Joseph Bourda - Guiana's Old Worthies

Joseph Bourda - Guiana's Old Worthies

Is the government of Guyana liable to pay reparations to the African descendants of Joseph Bourda,? The colonial government confiscated the properties Joseph Bourda bequeathed to his DNA Africans. The colonial government added their properties Bourda, Robb's town, Lacytown Vlissegen to Stabroek thereby increasing the geography of Georgetown?

Aug 6, 2021, 12:32 PM 

MaaNgala Oni Shankalla

I  am not at all shocked at perspectives, tone and omissions in this Barrington Braithwaite's account of Georgetown. I understand the consequences of Greco-Roman programming upon our people. I know the City of Georgetown was established on stolen land. The land was stolen from the so-called indigenous of the land. Secondly, a great portion of the inner city was stolen from the Africans, heirs of Joseph Bourda.

Joseph Bourda (d.1798), was the most eminent private citizen of the colony of Demerary, 1775-1790. Bourda arrived in Demerary in 1768. He purchased Plantation Vlissengen from the widow of Cornelius Leary, and other portions of Georgetown including Robbstown, NewTown, Lacytown, Bourda and the Botonic Gardens. He had about six children with his slaves. He freed them all and bequested his property to his children, he died in Paris in 1798.

As late as September 26, 1863, a number of the heirs of Joseph Bourda were still fighting for lands incorporated into the City of Georgetown. I am with they were resident at that period next to the Old Colony House, perhaps on Camp Street. I am pretty sure the Governor's House in Kingston was claimed by the Atlantic Ocean in 1855. If my memory is accurate the Africans, heirs of heirs of Joseph Bourda, were never satisfactorily compensated, if at all they received any compensation whatsoever. That to me is one of the greatest injustice unleashed upon a kinship of Africans in the Guyanese experience. That wrong is worse than the governments of Guyana, 1970-2018 blatant refusal to grant Bally , Balram Singh Rai his parliamentary pension. The behaviors of both the colonial and neo-colonial administrations are abominable to say the least. I said my piece. I put it to you - prove me wrong. I know you can't. A Luta Continua..

MaaNgala Oni Shankalla 

Sep 14, 2018, 10:40 AM

This Mande is not aware of any social scientist probing correction for the descendants of Joseph Bourda. He is also not aware of any researcher other than himself who regard the enslaved Africans purchase of land as a ploy of the colonists to deprive our ancestors of access to capital and further enrich themselves. The influence of missionaries are exhibition our ancestors were out of their ancestral consciousness. One wonders were there dissenting voices? Are their voices lost to history? In everyone of the purchases the missionaries were given huge plots of land. Missionaries contributed nothing to the purchasing. Yet the missionaries were never on the side of Africans. Where were the missionaries as the colonial government waged war agreed our people labeed Execution Sales! Where the missionaries in educating the Africans about rates and taxes? It's the same vampire who would gives bibles to starving Africans and other melanin dominant humans. It's long overdue for scholar to tell our story from ancestral consciousness. Alvin Thompson of Hopetown is a trail blazing school. His work has profound influence on my thought process.

MaaNgala Oni Shankalla 

Aug 7, 2021, 10:59 PM