Slaves, Free Men, Citizens - CIFAS

political science; psychologySlaves, Free Men, Cit izensWest Indian Perspecti veEdit ed and Intr oduced by Lambros Comitas andDavid LowenthalWest Indians see themselves as largely determined bya past that shapes their present circumstances and futurehopes. Their history has produced an extraordinary socialand cultural heterogeneity, notably a division into white,colored and black; and class and color still closely converge,despite legal sanctions against discriminat ion.Slaves, Free Men, Citizens, together with The AftermathOf Sovereignty, Consequences of Class and Color and Workand Family ut e, each with the subtitl e West Indian Perspectives,provide comprehensive information vital tounderstanding this section of the Third World.Contribut orsSlaves, Masters and Freedmen : C. L. R. James; OrlandoPatterson; John G. Stedman; Mederic-Louis-Elie Moreaude Saint-Mery: Edward Long; Douglas Hall; William G.Sewell; James Anthony Froude; J. J. Thomas.The Natur e of the Social Order: M. G. Smith ; DavidLowenthal; Lloyd Braithwaite; Edith Kovats-Beaudoux;Daniel J. Crowley; Morton Klass; LeoA. Despres.Cover Design by Rolf Bruderer.A Doubleday Anchor Original @lSBS : 0-385-042 89 -2

LAMBROS COMTTAS is Professor of Anthropology and Education,Director of both the Center for Education in Latin Americaand the Center for Urban Studies and Programs, and AssociateDirector of the Division of Philosophy and Social Sciences atTeachers College, Columbia University. He is also Associate Directorof the Research Institute for the Study of Man, an institutionfor research and scholarship of the Caribbean. Mr. Cornitaswas awarded a Fulbright Graduate Study Grant (1957-58) anda Guggenheim Fellowship (1971-72) and has done field retearehin Barbados, Jamaica, Bolivia, and the DominicanRepublic. He has written numerous articles, was editor of Caribbeana1900-1965: A Topical Bibliography, and serves as consultantor editor for several publishing projects.DAVID LOWENTHAL, a geographer and historian, has devotedtwenty years to research on the West Indies. He has taught atVassar College and has been visiting professor at a number ofuniversities in the United States and at the University of theWest ladies, where he was Fulbright Research Fellow at theInstitute of Social and Economic Research (1956-57). During1961-62 he worked in the Lesser Antilles with the assistanceof a Rockefeller Foundation research grant and later receiveda Guggenheirn Fellowship. Until 1972 he waa Secretary and RearchAssociate at the American Geographical Society, and heis currently Professor of Geography at University College, London.His most recent book is West Indian Societies, a comprehensiveitudy of the non-Hispanic Caribbean.few books, edited and introduced by Lambroa Cornitas andDavid Lowenthal, provide a broad variety of material on the! West ladies; each has the subtitle West Indian Perspectives:SLAVES, FREE MEN, CITIZENSWORK AND FAMILY LIFECONSEQUENCES OF CLASS AND COLORTVS AFTERMATH OF SOVEREIONTYSLAVES, FREE MEN,CITIZENSWest Indian PerspectivesEdited and Introduced byLambros Comitas and David LowenthalAnchor BooksAnchor Press/DoubledavGarden City, New York, 1973

The Anchor Boob edition is the firstpublication of SLAVES. FREE MEN, CITIZENS:West Indian Perspectives.L - -.Anchor Books edition: 1973ISBN: 0-385-04289-2Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 72-84929w g h t (?) 1973 by Lambroa Omitas and David LowenthalAll Righta ReservedP~ted in the United States of AmericaCONTENTS^ EDITORS' NOTEINTRODUCTION:The Shaping of Multiracial SocietiesI SLAVES, MASTERS, AND FREEDMEN1. C. L. R. JamesThe Slaves (1938)2. Orlando PattersonThe Socialization and Personality Structureof the Slave (1967)3. John G. StedmanA Planter's Day (1806)4. M6d6ric-Louis-£li Moreau dc Saint-Mb'Whites in a Slave Sodety (1797)5. Edward LongFreed Blacks and Mulattos (1754)6. C. L R. JamesThe Free Colored in a Slave Society(1938)7. Douglas HallAbsentee-Proprietorship in the BritishWest Indies, to about 1850 (19641

vi8. Wlliam G. SewellThe Ordeal of Free Labor in the BritishWest Indies (1861)9. James Anthony FroudeThe Perils of Black Supremacy (1888)10. J. J. ThomasFroudacity Refuted (1 889)Il THE NATURE OF THE SOCIAL ORDER11. M. G. SmithThe Plural Framework of JamaicanSociety (1961)12. David LowenthalThe Range and Variation of CaribbeanSocieties (1960)13. Lloyd BraithwaiteStratification in Trinidad (1953)14. Edith Kovats-BeaudouxA Dominant Minority: The WhiteCreoles of Martinique (1969)15. Daniel J. CrowleyCultural Assimilation in a MultiracialSociety ( 1960)16. Morton KlassI Past and West Indian: CulturalComplexity in Trinidad (1960)17. Leo A. DeapresCultural Pluralism and NationalistiPolitics in British Guiana (1956)!, SHXXX'ED READINGSINDEXContentsEDITORS' NOTEThe West Indies, the earliest and one of the most importantprizes of Europe's New World and the first to expertencethe full impact of the black diaspora from Africa,were also the most enduringly colonized territories in thehistory of the Western Hemisphere. Here more than anywhereelse maatere and slaves constituted the basic ingredientsof the social order; here more than anywhereelse class and status were based on disdnctiom of colorand race. Yet out of that past, here more than anywhereelse societies with black majorities have emerged as selfgoverning,multiracial states.This collection of four volumes4taves, Free Men.Citizens: Work and Family Life; Comuences of Classand Color: and The Aftermath of Sovereiyty-chromciathe remarkable story, played out on the doontep of theNorth American continent, of transitions from slavery to\\freedom, from colonialism to self-government, and fromself-rejection to prideful identity.The West Indies face a host of continuing pbkmforeigneconomic domination and population pressure,ethnic stress and black-power revolts, the ptty m y oflocal rulen and an agonizing dependence on expatriateculture. For these very reasons, the West Indies constitutean exceptional setting for the study of complex social relations.The archipelago is a set of mirrors in which thelives of black, brown, and white, of American Indian andEast Indian, and of a score of other minorities continually

viiiEditors* Noteinteract Constrained by local circumstance, these interactionsalso contain a wealth of possibilities for a kind ofcreative harmony of which North Americana and Europwaare acmxly yet aware. Consequently, while thcaevolume* deal aoecifically with the Canbhcan in all its aapects,many dimensions of life and many problems WestIndians confront have analogues in other regions of theworld: most clearly in race relations, economic developmeat. colonial and post-colonial politics and government.and the need to find and express moue identity.It can be argued that the west 6di4is a distinctive andunique culture area in that the societies within it displayprofound similarities: their inhabitants, notwithstandinglinguistic barriers and local or parochial loyalties, see themselvesas closely linked. These resemblances and recognitions,originally the product of similar economic and socialforces based on North European settlement, plantationagriculture, and African slavery, have subsequently beenreinforced by a widespread community of interest, alongwith interregional migration for commerce, employment.marriage, and education. These volumes focus mainly onthese underlying uniformities. Within the Canbbean itself,however, one is more conscious of differences than ofresemblances. While each Caribbean land is in part a microcosmof the entire archipelago, local conditionsÑsizeresources, social structure, political status-also make it insome significant fashion uniquo.The range of these essays is the entire non-HispanicCaribbean, but moot of the material that is not general incharacter deals with the Commonwealth Caribbean, a pre-' ponderant share of this specifically with Jamaica and Trinidad.This reflects neither a bias in favor of these territoriesnor a belief that they are typical, but rather the fact thatmost recent scholarly attention has concentrated on, andliterary expression has emanated from, the CommonwealthCaribbean. Closer understanding of, and expression in. thesmaller French and Netherlands Canbbean and larger but' less well-known Haiti lie in the future.In the Caribbean, a real understanding of any problemEditors* Noterequires a broad familiarity with all aspects of culture anddety. Thus the study of economic development relatesintimately to that of family organization, and both of theseinterlink with aspects of political thought, syrtcma of cducation,and patterns of speech. Consequently, the mbjectmatter of this collection lies in the domains of history,geography, anthropology, sociology, cconomica, politics,polemics, and the arts. For example, essays on work andfamily life by economists and anthropologists are complementedby other studies tracing the historical backgroundand sociological interplay of these with other themes.Throughout these volumes economists and geographer8indicate how social structure bean on and is influencedby economy and land use; and linguists, litterateurs, lawyen,and local journalists provide insights on the impactof these patterns in everyday life.The reader will find here not a complete delineation ofthe Canbbean realm but rather a sketch in breadth, withfuller discussion of significant themes, given depth andpersonality by picaresque flavor. He may gain a sense ofwhat West Indians were and are like, how they live, andwhat problems they confront; be can see how their ownview of themselves differs from that of outsiders; he willknow where to look for general studies and for more dotailedinformation. And if there is such a thing as a regionalpersonality, this collection may enable him to acquirea sense of itWhat ia currently available to most students of Caribbeanaffair is woefully inadequate by co-n withmany other regions of the world A few general histories,technical analp of particular aspects of Canian a ~ -ciety or culture, and detailed studies of one or two individualterritories comprise the holdings of all but the beatequippedlibraries. Moreover, no book has yet beenpublished that includes a broad variety of material for thearea as a whole, and few studies transcend national orlinguistic boundarb We Iherefore aim to make availablea wide range of literature on the Cuibbeu that ii notreadily accessible anywhere else.I

xEditors' NoteMost of this collection is the work of West Indians themelves,for they contribute forty-five of the seventy-twoelections. Seventeen of these are by Trinidadians, fifteenby Jamaicans, four by Guyanese, three each by Vincentiamand St. Lucians, two by Martiniquam, and one by aBarbadian. Non-West Indian writers contribute twentysevenselectiom: fourteen by Americans, ten by British,two by Canadians, and one by a French author. Manyof the North American and European contributors eitherhave been permanent residents in the West Indies or haveworked there for long periods of time.Editorial comment has been held to a mioimum, butreaders will find three levels of guidance. An introductionto each of the four volumes 8 the general im-/~flcatiom of the issues therein=A paragraph of1 topical commentary together with a few lines identifying!the author introduces each selection. Finally, a selectedI West Indian reading list appears at the end of each volume,and a general comprehensive bibliography is appended to The Aftermath of Sovereignty., , The papers and documents included here have been/altered only for minimal editorial consistency and ease ofreference. All original titles of articles have been retained,but where none appear or where book chapter headingsdo not identify the contents of excerpted material, we haveadded descriptive titles, identified by single asterisks in thetext. Series of asterisks also indicate the few instanceswhere material is omitted. When required in such cases,we have completed some footnote references. Otherwise,only obvious typographical and other errors have beencorrected. Our own two transiations from French sourcest ;adhere to the origioals as closely as possible, within thei I limits of comprehensibility.The editors are grateful to those who have assisted themin this enterprise, both in and out of the Caribbean. Weowe special thanks to Marquita Riel and Claire AngelaHendricks, who helped with the original selections andstyled the references. Miss Riel also made the originaltranslatiom from the French. We are indebted to the Re-Editors' Notesearch Institute for the Study of Man, and its Director,Dr. Vera Rubii, to the American Geographical Society,and to Teachers College of Columbia University, and notablyto their library staffs, for many facilities.Our maio gratitude goes to the contributors representedin these page* and to their original pubushers, who havein most cases freely and uncomplainingly made availabletheir work and have helped to correct errors. We are particularlyobliged for mperatioo from the Institute of Socialand Economic Studies and its Director. Alister Me-Intyre, and to the Department of Extra-Mural Studies,both at the University of the West Indies, under whoseauspices a large number of these studies were originallydone. We are also obligated to M. 0. Smith for encouragementthroughout the c ow of selection and composition.Lambros CornitasDavid LowenthalMarch 1972xi

