Oil

Caribbean Revision
History for CXC

Peter Ashdown
Head of History,
Slindon College, Sussex

Francis Humphreys
Head of History,
Stann Creek Ecumenical High School, Dangriga, Belize

MACMILLAN
CARIBBEAN
 Contents

Acknowledgements iv

PART 1 Notes on Caribbean History 1

I The Amerindians and the Europeans 2

2 European Settlement and Rivalry 7
3 Sugar and Slavery 14
4 Resistance and Revolt 26
5 The Haitian Revolution and its Effects 31
6 Movements Towards Emancipation 36
7 Adjustments to the Problems of Emancipation, 1838-76 42
8 The United States in the Caribbean 48
9 Social Conditions in the Twentieth Century 52
10 Trade Unions in the British Caribbean 58
11 Regional Cooperation 63
12 Economic Diversification 70
13 Religion as a Social Force 78
14 Social Life, 1838-1938 85
15 Movements towards Independence up to 1962 89
16 Art-forms in the Caribbean 95

PART 2 Question Analysis and Sample Questions 101

Introduction: Preparation for the Examination 102

1 Objective (Multiple Choice) Questions 104
2 Objective Questions Involving the Use of Stimulus Material 114
3 Essay Questions 150
PART 1 Notes on Caribbean History
 1 The Amerindians and the
Europeans

I Migratory patterns of pre-Columbian Amerindians and the

locations of the main groups
The ancestors of the pre-Columbian Amerindians may have come out of
North-Eastern Asia across the frozen Bering Strait to Alaska during
the fourth Ice Age, some fifteen to twenty thousand years ago. The
nomads wandered southward through North, Central and South America,
evolving distinct physical and cultural characteristics.
The Orinoco Basin and the Guianas in South America were the original
homeland of the Arawaks and Caribs who migrated northward through
the Lesser Antilles to the Greater Antilles from about 300 uc. By 1492
the main Arawak groups which inhabited the West Indies were: Lucayans
in the Bahamas; Tainans in Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti and Puerto Rico. The
lgnerian Arawaks of Barbados and Trinidad had abandoned these islands
before the Europeans arrived. Except for Barbados, the Caribs inhabited
the Lesser Antilles. The greatest Amerindian civilisations flourished on
the mainland of Mesoamerica and South America: the Aztecs in the
Valley of Mexico; the Maya whose Classic period' of development took
place in the highlands of Guatemala, Honduras and Belize, followed by
the Toltec and Itza invasions of the Northern Yucatan Peninsula during
the Post-classic' or New Empire' period; the Inca civilisation in the
Andes mountains.

II The Arawaks and Caribs: Neolithic island cultures

(a) Social organisation These two cultures remained so primitive that they are not normally
regarded as `civilisations'. Both societies did not develop beyond the
family-village settlement stage. Farming activities were carried out almost
entirely by the women; fishing and hunting were done by the men. Carib
society was militaristic while Arawak society was hierarchical and pacific.

(b) Government Each independent Arawak community was ruled by a cacique', a heredi-
tary ruler who also acted as the high priest and judge.
Each Carib family was independent; justice was carried out on a personal
level. A lesser civil leader supervised the farming and fishing activities,
but his authority was subordinate to that of the war leader, the `ouboutu'.

(c) Religion A mixture of zemism — the worship of zemis or idols believed to control
the forces of nature -- and spiritualism, formed the basis of Arawak religion.
The cacique, acting as high priest, presided over all religious ceremonies,
had the most powerful zemis and spoke to them on special occasions. The

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 Arawaks believed in a heaven to which souls went after death.
Carib religion was essentially spiritualistic. Special boys were trained as
priests and they had the most powerful 'maboya' or good and evil spirit,
while each person had their own 'maboya'.

(d) Customs Both peoples flattened the foreheads of their babies. They enjoyed singing;
dancing, music and tobacco-smoking. The Arawaks also played a ball-
game called `baton'. Seafood, vegetables and pepper were their main food
items, and the Arawaks also ate the agouti, iguana and a now-extinct
barkless dog. They lived in rectangular and round houses made of poles,
adobe and thatch. Gold was used only for ornamentation.
Most Carib boys were trained as warriors and a severe initiation
ceremony ushered them into manhood. Before they attacked the Arawaks,
the warriors worked themselves into a rage, used their war canoes to
carry out the attack, always carried away their dead and any captured
Arawak men who were starved for five days, then ceremonially killed and
eaten. Captured women became the concubines of the Carib warriors.

(e) Technology The Arawaks and Caribs were skilled at constructing and using dugout
canoes for fishing and transportation purposes. Their fishing methods
were effective. Their stone tools, spears, bows and arrows and clubs were
fairly well made, but pottery items were crude and soft. The women wove
excellent straw baskets, cotton cloth and hammocks. Simple farming
methods produced a variety of crops, including cassava, corn, cotton and
tobacco, and the Arawaks may have practised irrigation.

III The Maya

Though the causes of the collapse of Maya civilisation remain obscure,

their achievements far surpass those of the primitive island cultures.

(a) Government Hierarchical and theocratic with lesser nobles functioning as executives of
the `Halach Uinic', an absolute hereditary ruler of a city-state who held
civil, military and religious offices. In his religious capacity the Halach
Uinic co-operated closely with the priests who acted as god-contacts for
the people and they in turn followed the dictates of their divine rulers.
The functional officials — 'Batabs' — were chiefs of towns allied to the
city-state and tax collectors. In addition there were 'nacoms' — war chiefs
elected for a three-year term.

(b) Religion Polytheistic; priests — 'Ah Kin' — presided over the complex rituals, taught
the ruling class how to calculate the various times for sacred festivals and
how to conduct them; trained new priests.
All aspects of Maya existence were influenced by religious beliefs such
as immortality, the existence of heavens and hells and the need for
human sacrifices to appease the deities. Death was greatly feared; the
dying confessed to the priests and were buried with all the things needed
for 'the other life'; nobles and priests were often buried in stone tombs.

(c) Trade Land and seaborne trade between city-states in highland and lowland
regions was carried out by the 'ppolms' and the 'chontals' respectively.

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 Various foods, textiles, minerals, implements and marine items were
bartered, but cocoa beans were also used as currency.

(d) Social organisation Society was rigidly divided into the ruling classes or nobles and the
working classes, mainly farmers, artisans and slaves, and an independent
merchant class. Tax took the form of work service provided by the
working classes; they farmed the land communally, constructed the cer-
emonial centres and supported the ruling classes.

(e) Customs They beautified' themselves by tattooing their faces and bodies, piercing
the earlobes for pendants and painting the body. Flattening a baby's
forehead and inducing cross-eyes produced a noble air', and he was given
four names.
The basic male garment was the breechclout; women wore the kub'.
Family units, normally from early and monogamous marriages, resided in
simple thatched adobe houses and were mainly occupied with the corn-
field, maize being the principal food. Weaving was done by the women.
Religious festivals and a sacred ball game provided recreation.

(f) Technology Mayan architecture — pyramids, corbel-vaulted temples and ball courts -
is the most impressive example of their technical skill. They built roads
and reservoirs, developed a system of hieroglyphic (picture) writing,
created codexes (hieroglyphic manuscripts) and developed a mathematics
which was combined with astronomical observations to formulate complex
calendrics. Their glazed pottery was beautifully designed and served
numerous functions.
They did not master the principle of the wheel nor the true arch.

IV Interaction of the Amerindians

The various Mayan city-states traded extensively with each other, but
this was carried out mainly by the merchants. Trading voyages extended
as far north as the Huasteca of Tampico and as far south as Panama.
The city-states also waged continuous warfare among themselves in
order to get slaves for sacrifices to the gods. In the eleventh century the
Mexican Toltecs invaded and conquered the Yucatecan Maya and estab-
lished Toltec Chichen-Itza. They introduced new dimensions to Mayan
architecture and warfare.
By their enslavement of Arawak women the Caribs absorbed some of
the Arawak language.

V Europe in the late fifteenth century

(a) Influence of The spiritual powers of the Roman Catholic Church permeated every
Catholicism aspect of life and made the Church the dominant institution in Western
Europe. It fostered the desire to spread Christianity in foreign lands. The
Pope became the arbitrator of political disputes, particularly those involving
the discovery of new lands. Yet new political and religious ideas began to
undermine the predominance of Christendom.

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(b) Political The archaic feudal system had practically disappeared with the establish-
ment of new city-states and nation-states, namely England, France, Spain,
Portugal and the Italian city-states. Though they retained monarchical
systems of government as in the feudal period, nationalism replaced the
old ideals of an overruling Christian Empire.
England: Henry vu founded the Tudor dynasty; a thriving merchant class
worked with the monarchy to re-establish law, order and prosperity.
Spain: the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille
completed the unification of Spain and founded Europe's most absolute
and Catholic monarchy.
France: united by Louis xi and Charles vine. A system of heavy taxes
formed the economic base of political power.
Portugal: under the rule of Prince Henry the Navigator and others Portugal
took the lead in nautical exploration for new trade routes.
Venice: by virtue of being directly on the trade route from the East to
northern Europe, it became Italy's chief commercial city-state. The pros-
perous Venetians enjoyed stable government under a Doge elected by an
assembly of businessmen.
To consolidate the economic basis of their power and to rival each
other's progress, monarchies of the nation-states sought new sources of
wealth through overseas trade and colonisation.

(c) Social Because of the Renaissance and the decay of feudalism, the serfs, society's
lowliest and largest class of manual labourers, were unshackled from the
semi-slavery of serfdom; personal enquiry and personal enterprise became
the hallmarks of society. A new middle class of merchants and tradesmen
came into existence, and above them was the nobility, forming the ruling class.

(d) Trade A lucrative commerce had developed between Europe and the Far East
with Venice. Genoa and Florence as the most important trading cities.
European articles such as wine, salted fish, furs, woollen goods and linen
cloth were exchanged for silk, muslin, velvets, cotton, dyestuffs, spices,
jewels, ivory and gold in the Orient. These luxurious and exotic items
were then- transported overland to Europe where they were in great
demand by the wealthy and affluent. But further expansion of the Euro-
Oriental trade was hindered by: the dangers and difficulties of the overland
route; Venetian and Genoese monopoly of the spice trade; the limited
amount of produce transported by pack-animals; the capture of
Constantinople by the Turks closing one of the best trade routes. The
easiest way to overcome all these difficulties and satisfy demands for
Oriental products was to find a new route to the East.

(e) Technology Scientific advancement during the Renaissance resulted in a wide range of
inventions and improvements in ship design which aided maritime explo-
ration: invention of the compass, astrolabe, quadrant, hour-glass, sundial
and windlass; the design of oceangoing carracks and caravels; the devel-
opment of printing which spread new information to all levels of society.
Learned men believed that the world was a sphere, not a rectangle, and it
was therefore possible to reach the East by sailing west across the Atlantic.
One such learned person was Don Cristobal Colon of Genoa.

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 VI Gold, Gospel and glory: Columbus
(a) Motives His basic idea was to reach the `Indies', or Asia, by sailing westward.
across the Atlantic. He expected to get the riches of the East by trade or
conquest. He reached America purely by accident.
After tailing to gain support for his Empresa de lax Indias from Portugal,
Columbus convinced the Spanish Crown to provide three ships for the
enterprise. Their majesties' motives for supporting Columbus were: to get
the riches of the Orient before their rivals, the Portuguese; to spread the
Catholic religion; personal and national glorification.

(b) Achievements His voyages proved that he was a courageous seaman with a good knowl-
edge of navigation, winds and currents. He pioneered the trade-winds
route to and from the Caribbean. On his four voyages to the Caribbean
he discovered and named most of the Caribbean islands and part of the
coast of Central America. He established permanent contact between
Europe and the Caribbean.
However, Columbus was unsuccessful as a coloniser and administrator.
Both of the settlements he attempted to establish were failures, and his
rulership of the Caribbean was revoked. Very little wealth was extracted
from the islands as they had little gold. The genocide of the Arawaks
started with his enslavement of these people. The Spaniards had been
promised the wealth of Asia, but they were convinced that Asia had still
not been reached.

VII The interaction of Amerindian and European culture

The Spaniards became the first European masters of the New World by
overpowering the Amerindians. The Indians became the conquered race
and as such were subjected to the oppression of Spanish rule and the
destruction of their cultures.

(a) Arawaks Spanish duplicity and greed resulted in the enslavement of these kindly
people under the encomienda system. Disease, guns and steel swords,
and suicide completed their extermination. The only elements of their
culture which have survived the holocaust are the hammock and tobacco.

(b) Caribs They fiercely resisted subjugation and enslavement by the Spaniards who
eventually left them alone to later battle the invading English and French.

(c) The mainland The Aztecs fell before Cortez; their cultural centre of Tenochtitlan was
civilisations destroyed and the survivors became victims of the encomienda.
The Maya most strongly resisted Spanish oppression, and though much
of their ancient culture was disrupted, they survive in large numbers to-
day. A few Catholic priests, notably Las Casas, did attempt to protect the
Indians and convert them to Christianity by persuasion rather than by
coercion, but their attempts failed. Many of them wrote about Indian
culture and much of this literature has survived.

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2 European Settlement and
Rivalry

I Why did the Europeans come to the Americas?

(a) Spain's support of Columbus' first voyage sprang from a desire for a
westward sea route to the Far East and the riches thereof. Instead.
Columbus' Atlantic voyages revealed new continents whose agricul-
tural potential and mineral wealth drew a flood of Spanish adventurers,
colonisers and exploiters.
(b) Wealth from Spain's American empire financed wars against the
Protestant states of Holland and England, provoking their jealousy
and hatred. Along with France, these states rejected the papal donation
of the Americas to Spain. They estimated that the New World was a
valuable producer of tropical agricultural raw materials, a market for
their manufactured goods, a naval training-ground, a dumping-ground
for the unemployed and destitute, and a source of mineral wealth,
ample reasons to seek their share of Adam's Will'.
(c) The Portuguese entered Caribbean waters to trade illegally with the
Spanish colonists who needed manufactured goods and African slaves.

II Winds and currents

On their westward voyage, sailing ships plied the North-east Trade Wind
route, boosted by the Equatorial Current, since they required favourable
winds to reach their destinations in reasonable time. On their return to
Europe, the Gulf Stream swept them through the Florida Channel, up the
Atlantic coast of North America into the fair south-westerly winds and
North Atlantic Drift.

III The location of land masses

The Caribbean archipelago stretches from the Florida Channel in the
north, to the Orinoco Basin in Venezuela to the south. It is divided into
the Western and Eastern Caribbean, consisting of the Greater and Lesser
Antilles respectively.
From Hispaniola, the Spaniards occupied the other islands of the Greater
Antilles and the mainland. Apart from Trinidad, they ignored the Useless
Islands' of the Lesser Antilles.
Because of the direction of the North-east Trade Winds, ships from
Europe and Africa entered the Caribbean through the numerous passages
between the islands of the Lesser Antilles, proceeding to the mainland of
South and Central America, and to the Greater Antilles. The remote,

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 strategic location of the Lesser Antilles, and their relative immunity from
Spanish attacks made them ideal for non-Iherian colonisation.

IV The Spanish American Empire

(a) Conquest Hispaniola: from 1.502 to 1508 Ovando imposed Royal authority, im-
proved the economy, and gained legalisation of Indian slavery or the
encomienda. Cattle ranching was the chief industry with some sugar,
tobacco and gold production.
Puerto Rico: conquest was executed by Ponce de Leon in 1508, and it
was colonised thereafter.
Cuba: the extermination of the Arawaks was the work of Diego Velasquez
after 1511. Until the development of the island as a sugar producer
(c. 1750) like Hispaniola and Jamaica it served as a producer of beef and
provisions, these products being picked up by the Spanish fleets on their
return to Seville.
Jamaica: conquered by Juan de Esquivel, it attracted only a few cattle
ranchers and farmers and was the least significant of the Greater Antilles
colonies. Spanish Town became the capital in 1534.
Trinidad: occupied in 1532 to serve only as base for exploration of South
America.
Mexico: in Central and South America, the conquistadores subdued
the mainland Amerindians by sword and slavery. Out of the chaos
and destruction orderly settlement progressed. Mineral wealth made
the mainland empire the focus of Spanish colonisation. The island
colonies were fatally neglected.

(b) Government Various councils and individual officials imposed Royal authority
throughout the empire. Colonial affairs were administered by the Council
of the Indies which appointed all officials such as viceroys, governors and
captains-general. For administrative purposes the empire was divided into
four viceroyalties, audiencias and provinces.

(c) Economy The House of Trade, the Casa de Contratacion (housed in Seville 1503-
1707; Cadiz thereafter), controlled all economic activity. The mercantilist
(protectionist) economic theory of the day (compare with free trade or
laissez faire) preached that it was essential to protect one's own trade and
empire by ensuring that others did not trade in that empire and that its
exotic commodities were carried only in the ships ('bottoms') of one's
own merchant navy.
The production of silver, gold, precious stones, hides, dyestuffs, tobacco
and sugar gave Spain a vast supply of wealth that was protected by a
convoy system, guarda-costas, and the fortification of key port cities. The
early economic development of the empire rested on the encomienda, but
the Indian labour force was soon exhausted and replaced by African
slaves. The Asiento (a document of permission issued by the House of
Trade) legalised the sale in the Spanish Empire of a specific number
of slaves annually by the slave-trading country which had obtained it.
(Portugal 1517— 1640; non-existent 1640-63; Portugal 1663-1702; France
1702-13; Britain 1713-50).

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 V Attacks on the Spanish American Empire: the sixteenth
century

(a) Smuggling or illegal Spain's rigid commercial laws created shortages of manufactured goods in
trade the empire, and Spanish colonists took the risks of satisfying their needs
from illicit traders. Until 1580 the Portuguese were the main smugglers,
particularly of slaves.
The English privateer John Hawkins carried out three triangular slave-
trading voyages between England. Africa and the Caribbean from 1562
to 1568. His first and second were very profitable, but the Spaniards
wrecked his third expedition and the Elizabethan seamen sailed for plunder
thereafter.

(b) Armed assault Pirates — professional sea-robbers — fought only for themselves — while
privateers carried `letters of reprisal' or 'letters of marque' granted by
their home governments.
1523: the French privateer Jean Fleury seized two Mexican galleons
laden with Cortez's treasure.
1536: French pirates captured nine galleons carrying the spoils of the
conquest of Peru.
1553: a fleet of ten warships commanded by the French privateer Francois
Le Clerc raided ports on the mainland and Hispaniola.
1555: Jacques Sores twice pillaged Havana.
1559: Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis; France and Spain made peace in
Europe, but excluded the Caribbean by a formula of 'no peace
beyond the -line'.
1572: Francis Drake robbed a fortune in silver from a mule train on the
Isthmus of Panama.
The Dutch began their long fight for independence from Spain.
Dutch privateers or `Sea Beggars' attacked Spanish shipping in
European and Caribbean waters, but it was not until 1628 when
Piet Hein captured a Spanish treasure fleet that they achieved
spectacular success.
1577-80: Drake circumnavigated the world and captured a galleon
laden with bullion off Peru.
1585-86: Drake's `Indies Voyage'; a part of Santo Domingo and Cartagena
were sacked.
1595: death of Drake and Hawkins during their last expedition to the
Caribbean.
Sir Walter Raleigh raided Spanish settlements in Trinidad, then
journeyed up the Orinoco River in a futile search for the legendary
El Dorado.
1598: Treaty of Vervins; France and Spain made peace.
1600-05: the Dutch stole salt from Araya near Cumana on the Spanish
Main-
1604: Treaty of London; England made peace with Spain.
1609: Truce of Antwerp suspended the war between the Netherlands and
Spain, and laid down the `principle of effective occupation'; the
Netherlands would accept Spanish rule only in areas that- were
`effectively occupied' by the Spaniards. Thus a limit was imposed
on the extent of the Spanish American Empire.

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 However, sixteenth-century attempts to break the Spanish monopoly of
the New World were ineffective; they merely paved the way for more
aggression in the seventeenth century.

VI Non -Iberian colonisation: the 1600s

(i) English settlements (a) Guiana The first English attempts at colonisation on the remote,
inhospitable `Wild Coast', made by Charles Leigh (1604), Robert
Harcourt (16)9), and Roger North (1620) were all ill-fated, but they
stimulated interest in the likewise remote and neglected Lesser Antilles.
(b) St Christopher/St Kitts Thomas Warner left Roger North's decaying
Guiana settlement and landed on the Leeward Carib island of Liamuiga
named St Christopher by Columbus. Warner claimed it for England
in 1622. The initial hospitality of chief Tegreman, financial support
from merchant Merrifield and soil fertility gave it an encouraging
start. But animosity developed between settlers and Caribs, who
were eliminated by the English settlers and visiting French interlopers.
Land distribution was formalised in the 1627 Partition Treaty; griev-
ances over this soured Anglo-French relationships, and English ex-
pansion into French territory, coupled with flagging French interest in
the island, convinced the French to leave in 1713. A French attack
against the English settlers in 1628, and Spanish invasion in 1629
further hindered its development into a sugar island. Saint Kitts
served as a base for English expansion in the Lesser Antilles; Nevis
was settled from it in 1628; , Antigua and Montserrat in 1632.
(c) Barbados In 1624 the Powell brothers took possession of this unin-
habited island and English settlers arrived from 1627 onwards. They
cultivated tobacco, cotton and food crops. Claims to the island by
supporters of Carlisle and Courteen Patents produced friction and
discord among the settlers until the dispute was settled in favour of
the Carlisle Patent. Assistance from the Dutch assured its survival
and by the 1640s the first sugar mills were being built.
(d) Jamaica The capture of Jamaica in 1.655 was the only success of
Cromwell's `Western' or Grand Design' which (somewhat ambitiously)
aimed at driving out Spain from its Caribbean Empire. Its first goal,
the capture of Hispaniola by an expedition led by Penn and Venables,
was a fiasco and to save face the commanders resorted to the easier
task of taking Jamaica. Its Spanish governor, Christobal de Ysasi led
a strong Spanish counter-attack in 1658 and was repulsed. Port Royal
became the chief settlement and a buccaneer base, while Spanish
Town remained the capital. A succession of competent governors
directed its slow growth into the major English sugar island.
(e) The Honduras Settlement (Belize) During the mid-1600s former buc-
caneers turned from piracy to logwood-cutting at several settlements
along the Yucatan and Mosquito Coasts, one of which was located at
the Haulover Creek, a false mouth of the Belize River. The Spaniards
destroyed all the Yucatan settlements, except Honduras, where the
`Baymen' clung stubbornly. At the beginning of the eighteenth century
Honduras was unquestionably England's chief supplier of logwood
and a permanent settlement.

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(ii) French settlements D'Esnambuc had gained the two ends of St Kitts for France; from here
the French expanded into Guadeloupe and Martinique; St Croix, St
Bartholomew and St Martin (this became a Franco-Dutch venture with
French consent in 1648); and St Lucia and Grenada.
Tortuga, a small island off the north-west coast of Hispaniola, was
taken by French buccaneers in 1655. Encouraged by Governor D'Ogeron,
settlers from Tortuga and France moved into Hispaniola. The Spaniards
could not remove the trespassers, and St Domingue developed into the
`Pearl of the Antilles'.
1674 marked the beginning of French Guiana when a settlement was
established at Cayenne on the Wild Coast.

(iii) Dutch activity and
settlement
The Protestant Dutch, seeking to free themselves from Catholic Spanish
rule in Europe, sent pirates and colonists to harass their overlords in their
Spanish American Empire. After 1580 Dutch privateers raided Spanish
colonies, attacked Spanish convoys, dug Spanish salt at Punta Araya,
stole Spanish pearls at Margarita and traded illegally throughout the
Empire. To facilitate this commerce the Dutch West India Company was
set up in 1621 and its members benefited greatly in 1628 when Piet Hein
captured almost the whole Spanish treasure fleet off Havana. Moreover
the Dutch established settlements in Guiana and along the coast of the
Portuguese colony of Brazil (Portugal was united with Spain from 1580 to
1640) where they experimented with large-scale sugar production using
African slaves. Indeed it was the Dutch who became the 'foster fathers'
of English and French colonisation in the Caribbean as they transported
the early tobacco crops, assisted with the capital, expertise and technology
necessary for the `sugar revolution' in the 1640s and initially provided the
slave labour demanded by the new crop. When the Dutch were driven
out of Brazil by the Portuguese in the 1640s they settled not only in the
Dutch Guiana colony of Kyk-over-al but also in the French Antilles,
while the small Antillean colonies they had acquired in the period 1632-48
(St Martin, St Eustatius, Saba, Bonaire and Curacao) continued to serve
as trade depots for commerce with the Spanish Main (the north coast of
South America from Cartagena to Brazil) and with the infant British and
French colonies.

(iv) The needs of the
early settlers
(a) Food When the colonists left Europe they had to abandon their
European diet as most foodstuffs could not be imported from Europe;
it was vitally important to produce as many food crops as possible.
(b) Export crops The colonists had to find an export crop that would
earn the fortunes they desired. By a process of elimination tobacco
was selected at first, but by the 1650s this was replaced by sugar.
(c) Manufactured goods Weapons, tools, clothing and utensils had to be
imported from Europe and were always scarce.
(d) A supply of labour: needed to exploit the resources of the Indies.
The English and French used far more indentured servants than
Indian slaves, but with the change to sugar production these proved
inadequate. African slaves became the dominant labour force.

(v) The difficulties of the (a) Spanish attacks In 1629 Don Fadrique de Toledo invaded Nevis and
early settlers St Kitts but the Spaniards could not press this offensive.

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 (b) Carib attacks The Caribs were being pushed out of their homeland;
they fiercely resisted the Europeans.
(c) Lack of supplies and food Supply ships came to the Caribbean very
irregularly and the settlers planted too little food crops.
(d) Lack of discipline The settlers constantly bickered among themselves,
and there was always friction between French and English settlements.
(e) Natural disasters Hurricanes, insect pests, tropical diseases and drought
increased the settlers' hardships.

(vi) The institutions of

exploitation
(a) Political The English From 1627 to 1660 the Proprictory Government gave the King
an annual income and freed him from the financial risks and administrative
demands of colonisation. The Lord Proprietor exploited the islands with
the assistance of the island governors.
As colonisation became less risky and more profitable, metropolitan
control was intensified when the proprietory system was phased out and
the Old Representative system introduced. The Council of Trade appointed
governors whose power was rivalled by the elected Assemblies of the
plantocracy.
The French Bankruptcy of Richelieu's ruling Company of the Isles of
America in 1648 resulted in the sale of the islands to their individual
governors who retained their independence until 1664, when Colbert
entrusted administration of the islands to the Company of the West
Indies. This company collapsed in 1674 and the islands came under direct
royal control. The King's Council of State appointed a Governor-General
to supervise the work of each island's Intendant, Military Governor and
`Conseil Souverain'.

(b) Economic: the This monopoly of French and English colonial trade aimed at excluding
Mercantile System all foreigners, especially the enterprising Dutch, from sharing the benefits
of trade. The system was created by the English Navigation Acts of 1650,
1651, 1660 and 1663; and by the French commercial regulations laid down
by Colbert.

(c) Labour Indentured servitude, the slave trade and African slavery originated from
the need for a labour force to exploit the colonies.

(d) The Dutch West Founded by William Usselinx in 1621, it was an aggressive trading company
India Company whose captains were instructed to plunder, conquer and colonise anything
Spanish.

VII Dutch supremacy and decline

The Dutch differed from the Spanish, English and French in that they
were mainly concerned with seaborne trade, by which they dominated the
Caribbean briefly in the seventeenth century. They effectively smashed
Spanish power by:
(a) piracy and privateering;
(b) defeat of the Spaniards at the naval battle of Itamaraca, 1640;

12
 (c) treaty rejection of Spanish claims to a monopoly of the Empire;
(d) diverting Spanish attention from the English and French colonisation
of the Lesser Antilles;
(e) acting as `foster fathers' of the English and French colonies by supplying
them with manufactured goods, slaves, credit, knowledge of sugar
production and transportation for exports.
However, the English and French `exclusive' mercantilist policies, and
resentment of Dutch prosperity caused the passing of several Laws of
Trade and Navigation that expelled the Dutch from the colonies, and
provoked the three Dutch Wars which forced the Dutch to accept that
they could no longer trade with the colonies. They left the Caribbean to
intensify exploitation of their East Indian Empire.

VIII The buccaneers: pirates of the seventeenth century

Spain refused to recognise the English and French colonies and this drove
England and France to use the buccaneers to gain de jure recognition of
the colonies. The savage attacks of Morgan, De Grammont, L'011onais
and others pulled Spain to the conference table.
1670: Treaty of Madrid; Spain officially acknowledged the presence of
the English in the Caribbean. England's efforts to suppress bucca-
neering and the destruction of Port Royal by earthquake crushed
piracy.
1697: Treaty of Ryswyck; Spain recognised all French possessions in the
Caribbean, thus ending the age of the buccaneers.

IX The effects of European rivalry

(a) Illicit trade, armed assault and colonisation combined to cripple Spain's
monopoly of the Americas.
(b) The scramble for colonies fragmented the Caribbean into subject
projections of European states, diminished the aboriginal population
to almost nil and introduced negro slavery.
(c) Expulsion of the Dutch paved the way for the intense Anglo-French
conflict of the eighteenth century.

13
 3 Sugar and Slavery

I The enslavement of the Amerindians

(a) Columbus, Bobadilla All three introduced enslaving measures. 1494: Columbus sent 500 Caribs
and Ovando and 500 Arawaks to Spain as slaves. 1500: Bobadilla encouraged settler
attacks on the Arawaks. 1502-08: Ovando saw Amerindians as a pool of
free labour, and encouraged encomienda.

(b) Amerindian
resistance
Hispaniola Despite their pacific nature, the Arawaks resisted immediately. The
Spanish abused Indian hospitality. Cacique Guacanagari remained loyal
to Columbus and aided in unsuccessful defence of La Navidad in 1493
when attacked by Caonaba.
1493: League of Hispaniolan caciques (Guarionex, Caonaba, Behechio
and Cotabanama) against Spanish.
1494: Caonaba attacked settlement at St Thomas — captured by Ojeda.
1498: Rising of Guarionex — cacique captured and freed by Bartholomew
Colombus.
1500-02: Bobadilla allowed settler outrages against Amerindians.
1503: Anacaona (wife and successor to Caonaba and sister to Behechio)
captured by Ovando with 40 minor chiefs. Massacre of chiefs and
hanging of Anacaona. Esquivel captured and hanged Cotubanama.

Puerto Rico Unsuccessful resistance of Arawaks and Caribs to Ponce de Leon.

Jamaica Unsuccessful resistance of Arawaks to Juan do Esquivel.

Cuba Arawak resistance to Diego Vela'squez was led by Hautey who was burned
alive and had no desire to go to a Christian heaven if Spaniards resided
there. Massacre of Arawaks at Caonas.

(c) 'Repartimiento' and These were introduced systematically by Ovanda. Repartimientos were
`encomienda' grants of land to Spanish settlers. Encomienda were grants of Indians to
Spanish settlers; given in trust for `protection, conversion and instruction'.
This really meant de facto enslavement of Indians. `Repartimiento' and
`encomienda' quickly came to mean the same thing.
Spanish clergy worried by treatment of Indians.
1511: Protest of Montesinos.
1512: Laws of Burgos. Greater protection of Indians. Laws evaded or
ignored.
1515: Protest of Bartolome de Las Casas who had witnessed massacre at
Caonas in 1511. Las Casas named `Protector of the Indians'.

14
 1521: Las Casas mainland experiments started.
1522: Las Casas became Dominican monk.
1544: Las Casas made Bishop of Chiapas. Attempts to protect Indians
unpopular with Spanish settlers, and New Laws (1542, prohibiting
further Indian enslavement) were suppressed in 1543. In a monas-
tery, Las Casas spent years writing Twenty Reasons (against Indian
enslavement), Brief Relation of the Destruction of the Indians and
History of the Indies.

(d) Extermination 50000 Arawaks in Hispaniola in 1492 reduced to 20000 by 1512 and
14000 by 1514. Virtually exterminated by 1550. Similar systematic exter-
mination in Cuba, the Bahamas and Puerto Rico.

Reasons for (i) Spanish murder and brutality: Indians were sometimes hunted for
extermination 'sport'.
(ii) Overwork: the Indians were unused to forced labour. Starvation,
punishment and despondency.
(iii) European diseases — measles, colds and smallpox.
(iv) Suicide.

II West African societies

(a) Political organisation

Savanna empires Ninth to sixteenth centuries — Ghana, Mali and Songhai.

_ SAVANNA STATES
GHANA
--MALI
^^. -^ --- SONGHAI
SONGHAI (1450-1600) — BORNO
—
j KANEM
MALI (1250--1400)
GHANA (400-1200) Nige,R / I
t
j KANEM^,
X11400-1700)%

ASANTE' OVO B e^j^^~Y^

HOMEY
L ^/' •. BENIN
FOREST STATES
--------- BENIN
d
FOREST STATES (1500-18001 --- OYO
0 500 1000 4 DAHOMEY
km --- ASANTE

West Africa: savanna states and forest states

15
 Ghana: Soninke/Mandingo pagan empire established circa 850.
Mali: the Mali emperor Sundiata conquered Ghana in 1240. Mali, an
Islamic empire which produced Mansa Musa (1307-32). Builder of
Timbuctu and made famous pilgrimage to Mecca.
Songhai: Sonni Ali, the King of Gao, conquered Timbuctu in 1464.
Between 1501 and 1513 Askia the Great expanded the empire from
Senegal to Benin. 1591: Moroccans destroyed Songhai.

Forest empires Oyo (1450-1750): Yoruba kingdom. Administrative/commerical capital

was Oyo, seat of Alafin (kings). they committed ritual suicide if they lost
popular support. Cultural capital was Ife, famous for pottery and brasswork
produced by the `lost wax' process.
Benin (1500-1750): Bini/Edo state founded by Oranmiyan, son of
Oduduwa of Ife. Independent of Oyo c.1500. Grew wealthy from slave
trade, trade with Europeans and firearms. The capital was the city of
Benin, the seat of the ruler, the Oba. Benin declined after 1700: internal
wars, decline in farming and industrial skills owing to concentration on
slave trade.
Dahomey (1700-1850): Fon state. Capital at Abomey. Subject to Oyo
until c.1700 when King Agaja (1708-32) captured slave stations at Adra,
Whydah and Jakin. State based on slave trade.
Asante (1700-1874): Akan/Turi state; the capital was Kumasi. There was
a union of states around Denkyira. The ruler known as the Asantehene,
was semi-divine; he sat on the Golden Stool originally sent from above
by the first ruler, Osei Tutu. Asante made treaties with the Dutch at
Elmina and the English at Cape Coast; made Asante the chief forest
slave-trading state c.1730.

r!mn,,.w • Slaving torts

• West African towns

C. Verde SENEGAMBIA
Gore,, Is. m L Chad Go LU COAST coastal region
F,n,.m.. ca"a•a aY
^ "Ai" Ka„o ASANTE West African peoples
e^ w^ N^ n
d,. too
Qp

a, geW
Windwar0 SLAVE ye^q
Cri Sher I `"^4^N A a °"' a^ GnVp ^P C045i a e11 „ O^R,.rrs
^Q G SnNTF ST ^e ^p, •o /y^ C-11
QST
\VBNV B i,^A.... wo
'N ° q" OW CAA
Flmin. G.PeC..ne
COmt 9^^M11ry`Of
0.o V
El
Beam F"n^a^nd°0
Leeward Coast Bight Of CT
O Biafra u^;i,,:'0A
Gulf of Guinea
Equator Sao Tome Equator

CABOON

South Atlantic Ocean @@@^ eic ONOO ^S

Ciiii
CONGO

6. Paola d.lu.nJ. N C
O

0 500 1000
kin e,,„zia

Western equatorial Africa

16
 A S A N T E

o-
^a p^`J Slave --+
A D A N S E P(.`N Coast
A K Y E M AC^aA
o^ * Fort st....n,^t..««,
N ^4r Icmauansoup^

D E N K Y ?RA letA craI

FANTE For, L.yaw.mMra br Apam)

Coast
^n sr..mna^r ^°^w a">a , °^ ASANTE -West A(rlcan peoples
m^n.^,^t eW<,r `snr
o . rnAMk
^ ' % p; ^ or Slaving fo rt s
Cate 3 Points
Sauuth Atlantic Ocean • English
• Dutch
600 o Brandenburg
0 200 400 800
km o Po rt uguese

The Gold Coast

(b) Economic 800-1450: Trans-Saharan trade. Savannah states traded across Sahara
org an isation with camel caravans. Savanna pastoralists raided/traded with forest agri-
culturalists; obtained gold dust, kola and palm nuts, ivo ry and salt. Mediums
of exchange: gold, metal bars, salt and cow ri e shells. No rt h Africa provided
cattle, horses, trinkets and cloth.
1450-1874: Atlantic trade. Arrival of Portuguese and other Europeans
after 1450 led to shift in trade direction. Decline of savanna states; rise
of forest states selling slaves to Europeans for American plantations.
Mediums of exchange: firearms, hardware, cloth.

(c) Occupations Savanna: pastoralists. Cattle, horses, goats.

Forest: agriculturists and specialised trades.
Ife — brass workers and potters; Oyo — merchants; Asante — warrior caste;
Yoruba — cloth/bead-makers.

III Origins and extension of black slavery

Trans-Saharan trade started c.800 AD — West African slaves to North

Africa via Saharan caravans. The Moslem rulers of Songhai, Ghana and
Mali were allowed to enslave non-Moslems by the Koran. Slavery was
punishment for debt or crime, or result of inter-tribal war. But West
African slavery prior to the arrival of Europeans was relatively mild,
disorganised and localised.
Ar ri val of Portuguese c. 1450 led to re-direction and extension of trade;
c.1515 sta rt of Atlantic slave trade.

17
Portuguese (1515-80) Portuguese held Spanish asicnto' — supplied slaves to Spanish America.
Slave forts on Sao Tome, coast of Senegambia, Gold Coast and Angola.
Construction of great fortress at Elmina in 1481.

Dutch (1580-1670) Dutch siezed Portuguese slave forts during Thirty Years War. 1612:
Dutch fort at Mouri: 1621: creation of Dutch West India Company. 1637:
Dutch captured Elmina. Dutch supplied own settlements in Brazil and
BWI. Dutch supremacy ended with enforcement of English/French Navi-
gation Acts and loss of Dutch South American settlements.

French (1670-1713) French obtained asiento 1670. Set up monopolistic trading companies.
1663-72: French West India Co.. 1672: Company of Senegal and French
Guinea Company. French dominance ended by Treaty of Utrecht.

English (1713-1807) Took over control of slave trade after obtaining asiento at Utrecht, 1713.
Prior to obtaining asiento English trading was in the hands of the Company
of Royal Adventurers (1663-71) and the Royal African Company (1672-
1750). Company took over Cape Coast Castle and by 1690 had control of
eight forts. However, Company expenses were considerable and slave
prices were consequently high, so there was constant challenge to mon-
opoly from English and foreign interlopers. After 1750 a looser association:
the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa.

IV The Atlantic slave trade

The Black Triangle Europe 50 to 500 tonne ships on 2-6 month voyage. Slaving ports:
(England) Bristol, Liverpool and London; (France) Nantes and Bordeaux.
Carried European manufactures — cottons, woollens, hardware, especially
firearms. Special 'hardened' crews.
West Africa Slaves were purchased by barter from West African kingdoms.
Kept in 'barracoons' prior to embarkation. Preference for certain groups
such as Whydah `Papaws' or `Coromantees' (Asante); Ibos and Mandingos
(Mandika) were thought too docile. The young and strong were preferred
to old and women. Prices: general inflation; £15 in 1720 to £50 in 1800.
Slaves branded and provisions (fruit, meat, water) obtained prior to
Atlantic crossing. Time on the West African coast varied depending on
availability of slaves and number of forts visited.
Middle Passage six -to-eight-week Atlantic crossing. Slaves were manacled
into slavers in confined spaces below deck. 100-700 slaves according to
ship's tonnage. Minimum food ration, daily enforced exercise and occasional
washing and sluicing of slave quarters. Horror for slaves — fear of sea and
future, living conditions, brutal punishment, humiliation and disease.
Slave responses — non-cooperation, suicide, occasional revolt. Notable
brutalities: Albion (1698) — murder of rebellious slaves; Ilannibal (1694) —
loss of 300 slaves out of 700; Don Carlos (1701) — slave revolt and brutal
punishment; Prince of Orange (1737) — suicide of 33 slaves on arrival at
St Kitts; Zong (1781) — drowning of 133 diseased slaves to claim insurance.
Slave deaths on Middle Passage estimated at 1 in 8. Total 1-2 million
lost.
West Indies Slaves were often `refreshed' before sale; i.e. cleaned and

18
 Nantes
^ Q ° __ Bordeaux
O.^
Boston

o P.j l,i aQ
i Norfolk ^',

U ,
New Q ^

1 c,^ ^pJ t
01
/

Port-au-P ' ce ~
X 1 /
^ • w
Kingsioll --` - •e ~
'--___; Martinique ' •
Gore
Y' -- •0t
Barbados E------------^-'

Lagos
Cape Coast

Recife
Luanda

The basic triangle in the 18th Century (British)

-------- The basic French triangle
__--------__I The Portuguese triangle
Rio de Janeiro
- - - - - - North American/West Indian Trade

The triangle of trade

 .o a

D
d
OLD WORLD

t PN\SN pMERICA

5
BRITISH CAgIBeE
.. qN ..

• FRENCH CARIBBEAN
o. DUTCH C
AR18 fAM ^,

BRAZ^^

3000 000

1 500 000
c 2-
500000 0 1500 3000 km

Slaves to the Americas, 1600-1701

properly fed. Sale on board ship (a `scramble') or by auction in Bridgetown

or Kingston in BWI. Humiliation of auction — physical inspection of
slaves' bodies, made to dance, bare teeth, etc. Slaves often paid-for in
sugar.
White slaver's experience Sources: captains' logs. Special crews on slavers.
Twelve men per hundred tonnes instead of normal seven per hundred
tonnes. Extra crew needed for heavy sailing and danger of slave revolt.
Crew, hardened to brutality, carried arms. Wages higher but greater risk
of death from revolt, pirates or disease.

Slaves to the Americas: In the seventeenth century some three million slaves were transported
1601-1700 across the Atlantic — most of them to Brazil and the Spanish American
Empire. Most of these were carried by the Portuguese who held the
Spanish asiento and who supplied their own colony of Brazil.

Slaves to the Americas: The vast majority of slaves carried across the Atlantic on the Middle
1701-1810 Passage were transpo rt ed in the eighteenth centu ry at the time when sugar
was `king' in the British and French West Indies and in the Portuguese
colony of Brazil.

Slaves to the Americas: The nineteenth-century slave trade was virtually confined to Cuba anc
1811-70 Brazil where sugar was still produced with slave labour. Cuba had become
the great sugar-producer of the Caribbean while the British and Frenc l .
islands had gone into serious decline. The Americans were now the only
slave traders.

20


•0.

