Fear and power in creation, demise of Tobago Assembly

Dr Rita Pemberton

THE NEWLY established planter class in the nascent plantation colony of Tobago was driven by several security fears, due to which, in 1768, they sent a petition to the imperial government requesting the installation of a council composed of a few officers who will be charged with the responsibility to affect the good governance of the island.

At that time the island was administered through the governorate of Grenada, but the resident planters felt that the establishment of a separate council empowered to run the affairs of the colony was in the best interest of the development of the island colony.

The governor noted that, under the terms of his office, he was not empowered to make such an appointment without the complement of a functioning legislative body. He stated that there was not a sufficiently large number of planters operating on the island for such an appointment to be made.

However, in response to the petition he created a temporary council of 11 of the largest planters on the island, which had already proved beneficial and would be renewed from time to time. He pointed out the need for the colony to raise money, which could not be done in the absence of a functioning assembly.

The planters continued their advocacy and provided justification for the establishment of their own administrative body, citing the need for quick responses to resolve urgent problems which were not possible with the present arrangement, given the slow pace of communication and the help needed for this fledgling colony to achieve its potential and contribute positively to the British empire.

These arguments provided the
raison d’etre for the establishment of the Tobago Assembly later that year. Once established the Assembly and council penned another petition to the king in 1771, in which they identified the challenges faced and the extent of distress on the island.

They described their situation as “precarious” since they were threatened with war from France, “an ambitious and powerful enemy,” as well as the ravages of privateers who infested the island's coast, plundering and pillaging at will and against whom the residents have no means of effective security.

In addition, they faced the “bloody insurrection of enslaved Africans in 1771, which the residents were barely able to overcome. They existed with the constant threat from the “desperate barbarians" from whom they remained constantly exposed to other similar conspiracies. They lamented the heavy debt that was incurred to repel the previous onslaught of the enslaved population.

Given the existing debt and the limitations of the small white population on the island, the Assembly sought security assistance from the imperial government in the form of a significant body of resident troops on the island, and financial assistance to the colony.

The establishment of the House of Assembly and the council was stimulated by planters’ fear of the external enemy entities but more so of their vulnerability to the internal challenges that could be posed by the enslaved population and the impact this would have on plantation production, profit and investors, in addition to the safety of the white population.

The business of the Assembly was to implement the means to maintain control of the enslaved labour force, keep sugar production going and obtain financial returns from the enterprise. This was their mission right up to the 1870s.

After the menace of the French and pirates had been removed, Tobago planters faced many difficulties during the post-emancipation period. The island’s sugar industry was on the decline, having been faced by low levels of production, poor quality sugar, which could only receive the lowest prices on the international market.

As a result, estates were going out of business, some were abandoned, the island’s treasury faced a financial deficit, and was unable to meet its commitments to its employees. One of the major problems of this period was related to labour. The freed African population constituted a reluctant resisting work force which engaged in a range of resistance strategies. Between 1867 and 1876 the intensity of the resistance movements on the island increased in tandem with those in other parts of the region.

The British government used the alarm caused by these conflicts as the ideal time to remove the powers of the Assemblies, which had been the cause of so much embarrassment, and imposed Crown colony government across its Caribbean possessions. It argued that the islands needed an impartial government capable of looking after the welfare of all the inhabitants.

The revolts in Tobago terrified the planting community, who were fearful that they would lose their position of social and political control on the island. Black landholding was on the increase and with the emergence of vocal members of the black community and divisions within the white community, the planting community feared subjection to black rule.

They accepted the conversion of the island’s administrative structure to a single chamber legislature in 1874, with the expectation that they would receive financial and other forms of support from the imperial government. When this did not occur, there was no choice but to accept Crown colony government in 1877.

The members of Tobago’s old ruling class were prepared to sacrifice the powers for which they advocated so strongly during the 1760s to prevent a development of which they were mortally afraid – the elevation of a black ruling class on the island. Ultimately, they lost on both counts.