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Jamaica has been a land exploited and oppressed by white nations for much of
its history. First colonized by the Spanish and then the British, it seems hard
to imagine a time when it was just the native people living in peace and harmony
with the land. Many years after the white man first jammed himself onto the
beaches of Jamaica, reggae music was born. A continuing tradition, this easy-to-groove-to
music style originated as a voice against this oppression; it was the peaceful
islanders way of finally communicating their plighted history to all who would
listen, or all who could appreciate a good beat. Much of this oppression came
in the time of slavery; a period of nearly two hundred years where those of
a dark skin were considered property of the light skinned ones, inferior in
all ways. Most of their labor was on sugar plantations, an export that Jamaica
was supplying much of the world with. Later in their history, it would be bananas
that the British would learn to exploit. Until the philosophy which holds One race superior and another inferior Is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned That until there are no longer first class second class citizen Of any nation. Until the color of a mans skin Is of no more significance than the color of his eyes That until their basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all, Without regard to race. That until that day, The dream of lasting peace, world citizenship And the rule of international morality Will remain but in a fleeting illusion To be pursued, but never attained
-Haile Selassie Even as slavery was finally abolished at the beginning of the nineteenth century,
these views and the oppression brought on by them continued. Without the thousands
of hands working for free on the plantations, the British could never keep these
sugar plantations operating at a profit. The goal of the British Parliament
was simple; the keep the Jamaican economy afloat, at all costs. They simply
had to have the Jamaican working class continue to work at practically slave
wages, as hard as they did when they were considered property. A profit must
be had; this meant oppressing the ex-slaves, making it difficult for them to
succeed as subsistent farmers or as independent businessmen. The British intended
to keep their absolute power over this colony, cutting down the success of the
Jamaicans in a variety of methods. Our country believed for a long time that one race was superior and all others
inferior, and that the "superior" race had the right to own the lives
of people of a different skin tone. Eventually, abolitionists found support
enough for their cause to start a wave that convinced a nation of blind to see.
Jamaicas situation was different. The British came storming in to this
paradise of resources and, as was customary of their empire, colonized it. They
forced upon the indigenous folk their "proper" ways, including their
religion, and developed a system whereby they legally owned them. The treatment of the slaves was as objects, not as humans. Housing was minimal;
they were often forced to farm their own food in addition to working in the
plantations all day. The women often birthed bastard children with the light
skin of a British father (Ragatz, 377). 1831 marked the beginning of the end for Jamaican slavery. Rebelling slaves
in St. James, Trelawny, Hanover, and other towns left a trail of burnt plantations,
beginning two days after the carefree English lifted their glasses to celebrate
the birth of Christ. After several years of this rebelling and much money lost,
the British Parliament realized that change must be quickened, not avoided.
Their plantation system was in dire straits because of this rebellion, facilitated
by smooth public speakers such as "Daddy" Sam Sharpe, reputed to be
the leader of the rebellion (Ragatz, 117). In 1833 they declared an end to this
legal ownership. A system of apprenticeship was instigated, whereby only slaves
fewer than six years old and over seventy years old were released immediately.
Though this meant a decrease of 22% of the islands slave population (Holt, 73),
most remained on the plantations, awaiting the rest of their familys release.
The British Parliament, fearing the complete collapse of the Jamaican economy
if they freed all slaves at once, declared an apprentice period whereby the
women and men would be released several years later, in 1838 (Holt, 74). Their sugar supply, most of which came from Jamaica, was in danger of being
obliterated even before slavery was abolished. Realizing that their tea would
be awfully bland without this sweetener, the English attempted to design a system
of "free labor" that would harness some of the islands cane
producing potential. But Jamaica was already facing competing problems with
exports from Barbados, Cuba, and India. Their sugar production had dropped from
20% of the worlds sugar in 1820 to 11% in 1830. By the time slavery and
apprenticeship were over in 1840, Jamaica was producing just 3% of the worlds
sugar, just two decades after producing 1/5 of the total supply (Holt, 119). The abolishment of slavery didnt mean that the freed Jamaicans just ran
into the woods and slept beneath a banana tree for a few nights. The number
of peasant estates (segments of 10 acres or less), increased twenty times from
1840-1845 (Holt, 89). The natives were enthused at the prospect of their own
self-subsistence, buying their own small plot of land, and the island went from
a small series of large plantation settlements to a large series of small segments.
