Django posted:Villages were created for non-returning East Indian Indentured,they got 99 yr leases for the lands,my grand parents had such land.
And that was the point.
My ancestors had to save their little pennies then put them in a wheel barrow to pay for the land. I mean MY ancestors as I am a direct descendant of people involved in the establishment of BV and Victoria.
Once purchased the land was flooded out by the estates, the villagers were heavily taxed and no public works was done to improve drainage, irrigation or sea defense. This is why blacks, whose first occupations after slavery was in farming and petty trading, moved to the security of the civil service and the trades. Those who couldn't do so remained poor, and those who did so entered the lower middle class.
Furthermore the Portuguese were allowed to undermine them by importing cheap food. And when many were forced to go back to the estate to supplement their income when the villages were in dire difficulties by the 1860s Indians were brought in to undermine any demands for decent pay.
The plantation owners were not only compensated for their loss of slave labor but also received massive tax benefits. Some used to subsidize the imports of indentures. There were heavy taxes on items used by the former slaves. and they also didn't receive tax waivers for items that the sugar estates benefitted from.
It would seem to most rational people that those who were deprived of pay for centuries, as well as the ability to develop a culture of running enterprises should have received assistance and compensation to get on their feet.
My issue with demands for reparations is that the people responsible no longer live in Guyana, or are even interested in Guyana, so I don't see the sense of this demand. Penalizing other groups who weren't directly responsible for the plight suffered by the freed men and women doesn't seem rational. Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean lack the leverage to demand reparations from the UK, France and the Netherlands, these being the guilty parties and the biggest beneficiaries.
So why waste time. Mr. Phillips and company need to find other ways to help impoverished rural Afro Guyanese, many still suffering from the legacy of the post emancipation era.