BRITISH
NORTy
N PMERICA AMERICA

o we
A ISH CgRI
BEq^y

OTC 0,
Oe
CARlBgEaN

6000 000

4500 000

3000000

1 500 000
500 000 0 1500 3000 km

Slaves to the Americas, 1701-1810

•o O

tvo R rt
, a
AMf
RICA

h^,SpANISH AMERICA
o ^^

°' • FRe r_H CARIBBEAN

0° 0°

500 000
3 00O000

1 500 000
0 1500 3000 km
6-
Slaves to the Americas, 1811-1870

The slave trade of the For a short time the Royal African Company had a monopoly of the
Royal African British West African slave trade and by the end of the seventeenth
Company: 1673-89 century had eight forts along the West African coast. The map (p. 22)

21
The slave trade of the Royal African Company, 1673-89

shows the numbers and destinations of the slaves carried by the Company
at the peak of its monopoly.

Black slave experience Sources are few. Not many slaves recorded (or could record) their ex-
periences. An exception was Ouladiah Equiano (Gustavus Vasa). Born
Benin, c.1745. Sold in American colonies, later served an American naval
officer and was re-sold in the West Indies. Spoke fluent English; became
expert barber and seaman; bought his freedom and settled in England,
where he wrote a journal recording his slave life.
Figures are disputed. Period 1515-1865 (first asiento to end of US
slavery) slaves exported from West Africa to Americas estimated to be
from 5 to 22 million. Two authorities: Fage — 11 million; Curtin — 10
million.
Breakdown of sources based on 10 million total:
5 million from Benin/Yoruba 1
Slave Coast'
1 million from Niger Delta J
I million from Whydah
I million from Hausaland/Sierra Leone
2 million from Senegambia/Old Calabar

Impact on West Africa

(a) Depopulation Figure of 30 million has been given as total loss due to slave trade, triba
war and internal struggles. There was no absolute depopulation, bu
population grew only very slowly.

22
Numbers coming to the West Indies Breakdown into centuries
Total Century Numbers Yearly average
(English and 1515-1600 500 000 6 000
Period English French French) 1600-1700 2 500 000 25 000
Before 1650 23000 1700-1800 5 000 000 50 000
(before sugar) 1800-1865 2 250 000 35 000
1650-1700 250 000 150 000 400000
10 250 000
1700-1800 1400 000 1000000 2400000
1800— 250 000
abolition (estimate)

Overall total 3 073 000

(b) Decline in Insecurity created by trade led to decline in farming. Traditional crafts
farming/industry (brassworking, cotton-weaving and ironworking) also lost due to instability,
capture of craftsmen and ease of obtaining European substitutes.

V The plantation: origins and structure

1620s to 1650s: non-Spanish settlers of new WI colonies grew subsistence

crops and tobacco as cash crop. After 1640 competition from Virginian
tobacco (produced in greater quantity and of better quality) led to search
for a new cash crop.
Demand for sugar in Europe — sweetener for tea and coffee — led to a
change to sugar in British and French WI with aid of Dutch capital,
credit, slaves and expertise.
Change to sugar produced:

(a) New forms of land 'Tobacco was a smallholder's (2-12 h.) intensive crop. Sugar required
tenure 60-200 h. Barbados, 1645: 12000 smallholdings (a y . 4h.); after 1660
sugar estates from 50-200 h. In Jamaica estates up to 2000 h.

(b) Increase in land Inflation in land prices, e.g. Barbados, 1620s: £6 p.h.; 1650 £80 p.h.
prices

(c) New agricultural Tobacco had been grown with ground foods and provision crops. Sugar,
practices needing plantation quantity to produce a profit, created a monoculture.
Barbados, 1660: 300 sugar factories but little else produced. Reliance on
i mported North American foodstuffs. Jamaica less dependent.

(d) Change in Increase in population as slaves imported. Increase in blacks; decline in

population size and whites. Barbados, 1639: there were 30 whites to every 1 black; 1660: 1
structure white to every 3 blacks. White smallholding class disappeared.

(e) Absenteeism Whites returned to Europe or only visited estates. Causes: crudity of
colonial society, dislike of climate, fear of disease and rebellion.

23
 SWANSEA
ESTATE
Banthnn
Canes

Pope's Pasture F'y

Tree

Ola Hot Big

House Pasture
o sel
House f Over Pon

Gulley Piec

4 Th /
Littl

Orr Bristow Middl

H81 Hill

91

^ ^ 8. ^ 7 r KOIF Big MAIN ESTATE BUILDINGS

Plantai

CD Walk 1. bus¢
t Rocky Office
- PO n
We l 3. Hospital
• a Bott om
S S - - Piece Sawpit 4. Overseeis House
a 5. Cattle pens
a- -
6. Trash houses
ruuets
7. MITI House
9tle
8. Boiling house
9. Curing house
10. Still house
Har ry 11. Slave houses
Hill
§ESTATE • Estate buildings
DODD'S •
S tr eam (Great Gulley)
VALLEY
ESTATE ".' Craddock. Road and carttracks

• Manure pits
N
Big Kiln — name of cane piece
7 Dry
Gulley Bridges

A typical estate—Worthy Park, Jamaica

VI The sugar estate

T ypically, 50-2000 hectares with a third of the land under sugar. Other
two-thirds down to provision crops, pasture and woodland for fuel. The
centre of the estate consisted of factory and residences. Factory (ingenio),
slave qua rt ers, Great House, homes of other whites. Facto ry buildings — mill
to crush cane, boiling house, distilling house for rum, offices and buildings
for specialised trades (coopers, blacksmiths, wheelw ri ghts, carpenters, etc.).

The plantation: a Two seasons — 'dead' and 'crop'.

working unit (i) 'Dead' season (Aug.-Nov.): `holing', manuring, ratooning and weeding
of older ratoons. Also building, timber-cutting, road repair and odd jobs.
(ii) ' Crop' season (Nov.-July): cane-cutting. Necessity of getting cut cane
to mill within 48 hours. Cane crushed, juice extracted and trash to
trash house. Boiling house — the juice was run from the mill to the
copper clarifier in which it 'was heated with white lime, then passed
through se ries of copper boilers — slowly concentrating juice. Last boiler,
`tache' contained sugar crystals and molasses. Sugar put in holed
barrels, molasses allowed to drip out — resulting sugar 'muscavado'.

VII The plantation: social relations

Plantation society was a rigidly stratified hierarchical pyramid.

24
The whites (i) Planter (or his attorney) — master of the plantation, lived in great
luxury and splendour.
(ii) Overseer — estate manager. Made decisions about crop, sugar manu-
facture and labour.
(iii) Clerks and book-keepers — stock clerks, slave supervisors.

The blacks (i) House/domestic slaves — worked in Great House. Slaves employed as
cooks, seamstresses, butlers, footmen, flunkies and coachmen. Access
to `white society' — light work, access to `white society' books and
limited education.
(ii) Factory slaves — semi-skilled jobs inside factory. Slaves in charge of
mill, boilers, rum house, etc. Also controlled machinery, transport,
etc. Sometimes called artisan slaves.
(iii) Field (praedial) slaves worked in fields under slave driver. Three
gangs. (a) Main gang — the young and strong; responsible for holing,
cutting and carrying. (b) Secondary gang — sick; pregnant women;
and youths; lighter work — weeding and harrowing. (c) Children's
gang — and the very old. Weeded and cared for animals.

VIII The cultural legacy: the African input

(a) Language The multiplicity of West African languages forced the slaves to invent a
common tongue. Creole languages developed, including many African
words particularly relating to religion, custom, food and folk tales. Jamaican
Creole: many African words — ackee, yam, edo, gungu, akra (food);
obeah, shango (religion); anancy, abeng, calembe (custom).

(b) Food Food plants from West Africa: yam, coco, cassava. Dishes included
Trinidadian akra from Yoruba 'akara' — beans and palm oil.

(c) Social relations West African family based on kinship: blood ties, common ancestral
spirits. This had its legacy in the West Indies: extended family encompassing
all relations and anyone bound by blood or kinship. Respect for elders.

(d) Religion West African religions were highly sophisticated and polytheistic. Im-
portance of ancestors, spirits, gods of the season, place and elements.
Feast of Odwira — Akan thanksgiving for harvest. Dahomey — god Vodun.
Yoruba — god of thunder and lightning, Shango. Legacy — Haiti, slaves
from Dahomey: worship of Vodun and other gods, `Ioa'. Trinidad: slaves
from Yorubaland. Worship of Shango. Jamaica: Maroon religion, Kumina,
based on spirit worship. Pocomania — spirit possession with emphasis on
drum and dance. Obcah — semi-religious beliefs based on sorcery and magic.

(e) Medicine Slaves brought traditional herbal medicines. Myal men. Use of plant
drugs and poisons. Obeah men.

(f) Music Dominance of the drum and other West African instruments — xylophone,
claves, clappers, rattles and scrappers. Elements of West African music —
spontaneity, polyphony, complicated rhythms, speech tunes.

25
 4 Resistance and Revolt

I Slave control
Slaves outnumbered whites in every Caribbean colony. Jamaica, 1775:
2000O0 slaves to 12737 whites. So whites had to devise ways to stop black
takeover.

(i) Legal In all the Caribbean colonies a slave was regarded as a thing, the property
of his master. However, because slavery was a peculiar institution' and
the slave a person, laws were passed to regulate his life and conduct.
These varied depending on the colonising power. In the Spanish and
French colonies a code of laws, drawn up in the metropolitan legislature,
applied to all the colonies of that power.

(a) Spanish — Siete Part of thirteenth-century mainland code was transferred to the colonies.
Partidas Law recognised slavery. Slave had rights — could not be starved, over-
worked or unlawfully punished. Right of entry to Catholic Church and to
manumission.

(b) French In French colonies the Code Noir (Black Code) of 1685 regulated the
lives of slaves. Its articles ordered baptism and Christian instruction for
slaves, allowed them to receive the sacraments of the Church and burial
in consecrated ground. Slaves had to be supervised by Catholics and
could marry with their master's consent but such marriages were not to be
imposed on slaves. The slaves' rations and diet were laid down and they
were to be allowed two sets of clothes. Slaves could appeal to officials
against ill-treatment or neglect and the Code stipulated slave punishment -
flogging, branding, mutilation and execution for theft, assault, escape and
damage.

(c) English English colonies had no all-embracing code; laws were made by legislatures
of individual colonies. Metropolitan parliament had no control of such
legislation when such colonies possessed sovereign assemblies. Mainly
punitive and harsh. Slaves, could not, without permission, leave the
plantation unless accompanied by a white; nor congregate in numbers;
nor blow horns or beat drums; nor carry arms; nor buy liquor; nor own or
rent property or learn to read and write. Slave marriages and manumission
were not encouraged. Obeah, unauthorised nocturnal meetings and assault
of whites carried the death penalty.
In practice many of the regulations in the Spanish and French codes
were disregarded and the slaves' legal protection was flimsy everywhere.
Many examples of brutality, particularly in the English colonies, e.g.
Huggins in Nevis in 1810; Hodge in Tortola in 1811.

26
(ii) Economic Slaves lacked property, education, skills and money. Economically they
were totally dependent on their masters and plantation. Unless they
escaped to a maroon community, life outside the estate was impossible.

(iii) Psychological and Whites held that African societies were barbarous and blacks inferior
ideological beings. Slaves came themselves to believe white's racism and accepted
white cultural values. Black culture, religion, music and art were denigrated.
Blacks accepted white social divisions -- `buckra', 'red leg', 'coloured',
'Quashie', 'Quaco' and 'Cuffee' despised each other.

(iv) Social Rigid social divisions in plantation society. House/domestic slaves despised
those in ingenio, who despised field slaves. Creole slaves despised 'nayga'
or new 'Guinea Birds'. 'Tribal origins of slaves were emphasised: scholarly,
gentle Mandinka; despondent Ibo; aggressive Asante.

(v) Cultural West African cultural heritage ignored or despised. Whites noticed slave
culture when it appeared dangerous — e.g. obeah, drum and horn banned.
Slaves forced to accept white's culture as superior.

(vi) Physical Last resort, when other controls failed, was control through naked force.
Disobedience and revolt were savagely punished without much reference
to the law.

II Slave response

Despite the variety and correspondence of controls, slaves found ways to

resist.

(i) Suicide, sabotage, Suicide — common response on Middle Passage; also on estates. Sabotage -
vendetta and particularly in the ingenio. Destruction of vehicles/machinery; 'accidental'
malingering fires. Vendetta — blood feuds, reinforced by obeah, upset plantation so-
cieties. Malingering — slaves developed unusual 'illnesses' and could 'go
slow' to frustrate overseers.

(ii) Apathy, adjustment Normal, but damaging, responses to enslavement. Apathy — sense of
and submission hopelessness; impaired slaves' efficiency or led to suicide. Adjustment — new
slaves needed 'settling-in' period. 'Seasoned' slave acted as guardian;
introduced nayga to field work. Submission — most slaves eventually re-
signed themselves to enslavement without enthusiasm, and were inefficient
labourers.

(iii) Escape and In large territories (Hispaniola, Jamaica, Guiana, Belize) and mountainous
maroonage islands (Windwards) escape to maroon settlements possible. Important
maroon communities in Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, Guiana, Surinam and
the Windwards.

(iv) Revolt Extreme response. Common, though punishment was death. Jamaica:
thirteen slave revolts between 1650 and 1834.

27
 III Haitian revolution
French St Domingue. `Pearl of the Antilles'. 500000 slaves; 30000 whites,
230000 coloureds (`affranchis') — no vote, many legal disadvantages.
1789 Aug.: French National Assembly issued `Declaration of the
Rights of Man'. Ideas of revolution —'Liberty, Equality
and Fraternity' spread to French colonies.
1791 May: Assembly gave colonial coloureds vote. `Grand blancs'
in St Domingue resist. Unsuccessful coloured revolt by
OgF and Chavannes.
Aug.: Northern slave revolt by Boukman. Cap Francais
threatened.
1792 Sept.: Arrival of Sonthonax with revolutionary force. Sided
with slaves.
1793 Aug.: Sonthonax declared conditional emancipation of slaves.
Sept.: The British, exercising their naval superiority in the
Caribbean, keen to take advantage of the trouble in
France and her colonies and worried should this revol-
utionary spirit spread to Jamaica, landed a force under
General Maitland in southern St Domingue.
1794 March: British took Port an Prince.
1794-98: Toussaint deserted Spanish; joined revolutionary forces.
Waged successful against British. Maitland agreed to
withdraw.
1798-99: Toussaint defeated and massacred coloureds under
Rigaud. Sacked Les Cayes.
1800 Sept. Collapse, through neglect, of Artibonite and Cul de Sac
Nov.: dams.
1800-02: Partial restoration of agriculture. Toussaint encouraged
return to estates.
1801: Toussaint promulgated self-governing constitution with
himself as Governor-General for life.
Toussaint invaded and took over Santo Domingo.
Napoleon despatched Le Clerc and 20000 troops to St
Domingue.
1802 Dessalines, Christophe and Maurepas join French.
Christophe negotiated peace for Toussaint. Toussaint
captured and sent to France.
Nov.: Death of Le Clerc from yellow fever. French forces,
lacking exposure to the climate and conditions, were
decimated by this disease.
Dessalines and Christophc break with French. At
Arcahaye united blacks and coloureds against Le Clerc's
successor, Rochambeau.
1803 Apr.: Death of Toussaint in French alpine prison.
Dec.: Rochambcau surrendered to British in Jamaica.
Dcssalines declared Haitian independence.
1804: Dcssalines proclaimed himself Emperor of Haiti.

The Jamaican maroons From 'cimarron' (wild, untamed). Originated from 2000 Spanish slaves
freed by Ysasi in 1655.

28
 1663 Abortive British offer of land and freedom to every
maroon. Failure led to 76 years of irregular warfare, 44
Acts of the Assembly and expenditure of £25000.
1725-39: 1st Maroon War. Western Maroons — Cudjoe, Accompong
and Johnny. Eastern maroons — Quao and Cuffee. Suc-
cessful guerrilla tactics against British — ambush and
communication through `abeng'.
1734: Stoddart destroyed Nanny Town. Cudjoe moved to
Trelawny.
1738: Cujoe-Guthrie Treaty. Maroons to have five towns,
15 000 acres in Trclawny and Cockpits, full freedom.
Cudjoe's leadership recognised. Maroons to cease hos-
tilities and return runaways.
1739: Quaco — British Treaty. Same terms.
1795-97: Second Maroon War
1795 July: Trelawny Towns revolt. Causes: (i) flogging by black
of two Maroons for pig-stealing; (ii) dislike of Capt.
Craskell, white superintendent. Peaceful settlement
possible but Governor Balcarres over-reacted because
of events in St Domingue. Arrest of six Maroons and
demand for unconditional surrender.
Aug.: Surrender of thirty-eight Maroons; rest fired Trelawny
and retired to hills.
Sept.: Maroons ambush British detachment.
Dec.: I mport of mastiffs and hunters from Cuba.
1796 Jan.: Surrender to General Walpole: leniency promised.
June: Legislature renege on Walpole's promise. 556 Maroons
deported to Nova Scotia.
1800: Maroons transferred to Sierra Leone.

The bush negroes of Escaped slaves, 1680-1720. Maintained African culture and religion.
Surinam Never defeated or assimilated. Six groups (Djuka, Saramaka, Aluku,
Matawai, Paramaka). Lived inland along Saramaca, Surinam, Cottica and
Marowjine rivers. Raided Dutch coastal plantations.
1730: Abortive Dutch attempt to crush Djuka.
1749: Djuka-Dutch Treaty. Exchange of presents between Capt. Adoc
and Dutch government.
1761: Djuka-Dutch Treaty. Dutch provided arms and recognition. Djuka
agreed to give up runaways and not to carry arms in Paramaribo.
1772: Revolt of Saramaka.
1825: Saramaka-Dutch Treaty. Saramaka recognised.

1763 revolt in Berbice Causes

(i) Resentment at ill-treatment by managers/overseers.
(ii) Lack of provisions.
(iii) Dutch settlement with Djuka in Surinam 1761.
1763 23 Feb.: Revolt on Plantation Magdalenburg on the Conje River.
March: Revolt spread to the Berbice River. Plantations along
river captured. Coffy (house-slave from Plantation
Lilienburg) set up HQ at Plantations Hollandia and

29
 Zeelandia. Whites under Van Hoogenheim (Governor
of Bcrbice) retreated to Fort Nassau And Peerboom.
3 March: 600 blacks under Casala attacked Peerboom.
8 March: Van Hoogenheim abandoned Fort Nassau. Received
soldiers from Surinam and moved up the Berbice River
to Dageraad. Dageraad unsuccessfully attacked by
Akara (Coffy's general).
April: Coffy and Van Hoogenheim corresponded as to division
of Berbice. Van Hoogenheim obtained reinforcements
from Gravesande.
13 May: Coffy attacked Dagcraad unsuccessfully. Eight whites
and fifty-eight blacks killed. Divisions among blacks -
tribal, status and leadership. Akara deserted Coffy for
Atta and Accabre. Coffy committed suicide.
Dec.: Blacks attacked up Berbice and from Demarara. Atta
and Accabre captured by turncoat Akara.
1764 Mar.lApr.:40 hanged, 24 broken, 24 burned.
Significance: (i) Blacks controlled Berbice for 10 months (ii) Beginning of
independence struggle (iii) 23 Feb. — Guyanese National Day.

1816 revolt in Barbados Causes

(i) Slaves' belief that emancipation being withheld.
(ii) Activities of nonconformist missionaries.
(iii) Barbadian planters refusal to accept Slave Registration Bill.
Leaders
Free coloureds—Washington Francklyn (Franklin); Cain Davis, J.R.
Sarjeant. Blacks and slaves — Bussa, Roach, Jackey, Ranger, Mingo.
Course
1816 14 Apr.: Revolt started by Bussa and Jackey. Spread to St Philip,
St John and St George. Sixty buildings destroyed.
15 Apr.: Easter Monday. Martial law declared at 1.30 a.m. Revolt
crushed by Colonel Edward Codd. Bussa died in fighting with 175
others. 214 executed, including Franklin. 100 exiled to Sierra Leone.
A fifth of the sugar crop destroyed.

1831 revolt in Jamaica Causes

(i) Slaves' belief that emancipation being withheld.
(ii) Nonconformist missionaries' activities.
Leader
Samuel Sharpe, `a most remarkable slave' (Black).
Course
1831 Christmas: General strike of slaves in north west turned to open
revolt of 50000 after Kensington estate in St James captured. St.
James and Trelawny fell to slaves. Militia fell back to Montego
Bay. Kingston and Spanish Town fortified.
1832 1 Jan.: Regulars under Sir Willoughby Cotton arrived in Montego
Bay. Amnesty and pardon for all but ring-leaders. Severe fighting.
400 blacks, 10 whites killed.
Retribution of civil authorities 100 executed (including Sharpe), 100
flogged. Baptist and Moravian missionaries (Knibb, Burchell and Pfeiffer)
persecuted and 20 Baptist/Wesleyan chapels destroyed.

30
 5 The Haitian Revolution and its
Effects

I Relationships among the various social groups in St Domingue

Grand blancs—wealthy planters, often French aristocrats.
Arrogant: the ruling class.
Petit blancs — government officials, managers, overseers,
professionals, artisans.
Coloureds/free blacks — affranchis — Owners of of land and of
many slaves but despised by whites and
discriminated against. Some professions
closed to coloureds, made to serve in
militia, no vote, no political power.
500 Largest 'affranchis' population in the
Caribbean.
Slaves—owned and abused by whiles and coloured alike.

II Impact of the French Revolution in St Domingue

Ideas of French Revolution — liberty, equality and fraternity'; seen by

coloureds and slaves as equally applicable to them as to the whites.
Revolts of coloureds and slaves given early support by French Revolutio-
nary armies after the capture of the National Assembly by the Jacobins.
1789 Aug.: `Declaration of the Rights of Man' by the National Assembly.
4790: St Domingue 'grand blancs' sent representatives to the National
Assembly. They desired `liberty' and `autonomy' in order to per-
secute the coloureds and slaves, They lobbied the members of the
National Assembly through the Club Massiac while the coloureds
used the 'Amis des Noirs'. The National Assembly wavered and
then decided to let the colonial legislatures decide the issue.
1791 May: The National Assembly gave the vote to coloureds of free
parents of which there were only 400 in St Domingue.
1792 Apr.: The new Jacobin Assembly gave the vote to free blacks and
all coloureds.
Sept.: A Jacobin army of 6000 under Sonthonax arrived in St
Domingue and sided with the slaves.

III Course of the Revolution: roles of Toussaint, Dessalines,

Christophe and Petion

Francois Dominique Born 1746, the eldest of eight, on the northern Breda plantation. Father,
Toussaint (1746-1803) an African chief, taught him the African heritage. Another slave, Pierre
Baptiste, made him literate. Small (as a boy he was called 'Little Sticks')
he was naturally intelligent and quickly progressed from cattle herder to

31
 coachman to livestock steward. A superb horseman ('The Centaur of the
Savannas'), he was 45 in 1791 ('Old Toussaint') when the revolution started.
1792-4: Fought for the Spanish in Santo Domingo. Trained an army of
4000 mercenaries and captured northern St Domingue for Spain.
1794: Deserted Spanish, murdering his Spanish officers. Joined French
forces of Leveaux and recaptured northern St Domingue for the
Revolutionary Army.
1795-8: Defeated the alliance of the English army and French planters.
Threatened English HO in St Marc. Forced Maitland to withdraw
English army.
1798: Concluded commercial treaty with Maitland.
1799-1800: Defeated Rigaud and massacred coloureds. Sacked Les Cayes.
1799: Appointed Governor-General of St Domingue by French Directory.
1800-1802: Ordered halt to the killing. Returned blacks to the estates.
Revived agriculture and brought back white planters.
1801: Promulgated self-governing constitution. Created central assembly
to make laws. Banned slavery and discrimination based on colour.
Proclaimed himself governor for life. Overran Santo Domingo,
which angered Napoleon, who sent an army under Le Clerc to put
an end to this `Gilded African'. Toussaint undertook `scorched
earth' policy against Lc Clerc's army.
1802: Locked in drawn-out struggle with Le Clerc. Peace negotiated by
Christophe but Toussaint captured by trickery. Transported to
France.
1803: Died 27 April of cold and hunger in Jura Mountains prison.

Toussaint as:
(a) Military leader (i) Superb strategist and tactician — innate military ability. From 1791 to
1800 continuously defeated enemies (French, British, Spaniards,
coloureds) although outnumbered and out-gunned.
(ii) Unifying force — succeeded in creating a disciplined and efficient army
out of a mob of slaves. Blacks bound to Toussaint by loyalty, discipline
and respect.
(iii) Judge of ability — competent in his choice of lieutenants. Toussaint
recognised the abilities of Dessalines and Christophe and could delegate
responsibility.
(iv) Opportunist — Toussaint changed sides when necessary, e.g. desertion
of Spanish in 1794 when the English looked dangerous; and broke
with France in 1801 when Napoleon's imperial ambitions were putting
an end to the gains made under the revolutionary Jacobins.
(v) Personal example a brave, able and ruthless soldier who led from
the front.

(b) Statesman (i) Links with other revolutionaries Toussaint corresponded with and ob-
tained military and naval support from the USA — he was a friend of
John Adams.
(ii) Negotiated with the British After ravaging Maitland's army, Toussaint
negotiated its withdrawal and scrupulously kept to the terms of the
subsequent commercial treaty.
(iii) Restored agriculture After defeating the Revolution's enemies, he
attempted to revive the estates and bring back white expertise.

32
 (iv) Negotiated with Napoleon Toussaint attempted to come to terms with
Napoleon over the government of St Domingue. He failed to appreci-
ate (until it was too late) that Napoleon was treacherous and intended
to restore the ancien regime' in St Domingue.

(c) Idealist Toussaint inspired loyalty from his followers because he burned with the
ideals and justice of his cause. His hatred was not for whites or coloureds
but for the humiliation, discrimination, savagery and abuse their system
of slavery had brought to blacks. He forced his two sons, Isaac and
Placide, to choose between a comfortable life in their adopted France or
a dangerous one in revolutionary St Domingue. After his capture he is
reputed to have said, `In overthrowing me you have cut down in St
Domingue only the trunk of the tree of liberty. It will spring up again by
the roots for they are numerous and deep.'

(d) His significance (i) The achievements Toussaint smashed the myth of white invincibility.
He led the only permanently successful slave revolution in the Caribbean
and laid the foundation for the creation of the second independent
state in the Americas.
(ii) The inspiration and legacy Toussaint restored black pride and has
provided Haitian, Caribbean and American blacks with their first
indigenous hero.

Jean Francois Dessalines African-horn slave who belonged to a free black until 1791 when he
murdered his master and joined Toussaint. Savage and able, Dessalines
was responsible for the massacre of the coloureds in 1800 and for the anti-
white purge of 1803. Dessalines took over the leadership of the revolution
after the capture of Toussaint but failed to maintain Toussaint's agricultural
policy to revive sugar or to militarise labour and was assassinated in 1804
after proclaiming himself emperor of an independent Haiti.

Henri Christophe English-speaking, illiterate black who had fought alongside Washington
in the American Revolution and who, in 1791, was working in an hotel in
Cap Francais. Christophe ranked second only to Dessalines and was
responsible in 1802 for the unfortunate negotiations with Le Clerc which
led to Toussaint's capture. After the death of Dessalines he became the
ruler of northern Haiti (King Henry I) and built the Sans Souci palace
and the Citadel fortress. He ruled until 1820 when, paralysed by a stroke,
he committed suicide.

Alexandre Petion Educated, literate coloured leader who broke with the French in 1802 and
allied himself with Dessalines at Arcahayc. He ruled southern Haiti from
1807 to his death in 1818 but during this time he made no attempt to
create a viable export economy, relying instead on returning the peasantry
to a subsistence agriculture.

IV Reactions to Haitian Revolution in Europe and West Indies

In Europe
(i) France 1792-1800: Revolution welcomed by Jacobin National Assembly which
despatched a revolutionary army under Sonthonax to St Domingue

33
 to secure the revolution for the Jacobins. Sonthonax and Hugues
sent to Lesser Antilles.
1800-1804: Napoleon disliked the revolution as he wanted to recover the
wealth of St Dominguc for France by restoring slavery. Le Clere
and 20(100 men sent to St Dominguc.

(ii) Britain (a) 'l'he British Tory government feared revolutionary ideas would spread
to the British labouring class and to the slaves in the British
colonies. The success of the French revolutionary armies in
Europe and the despatch of Sonthonax and Hugues to the
Caribbean resulted in a British declaration of war against France
in 1793.
(h) Britain sought to fish in France's troubled waters. Attempted to take
St Domingue (1793-8) but defeated by Toussaint. Greater success in
Guadeloupe, Martinique, St Lucia and the capture of Trinidad (from
Spain) in 1797.

(iii) Spain Like Britain, Spain feared slave revolution would break out in its Caribbean
and Latin American colonies. The Spanish therefore attacked the French
revolutionary forces in St Domingue in 1793 but came to terms in 1795 in
the Treaty of Basle.

(iv) The West Indies (a) French colonies

French 'grand blancs' feared ideas of revolution, Jacobin commissioners,
slave insurrections and the loss of estates. St Dominguc planters invited
the British to take over (1791) and those of Martinique, Guadeloupe and
St Lucia welcomed their capture by the British in 1794. Guadeloupe and
St Lucia were quickly retaken by Hugues (1794) but the planters of
Martinique prospered under British rule (1794-1801).
(b) British colonies
The legislatures of the British colonies feared slave revolt and the activities
of the Jacobin commissioners. Their fears were justified in 1795 when
insurrections broke out in Jamaica (Second Maroon War), St Vincent
(Black Caribs) and Grenada (Fedon). Governor Balcarres of Jamaica
failed to reinforce Maitland in St Domingue because of the Maroon
uprising.
(c) Spanish colonies
Unaffected by slave revolts except in Santo Domingo which was held for
Spain by Toussaint until 1794 and ceded to France by the Treaty of Basle
in 1795. France failed to occupy Santo Domingo and it was overrun by
Toussaint in 1801.

V Effects of the Haitian Revolution on Haiti and the Caribbean

Effects on Haiti
Immediate (i) Emancipation of' the populace Haiti became the first free black/coloured
state in the Caribbean. It became a magnet and refuge for other
emancipators and revolutionaries, e.g. Petion's aid to Bolivar, 1816.

34
 (ii) Economic devastation
(a) Despoliation of the land Conflict and neglect had impoverished
the 'Pearl of the Antilles'. French dams and irrigation systems ruined;
agricultural land eroded.
(b) Division of the land Great sugar estates divided up into coffee
and ground food smallholdings. Socially advantageous but economically
disastrous. Sugar production fell from 163(XX)(XX) lb in 1791 to 1800000
lb in 1818.

Long-term (a) Political instability The Revolution made every Haitian a politician
and legitimised usurpation and force. After 1818 instability and dic-
tatorship marked Haiti's history.
(b) Caste replaced class Subtle colour-based caste-divisions replaced the
old colonial class divisions after 1818.
(c) Economy ruined The products of smallholding on ravaged land never
reproduced the pre-1791 wealth. The economy never again returned
to the pre-1791 prosperity.

Effects on the Caribbean

Immediate (i) Sympathetic revolts — in Jamaica (Maroons), St Vincent (Black Caribs),
Grenada (Fedon) in 1795.
(ii) Rise in sugar prices — following the loss of St Domingue sugar pro-
duction, the British West Indies prospered temporarily.
(iii) Emigres' expertise The planters of St Domingue fled to Jamaica,
Cuba and Puerto Rico. Emigres in Jamaica created coffee estates.
(iv) Santo Domingo/Dominican Republic After suffering various military
invasions during the Haitian Revolution, Santo Domingo declared
itself independent of Spain in 1821 only to be immediately annexed
by Petion's successor, Boyer, in 1822. The period of Haitian rule
(1822-1844) was marked by a harsh anti-Spanish, anti-white policy
which did nothing to rejuvenate a failing economy based on cattle
ranching and some sugar and which led to a white exodus, further
reducing Santo Domingo's meagre population (half that of Haiti) and
the creation of a largely mulatto populace. When in 1844 Haitian rule
came to an end and Santo Domingo became independent again as the
Dominican Republic, it immediately sought protection from further
invasion from the west by requesting unsuccessfully American pro-
tection and after a further (but abortive) invasion by the Haitian
dictator, Soulouque in 1849, the mulatto caudillo of the Republic,
Santana, persuaded the Spanish to re-occupy the country in 1861.
The second period of Spanish rule (1861-1865) proved satisfactory to
neither side and in 1868, Santana's successor, Baez, again asked US
President Grant to annex the country. Grant was sympathetic but
Congress less so and the last years of the nineteenth century saw the
Republic in the grip of the dictator Ulises Heureaux (1881-99) and
the developing tobacco industry dominated by German emigre
capitalists.

Long-term Black inspiration The successful outcome of the revolution and the prow-
ess of its black heroes (particularly Toussaint) provided downtrodden
slaves elsewhere in the Caribbean with pride and hope.

35
 6 Movements Towards
Emancipation

I The impact of nineteenth-century slave revolts on the slave

system
(a) The slaves were keenly observant of the emancipation movement.
They misconstrued each new legislative enactment; were convinced
that their freedom was withheld only by their masters, and rebelled —
Barbados, 1816; Guiana, 1823; Jamaica, 1831.
(b) The savagery with which white authority suppressed the rebellions,
and prosecuted Nonconformist missionaries who were accused of
inciting them, convinced the abolitionists and the British government
that total emancipation was the only alternative to the unsuccessful
attempts at improving slave conditions.
(c) Capitalists grew very reluctant to invest in the explosive West Indies
and this further weakened the West Indian economy.

II Attitudes towards slavery

(a) Before the eighteenth century most churches believed that slavery
was necessary for the conversion of the pagan African to Christianity.
(b) Prevalent in England and France was the conviction that Africans
were an uncivilised, barbaric race and therefore deserved to be en-
slaved; that blacks were inferior to whites and destined to serve
them,
(c) The Bible's ambiguity on the morality of slavery heightened the
controversy as it was used to support the arguments of supporters and
opponents of slavery.
(d) By the eighteenth century there was increasing opposition to the
slave trade and slavery, at first sparked mainly by humanitarian
motives.
In France the great philosophers, notably Rousseau, condemned
slavery as being contrary to natural law; the French anti-slavery
movement was based on this rationale.
In England the emancipation movement originated from the Evan-
gelicals and Nonconformists.
(e) In the late eighteenth century economists argued that slavery was
wasteful, crude and inefficient.

III The arguments of slavery's protagonists

(a) The slave trade and slavery were essential for the production of
tropical raw materials.

36
 (h) Amerindian and indentured labour were inadequate.
(c) The slave trade was a training-ground for sailors of European navies.
(d) A cruder form of slavery existed in Africa.
(e) Working conditions in Europe and on the slave plantations were very
si milar.
(f) Slavery was justified by the Bible.

IV The arguments of slavery's antagonists

(a) Paid labour was more efficient than slave labour.
(b) Merchants and new industrialists favoured free trade instead of mer-
cantilism on which sugar and slavery were based. They wanted a
change in the economic order. The new capitalist, non-conformist
entrepreneurs produced by the Industrial Revolution were disciples
of the laissez-faire liberal economics preached by Adam Smith in his
The Wealth of Nations (1776). Smith argued that restrictions on free
trade between nations (mercantilism, the Navigation Acts and the
protected market enjoyed in Britain by the British West Indian sugar
producers) led to expensive, inefficiently-produced commodities,
because competition was lacking, labour expensive and reluctant and
the law of supply and demand violated. The new manufacturing
capitalists keen to sell their products worldwide demanded an end to
protected markets and, according to Eric Williams in his controversial,
revisionist Capitalism and Slavery (1964), it was this unstated economic
pressure which underpinned the abolitionists' apparently humanitarian
concern for an end to slavery.
(c) Profits from the slave trade were no longer great; there were new
areas of more profitable overseas trade to be exploited.
(d) The high mortality of slaves on the Middle Passage and on the estates
resulted from inhumane treatment.
(e) Prosecution of the missionaries betrayed the barbarity of the planters.
(f) Slavery violated the basic message of the Gospels: the brotherhood of
man.

V Abolition and emancipation in the British Empire,

1772-1838
(a) The interest groups (i) Nonconformist missionaries: Baptists, Methodists, Moravians and
Congregationalists who instructed the slaves in Christianity and at-
tempted to improve their conditions. They were prosecuted by the
planters, and the slaves did not trust them. Prosecution by the planters
and their reports of slave conditions stirred sympathy for the abol-
itionist cause.
(ii) The Quakers or Society of Friends: first and most outspoken critics
of slavery; a prominent member was Granville Sharp; later joined the
Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
(iii) The Clapham Sect or `The Saints': the well-spring of the evangelical
humanitarians; Ramsay, Wilberforce, Macaulay and others met and
worshipped in Clapham, south London, between 1792 and 1813, and

37
 charted the course of the Parliamentary campaign against the slave
trade.
(iv) Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade: created in
1787, it drew together the diverse elements of the opposition to the
slave trade and eventually gained its abolition. Its chief Parliamentary
orator was Wilberforce, and other prominent members were Clarkson,
Sharp, Ramsay, Stephen and Macaulay.
(v) Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery: formed
in 1823, it spearheaded the greatest propaganda movement of all
times'. Its humanitarian crusade, aided by favourable economic con-
ditions, resulted in the passing of the Emancipation Act.
(vi) The New Tories: industrialists who believed that slavery was a waste-
ful, crude, inefficient system of labour which did not fit in with the
new laissez-faire (free trade) economics, and the new world of cheap
mechanical production brought about by the Industrial Revolution.
These men, such as George Canning, William Huskissson and James
Stephen, were not moralists.
(vii)The West India Lobby: a powerful pressure group made up of
retired planters, absentee planters, slave-trading interests, agents and
friends of the West Indian plantocracy. Well represented in Parlia-
ment, the Lobby was able to block the passage of abolitionist legislation
for a long time. Stung by the plantocracy's rejection of their Amelio-
ration proposals as a means of stopping emancipation, they still
secured twenty million pounds compensation and the apprenticeship
scheme for the planters in the Emancipation Act.

(b) The outstanding (i) Supremely intelligent, indomitable champion of destitute slaves in
personalities England, Granville Sharp (1735-1813) was the founding father of the
abolitionist crusade. From 1767 to 1772 he waged a one-man battle to
get a ruling on the legality of slavery in England. By the Somerset
Case of 1772 he forced Chief Justice Mansfield into ruling that slavery
was illegal in England, a judgement upheld in Ireland and Scotland;
thus slavery was ended in the British Isles and the morality of slavery
in the rest of the British Empire questioned. His other notable work
was in the establishment of Sierra Leone as a repatriation colony fot
destitute ex-slaves.
(ii) Skilful orator and influential parliamentarian, William Wilberforce
(1758-1833) was the most famous of the abolitionists. He devoted
his entire life to the anti-slavery crusade. Convinced of the immorality
of the slave trade, he set out to destroy it, and persevered through
severe opposition in the House of Commons after the outbreak of the
French Revolution to witness enactment of the Abolition Bill moved
by Charles James Fox. Because of ill-health, he surrendered leadershif
of the Anti-Slavery Society to T.F. Buxton, and barely lived long
enough to see the passing of the Emancipation Act in 1833.
(iii) His massive figure, forceful speeches and dominating personality made
Thomas Fowell Buxton (1786-1845) a most effective leader of the
Anti-Slavery movement from 1822 to 1833.
(iv) By collecting evidence against the slave trade, Thomas Clarkson
(1760-1846) supplied Wilberforce with the raw ammunition he needed
to condemn the trade. He was a member of the Society for Abolition

38
 of the Slave Trade and continued the fight for emancipation.

(c) The course of the 1772: Somerset Case; slavery declared illegal in England.
movement 1787: Formation of the Abolition Society. Its weapons included anti-
slavery leaflets, poetry and illustrations, official protest in the House
of Commons and Public Meetings. It collected and spread infor-
mation about the slavers and the trade and was opposed by the
West India Lobby and the slave-trading interests of London,
Liverpool and Bristol.
1789: Outbreak of the French Revolution; Prime Minister William Pitt
stopped supporting abolition. Wilberforce's abolition legislation
was repeatedly defeated.
1806: Charles James Fox, long committed to abolition, became the new
Prime Minister after Pitt died. The West India Lobby feared the
acquisition of French and Dutch sugar-producing territories; one
way of preventing them from competing with the older producers
was by suspending or abolishing the slave trade.
1807: The Act of Abolition was passed and later enforced by British
naval patrols off the African coast, though other nations continued
the trade for a few more years. The abolitionists then turned their
attention to slavery itself.
1815-26: The Amelioration Policy. Many abolitionists, the West India
Lobby and the British government favoured the amelioration or
improvement of slave conditions as an alternative to emancipation.
In 1823 the Emancipation Society was formed; its first aim was to
force the adaptation of amelioration as official policy. To counter
this aim, the West India Lobby submitted its own Amelioration
Proposals and they were accepted by the Secretary of State, Lord
Bathurst, by the Emancipation Society, and were embodied in a
Bill passed by the House of Commons. The Proposals included:
(i) abolition of flogging of women;
(ii) prohibition of the separation of slave families;
(iii) provision of religious instruction for slaves;
(iv) establishment of slave savings hank;
(v) slaves should not be sold in payment of debts,
These measures were rejected by the plantocracy of Jamaica,
Barbados, St Vincent and Dominica; instead, repression of the
slaves and prosecution of the missionaries were increased. In
Demerara the slaves rebelled when they misinterpreted the unpub-
lished proposals as the withholding of their freedom. By 1826 it
was clear that amelioration was a failure and the Emancipation
Society pressed for an end to slavery.
1832: The Great Parliamentary Reform Act was passed by the Whig
Government which gave the franchise to nonconformists who
favoured emancipation, and destroyed the power base of the landed
interests.
1833: West Indian planters isolated; new free trade economics had no
place for slavery and expensive, uncompetitive West Indian sugar
which was of declining importance in the British economy; slave
rebellions made their position in the Caribbean extremely dangerous.
When free compensation and apprenticeship were incorporated

39
 into the Emancipation Act, the planters accepted it. The Act was
passed in August 1833.

(d) The Emancipation

Act, 1833
Terms (i) Abolition of slavery from 1 August 1834; children under six years old
were freed from that date.
(ii) Registration of slaves should he completed on or before 1 August
1834; registered slaves six years old and older would become appren-
ticed labourers, for six years in the case of praedial slaves; four years
for all others.
(iii) On the estates apprentices would give 40'/2 hours of free labour per
week.
(iv) The Imperial Government would appoint Special Magistrates to
supervise the apprenticeship scheme.
(v) The planters were awarded twenty million pounds in compensation
for their loss of labour.

Implementation (i) Compensation. This varied in each colony as it had to be calculated

according to the slaves' productivity; it was highest in British Guiana
and lowest in Bermuda.
(ii) Apprenticeship. Antigua and Bermuda bypassed this system by granting
full freedom on 1 August 1834. It was applied in all other areas as
stipulated by the Emancipation Act. Its purposes were: to ensure
survival of the plantations; to provide a transition period during which
the apprentices would learn to shoulder the responsibilities of freedom.
Stipendiary Magistrates from England mediated in the apprentices'
dispute with their employers. The magistrates' anticipated role of
`architects of freedom' was unfulfilled because they were overworked,
underpaid, not enough of them were employed and they spent most
of their time settling trivial disputes.
On 1 August 1838, apprenticeship was terminated as it did not
work well and it was safer to free domestics and praedials at the same
ti me.

