On 28 August 1833, Britain’s Slavery Abolition Act received royal assent. Its implementation from 1 August 1834 changed the legal status of many enslaved people across British colonies but placed most adults into “apprenticeship,” a transitional system that compelled continued labor for former enslavers. The Act also awarded compensation to enslavers, not to the people whose labor had created plantation wealth. In Guyana, abolition was therefore a process shaped by both enslaved people’s resistance and imperial policy, rather than a simple gift from Britain.
On 23 February 1763, enslaved Africans at plantations along the Canje River in the Dutch colony of Berbice rose against plantation slavery. The uprising spread across estates and developed into a...
On 25 March 1807, Britain’s Slave Trade Act received royal assent and prohibited British subjects from participating in the transatlantic trade in enslaved people. It did not abolish slavery or...
On 18 August 1823, enslaved people on Plantation Success and other estates on the East Coast of Demerara began a large coordinated uprising. Quamina and his son Jack Gladstone were among those...
👉 The Slavery Abolition Act receives royal assent
Current
28 August 1833
On 28 August 1833, Britain’s Slavery Abolition Act received royal assent. Its implementation from 1 August 1834 changed the legal status of many enslaved people across British colonies but placed most...
On 1 August 1834, the abolition law took effect in British Guiana and formerly enslaved people were reclassified as apprentices. Most adults were compelled to work a set number of hours for former...
On 3 August 1834, workers on the Essequibo coast resisted plantation demands under the new apprenticeship system. Some understood the August 1 change to mean freedom from plantation labor; colonial...
Damon was publicly executed on 13 October 1834 after an Essequibo protest against apprenticeship, the labor regime imposed after legal emancipation. Guyanese heritage accounts identify him as a...
On 3 May 1835, the ship Louisa Baillie brought the first forty Portuguese migrants from Madeira to Demerara. Colonial and Guyanese government accounts connect the recruitment to planters’ anticipation...
On 5 May 1838, the ship Whitby brought the first Indian indentured workers to British Guiana, landing at Highbury in Berbice. The National Trust also names the Hesperus in its account of the first...