INTRODUCTION:The Shaping of Multiracial SocietiesIn the minds of most West Indians, history is a living reality.They see themselves as largely determined by, if notliving in, a past which has shaped their present circumstancesand future hopes. Many contemporary Caribbeanproblems can, in fact, easily be traced back several centimes.To come to terms with the constraints of their ownhistory is a formidable task for a people long taught that,as insignificant colonials, they did not make history but onlyendured itThe complete dominance of plantation agriculture andall its social concomitants early differentiated the West Indiesfrom the rest of the New World. Spanish discoveryand conquest emptied the Caribbean of most of its aboriginalIndians, and European nations displaced one anotherip the scramble for Antillean wealth: England, France, Holland,and Spain were joined by Denmark, Sweden, and suchminor sovereignties as the Order of St. John in a competitionthat endured for centuries.After a brief period of small family fanning with indentaredservants, seventeenth-century North European entrepreneursin the West Indies, inspired and financed in partby Dutch merchants, turned to great sugar plantations requiringlarge supplies of labor. To meet this demand, slavetraders brought in millions of West African slave*, followedafter emancipation in the nineteenth century by a minionmore indentured workcra, in semislavery, from Asia andelsewhere. Neither the ruling European elites nor the çub

xivIntroductionjugated African and Asian majorities regarded themselvesas West Indians, even though most of them were eventuallyCaribbean-born, and many had lost all contact with theirancestral homelands. For many West Indians, "home" wasa European country they may never have seen. The residuesof an absentee mentality still linger in these societies,where it is widely believed that the way to get ahead isto get away, and where the prizes to be won and the exemplarsto be followed beckon from London, Paris, andNew York.Slavery and indenture created and sustained highly stratifiedsocial orders, in which distinctions of race and ethnicityreinforced class differences. The melange of European andAfrican in a plantation environment set the basic structureof West Indian societies, each then modified by its uniqwhistorical circumstancef and by an exclusive relationshipwith its imperial center. But racial inequality, segregaticm,prejudice, and selfdenigration are threads that run throughoutWest Indian history everywhere from the beginning tothe present day.In each territory a different balance of slave and free,of black and colored and white, and of various economicenterprises made for a different social order; and distinctionsof religion, nationality, and imperial relationship magnifiedthese differences. The nineteenth century added newsociocultural wmplications. for economic adjustments afteremancipation brought East Indians, Chinese, Portuguese,and Syrians into the West Indian economic and social order.Given such racial and ethnic diversity, it is no wonderthat contemporary West Indian societies exhibit so wide arange of cultures and languages, social and political ayaterns,and relationships to their European metropoles.Yet the general outline of West Indian history is similarthroughout the whole area. Mercantilism, the economiccounterpart of nationalism, was from the outset the guidingdoctrine of the competing European powers In the WentIndies. Colonies were sought and developed for the solepurpose of producing goods and markets useful to themother country. For England and France, in particular, theIntroductionchief value of the West Indies was the intensive cultivationof nigarcaae. In all tbew plantation colonies, refrdlw ofimperial and sociocultural Çfierenew overriding economicforces imprinted similar organizational pattenu. The imprintkç btç of laÈlm impoi~~~t for West llÈlià dstructure. Colonizing policies, relations between master andslave, the intermediate role played by their free-colored offspring,the struggle for emancipatim and its general failureto alter the social structure, the "creolizationn of customand attitude in all segments of society, including the feelingof not being at home in the Caribbean-these themes arerepeated in almost every territory.Three salient moods stand out in West Indian history.The first is the enduring sense of racial and ethnic differencefelt by people whose disparate ways of life w e largely detenninedby enforced occupational and social roles. A iecondis tk pervasive influence of the pmt and a lack of faithin future prospects: the appearance of change to assumedto be illusory, the trappings alter but not the substance. 11Èulow pace of popular participation and of self-rule over thep twy, the inability of local govemmeots to matemuch of a dent on inherited inequalities, the relative smallnessand weakness of Caribbean state* are all conduciveto a sense of futility, of bei detennincd by the past-A third mood stems from relatively recent attempts tolead meaning and wen virtue into local history, a historyof a post burdened with the degradation of slavery, the denialof belonging, and the difficulties of local self-definition.But if the search for identity has not yet led West Indiansto manufacture a new history for themselves, it has begunto persuade them to view their old history in new ways.The ctmqueoces of that history are to be seen in theextraordinary heterogeneity of contemporary West Indianculture and social institutions. The typical West Indian"Creole" society is distinguished by a tripartite division intowhite, colored, and black, rather than merely white andblack as in the United States. Class and color still closelyconverge despite legal sanctions against discrimination:most whites are well to do, most colored people are middlexv

xviIntroduction- class, the mass of the peasantry and proletariat is black.Only in the political arena are blacks now in principle dominant;in social and economic affairs they remain subordinateand relatively powerless. Yet an essential feature ofthe West Indian Creole hierarchy is its general acceptanceby all but a militant few; class and color together play definingroles in occupation, life style, and social interaction.In several territories, this color-based hierarchy is wrnpoundedby the existence of sizable minorities, if not majorities,of East Indians, whose culture and language arein large measure now West Indian but whose inheritedsense of separate identity is reinforced by patterns of endogamyand by religious and occupational differences. Simultaneouslydenigrated and feared by Creole West Indians,East Indians resist assimilation on tern that would denythem their distinctive culture.Along with East Indiana, other smaller ethnic minorities-Chinese, Jews, Portuguese, and Syrians~have contributedsignificantly to West Indian societies in commerce, civilservice, and the professions. The relatively small numberof Chinese, for example, includes a recent Governor-General of Trinidad and Tobago and the President of theCo-operative Republic of Guyana. However, while the conspicuoussuccess of the minorities earns them a place amongthe new West Indian elites, it also brings them the envioushostility of less fortunate black West Indians.The interplay of relationships within the general West Indianclass-color hierarchy, those between blacks and EastIndians, and those between the different majorities and thesmall ethnic minorities makes for a social fabric that varieswith the proportions of each element in a territory andwith differing perceptions of their ethnic roles. Whatemerges ultimately is less a unified canvas than a collagein which fragments of extraordinarily diverse antecedentsdynamically interact.Introductionand interactions of the three main elements of colonial plantationsociety, each seen through the eyes of a contemporaryeye-witeen and of a modern scholar. The emergenceduring slavery of a large free-colored population, intennediatebetween whites and blacks, was critical in the developmeat of West Indian society. Following these vignettescome discussions of some persisting themes in West Indianhistory: the extent and impact of absentee ownership andoffice-holdins the consequences of emancipation for plantationand peasant agriculture; and the pmpccts of blackrule in the West Indies, as viewed by a white supremacistand then by a black West Indian advocate of multiracialism.The second section, "The Nature of the Social Order,*"'opens with a consideration of the sociocultural *ctive-^ness of class-color segmente in Jamaica today, followed nextby a comparative analysis of racial, ethnic, and class interactionsin West Indian social oiden. The value orientationsstemming from class-color stratification are then seen in aspecifically Trinidadian context, focusing on the metropolitanand white bias of all social segments. The enduranceof an economically potent white minority in Martinique isnext explained in terms of group interactions and sanctionsagainst intimacy with outsiders. The East Indian-Creole ,situation in Trinidad is described by one scholar who findsextensive cultwal assimilation and a minimum of eth~cseparateness, and by another who sees sodocultural andethnic differentiation reinforced by segregation and mutuallyhostile stereotypes. Finally, East Indian-Creole institu-How in Guyana an analyzed at local and national levelsto comprehend conflicting current0 of ethnic stren and ofnational integrationThia volume surveys that collage from the broad perspectivesof past and present. The first section, "Slaves, Mas*, ten, and Freedmen," deals with the day-byday experience*

I SLAVES, MASTERS,AND FREEDMEN

C. L. R. Jamesc. L. R. JAMBS, born in Trinidad in 1901. has beenteacher, journalist, novelist, revolutionary, Sodalist, pan-Africanist, and cricket devotee. He played a major rote inmUmpeiUU activitia la mghd daring the 19% lad1940s and returned to Trinidad in the late 1950s to serve aseditor of The Nation, the organ of the People's NationalMovement, only to break with that party's leader a fewyears later. He currently teach- in New York and Washington,D.C.3This selection is taken from a classic description of slaveryin Saint-Domingue, the oldest, wealthiest, and, in itstreatment of slaves, the most notorious Caribbean colony.Since its initial settlement by Columbus in 1494, Saint-Domingue (the western part of Hispaniola) has had acheckered history. Columbus inaugurated the practice,later extended throughout the West Indies, of enslaving thenative Indians for work in gold mines and elsewhere. Asa consequence of Spanish conquest, enslavement, anddisease, the Indian population was virtually exterminatedwithin a couple of generations. Thereafter European settlersin the West Indies turned to Africa for agriculturalslave labor. Slavery became especially significant in theWest Indies with the advent of large-scale sugar plantations.In the eighteenth century, the system of productionand coercion described here had reached its apogee. Elsewherein the Caribbean, slavery endured until the middleof the nineteenth century; but in Saint-Domiague, underthe guiding genius of Toussaint Lthiverture, slavesmounted a major and uniquely successful rebellion in the1790s, out of which emerged the Republic of Haiti, theNew World's first independent black nation. The extremeharshness of slave treatment that James describes helpedto reap the revolutionary whirlwind.

The Slaves*C. L. R. JamesThe slavers scoured the coasts of Guinea. As they devastatedan area they moved westward and then south, decadeafter decade, past the Niger, down the Congo coast, pastLoango and Angola, round the Cape of Good Hope, and,by 1789, even as far as Mozambique on the eastern sideof Africa. Guinea remained their chief hunting ground.From the coast they organised expeditions far into the interior.They set the simple tribesmen fighting against eachother with modem weapons over thousands of square miles.The propagandists of the time claimed that however cruelwas the slave traffic, the African slave in America was happier than in his own African civilisation. Ours, too, is anage of propaganda. We excel our ancestors only in systemand organisation: they lied as fluently and as brazenly. Inthe sixteenth century, Centre Africa was a territory ofpeace and happy civilisation.1 Traders travelled thousandsof miles from one side of the continent to another withoutmolestation. The tribal wan from which the Europeanpirates claimed to deliver the people were mere sham-fights;it was a great battle when half-adozen men were killed.The Black Jacobins, New Yo*, Random House (second edition,revised from the 1938 edition), 1963, pp. 6-22. Used bypcrmssion of the author.*[Editors9 title]1 See the works of Professor Emil Torday, one of the greatestAfrican scholars of his time, particularly a lecture delivered atGeneva in 1931 to a .society for the Protection of Children inAfrica.It was on a peasantry in many respects superior to the serfsin large area* of Europe, that the slave-trade feU. Triballife was broken up and millions of detribalised Africanswere let loose upon each other. The unceasing destructionof crop* led to cannibalism; the captive women became coocubinesand degraded the status of the wife. Tribes had tosupply slavesm be sold as slaves themselves. Violence andferocity became the necessities for survival, and violenceand ferocity survived.' The stockades of grinning skulls.the human sacrifices, the selling of their own children asslaves, these horrors were the product of an intolerablepressure on the African peoples, which became fiercerthrough the centuries as the demands of industry increasedand the methods of coercion were perfected.The slaves were collected in the interior, fastened oneto the other in columns, loaded with heavy stones of 40or 50 pounds in weight to prevent attempts at escape, andthen marched the long journey to the sea, sometimes hundredsof miles, the weakly and sick dropping to die in theAfrican jungle. Some were brought to the coast by canoe,lying in the bottom of boats for days on end, their handsbound, their faces exposed to the tropical sun and thetropical rain, their backs in the water which was neverbailed out. At the slave ports they were penned into"trunksn for the inspection of the buyers. Night and daythousands of human beings were packed in these "dens ofputrefactionn so that no European could stay in them forlonger than a quarter of an hour without fainting. TheAfricans fainted and recovered or fainted and died, themortality in the "trunks" being over 20 per cent Outsidein the harbour, waiting to empty the "trunksn as they filled,was the captain of the slave-ship, with so clear a consciencethat one of them, in the intervals of waiting to enrich Britishcapitalism with the profits of another valuable cargo, enrichedBritish religion by composing the hymn "How Sweetthe Name of Jesus sounds!"On the ships the slaves were packed in the hold on gal-' Ibid.

