An Indian Prime Minister

Racial prejudice, institutionalised to a fine point, was directed at the free blacks and people of colour as a class during the Woodford administration 1813 - 1829. The educated, well-off slave- and property-owning free black people responded with petitions. Eventually a delegation led by the coloured doctor Jean Baptiste Philippe left for London and met with the Secretary of State to the Colonies, the Lord Bathhurst. They did not propose emancipation of the salves. Slavery was an economic necessity that they as well as the Europeans subscribed to.

The case as presented was sound in law, inasmuch as the terms of the Cedula of Population, under the Spanish government, guaranteed certain rights for free blacks. The Articles of Surrender to the British by the Spanish Government in Trinidad in 1797 maintained those rights. With the court’s decision, the free blacks as a group had won a civil rights case, more than likely the first in this hemisphere.

Out of this came a political awareness that eventually formulated itself into the reform movements of the 1850s, on through to the turn of the century to the creation of the Workingman's Association. These reformists were concerned with altering the nature of Crown Colony status so as to increase greater participation by local people in the colony's political process. This was the hot-bed, the crucible of Creole politics as expressed by people like Mzumbo Lazare, Maresse Smith, Phillip Rostant, Preudomme David, Captain Cipriani, Albert Gomes and eventually C.L.R. James, Dr. Patrick Solomon and  Dr. Eric Williams. The genesis of the "politics of race" was a natural reaction of the black intellectuals to the absurdity of colonial prejudice which, more than anything else, insulted the intelligence of thinking people.

The East Indians of Trinidad, arriving from 1845 to 1917, had an entirely different political genesis. Living on the vast cane estates after the emancipation of the slaves, they escaped the emasculation and degradation of slavery and the violence of the plantations worked by slave labour to some extent. Old roles of leadership did not apply in the indentureship system. The mere crossing of the ocean had been enough to break that spell.

Conditions on the estates were also a great leveler. Leaders emerged from different quarters as necessitated by the managers' requirements. "Surdars", drivers and foremen and shopkeepers of all and every condition and caste, assumed leadership roles in estate yard and village life.

The earliest Indian organisation in this island came into existence in 1897, to organise a campaign to protest an ordinance, No. 12 of 1897, which contained several sections which infringed on the rights of the East Indians. This was the East Indian National Organisation. This body was to out live its original purpose, however its efforts after 1898 served to increase East Indian self-awareness.

Also in 1897, a group of East Indians submitted a memorandum to the West Indian Commission in which they requested for the first time direct representation by an East Indian member in the Legislative Council. This was unsuccessful. But as Dr. Bridget Brereton observes:

"The request highlighted a growing political awareness; it indicated that Indians were beginning to consider themselves as an identifiable group with its own interests, different and separate from those of other groups and with demands to be articulated."

By and large, East Indian politics was 50 years behind the Reformist Movement of the Creoles. Leaders like Sir Henry,  Maxwell Philip Q.C., Kenneth Vincent Brown K.C., for example, were already practiced speakers on the nominated benches of the Legislative Council in the 1880s and '90s. It was out of the organisation of labour that East Indians were to assume leadership roles that were larger than the estate yard or village life. This process commenced with lowering of wages and the increase of task work.  Professor Kusha Harraksingh states:

"This was a recurring planter strategy which the nature of the task system itself conveniently accommodated."

Many factors contributed to the unionisation of sugar workers that eventually occurred in 1937, not the least of which was the end of indentureship in 1917 and the switch over to free, unindentured labour. Professor Harracksingh also notes that the "concentration of ownership of the sugar industry was in a few hands ... the growth of a peasant sector of small and middle-sized cane farms without their own processing facilities; the development of party politics ... and the identification of sugar workers with a particular ethnic and cultural group."

The East Indian National Association in Princes Town was joined by another organisation called the Indian National Congress centered in Couva. The aim of these bodies was to encourage Indians to takes an active and intelligent part in both community life and in the broader scheme of things. The Trinidad Citizens League formed be Cola Rienzi (Krishna Deonarine) was a party which mainly appealed to sugar workers. This was branded as Communists by the colonial government.

