Coffy

Coffy (Kofi Akan day-name for a son born on Friday), the principal commander of the Berbice Slave Revolt of 1763, was born about 1735 in the principal Gold Coast Akan interior — probably the Asante-Akyem region of the principal Akan polity of the seventeenth-and-eighteenth-century Atlantic — of an Akan family enslaved in the principal Asante gold-and-slave-raiding wars and shipped westward to the principal Dutch colony of Berbice.

He was raised across the principal middle decades of the eighteenth century in the principal Lilienburg sugar plantation of the Canje Creek district of Berbice — and was instructed in the principal Akan Twi oral canon of his Gold Coast ancestry, the principal Dutch and Negerhollands Creole of the principal Berbice enslaved community, and the principal carpenter's apprenticeship of the principal Lilienburg estate where he had been placed as a domestic.

He rose with the principal Magdalenenburg plantation Akan slaves on the principal twenty-third of February 1763 under the principal Akan commander Akkara, who killed the principal Magdalenenburg master Marritz and set the principal estate afire. Coffy joined the principal rising within hours from Lilienburg, was acclaimed by the principal assembled Akan-Coromantee commanders Governor of Berbice on the principal third of March 1763 — and assumed the principal style 'Governor Coffy' of the principal Berbice Akan polity.

He governed the principal Berbice insurgent polity across the principal March and April months of 1763 from his principal headquarters at the principal Hollandia plantation on the Berbice River, controlled the principal upper two-thirds of the principal Berbice colony, and corresponded with the principal Dutch Governor Wolfert Simon van Hoogenheim of Fort Nassau by letter signed 'Coffy, Governor of the Negroes of the Berbice'. The principal letter of the principal third of March 1763 proposed the principal partition of Berbice between an Akan polity of the principal upper river and a Dutch polity of the principal lower river — the principal first proposed two-state-solution of the Caribbean colonial Atlantic.

He fought across the principal March and April months of 1763 the principal civil war within the principal insurgent Akan ranks between his principal faction and that of the principal sub-commander Atta — over the principal acceptance or rejection of the Dutch partition proposal. He lost the principal Berbice River engagement of about the seventeenth of April 1763 to Atta's faction, was deposed from the principal Governorship, and shot himself at the principal Pearl plantation about the twentieth of April 1763. He is honored here as the principal Governor Coffy of the Berbice Slave Revolt, the principal Akan-Coromantee commander of the Dutch Guianese littoral, and the principal foundational national hero of independent Guyana.