Good, good morning. I'd like to tell the story, I've told the story many times before, but so bear with me if you've heard it and forgive me,
but I want to mention it primarily because I believe these individuals,
including to some extent my prince, were the architects of the world that were what developed after 1834.
These individuals, 38 individuals, will be the ones who I'll talk about, so I'll begin with them.
On the 13th of January 18 34, a group in Bermuda,
a group of free college and free black men as they were called a met to put together a petition and a
petition basically stated this was called the petition for the further amelioration of their condition.
What was happening at the moment was that there was a beginning to start the debate over well over the emancipation of slavery that began in 1833.
The British had sent had sent a bill for the colonies to amend as it was their practise,
and they were about to construct this new system abolition society that was going to happen post 1834.
These men started to got to work, got some. It got concerned about this because they feared, understandably,
that what they will get was something that was going to look a whole lot like what they had before.
So they decided to meet and put together a petition. They were strange array of people.
They include a planter. They included a branch pilot. They included a clerk.
And they also included one of the wealthiest black men in Bermuda, shipbuilder by the name of James ATL.
I'm. By the time this bill.
Their purpose was to ensure that Bermuda's legislation would in fact reflect their concerns and particularly would concern,
but the deal with the problem of civil disabilities, our state was systematically placed on the basis of race.
My purpose here is to set the context and the character for this particular style of activism.
The context in which there was a demographic revolution that occurred in Bermuda roughly around the same time,
but also place this in the large international context for which this occurred.
We have to what is never given or never seen as part of the context has been
the what we call what some writers have called the humanitarian revolution.
And I would like to show and discuss it's this event and its application to Bermuda.
Let me explain, first of all, what I mean by the humanitarian revolution on my day.
My good thank you. The great historian Franklin Wright once noted that the American Revolution was a struggle for civil and political rights.
But then, he said, and this is significant what would occur in the Caribbean that would occur in what we call stand make?
I will call it sound to me until it becomes Haiti in nature for what happened in
those words that we moved from the the conflict for civil rights to the conflict,
for human rights.
As Dr Jarvis had mentioned, and that was the fundamental shift that would occur as a result of the struggle that was occurring in the Caribbean,
as well as in Latin America, which would be pushed forward by people like Miguel Hidalgo in Mexico and Simon Bolivar in Venezuela.
The human rights struggle with therefore have two components that the great historian and my mentor, my my.
What's the word I'm looking for? His great hero theory?
Go the great Edward Brathwaite once called the humanitarian revolution, in which he said it was, he called it, the struggle for the international.
The International Atlantic struggle for the abolition of slavery, the push for by blacks,
particularly for religious education, because they believe and they've been believing this from sixteen hundreds,
that education was a tool for their emancipation and more important, most important,
sorry, the push for the removal of civil disabilities based on race.
That's the addition that is the two I'm going to focus on will be the push against ability
for the push for abolition and the push against severe disabilities based on race.
As I said, the inspiration for this was occurring in a place we never would expected and that is the French Revolution,
the French Revolution and stand amongst this sad slave uprising,
which I believe is distinctly different from what would be called the Haitian Revolution that would begin in eight or three or four.
Why do I mention this? Because all this, these things settle for two things.
Two most important elements one the push for civil liberties.
By the time that revolution was finished, it had had constructed as a regime in which civil liberties would be spread throughout the world.
The French Empire slavery ended in 1794, partly because of the insurgency carried out by blacks and sentiment.
Let me repeat that point. Partly because of the insurgency that blacks carried out in the island of sentiment, that was their condition.
We will support the revolution if and only if this there is a movement toward the abolition of slavery and the increasing of civil rights.
First, what was that to do? You're probably saying with Bermuda because they were watching this.
How do we know this? The record says it.
Henry Hamilton complained that the blacks were constantly in contact with people in the Caribbean, in the islands, in resistance.
Andrew Dunford complained that there's a manifest behavioural change amongst black people in Bermuda.
You, Goodrich Goodridge complaining along with them at the same petition, saying there was a manifest change in their behaviour.
Why? Because they were reading the same newspapers that everybody else was reading and that those newspapers were
filled with stories of to salt literature blasting his way across the across and make as well as other events,
democratic events occurring at the same time. In 5:52, we see the end for the first time for most of his history.
As Dr. Charles has mentioned, Bermuda was in fact dominated was a white numerical domination and my my my other mentor,
Elaine Forman Crane, makes the point it was a female majority domination by you.
Six That changed from making a six. It went from white dominant numerical domination to black numerical domination.
And that was both seen, as well as was was quantified as well as seen just a small point.
The white population was four thousand seven hundred ninety eight instead of six, the black population of five thousand two hundred and forty.
It had dwarfed it. It passed it by five hundred forty two people.
By the time they're talking about abolition, the black population was four thousand eight hundred ninety eight.
The white, the white population was four thousand two hundred ninety seven.
That's the context for discussing the abolition of slavery because it became very,
very clear from that point forward that it was going to be now a society in which blacks were numerically dominant.
What I like to call the the the the white area, what it had come to an end in and a six in terms of miracle domination and more to the point.
The flag free black population had now reached seven percent and was going to reach 12 percent by the end by 1833.
That led to the political activism, which I'll summarise in two sets. That was petition ism to which the narrative Mary Prince must be seen.
It was, in fact a very large petition against slavery.
She would became herself a free black, and therefore that was her petition. And of course, the petition I mentioned by these 38 backed black men,
both of them one ended slavery became part of the discourse for the ending of slavery.
The other became part of the discourse, the ending of abolition. What did they ask for?
They asked simply for the removal of severe disabilities placed on race.
What did they get? Abolition Act one and Abolition Act two abolition that one would end slavery.
As Mary Prince, who eloquently put it up to slavery, would be done up forevermore.
But abolition at two would be the for the first time establishing and putting into place
systems that were eradicated racial race based on race based systems of segregation.
So while you're probably asking for me to still became so good, what happened?
It moved from the public sphere if I'm free from the public square to the private sphere.
From this point forward, racism would be privatised. Understand the condition of that, because what that would mean that education,
which should have been a public system, would have to become private in order for it to be segregated.
That meant large numbers of people would not be able to have access to it because they'll have to pay for it at a time and movements around the world.
We're moving to what public? Much, much they are moving toward public education available to all.
Also last but not least, I'll make this one last point. There was a black activism took on a different role instead of just being instead,
it would become one in which they would bring in allies in support for their cause,
and that would become the methodology that would dominate from the rest of the period.
As I said, what they got from it was quite simple. To a large extent.
The men got what they wanted. Mary Prince certainly got what she wanted.
Slavery was done up forever more, she's eloquently stated. I know what a slave is.
I know how slave feels. And I want all people to know, too.
So they may they break our chains and set us free. That was a statement. I memorised it.
But but for the most part, it, of course, this group of men excluded women.
That's another thing. But whatever.
And therefore, the issue of female suffrage never showed up and what they got, what they got.
However, having said that, and I'll conclude on this point,
what they got was an abolitionist post abolition society, according to the petition that they had asked for.
They are in many ways the though both as in Mary Prince.
On one side, these three men on the other are the architects of the Post Abolition Society as well.
Thank you very much.