Slavery And Plantation In Trinidad And Tobago

Slavery And orchard In Trinidad And TobagoSlavery and Plantations have of all time been linked, driven by economic objectives (Williams 1994), from the earlier period of moolah call d admit cultivation in the Caribbean. Despite the complexity of the events and luck that created this relationship, borecole growth and buckle d trussry both were booming during the relatively still archeozoic years of the 18th century. The European need for sugar had been increasing, and Eng primer coats sugar demands led the pack. The British islands standardized TT were a mono-crop society, with some settlers mature custodyt anything yet sugarcaneThe Business of SlaveryThe Triangular Trade is a term harshly officed in discussions of the buckle down trade. Slaves would be brought from Africa to the orchards, which would channelise sugar and different local goods to Europe, who would in turn send goods to Africa. The goods unremarkably sent to Africa were guns and other construct it ems because there was no industry in Africa. In the West Indian islands like TT, however, the selling of slaves was an important commence of the economy. The need for more than slaves was al representations greater than the market could succeed, and the West Indian companies were opened up in the 1700s to unwrapside trade to help provide additional slaves to colonies that produced sugar. The French encour come alongd this trade on their islands by exempting slaves from to the highest degree import and export taxes.Life on PlantationsWorking Conditions Slave agitate in Plantationsthe toughest season, a season of toil from sunrise to twilight, bare ankles and calves irritated by cowitch, k nonted muscles slashed by cane leaves that cut like straight razors, backs split open by the whipThe plantation land consisted of cane- houses, provision drive, woodland and pasture. Each planter preferred to have more than 200 acres of cane land. Provision grounds were used by the slaves to cultivate root crops, plantains and ve drum qualifieds for food. The woodland provided lumber and firewood and the pasture was used for crop cattle (Handler 1965). The cane fields had either parvenuly planted canes or ratoons. The ratoons were novel shoots growing from gaga cane roots which were left in the ground after a previous crop of cane was pull togethered. normally a ratoon field was less productive. A typical sugar state had factory buildings such as the mill, boiling house and curing house. close to these factory buildings there were other depresseder buildings and sheds in which, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, carpenters, masons, coopers and other journeyman slaves ca-caed. There would also be a small hospital for ghastly slaves, and a small jail which kept slaves who were being punished. There were stock rooms for tools and supplies and sheds which sheltered livestock or stored cane trash or bagasse which was used as fuel. Not far from the factory buildings wer e small houses in which the European managers and supervisors lived. They were generally everyplaceseers, book-keepers, sure-handed craftsmen and office staff. In the biggest house lived the soil possessor. The slave quarters were some distance onward from the homes of the managers.A work twenty-four hours consisted of 15-16 hours a day, during harvest cadence and, could go on during harvest and milling for 16-18 per week 7 days a week and fit to Stampp (1956) the slaves were presumptuousness the task to prepare the land for planting. Their normal working day began before daybreak and ended after sunset. They cleared the grass and bushes by weeding and burning (children between the ages of six and ten might be vigorous as water carriers while children between the ages of ten and twelve were organize into gangs and put to weeding). Cane holes were dug and into these cane tops were planted. As the cane grew, gangs of slaves manured the field and weeded bushes that sprang u p around the cane plants. Fe staminate slaves did much of the weeding and the manuring. afterwards 12 to 15 months the cane was now mature. The field was set ablaze(predicate) to burn off the leaves from the cane stalks and at the selfsame(prenominal) time to get rid of snakes which lived there. The field slaves, using cutlasses, then cut the cane stalks, jam-packed them in bundles and loaded them on to ox-drawn carts which transported them to the mill. At the mill, the cane was crushed and the juice flowed through gutters to large metal containers. The cane trash was removed and stored for use as fuel for the boilers. The juice in the large containers was clarified by heating and the addition of a small bar of lime. This clarified juice was then ladled into a copper boiler in which it was poached. After a while, the juice from this copper boiler was ladled into a smaller boiler and was boiled again and then still further in a even so smaller boiler. By then, it had changed in to sticky syrup which was allowed to cool, and then poured into wooden hogsheads stand up on beams in the curing house. Through small holes at the riddle of the hogsheads, molasses seeped out and was collected in containers set below the beams. After close to three weeks, the remaining syrup in the hogsheads crystallised to form sugar. The sugar remained in the hogsheads which were later packed into ships for export to Europe. Some estates also manufactured rum by fermenting juice from the first boiling and rough the same quantity of molasses. Almost all of this specialised work carried out in the manufacture of sugar and rum was done by skilled artisan slaves who were highly valued by their owners. During the milling season, slaves worked in shifts end-to-end the day and night.Even after the crop season was over, the estate owner did not allow his slaves to be idle. The fields had to be prepared for the new crop, weeding and manuring of the ratoons had to be done, and repairs to drainage and irrigation canals, fences and buildings had to carry out. Work was even institute for children from the age of six years old. They collected firewood, cut grass to feed fire animals and fetched drinking water to slaves working in the fields. The plantation owners did not indispensability their slaves to involve themselves in idle conversation since they felt that the discontented slaves may use the occasion to plot rebellion.Punishments magical spell each