VI Emancipation in the French Empire

1788: Foundation of Les Amis Noirs.

1790: Slavery was abolished by the Revolutionary Government. In fact,
only Haiti kept its independence.
1803: Napoleon restored slavery.
1818: The French government agreed to abolish the slave trade, but this
was not effected until 1830. At the same time an amelioration policy
was adopted and was strongly resisted by the French plantocracy.
1834: French public opinion turned against amelioration, and `The Society
for the Abolition of Slavery' was formed under the leadership of
Victor Schoelcher, the main French humanitarian. The French
West India interest opposed The Society and Schoelcher.
1838: The first Emancipation Bill was defeated by the West India interest.
1847: The Society petitioned the government of the Second Republic, in

40
 which Schoelcher was Under-Secretary for the Colonies, for im-
mediate emancipation.
1848: All slaves liberated by Schoelcher's emancipation proposals. Slave
owners were compensated with 126 million francs. There was no
apprenticeship system.

VII Cuba
Pre-1791: Prior to the French Revolutionary Wars the Cuban economy
was dominated by thousands of vegueros each cultivating tobacco
on a smallholding. Spain's involvement in these wars cut Cuba off
from its tobacco markets and forced a change to sugar production
using slave labour. Spain allowed an open trade in slaves in 1791,
expertise was provided by French refugee planters from Haiti and
the flat plains of Cuba allowed for the creation of the first centrals.
Slave imports rose steadily to a peak of 12(X)O in 1837 despite the
treaties of 1817 and 1835 with Britain by which Spain agreed to
curtail this trade.
1. 814: Congress of Vienna; Spain undertook to stop the slave trade but
this was not enforced until 1865. By that time several factors which
favoured emancipation had emerged, including: a strong abolition
movement in Spain; Britain's agitation for emancipation of the slaves;
the danger of slave revolts, a series of which ravaged Matanzas
province in 1843; the Cuban independence movement produced
liberals who demanded emancipation; the emancipation of American
slaves as a result of the American Civil War (1861-5).
1868-78: Ten Years War terminated by the Treaty of Zanjon; Spain
agreed to gradually emancipate Cuban slaves; there would be no
compensation for slave owners. White immigrants from Spain helped
to increase the white population.
1886: Liberation of all slaves completed.

41
 7 Adjustments to the Problems
of Emancipation, 1838-76

I The downfall of `King Sugar'

The West Indian sugar economy was decaying long before the overthrow
of slavery and several factors contributed to its post-emancipation collapse.

(a) Labour costs Abolition of the slave trade caused an increase in the price of slaves and
hence an uncompetitive increase in the price of sugar. After 1838, estate
labour became very scarce and expensive.

(b) Estate finances Emancipation caused a radical change in the financing of the sugar plan-
tations. Wages accounted for as much as two-thirds of the total cost of
production. Supplies could be obtained only from Europe with cash, but
cash was scarce as the planters very slowly adjusted to the new cash
economy, and sugar prices fell in the 1840s.

(c) Falling sugar prices: caused by: (i) increased supplies of sugar from territories acquired during
the Napoleonic Wars; (ii) world expansion of sugar production; (iii) the
Sugar Duties Equalisation Act.

(d) World expansion of Using slave labour and modern methods of production, Cuba, Louisiana
sugar production and Brazil produced increased quantities of cheap, high-grade sugar. The
British West Indies could not compete with this and with sugar from India
and Mauritius. Subsidised European beet sugar further added to the glut
of sugar on the world market.

(e) Mercantilism vs The free-trade ideas of Adam Smith and David Ricardo replaced the old
laissez-faire mercantilist theories which had nurtured sugar and slavery, particularly
when British workers demanded cheaper foodstuffs, including sugar. The
Sugar Duties Equalisation Act (1846) and the repeal of the Navigation
Acts three years later abolished mercantilism and removed duties on
foreign sugar. In 1847 a commercial crisis in England sent thirteen West
Indian companies into bankruptcy. The West Indies Bank based in
Barbados failed, and so did the Planters' Bank in Jamaica where 474
sugar and coffee plantations were abandoned.

(f) Unprogressive, (i) Planters clung to labour-intensive methods and for a long time resisted
inefficient British mechanisation — ploughs, steam engines, vacuum pans and the central'
West Indian sugar factory or Usine.
industry (ii) The smaller territories could not economically utilise machinery.
(iii) Investors considered the sugar trade too risky and this created an
acute shortage of capital for the change-over to mechanisation.

42


(iv) Declining soil fertility in the 'old' sugar islands — for example, Jamaica,
Barbados and St Kitts.
By 1860 the collapse was halted in most territories. British Guiana and
Trinidad used loans provided by the British government to finance immi-
gration schemes, while estate improvements were carried out in Barbados.
In other areas, including Jamaica, the decline continued.

II Attitudes to estate labour

(a) The planters By 1838 some planters had abandoned their estates. The others feared
the exodus of freemen from the estates and having to pay high wages. A
few tried to provide good working and living conditions, and paid high
wages to attract estate labour. Where land was available for the freemen
this was considered as being the main threat to the planters' labour
supply. Thus they hindered, but could not stop the freemen's acquisition
of land.
(b) The freemen (i) Their greatest desire was to leave the estates permanently.
(ii) They were fully aware that the key to economic independence was.
land-ownership.
(iii) There was also a strong desire for education as a means of escape
from agricultural or manual labour.
(iv) A number of skilled workers — masons, carpenters, coopers, wheel-
wrights — were able to seek estates which offered the best wages. Still
others became higglers and hucksters, shopkeepers, fishermen and
jobbers in towns.

III Immigration
(a) Rationale The planters believed that their most serious post-emancipation problem
was the scarcity of cheap, reliable estate labour, caused by the flight from
the estates. Many of the freemen formed an independent peasantry through
land-ownership. The planters responded by importing indentured labourers
from densely populated agrarian communities and they petitioned the
colonial governments to support the various immigration schemes. More-
over, it was felt that, in the long term, immigration would reduce wages
when a competitive pool of labour was established.
(b) British immigration (i) The Madeirans: came mainly to British Guiana between 1835 and
schemes 1882. The scheme was discontinued because of a high mortality rate
and the majority of the survivors became traders.
(ii) The Chinese: came mainly to Cuba, Trinidad and British Guiana
from the Portuguese colony of Macao and from Canton during the
period 1852 to 1893. Conditions in overcrowded Chinese coastal cities
and the havoc created by the Teiping Rebellion (1851-64) against
the Manchus provided the incentive for the more adventurous to seek
labour and/or a new life abroad. Like the Madeirans they preferred
trade and business to field labour. It was the most expensive scheme,
the Chinese government opposed it and enmity developed between
blacks and Chinese.

43
 (iii) The Africans: after 1841 attempts to bring free Africans from Sierra
Leone and the Kru Coast failed because the Africans soon became
aware of working conditions in the Caribbean. The Africans who did
arrive were mainly those rescued from captured slavers sailing to
countries which still carried on the slave trade.
By 1869 36 160 free Africans came mainly to British Guiana,
Jamaica and Trinidad.
(iv) The East Indians In 1837 John Gladstone gained permission to take
East Indian labourers to Guiana on five-year contracts, but ill-treatment
of the Indians and disease caused many deaths, and in 184O Indian
immigration was discontinued by the Indian and British governments.
Pressure from the planters resulted in a second attempt being made
in 1845 and it lasted until 1917. Approximately half a million East
Indian indentured labourers came to the Caribbean. They normally
contracted to work on the estates for five years, and were entitled to:
free passage to the Caribbean; if they arrived before 1898, males
were granted a half of the return passage while females got two-
thirds; a fixed wage of I shilling and sixpence per day for a specified
number of days in each year; free medical attention and housing.
The governments of Jamaica, Trinidad and Guiana appointed agents
to recruit workers in India who were shipped from Calcutta. Madras
or Bombay. Men greatly outnumbered women and there were subs-
tantial losses on the overcrowded, unhygienic transport ships (20% in
1860; 1% by 1890). On the estates the living conditions of the workers
were slave-like. They could not leave the estates without a permit;
were subject to fines and imprisonment for disobedience or absence
from work; were herded into insanitary barracks; were despised by
those who needed their labour; were stricken with disease and death.
Those who survived claimed their return passage or acquired their
own land.
These conditions of the immigrants provided ample support for the
protests of the Indian Nationalist Movement against immigration. In
1916 the Indian Legislative Council passed the Abolition of Indenture
Act, and in 1918 the British Secretary of State for India refused to re-
open immigration.

(c) French immigration (i) 1848-61: An unsuccessful attempt was made to recruit immigrants
schemes from the French trading bases of Chanderragore and Pondicherry
in India. They could not supply enough labourers for Martinique
and Guadeloupe.
(ii) 1861-86: About 88000 Indians came to Martinique, Guadeloupe
and French Guiana after the French arranged to recruit them
from British India. This scheme was stopped because of French
ill-treatment of the Indians.

(d) Surinam's labour 1870: Britain allowed Surinam to import workers from India following
importation essentially the same procedure and contract used by the British.
This scheme was preceded by attempts to import Indonesians in
the 1850s. Indian immigration was terminated in 1917; Indonesians
stopped coming in 1938.

44
 IV The effects of immigration
(a) Economic (i) Rising production of sugar and cocoa, particularly in British Guiana,
Trinidad and St Kitts. But they could not prevent Grenada's loss of
its sugar industry, and the industry in some areas declined anyway.
(ii) This improvement in sugar production hindered the diversification of
the West Indian economy.
(iii) A minority of Indians became fairly wealthy through business and
the professions; others joined the peasantry and widened the range of
export crops, for example, rice, cocoa and coffee.
(iv) Some immigrants brought special skills such as knowledge of irrigation.
(v) Increasing population generated improvements in public facilities,
law enforcement, trading facilities and larger markets for local produce.

(b) Social (i) For some time the different groups of immigrants worked together
with the local population, but by 1917 they were openly hostile to
each other and this problem of the multi-racial Caribbean society
lingers on.
(ii) The various ethnic groups have enriched Caribbean culture. For
instance the East Indians kept their Hindu or Muslim religion; in
Guyana they still practise the Hindu festival of Phagwah.
(iii) In the early years of immigration the Indians were difficult to assimilate
into West Indian society. Very few of them were educated, they were
leaderless and they tended to stick together in separate communities.

V The Free Village movement

(a) Factors which (i) Availahility of land British Guiana, Trinidad and Jamaica had much
determined the unused land, while Antigua, Barbados, St Kitts and Grenada had
establishment of free practically none.
villages (ii) Attitude of the freemen to plantation labour In Jamaica, where anti-
plantation sentiments were strongest, the free village movement was
strongest.
(iii) Attitude of the planters They opposed the freemen's acquisition of
land by attempting to stop the sale of Crown Lands.
(iv) Attitude of the colonial government Some governors encouraged the
movement, for example Colebrookc in Antigua, 1837. On the other
hand the Guianese planters and governor legislated against the growth
of cooperative estates from 1852 to 1856.
(v) Missionaries tried to protect their congregations from abuses such as
increased rents on estate houses and expulsion from the estates by
assisting in the establishment of free villages.
(vi) In Guiana from 1839 to 1856 freemen created their own cooperative
villages by pooling resources to buy and operate abandoned plantations.

(b) The role of The largest number of free villages were established in Jamaica with the
Nonconformist help of such missionaries as William Knibb and Elder Pillippo (Baptists);
missionaries Joseph Sturge (Quaker). The missionaries normally obtained funds from
individuals and missionary societies in England to purchase large tracts of
land, then resold these cheaply after dividing them into small plots of an

45
 acre or less per family. Under the supervision of the missionaries the
peasants cultivated and sold their own produce, built houses, schools and
churches, and in general maintained fairly independent communities, for
example, Sturge Town, Buxton and Bethany in Jamaica.

(c) Effects of the free (i) The small plots owned by the villagers could not support. totally
villages on the independent peasants; hence they still had to work for wages on the
labour supply estates a few days each week, but they could negotiate for higher
wages and improved working conditions.
(ii)Jamaican dislike of estate work, coupled with the movement, resulted
in an inadequate and unreliable labour supply that reduced sugar
production. Likewise, there was a scarcity of estate labour in Guiana
and Trinidad, remedied by immigration.
(iii) Antigua's successful example of encouraging the growth of semi-
independent settlements linked to the estates, thereby assuring a
reliable labour supply was followed in Montserrat, Nevis and St Kitts.

VI Growth of the peasantry: efforts of the freemen

(a) Apart from the missionary-supported free villages, many freemen

bought their own land with money earned from overtime work during
apprenticeship. They became subsistence farmers but sold some surplus
crops in local markets and in some cases grew sugar cane. They
eventually developed trading systems (higgling' in Jamaica) and ex-
port crops: coffee, ginger and pimento in Jamaica; arrowroot in St
Vincent; cocoa and copra in Grenada.
(b) The cooperative venture in Guiana was shortlived, but after its col-
lapse cooperative members still sought land by squatting in the interior.
(c) Squatting — illegal occupation of Crown Lands in remote areas; com-
mon in large territories.
(d) Metayage or sharecropping. Labourers produced the sugar and profits
were shared between themselves and the plantation owner. This was
done mainly in the French islands, St Lucia and Tobago. In Barbados
and other areas the freemen grew sugar cane on plantation grounds
or small plots nearby; the cane was milled on the estate; estate-owner
and growers shared profits.
(e) The peasants encountered such difficulties as:
(i) their lands were not officially surveyed;
(ii) colonial governments imposed restrictions on the sale of Crown
Lands;
(iii) the land itself was very often marginal, infertile and remote;
(iv) licences for the sale of export crops were required;
(v) opposition from the planters;
(vi) exploitation of land-buyers; they were forced to pay excessively
high prices for inferior land.

VII The colonial governments' approach to the problems of

emancipation

(a) Representative (i) The planter-dominated representative' government did very little to
government to 1865 i mprove social welfare; poor social conditions were one of the prime

46
 causes of the Morant Bay Uprising (1865) which terminated the Old
Representative System.
(ii) Efforts which were made to improve education, health care, poor and
old relief were car ri ed out with church assistance, and were concentrated
mainly in towns.
(iii) Before 1834 there was very little education in the Caribbean and the
extant institutions catered mainly to white children, for example
Codrington College in Barbados. In 1835 the British Government's
Negro Education Grant provided the sum of £30000 for elementary
education which ultimately fi ltered down to the missionary societies
to provide an unrealistic religious and classical education for negro
children. The Mico bequest was another source of educational funds;
it was used to build teachers' colleges in Jamaica and Antigua, and
primary schools in St Lucia and Trinidad.

(b) Crown Colony (i) Education remained the most pressing problem to be tackled by this
government: system of government and some progress was made in expanding
post-1865 educational facilities, especially in Jamaica. But finances were inad-
equate, educational opportunities still very limited an d discrimatory,
and it was impossible to implement compulsory elementary education.
A few secondary schools in Trinidad, Jamaica and Barbados were r 1+,
pupilled almost entirely by white students; their curriculum was sadly \cA,
irrelevant to the beds of West Indians.
(ii) From the 1870s onwards public works were undertaken, notably in
Jamaica where Governor Sir John Peter Grant relocated the capital
of Kingston, installed gasworks, piped water and a new market. In
Guiana drainage, irrigation and coastal defences presented the ost
serious problems. ` ^t?^.^_ J
(iii) By the 1870s public roads, hansom cabs, streetcars and railways all
helped to improve transportation in Jamaica. Tarmac roads were
built in Trinidad, while Guiana was provided with a railway. From
the 1840s onwards steamships from England called at the islands.
(iv) The problem of epidemic diseases and high infant mortality demanded
adequate health facilities, and after 1848 the island legislatures created
Boards of Health. Hospitals were con fi ned to large towns. A Medical
Department and Government Medical Service dispensed free medical
treatment in Jamaica.

47
 8 The United States in the
Caribbean

I 1819-1934
1819-21: Collapse of the Spanish American Empire. Creation of a string
of independent republics from Argentina to Mexico.
1823: Monroe Doctrine President Monroe, fearful of European re-
colonisation, declared that `The American continents are henceforth
not to be considered subjects for future colonisation by any
European powers'.
1825-95: US isolationism The US withdrew from regional affairs.
American energies concentrated on taming the West, populating
the new states, fighting the Civil War (1860-65) and making the
US a great industrial power.
Residual interest remained in the USA's `backyard', the Caribbean
and Central America. In 1844 and 1868 the US showed an interest
in annexing the Dominican Republic which Spanish colonialism,
` Manifest Destiny', the desire to make the Caribbean an American
lake', the pro-annexationist New Orleans slave-owning lobby de-
sirous of obtaining slave territory, and suspicion of British designs
on Cuba, all at one time during the period urged the island's
incorporation into the Union. The discovery of gold in California
in the 1840s kindled hopes of the creation of a `short' route to
Panama or Nicaragua from the US east-coast cities to the Western
gold fields while the Walker episode in Nicaragua (1856-60) became
a cause ce(ebre in US foreign policy.
After 1870: US private enterprise began to invest in the Caribbean. The
Boston Fruit Company carried bananas from Central America and
Jamaica to New York and Minor Keith built railways in Costa
Rica. In 1899 Baker and Keith amalgamated their businesses to
form the United Fruit Company. By 1900 US investment in the
Caribbean totalled some $100000000.
1895-1934: US policy of 'intervention' elsewhere in the Americas
in order to protect US investment and restore order and `good
government'. Claimed to be `international philanthropy' by President
Taft and `unselfish service' by another US politician it appeared to
non-Americans to be `dollar diplomacy' — intervention abroad in
places where US commercial profits were at risk.

British Guiana and 1895: Friction developed between Britain and Venezuela over the south-
Venezuela western boundary of British Guiana.
USA revived Monroe Doctrine. Supported Venezuela.
July: US President Grover Cleveland sent Britain a `twenty-inch
gun note' demanding that the US be allowed to arbitrate the

48
 dispute and declaring that 'Today the US is practically sovereign
on this continent.'
Dec.: Cleveland threatened war but conflict avoided by British
acceptance of US arbitration.

Panama 1880s: French attempts at construction of canal across Panamanian isthmus

defeated by yellow fever.
1898: US doctors discover cause of yellow fever in Cuba.
1901 Sept.: Theodore ('Teddy') Roosevelt became US President. Foreign
policy based on 'Walk softly and carry a big stick'. Determined to
use 'big stick' to obtain land across which canal was to be built.
Nov.: Hay-Pauncefoote Treaty provided for US construction of
Panama canal with 'neutral' canal zone to be under US supervision.
1902 June: US Congress authorised Roosevelt to buy rights of French
Panama Company and to acquire from Colombia perpetual control
of the canal zone.
1903 Jan.: Hay-Herran Pact formalised US acquisition of Panama Canal
zone but Colombia delayed ratification.
Nov.: US agents incited Panama to declare its independence of
Colombia. Roosevelt sent USS Nashville and troops to Colon to
ensure that Colombia could not retake Panama.
Dec.: Panama granted US control of canal zone in perpetuity for
an annual rent.
1904: Roosevelt Corollary Extension of Monroe Doctrine. Roosevelt de-
clared that the USA had the right to interfere in the Americas
whenever there was 'chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which
C2C\11,tC \C\ a Ca'. tCIOCCC va% c ChC t\CC ' O\C^y
1904-14: USA, with much West Indian labour, constructed Panama Canal.
1914 Panama Canal opened. President Wilson, reflecting US shame at
Roosevelt's boast that he `took Panama', paid Colombia compen-
sation for the loss of Panama sustained by Roosevelt's high-handed
• action.

Cuba 1895: Start of Cuban revolution against Spanish colonial masters.

189 -8: US public opinion was shocked by Spanish excesses in attempts
to crush revolt. US government concerned about fate of some
$50000000 of US investment in Cuba.
1898: Feb.: Casus belli for US military intervention provided by sinking
of USS Maine in Havana harbour.
May — July: Spanish — American War US invaded Cuba and Puerto
Rico. Spanish easily defeated despite heavy American losses due
to yellow fever.
Dec.: Treaty of ParisSpain ceded Puerto Rico and Philippines to
USA. Cuba was allowed her independence.
189 -1902: Cuba governed by US military administration.
1901: June: Platt Amendment making the island virtually a US protec-
torate incorporated into Cuban constitution.
190 -1908: US military intervention at request of Cuban President,
Estrada Palma, following disputed election.
1912: US military intervention 'to protect life and property' after a black
rising in Oriente.

49
 1917: US threatened intervention if law and order not restored.
1921-2: US Consul, General Crowder, influenced direction of Cuban
government.

Puerto Rico 1898 Dec.: Treaty of Paris Puerto Rico ceded to US.
1898— 190(1: Puerto Rico governed by US military administration.
1900: Foraker (First Organic) Act established House of Representatives
but in practice Puerto Rico was ruled by a US governor. US sugar-
producing corporations were allowed to evade provisions of the
Act and control large estates. Puerto Ricans resented US political
and economic control.
1917: Jones (Second Organic) Act created hi-cameral legislature, reduced
influence of US civil servants in government and conferred US
citizenship on Puerto Ricans. Constitutional reform not matched
by socio-economic advances — few public works; illiteracy and
disease widespread.

Haiti 1905: US government sought arrangement to collect customs on behalf

of US creditors.
1915: Chaos. Murder of President, US military intervention.
1915-34: US occupation. Order and economic stability restored but
financial arrangements favoured US interests.
1916: Forced labour (corvee) on roads reintroduced to aid construction
of public works and reduce unemployment.
1918-20: Insurrection led by Charlemagne Peralte. Death of 2000 Haitians
and seven US marines.

Dominican Republic 1916: President Jiminez, refusing to accept US dictation of policy, resigned.
US military intervention.

Virgin Islands 1917: USA purchased Danish Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25000000.
Islands bought to give US strategic control of Anegada Passage
and protection for approaches to Panama Canal.

II 1934-65

In 1934 the USA's policy towards her Caribbean neighbours changed

from the `big stick' `dollar diplomacy' to that of the `good neighbour' with
the election of F.D. Roosevelt to the US Presidency in 1933. At home
Roosevelt overcame the unemployment and poverty created by the Great
Depression of 1929-32 with a New Deal in which vast amounts of federal
money were used to construct enormous public works. In the American
colonies — the `Territories and Island Possessions — a similar New Deal
was inaugurated while military intervention in other countries was brought
to an end.

Cuba 1934: US abrogated the Platt Amendment. Cuba's internal affairs no

longer US business.
1934-58: US refrained from interfering in the misgovernment of Grau St
Martin and dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. US private enterprise

50
 flourished under Batista, and US obtained monopoly of Cuban
sugar harvest.
1959 Jan.: Batista overthrown by Fidel Castro.
June: Castro expropriated US sugar companies.
1960 May: US stopped aid to Cuba.
Oct. • US placed embargo on shipments to Cuba.
1961 Apr.: US backed abortive 'Bay of Pigs' invasion of Cuba by dis-
gruntled exiles in USA.
1962 .Jan.: Cuban trade agreement with USSR.
Oct.: Cuban Missile Crisis. Russia dismantled missile sites in Cuba
after US threatened war.

Puerto Rico 1933-40: 'Little New Deal'. Puerto Rican Reconstruction Administration
funded public works for unemployment rchcf.
1940-50: Operation Bootstrap'. Popular Democratic Party led by Luis
Munoz Mann and assisted by US governor Tugwell embraced
policy of socio-economic reform, i.e. land reform, improvements
in social services and utilities, agricultural diversification and in-
dustrialisation. General economic development.
1947: Governor made an elected official.
1948: Munoz elected governor.
1950: Munoz persuaded Puerto Rican Congress to accept the relationship
between Puerto Rico and the USA as one of ' Commonwealth' -
Estado libre asociado — Internal self-government but federal govern-
ment responsible for defence and foreign affairs.
1954: Puerto Rican nationalists shot five US Congressmen in Washington.
1967: Commonwealth' status confirmed by plebiscite but significant sup-
port for those desirous of statehood within the USA.

Haiti 1934-56: Haiti ruled by a series of dictators.

1956: Dr Francois Duvalier succeeded President Magloire. Duvalier's
infamous dictatorship supported by US aid.

Dominican Republic 1930-61: Dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Trujillo's repressive regime

buttressed by US aid and US private enterprise.
1961: Trujillo assassinated.
1963 Feb.: Election of Juan Bosch to Presidency.
Sept.: Bosch overthrown by army.
1964-5: Internal chaos.
1965: President Johnson demanded OAS intervene militarily with multi-
national force which included 20000 US troops.
1966 June: Joaquin Balaguer defeated Bosch in presidential election.
US peacekeeping force withdrawn.

51
 9 Social Conditions in the
Twentieth Century

I Social conditions in the British Caribbean, 1900-1938

(i) Working conditions (a) Low wages Labourers worked long hours on the sugar estates, oilfields
and in the bauxite mines for miserable wages. Average daily wage:
50t Jamaica; 35st Trinidad; 30(t Barbados; 28¢ St Vincent. In 1935-6
the profit of the Trinidad oil companies was four times the wages bill.
(b) Employer's control In every colony except British Guiana trade unions
had no legal recognition and every worker was bound by the harsh
terms of the Employers and Workers Acts.

(ii) Unemployment Plantation work seasonal: July — Dec. `dead season'; 50% if the labour
force laid off. In 1935 only 50% work force was permanently employed.
After 1920 Unemployment increased. Reasons: (a) Disease and competition
affected rice, cotton, bananas, citrus production in various colonies. (b)
Fall in sugar price — 220Ib in 1920 to 1¢lb in 1930 as European beet sugar
recovered after the First World War. (c) Return of migrant labourers
from Panama (Canal completed 1914) and USA (strict immigration law,
1924).
In 1929 situation worsened `Great Depression' reduced demand for West
Indian raw materials and labour. Collapse of sugar price and return of
labourers from Central America, Cuba, Venezuela and USA.
1929-38: 20% to 50% of the labour force unemployed.

(iii) Health General health of the bulk of the population was very poor. Disease and
malnutrition were rife; diet unsatisfactory; infant mortality high; housing
poor; and medical services inadequate.
(a) Disease and malnutrition 1922 Wood Report. Yellow fever eradicated,
but malaria, dysentery, typhoid, yaws, TB. VD and internal parasites
endemic. Hookworm infestation — Trinidad 90%; Barbados 70%.
Malnutrition responsible for 13% deaths in Trinidad; 33% child deaths
in Jamaica, 1935. Anaemia, deficiency and skin diseases endemic.
(b) Diet Insufficient and deficient. Maintenance diet of carbohydrates
(rice, bread, red kidney beans). Meat and milk in diet inadequate. In
Jamaica in 1935, only 45% of the population adequately nourished.
(c) Mortality rate High, particularly infant mortality rate. 1935- 120/1000
Trinidad; 137/1000 Jamaica; 217/1000 Barbados; 171/1000 Antigua;
187/1000 St Kitts; (England 58/1000).
(d) Housing Inadequate, insanitary and overcrowded. Examples
`Barracks' in Trinidad, 48 rooms, 226 people, 3 WCs. Jamaica — 3
persons per room. Sewerage, running water possessed only by the
wealthy.
(e) Medical services Private doctors catered only for the rich. Government

52
 medical/dental services inadequate and centralised in the towns. Orde-
Brown Report (1936) stressed need for cheap and comprehensive
health service.

(iv) Education General Inadequate in quantity; deficient in quality. Artificial curricula

based on metropolitan materials which ignored or bore no relation to
West Indian society.
(a) Schools Apart from schools for children of the rich (in Jamaica,
Woolmer's; Jamaica College; in Barbados, Harrison's College) the
schools were overcrowded, insanitary and concentrated in the towns.
(b) Teachers Ill-trained, badly paid. Absenteeism common.
(c) Books and curriculum Emphasised metropolitan values and ideas.
Ignored West Indian history, culture and society.
(d) Higher/vocational education Virtually non-existent. Few teacher-
training colleges. No agricultural, medical, engineering colleges nor a
university.
(e) Illiteracy Widespread. 1917, Trinidad — 43%; British Guiana — 60%.
Planters discouraged education of the workforce. Backra-Quashie'
attitude reflected in the amount of government spending on education.

II Social conditions in Puerto Rico and Haiti

Puerto Rico (a). Working conditions

Wages Better in Puerto Rico than in the British Caribbean but still
low. Average daily rate 604; sugar estates 80g. 60% of the working
population earned less than $100 p.a.
(b) Unemployment
Sugar work seasonal, 34 weeks out of 52. Workers supplemented
income by fishing and smallholding but the land of the peasant was
inferior to that held by the US sugar corporations. Only 20% of
smallholders owned the land they worked.
(c) Health
Disease and malnutrition Not as chronic as in the British Caribbean
but there was a hookworm infestation of 83%, while TB was respon-
sible for 15% of deaths in 1934. 1932-6 there were 30000 reported
cases of malnutrition.
Diet Deficient. Families existed on 20-40¢ a day for food which
provided only a maintenance diet of rice, beans, salt fish and coffee.
Poor diet affected growth. Average Puerto Rican shorter and lighter
than the average American.
Mortality rate Infant mortality rate high. 23% of all deaths under I
year old; 43% under 5 years (In USA 11% and 15% respectively).
Causes: inadequate diet, lack of hygiene and child care.
Housing Insanitary and overcrowded. On the sugar estates 3.5 persons
shared I room; elsewhere it was 5.1 persons. 90% of all houses had
no bathing facilities and 40% had no sanitation.
Medical services Inadequate for the growing population but better
than in the British Caribbean. Dental facilities very poor.
Education Only 44% of children were on the school rolls. Schools
were concentrated in urban areas and there was too much emphasis

53
 on the teaching of English. Science, agriculture, local history and
Spanish were neglected.

Haiti Social conditions in Haiti, after a hundred years of dictatorship, factionalism

and misgovernment, were the worst in the Caribbean.
Average wage 20¢ a day.
Unemployment Most Haitians were rural peasants but for those in the
towns unemployment or seasonal employment was the normal state of
affairs.
Health Most diseases were endemic; government medical facilities were
non-existent and in the urban areas housing was overcrowded and insanitary.
Education 80% of the population was illiterate.

III Attitudes and reactions of individuals and social groups to

social conditions
In every territory the middle class and blacklcoloured 'intelligentsia' sought
to obtain some share in their own government while the working class
reacted violently when conditions became unbearable.

British Caribbean After 1918 Exposure of West Indians to conditions elsewhere especially
during war service (1914-18), e.g. Cipriani, Wickham, Garvey, led to
discontent with Crown Colony government and with social conditions in
the British West Indies.
Middle class/black-coloured intelligentsia Founded newspapers (e.g. Herald
in Barbados and Socialist in Trinidad) and established associations de-
manding representative government, inclusion of elected members in
legislative councils and lowering of voting qualifications, e.g. Cipriani and
the Working Men's Association in Trinidad and O'Neale and Wickham
and the Democratic League in Barbados.
1922 Wood Reporl After demands for constitutional change and riots in
Trinidad, British Honduras and Dominica, Major Wood (Under-Secretary
of State in the Colonial Office) toured British Caribbean to ascertain
need for constitutional reform.
1924 elected members added to the legislative councils of Trinidad (7), St
Lucia (3), Dominica (3) and St Vincent (3).
Working class Suffered in silence until (a) represented by middle-class
spokesmen, (b) attracted by black populist movements, (c) joined infant
trade unions.
(a) Middle-class representation — Trinidad: Cipriani ('Tattoo'), white
Creole of French/Corsican descent; elected member of Legislative
Council and Port of Spain City Council; set up Trinidad Working
Men's Association (1919); demanded social security, minimum wage
law, racial harmony. Barbados: Charles Duncan O'Neale and Clennel
Wickham; founded Herald (1919) and Democratic League (1924);
called for introduction of socialist policies.
(h) Black populist movements Sought to instil racial pride by emphasis on
black history, religion, culture and achievement.
Trinidad: Negro Welfare and Cultural Association; appealed to
black racial pride and demanded better living conditions.

54
 Jamaica
(i) Robert Rumble led a peasant political movement in the 1920s,
(ii) Alexander Bedward sought relief for the peasantry in religious
mysticism.
(iii) Marcus Garvey (1887-1940). After journalistic experience on
the Gleaner Garvey toured Central America and Europe before
returning to Jamaica in 1919 and founding the United Negro
I mprovement Association (UNIA). Garvey took the UNIA to
the USA where its programme of 'Back to Africa' and the creation
of black organisations (the Black Star Line, the Black Cross
Nurses etc.) became very popular. Branches of UNIA and Liberty
Halls flourished in Jamaica and Trinidad, Central America and
West Africa and Garveyism became a worldwide movement with
international influence until Garvey was imprisoned in the USA
in 1924 on the charge that he was 'using the mails for fraud' and
dissension broke out among his lieutenants. Garvey returned to
Jamaica in 1929, revived the UNIA and, as a member of the
Legislative Council, demanded 'a dollar a day'.
(c) Infant Trade Unions The establishment of unions was difficult: lack
of legal protection, existence of the Masters and Servants Ordinances
and the opposition of governments and employers.
1906: Hubert Critchlow led a strike of port workers in Georgetown,
British Guiana.
1.907: Establishment of the Jamaica Trades and Labour Union.
1918: Jamaica Longshoreman's Union founded by Bain Alves.
1919: Critchlow established the British Guiana Labour Union.
1931: Alfred Thorne founded the British Guiana Workers Union.
1935: Bustamante and Coombs formed the Jamaica Workers and
Tradesmens Union.

Violent reaction Discontent with social conditions and Crown Colony government culmi-
nated in a series of 'Disturbances' or "Troubles' from 1934 to 1938.
1934: Trinidad Strikes on the sugar estates
British Honduras Soberanis led riots in Belize City
1935: St Kitts Riots on the sugar estates
British Guiana Riots on the sugar estates
St Vincent The Working Men's Association led a general strike
Trinidad Uriah 'Buzz' Butler led a march of the unemployed
St Lucia Coal-carriers in Castries went on strike and rioted
1937: Trinidad Oratory of Butler led to strikes in the oillields. Clumsy
attempt to arrest Butler led to the death of two policemen. Butler
founded his 'Home Rule Party'.
Barbados Oratory of Clement Payne (Butler's 'Minister of Propa-
ganda') demanding the formation of unions. Payne arrested and
deported despite successful defence of Payne by Granticy Adams.
Payne's deportation led to rioting in Bridgetown — 14 killed, 59
wounded.
Jamaica Riots on the Kingston waterfront.
1938: Jamaica Riots in Kingston and on the sugar estates. Police killed
4 workers on the Tate and Lyle estate at Frome and 8 were killed
in Kingston.

55
Puerto Rico While most Puerto Ricans accepted that US control brought improved
living and working conditions, there was dissatisfaction at the monopoly
of the best land exercised by four US sugar corportions — a direct flouting
of the First Organic Act of 1900 which restricted landholding to 500 acres.
Puerto Rican nationalists objected to the US presence from the start and
in 1936 they gunned down the US police chief E. Francis Riggs.
1937: 21 March. Albizu Campos led a nationalist demonstration in Ponce
on which the police fired killing 20 demonstrators: the Massacre of
Ponce'.

Haiti US control brought stability and good government but the US presence
was occasionally resented, e.g.
1919: Charlemagne Peralte led a rising after the US Marines had reestab-
lished the corvee — forced labour on the roads.

IV Major attempts to change social conditions

British Caribbean Colonial governments were expected to `live off their own' and there was
little money allocated for social improvement.
1929: Colonial Development Fund. Grants and loans from the Imperial
Government for agricultural and industrial projects but only for
projects which aided UK — colonial commerce. However, it re-
mained a dead letter as in 1931 all colonial governments were
forced into drastic economies. Both Jamaica and Trinidad shelved
major social improvement schemes.
Puerto Rico Social conditions, while deplorable, were better than elsewhere in the
Caribbean and improved markedly under US control. There was a rapid
growth of the sugar industry; and improved transport, communications
and banking led to an increase in the standard of living.
1933-41: US relief grants. Establishment of Puerto Rican Reconstruction
Administration.
1938: Foundation of the Popular Democratic Party.
1942: Establishment of the Industrial Development Corporation.
Haiti US Marines built highways, wharves, docks, schools, bridges. General
improvement in public health, water supplies, agriculture and sanitation.
A sound currency and an efficient police force were also created in the
years of US control, 1919-34.

V The Moyne Commission and its recommendations

1938 August: A Royal Commision created `to investigate social and econ-
omic conditions in all the West Indian territories and to make
recommendations' as a response to the `Disturbances' of 1934 to
1938. Composed of British liberals, academics and trade unionists -
Baron Guiness (Moyne), Professor Simey and Walter Citrine. In
15 months the Commission saw 370 groups and individuals in 26
centres. It received 789 memoranda and interviewed not only
government officials but also unofficials, trade unionists and rep-
resentatives of the employers and various political groups.

56
Recommendations (a) Social Stressed need for rapid improvement in social services. As this
was not possible on the limited colonial revenues it proposed the
creation of a West Indian Welfare fund of £1 000 000 p.a. for 20 years
to fund hospitals, schools, land settlement schemes, agriculture and
social services.
(b) Labour It emphasised the need for worker's organisations. Proposed
compulsory registration of trade unions and government audit of
their funds. Abolition of Masters and Servants Ordinances and legis-
lation to protect unions against claims for damages. Interim wages
boards to be established until unions could set up their own wage-
negotiating machinery.
(c) Economic Agriculture to be diversified further and government to
handle marketing by creating marketing hoards. New crops and in-
vestment in coconuts. No new industry proposed except cement in
Jamaica.
(d) Political Gradual progress to self-government through gradual partici-
pation of people in decision-making process. Executive Councils to
be more representative of sectional interests. Legislative Councils to
be stripped of all official members except the Colonial Secretary,
Attorney General and Financial Secretary. It did not envisage im-
mediate universal adult suffrage.

Implementation 1940: Frank Stockdale (First Comptroller) for Development and Welfare
set up HO in Barbados. No special West Indian organisation but
projects funded from First Colonial Development and Welfare Act
(1940). Colonial governments ordered to implement Commission's
labour and political recommendations.

Criticisms Political West Indians viewed the political recommendations as too con-
servative. They had hoped for universal adult suffrage and self-government.
Social/economic Report emphasised social remedies to the exclusion of
economic ones which, it was held, would have provided the wealth to
fund social improvement. Industrial development neglected.
General Little involvement of West Indians in this new deal'. Comptroller
and his staff all British. No systematic or overall plan, just a succession of
piecemeal projects.

VI Improvements in post-Moyne years

Colonial Development and Welfare Acts of 1945 and 1949 provided

further funds for development. Up to 19511 a quarter of all CD and W
funds had been spent in the West Indies.
1958-62. Federation. The responsibilities of the Comptroller passed to
the Federal Government.
CD and W funds used in all territories for the provision of public utilities
(water, sanitation, hospitals, schools), aid to agriculture (research, new
crops, experimental farms, agricultural schools) and some industrial
development.
After 1950 Industrial Development Corporations and Boards were set up
in most territories. Thereafter there was a rapid expansion of industry -
particularly small, low capital industries.

57
 10 Trade Unions in the British
Caribbean

I Factors contributing to the development of the trade union

movement
(a) In the period 1890 to 192() attempts to organise trade unions mainly
failed because:
(i) migration made membership erratic;
(ii) workers were of diverse abilities and occupations, e.g. skilled/
unskilled, agricultural/professional;
(iii) employers and employees were divided by race and class;
(iv) union activity was illegal and therefore subject to prosecution;
terms of the Masters and Labourers Ordinances were extremely
harsh.
(b) From the 1920s to the 1930s an increase in successful trade unionism
resulted from:
(i) high unemployment created largely by the decline of sugar, the
seasonal nature of Caribbean agro-industries and the end to the
safety valve of emigration due to restrictive immigration legis-
lation passed in the USA in 1924, in Venezuela in 1929 and in
Cuba and Central America in the 1930s.
(ii) poor working and living conditions — low wages, no pensions,
no sickness or injury compensation. slum dwellings;
(iii) strong union leaders sprang from among veterans of the First
World War and from the middle class. Racist humiliations suf-
fered by members of the various battalions of the British West
Indies Regiment during their war service in Mesopotamia led to
the Mutiny at Taranto (Dec. 1918), outbreaks of disorder on
the mens' return home in Belize, St Lucia and Grenada and
fear of such disorder in Guyana, Barbados and St Vincent
(1919- 1920);
(iv) the influence of Garveyism. While not a labour movement, the
creation of branches of the UNIA throughout the Caribbean
encouraged working-class blacks to seek their own salvation in
collective action and was a factor in the unrest of 1919 -20
referred to in (iii). Many early labour leaders were ardent
Garveyites;
(v) the failure of colonial governments to provide effective assist-
ance to the working class;
(vi) the slow increase of industries coupled with the Great De-
pression;
(vii) the `Disturbances' of the 1930s and the British Guiana and
West Indies Labour Congress of 1938 which demonstrated the
effectiveness of unified industrial action;

58
 (viii) the recommendations of the Orde Brown and Moyne Com-
missions which led to the legalisation of trade unions and the
protection of workers who were involved in industrial actions.

