Film Difficulty 2

Guiana 1838 Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

Slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833, but was it enforced? In Guiana 1835 you’ll see that slavery was replaced with another form of slavery: indentured servitude. If it’s available you can find the film here on Amazon or here on YouTube (with audio errors).

Why Watch Guiana 1838?

• Learn about slavery and indentured servitude in Guyana – the educational video style interruptions in the opening 30 minutes of Guiana 1838 will give you a quick understanding!
• See what happened to freed slaves in Guyana
• Witness the whole process of the Indian indenture system
• If you think the British Empire is something to be proud of

The Breakdown

Guiana 1838 starts with 2 white men on horses patrolling a sugar cane plantation full of black workers. He singles out one of the workers for questioning. When he doesn’t get a response, he takes the black worker to the whipping pole.

At this point, the film jumps to one of a handful of educational-video style interruptions to teach you about the start of the slave trade. In a few minutes, it gives you a brief low-down on how it started, why it started, and a few of the figures calling for abolition.

Then, jumping back to the dramatisation, one of the younger slaves overhears a man from Britain telling the slave owner that slavery has been abolished. She runs back to her family to tell them the good news.

Again, the film jumps back to an educational slide-show to show you the slave owners solution: indentured servitude. This was a system which lasted until 1917 in which people from across the British Empire (and further afield) were contracted or tricked into cheap labour. Guiana 1838 follows a group of Indians that were ‘contracted’ to work in Guyana (effectively tricked into slave labour).

Conclusion and What to Watch Next

If you don’t know what indentured servitude is or you don’t know much about the Atlantic slave trade, you should watch Guiana 1838. It’s educational style may remind you of the historical enactment videos you watched at school so expect to learn a lot.

Even though slavery has shaped the world perhaps more than any other event, there haven’t been that many films to document it, especially compared to the excess of Hollywood westerns. That being said, here are some films you must see:

• 12 Years a Slave: the 2014 Best Picture Winner from Steve McQueen that doesn’t shy away from the reality of slavery
• Sankofa: A Burkinabe film which provides a perspective of Maafa (the African Holocaust) that Hollywood rarely gets close to
• Roots: The original iconic TV series based on Alex Haley’s novel featuring Kunta Kinte
• Django Unchained: Yes, Tarantino’s film follows the ‘white saviour’ narrative and can be seen as insensitive, but where else can you see a film in which an ex-slave gets revenge on his white slave masters??