Dr Rita Pemberton

TOBAGO’S large plantation owners and their representatives on the island’s council and assembly, as in other British Caribbean colonies, were strongly opposed to the imperial-dictated emancipation of enslaved Africans.

Their opposition was based on concerns about labour supply, operating costs, profits, property, the survival of the sugar industry and maintaining the social and political privileges they enjoyed.

These concerns were all predicated on their anticipation of the behaviour of freed Africans, from whom it was expected that reprisal would be directed against their former owners.

So convinced were the planters of Tobago that they sought to prevent such an eruption. Their policy was aimed at preventing the Africans from accessing the means for the creation of an independent existence – through low wages and maintenance of the servile working and living conditions of the pre-emancipation era.

Both concerns and strategies were embodied in the laws of the period and, in particular, the police laws, which were primarily concerned with what were considered "breaches of the peace."

The emphasis attached to policing in the era of freedom was demonstrated by three laws to regulate the island’s police service which were passed in 1842, 1843 and 1854. The 1842 act, which was in force for a year, was expanded by the act of 1843, which provided the foundation of the Tobago police force. The 1843 act sought to maintain the service established in 1842 and to ensure all the magistrate posts were filled and all outstanding cases initiated under the previous act determined.

Then provision was made for the structure of the police force, with a superintendent of police who appointed and was in charge of a group of constables with responsibility for preventing the feared "breaches of the peace." The superintendent determined the number of constables to be appointed and their duties, prepared a duty roster for street patrols, specified how they should be armed and the duration of their duty.

Constables who failed to obey the superintendent's instructions could be dismissed or suspended for negligence. Constables in Scarborough were to be paid £50 a year and were required to wear a uniform. Constables in Plymouth were paid £16 a year on the presentation of a document from a magistrate which certified that their duties were satisfactorily performed.

The duties of the constables centred on behaviours expected from the freed African. These included their cultural practices, which were considered disorderly and obscene, the activities in which they engaged to increase their incomes and establish independent employment, which were seen as depriving estates of labourers, and their conflicts with planters over property, labour and wages.

The constables’ duties involved constant day and night street patrols for the protection of property and the preservation of peace, good order and the observation of the laws. Threats to peace and good order were those activities that were offensive or considered