I Was Born A Slave
Born: Turks and Caicos Plantations Site
You see the picture above? That's what my ancestors looked like. Between 1662 and 1807 Britain shipped 3.1 million Africans across the Atlantic Ocean in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Africans were forcibly brought to British owned colonies in the Caribbean and sold as slaves to work on plantations. Today, 355 years later my family and friends now occupy these islands our ancestors were once slaves in. Though many believe we are free, that is the furthest thing from true!
When I was leaving to come to University in the United Kingdom my mentor told me " Don't forget where you came from". At that time I thought he meant the island I grew up in; South Caicos but now I realise it was something much deeper. It was the spirit of God speaking through him telling me to not get caught up in any propaganda that will distract me from the struggles of my people. Most Caribbean islands struggled after they gained Independence from the British and most of it is due to the fact that they still possessed the slave mentality after their independence. You see after the slaves were set free, there were no psychological rehabilitation exercises implemented to correct the damage that had already been done to us. Without psychological intervention, slaves would continue to believe in the teachings of their masters, thus, the self-hate and violence that you see in these Independent Caribbean countries today are a result of them still reproducing what slaves owners taught to their great grandparents years ago.
I was born a slave! I remember growing up no one wanted to be referred to as the "black boy" in school and this when I was the ages of 5-9. Even at that young age the self-hate had already started. I remember the practices of my grandmother that she stop as she got older. I won't mention them but they were very African. My grandmother was a real black women like slave black women. No European blood was in her veins. She taught me everything about life and told me all her stories. Grandmother taught me a lot but I felt like she didn't tell me everything about her youth and I wondered why. Then I started watching documentaries about slavery and movies and understood why she only mentioned certain areas of her life. It's not pretty to talk about. I understood where we came from as a family and why we ended up in the positions we were in, in society. I realised I was descendent of a field slave!
There' a lot of work to be done in the Caribbean and based on theories in psychology, it will take 2 more generations to save the minds of the people. But work is on the way, more than ever information is hitting social media on a daily basis about the hidden agendas to destroy and exploit minorities of all races by a system that only puts one race on a pedestal. A change is coming whether people like it or not!
Chale X
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