The Slave*kries one above the other. Each was given only four orfive feet in length and two or three feet in height, so thatthey could neither lie at full length nor sit upright. Contraryto the lies that have been spread BO pertinaciouslyabout Negro docility, the revolts at the port of embarkationand on board were incessant, go that the slaves had to bechained, right hand to right leg, left hand to left leg, andattached in rows to long iron bars. In this position theylived for the voyage, coming up once a day for exerciseand to allow the sailors to "clean the pails." But when thecargo was rebellious or the weather bad, then they stayedbelow for weeks at a tune. Tie c k proximity of so manynaked human beings, their bruised and festering flesh, thefoetid air, the prevailing dysentery, the accumulation offilth, tamed these holds into a hell. During the storms thehatches were battened down. and in the close and loath*some darkness they were hwled from one side to anotherby the heaving vessel, held in position by the chains on theirbleeding flesh. No place on earth, observed one writer ofthe time, concentrated so much misery as the hold of aslave-ship.Twice a day, at nine and at four, they received their food.To the slave-traders they were articles of trade and no more.A captain held up by calms or adverse winds was knownto have poisoned his cargo.8 Another killed some of hisslaves to feed the others with the flesh. They died not onlyfrom the regime but from grief and rage and despair. Theyundertook vast hunger strikes; undid their chains andhwled themselves on the crew in futile attempts at inswmtion.What could these inland tribesmen do on the opensea, in a complicated sailing vessel? To brighten their spiritsit became the custom to have them up on the deck oncea day and force them to dance. Some took the opportunityto jump overboard, uttering cries of triumph as they clearedthe vessel and disappeared below the surface.Fear of their cargo bred a savage cruelty in the crew.One captain, to strike terror into the rest, killed a slave and8 See Pierre de Vainihre, Saint-Domingue, 1629-1789 (Paris,1909). This contains an admirable summary.C. L. R. James 7dividing heart, liver and entrails into 300 pieces made eachof the slaves eat one, threatening those who refused withthe same torture.* Such incidents were not rare. Given thecircumstances such thin@ were (and are) inevitable. Nordid the system spare the slavers. Every year one-fifth ofall who took part in the African trade died.All America and the West Indies took slaves. When theship reached the harbour, the cargo came up on deck tobe bought The purchasers examined them for defecta,looked at the teeth, pinched the skin, sometimes tasted theperspiration to see if the slave's blood was pure and nilhealth as good as bis appearance. Some of the women affecteda curiosity, the indulgence of which, with a horse,would have caused them to be kicked 20 yards across thedeck. But the slave had to stand it Then in order to restorethe dignity which might have been lost by too intimate anexamination, the purchaser spat in the face of the slave.Having become the property of his owner, he was brandedon both sides of the breast with a hot iron. His duties wenexplained to him by an interpreter, and a priest instructedhim in the first principles of Christianit~.~The stranger in San Domingo was awakened by thecracks of the whip, the stifled cries, and the heavy groansof the Negroes who saw the sun rise only to curse it forits renewal of their labours and their pains. Their work beganat day-break: at eight they stopped for a short breakfastand worked again till midday. They began again at twoo'clock and worked until evening, sometimes till ten oreleven. A Swiss traveller* has left a famous description ofa gang of slaves at work. "They were about a hundred menand women of different ages, all occupied in digging ditchesin a cane-field, the majority of them naked or covered withrags. The sun shone down with full force on their heads.Sweat rolled from all parts of their bodies. Their limbs,4 lbld., p. 162.Â¥Thi was the beginning and end of his edudon.Girod-Chantnuu. Voyage Sun Su&w en diffirentts colonies

8 The Slavesweighed down by the heat, fatigued with the weight of theirpicks and by the resistance of the clayey soil baked hardenough to break their implements, strained themselves toovercome every obstacle. A mournful silence reigned. Exhaustionwas stamped on every face, but the hour of resthad not yet come. The pitiless eye of the Manager patrolledthe gang and several foremen armed with long whips movedperiodically between them, giving stinging blows to all who,worn out by fatigue, were compelled to take a rest-menor women, young or old." This was no isolated picture. Thesugar plantations demanded an exacting and ceaseless labour.The tropical earth is baked hard by the sun. Roundevery "carry" of land intended for cane it was necessaryto dig a large ditch to ensure circulation of air. Young canesrequired attention for the first three or four months andgrew to maturity in 14 or 18 months. Cane could be plantedand would grow at any time of the year, and the reapingof one crop was the signal for the immediate digging ofditches and the planting of another. Once cut they bad tobe rushed to the mill lest the juice became acid by fermentation.The extraction of the juice and manufacture of theraw sugar went on for three weeks a month, 16 or 18 houra day, for seven or eight months in the year.Worked like animals, the slaves were housed like animals,in huts built around a square planted with provisionsand fruits. These huts were about 20 to 25 feet long, 12feet wide and about 15 feet in height, divided by partitionsinto two or three rooms. They were windowless and lightentered only by the door. The floor was beaten earth; thebed was of straw, hides or a rude contrivance of cordstied on posts. On these slept indiscriminately mother, fatherand children. Defenceless against their masters, they struggIedwith overwork and its usual complement-underfeeding.The Negro Code, Louis XIV's attempt to ensure themhumane treatment, ordered that they should be given, everyweek, two pots and a half of manioc, three cassavas, twopounds of salt beef or three pounds of salted fish-aboutfood enough to last a healthy man for three days. Insteadtheir masters gave them half-adozen pints of coarse flour,rice, or pease, and half-adozen herrings. Worn out by theirlabour all through the day and far into the night, manyneglected to cook and ate the food raw. The ration wa>so small and given to them so irregularly that often thelast half of the week found them with nothing.Even the two hours they were given in the middle ofthe day, and the holidays on Sundays and feast-days, werenot for rest, but in order that they might cultivate a smallpiece of land to supplement their regular rations. Hardworkingslaves cultivated vegetables and raised chickens to¥el in the towns to make a little in order to buy rum andtobacco; and here and there a Napoleon of finance, by luckand industry, could make enough to purchase his freedom.Their masters encouraged them in this practice of cultivation,for in years of scarcity the Negroes died in thousands,epidemics broke out, the slaves fled into the woods andplantations were ruined.The difficulty was that though one could trap them likeanimate, transport them in pens, work them alongside anass or a hone and beat both with the same stick, stablethem and starve them, they remained, despite their blackskins and curly hair, quite invincibly human beings; withthe intelligence and resentments of human beings. To cowthem into the necessary docility and acceptance necessitateda regime of calculated brutality and terrorism, and it is thisthat explains the unusual spectacle of property-owners apparentlycareless of preserving their property: they had firstto ensure their own safety.For the least fault the slaves received the harshest punishmentIn 1685 the Negro Code authorised whipping, andin 1702 one colonist, a Marquis, thought any punishmentwhich demanded more than 100 blows of the whip was seriousenough to be handed over to the authorities. Laterthe number was fixed at 39, then raised to 50. But the colonistspaid no attention to these regulations and slaves werenot unfrequently whipped to death. The whip was not alwaysan ordinary cane or woven cord, as the Code demanded.Sometimes it was replaced by the rigoise or thick

10 The Slavesthong of cow-hide, or by the 1hMÑlocalgrowth of reeds,supple and pliant like whalebone. The slaves received thewhip with more certainty and regularity than they receivedtheir food. It was the incentive to work and the guardianof discipline. But there was no ingenuity that fear or a depravedimagination could devise which was not employedto break their spirit and satisfy the lusts and resentmentof their owners and guardians-irons on the hands and feet,blocks of wood that the slaves had to drag behind themwherever they went, the tin-plate mask designed to preventthe slaves eating the sugar-cane, the iron collar. Whippingwas interrupted in order to pass a piece of hot wood onthe buttocks of the victim; salt, pepper, citron, cinders,aloes, and hot ashes were poured on the bleeding wounds.Mutilations were common, limbs, ears, and sometimes theprivate parts, to deprive them of the pleasures which theycould indulge in without expense. Their masters pouredburning wax on their arms and bands and shoulders, emptiedthe boiling cane sugar over their heads, burned themalive, roasted them on slow fires, filled them with gunpowderand blew them up with a match, buried them upto the neck and smeared their heads with sugar that theflies might devour them; fastened them near to nests of antsor wasps; made them eat their excrement, drink their urine,and lick the saliva of other slaves. One colonist was knownin moments of anger to throw himself on his slaves andstick his teeth into their flesh.?Were these tortures, so well authenticated, habitual orwere they merely isolated incidents, the extravagances ofa few half-crazed colonists? Impossible as it is to substantiatehundreds of cases, yet all the evidence shows that thesebestial practices were normal features of slave life. The tortureof the whip, for instance, had "a thousand refinements,"but there were regular varieties that had specialnames, so common were they. When the hands and aimswere tied to four posts on the ground, the (lave was said1 De Vaissiere, op. cit., pp. 153-94. The author uses chieflyofficial reports in the French Colonial archives, and other documentsof the period, giving specific references in each case.C. L. R. James 11to undergo "the four post." If the slave was tied to a ladderit was "the torture of the ladder"; if he was suspended byfour limbs it was "the hammock," etc. The prepant womanwas not spared her "four-post" A hole was dug in the earthto accommodate the unborn child. The torture of the collarwas specially reserved for women who were suspected ofabortion, and the collar never left their necks until theyhad produced a child The blowing up of a slave had itsown name-% burn a little powder in the arse of a nigger":obviously this was no freak but a recognised practice.After an exhaustive examination, the best that de Vaismirecan say is that there were good masters and therewere bad, and his impression, "but only an impression,"is that the former were more numerous than the latter.There are and always will be some who, ashamed ofthe behaviour of their ancestors, try to prove that slaverywas not so bad after all, that its evils and its cruelty werethe exaggerations of propagandists and not the habitual lotof the slaves. Men will say (and accept) anything in orderto foster national pride or soothe a troubled conscience. Undoubtedlythere were kind mastem who did not indulge inthese refinements of cruelty and whose slaves merely sufferedover-work, under-nourishment and the whip. But theslaves in San Domingo could not replenish their number byreproduction. After that dreaded journey across the oceana woman was usually sterile for two years. The life in SanDomingo killed them off fast. The planters deliberatelyworked them to death rather than wait for children to growup. But the professionalwhite-washers are assisted by thewritings of a few contemporary observers who describedscenes of idyllic beauty. One of these is Vaublanc, whomwe shall meet again, and whose testimony we will understandbetter when we know more of him. In his memoirs8he shows us a plantation on which there were no prisonçno dungeons, no punishments to speak of. If the slaves werenaked the climate was such as not to render this an evil,and those who complained forgot the perfectly disgusting8 Quoted extensively in de VWre, op. cit., pp. 198-202.