But it wasnt that simple. The land sold to them by the English was often
too small and the soil to hard to grow a great number of crops on. "Ex-slaves
who simply quit the plantations became, in general, impoverished peasants, eking
out a meager living on land which was often marginal and often legally disputed.
They remained a poor, depressed and marginal people
" (Walvin, 326). The British parliament, in their predictions of what would happen to the West
Indies Islands after the abolishment of slavery, expected the Jamaicans to prosper,
despite providing them with no money and no education. This lack of immediate
prosperity by the natives caused the British to build an even firmer racist
view. They believed that the lack of immediate success by the natives after
being freed was grounds enough to determine that "white races (and especially
British) were superior to the black and the brown; that human differences were
racially determined" (Walvin, 332). This belief in superiority became even
stronger than it was during slave times; those who believed in it felt that
they now had scientific evidence to back it up. The "Quashee" theory
was commonly believed: "aside from its racial assumptions, ex-slaves were
culturally endowed with relatively simple aspirations that could easily be satisfied
in a tropical environment and worked just enough to gratify immediate desires"
( Holt, 146) Though reggae music would not begin to take a sound for decades, this laid
the groundwork for the oppressive feelings and voice expressed in the music.
The combination of the economic stranglehold the British had locked onto the
island and the Quashee belief of white superiority frustrated the native islanders.
The Jamaicans could feel the sneer that the British now looked on them with;
a look of pity at being intellectually inferior. In many ways, the abolishment
of slavery had fueled the racial fires. Them crazy, them crazy We gonna chase those crazy Baldheads out of town I and I build the cabins I and I plant the corn Didnt my people before me Slave for this country? Now you look me with a scorn Then you eat up all my corn Build your penitentry We build your schools Brain-wash education To make us the fools
-Bob Marley Crazy Baldhead Jamaicas economy had prospered during British colonization. The extraction
of bauxite in large quantities had made Jamaica a gold mine. Agriculture continued
to bring the island much revenue; sugar continued to be a major export, despite
its decline as the primary world supplier. An end to slavery didnt mean
the withdrawal of the British from the island. They still controlled and oppressed
much about the Jamaicans lives and lifestyles. Small farms, usually of no more than twenty acres, began to produce sugar products,
usually of "extremely high quality". The coffee industry suffered
severely as a result of the abolishment of slavery, and the small settlements
were cashing in on this as well, growing "inferior" coffee for the
American market (Halt, 160). Not all peasants were fortunate enough to support
their lives through such small business methods. Many returned to the plantations,
more properly called "estates" at this point because of their decrease
in size, to earn the small wage they could. Though sugar and coffee were still
very lucrative exports, the Jamaican laborers saw no evidence of this in their
wage. Though many had become dependant on everyday goods that only money could
buy, they didnt return to work on the plantation full time. "Peasants did work for wages on the plantation; the problem was that
they worked only six hours a day, four days a week, and an unreliable number
of weeks a year" (Holt 148). Who could blame the peasants for not wanting to conform to Babylon after years
of being a slave? Regardless of their feelings on it, money had become a reality.
Thus the British still needed the hands of the peasants, but knew that they
could be easily exploited. "Withdrawal from estate residency came more gradually, and in the context
of the freed peoples struggle to define the proper limits of their former
masters authority not just over their work but over their lives as well
Substantial numbers of estate residents and village settlers continued
giving intermittent labor for almost a decade after emancipation" (Holt,
155). The peasants faced an usual right in their freedom: they had the ability to
distinguish what their employer could and couldnt tell them to do. The
British were fired up at this lack of control over the Jamaicans, and began
to look for power over the ex-slaves in new ways. Ultimately, disputes over
the housing would lead most peasants to leave the estates and find other housing,
which led to the boom in purchasing of small parcels of land between 1840-1845.
The disbursement of these new peasant settlements was not random. Most were
settled around major estates or plantations, within a commutable distance to
the fields where they worked (Holt 155). These settlements were also often close
to seaports, indicating that perhaps the peasants had the hopes of utilizing
the world trade routes if their subsistence was successful. These factors
hard work, combined with what they had learned on the plantations seems
to deflate the Quashee theory that all island natives were lazy and stupid.
