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 enslavers, while the plantation order and landownership remained largely intact. The new legal category limited movement and bargaining power and imposed additional labor obligations; it did not deliver immediate social or economic equality. Apprenticeship was contested by workers and was ended early in 1838.
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...
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...
👉 Apprenticeship begins in British Guiana
Current
1 August 1834
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...
On 1 August 1838, apprenticeship ended in British Guiana and formerly enslaved people became legally free. Their freedom followed generations of resistance and the 1834 protests against continued...
