The phenomenal women who made Tobago

Dr RITA PEMBERTON

Although a significant part of Tobago’s history revolves around women, their contribution is not recorded in official sources, the focus of which, under the patriarchal imperial system, was the activities of the males who dominated administration: members of the House of Assembly and Island Council, large landowners and merchants, managers, professionals and religious leaders.

The emphasis was on the fortunes of the dominant planter class, and the larger section of the population is mentioned only when issues of resistance and labour non-compliance with planter dictates reared their heads – and even those matters were primarily male-centred.

However, despite its economic problems, a society separate from but related to plantation society was evolving. Oral sources amend the information deficit and reveal the reality of community life and everyday experiences on the island.

Women’s History Month is an appropriate time to give exposure to the roles of women in the history of Tobago.

After emancipation, Tobago was isolated because the decline of the sugar industry also led to imperial lack of interest and reduced trade and communication. Despite administrative juggling in 1889 and 1898, this continued well into the 20th century, despite the unrelenting appeals and lamentations of James Biggart and APT James.

Life was extremely difficult. Employment opportunities were limited and the few opened up in the government service were directed to the males. Wages were low and even those in the government service were aligned to the paltry wages on the estates. Employment was not readily available for women, some of whom, especially in the windward districts, continued to labour on the estates, as they had done during enslavement.

Since these earnings could not support their families, the women created avenues to support their families which displayed their strength and creativity. In so doing they empowered themselves and performed a significant role in the survival and development of the society. The population of Tobago survived through this elongated period of challenge because of the strength and creativity of its womenfolk. Tobago’s society evolved despite a deficit of trained personnel to provide nurturing and training for the nascent society. Women assumed roles to fill it.

Medical care was scarce and expensive and for some communities in the north, notably absent. Women utilised knowledge and skills passed from their African ancestors, who also obtained knowledge from the First Peoples, from those women who worked as assistants to doctors in the heyday of the estates and those who served as nursery caregivers and wet nurses during and after enslavement.

This combination spawned a generation of women devoted to childcare. Some became healers, using traditional medical practices, who ensured the next generation had a safe entry into the world.

Tobago’s lone hospital was in Scarborough, and women in labour had to trek across hill and dale, usually in the wee hours of the morning, with a stone on their heads to delay the onset of birth until they arrived. Undoubtedly there were mishaps along the way, and that situation was not tenable. This created an opening for midwives, the first providers of care for the newborns and mothers through labour and post-partum.

There were midwife practitioners in every community who were called upon to deliver babies and to deal with difficulties during pregnancy, labour and birth. Armed with their “grip,” which contained a little bag with a small basin, scissors, a collection of leaves and a small blanket, they were always prepared and promptly responded to calls for assistance.

Their services included a return visit for the mandatory nine-day bath. Chief among this corpus of women was Mrs Ethencer Stewart, better known as Tancia or Matron, who conducted the most complicated deliveries and ran a private hospital where she treated women with problems and multiple foetal losses. She provided consultancy services to doctors at the Scarborough hospital to deal with complications with caesareans and breech births.

There were no nurseries, and childcare was provided by the nursery teachers who taught their young charges reading, writing and numeracy: Teacher Baby Joe of Canaan, Teacher Rachael of Bethesda, Miss Gibson of Roxborough, Teacher Madeline Joefield of Glen Road, Babsy Job and Audrey Murray of Charlotteville. Midwife Matron established the first nursery school in Black Rock.

These are some of the women who provided the solid foundation for the education of Tobagonians, many of whom rose to prominence in various fields.

Working women received additional support from their own mothers, and grandmothers played an important role in child-rearing. Many Tobagonians remember the entertaining stories told by their grandmothers and the stiff discipline they enforced with the fearless rolling and glaring grandmaternal eyes and proverbs clearly illustrated with appropriate body movements and which commanded respect and obedience.

Some women were entrepreneurs where the opportunities presented themselves. With trays and baskets lined with embroidered towels and filled with the candies and sweetmeats still associated with Tobago, skilled bakers and confectioners peddled their goods in and between communities.

Around Scarborough Mrs Joefield and Miss Virgie plied their trade in the afternoons, offering tarts of all kinds, mint candies, benne balls, sweetbread, cakes, pone bread, starch cake, biscuit, nut cake. Miss Katie walked from Bethel with her tray on her head to sell to workers at Mt Irvine. Not only were these women providing a service, but also preserving the island’s culture, which was passed on to their offspring.

Some women provided dressmaking services to both the upper classes and members of their communities. These included Mary Eleanor Collier, Eleanora Mc Farlane, Lydia Hislop, Centina Reid and Annie Crooks, well known for the quality of their work.

Women entrepreneurs also ran parlours; others traded items for sale in the market in Port of Spain. These were usually purchased from producers in the communities and taken by boat to Trinidad, where they would buy essential items for sale in Tobago.

Women were also engaged in market vending, selling items produced in their homes and gardens. Those who sold benne balls usually cultivated the plant; those who sold farine cultivated cassava. Some items were bought from other producers, so keeping the food supply in circulation

Women pioneered the tourist industry by establishing boarding houses in Scarborough since the 1880s. Later guest houses were run by some coloured women: Mrs Ironside, Miss Palmer, Miss Willington Mrs Brebnor, Mrs Forbes, Mrs Henderson and Mrs Clark.

Women survived through multiple income-generation occupations. Arms outstretched, they embraced a range of demanding activities, as farmers, skilled and creative workers, entrepreneurs, businesswomen and caregivers. They bought and sold items which assisted their own families and contributed to increased earning capacity and the circulation of money in their communities. They were the harbingers of the island’s culture and nurtured the next generation in their skills. No job was too hard to be done properly, and they established a reputation for devoted, quality work. The strong, fearless women of Tobago who carried the island through some of its most difficult years were truly phenomenal.