Freedom in the Shadow of Slavery

Abstract

In August 1838, few people could have accurately predicted the fate of the former slaves; the future seemed more impenetrable than usual. Moreover, much depended on conditions in the particular colony, and its social and topographical condition. In the smaller, more densely settled islands, the freed slaves often had little alternative but to continue to work on the properties of their former owners. With little spare land for them to settle, they were thrown back, as ill-paid and generally under-employed labourers, into the arms of the former slave owners. Elsewhere — notably in Trinidad and Guiana — where land was relatively plentiful, the flight of the blacks from the estates created a labour shortage which was solved, in the short term, by a new imperial labour scheme; the importation of ‘coolie labour’ from India.¹ Thus were laid the foundations for yet another infamous traffic in humanity which, if lacking the formality of slavery, was unquestionably characterised by lack of freedom. The numbers involved were enormous, and continued until 1919, helping to transform the demographic face of Caribbean society.² For their part, the former slaves often quit the plantations, trying to create a viable future in the new free villages which proliferated throughout the islands. But they often encountered a host of difficulties. Land for cultivation (and accommodation) was often marginal and was often Crown or private land. The new black peasantry thus entered freedom under immediate and dire financial and legal difficulties.