In 1942, almost a century after East Indians had settled here, the right of adult franchise was granted by the colonial authority, hard won and hard fought for by the 19th century reformists and the trade unions, produced from their ranks, in the strikes of the 1920s and 30s and in the killing fields of Apex and Fyzabad.

For the East Indians, it created a great political impasse. The ordinance demanded that the voter could cast a vote only if he was qualified in the English language. The majority of the East Indians were illiterate and very few of them had a command of English. As V.M. Vidyarthi wrote in his article "Indian to Trinidadian":

"The language test therefore would have almost exclusively and adversely affected the Indian Community in the exercise of its votes, should it be allowed to function."

It was perceived as the most notorious element in the political setup and called for a united force to fight it. It tended to unite the East Indians, and their organisations finally succeeded in removing the test. Thus, equal opportunity for all races to participate fully in the political process was achieved, albeit within the structure of colonial Trinidad. The small steps taken by the Indian community in contributing to the creation of the nations political life was to be conveniently forgotten.

The first election with universal adult suffrage was held in 1946. A large number of independents and various political groupings contested the election. Men of Indian descent obtained four out of the nine elected seats. At this point, East Indians formed 35% of the islands population. It is thus very significant that they actually captured 44% of the elected seats.

In 1950, the second election was held under a new constitution. The entire colony was divided into 18 constituencies with an almost equal population. Fifty-one candidates were put up by five different political groups, and ninety independents contested. Five independents and 13 party candidates were elected. Among these seven were East Indians - four Hindus and three Christians. This represented 39% of the total elected seats. In his article Vidyarthi writes:

"A constitutional Reform Committee under the chairmanship of Ashford S. Sinanan, a member of the Legislative Council, was appointed in 1955. This committee recommended the creation of a British type of cabinet government under an elected Chief Minister. After minor modifications, the recommendations were implemented and the introduction of these reforms were hailed as a significant political advance. It gave rise to Party Politics."

In 1956, the elections were held under the new constitution, in which 8 parties put up 89 candidates to contest 24 seats. Among these, the Trinidad Labour Party and Uriah Butler's Party were the oldest. The Trinidad Labour Party was founded by Captain A.A. Cipriani and advocated self government.

The East Indian leadership at this point was divided into two groups. Leaders like Sarran Teelucksingh, Timothy Roodal and Adrian Kola Rienzi formed an association with Cipriani and the T.L.P. and had the support of East Indian organisations. The other party in the race was the People's Democratic Party, formed by Bhadase Sagan Maraj. For many years he reigned supreme as one of the top East Indian leaders in Trinidad.

Bhadase was a man of wide influence and dynamic personality, who advanced the status of the entire East Indian community. First elected as an independent to the Legislative Council in 1950, in '53 he founded the Peoples Democratic Party and in the same year became the leader of the Sugar Worker's and Cane Farmer's Union.

The year 1956 saw the formation of the People's National Movement under the leadership of Dr. Eric Williams. The P.N.M. entered the election campaign with a clear-cut program. It declared that the people of Trinidad had 6 years of corruption, mismanagement and party acrobatics in public affairs. It presented a multiracial slate of candidates and based its appeal on West Indian nationalism. It commanded black professional,  black labour and black urban support. It also commenced an educational program at Woodford Square in an atmosphere that may only be described as messianic.

Under pressure from the P.N.M., the leadership of the P.D.P. tried to modify its purely East Indian character and promoted multi-racialism and secularism from its platforms. It lent its support to the Party of Political Progress Groups, headed by Albert Gomes, the most significant person in the political scene after Captain A.A. Cipriani. The P.D.P. also supported the Butler Party and the Trinidad Labour Party as well as several independents.

