Resistance in post-emancipation Tobago

Dr Rita Pemberton

THE MATTER of resistance in Tobago has attracted little attention from writers because of the assumption that little resistance of note occurred on the island. It has been painted with particular descriptors at different times to suit the desires of particular individuals and groups. Attention should be paid to the people or groups who articulate these descriptors.

One of the features of the history of Tobago to which attention needs to be paid is the different descriptions of the island which reflect the attempts to paint it in a particular light as behooves the season in which the description was made.

Very early in the period of European encounters, despite the presence of settlements of First Peoples, of which they were aware, there was a common description of the island by all the interested Europeans that it was unoccupied and therefore available for European occupation.

This was an attempt to provide themselves with justification for their assumed right to take hold of the island, establish settlements and develop it as they saw fit. This right provided the competitive impetus which saw Europeans battling for possession of Tobago across the 17th and 18th centuries.

After the island was declared a British possession, the imperial administration was anxious to have it fully occupied with British citizens. To do this an advertising campaign was launched which emphasised its undisturbed natural beauty, its healthy environment, its fertile soils and its potential for development and for earning large economic returns. The intention of this advertisement was to attract investment in the plantations.

During the 19th century, the era of economic fluctuations, it was necessary to continually whip up investor enthusiasm for Tobago, so it was described as peaceful, healthy and full of potential. This was an attempt to counter real-life stories and project the image of a population of happy enslaved Africans who worked on the island’s sugar plantations.

The latter description was used by Governor Young and planters in their failed effort to derail the movement for emancipation by showing emancipation was not necessary in Tobago, where enslavement was benign, master/slave relations were good and enslaved Africans were happy. This is what they recommended as the solution to the issue of enslavement, to remove the atrocities revealed by the anti-slavery campaigners.

Although they were incorrect about the situation in Tobago, these descriptions were combined and used to describe the character of its African population during the post-emancipation era when there was a common perception that the African population was so happy there was little resistance from the free population after emancipation. In the search for explanations, some writers argue that it was their religious upbringing and their spirituality which prevented them from resisting.

The problem here is the term “resistance.” It is commonly assumed that resistance involves a physical confrontation between an aggrieved party, usually employees, and an exploiter, the employer. This resistance is usually manifested by protest marches, riots and violent action against the employer/exploiter.

The post-emancipation history of Tobago is marked by resistance activity against the oppression inflicted on the working class by the employer/planter class and its supporters in the administration. There were instances of physical confrontation such as the 1852 Land Tax Riot, the 1867 Dog Tax Riot and the 1876 Belmanna War.

There were other forms of resistance which have been overlooked by those writers who only recognise resistance when it involves physical confrontation between planters and their workers over terms of employment and wages.

The matter was complicated by the fact that money was scarce on the island and wages were paid in kind, which included access to land. To ease their burdens, planters tried to reduce the value of the work done by their workers and reduce the size of the land allocation for that specific job – in other words, reduce the already paltry wages.

The workers did not quietly accept these unfair arrangements, and challenged the system in a variety of ways to achieve their ambitions.

The main aim of the freed African was to own land, which was opposed by the planter element. However, they failed to force workers to work under their terms.

The workers resisted by confronting the issues they faced and using the device implemented by the planting community to resolve its problems to their advantage.

After emancipation, planters in Tobago argued that there was a shortage of labour, and beseeched the imperial government to allow them to import immigrant labour.

When this was consistently refused, the solution was to the implementation of the metayage system of sharecropping. Under this system, planters provided the structure and buildings, workers planted, reaped and manufactured the cane, and profits were shared between the two.

Facing injustices in the operating costs and the divisions of the returns, the workers applied resistance from within. Planters who needed labour found themselves competing with each other for the labour of the limited available workforce.

Hence by engaging in multiple metayage agreements with several planters, the workers used the system against itself to confront the issues which they faced.

In this way, much to the dismay of the planters, the workers were able to obtain increased access to land, which they cultivated and then sold their produce to plantations and increased their earnings. Planters complained bitterly about the resistance efforts of the workers and their refusal to respond to planters' calls to start planting and/or reaping, preferring to attend to the crops on their own plots of land. They planted food crops on the cane banks and gave more attention to their crops than to the planters’ canes.

Additionally, noting planter vulnerability, the workers organised themselves into groups, the leaders of which paid more than the plantations. Planters were therefore forced to negotiate more acceptable wages for these workers, a situation they did not relish.

Ultimately the planting community got so frustrated with the way the system was serving the interests of the workers that they conceded the victory of worker resistance and agreed to the termination of the metayage system.

This shows that it was not simply spirituality at work, but the ability to take advantage of the opportunities that presented themselves within the existing system.