Il The development of the trade union movement

1917 Jan.: Hubert Critchlow led a dockworkers' strike in British Guiana.
Dissatisfied with higher wages and a nine-hour day, he demanded
an eight-hour day and was fired by Bookers.
1919: Critchlow formed the British Guiana Labour Union, supported by
all workers and the British Labour Party, which agitated for its
legal recognition.
Captain Arthur Tattoo' Cipriani joined the Trinidad Working-men's
Association which went on strike in that year; he became leader
and expanded its base to include all workers, particularly East
Indians and Creoles, and also sought political power. The Association
became the Trinidad Labour Party in 1934 and was never registered
as a trade union.
1921: The BGLU became the first legally recognised trade union in the
British Caribbean when the Colonial Office ordered the Guiana
Court of Policy to pass a law recognising the Union's right to exist.
It was registered on 21 July 1922. Critchlow then established the
British Guiana and West Indies Labour Congress.
The Jamaica Legislative Council was likewise forced to legalise
trade unionism.
1922 Feb. 14: Registration of Bain Alves' Longshoremen's Union No. 1;
Alves envisioned this union as the first section of the Jamaican
Federation of Labour. In British Honduras (Belize), the Civil
Service Association was registered as a union.
1924: The forcible break-up of a peaceful march carried out by the
BGLU in support of striking Bookers labourers resulted in the
death of 13 people. This demonstrated the need for further law
reform as unions were still not fully protected from employers,
who could sue them for strike damages, and employees could not
carry out picket action.
1929: The Great Depression'; unemployment and social conditions be-
came worse as 20% to 50% of the labour force was unemployed.
Discontent with social conditions and Crown Colony Government
culminated in a series of labourers' riots, starting in 1934.
1 933: Cipriani's threatened oil-workers' strike forced the Legislative
Council to pass an unsatisfactory minimum wage bill that later
created a split in the Trinidad Labour Party.
1934: Strikes and riots by sugar workers in Trinidad. On 1 October
Soberanis' Labour and Unemployed Association rioted in Belize
City, British Honduras.
1935: St Kitts Arrival of a warship restored order after police killed
three and injured eight among striking sugar workers who demanded
higher wages.
Sr Vincent Working Men's Association called a general strike in
response to increased customs duties; state of emergency imposed

59
 and three strikers shot.
St Lucia Strikes by stokers at Castries naval yards was broken by
soldiers and the arrival of a warship.
Trinidad Tubal Uriah `Buzz' Butler led oilfield workers in a hunger
march; his demands for more forceful action by the TLP caused his
expulsion from the party.
Jamaica Alexander 'Busta' Bustamante and Allen G. S. Coombes
formed the Jamaica Worker's and Tradesmens' Union; Bustamante's
oratory at public meetings propelled him to prominence.
British Guiana Three months of riots and strikes on sugar estates
led to the formation of the Manpower Citizen's Association by
Ayubc Edun.
1937: British Guiana Strikes and riots against further mechanisation of
the sugar industry.
Trinidad Fyzabad riots broke out when workers prevented police
from arresting Butler; two policemen killed; fires in the Apex
oilfield; British troops aided Trinidad Light Horse Volunteers in
suppressing strikes; from his hiding Butler demanded and eventually
got a hearing by a Royal Commission.
Barbados The fiery `Seventeen Consecutive Meetings' of Butler's
self-styled `minister of propaganda' and Garveyite Clement Payne
led to his deportation back to Trinidad in spite of a successful
court defence against deportation by lawyer Grantley Adams; this
sparked off riots in Bridgetown which spread to the countryside
and left 14 dead, 47 wounded and 500 imprisoned. Adams rose to
the defence of the gaoled; attacked the Barbados oligarchy; by
1941 he was president of both the Barbados Workers' Union and
the Progressive League whose organisation he had spearheaded.
Jamaica Sugar workers demanded higher wages; police smashed
workers' blockade of factory at Serge Island. Bustamante expelled
from the JWTU; joined William Grant in agitation for labour
organisation at riot sites; petitioned George vi to remedy Jamaican
poverty.
1938: Jamaica Frome strike and riot spread to the Kingston waterfront
workers, led by Bustamante; 10 killed, 2000 wounded and 700
arrested, including Bustamante. Lawyer Norman Washington
Manley arranged for Bustamante's release; both negotiated a
settlement to the dispute and replaced Coombes as labour leaders.
British Guiana West Indies Labour Congress expressed labour and
political demands which were adopted by the politico-labour leaders.
In August, Lord Moyne, Sir Walter Citrine (Secretary of the British
Trade Union Congress) and other members of the Moyne Com-
mission started their fourteen-month investigation of the causes of
the disturbances.
1939: Trinidad Formation of the Trade Union Council.
Si Kitts The political St Kitts Workers League created the St
Kitts/Nevis Trades and Labour Union, its labour organisation.
Antigua Formation of the Antigua Trades and Labour Union.
Jamaica Bustamantc Industrial Trade Union registered on 23
January.
The final report of the Moyne Commission (not published until

60
 1944) totally condemned British colonial policy in the Caribbean.
1940: Recommendations of the Moyne Commission published; colonial
governments instructed to legislate for the recognition of trade
unions and the protection of workers. Local laws legalised picketing,
reduced registration costs and freed unions from liability for dam-
ages to company properties during industrial action. Thus freed
from legal encumbrances, unions increased; by the end of 1945
membership had grown to approximately 100000.
1941: About 28 unions joined in Guiana's Trade Union Council.
1945: Meeting of the Caribbean Labour Congress held in Georgetown.
Guiana; collapsed soon afterwards to be replaced in 1960 by the
Caribbean Congress of Labour.
1950: Eric Gairy led the newly-formed Grenada Manual and Mental
Workers' Union.
1 956: All major unions, with a combined membership of around 40000
workers, joined in the Trinidad National Trade Union Congress.

III The political connection

(a) The 1953 election merger of the Guiana Industrial Workers' Union
(1946) and Dr Cheddi Jagan's People's Progressive Party (1950); and
the General Workers Union—People's United Party alliance in Belize
(1950-54), are two illustrations of the necessarily close connection,
for their mutual support and survival, between the early trade unions
and political parties, both of which militantly demanded political and
social reforms.
(b) The unions needed political power to ensure the passing of beneficial
labour laws; thus unions and political parties were often one and the
same and with the same leaders, e.g. the Barbados Progressive League
which divided into the Barbados Workers' Union and the Barbados
Labour Party. Or the labour leaders might form political parties
supported by a union already in existence, as was the case of the
Bustamante Industrial Trade Union which spawned the Jamaica Labour.
Party.
(c) On the other hand, political leaders who needed power-bases of
working-class support tried to form unions, e.g_ the People's National
Party and the National Workers Union of Norman Manley.
(d) The over-reliance of political leaders on union support was counter-
productive in the long run, however, as their policies became dominated
by the need to keep union support; by the 1960s the narrowness of
union interests weakened the politico-labour connection, though pol-
itical parties in general maintain close labour relations.
(e) Personal ambition of union leaders drove some of them from unionism
to politics.

IV The achievements

(a) Marked change in worker—employer status; the old master and servant
ordinances were removed from the statute books, strike action was

61
 legalised and workers were able to gain:
(i) higher wages.
(ii) better working conditions and inspections of work sites.
(iii) shorter work hours.
(iv) pensions, medical aid and compensation for injury.
(v) employment of young persons and women.
(vi) holidays with pay.
(b) Employers became more willing to negotiate with workers' represen-
tatives rather than face industrial action.
(c) Unions progressed to the level of national organisations with close
political affiliations to make further gains through legislation.
(d) Governments became more responsive to workers' demands for social
advancements in such fields as education, housing, water supplies,
etc., especially where union — party ties were strong and after the
granting of the franchise.
(e) Promotion of the growth of political consciousness, social democracy,
nationalism and decolonisation.
(f) From the movement was produced the first generation of nationalist
political leaders, e.g. Bradshaw in St Kitts; Manley and Bustamantc
in Jamaica. Bird in Antigua. Adams in Barbados.

62
 11 Regional Cooperation

I Early attempts at unification in the Leeward and Windward

Islands

Reasons for Federating (i) economy — amalgamation of administrative posts, (ii) administrative
Administrations convenience and efficiency.

1871: Leeward Island Federation — federal colony of the Leewards

( Antigua, Dominica, Montserrat, Nevis, St Kitts, Virgin Islands)
established by the Leeward Islands Act. Leewards divided up into
Presidencies each run by an Administrator responsible to the
Governor. There was one Legislative Council, one High Court and
the police, prisons, and posts were centrally administered. However,
there was no common treasury and every measure required the
consent of the local assemblies. The Federation saw one change in
1882 when St Kitts and Nevis amalgamated. The Federation lasted
until 1965.
1875: Abortive Windward Islands Federation In 1868 the Imperial
Government proposed the federation of the British Windwards
with Barbados.
The Barbadian `representative' assembly resisted because:
(i) it feared the loss of its ancient privileges and saw that its
financial power would pass to the Imperial Government.
(ii) it feared that relatively wealthy Barbados would be forced to
finance the less prosperous Windwards.
(iii) the Barbadian plantocracy feared the loss of its `captive'
labour force to the Windwards.
Barbadian workers supported the proposed federation because:
(i) they hoped to improve their wage-bargaining power as the
labour market was opened to competition.
(ii) they hoped that the federation would provide greater labour
opportunities and the prospect of land purchase.
1875: Appointment of John Pope-Hennessy as Governor. Pope-Hennessy
supported `Confederation' and opposed the oligarchic Barbadian
assembly — `If I cannot bend the whites, I will stir up the blacks'.
1876: March. Whites formed the Barbados Defence Association. 'Con-
federation Riots'. 8 killed. Troops brought in from British Guiana
and Jamaica.

Consequences: (i) Pope-Hennessy recalled, (ii) idea of federation dropped.

(iii) 1885: all connections between Barbados and Windwards ended.
Windwards put under separate governor in Grenada but no common
legislature.

63
 BRITISH
VIRGIN \`^
VIRGIN
^y a ISLANDS ^^^ I I I 1
\- 50 100 150 200
^_ 1 0

`^^ km

1882. Presidency of----- + \

St. Kitts - Nevis e 1 t`'v
c .-. 167 4- 1798. Earlier Leeward
-Anguilla QI ^-:3 Federal Government rarely met

p
—^— 1860. Presidency of
\ \ Antigua with Barbuda
and Redonda

LEEWARD FEDERATION -- -- - - -
- Established 1871- Federation ----..' \1
was weak as any territory ,^ (
y ^
pro veto federal d 956)
could
1956)
proposal. (Dissolve 1956)

lJ

-_r. -- 1940. Dominica was

1 • transferred to the
• ^ Windward group

•.r

WINDWARDS AND BARBADOS

1876. Attempt to create a federation of
the Windwards failed as Barbados
refused to join st
1885. Windwards agreed to a common a ; 1876. Barbados
governor based in Grenada 'Confederation Riots' resulted
in recall of Windward Governor
Pope-Hennessy and failure
of federation
THE NEED FOR FEDERATION. The Imperial
Government long realised that it was expensive and
inconvenient for each of the British West Indies 1889. Tobago
islands in the Eastern Caribbean to have its own amalgamated with Trinidad
administration. In consequence it attempted to
i mpose federal legislatures on the Leeward and
Windward groups with a unified civil service and 1899. Union
with Trinidad
some common services for each group and a
Governor General based in Antigua (forthe Leewards)
and Grenada for the Windwards)

Early attempts at federation

I1 Movement to establish a British West Indies Federation:

1945-58

Reasons for federating (i) West Indian desire for unity intellectuals, politicians, trade unionists
and businessmen sought regional unity, e.g. Marryshow, `Federate or
Disintegrate'. Idea supported by Barbados Progressive League, PNP

64
 and Legislative Council of Jamaica, Caribbean Labour Congress and
Chamber of Commerce.
(ii) West Indian realisation that independence would he more likely to
come through federation as the organisation would he a viable econ-
omic unit.
(iii) British government desired federation — to create administrative, pol-
itical and economic unity and efficiency.

Steps towards federation 1945: Imperial government proposed federation.

1947: Montego Bay Conference Legislatures of all colonies (except the
Bahamas) represented. The Conference passed a resolution that
federation was not to prejudice the political development of its
separate colonies.
The conference set up:
(a) Regional Economic Committee to investigate means of
achieving economic unity.
(b) Standing Closer Association Committee — to devise a federal
constitution. The Committee reported in March 1950. There
was general agreement but British Guiana, British Honduras
and the British Virgin Islands opted out. Reasons: BG (feared
black majority would prejudice rights of its East Indians); BH
(feared influx of West Indian labour); BVI (saw their future
with the US Virgin Islands).
1953, 1955, 1956: Further conferences.
1956: British government and the West Indian representatives agreed
a constitution. Imperial Parliament passed British Caribbean
Federation Act.
1957: Order-in-Council set up the Federation. The Imperial government
retained the responsibility for defence, external relations and
financial stability. Organisation: (i) Senate of 19 nominated mem-
bers (2 from each colony, I from Montserrat); (ii) House of Rep-
resentatives of 45 members to he elected by universal adult suffrage;
(iii) Council of State — Governor General, Prime Minister and 10
ministers. Chaguaramas to he the site of the federal capital which
was to he temporarily housed in Port of Spain. Revenue to be
raised by a levy on each constituent member.
1958: Jan. Federation came into being.
March. Elections to the House of Representatives. West Indian
Federal Labour Party (WIFLP) supported by Adams, Williams
and Manley versus the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) supported
by Bustamante and Gomes. Victory for WIFLP with 26 seats; DLP
won 19 seats. Grantley Adams first Federal Prime Minister.
Apr. First session of the Federal Parliament.

III Reasons for the failure of the Federation and subsequent

attempts at unity
(i) Immediate and
specific
(a) Constitutional The federation as structured in 1958 was less advanced politically than
arguments Jamaica and Trinidad. In 1960 full internal self-government replaced the

65


Council of State with cabinet government. Thereafter the Governor

General was required to accept the advice of the Prime Minister. The
House of Representatives was increased in size to 64 members in order to
placate Jamaica and Trinidad (Jamaica 30 seats, Trinidad 16) as prior to
this the House was controlled by the votes of the smaller territories.

(b) Revenue and The original levy system (producing £2 million p.a.) was inadequate. Of
funding the total. Jamaica contributed 43%, Trinidad 39%, Barbados 9% and the
rest 9%. The larger territo ri es regarded this as unfair. Jamaica, however,
would not allow the Federation to levy direct taxes or customs duties as it
feared that given that power it would seek to dictate Jamaican economic
and fiscal policy. Therefore the first essential of a strong federation — a
customs union — was not created.

(c) Chaguaramas issue The site of the federal capital was disputed by Jamaica particularly as it
was still, in 1958, a US military base. In 1961 Trinidad negotiated with
the US for a continuation of the lease.

QMember states of federation

fl Non-pa rt icipating
Commonwealth Caribbean
states
del iON- ho er West Indian
sh in 1953 an at
with British
delegates with
conferences in London in 1953 and 1956

WEST INDIES FEDERAL LABOUR PARTY IW LF.LP.1 ^'

j 1959. CONSTrNTION REVISED—giving
An alliance Ot the leading socialist political er representation
Jamaica and Trinidad rester
panics ofthe 6.1 W. suppo rt ed by Manley. BAHAMAS in the federal parliament
W il liams and Adams

DEMOCRATIC LABOUR PARTY (Diet b

An alliance of the opposition
'oldmal parties led be 1980. For internal sel f-
Alexander 9ustamante ) _ government far federation

/ t ^T ^ M ^ o ^ y ^ tlfKMp RR.TISH aIRGIN ISLAND9

Favou red fetlera9on

JAMAICA •^
ST. KITTS •ss 6 ANTIGUA
e ,,t^
^ NEVIS

BRITISH I N 1.Jamaiw Rtdarandum on MONTSERRAT Vo

HONDURAS enntinued membership forced by Q DOMINICA
Jamaica Levi Parry. Jamaica 9
elected to leave federation

ST LUCIAQ
1958. Pedant EHctican W_i r_LI 22 seats, ST. VINCENT a 0 BARBADOS
D.L.P. 10 seats, 3 Indepenoent sea m
Federal Parliament Legislatore was olleC CIIAGUMIGMRPrTrinided 1951 r
by the voles of the small islands and thee
the Chosen site of federal capital • GRENADA
Independents. Grantley Adams became dO TOBAGO
Federal Prime Minister //^^
J / p er\ ^t 0 5011 dON-1962.
ll--lalff'----"/ (l`
^JTRINIDAD

0 200 400 600 800 1000

km
BRITISH GUIANA
tl

WEAKNESSES OF THE FEDERATION

1. Failure of mainland colonies to join
2. Nationalist aspirations of Jamaica and Trinidad;
their rival ideas about the nature of the federal
government and their discontent with the federal
constitution
3. Fears of the smaller states
4. Imposition of political unity without prior consideration
of economic agreement and co-operation

Federation of the British West Indies 1958-62

66


(d) Absence of major Adams became federal Prime Minister in part because Williams and
figures Manley saw their roles in their respective countries rather than in the
Federation. Bustamante and the DLP opposed federation in principle by
May 1961.

(e) Jamaica referendum In September 1961 Manley held a referendum over federation. Despite
last-minute constitutional changes, 54% of Jamaicans opted for withdrawal.
Jamaica withdrew and Williams maintained that I from 10 equalled 0'.
Trinidad withdrew and in March 1962 the Federation was dissolved.

(ii) General and

long-term
(a) Federation Refusal of British Guiana, British I londuras and the British Virgin Islands
incomplete to participate weakened the original concept.

(b) Fears of Jamaica Between them Jamaica and Trinidad held 77% of the population, 83% of
and Trinidad the land, 75% of the wealth of the Federation. They contributed 82% of
the levy yet, because the smaller territories supported the WIFLP and
their representatives dominated the ministerial seats in the federal cabinet,
Jamaica and Trinidad feared (i) as `haves' their economies would be
taxed to subsidise the `have-riots', (ii) that their populations would be
swamped by immigrants from the 'have-not' members.

(c) Conflicting concepts Jamaica conceived of the federation as a loose political grouping, decen-
of federation tralised with a weak federal government without powers of taxation or
the creation of a customs union. Trinidad conceived of it as a strong
union, its government having wide powers of economic and fiscal control.

(d) Separatism and Ordinary West Indians saw themselves as Jamaicans, Barbadians or
`small island' loyalty Trinidadians first and West Indians second. Unlike their political, intel-
lectual and commercial leaders they looked first to Kingston. Bridgetown
or Port of Spain (and second to London) as their centres of gravity — not
to Chaguaramas. They conceived few advantages from federation; and
many disadvantages.

(e) Political In 1958 Jamaica and Trinidad were politically and constitutionally nearer
retrogression independence than the Federation they were joining. Many in those
territories saw membership as likely to hinder the advance to self-
government and independence.

Subsequent attempts at 1962: Common Services Conference, called to establish continuance of

unity common services set up under federation (e.g. UWI, WISCo.,
CMS).
1963: First Heads of Government Conference. First of annual meetings.
Jamaica, Trinidad. Barbados and British Guiana stressed need for
closer cooperation.
1962-65: Discussion of the federation of the Little Eight' ended when
Barbados became independent in 1966.
1966-67: Discussion of the federation of the 'Little Seven' ended when
six of the seven accepted Associated Statehood with Britain
(Montserrat remained a Crown Colony).

67
 1968: Little Seven' created East Caribbean Common Market.
CARIFTA established.
1973: CARICOM established.

IV Agencies promoting functional cooperation

(i) Educational University of the West Indies (UWI). Founded 1948 to provide the region
with trained doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, etc.
Council of Legal Education, 1971.
Caribbean Technical Assistance Programme, 1970.
Caribbean Examinations Council, 1973.

(ii) Communications (a) Shipping West Indian Shipping Corporation (WISCo). Regionally-
owned government service set up under the Federation.
(b) Air Three government-owned and -controlled airlines. British West
Indian Airways (BWIA), Air Jamaica and the Guyanese Airways
Corporation (GAC)
(c) Media Caribbean Broadcasting Union, 1970. Regional radio pro-
grammes such as Project One and Horizons. Caribbean News Agency,
1974. Regional news service.

(iii) Trade and economic (a)CARIFTA (Caribbean Free Trade Association)

development 1965: Dickenson Bay Agreement, Antigua. Antigua, Barbados and
Guyana agreed to establish a free trade association.
1968: CARIFTA established. Membership: Antigua, Barbados, Guyana,
Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Dominica, Grenada, St Lucia, St
Vincent, St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, Montserrat.
1971: Belize joined.
(b) Related organisations
1968 Commonwealth Caribbean Regional Secretariat, Georgetown,
Guyana.
1969 Caribbean Development Bank, Bridgetown, Barbados.
(c) CARICOM (Caribbean Common Market). Grew out of CARIFTA
with full CARIFTA membership, 1973.

(iv) Other agencies Meteorological — Caribbean Meteorological Service (CMS), 1963. The
Caribbean Meteorological Institute in Bridgetown, Barbados.
Medical Annual meeting of Caribbean ministers of health. Conference
established, 1969.
Cultural CARIFESTA (Caribbean Festival of Arts). 1972. Four-yearly.
First Festival in Guyana, 1972.

V Factors hindering regional cooperation

(i) Geography — the fact that the West Indies is an archipelago. The
great distances separating the various territories have, with the historical
factors, given rise to a 'small island' mentality.
(ii) History Between 1492 and 1962 (the period of European colonialism)
the region lost any internal unity, its various territories being subjected

68
 to a variety of imperial masters, languages and cultures. The legacy
sometimes united (e.g. a common language and culture among the
territories of any one imperial power) but generally proved divisive in
the region as a whole.
(iii) Language and culture bonded Anglophone West Indians to each
other but divided them from Francophone or Hispanic West Indians.
Moreover imperial loyalties deprived West Indians of a regional centre
of gravity — their attention being focused on London. Paris or Madrid.
(iv) Communications Imperial loyalties and trade routes forged a com-
munications pattern which linked each individual territory far more
successfully with the imperial `homeland' than with surrounding terri-
tories. The sheer physical difficulty of internal movement within the
Caribbean buttressed `small island' mentality.
(v) Separatism and particularism have therefore resulted. Anglophone
territories (until recently) have had little in common with the Hispanic
or Francophone. Consequently between and within each culturall
linguistic group there has been a legacy of distrust, self-interest and
disunity.

69
 12 Economic Diversification

I Comparison of the state of the sugar industry in the British,

French and Spanish Territories, 1850-1950

(a) British territories 1850-70: Serious decline in Jamaica and the Windwards due to (i) loss
of the labour force after emancipation; preference of freed slaves
for smallholding; (ii) failure in these territories to substitute slave
labour with immigrant indentured labour; (iii) general unsuitability
of these territories for large-scale sugar production; (iv) failure to
mechanise and centralise; (v) end to protected British market -
Sugar Duties Act, 1846.
Sugar kept in profitable production in Barbados and Antigua
(good husbandry); St Kitts (excellent sugar soils); Trinidad and
British Guiana (new producers, extensive virgin soils, centralisation
and mechanisation, extensive East Indian immigration). All low-
cost producers compared to the Windwards and Jamaica.
1870-97: Competition from European sugar beet on the British market.
Sugar kept in production by export to new markets (a) USA,
1875-97, (b) Canada, 1898-1912.
1882: Royal Commission. Noted decline in sugar production due to
subsidised beet sugar from Europe.
1897: Norman Commission. Similar findings. Suggested sugar should
remain the staple only in Barbados. Antigua and St Kitts. Encour-
aged search for new crops.
1903: Brussels Convention. Removal of subsidy on European sugar beet.
Slow West Indian recovery.
1914-18: West Indian sugar recovered due to the demands of the First
World War. Beet sugar sources hostile so a return of the British
market to West Indian sources.
1929-37: Collapse of sugar due to the `Great Depression'. Consequent
loss of the consumer market in Britain and Canada.
1937: International Sugar Agreement. Regulation of exports and the
creation of a basic price for sugar.
1951: Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. British West Indies given a
quota at an annually negotiated price generally higher than the
world market price. Consequent revival of sugar in Trinidad,
Barbados, Jamaica and British Guiana.

(b) French territories 1850-1928: Sugar kept in production by (i) East Indian immigration
after abolition. (ii) centralisation of factories. (iii) protected French
market. (iv) French capital investment — La Societe de Credit
Colonial, 1860.
1928-45: Collapse of sugar industry due to (i) 'Great Depression',

70
 (ii) Fall of France, 1940.
1945: Revival. Guaranteed market for French West Indian sugar in France.

(c) Spanish territories

Cuba c. 1850: Expansion of industry. Cuban advantages: (i) mechanisation -
steam engines, vacuum pans, centrifuges, (ii) fiat, virgin sugar soils
ideally suited to sugar, (iii) low costs, (iv) large slave labour
force — 330000 slaves, (v) end to protected British market.
In 1800 Cuban sugar output was half that of Jamaica; in 1845
Cuba exported 200000 cwt to Britain; in 1864 exports to Britain
2900000 cwt; by 1894 Cuban production exceeded 1000000 tons.
1898: Spanish-American War. Cuba became `independent'. Further ex-
pansion of sugar due to (i) preferential US tariff, (ii) vast US
investment in Cuban sugar industry, (iii) use of cheap Jamaican
and Haitian labour after abolition, 1886.
1914: Boom in sugar due to First World War. Further massive US
investment.
1921: `Dance of the Millions'. Mad rush to buy Cuban sugar and sugar
estates.
1928: End to the boom. Result of (i) the `Great Depression', (ii) over-
production. Collapse of the sugar price and the Cuban economy.
1941: Recovery of sugar when the USA entered the Second World War.
US guaranteed price for all Cuban sugar. Output 7 million tons by
1952. But Cuba (i) totally dependent on sugar, (ii) estates. controlled
by US capitalists, (iii) employment seasonal and US landowners
reluctant to sell land for smallholding, (iv) Cuba dependent on US
for import of manufactures.
1959: Revolution. Castro divided up some estates for smallholding and
converted the rest to state ownership. Decline in total output due
to (i) loss of labour to smallholding, (ii) government policy to
diversify and reduce dependence on one crop.

Puerto Rico 1850-98: Sugar subordinate to coffee as an export crop. Spanish largely
ignored Puerto Rico's potential for sugar.
1898: US control. Expansion of sugar due to US investment. US capitalists
purchased land and created vast sugar estates.
1928-41: Collapse of sugar due to (i) `Great Depression', (ii) hurricanes
and drought.
1941: Sugar revitalised by (i) US entry into the Second World War, (ii)
guaranteed US market and quota.

II Factors which created difficulties for the sugar industry in the

British West Indies, 1850-1900
General The sugar industry in Jamaica and the British Windwards was only profit-
able in the eighteenth century due to the lack of competition. Sugar in
these territories was always produced inefficiently. The high costs of
production were due to (i) small working units, (ii) absenteeism, (iii) lack
of mechanisation, (iv) poor sugar soils (in the mountainous Windwards)
and the lack of large areas of flat land.

71
 The decline of sugar in the Windwards and Jamaica began prior to
1850. Causes: (i) Britain's loss of North American colonies in 1783;
consequent increase in cost of estate supplies thereafter purchased from
Britain, (ii) abolition of the slave trade (1807) and slavery (1834) produced
increased labour costs and/or labour shortages.
Decline accelerated after 1850. Causes:

(i) Sugar Duties — equalised duties on all sugar imported into Britain over a four-year
Equalisation Act, period. Result of the new British economic policy of `Free Trade'. Abolition
1846 of the Navigation Acts (1849) meant an end to `Protection'. Thereafter
British Caribbean sugar forced to compete on the London market with
cheaper foreign sugar.

(ii) Competition from — both low-cost producers. Advantages (a) large areas of flat, fertile cane-
Cuba and Brazil land, (ii) mechanisation — had introduced steam engines, vacuum pans,
centrifuges in large centralised factories, (iii) slave labour — Cuban slaves
(330000) worked day and night shifts in the crop season.
Total world production of cane amounted to 1340980 tons in 1859-1860,
and 3 531400 tons in 1894-95. The Caribbean share was as follows:

Territory 1859-60 1894-95

Cuba 348157` 1054214
British West Indies 198600* 260211
French West Indies 58173' (1860) 79394k
Surinam 5825' (1860) 8023- (1895)
St Croix 6000' (1860) 8000- (1895-6)
Puerto Rico 70000 (1860) 48500 (1893-4)
Caribbean total 686 755 1458 342
Caribbean as % age of world total 51 41
Cuba as % age of world total 26 30
BWI as % age of world total 15 7
Cuba as % age of Caribbean total 50 75
Increase of world total, % — 163
Increase of Caribbean total, % — 112
Exports.
Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro: the History of the Caribbean,
1492-1969 (London: Deutsch, 1970), p.378

(iii) Competition from — grown since 1815 in France and Germany. Bounty-fed' — i.e. subsidised
beet sugar by producer governments. After 1870 France and Germany reverted to
protection but Britain retained free trade so cheap, subsidised European
beet sugar undercut British West Indian cane sugar on the British market.
1850 to 1900: a rapid expansion of European beet-sugar production.

Year British imports (tons) % Beet % British cane % Foreign cane

1853 1476714 14 17 69
1863 2 005 637 23 17 60
1873 2 951 152 38 12 50
1882 3 799 284 47 13 40
1896 £1526000 75 10 15
Williams, op. cit., p.383

72
(iv) Inefficiency Capital investment in British West Indian sugar was low; small working
units; factories slow to centralise and mechanise; sugar produced was
high-cost and low-quality.

III Assessment of measures taken to revive sugar

(a) Loans From 1848 onwards the British parliament provided West
Indian planters with loans to mechanise, assist immigration and im-
prove communications. These were taken up by Barbados. Trinidad
and British Guiana but generally refused by Jamaica.
(b) Amalgamation of estates Smaller estates amalgamated into bigger
working units. Estates were turned into limited companies, e.g. the
Lamonts and Tennants in Trinidad. In 1833 there were 600 estates in
British Guiana; in 1890 only 140.
(c) Scientific agriculture Appointment of government botanists in Jamaica,
Barbados and British Guiana. Use of new varieties of cane, fertilisers
and more efficient planting methods. 1898: creation of the Imperial
Department of Agriculture in Barbados; 1922: creation of the Imperial
College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad.
(d) Centralisation Introduction of central factory system allowed greater
efficiency and lowered production costs- In 1871 the Colonial Company
established the Usine St Madeline in Trinidad.
(e) Wage reductions By reducing wages, planters attempted to cut pro-
duction costs.
(f) New markets The loss of the British market to European beet sugar
forced the British West Indian planters to seek new markets. From
1875 to 1898 the new market was the USA and from 1898 to 1912,
Canada.

Degree of success — li mited. Loans were disliked, as repayment became a buden on a

colony's revenues. Amalgamation was successful in British Guiana and
Trinidad but the Barbadian plantocracy was reluctant to surrender family
homes and estates. Centralisation was effective in British Guiana and
Trinidad but resisted in Barbados, St Kitts and Antigua until 1904.

Situation c. 1900 The low-cost producers (British Guiana, Trinidad, Barbados, St Kitts,
Antigua) were facing severe competition from beet sugar. The high-cost
producers (Jamaica and the Windwards) had abandoned or were aban-
doning sugar. Severe reduction in the number of British West Indian
sugar estates: in 1834, 2200; in 1900, 800_

IV The development and expansion of agricultural enterprises

and the factors affecting their survival

After 1834 plantation agriculture gave way to smallholding, particularly in

the Windwards, where sugar became uneconomic. The development of
alternative crops between 1834 and 1900 was periodically checked by (a)
storms and hurricanes, (b) plant pests and diseases, (c) depressions and
low world prices.

73
Alternative crops (i) Bananas — Jamaica, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. In 1870
Lorenzo Baker ran Jamaican bananas to New York and in 1885 the
Boston Fruit Company consolidated this Caribbean commerce.. In
1899 Baker and Minor Keith formed the United Fruit Company
which controlled the Caribbean banana trade until 1929. In 1929 the
OF Company's monopoly was broken with the formation of the
Jamaica Banana Producers' Association — an organisation of 6000
smallholders combined to transport and retail their own crops in the
USA and Europe. In the Windwards, particularly in Grenada, the
Banana Growers' Association served the same purpose. Banana
production expanded after 1870 but there were setbacks — Panama
disease in 1912, the Great Depression' in 1929 and leaf spot disease
in 1934.
(ii) Limes — Dominica and St Lucia. Reasonably profitable despite out-
breaks of white tip' disease until the introduction of artificial citric
acid in the 1920s.
(iii) Sea Island Cotton — Montserrat and St Vincent. Production depen-
dent upon the ravages of the pink boll worm and changes in fashion.
Between 1922 and 1932 it was unsaleable.
(iv) Cacao — mainly in Trinidad and Grenada but a minor crop also in
Jamaica, St Lucia and Dominica. It suffered from West African
competition and witchbroom' diseases.
(v) Arrowroot — St Vincent.
(vi) Nutmeg — Grenada.
(vii) Rubber — Trinidad and British Guiana.
(viii) Coconuts — Trinidad and Nevis.
(ix) Rice — British Guiana. In 1899 British Guiana imported 24000 000 lb;
by 1913 it exported 17 000 000 lb. Competition from Burma and Thailand.

Factors affecting the
survival and
development of these
crops
Negative (i) Diseases, (ii) foreign competition, (iii) depression and recession,
particularly between 1920 and 1929.
Positive (i) Creation of the Imperial Department of Agriculture which in
1922 was succeeded by the College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad.
(ii) Creation of local departments of agriculture in Trinidad and Jamaica
in 1908. These carried out research into new varieties, methods of
cultivation, extension services, etc.

V Social effects of the successful establishment of a market for

these crops

(i) Growing importance The peasant/smallholding class grew in number and importance. As sugar/
of the peasantry plantation agriculture declined, so peasant production became vital to the
economies of many territories, particularly in the Lesser Antilles. The
expanding peasant class sought to improve its living standards for its
children but was politically voiceless.

(ii) Demands for social The social services for the majority of the population were deficient or
services non-existent. Only in Crown colonies were these services (schools, hos-
pitals, water supply, sewage, libraries, clinics) beginning to be set up —

74
 elsewhere the 'representative' assemblies resisted government spending
on such services.

VI Exploitation of other natural resources

(i) Petroleum — Trinidad. First found at Aripero in 1866. 1910: creation of the Trinidad
Oilfields Company. 1912: first oil shipment to USA. By 1920 a valuable
export; worth £4000000 p.a. by 1936.

(ii) Asphalt Trinidad, La Brea. Industry established in the 1850s. In 1886 A.L.
Baker (an American) secured a 21-year concession for a royalty of £111000
p.a. In 1925 the concession passed to the Trinidad Lake Asphalt Company
for a royalty of £24000. The industry suffered badly in the 1929 Depression.

(iii) Bauxite
(a) British Guiana 1910: deposits analysed. 1915: George Mackenzie purchased vast areas
of land to grow oranges' but in 1916 set up the Demerara Bauxite
Company (now a subsidiary of Alcan). In 1917 ore was exported from
Three Friends and Moengo by the DBC. Exploitation was also carried
out by the Surinam Bauxite Company (a subsidiary of Alcan). The
industry was badly affected by the 1930s world depression.

(b) Jamaica Deposits discovered 1869; first mined 1890. World demand after 1939
stimulated by war. 500-600 million tons of reserves. Mined by three
companies but production dominated by the US multi-national, Alcan.
Shipped from Ocho Rios, Port Esquivel and Port Kaiser.

(iv) Tourism — the Bahamas, Barbados, Leewards, Grenada, Jamaica and the Virgin
Islands. Developed after 1945; mainly Americans but many Europeans.
Income from tourism vital in many territories — Barbados, Antigua and
the Bahamas. However, there were disadvantages: (a) seasonal employ-
ment, (b) creation of expectations of artificially high living standards, (c)
it bred servility and resentment at the same time.

VII Methods by which industry was established in the British

Caribbean, 1945-62
After 1945 the British Caribbean governments sought to establish new
industries based on local resources. Objects: (i) to decrease dependence
on expensive imports, (ii) to increase foreign earnings by the sale of
manufactured goods abroad.

(i) Attraction of private — by tax 'holidays', land grants and special concession. Oil/asphalt indus-
enterprise and the tries in Trinidad and bauxite industry in Jamaica and British Guiana were
multinationals only exploitable initially with foreign capital and expertise, e.g. Kaiser
and Alcan in Jamaica and Alcan in British Guiana.

(ii) Government-financed — establishment of industrial development corporations which provided

projects finance and expertise for new industries. Mainly light industries based on

75
 local natural resources. Jamaica — gypsum, cement, textiles, pharma-
ceuticals, milk canning. Trinidad — cigarettes, cement, oil-based chemicals,
foot ware, records.

VIII Connection between the state of the economy and migration,

to 1962

General After 1850 migration within and outside the Caribbean became a feature
of the society.

Causes (i) Unemployment created by the decline of sugar. (ii) Sharp population
increase after 1860. (iii) Attraction of job opportunities elsewhere. Emig-
ration was useful because (i) it reduced the pool of the unemployed, (ii) it
provided useful foreign currency and wages from overseas sustained many
Caribbean families, (iii) it reduced the strain on the meagre social services.
But it also created problems because (i) it was no substitute for economic
development, (ii) it removed the most skilled and enterprising young men
from the society, (iii) it created expectations of better living standards
and job opportunities, (iv) it broke down the traditional family unit by
removing the men, (v) it exposed the migrants to white racism.
The number of people who emigrated varied with the state of the
Caribbean economies. After 1850 migration began as sugar declined in
Jamaica and the Windwards; it continued until 1930 when the Great
Depression forced many expatriate West Indians to return home. Migration
resumed during the Second World War when West Indian labour went to
the USA and Panama. After 1945 the expectation of the `good life' in the
US attracted both legal and illegal immigrants while many British West
Indians found a new home in the UK.

1850s-1880s: Jamaicans/ Windward Islanders migrated to the sugar estates

of Trinidad and British Guiana.
1850s-1860s: Jamaicans/Windward Islanders migrated to Panama as
labourers in De Lesseps' abortive attempt to construct a canal.
Many died of yellow fever; others stayed on.
1880s: Jamaicans/ Windward Islanders migrated to Cuba to work on the
sugar estates after the emancipation of Cuban slaves (1886) and
with the great expansion of the Cuban sugar industry. The collapse
of the sugar price in 1921 forced many of these men to return
home.
1900-1930: Central America Jamaicans/Barbadians migrated to Honduras.
Costa Rica, Guatemala and Panama to work on coffee, sugar and
the OF Company's banana plantations. Between 1912 and 1920 the
`Colon man' became a feature of Jamaican society. Central American
emigration was stopped by the Republics in 1930.
Panama Between 1904 and 1914 West Indian labour constructed
the Panama Canal.
USA Prior to 1924 there was no restriction on entry to the US and
many West Indians were attracted by US wages and living
standards. Jamaicans went to the East Coast and Puerto
Ricans to the NE cities.

76
1929: Wall Street Crash/Great Depression forced West Indians in the US
to return home_
1940s: USA attracted Puerto Ricans and Virgin Islanders who had right of
entry. 1945-52: 283000 Puerto Ricans to US.
Trinidad/Curacao/Aruba/Venezuela — West Indian emigrants to the
oilfields of Trinidad and Venezuela and to the refineries of Aruba
and Curacao. Also US military bases in Trinidad (acquired from
Britain during the Second World War) attracted Windward Islanders.
1950s: UK: US restrictions on immigration forced British West Indians to
look elsewhere. 1952: British West Indians began to emigrate to
the UK where the transport and public services needed employees.
Immigration into the UK began on a large scale in 1954 and was
maintained at a rate of 300O0 pa _ until 1962 when the UK govern-
ment began to impose restrictions.

77
 13 Religion as a Social Force

I Spanish Catholicism and the Amerindians, seventeenth to

early nineteenth centuries
Most historians agree that Spain's main aim in establishing her American
Empire was exploitation of the Americas, and only secondarily to convert
the indigenous populations to Roman Catholic Christianity. 'It is not
Christianity that leads them on, but rather gold and greed', stated a
Spanish writer in the early seventeenth century. But the Dominican Friars
were motivated by their religious beliefs — so were the Augustinians,
Carmelites and Franciscans along with members of the Society of Jesus,
all of whom formed a select group, within the Catholic Church, that
carried the Gospel to the far reaches of the Empire.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Friars advanced into
hostile Indian territories accompanied by soldiers; the Indians were pacified,
missionary villages with prominent churches and schools established.
Christianity poorly understood and reluctantly accepted, among the Indians.
Jesuits functioned as parish priests, teachers in schools and universities,
and missionaries on the frontiers, noted for their efficient and seclusive
missions, especially in South America. But in 1767 the Crown expelled
them from the colonies; Indians dependent on Jesuit tutelage reverted to
their old way of life and attempts to replace the Jesuits with other
Catholic missionary groups failed. By the nineteenth century Indian society
was almost entirely ignored by the church.
Thus the Spaniards were not completely successful in converting
the American Indians to Christianity; factors contributing to this failure
included:
(a) An ambiguous, inconsistent Spanish official policy towards the Indian
population resulted in its enslavement and decimation under the
encomienda system; Arawaks were exterminated in spite of the efforts
of Montesinos, Las Casas and many others to promote peaceful
conversion.
(b) Conversion required the removal of Amerindian religions which was
very difficult; pagan traits only partially eliminated.
(c) Indian understanding of Christian doctrine very weak or distorted,
e.g. Christian Trinity and Indian polytheism not easily distinguished.
(d) Encomenderos violently opposed the Friars.
(e) Expulsion of the Jesuits.
On the other hand, the Spaniards could count as their religious achieve-
ments:
(a) the transplanting of Christianity to an area twenty times the size of
Spain; millions of pagans exposed to it.
(b) no Protestantism within the Empire.

78
 (c) Rapid 'deculturation' of the Indians and the imposition of Spanish
culture and values.
(d) Spanish colonial church buildings remain the most awesome symbols
of their religious fervour (e.g. Mexico City Cathedral), constructed
from the 1560s to the 1660s over the site of the ancient Aztec empire.

II Spanish and French Catholicism and negro slavery

Slavery accepted by the Catholic Church; argued that it aided in the con-
version of the Africans.
Relationship between Spanish colonists and their slaves regulated by a
slave code, `Las Siete Partidas', which required baptism and religious
instruction of slaves; slave marriages allowed; favoured manumission.
The `Code Noir' of 1685 laid down rules for treatment of slaves in
French colonies; only Roman Catholics could own slaves, who were to be
converted and awarded the rights of Christians.
In practice, actual treatment of slaves depended largely on their indi-
vidual owners, but church acceptance of converts ensured great success at
indoctrination, especially in the Spanish colonies where the Roman Catholic
Church was almost fully supported by the emancipated negro people.

III Religion in the British Caribbean

(i) The Anglican church Performance extremely poor because:

or Church of (a) Christianity unattractive to settlers; British West Indies described as
England before 1800 `The Devil's Country' because of irreligiousness of people.
(h) Weak church and missionary organisation: no local clergy until
Codrington College produced first vicars in 1834; too few clergymen
and parish churches; British West Indies a part of the diocese of
London whose bishop had no control over the clergy in the West
Indies.
(c) Slaves almost totally rejected by Anglican Church, even when they
were converted; clergy enjoyed the slave system; argued that slaves
were unfit for Christianity.
(d) poorly motivated clergy: no evangelical zeal; scanty education; often
immoral; would not oppose plantocracy.
(e) Non-conformists filled the gap left by the Church, and reforms made
in the early 1800s came too late.
(f) Anglican Church missions to the slaves included:
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (chartered 1701);
the Society for the Conversion and Religious Instruction and
Education of the Negro Slaves in the British West Indian Islands
(1794);
the Church Missionary Society (1799);
the British and Foreign Bible Society (1803).
All of these were too weak to effectively promote conversion of the
slaves.

79
(ii) The Anglican The Anglican clergy in the West Indies wanted to preserve slave society;
Church, 1800 to their sermons typically encouraged the subservience of slaves to masters;
Emancipation did nothing to help bring about emancipation. however, reforms were
made to compete with nonconformist influence:
(a) cancellation of the twenty-shilling slave baptismal fees in 1824.
(b) the Creation of two British Treasury-financed West Indian dioceses
by Act of Parliament in 1824: Barbados, including the Leewards,
Grenada, St Vincent, Trinidad and British Guiana; Jamaica, including
the Bahamas and British Honduras. First Bishops Lipscomb and
Coleridge in Jamaica and Barbados respectively had responsibility to
discipline the clergy, and report on work among the slaves.
(c) The British Treasury provided a yearly grant of 020000 for the West
Indian Church; this was used primarily to increase the number of
clergymen.
Apart from Barbados, these reforms came too late to attract the slaves;
the Anglican Church remained the Church of the white upper or ruling
classes, but by 1833 the groundwork had been established for more
effective work among the emancipated people: increased clergy, congre-
gations, church buildings and schools.

