According to a March 31, 1851 census there were some 7,168 African immigrants residing in Demerara, Essequibo and Berbiceon the colony of British Guiana. Of these, 2,728 were living in Berbice, including in New Amsterdam. Two thousand, four hundred and five resided in Demerara, including Georgetown, and 2,035 lived in Essequibo.
While many are said to have voluntarily arrived on the colony from Sierra Leone and the Kroo (Kru) Coast, now in modern day Liberia and Ivory Coast, many others arrived after being rescued from the slave ships of other regions still involved in the slave trade. These “Liberated Africans” were principally young people and children.
In 1840, labour demand was high after emancipation, and British authorities sought to also encourage African immigration to British Guiana. It was also a way for the British government avoiding indefinite upkeep of the Liberated Africans when they arrived on the colony, freed from slave ships.
African migrants began legally migrating to the West Indies, where, by 1841, new rules and systems were subsequently put in place to ensure the African slave trade could not resume. Not long afterhowever, migration declined, partly as news reached Africa of the depressing conditions of life on the colony; partly as a result of few African women being encouraged to migrate, which discouraged male migrants, and partly due to discouragement by resident African missionaries and employers.
The male Kru Coast migrants however, known as the Kru, were accustomed to working overseas if necessary, as it was a way of accumulating wealth, especially for marriage. Kru women remained behind to tend to crops and family.
By the time the 19th century had arrived, Kru traditional economic activities had declined and it became a custom to migrate to find work, usuallyas stevedores, returning to their families or to begin a family when they felt they had enough money.
In Kru society, after puberty a male may be apprenticed to what was called a headman who was responsible for finding him work abroad and to whom the migrant would have to give some of his earnings when he returned to Africa. He also had to give a portion to his village chief and his father.
Arriving in British Guiana the Kru were sent to West Bank Demerara and other Demerara plantations as well as plantations on the East Coast of Berbice. There they mainly worked on the sugar cane punts, moving around the plantation as needed.
British Guiana had the most Kru migrants in the West Indies. One of the reasons many are said to have chosen to remain in British Guiana was that they did not stagnate working on punts but found the opportunity for advancement in other arenas; so much so that Kru authorities back in Africa became concerned about their non-return.
The Kru migrants saved their earnings to purchase land in the villages and had children with Guianese women; although some eventually returned to Kru Coast, it was often only for their sons’ initiation ceremony.
This caused even more concern among their native villagers so that two African princes arrived in British Guiana in 1845 and 1853 respectively to see first-hand their living conditions,after which one prince expressed the fear that the Kru would not want to return.
Among the Liberated Africans,many were considered “uncivilized” so the colonial authorities would put them in the care of elderly black “matrons” who would be responsible for ensuring they learnt the ways of the colony and the Christian religion. Many of these chaperones still retained enough knowledge of their native language to communicate with their charges.
The Liberated Africans were indentured for a year, or until they turned 18, working in the plantation fields alongside the Creoles and other indentured immigrants of the colony.
According to “Demerara after fifteen years of slavery” (1853), by the mid-1800s most of the “old Africans” (those who had arrived during the British slave trade) were at least 50 -60 years old – even if they had arrived as children – since the slave trade had been abolished in 1807. They were dying fast: from more than 15,000 in 1841 to just over 7,000 by the 1851 census.
