Tobago’s behemoth: The McCall/Gillespie holdings

Dr Rita Pemberton

IN 1843, FIVE years after the termination of the period of apprenticeship and the institution of legal Emancipation, Scotsman John McCall (1824-1897) arrived in Tobago to take up a position as an overseer of a property named Irvine Hall, which was not yet a sugar plantation.

At the time of his arrival, the members of Tobago planting community, who were distressed over the premature termination of the apprenticeship period, were very vocal in expressing their anger and concerns about the future of sugar cultivation on the island.

Although the economic climate in Tobago did not appear to be promising, the acutely business-minded McCall remained undaunted. He soon became attorney for several large estates and for several British business houses, established himself as a merchant and served as an agent for the Phoenix Fire and Life Assurance Co, became owner of the estate on which he was initially employed and went on to acquire many other properties on the island, and established a shipping business when he introduced the Direct Line steamers in 1882.

McCall’s sojourn in Tobago gives credence to the belief that wealth could be extracted from sites of poverty, for despite the irony, he demonstrated that it was possible for individuals to become wealthy at a time when the island’s economy was weak, and when there were strong signs of economic distress from unprofitable estates, some of which were abandoned by their owners.

McCall became the largest landowner in Tobago in 1866 and was an influential member of the House of Assembly. He exerted great influence on the Windward district where his land acquisition journey began, but the most aggressive phase of this journey occurred from 1869.

McCall’s rise was facilitated by his ability to take full advantage of the situation on the island and the mechanisms he used to do so. He made some strategic alliances, first with his brother James, with whom he owned seven estates on which shops, which provided him with an additional source of income, were established.

Secondly, he partnered with Gillespie and Co, which was then part owner of Green Hill and Friendship Estates and was a merchant company for the entire island. Gillespie and Co financed the land acquisitions of the McCalls. This was a two-way relationship because the McCalls had interests in the Gillespie shipping operations.

Thirdly, with the island’s sugar industry in a depression it was difficult to sell land, so prices of estate land were very low, providing a good market for those with access to finance. In addition, some absentee owners found it convenient to leave the administration of their properties in the hands of an overseer or attorney.

Fourthly, some other landowners used the option of leasing their estates out to attorneys or overseers, which became a well-trodden route to estate ownership for such lessees. A significant factor in the process was his intimate knowledge of the state of the estates on the island, which enabled him to use this knowledge to his advantage.

Thus, despite the island’s dismal economic outlook, Tobago offered several employment options to enterprising white young males which facilitated their motion to land ownership. McCall made ample use of all these opportunities, providing him with several streams of income.

John and James McCall owned seven estates on the island, and they subsequently owned all 11 estates in Windward Tobago: Betsy’s Hope, Charlotteville, Goldsboro, Goodwood, Kings Bay, Lure, Richmond, Glamorgan and Bushy Park; Speyside and Trois Rivieres, along with Goat Island and Little Tobago.

This was made possible by the fact that there were fewer estates in the Windward area where concentration in a few hands was more marked than in Leeward Tobago. The landowners in this region successfully restricted the sale of land to workers, causing this part of the island to have the highest level of landlessness.

They also acquired: Auchenskeoch, Appendage, Marys Hill, Prospect and Orange Valley, Whim, Burleigh Castle and Spring Garden, Orange Hill and Amity Hope in Leeward Tobago. By the end of the 1860s the McCalls owned 21 estates in Tobago.

John McCall resided at Betsy’s Hope and his estates were more profitable than many others on the island. During the depression in the sugar industry, Betsy’s Hope, Richmond, Glamorgan, Goldsborough and Lure made a profit. His alliance with Gillespie and Co, which handled all the shipping and trade of his estates, facilitated McCall’s estate management successes.

Alexander Marshall Gillespie served as the consignee for Tobago estates since 1850 and he functioned alone until 1870 when his sons William and Colin and James Morris joined him to form Gillespie and Co, whose monopoly was exercised via advances and loans to the planters in Tobago. This service was critical for the operation of the estates, but when the owners could not meet their obligations, their properties fell to the company.

Thus in 1884, Gillespie and Co came to own 13 estates in Leeward Tobago, which included: Adventure and Roselle, Cromstain, Indian Walk, Sherwood Park, Carnbee and Riseland. John McCall, who was the attorney for all of these Leeward estates, had an interest in the landed property of Gillespie and Co. By 1884, the number of leased estates and the number of estates in few hands increased, with Gillespie and the McCalls owning 25 estates.

John McCall’s emergence as Tobago’s major landowner, and a significant influencer where the determination of the island’s policy decisions were concerned, was ultimately due to the nature of the system of sugar cultivation on the island. Although the sugar industry faced severe challenges, the structure of its operations remained intact.

The sugar industry was based on estate domination of land on the island. Landowners formed the island’s ruling class while agents in the United Kingdom handled marketing of the export crop and purchasing of imported items to be sent to the island. Shipping service was therefore of central importance to the sugar business, as were advances to finance the other essential services.

John McCall used this system with good effect to build up the McCall family holdings which, buttressed by those of Gillespie and Co, entrenched the old system of plantation operations and prevented the modernisation of Tobago’s agriculture.

The 1884 crash of Gillespie and Co had a dramatic impact on the island, for with it came the death of the Tobago sugar industry and of Gillespie’s property and business dealings in Tobago. Without the input of its financial benefactor, the McCalls' properties were heavily in debt but John McCall did not live to see the subsequent dismemberment of his properties, which was reduced to one estate in 1901.

Like some lesser folk before, the behemoth had fallen down the very ladder which provided its creation.