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Emancipation in the British West

Indies 1838 - 1848

Learning Objectives
Students will be able to

Identify by themes, theses and authors


Caribbean historiography in the decade
immediately following emancipation
Delineate the historiographical arguments
which these themes have generated
Determine the strengths and weaknesses of
the positions presented

Views on Emancipation in the British


West Indies 1838 - 1848
Verene Shepherd Emancipation did not immediately usher
in profound changes in the lives of newly freed people
Governor of Trinidad Lord Harris -a race had been freed
but a society had not been formed
Bridget Brereton as well as Swithin Wilmot
Emancipation was a watershed period in British Caribbean
history, a great break dividing two distinctly different eras, a
new era in labour relations in the British West Indies
Rita Pemberton emancipation unleashed the misery of
freedom for the formerly enslaved in the British Caribbean

Major Historiographical themes in the First


Decade of Emancipation in the British Caribbean

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Changing shape of Estate Labour


Exodus from the Estates
Expanding West Indian Peasantry
Other Alternatives to Estate Labour
Depression in the Sugar Industry
Indentured Immigrant Workers
Poor Health and Other Social Services

Caribbean Historiography on
Estate Labour 1838 - 1848
General consensus among the writers
William A. Green, William Sewell, Walter Rodney, Swithin
Wilmot, W. K. Marshall, Gisela Eisner
Waged rather than free labour
Task or job work rather than day work
Part time and capricious rather than steady, disciplined, full
time and reliable work
Free rather than coerced labour
Non resident rather than resident labourers
The Share System/ Metayage

Caribbean Historiography on Estate


Labour after Slavery

Waged Labour in the Caribbean


1838 - 1848
Swithin Wilmots Emancipation in Action Workers and Wage Conflict in Jamaica, 1838
1841 provides a specialized treatment of the topic
He and others note
Planters wanted to keep wages low (7pence daily)
Workers bargained and sold labour to the highest bidder (1 shilling 6 pence per day) (See
Walter Rodney A History of the Guyanese Working People and the strikes of 1842 and 1848)
Herman Merivales thesis of high and low density colonies in Lectures on Colonization and
Colonies 1839 1841 posited that wages were high where free land was available and low
where it was not
Planters won the wage battle in the high density colonies, lost temporarily to the free
people in the low density colonies and in the end brought down wages through immigration
The writers note, however, that planters failed to extract free labour from the ex enslaved
in this period
In Antigua, St Kitts and Barbados, estate wages reached 36 cents per day by 1841 and sank
to 25 cents thereafter
In Trinidad, British Guiana and Jamaica wages increased as much as 58% in the first 4 years
of freedom ranging from 40 cents to 65 cents daily but fell to 25 cents after 1842

Task Work on the British Caribbean Estates 1838 1848


Douglas Hall in Free Jamaica, Five of the Leewards and Flights from the
Estates Reconsidered along with others examine in detail this feature of
the post emancipation historiography

Formerly enslaved persons redesigned the nature of


estate employment
Most rejected day work as in the days of slavery
They insisted instead on task work
Planters grudgingly accepted the change
The formerly enslaved succeeded in the first decade
of freedom in refashioning estate employment to
suit their agenda

Task Work after Emancipation

Part time and capricious rather than full


time, steady and reliable estate employment
Green, Rodney, Hall, Wilmot and others underscore another important
way in which post emancipation estate labour differed from the slavery
era
On the whole, the days of full time work on the estates for the formerly
enslaved were over
Some lived on the estates but did not work on it at all
Some were estate residents who worked a couple of days on the estate
and used the rest of the time to work elsewhere or not to work at all
Others only worked during crop time
Others worked only If and when they needed money to supplement
other forms of income
Others turned their back on estate employment altogether

