Something I think should be in our media and a part of early school’s history classes .
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“Canboulay is a celebration of resistance and emancipation which re-enacted the days when enslaved Africans were driven with cracking whips to put out fire on sugarcane plantations.”
We are a people that have a powerful history.
Carnival is not evil. It is not “devil thing” .
It is a part of our rich heritage … it speaks to the freedom we all fight for & a celebration of how far we’ve come.
#bluedevils ... after #Canboulay the evil guys arrive and they want blood and money .... #carnival #carnival2017 #event #Canboulay2017 (at Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago)
Canboulay, Control and the Riots That Shaped Carnival
Carnival doesn’t only have a history. It has a memory.
Canboulay is not folklore, decoration or an “old-time thing.” It marks a turning point, the moment expression was challenged, controlled and then defended.
The Canboulay riots of the late 1800s were not misunderstandings or embarrassment. They were confrontations over dignity, public space and whether freedom would be symbolic or real.
That is why Carnival weekend does not simply begin with costumes and colour. It begins with remembrance. With the reminder that the road was not handed over — it was claimed.
This article explores why Canboulay still matters, how control has evolved rather than disappeared, and why the tension between expression and regulation continues to surface every season.
Sometimes Carnival hasn’t “lost its meaning.”
Sometimes we were never taught what it was resisting in the first place.
Carnival is not “what we do”. It is something our ancestors fought to keep possible.
