Topic: Emancipation Day

There will be a number of road and junction closures in central George Town during the Emancipation Day weekend.

Actors on Monday re-enacted the reading of the 1835 Emancipation Proclamation which declared all slaves in the Cayman Islands were free.

Actors from the Cayman Drama Society will reenact the Proclamation of Emancipation at Fort George on Monday afternoon.

Some 200 students from government and private schools across Cayman are preparing their dance routines and putting the final fixtures on their costumes for the annual Junior Batabano street parade.

It was a party that many in Cayman will remember for a long time, and a bill they will be paying for even longer. The Cayman Islands government spent more than $650,000 of public funds on celebrations for Emancipation Day this year.

The grounds of the National Museum in George Town were transformed into an intimate night of poetry in honour of Emancipation Day.

Emancipation Day made its return for the first time in more than 60 years this week, centred around the Monday holiday.

The newly reinstated Emancipation Day will be celebrated with a full week of public events next month, starting 3 May with 345 Day.

Cayman's Discovery Day holiday, which was initially dropped to make way for Emancipation Day in May, will make its return to the official schedule of public holidays this year.

Emancipation Day will be formally recognised and reinstated in May 2024, replacing Discovery Day as a public holiday, government has announced.

I found the article (‘Emancipation Day: ‘a bubbling stew’ of Caribbean heritage’, Cayman Compass, 1 Aug.) informative and edifying and write not so much to add to what was written in the article but rather to lament the absence of, or should I write the deliberate attempt by ignorant elements in Caymanian society to deny the existence of slavery and its ancillary phenomenon in this jurisdiction.

Much of the Caribbean will honour Emancipation Day this Thursday, 1 Aug., with parties, food and music. The day marks two historic milestones for the British West Indies – the end of slavery in 1834 and the end of apprenticeship in 1838, both on 1 Aug.