Society in 20th-century Tobago

Dr Rita Pemberton

The nature and structure of Tobago’s society underwent a process of transformation during the closing years of the 19th century as a result of the economic changes that occurred during the second half of the century. These changes were related to the decline and ultimate demise of the sugar industry, and the inability of the large landowners to find a replacement export crop that would generate sufficient profits to eliminate planter indebtedness and resuscitate the island’s economy. Contrary to their hopes and expectations, these negative economic forces facilitated growth within the group that constituted the labouring class.

The single most important development on the island during this period was the creation of a society of landowners. The maintenance of antiquated methods of production, increasing production costs and falling prices, led to declining profits and the inability of planters to meet their commitments and pay taxes. The decrease in trade on the island led to a reduction of revenue from customs duties, which further reduced income to the island’s treasury and rendered it unable to meet its operating costs.

Like its planters, the island was itself heavily indebted, and with an empty treasury was forced to seek aid and loans from the imperial government, without success. Investors lost interest in the impoverished island which was not considered an ideal place to expend their money. Indebted estates failed to attract buyers and several of them were simply abandoned and reverted to ownership by the Crown.

With its focus on extracting benefits from the colonies, the imperial government was not prepared either to underwrite costs or provide any financial support to the island’s ailing economy. Instead, it advocated a slew of cost-cutting measures which did not help to resolve the island’s problems.

What it did was relieve itself of the responsibility of paying the salaries of those administrators which it traditionally paid, and in the process, aggravated the island’s financial problems.

The imperial government was also not prepared to accept any responsibility for the welfare of the labouring class, and adopted a policy based on the belief that creating a peasant class would allow this group to be able to take care of itself. Thus, crown land was sold in small plots on easy terms to create a class of self-supporting peasants. This was the stroke that made the planting fraternity’s greatest nightmare become a reality. Despite the implementation of a relentless policy to frustrate black land ownership during the second half of the 19th century, the white planting community had failed. The crown-land policy resulted in what was inconceivable to the traditional white landowners: an increase in the number of black landowners on the island.

Along with the growth of the number of black landowners came an increase in the number of black-owned estates and a reduction in the numbers of the old white land-owning class, consistent with the decline in the number of operating sugar estates to two by 1940.

As a result, the strict division between workers and landowning employers who had been operative across the 19th century, became somewhat eroded.

The second factor of significance was migration, which affected all the social groups on the island. Migrants also included black and coloured people from Grenada who became landowners.

The return of Tobagonians who had migrated to work in Panama and other places with money to buy land added to the number of black Tobagonian landowners who were also employers of labour.

During the 20th century, a white society was constituted from the new migrants who came to from places including Trinidad, Grenada and St Vincent, who bought and operated estates in cocoa and coconuts. Also among this new class were the managers of properties owned by companies from Trinidad and the few professional officers who worked on the island.

Colour distinctions were maintained by this group of new whites, who continued to hold social events that excluded people from the other groups. Colour remained an important social marker.

Emigration took its toll on the island. The old middle class, primarily made up of coloured people, was reduced by emigration, causing a decline of the island’s coloured population, and a reconstitution of the population of Scarborough where the coloured population mainly lived. Scarborough became occupied by an upwardly mobile black population.

Emigration caused a severe labour shortage in Windward Tobago, from which there was a movement to the Leeward side of the island to access better employment opportunities, transportation and educational and other facilities. The migrants were primarily young males leaving a female-dominated population in Windward Tobago and complaints about labour shortage.

Migration provided a solution to the problem. In the Windward area, time-expired and indentured Indians were employed to work on the estates, adding another ethnic component to the population.

Overall, migration has had a negative impact on the island, which lost the contribution of entire families and its young population, who sought better opportunities abroad, some of them permanently.

Change also occurred in the constitution of the middle class, which saw an increase in the black presence resulting from an increase in employment opportunities.

With the demise of the sugar industry came the disappearance of the old business community and the development of new businesses, and with it, diversification of employment opportunities.

The cocoa industry provided new opportunities for small shopkeepers to obtain cocoa-buying licences, allowing for the growth of independent cocoa shops. In addition, traffickers; sloop operators trading along the northern side of the island and between Tobago and Barbados; the coastal steamer service; cocoa farmers; the operators of the new and expanding hospitality industry; and a growing class of teachers resulting from the expansion of education on the island, contributed to enhanced earnings for some members of the labouring class and their elevation into the middle segment of the society. Government employment was also significant in this process. The increase in public services on the island led to increased employment of different levels of workers. This area of employment, especially the Public Works Division, assumed great significance to Tobago both in terms of earnings and social positioning when the island’s agriculture declined after World War II.

The two main forces that changed Tobago society in the 20th century were consequences of the demise of the island’s sugar industry. The result was that the hold of the white plantation owners on the island’s administration and economy was severely weakened, and their decline made way for the generation of new economic activities which changed the social face of the island in spite of the continuation of colour distinctions. The release of the hold of the plantocracy on land resources made legal land holding and social mobility possible for a large number of members of the black population, which was a significant development of the 20th century. Black land ownership was the phoenix that emerged out of the ashes of the plantations.