Dr Rita Pemberton

TOBAGO’S historic relationship with sugar production began with the imperial desire to increase its access to the profitable sugar market and its consequent decision to alienate all its newly sanctioned acquisition island’s accessible cultivable land to people with the means to provide the required labour to make the sugar plantations operable within a short period of time.

The need for haste to change the island’s landscape from the appearance of a no man’s land with forest cover to one with an organised system of cultivation in operation was also stimulated by the need to locate a strong British presence on the island. This need resulted from the intense British/French rivalry for possession of the island, which was determined, but not to the satisfaction of the French, by the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

Being keenly aware that French interest in possessing Tobago continued despite the terms of the treaty, as a security measure the British administration sought to populate the island as quickly as possible. The intent was to have available the manpower for defence of the island should a French attack occur.

The initial British land policy in Tobago was fully oriented to the cultivation of sugar. Apart from the forest reserve, which was established in 1776, all the island’s land resources were allocated to private purchasers and some poor man’s lots, but there was no provision for any cultivation other than large plantations, and even the crown itself possessed no land on the island. This would prove to be a deterrent to diversification.

Once established, the sugar industry encountered short-lived periods of prosperity and significant periods of slump. By the beginning of the 19th century there were signs that all was not well in the industry. The island’s sugar attracted the lowest prices on the market, and planters were not making a profit and could not meet their expenses. The number of indebted estates began to increase.

There was no investor interest in the island, plantations were put up for sale but there were few buyers, some estates changed hands, the number of absentee owners increased, while the process of estate abandonment became more and more evident. But the diehard planters persevered, trying to turn around a dying industry. Despite the need, planter attitude was therefore another factor which would impede the development of a programme of economic diversification for the island.

The economic life of the island worsened with the passage of the abolition and emancipation laws, in response to which the planting community expressed their anger and turned their hostilities on the labouring population.

Planter/worker relations on the island functioned on the basis of separate and competing development. Planters saw the Africans as workers who must be forced to work on terms set by the planters and the interests of one group were seen as having a negative impact on the other.

The activities of the freed workers outside of plantation labour were seen as prejudicial to th