The above image may be familiar to most of those who know what the labour and crops were like within the Caribbean. . . slaves and sugar cane. This labour and this crop were just as true for Trinidad as it was for the other islands within the Caribbean, yet Trinidad had somewhat of a different history than other islands within the Caribbean. As I stated in previous blogs, the Spanish were the original European holders of this island and did not use it the way some of the other islands would be used. It wasn't until 1776 that the Spanish decided that the island could be used and developed in a way that would allow it to become more profitable for the empire. Due to the fact that Trinidad was left virtually untouched gave it the " time and opportunity to develop a distinctive identity strangely unlike that of the French or British Antilles after the sugar revolution of the 17th century. The society, relatively unstratified, lead to a fairly liberal treatment of slaves and a steady and sizeable increase of its coloured population " (1). In 1776 the Spanish began to allow immigration of the French Catholics to the island with promises of land and tax concessions, which in turn began the sugar economy on Trinidad during the 1780s and 1790s. This lead to a rise in the slave population which had been quite small up until that point, the Spanish linked the amount of land you were given to the amount of slaves you had so you can imagine that bringing in more slaves was an important issue to the French coming onto Trinidad. An interesting piece of information was brought to light while I was looking for labour needs for the island, not only were the French given land but " land grants were also given to free nonwhite immigrants, and all landed immigrants were offered citizenship rights after five years " (2). This would lead to a mix of different people on the island and the beginning of the rise in the population that was only 2,763 in 1783 to 17,719 in 1797 with approximately half that number being slaves. There would be more than just sugar being produced on this island, by 1797 there were " 159 sugar plantations, 130 coffee estates, 60 cacao ( the bean from which cocoa is derived ) estates, and 103 cotton estates " (3) and this is when the British Empire set their sights on the island of Trinidad.
With huge economic prosperity being generated on Trinidad, Britain made the move to capture it in 1797 and it was formally given to them in 1802. Sugar was still in high demand in Europe so in the following years the sugar plantations increased on the island to take advantage of the high sugar prices as well as a population increase until around 1807 when slaves were no longer being exported to Trinidad from West Africa. It would be 20 years before the complete abolishment of slavery by the British, yet in the time frame between 1807 and 1837 " abolition of the Slave Trade and restrictions on the introduction of slaves from British West Indian colonies drew sharp reaction from Trinidad planters faced with inadequate labour supplies " (4). So the wheels were set in motion to figure out a way to replenish the labour supply, this came about in the form of more immigration to the island of hired labour. There was an " influx [of] British West Indians, free Africans, Madeirans, Chinese and Indians " (5) onto Trinidad after 1837 in an effort to continue the agricultural economy that the island had become. This need for labour on Trinidad would allow the British Empire to use its control over its other commonwealths, like India, for the solution to the the problem. East Indians would become a cheap way to continue the plantations on the island through indentured servitude, they would be "brought to the Caribbean under an indentured contract system in which they had to provide cheap labor to the planter class on a temporary basis" (6) this would be the beginning of the Coolie System. This immigration lead to a host of problems and could be compared to the slavery of Africans and the indentured servitude of Europeans, even though rules and regulations were put in place to protect the immigrants from India " the indenture system was criticized for replicating the evils of the middle passage and slavery " (7). Young Indian men were the ones that were wanted with young Indian women being a small minority of the overall influx; this lead to violence among the men because of the gender ratio, social issues surrounding the family because of a breakdown in the caste system, and the introduction of two more religions being brought from India. So with this we can see that the need for labour was continuous on the island of Trinidad from the moment Europeans chose to make it an economic player on the world stage of sugar. As it changed hands the island changed with it, yet the subjugation of people was a constant when it came to the success of this island. . . it was on the backs of slaves and workers with indentured contracts that made this island what it is today with the unwelcome help of European empires.
www.york.ac.uk/library/borthwick/projects-exhibitions/equality/race/rowntree-and-cocoa/
http://histclo.com/country/la/car/trin/hist/tri-hist.html
1) Carl Campbell, "The rise of a free coloured plantocracy in Trinidad 1783-1813." Boletín de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe," 29 (1980): 33.
2) Sandra W. Meditz and Dennis M. Hanratty, editors. " Caribbean Islands: A Country Study." Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1987. <http://countrystudies.us/caribbean-islands/>
3) Sandra W. Meditz and Dennis M. Hanratty, editors. " Caribbean Islands: A Country Study." Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1987. <http://countrystudies.us/caribbean-islands/>
4) Marianne D. Ramesar, " PATTERNS OF REGIONAL SETTLEMENT AND ECONOMIC ACTIVITY BY IMMIGRANT GROUPS IN TRINIDAD: 1851-1900." Social and Economic Studies, 25:3 (1976):187.
5) Marianne D. Ramesar, " PATTERNS OF REGIONAL SETTLEMENT AND ECONOMIC ACTIVITY BY IMMIGRANT GROUPS IN TRINIDAD: 1851-1900." Social and Economic Studies, 25:3 (1976):187.
6) Lomarsh Roopnarine, "East Indian Indentured Emigration to the Caribbean: Beyond the Push and Pull Model." Caribbean Studies, 31:2 (2003):101.
7) Lomarsh Roopnarine, "East Indian Indentured Emigration to the Caribbean: Beyond the Push and Pull Model." Caribbean Studies, 31:2 (2003):108.
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