Emancipation is a story that talks about the lingering complications and residual effects of slavery, servitude and how people, set in opposition to each other by politics and put-upon hatred, react, live, and communicate. Whether it is taught, implied, self inflicted: It is this truth that we are born into. It is a truth that is with us today. Again, in my observation of the time spent in Trinidad, where racial tension is both mild and hot, this story tells of how we continue to be reflections of our past while fighting to create a new self with a past to match.

Emancipation
by Mark James
 
Once there was a place and a people and a time, when black slaves were emancipated and indian indentured servants made to replace them. Story say, when they get there, some white people make them look in a mirror, as if to see what they saw; one by one, as feet touched new land and noses swallowed new world air, they were confronted by just how ugly they were. Behind that image was a face and a story and truth, behind that, were trees that looked like the trees before they were captured by the looking glass, behind all of that was India, so, their unattractiveness must be real. A hand mirror with a gilded frame, a thing that dirt dared to settle on and non-white fingers dreamed of being in affiliation with, daring. Acknowledgment of that crafted fact would serve to set them apart from beauty they would never posses, denial would only make living hard and truth difficult to swallow. Some say it is well to know your place; danger becomes friend to unreasonable requests when mans mind discovers that the new world, though unknown, is soiled with old things like Christianity, held hostage in the wrong hands, wielded like a sword, and handled like a whip or a cutlass ready to ruin the skin and scar the brain, like disease, demanding to infect and consume the uncontaminated, lording over the unsaved savage waiting to be lifted out of the dark by a good and beautiful white hand. Hands that held power, hands that look like white Jesus's, hands that came to India to explore and discover spices and jute, hands that steer boats and left other people to ponder servitude.
The Cedula of Population law had encouraged those hands, those ways of life, replacing old meaning with new. Replacing choice with cotton, cocoa tasted better with new dominance, coffee replaced deciding and cane was everything and freedom held captive. Yes, they replaced niggers with coolies because the work had to go on despite the half recognized ugliness of African slave trading; hands that did not do the work but used appendage to count coin and stroke wealth: rich textiles and curly bannisters leading to grand home; these hands, belonging to those people needed four years of apprenticeship to help bridge the gap. Something that wanted to be freedom came in 1833, attempting to make up for lost time, lost information and grief turned dance, song, and instrument into culture, some of which the African did bring with them here. But like hand me down clothes that masters no longer wanted, they picked it up and turned it inside out so that by 1834 scraps and throw aways did become new thing with new fit and high bottoms to push the fabric out and make it sit so, feeling free to reposition itself, free to come undone at the seems and be mended, free to rediscover and recreate a wealth so long left behind. About 17, 439 black bottoms that had legs and feet and torso, head and face and brain, a way all theirs, though feet had no clear path to walk this freedom. Canboulay come and man and woman make costumes and danced in portrayal, a mockery of their oppressors; singing, sticks and tattered flags, bottle against spoon made noise in segregated celebration. Before jack spaniard could build he-self a new nest, white master, from far and near, start dust off Mirror and put it in he sack; he did getting ready for new arrival, be we didn't know that. Some went and some stay. Black bottoms give white man they ass to kiss and went about they business hoping to make a way, taking land in Belmont or Lavantille, planting crops, establishing trade. Others stayed and bended their knees and hunched their backs and continued to work the field and cut the cane, or be domestic maid and wipe up shit and vomit and take abuse. I can't say which way was better and for who, but years passed and shit went down and white man get his way regardless. By 1845 he reach in he bag and pull out Mirror and wave it in front the newcomers like it was flag or gift or money. She face shine and flicker against the sun and some of them blocked eyes or looked away in shame, some admired her beauty. From India they brought family and friends and wives with children. Naked and wanting, they came but not running to or from, not really. Skinny and odd they looked and sounded but were not so black as predecessor. Everything they had and wanted to bring came with them, packed away in their heads and stored in their ways and being. After long journey, Nelson island was home and hospital, sores, dysentery and other illnesses cured, rest and then short travel again to Trinidad. Contracts were given, but not before Mirror showed off her gold and gave them comparison and degradation to hold. A white hand directed and mouth gave instruction, outlined contract: the new cane cutters had arrived. Between 1845 and 1917 many made a similar arrival. Between 1839 and 1866 and the start of the 20th century, French and German laborers, free American blacks, Africans from Sierra Leone and St. Helena, Chinese, Portuguese, Lebanese and Syrians, all came. Adding nearly 12,000 that made up the 143, 949 laboring bottoms to make this swizzle-stick-mix-up-callaloo-nation. Everybody didn't get Mirror pushing up in face since willingness escort them here, and unlike the Carib and Arawak nations and the blacks who replaced them, only to become homeless, aimless creatures without law and say-so, these new arrivals knew when their time would be up, contract tell them when to put the cutlass down and stop chop cane that make sugar that wasn't for them. Newcomers were not to have a flag or money but gift of land was given and handed down for generations to come; what would become theirs would be theirs or they could turn around and go back, behind, and away from Mirror, home. Choice is what they had. Black Trinidadians had to make do, had to pack up and move when white hands clapped and pointed out a new direction. Sometimes on the way to the new place they had to pass by the others, pausing to look at Mirror, seeing in her a new image, an anger, displaced yet again, and behind themselves in the looking glass they saw others who had what they didn't, their faces met and Mirror straitened herself up to introduce them, making awareness and comparison and ugliness, seeping in like curry to sada roti, like brown sugar bubbling in oil ready to make stew chicken. No dipping and scooping, no stirring spoon, just hands holding a new version of themselves.