(iii) The Nonconformist

churches,
seventeenth century
to Emancipation
(a) Society of Friends Most active in Barbados from 1658 to 1676 when the Barbadian assembly
(Quakers) legislated against them; also active in Jamaica and Nevis.
They faced harassment by planters as they converted their slaves and
manumitted them; in 1727 they condemned the slave trade and members
were forbidden to buy slaves in 1755, or be expelled from the Society.
Would neither serve in the planter militia nor partake in Anglican
Church liturgy.
Attracted only a small congregation from among the slaves but initiated
the humanitarian assault on the slave trade and slavery.
(b) Moravians Started working in St Thomas in the Danish Virgin Islands in 1732; came
to Antigua in 1754, St Kitts in 1756 and spread to Jamaica and Barbados.
Their piety earned the respect of white planters. They always aimed at
either running their own estates or, with the consent of its owner, conver-
ting the estate into a Moravian community; converted and accepted
blacks as equals, doing manual labour with them. By 1800 Antigua had
the most converts.
(c) Methodists Most numerous and active missionaries, all chiefly concerned with slaves
and free blacks; their basic Gospel message of human equality aroused
the enmity of the planters who severely persecuted them, e.g. the burning
of Reverend Shrewsbury's chapel in Bridgetown, and the destruction of
six chapels in Jamaica by the Colonial Church Union.
In spite of this. Methodism attracted many blacks; by 1833 there were
about seventy Methodist Missionary Societies. with an ex-slave membership
of around 32000.
(d) Baptists The General Baptist Faith was introduced to the Bahamas and Jamaica

80
 by American Loyalists from around 1776. The Jamaica Baptist Church
was founded by George Lisle, a coloured Baptist deacon from Virginia;
he converted Moses Baker, who came from the Bahamas and they spread
the faith throughout the island with Lisle's Kingston Chapel as their
centre of operations; Lisle himself suffered imprisonment and persecution.
Their immense work was finally recognised in 1814 by the Baptist
Missionary Society of Britain, which sent missionaries to the Caribbean.
Simplicity of Baptist rituals, beliefs and chapels attracted the largest
group of followers in Jamaica, while the missionaries, like the Methodists,
were violently opposed by the planters, who claimed that: 'Chapels and
meeting houses were centres of subversive activity and that religious
instruction was a pretence for stirring up the slaves to rebellion.'
As emancipation drew near, the violent opposition to missionary activity
intensified, e.g. imprisonment and death of John Smith who was accused
of inciting a slave rebellion in Demerara in 1823.
On the other hand, many slaves and free blacks did not trust the
missionaries as they preached moderation and acceptance of their social
position. Further obstacles were presented by language, Sunday market
and the Africans' own religious beliefs.

IV The African input

Two factors contributed to the preservation of African religious forms:

(i) Planters' opposition to religious instruction by the missionaries forced
many of the slaves to keep African religious cults alive in order to
satisfy their spiritual needs;
(ii) Newly-arrived and older slaves used tales, discussions and religious
and magical rites to add vitality to the elements of African culture.
African religions, and beliefs and practices, usually kept secret, included:

(a) The supernatural: strong belief in evil ghosts ('duppies') and beneficent ancestral spirits;
many committed suicide to liberate their spirits so that they could return
to Africa.

(b) Obeah: the obeah man was `doctor, philosopher as well as priest', hated and
deeply feared. Clients solicited their assistance to harm other person or
persons through their use of shadow-catching, charms and poisons; could
also carry out faith healing.

(c) Myalism: invocation of ancestral spirits during ritual dances; dancers became pos-
sessed by the spirit, regarded as 'good medicine'. Some myalists were
skilled herbalists. The folk religion of the Asante.

(d) Cumina possession by ancestral spirits induced by dancing to the accompaniment

(Kumina): of drums; practised by the Bongo cult of the Jamaica Maroons. From the
Twi 'akom' — to be possessed; and 'ana' — an ancestor.

(e) Haitian Vodun influenced by Boukman, a Jamaican slave, and others, it was used by the
(Voodoo): revolutionary leaders of Haiti, through nocturnal rites, to bind the slaves
into a formidable force against white oppression during the 1790s and
early 1800s. Later on, elements of Catholic worship were absorbed into

81
 the religion, which essentially consisted of various rituals to sacred loan'
or African ancestral deities, carried out by priests or houngans'.

(f) Some African rituals became associated with specific Christian or secular
holidays, e.g. John Canoe dances at Christmas in Jamaica.

(g) As marriage and family life were not normally permitted, polygamy and
the extended family persisted; children's respect for elders enforced;
babies were 'outdoored'; wakes and elaborate funerals marked death;
there were even special mourning dances.
Secular (mainly recreative) and religious song and dance accompanied
by drums ('goombays'), flutes, mouth violins (abenghorn'), boxes filled
with pebbles (tamborine), corrugated sticks rubbed with plain sticks
('rookaw and scraper') and the teeth of the lower jaw bone of a horse
scraped with a stick.

V Missionary activity, Emancipation to 1914

(a) The Anglican Increased church revenues (including funds from the Negro Education
Church Grant, church collections and grants from local vestries and governments),
a larger number of clergymen and the creation of new dioceses (e.g.
Antigua and Guiana, 1842; British Honduras, 1883) all contributed to
i mproved standards of missionary work, especially in education.
The privileged position of the `official' church was broken when it was
disestablished between 1868 and 1870 because:
(i) with the exception of Barbados, it was felt that local churches should
finance themselves and the British Government wanted to stop church
grants.
(ii) again with the exception of Barbados, the Anglican Church was in
the minority, but because of its official' and prestigious position it
created deep social and racial divisions by unfairly influencing the
freedom of religious choice inherent in democracy.
In 1868 the British government stopped the £20000 yearly church
grant, and island governments passed their own disestablishment
Acts, except in Barbados where the church was confirmed in 1872 as
the Established Church and has so remained.

(b) The Nonconformist Impact of their activity clearly demonstrated in:

churches (i) the establishment of free villages in Jamaica and Guiana (see chapter
7, section V (b) ),
(ii) their involvement in education. The Negro Education Grant (1835 to
1866) was divided among the missions (except Catholics) and was used
to provide buildings and furniture; many new schools failed, however,
because they simply could not meet running expenses. The Catholic
islands of Trinidad and St Lucia got nothing.
A functional partnership between churches and colonial govern-
ments developed, but the need for a proper educational system, with
greater state control led to the creation, between 1850 and 1914, of
government education departments — Boards of Education/Education
Committees. Government funds were given to missionary schools;

82
 the churches retained control over staffing, buildings and curriculum
which consequently remained religious, British-orientated and inad-
equate for the needs of West Indians; state standards maintained
through periodic inspections.
Much more than this racially divisive religious primary education
was needed, but only a few secondary institutions (e.g. Queen's
Collegiate School, Trinidad; Codrington College, Barbados), which
only very few coloured children could attend, existed. Yet educated
teachers, lawyers, doctors, civil servants and religious leaders were
forming a small black and coloured middle class by 1914, and the
foundation was laid for an improved educational system.

VI The Indian input: Hinduism and Islam

Indian immigrants, particularly in Trinidad and Guyana, clung to their
heritage from India through these two religions, which were also codes of
social behaviour, and they remain the most significant religions of these
people in spite of some conversions by Christian missionaries.

(a) Hinduism polytheistic, e.g. gods Vishnu, Siva, Krishna; mysticism, doctrines of re-
incarnation and transmigration of souls, caste system and festivals (e.g.
Phagwah, Holi, Mahasivarati and Diwali) caused it to exert strong influence
on social life; belief in the sanctity of all forms of life, to the extent of not
taking life; rejection of material things; essentially vegetarian diet, all of
which contributed to the Christian evaluation that the religion was unac-
ceptable. Hindi language another difficult barrier to overcome, and Indians
tended to live in separate communities. Thus Hinduism was despised;
Indians suffered such consequent difficulties as: necessity to register
marriages to make them legal, which they were unwilling to do; Indian
children illegitimate and unable to inherit property.

(b) Islam: belief in one God, Allah, whose prophet was Muhammad; Moslem life
rigidly guided by the Koran; formed relatively small communities centred
on mosques.
Indian Moslems faced the same ostracism and social difficulties as their
Hindu brothers. However, the large Indian influx was absorbed into West
Indian society; they formed an expanding peasant class in Trinidad and
Guyana, and have enriched Caribbean music, dance and art.

VII The American input: Revivalism, 1940s to 1960s

holiness and Pentecostal Churches grew out of an early twentieth-century
revival in Protestant Churches in the USA. Converts believe in the Bible
as their supreme religious authority, the Second Coming of Christ and
salvation by repentance and good works. Pentecostalists emphasise active
participation in Church services through body movements, shouting and
singing. Both types of churches are committed to serving the poor and
underprivileged and follow a very idealistic (`holy') way of life: no liquor,
smoking, cosmetics, adultery, dancing or movies.
Missionaries from the Church of the Nazarene, Pentecostal Church,
Salvation Army, Pilgrim Holiness and Church of God penetrated most

83
 Caribbean territories from the 1940s to 1960s. The simplicity of their
church services, idealism, tendency to isolate themselves from the main-
stream of society and good works among the poor attract converts.

VIII To rival Christianity: Afro-West Indian religions

Haitian Voodoo Continues to `inspire confidence in the peasant as he faces life's uncer-
tainties and dangers.' The Roman Catholic Church is officially predominant
in Haiti, with an impressive number of clergymen, but faces serious compe-
tition from the Vodun cult. The religion itself has developed, in spite of
attempts to suppress it in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, into a
mixture of African (Dahomian) and Roman Catholic practices and beliefs.

Jamaica Maroons untouched by Christian doctrine; practised and preserved African

religious forms, e.g. Kumina cult.

Pocomania presently chief African/Christian derived religion in this island; emphasis

on spirit possession, drumming and dancing.

Rastafarianism — vibrant messianic-millenarian movement inspired by the `back to Africa'

teachings of Garvey and the coronation of Hailie Selassie in Ethiopia in
1930. Founding fathers included Joseph Hibbert and Leonard Howell
who had lived and worked in West Africa, set up the Ethiopian Salvation
Society in 1934 and the Pinnacle community in the Kingston hills in the
1940s. Later exponents were Prince Edward C. Emmanuel, the founder
of the Back 0' Wall Rasta community (1953-66) and the Ethiopian
National Congress and Ras Sam Brown, poet and polemicist. Various
Rasta groups, often subjected to official persecution, believe Hailie Selassie
(who visited Jamaica in 1966 and who died in 1975) is the living God, Ja,
that society (particularly white society) is corrupt and is `Babylon', that
repatriation to Ethiopia is `heaven' and that blacks will inherit the earth.
Collective problems are aired at meetings, Nyabingi, where the sacred
herb, ganja (marijuana) is smoked and prayers to Ja are said. Rasta
rituals include wearing of `locks', consumption of I-tat food, symbolic
colours red, black and green and soul language. Since 1950s Rasta groups
set up throughout the Caribbean and Jamaicans have emigrated and
much of the most innovative music and art from Jamaica is Rasta-inspired.

Belizean Black Carib Stem from African, European and Amerindian traditions, with a prepon-
(Garifuna) religious derance of African input, some Roman Catholic influences and only a
beliefs little of the Carib Indian contribution. Practice of obeah of great importance;
death may be attributed to the magic of obeah-men who may also be
asked to influence the course of a love affair or bring in a good harvest.
Belief in the spirits of the dead has led to complex rituals in `temples';
rhythm of drums, chanting, dancing and sacrificial offerings of food,
animals, liquor under supervision of priests or priestesses, e.g. the dugu'
ritual.

Trinidadian/Grenadian Yoruba god of thunder and lightning, Shango, remembered by slaves and
Shango a cult developed around this deity; still practised by many.

84
14 Social Life, 1838-1938

I Race relations, class divisions and distribution of wealth in the

British West Indies

(i) Poor race relations and little integration were the results of.•
(a) ` White bias' of pre-emancipation `plantation society' being pre-
served in post-emancipation `creole society'. `Whiteness' implied
freedom, material wealth and political power, hence it became
the ideal for black and coloured people until the flowering of
Black Consciousness and Garveyism in the early twentieth century.
(b) The awarding of higher social status to children of mixed (black/
white) parentage than to those of black parentage.
(c) Deliberate or covert `divide and rule' policy of the Colonial Office,
e.g. British Guiana, where East Indians were set against blacks,
and blacks against whites.
(d) Influential literature such as Thomas Carlyle's Occasional
Discourse on the Nigger Question (1849), and J.A. Froude's The
English in the West Indies (1888) which convinced West Indian
whites and the British public and policy-makers of negro inferiority.
(e) Lack of understanding or tolerance of immigrants, e.g. East
Indians refused to integrate; retained much of their culture in-
cluding a rigid caste system; formed separate and exclusive com-
munities and were rejected by their fellow black workers, the
coloureds and the whites.
(ii) In general, three main class divisions could be identified:
(a) An upper class of the white elites—the old plantocracy, civil
servants, professionals and businessmen; determined to retain its
supremacy through the possession of land, capital and political
power.
(b) Middle coloured class: descendants of slavery's free coloureds;
highly competitive in the struggle for advancement; sought white
patronage and supported the suppression of negroes.
(c) Negro/East Indian labou ring class: controlled by vagrancy, contract
and licensing laws; disenfranchised. Negroes considered them-
selves superior to the East Indian immigrants.
However, the creation of a class of independent and semi-independent
peasant proprietors added a fourth tier in some territories. There was
little mobility between classes; opportunities for advancement were
few. Crown Colony government promoted the idea that whites ruled.
Coloureds could achieve eminence only by having great wealth and
ability.
(iii) Wealth was very poorly distributed
(a) It was concentrated mainly in the hands of white elites as they

85
 controlled practically all means of production. But many territories
also had wealthy coloured families whose fortunes were derived
from land-ownership, business enterprise or from a profession.
(b) There was hardly any middle-income range between rich and poor;
poverty was the lot of most coloureds and blacks. Wages of manual
labourers were so low that they lived in appalling conditions,
particularly in urban areas to which most black workers drifted.

II The Jamaican situation: a detailed case study

Jamaica most clearly demonstrates the race and class divisions of the
typical `creole society' with its hierarchy of basically three sections, dif-
ferentiated by colour, culture, status, wealth and interests; deep rift
between poor black workers and rich whites, with a struggling peasantry
and ambitious coloured class.

(a) White elites behaved as if the other social classes did not exist, though the Morant
Bay uprising (1965) and the `Disturbances' of the 1930s proved otherwise.
The elites determined social mores and values; set trends in fashions,
taste and recreations; European standards maintained through visits to
England and by educating their scions in England.
Daily life of the gentlemen centred around profiteering, politics, formal
or official functions such as receptions and balls and club membership;
they made cricket fashionable.
Daily life of the ladies was essentially one of leisure: supervision of
domestic work, lessons in music and dance, and the evening's social
functions. Most whites were members of the Anglican Church and mono-
gamy was the rule.
Though their power declined in the twentieth century the white elites
remained very influential.

(b) Urban blacks made up the bulk of Jamaica's labour force, with the highest concentration
in Kingston; this bred squalid living conditions: barrack accommodations,
diseases, inadequate health and educational facilities, prostitution, high
unemployment and vagrancy.
An unbalanced diet high in carbohydrates (corn, rice, beans, ground
food) and low in protein (salt fish/meat) caused malnutrition which also
contributed to high infant mortality.
High illiteracy and poor educational development were the products of
racial/colour discrimination, lack of opportunity, irrelevant syllabuses and
the inadequacy of primary schools. Yet many blacks viewed education as
the key to socio-economic liberation and made strenuous efforts to place
their children at least in Church-sponsored elementary schools.
After 1865 there was improved urban transportation in the form of
street car service in Kingston, new roads and railways. Urban families
were largely matri-focal; many were fatherless as illegitimate births were
common, as were common-law marriages, while the extended family or
kinship and the yard created wider social bonds.
The Baptist Church attracted the greatest percentage of urban blacks,
with the Methodist Church also fairly popular.

86
 Urban blacks tended to imitate the dress and manners of the whites;
played cricket separately from whites; read local newspapers, played
dominoes and drank at social gatherings or in pubs.

(c) The rural peasantry grew out of the post-emancipation free village movement and the ability
of some blacks to purchase land. Those living in or around the free
villages enjoyed better housing and social amenities.
Other peasants, although semi-independent, were extremely poverty-
stricken and had to scratch a precarious livelihood from the soil. Their
houses were normally of wattle and daub with thatch; no running water;
transportation by donkey along a system of tracks and pathways which
linked interior settlements or isolated farmsteads with the coast; introduc-
tion of railways and better roads helped to improve rural transportation.
Health and educational facilities were virtually non-existent; those who
could do so sent their children to primary schools in distant towns or in
Kingston; otherwise the children took up their parents' occupations.
The concept of family land' and the principles of land inheritance and
usage preserved close kinship and family ties; land-ownership both the
symbol and the reality of freedom, providing a source of security for
parents and children; ancestors' graves on the land considered sacred.
Yet the congregation of families on family land and in family houses also
bred some friction; and much of the land was underused when worked by
elderly peasants purely for subsistence, or overused when marginal and
supporting a large kinship group.
Rural women found pleasure in occasional trips to Kingston to purchase
clothing or groceries. Closely related to the rural peasantry were the
`higglers' or middlemen who bought and sold the produce of the peasantry
in markets, particularly in Kingston, which became social centres for
urban blacks and rural peasantry.

(d) `Neither black nor The coloureds challenged white domination of Jamaican society. Though
white' only a few brown men enjoyed a privileged status, many coloureds seized
opportunities in the professions, trade and business to enrich themselves
and to create a small but thriving middle class. Hostility between coloureds
and blacks remained.
Educational facilities were limited for the coloureds; only occasionally
were they admitted to formerly white schools; Wolmer's Free School had
a large coloured student body. Wealthy families continued to send their
scions to Europe for their education, and various educational societies
were steeped in European civilisation as they were always keenly interested
in European literary and cultural developments.
They staged their own entertainments: dinners, balls, receptions, but
revered European values and imitated European fashions; brown men
frequently dressed in the latest and loudest English clothes to outdo their
white brethren.
Most coloured people were attracted to the Methodist and Baptist
churches in which they could occupy leadership positions; others clung to
the Anglican Church.

87
 III Comparative social structures

(a) The Leewards Three-tiered society of `white over brown over black'; some wealthy
coloured families, e.g. in Antigua, barred from access to white society,
while the negro was clearly disqualified both by colour and by occupation
from entry in the competition for higher social status'.

(b) Barbados and Followed the general pattern of `creole society'; Barbadian poor whites or
Windward Islands 'red legs' not considered in the upper section of society.

(c) Trinidad Closely resembled Guyana in the complexity of the social structure cre-
ated by the large influx of East Indian labourers who were relegated to
the bottom of the status hierarchy, in spite of their brown complexion,
because of their `Coolie' culture. Acceptance of the East Indian by
society depended on his willingness to abandon his Indian culture and
become 'creolised'. Status hierarchies were expressed in terms of colour:
white plantocracy over off-white merchants (Portuguese and Syrian-
Lebanese immigrants) over Chinese over coloureds over negroes and
East Indians.
There were deep-seated tensions between blacks and Indians, their
separatism often officially encouraged, e.g. in the late nineteenth century
a governor prescribed latrine accomodations for negroes and East Indians
on plantations. Education was likewise inequitable and inadequate, as
negroes got little and Indians even less.
By the twentieth century greater physical and cultural contact than in
Guyana had developed between negroes and East Indians.

(d) Guyana Deliberate or covert 'divide and rule' policy of the Colonial Office further
aggravated the race-relations situation; violent incidents of race/class
antagonism included the `Angel Gabriel' Riots of 1856 when negroes
attacked Portuguese businessmen.

(e) British Honduras Probably the most complex situation, certainly deviating from those
(Belize) outlined above. `The Capital (Belize Town) was the colony', because an
elite group of its inhabitants dominated the economic, political and social
life of the colony. 'Creoles' made up the dominant racial-cultural group
and this group was divided into the purely negro forest labour force and a
smaller, more powerful elite class of those who `boasted Caucasian as
well as Negro genes'. This `Creole aristocracy' kept its dominant social
status throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century by professional
occupations, shopkeeping, mahogany-contracting, land-ownership, news-
paper publication, and, along with white expatriates, as employers of
labour.
Next in the social structure, and located primarily in distinctive areas
outside the Belize district, were the Spanish-speaking Mestizos who entered
the northern portion of the colony during and after 1847; followed by the
Kekchi and Mopan Maya Amerindian groups concentrated in the south
and west; finally the Black Caribs (Garifuna) of southern coastal areas.
Apart from some interrelations between Mestizos and Amerindians, there
was little integration between Creoles and the minority groups, or among
the groups themselves.

88
 15 Movements towards
Independence up to 1962

I Response to metropolitan rule in the late nineteenth century

(i) British Caribbean (a) Constitutional movements for change in Crown colonies In the 'new'
Crown colonies (Trinidad and British Guiana), despite reforming
governors (e.g. Lord Harris in Trinidad, 1846-54), there was constant
criticism of rule from Downing Street. Trinidad: Dr Louis de Verteuil
set up the Reform Association (1856) to obtain elected representatives
on the Legislative Council. British Guiana: in 1891 unofficial members
of the Court of Policy were chosen by direct election.
(b) Violent movements for change in Jamaica 1865 (Oct.): Morant Bay
Rebellion. Popular riot led by Paul Bogle against the unsympathetic
administration of Edward John Eyre. Execution of Gordon and Bogle.
1866: the Jamaican assembly voted itself out of existence.
(c) Response to the imposition of Crown colony government elsewhere
Variants of Crown colony government was introduced into all the
British Caribbean colonies (except Barbados) after 1860. Thereafter
rule from Government I louse led to a campaign for elected represen-
tatives in these colonies but with limited success, e.g. Jamaica obtained
some elected members in 1884.

(ii) Cuba 1868-78, `Ten Years War A liberal/nationalist revolt against Spanish
rule. 'Independencia y Cuba libre' proclaimed by Cespedes, De Palma
and Maceo. 1868 'Bayamo Declaration' of independence. Maceo led the
military action in which the Spanish lost 140000 men. Treaty of El
Zanjon, by which the Spanish promised reform. Slavery was ended but
the promises of the creation of a liberal democracy remained a dead
letter.

(iii) Puerto Rico Spanish rule was negligent rather than repressive but was absolute.
1868: Grito de Lares — a nationalist revolt engineered by Ramon Betances.
Its failure was inevitable after the Spanish capture of 'El Telegrafo'
with imported arms. The attack on Lares (near Mayaguez) led to
the deaths of the rebel leaders, Brugman and Bauren. The `Grito'
became a rallying call for all nationalists.
1887: The Spanish repressed a liberal campaign which demanded self-
government.
1897: Sagasta Constitution — Praxedes Sagasta, the Spanish Prime Minister,
promised to grant autonomy to Puerto Rico. Declaration of 28
November 1897. The charter provided for Puerto Rican delegates
to the Spanish Cortes and for the creation of a hi-cameral legislature
in Puerto Rico. The Sagasta Constitution was rendered inoperable
by the outbreak of the Spanish-American War.

89
 1I Development of independence movements

(i) British Caribbean

Factors leading to the (a) Racial awareness 1914: foundation of the UNIA by Marcus Garvey.
growth of nationalism The UNIA and its mouthpiece, the Negro World, with the
West Indian experience of white racism in the years 1914-18, fostered
nationalism.
(b) Working-class solidarity — the creation of a trades union movement in
the 1930s. (See Chapter 10).
(c) Economic depression, 1929-38 Unemployment, rising prices and wage
reductions led to serious discontent with Crown colony government.
Between 1934 and 1938 there was a series of `Disturbances' in the
British Caribbean.
(d) Experience of war, 1939-45
The restrictions imposed by war and the experience of West Indians
fighting abroad plus the influence of the USA's anti-colonial policy
led to an upsurge in nationalist feeling.
Jamaica
1944: constitution — House of Representatives chosen by universal adult
suffrage. JLP v PNP: Bustamante v Manley.
1953: ministerial government.
1959: self-government.
1958-62: membership of the WI Federation.
1961: referendum on membership of the Federation.
1962: independence.
Trinidad and Tobago
1955: Eric Williams' creation of the People's National Movement.
1958-62: Unhappy member of the WI Federation.
1961: Williams Prime Minister.
1962: Independence.
Barbados Barbados Labour Party founded by Grantley Adams, 1938. He
was Chief Minister and Premier, 1944 -61. Member of the Federation,
1958-66. Independence, 1966.
Guyana
1953: constitution — Ministerial government and elected assembly with
universal adult suffrage. People's Progressive Party (PPP) led by
Burnham and Jagan won the 1953 election but the governor then
suspended the constitution on the grounds that the PPP was subject
to `communist' infiltration.
1956: new constitution and elections. PPP victory but Burnham split
with Jagan and formed the People's National Congress (PNC).
Racial/political split — PPP (East Indian) v PNC (African).
1961: full internal self-government. Jagan first Prime Minister.
1961-63: outbreaks of racial/political violence — British military inter-
vention.

(ii) Cuba 1895-98: Cuban Revolution Work of Jose Marti. Cuban exiles invaded,
April 1895. Early deaths of Marti and Maceo but Palma announced
a republican constitution. Spanish atrocities committed by `Butcher'
Weyler. US concern over the war led to an American invasion
after the USS Maine exploded in Havana harbour in February

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 1898. The `Ten Weeks War' ended in December 1898 with the
Treaty of Paris. Cubans obtained independence from Spain but
had to accept a US army of occupation.
1898-1902: US Occupation Estrada Palma, first president. The US reor-
ganised government, education and public health but insisted on
the Guantanamo military base and the Platt Amendment (1901) —
USA's right to protect Cuban independence'; a blank cheque to
interfere in Cuban affairs, tacked on to the constitution, allowing
further US intervention should future disorder endanger US
interests. Inherently destabilising, the Platt Amendment encouraged
opposition parties to create trouble and provoke US intervention.
1902-59: Dictatorship and US influence US intervention 1906, 1912 and
1920 and support for various `strong men' (Menocal 1913-20;
Zayas 1921-25; Morales 1925-33). After 1933 the government
alternated between Grau San Martin (a left-wing academic who
had the support of the Cuban communist party) and Fulgencio
Batista who secured a dictatorship after a military coup' in 1952.
In 1953 Castro's attack on the Moncada barracks failed but the
attempt was repeated in 1956 and three years later Batista was
finally overthrown.
(iii) Puerto Rico 1898: Spanish American. War. Puerto Rico ceded to the USA by the
Treaty of Paris.
1898-1900: US military occupation.
1900: Foraker (First Organic) Act. Civilian government with bi-cameral
legislature set up.
1916: Jones (Second Organic) Act. Puerto Rico became a territory of the
USA. Universal adult suffrage, Puerto Ricans became US citizens
and obtained a greater role in the island's government.
1936: Assassination of the US police chief, E. Francis Riggs, by nationalist.
1937: Ponce massacre'. Police fired on a nationalist crowd.
1938: Munoz Marin founded Popular Democratic Party.
1940: `Populares' won election. Initiated industrial and agricultural reform
with the support of the last US governor, R.G. Tugwell.
1946: Appointment of Jesus Pinero as first native governor.
1948: 'Populares' electoral victory. Munoz became governor.
1950: Public Law 600. New constitution based on the 'Estado Libre
Asociado' (Associated Free State or Commonwealth).
1951: Referendum on the Commonwealth. Three-quarters of the popu-
lation supported it.
1952: July. Commonwealth initiated.

III Prominent individuals and their proposals

(i) British Caribbean

Marcus Garvey [Jamaica] b. St Annes, worked for the Gleaner. 1914, founder of the
(1887-1940) UNIA and the Negro World. Ideas of black racial pride and `back to
Africa' taken to the USA where many UNIA branches were set up.
Deported from the USA followed by an unsuccessful political career in
Jamaica. Garvey's ideas and teachings have inspired nationalists throughout
the Caribbean, the USA and black Africa.

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Norman Manley [Jamaica] Founder of the PNP (1938) which led the fight for independence.
(1893-1969) Chief Minister, 1954-62. Lukewarm support for the Federation, 1958-62.

Alexander Bustamante [Jamaica] Origins disputed. His real name was Clarke. Came to Jamaica
(1884-1977) in 1932 and led the nationalist/labour opposition to the colonial government.
Detained during the `Disturbances', he formed the Bustamante trade
union, and the JLP in 1943. Chief Minister (1944-54) and Prime Minister
at independence in 1962.

Grantley Adams [Barbados] Barrister, nationalist and federalist. Founder of the BLP
(1898-1971) (1938) and the BWU (1941). Chief Minister and Premier (1944-61).
Adams strongly supported the federal ideal and was Prime Minister of the
Federation (1958-62).

Eric Williams [Trinidad] Academic and nationalist. Deputy Chairman of the Caribbean
(1911-1978) Commission and prominent West Indian historian who founded the PNM
and became the Chief Minister after the election victory in 1956. A luke-
warm federalist, Williams took no political office in the Federation. As
Premier from 1962 until his death Williams sought to maximise Trinidad's
natural resources on a capitalist basis.

(ii) Cuba
Jose' Marti (18.53-95) Idealist, poet and revolutionary who sought Cuban independence from
Spain. 1880-95: exiled in the USA where he rallied support for the
Cuban cause. Killed at Dos Rios early in the Revolution.

Maximo Gomez Cuban military commander in the Ten Years War and military leader of
(1836-1905) the Revolution after the death of Maceo.

Antonio Maceo Dashing military commander in the Ten Years War and the first year of
(1848-96) the Revolution. Known as the `Titan of Bronze' and much feared by the
Spanish, he was killed in action near Havana in 1896.

Tomas Estrada Palma President of the rebel government in the Ten Years War and in the
(1835-1908) Revolution. First president of the independent republic (1902-06) but
suspected of being a US puppet and overthrown by a liberal revolution in
1906.

Fidel Castro (h. 1927) Son of a sugar planter. A trained lawyer who with a group of Cuban
nationalists made an abortive attack on the Batista garrison at the Moncada
barracks in 1953. Imprisoned and then exiled to the USA and Mexico he
repeated the attempt in 1956. The Movement of 26th July' battled with
the Batista regime in the Sierra Maestra until December 1958 when
Batista fled to the Dominican Republic. Thereafter Castro's government
combined extermination of Batista's supporters and the old latifundia
with an economic revolution. Confiscated land was redistributed to coop-
eratives and rural housing, education and medical schemes were set up.
Since much of the confiscated property belonged to American nationals,
the US government supported the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion by Cuban
emigres in April 1961 and isolated Cuba economically. Castro, needing a
market for his sugar and tobacco, had no alternative but to embrace

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 Marxism-Leninism and accept Soviet assistance. The USSR's attempt to
place missiles in Cuba led to the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.

Ernesto Che' Guevara Argentinian doctor, guerrilla tactician, author and charismatic leader who
(1928-67) assisted Castro in creating the Cuban Revolution and who was killed in
Bolivia while attempting a revolution in that country.

(iii) Puerto Rico

Luis Munoz Marin Son of the nationalist Munoz Rivera and champion of the peasant, he
(b. 1898) founded the PDC in 1938. As President of the Senate and later Governor,
he carried out a series of agricultural, industrial and social reforms known
as `Operation Bootstrap'. The architect of the concept of the Associated
Free State or Commonwealth which defined Puerto Rico's relationship
with the USA.

IV Other responses to metropolitan rule

(i) Federation — in the British Caribbean. An unsuccessful exercise. (See

Chapter 11.)
(ii) Associated Statehood — in the British Caribbean. A temporary status
for most of the smaller British Eastern Caribbean colonies left without
political direction after the collapse of the Federation in 1962. In
effect Associated Statehood meant internal self-government in a `free
and voluntary' association with Britain which retained responsibility
for defence and foreign affairs.
(iii) Assimilation — in the French Caribbean, In 1946 Guadeloupe,
Martinique and Guyana became overseas departments of France. A
prefect replaced the governor in each territory who, because of the
distance from Paris, held more power than his metropolitan counter-
parts. After some violence in the 1950s, the General Councils were
given more control in 1960. The benefits of assimilation have been
greater spending on education and the social services. While most
French Antilleans are French in heart, in blood' and are satisfied
with the French connection, there is a continuing debate between the
`departmentalists' and the `autonomists'.
(iv) Commonwealth — Puerto Rico. After 1902 the status of Puerto Rico
was not clear. There were charges of US `colonialism'. The relationship
needed definition. In 1952 Munoz obtained general acceptance of the
Commonwealth idea. Puerto Rico became an `associated free state'
(Estado Libre Asociado) of the US with its own governor and bi-
cameral legislature which managed its own budget and all internal
affairs. By the Federal Relations Act, the federal government was to
be responsible for defence and foreign affairs. Puerto Rico was to
remain in the US commercial sphere and all US tariffs were to apply
but Puerto Ricans did not pay federal income tax. Puerto Ricans
became US citizens but had no vote in federal elections. Since 1952
the supporters of Commonwealth have been challenged by those
demanding complete statehood or complete autonomy but the 1952
compromise still has general acceptance.
(v) Partnership — the Netherlands Antilles. Since 1945 the Netherlands

93
 Antilles have been members of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
While this partnership has provided the two groups of islands with
both autonomy and security and has been successful because of the
historical links with Holland (and relative isolation from the rest of
the Caribbean) there have been outbreaks of economic and racial
violence particularly in Curacao. In that island the wealth generated
from oil refining has been largely controlled by a powerful white elite
and the expatriate (Jewish. Lebanese and East Indian) merchant
community and this has created resentment.
(vi) Colony — Montserrat. Elected in 1967 not to become an associated
state' but to remain a colonial dependency of the United Kingdom.

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 16 Art-forms in the Caribbean

I Amerindian art-forms
(a) Arawaks and Caribs
(i) Functional artifacts dugout canoes which arc still made and used in Dominica, St Vincent and
included: Belize; woven straw items such as basketry (called 'pagala' by the Caribs),
cassava presses and sieves; woven cotton items such as aprons ('quieou')
and hammocks; earthen and stone ware; shell ornaments; Arawak zemis
of wood, conch shell or stone.

(ii) Petroglyphs: archaeology has revealed rock paintings in Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico and
in some of the islands of the Lesser Antilles. These were of a religious
nature and also reveal some aspects of the Indians' lifestyle.

(b) The Maya They achieved a high level of artistic skill in various fields and with
various mediums:

(i) Architecture — construction of corbelled vaults, pyramids, elaborate temples, observ-

atories and ball courts, all executed in cut limestone blocks and pulverised
li mestone mortar; entire structures were normally polished and glazed
with a vegetable dye.

(ii) Sculpture — massive and impressive stelle, gods, lintels and the 'roof combs' of
temples in stone, wood, stucco and clay; carvings depicted dignitaries,
gods, glyphs, animals, all of which were highly stylised and austere.

(iii) Painting — wall frescoes and murals, normally of a religious nature or depicting
aspects of Maya life, e.g. warfare, or recording historical events; vivid
colours, naturalistic poses of characters and emphasis on action, which
create a narrative quality in murals, e.g. the Bonarnpak murals.

(iv) Ceramic art — pottery was made without the potter's wheel through the technique of
`coiling', followed by elaborate decoration and firing in kilns; thus cooking
utensils, dishes, beakers, huge storage jars, braziers and even idols were
made. The most beautiful were decorated with religious and everyday
scenes, e.g., 'thin-orange' polychromic pottery of the classic period.

II Architecture
This medium has been influenced primarily by the aesthetic values of the
European colonising powers, climatic conditions and by the functional
demands that each structure had to meet.

95


(a) The British influence

(i) Estate Great — built by planters in the elegant style of the day of finely-cut stone
houses' blocks, and seasoned timber (mahogany or rosewood) with handsome
carved woodwork (e.g. interior stairways) and highly polished floors'.
Two well-ventilated upper floors were living quarters, while the ground
floor was used mainly for storage. Design commonly Georgian or Palladian,
e.g. Rosehall (recently restored) and Good Hope, Jamaica; Holders
House. Barbados.

(ii) Functional stone connected with sugar manufacture — mills, boiling houses, curing houses
buildings and still houses.

(iii) Fortifications — Brimstone Hill (St Kitts); Port Royal (Jamaica); St Anne's Fort
(Barbados).

(iv) Churches — constructed in stone, brick or wood e.g. St John's Cathedral (Belize
City, Belize) founded in 1812; Parham Church and St John's Cathedral
(Antigua); St John's Church (Barbados); Georgetown, Guyana's large
and elegant Anglican Cathedral (wooden).

(v) Government or — e.g. Devon House and the Georgian House of Assembly (Spanish
public buildings Town), Jamaica; Belize City's nineteenth-century Governor's Residence
(wooden).

(b) The French

influence
(i) Great houses most of which are now in ruins, e.g., Chateau Murat (recently restored)
in Marie Galante.

(ii) Fortifications — e.g. Morne Fortune (St Lucia); Fort St Louis (Martinique); Henri
Christophe's Sans Souci palace and La Citadellc fortress at Milot, Haiti.
The massive, French-designed La Citadclle was built to withstand a three-
year siege that never came.

(iii) Many town houses in Haiti are typically French — three-storied, pitch-roofed with scrollwork-
decorated balconies and dormers.

(c) The Spanish Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.
influence:
(i) Churches — Spanish Catholicism demanded the construction of awesome cathedrals
in the Gothic and Baroque traditions, e.g., Santa Maria de Menor in
Santo Domingo.

(ii) Town houses — heavy Mediterranean accent; built around central patios with high arched
ceilings and numerous windows to make them cool; balconies decorated
with wrought-iron scrollwork; e.g., Casa de Marques de Arcos, Havana.

(iii) Fortifications the best examples of which are the two Morro fortresses guarding
Havana and San Juan Harbours respectively.
(d) The Dutch influence: Netherlands Antilles
(i) Distinctive rectangular town houses, of wood or stone, three floors,
high, steep tiled roofs and facades decorated with scrollwork.
(ii) Fortifications — Fort Oranje, St Eustatius; Fort Amsterdam, Curacao.

96
 III Music

(a) Musical forms Each Caribbean territory has produced its own musical form, some of
which have achieved international acclaim, almost all of which skilfully
blend, in rhythm, melody and instrumentation, greater or lesser degrees
of African, European and Asian influences. Examples:
Jamaica — reggae, the chief exponents of which are Jimmy Cliff, the late
Bob Marley and Byron Lee. Like steelband music, Reggae has gained
credit in European and North American cities.
Trinidad — calypso (now common throughout the English-speaking West
Indies), the masters of which are the Mighty Sparrow and Calypso Rose;
steelband music and 'Soca' which has been popularised by Ed Watson.
Belize — brukdown, `boom and chime' and garifuna drumming.
Martinique and Guadeloupe — ` cadence'.
Cuba — rhumba.
Haiti — merengue and drumming.
Dominican Republic — merengue.
Puerto Rico merengue, guaracha, danza and bomba (performed by the
negro population of Loiza Aldea District).

(b) Instruments (i) The drum — the most durable and dominant African musical heri-
tage; survived slavery in modified forms; prominent in Haitian and
Black Carib (garifuna) ethnic music.
(ii) Xylophone and its offshoot the Trinidadian 'tamboo bamboo'.
(iii) Maracas — rattles made from dried gourds (calabash), filled with
beads or seeds and attached to a handle; a section of dried bamboo
filled with beads is also used.
(iv) `Boom and chime' — found only in Belize; the band consists of a
mixture of African and European musical instruments: accordion,
drums, small marimba, horse's lower jaw hone, guitar, banjo and
maracas.
(v) Marimba — made and used by the Kekchi and Mopan Maya of
Belize.
(vi) European instruments — saxophone, guitar, trumpet, piano and
trombone most commonly used.
(vii) Steel orchestras — the ubiquitous Trinidad oil drum was ingeniously
converted into a unique and versatile musical instrument from 1945
onwards by such masters of the craft as Simon Spree, Ellie Manette,
Rafael Samuel and others; steclbands are now an integral part of
Trinidadian and West Indian culture.
(viii) The Asian input — the Indian sitar and Chinese cymbal.

IV Painting and sculpture: the twentieth century

(a) Jamaica and Nationalism of the 1940s stimulated active interest in culture, including
Trinidad art that reflected the quest for national identity and political independence.
The desire to curb or erase the tendency to imitate European artistic
traditions, the inclusion of art in school curricula, the establishment of
national museums and art galleries, pioneering work of prominent artists

97
 and encouragement from government cultural ministries further stimulated
artistic output of a national character (except for the abstract painters
who retain their international outlook).

(i) The 'primitive — influenced primarily by the Jamaican Mallica 'Kapo' Reynolds and the
school of painting style adopted by most amateur painters. 'Their work is very individual but
with a strong emphasis on the African heritage.

(ii) The professional — abstract painting: Nina Squire's unpopular attempt to introduce this
artists style into Trinidad led to the quest for a Trinidadian style by such artists
as Joseph Cromwell and Amy Leong Pang.
In Jamaica, Milton Harley and others continue to work in the Euro-
centred abstract style. However, Karl Parboosingh, whose versatility en-
compasses the abstract style and Mexican realism, utilises Jamaican themes.
Post-Impressionism: expounded mainly by Jamaica's Cezanne-influenced
Albert Huie.
Other Jamaican painters of note are Gloria Escoffery, Carl
Abrahams, Ralph Campbell, Alexander Cooper and Eugene Hyde.
The 'Intuitive' School has been recognised as innovative.

(iii) Sculpture — Edna Manley, Namba Roy, Leslie Clerk and Alvin Marriot are
among Jamaica's notable sculptors. Sculptress Manley dealt with
Jamaican socio-economic themes as demonstrated by her famous
pieces Negro Aroused and the figure of Paul Bogle. Marriot, on the
other hand, has produced commemorative pieces. Namba Roy's work
in ivory often reflected his Maroon extraction.

(b) Barbados, Trinidad In painting Guyana's Frank Bowling and Aubrey Williams have inter-
and Guyana national reputations and Williams designed. and executed the murals at
the Timehri International Airport. Trinidad's Carlisle Chang performed
the same task at the terminal at Piarco while Barbados's Karl Broodhagen
specialised in sculpting the heads of the famous.

(c) Cuba Wilfredo Lam is a painter of international repute.

(d) Haiti (i) Haiti's artistic revival started in the 1940s with the encouragement
that artists received from the Centre d'Art in Port-au-Princc; in the
1950s, the foundation of the Foyer des Arts Plastiques added further
incentive for artistic production; both centres promoted an outpouring
of individualistic styles.
(ii) Much of Haiti's painting is in the primitive style, epitomised by the
murals in the Episcopal Cathedral of St Trinitc; it is also dominated
by African/Haitian themes. Jean-Baptiste Jacques and Prefete Duffaut
are among those recognised outside Haiti.
(iii) Wood and terracotta are the chief mediums of Haitian sculptors;
themes are also African/Haitian, e.g. Jasmin Joseph's terracotta work
which is internationally recognised.

(e) Puerto Rico Has produced internationally-recognised artists, e.g. the late Ramon Frade
(1875-1954) who was influenced by the French Impressionists. Most
artists deal with historical, local and religious subjects.