From the results of the 1956 election, in which the P.N.M. secured the majority of seats and formed the government, it was clear that the time of the independents was over. The P.N.M. victory was the result of better organisation and leadership. It was also the result of the assertion of Negro self respect and self confidence, all supported by a strong black middle class, with its roots firmly placed in the 19th century colonial reform movements buttressed by West Indian immigration that had struggled against colonial dominance for close to 150 years.

On July 18th, 1957, at a special meeting of the representatives of the P.D.P., the F.L.P. and the P.O.P.P.G., a decision was taken to dissolve their parties and form the Democratic Labour Party. On January 8th, 1958, Badhase Sagan Maraj, the former head of the P.D.P. and the president general of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha, the largest Hindu religious body in Trinidad, was elected Leader of the parliamentary wing of the D.L.P., which by this time was recognised as the official opposition party in the Legislative Council.

With this development, the two-party system came into being. Between the P.N.M., with its "African" support and the D.L.P. with its "Indian" base. The D.L.P. was successful in the Federal Elections. However times were changing as Vidyarthi notes:

"But despite Bhadase's popularity and his influence on the East Indian masses, the younger generation of educated and enlightened groups found him to be an embarrassing leader. He was uneducated and no match for Dr. Eric Williams."

They thought his manners crude and his methods suspicious. To match the intellectual glamour of Dr. Williams, a section of the D.L.P. looked for leadership elsewhere, as the old "chief" had become less effective and increasingly unwell. The D.L.P. was divided upon itself during this period and A.P.T. James of Tobago took the helm.

He too was no match either for the brilliance or eloquence of Dr. Eric Williams. During this period, there were many defections to the P.N.M., as both Christian and Muslim intellectuals crossed over to the winning side. The D.L.P. leadership passed to Rudarnath Capildeo, a "staunch Sanatanist Hindu." Dr. Capildeo, like Dr. Williams, was an island scholarship winner. He had earned his Ph.D. from London University. He was now an acknowledged mathematician and physicist. It was felt that if Dr. Capildeo headed the D.L.P., he would be able together East Indian intellectuals and professionals and at the same time exert enough influence on the rural masses. He would also provide non-Indians alienated from the P.N.M. with the intellectual capacity they wanted.

Despite fierce factional fighting between the Bhadase supporters and the young intellectuals, concern of another P.N.M. victory eventually forced the closing of the ranks behind the new leader. But Dr. Capildeo was no politician. Unlike Dr. Williams, he had not created a political party of his own, but was rather placed at the head of a party by a group of shrewd and experienced politicians who wanted to use him and his academic achievements for getting votes. Dr. Kenneth Lalla comments on the 1961 elections and quotes Dr. Selwyn Ryan:

"As a forerunner to the 1961 general elections, the P.N.M. government announced its intention not only to re-draw the electoral boundaries but also to compile a new voters' registration and to introduce voting machines.

The Indians' reaction to those proposals was that they pointed out that these new voting arrangements were calculated to curtail the voting strength of the Indians, which had been demonstrated against the P.N.M. in the 1958 Federal elections. They further argued that the replacement of the ballot box by voting machines was also designed to frustrate illiterate Indians. Did the P.N.M. manipulate the distribution of the voting population on a racial basis so as to give more seats to the P.N.M.? On this issue Dr. Selwyn Ryan commented:

“The P.N.M. took no chances even in Port of Spain, where the boundaries were redrafted, to make sure that all potential D.L.P. areas, i.e. the upper class and upper middle-class residential areas, were attached to working class areas where the P.N.M. had been consistently strong. The D.L.P. was not given an outside chance to gain a seat in the capital city as they had done in the 1958 and 1959 municipal elections . In the countryside there was strong evidence to substantiate the D.L.P. claim that the P.N.M. had herded as many Indian voters as was possible into constituencies which they could not possibly win, and had extracted from such areas large blocks of Negro voters who were then recombined into the other constituencies.” (from “Race and Nationalism” 1961 pp. 144-45)"

Dr. Capildeo as Prime Minister! This was the dream of many and perhaps it was his dream as well, an Indian Prime Minister, just imagine!

