Transcribed by We Them Media from the audio Dwayne posted, with his permission. Speaker letters mark turns, as the model separated them.
These are the speakers’ own words. We have not checked their claims.
0:12ALiberia and Barbados share a distinct tie dating as far back as 1862, when the Liberian Parliament extended an invitation to persons of African descent from the islands of the West Indies To come and settle in Liberia. A follow-up invitation was sent in 1864, and in 1865, hundreds of Bajans immigrated to Liberia. Among them was John Prince Porte and his family. On the ship were doctors, lawyers, carpenters, masons, and a host of others not just looking for a new home but a new venture. The invitation led to a total of 346 immigrants from Barbados sailing to Liberia on April 6th, 1865, following the signing of the treaty between the 2 countries. In January 2020, Prime Minister Mia Mottley designated and introduced 2020 as the Year of the Barbadians and those who love Barbados to come home and reconnect with your family, friends, and invest in the rebuilding and development of Barbados. Under the theme We Gathering 2020, the program was a clarion call, homecoming invitation, symbolizing a recommitment to the core Barbadian values. For Prime Minister Mia Mottley, the renaissance is long overdue. They were shipped from here, went to Liberia and other countries. And what does it mean for Barbados’ renaissance?
1:52BThat’s why when we launched Project Yes Now, we talked not only of a memorial to transatlantic slavery to make sure that it never happens again, but we also talk about forced migration. And when we say forced migration, we say that the migration was forced because of the conditions under which people had to live. live here. So there are many countries in Central and Latin America to which we went. Panama, the number of Barbadians going there was the largest number of any group from any other country who went to build the Panama Canal. We went to Costa Rica, we went to Brazil, we went to Venezuela, we went to Cuba. But of course, the stories that are less known is that we came back to Africa and we came to Liberia and we came to Sierra Leone. And And those stories have now to be told. I keep saying that there was actually a person who was a Barbadian born, who was a president of a nation of the world before Dame Sandra, and that was in Liberia at the turn of the century. Charles Barkley, who was born in Barbados and came to Liberia as a teenager.
2:59ARight.
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3:00BSo these are the stories that we need to tell. Our people -- people don’t know about the story as to the Bajans who left post-1816 Busser Rebellion. And when the British governor said he didn’t want them here anymore, they were tired hanging people, they sent them to Honduras. And Honduras said they didn’t want them, and they sent them to Sierra Leone. So we got to tell these stories.
3:22AA collaborative project, the brainchild of Ambassador Lorenzo Witherspoon, great-grandson of John Prince Porte, has set the pace for much of what will serve as the basis of the immigration project. The project paper, Portes Find a New Home in Liberia, documents the story of the post-emancipation emigration of John Prince Porte’s family from Barbados to Liberia in 1865 and the family’s quest for ancestral citizenship This is complemented by the passenger manifest of the brig Cora, the vessel that brought the immigrants from Barbados to Liberia on April 6th, 1865. It includes a history of Crozerville, the first-ever Porte family tree, a Porte family gallery, and 2 separate documents portraying the prominent roles played in Liberia and internationally by direct descendants of John Prince Porte and prominent positions held in Liberia by immigrant families from Barbados and their descendants who settled in Crozerville. Last November, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley hosted Ambassador Witherspoon and embraced the Barbados-Liberia connection with nostalgia and discussions of the extensive social and economic potential that could be tapped into with greater cooperation between the 2 countries. Prime Minister Mottley told Front Page Africa that she did discuss the issue when she met Liberian President George Weah at the recent climate change summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
5:07BUm, Barbados and Liberia have -- and it’s the most amazing thing -- I could not believe that the country for which we have had a president from -- born in Barbados, that we didn’t have diplomatic relations between the 2 countries. My government has moved to change that. I had early conversations with your president when I saw him at COP, and I hope that we can literally deepen the cooperation between our 2 countries because this is a perfect example of being separated from the middle Passage, by the Middle Passage, because that Middle Passage led to North Atlantic views in Liberia, in Barbados, rather than looking at each other and understanding that we are the same people. Thank you.
That was the whole recording.
