Most of us are relatively familiar with the horrors of this abhorrent trade in Guyana from c1630-1834 (and which I described in 'Wild Coast'). Less familiar perhaps are the small liberties that survived slavery.
Most slaves kept their African gods, and their magic and their secret potions. Some ran little businesses, and would return here – to the market in Georgetown – to sell whatever they’d made; honey, perhaps, or rum and salted shark. Others had smallholdings, and were allowed out until eight at night (provided they carried a lantern). Some slaves even had their own slaves.
There were also slave holidays, a slave ball (four times a year), and regular handouts of grog. What’s more, Africans were encouraged to have children – particularly after 1807, when the import of new slaves was banned. That year, one of the agricultural societies even offered a medal for the farming of human beings. It was given to the planter who’d raised the greatest number of baby slaves.
To us, today, this all seems totally iniquitous - but, back then, for most Europeans life back in Europe was itself nasty, brutish and short.