On this episode, we discussed how the colonisation of Barbados by Europeans led to the rise of mosquitoes in the region as well as look at other ecological transformation that have led to other present day problems across the region For additional reading information on this episode and to view our transcript for this episode, visit our website at: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.tenementyaadmedia.com/⁠⁠⁠ Don't forget to follow us on our social media Twitter:...

In 1979, a swine virus outbreak occurred in the Dominican Republic. Still, the situation would have far reaching changes in Haiti as a US-Canada-Mexico partnership saw 1.3 million of their Kreyol pigs been slaughtered. For additional reading information on this episode and to view our transcript for this episode, visit our website at: ⁠⁠https://www.tenementyaadmedia.com/⁠⁠ Don't forget to follow us on our social media Twitter: ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/tenementyaad_?lan⁠⁠ Instagram:...

In 1975, Cuba sent troops to Angola to help them fight against an invasion by apartheid South Africa. Henry Kissinger, the US Secretary of State was angry at this, so he set out to get countries to denounce Cuba’s actions. Jamaica was one of these countries. So, in December 1975, Kissinger met with prime minister Michael Manley on the issue. On this episode, we hear from Manley, himself, how this conversation went and the events that occured in its aftermath - events, that forever changed...

In Jamaica, there is the famous Devon House. A historical landmark, it is popular for its patties, the Devon House ice-cream and on any given weekend when the weather is suitable, it also serves as a public park for families. However, there’s a popular story that involves Devon House that most Jamaicans grow up hearing. Basically, the story goes that Lady Musgrave, the then governor of Jamaica’s wife, was so angry at seeing Devon House, this grand mansion owned by a black man, that she...

Upon the arrival of large numbers of Indians to the Caribbean, through the Indentureship system, they also brought their religion and other aspect of their culture. Their aversion to not assimilating to whiteness, was seen as a problem by the colonial governments. And no other event in the 1800’s would portray this than the 1884 Hosay Massacre in Trinidad which say agents of the colonial state - the police- turn their guns on Indians taking part in the annual Hosay festival. For additional...

On August 1st, 1838, Jamaica, alongside the rest of the countries in British West Indies, achieved emancipation and thus all enslaves black people on the island, gained their freedom. Immediately after, the topic of land became a major issue.  For even though freedom day come for all black persons, land throughout the British colonies were not accessible for former enslaves. Then white planter landowners bined the former enslaved population with long labour contrasts and labour rent tenants...

Content Warning: this episode contains mentions of violence, slavery and wider harm.  Most scholarship on Caribbean chattel slavery of enslaved Africans largely covers the the sugar and tobacco plantation systems throughout the region. However, there was another massive industry that was built upon the enslavement of Africans - that was the cultivation of salt. Saltpans, the name given to the areas of salt production, were spread across the region: Turks & Caicos, Haiti, Jamaica,...

On March 10, 1979, according to all persons who were personally involved in the documentation of the revolution, the New Jewel Movement leadership got word through their informats at senior levels of the police force, that orders were left for the arrest and assassination of the leading members of the political party i.e -  Maurice Bishop, Bernard Coard, Unison Whiteman and Hudson Austin. Thus, all leadership members would go into hiding immediately except for Vincent Noel who did not receive...

Content Warning: This episode contains mentions of police brutality As Sir Eric Gairy’s tenure as head of government continued throughout the 1970’s, the country was on the brink of economic and social collapse. After Bloody Sunday and Bloody Monday occurred, two of the most brutal cases of police brutality in Caribbean history, Eric Gairy was beginning to face opposition from all sides. However of all the oppositions that formed, one stood out: an organised group of young professionals who...

At the beginning of the 1970’s decade, Grenada's representative Jennifer Hosten, won the Miss World pageant and almost four years later, the country achieved one of its greatest fete: independence from the United Kingdom. Still, in the midst of this independence, the country was experiencing islandwide strikes and protests due to its economic deterioration and domestic repression in the hands of its premier now first prime minister, Eric Gairy. These were highlighted by the many cases of...

After years of societal tension in Grenada, everything would come to a head in 1951 at an event now known as the 1951 Revolution. The person who propelled this event was a former primary school teacher name Eric Matthew Gairy. Due to the success of this 1951 event, Gairy would become Grenada’s leading trade unionist through his organisation, Grenada Manual and Mental Workers Union (GMMWU). Gairy capitalise on this new fame among the locals and register a political party, Grenada People’s...

1950 would be one of the most significant years to understand the Grenadian Revolution, however, the events of this year were years in the making. It was years of build up tension arising from the neglect of the country’s majority black and poor population, coupled with the organising influence of Uriah Butler in nearby Trinidad and Tobago and the national black power empowerment movement enhance by of T.A. Marryshow. Grenada, unlike other countries in the anglophone Caribbean region, did not...