12 The Slavesrags that were so often seen in France. The slaves wereexempt from unhealthy, fatiguing, dangerous work such a8was performed by the workers in Europe. They did nothave to descend into the bowels of the earth nor dig deeppits; they did not construct subterranean galleries; they didnot work in the factories where French workers breathed adeadly and infected air; they did not mount elevated roofs;they did not carry enormous burdens. The slaves, he concluded,had light work to do and were happy to do itVaublanc, in San Domingo so sympathetic to the sorrowsof labour in France, had to fly from Paris in August, 1792,to escape the wrath of the French workers.Malouet, who was an official in the colonies and fellowreactionaryof Vaublanc against all change in the colonies,also sought to give some ideas of the privileges of slavery.The first he notes is that the slave, on attaining his majority,begins to enjoy "the pleasures of love," and his master hasno interest in preventing the indulgence of his tastes.' TOsuch impertinent follies can the defence of property driveeven an intelligent man, supposed in his time to be sympathetictowards the blacks.The majority of the slaves accommodated themselves tothis unceasing brutality by a profound fatalism and awooden stupidity before their masters. "Why do you illtreatyour mule in that way?" asked a colonist of a carter."But when I do not work, I am beaten, when he does notwork, I beat him-he is my Negro." One old Negro, havinglost one of his ears and condemned to lose another,begged the Governor to spare it, for if that too was cutoff he would have nowhere to put his stump of cigarette.A slave sent by his master into his neighbour's garden toateal,iscaughtandbroughtbadetothemanwhohadonlya few minutes before despatched him on the errand. Themaster orders him a punishment of 100 lashes to whichthe slave submits without a murmur. When caught in errorthey persisted in denial with the same fatalistic stupidity.C. L. R. lames 13A slave is accused of stealing a pigeon. He denies it. Thepigeon is discovered hidden in his shirt. Well, well, lookat that pigeon. It take my shirt for a nest" Through theshirt of another, a master can feel the potatoes which hedenies he has stolen They are not potatoes, he says, theyare stones. He is undressed and the potatoes fall to theground. "Eht master. The devil is wicked. Put stones, andlook, you find potatoes."On holidays when not working on their private plots, ordancing, they sat for hours in front of their huts giving nosign of life. Wives and husbands, children and parents, wereseparated at the will of the master, and a father and sonwould meet after many years and give no greeting or anysign of emotion. Many slaves could never be got to stir atall unless they were whipped.10 Suicide was a common habit,and such was their disregard for life that they often killedthemselves, not for personal reasons, but in order to spitetheir owner. life was hard and death, they believed, meantnot only release but a return to Africa. Those who wishedto believe and to convince the world that the slaves werehalf-human brutes, fit for nothing else but slavery, couldfind ample evidence for their faith, and in nothing so muchas in this homicidal mania of the slaves.Poison was their method. A mistress would poison a rivalto retain the valuable affections of her inconstant owner.A discarded mistress would poison master, wife, childrenand slaves. A slave robbed of Us wife by one of his mastenwould poison him, and this was one of the most frequentcauses of poisoning.11 If a planter conceived a passionfor a young slave, her mother would poison his wife withthe idea of placing her daughter at the head of the housc-10Incrediile as this may aound Baron de Wirnpffen gives itM the evidence of his own eyes. His record of his visit to SanDomingo in 1790 is a standard work. A good ~lection, withvery full notes, h published, under the title Saint-Domingue d& veil& de la Rdvolution, Albert Savine, ed. (Paria, 191 1 ).llSee Or. Norman Leys, Kenya (London, 1926). p. 184."Some rivalry for a native woman is probably the explanationof moat crimes of vioknce committed by Africans against Europeansin Kenya."

14 The Slaveshold. The staves would poison the younger children of amaster in order to ensure the plantation succeeding to oneson. By this means they prevented the plantation beingbroken up and the gang dispersed. On certain plantationsthe slaves decimated their number by poison so as to keepthe number of slaves small and prevent their masters embarkingon larger schemes which would increase the work.For this reason a slave would poison his wife, anotherwould poison his children, and a Negro nurse declared incourt that for years she had poisoned every child that shebrought into the world. Nurses employed in hospitals poisonedsick soldiers to rid themselves of unpleasant work.The slaves would even poison the property of a masterwhom they loved. He was going away; they poisoned cows,horses and mules, the plantation was thrown into disorder,and the beloved master was compelled to remain. The mostdreadful of all this cold-blooded murder was, however, thejaw-sickness-a disease which attacked children only, in thefirst few days of their existence. Their jaws were closed tosuch an extent that it was impossible to open them and toget anything down, with the result that they died of hunger.It was not a natural disease and never attacked childrendelivered by white women. The Negro midwives alonecould cause it. and it is believed that they performed somesimple operation on the newly-born child which resulted inthe jaw-sickness. Whatever the method this disease causedthe death of nearly one-third of the children born on theplantations.What was the intellectual level of these slaves? Theplanters, hating them, called them by every opprobiousname. "The Negroes," says a memoir published in 1789,"are unjust, cruel, barbarous, half-human, treacherous, deceitful,thieves, drunkards, proud, lazy, unclean, shameless,jealous to fury, and cowards." It was by sentiments suchas these that they strove to justify the abominable crueltiesthey practised. And they took great pains that the Negroshould remain the brute beast they wanted him to be. "Thesafety of the whites demands that we keep the Negroes inC. L. R. James 15the most profound ignorance. I have readied the stage ofbelieving firmly that one must treat the Negroes as onetreats beasts." Such is the opinion of the Governor of Martiniquein a letter addressed to the Minuter and such wasthe opinion of all colonists. Except for the Jew, who sparedno energy in making Israelites of their davea, the majorityof the colonists religiously kept all instruction, religious orotherwise, away from the slaves.Naturally there were all types of men among them, rangingfrom native chieftains, as was the father of ToussaintL'Ouverture, to men who had been slaves in their owncountry. The creole Negro was more docile than the slavewho had been born in Africa. Some Raid he was more intelligent.Others doubted that there was much differencethough the mole slave knew the language and was morefamiliar with his surroundings and his work. Yet those whotook the trouble to observe them away from their masterand in their intercourse with each other did not fail to seethat remarkable liveliness of intellect and vivacity of spiritwhich so distinguish their descendants in the West Indiesto-day. Father du Tcrtre, who knew them well, noted theiraecret pride and feeling of superiority to their masters, thedifference between their behaviour before their mastenand when they were by themselves. De Wmpffcn, an exceptionallyobservant and able traveller, was also astonishedat this dual personality of the slaves. "One has tohear with what warmth and what volubility, and at thesame time with what precision of ideas and accuracy ofjudgment, this creature, heavy and taciturn all day, nowsquatting before his fire, tells stories, talks, gesticulates,argues, passes opinions, approves or condemns both hismaster and everyone who surrounds him." It was this intelligencewhich refused to be crushed, these latent possibilities,that frightened the colonists, as it frightens thewhites in Africa to-day. "No species of men has moreintelligence," wrote Hiliard d'Auberteuil, a colonist, in1784, and had his book banned.But one does not need education or encouragement tocherish a dream of freedom. At their midnight celebration*

16 The Slavesof Voodoo, their African cult, they danced and 6-usually this favourite song:Eh! Ehl Bombal Heui Heu!Canga. bafio t6 lCanga, moun6 de 161Canga, do ki la1Canga, li!"We swear to destroy the whites and all that they pos-MSS; let us die rather than fail to keep this vow."The colonists knew this song and tried to stamp it out,and the Voodoo cult with which it was linked. In vain. Forover two hundred years the slaves sang it at their meetings,as the Jews in Babylon sang of Zion, and the Bantu todaysing in secret the national anthem of Africa.12All the slaves, however, did not undergo this regime.There was a small privileged caste, the foremen of thegangs, coachmen, cooks, butlers, maids, nurses, femalecompanions, and other house-servants. These repaid theirkind treatment and comparatively easy life with a strongattachment to their masters, and have thus enabled Toryhistorians, regius professors and sentimentalists to representplantation slavery as a patriarchal relation between masterand slave. Permeated with the vices of their masters andmistresses, these upper servants gave themselves airs anddespised the slaves in the fields. Dressed in cast-off silksand brocades, they gave balls in which, like trained monkeys,they danced minuets and quadrilles, and bowed andcurtseyed in the fashion of Versailles. But a few of theseused their position to cultivate themselves, to gain a littleeducation, to learn all they could The leaders of a revolutionare usually those who have been able to profit by thecultural advantages of the system they are attacking, andthe San Doming0 revolution was no exception to this rule.Christophe, afterwards Emperor of Haiti, was a slave~a1sSuch obçervations written in 1938. were intended tothe San Domingo revolution as a forecast of the future of colonialAfrica.C. L. R. lames 17waiter in a public hotel at Cap Franpb, where he madeuse of his opportunities to gain a knowledge of men andof the world Toussaint L'Ouvcrturc~ also belonged to(his mall and privileged caste. His father, ion of a pettychieftain in Africa, was captured in war, (Old as a slaveand made the journey in a slave-ship. He was bought by acolonist of some sensibility, who, recognising that thisNegro was an unusual penon, allowed him a certain libertyon the plantation and the use of five dava to cultivate aplot of land. He became a Catholic, married a woman whowas both beautiful and g ~d, and Touaaaint was the eldestof his eight children. Near to the household lived an oldNegro, Pierre Baptiste, remarkable for his integrity ofcharacter and a smattering of knowledge. The Negroesspoke a debased French known as creole. But Pierre knewFrench, also a little Latin and a little geometry, which hehad learned from a missionary. Pierre Baptiste becameToussaint's godfather and taught his godson the rudimentsof French; using the services of the Catholic Church heinstructed him also in the rudiments of Latin; Toussaintlearned also to draw. The young slaves had the care of theflocks and herds, and this was Toussaint's early occupation.But his father, like many other Africans, had some knowledgeof medicinal plants and taught Toussaint what heknew. The elements of an education, his knowledge ofherbs, his unusual intelligence, singled him out, and hewas made coachman to his master. This brought him furthermeans of comfort and self-education. Ultimately hewas made steward of all the live-stoek on the estate-aresponsible post which was usually held by a white man.If Toussaint's genius came from where genius comes, yetcircumstances conspired to give him exceptional parentsand friends and a kind master,But the number of slaves who occupied petitions withsuch opportunities was infinitely small in comparison withthe hundreds of thousands who bore on their bent back8ÈA a ¥lav he was called Toiusamt Br60s.

