BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - “WE need to know our history and we really need to look at it from a different perspective. We are not the ones who should feel ashamed. It is the Europeans who should feel ashamed of the injustice and the evil that they did on people who were, generally speaking, innocent people. So we need to take a different perspective in terms of our history; understand it, know it, appropriate it and view it with a sense of pride.”
These sentiments, among others, were expressed by former Governor of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla and respected historian, Sir Probyn Innis, during a recent interview with this media house.
Sir Probyn said that he “certainly feel very strongly that we are short changing ourselves as a people by not creating a greater interest in and consciousness of our history and our heritage, because we can’t really know who we are until we have a pretty strong awareness as to where we’re coming from; and it certainly, of course, would determine how we set about in terms of our future development as a people”.
Using an example of someone who is suffering from amnesia, Sir Probyn spoke about the importance of not forgetting our heritage as a black people.
“I think we’re doing ourselves an injustice by shutting out the memory of where we came from; the struggles, the triumphs the tragedies. Many of these, I think, give us a perspective and many of them help to make us feel a sense of pride as to who we are. And certainly we need it as a people because there are too people who are still overwhelmed by the thought that our ancestors were slaves and, because of that, there are people who feel ashamed, embarrassed. But I’m really hoping that they are able to look at it from a slightly different perspective and recognise that our ancestors were survivors.
“They got into this slavery business because they were strong, not only physically but spiritually and emotionally. We were physically strong because whereas the Europeans tended to die like flies in some instances in the tropics due to tropical diseases and what have you, the general conditions of the tropics, our ancestors coming out of Africa took it in strides and they did not suffer the kind of devastating death as the Europeans and other races. The Indians, for example, were the aboriginal people, died like flies.”
As highlighted by him, our ancestors overcame the brutality, oppression and everything that was thrown at them, as well as the efforts made to erase the memory of Africa with respect to family values, religion and culture.
“Nevertheless, our ancestors were able to survive and one of the truly beautiful things is that they never gave into slavery at all. The indications are that yes they knew that they had to be very careful and they could not take on the might of the Plantocracy, but whenever they had the chance to resist or to rebel or to escape, they did it. So, when emancipation - qualified as it was - came in 1834, you could see the joy as if to say, ‘We’ve been waiting for this, this is what we’ve been living for, this what we’ve been suffering all of this injustice for…it has now come and we are happy.’”
Sir Probyn pointed to his usual example of the Brimstone Hill Fortress which was built by African slave labour. He said the monument celebrates the strength and resilience of our ancestors.
“In the 40s, 50s, 60s and even 70s, there were people who were saying forget Brimstone Hill, it should be razed to the ground because it is a link of colonialism. Now, when Brimstone Hill was looked at from a different perspective, it was recognised that here you have a monument of world class dimensions. It is a monument which, according to UNESCO World Heritage List, should be preserved for the benefit not just for Kittitians and Nevisians but for the world.”
He praised the physical strength of our ancestors in being able to construct the fortress and mounting the huge cannons atop.
“How did these massive canons get up to nearly 1 000 feet above sea level? And that was at a time before you had cranes and bulldozers…the kind of machinery that would make lifting heavy objects quite easy. It was their skill and strength that did all that. But in addition, they built it block by block. And I’m saying, if our ancestors were able to do so much under conditions of duress, under condition of oppression, then we should take strength and recognise that these ancestors of ours were truly remarkable.”
