way to Lincoln island, meanwhile I'm still here.

It HAD to be divine intervention right???? Traveller Species intervention?? Those pieces had to fall into place??? The Paper had to reach the cape of good hope in time?? Because John had to be in New York in September??? so that he could take them to British Guiana??? So that they could be launched via the satellite so Sia could meet them in space??? So that they could end up on the Ellen Austin??? Right??? These characters have so much momentum behind them and they don't even know???

[nesiacha]

Frustration when I watched a television show about the Overseas Departments and Haiti during the period of the re-establishment of slavery and in general.

The siege of the Crête at Pierrot in 1802, by A. Raffet, engraving Hébert, 1839

Warning: There are many atrocities I will talk about when we dive into the details of the Haitian Revolution and torture in the reedit in the end . So, don’t read if you’re not up for it.

Completely by chance, I caught the second half of the show "Toussaint Louverture" (though I skipped some parts, I admit) presented by Stéphane in his show "Secrets d’Histoire," which I would qualify as mediocre. However, I was surprised to see that this show, which has always been lenient towards Bonaparte and Louis XVI, finally addresses the horrible re-establishment of slavery and recalls that the second and final abolition of slavery in 1848 was unsatisfactory because financial compensation was given to the colonists, but nothing to the former slaves. The one in 1794 seemed better. The participants of the show indeed say that it was a grave mistake to re-establish slavery, both morally and strategically regarding Haiti. I don't feel they explained how disastrous the consequences were, like how these laws removed brilliant officers from the military, such as Louis Delgrès (although mentioned in the show) or Alexandre Dumas (not to mention many former slaves who served in the military or fought like the group to which belonged Flore Blois Gaillard, who allied with the French revolutionaries against the British forces). This was a severe blow to the army, especially with the laws we could call racial against Black people (though I hesitate to use this term because I'm not sure if the word racist was defined as we understand it today). It was a great blunder—if Bonaparte hadn't had the (stupid) idea to re-establish slavery, perhaps the Overseas Departments wouldn't have fallen under British influence (as for Haiti, I think it would have become independent even without the re-establishment of slavery, and France and Haiti could have been solid allies, but it would have been much less violent with fewer French and Haitian losses). All these wars cost enormous amounts of money, and I believe he wouldn’t have sold Louisiana (frankly, he surely had good reasons, but can you imagine the French revolutionaries, especially those from 1792-1794, even in their worst moments, trying to sell a territory, at least the majority of the Convention? I can't). Moreover, there is no mention of the horrible deportations endured by Guadeloupeans and Haitians to Corsica, whether men, women, or children, under atrocious conditions. The most famous victim is the deputy Jean Louis Annecy (although very forgotten), who died on the island of Elba in 1807.

As usual, revolutionary women are forgotten. There is only a mention of Rosalie, alias Solitude, but there were many who participated in the fight, including Sanité Belair, who was executed by firing squad with her husband, Marie Claire Bonheur, the future Empress of Haiti, Victoria Montou, Dédée Bazile, Cécile Fatiman, Marthe Rose Toto from French Guiana, etc. The list is very long.

Finally, I don't like this whitewashing of Charles Leclerc (they do say that Rochambeau was terrible, at least, but since Leclerc was Bonaparte’s brother-in-law, he surely received some favorable treatment in this show). Here is an excerpt from the beginning of his horrors: "The majority of the deportees were concentrated in Corsica and the island of Elba, where they were used as labor for road construction and fortification restoration starting with the former Black soldiers" (text excerpt from "La guerre des Couleurs" of Pierre Branda and Thierry Lentz) . There was authorization to condemn Black people based on mere suspicion. Moreover, here is a letter Leclerc sent to his brother-in-law Napoleon Bonaparte: "Here is my opinion on this country. We must destroy all the Black people in the mountains, men and women, keep only the children under 12 years old, destroy half of those in the plains, and not leave a single colored man who has worn an epaulette in the colony." To think that I found the orders from the Convention in 1793-1794 frightening because they were ambiguous... Well, another reason why I find Bonaparte much more terrifying than them (already, the torture practiced by the police under Fouché in 1801 was appalling when he allowed it, the deportation without trial of many Jacobins, some of whom died, etc.), it reinforced my belief that he was much worse than the Committee of Public Safety in 1794, who nevertheless committed unforgivable acts in wartime under the infernal situation of internal-external civil war. Leclerc started the drownings in October 1802: it didn't matter whether the victims were civilians or soldiers; they were put on boats that were sunk. This strongly recalls the horrors committed by Carrier. According to Marlene L. Daut, the horrors were such that there were many desertions among French soldiers, which must not have been an easy situation for them because they could be shot for desertion and, even if they survived, forced to avoid returning home to avoid trouble with Napoleonic justice.

