At this time of year, and she knows why, it will behoove me to pay my respects to Gertrude Smith Flowers, in Brooklyn, New York. And while I’m at it, greetings to Lorna Barkley Rey, in White Plains, New York.
Now then and that said, in my Tuesday column this week I considered the need for an open and frank national discussion on the Battle of St. George’s Caye. There are extremely divergent opinions among Belizeans on this matter, and regional politicians play the issue to suit themselves and their special interests. In fact, the issue is more than divergent: it is divisive. And I don’t believe it has to be.
Ignorance is a crime. When Belizeans, and most of us were black back then, first celebrated the Battle of St. George’s Caye in 1898, what we should have been celebrating was the slave rebellion of May 1773 on the Belize Old River. But nobody knew anything about the 1773 uprising. Nobody knew anything about it, although at least six white slavemasters were killed in that rebellion, and an untold number of revolutionary black slaves.
The power structure in Belize is always getting away with this, erasing whatever history involved resistance and rebellion among our people. In fact, a mere 40 years after black Belizeans forcefully took over the whole of the capital city for two days in July of 1919, and essentially put the power structure in their places, so to speak, pro-British propagandists could still be spreading, with impunity and without rebuttal, the myth that Belizeans were and are a timid and complacent people.
Look, I am not “anti-” the Battle of St. George’s Caye. But I can’t understand how any proud and dignified Belizean in the 21st century can share the “Baymen’s clan” opinions originating with the late Emory King, and seriously consider those opinions some kind of Gospel. For crying out loud, slavery was not abolished until 40 years after the 1798 incident at St. George’s Caye.
I come from a middle class Giao family. I was raised as an admirer of Philip Goldson and the National Independence Party (NIP). I love Miss Emma, I treasure the history of the Queen of the Bay, and I cherish memories of the Tenth of September celebrations of my childhood and youth. But there are citizens just as Belizean as we are who have a different perspective on 1798. They deserve a hearing. We need to listen to them, just as much as they need to listen to us.
Black Belizeans did not win freedom at the Battle of St. George’s Caye. We’re still fighting for that, Jack. The thing is that when PUP Leader George Price first attacked the history involved with the Battle of St. George’s Caye around 1958, he was doing it for crass political reasons. And we, the people of Belize, reacted in a political and emotional manner. We defended our heritage, as we understood it.
If Mr. Price had created intellectual fora where Belizean and other scholars could have discussed the facts of those late eighteenth century times in and around the settlement of Belize, the Battle of St. George’s Caye would not have become a political football.
Fact is, the British “played” us. They are very, very good at this. Even though they created and catered to a privileged native elite in the settlement, and even though they simultaneously sought to castrate the masses of the Belizean people psychologically, there is a consistent history of rebellion in Belize – 1820, 1894, 1919, 1934, 1950, 1972, 1981 …
Philip Goldson was an electoral politician, but he was also a resistance leader in Belize. As a resistance leader of the PUP in 1951, he was jailed by the British. As a resistance leader of the NIP in 1966, he risked prison time to expose the Thirteen Proposals. As a resistance leader of the UDP in 1981, he fought against the Heads of Agreement. And, as a resistance leader of NABR in 1991, he fought against the Maritime Areas Act, and was doing so up to the time of his death in 2001.
Between the 1950s and 1990s, men like Albert Cattouse, C.L.B. Rogers and Curl Thompson (all deceased) were separately considered the most powerful black political forces in Belize. But, you never hear the names of these men come up in conversation or in writing. All you hear about is Goldson, Goldson, Goldson. Why is this? One reason is that he was always re-inventing himself, as it were, and always in the service of people’s resistance.
Goldson was a Tenth of September man. But Mr. Philip would have listened to the views of the North. If Mr. Philip had died in the early 1960s, for instance, he would have been considered pro-British in his views. But, he had fought against the British in 1951, and he would go on to fight against the British in 1981 and 1991. How pro-British is that?
No, Mr. or Mrs. El Guardian, I do not cite Mr. Goldson’s name in quest of creds for myself. If I don’t have my own creds after 41 years on the ground, then I would have wasted God’s breath on earth. I cite Mr. Goldson’s name for the benefit of those whose minds are closed where 1798 is concerned.
University of Pennsylvania professor, James Restall, has recently published research showing that the history of this region is marked by slaves from Belize fleeing north into the Yucatan, whereas there is no record of such a black flight from the Yucatan south into Belize. Think about that.
Power to the people. Power in the struggle.