May 26 – Independence Day in Georgia and Guyana

Posted on May 26, 2016

Today one of these two nations – Georgia or Guyana – celebrates the 1918 adoption of the Act of Independence in response to the Russian Revolution. And one the other celebrates gaining its independence from Great Britain in 1966.

Do you know which is which?

Guyana is located in South America; it was called British Guiana when it was a colony.

And Georgia had been a part of the Russian Empire for a century, but it broke away after Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik party took over Russia. Georgia didn't remain an independent republic for very long, though; about three years after the declaration of independence, this Eastern European nation fell to Soviet armies, and it became a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It is now an independent republic again, of course!

Here are some facts. Figure out which of each pair pertains to Georgia, and which to Guyana:

1. Capital city is Georgetown
2. Capital city is Tbilisi

3. Borders on the Black Sea, which connects to the Mediterranean Sea and thus the Atlantic Ocean
4. Borders on the Atlantic Ocean and is located close to the Caribbean Sea

5.  Has a red and white flag:
   
   
   
   
6. Has a red, green, and yellow flag:

7. English is the only official language, but most people speak a Creole
8. The vast majority speaks a language named after the country

9. With about 80% of the nation covered with forests, it's home to about 8,000 plant species – half of which are found nowhere else in the world!
10. Home to about 1,000 species of vertebrates, including large carnivores like lynxes, Caucasian leopards, and wolves.

11.  Sightseeing destinations include Svetitskhoveli Cathedral and Mount Kazbek.
    
    
    
    
    
    
12. Sightseeing destinations include Kaieteur Falls and St. George's Cathedral.

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ANSWERS: Guyana is 1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 12.... Georgia is 2, 3, 5, 8, 10, 11.

• To learn about Georgia's other “Independence Day,” check out this earlier post. 

• And to learn about another patriotic holiday in Guyana, check out this earlier post. 

Also on this date:

Anniversary of Montana as a Territory

World Lindy Hop Day

Anniversary of William of Ockham fleeing from the Pope

“Catholics may not enter!” - Anniversary of an awful law

Sorry Day in Australia

Astronaut Sally Ride's birthday

Plan ahead:

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• May holidays 
• May birthdays 
• Historical anniversaries in May

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

• June holidays
• June birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in June

May 5 – Indian Arrival Day in Guyana

Posted on May 5, 2016

Like Trinidad and Tobago and several other nations in and around the Caribbean, Guyana celebrates Indian Arrival Day.

Does it seem surprising to learn that Caribbean nations celebrate the anniversary of people arriving as indentured laborers from India?

Perhaps it is not so surprising when you learn that a large percentage of these nations' populations are descended from the Indian laborers. (And, remember, we are not talking about Amerindian – we are talking about East Indians, from India.)

Amerindians make up only about 9% of Guyana's population. Afro-Guyanese, descendants of slaves from Africa, make up about 30%; Guyanese of mixed heritage make up almost 17%. Indo-Guyanese – the descendants of the laborers from India – make up the largest group, at almost 44%!

Why were Indians brought to Guyana and other Caribbean nations? Slavery was abolished in Guyana in 1834, and many former slaves left the plantations where they had worked, eager to start their own freeholdings. The sugar planters, who were by and large British, began to recruit people from Africa, Portugal, and other places to come work on the plantations, but they could not interest enough people to work the plantations.

One of the plantation owners asked if he could bring over Eastern Indians for a 5-year period of indenture. (That means that the planter and the laborer had a contract that the laborer had to work on the plantation for five years.) Since Britain controlled India, it was perhaps natural for the British planters to recruit from the populous sub-continent.

On this date in 1838, the first small group of Indian laborers came to Guyana. Eventually, over the course of some eighty years, hundreds of thousands of laborers were imported from India. Of course, some of them returned to India with their earnings; many chose to (or had to) stay in Guyana.

Just as some Americans celebrate the Mayflower,
the ship in which some early colonists
traveled to the New World,
some Indo-Guyanese people celebrate the Whitby, the first ship that brought 
Indians to Guyana.

Indians in Guyana were allowed to keep
and practice their culture, even back in the
1800s. Many modern Indo-Guyanese
celebrate Hindu holidays and keep
Indian traditions.

I bet you are wondering if the planters, who were used to having slave labor at their disposal, treated the Indian workers well. As in anything dealing with people, the answer is “some did, some didn't.” 

However, the Anti-Slavery Society visited Guyana to make sure that a new kind of slavery was NOT being introduced. 

On some plantations they observed bad treatment of workers, including flogging and imprisonment, and they also found that some workers were being paid less than a third of what they were promised. After the members of the Anti-Slavery Society investigated, they gave a report to the Governor, who ordered the prosecution those guilty of mistreating the Indians.

Guyana is on the northern coast of South America. To learn more about Guyana, check out this earlier post.

Also on this date:

Revenge of the Fifth

National Ferret Day in the U.K.

National Cartoonists' Day

Cinco de Mayo

Philosophy Day

Children's Day in South Korea

Hidirellez Festival in Turkey

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

• May holidays 
• May birthdays 
• Historical anniversaries in May

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

• June holidays
• June birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in June

February 23, 2012 - Mashramani in Guyana

Mashramani (Mash for short) is Guyana's patriotic holiday that commemorates the day that it became a republic in 1970. There are parades, music, games, and cooking—the most colorful festival of the year—with floats, masquerade bands, and dancing in the streets, elaborate costumes, calypso competitions, and the crowning of a Mash king or queen.

Guyana is one of the smallest nations in South America. Its official language is English, although it was a Dutch colony before it was taken over by Britain, and the largest group of people living in the nation are descendents of immigrants from India! Other Guyanese groups include descendents of the following groups: enslaved Africans, Amerindians (the peoples who lived in the area before the coming of Columbus) such as Arawaks and Caribs, Portuguese and other European settlers, and Chinese immigrants. With all this ethnic diversity, it is perhaps not a surprise that Caribbean languages, Spanish, and Portuguese are spoken by small minorities; but I was surprised to read that a national language called Guyanese Creole is widely spoken.

A creole language is a stable language that is created by the mixing of two or more parent languages. Scholars who study languages (linguists) tell us that a creole language is created by children in mixed-language locations, just naturally as they play together and try to communicate with each other. A creole language can become the primary language for many people.

Guyanese Creole is based on English with African and East Indian syntax (grammar).

Explore Guyana

Here is a super-short tourism video of Guyana. 

This five-minute video is much more informative. 

Also on this date:

Scholar and civil rights activist W.E.B. DuBois's birthday

Anniversary of the writing of the song “This Land Is Your Land”