'18 The Slave*the whole structure of San Domingo society. All of themdid not submit to it. Those whose boldness of spirit foundslavery intolerable and refused to evade it by committingsuicide, would fly to the woods and mountains and formbands of free men-maroons. They fortified their fastnesseswith palisades and ditches. Women followed them. Theyreproduced themselves. And for a hundred years before1789 the maroons were a source of danger to the colony.In 1720, 1,000 slaves fled to the mountains. In 1751 therewere at least 3,000 of them. Usually they formed separatebands, but periodically they found a chief who was strongenough to unite the different sections. Many of these rebelleaders struck terror into the hearts of the colonists bytheir raids on the plantations and the strength and determinationof the resistance they organised against attemptsto exterminate them. The greatest of these chiefs wasMackandal.He conceived the bold design of uniting all the Negroesand driving the whites out of the colony. He was a Negrofrom Guinea who had been a slave in the district of Limb&later to become one of the great centres of the revolution.Mackandal was an orator, in the opinion of a white contemporaryequal in eloquence to the European orators ofthe day, and different only in his superior strength andvigour. He was fearless and, though one-handed from anaccident, had a fortitude of spirit which he knew how topreserve in the midst of the most cruel tortures. He claimedto predict the future; like Mahomet he had revelations;he persuaded his followers that he was immortal and exercisedsuch a hold over them that they considered it anhonour to serve him on their knees; the handsomest womenfought for the privilege of being admitted to his bed. Notonly did his band raid and pillage plantations far and wide,but he himself ranged from plantation to plantation tomake converts, stimulate his followers, and perfect hisgreat plan for the destruction of white civilisation in SanDomingo. An uninstructed mass, feeling its way to revolution,usually begins by terrorism, and Mackandal aimed atdelivering his people by means of poison. For six years heC. L. R. lames 19built up his organisation, be and his follower pouOnjngnot only whites but disobedient mcmben of their ownband. Then he arranged that on a particular day the waterof every house in the capital of the province was to bepoisoned, and the general attack made on the whites whilethey were in the convulsions and anguish of death. He hadlists of all members of his party in each slave gang; appointed captains, lieutenants and other officers; arrangedfor bands of Negroes to leave the town and spread overthe plaim to massacre the whites. His temerity was thecause of his downfall. He went one day to a plantation,got drunk and was betrayed, and being captured was burntalive.The Mackandal rebellion never reached fruition andit was the only hint of an organised attempt at revolt duringthe hundred years precediig the French Revolution. Theslaves seemed eternally resigned, though here and therea slave was manumitted or purchased his freedom fromhis owner. From their masters came no talk of futureemancipation. The San Domingo colonists said that slaverywas necessary, and for them that finished the argumentLegislation passed for the protection of the slaves remainedon paper in face of the dictum that a man could do ashe liked with his own. "All laws, however just and humanethey may be, in favour of Negroes wil alwaya be a violationof the rights of property if they are not sponsored bythe colonists. . . . All laws on property are just only ifthey are supported by the opinion of those who are interestedin them as proprietomn This was still white opinionat the beginning of the French Revolution. Not only plantenbut officials made it quite clear that whatever thepenalties for the illtreatment of slaves, these could neverbe enforced. The slaves might understand that they hadrights, which would be fatal to the peace and well-beingof the colony. That was why a colonist never hesitated atthe mutilation, the torture or the murder of a slave whohad cost him thousands of francs. "The Ivory Coast is agood mother" was a colonial proverb. Slaves could alwaysbe bought, and profits were always high.

The Socialization and PersonalityStructure of the SlaveOrlando PattersonThis wgmnt of a Jamaican sociologist's work on slaveryin Jamaica approaches the topic from a perspective differeatfrom the previous essay. Here the daily life of the slaveis viewed as structured by his cumulative experience inAfrica, during the Middle Passage, and in the West Indies.Slave behavior is explored also in terms of relationshipwith whites. Stereotypes of slave personality, the subject ofmuch scholarly and polemical discussion today, are analyzedhere in terms of slaveowner coercion and slave re-A sociologist of Jamaican origin, ORLANDO PATTERSONtook his undergraduate degree at the University of the WestIndies and a graduate degree at the London School ofEconomics. He returned home to become a lecturer at theUniversity of the West Indies before moving to Harvard,where he taught in the Black Studies program and is nowProfessor of Sociology. Novelist as well as social scientist,Patterson is the author of The Children of Sisyphus andAn Absence of Ruins, which graphically describe contentporaryJamaican society from shanty town to suburb.There were two types of adjustments to slavery. First,therewas that of the African slave whose introduction to thegystem was sudden and traumatic; and there was that ofthe creole slave whose socialization was gradual and lesspainful. This chapter examines these two types of socializationinto slavery and the subsequent personality traitsthat the system appears to have produced.Both types of adjustments were closely related to eachother. The basis of the creole slave society was originallylaid down by the first group of Africans enslaved in theisland On the other hand, once the creole slave societywas established it formed the main host society for thenewly arrived African slaves. However, if we were to examinethe slave society at any given time we would find abasic division between the community of the African andreo ole slaves. The extent to which one group dominatedthe other varied from one period to the next. Before examfilingthe processes of socialization, therefore, we shall tracebriefly the development of the relationship between thetwo groups.CREOLE AND AFRICAN SLAVESUntil near the end of the seventeenth century about aquarter of the slaves [entering Jamaica] came from otherThe Sociology of Slavery, London, McGibbon & Kee, 1967,pp. 145-54, 170-81. Reprinted by permission of publisher andauthor.

22 Socialization and Personality StructureWest Indian islands, mainly Barbados, while the rest werebrought directly from Africa. We cannot say what proportionof the slaves from the other islands was mole, butsince Barbados succeeded more than any other island inbreeding her own slaves and, since the planters whobrought over their slaves with them were the very oneswho were more likely to breed their own slaves, it is likelythat a substantial minority of them were Barbadian creole.One may speculate that these slaves may have contributedto the speedy development of a creole slave communityin Jamaica.After 1800 the small creole minority in the island wasswamped by the greatly increased inflow of African Negroes.The records relating to the late seventeenth andearly eighteenth centuries make little reference to thecreole minority.1 By the 17609, which is about the timeEdward Long began writing his History of Jamaic~,~ weare informed that the African slaves 'are chiefly awedinto subjection by the superior multitude of CreoleBlacks ...'aIn 1789 it was estimated that the Africansconstituted 25 per cent of the total population4 but themore accurate figures of 1817 showed them to be 37 percent of the total,S an increase which may be partly accountedfor by the large influx of Africans during the lastdecade of the slave trade. As early as the 1760s Long found1 Leslie, speaking of the fear of the Africans for the military"muster and exercise' of the Whites, adds, Tis true, the CreolianNegroes are not of this number; they all speak English and areso far from fearing a Muster, that they are very familiar withit, and can exercise extremely well* (Charles Leslie, A New Historyof Jamaica [London, 17401, p. 311).2Long went to Jamaica in 1757 at the age of 23 and publishedhis History in 1774; see Vol. I of the history of his familyby R. M. Howard, The Longs of Longville, Jamaica, andHampton Lodge, Surrey (2 vols.; London, 1925).Â¥Edwar Long, The History of Jamaica (3 vols.; London:T. Lowndca, 1774), Vol. 2, Bk: 3, p. 444.4 Report of the Select Committee of the Jamaican House of~ssernbl~, 1789.Â¥Grea Britain, Select Committee on Slavery (1721) BritishPorllamentary Papers, Vol. 20 (1831-32), Q7937.Orlando Patterson 23that the ~reoles differed from the Africans "not only inmanners, but in beauty of shape, feature and complexions,*and to a friend of Edwards they 'exceed the African* inintellect, strength and come1iness';f but these view arelikely to be biased. More important was the fact that the~reoles held the Africans Sa the utmost contempt stylingthem "salt-water Negroes" and "Guineybirds" '.aOn Lewis* estate, where the Africans, mainly Ibos,formed a substantial minority, there was strong rivalry anddislike on the part of each group for the other. The Iboaexhibited marked tribal solidarity and were organizedaround elected leaders and after an incident in which theAfricans were mortified by the mistaken zeal of one of theleaders, the creole head cook appealed to Lewis that 'Maasaought to sell all the Eboea, and buy Creoles instead'.'At holidays and festivals both groups tended to haveseparate recreations. Differences may be discerned too, intheir funeral practices, eating habits, dress10 and the like.Yet, one should be careful not to over-emphasize this dimtinction for there were many areas of life in which bothgroups participated. The most important was their worksituation where bodily strength and fitness mattered farmore than place of birth. Again, the most feared and respectedNegro on every estate (though not necessarily themost liked) was the obeahman who in the great majorityof cases was African. Finally, it must be remembered thatthe African born slaves, even when they were in the minority,had considerable influence over the first and second@Long, op. dt., Vol. 2, Bk. 3, p. 410.1 Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of theBritish Colonies in the West India, 5th ed. (5 vole.; London:Whittaker, 1819), Vol. 2, p. 185.8 Long, op. cit.. Vol. 2, Bk. 3, p. 410.m M. 0. Lewis, Journal of a West Indian Proprietor (London:John Murray, 1834). p. 190.10 Lewis tells us that creole and African slaves competed witheach other in their funeral festivities (ibid., p. 335); Long andLewis stated that Africans were very fond of cane field rats whilethe creole* had nothing to do with them, or so they aid, Afri.cans tended to be more scantily dressed,

24 Socialization and Personality Structuregeneration creole slaves. Lewis wrote of the strong influenceof an African negress over her mulatto daughter whohaving "imbibed strong African prejudices from hermother* refused to become a Christian.11 Martin also informsus that the Negro population is . . . formed intoclasses, according to the country they came from, or thatwhich their progenitors belonged to'.*THE ADJUSTMENT OF THE AFRICAN SLAVEElkina has described the transformation of the Africantribesman into a New World slave in terms of a series ofshock experiences, namelyupture, journey to the coast,sale to the white captains, the middle passage and enslavementon the plantation.18 Such categorization, while ofsome use, is too schematic, and neglects certain importantfactors. First, many slaves were captured in genuine warfare,and as soldiers, one would hardly expect them to beshocked at being taken prisoners of war. Secondly, manyof the slaves came from the coast itself and were thusspared the horrors of the journey from the interior. Andthirdly, it must be admitted that many of the slaves soldinto slavery were guilty of genuine crimes for which theywould otherwise have been executed. But these reservationsaside, there can be little doubt that most Africanslaves had a terrifying experience, both in the nature oftheir capture, transportation and sale on the coast and inthe West Indies. The Ibo slave, Equiano, has left us a vividaccount of his capture and later experiences.14He was captured when alone with his sister in his familycompound; gagged, tied up and carried to the woods. When11 Lewis, op. cit., p. 335.12R M. Martin, The English Colonies (6 vols.; London.1851-57). Val. 4, pp. 95-96.*sStanley Elkiis, Slavery: A Problem in American tnstituttonaland Intellectual Life (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1963). pp. 98-103.14Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Lifeof Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vors4 the African, Writtenby Himself (2 vols.; London: 1789).OrJando Patterson 25he cried out he was placed in a sack.1' After many dayof travel, he was sold For the next three months he wuresold several times. But he was generally well treated andunderstood the language and customs of his masters.Finally he was sold by a widow to some traders from thecoast. This turned out to be his first real and lasting shockexperience. The change I now experienced', he wrote, "wasas painful as it was sudden and unexpected', involving 'suchinstances of hardship and fatigue as I can never reflect onbut with horror'.l*As he passed through strange countries on his way tothe coast he was forcibly struck by the differing customs,but more, by the new, awe-inspiring natural sights. Thesight of a large river for the first time filled him with astonishmentas he had "never before seen any water than apond or a rivulet*. It was not until the end of seven monthsafter he was first kidnapped that Equiano finally reachedthe coast. The physical confrontation with the sea immediatelyfilled him with sheer terror. No less terrifying was hisexperience of being forced aboard ship; and the strangesight of the white men who came to inspect him, juxtaposedwith that of,a large copper boiling on the ship, convinced16There are a few other clave autobiographies, bat none aivivid as Equianol. A Fanti slave published an autobiographyentitled The Narrative of the Enslavement of Ottobah Cugoano,a Native of Africa, in 1787. Like Equiano, Cngoano was kidnappedwhen still a youth. The technique wed in his cam was 'slightly different, he being duped into going to the coast ratherthan being brutally pulled along. A short autobiography of aJamaican slave is appended in R. R. Madden** Twelve MontAyResidence in the West Indies (2 vols.. Philadelphia, 1835) andis entitled, "The History of Abon Beer Sadika, known in Jamaicaby the name of Edward Doolan." Donlan claimed that he wasfrom Timbuctoo' and could read and write Arabic. Describingthe first stage of his enslavement, he wrote: '& mon as I wasmade prisoner, they stripped me. and tied me with a cord, andgave me heavy load to cany* (VoL 2, p. 129). In 1834 aSenegambian ex-alave published an autobiography entitled SomeMemoirs of the Life of Job, the Son of Solomon, the High Prtestof Boonda In Africa. It includes interesting material on captureand transportation to the coast.l*Eqh, op. dt., VoL I, pp. 65-66.

