Happy Emancipation Day Jamaica!

Hey World!:)

A lil Jamaican perspective about our Emancipation Day:

The Historic Spanish Town Square was the area where many persons listened tentatively while the governor read the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves, in its “Plaza Mayora” (pictured below). 

The celebration of Emancipation on August 1, 1838 in the Square of Spanish Town, the then capital of Jamaica. There was a procession of the Baptist Church and Congregation of Spanish Town under the Rev. J.M. Phillips, with about 2,000 school children and their teachers to Government House. Amid tremendous rejoicing, Governor Sir Lionel Smith read the Proclamation of Freedom to the large crowd of about 8,000 people, who had gathered in the Square. The governor's carriage is seen in the foreground (pictured below).

The Act of Emancipation (1833) set in motion the most significant and far-reaching social and economic revolution in the history of Jamaica as well as for other countries in the Commonwealth Caribbean. It mandated that in the first instance large numbers of individuals were no longer slaves but neither were they free citizens. They were "apprenticed labourers". Full freedom was granted in 1838... but FULL and FREE CITIZENSHIP was still a loooooooooong way off.

Emancipation did not mean the beginning of good times. According to Sherlock and Bennett in 'The Story of the Jamaican People' (1998): "Emancipation gave them the right to free movement, the right to choose where and when they wished to work, but without basic education and training many were compelled to remain on the plantation as field hands and tenants-at-will under conditions determined by the landlord, and for wages set by him."