From C.B. Franklin Year Book 1916
Past Chief Justices
1849 William George Knox
1870 Sir Joseph Needham, Kt.
1885 Sir John Gorrie, Kt.
1892 Sir John Goldney, Kt.
1900 Sir William John Anderson, Kt.
1903 Sir Ernest Alfred Northcote, Kt. LL.B.
CHIEF JUSTICE
Sir Alfred Van Waterschoodt Lucie-Smith, Kt. Appointed 22nd July, 1908
First Puisne Judge.
Alexander David Russell, LL.B. Appointed 4th October, 1913
Second Puisne Judge.
Eric Blackwood Wright, B.A., LL.D. Appointed 3rd December, 1913.
Registrar and Marshal.
Thomas Augustus Thompson. Appointed 14th July, 1897.
Sunday 19 March 2017
Monday 6 March 2017
The Reaction of Ethnic Minorities to Black Power in Trinidad and Tobago, 1970
by Gerard A. Besson
This abstract is based on conversations with
five Trinidadians of European descent, three were men and two were women, all
of whom were over 30 in 1970. Two of the men were company directors, the women
were housewives. Three were Syrians, comprising two women, one was a housewife,
the other worked in her husband’s business and one man who was a teenager in
1970 and worked in his father’s business. A Chinese woman who was in her
twenties in 1970 who worked in a bank and whose father owned a shop, An Indian
man, a national of India, who worked in Trinidad as a retailer in the period.
And a Portuguese housewife whose husband worked in rum shop owned by a
Portuguese family. Three other informants were interviewed, there were
coloured, mixed race Trinidadians and two Black Trinidadians who do not
consider themselves Afrocentric. Indo Trinidadians were not included.
The views of the ethnic minorities in T&T
with regard to the Black Power disturbances of 1970 are varied depending on
what was experienced by those individuals.
These were the Chinese, the Portuguese and
the Syrian/Lebanese communities, the Indians (from India), the French Creoles,
that is European-appearing persons with French, Irish, Italian or German names,
and the English Creoles. Some of these were evolved, more or less, in trade or
other forms of family-owned and operated businesses. Light-complexioned people
in general, persons of mixed-race backgrounds who may have identified
themselves as French Creole, Chinese, Spanish or other and Afro Trinidadians
who did not identify with the Black Power movement, that involved
demonstrations of thousands of people.
The
most common emotion felt by most of the above was fear, and a sense of surprise
that was mixed with a feeling of disappointment. The sense of fear was founded
on the experience of the random violence that was known to take place during
the steelband clashes of the recent past, forms of labour unrest, and the
collective historical fear of Black people assembled en masse and organised as
a riotous mob.
The
sense of surprise and disappointment was founded mostly on the belief that with
Independence in 1962, a new status quo had been achieved in which the
intellectual and the professional Blacks would run the government, but the
society and business would continue as before. There was as well the feeling
that Trinidad, “Sweet, sweet, Trinidad” was gone forever.
Independence
had come following the elections of 1961, in which an intense racial outburst
by Dr Eric Williams, in his “Massa day done” speeches (1960-61) shocked the
minorities in the population. In these discourses he deconstructed the European
mythology of their racial superiority and attacked the European-descended
population at large and the French Creoles in particular, wherein they were
characterised as having inherited the guilt of 18th century slave
masters.
In
these discourses, the East Indians on the whole were portrayed by Dr. Williams
as being at the beck and call (the shoe shine boys) of the European-descended
members of the DLP and (nincompoops) marginal to the PNM’s revolution. Williams
had in effect broken the taboo that had surrounded open and public discourse on
race, in which derogatory views would be aired with regard to Europeans. In so
doing, he had inaugurated “the Williams narrative.”
Taken
aback by the impetus of the election campaign, the originality and the
pertinence of some of the presentations and the extent to which the European
leaders of the non-Black vote, i.e. Albert Gomes, Gerald Wight et al, had
apparently been disgraced and put to flight, all the minorities appeared cowed
and went along with the Williams interpretation of history and how it was
applied to politics. Trust was invested and power achieved by this mostly Black
party, the PNM,
In
effect, it was understood that all segments in the population would have to be
subordinate to the “National culture” of the “true inheritors”— Williams’
words, that is, of the Afro-Trinidadians. As such, it was generally believed
that with the PNM in power, there was no need for a Black Power movement at
all. Hence, the Black Power disturbances came as a surprise to many.