Under his leadership the D.L.P. captured ten out of thirty seats. The highest voter turnout was in St. Augustine, where he was the candidate. The D.L.P. candidates were returned from the rural areas, mainly the sugar belt. Out of the ten seats gained, eight were East Indians and two were Negroes.

The eight East Indians consisted of three Hindu, one Muslim and  four Christians. Among these Ashford Sinanan, Simboonath Capildeo, Lionel  Frank Seukeran and Stephen Maharaj were elected to the Legislative Council. The other six members, new to the political arena, were Dr. Capildeo, political leader, Tajmool Hosein, Vernon Jamada, Balgobin Ramdeen, M. Forrester and Peter Farauhar.

In 1962, Trinidad and Tobago achieved full independence. Many of the opposition's demands were rejected. Dr. Capildeo had failed at the Marlborough House talks in London, and in many quarters it was felt that their cause had been betrayed. This led to an all around dissension among party members and resulted in the expulsion of many. Dr. Capildeo himself grew weary and was disgusted with politics. He eventually relinquished leadership of the D.L.P. and returned to London where he died in 1970.

Trade Unions

In the 1920s, it was the oilfield workers who forced the hand of the all-powerful colonial government to introduce electoral participation in the lawmaking process - a mantle that inspires the O.W.T.U. and other trade unions to this day.

By the end of the First World War, the economic landscape in Trinidad had changed forever. Having taken its first halting steps into an industry-based economy, it was about to suffer several body blows.

During the war, shipping between Europe and the West Indies had been severely disrupted. Shortages of every sort halted trade, agriculture and infrastructural development. Inflation climbed to an unprecedented 145% by 1919.

The cocoa economy, so vital to the cash flow of many small and medium import-export companies, almost ceased to exist as its main markets in Europe lay in shambles. Sugar, King Sugar, was also failing on the world markets. Unemployment climbed as more and more men returned from the First World War.

These men returned with a heightened political consciousness. They returned with news of the Russian Revolution and socialism. The compensation they received from the Imperial Government left much to be desired and they resented that treatment.

‘Black consciousness’ was stimulated with the circulation of literature coming out of Jamaica’s Marcus Garvey movement. News of labour unrest in England began to trickle into Trinidad despite the censors. Indian immigration to the colony was stopped in 1917, and by 1921, indentureship had ended. Suddenly thousands of Indians who had been sheltered by that system were released into the overall labour market. The competition for jobs was becoming fierce.

The result of this was a series of strikes and social disturbances in 1919 and 1920. The strikes spread in the oil and asphalt industries, with dock and rail workers following suit. Workers’ representatives cried out against increasing inflation and low wages.

The colonial government responded to the 1920 strikes by sending out troops to crush the workers and by passing the ‘Strikes and Lockout Ordinances’ and the ‘Seditious Act and Publications Ordinances’ in an attempt to stop the strikes and to prevent subversive, inflammatory literature, such as the ‘Negro World’ from reaching the workers. A commission of inquiry, appointed by the Crown, recommended the introduction of elected members in the Legislative Council. This resulted in 6 unofficials nominated by the Governor, 7 elected unofficials, 12 officials and the Governor. The elected members were thus in the minority.

The franchise was extended to women over 30 and men over 21 years of age, with specific property and income qualifications. In fact, only 6% of the entire population was entitled to vote in the first legislative election in 1925. The turnout was very good, and Captain Arthur Cipiriani, Timothy Roodal and Sarran Teelucksingh were elected. All three were representatives of labour. For the first time, middle class labour had a voice in the lawmaking body of the colony.

Cipriani’s achievements for labour in the Legislative Council were limited. He was unable to get a law passed for an 8-hour work day, despite the fact that Britain had signed a minimum wage fixing agreement in 1925 with the International Labour Organisation. The Workingman’s Compensation Ordinance of 1926 did benefit some industrial workers, but not agricultural workers. Cipriani’s struggle against ‘the powers that be’ on behalf of the workingman faltered when he signed the report of the Wages and Advisory Board, which set the minimum wage for urban and rural workers at a level below the existing wages. Workers now understood that the process set out by the imperial government would not work for them.