Free rather than Coerced Estate Labour of the


Emancipated in the British Caribbean 1838/48
O. Nigel Bolland in Systems of Domination after Slavery: The Control of Land and
Labour in the British West Indies after 1838 emphasizes attempt to control the
newly freed labouring population
Many planters in the region basically adopted 3 majors to attempt to extract labour
for free
the Vagrancy Act of the Antiguan Legislature of 1834/ 35 imprisonment with hard
labour for those who refuse to work
the Contract Act of the Antiguan Legislature of 1834/35 imprisonment, fine,
forfeiture of wages and hard labour for breaking year long oral contracts
In Antigua, St Kitts and Barbados planters suggested that labourers could give free
labour two or three days weekly to cover the cost of huts, gardens and provision
grounds tenancy system
On the whole these efforts failed either by lack of enforcement and/or the movement
of workers from the estates
The free people refused to continue to work on the estates without reasonable
compensation for their labour

The Exodus from the Estates


Considerable historiographical debate on this aspect of emancipation in
this period exists
William Green, Rawle Farley and Hugh Paget uphold the old classical
debate the mental association between the horrors of slavery and
plantation agriculture acted as a push factor away from the estates ESCAPE
Douglas Hall The free people might have stayed in their old huts, gardens
and provision grounds had it not been for the problematic terms of their
emancipation, hostile and intimidating planter tactics, the peoples desire
to live out the full meaning of freedom and the availability of viable
alternatives to the plantation
Douglas Hall the exodus was neither automatic, spontaneous, complete
nor inevitable
It was not motivated by the free peoples deliberate intention to spite the
plantocracy by withholding labour
It was marked only after 1842 in the low density colonies

Rawle Farley The Exodus was an


attempt to escape from the horrible
memories of slavery

Family Strategies and the Exodus from the


Estates
Bridget Brereton in Family Strategies, Gender and the Shift to Wage
Labour in the British Caribbean
Diana Paton The Flight from the Fields Reconsidered : Gender
Ideologies and Womens Labour After Slavery in Jamaica
Withdrawal of women and children from estate labour one of the
most immediate and dramatic social changes accompanying
emancipation
Relocation of female labour within the household and the family farm.
Reduction of child labour on estates and increase in children working
on parents family farms or grounds
Eager grasp of few educational opportunities including trade
apprenticeships

Expansion of the West Indian Peasantry 1838 1848


Theme shaped by Sidney Mintz in The Origins of Reconstituted Peasantries
Further developed by Woodville Marshall in Notes on Peasant Development in the West Indies Since
1838
Discourse
Post emancipation peasantry grew out of Sunday Market provision ground nexus of the slavery era
Grew up on the margins and beyond the plantations in competition with and opposition and reaction to
the former
Limited to ground provision cultivation for subsistence and sale in the local markets of the region
Shaped by the formerly enslaved often assisted by non conformist missionaries and was the earliest and
most profound indication that the free people were living out the true meaning of their legal freedom
Land acquisition through individual and group purchases, missionary acquisition and sale of land,
squatting, leasing
Laid the foundation of self-help, Benefit and Friendly Societies and other informal, people centred
cooperative initiatives
Faced significant difficulties in the establishment phase - exorbitant taxes, costly licenses, un-surveyed
Crown land, poor road way to transport peasant produce to local markets, unwillingness of planters to
sell small parcels to the free, anti-squatting legislation
Significant increase in number of smallholders of the colonies

Free Villages and the W. I. Peasantry

Rawle Farley in The Rise of Village Settlements in British Guiana


Alan Adamson Sugar Without Slaves The Political Economy of
Guiana 1838 - 1904
A continuation of the revolt against slavery and planter control
Part of the exodus from the estates
The landmark of true economic freedom
Colony assisted
year by the non
Number
of
acreage
Greatly
conformist
missionaries
free holders