Perhaps
mostly so to Black and coloured Trinidadians who could not involve themselves
with the Black Power movement for a variety of reasons: amongst these because
they felt it did not involve them at all, that it was a low-class movement for
people who were thought of by them as “the niggers”, that it was of little or
no concern to them in terms of advancement of their own personal Black
awareness, that it may spoil relationships between them and Whites, that it was
a youth movement involving the undisciplined and lawless elements, that is was
against the Law, that it was disruptive of social and racial harmony, that it
was against Christian religious principles, that it was against the PNM and Dr.
Williams personally, or that it was just foolish and misguided and imported
from America, that it would not achieve anything for Black people that
education, self-sacrifice and hard work could not achieve, that the pursuit of
ambitions and taking the opportunity to live abroad was an obvious and better
choice. Many Blacks felt that that
it was Black people fooling other Black people in their pursuit of power and
self-aggrandizement, which was in itself dangerous, in that the Government may
be overthrown and the communists would take over—bearing in mind that it was
the middle of the Cold War, and communist regimes had taken control in other
former colonies.
Moderate
Blacks and coloureds were often intimidated, some felt fear, and that they were
betraying their brothers and sisters. Many did not have it in them to
participate, but realised that in not doing so, they were placed in a
particular category and were described as Uncle Toms, stooges of the White
people, the honkeys, and were called names like house niggers, cowards, fools,
and as backward colonials, Afro Saxons.
There
was outrage and a growing dissonance between Black youth on the whole and some
of the Black middle class, as well as other Blacks who had pursued European
mores, speech, dress, hair styles and cultural values, who had notions of
respectability, that could not identify with the type of behaviour associated
with youth movements expressed as Black Power. This behaviour had to do with
overt racialism against Europeans in general and local Whites in particular,
anger against White and foreign-owned businesses, radical attitudes to sexual
conduct, dress, Afro hair styles, use of marijuana, adulation of revolutionary
heroes like Ché Guevara, Stokeley Carmichael, Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Fidel
Castro, etc.
There
was also an awkward dissonance being created between mainstream Blacks and the
Whites, off-Whites and French Creoles. They were committed to the Afro/French
Creole, British colonial way of life, which included Catholicism and
Christianity on the whole, language (patois), the lifestyle of agriculture and
stock-rearing, boating and fishing, work in various professions, and the
retained memory of the previous century with its cultural mores that were
mostly French-Antillean dominated. Despite their support for the PNM and Dr.
Williams and the nationalist independence movement, they were hesitant to
repudiate these cultural mores in exchange for Black Power, whose values threatened
theirs so absolutely.
In
the Chinese community, which twelve years earlier had numbered about eight
thousand and included mixed-race people who identified themselves as Chinese
and not as Black, many were restaurant, steam laundry, shop and parlor
proprietors and other owner-operated concerns, some of whom dealt with the
Black public “over the counter.” Several were professionals or worked in the
banks, private enterprise or for other Chinese. They experienced Black Power in
terms of fear, harassment, violent threats, intimidation and in a few cases
physical violence. This community
suffered financial losses during the period as business slowed and in some
cases closed permanently. Several business places that were owned by Chinese
families remained abandoned for years; others were reopened part time. Chinese
families moved away from predominantly Black neighbourhoods where they had
lived at times for more than one generation. After 1970 there ensued a steady
emigration of Trinidad Chinese to Canada and other places.
With
regards to the Portuguese, those who were still in the retail trade, shops,
groceries and rum shops, also experienced financial loss, thuggery and verbal
abuse, violent behaviour and threats that were similar to those levelled at the
Chinese. Both these segments of the population had been in the retail trade
running shops and rum shops for generations, trading in mostly in poor Black
depressed areas, and were in the front line so to speak, of Black Power
intimidation.
