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Compass News
Emancipation Day holiday on Monday
Emancipation Day is near, and events are taking place across the country.
This year’s theme is Unity – Strengthening Our Legacy.
In George Town, the Emancipation Day commemoration starts at 2 p.m. on Cardinal Avenue.
And for those in the Brac, on Saturday 10 May, the Emancipation Day commemoration will be held at Watering Place Gardens, also at 2 p.m.
This is the second year Emancipation Day is being commemorated since its reinstatement by Cabinet. And a reminder — Monday is a public holiday.
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Cayman Compass
‘Slavery be dead, we be free’ – The amazing true story of emancipation in Cayman
As Cayman celebrates Emancipation Day for the first time in over half a century, the Cayman Compass takes a detailed look at how a century of slavery came to a dramatic end on these islands.
‘Absolutely and unconditionally free’
On the morning of 3 May 1835, clad in the scarlet livery of the British West India Regiment, Captain Anthony Pack stood on a low wall overlooking Hog Sty Bay and read the proclamation that would change Cayman forever.
Lest the message of the legal document be unclear, the Governor of Jamaica, Lord Sligo, was there in person to spell it out.
“You who have been slaves and lately acting as apprentices, are by this decision made absolutely and unconditionally free,” he told the assembled crowd.