plantation had its own set of social, religious, and labour codes, all had the basic format for an instilled hierarchy in which the slave master reigned as gad. He maintained the element of slave misery, by controlling the degree of pain (Starobin 1974). Treatments were given such as mutilation, branding, chaining, and murder which were supposedly regulated or prohibited by law. Whippings, beatings, drownings, and hangings were as unpredictable as they were gruesome.It was clear to plantation owners that slavery could not know without the whip (even though owners were forbidden to deliberately kill or maliciously mutilate a slave). Males and effeminates were whipped indiscriminately. The severity of whipping depended on the subject of strokes to the guinea pig of whip. Fifteen to twenty lashes were generally sufficient, but they could range much high. another(prenominal) items used for punishments included stocks, chains, collars, and irons. It was also commonplace that women could be raped by the owner of the plantation, his sons or, any white male.Methods of ControlThe White plantation owners in TT used various methods to maintain complete control over their slaves. Their principal method was that of divide and rule. Members of the same tribe were separated on incompatible plantations to balk communication between them. The aim behind this was to prevent any plans to rebel if they were together. This separation, however, created a problem of communication, since the plantation wo uld have different groups of slaves speaking different languages. Therefore, the planters had to find a way to communicate with their slaves. presently a new language, known as Creole, developed and this became a common tongue among the slaves. When the British took control of the twin islands in the cardinalteenth century, face words were injected into the language and it became the basis of the Creolised language.Slaves were also prevented from practising their religions. Quite a a couple of(prenominal) slaves were Muslims while many others had their own tribal beliefs. exclusively since the Christian planters cut non-Christians as pagans, they make sure that the slaves could not gather to worship in the way they were accustomed when they lived in Africa.Later Christian missionaries were permitted on the plantations and they were allowed to recommend to the slaves on sunshines. In time, many of them were reborn to Christianity it was the general feeling that the converted slaves became docile and was not unstrained to escort rebellion on the plantations.another(prenominal) means of control was the creation of a class governing body among the slaves. demesne slaves formed the concluding group, even though some of them had special skills.The lowest ranking slaves, the backbone of the plantation economy, were the field slaves. The field slaves were divided into gangs consort to their physical strength and ability, with the strongest and fittest males and womanishs in the first gang. The incentive used to kick upstairs hard work, was lashes of the cart whip, which were freely administered by the drivers, who were privileged slaves under the overseers supervision. higher(prenominal) up the slave hierarchy were the artisan slaves such as blacksmiths, carpenters and masons, who were much hired out by the planters. These slaves also had opportunities to earn money for themselves on various occasions. Still higher up in this class system were the dri vers who were specially selected by the White planters to control the other slaves. The domestic or house slave had a special place in this arrangement, and because they worked in the masters house and sometimes receiving special favours from the master, they held other slaves in contempt. Usually, the slaves in the lowest rung of this social ladder were the ones who rebelled and often domestic slaves were the ones who betrayed them by reporting the plots to their master.Then there were divisions based on colour. In the previous(predicate) days, it was relatively easy for a pure African to rise to the train of a driver. But mixtures occurred through the birth of children as a dissolver of unions between White men and black women (mulatto), White men and mulatto women (mestee) and mulatto men and black women (sambo). Some slaves of succeeding generations thus had lighter complexions, and the White planters discriminated in favour of them. These slaves with White fathers or White r elatives were placed in positions above those of the field slaves. This was the beginning of colour discrimination in the Guyanese society. Of course, in all of this, the Europeans the Whites occupied the highest rung of the social ladder and they found willing allies among the mixed or coloured population who occupied the intercede levels. The pure Africans remained at the lowest levelWomen and Slavery in the Plantations jibe to Bush (1990 33) the primary reason for the presence of women in TT during the time of slavery was due to their labour value. In the aboriginal days of slavery, plantation owners attempted to produce healthy patterns of reproduction and encourage marriage, but found it was economically illogical to do so. Instead, it was more profitable to purchase new slaves from Africa (until the continued supply of female slaves being delivered from across the Atlantic was peril by abolitionist pressure in the 18th century). Girls worked on estates from the early ag e of four. Occupations for girls between the ages of 12-19 varied from field work, to stock work, to domestic work, to washables e.g. robes, dishes, etc. ( Reddock 1985 pg. 64 ), . Other forms of work for mature women included midwife, doctoress, and housekeeper. European plantation owners generally regarded most slave women as suitable for field work, which consisted of jobs such as digging holes for canes, weeding, and hoeing. In Jamaica, the majority of women between the ages of 19 and 54 were working in the fields.By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, there were more women working in the field than men due to their lower mortality rates. Despite the common stereotype whereby men are stronger and more physically capable than women, it can be argued that women were as important, if not more important, to field work during the period of slavery in TT. The importance of women in the plantation economy is reflected in the price of female slaves between 1790 and the e nd of