Many of the peasants were forced to continue to live on the estates grounds.
As time after slavery progressed, Jamaicas economy slipped into further
depression, largely due to the decrease in the sugar industry and exports. One
observer put the situation succinctly: "No laborer likes to live on the estates, nor will he do so unless
necessity constraints it, for fear of being turned off when any dispute arises,
and the whole of his ground provisions be forfeited" (Holt, 267). But as the economy sunk further into depression, more peasants were forced
to move back onto the plantations and work part time for the estate owners,
mostly British. Landlords generally wouldnt allow Jamaicans living on
"their" land to grow export crops, yet another way they held their
success and independence in check. Estate owners would often make the groups
of peasant families move; they would often be congregated in one area, a village
of sorts. These congregations would be required by the owners to move their
quarters every few years. According to a minister in Jamaica at the time, the
purpose of this cruel tactic was obviously "to prevent the laborers form
profiting by the bread-fruits, coco-nuts and other trees of small growth which
they planted around their dwellings" (Holt 267). Heaven forbid the oppressed
peasants would have enough to eat, maybe even enough to allow them to stop working
for the plantations slave wages. Tensions continued, especially as it became
increasingly obvious that Britain was oppressing the natives with their politics.
By the 1860s, conflicts over the land were a common occurrence, often
involving bloodshed. Both the English and the Jamaicans felt they had a right
to the land, and both were willing to fight for it. The racist views of the
British fueled their battle for the land. How could a species that, according
to their supremacist views, was inferior in all ways, own land? They refused
to believe that encouraging the success of the peasants would lead to a recovery
of the Jamaican economy, probably because it meant the removal of their imminent
power and their acceptance of blacks as a capable race. "A powerful tradition had taken hold in which the ex-slaves were characterized
as endowed with relatively simple material aspirations easily satisfied in a
tropical environment" (Holt, 279). The casual attitude of the Jamaicans was constantly misconstrued as laziness
by the overworking British. These racial tensions and the unfair oppressive
measures relentlessly administered by the British government came to a climactic
point in 1865 at the Morant Bay courthouse. An attempt was made to arrest several
peasants after a semi-riot had occurred on the steps of the courthouse two days
earlier, during which several police officers were beaten. The peasants were
prepared, however, and several hundred men were waiting to drive the police
away from the scene. The organized Jamaicans then proceeded to march to the
courthouse, gathering support in the streets along the way. They destroyed the
courthouse, the symbol of the oppression of a self-governing island where the
natives would benefit from their labor. The courthouse was just the beginning,
as the rebellion attracted thousands of peasants to unite against the British
estate owners. "As employer, the planter paid them low wages and sometimes no wages
at all. As landowner, he charged them high rents or kept them out of possession
of land for themselves. As magistrate, he weighted the law in favor of his own
class and denied them justice" (Holt, 300). Its fitting that the rebellion began at a courthouse, as that is the
root of the control the British were able to maintain over the peasants. The rebellion marked a change in some of the attitudes and patterns that had
existed in Jamaica for so long. Over the next several decades, peasant settlements
increased dramatically, and it became clear that the sugar industry would never
be what it was during slavery. Without the peasants working for little or no
wages, the amount of labor required to run an estate could never be met. The
success of the peasants in their subsistence lifestyle was easily seen in their
progress, and by the end of the nineteenth century there were 72,000 owners
of plots of land of ten acres or less, suggesting that over half the population
lived on peasant-sized freeholds (Holt, 317). This infrastructure was an ideal
setup for the success of the fruit industry, which continued to encourage the
growth of the peasant population and independence from British capital. Banana
growing in particular favored this subsistence lifestyle. By the end of the nineteenth century, fruit had become Jamaicas single
most important export (New Internationalist, 317). Part of this success came
from the increase in American purchasing of Jamaican exports. In 1865, Jamaica
sold 79% of its exports to Great Britain, and bought 61% of their imports from
there. Even the small amount of American imports came on British vessels, "suggesting
continued British dominance of shipping and tonnage" (Holt, 348). By 1899,
the United States was "the Big Islands" most important trading
partner, both in imports and exports. By 1903, fruit made up 56% of the islands
exports, half of which came from bananas. Sugar accounted for less than one
seventh of the islands exports, one-quarter the value of bananas (Holt,
350). The peasants were enjoying success on an economic level as a result of
the boom in the banana trade. A handful of enterprising Jamaicans and Americans facilitated this switch from
bananas as a domestic crop to an export crop. These locals "procured fruit
from peasant producers, who brought it down from the hills, one stem at a time
on their heads, to the seaports or to light boats plying the coast" (Holt,
348). It seemed that the Jamaicans had found a way to break free of the seemingly
endless barriers the British had put up to block their financial independence.