98
 Santos: religious objects carved from hardwood by rural labourers remain
a truly Puerto Rican handicraft; torso, limbs and head of each item are
carved separately, then joined with pegs and painted; Biblical themes are
translated into a local context, e.g. Three Kings mounted on horses
displayed in San Juan's Santos Museum.

V Literature
The Cuban Revolution of 1898 and the creation of a non-white, non-
metropolitan consciousness and the establishment of nationalist move-
ments in the Anglophone Caribbean after 1918 spawned a great outpouring
of Caribbean literature which remains unabated to this day. The CXC
syllabus recognises, however, that you are unlikely (being of tender
years) to have immersed yourself very deeply in this flood of literature or
that, even if you had tried, you would have really understood what these
authors were trying to say. And there is very little point in getting you to
memorise and regurgitate vast lists of authors and their works which
another hand has summarised and which you have not read. For the list
has become vast and every territory can now claim some indigenous
authors and the most populous countries can boast scores of such people,
some of whom — like Guillen, do Hostos, Naipaul, Rhys, Kamau'
Brathwaite, Derek Walcott and Mittclholzer have international
reputations.
If, however, the reading and understanding of the multiplicity of
Caribbean authors is a pleasure yet to be experienced it is necessary to
make mention of those authors whose works and ideas have had a
particular historical importance. The influence of the writings of Marcus
Garvey in the Negro World has already been mentioned and his legacy
has been inherited by his widow, Amy Jacques Garvey who edited The
Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey (1923--26) and Garvey and
Garveyism (1963) and Robert Hill who, at the Marcus Garvey Papers
Project at the University of California has produced The Marcus Garvey
and UNIA Papers (1983). Another historian, political activist and journalist
who has been very influential in the Anglophone Caribbean is C.L.R.
James — a son of Trinidad whose study of the Haitian Revolution, Black
Jacohins (1938) investigated an aspect of Caribbean history at a time
when few others were interested. Iie inspired a whole generation of
Caribbean scholars and by the time his autobiography. Beyond a Boundary
(1963) appeared, the old Marxist historian/philosopher was the Grand
Old Man of the Anglophone Caribbean and he had a worldwide reputation.
his one-time colleague, whose different brand of politics kept James out
of his homeland, became Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago in 1956.
Dr Eric Williams, historian and politician, made his reputation with his
doctoral thesis. Capitalism and Slavery (1944), a West Indian appreciation
of what had previously been held to be British humanitarianism, and he
followed this with a whole battery of works including the History of
Trinidad and "l obago (1964) and his monumental study of Caribbean
history, From Columbus to Castro (1971). The Guyanese historian, Elsa
Goveia, who for many years was professor of History at Mona, with her
studies of slavery, inspired a further generation of Anglophone historians

99
 as did Philip Sherlock, the University's Vice-Chancellor for many years
whose scholarship produced (with J.H. Parry) A Short History of the
West Indies (1971) and West Indian Nations (1973). The new generation
of Anglophone Caribbean historians—the product of the U.W.L's history
departments and the legacy of James, Goveia and Williams, is now
impressive in number, scholarship and output but perhaps the most ar-
ticulate, influential and innovative of the new breed of Caribbean intellec-
tuals are Michael Manley and the late Walter Rodney. Manley, politician
and political theorist, has put forward his ideas in The Politics of Change,
The Search for Solutions and recently in Struggle in the Periphery. Rodney,
historian and political activist, was an expert on African history and
argued in his How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972) that European
colonialism was more than just a short-lived episode in the political
history of the Continent. Rodney, whose political activities frightened
governments in both Jamaica and Guyana, was killed by a bomb in
Georgetown in the troubles of 1980.
Of even greater significance, in some ways, than these giants of the
Anglophone Caribbean are two men whose cultural legacy was Afro-
French and whose homeland is Martinique. Both Aime Cesaire and Frantz
Fanon rejected the French doctrine of 'assimilation', Cesaire making
popular in the Caribbean the idea of negritude' — of black identity and
the search for African roots. Cesaire's Statement of a Return to the
Country of my Birth (1939) exhibited the alienation he experienced in
Martinique and sent him in search of his African origins — a search pre-
dating that already embarked on earlier by the Haitian writers, Hannibal
Price and John Price Mars. Fanon rejected both assimilation and colonialism
after experiencing French racism during his medical training in Paris and
revealed the psychological traumas produced by assimilation in Black
Skin., White Mask (1967). After serving as a psychiatrist with the French
colonial forces in Algeria and witnessing the brutality created by a white,
racist regime flying in the face of history and common sense, he changed
sides, becoming one of the intellectual leaders of the Third World revolt
against colonialism with his The Wretched of the Earth (1961). Fanon
died of leukaemia at the tragically early age of 36 in 1961.
If you have not already done so, you can taste the waters by reading
the anthologies of Andrew Salkey or — if you are older and want an
overview of Anglophone literature — read Kenneth Ramchand, The West
Indian Novel and its Background (1970).

100
PART 2 Question Analysis and
Sample Questions
 Introduction: Preparation for
the Examination

The examination is the culmination of many months of study on your

part. No matter how industrious or brilliant you have been in the classroom
you still have to overcome this final hurdle. If you have covered the
syllabus adequately and if you are well prepared, it should hold no fears
for you.
In making final preparations remember the following.

Before the examination

I Revise sensibly Make a thorough revision of the specific themes and

topics of which you are supposed to have a detailed knowledge. If you are
sitting the CXC exam also make a general survey of the Overview' for
Paper 1.
2 Write practice answers Use past examination papers and the questions
in this hook and your textbook for this purpose.
3 Check your timetable Make sure you know the date, place and time of
the examination. Get a good night's sleep, appear at the place of examin-
ation in good time and arrive in possession of a spare pen, a sharp pencil,
a ruler and an eraser.

In the examination room

1 Obey the instructions on the paper Do exactly as you are instructed. In
Paper 11 of the CXC examination make sure that you only answer ONE
question from each section A, B, C and D. If you do more than one
question from a section the examiner will simply ignore your second
answer. If you change your mind, having started an answer, strike through
that answer before you begin another question in that section. Remember
the examiner has been instructed to mark only ONE. question from each
section.
2 Remain calm even if at a first reading of the paper you seem unable to
answer most of the questions. The questions often look far more difficult
than they actually are and you will probably find that on a second reading
you can do something.
3 Choose your questions carefully Having read the whole paper through
at least twice, only attempt questions for which you have been prepared
and which you feel you can answer adequately. In Paper 11 of the CXC
examination make sure that you can answer satisfactorily the most valuable
parts of the questions you choose.
4 Write clearly and legibly Nothing annoys an examiner more than having

102
to spend time trying to decipher a candidate's hieroglyphics. While he will
be tolerant with your spelling mistakes and general English he will not be
so happy if you try to hide these faults with illegible handwriting.
5 Write in the past tense History is about things past and should be written
in the simple past tense, e.g. 'The Haitian Revolution started in 1790..
not 'The Haitian Revolution starts in 1790 ...' and 'President Teddy
Roosevelt wanted Panama ...' not 'President Teddy Roosevelt wants
Panama ...'. The examiner won't mind too much if you use the present
tense occasionally but will become very exasperated if you use it continually.
It only shows him that you have little historical sense and he will be
biased against you.
6 Attempt the required number of questions If you only do three-quarters
of the total number of questions required you can only receive 75`%, of the
total number of marks. It is better therefore to write four average answers
than three good ones.
7 Watch the time Allow only the given time for each answer. If you
overrun by five minutes on each of three questions you will have 15
minutes less in which to do the fourth. Stop writing at the end of the
allotted time for each answer (he it 25 or 30 minutes) and go on to the
next answer. If you have some spare time when you have completed the
paper you can always go back and finish off uncompleted questions. If for
any reason you do find yourself with only a few minutes to write a last
answer do put something down on paper — a few short notes might get
you some marks: a blank page can get you nothing at all.
8 Check y our work Leave y ourself 5-10 minutes at the end of the
examination in which to go back and complete unfinished answers and/or
check your work. Make sure that any maps are included in your answer
book, that your answers are correctly numbered and that you have not
made any silly, avoidable mistakes. Check your tenses and your spelling.

103
 1 Objective (multiple choice)
questions

At the present time this type of question, in which you are asked to select
the best answer from among a number given, is only to be found in the
CXC examination. Paper I of that examination, which is common to both
the Basic and General Proficiency examinations, consists entirely of multiple
choice questions and asks you to answer 60 such questions in IZ hours.
Five questions are set on each of the 10 topics in the examinations
` Overview' and the remaining 10 questions cover general trends and
chronology.
As you are not required to write down answers plucked from your
memory some examples of this type of question can be relatively easy.
Example 1 (in which D is the correct answer) tests only your common
sense.

All of the following led to social disquiet in the British

West Indies in the 1930s EXCEPT
(A) unemployment
(B) poor wages
(C) Crown Colony Government
(D) European conflicts in the area

It is obvious that A, B and C must all have contributed to social unrest

whereas there was no major rivalry between the European powers in the
Caribbean in the 1930s and even if there had been it would have been
unlikely to have affected the lives of ordinary men and women.

A question more typical of those set is Example 2.

Which of the following territories did NOT adopt the apprenticeship
system?
(A) Antigua
(B) Trinidad
(C) Jamaica
(D) Barbados

( A) is the correct answer, as the sugar planters in Antigua had already

come to the conclusion before 1834 that their estates could be run most
economically by using free labour. Your ability to select that correct
answer was a simple test of memory. The question presented no problem
as long as you knew that Antigua was the special case — if you did not
know that then no amount of common sense could have helped you to
eliminate the incorrect answers.
Common sense and memory will enable you to answer some questions
but skilfully-constructed objective questions also test your analytical and

104
discriminatory powers as well as your historical knowledge. By giving a
question a series of answers all of which, at first glance, appear to be
correct or partially correct the examiner can show you that the apparent
easiness of multiple choice questions can be deceptive. When answering
this type of question you must remember the examiner's instruction to
you to choose the BEST answer from among those given_
Example 3 illustrates the point.
The Mansfield Judgement made
(A) slavery unlawful in England
(B) slavery unlawful in the British Empire.
(C) slave trading by Englishmen unlawful
(D) slave trading unlawful in the British Empire.
You will note that all the answers deal with the illegality of slavery or
slave trading in the British Empire or England and that all contain the
same or similar words. If you are not absolutely sure what the Mansfield
j udgement actually dealt with the answers will confuse you and are meant
to do just that. To ascertain the correct answer you first have to decide
whether it was SLAVE TRADING ( Answers C and D) or SLAVERY ( Answers
A and B) which the Mansfield judgement made illegal and then whether
it was made illegal in ENGLAND (Answers A and C) or the BRITISH EMPIRE
(Answers B and D). In fact, Lord Mansfield in 1772 had the case of
James Somerset before him and he ruled that Somerset's SLAVERY was
illegal in ENGLAND (Answer A). His judgement did not affect the partici-
pation of Englishmen in the British slave trade between West Africa and
the Caribbean which did not end until 1807 or the institution of slavery in
the British Empire which was not terminated until 1834.
Just as confusing and testing are those questions involving chronology
(the passage of time and the sequence of events). They are easy only if
your knowledge of Caribbean history is good and your chronological
sense sound_ Even then they may pose problems: look at Example 4.
In which order did the following events take place in the British
West Indies:
I the emancipation of slaves
II the death of Toussaint
III the Morant Bay rebellion
IV the European colonisation of St Kitts
(A) I, II, IV, III
(B) II, IV, III, I
(C) III, IV, II, I
(D) 1V, II, I, III
For instance in Example 4 above (D) is the correct answer but to arrive
at that conclusion you would either have to have the dates of each event
fixed in your memory or know the century in which each event took place
(i.e_ Emancipation, 1834; death of Toussaint, 1803; Morant Bay rebellion,
1865; European colonisation of St Kitts. c. 1623). Having established the
chronological sequence (i.e_ 1623, 1803, 1834, 1865) you then have to
transfer the dates to the roman numerals they have been allocated (i.e.
1623—IV; 1803—II; 1834—I; 1865—I11) and find the arrangement of the
numerals among the answers which corresponds exactly to that you have

105
 chosen (i.e. (D)—IV, II, 1, Ili).
Remember, however, that sequences of numbers or numerals are easier
to confuse than names and in the examination room you will probably be
pressed for time and a little nervous. In these circumstances, even if you
know the answers, you may be flustered and confuse the numerals. In
order to avoid that simple mistake it will help you if, on your question
paper, you jot down the dates of each event and the correct numeral
sequence before you mark the letter of the answer you believe to be
correct. In Example 5 this has been done:
The following became the main source of labour in the Caribbean
in which chronological order?
I Amerindians (150 -1550) i
II Indians/Chinese (184 -1917) iv
III Europeans under indenture (162 -1670) ii
IV West African slaves (165 -1880) iii
(A) I, II, III, IV
(B) I. III, IV, II
(C) I1t, II, IV, I
(D) IV, Ii, I, Ili
The sixty multiple-choice questions below for you to practise on cover
the ten topics of the CXC Overview as well as general trends and chrono-
logy. The questions are marked with their degree of difficulty at the
beginning of each question.
M straightforward memory questions
A more difficult analytical questions
E easy questions
C chronological questions

Sample multiple choice questions

1 (E) Evidence of polytheism among pre-Columbian Amerindians is

provided by
(a) the social structure of Arawak and Carib cultures;
(b) the militaristic nature of Carib society;
(c) Maya religious practices;
(d) the technical skill of Maya civilisation.
2 (E) Before the Spaniards arrived, the islands of Dominica and
Antigua were
(a) producers and exporters of tobacco;
(b) Maya trading bases;
(c) capital settlements of Arawak culture;
(d) bases from which the Arawaks were attacked.
3 ( E) The main role of the 'Ppolms' in Maya society was that they
(a) were the skilful artisans;
(b) traded between Maya cities by travelling overland;
(c) formed a large pool of agricultural labour;
(d) provided soldiers for the Maya armies.

106
 4 (A) All the following were Columbus' achievements except:
(a) proved himself to be a courageous admiral;
(b) established the first permanent settlements in the
Caribbean;
(c) established a permanent link between Europe and the
Americas;
(d) pioneered the Euro-Caribbean trade winds route.
5 ( M) Fifteenth- century exploration of the West African coast was
carried out by
(a) Spain and resulted in the discovery of the Americas;
(b) England and resulted in rivalry with Spain;
(c) Portugal and resulted in the discovery of a sea route to
the East;
(d) Holland and resulted in the establishment of the slave
trade.
(A) What interests brought the English, French and the Dutch to
the Caribbean in the seventeenth century?
i the need for tropical raw materials.
ii the establishment of colonies.
iii piracy against the Spanish Empire.
iv desire to preserve the Treaty of Tordesillas.
(a) i and ii. (c) iii and iv.
(b) i, ii and iii. (d) all the above.
7 (E) During the seventeenth century there was decline in small land
holdings in the English and French territories when
(a) a scarcity of arable land arose;
(b) there was increased sugar production;
(c) mercantilist trading systems were introduced;
(d) rivalry developed between English and French colonists.
8 ( A) One observer of the slaves in St Kitts in the late eighteenth
century claimed that `it was extremely rare to see a grey-headed
negro' and this condition most likely was caused by
i. overwork. iii. poor diet.
ii. disease. iv. sate of elderly slaves.
(a) i, ii and iii_ (c) iv only.
(b) i and iv. (d) all the above.
9 (M) The production of muscavado sugar on an eighteenth century
plantation involved all of the following processes except:
(a) curing; (b) clarifying; (c) fermenting; (d) milling.
10 (M) Napoleon's attempt at retaking St Domingue by force was
carried out by
(a) Oge and Chavannes but was only partly successful;
(b) Victor Hugues and Sonthonax who defected to the rebelling
slaves;
(c) Boukman and Rigaud who were defeated;
(d) Leclerc and Rochambeau and ended in failure.
11 (E) General Maitland's withdrawal from St Domingue concluded
(a) the unsuccessful British attempt at capturing the colony;
(b) the unsuccessful mulatto uprising;
(c) French attempts at recapturing the colony;
(d) the Spanish invasion of the colony.

107
 12 (C) Arrange the following events in their chronological order:
i. Death of Toussaint L'Ouverture.
ii. First revolt of the affranchis' against the whites in St
Domingue.
iii. Declaration of Haitian Independence.
iv. Declaration of conditional emancipation of slaves in St
Domingue.
(a) iii, ii, i, iv. (c) ii, iv, i, iii.
(b) iv, iii, i, ii. (d) i, iv, ii, iii.
13 (M) The French emancipation movement differed from that of the
English in that
(a) Amelioration measures were rejected by the planters;
(b) there was an organised group of humanitarians;
(c) emancipation proposals included provision for compen-
sation of planters;
(d) there was no apprenticeship system.
14 (M) Select the pair which is not correctly matched:
(a) Victor Schoelcher — The Society For Effecting
the Abolition of Slavery.
(b) Thomas Clarkson — `The Eyes and Ears of
Wilberforce'.
(c) James Stephen — The Emancipation Act.
(d) Granville Sharp — Establishment of Sierra
Leone for the repatriation of
free blacks.
15 (E) In their struggle for abolition of the slave trade, English abol-
itionists lost the support of a prime minister when
(a) slave rebellions became common in the Caribbean;
(b) the French Revolution began;
(c) England became involved in the Napoleonic Wars;
(d) profits from sugar started to decline.
16 (M) An investigation into the living conditions of East Indians
brought to Guiana under the Gladstone experiment resulted in
(a) more Indians being imported to meet labour demands;
(b) fewer Indians being imported as they proved to be unsatis-
factory workers;
(c) planters being required to report on living and working
conditions of the immigrants;
(d) i mmigration from India being suspended for an indefinite
period.
17 (M) Which of the following was not a feature of Chinese immigration?
(a) They came mainly from Macao and Canton province of
China.
(b) They preferred business and trade to field labour.
(c) It was the cheapest scheme.
(d) The Chinese government opposed it.
18 (E) Hindu temples in Trinidad and the Phagwah ceremony in Guyana
were introduced to those areas by
(a) East Indian indentured labourers;
(b) slaves of Asante origin;
(c) European `deficiency men';

108
 (d) Madeiran immigrants.
19 (E) Sligoville and Sturge Town were examples of
(a) abandoned sugar estates in St Vincent;
(h) sugar estates rehabilitated by ex-slaves in British Guiana;
(c) missionary-established free villages in Jamaica;
(d) ` Negro Colonies' in British Guiana.
20 ( A) It is a matter of opinion, rather than a statement of fact about
the late nineteenth-century peasantry in the British Caribbean
that it was
(a) strongest in Jamaica;
(b) little more than glorified gardening for home consumption;
(c) commonly opposed by colonial governments;
(d) established mainly on marginal land.
21 (A) Evidence that the growth of an independent peasantry helped
to diversify the economy of the British West Indies in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century is provided by the
(a) shift from mercantilism to free trade;
(b) continuing dominance of the sugar industry;
(c) production of bananas, cocoa and arrowroot in commercial
quantities;
(d) development of mineral resources such as bauxite.
22 ( M) Exclusion from the Organisation of American States, agrarian
reform and the nationalisation of industries in Cuba all resulted
from
(a) Jose Marti's attempted overthrow of the Spanish govern-
ment;
(b) the Sergeants' Revolt led by Fulgencio Batista;
(c) the signing of the Platt Amendment;
(d) Castro's policies following his overthrow of Batista.
23 ( M) ` Today the US is practically sovereign on this continent' was a
declaration of American President
(a) Grover Cleveland in connection with the British Guiana-
Venezuela border dispute;
(b) Theodore Roosevelt in connection with the construction
of the Panama Canal;
(c) Franklin D. Roosevelt in connection with his good neigh-
bour' policy;
(d) Franklin Pierce in connection with the `Ostend Manifesto'.
24 (E) The Organic Acts applied directly to
(a) Cuba and gave Guantanamo Bay to the US;
(b) Puerto Rico and regulated its relationship with the US;
(c) Panama and gave the US the right to build a canal;
(d) Haiti and allowed the US to collect credits.
25 (E) In response to the `Disturbances' of the 1930s, the British
government appointed the
(a) Irvine Commission;
(b) Moyne Commission;
(c) Norman Commission;
(d) Wood Commission.
26 (E) Tubal Uriah Butler was forced into hiding in 1937 when he
(a) formed the Barbados Progressive League;

1 09
 (b) became the leader of the British Guiana Manpower Citizen's
Association;
(c) was to be deported from Grenada;
(d) addressed a Trinidad workers' meeting that developed
into a riot.
27 (A) British Colonial authorities rated most of the leaders who
emerged during the `Disturbances' in various territories as
i. threats to political stability.
ii. misguided but honest politicians.
iii. promoters of gradual political reform.
iv. dangerous because they demanded equality with whites.
(a) i and iv. (c) ii and iii.
(b) ii, iii and iv. (d) all the above.
28 (E) By 1945 the only true political federation in the British Caribbean
was that of the
(a) Windward Islands including Barbados;
(b) Leeward Islands;
(c) Windward Islands excluding Barbados;
(d) Cayman Islands.
29 (M) All of the following were both trade unionists and elected
representatives in their home territories except:
(a) Robert Bradshaw; (c) Hubert Critchlow;
(b) Alexander Bustamante; (d) Arthur Cipriani.
30 (C) In what order did the following events occur?
i. Jamaican referendum on membership of the West Indies
Federation.
ii, Trinidad's achievement of Independence.
iii. The Montego Bay Conference.
iv. First elections for the parliament of the West Indies
Federation.
(a) iv, iii, i, ii. (c) iii, iv, i, ii.
(b) i, ii, iv, iii. (d) i, ii, iii, iv.
31 (M) N.W. Manley was a trade-union activist and politician in:
(a) Trinidad (c) Jamaica
(b) the Bahamas (d) Barbados
32 (M) Which one of the following leaders of slave uprisings was not
Jamaican:
(a) Tacky (c) Sam Sharp
(h) Cuffee (d) Christophe
33 (C) Most of the immigrants who came to the West Indies between
1834 and 1917 to work as indentured labourers came from
I. Madeira iii. India
ii. the USA iv. China
(a) ii and iv (c) iii and iv
(b) iii only (d) i only
34 (M) The first Prime Minister of the Federation of the West Indies
was:
(a) Norman Manley
(b) Sir Grantley Adams
(c) Malcolm MacDonald
(d) Sir Alexander Bustamante

110
35 (M) Full freedom was achieved for slaves in only one British West
Indian colony in 1834. This was:
(a) Belize (c) St Kitts
(h) Guyana (d) Antigua
36 (C) Remains of the Maya civilisation are to be found in:
i. the Bahamas iii. Central America
ii. Jamaica iv. Belize
(a) iii only (c) ii and i
(b) iii and iv (d) i and iii
37 ( A) Which of the following British West Indian colonies did not
derive their income from sugar in the eighteenth century:
i. the Bahamas iii. St Kitts
ii. Jamaica iv_ Belize
(a) ii and iii (c) i and iv
(b) iii and iv (d) i only
38 ( M) Until the establishment of Crown Colony government in the
British West Indies political power rested mainly with:
(a) the Governors
(b) the Houses of Assembly
(c) the Executive Councils
(d) the Magistrates
39 (E) As a result of immigration in the nineteenth century substantial
` East Indian' populations today are to be found in:
(a) Belize (c) Dominica
(b) Antigua (d) Guyana
40 (A) The Imperial Government favoured a federation of the British
West Indian colonies because:
(a) It wanted to extend Crown Colony government
(b) It felt that the individual colonies were too small to afford
separate governments
(c) It wanted to reduce the power of Jamaica and Trinidad
(d) It no longer wished to govern these colonies itself.
41 (M) The PNP (People's National Party) and the PPP (People's
Progressive Party) were the two main political parties before
independence in:
(a) Guyana (c) Trinidad
(b) Jamaica (d) Barbados
42 ( M) The soldier sent by Napoleon to retake St Domingue from
Toussaint was:
(a) Rochambeau (c) Sonthonax
(b) Maitland (d) Le Clerc
43 ( A) Which of the following was not a cause of the `Disturbances' of
the 1930s:
(a) poor social and living conditions
(b) low wages
(c) disillusionment with Crown Colony government
(d) competition from European sugar beet
44 ( M) The first of the British West Indian colonies to obtain its
independence was:
(a) Grenada (c) Trinidad
(h) Jamaica (d) Barbados
1]1
 45 (A) Which of the following was not a hindrance to free village
development in some British West Indian colonies:
(a) the introduction of immigrant workers
(b) the attitude of the assemblies
(c) the refusal of planters to sell their land
(d) the lack of Crown land which could be rented or squatted
on
46 (M) In addition to Cuba and Panama. US intervention in the
Caribbean after 1900 took place in:
(a) Haiti and Jamaica
(b) the Dominican Republic and Haiti
(c) Dominica and Haiti
(d) Barbados and Guadeloupe
47 (A) Free villages were established after emancipation with the aid
of:
(a) the Imperial Government
(b) the Colonial Church Union
(c) the missionaries
(d) the Negro Education Grant
48 ( M) East Indian immigration came to an end in 1917 as a result of:
(a) World War I
(b) the criticism of Indian nationalists
(c) the decline of sugar
(d) Indian independence
49 (A) The Emancipation Act of 1833 applied to slaves:
(a) throughout the British Empire
(b) only in the British West Indies
(c) throughout the Caribbean
(d) only in the colonies producing sugar
50 (A) Which of the following was not a contributory cause of the
Haitian Revolution:
(a) the whites' persecution of the free coloureds
(b) the Declaration of the Rights of Man
(c) the arrival of the Jacobin commissioners
(d) the British invasion of Hispaniola
51 ( M) The Arawak population of Hispaniola was seriously reduced
after 1500 by:
(a) the activities of Las Casas
(b) English enslavement
(c) Spanish enslavement
(d) war with the Caribs
52 (E) The `gilded African' was Napoleon's description of:
(a) Toussaint
(b) Rimbaud
(c) Petion
(d) Christophe
53 (C) The `sugar revolution' took place around the middle of:
(a) the 15th Century
(b) the 16th Century
(c) the 17th Century
(d) the 18th Century

112
54 (C) The English and French first attempted to break the Spanish
monopoly in the Caribbean in the second half of the 16th
century by:
(a) diplomacy
(b) settlement of uninhabited islands
(c) piracy
(d) preaching protestantism
55 (M) The Spanish leader who resisted the English annexation of
Jamaica after 1655 was:
(a) Pedrarias d'Avila
(b) Hernando de Cordoba
(c) Christobal de Ysasi
(d) Francisco de Bobadilla
56 (C) In which order did the following events take place in the
Haitian Revolution:
i. Capture of Toussaint
ii. Withdrawal of Maitland
iii. Execution of Vincent
iv. Death of Leclerc
(a) iii, ii, iv, i (c) i, ii, iv, iii
(b) ii, iii, i, iv (d) iii, iv, ii, i
57 (M) `If I cannot bend the whites, I will stir up the blacks' was said
by:
(a) Sir John Grant
(b) Sir James Pope-Hennessy
(c) Sir Sydney Olivier
(d) Sir Edward John Eyre
58 (C) The Moyne Commission was set up as a result of:
(a) the Morant Bay Rebellion
(b) the `Disturbances' of 1934-38
(c) the Confederation Riots
(d) the Water Riots
59 (C) In which order did the following events occur:
i. the Anglo-French settlement of St Kitts
ii. the French settlement of Guadeloupe
iii. the English acquisition of Berbice and Demerara
iv. the English annexation of Dominica
(a) i, iii, iv, ii (c) iv, ii, i, iii
(b) ii, iii, iv, i (d) iii, i, ii, iv
60 ( M) The `Father' of Cuban independence was
(a) Diego Rivera
(b) Jose Marti
(c) Simon Bolivar
(d) Jose de St Martin

113
 2 Objective Questions Involving
the Use of Stimulus Material

The most substantial part of Paper II of the CXC examination (both

Basic and General Proficiency) consists of questions in which you are
provided with stimulus material in the form of maps, documentary extracts,
tables, pictures, photographs, etc.
During the preparation for the examination you will have concentrated
on certain themes and topics and ignored or only given superficial study
to the others. When selecting the questions you are going to attempt it is
important to:
(1) Choose only ONE question from EACII section A, B, C and D.
(2) Choose the question from the theme or themes you have prepared.
You must, of course, read all the questions carefully first.
(3) If you can do more than one question from a section choose the one
in which you can do ALL the parts or, failing that, the one in which
you can do the MOST VALUABLE part or parts.
(4) Fit each part of each answer to suit the number of marks allocated to
it. Be sensible—if a part of a question is worth only 1 or 2 marks it
only needs one word, a phrase or a short sentence as an answer; if
however it is worth 3 or more marks it obviously requires a short
paragraph.
(5) Watch the clock. You have been allowed a certain amount of time to
answer each question (half an hour in the GP exam, 22 minutes in the
BP exam) and you should need most of that time to think about and
write down the answer.
There are various types of question based on differing stimulus
material: most are based on one of the following, each of which is
considered in detail below.
(i) The documentary or printed source extract
(ii) Tables and lists
(iii) Pictures, photographs and cartoons
(iv) Graphs, diagrams and charts
(v) Stamps and coins
(vi) Musical lyrics
(vii)Maps

(i) The documentary or printed source extract

Documentary and printed sources are the main tools of the working
historian. They come in many forms which can be roughly divided into
two main groups.
I Primary sources Contemporary comment and analysis by those who made history or who
were interested observers at the time.

114
 (a) Official papers: paperwork produced during the process of government,
e.g. correspondence (a Governor to the Secretary of State, for instance);
Sessional Papers (hills and supplementary papers laid on the table in the
Legislative Council); Minutes of the Legislative Council or Assembly.
(b) Official/unofficial reports: normally the result of a special investigation
into a particular problem, organisation or social activity. A well-
known official example is the Report of the Moyne Commission.
(c) Unofficial private papers: personal letters, diaries, etc.
(d) Newspapers: a major printed source.

II Secondary sources Later comment and analysis by historians.

(a) Books: some topics in West Indian history already have a large
number of books written on them, e.g. sugar and slavery.
(b) Articles: The Journal of Caribbean History, the Jamaican Historical
Review, Caribbean Quarterly and Social and Economic Studies all
contain articles by working historians.
The extracts with which you will be presented in the exam could come
from any of these types of sources. What you have to remember is that:
(1) The passage is only an extract from (i.e. part of) a much longer piece
of writing chosen to stimulate your memory about a certain event in
West Indian history. It will not necessarily contain any information
which will help you to answer the questions beneath it.
(2) The source and date of the extract given after it (the `reference') may
be important. That information may aid you in your search to confirm
the event or topic with which the extract deals.

Example I Read the extract below and answer the questions which follow:
A contemporary
document — long extract Letter, Lieut. Gen. Sir C. Trollope KCB to the Colonial Office, April
1st, 1876. PRO Sessional papers Vol. L 111 1876.
... The governor has again met both Houses of the Legislature,
and in a protracted speech has urged on them the benefits of
confederation, using as an argument in support of this scheme
the success that has attended a similar undertaking in Penang
and Singapore, but never once alluded to the confederation of
the Leeward Islands, whose interests are identical with ours. His
Excellency's speech is published. In paragraph 26 he says, `The
remedies I suggest are
(1) enabling the people to obtain `steady employment'
(2) a better and cheaper administration of summary justice for
the poor, etc. .....
Such words are evidently meant to enlist the sympathies of the
people in this scheme .... The minds of the labourers are much
inflamed by this language, and I am momentarily expecting an
insurrection.
A defence association has been formed. It has met with the
entire support of the gentry of the island, two of whom have
subscribed $1 ,000.O() each ....
(a) In which West Indian territory did the activities referred to
in the passage take place? (I mark)

115
 (b) Who was the governor referred to in the passage? (I mark)
(c) what was he trying to do in making this speech? (2 marks)
(d) Consider in detail the extent to which the governor was
representing the views of the British Colonial Office.
(10 marks)
(e) Why was the defence association formed? (4 marks)
(f) What territories were to be involved in the proposed con-
federation'? (2 marks)
(g) What were the immediate and long-term results of this at-
tempt at confederation'? (5 marks)
(CXC, GP, '79, 21) Total marks 25
The extract deals with the provocative activities of a certain governor in
a certain West Indian territory in 1876. The date (1876) and the word
`confederation' should enable you to work out that (a) the territory was
Barbados, (b) the governor was Sir John Pope Hennessy and that (c) he
was attempting to obtain the support of the Executive Council and the
House of Assembly ('both Houses of the Legislature') for a confederation
of the Windward Islands which would also include Barbados.
These three answers would have shown the examiner that you knew
something about this event but so far you have only obtained 4 marks. (d)
is the valuable part of the question and to obtain the full ten marks
available you would have to produce a paragraph something like the one
following.
Sir John Pope Hennessy, in urging the Barbados legislature to
agree to federation with the Windward Islands, was representing
the view of the British Colonial Office to the extent that the civil
servants in the Colonial Office desired the union of Barbados
with the Windwards for financial and administrative reasons.
Such a federation, they believed, by amalgamating the separate
governments of the various islands, by establishing a single legis-
lature, one treasury and a common legal and educational system
would save money and streamline the administration of govern-
ment. However, in 1871 the Colonial Office had created a Lee-
wards federation in which the various island governments retained
control of their own revenue and knowing the jealous pride of
the Barbadian gentry in their old `representative' assembly and
the consequences imposition would entail, the Colonial Office
was not prepared to include Barbados in the federation if its
legislature was unanimously opposed to such a union. The white
landowning oligarchy which controlled the Barbadian legislature
was opposed to federation but Pope Hennessy, who was deter-
mined to destroy the monopoly of power of the old oligarchy,
exceeded his brief. In a famous phrase he declared that if he
could not `bend the whites he would stir up the blacks' and in
order to do that claimed for the proposed federation advantages
it could not possibly bring. lie told the ordinary, black, unrepre-
sented wage labourers and smallholders that union with the
Windwards would enable them to obtain steady employment,
land of their own and cheaper justice in the law courts. He
implied that the opposition shown by the white gentry to feder-

116
 ation sprang from the gentry's desire to maintain their class
privileges and their control of expenditure and the legislature.

Such a paragraph would not only enable you to earn most of the marks
allotted to (d) but would also lead you directly into the answer for (e). A
defence organisation was formed by the white gentry because they feared
that Pope Hennessy's provocative speeches would stir up the blacks
against them and attack their persons and property. (f) — which perhaps
should have been asked earlier — requires only a straightforward answer:
the confederation would have included Barbados and the Windward
Islands, i.e. St Lucia, St Vincent, Grenada and Tobago. (g) is worth 5
marks and deserves a short paragraph as an answer.
I he immediate result of this attempt at confederation were the
`Confederation Riots' of March 1876 in which eight persons
were killed during a month of serious disorder. That disorder
was only brought to an end by the reinforcement of the Barbados
garrison with troops from British Guiana and the recall of the
governor to London. The long-term results of the failure of
confederation were (1) that the establishment of a Windward
federation was delayed until 1885 and then when it was set up
Barbados was excluded and the other islands retained control of
their own revenue and expenditure. (2) that Barbados kept its
old House of Assembly and escaped the imposition of Crown
Colony Government which during the second half of the nine-
teenth century was established in every other West Indian colony
except the Bahamas. Although the Executive Council obtained
the power to influence the expenditure of the colony's revenue
in 1876 the old oligarchic House of Assembly retained its control
of taxation and legislation.

Example 2 Read the following passage and then answer the questions which
A Contemporary follow.
Document — Short
Extract . . that the state of Slavery is repugnant to the principles of the
British constitution and of the Christian religion and that it
ought to be gradually abolished throughout the British Colonies
with as much expedition as may be found consistent with a due
regard to the well being of the parties concerned ....
Buxton 1823 as cited by R. Coupland
British Anti-Slavery Movement
(a) State in your own words the reasons given in this passage for
opposing slavery. (2 marks)
(b) What groups in England and the West Indies spoke on
behalf of the slaves? (2 marks)
(c) What were their real reasons for supporting abolition?
(4 marks)
(d) Who are the parties concerned' and why does Buxton feel
that their well-being is important? (4 marks)
(e) Why did Buxton believe that abolition should be gradual?
(2 marks)
 (f) What factors aided or impeded the movement towards
abolition in the British islands? (11 marks)
(CXC, GP, '79, 11) Total marks 25
This extract comes from a speech made by Thomas Fowell Buxton in
1823 as cited by a later historian. You should know that Buxton was a
member of the British Parliament and an important figure in the campaign
to abolish the slave trade and slavery in the British Empire. You should
also know that by 1823 the British slave trade had been brought to an end
(in 1807) and that Buxton and others were then campaigning for the
abolition of slaver y itself.
(a) is no problem as two reasons for opposing slavery are given in the
passage they are that slavery was `repugnant' (i.e. distasteful/opposed
to) (1) the principles (i.e. beliefs) underlying the British constitution,
which, simply put, insisted that all men were free and equal before the
law and (2) the principles of the Christian religion which held that all men
were God's children and no man had the right to 'own' other men.
The answers to the other parts of the question cannot be found in the
extract but have to be provided from your memory. The groups to be
identified in (b) are: (i) In England, the nonconformist Evangelical Mem-
bers of Parliament known as the Clapham Sect' or `Saints' and the
members of the `Abolition Society', (ii) in the West Indies, the noncon-
formist missionaries — particularly William Knihb, John Smith, William
Shrewsbury and Thomas Burchell.
(c) allows you to impress the examiner with your knowledge of West
Indian history. You can tell him that before the publication of Eric
Williams' Capitalism and Slavery it was believed that the British Abol-
itionists supported abolition for purely humanitarian reasons but Williams
insisted that their `real reasons' sprang from economic necessity. He held
that the rising group of British industrialists (many of whom were also
nonconformists) whose profits depended on free trade objected to the
protected market enjoyed by the West Indian plautocracy. They desired
the abolition of slavery as a means of increasing the size of their consumer
market in which they could sell their products.
With (d) you can use your common sense. It should be obvious that the
parties concerned were (i) the slave owners and (ii) the slaves. Buxton
felt that their well-being was important because if either party suffered
severely from abolition, i.e. the planters went bankrupt or the slaves lost
any means of support for their families — they would cause trouble.
The fear of social unrest is the answer to (e). Buxton believed abolition
should be gradual because it was not known what the consequences of the
sudden release of 750000 former slaves from slavery to freedom would
bring. It was widely believed by the planters and the Imperial and colonial
governments that rioting might break out.
(f) is worth 11 marks and to obtain those marks you will have to
produce a fairly full paragraph. As a list of factors is required it is a good
idea to make that list before you write the paragraph or, if you are
pressed for time, you could just write the list as an answer as has been
done below.
Factors aiding the movement towards abolition in the British
islands

118
 (1) Decline of sugar Expensive British West Indian sugar unable
to compete on the world market. Some planters believed that
wage labourers would prove less expensive than the maintenance
of slaves and so reduce the cost of production.
(2) Activities of the missionary groups The planters' attacks on
the pro-abolitionist missionaries (e.g. the Colonial Church Union
and Knibb in Jamaica) increased support for abolition in both
England and the West Indies.
(3) Slave expectations The campaign for abolition was closely
followed by the slaves many of whom thought abolition was
i mminent after the promulgation of the Amelioration Proposals
of 1823. When emancipation was not immediately forthcoming it
was believed that the slave owners were obstructing the delivery
of His Majesty's 'free paper'. In consequence there was an
outbreak of slave revolts, the most important being that led by
Sam Sharpe in Jamaica in 1831.
(4) Ineffectiveness of the Amelioration Proposals The planters'
reluctance to implement the Amelioration Proposals of 1823
only served to support the abolitionists' argument that they had
no intention of giving up without a fight.
Factors impeding the movement towards abolition in the British
islands
(1) Attitude of the plantocracy Many estate-owners, fearful of
the loss of their labour force after emancipation, fought a rear-
guard action to postpone the evil hour. They set up organisations
like the Colonial Church Union in order to combat the activities
of the missionaries and used the West India 'lobhy' in the Im-
perial Parliament to influence anti-abolitionist MPs to oppose
emancipation.
(2) Fear of social unrest Many planters and colonial officials
believed that emancipation would lead to outbreaks of rioting as
the freed slaves sought to revenge themselves on their previous
masters. Slave revolts in the I820s and the serious Jamaican
uprising of 1831-32 only served to confirm these beliefs and
there was a general reluctance to accept that emancipation was
wise or necessary. As a consequence of this fear the apprentice-
ship period was created and full freedom delayed for four years
after 1 834.

(ii) Tables and lists

Tables and lists have visual impact — they are systematic and tested ways
of portraying the simple statistical material (i.e. numbers) with which
historians deal. They are normally self-explanatory and you will have had
experience of them in mathematics and other subjects. It is only necessary
to make sure that:
I You are aware of the units being used in the table or list (i.e.
numbers, percentages, weights_ values etc.).
2 If the table does not have horizontal and vertical lines dividing up its
various columns you should use your ruler to follow the columns across

119
 and down. In this way you will avoid the simple mistake of confusing two
or more sets of figures — quite easily done if you are nervous or in a
hurry!
Example: A population The following table shows the ethnic groupings in six British Caribbean
table showing percentage territories today; the figures are percentages. Study the table and briefly
ethnic breakdown answer the questions which follow:

Guyana Jamaica Trinidad Antigua Barbados Dominica

Black 38 78 47 85 77 25
East Indian 44 2 35 — 0.07 0.011
Chinese 0.94 1 1.01 0.01 0.02
Mixed 10 17 14.12 13 17 74
White 3 1 2.74 1.6 5 0.03

P.M. Sherlock, West Indian Nations. A New History

( Kingston: Jamaica Publishing House, 1973)

(a) Which THREE territories have the highest percentage of

blacks? (1 mark)
(b) Which TWO territories have the highest percentage of
people of East Indian descent? (1 mark)
(c) When did East Indians and Chinese come to the West
Indies'? (1 mark)
(d) Why did they come? (4 marks)
(e) Why is the percentage of East Indians and Chinese in
Antigua, Barbados and Dominica so small? (4 marks)
(f) What name do we give to a society in which there are so
many different racial groups? (I mark)
(g) How does this sort of society differ from one in which there
is only one racial group? (3 marks)
(CXC, BP, '79, 13) Total marks 15
This table, at first glance, looks complicated but in fact in only questions
(a) and (b) are you actually asked to use the table to find the answers and
these two answers are only worth 2 marks. The answers to the rest of the
questions cannot he found in the table and have to be provided from your
memory.
(a), which asks you to name the THREE territories having the highest
percentage of blacks can be answered by reference to the top horizontal
line — the THREE territories are obviously Barbados (77 %), Jamaica
(78 %) and Antigua (85%).
(b), which asks you to name the TWO territories having the highest
percentage of people of East Indian descent can be answered by reference
to the second horizontal line the TWO territories are Trinidad (35%)
and Guyana (44%) — you should know this already!
(c) is only worth 1 mark and needs only a short sentence in answer, i.e.
`The East Indians and Chinese came to the West Indies between 1838 and
1917.'
(d) is more valuable and to get those 4 marks you should provide both
the negative and positive reasons in answer to the question `Why?'.

