Kowsilla (1920-1964) – Leonora Village – British Guiana
Since I had already featured Kowsilla of Leonora on International Women's Day in 2013, I had decided not to share her expanded portrait in Chapter Nine of my work in progress. I changed my mind the day that our former president and current presidential candidate called the black- and brown-skinned migrants/refugees at our southern border "animals." "[They're] poisoning the blood of our country," he said on another occasion. His remarks hurt. It matters not that the blood of these people has fueled and continues to fuel our giant corporations worldwide. Kowsilla (1920-1964) was such a person.
Kowsilla's abruptly shortened life was so inconsequential to the powerful British sugar producers that her ultimate sacrifice at Plantation Leonora only merited a brief description in our local newspapers. In recalling those early days of growing up in then British Guiana, I regard her as a worthy and memorable representative of the rural working-class women of her generation. With little information about her life, I took on the challenge of re-creating her story.
To tell her story, I turned to Kowsilla's ancestral history as a descendant of Indian indentured laborers. I found Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture by Gaiutra Bahadur (The University of Chicago Press, 2014) an excellent resource. What strong and courageous women! I also considered the cultural norms of the rural East Indian population during Kowsilla's early years.
I hope that I have done justice in re-creating her unrecorded life.
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