March 2007 was the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. To mark this important event in our history, the Mona campus of the UWI will devote its Academic Conference 2007 to an examination of the meaning of this event for us and for humanity.

The millions of Africans who were forced into the transatlantic slave trade, who lived through the trauma of capture, the voyage to unknown destinations across the ocean, who survived the deaths and suicides of ship-mates, only to end up being sold in strange lands should never be forgotten.

The formal end of slavery was an event of major importance to the enslaved men and women since it removed the most horrendous abuses of chattel slavery and opened up new possibilities for blacks to direct their own lives. How did they view this change and how did they respond to this new opening in their lives?

Access to land was at the heart of the black's struggle for autonomy from estate labour and increased bargaining power on the estates. While the planters expected to maintain their control over labour, the freed men and women expected qualitative changes in their day to day work lives that involved a new order of labour relations characterized by freedom of movement, just and equitable wages, flexible labour arrangements and continued access to estate cottages and provision grounds. The planters' refusal to accommodate these expectations fuelled labour protest and confrontation.

The freed people displayed clear notions about the role of law and expected equality before the law as one of the rights of their new citizenship. Accordingly, emancipation to them removed the barriers to religious worship, Euro-Christian and Afro-Christian, various forms of their cultural expression, and brought educational opportunities.

Blacks in Jamaica did not see a future for themselves under public institutions that were exclusively controlled by whites and the few freedmen, who qualified to vote, enthusiastically embraced this privilege as the surest way to promote their own interests, thereby initiating the long struggle for black political inclusion.

Emancipation as “Unfinished Business”

By 1870, several of these expectations and initiatives were frustrated and undermined by strong continuities between the period of enslavement and the decades after emancipation. The whites maintained their monopoly of the island's economic resources and dominated the local political arrangements. Further, the “aristocracy” of white skin buttressed their social privileges and the first generation of black adults in freedom was returned to dependence on the plantation and to a standard of living that was not far removed from their experiences of enslavement.

A critical appreciation of this tradition of thinking and struggling for freedom is important in enabling us to grapple with how we enhance our own capabilities to ensure two hundred years later that new challenges in the 21 st century which undermine the freedoms won against slavery and later on colonialism are not only consolidated but developed. Freedom thus understood is wedded to development.

In summary, the relevance\justification for the conference as a means of marking the anniversary may be stated as follows:

•  To preserve the memory of the historical experience that has helped to shape who we are as a people and society. Engaging with our history is vital to better understanding and shaping self, and structuring our relationship to the world
•  To highlight the meaning and value of freedom to us as individuals and as a people. To claim it as a value in it self to be defended and extended, as well as a goal and instrument of development.
•  To critically examine development as a process of realizing freedom, as a means of furnishing the citizenry with the capabilities that are required to enjoy the desired positive freedoms. As a useful concept for interrogating the contemporary challenges of, for example, greater political inclusion via new and more robust systems of accountability\governance, improving the education system, and treating with the problems presented by the external environment.

A reflection on freedom should also provide the possibility for Jamaicans who fall outside the scope of organised groupings and who would not normally have access to a conference such as this one, to reflect on what freedom means in their daily lives and their perspectives on what it could mean in the future and how this may be realized.

Presentations and discussions will be compiled in a publication but recommendations will also be shared strategically to guide the policy agenda for change and development.