Desire and denial: Land ownership in post-emancipation Tobago 1838-1855

Dr Rita Pemberton

The transformation of Tobago from a First People occupied island with their scattered settlements and its forest cover intact to a deforested British sugar plantation colony which was occupied by a small ruling group of British landowners and a large labour force of enslaved Africans, resulted in the establishment of the primacy of land owning. At the behest of the new occupiers, both the First People occupants and the island’s forest had to make way for the establishment of sugar plantations. Despite valiant attempts to defend their territory, the First People were forced out as the land they once possessed was carved into sugar estates. The lush forest cover was removed to establish sugar plantations and the white plantation owners became the island’s ruling class with the ability to determine what was in the best interests of the island, which was closely aligned with their interests. Land ownership was the empowering factor. Tobago’s society was, therefore, divided on colour – white and black – which correlated with the other division, the landed and the landless.

The power of land owing was well demonstrated by the island’s landowners who used the land to generate wealth which enabled them to hold – and wield – the reins of power on the island. They assumed that the prevailing state of affairs – enslavement, wealth generation, white rule and black enslavement would remain ad infinitum with the support of their oppressive laws, having convinced themselves that the enslaved population, as inferior people, had no ambitions of their own and would remain malleable subject people. They were rudely shocked by the spate of resistance which occurred during the 1770s, which threatened to wipe out the newly established plantations and demonstrated the desires of the enslaved Africans with which plantation owners did not intend to contend. Their response was to develop hardened lines of control, apply more brutal punishments to the resistors and shore up defence arrangements to prevent the escalation of any internal resistance movement. Without open admission, the ruling class's reaction was an indication of their awareness that the enslaved Africans were not naturally inferior people who could be easily controlled and had to be forced into inferiority and subjectivity.

Instances of the refusal of the determination of the enslaved population to defy their enforced slave status, the termination of the trade in captive Africans and the implementation of the Emancipation laws were seen as dark clouds over the island which the planters were determined to prevent. In 1838 when full emancipation was implemented, the ruling class was determined to prevent the freed Africans from being able to elevate themselves from slave status. Since the years of Apprenticeship, 1834-1838, the Africans had demonstrated strong desires to own land which was more strongly evidenced during the years after 1838. The white ruling land-owning class was determined to prevent the development of a black land-owning class which would deprive them of the services of the people who they refused to see as anything other than their labour force and who could ultimately jeopardise their status determination of the freed Africans to own land led them to struggle for land during the post-emancipation years.

Although the planting community refused to recognise this, land was also of importance to the black population. Its significance was accentuated during enslavement when provision grounds were allocated to each adult 16 years and over, to encourage food production when food shortages hit the island during the era of the American Revolution causing what one historian calls “starving time” in Tobago. This strategy stimulated a process of land allocation to freed workers which could not be curtailed after Emancipation when it became enmeshed in the terms for estate workers.

Land became of critical importance to the freed Africans after Emancipation for they fully recognised that it was essential for true liberation which could only be attained if independence from plantation labour was achieved. This independence from the plantation was necessary for their personal comfort to establish their homes and gardens and pasturage for their animals. Land was the basis of negotiation after freedom for land to establish their homes, for pasturage for negotiating rents for house spots and the terms of labour.

Land was also of cultural significance, it being tied to birth, funerary and the maintenance of ancestral connections which was important to the Africans. Birth rites included burying the baby’s umbilical cord (navel string) in the yard of the home and planting a tree to mark the spot. Land was also important for d funerary rites because the Africans did not want to be buried in the public cemeteries or in the church yards preferring to be interred on family land which was considered inalienable and a strategy to keep the family together. Both birth and funerary rites constituted the maintenance of continuity in the family and the ancestral link which underlay the African belief system and were of economic, symbolic and social significance.

The reality was that the freed Africans could not sever themselves from the plantations because they were dependent on them for employment just as the plantations were dependent on their labour. In addition, the shortage of cash made planters pay wages to allow access to land which provided workers with an important window to exploit this conflicting relationship and gain increasing access to land even while it tied them to the estates. However, they remained determined to become landowners.

Even though the island’s sugar industry was on the decline and estates were abandoned and increasing amounts of uncultivated land were available, there was no widespread squatting and minimal acquisition of freehold land occurred even when estates faced financial problems. This demonstrates the extent to which planter control with its determination to prevent black land-owning, persevered after emancipation. They engaged in a variety of strategies including refusal to sell land, extending the boundaries of their plantation into vacant land selling useless land, land they did not own and charging exorbitant prices for land. It should also be noted that the freed Africans preferred to buy and own their land and according to Special magistrate Kaye Dowland, land was purchased “greedily” at £20 an acre when advantage was taken of them. Purchasers were allowed to pay half of the cost to the vendor but title to the land was withheld until full payment was made. Unfortunately, some eager purchasers never questioned whether the vendor was authorised to sell, if the land being sold was in fact in existence or if it was useful land. Many fell victim as a result. Having paid the full sum, the purchaser encountered a series of further prohibitive payments which some could not afford. These included lawyer and surveying fees and as a result, few of these transactions were registered, providing the basis for the land title problem which currently haunts the island.

Despite their negative experiences during the first 17 years after emancipation, the freed Africans of Tobago remained unwavering in their determination to own land. They worked and saved hard and a few landowners emerged during this period. However, the events which overtook the Tobago sugar industry later in the century precluded the weakening planter class from further denial of landowning opportunities to their black workers and made it possible for their desires to be fulfilled, as demonstrated by a significant increase in the number of black landowners by the end of the 19th century.