It was the popularity of the bananas on the American market that allowed this
success of a homegrown export crop. Ironically, it was an American company that
would soon monopolize this trade, ending the success of the peasant class. A Boston man named Lorenzo Baker used his fleet of Caped Cod fishing vessels
to ship bananas to the US, naming his company United Fruit. By 1886
he was shipping out 46% of their bananas (Holt, 350). In an age when refrigeration
was not a possibility, a speedy, organized shipping operation was essential
to success in the banana business. Baker formed a close relationship with Atlas,
a British owned steamship company, who would speedily deliver the fruit to the
states (Holt, 351). The Brits had found a way to screw the Jamaican working
class once again. Baker quickly converted the independent peasant banana growers back into wageworkers
by monopolizing the market. His company, later to be renamed Dole,
would buy out most other companies. Holding this monopoly on the shipping business,
the peasants were forced to sell to United Fruit, but never for an agreed price.
Buyers of their fruit would judge the quality of the fruit upon delivery, sometimes
rejecting it outright and leaving the producer high and dry (Holt 355). Without
any alternative, private peasant growers would be helpless. "Under these conditions, deprived of autonomy in the production process
and of the ability to bargain over prices, peasant producers were more like
wage workers paid at a piece rate than independent contractors" (Holt,
355). By the beginning of the twentieth century, this one multi-national corporation
had crushed the formerly independent peasant cultivators, pushing them back
to slave labor and oppression, a period they had worked so hard to advance from.
In 1920, an English chap named John W. Grace was requested (via letter) to
come to Jamaica and assist his brother, Michael Sheffield Grace, in running
his banana shipping company. John was my great grandfather. He had enjoyed success
as a physician in England, and decided to, along with his two daughters, take
his brother up on his offer. Upon arriving in Kingston, where the small company
was located, he learned that his brother had died during their journey to assist
him. He suddenly found himself as owner of the company, called W.R. Grace, and
had no alternative but to stay and run the business, living with his two daughters.
His daughters were named Alicia and Katherine. They spent twenty-two years
in Jamaica, arriving when Alicia was just eight years old. Alicia is my great-aunt,
and is still alive and well in France. I asked her if she could recall some
of the details of her life in Jamaica, in particular the relationship between
her family, as wealthy British, and the Jamaicans who lived and worked for them.
The company, though small in comparison to United Fruit, relied heavily on
the labor of the peasants. Alicia said that they had a friendly relationship
with the Jamaicans, with rarely a conflict occurring. However, she was quick
to point out that it was "not on a social basis - never intentional exchanges".
She said that her father would even go out of his way to help some families
when they came to him for emergency medical assistance. It seemed that although
they were cordial, they still considered them peasants and lesser people, perhaps
even a lesser race. Such views were not unheard of at the time period, especially
from the British. The servants lived in the hills of the Blue Mountains, and most had about a
mile walk to the plantation every day. She described these villages, which she
saw only a few times, as "a very low standard of living", but that
they never did anything to try and improve this situation. I asked if it was
true that most Jamaicans had no shoes, and she replied, "Yes, but they
had thick feet". It was probably hard for her to notice the troubles of
a nation that had been repeating for almost a century as an adolescent, especially
if they were accepted in her household. Many peasants would harvest the fruit and prepare it for shipping, while others
would work on upkeep of the grounds. They had five indoor servants, whom the
family would interact with more than any other of the workers, and they even
provided several of the women with room and board. I asked Alicia if there were any tensions between them and the Jamaicans, who
had been oppressed by their country for so long. She replied, "They considered
their poverty natural". How easily it is to see what we want. If this attitude
were truth, and not just what she chose to see, it would be a shame to think
that they had given up their dreams of once again being self-sufficient. But
after so many years of being held down, it must have been hard to not try and
be happy with the unfair hand they were dealt. Alicia comes from a very proper English lifestyle, and eventually married a
French count. The point is she has lived in an upper class, practically royal
lifestyle her entire life. Her view can be considered narrow minded, perhaps
even racist, due to this protected lifestyle. She seemed to acknowledge nothing
of the horror that the English and Americans had inflicted on the Jamaicans.