Guiana

1842

2943

Barbados

18404 - 1859

From 1,110 to
3,537

2 hectares each

St Vincent

1838 1857

8,209

5,000 hectares

Antigua

1833 - 1858

67 free villages
with 15,644
inhabitants

Alternative Rural and Urban


Occupations of the Freed People
Sidney Mintz gives some attention to this scholarship
Several of the newly freed people entered, continued and / or expanded their
involvement in petty shop keeping as well as hawking and peddling
Some became fishermen
Others worked as craftsmen
Mintz documents the history of women who entered the domestic industry of
the region
By 1844, there were 2,500 individuals in this class in Antigua,
6,000 in British Guyana
12,000 in Barbados
17,500 in Jamaica
In Guiana some men migrated inland to gold and diamond fields to work

The Sugar Industry in the First Decade of


Emancipation
Sewell, Green, Alan Adamson, Eric Williams
Depression/ crisis in the Sugar Industry
Rising cost of sugar production
Sugar was hit by low prices in 1841
The Sugar Duties Equalization Act of 1846 - removed the protection from
high duties that West Indian producers enjoyed for centuries
Competition from Brazil, Cuba, Louisiana and beet sugar in Europe
changed the fortunes of producers
Annual sugar production slumped by 36% between 1839 and 1846
50% of the Jamaican plantations folded
Exodus from the estates
Significant reduction in plantation labour
Exception- Trinidad output quadrupled from 1828 1895

Indentured Immigration after Emancipation


K. O. Laurence, Rhoda Reddock, John La Guerre, Brian Moore
Foreign African, American, European, West Indian and Asian (Chinese and
Indian)
Bonded signed 1, 2, 3 and 5 year contracts
Stationary resident on plantations
Set wages no bargaining
Brought down wages
Reinforced racism in theColony
region, made thePeriod
Caribbean even Number
more pluralized
of Indian
Indentured
and permitted divide and rule governance

Immigrant Workers

British Guiana

1838 -

250,000

Trinidad

1845 -

145,000

Jamaica

1840s

21,500

St Vincent

1840s

1,820

St Lucia

1840s

1,550

Indian Indentured Immigrant Labour to Jamaica

Historiography on Indentured
Immigration to the Caribbean

The Historiography of Social Life in the Caribbean


in the Immediate Post Emancipation Period
Education
Health

Public Education in the Caribbean 1838 - 1848

Education
Carl Campbell has given more scholarly attention to the history of mass or popular
education in the Caribbean than anyone else
See also Shirley Gordon
Observations
The British Government was parsimonious in supporting mass education in the region
More attention was given to quantity than to quality education
Education was to serve more as a social police force than a lever for upward mobility
The free people embraced education as an escape from agricultural or manual labour
By 1846 when funding was the responsibility of the local legislatures, very little was
done to advance public education since the planter class viewed education as a threat
to the plantation
Used as an agent of the political process

Campbell and Gordon on Public


Education in the Caribbean after
slavery

Health in the post emancipation


Caribbean
Rita Pemberton, Philip Curtin, Barry Higman, Sewell and George Brizan
Commoditization of health - A commodity to be traded in exchange for labour services
Planters expected that disease would drive workers back to the estates
Manifestation of power relations in this period
Health services deteriorated after emancipation as several doctors migrated to Cuba in
this period
Medical services became scarce and expensive
General lack of concern for the physical well being of the formerly enslaved
Ex enslaved died of lack of sanitation and medical care
Philip Curtain reveals in his study on Jamaica in this period that hookworm and
malnutrition ravished workers while the white establishment spent more and more on
immigration
Sewell and George Brizan take note of squalor in St Vincent and Grenada
Mortality rate in Trinidad in the 1840s averaged around 40% (Hector Gavin)
Yaws, fevers and fluxes increased throughout the region after 1838

Absence of Social Services


Cholera the misery which came with freedom
K. O. Laurence, Rita Pemberton (articles)
Lack of social service and welfare programmes
No orphanages, health boards, district health services,
pipe-borne water and street cleaning services in urban
areas
It was only with the outbreak of the cholera epidemic in
1850 that the local legislatures paid serious attention to
addressing the need for public health and sanitation
services

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