Bridgetown – A plaque honoring the descendants of the 346 Barbadians who traveled to Liberia on May 10, 1865, has been unveiled in Barbados Capital, Bridgetown.
Two of Liberia’s presidents – Arthur Barclay, the 15th president who ruled from 1904 to 1912, and Edwin Barclay, the 18th president from 1943 to 1944 – were descendants of a single voyage of Barbadians in 1865.
In 1865, 27 years after emancipation, a group of 346 Black Barbadians boarded a ship named The Cora at the Bridgetown wharf for a 34-day Atlantic voyage to the West African nation.
Among the passengers on board The Cora was Anthony Barclay, the leader of the repatriation group, and his wife Sarah Ann Bourne-Barclay, daughter of London Bourne, the ex-slave who became a wealthy merchant and abolitionist. Among the Barclays’ 11 children was the youngest, Arthur Barclay who would become president.
Unveiling the Plaque on Bay Street last Thursday, to mark this year’s Sankofa Pilgrimage, Prime Minister Mia Mottley told hundreds of Liberians visiting the island to explore their ancestral roots, that while the two nations share historical connections – Barbados produced two former Liberian presidents – this relationship has not been fully embraced over the years.
Said PM Mottley: “The fact that we were able to formally establish those linkages only recently is regrettable, but what must matter is not that these two voyages stand as exceptions, but they must simply be seen as foundations.”
The Prime Minister stressed the importance of improving relations, telling the descendants: “It’s about time, as we have said, and Barbados stands ready to work with our African partners to build that transportation bridge, and that bridge of the sharing of information, and the bridge of the common curriculum that would allow our people to be able to know our common history.”
The Prime Minister called for both nations to move past historical, social, and political achievements and instead pursue equal justice, especially for those overlooked by the west too often. “I say to you publicly, that you own as Liberians, part of the pride that we own as Barbadians for making this final step of charting our destiny,” Mottley said. “The story of Liberia is also the story that Barbadians must come to understand because it is also a story of life, the story of humans and the story of civilization.”
PM Motley urged both countries not to take stability and prosperity for granted, warning: “As we traverse this path of nation-building in both countries, let us not take stability and prosperity for granted. Because, like a house, if we don’t maintain it each and every day, as easy as it has come to us would be as easy as it shall be taken from us.
“Today signals that they are on both sides of the Atlantic, people who are willing to cement themselves together in unity, to fight the battles not just in our individual countries, but in our regions, and our planet.”
The PM averred that urged the pilgrims to appreciate the moment. “Together, we shall rise, has to be our rallying call because our separation served only to make others powerful and to aggrandize others. I do not think there may be a full appreciation for how emotional this moment is.”
The PM said, the passage across the oceans, regrettably, has been known from iniquity but it has been equally known through you for empowerment and aggrandizement.
The PM paid homage to former Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf for her remarkable contributions to Liberia. “Madam President, your story of being able to take a country that was torn apart by civil war and to put it back on a path that was not riveting or taken apart by the values of your own testament but in the manner in which you sought to bring reconciliation and to heal people and nation, is a story that is not often told in spite that you own the accolade of Nobel Peace Prize.
Source: Frontpage Africa