There
had also been a large degree of miscegenation between the Chinese and
Portuguese and their Black neighbours/customers. To what extent this played a
role in the attacks against them is well worth exploring. It may be said that
Black Power, 1970, reduced the involvement of both these sectors in the sale of
food and alcohol, in the traditional sense, as there are few if any still
engaged in trade. Indians seemed to have filled the gap.
Both
these groups felt unjustly attacked as they were, in a manner, not unlike Blacks:
excluded from White dominance of the society. When asked about the charge of
exploitation by them of Blacks in terms of property loss because of extending
credit, or sexual favours exchanged for money or kind, the feeling was that
these were arrangements made freely and without force, and served the purpose
at the time. There was a distinct move away from Black neighborhoods after
Black Power. The Portuguese became increasingly socially White.
The
Syrian/Lebanese community was severely affected financially by the
disturbances. Their businesses were mostly located in the urban centres,
downtown Port-of-Spain and San Fernando, in that there was a high degree of
damage to property, intimidation of customers and staff and an almost complete
collapse of sales during the months of January to May 1970 and afterwards.
Several
of the downtown establishments owned by this community had benefited by the
steady growth and development of the middle class of all sectors and had made
substantial investments in clothing shops and manufacturing plants and modern
merchandising and advertisement for their stores. This had involved large
outlays of cash and loans from the banks, whose repayments required a steady
cash flow. When this cash flow was disrupted, pressure was applied to the
owners and layoffs were experienced by the employees.
There
was a degree of harassment, intimidation and extortion experienced by the
Syrians. Several properties were burnt in the urban areas; arson was a threat
and often a reality. This segment continued in business notwithstanding the
large-scale street protest and the ongoing damage to property, and in some
cases was able to form accommodations with elements of the Black Power. There
was a feeling of resentment against the Black population because of the
perceived kindnesses and acts of generosity given to poor and needy Blacks.
When asked about exploitation, low wages, racial discrimination, sexual
harassment and exploitation, they agreed that these existed, but maintained
that these were human failures and any race could be found guilty of these
placed in the right circumstances and that this was not peculiar to them. There was not any marked emigration in
this community, but there was a distinct hardening of racial animosity towards
Blacks that it is claimed was not there before Black Power. Charity given to
poor Blacks and others was maintained, in fact increased, by the
Syrian-Lebanese Women’s Association.
The
Indians from India who formed a small merchant community in the business district
were adversely affected financially in much the same way as the above. Both
communities, being in the dry goods trade, experienced a collapse in business
in the several months of disturbances. There was fear of violence, business
failure and of sexual assault.
The
European-descended, mainly English and Scottish merchants who owned and
operated the big firms, i.e. Geo F. Huggins, Alstons, T. Geddes Grant, Gordon
Grant and a dozen others, including the large department stores Stephens,
Fogarty’s, Millers, Glendinning’s, Woolworth, were like the Syrians immediately
affected financially by a collapse of sales. In the case of the retailers the
effect was immediate, in the case of the wholesalers this was accumulative. As
wholesale suppliers to small outlets, they were increasingly unable to
deliver/supply their customers.
The
fear of violence directed against them and their families had begun in the
anti-White diatribes of the “Massa day done” politics of Dr. Williams, when it
was remembered that he had “given them (his supporters) permission to cut their
throats” and when he had said that “history used as the murderous weapon it can
be”. Connected to Britain’s international markets, this segment was acutely
aware of what was taking place in other parts of the Commonwealth with regard
to racial/political upheavals and the threat of communist takeover, the Cold
War being on everybody’s mind.
There was a sense of guilt for past wrongs, and an admittance of racism,
but it was explained that it was the times and that times were changing
worldwide.
There
was a feeling of confidence in the White Acting Police Commissioner, Peter May,
and a police force that was perceived as loyal to the Government. With a
justice system that was known to work, things would work out.
There
was also the feeling that because of the oil fields, the Americans or British
Governments would not let things go from bad to worse. There was a surprising
amount of confidence in Dr. Williams who was thought of as not communist, but
as a supporter of business interest, and also as a very clever and resourceful
man. A large number of the White business community as well as French Creole
families were supporters of the PNM. Party Group 13 was situated in Goodwood
Park, an upscale, predominantly White area.