120
Remember people leave their homelands because they are pushed as well
pulled. Your answer should contain all or most of the points in the
following paragraphs.
The Chinese and East Indians came to the West Indies because
they were seeking to escape from a hard life in their own home-
lands and because several West Indian territories were in need
of an agricultural labour force after 1838.
In the nineteenth century both China and India possessed
enormous peasant populations which lived in fear of drought,
flood and starvation. Rather than practise a meagre subsistence
agriculture many peasants left the land for the overcrowded
cities — the more adventurous (or desperate) were prepared to
emigrate to seek a better life elsewhere.
The British West Indies were an obvious place for these people
to go as after emancipation the larger territories which produced
sugar efficiently suddenly found themselves without a work force.
Because there was a plentiful supply of idle Crown land the
apprentices in Guyana and Trinidad left the hated sugar estates
to farm smallholdings for themselves. The estate owners were
forced to look overseas for a new labour supply and after 1838
they recruited immigrant labourers under indenture from Europe,
North America and Madeira as well as from Asia. It was from
India and China however that the bulk of the immigrants came.
(e) is also worth 4 marks and really tests your knowledge of West
Indian history. In answer you have to tell the examiner that the percentage
of East Indians and Chinese in Antigua, Barbados and Dominica is small
because very few East Indians and Chinese emigrated to these territories
between 1838 and 1917. That, however, is not enough. You must also
explain to him why, in these islands, there was no great demand for
i mmigrant labourers after 1838. He wants to know that in the profitable
sugar-producing islands of Antigua and Barbados there was little Crown
land available for the apprentices to squat on or buy and that after 1838
the freed slaves had to remain on the estates in order to support their
families. You must also explain that in the case of wet and mountainous
Dominica while there was a plentiful supply of Crown land, small-
holding was a perilous occupation. Moreover as the sugar industry there
had never been particularly profitable it collapsed after 1838 and the
freed slaves had a choice of either attempting to eke out a subsistence
living from the inhospitable land or emigrating to seek wage labour in
Guyana or Trinidad.
(f) The word required here to earn l mark is Plural' but if you put
down `Multi-racial' or `Multi-ethnic' the examiner would still have to give
you that mark as the question does not stipulate that the different racial
groups continue to maintain their separate identities. The failure of the
various racial/ethnic groups to assimilate (i.e. merge together through
intermarriage) is the characteristic of a 'Plural' society whereas Multi-
racial/Multi-ethnic societies generally exhibit a degree of assimilation.
(g) Here to get the 3 marks you have to extend the definition of a
` Plural' society_ You have to explain that in such a society people of
different colours, cultures and religions (despite living together for many

12.1
 decades) retain their cultural and racial identities because there is little
intermarriage between the various groups. Consequently there is often a
degree of hostility and tension between the separate groups which, under
certain circumstances, can result in racial violence.

(iii) Pictures, photographs and cartoons

Pictures, drawings and paintings give us visual impressions of historical

scenes, persons and events. They are sometimes realistic but more often
exaggerated and romanticised. Photographs (available since 1840) capture
such scenes, persons and events realistically and are important historical
sources. Cartoons (often comically or satirically) portray historical events
in a way which made those events explicable to the people of the time
who saw them in their newspapers and periodicals.

A deputation of Maroons—an artist's impression

122


Example 1 Study the picture opposite and answer the following questions.
A picture (a) Mention ONE possible reason for the meeting shown in the picture.
(2 marks)
(b) Name TWO forms of resistance, other than becoming Maroons,
which slaves used. (2 marks)
(c) What kind of life did the Maroons want? (2 marks)
(d) What did the Maroons do in order to have this kind of life? (5 marks)
(e) How far were they successful? (4 marks)
Total marks 15

The picture shows a meeting between a deputation of Maroons and a

British officer and his staff. This would have taken place in Jamaica in the
eighteenth century.
(a) There might have been many reasons for the meeting but the
obvious ones include (i) the negotiation of a peace treaty such as that
made after the First Maroon War in 1739 between Cudjoc and Guthrie,
(ii) complaints being made by the Maroons about their treatment by the
army or militia such as the flogging of two Maroons for pig stealing in
1795 — an event which led to the Second Maroon War, (iii) information
about runaway slaves being conveyed to the military authorities.
(b) There were many other forms of slave resistance — sabotage and
damage to estate property; feigning illness; suicide; 'going slow' and
malingering; open rebellion. Remember however only TWO are asked
for!
(c) You should say here that the Maroons wanted to he free of white
control, free of plantation servitude, free to govern themselves and to
practise their African customs without interference.
(d) This is a somewhat vague question but to obtain the 5 marks you
have to explain how the Maroon settlements came into existence; how,
out of necessity, they were established in the rugged interiors (e.g.
Trelawny and Accompong in the Cockpit country of Jamaica) and how,
in order to maintain their independence, they were occasionally forced to
fight against the forces of the colonial power (e.g. The Maroon Wars in
Jamaica). It might also be necessary to explain how the Maroons managed
to feed themselves — by subsistence agriculture and frequent raids on
plantations.
(e) Some Maroon communities were highly successful. Here you should
mention the Bush Negroes (Djukas) of Surinam, the Palmares Maroon
settlement in Brazil and the Jamaican Maroons who maintained their
independence for the entire 150 years of slavey. You will probably know
most about the Jamaican Maroons and you should here give some detail
about the Maroon Wars and the peace settlement reached after them.

Example 2 Study the cartoon overleaf and answer the questions which follow.
A Cartoon (a) What does the cartoon suggest about the United States
control of the Panama Canal and the surrounding areas?
(6 marks)
(b) Why was control of this area important to the United States?
(8 marks)
(c) Why did Columbia oppose the control of the area by the
United States? (6 marks)

123


Pay, and you may pass through I

One opinion of the attitude of the United States to the Panama Canal

(d) What forms did the opposition take? (5 marks)

Total marks 25

This is a poorly devised question. The cartoon is not dated although the
nature of the questions suggest the years 1903 to 1921. Moreover the
questions themselves arc vague and trivial in that they do not ask for the

124
 obvious, relevant material which you would have studied. To answer the
question effectively common sense is more important than historical detail.
If you wish to provide the detail you will have to squeeze it in among the
generalities which the question unfortunately demands. (NB Note the
spelling of Colombia in (c) — further evidence of the sloppy manner in
which the question was devised.)
(a) ` Uncle Sam' in the cartoon is holding Theodore Roosevelt's Big
Stick' and only allowing the passage through the Panama Canal of the
ships of friendly nations who arc prepared to pay the canal fees. The US
attitude towards the Caribbean countries in the period 1895 to 1933 was
similar; it bullied and persuaded weaker governments with a combination
of `big stick' and dollar diplomacy' policies.
(b) The answer is obvious but you must state the obvious which is more
a matter of geography than history. The Canal was constructed (between
1904 and 1914) in order to provide the USA with a convenient sea-link
between her east and west coasts and to end the long haul down the coast
of South America and round Cape Horn. However, as well as controlling
the Panama Canal and its zone the USA had to protect the sea-lanes
which served the Canal. This, in effect, meant making the Caribbean into
a US `lake' and this could only he done by effective US control of the
Caribbean's parameters — the Florida Channel, the Windward, Mona and
Anegeda Passages. Such control rested on the US Navy and on the US
ensuring that the governments of the Caribbean islands and the Central
American countries were bullied or persuaded into being sympathetic to
US interests.
(c) This question now appears to revert to the original acquisition of
the Canal Zone by the USA. To obtain the marks you would have to
explain how Roosevelt assisted in the breakaway of Panama from Colombia
in 1903 and how the newly-independent republic of Panama gratefully'
conceded the Canal Zone territory in return for an annual payment. You
have to say that Panama had been, prior to 1903, part of the state of
Colombia and that Colombia was angered by the loss of its territory.
(d) This question is either very trivial or very detailed in its demands. If
it is trivial then you simply have to say that as Colombia was no match
militarily for the USA it had to accept the humiliation of losing Panama
and be content with the demands for compensation. If it is detail that is
required you would have to explain that the Hay-Herran Treaty of January
1903 (by which the USA and Colombia agreed to build a canal across the
isthmus of Panama) was not ratified by the Colombian Congress and then
the USA took matters into its own hands and supported the Panamanian
insurgents. When these insurgents declared Panama's independence in
November 1903 Colombia could not re-take its rebellious province because
of the presence of the USS Nashville off Colon. After Panama's gift' to
the US of the Canal Zone in the same month Colombia could do nothing
but demand compensation for the loss of its canal rights which the USA
did not finally concede until 1921 when Colombia was paid $21 million.

(iv) Graphs, diagrams and charts

Graphs, diagrams and charts show complicated information and statistics
more clearly than can the written word. If they are well constructed they

125


not only provide the necessary information but make the important points
in that information visually obvious.

Example I Study the graph below which shows sugar production in the
A Graph larger of the British West Indian colonies in the period 1750-1900
and answer the following questions.
(a) By how much did Jamaican sugar production fall between
1800 and 1900? (1 mark)
(b) By how much did British Guiana's production increase be-
tween 1800 and 1900? (1 mark)
(c) How do you account for the rapid decline in Jamaican sugar
production after 1800? (7 marks)
(d) How do you account for the rapid increase in British Guiana's
production after 1800? (7 marks)
(e) Give reasons for the sudden upsurge of British Guiana's
production after 1850 and for the sudden decrease in Jamaica's
after the same date. (4 marks)
(f) What factors contributed to the general improvement in
sugar production in Barbados and Trinidad after 18110?
(5 marks)
Total marks 25

The graph is only incidental to the questions, most of which cannot he

answered from the information provided by the graph but have to be
recalled from your historical knowledge.
(a) and (h) do require a reading of the graph. The answer to (a) is
55000 tons and to (b) is 37000 tons.
(e) To answer (c) fully you have to list those factors which led to the
decline of Jamaican sugar production after 1800. You should include
1 ton = 1.016 tonnes

100
N
z
e 90
L6
O
y
O
Q 70
N
D
0

z_ 50
z
0
U
V
30
0

10
D
0
a1

YEARS

Sugar production in the larger of the British West Indies, 1750-190()

126
 some of the following — the loss of cheap estate supplies from the British
North American colonies after 1783; the end of the slave trade and
slavery in 1807 and 1834 respectively and the consequent rise in labour
costs; absentee planters; the general unsuitability of much of Jamaica for
large-scale sugar production; the inefficiency and high cost of Jamaican
sugar production; competition from Cuba. Mauritius and Brazil; the end
of the protected British market; competition from European sugar beet
and the failure of Jamaica to actively encourage immigration on the scale
of British Guiana and Trinidad.
(d) Here you need to emphasise that Dutch Berbice-Demerara-Essequiho
became the British colony of British Guiana in 1803 during the Napoleonic
Wars. Subsequently the immigrant British planters faced with vast, flat,
fertile, virgin coastlands planted sugar in enormous quantities and could
produce it as cheaply as Cuba, Mauritius and Brazil, with the aid of large-
scale East Indian immigration.
(e) The upsurge in British Guiana's production after 1850 was in part
due to the creation of massive new estates and in part due to British
Guiana's enthusiastic encouragement of East Indian immigration which
allowed the colony to produce its sugar at competitive rates. The dramatic
decline of Jamaican sugar production after 185O was the result of the end
of the protected British market (the Sugar Duties Equalization Act of
1846), the end of slavery in 1834 and the Jamaican planters' failure to com-
pcnsatc for the loss of their slave labour force by large scale immigration.
(f) Here, in order to obtain the allotted 5 marks, you would have to
explain that Barbados had always been an efficient low-cost producer, that
its plantocracy was largely resident, its soils fertile and well-managed and
that there was no loss of the labour force after 1834 because the freed
slaves had no alternative but to return to the estates. In the case of
Trinidad you would have to show how production increased after 1815
when Trinidad became a British colony; that Trinidad possessed virgin
fertile soils like British Guiana. that it produced low-cost sugar and could
compete with Cuba, Brazil and Mauritius and that it replaced its labour
force after 1834 by large-scale East Indian immigration.

Example 2 Study the diagram overleaf and answer the questions which follow.
A diagram (a) Approximately how many slaves were taken from Africa
between 1701 and 1810? (I mark)
(b) Of this number approximately how many went to (i) Brazil
(ii) the French Caribbean (iii) the British Caribbean (iv)
British North America? (4 marks)
(c) What name was given to the journey across the Atlantic
from West Africa to the Americas? (1 mark)
(d) Why were so many slaves lost on this crossing? (4 marks)
(e) Explain what happened to slaves once the slavers reached
the New World. (5 marks)
Total marks 15

The diagram represents the flow of slaves from West Africa to the
Americas during the eighteenth century. Apart from showing clearly the
number of slaves who were transported and their destination, it depicts
little else and most of the questions have to be answered from memory.

127


„6 0

BRITIgH No

H PMERICA 4MERiCq

5Q

e _ I
SH CARIB BEyN

0o
oe
DUT cy CAR 88EAN
6 000 000

4 500000

30000 00

1 500 000
500 000 0 1500 3000 km

L I I

Slaves to the Americas, 1701-1810

(a) and (b). The answers to these two questions are to be found by
comparing the width of the flow arrows in the diagram with the scale in
the bottom left-hand corner. (Use a piece of paper or straight-edge to
mark off the widths.) (a) is approximately 6 million. (b)(i) is 2 million
(b)(ii) 1500000 (b)(iii) 1500000 (b)(iv) 500000.
(c) The answer required is the Middle Passage'.
(d) Here you may describe dramatically the horrors of the Middle
Passage. Mention: the suicides (brought on by fear of the sea or the
realisation that this was their last sight of Africa) as the slavers were
loaded; the awful overcrowding, lack of sanitation, filth and poor food
which led to disease — particularly dysentery (the `bloody flux'); the long
hours chained in the holds and the savage punishments for disobedience
which led to rebellion or suicide when exercise on the deck was permitted.
(e) For the marks describe the humiliating slave auctions which took
place once the slavers had docked — the grading of slaves, their physical
inspection by the planters' buyers, the preference for strong, healthy field
slaves and their branding with the plantation mark. Then describe the
first weeks on the plantation — the `learning' period when the slaves were
apprenticed to older, responsible' experienced slaves.

(v) Stamps, coins and bank notes

All countries depict their history, geography and culture on their stamps
and money. Therefore these are good pictorial sources for questions.

128


Example A stamp Study the above picture of a Belizean stamp and answer the
questions below.
(a) What was Belize's colonial name and in what year did it be-
come independent? (2 marks)
(b) What is chicle, from what is it obtained and what was it used
to manufacture? (3 marks)
(c) What is the significance of the man depicted on the stamp
and what connection has he with the bicentennial of the
American Revolution? (5 marks)
(d) Describe the forest economy of Belize in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries and explain why in the twentieth century
forestry has declined in importance. (5 marks)
Total marks 15

This is a fairly specialised question — easy for the Belizean candidates

but probably difficult for those elsewhere in the Caribbean who know
little about the domestic history of Belize.
(a) This question should prove no difficulty to any candidate. The
answers are British Honduras and 1981.
(b) This question can probably be answered by candidates with a good
geographical/biological knowledge of the Caribbean basin. Chicle is a
latex obtained by `chicleros' who tap the sapodilla tree. It was formerly
used as a basis for chewing gum but since the 1940s has been replaced by
an artificial substitute.
(c) This question is specialised and difficult. The significance of William
Wrigley Jr is that he was President of the US multi-national Wrigley
chewing gum company which obtained much of its chicle from Belize.

129
 The connection with the bicentennial is that Wrigley's was the Belizean
equivalent of the United Fruit Company in the rest of Central America
and the Caribbean — indeed, until the 1950s, it was the only large UJS
enterprise operating in Belize.
(d) Here you need to stress that until the 1940s Belize's economy
depended almost entirely upon forest products. In the eighteenth century
its forested swampy coastlands produced logwood (a source of dye) but in
the nineteenth century dyewood gave way to mahogany. Belizean mahog-
any proved of very high quality and was much in demand in Europe for
furniture, panelling and later aeroplane propellors. The industry declined
in the twentieth century despite the US demand for chicle and secondary
hardwoods. The causes were the excessive over-cutting of immature trees
in the earlier years, the failure of the mahogany merchants to re-plant
and the changes in fashion which reduced the demand for mahogany in
Europe and the USA.

(vi) Musical lyrics

The Trinidadian calypso (as well as much of modern reggae) is music with
a message. The lyrics of these popular songs combine humour (or sadness)
with political protest or satire in a way which appeals to and reaches those
people who may not read books or newspapers. The great calypsonians
and reggae artists (e.g., the Mighty Sparrow, Atilla the Hun, Bob Marley,
Lord Laro, King Shortshirt) were and are as much political figures as the
established politicians and generally far more popular. The lyrics of their
songs are excellent contemporary historical sources.

Example Study the following calypso lyrics and answer the questions
A calypso which follow.

Calypso on Butler
Butler is a man
Who is fearless and bold
He is just like the prophets
Of whom we are told
Cipriani take we
Half-way down the road
But still left we
With a heavy load
Butler is the one
Who take up a stand
And will lead us
To the promised land
They make him suffer
They cause him pain
But he still keep on fighting
And bring us gain
Robert Morris

130
 (a) Describe two incidents from Butler's trade union activities in
the l930s which could be used to support the claim that he
was fearless and bold' (8 marks)
(b) Why did Butler and his followers switch their loyalty from
Cipriani? (8 marks)
(c) Which groups of people in Trinidad would, in the 1930s, be
likely to support the vie about Butler expressed in the
calypso? (3 marks)
(d) To what extent was Butici able to lead his followers 'to the
promised land'? (6 marks)
Total marks 25

The lyrics deal with the career of Uriah 'Buzz' Butler (1897-1977) the
Grenadian-horn politician and labour leader. A fiery orator. Butler led
the strike of oilfield workers in Trinidad in 1937. He was interned by the
colonial government during the Second World War and was the leader of
the now-defunct `British Empire and Citizen's Home Rule and Worker's
Party'. For his services to Trinidad he was awarded the Trinity Cross in
1970.
(a) Both incidents should he given the same coverage as they are
worth 4 marks each. The two most obvious are: (i) in 1935, Butler, then a
member of Cipriani's Labour Party, led a hunger strike of 120 men into
Port-of-Spain to protest over working conditions; (ii) in 1937 Butler
organised a sit-down strike in the oil-fields. When the police attempted to
arrest Butler the crowd attacked the police, two oil wells were set on fire
and two policemen killed. The rioting then spread to the sugar estates
and to Port-of-Spain and was only brought to an end by the arrival of
British warships.
(b) Here you must emphasise the differences between the politics of
Arthur Cipriani and those of Butler. Cipriani (1875— 1941) was a moderate
who championed the cause of the `bare foot man' through his membership
of the Legislative Council, through his newspaper The Socialist and through
his creation, the Trinidad Labour Party. Cipriani, however, could not
countenance disloyalty to the monarch or Empire; nor could he support
forms of protest which incited violence and were not multi-racial. Con-
sequently he was appalled by Butler's demagogy and appeal to the black
workers and, after the 1935 hunger strike, had Butler expelled from the
TLP. The black workers, for their part, recognised that the moderate,
' white', middle-class Cipriani had never been `one of them' and therefore
transferred their allegiance to the more militant politics of Butler.
(c) if you managed (a) and (b) this answer is fairly obvious. Butler's
supporters were members of the black industrial working class — the dock
labourers of Port-of-Spain and San Fernando and the oilfield workers.
Stress the racial appeal of Butler to the black worker as opposed to the
agricultural East Indian labourers or the brown middle class.
(d) This is a matter of argument. Butler was interned during the
Second World War, his party was defeated in the 1946 election and
although he won a majority in the 1956 elections he and his party were
denied office by the Imperial Government and the conservative interests
in Trinidad. However, if Butler cannot be credited with any major consti-
tutional or legal advances, his brand of politics can be said to have united

131
 the Trinidadian black working class, raised its political consciousness and
made it aware of its exploitation by the oil-magnates and estate-owners.
To this extent he led his followers `to the promised land'.

(vii) Maps

Maps are essential tools of the historian and a good geographical knowledge
of the Caribbean basin is vital to a proper understanding of its history.
The island is a, perhaps the, conspicuous feature of the Caribbean and
because the Caribbean islands have been subjected to so many various
cultural influences and changes of ownership, maps help us to identify
these changes of ownership and influence with greater clarity and precision
than the written word.

Example On the blank outline map provided mark the following:

A map (a) The letter A on the island in which Boukman started a slave
rebellion in 1791. (1 mark)
(b) The letter B on the island in which there was a rising of Black
Caribs in 1795. (1 mark)
(c) The letter C on the island captured by the Jacobin agitator
Victor Hugues in 1794. (1 mark)
(d) The letter D on the island in which there was a Maroon
uprising in 1795. (1 mark)
(e) The letter E on the island in which there was a rising of
French planters under Julien Fedon in 1795. (1 mark)

o /

r eV

^ N w

//
^ ♦ N p

132
 In your answer book:
(f) Explain why the Leeward Islands were untouched by revol-
ution in the period 1790-1804. (3 marks)
(g) Show how the ideas generated by the French Revolution
inspired slave revolutions in St Domingue and the Windwards
in the period 1790 to 1804. (4 marks)
(h) Give THREE reasons why the revolution in St Domingue
was successful when those elsewhere in the Caribbean failed.
(3 marks)
Total marks 15

In this question (a) to (e) require the use of the map. You not only
have to remember the island in which the event took place but identify
that island on the map and mark it with the specified letter. Parts (f) to
(h) are more general questions about the revolutions which took place in
the Caribbean between 1790 and 1804.
(a) Boukman was the slave leader who started the rising in St Domingue
which was later taken over by Toussaint_ Mark western Hispaniola (Haiti)
with the letter A.
(h) You should know that the Black Caribs lived in St Vincent and so
identify that island with the letter B.
(c) Iiugues, the Jacobin agitator, succeeded in capturing Guadeloupe
in 1794. Mark that island with the letter C.
(d) You should know that only Jamaica had a large Maroon population
and that the Second Maroon War started in that island in 1795. Jamaica
should be marked with the letter D.
(e) You should associate the French coloured planter Fedon with
Grenada and mark that island with the letter E.
(f) Here the crucial point is that the Leewards (apart from St Kitts) had
always been totally British colonies whereas the British Windwards had
previously been settled by the French. Consequently they contained dis-
contented French planters who were prepared to raise rebellion when
British forces were committed elsewhere.
(g) Here you should explain that the revolution in France had been
inspired by the belief in `Liberty, Equality and Fraternity' and that the
National Assembly had produced the `Declaration of the Rights of Man'
in 1789. The exploited groups in French Caribbean society (the slaves and
coloureds) recognised their own white plantocracies (the `Grand Blanes')
as the equivalent of the French aristocracy and sought to overthrow them_
In this action they were materially aided by various Jacobin commissioners -
particularly Sonthonax and Hugues who arrived in the French colonies
with instructions to carry out the ideals of the Revolution and destroy the
` Grand Blanes'.
(h) There are many reasons for the successful outcome of the revolution
in St Domingue. Choose THREE of the following and expand on them:
the military skill of Toussaint; his inspiring leadership; the ruthlessness of
Dessalines and Christophe; the English intervention; the geography of St
Domingue (which made its recapture difficult); Napoleon's under-estimation
of Toussaint's ability and popular support; the failures of the French
military; the outbreak of yellow fever; Napoleon's forces were committed
in too many theatres of war and St Dominguc was a 'sideshow'.

133
 Sample stimulus questions

The stimulus questions which follow are for you to practise on and
include examples of all those types described. Your teacher will help you
with any problems you may have in answering them.

1]]J
1731
I 792
]93
M° .BS
1795
SPANISH AND FRENCH
1196
1833
COLONIES
1632
1 8 35 — 1519

1836 r5E] I^

1 8T] — t 513 1533

te36 18]0 _ 1598

teaB — ^ rH21 1632 —^-
1
Mrlcne^
rxar IeaS t69t 1)5R

180.1 18iJ —^ O6] ^"l le2o mo

t Bf4 1
p ee
BCB — 1)91 1B3o r]53

f.IIBN
II PVENTORICO HISYANIOIA MANIINIDUF GUADELDUpE

ORU
655 M a

] 6 =
BRITISH COLONIES
196 _
I fA6 GB
He ^

1690
1720 NanM
1134 Maronn^
1740
I]4]
t]45 — 1133 rJ30
o

f]60 IJ3d 1]50 1 "^ t W9 ti85 Mar
1165 1746 715 7 1691 7 7 91 IJ69 1687 1769

rJl9 1]63 LBm

1800 r me r))] 1]28 1]]1 _
1]95 Mar ^ n ^ rlin
r]ya Kole rJSa 1))2 1816 H en 1916 n95 nJ] tJ)a ' nfis v26
rn
Magoon 4e3On
1905 — 1]95 Ma °^a r1fR
SnarV lfll< 1820 1831 1901 ` 1]55 1]]0
I9J1 1820 IH)J — 1833

VIRGIN BRITISH BRITISH ST KITTS TRINIDAD Sr. VINCENT MONTSERRAT

J4MAICA B4R 6 i05 DOMINICA aNTI GVA TOBAGO GRENADA
_ryEV15
ISLANDS GDI4NA IpN0U5

1 Study the diagrams above showing slave revolutions in the Caribbean

and answer the questions which follow.
(a) In which two territories did most slave revolts take place? (2 marks)
(h) Why do you think there were more slave revolts in these territories
than elsewhere in the Caribbean? (4 marks)
(c) Why was there only one revolt in Trinidad? (3 marks)
(d) What were the causes of the revolts (i) of Cuffy in British Guiana in
1763 and (ii) of Sam Sharpe in Jamaica in 1830-31? (6 marks)
Total marks 15

2 Study the table opposite showing the political parties in the English-
speaking Caribbean in the period 1930-65. The table is incomplete
and you must complete the boxes left blank with the appropriate
name or date.

134
Country Parties Date of Leaders
Foundation
Belize Peoples's United Party 1950 George Price
Leigh Richardson
Jamaica People's National Party 1938
Alexander
Bustamante
United Bahamian Party 1958 ` Bay Street Boys'
Bahamas
1953 Lynden Pindling
St Kitts-Nevis St Kitts-Nevis Labour 1951 Robert Bradshaw
Party C_P_ Southwell
Antigua Antigua Labour Party 1946
Montserrat Montserrat Labour 1952 William Bramble
Party
Dominica 1951 Edwin Le Blanc
St Vincent St Vincent Peoples's 1952 Theodore Joshua
Party
1954 Milton Cato
1951 George Charles
St Lucia
United Workers' Party 1964 John Compton
Grenada National Party 1951 Herbert Blaizc
Grenada
Grenada Labour Party 1951
1938 Grantley Adams
Barbados
Democratic Labour 1955
Party
Trinidad Labour 1932
Trinidad Party
1956 Eric Williams
People's Progressive 1950 Cheddi Jagan
Party Forbes Burnham
People's National 1955
Congress
Total marks 15

135
 3 Study the lyrics below and answer the questions which follow.
Count Ossie was a true Rasta man
With love and devotion for his native land.
'though he is gone
His music still lingers on,
Count Ossie lives in every beat of the bongo drum.
He dedicated his life as a Rastafarian
With a dream to won the war the African man.
His drums played songs of love and truth;
Ile was respected by everyone,
'specially the youths.
Count Ossic was a true musician.
Like John Drummond and Sir Duke Ellington.
Although he is gone.
His music sti ll lingers on,
Count Ossie lives in every beat of the Congo drum.
K. Lara

(a) Who was Count Ossie? (3 marks)

(b) What was his native land? (1 mark)
(c) Why was he particularly respected by the youth? (3 marks)
(d) Who were (i) John Drummond and (ii) Duke Ellington? (4 marks)
(e) Describe briefly the beliefs of the Rastafarians. (4 marks)
Total marks 15

4 Study the map of the Caribbean provided and answer the following

A
B
C
^^ F ED
^8, F

a ^ A H
C ^ o

a '
i _• E I B o H

L
.
- . -f r /

136
 questions. (Write your answers for (a) and (b) in the spaces provided
on the map).
(a) Name the groups of people li ving in areas A, B and C in 1492.
(3 marks)
(b) What were the pre-Columbian names of the territories marked D, E,
F, G, H and I? (6 marks)
Answer (c) to (e) in your answer book.
(c) List three differences between the ways of life of the people in area A
from those in area B. (6 marks)
(d) Give three reasons why the peoples who lived in area C are considered
to have been more advanced than those living in areas A and B.
(( marks)
(e) Describe briefly the religious beliefs of the people living in area A.
(4 marks)
Total marks 25

5 On the outline map of the Caribbean provided:

(a) Name the Spanish audiencias marked A, B and C. (3 marks)
(b) Name the Spanish conquistadors of the areas marked D, E, F, G and
H. (5 marks)
(c) Name the Spanish treasure ports marked I, J and K. (3 marks)
In your answer book:
(d) Briefly describe how the Spanish administered their New World
Empire. (6 marks)
(e) Describe the way in which England, France and Holland attempted
to obtain a share of Spain's New World wealth in the years 1530 to 1650.
(8 marks)
Total marks 25

ey e
Q ^^

a p

A, LJ -''

J !^.' !I 3E

137
 6 On the map of the Caribbean provided, mark:
(a) The letters A, B and C on those British West Indian colonies in
which sugar production continued to be profitable after 1850.
(3 marks)
(b) The letters D and E in those British West Indian colonies in which
sugar production dramatically declined after 1850. (2 marks)
(c) The letters F and G in those British Caribbean colonies in which the
production of sea-island cotton and mahogany had been important
prior to 1900. (2 marks)
(d) The letter H in the British West Indian colony in which arrowroot
became an important crop after 1890. (1 mark)
(e) The letter I in the British West Indian colony in which limes became
an important crop after 1890. (1 mark)
(f) The letters J and K in those British Caribbean colonies in which
bananas became an important export after 1890. (2 marks)
In your answer book:
(g) Briefly account for the changes in the economics of (i) Jamaica and
(ii) Guyana which took place after 1890. (4 marks)
Total marks 15

7 Study the photograph opposite and answer the questions which follow.
(a) Of whom is this a photograph? (1 mark)
(b) What organisation did this man set up in 1915? (1 mark)
(c) What were the aims of this organisation? (5 marks)
(d) Give an account of the life of this man between 1916 and 1927.
(6 marks)

138
(e) Why were this man and his organisation less effective after 1929?
(4 marks)
(f) What were the achievements of this man and his organisation?
(8 marks)
Total marks 25

8 Study the pie graph below and answer the questions which follow.

Immigration into the West Indies, 1838-1917

139
 (a) Why was it necessary for the British West Indian sugar colonies to
import immigrants after 1838? (4 marks)
(b) Why did the bulk of these immigrants come from India and China?
(4 marks)
(c) To which colonies did most of these immigrants go? (3 marks)
(d) Outline the terms of the contract under which these people were
imported. (4 marks)
Total marks 15

9 Study the photograph of the Jamaican stamp below and answer the
questions which follow
(a) What is the building represented on the stamp? (i mark)
(b) What happened there in October 1865? (5 marks)
(c) What connection did William Gordon have with these events?
(5 marks)
(d) What part did Paul Bogle play in these events? (5 marks)
(e) Who was the Governor of Jamaica at the time and how did his
character and actions help bring about this event? (5 marks)
(f) What were the consequences for Jamaica of this event? (4 marks)
Total marks 25

CENTENARY 0RANT .B Y REBEL.UU N

140
10 Study the three photographs above and answer the questions which
follow.
(a) Name the three men shown in the photographs. (3 marks)
(b) In what countries did they become famous? (3 marks)
(c) What do they all have in common? (4 marks)
(d) Describe the contribution of each of these three men to Caribbean
history. (15 marks)
Total marks 25

11 Read the following excerpt from Brian Edwards' The History, Civil
and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies, Volume 1,
1793 then answer the questions below it:
... The ardour which has been noticed in them for military
enterprise, had a powerful influence on their whole conduct.
Engaged in continual warfare abroad, they seldom appeared
cheerful at home. Reflections on past miscarriage, or anxious
schemes of future achievement, seemed to fill up many of
their hours, and rendered them habitually thoughtful, pensive
and silent ....
To draw the bow with unerring skill, to wield the club
with dexterity and strength, to swim with agility and bold-
ness, to catch fish and to build a cottage, were acquirements
of indispensable necessity, and the education of their children
was well suited to the attainment of them. One method of
making their boys skilful, even in infancy, in the exercise of
the how, was to suspend their food on the branch of a tree,
compelling the hardy urchins to pierce it with their arrows,
before they could obtain permission to eat ....

141
 (a) Identify the race of Amerindians described in the passage and the
area of the Caribbean that they inhabited. (2 marks)
(b) List three activities, apart from military enterprise', done exclusively
by male members of this Amerindian tribe, and two activities carried
out by the women. (5 marks)
(c) Why did the author of the extract describe the skills of the male
Amerindians as `acquirements of indispensable necessity?' (4 marks)
(d) Against whom were these Indians `engaged in continual warfare?'
Briefly describe how they carried out their attacks against the other
Amerindian tribe. (5 marks)
(e) State two similarities and two differences between the Amerindians
described in the passage and those whom they attacked. (4 marks)
(f) What were the effects of the coming of the Spaniards on the two
Amerindian races? (5 marks)
Total marks 25

12 Study the photograph below of a Pocomania meeting and answer the

questions which follow.
(a) In which West Indian territory was Pocomania most popular in 1962?
(1 mark)
(b) Describe TWO ways in which Pocomania is similar to that of the
Anglican religion, and TWO ways in which it is different. (11 marks)
(c) Describe the worshippers. Suggest TWO reasons why the religion
was popular among these people. (13 marks)
Total marks 25

A Pocomania meeting
i e
fs

13 Study the print above which depicts sugar production and answer the
questions which follow.
(a) In what century do you think this print was made? (1 mark)
(b) In the print what do you think Figure 1 represents? (2 marks)
(c) What was the function of the machinery illustrated by Figure 2?
(4 marks)
(d) What form of power is being used to drive the machinery in Figure 2?
What other forms of power were also used on other estates?
(4 marks)
(e) Describe the process being carried out in the building in Figure 3.
(6 marks)
(f) How was this process powered? (2 marks)
(g) Describe the various groups of people found on a sugar estate and
show how their occupations and colours reflected their status.
(6 marks)
Total marks 25

143
 14 Study the photographs above and answer the questions which follow.
(a) Identify the three men in the photographs. (3 marks)
(b) Describe how the man in photograph A governed Cuba between 1952
and 1959. (6 marks)
(c) Describe the events of 1953 in which the man in photograph C made
an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the government of Cuba.
(3 marks)
(d) Describe the military events of 1956 to 1959 which brought the man
in photograph C to power in January 1959. (5 marks)
(e) What contribution to the Cuban Revolution was made by the man in
photograph B? (8 marks)
Total marks 25

15 Below is an excerpt from President John F. Kennedy's radio and

television report to the American people on the Soviet arms build-up
in Cuba, broadcast on 22 October 1962. Read it carefully, then
answer the questions which follow:
..... Acting, therefore, in the defense of our own security
and of the Western Hemisphere, .... I have directed that
the following initial steps be taken immediately:
First: To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on
all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is
being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from
whatever nation or port will, if found to contain cargoes of
offensive weapons, be turned hack ....
Second: I have directed the continued and increased close
surveillance of Cuba and its military buildup .... should
these offensive military preparations continue, thus increas-
ing the threat to the hemisphere, further action will be
justified ....
(Quoted in 13 Days by Robert F. Kennedy, Pan Books, London)

144
(a) Identify:
(i) the Cuban Prime Minister at the time of this report and
(ii) the President whom he overthrew;
(iii) the Chairman of the Soviet Union at the time of the report.
(3 marks)
(b) Why was President Kennedy so concerned about the presence of
'offensive military equipment' in Cuba? (4 marks)
(c) What `further action' did the US take against the `offensive military
preparations' in Cuba'? How was the crisis finally resolved? (5 marks)
(d) Outline the main industrial, political and agrarian reforms carried out
by the Prime Minister of Cuba. Show how these reforms created
conflict with the USA. (6 marks)
(e) (i) To what extent was US opposition to Cuba's internal reforms
responsible for increased Cuban—Soviet relations?
(ii) In what ways have Cuban—Soviet relations been to Cuba's ad-
vantage and disadvantage? (7 marks)
Total marks 25

16 Read the following extract carefully, then answer the questions below.
... We have formed .. _ . a faithful association between
ourselves to send an expedition, under the leadership of the
Sieurs D'Esnambuc and Du Rossey, Captains in the navy ...
to settle and people the Islands of St Christopher and Bar-
bados, .... which are not in the possession of Christian
princes, both to instruct the inhabitants of the aforesaid
islands in the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion, and
to trade and traffic in the products and merchandise which
may be obtained and procured from the aforesaid islands
and neighbouring places, to bring them to France .... as is
stipulated in the commission and authority which will be
given to the said D'Esnambuc and Du Rossey by my Lord
Cardinal Richelieu ...
(from the Act of Association of the Lords of the Company
of the Isles of America, 31 October 1626)
(a) Outline the activities of D'Esnambuc and Du Rosscy which led to
their being appointed captains in the French navy and leaders of a
Caribbean expedition in 1636_ (6 marks)
(b) Select any two statements in the document which were not accurate.
and for each briefly explain why it was not accurate. (4 marks)
(c) State the aims of the Lords of the Company of the Isles of America in
sponsoring the expedition to the Caribbean. (2 marks)
(d) Who was My Lord Cardinal Richelieu and what role did he play in
French colonisation? (3 marks)
(e) (i) What were the effects of French colonisation on the 'Island of St
Christopher' between 1626 and 1635?
(ii) Nanic the other islands which were taken by the French by
1635. (6 marks)
(f) Identify the West Indian product which the Lords of the Company of
the Isles of America were most interested at the date of the document
and account for their interest in it. (4 marks) Total marks 25

1 45
 17 Study this engraving of the introduction of negro slaves into the gold
mines of Hispaniola by the conquistadors in the sixteenth century,
then answer the questions below it.
(a) (i) Why did the conquistadors find it necessary to use negro slaves
in thegold mines of Hispaniola? (4 marks)
(ii) Why did the English and French colonists of the late seventeenth
century likewise find it necessary to use negro slaves? (4 marks)
(b) (i) How did the Spanish American Empire obtain negro slaves
during the first two decades of the sixteenth century? (2 marks)
(ii) How was the supply of slaves to the Spanish American Empire
organised during the remainder of the sixteenth century? (3 marks)
(c) Which industry, apart from gold-mining, absorbed most of the negro
slaves in the Spanish island of Hispaniola? Outline the development
of this industry during the sixteenth century. (6 marks)
(d) What was the main difference between the work of the slaves illustrated
in the engraving and that which was done by:
(i) field slaves, and (ii) domestic slaves in the British West Indian
islands in the late seventeenth century? (6 marks)
Total marks 25

18 Study carefully the print opposite, then answer the questions below it.

146


(a) What were the possible positions on the sugar estate of the mounted
figure in the print? (3 marks)
(b) What were the duties of the `driver' whom the mounted figure faces?
(2 marks)
(c) (i) How were the cut canes transported from the fields to the mill?
(ii) What types of mills were normally used on eighteenth century
sugar plantations? (4 marks)
(d) (i) What season on the estate does this print portray?
(ii) Describe the other economic activities, apart from that shown
by the print, which would also be taking place during this
season. (4 marks)
(e) (i) To which `gang' did the slaves in the print belong?
(ii) Describe the work which this gang normally did when the seasonal
activity shown in the print came to an end. (6 marks)
(f) State the differences between the work of the slaves in the print and
that of:
(i) other work gangs;
(ii) skilled slaves or artisans;
(iii) domestics. (6 marks)
Total marks 25

19 Study the cartoon overleaf, then answer the questions below it.
(a) Apart from the use of the whip as shown here, what other punish-
ments were inflicted on slaves? (6 marks)

147
 ^. ,S"he t{ < W*,

} Then l tvtsh 3^`rr

N
IV rpld 6€. -
'al s al(_

T r r

"j ^ rte..

•• . yy

THE SLAVE

(b) In the cartoon the `massa' regrets killing, his slave because she was
valuable to him. What did a slave's value depend upon? (6 marks)
(c) In view of a slave's value it seems unlikely that a `massa' would want
to destroy his own valuable property. Under what conditions might
he do it, however? (4 marks)
(d) If the murder of slaves because of their value was the exception
rather than the rule, what do you think was the purpose of the
cartoon and who might have made use of it? (3 marks)
(e) 1-tow did the humanitarians use the type of slave treatment illustrated
in the cartoon as a weapon in their struggle for emancipation? State
two other ways in which they attacked the slave system. (6 marks)
Total marks 25

20 Study the table opposite and answer the questions which follow.
(a) What was the `Old Representative System'? (4 marks)
(b) How do you account for the fact that it was set up in Jamaica and
Barbados in 1663 but not in Dominica and St Vincent until 1776?
(6 marks)
(c) Why was it never set up in T ri nidad'? (3 marks)
(d) What name is given to the system of government of nominated
members set up in the British West Indies after 1866? (1 mark)
(e) What significant event took place in Jamaica in 1865 which led to the
creation of this system of government in that island? (3 marks)
(f) What were the (i) advantages (ii) disadvantages of all the members of
the legislature being nominees of the governor? (8 marks)
Total marks 25

1 48
 Single Chamber
Old SDmC I .4"'1
Representative Elected Nominated
System Members Members

Barbados 1663 —
British Guiana 1803
Jamaica 1663 1866
Leewards
Antigua 1663 1866 1898
St Kitts
Nevis
1United 1882
1663
1663
1866
1866
1878
1877
Montserrat 1663 1861 1866
Virgin Islands 1773 1854 1867
Dominica 1775 1863 1898
Windwards
Grenada 1766 1875 1877
St Vincent 1766 1868 1877
St Lucia — 1803

Trinidad 1797
United 1889 1803 1874 1877
Tobago

Decline of the Old Representative System.

149
 3 Essay Questions

In the CXC examination the traditional essay question is not as important

as it was in the Cambridge and similar examinations but as there are still
some West Indian schools presenting candidates for the Cambridge exam-
ination and as students sitting the CXC General Proficiency examination
are also asked to tackle a variant of this type of question it is considered
in detail here.
As the essay is a piece of continuous writing produced with the aid of
only minimal stimulus material and purporting to have a unity of its own
it is the most difficult of the types of question with which you will be
faced. It is important to remember that most of the general points made
about the other types of question also apply to the essay. Particularly
important are:
1 Selection of questions The questions should be read carefully and
only those questions adequately prepared for and understood should be
attempted. If the question has more than one part (either stated or
i mplicit in its form) then you should make sure that you can answer ALL
PARTS with the same degree of competence. If you only do half the
question you can only get half the marks!
2 Use of time It is particularly easy to overrun the time allotted for
essay questions. You must not get carried away writing. You should aim
to spend 5 minutes planning the answer, 20 minutes writing it and a few
minutes checking it through.