26 Socialization and Personality Structurehim that the whites intended to eat him,17 whereupon hefainted on the deck.18 Taken to the hold of the ship, togetherwith the rest of the black cargo, the atmospherebecame 'absolutely pestilential':The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climateadded to the number in the ship, which was so crowdedthat each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocatedus. This produced copious perspiration, a varietyof loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness amongstthe slaves, of which many died, thus falling victims tothe improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers.This wretched situation was again aggravated bythe galling of the chains, now become insupportable, andthe filth of the necessary tubs16 into which the childrenoften fell and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of thewomen and the groans of the dying, reduced the wholeto a scene of horror almost incon~eivable.~~Like most of the other slaves, Equiano was overcomewith extreme dejection and would have committed suicidehad he the opportunity. Isaac Wilson, a surgeon on oneof the slave ships, said that melancholy and dejection were'one great cause* of death. Both Win and Falconbridgereported cases of outright insanity caused directly by theimpact of the slave ship.21Then followed the indescribable horrors of the middlepassage. There is no need to repeat here the well knownbarbarities of this journey. One experience did take placeon the middle passage which was of lasting importance,lTCugoano, op. eft., wrote, '. . . in the evening (we) cameto a town, where I saw several white people, which made meafraid that they would eat me. according to our notion as children,in the inland paits of the country:18 Equiano, op. cit., pp. 70-71.1oThese "tubs' were the lavatory of the holds.24 Ibid., pp. 78-79.21Great Britain, Minutes of the Evidence Taken before 1Committee of the House of Commons . . . respecting the AfricanSlave Trade. 1790-91. House of Common Sessional Pavers.Vol. 34. The findings of this Committee support Equiano's dogcriptionsin every detail.Orlando Patterson 27and paradoxically, of great suboequent comfort to theslave. It was the formation of the strong bonds of friendshipbetween all the slaves on the slave ship. These friendsbecame known in the West Indies as 'shipmates* and theirlove and affection for each other was proverbial. Stewarttells us that the term shipmate 'seema synonymous in theirview with brother or siste~'.~ and accordmg to Kelly,'Shipmate is the dearest word and bond of affectionatesympathy amongst the Africans . . . they look upon eachother's children mutually as their own'.- It was customaryfor children to call their parents' shipmates 'uncle' or'aunt'.24 So strong were the bonds between shipmates thatsexual intercourse between them, in the view of one observer,was considered incestuous.After the horrors of the middle passage came the saleat the West Indian ports. The pernicious practice of saleby scramble continued in Jamaica until well into the1780s. On one such scramble the ship was darkened beforehandby covering it over with sails; male slaves were exhibitedon the main deck, females on the quarter deck. Atthe shot of a gun a large horde of waiting planters acrambledaboard and dashed madly for the slaves of theirchoice "with the ferocity of brutes'. This created terroramong the davea, many of whom flung themselves over'board26Equiano wrote that during this time fears of being eatenwere again revived among the slaves. When bought bymeans other than scramble, the experience of beingbought in the island, coming after the horrors of themiddle passage. was not particularly harsh. Indeed on suchoccasions most of the slaves 'express great eagerness to besold'," no doubt so as to get the whole thing over with.John Stewart, A View of the Past and Present State ofthe Island of Jamatea (Edinburgh, 1823). p. 250. '**I. Kelly, Voyage to Jamaica and Narrative of 17 Year*Residence in that Island (1838), p. 45.*Ã Lewia, op. eft., p. 350.*>Alexander Palconbridge, An Amount of the Slave TradeOH the Coast of Africa (London, 1788)."Edwards, op. cU., Bk. 4. p. 153.

28 Socialization and Personality StructureFilly came the long period of seasonhg. The slave wastaken to the estate, branded with a silver brand heated inspirits, and given a name." What took place after thisvaried from one estate to the next. On most estates theofficial period of seasoning was three years but in actualpractice the period was usually restricted to a year. Beckfordwrote that there were two basic forms of seasoning,that in which new Negroes were put under the supervisionof elderly seasoned slaves from their own country; andthat in which the master assumed primary responsibilityfor their safeguard, keeping a provision ground 'readyplanted, full of provisions, and apportioned to them upontheir arrival'.*S The first type of seasoning often led totyranny on the part of the supervising slaves, the latterforcing his ward to work his ground for him at the expenseof the ward's ground, and this neglect was often responsiblefor leading the new Negro to steal in order to preventhimself from starving.29 Edwards, however, paints abrighter picture of the relationship between the new Negroesand their wardens, claiming that old seasoned Africansusually avidly sought after newcomers from theirhomeland with whom they could revive memories of theiryouth and whom they sometimes adopted.30 But this isquite likely a gross overstatement27 African slaves were often ghn names taken from popularliterature or the Greek classics. On Rose Hall estate there were:Hannibal, Ulysses, Scipio, Hercules, Othello, Antony, Mark, etc.28 W. Beckford, Remark* upon the Situation of the NegroesIn Jamaica (London, 1788), p. 27.30 H. Coor, in Minutes of the Evidence Taken before a Cornmitteeof the House of Commons . . . respecting the Afri~mSlave Trade. 1790-91. House of Commons Sessional Papers,Vol. 34.Â¥"Edwards op. cit., Bk. 4, pp. 155-56. Thia passage readsnnconvincingly, like so many of Edwards' remarks conecrnhgthe slaves. Slave fathem had little control over their sons, and,as a rule, cared even less about them. They certainly would nothave gone out of their way to seek suitable wives among thenew Negroes for them. But there may have been some trothin the other remarks relating to the relationship between newlyarrived slaves and their supervisors.Orlando Patterson29The disadvantage of the second type of seasoning, aocordingto Beckford, was that it led to discontent and feelingsof injustice among the new Negroes since they wereforced to work on Sundays on the grounda prepared forthem, not of their own free will, but under the supervisionof a driver. Some masters got around this problem bysimply allowing the new Negroes one year's provisions fromthe stores.What of the personality of the Africans in these firstfew months on the island? Beckford has left us a pcnetratingaccount of them which strongly suggests all thesymptoms of a broken trauma-ridden personality. Theywere cold. unfeeling and completely unpredictable, theirgeneral attitude being one of total indifference:It is amazing to see how little they interest themselvesin the common occurrences of life; they do not foreseethe want of means, are careless of what may happen andthoughtless of what they have; in short, their charactersfor many years after their arrival can hardly be definedby the most perspicacious eye of those by whom theyare governed, so that for what we know they may behappy when silent or dangerous when sullen.alThe Seasoned African Slave. By the time the African'speriod of seasoning was over he was sure to find himselfdefined in a certain social position and drawn towards certaingroups. During the early period, when the Africansformed the majority of the slaves, divisions between thedifferent African tribes were as great as that between theAfricans as a whole and the creoles. Leslie wrote that:The slaves are brought from several Places of Quincy,which are different from one another in Language, andconsequently they cannot converse freely; or, if theycould, they hate one another so mortally, that some ofthem would rather die by the Hands of the English, than'1Beckford, op. cit., p. 88.

30 Socialization and Personality Structurejoin with other Africans in an attempt to shake off theiryoke."These differences continued until the end of slavery, anineteenth century observer noting that at the Christfestivitiesthe different tribal stocks 'formed into exclusivegroups competing against each other in performing theirnational music'.= But the differences were now only expressedin amusements. The different African groups froma much earlier date had far more in common with eachother, by virtue of being African, in their confrontationwith the creole group. Later on in the celebrations Kellyinforms us:These Africans took the aides and cornera of the hall,whilst the Creoles occupied the centre and piazzas, andevidently considered themselves entitled to the beltplaces, which the Africans cheerfully conceded to them,evincing the greatest deference to the superior dvilizatimof the upstarts! The one class, forced into slavery, bumbledand degraded had lost everything and found nosolace but the miserable one of retrospection. The other,born in slavery, never had freedom to loose; yet didthe Creole proudly assume a superiority over the African. . .MIt is the common view that Gold Coast Negroes dominatedthe rest of the Africans, and indeed the entire slave coinmunity.There arc, however, no grounds for this assertion.Certainly, it cannot be denied that a significant number ofGold Coast cultural elements have survived in Jamaica.According to Cassidy, Twi words make up a half of thetwo-hundred and fifty loan-words found in the Jamaicandialect." The spider hero of the Akan-apeaking peoples,Anaosesem, survives in the Jamaican spider hero, Anm,a Leslie, op. cit., pp. 3 10-1 1.8s Kelly, op. dt., pp. 20-21.Zbid."Frederic 0. Cassidy, Jamaica Talk (London: Macmillan,1961). pp. 21, 397.Orlando Patterson 3 1md so on. We shall discuss these cultural problems in moredetail as we come to them. For the moment, only a fewsalient points need to be made. Firstly, it is not justifiable todraw conclusions about the historical dominance of agroup Èokl on the basis of the Sumval of its cultund etemenb;and secondly, the survival of cultural element8 fromthe Gold Coast is in no way out of proportion to the numberof slaves brought from that region. . . . Unlike theviewpoint of the modern scholars, it would appear thatlarge numbers of cultural 8urvivah indicate social isolationrather than social dominance. The data suggest that GoldCoast Negroes managed to preserve more of their culturepartly because they kept to themselves and were generallydisliked by the other slaves. 'On many estates', Long wrote,they do not mix at all with the other slaves, but build theirhouse* distinct from the rest; and. herding together, anleft more at liberty to hold their dangerous cabals withoutinterruption'.S* The passage quoted above from Leslie isalso of relevance here. He teUs us that the different tribalgroups hated one another. What is more significant is hisstatement that they would rather die than 'join with otherAfricans in an attempt to shake off their yoke*. Now untilthe time that Leslie wrote, every rebellion in the island wascarried out by the Coromantee slaves and there seems littledoubt that Leslie was here obviously referring to the hatredof the other African groups for the Coromantees.Finally, it should have been obvious that slavery was noplace for one enslaved group to domimte another. It wmcornmoo for the weaker party in a diipute to declare: Thnno for we country; this for Buckra (whites) country;Buckra country everybody have right'."In any case, the whole problem of cultural dominationof one African group by another is largely an overplayed-Lon& 09. cit.. Vol. 2. p. 475.John Wedderburn, in Minutes of the Evidence Taken beforea Committee of the House of Cammona . . . rwting theAfrican Stave Trade, 1780-91, House of Commons SessionafPapers, VoL 34.

