Afro-Guyanese
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 30.2% of Guyana's population | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
|
Guyana (Georgetown, Essequibo Coast) United Kingdom, Canada, United States |
|
| Languages | |
| English, Guyanese Creole | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity, Islam, the Rastafari movement, Obeah |
Afro-Guyanese people are inhabitants of Guyana who are of Sub-Saharan African descent, generally descended from slaves brought to the Guianas to work on sugar plantations.
After the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, Afro-Guyanese people came together to develop small villages. They were not given land to compensate for their labor, unlike future immigrant groups. When planters made land or passage home available to East Indians as part of the terms of indentured labour in the late 19th century, given that they had denied land to the Africans as emancipated slaves several decades earlier, it created tension among the ethnic groups.
By the early twentieth century, the majority of the urban population of the country was Afro-Guyanese. Many Afro-Guyanese people living in villages had migrated to the towns in search of work. Until the 1930s, Afro-Guyanese people, especially those of mixed descent, comprised the bulk of the non-white professional class. During the 1930s, as Indo-Guyanese began to enter the middle class in large numbers, they began to compete with Afro-Guyanese for professional positions.
The Dutch West India Company turned to the importation of African slaves, who rapidly became a key element in the colonial economy. By the 1660s, the slave population numbered about 2,500; the number of indigenous people was estimated at 50,000, most of whom had retreated into the vast hinterland. Although African slaves were considered an essential element of the colonial economy, their working conditions were brutal. The mortality rate was high, and the dismal conditions led to more than half a dozen slave rebellions.
The most famous slave uprising, the Berbice Slave Uprising, began in February 1763. On two plantations on the Canje River in Berbice, slaves rebelled, taking control of the region. As plantation after plantation fell to the slaves, the European population fled; eventually only half of the whites who had lived in the colony remained. Led by Cuffy (now the national hero of Guyana), the African freedom fighters came to number about 3,000 and threatened European control over the Guianas. The freedom fighters were defeated with the assistance of troops from neighboring French and British colonies and from Europe.
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Wikipedia