Skills peculiar to essay-writing

1 Understanding the As the question, often only one sentence, is all the stimulus material with
question which you will be provided, understanding what the question is asking
you to do is the most important preliminary to writing an essay answer.
There are two basic types of questions:

(a) Narrative/descriptive These require you to set down a series of events (narrative) or describe a
situation (descriptive). They are often combined, e.g.
Describe the events leading up to the Moyne Commission of
1938. (Narrative).
Describe the forms of resistance used by slaves in the eighteenth
century giving examples whenever possible. ( Descriptive)
Give an account of the activities on a sugar plantation during
crop time in the eighteenth century. (Narrative/descriptive)
Note that such questions are generally introduced by the words Describe',

150
 'Give an account of' or 'Trace the development of'.

(b) Analytical These require you to analyse a particular historical event or situation.
Instead of a description or narrative of events they demand a reasoned
explanation complete with historical examples to illustrate your argument.
Questions which start with the words:
' What were the causes ......
problems
reasons require a list of causes, problems,
factors reasons, factors, difficulties, results,
difficulties consequences or ways as the back-
results bone of the answer.
consequences
ways

Note that 'Why' means For what reasons' and 'How' means `In what
ways'. Examples:
What changes took place in the economy of the British West
Indies in the second half of the nineteenth century?
What were the causes of Fidel Castro's revolt against the Batista
regime in 1959? Why was it successful?
What factors caused the decline of the plantation system in the
second half of the nineteenth century? What steps were taken
and with what success to arrest this decline?

(c) Narrative/ Such questions are favoured by the CXC examiners. They test both your
descriptive and narrative/descriptive and analytical skills and have two or more parts to
analytical combined be answered separately; e.g.
Describe the events and circumstances which led to the Spanish -
American War. How did the war affect the Caribbean?
Give an account of the creation in the years 1947-58 of the
Federation of the West Indies. Why was it dissolved in 1962?
Give a brief account of the life of Marcus Garvey. Why is he
important in Caribbean history?

(2) Relevance On first reading an essay question it is often easy to jump to conclusions -
to read what you want to read and not exactly what is written. You will
he in a hurry to find the questions you have revised and having found one
which contains the stimulus words you are looking for — say 'the Haitian
Revolution' — you will then rush to get down on paper all you know
about that event in West Indian history. In consequence, because you
have ignored the question, the examiner will probably be faced with a
mass of irrelevant detail about the Haitian Revolution which was not
asked for and for which he cannot reward you.
This is not the way to answer an essay question. You will never be asked
'to write down all you know about the Haitian Revolution' or any other
event and the examination is not a contest to see which candidate can cover

151
 most paper with his writing. Remember the examination is not solely a test
of your memory for historical fact but also of your abilit y to read, understand
and answer the question set and only that question.
Read each question several times and while you are writing the answer
keep referring hack to it to make sure that you are still keeping to the
point and not writing down irrelevancies. Such a mistake, of course, is
easier to make in the analytical-type answer than in the narrative/descriptive
but in any answer you should always be on your guard against it.
Remember also that ONE WORD can change substantially the whole
shape and meaning of a question. For instance in the question:
Give an account of the activities on a sugar plantation during
crop-time in the eighteenth century.
the vital words are 'crop-time'. You will get no marks for telling the
examiner about the physical layout or social structure of an estate or
about the activities (or lack of them) during the 'dead' or 'off' season.

(3) Planning and Having established what the question is asking you to do you must then
organisation use a few minutes of your time to construct a plan outlining the main
parts of the answer. This need not he elaborate — a few brief notes on
your question paper will do — but it is essential if you arc to produce a
coherent, well-argued and well-arranged essay.
The general rule is that you should provide a brief introduction to be
followed by a number of paragraphs comprising the main body of the
answer. Each paragraph should contain one main point with an example
or examples to illustrate that point. A short conclusion may or may not
be appropriate.
While this sounds fairly simple it is a skill which can only be acquired
fully through continuous practice. It you are able to work out the main
points of any answer for yourself (and this is the crucial skill) the examples
and outlines below should help you to construct reasonable essay answers.

(a) Introductions Long, vague, irrelevant introductions waste time and paper and earn you
no marks. They generally indicate to the examiner that you do not know
how to start the answer. They are best avoided. It is sufficient as an
introduction to repeat the words of the question in statement form or to
inform the examiner how you propose to answer the question.
e.g. Narrative/descriptive type
Describe the origins, development and achievements (up to 1962)
of any ONE trade union of your choice in the British Caribbean.
Introduction
1 propose to describe the origins, development and achievements
(up to 1962) of the Barbados Worker's Union under three head-
ings (a) Origins, (b) Historical development, (c) Achievements.

e.g. Analytical type

What factors caused the decline of the plantation system in the
second half of the nineteenth century'? What steps were taken
and with what success to arrest this decline?

152
 Introduction
The main factors which caused the continued decline of the
plantation system in the second half of the nineteenth century
were the loss of the metropolitan market (due to the loss of the
protective tariff and competition from European sugar beet) and
the monopolisation of the world market by cheap sugar produced
in Cuba and Mauritius. The main steps taken to arrest
this decline centred on attempts to make the remaining West
Indian sugar-producing territories more efficient by lowering
their costs of production.

(h) The main body of This should contain your description, narrative, reasoned explanation or
the essay a combination of all three. As a general rule it should be made up of
three to five paragraphs each beginning with the topic sentence which
summarises the main point to be expressed and developed in that paragraph.
Narrative/descriptive Paragraph division should be made according to:
(i) Subject, in the purely descriptive essay, e.g. if you are describing say
the forms of resistance used by slaves, make sure that each form of
resistance is given a separate paragraph.
(ii) Chronology in the purely narrative essay, e.g. if you are say narrating
the Anglo-French settlement of St Kitts, make sure that the events
surrounding each chronological landmark (i.e. 1623, 1625, 1628, 1629,
etc.) are included in separate paragraphs.

(c) Conclusion At this level of examination you will not normally he asked for a conclusion
and unless demanded you should not offer one. There is little point in
repeating what you have already written down. Summarising conclusions
are best avoided.

Sample plans and outlines

Example 1 Describe briefly the events leading up to the appointment of the

Narrative/descriptive Moyne Commission in 1938. What were its chief recommendations?

Plan Paragraph I Introduction.

Paragraph 2 Background. Economic and social decline. Decline of sugar;
widespread unemployment and poverty; shocking living and working
conditions. Lack of social services and trade unions.
Paragraph 3 Background_ Political frustration. Crown Colony government
frustrated local upper/middle class which desired share in government.
Paragraph 4 Disturbances. Economic/political grievances led to outbursts
of rioting/strikes 1934-38. Main troubles recorded.
Paragraph 5 Moyne's conclusions and recommendations. West Indies
neglected need for massive cash inputs to revitalise economies. Imperial
spending on public works and social services.
Paragraph 6 Political recommendations. Gradual advance to self-
government.
Sample Essay
Par. 1 The Moyne Commission of 1938-39 was appointed as Introduction
a direct consequence of the Disturbances' of 1934-38

153
 which were themselves the result of social and economic
distress and political frustration. Moyne recommended
that the West Indies should be revitalised by massive
government expenditure on public works and social
services.
Par. 2 Since the decline of the sugar industry after the middle Topic sentence:
of the nineteenth century economic and social conditions main point
throughout the British West Indies had deteriorated. The
Norman Commission of 1897 had recorded the problems
faced by sugar producers and had recommended agri- Elaboration of
cultural diversification but the new crops (e.g. bananas in point
Jamaica, limes in St Vincent) had done little to improve
the living and working conditions of the black labour
force in the various West Indian colonies. By the 1920s
unemployment and poverty were widespread, housing and Examples
sanitary conditions deplorable and disease (malaria, tuber-
culosis, internal parasites) rife. These conditions were
aggravated by the existence of the harsh Masters and
Servants laws in many territories, the almost complete Elaboration of
absence of trade unions and the lack of social services. In examples
most territories administrative expenses consumed most
of the revenue; expenditure on education, health, social
welfare and unemployment relief was minimal.
Par. 3 Local dissatisfaction with these shortcomings was not Topic sentence:
easily expressed in a democratic manner. Most West main point
Indian territories (Barbados and the Bahamas excluded)
were Crown Colonies and the administration of a ter-
ritory was the sole concern of the Governor and his Elaboration of
permanent officials. In the second half of the nineteenth point
century under capable and energetic governors (like
Sir J.P. Grant in Jamaica and Lord Harris in Trinidad)
Crown Colony government had produced much-needed
reforms but by the 1920s most governments found it
difficult to balance the colonial budget. They had no
revenue surpluses to spare for the social services or
public works even if they were inclined to make pro-
gress in these areas. Consequently 'do nothing' admin-
istrations were openly criticised by the local coloured Examples
elites which had economic and social standing but n.o
power in the Executive or Legislative Councils where
the advice and warnings of their members went un-
heeded. Because they were powerless to influence the
direction of government in the various legislatures, Elaboration of
outstanding members of these elites took their criticisms examples
of Crown Colony government out of the council
chambers on to the streets and into the newspapers.
Cipriani in Trinidad and Bustamante and Manley in
Jamaica campaigned to improve the lot of the `bare
foot man' and in the press and at public meetings
found a ready audience among the unemployed, un-
enfranchised and exploited labourers.

154
Par. 4 Popular dissatisfaction exploded in . 1934 and there Topic sentence:
were strikes, riots and bloodshed in most of the British main point
West Indian territories in the next four years. In 1934
the sugar workers in St Kitts and Trinidad rioted as
did the mahogany labourers in Belize. In 1935 strikes
were called by the Castries coal carriers in St Lucia
and by the members of the St Vincent Working Men's
Association while in Guyana the sugar workers raided
the estates and fired the canes. The 'Disturbances' Examples
became more serious in 1937 when they spread to
Trinidad, Jamaica and Barbados. In Trinidad the oilfield
workers were organised by the fiery Uriah 'Buzz' Butler
and attempts to arrest Butler and break up his public
meeting led to the deaths of two persons and widespread
rioting on the oilfields and sugar estates and in Port of
Spain and San Fernando. In Barbados rioting and the
deaths of fourteen people followed the government's
deportation of Clement Payne after Payne had intro-
duced the Bridgetown workers to the idea of forming
themselves into trade unions. In Jamaica the worker's
leader was Alexander Bustarnante, the founder of the
Jamaica Workers and Tradesrnens Union. The public
meetings of 1937 organised by Bustamante and `Father'
Coombs succeeded in creating considerable dissatisfac-
tion amongst the Kingston longshoremen and Frome
sugar workers and from January to May 1938 there
were intermittent outbreaks of rioting which resulted
in eight deaths and 700 arrests.
Par. 5 The Moyne Commission of 1938, appointed as a
direct consequence of the Disturbances, concluded that
the four years of unrest was the result of fifty years of
Imperial neglect of the West Indian colonies. Its report
was `the biggest indictment of Crown colony govern-
ment in the West Indies made by anybody in the
nineteen-thirties ...' ( The Making of the West Indies
p.283). Moyne recommended extensive and far-reaching Topic sentence:
proposals to remedy the ills detailed by the Commission main point
and these were to be financed by a Colonial Development
and Welfare fund of £1000000 p.a. for twenty years.
The money was to be administered from Barbados and
its Comptroller was to be allocated the services and
expertise of specialists in education, housing, slum-
clearance, land-settlement, social welfare and labour
relations. The establishment of trade unions as a means
of improving the bargaining power of workers was to
be particularly encouraged and labour departments
were to be founded, unions compulsorily registered Elaboration of
and the allocation of the funds' monies to be made point
conditional on the participation of workers in industrial
relations. Massive Imperial spending on public works
and social services to remedy immediate deficiencies

155
 was to he complemented by long-term measures to
improve the economies of the various colonies. As
these economies were primarily agricultural the Com-
mission recommended the more efficient organisation
of agriculture and the establishment of controlled prices
and marketing boards for both staple foods and export
crops.
Par. 6 Politically the Commission was less radical. It sup- Topic sentence:
ported neither immediate and complete self-government main point
nor immediate universal adult suffrage. Self-government
and universal suffrage were to be acquired gradually
and the means of educating West Indians in their own
government was to be service in the various legislative
and executive councils. It was recommended that these
councils should come to represent all important sec- Elaboration of
tions and interests in the community and that the point
number of nominated ex-officio members of the Legis-
lative councils be reduced to three — the Colonial
Secretary, the Attorney General and the Colonial
Treasurer. By reducing the nominated membership,
more seats were made available for elected represen-
tatives and these local men were to be the mainstay of
the council's various committees. Thereby, it was ar-
gued, they would obtain experience in the administrative
process.

Example 2 — Analytical What factors caused the decline of the plantation system in the
British West Indies in the second half of the nineteenth century?
What steps were taken and with what success to arrest this
decline?

Plan Paragraph 1 Introduction.

Paragraph 2 Causes of decline prior to 1850. Loss of North America and
abolition. Increased production costs. (Optional)
Paragraph 3 Decline accelerated by end of British protective tariff. New
economic policy of free trade. Sugar Duties Act.
Paragraph 4 Competition from Cuba, Brazil and Mauritius.
Paragraph 5 Competition from European sugar beet.
Paragraph 6 Situation c. 1870. (Optional)
Paragraph 7 Measures taken to arrest decline.
Paragraph 8 Degree of success. Royal commissions.
Sample Essay
Par. 1 The main factors which caused the continued decline Introduction:
of the plantation system in the British West Indies in summary of
the second half of the nineteenth century were the loss answer
of the metropolitan market (due to the end of protec-
tion) and the monopolisation of the world market by
cheap foreign sugar. The main steps taken to arrest
this decline centred on attempts to make the remaining
British West Indian sugar-producing colonies more ef-
ficient by lowering their production costs.

156
Par.2 The decline of the plantation system, i.e. sugar culti- Topic sentence
vat/on, had begun prior to 1850 in the British Windwards
and Jamaica. The loss of the British North American Decline prior to
colonies in 1783 had drastically increased the price of 1850: Optional
estate supplies (now imported from Europe) and in but provides
consequence the cost of keeping slaves and producing background
sugar increased. A further blow to the planters in information
these colonies was the abolition of the slave trade in
1807 and of slavery itself in 1834. In these territories,
because there was land available for smallholding, the
freed slaves were either able to leave the estates or re-
turn with demands for wages the planters could ill afford.
Par. 3 The problems of labour costs and/or a shortage of Topic sentence
labour produced a decline which was accelerated by the
end of the protected market in Britain in 1850. In the 1840s
the British government had become concerned to pro-
vide cheap food for its rapidly expanding urban popu-
lation and this meant buying the staples of life — wheat, Elaboration of
tea, sugar, meat, etc. — from the cheapest producer. It point
was converted from `Protection' to `Free Trade'. In
1846 the Corn Laws were repealed, in 1849 the Navi-
gation Acts went the same way and in 1850 the Sugar
Duties Equalisation Act came into full force. By this
act of 1846 duties on sugar imported into Britain were
equalised over a four-year period, so allowing the
cheapest producers to dominate sales on the British
market.
Par. 4 These producers were not the British Caribbean col- Topic sentence
onies but Cuba, Brazil and Mauritius. All were low-
cost producers, their advantages being enormous tracts
of flat land ideal for large-scale cane production and a Elaboration of
degree of mechanisation unknown in the British West point
Indies. Moreover Cuba retained its slave labour force
until 1881 and in crop time these 330000 slaves worked
shifts in order to keep the factories going day and
night. Cuban sugar was sold on the London market
at 20 shillings a hundredweight compared to that of
Jamaica which was 30 shillings a hundredweight in 1848.

Par. 5 By 1870 British West Indian sugar was also forced to Topic sentence
compete with sugar produced from European sugar
beet. Since 1815 subsidised beet cultivation had rapidly
expanded in Europe and in the 1870s the main Elaboration of
producers — France and Germany — abandoned free point
trade in favour of protection. While these countries
imposed import duties on British Caribbean cane sugar
their own cheap `bounty-fed' beet sugar was able to
undercut the British Caribbean product on the London
market for Britain retained its free trade policy long
after its European neighbours.
Par. 6 The consequences of the Sugar Duties Act and of the Topic sentence

157
 competition from Cuba, Brazil and Mauritius and beet
sugar was disaster for the Jamaican and British Wind-
ward planters. By the 1860s the latter had already Situation c.
abandoned their sugar estates and the Jamaican plan- 1870 Optional
tocracy was rapidly dwindling. On the other hand the
Leewards, Barbados, Trinidad and British Guiana were,
for a variety of reasons, low-cost producers and man-
aged to keep sugar in production.
Par. 7 British Guiana and Trinidad had advantages the Topic sentence
Jamaican planters sought to introduce after 1870 in an
attempt to lower production costs. They did not have
the vast, flat relatively virgin sugar soils enjoyed by Elaboration of
the `new' colonies nor was East Indian and Chinese point
i mmigration encouraged to the extent that it was in
Trinidad and British Guiana but they could and did
attempt to increase the efficiency of their plantations.
Estates were amalgamated to create larger working
units; many small factories were replaced by centralised
ingenios; new machinery such as the vacuum pan and
the centrifuge were introduced and the principles of
scientific agriculture were applied to cane cultivation.
Par. 8 These measures only achieved limited success. The Topic sentence
Royal Commission of 1982 could only state that sugar
was in decline and that the competition from beet
sugar had become serious. The Norman Commission Elaboration of
of 1896 came to very similar conclusions and believed point
that sugar should only remain the staple in Barbados,
St Kitts and Antigua. The solution was not the revital-
isation of sugar and the plantation system but the
encouragement of smallholding and the development
of alternative crops.

Sample essay questions

I The Amerindians and 1 Imagine that you are an old Arawak in Hispaniola speaking to a
the Europeans young Arawak in the early 1500s. Describe the changes that have
taken place in your village since the coming of the Spaniards, making
it clear how these changes have affected your people. (CXC)
2 Describe the difficulties faced by Columbus in his efforts to organise
his first voyage to find a new route to the East. Say how he overcame
these difficulties. (CXC)
3 Outline the factors which might have convinced Columbus that it was
not possible to reach the east by sailing west. What groups or insti-
tutions did he identify as possible sponsors and what arguments did he
use to persuade them to support him? (CXC)
4 Compare and contrast the ways of life of the Arawaks and Caribs, with
special reference to (i) social organisation, (ii) food and farming, (iii)
education and religion, (iv) attitudes towards the invading Europeans.

158
 5 On which of the Caribbean islands did the Caribs live in the fifteenth
and early sixteenth centuries? Describe (a) how they were ruled, (h)
how their warriors were trained, (c) what weapons they used and (d)
their methods of fighting. (Cambridge)
6 Compare and contrast the way of life of the Arawak and Carib
Indians in the Caribbean islands in the latter part of the fifteenth
century. (Cambridge)
7 Describe the work and assess the importance of Christopher Columbus
as (a) an explorer and (b) a coloniser. (Cambridge)
8 Imagine you are a young Carib warrior going on your first raid against
the Arawaks. Give an account of the preparation for the raid, the raid
itself and its outcome. (Cambridge)
9 How did the coming of the Spanish affect the life of the Arawak
Indians? What attempts were made by the Catholic Church to protect
these native peoples? (Cambridge)
10 Compare the way of life of any TWO native peoples of the Caribbean
area at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards. (Cambridge)
2 European settlement 1 Imagine you are D'Esnambuc. Write to Cardinal Richelieu outlining
and rivalry the problems facing the early French settlers in St Kitts. (CXC).
2 How did the activities of the privateers and illicit traders affect the
lives of people in the Spanish American Empire up to 1600? Illustrate
your answer by referring to the exploits of at least one privateer or
trader. (CXC)
3 Briefly outline the measures Spain adopted to protect her control of
the trade of the Spanish American Empire. Giving reasons, say how
successful any ONE of these was. (CXC)
4 In what ways did the English and French sailors harass the Spanish
American Empire in the sixteenth century? Describe one of the English
expeditions to illustrate your answer. (CXC)
5 What were the main motives for European settlement in the Caribbean?
How did their motives affect the way in which any TWO European
nations organised their settlements? (CXC)
6 Why and how did the Dutch establish their presence in the Caribbean
in the early seventeenth century? Describe the ways in which they
acted as `foster fathers' to the early English and French West Indian
colonies. (CXC)
7 Outline the main clauses of the English Navigation Acts passed in the
second half of the seventeenth century. What were the aims of these
Acts and how did they affect the English West Indian colonies?
(Cambridge)
8 Describe the settlement in the first half of the seventeenth century of
either St Kitts or Barbados. (Cambridge)
9 Describe the organisation of the Spanish American Empire. Comment
briefly on the way in which the system worked. (Cambridge)

159
 10 Describe the main difficulties faced by the early European settlers in
the islands in the first half of the seventeenth century in their efforts to
become prosperous. (Cambridge)
11 Show how France and England reacted to Spanish claims to an exclusive
monopoly of empire and trade in the Caribbean in the second half of
the sixteenth century. (Cambridge)
12 What part was played in the administration of the Spanish American
Empire by THREE of the following: the Council of the Indies; the
Viceroys; the audiencias; the House of Trade. (Cambridge)

3 Sugar and slavery 1 Describe the social groups that existed in the British West Indies
during the eighteenth century. What were the factors that determined
the social group to which an individual belonged? (CXC)
2 Describe the forms of resistance used by slaves in the eighteenth
century giving illustrations where possible from any ONE Caribbean
territory. Assess the effectiveness of these different forms of resistance.
(CXC)
3 Show how the Atlantic Triangular Trade of the eighteenth century
was organised to obtain maximum profits for the European slave
traders. (CXC)
4 Which groups of people formed the labour force in the Caribbean up
to the 1630s, and with what success? Explain fully why there was such
a sizable increase in the number of slaves brought to the Caribbean
during and after the last half of the seventeenth century. (CXC)
5 Name ONE fifteenth-century West African state and give an account
of how it was governed. Describe the religions practised in this state.
How did the practice of slavery in this state differ from slavery in the
West Indies? (CXC)
6 Describe and comment on the main social, political and economic
effects of the expansion of the slave trade on the people of West
Africa. (CXC)
7 Describe the provisions of the Code Noir and compare these with the
laws enacted by the British islands to regulate the life of the slaves.
(Cambridge)
8 Describe the activities on a sugar plantation during crop time. Mention
any special difficulties or problems which were likely to arise at that
ti me. (Cambridge)
9 Make a number of entries in a slaver's log recording (a) how slaves
were obtained on the West African coast, (b) conditions on board ship
during the Middle Passage, (c) collecting cargo in the West Indies.
(Cambridge)
10 Why did sugar become the chief crop of the West Indian islands in the
second half of the seventeenth century? What difficulties were experi-
enced in its production? (Cambridge)
11 Give an account of the social organisation and daily life of a West

160
 Indian sugar plantation in the eighteenth century. (Cambridge)
12 Describe the organisation and working of the three-way trade which
supported the eighteenth-century sugar industry. (Cambridge)
13 Imagine you are a newly-arrived African slave in the West Indies. Tell
the Creole slaves what happened to you from the time you were
captured in Africa until you arrived on the plantation. (Cambridge)
14 Describe the effects of the development of the sugar industry in the
British Caribbean islands in the seventeenth century on (a) the structure
of society, (b) the economy of the Caribbean and (c) political control
of the colonies by Britain. (Cambridge)
15 Describe the ways in which (a) Indian and negro slaves were treated
by their Spanish masters and (b) negro slaves were treated by their
French masters. What similarities were there in the instructions issued
by the governments of Spain and France in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries for the treatment of slaves by their masters? (Cambridge)

4 Resistance and revolt 1 Imagine you are a sugar-plantation-owner on an eighteenth-century

sugar estate. Give an account of the methods you use to keep your
slaves in their place. What are your chances of succeeding? (CXC)
2 Describe the forms of resistance used by slaves in the eighteenth
century, giving illustrations where possible from any ONE Caribbean
territory. Assess the effectiveness of these different forms of resistance.
(CXC)
3 Examine how the white ruling class in the British West Indies (a)
controlled economic activity and (b) used physical force to control the
slaves. Give reasons to support the claim that `slaves in Spanish
colonies had more rights than those in British colonies'. (CXC)
4 Compare the 1816 revolt in Barbados with the 1831 revolt in Jamaica
under the following headings (a) Causes, (b) Leaders, (c) Reasons for
failure, (d) Benefits to slaves. (CXC)
5 What tactics did the blacks use EITHER in 1763 in Berbice OR in
1831 in Jamaica to achieve freedom? (CXC)
6 Imagine you are the owner of an eighteenth-century sugar estate.
Describe how you ensure that your slaves (a) obey orders, (b) remain
on the estate, (c) do not unite and revolt. (CXC)
7 Describe the provisions of the Code Noir and compare these with the
laws enacted by the British islands to regulate the life of the slaves.
(Cambridge)
8 Describe the causes and results of slave risings in any TWO West
Indian territories in the period 1789-1815. (Cambridge)
9 Describe the ways by which the slaves resisted their masters and the
measures used against this resistance. (Cambridge)
10 Give an account of ONE slave revolt which took place in any West
Indian territory. How successful were the Slave Laws in preventing

161


such outbreaks in the territory which you have chosen? (Cambridge)

11 Who were the Maroons? Describe their relations with the Jamaican
government in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. (Cambridge)
12 Who were the Maroons? In what ways were they a problem for the
government and planters of Jamaica during the early eighteenth century?
What were the main clauses of the treaty made with them in 1739?
(Cambridge)
13 Describe the ways in which (a) Indian and negro slaves were treated
by their Spanish masters and (b) negro slaves were treated by their
French masters. What similarities were there in the instructions issued
by the governments of France and Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries for the treatment of slaves by their masters? (Cambridge)
5 The Haitian 1 Describe the important effects which the French Revolution of 1789
Revolution and its had on (a) the whites of St Domingue, (b) the mulattoes of St Domingue,
effects (c) the blacks of St Domingue. Describe how the society in St Domingue
had changed by 1804 as a result of the French Revolution. (CXC)
2 Describe, as fully as possible, the effects which the revolution in St
Domingue had on (a) the English islands and (b) the other French
islands in the Caribbean. (CXC)
3 Describe the main activities of Dessalines during the Haitian Revolution.
What claims does he have to the title Hero of the IIaitian Revolution'?
(CXC)
4 Imagine you are a newspaper reporter in one of the British islands
writing in 1804. Use the headline HAITIAN INDEPENDENCE DECLARED!,
and beginning with the coming of Le Clerc, write a newspaper account
of the events in Haiti, leading up to the declaration of independence.
End your account with your opinion of how the news affects British
territories in the Caribbean. (CXC)
5 Briefly describe the part played by EACH of the following in the
Haitian Revolution: (a) Napoleon Bonaparte (b) Vincent Oge (c)
Henri Christophe. (CXC)
6 Give a brief account of the revolution in St Domingue leading to its
independence in 1804. Show clearly how events in France affected the
course of this revolution. (Cambridge)
7 How were the French West Indian islands affected by the French
Revolution? (Cambridge)
8 Explain the rise and fall of St Domingue as a rival to the English
islands in the West Indies in the second half of the eighteenth century.
(Cambridge)

6 Movements towards I What arguments were used by the abolitionists against slavery? Which
emancipation groups of people supported slavery and why did they? (CXC)
2 What did missionaries in the British West Indies do to help the
Abolition movement? Select ONE missionary and show how he was
treated by the planters because of his work. (CXC)

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 3 What was said in the Emancipation Act about the following: (a) the
need to provide the sugar plantations with labour, (b) freeing the
slaves, (c) the planter's loss of property, (d) preparing the slaves for
freedom? (CXC)
4 What were the terms of the Apprenticeship Scheme of 1834? Why did
Antigua decide not to have an apprenticeship period? Explain why
other British Caribbean territories adopted the Apprenticeship Scheme.
(CXC)
5 What attempts were made to improve the conditions of the slaves in
the British islands between 1808 and 1832? how successful were they?
(Cambridge)
6 Explain the reasons for the appointment of special magistrates and
give an account of their work and its difficulties during the apprentice-
ship period after 1834. (Cambridge)
7 Describe the work of the Protestant nonconformist missionaries before
the abolition of slavery. Illustrate your answer from the career of
either John Smith or William Knibb. (Cambridge)
8 Write a letter from a nineteenth-century plantation attorney to a
newspaper editor putting the case either for or against the Apprentice-
ship System. (CXC)
9 Write a letter from the West India Committee in London in 1832 to
the planters in your territory explaining why they should support
emancipation. (Cambridge)
10 Describe the clauses of the Emancipation Act of 1833 which instituted
the Apprenticeship Scheme. What were the main problems which
arose in the administration of this scheme in the British West Indies in
the years 1834-38? (Cambridge)
11 In the controversy concerning slavery between 1800 and 1834, what
parts were played by (a) the abolitionists and (b) the West India
lobby? (Cambridge)

7 Adjustments to the 1 Compare the Village Movements in British Guiana and Jamaica during
problems of the period 1838-65 in terms of (a) reasons for establishing villages,
emancipation, (b) types of villages established and their locations, (c) occupations of
1838-76 the people who lived in these villages. (CXC)
2 What attempts were made to use foreign labour on West Indian sugar
estates between 1838 and 1870? Account for the success or failure of
the various attempts. (CXC)
3 Describe the main difficulties which the newly-emancipated people
had to face in the British West Indies. How did Christian missionaries
help them to cope with some of these difficulties in the ten years after
emancipation? (CXC)
4 As a witness of the incidents at Morant Bay, Jamaica in 1865, write a
letter to a friend either defending or attacking Governor Eyre for
what immediately followed. (CXC)

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5 Account for the failure of attempts to use foreign labour on the West
Indian sugar estates between 1838 and 1870. (Cambridge)
6 From what countries were people brought to the Caribbean after
emancipation? Why were they brought here and how did they earn a
living? (CXC)
7 What crops did peasant proprietors in the British West Indies market
in the second half of the nineteenth century? In what ways did the
governments seek to assist such proprietors? (CXC)
8 What immigrants entered the West Indian islands and Guiana in the
nineteenth century? flow did they affect (a) the economy and (b) the
social structure of these territories? (Cambridge)
9 Explain why each of the following caused problems for Governor
Eyre in Jamaica: Paul Bogle; George William Gordon; Edward
Underhill. How did Eyre retaliate and why was he dismissed?
(Cambridge)

8 The United States in I Describe and assess the importance of the involvement of the United
the Caribbean States of America in the Caribbean from 1899 to the present day.
(CXC)
2 Explain (a) the advantages and (b) the disadvantages for the West
Indies of the interest in the area shown by the USA from the election
of Theodore Roosevelt (1900) to the death of F.D. Roosevelt (1945).
(CXC)
3 Give an account of the extension of the influence of the USA in the
Caribbean in the twentieth century. (CXC)
4 Describe US intervention in the Caribbean between 1895 and 1934.
Was the motive for this intervention `dollar diplomacy' or international
philanthropy'?
5 Describe the political relationship between the United States and
Puerto Rico from the Organic Act of 1900 to the Commonwealth
Constitution of 1950. (Cambridge)
6 How did Cuba benefit from her relations with the United States
during the First World War and how did events in Cuba after the end
of the war benefit the USA? (Cambridge)
7 Describe the events and circumstances which led to the Spanish-
American War. How did the war affect the Caribbean? (CXC)
8 Imagine you are a Cuban lawyer in 1959 and opposed to Batista.
Write a letter to a friend in .Jamaica explaining why you are opposed
to the pro-American Batista government. (CXC)
9 What was the Roosevelt Corollary? How was it applied in both Cuba
and Haiti between 1900 and 1934? (CXC)
10 What was the `Dance of the Millions'? How did sugar and American
imperialism control the fortunes of Cuba until 1959? (CXC)

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9 Social conditions in 1 What were the main problems facing workers in the British Caribbean
the twentieth century between 1920 and 1940 with respect to (a) housing and (b) employment?
In what ways were these problems similar to or different from those in
ONE non-British territory in the same period? (CXC)
2 Why did the population of the British West Indies increase in the
1930s? How did this population-increase affect the living standards of
the people in ONE British Caribbean territory? (CXC)
3 Describe briefly the events leading up to the appointment of the
Moyne Commission in 1938. What were its chief recommendations
and how far were these important in the future development of the
British West Indies? (CXC)
4 Describe the riots of the years 1934-38 in any TWO of the British
Caribbean territories. What did these riots achieve? (CXC)
5 What were the causes of the widespread unemployment which existed
in the British Caribbean in the 1920s and 1930s? Show how and why
the prevailing social conditions served to heighten the distress caused
by this unemployment. (CXC)
6 Describe the main educational provisions as they existed in a Caribbean
territory of your choice between the world wars. How far did these
provisions satisfy the social and economic needs of this territory?
(CXC)
7 What conditions led to disorder in the British Caribbean in the 1930s?
Identify the main leaders who emerged during this unrest and describe
the achievements of ONE of these men. (CXC)
8 Describe the life and work of Marcus Garvey. In what ways did
Garvey's teachings influence political developments in the Caribbean
after 1930? (CXC)

10 Trade unions in the 1 Describe the development of trade unionism in the West Indies and
British Caribbean show how at least one union leader became prominent in political
affairs. (CXC)
2 Describe the conditions which gave rise to the development of trade
unions in the West Indies. What have the unions achieved? (CXC)
3 Account for the rise of trade unions in the Caribbean in the first half
of the twentieth century. (Cambridge)
4 Describe and comment on the growth of trade unionism in T' O
British Caribbean territories between the disturbances of the 1930s
and the 1950s. (Cambridge)
5 Give an account of the events which led to the formation of the
Caribbean Labour Congress in 1945. Why did the Congress fail?
(CXC)
6 Give an outline of the work of any ONE of the following and describe
TWO ways in which he contributed to the Trade Union movement in
the West Indies! (a) Uriah Butler, (b) Vere Bird, (c) Hubert Critchlow,
(d) George Price. (CXC)

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7 Describe the work of any ONE trade union leader of your choice in
the British Caribbean, paying particular attention to (a) his aims, (b)
his activities as a trade unionist, (c) his achievements. (CXC)
8 Describe the origins, development and achievements (up to 1962) of
any ONE trade union of your choice in the British Caribbean. (CXC)
9 Examine the impact of the Trade Union movement on the lives of the
working class in the British Caribbean up to 1950. (Cambridge)
10 With reference to EITHER Trinidad OR Grenada describe the work
of ONE Workingmen's Association in preparing the way for the
development of trade unions. Comment on the effect of this Association
on (a) the labour relations and (b) the political life of the island
chosen. (CXC)

11 Regional cooperation 1 Describe the movement towards confederation of the Windwards and
Barbados in the 1870s. Why did it fail? (CXC)
2 Describe the movement for federation in the British West Indian
territories EITHER in the period 1869-76 or in the period 1947-58.
(Cambridge)
3 Write a speech as it would have been delivered at the Montego Bay
Conference of 1947 by a representative from either Dominica or
British Honduras, outlining his country's attitude. (CXC)
4 What arguments were put forward for a British Caribbean federation
between 1945 and 1958'? Why did Jamaica leave the Federation in
1962 and what effect did this have? (CXC)
5 Describe the role of each of the following in the West Indies Federation
of 1958-62: (a) Granticy Adams, (b) the Chaguaramas issue, (c)
T.A. Marryshow (d) the Montego Bay Conference of 1947. (CXC)
6 Describe the movement for federation in the British West Indian
territories either in the period 1869-76 or in the period 1947-58.
Explain (a) the difficulties experienced, (b) the successes achieved.
(CXC)

12 Economic 1 Why did West Indians search for alternatives to sugar in the late
diversification nineteenth century? What alternatives developed in the Eastern
Caribbean and how did they aid their respective territories? (CXC)
2 Discuss the main problems facing sugar planters in any ONE territory
during the period 1850-1900. What measures were used by planters
to solve these problems and how successful were they? (CXC)
3 For either Jamaica, Antigua or Barbados outline the state of the
tourist industry in 1950. Describe how tourism has aided Caribbean
territories and how government can assist this industry. (CXC)
4 What changes took place in the economy in the British West Indies in
the second half of the nineteenth century? Discuss the part played by
the peasantry in bringing about these changes. (CXC)
5 Show how sugar production in the British islands in the second half of

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the nineteenth century was affected by (a) the free trade policy of
Great Britain (b) competition from foreign producers. (Cambridge)
6 Describe the introduction of alternative crops in the West Indian
islands in the first quarter of the twentieth century. (Cambridge)
7 Give an account of migration from the West Indies to American
countries between 1904 and 1924. What were the main effects when
West Indians were no longer admitted to these countries? (CXC)
8 Give an account of the chief economic developments which have
taken place in the British Caribbean since 1945. (Cambridge)
9 To which countries did West Indians migrate in the twentieth century?
What were the causes of this migration? (Cambridge)
10 Describe the main changes in either the economy of Puerto Rico or
that of Trinidad in the period 1898 to 1962. (CXC)
11 Show how, in the twentieth century, Caribbean territories have tried
to reduce their dependence on sugar. Give an example of one state
which has done this successfully and one which has found it difficult
and explain the differences between the two. (CXC)
12 Outline the industrial centres of the Caribbean and for one Caribbean
territory named describe the historical development of this industry.
(CXC)

13 Religion as a social 1 Describe the part played by TWO of the following in the development
force of the Rastafarian religion: (a) J.N. Hibbert, (b) Nyabingi, (c) L.P.
Howell, (d) E.C. Edwards. (CXC)
2 Give an account of any one of the following religions as practised in
the Caribbean in the twentieth century: (a) Shango, (b) Cumfa, (c)
Pocomania, (d) Rastafari, (e) Voodoo. (CXC)
3 How did nonconformist missionaries seek to assist the efforts of the
peasantry to establish themselves during the years 1838 to 1865?
(CXC)
4 Describe in detail the part played by religious groups in providing
education in ONE of the following territories between 1840 and 1860;
(a) British Guiana, (h) St Lucia, (c) Dominica, (d) Trinidad. (CXC)
5 Name ONE religious denomination which was active in your territory
during the years 1834-1914. How did this group help the development
of your society in education and other social services? (CXC)
6 With reference to any one Caribbean territory describe any ONE
form of religion which came originally from India or Africa. By what
means has this religion managed to survive in the Caribbean? (CXC)
7 What difficulties did missionaries have to face in their work in the
British territories before emancipation? Illustrate your answer with
reference to the career of either Knibb or Smith. (Cambridge)
8 Describe the main difficulties which the newly emancipated people
had to face in the British West Indies. How did Christian missionaries

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help them to cope with some of these difficulties in the ten years after
emancipation? (Cambridge).

14 Social life, 1 For one British Caribbean territory trace the development of its trans-
1838-1938 port system between 1838 and 1938 paying attention to (a) changes in
types of transport, (b) the people involved. (CXC)
2 Write an account of the ways in which different peoples have contributed
to the architecture of any ONE territory in the Caribbean. (CXC)
3 Choose any TWO Caribbean territories and show in what ways they
were similar and different in the ways people earned a living in the
1930s. (CXC)
4 For ONE Caribbean territory (a) identify the social classes which
existed around 1960, (b) choose any TWO classes and show how they
differed. (CXC)
5 For ONE Caribbean territory discuss changes in (a) housing conditions,
(b) public health, (c) employment between 1838 and 1938. (CXC)
6 For ONE Caribbean territory briefly outline working-class customs of
the period 1838-1938 with reference to (a) courtship and marriage,
(b) birth, (c) death. (CXC)
7 Compare and contrast rural and urban living conditions in one named
British Caribbean territory in the 1930s. (CXC)
8 What is a plural' society? Outline the development of such a society
in either Trinidad or British Guiana up to 1962. (CXC)
9 Outline the main racial groups in a named British Caribbean territory.
Describe how these different racial groups came to exist and compare
the cultures of these groups. (CXC)
10 Outline the working and living conditions of either (a) a dockworker
or (b) a cane cutter in the Caribbean in the 1930s. (CXC)
11 Give an account of the life of an Indian labourer in Jamaica or
Trinidad or British Guiana during the second half of the nineteenth
century. (Cambridge).
12 Describe the main hazards to public health in your country from 1838
to 1938. What steps have since been taken to remedy them? (Cambridge)

15 Movements towards 1 Describe TWO important causes of conflict in the second half of the
Independence nineteenth century between the Spanish government and her Caribbean
territories and state in detail how any one was settled. (CXC)
2 Describe Jose Marti's role in the Cuban independence struggle. (CXC)
3 Selecting ONE British Caribbean territory which had become inde-
pendent by 1962 give the case both for and against independence.
(Cambridge)
4 Why was the Crown Colony system extended in the British Caribbean
in the late nineteenth century? How and why did Barbados manage to
retain her representative' assembly? (CXC)

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5 What common strategies were used up to 1962 by any TWO territories

you have studied in their struggles to attain independence from a
European country? How successful were these strategies? (CXC)
6 Compare and contrast British and French colonial administration be-
tween 1850 and 1962. (CXC)
7 Outline the career of any British Caribbean political leader and assess
his contribution to his country's independence struggle. (Cambridge)
8 What were the causes of conflict in the second half of the nineteenth
century between any non-English speaking Caribbean territory and its
imperial government? (CXC)
9 Identify and describe constitutional change in ONE Caribbean territory
between 1940 and 1962. To what extent were these changes the result
of local pressure? (CXC)
10 Examine the roles in Cuban history of (a) Marti, (b) Batista, (c)
Castro. (CXC)
11 Show how and why Cuba became a communist state. In what ways
has the Cuban Revolution affected the rest of the Caribbean? (CXC)
12 Describe the ainis and assess the achievements of TWO of the follow-
ing: Marcus Garvey; Arthur Cipriani; Norman Manley; Alexander
Bustamante; Grantley Adams; Robert Bradshaw. (CXC)
13 What were the causes of Castro's revolt against Batista in 1959? Why
was it successful? (Cambridge)

16 Art forms in the 1 Explain how cultural and environmental factors have influenced the
Caribbean style of EITHER upper-class housing OR public buildings in any
ONE Caribbean territory between 1750 and 1950. (CXC)
2 Consider the origins of the steel band and explain why it began in
Trinidad rather than elsewhere in the Caribbean. Trace the develop-
ment of steel band music in the Caribbean up to 1962. (CXC)
3 Describe the work of any two of the following artists: (a) Edna
Manley, (b) Alvin Marriot, (c) Kapo, (d) Aubrey Williams, (e) E.R.
Burrowes. (CXC)
4 For any ONE Caribbean territory describe the architectural design of
its forts and garrisons. (CXC)
5 Describe the features of various forms of calypso in the British
Caribbean with particular reference to (a) main themes, (b) major
artists, (c) influence in West Indian society. (CXC)
6 Describe the special features of sculpture in any ONE Caribbean
territory. (CXC)
7 What were the main themes of calypso in the British Caribbean in the
1950s? Who were the main performers at the time and why has
calypso been more popular in some territories than in others? (CXC)

169
 8 Describe the origins of carnival and the changes that have taken place
in the manner of its celebration. What part does calypso play in
carnival and how have (a) Hosein, (b) Atilla, (c) Lord Kitchener
contributed to carnival's development. (CXC)
9 Describe two musical forms which developed in the British Caribbean
between 1900 and 1962. Explain how these forms differed from those
already in existence and explain their popularity by 1962. (CXC)
10 How did Mayan art reflect Mayan life and society? Describe the
materials and tools used by Mayan artists. (CXC)
II For ONE Caribbean territory describe the development of EITHER
wood carving OR oil painting, paying particular attention to (a) the
main artists, (b) their subject-matter, (c) the influence of this art on
society. (CXC)

170