19世纪早期英属圭亚那的一处咖啡种植园。照片：Granger Historical Picture Archive/Alamy信件：圭亚那前奴隶群体拥抱集体行动凯瑟琳·A·蒙克教授（Prof Kathryn A Monk）撰文回应《棉花资本》系列中的一篇文章，指出我们应当了解获得解放的人们在相互协作方面所展现出的非凡能力。您报道的《英国公司废奴40年后仍继续向圭亚那贩运非洲奴隶》（8月23日）讲述了圭亚那后奴隶制历史中重要的一部分。还有另一部分历史值得被更广泛地知晓。
A coffee plantation in British Guiana in the early 1800s. Photograph: Granger Historical Picture Archive/Alamy Letters Formerly enslaved people in Guyana embraced collective action We should learn about emancipated people’s extraordinary capacity for mutual endeavour, writes Prof Kathryn A Monk in response to an article in the Cotton Capital series Your report ( British corporation continued trafficking of enslaved Africans to Guyana 40 years after abolition, 23 August tells one important part of Guyana’s post-slavery history. There is another that deserves to be better known.
1839年，在英属圭亚那完全废奴仅一年多后，83名前奴隶男女汇集他们的积蓄，购买了200公顷（500英亩）的北布鲁克（Northbrook）种植园。他们将其更名为维多利亚（Victoria）。随后，其他群体也进行了类似的购买，逐渐发展出后来被称为“非洲村庄共同体运动”的潮流。
In 1839, little more than a year after full emancipation in British Guiana, 83 formerly enslaved men and women pooled their savings to buy the 200-hectare (500-acre) Northbrook plantation. They renamed it Victoria. Other purchases by other groups followed, developing into what became known as the communal African village movement.
这些不仅仅是个人拥有财产的行为。许多人为了安全起见，将辛苦赚来的积蓄埋藏起来；据称，北布鲁克种植园的首笔付款是用独轮车装着硬币运到乔治敦的。前奴隶们继续集体购买土地，建立村庄，并自行制定管理道路、土地和其他共享资源的安排。到1845年，维多利亚村已建立了自己的地方治理法规。
These were not simply individual acts of property ownership. Many had kept their hard-earned savings buried for safekeeping; the first payment for Northbrook was reportedly carried to Georgetown in coins in a wheelbarrow. Formerly enslaved people went on to buy land collectively, establish villages and devise their own arrangements for managing roads, land and other shared resources. Victoria had established its own code of local government by 1845.
由于曾在圭亚那工作，我一直认为这是该国历史上最非凡的部分之一。就在种植园利益集团试图维持旧制度的几乎同一时刻，从奴隶制中走出来的人们正展现出非凡的集体行动能力、自治能力和相互协作精神。
Having worked in Guyana I have always found this one of the most remarkable parts of its history. At almost the same moment that plantation interests were trying to perpetuate the old system, people emerging from slavery were demonstrating an extraordinary capacity for collective action, self-government and mutual endeavour.
解放的历史不仅是关于前奴隶遭受了什么的历史，更是关于他们在获得自由后选择建设什么的历史。凯瑟琳·A·蒙克教授布里斯托尔
The history of emancipation is not only the history of what was done to formerly enslaved people, but of what they chose to build once they were free. Prof Kathryn A Monk Bristol