the slave trade. The price for a new male slave was approximately 50-70, while the price for a new female slave was approximately 50-60. (Bush, 199633)Apart from occupations such as doctoress, midwife, and housekeeper, which were considered to be higher employment positions for slave women during the time, the slave elite was nearly entirely made up of men. Women were confined to fighting for lower positions in the socio-economic hierarchy and were always excluded from the more prestigious and skilled jobs (i.e. carpentry). Among the limited amount of occupations available to Trinbagonian slave women, the most prestigious job was found to be nursing.One way in which women slaves would occasionally amass income and resources for themselves was through sex trade (Morrissey 1989 pg. 69). This was a common way for women slaves to save money for freedom, particularly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in TT. The majority of enslaved domestic workers in towns were expected t o support themselves through prostitution.Culture of Slavery and Plantation mannersHomePlantation slaves were housed in slaves cabins. Small, rudely built of logs with clapboard sidings, with clay chinking. Floors were packed dirt. They were talebearing(a) and drafty and the combination of wet, dirt, and cold made them diseased environments. On the plantation, the slaves were housed in buildings which were some distance away from the masters house. Most of these slave houses had thatched roofs and walls of old boards or of wattle and mud. The floor was the earth itself and there were no piece of furniture except some rudimentary pieces that the slaves managed to make.ClothingSlaves were not well-clothed they had inadequate clothe for people engaged in heavy labour all year. Children would garb in long shirts. Men possessed little besides with deuce shirts and two cotton pants. Women were provided with an insufficient amount of cloth and made their own clothes. The cloth was che ap material, produced in England that was dubbed Negro cloth. The slaves also obtained a clothing allowance roughly every year. The men received a open woollen jacket, a hat, about six yards of cotton, and a piece of rag to make a pair or two of trousers. Women received the same allowance as the men, but children received none. The children remained naked until they were about nine years old, or were given cast-off clothing that their parents managed to find or were able to purchase.FoodThe food was generally adequate in bulk, but imbalanced and monotonous. Typical food allowance was a peck of give meal and three to four pounds of salt pork or bacon per week per person. This diet could be supplemented by vegetables from their gardens, by fish or chaotic game, and molasses (not usually). The slaves prepared their own food and carried it out to the field in buckets. While the slaves were provided with certain foodstuffs by the master, they raised their own subsistence crops of veg etables, plantains and root crops on small garden plots that the master allowed them to use. However, they could lone(prenominal) do their personal farming on Sundays when they had no work on the plantation. They also took the opportunity to fish on Sundays in the nearby canals, the rivers or the ocean. Each adult slave was given one pound of salted cod fish every Sunday by the plantation owner. The salted cod fish was imported from conglutination America. A child slave was given a smaller allocation. On special Christian holidays, there was an additional allowance of about a pound of beef or pork, some sugar and a quantity of rum.ReligionThe general view held by the plantation owners was that the African slaves did not hold to a system of beliefs that could be described as a religion (Mbiti 1969). At best so the members of the plantocracy and the church that served them felt their beliefs amounted to cipher more than heathenish superstition. Not a few of them, perhaps, felt th at the Africans were unable(predicate) of religious sentiment. But the Africans held religious beliefs derived from their homeland. It may be useful to differentiation that some of the slaves, particularly these who came from the Fula-speaking area of Senegambia, were Muslims. The practice of the planters of separating tribesmen from one another, and of discouraging the create of slaves for any purpose whatsoever, was not calculated to allow Islam to survive. Again, the small number of African Muslims that came to plantations in TT lacked the leadership of Imams and the possession of the Quran. Then, too, the plantation life did not lend itself for long prayers at fixed times, worship on a set day, fasting at prescribed periods, or feasting on holidays which did not coincide with those observed by the plantocracy.On the other hand, indigenous African religious beliefs, which became labelled as obeah, survived the difficulties of estate life. But these beliefs underwent significan t changes although they remained clearly African in structure (Saraceni 1996). Three factors were primarily responsible for these changes. In the first place, African religious ideas were capable of change in response to the new circumstance of estate life. Secondly, the practice of African religion was frowned upon by estate authorities. This meant that the religion could only be skillful secretly and irregularly. The result has been that some aspects of African religious practices withered away while others lost their nationality and language and became garbled. Thirdly, the exposure to Christianity led not only to the conversion of Blacks to that religion, but also to the overlapping of African and Christian beliefs. openhanded TimeExcept for earnings enjoyed by the artisan slaves, most of the slaves depended on obtaining money by selling surplus produce from their provision grounds and also the sale of livestock that they reared. On Sundays, village markets were held and the s laves seized the opportunity to deal or sell their produce. On these occasions the slaves made purchases of a few pieces of clothing and other items for their homes.The Sunday markets were also occasions when slaves from different plantations were able to socialise and to exchange news and pieces of gossip.There were also times of recreation. These were usually at the end of the crop and at Christmas and on public holidays when the slaves were allowed to hold dances which had to end by midnight.