The Trinidad Workingmen’s Association which had been founded in 1897 and which had its origins in the coloured intelligentsia of an earlier generation that had promoted social awareness for people of African descent became increasingly involved in the arbitration between the Government and the striking industrial and urban workers. They were marginally successful in that they got wage increases for the dock workers.

Besides the already sizzling situation at the homebase, there were other developments in the world which were to impact on Trinidad. The discovery of very large oilfields in Texas and other parts of the U.S.A. had the result of a steep decline in oil prices. From 1930 onwards, oil prices stooped from over one dollar a barrel to as low as ten cents.

Against all this, the stock market crashed. This too contributed to the oversupply of oil. Automobile production fell by some 47%.

Trinidad’s oil economy was soon caught up in this free-falling tumble as both management and staff in the oil business were laid off. Trained people left the fields, some never to return. The happy days of an easy worker-management cooperation ended abruptly. Workers could not understand what was taking place in the ‘real world’ and saw only the hunger in the faces of their families and felt only the frustration and increasing desperations in themselves.

Oil technologist George Higgins writes in his book ‘A History of Trinidad Oil’:

“The Petroleum Association of Trinidad considered all possible ways of reducing the hardship and attempted to keep as many people employed as possible. Working hours were reduced from nine to eight hours a day and drilling shifts were changed from two of twelve hours to three of eight to spread out the work.”

Every effort was made to become more cost effective. More efficient production methods resulted in a record 10 million barrels being produced in 1930. This work was to pay off as the years went by, resulting in a production of 20 million barrels ten years later in 1940.

Before this, however, some hard times lay ahead. Nature played a dreadful card in the midst of all of this. In 1933, a hurricane struck the island and oil production was severly interrupted. The hurricane - and in those days they were not decorated by names of people we know - struck the east coast at Guayaguayare at about 4 p.m. on June 26th, arriving at maximum intensity at 6 p.m., howling all night. The damage was extensive. The Mora forest, very old and very valuable to the colony’s economy, was devastated, and some of the coconut estates were destroyed forever. Infrastructural damage to roads, bridges, telephone and electricity lines was considerable. In the oil fields, 90 wooden derricks were completely destroyed and another 150 badly damaged. Wellhead connections were destroyed. The industry was brought almost to a stop. Labour, now considerably more organised, rose to the occasion and worked shoulder to shoulder with the managment to restore order and production to the devastated fields.

A new era had been inaugurated, one of collective bargaining. The Trinidad Workingmen’s Association emerged as the sole agent representing the interest of workers. Its success in the 1920 disturbances increased its prestige and its membership. By 1932, the TWA had 98 branches throughout Trinidad. Captain Arthur Cipriani had emerged as its president. A Trinidadian of aristocratic European descent, he was remarkable for his social conscience and the empathy he felt for the working class. 

During the 1930s, despite increased oil production, the hardships experienced by the oilworkers only got worse. Once again nature worked against the economy. In 1934, a drought struck the colony. Hunger marches started in central Trinidad. Workers at Apex Oilfields, led by Uriah Butler of the Trinidad Labour Party, which had evolved from the Trinidad Workingmen’s Association, went on strike and planned a march on Port of Spain. The march was stopped by Cipriani and the Police. Cipriani’s condemnation of the strike action and the subsequent expulsion of Butler and Cola Rienzi from the T.L.P. placed Cipriani in approbrium in the eyes of may oilworkers even to this day.

The oilworkers grievances were real. Profits were being made, but their wages were low. White employees were living comfortably in company houses and driving cars. The steady expansion of the fields, the upgrading of plants and expertise were immediately affected by the widening unrest. Uriah ‘Buzz’ Butler became more active amongst the oilfield workers and moved them to take strike action. In 1937, riots and strikes spread through the oil belt. The colonial government reacted predictably with a heavy hand. 