The company grew from 50 to 2,000 employees during the time that he ran the
business, from 1920 until 1942. John and his daughters were forced to leave
at the beginning of World War II, to return to England to assist with the war
effort. At this point, the Jamaican banana trade was coming to a virtual standstill
because of the war. Boats were requisitioned for the war and shipping was interrupted
(New Internationalist, 3). The company, however, continued doing business and
still exists today. Though no member of the Grace family is involved in the
operation of the company, it bears the same name, W.R. Grace. W.R. Grace throws a large, weeklong party every ten years, the last one being
in 1992, and the next in 2002. Alicia attended the last party, being housed
and treated very well out of respect for our familys founding the company.
The company is still run by English men, and many Jamaicans still slave for
their capital at extremely low wages. I hope to crash the party in 2002 with
my brothers, making my virgin voyage to Jamaica and seeing firsthand the situation
that Ive read so much about, but heard such different viewpoints on. Hopefully
well be put up for the week and treated as well as she was. Jamaica has much poverty; anyone who has ever visited there will tell you that.
But after finally gaining their political freedom from England in 1962, they
can be assured that any strides they now make as a culture, both economically
and socially, are their own, and not England or Americas. With the formation
of two major political parties, the Jamaican Labor Party and the Peoples
National Party, the people are better represented politically. A lack of representation
in this aspect is what kept their country impoverished for so long. Two large
labor unions have since been formed as well, to ensure the rights of the working
class: the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union and the National Workers
Union (Anadol). These two organizations gave and continue to give the blue-collar
class a voice. Reggae music helps in making the world hear this voice, and learn
from their past, hoping that it will never happen to another culture. Though much of Jamaicas economy still relies heavily on tourism and the
visiting of white people with money to spend on their island, they are visiting,
and not staying. Hopefully, the days of political oppression are over. Those
days began centuries ago, when it was determined that the profit to be had by
foreigners through the export of Jamaican resources, namely sugar and later
bananas, justified the enslaving of an entire race of people. When the voice of abolishment became too loud for Parliament to ignore, they
had to find a way to keep to laborers working for practically no wages; in essence,
they were expected to remain slaves. This meant the British had to find ways
of stomping down the success of the Jamaican peasants, who certainly werent
eager to return to the slave fields they had just gained freedom from. Marginal
lands were handed to them for use in farming, or they were kicked off the estate
lands for not paying enough rent or not working enough in the fields. Everywhere
they turned, the grips of Parliament clutched their throats. Even when bananas became successful overseas, and it seemed that the peasants
could finally supplement their farming lifestyles, they were soon monopolized,
this time by an American company with the help of British boats. Studying this time period from several viewpoints was fascinating. A first
hand account of life in Jamaica from a living relative showed how ignorant the
British were to the plight of the Jamaican people; the methods employed by Parliament
and local estate owners showed how far they were willing to go to ensure they
stayed in power. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1) Holt, Thomas C. The Problem of Freedom: Race, Labor, and Politics
in Jamaica and Britain, 1832-1938.Johns Hopkins University Press; Baltimore.
1992 2) Ragatz, Lowell Joseph. The Fall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean
3) Walvin, James. Black Ivory; A History of British Slavery. Howard
University Press, Washington, D.C.; 1994. 4) Petras, Elizabeth McLean. Jamaican Labor Migration: White Capital and
Black Labor, 1850-1930. Westview Press, London; 1988. 5) New International Magazine. Battle of the Bananas. DO YOU REMEMBER THE DAYS OF SLAVERY?
A Study of the Oppression of the Jamaican Working Class
1834-1942
Jake Grace
http://193.128.6.150/ni/issue317/battle.htm; Oct., 1999.
6) Anadol, Sinan. Caribbean Soul.
www.atlasturkey.com; May, 1998.