Watching the impressive Danish team sweep aside the tired looking Welsh yesterday, I was struck by the fact there was a Denmark player called Martin Braithwaite, as it's a surname I've always strongly associated with the county of Yorkshire. I had a quick Google to see if there was a connection with him in England and it turns out Braithwaite's mum is white Danish and his dad is black Guyana in the Caribbean.
Historically dominated by the Lokono and Kalina tribes, Guyana was colonised by the Dutch before coming under British control in the late 18th century. It was then governed as British Guiana, with a mostly plantation-style economy until the 1950s. Independence was gained in 1966.
Many of the 1.5 million+ Caribbeans of African origin have ended up with British surnames simply because part of the process of enslavement and detachment from African roots involved becoming the legal property of their owners and that often included the imposition of their surnames.
This meant that they were subject to the whims of their owner and of local slave laws. For example, families could be split up, people could be sold, gifted and inherited as property. The enslaved people migrated with their owners to other countries and were often denied an education and not allowed to attend church.
The past is never dead.
It's not even past. |  |
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