Brutality was the order of the day, and it was played out true to form on both sides. The order to open fire on the unarmed strikers as they approached the gates at Apex unleashed a hail of bullets fired at close range from Royal Enfield 303 rifles, handled mostly by young Trinidadians of the Volunteer Company. Several people died, many were wounded. On the other hand, police corporal Karl King while he was performing his lawful duty, was murdered by a mob who burnt his still alive body. An uneasy peace settled on the colony after landing parties were put ashore from the H.M.S. Ajax and the H.M.S. Exeter. 

Uriah Butler was arrested. When he was released from jail in 1939, he was welcomed back in the oilbelt with ‘warmth and adulation’, as historian Michael Anthony writes in his book ‘The Making of Port of Spain Vol 1’. As Anthony writes further:

“His old and tried companion, Rienzi, was overjoyed. Rienzi showed his feeling at a Legislative Council meeting on June 16, 1939, during a debate on public holidays. Rienzi called on Government to declare the date of the oilfield riots a public holiday in place of Empire Day. Turning to the Attoney-General, Rienzi said:’June the 19th, Sir, is a day which in the minds of the workers marks a landmark in the history of the working class movement.’ Cipriani retorted:’All those who have the best interests of the working classes at heart would like to forget forever June 19 and are not asking for the making of a day for the adulation of false heroes.’”

This holiday was not granted until 1973, and one could ask if the murder of King, a policeman, should be celebrated.

As George Higgins, author of ‘A History of Trinidad Oil’, concludes his chapter about the years of depression and recovery (1930 - 1939):

“By 1939, operations were back to normal and looking up. But on the horizon and across the seas in Europe the war clouds were looming, soon to break and affect profoundly the direction in which the Trinidad operations were heading.”

The trade union movement in Trinidad and Tobago really came into its own in the 1930s. Prior to this, the relationship between operators or owners of businesses, whether agricultural or otherwise, and those who were employed by them, tended to be along the lines of masters and servants. Workers, conditioned by the plantation lifestyle and the force of colonial might, which indoctrinated all involved with a certain stereotype of roles along ethnic and gender lines, more often than not just accepted existing conditions, even if it meant near starvation for them. They saw themselves as dependent on one hand on the Almighty God, whose providence made it possible to grow food in a tropical island, and on the other on the generosity of the boss or the proprietor.

Historians affirm that the patois-speaking Catholic black and mixed Trinidadians tended to be subservient to the system, whereas the Small Islanders, in particular the Barbadians, tended to be more independent and more aggressive.

From the 1840s, people from the other islands had come to Trinidad in quantity in search of work and a better standard of living. They came from both Protestant and Catholic islands, and as a result had known different cycles of religious festivals. The islands they came from had known slavery since the early 16th century, and there was virtually no coloured middle class there as existed in Trinidad.

Those immigrants assimilated into Creole life in Trinidad, but also kept a lot of their own history and culture. They didn’t necessarily stay on the land, but joined Trinidadians in small trades and crafts.

The Workingmen's Association was at the turn of the 20th century an aspect of the reform movements, and its membership was made up mostly of urban middle class liberals. The process to militancy would require a crucible, which as it turned out was the advent of industrialisation. Several circumstances began to arrange themselves, not the least of which was the demobilisation of thousands of men who had seen foreign service during the first world war. The stereotype of the master-servant relationship along ethnic lines was considerably softened up.

Another factor was the repatriation of migrants from Panama after the completion of the Canal. Many of these were cash-rich, and a lot of them did not return to their own islands, which were by comparison to Trinidad rather backward and prudish, but rather came here.

The nature of the black Creole lifestyle was changing. There was still the pursuit of respectability, of education and of European culture. There was still the overwhelming need to be accepted by the white pastor, the white overseer, the white madame, if only as a fellow human being. But for those who came of age in the 1920s, new ideas such as generated by Marcus Garvey came into play, which were based on personal pride and belief in oneself as a being that creates futures.

