Cuffy guyana biography of william

Guyanese slave uprising leader

Cuffy, also get around as Kofi Badu,^[1]also spelled though Coffy, Cuffy, Kofi, or Koffi (died in 1763), was button Akan man who was captured in his native West Continent and stolen for slavery ruse work on the plantations pounce on the Dutch colony of Berbice in present-day Guyana.

In 1763, he led a major lacquey revolt of more than 3,800 slaves against the colonial arrangement. Today, he is a practice hero in Guyana.^[2]

Berbice Rebellion

Main article: Berbice Rebellion

Cuffy lived in Lilienburg, a plantation on the Berbice River, as a house-slave preventable a cooper (barrel maker).

Be active was owned by the woman Berkey. On 23 February 1763, slaves on plantation Magdalenenberg hand in the Canje River rebelled, gripe harsh and inhumane treatment. They torched the plantation house,^[4] slab made for the Courantyne Effluence where Caribs and troops required by Governor Wigbold Crommelin [nl] faultless Suriname attacked, and killed them.^[5] On 27 February 1763, orderly revolt took place on loftiness Hollandia plantation next to Lilienburg.^[5] Cuffy is said to put on organized the slaves into calligraphic military unit, after which honesty revolt spread to neighbouring plantations.^[6] When Dutch Governor Wolfert Dramatist Van Hoogenheim sent military reinforcement to the region, the disturbance had reached the Berbice Rivulet and was moving steadily type the Berbice capital, Fort Nassau.

They took gunpowder and arms from the attacked plantations.^[7]

By 3 March, the rebels were 600 in number. Led by Cossala, they tried to take significance brick house of Peerenboom.^[7] They agreed to allow the whites to leave the brick dwellingplace, but as soon they keep upright, the rebels killed many spell took several prisoners, among them Sara George, the 19-year-old chick of the Peerenboom Plantation owner,^[9] whom Cuffy kept as wife.

Cuffy was soon accepted unhelpful the rebels as their superior and declared himself Governor grow mouldy Berbice.

Doing so he titled Captain Accara as his agent in charge of military intercourse, and tried to establish training over the troops.^[11] Accara was skilful in military discipline. They organized the farms in coach to provide food supplies.^[12]

Defeat disagree with the rebellion

Wolfert Simon van Hoogenheim committed himself to retake excellence colony.

Accara attacked the whites three times without permission unapproachable Cuffy, and eventually the colonists were driven back.^[7] Thus began a dispute among the one rebels. On 2 April 1763, Cuffy wrote to Van Hoogenheim saying that he did weep want a war against birth whites and proposed a partitionment of Berbice with the whites occupying the coastal areas swallow the blacks the interior.^[13][14] Front Hoogenheim delayed his decision replying that the Society of Berbice in Amsterdam had to cause that decision and that patch up would take three to quaternary months.

He was waiting sustenance support from neighboring colonies; unblended ship from Suriname had by then arrived,^[7] and reinforcements from Island and Sint Eustatius soon followed.^[12] Cuffy then ordered his buttress to attack the whites principal May 1763, but in inexpressive doing had many losses.

Nobleness defeat opened a division mid the rebels and weakened their organization. Accara became the chief of a new faction grudging to Cuffy and led be selected for a civil war among individual. On 19 October 1763, occasion was reported to the boss that Captains Atta had seasick against Cuffy , and go off at a tangent Cuffy had committed suicide.^[7] Modern the meantime, the colonists difficult to understand already been strengthened by description arrival of soldiers.

On 15 April 1764 Captain Accabre, authority last of the insurgents, was captured.^[7]

National hero

The anniversary of honourableness Berbice Rebellion, 23 February, has been Republic Day in Guyana since 1970. Cuffy is witter on in the 1763 Monument bind the Square of the Disgust in the capital Georgetown.^[2]

This numeral is called the 1763 Gravestone or the Cuffy Monument.

Righteousness statue was designed by honesty Guyanese sculptor Philip Moore. Take off stands at 15 feet leader and weighs two and capital half tons.  

The calculate of Cuffy standing on specially has many symbols. His bad-tempered mouth symbolizes his defiance, blue blood the gentry face on his chest forms a symbolic breastplate that gives protection during battle, and birth honed faces on his thighs represent revolutionaries from Guyanese wildlife.

He holds in his get your skates on a dog and a piglet, both being throttled with distinction dog representing covetousness and well-bred while the pig represents greenness.  ^[19]

See also

References

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