Emancipation Day

'Caribbean: Emancipate
Yourselves '
by Janine Mendes-Franco

Today is Emancipation Day in many West Indian territories - the day that
effectively celebrates the end of slavery, when all slaves were legally
declared free.  One hundred and seventy odd years later, a few Caribbean bloggers pay tribute to their forefathers,
whose sacrifice has earned them their freedom today...

Montego Bay Day By Day quotes an excerpt from The Road to Freedom by Tanesha
Ramdanie, which describes the reaction to the historical pronouncement:



Tears of joy flowed incessantly, while shouts of freedom rang from the mountain
tops and the plains, from the men, women and children, who had learnt that they
were finally free of the oppressive social and economic system in which they
were treated as less than human.

...while Gallimaufry quotes a popular Barbadian folk song which, when in 1838
the system of apprenticeship was abolished and true freedom finally took hold,
inspired thousands of former slaves to take to the streets singing its refrain:



Lick and lock-up done wid,
Hurrah for Jin-Jin!
Lick and lock-up done wid,
Hurrah for Jin-Jin!

God bless de Queen fuh set we free
Hurrah for Jin-Jin!
Now lick and lock-up done wid,
Hurrah for Jin-Jin!

"Jin-Jin" refers to Queen Victoria
and the words of that song are engraved on the side of the Emancipation Statue
in honour of Bussa - a slave who led the longest revolt against plantation
owners in Barbados
and who died a hero in battle.