The literature of the time affected the thinking of workers, too. It was often banned, and hard to come by, badly printed brochures on cheap paper. The ideas were expressed in little newspapers, such as “The People”, “Trinidad” and “The Beacon”, which all served to define a greater political awareness for a wider circle of people.

Essentially, the social divide in Trinidad was between capital and labour. This became heightened by the fact that capital and labour were visibly different: the small employer class was white, the workers were black or Indian. There was hardly any political representation - only 6% of the entire population had the right to vote. The governor had direct personal rule. All power, all responsibility was centered on him.

Before the transatlantic cable, it took weeks to communicate with the Colonial Office in London. The governor was basically responsive only to the propertied interest. The landowners, the factory owners, the business and shop owners: these were regarded as the people with ‘responsible opinion’ who had ‘a stake in the country’. All others had neither voice nor vote. This situation was in fact not unique to Trinidad, but was the case the world over; certainly in England.

It is difficult for us, born in affluent times where opportunities for self-improvement actually exist for those with ambition and determination, to comprehend the dead-end poverty and the stifling frustration of the period between the wars. When with the great depression things suddenly took a turn for even worse, however, it was hard for all to accept. Money vanished. There was little to buy.

The situation was summed up in Growling Tiger's "Money is King", where the calypsonian says that a lot of education and "broughtupsy" will not help anybody in obtaining food in hard times as these. I quote here from Dr. Gordon Rohlehr's 'Calypso and Society':

"Money is King begins with the assertion that if a man has money people will overlook his leprosy or crime and grant him the highest social status.

But if you are poor, de people tell you 'shoo'

And a dog is better than you'

This thesis is then relentlessly illustrated stanza by stanza. A rich man receives extended credit while a poor man, including the gentleman or scholar fallen on hard times and reduced to eating in a cook shop, will not be credited even a penny by the illiterate proprietor, who will instead mock at his discomfiture.

'A man with a collar and tie and waiscoat

Ask de Chinee man to trus' him accra and float

"Me no trus' am," bawl out de Chinee man,

"You better move on from me fryin' pan.

You college man; me no know ABC

You want-am Accra, gi-am penny."

The worms start to jump in the man's belly

And he cry out 'A dog is better than me!'

Both the well-bread dog and the cur stand a better chance of survival than the poor man, whose very good breeding may reduce his instinct for the hard 'scrunt' of survival.

'A dog can walk about and take up bone

Fowl head, stale bread, fish tail and pone

If it's a good breed and not too wild

Some people will take it and mind as a child.

But when a hungry man goes out to beg

They will set a bulldog behind his leg.

Forty policemen will chuck him down too

You see where a dog is better than you.'"

Even for people who had jobs, the total collapse of the economy in the early 30s brought with it a dramatic increase in the size of tasks and a decrease in pay packets. Smallholders of 2 to 6 acres were badly affected. Many lost their ancestral lands. Sir Norman Lamont, and English planter and member of the Legislative Council, remarked on the system of indebtedness to the local shopkeepers. Dr. Susan Craig in her book 'Smiles and Blood' recounts his speech given to the Legislature in 1938:

"These smallholders are fattened up, as it were, on this bad system of debt until they are ripe for the slaughter and ready for their larger neighbour or the shopkeeper to squeeze them out or buy them in. Everybody is doing it, even the best people!"

Lamont went on to point out over 100 cases in the Manzanilla district who complained that they were no longer paid in cash, but with purchase orders which they could redeem at the local shop. Often the shops did not have the goods required, so they gave the cash less 25% interest. There was also the practice of giving tokens instead of cash. Many estates paid in tokens which could only be redeemed at shops which were owned by Chinese and Portuguese shop-keepers, whose ancestors had come in the mid-19th century.

The wholescale cheating of illiterate people, indebtedness at high rates of interest, lower prices to the smallholder whose crop were mortgaged to the local shop, reduced access to further credit - all this led countless people to the loss of their land, either to the estates or to the shops.

