Dr Rita Pemberton
Employment opportunities in 20th century Tobago were very limited. Estate labour on coconut and cocoa estates and on the few tobacco farms provided the main option but wages were extremely low, working conditions were poor and could not sustain families. The central government established a works department which oversaw road works and mainly employed men. Women were employed on the roads in the windward areas when landslides occurred and the roads needed to be cleared of the debris and/or repaired. This was considered degrading work and only those women who faced extenuating circumstances would accept such jobs. Women were hired to carry the material cleared from the roads on their heads to the dump sites, and in cases where material for road repair was required, the women were employed to cart gravel and stone on their heads from the rivers to the work site. Estates employed women especially in the windward part of the island where male migration was most marked, but they were paid less than men for the same work and worked under very poor conditions. The low wages could not provide the essential items to sustain families because of the rising cost of living. However, it was not the most desirable option and women sought several means to employ themselves outside of estate labour.
The basis for female self-employment had been well established since the post-emancipation era when, as a part of the strategy to defy planter control, women remained at home rather than work on the estates. At their homes women cultivated food items in the available spaces, some of which they sold or used to make other items for sale at their homes, in the markets or in parlous they established. These ventures provided the basis for the development of female domestic trading activities of the 20th century.
One of the main means of self-employment was in the provision of what developed as an essential service, selling items within and between communities and between TT.
Women in the urban areas created businesses selling baked goods, the most popular traditional food treats of Tobago. Women with trays lined with beautifully embroidered cloth - usually bleached flour bags - carried the food delicacies of Tobago for sale in and around Scarborough and to work sites on the island. The items sold included a variety of pastries such as coconut, guava and pineapple tarts; coconut roll; starch cakes - an item which required a particular skill and is now in danger of becoming a lost art; cakes including drops, biscuits and rock cakes; sweet bread; bread; paime; black pudding and drinks such as ginger beer and sorrel. Confectionery such as a variety of sugar cakes; bennah balls; lime balls (pawpaw balls); toolum; mints; fudge; shaddock skin candy; guava jelly; stewed guava and other fruit; cashew nuts and the very distinct Tobago pone made from corn or sweet potato, were offered for sale. Tobago pone is very different from the Trinidad version, and is made with sweet potato with a small amount of cassava to give it