Several
of the directors/owners of these businesses took the precaution of sending
their wives children and relatives to Barbados or to the offshore islands
during the disturbances.
The
French Creole families, which numbered some 1500 persons, several of whom
worked in the banks, in Government officers, in private firms, the cane estates
and in the oil companies, or as professionals and as managers in the large
companies, experienced fear and believed that their time in Trinidad may be
over this time for good. As with the British merchants, they saw the Black
Power uprising as an extension of the postcolonial experience of Nationalism
that had replaced the legitimacy of Crown Colony Rule in the British Empire,
which had safeguarded them as a remnant community in the colonies, a leftover
from another time.
It
was felt that between the Williams independence movement, the PNM, and now the
Black Power movement, a profound breakdown of the Afro/French Creole culture
had occurred, and that they were caught in the middle of the loss of this
century and a half old culture. The start of a new Nationalist movement that
would not include them, which was destroying all that was good and what they
knew and trusted as real, had taken root and would grow menacingly.
The
eight years between Independence in 1962 and the Black Power uprising in 1970
was a relatively short period in which a chasm, producing a deep dissonance,
was created between themselves and what they had considered to be “their
people”: the Black and coloured Trinidadians who operated/functioned in
stereotyped roles in their daily lives and with whom there existed complicated
relationships of kinship, dependence, paternalism, friendship, sport,
camaraderie, exploitation and a myriad of relationships.
There
was by no means a total breakdown between these groups, the Black and coloured
and the French Creoles and other Whites, during and after the disturbances.
Some say that it was only after a generational change that this was brought
about, and very gradually in fact. There was, however, a certain amount of
damage done, which was experienced in a collapse of trust and confidence on
both sides during this period and after. Black Power to many marked the end of
the Creole era in Trinidad, and the beginning of Trinidad and Tobago acquiring
a more Caribbean reality.
The
French Creole group as well as the English Creoles tended to start making plans
to move away from Trinidad and Tobago. A great many of the owners of the big
firms moved out of the country, several of them who had owned homes in which
they lived when visiting, sold out, and in some cases never returned. The
French Creoles with less resources per se made plans to start to send their
children abroad and pay more attention to their education, preparing them to
live abroad in various ways, trips visits to relatives, etc.
Black
Power generated resentments with new nuances towards Blacks in general that
were felt and displayed by all the minority groups. All felt that it was
unnecessary, an unwelcome display of anger, intolerance, racism, societal
discord and violence that achieved little or nothing that would not have come
about over time.
Summary
The
ethnic minorities of Trinidad felt that Black Power was about jealousy, and
getting jobs in banks and in the trading houses and in other places. The
minorities felt that it was largely imported from abroad, the USA, and was a
dangerous juvenile fad that had caught on in Trinidad. Many felt that it would
be relatively easy for them to go away and be successful where ever they went,
and only those left behind would suffer as in Guyana and in other former
colonies that had lost its entrepreneurial/business class.
Some
minorities told stories of anger and defiance to intimidation, taking great
pride in “putting people in their places” and facing down would-be attackers.
Others remember only the great curfew parties. Some felt that some Black people
benefited from the Black Power uprising personally, and that it was really an
extension of the Independence movement that was good for the country on the
whole. Some remarked that it was
good for the marginal people, the pass-for-Whites/coloureds who could now say
with pride that had Black ancestors.
Some
believed that Black pride had been defined for a generation of Blacks at the
expense of national harmony. Some supposed that what was gained by Black Power
was lost in the oil booms that followed. Most felt that that Black youth had
not benefited in the long run, because it was the start of law-breaking with a
sense of righteousness, a sense of entitlement unearned or undeserved, and an
even greater collapse of the work ethic. Justice was not served as so many of
the perpetrators of arson and violence walked free of what was seen as treason. All groups mentioned that there had
been an increase of drug use and the start of serious police corruption in the
wake of Black Power. It was also
mentioned that in the aftermath of Black Power, the Police Welfare Association
of the Second Division was able to negotiate a forty-hour work-week, and that
this changed how the Police functioned in terms of duty, professionalism and
being seen as corruption-free.
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