Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19th, commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. The origins of Juneteenth date back to June 19, 1865, when Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation, which President Abraham Lincoln issued on January 1, 1863. This day marked a pivotal moment in American history, symbolizing the liberation of the last enslaved African Americans in the Confederacy. While Juneteenth is primarily a U.S. celebration, its significance and the broader context of emancipation resonate deeply with Caribbean people due to shared histories of slavery and colonialism.
Brief overview of Juneteenth
The Emancipation Proclamation, issued during the American Civil War, declared the freedom of all enslaved people in Confederate-held territory. From that night forward, Union soldiers, many of whom were black, marched onto plantations and across cities in the South reading small copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and spreading the news of freedom in Confederate States. However, enforcement was slow and inconsistent, especially in remote areas like Texas. It wasn’t until General Granger arrived in Galveston that the approximately 250,000 enslaved individuals in Texas learned of their freedom, more than two years after the proclamation.
While Juneteenth has been celebrated annually since 1865, with Black communities across the United States organizing parades, festivals, and educational events to honor their ancestors’ struggle for freedom and to celebrate African American culture and achievements, it is also a day to reflect on the deep connection between the forced migration of people from the Caribbean to the U.S.
(Publishers throughout the North responded to a demand for copies of Lincoln’s proclamation and produced numerous decorative versions, including this engraving by R. A. Dimmick in 1864.
National Museum of American History, gift of Ralph E. Becker)
How the Caribbean Played a Role
The Caribbean and the United States share a common history of slavery and the fight for emancipation with a connection to Galveston, Texas.
In the first movement of the slave trade between 1816 and 1821, Galveston Island became a hub for enslaved people, pirates, and smuggling. During this time pirates, privateers, and revolutionaries captured merchant ships sailing along the Gulf of Mexico between Matagorda Bay and Pensacola Florida.
The Texas coast presented an excellent area for the establishment of a base of operations for the privateers. This area was close to the shipping lanes in the Gulf of Mexico and to the slaving ports of Cuba. Cuba was a major depot for the African slave trade into Latin America in the early nineteenth century. Since the island was only 800 miles from Galveston, it became the major source of African slaves for the Anglo-American colonists after 1821. (East Texas Historical Journal)
James Walker Fannin, one of the first American settlers to exploit the slave trading in Georgia before arriving in Texas began his expeditions in 1835 when he returned from Cuba with 152 Africans. Monroe Edwards, who arrived in Texas looking to profit from the African slave trade erected a slave mart near present-day San Leon on Galveston Bay while enslaving 185 Africans from Cuba to Texas. Colonel James Morgan arrived in 1835 to seek slave trade opportunities and in doing so, launched a camp for “newly landed Africans.”
Reports from U.S. Consul Nicholas P. Trist in 1836 estimated that approximately a thousand Africans had departed from Cuba to Texas.
In the 1859-60 Galveston City directory, French privateer Louis de Aury’s smuggling activities are acknowledged. The discharged “Barretarians” mentioned in this excerpt were pirates and privateers who had previously occupied Barretaria (also spelled Barataria), an inlet in southeastern Louisiana where the Laffite brother had organized a colony of pirates and smugglers. The inlet became infamous for its massive black market of stolen goods - which included enslaved people capture from proze ships. “[Barataria] echoes the Spanish word barato, which means “cheap.”
According to the FIU Cuban Research Institute, by the mid-eighteenth century, the Cuban elite set the goal of emulating the highly productive colonial plantation economies in neighboring Jamaica, Barbados, and Saint Domingue. As Cuban planters and merchants understood, a pivotal piece for boosting sugar production on the Spanish island was importing more enslaved Africans.
The Caribbean Contribution
The connection between Caribbean people and Juneteenth is underscored by significant historical events and shared cultural contributions. Haiti’s successful slave revolt, culminating in its independence from France in 1804, established it as the first free black republic. This revolution inspired enslaved people and abolitionists worldwide, including those in the United States. The British Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 led to the emancipation of over 800,000 enslaved Africans in the Caribbean, with full freedom achieved by 1838 after an apprenticeship period. This event significantly impacted the global abolition movement, providing a powerful example for U.S. abolitionists. Additionally, slavery was abolished in the Danish West Indies (now the U.S. Virgin Islands) on July 3, 1848, following a revolt by enslaved people. This emancipation freed approximately 5,000 individuals and highlighted the growing momentum against slavery in the Americas.
The emancipation of slaves in the Caribbean had economic repercussions that influenced American slavery. Freed Caribbean colonies often struggled with economic adjustments post-emancipation, which were closely observed by American planters. While some used these struggles to argue against abolition, others recognized the lack of sustainability of slavery in a changing world economy and began to consider alternative labor systems.
American slaveholders observed these developments with a mix of apprehension and justification for their own pro-slavery stance. The economic difficulties experienced by Caribbean planters were cited by American slaveholders as a cautionary tale, arguing that similar disruptions would occur if slavery were abolished in the United States. They feared that emancipation would lead to a collapse of the agricultural economy in the Southern states, which was heavily reliant on slave labor for the production of cash crops like cotton and tobacco.
However, not all American observers drew negative conclusions from the Caribbean experience. Some abolitionists and progressive thinkers saw the Caribbean’s post-emancipation challenges as a necessary transition phase toward a more sustainable and equitable economic system. They argued that the initial economic struggles were part of the growing pains of transitioning to a free labor system and believed that with time and proper management, these societies would stabilize and prosper. This perspective highlighted the unsustainability of slavery in a rapidly modernizing world economy and pushed for the exploration of alternative labor systems that did not rely on human bondage.
Moreover, the success stories and resilience demonstrated by some freed Caribbean societies provided a counter-narrative to the doom-and-gloom predictions of pro-slavery advocates. The ability of these societies to eventually adapt and diversify their economies served as an inspiration and a model for what could be achieved in the United States post-emancipation. The broader impact of Caribbean emancipation thus helped shape the discourse around slavery in America, contributing to the eventual push for abolition and the search for sustainable economic models that did not depend on slavery.
Juneteenth is more than a celebration of the end of slavery in the United States; it is a day of reflection, education, and cultural expression that resonates with people of African descent across the Americas. The historical connections between Juneteenth and Caribbean emancipation highlight a shared legacy of resilience and a continuing journey toward justice and equality. Through these celebrations, communities honor their past, celebrate their cultural heritage, and look forward to a future defined by freedom and unity.