32 Socialization and Personality Structureissue when it is considered that almost all the Africans importedto Jamaica came from the same culture area,wwhere, as Daryll Forde observes, 'underlying the great re.gional or tribal differences . . . there is a very widespreadsubstratum of basic ideas that persists in the rituals, mythsand folk-tales of West African pe~ples'.~~THE SOCIALIZATION OQ THE CREOLE SLAVEThe Influence of the White Group. Despite the strong bondbetween mother and child, in the long run other agentswere of more importance in the slaves' upbringing thanshe was. This was due to the fact . . . that the amount oftime she could devote to her children was very limited.Usually less than two years after they were weaned, childrenwere placed under the command of a driveress inthe grass gang and later moved to other gangs which werealways separate from their parent The driver became,then, the direct authority figure for the child. But it wasnot long before the child became aware of the fact thatthe driver's authority was derived from a higher source andthat this higher source was the white group. He would havebeen told this by his mother. More important, he wouldconstantly see the authority of the whites demonstrated inthe frequent orders given by the white book-keepers oroverseers to the drivers.In the case of the children of domestic slaves-who alwaysformed a significant minority of the slave childrenthesocial superiority of the whites was demonstrated froman early age through their relationship with their whitepeer group. In our [Patterson's] chapter on the creolewhites we have seen that white children were allowed to*8 See M. I. Herskovits. The Cultore Areas of Africa', Africa,Vol. 3 (1930), where nine cultural areas are demarcated.a* Daryll Fordc, The Culture Map of West Africa', in Simonand Phoebe Ottenberg, eds., Cultures and Societies of Ajrica(New York: Random Home, 1960), p. 123.Orlando Patterson 33mix freely with their black peere. M'Mahon has left in anaccount of what happened in these early peer group auonations:The inbred arrogance of a white child brought upamong black children is painfully pressed upon the observationof a person unaccustomed to such a land of tyrannyas a slave colony always is. At even two years ofage the black child cowers and shrinks before the whitechild, who at all times slaps and beats it at pleasure andtakes away its toys without the smallest manifestation ofopposition on the part of the piccaninni. I have frequentlyseen a white child crying, when the little dave,so utterly a slave from his bii, would say to the cryingchild,-'Massa, knock me, don't cry; you my maasa; meyou nega9.MIn later life, the slave discriminated between the differentorders of whites. Generally, if the owner was absentee, theattorney (who paid periodic visits to the estate) was seenas their owner and true master. Should the absentee ownervisit the island, his authority was immediately recognizedand all the apparent adoration due to him was given. Notefor example, the tumultuous welcome given M. 0. Lewiswhen he visited his estate for the first time. Of course, ifthe owner actually lived on the estate, the matter was madethat much simpler.41On one level, Long's assertion that they eye and respecttheir master as a father and are extremely vain in reflectingon the comexion between thems* may have been generallytrue. Thus their own estimation vis4-vis the slaves ofother estates was largely a reflection of their master's atatuain the community. The slaves also appeared to emulatetheir masters and copied 'not only their dress but imitate4OB. M'Mahon, Jamaica Ptantership (London, 18391, p.293.41 It should be remembered that while the majority of ownerelived on the island, because of the unequal distribution ofdavea among whitea, the majority of slaves were owned bymasters who were absentee.aLong, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 410.

I34 Socialization and Personality Structuretheir every wQw and expr&on'.48 The; statua of themaster was so important in the slaves* assessment of themselvesand of each other that they considered it the greatestdimgrace if their ownership was in doubt. Lewis mention8the case of the mulatto Mary Wiggins who threw herselfat his feet with joy when it was finally established that shebelonged to him, adding that 'to be told by the Negroes ofanother estate that they belong to no massa is one of themost contemptuous reproaches that can be cast uponthem*.u One aspect of this veneration for the master wasthe almost childlike habit of the slaves of making quitefatuous complain@ to him simply to be able to be near himand to address a few words to him.45 Lewis also wrotethat many of his slaves regarded him as their kin and addressedhim as such:ID particular, the women called me by every endearingname they could think of. 'My son! my love! my husband!my father! You no me massa, you my tata!' saidone old woman . . . and when I came down the stepsto depart, they crowded about me, kissing my feet andclasping my kneel, so that it was with difficulty that Icould get into the carriage.46The word 'tata' meant father and was a common mode ofexpression for the muter, especially among the slave children.Barclay wrote of masters who, on returning to theirestates were greeted by the little Negro children . . .vociferating - the endearing expression, "Tata come, Tatacome" '-47Not only was the master overtly loved and venerated,4*T. Jelly, Remarks on the Condition of the Whites and FreeColoured Inhabitants of Jamaica (Montego Bay, lamaka,18261, p. 42.44 Lewis, of. eft., pp. 68-69.46 Both Lewis and Dc La Beche noted this habit. Lewis, op.cit.; Henry TliOinM de h Beehe, Notes on the Present Codtionof the Negmes of Jamaica (London, 1825).40 Lewis, op. cit., p. 240.4T Alexander Barclay, A Practical View of the Present Stallof Slavery in the West Indies (London, 1826), p. 212.Orlando PattersonIf-Èbut hi* decree waa considered infmbte. Lçw wu maxedat the mmner to whicb the dam accepw hk jdgfflaton disputes among them:I mast acknowledge, however, that the Negro pn'nciplethat 'ma= can do no wrong' waa of some little adtamto me on this occasion. "Oh! quite just, me good m-1what maw say quite just1 me no say nothing more; megood massa!' Then they thanked me 'for M~WI'S gd-was in giving them so long talk!' and m m away to leuall tbe others how jot massa bid beta in taking çÃwhat they wanted to keep, or not giving them wht theyasked forS4aWhile tbe overt attitudes of the slaved to their mutem weeclearIy those of respect and adoration one must remaindoubtful about the sincerity of their feelings. The mastersthemselves were not always fooled by their staves. Lewiswrote of bis jubilant welcome: '. . . whether the pleasureof the Nefnxs was sincere may be doubted; but certainlyit was the loudest I ever witnessed'. Later Ià ¥mt lhatthey were excellent flatterers 'and lay it on with a trowell*.Long also pointed out that they were gnat 'dinemblem',and McNeill warned his readen that 'he (the Â¥lave hugreat art and may deceive vod.*@The relationship with the (weruBr w quite diffemtfrom that with the mailer. He may have atimdated feuand terror, but never respect or coqmtion. To the slawsk was an enemy never to be trusted, and to be foiled atevery opportunity. We have shown to another chapter [ofPatterson's book] tbe barbarity of these whited and it ianot surprising that there waa constant conflict between themand the d m they supemsed. Tiler waa çom flexibilityin the overseer-slave relationship in that. wbile he wu Â¥Iway8 covefly despised, the (laves were often prepared labe tractable if the overseer treated tbem with modemtim-" Lcwia, op. cit.. pp. 404-05.4fHector McNeill, Ohmatiow on the Treatment of theNegroes in the liiand of Jamaica (Loodoo, 1788). p. 29.

-36 Socialization and Personality Stmcturaone of their favourite expressions being 'Good massa, goodNegro*.60This basic distinction in the attitude of the daves to theirmasters and their overseers is to be noted in a slave songrecorded by Moreton, one verse of which expresses thelonging for the master as against the restrictions imposedon them by their overseer:If me want for go in a Kingston,Me cant go there!Since massa go in a England,Me cant go thereP1Unfortunately, it was under the overseer that the slave¥pen most of his working life. Thus all the psychologicaltechniques which had to be employed in outwitting him'and thwarting his every action, were wostantly in use andeventually became 'a kind of second natureJ.* It was primarilywithin the wntext of the overseer-slave relationabip,1 then, that the peculiar personality traits of (be slave*,! noted by almost every one of the multitude of chroniclers,1 came about and functioned. To the nature of these personalitytraits we shall now turn our attention.The various traits of the personality of the Negro slave fellinto a general pattern that has been recognized all overthe New World. Stanley Elkins has recently analysed whathe termed the "Sambo* personality.611 His descriptionsbear a remarkable resemblance to those which existed inJamsica The krrn used in Jamaica to ddgnate thii personalitypattern was Quash. This term came originally6@Kelly, op. dt., p. 36.611. -. B. - Moreton. Manners and Customs in the West Zndla~(London, 1790). p 153.ÑB Lacock, Jamaica, Enslaved and Free (London, 18461,p~. 91-92.60 Elkins, op. cit., Ch. 3, passim.from the Twi day-name meaning 'S~nday'.~ In additionto being a popular name for slaves. Long's own use of theterm demonstrates that by the beginning of the secondhalf of the eighteenth century at the latest it came to designatepeculiarly Negro character traits. Writing at the beginningof the nineteenth century, Stewart, speaking of theilliteracy of the reo ole white women, remarked that manyof them exhibit much of the 'Quasheba' (the feminine ofQuashee). Cassidy has pointed out that today 'Quashiesimply means a peasant, but one also finds it glossed as"fool" *.m From my own experience as a Jamaican I haveoften heard the word used in the hyphenated manner'quasbie-fool*. It is clear, however, that during slavery theterm related specifically to Negro personality traits.Perhaps the best comment on quasbee was made byStewart, who wrote that: It is not an easy matter to tracewith an unerring pencil the true character and dispositionof the Negro, they are often so ambiguous and disguisedMThis evasive, indefinable, somewhat disguised and ambiguowquality was the most essential element of Quashee.Stewart also remarked: The Negroes are crafty, artful,plausible; not often grateful for small services; but, frequentlydeceitful and over-reaching.*?The evasiveness of quashee manifested itself in variousways. It was evident, first, in what appeared to have beenMhng gives these day-names, commonly used among theslaves, as follows:Male Female DayCudjoe Juba MondayCubbenah Beneba TuesdayQua- cuba WednesdayQua0 Abba ThursdayCoffee Phibba FridayQuamin Mimba SaturdayQuashee Quasheba Sunday(Long, op. eft., Bk. 3, p. 427)66 Caddy, op. cit., p. 157.60 John Stewart, An Account of Jamaica and It* Inhabimft(London, 1808), p. 234.67 /bid.

~ -Socialization and Personality Structurea compulsion to lie. Cooper speaks of his 'low cunningand contempt of truth'.* The editors of the JamaicaJournal who, though pro-tlavery, were liberal mindedwithin the context of Jamaican slave society, wrote:There is in the Negro character such an inherent senseof falsehood, and so ready a talent for the perversionof truth, that we fear even the dread of capital punishmentwould not effectually eradicate this favourite andhabitual vice. We know of no mortal torture that wouldprevent or deter them from indulging this propensity indeed,so strong is the predilection in some Negroes forthe perversion of facts, that even where they expect rewardfor a 'plain unvarnished tale', they generally findmore difficulty in relating the real truth, than in utte~ga lie. Those who have had the longest and most frequentintercourse with Negroes are aware that theft and lyingare amongst their most besetting sins: And that to discoverthe truth through means of Negro evidence is oneof the most hopeless tasks any manager can undertake.The most clever and intelligent Negro is usually the mostdeceitful and we have seen some with art enough to bafflethe most expert lawyer that ever put question . . .EeLewis, after detecting one of his slaves lying for no apparent reason, remarked that 'I am assured that unless aNegro has an interest in telling the truth, he always lies-inorder to "keep hiis tongue in practice" '.a0Even Madden,an anti-slavery writer and strong sympathizer of the slavehad to admit that they were pathological liars.The evasiveness of the slave was also expressed in hispeculiar mode of arguing, the essence of which seemedto have been to stray from the point as far as possible. Itwas this quality which was partly referred to as 'congo* T. Cooper, Facts Illustrative of the Condition of the NewSlavef in Jamaica (London, 1824). p. 14. According to Rev.R. Bickell (The West lndies as They Are; or a Real Pictureof Slavery . . . [London, 18251, p. 94). 'As soon as they anborn they go away and #peak lie*.'69 Jamaica Journal & Kingston Chronic&, Vol. 2, NO. 32.mLewis,$. eft., p. 129.Orlando PattersonMW'. It could be one of the mot exasperating axpuhcaUut a white penon might have with a ¥liv and onestrongly suspects that if primary purpose was deliberateannoyance. Edwards has a detailed account of this traiP1uJ Lewia (ha men! amusing instances. McNdl acidlyremarked that:. . . a Negro, without much violence of metaphor, maybe compared to a bad pump, the working of which exhaustayour strength before you can produce a drop ofwater.=Another frequently noted trait of Quashee was d i i -fulness, allied to which was a strong grain of cooservatism.Tbey are so accustomed to be the subject of exaction',wrote Mathison, that every innovation, though intendedfor their benefit, gives rise to a suspicion that it is intendedfor their oppression'."Quashee was also extremely capricious, a quality notedby many writers. Beckford observed that:Negroes are capricious, the recurrence of everyday lifewill evince. Give them a house ready built, they will notinhabit it-a ground ready cleared, they will not work itifyou study their convenience, their ease, and happiness,they will be discontented-they most have everythingtheir own way; and would wooer complain of a goodoverseer, than not covet an exchange by the risk of onewho is bad."The laancH of qmshee became proverbial and hardlyneeds any documentation here." Quashee waa, in addi-a Edwards, op. cit., Bk. 4, p. 100.a McNeill, op. cit., p. 15.rn0. Mathison, Notices Respecting Jam&, 1WS-W-10(London, 1811). n. 101.a Beckford, op. cit., p. 90."The classic exposition of the stereotyped view of Quasbee'sh2iBçà wu written everal years after davery by Thom~Cwlyle in his 'An Occasional Ducoorw on die Nigger Que+tfon", Fraser's, Vol. XL ( 1849). pp. 667-79.

