‘When presented with the choice between being enslaved under a good master and being free, this man exclaimed, in the author’s version of local dialect: “Heigh! Me massa a very good ting, but freedom till better.”’ – excerpted, from Troubling Freedom-Antigua and the Aftermath of British Emancipation by Natasha Lightfoot, in the Historical and Archeological Society (of Antigua and Barbuda’s) newsletter. From an 1837 conversation between workingman from Harvey’s Estate in St. Mary’s and American abolitionists James Thome and Joseph Horace Kimball
“Only months after Emancipation, Antiguan planters tried to codify the conditions under which black working people would labour by devising restrictive legislation known as the Contract Act that firmly tethered emancipated people to estates.” – excerpted, from Troubling Freedom-Antigua and the Aftermath of British Emancipation by Natasha Lightfoot, in the Historical and Archeological Society (of Antigua and Barbuda’s) newsletter.
From the January – March 2017 issue of the HAS Museum of Antigua and Barbuda newsletter. Read the entire issue: HAS NEWSLETTER 1st qtr 2017
Read also the issue from the second quarter of 2017, which has insights to bygone Antiguan traditions like the Christmas revelry that has since been usurped by Carnival in the summer and picking salt i.e. mining salt from the salt ponds when it was widely practiced, up until about the 1950s: HAS NEWSLETTER 2nd QTR 2017
Finally, read the issue from the third quarter, the opening article (The Nook by Veronica Dyde) of which begins, saltily, “As more and more original buildings in central St. John’s are being demolished and replaced by ugly concrete structures of no architectural merit …” Wow, tell us what you really think. The Museum building and the St. John’s Cathedral are two buildings that are safe from demolition…probably…and there are articles on them among other interesting features in this issue. Read the entire issue: HAS NEWSLETTER 3rd QTR 2017
As with all content on wadadlipen.wordpress.com, except otherwise noted, this is written by Joanne C. Hillhouse (author of The Boy from Willow Bend, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight, Oh Gad!, Musical Youth, With Grace, and Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure). All Rights Reserved.
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