The Tobago Metairie Ordinance of 1888

Dr Rita Pemberton

TOBAGO’S post-emancipation labour problems were manifested in the operations of the metairie system which, from the 1840s, was widely used for the cultivation of sugar cane. The impoverished sugar planters had no option but to make use of the resident workers on the island to maintain their operations.

Although the desire was strong, they were not allowed to import immigrant labour because the island’s Treasury could not afford it. Their situation was compounded by the extensive damage to estate property by the hurricane of 1847, the correction of which required financial inputs which planters did not possess.

The fact is that the Tobago sugar industry was on the decline and because of which the island faced economic challenges. Planters failed to attract the credit which was required to institute changes to their system of operation. Their focus was on changing the system of labour while maintaining the traditional ways of operation, so they sought salvation from immigration schemes.

However, the imperial government refused to allow schemes which the island’s Treasury could not afford. Hence, Tobago plantation owners remained dependent on the resident labour force and instituted the metairie system which, once implemented, became the main system of labour utilised by plantations during the post-emancipation years.

When the system was first introduced, its operation was guided by written contracts made between the plantation owner or his manager, in which the terms of operation were specified, but very quickly written contracts fell into disuse and verbal contracts were instituted. Three developments were responsible for this change.

Firstly, there were disagreements over the terms of trade as specified in the written contracts as both parties sought to wring the best deal for themselves.

Secondly, as estates changed owners and/or managers, disagreements intensified over the practices to which the workers were accustomed and those which the new owners/managers wished to utilise to maximise their benefits.

The third factor was the shortage of cash that the island faced, which caused planters to be unable to pay wages and to resort to payments in kind. With no established and mutually agreed basis on which to evaluate the quantum of the substituted items that was equivalent to one day’s labour, planter/worker conflicts escalated.

However, for the planters, payment in access to land was initially seen as a convenient payment mechanism, which they came to regret. The metayers (as the workers were called) engaged in multiple arrangements with different plantations and so increased the extent of their access to land, which alarmed plantation owners.

In particular, new owners were not prepared to respect worker claims to land allotments on their estates and whenever a dispute arose between metayer and estate owner, it was common for owners to attempt to expel the metayer from the estate, so depriving him of the wages he had previously earned, which were not necessarily related to the dispute at hand.

The metayers resisted. Therefore, the metairie system, upon which the main hope for the maintenance of the Tobago sugar industry was based, became the centre of a spiralling ball of labour conflict on the island.

Plantation owners/managers, whose focus was on reducing their operating costs, claimed that the system was working against them and to the benefit of the workers while, on the other hand, the workers resisted what they saw as exploitation.

They put an enhanced value on their labour and refused to submit to the unfair practices of their employers, which included attempts to reduce wages. In fact, workers sought, and found, ways to extract benefits for themselves while working within the system, much to the opposition of their employers. Such was the state of tension that planter/worker relations reached an all-time low.

What was a bitter pill for plantation owners was the prospect of their labourers prospering under the system to the disadvantage of the landowners. Some matters were brought before the courts but that was an expensive option which most workers could not afford, and, in addition, there was little faith in the system in which some of the adjudicating magistrates were themselves plantation owners.

As relations degenerated, planters and their supporters called for a legal influence to guide the operations of the metairie system.

On April 22, 1888, Governor Walter Sendall, governor in chief of the Windward Islands, gave his assent to the Metairie Ordinance of 1888, which was intended to regulate the operations of the metairie system of sugar cane cultivation that was prevalent in Tobago. The basis for this law was provided by an investigation undertaken by the Agricultural Society of Tobago, which obtained the views of both planters and metayers.

In the attempt to provide a legal basis for the operation of the metairie system, this ordinance sought to resolve those contentious issues which plagued the operations of the system in the past and which soured planter/metayer relations.

For example, this law dictated that metairie contracts should be written, the terms should be clearly explained to the metayers in the presence of witnesses, and the terms would continue to apply where any change in ownership or management occurred. The intention was to remove the cloud of uncertainty that hung over verbal agreements.

The law dealt with an issue which had angered planters. It stipulated that metayers were bound to cultivate sugar on their allocated land allotments, and other crops for personal use were only to be cultivated with the permission of the estate owner at a specified rate and time. Had this law been implemented, this provision would have proved difficult for the metayers, who inter-planted food crops on the cane banks and which were sold to enhance their earnings.

It was also a strategy of the metayers to operate in particular areas, either where the environment was less contentious or as a part of a metayer organised and led work force, which was provided where the planter was in desperate need of labour. Through this practice, which was hated by plantation owners, the workers were able to receive higher wages than what the plantation offered.

The 1888 law specified that where there was a number of metayers operating in a particular area, they were responsible for road maintenance in that area. This was a former estate responsibility which was shunted over to the metayers and was not likely to be positively received.

It is also very interesting that the new law empowered the planter to be able to sue the metayer for injury to estate by fire or animal damage. Some of the offensive terms of the earlier period found their way into the new law. As a punishment for non-cultivation or improper cultivation of their land allotments, metayers could lose their access to the land.

Under the law, the responsibilities of estate and metayers for reaping and manufacturing the crop were specified but much was dependent on the planter-friendly local magistrates who were required to arbitrate over all matters between matayers and employers, and make annual reports to the governor on the working of the system in their districts.

The new law reflected the influence of plantation owners whose interests were strongly represented in the law.

There was little time for the implementation of this ordinance because events were overtaken by the union of Trinidad and Tobago and the presence and activities of Sir John Gorrie, which brought a new phase of metayer/planter hostility to the island.