Major policy challenges in post-emancipation Tobago

Dr Rita Pemberton

THE NOTION of emancipation of the enslaved population in the British-colonised Caribbean conjured up fears of violent retribution to the planting community and total mayhem in the region in the years after enslavement ended.

Planting communities across the region were highly agitated over this possibility, which engaged the attention of the imperial administrators.

In an effort to appease the planter elites and possibly forestall the anticipated explosions, the British government agreed on an intermediary period before the full implementation of emancipation – the "apprenticeship" period. It was a part of the compensation to planters for the loss of labour, the cost of which fell on the shoulders of African workers.

However, it was presented as a period of preparation for freedom in which the Africans would learn to earn a living and to manage their own affairs.

The policy was a two-pronged effort to “civilise” the African population into “acceptable” behaviours and habits through apprenticeship – which turned out to be a disaster – with a provision for education.

The planter-dominated administration of Tobago could only conceive of a role for the freed African population as estate workers who were expected to remain tied to the estates and accept the terms offered by planters, by force if necessary.

Providing services for the population was considered neither as important nor essential; therefore the Tobago Assembly envisaged no policy for education.

However, the imperial authorities were moved to provide some basic services. The first provision for public education in the colonies came from the Negro Education Grant, provided by the British Government from 1835 to 1845. The aim of the policy behind this grant was to prepare the Africans for freedom by expanding missionary facilities for religious and moral education, to be applicable during apprenticeship, with emphasis on maintaining “public tranquillity” and developing virtues consequent to emancipation.

With funding from the grant, the churches in Tobago – Anglican, Methodist and Moravian – established all the schools on the island. By 1859 there were 17 schools: eight Anglican, four Moravian and five Methodist.

The churches welcomed this initiative because it offered them opportunities for spreading the Word while increasing the size of their congregations. They encouraged marriages, baptisms and school and church attendance, for they needed their followers to be able to read the Bible, and it was necessary to train locals to assist in their pastoral efforts.

Church membership was a requirement for access to the facilities the churches offered, which provided alternatives to estate labour which the freed Africans valued. Tobago became the turf for competition among the denominations for the dues, fees and souls of the population during the second half of the 19th century.

The education policy faced severe problems. It was never a priority of the pro-planter administration, imperial funding was inadequate and parents had to pay fees for their children to attend the schools, and dependence was placed on financial support from the churches' home centres.

Problems abounded. The schools were in poor physical condition, the quality of teaching left much to be desired, and teachers were badly paid. The imperial assistance funding was terminated in 1846, and home centres also removed their funding, leaving the schools dependent on sporadic funding from the unreliable, unwilling local administration.

Therefore, the local authorities did not commit the required resources to a policy with which they were not enamoured.

The problem-riddled system struggled along. There were no teacher training facilities on the island and those teachers who were trained obtained their training in Antigua.

These were never sufficient, and in addition there were problems with trained teachers, who were not paid appropriately, and irregular school attendance. There were high levels of absenteeism among children on Mondays and Fridays. They were required for home duties on Mondays – laundry days – and on Fridays to assist with reaping and preparation for the Saturday market.

The high incidence of water-borne and other diseases, especially yaws, affected school attendance, but this was not addressed.

Financing and managing the education needs of the Tobago population remained a major policy challenge right up to 1886, when government support of schools terminated, and education remained the responsibility of the churches.

However, in the latter years of the 19th century, the need for educating the population was recognised because of the increased need for clerks and low-level administration workers, which resulted from the reduced presence of white males who used to perform those functions.

Water was another major problem: the entire island suffered from a lack of potable water, which was reflected in the high incidence of dysentery. The population obtained its water supply from springs, wells, rivers or individually collecting rainwater, which was stored in drums, barrels and other containers. The island suffered severe drought during the dry season, especially in the middle and leeward districts, when there was forced recourse to contaminated water sources.

Scarborough was served by the Kings Well at Cooks River, which was open only for a few hours each day, and the springs around Spring River were the only sources up to 1888. It was recognised that the capital was in dire need of a reliable water service to supply the administrative buildings and the various businesses in the town.

The other side to the water problem was the fire hazard during the dry season in communities in which most buildings were wooden. A serious fire which broke out on November 29, 1882, on Main Street in Scarborough was only put out with the assistance of a group of labouring ladies who formed a bucket brigade.

Nevertheless, it was felt that the island’s revenue could not support a water scheme for the capital and for the general population; this remained a burning issue for decades.

The next challenge related to revenue, a dark cloud which hung over the island, looming larger and larger during the second half of the 19th century, in line with the declining fortunes of the sugar industry. The assembly’s response was to increase direct taxes and reduce customs taxes – the opposite of the practice in the other Windward Islands.

The heaviest burden fell on the labouring class, whose houses were taxed at five per cent of their presumed rental value, while plantation buildings remained untaxed. A heavy tax was imposed on fishing boats, which freed Africans used to provide alternative employment to plantation labour. The licence for a single hunting permit cost the African £1, while planters, for whom hunting was a sport, paid the same price for multiple hunting expeditions. The tax on a labourer’s dog was more than that on a puncheon of rum.

Apart from stimulating tensions in the society, the inequities of the tax system made it impractical as a source of revenue for an impoverished island. While from 1865 onwards there was an increase in the contribution of customs duties to revenue, this was a temporary development, for declining imports and exports during the 1880s posed the serious question of the island’s ability to continue to exist as a separate colonial entity.