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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World

Formerly enslaved people in Guyana embraced collective action

Engraving of a plantation in British Guiana, with figures gathered on a path
A coffee plantation in British Guiana in the early 1800s. Photograph: Granger Historical Picture Archive/Alamy

Your report (British corporation continued trafficking of enslaved Africans to Guyana 40 years after abolition, 23 August) tells one important part of Guyana’s post-slavery history. There is another that deserves to be better known.

In 1839, little more than a year after full emancipation in British Guiana, 83 formerly enslaved men and women pooled their savings to buy the 200-hectare (500-acre) Northbrook plantation. They renamed it Victoria. Other purchases by other groups followed, developing into what became known as the communal African village movement.

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