The Griot | Stories Roots Legacy

The Demerara Slave Rebellion | Guyana, 1823: Quamina and the Plantation Revolt

The Griot | Stories Roots Legacy

Show Notes

How did enslaved workers in Demerara organize across plantations, and why did the colonial government respond with military force and mass executions? Sources: British Parliamentary Papers; Colonial Office records; Guyana National Archives; The Missionary Register; Emilia Viotti da Costa, Crowns of Glory, Tears of Blood

More from The Griot | Stories Roots Legacy

Oct 22, 2026

Why did an oilfield strike in southern Trinidad spread into a colony-wide confrontation over wages, race, and political power? Sources: Trinidad and Tobago National Archives; Butler Papers; Commission of Inquiry into the Disturbances in Trinidad, 1937; British Colonial Office reports; Trinidad Guardian archive

Oct 22, 2026

How did a few minutes of shaking destroy Jamaica’s commercial capital and expose the limits of colonial disaster response? Sources: Jamaica Gleaner archive; United States Geological Survey historical earthquake records; Jamaica Legislative Council papers; British Colonial Office dispatches; National Library of Jamaica

Oct 22, 2026

How did strikes by sugar workers in 1938 become the turning point that created Jamaica’s modern labor movement and accelerated self-government? Sources: Jamaica Labour Department reports; Jamaica Gleaner archive; UK Colonial Office reports; National Library of Jamaica; Norman Manley papers

Oct 22, 2026

How did an American religious community in Guyana become the site of the largest mass death in modern Caribbean history? Sources: U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee hearings; Guyana government investigative records; FBI Jonestown files; Guyana National Archives; The New York Times contemporaneous reporting

Oct 22, 2026

Why did labour unrest over wages, housing, and unemployment spread across Barbados, and how did it lead toward trade-union reform and political change? Sources: Barbados National Archives; Commission on the West Indies, 1938; British Colonial Office records; Barbados Labour Party archives; Hilary Beckles, A History of Barbados

See all episodes →