Dr Rita Pemberton
THE SOCIAL face of pre-Emancipation Tobago was dominated by the island’s white population, which formed the ruling class, but, as the century wore on, significant changes occurred in the class structure.
The main factors which determined the class to which a person in post-Emancipation Tobago belonged were colour, control of the means of production and sale of goods and services which created wealth.
This means that invariably, the dominant class in Tobago’s society was composed of white people who, since the era of British possession, controlled the largest portions of the land resources. By virtue of this, they also controlled the main aspects of commercial activity, which was based on the production and sale of sugar, which remained the main export crop, and the control of shipping and the import-export trade, which was closely tied to the sugar industry.
This meant the African population, which constituted the largest segment, was relegated to the base of the society.
It must be indicated that while planters and large merchants dominated the society and economy, their control did not remain absolute, because of the changes that were consequent to Emancipation.
The growth of settlements of freed Africans during the post-Emancipation period and the need for the services formerly provided to the estates by the enslaved population facilitated the emergence of opportunities for some members of the freed African community to become involved in business activity.
Hence, there was a gradation of the activities of those engaged in the import-export business, from owners of estate shops to small shopkeepers, market vendors, hucksters and a range of other vendors.
Enterprise in these areas was fuelled by the desires of the freed African population to find alternative employment to estate labour as a resistance strategy to planter control efforts as they sought to elevate themselves from the social base of the society.
The next activity that facilitated wealth creation was the sale of goods and services provided by professionals and technicians; from the non-white community, lower-level activities included those of skilled artisans, gardeners, grooms, domestic workers and laundresses.
Despite the fact that the sugar industry was on the decline, the planters remained the dominant class in the society because of their control of the arms of the administration – the council and assembly, the members of which were also planters. This allowed the implementation of policies sympathetic to and supportive of the interests of sugar planters.
This class was buttressed by the British merchant houses which supplied its members with credit facilities. In the process, some estates became so heavily indebted that some merchant houses became landowners of the properties of their debtors.
A planter/merchant alliance, which did not remain exclusively white, developed on the island. An emerging upper class of coloured individuals, the offspring of mixed marriages between white males and educated co