A introduction of what to come for the season 4 of the Lest We Forget Historical Podcast. This season will be a seven part series entirely dedicated to Grenadian Revolution as we examine the events, people, causes & consequences that led to the March 1979 overthrow of the Sir Eric Gairy government by the New Jewel Movement.   The audio compilation features the voices of Maurice Bishop, Claudette Pitt, Sir Eric Gairy, a rare recording of Cacademo Grant & the first radio broadcast to...

In March of 1795, a French free coloured, Julien Fédon, would lead a revolt against the white British elites on the island of Grenada. Inspired by the Haitian Revolution, the French Revolution and activities happening in Guadeloupe; for the next 16 months Fédon would range a battle against the English colonisers. At the end of the uprising, at least 7000 of the Grenadians enslaves were killed along with over 1000 Europeans and free coloured; and wide destruction of property. Even though the...

Content Warning: this episode contains mentioned of physical and emotional abuse. If this is something that you know is a trigger for you, please skip forward to 8 minutes in this episode or if you rather just not, please checkout other episodes of the Lest We Forget Podcast.  Alexander Bedward, emerged during 1889 as a minister in the Jamaica Native Baptist Free Church. Throughout the 1890’s and beyond, he would emerged as one of the leading christian preachers in Jamaica. Tales of his...

In 1954, then Minister of Finance in the Jamaica Labour Party, Donald Sangster had this grand idea: Jamaica will celebrate "three hundredth anniversary of British rule in Jamaica" and the celebrations would mark 300 years of "progress and development as a junior partner with Britain in her vast Colonial enterprise". However, JLP lost the 1955 election and the already approved celebrations were rebranded under the Norman Manley led - PNP government as "a celebration of Jamaica’s three hundred...

Pearnel Charles, retired politician, former vice president of the Bustamante Industrial and Trade Union cohosted this episode to speak on his days advocating for bauxite workers in the 1960's. The Jamaican bauxite strikes of 1960’s were a staple of the development of the bauxite -alumina industry in the country as local workers spoke up about low wages and poor working conditions by the transnational corporation controlling the industry As far back as 1869, the red dirt in Jamaica has always...

Coming off the heels of the banning of Guyanese historian Dr. Walter Rodney, been banned by the Jamaican government in 1968, almost ten months later, the Hugh Shearer led - Jamaican government would announce the banning one of the most renowned Caribbean economist, Dr. Clive. Y. Thomas. At the time, Dr. CY Thomas, was an economist professor at the University of the West Indies campus in Mona, Jamaica. The banning of the Guyanese professor would result in outcry across the region for the...

“Among the tiny minority of politically motivated criminals in the 1970s none won as much notoriety and anxious concern from the authorities as did Dennis “Copper” Barth. Born in Kingston in 1951, Barth’s turn to crime came at an early age after he dropped out of the Rennock Lodge Elementary School at age twelve. By the time he was eighteen years old Barth had been convicted of several major offences, including murdering a policeman, for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment.19 By the...

In August of 1791, in the thick woods of St. Domingue (pre-revolutionary Haiti), enslaved persons gathered at Morne Rouge, at a specific place which will now become known as Bois Caïman. The meeting consists of about two hundred enslaves, sent from various plantations in the region. Presiding over the meeting was the Jamaican enslaved, Dutty Boukman. As Boukman, presided over the meeting and call upon the enslaved to take their freedom from the French oppressors, a woman would appeared...

In 1979, 1985 and 1999, Jamaica experienced three protests which would become known as the "Gas Riots" which were triggered by a hike in fuel prices by the respective governments of the time. In 1979, the Micheal Manley led PNP government announced that as of January 10, the price of premium gas will be increased by 20 cents a gallon; from $3.00 to $3.20 and the price of regular gas will move from the present $2.85 to $3.10 an increase of 25 cents. In 1985, the Edward Seaga led JLP government...

"In most scholarship, the Rastafari movement is thought to have formed from a rethinking of biblical prophecies enabled by Black consciousness. Rastafari scholars have not sufficiently probed the tentative connections between the movement and Hinduism. Most map the movement in a dialectic between White oppressive Christianity and oppressed Afro-Jamaicans, which has produced a Rastafari that reappropriates, repurposes, and reproduces the Black and African ethos while actively disentangling the...

On January 5 1978, the Green Bay Massacre took place. The event came about as a result of secret operation by a special unit of the Jamaica Defense Force, called the Military Intelligence Unit, under a People’s National Party governments. The secret operation resulted in five men of the Jamaica Labour Party were shot dead by the JDF,  after they had been ambushed at Green Bay.  Song: Green Bay Killing - Papa Kojak --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lestweforget/message

The Christmas Rebellion, also known as the Baptist Rebellion, was an eleven-day rebellion that mobilised as many as sixty thousand of Jamaica’s three hundred thousand slaves in 1831–1832. The planning and organisation of the revolt came from enslaved literate leader Samuel “Daddy” Sharpe, who had been given limited freedom to move around the island. Sharpe used this freedom, especially his literacy and ability to travel, to discuss and plan for the actual revolt. Even though, it was to be a...