Leclerc (and by extension, Bonaparte) fell into the trap that some fighters, victims of an invasion or imminent invasion, have used throughout history, which seems quite old: pretending to ally with their adversaries to buy time, even if it means sacrificing their own to better fight the enemy again (and they certainly don't reach the only ones using this technique). This is what happened with Dessalines: the show doesn’t explain the armed resistance led by the Bélair couple against Leclerc, where they temporarily won victories. However, some believe this uprising might have been premature, although the insurgents weakened Leclerc with certain victories, and consequently, Dessalines allowed Charles and Sanité Bélair to be sacrificed. To be fair, the show I mentioned briefly explains that Henry Christophe and Dessalines did not betray Toussaint; they just wanted to buy time, but there is no mention of the Bélair couple. According to historians Pierre Branda and Thierry Lentz, Dessalines killed two birds with one stone by eliminating a potential rival in the person of Charles Bélair and to lull Leclerc's distrust to better attack when the time comes. In any case, by buying time, they were able to achieve better victories against Leclerc (who surely thought that by compromising Dessalines in the eyes of Black people, the insurgents would no longer dare to fight with him, but he was wrong) and later Rochambeau. Rochambeau continued by increasing atrocities, notably by releasing dogs on Black people and continuing to practice torture. There are allegations that Rochambeau locked Black people in holds and activated sulfur so they would die of asphyxiation. Thierry Lentz and Pierre Branda think it is not impossible that this happened. Bernard Gainot cites Jules Chanlatte from his work "Histoire de la catastrophe de Saint-Domingue" and published by a former sailor, Jean-Baptiste Bouvet de Cissé, in 1824: "Instead of valve boats, another type was invented, where victims of both sexes, piled on top of each other, expired suffocated by sulfur fumes." Whatever the case, the insurgents militarily defeated Rochambeau and the French troops, and their final victory was the Battle of Vertières in November 1803. Following this, Haiti's independence was proclaimed.

Where I totally disapprove is when, in order to try to limit the horrors that the Blacks people have suffered, they explain their reprisals, especially with the horrible massacre of the Whites people in 1804. I have already said in a post that massacre it is absolutely condemnable and atrocious . But imagine the horror of a little less than half of the Haitian population massacred in atrocious suffering, some betrayed by France while they had fought for them, others deported in atrocious conditions and some will never see their home again. I think that if their adversaries who oppressed them and those who applauded them had suffered a quarter of an eighth of the horrors that the Haitians suffered, the carnage would have been even more terrible. I do not want to exonerate the Haitians who took part in the massacre of 1804 from the responsibility but if Bonaparte had not approved such cruel orders (and he is the number 1 person responsible for this carnage), Whites people would not have been killed at least not in large numbers. The historian Thomas Madiou, said "Is it surprising that blacks and men of color used reprisals against whites?" And in any case nothing excuses the attitude of Bonaparte, Rochambeau or Leclerc. In my eyes they behaved like Turreau and Carrier. If we try to exonerate Bonaparte and his clique responsible for these massacres by highlighting the atrocities on the other side, it is a call to also exonerate horrible people like Carrier and Turreau by saying that the Vendéens committed massacre too.

In addition, the show ignored the many Haitians who protected white people from this massacre (Including Marie Claire Bonheur, wife of Dessalines, who nevertheless ordered the massacre I mentioned here: https://www.tumblr.com/nesiacha/758334606594523136/166-years-ago-empress-marie-claire-bonheur-of?source=share) and didn't said that the Polish legionnaires who were sent by Bonaparte to repress them were touched by the horrors that the Blacks suffered and many of them deserted to fight alongside the former slaves (as a form of recognition, the survivors were given Haitian nationality) were spared just like the Germans who had not participated in the slave trade ( but on the second point maybe I am wrong). For my part Rochambeau, Leclerc, Carrier and Turreau are to be put in the same bag concerning their atrocities when they were sent on a mission. Too bad Turreau and Rochambeau did not pay for their atrocities (some say that the fact that Leclerc died of yellow fever is enough karma and Carrier was guillotined and I do not pity him at all)

Finally, this isn't in the show, but I don't like when people say that Bonaparte was "a man of his time" to excuse his actions regarding slavery. No, he reinstated it, which is even worse. Sonthonax, Abbé Grégoire, Jean-Paul Marat, Pierre Gaspard Chaumette, Olympe de Gouges, and many others were also from the same era as Bonaparte and were opposed to slavery. The re-establishment of slavery shocked many French people, and a white man named Monnereau, under the orders of Delgrès, was hanged in Guadeloupe because he rose up against the re-establishment of slavery and drafted Louis Delgrès' last manifesto. While Bonaparte was reinstating slavery, a white man gave his life for the fight against it (and there must have been many examples like Monnereau). So, this argument to whitewash Napoleon doesn't hold up.

P.S.: I first found the information about asphyxiation from Claude Ribbe. However, even as a convinced, even a person like me petty, anti-Napoleon person ( and a bad faith person I admit it), I find him not very credible. Comparing Napoleon to Hitler is one of the most absurd things I ever heard. That's why I'm more cautious about this statement.

My sources for this post are: Bernard Gainot Pierre Branda, Thierry Lentz, "La guerre des couleurs"