The contest for a development agenda

Dr Rita Pemberton

The economic fate of Tobago has been influenced by a variety of factors over the course of the last two centuries which have continued to exert an influence on the island’s present-day economic prospects. Then as now, the notion of economic development was prominent on the agendas of different groups in the society at different times. Each had a different notion of what constituted the economic development best for the island.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the concerns considered most urgent were related to the restoration of the sugar industry after the disruptions associated with the French control of the island.

In this matter, the imperial and colonial administrations were united, but it soon became clear that this unity of purpose was not destined to last long. As Britain became more industrialised, its need was for larger markets not available in the Caribbean colonies. Therefore, Britain needed to divest itself of the restrictions of the old colonial system and implement a new trading regime to facilitate access global markets for its industrial produce.

Tobago’s sugar-planting elite hoped for imperial support to restore the island’s sugar economy; the realisation that the winds of change were blowing had not yet dawned on them.

The imperial notion of a development agenda was intimately tied to plantation success which would provide the imperial government with profits, but these continued to elude Tobago’s sugar industry, which had already begun its downward slide.

Imperial policy was made manifest with the termination of the trade in captive and enslaved Africans in 1807, which stimulated calls from Tobago planters for concessions based on special consideration of their plight, which fell on deaf ears. Tobago’s planting community experienced increased production costs, stimulated by the increased costs of labour.

Much to the opposition of the colonial administrations, the British government forged ahead with terminating the system of enslavement in its colonies, an issue which was a clear indication of the policy divergence between the imperial and colonial administrations and the subsequent clashes between the two levels of administration.

The Tobago planters considered it most urgent to restore the sugar industry to a sound footing, but the forces were stacked against them. Sugar was no longer a profitable business in Tobago, market prices were falling, and the new colonies – namely Trinidad and British Guiana – with size in their favour, attracted investment and dominated the British market. The cost of sugar production in Tobago exceeded the returns, plantations were heavily indebted and several which were put on the market failed to attract purchasers. These were signs that the island’s sugar industry simply could not be revived. Yet the planters persevered.

As the 19th century progressed, the dark economic clouds which hovered over Tobago became thicker and darker, fuelling further tension between the island’s colonial administrators and the imperial government.

Emancipation caused a furore, but it was the subsequent roll-out of imperial free trade policy which threatened to make sugar planting extinct on the island. The Sugar Duties Act of 1846, significantly reduced Tobago’s viability as a sugar producer.

Matters worsened when the island was hit by the hurricane of 1847, which destroyed significant portions of its sugar factories.

Hopes for imperial assistance soared, but the response was disappointing. There were more abandoned estates on the island and those who struggled on faced hurdles, some of which were impassable.

Of the 80 sugar estates on the island only three went into coconut cultivation, one was a mixed operation, five were abandoned and five cultivated sugar and cocoa. The remainder persisted with sugar cultivation.

Hence, despite its challenges and the lack of imperial support for development in that direction, sugar production remained the dominant economic activity of the island during the second half of the 19th century. This reflected the pervasive notion held by the planting community that the island’s economic development remained tied to the sugar industry and the availability of cheap labour.

It should be noted that the planting community was hanging on to the social and political privileges they enjoyed as the largest landowners and as members of the island’s council and assembly.

But there was another dimension to be considered in formulating a development equation.

The new factor was the freed Africans, whose aspirations were counter to those of the planting elite, and who sought to find a space on an island on which the land resources had been carved up to facilitate plantation operations. Their survival depended on their ability to support themselves and augment the paltry earnings offered as wages by the plantations.

The freed Africans set up smallholdings on which they pioneered agricultural diversification. They cultivated food crops to support their families and for sale on the local markets, as well as sugar and coconuts, rearing animals and birds, fishing, and hunting.

For this group, development required land with access roads and access to external and especially regional markets. Small farmers in north Tobago traded with Barbados in wood, wood products and food items, which held possibilities for further development.

The island’s administration, which was planter-controlled, refused to give consideration to such a possibility, and planters stubbornly held on to sugar cultivation, still hoping for a new dawn.

During the last quarter of the 19th century, Tobago’s administrators had to face the stark reality of the island’s penury. Impoverished planters defaulted on tax payments, and the growing number of abandoned estates spelt further deficits for the treasury, which reached the point where it was unable to meet the costs of the island’s administration. There was an increase in the number of smallholders who faced the upward-sliding property qualification for the franchise and voiced their views on the state of the island as they sought to contribute to the determination of policies that could promote the island’s economic development.

The issue of development provided the basis for further contest between interest in Tobago towards the end of the 19th century.