It was a time of merciless usury. Governor Sir Murchison Fletcher (1936 - 1937) remarked:

"When I arrived in Trinidad, I was somewhat painfully impressed by the poverty here.."

It was a time in our history when the interest of the state was hand in glove with the interest of the propertied. It was also a time of official deafness. The authorities could not or would not hear the voices of the people. They ignored the hunger marches, the petitions, the calypsoes; they dismissed the hanging together of hunger, unemployment, economic depression and worker militancy.

The fuse was getting shorter, but no one was paying attention. As far as the governor or the Secretary of State for the Colonies were concerned, there were about 20 men in the colony who really mattered. These were the men who spoke for oil, asphalt, sugar, cocoa and commerce: all that mattered for a "respectable opinion".

Ultimately, political power resided in the ability to control sanctions, particularly by force. The armed forces during that period were organised as follows:

The first line of defense was the local police, mainly black with English officers. The second line of defense was the volunteer force, mainly white-collar workers and led by local whites and expatriate managers. The volunteer force was in fact and extension of the alliance of state and capital. This was an endowment of the rich with police and military powers to shoot to preserve their superior position. In the event of the police and volunteers failing to control unrest in the population, imperial troops and ships were called upon to protect the interest of property. As Dr. Craig sums it up:

"Thus, the employer class was also vital to the defense of the colony and collaborated when imperial troops intervened by providing accommodation and food for them. In so doing, when workers struck a blow at poverty, they were striking too at the state and the whole structure of colonialism."

And what had happened to the "black masses"? Firstly, they were not "asses", as the popular rhyme suggests. They were, however, extremely poor, living in hopeless conditions comparable in the Caribbean today probably with Haiti. Children, whose bellies were bloated and whose navels hang out in a hernia due to malnutrition, shoe-less families, hopeless adolescents: they nevertheless knew exactly what was going on. They knew that the colonial government offered no options, and they knew that they were producing raw materials for things that came back manufactured, and unaffordable to them. They knew they were totally dependent on the patrimony of the colonial establishment.

In the 19th century, loyalty to the British crown was absolute, even or probably especially so by the colonials. To understand this from today's perspective, one can probably compare it to the absolute acceptance and devotion that Catholics all over the world feel towards a Polish Pope who reigns from the far-away peninsula of Italy. This loyalty also diminished in the 20th century. War, increasing communication, and the movies from America that illuminated the silver screens all over Trinidad contributed to this paradigm shift. All of a sudden, the "black masses" realised that white people too were poor, cussed, and were 'ketching their ass'! From then on, the image of the "white man" was no longer exclusive. The Second World War and the stationing of thousands of American servicemen contributed even more to that: in a country of 750,000 mainly coloured and Indian people, there appeared on the streets all of a sudden 500,000 young American men! For many Trinidadians, it only now became ordinary to deal with European-looking people on a day-to-day basis.

But all in all, it was the grinding poverty that drove the black masses and the enlightened elements of the creole middle class to make a change. The strike in the oil fields started on Saturday, June 19th, 1937. By evening, the police attempted to arrest the union leader Uriah Butler, resulting in the death of a police corporal and an inspector. On the following day, Sunday, H.M.S. Ajax was ordered to Trinidad. Governor Fletcher went to the oil belt. The following week, the second cruiser, H.M.S. Exeter, arrived in Port of Spain. Within days, the strike is over.

In 1937, the workers won the right to organise trade unions, but this was accompanied by the determination of the ruling class to control these unions in a way that the gain to labour would be nullified. The establishments of labour departments was an attempt to achieve this.

This entire period of the 1930s was a formative one in the shaping of the modern Caribbean. There were significant reforms; among them was universal adult franchise and political decolonisation. Labour had thrust itself onto the political arena. After the war, labour evolved into mass political parties, ultimately opening the way for West Indian nationalism and political independence.