. -Socialization and Personality Structuretion, extremely childlike, a qdty which m y NU@among others, often remarked 00.- Quubee was Â¥hofrom all reports. gay, happy-go-lucky, frivolous and cheerful.To Stewart, 'He is patient, cheerful, and commonlysubmissive, capable at times of grateful attachments whereuniformly well treated, and kind and affectionate towardhis kindred and offspringss.^ And Sir John Keane foundit 'a most extraordinary thing* that 'they are always singing,and seem excessively delighteds.* But Quashee'idarker traits were stressed just as often. He was revengeful,harbouring grudges for a long tinu; when placed in positionsof authority he was likely to be extremely cruel andtyrannical; he was 'possessed of passions not onlybut ungovemble . . . a temper extremely irascible; a diapositionindolent, wiflsh and deceitful; fond of joyomsociality: riotous mirth and extravagant show'.ÃIn addition, the contemporary accounts almost all attributean element of stupefaction to Quashee, and an almostcomplete lack of judgment. Quashee somehow managedto do everything wrongly. Repeated attempts at correctionwere doomed to failure. Lewis, despite his fondness forhis slaves, wrote toward the end of his journal that, 'Somehowor other, they never can manage to do anything quiteas it should be done. If they correct themselves in one re--ipect today, they are sure of making a blunder inother manner tomorrow*.TO This stupidity was often quiteconsciously feigned, as Madden makes clear:It is a difficult thing to get a Negro to understand anythingwhich he does not wish to hear; the more you tryto explain a matter that is disagreeable to him, the moreinca~able he a- of comprehension; or if he finds-1907); see for example p. 288."Stewart, Account of Jamaica, pp. 234-35.ÑHous of Lords Committee on Slavery, 1832, Evidence ofSir John Keane, House of Lords Sessional Papers, Vob. 106-7,p. 179.McNeill, op. eft., p. 28.! TO Lewis, op. cit., p. 392.Orlando Patterson41 --ihu plan ineffectual, be endeavoun to lender the mattorridleu% and his talent at rendering ridido Ñrcftdiis really s~rprising.~lOn the other hand. several pcnetrathg ohservem did notfail to notice the acuteness of the slave h judhg thecharacter of those about him. Phillippo noted, for example.that, 'so far from being more ddcient in acutenw anddiscrimhation than other men, none can penetrate moredeeply than the Negro into the character, or form us ophionof strangen with greater conectoess and precision'.'*That Quuhee existed there can be no doubt, The problemia to ascertain how real, how meaningful, this psychologicalcomplex was in the life of the slave. A full answerto thin question would involve a dimion into existentialmd role psychology which is outside the confine* of thiswork."We may, however, make a few tentative obaer-vations.Quashee may be said to have existed on three leveh.First, as a stereotyped conception held by the whites oftheir slaver secondly, at a response on the paft of the staveto this stereotype; and thirdly, as a psychofogicaJ functionof the leal life situation of the slave. All three leveh ofQuasbee's existence were closely related and mutually rehforcedeach other.Ift ill begin wHh the third level TIM real life situationof the slave, as we have shown, was one in which there wma cmplete breakdown of all major institutions-the family..-TIR. R Madden, Twelve Monthd Risbteme fn the WenIndies during the Transition from Slavery to ApprentkulHp12 mlÈ Philadelphia. Londoo. 1835). Vol. 2, pp. 155-56.J. M. PhilUppo. Jamaica: lts Part and Pfwnt Sum (Leal:John Snow, 1843). p. 204. Stniltrty it irn off remarfcedb slave OU'tIClX h8t k Nem Wdml& 8man bettor than UK white nun wdentuib (he New (UlricB- Phillipe, American Negro Slavery, p. 327).For an extnoiely suggestive analyiit of similar penooalitymlikx~l QuiilKe. ice R. D. Lifag's dbcunion of -Die fthftdf mkm' in Chapter 6 of his book, The Divided Self. &a h J. P .ftirtnt'r analysis of 'bad faith' hi hi* Beiw ami Norhingnw.

s&dbdon and Personality Structuremarriage, religion, organized morality. This situation wasmade worse by the fact that the white group offered noalternate mores and institutions, but were just as disorganizedsocially as they were. There could be no kind of guidingprinciple, then, in the socialization of the slave, exceptthat of evasion, which he learned from hard experience.The habitual laziness of the slave was also largely the functionof his work situation From early childhood be wasstimulated to work, not by the expectations of reward, butentirely by the threat of punishment Naturally, he grewto hate work and could only be industrious if forced to.The happy-go-lucky irresponsibility of the slave could alsobe explained in terms of his upbringing, especially withregard to males when we recall the demoralizing effect ofslavery on them.But the complexity of Quashee cannot be completelyexplained in situational terms. Hie explanation of the elementof evasiveness and dissemblance, the pathologicallying, must be sought elsewhere. To some extent this wasto be found in the stereotype the whites had of Qua~hee.~~This stereotype undoubtedly possessed what Prothro andMilikian have called a "kernel of truth* about the real sitiiation.But stereotypes, as the above writers pointed out,also reflect the 'characteristics of the individuals holdistereotypes or the state of politico-economic relations betweengroupsS.75 The same principle holds for the plantocratsof Jamaican slave society. The outright brutality andunrestrained exploitation of the system made even the mosthardened plantocrat desirous of a system of rationalization.Certain aspects-usually either those which were the worst,74 "Stereotyping may be defined as the tendency to attributegeneralized and simplified characteristics to p un of people inthe form of verbal labels and to act towards the memben ofthese group* in terms of these labels' (W. E. Vinacke, 'Stereo.typing among Nadond-Racial Group in Hawaii: a Study inEthnocentricism', Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 30'l~gthro and Milikb, 'Stndii in Stereotyp: Fdmand the Kernel of Truth*, Journal of Social P~chobgy, VOL41 (1955).Orlando Pattersonor the most easily patronized-of the d t y traita ofthe slaves were therefore seized upon and elaborated intoa generalized body of truths* about the Negro.At this point, Merton's concept of the ¥selfprophecy*become* useful. As he wrote: The systematiccondemnation of the outgrouper continues largely irrespectiveof what he does; more, through a freakish exerciseof capricious judicial logic, the victim is punished for thecrime'.7* Since masters had absolute control over theirslaves, it was not difficult for them to create the conditionsthat would actualize the stereotypes they had of theseslaves.The self-fulfilling prophecy, however, has a further di-(nension which Merton failed to point out It is the factthat the subordinate group, in addition to being forced intosituations which fulfil the stereotype of the superordinategroup, also responds directly to these stereotypes by eitherappearing to, or actually internalizing them. The slave, infact. played upon the master's stereotype for his own ends.Playing the stereotype had three broad functions.FITS4 with his acute sensitivity, the slave easily saw thatalthough the master might consciously protest at his stupidityor frivolity or whatever Quashec trait he was playingup, he was nonetheless, inwardly pleased by the slaveoffering further proof of his rationalizations. From theslaves' point of view, this was a direct appeal to, and exploitationof, the inevitable see-what-I-mean mentality oftheir masters.77^R K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, p.186.'"Ih American tttvchologiat Alm identified this kind ofbehaviour as 'clowning*. He wrote: 'And And if the masterwandto be amused, the slave lometime* obligingly play the down. . . Richard Wright in B kk Boy describes the coloured elevatorman who wins his way by exaggerating his Negro accent,and affecting the traits ascribed to his facial group: begging,laziness, and tall tales. His passengers give him coins and makehim a pet*. Allport also speaJu of 'protective clowning', a perfectexample of which was the 'Èpook personality among Negrosoldiers, of whom he write*: 'A spook cant be hurt; be cant

44 Socialization and Personality Structu~Secondly, by playing the stereotype, the slave both disguisedhis true feelings (which it was his d i a l principlenever to meal since no one, least of all the master, couldbe trusted)lS and had the psychological satisfaction ofduping the master. 'Ibe well known Jamaican Negro proverb,'Play fool to catch wise', well sums up this form ofstereotype playing.*Thirdly, if the slam strongly resented an overseer orbook-keeper and wanted to get rid of him, .in the majorityof cases they could achieve their objective by simply Wigthe perfect Quashee-stupid, bungling, exasperating andcompletely inacient. Long has left us a penetrating accountof the overseer-slave relationship which illustrates allthree types of stereotype playing:. . . Their principal address is shown in hdiig out theirmaster's temper, and playing upon it so artfully as to bendit with most convenience to their own purposes. They arenot lea studious in sifting theiu master's representative, theoverseer; if he is not too cunning for them, which theysoon discover after one or two experiments, they willeasily h d means to overreach him on every occasion, andmake his indolence, his weakness, or sottishness, a sureprognostic of some comfortable term of idleness to them;but if they h d him too intelligent, wary and active, theyleave no expedient untried, by thwarting his plans, misunderstandinghis orders, and reiterating complaints againsthim, to fend him out of his post; if this will not succeed,be downed; be doesn't talk bd. but be can't be coed. Hewill come right through doon uul walls whatever you do; hehas a sassy iâ dent invulnerability' (0. W. Allport, The Natureof Prejdke [Cambridge, Maaa.: Addison-Wesley, 19541, p148).7s Tbm ia tha probkm, bowever, of deciding 8xacUy whatt h a ~ k b ~ o f t h a d a v e ~ . W ~ W h M dtha problem of decidiag where the dilTemce lies between condo role ~ playing and natuml role playing. Sea Elkins' diswtdon in Slavery, pp. 131-33.19 !kc also I. Andemon and F. Cundall, Jamaica Negro Prmerba 119271 (Wilmington, Dcl.: MeWmt Press, 1970). par-War, Noa. 263-68, 536, and 544.da8OrWo Patterson 45-theypq1exdwoqW~yifbbofm~tient,fretful turn, tilI he grow heartily aick of hia charge,d VO~I~W@' &@L9 &I OVCl3CCI thCdq b 8prime minister, must dwaya expect to meet with a factioa,r d y t o O p ~ h i s ~ r n , r i or &he~@wthC~smtofhish&,ands~er~~btohave thine their own way; which if he compliea with, theywill extol him to his face, condemn him in their hemis, andvery soon bring his government to disgracc.aWLong, op. cit., Bk. 4, p. 405.

A Planter's Day*John G. StedmanAs a vivid conbut with slave circumstances, an Englisho&w stationed in Suriuam in the late eighteenth centuryhem portrap the daily round of the slaveowning planter.The de8cription b generalized (we arc not even told whatcrop6 are pwn on the estate), but the featured of plantationlifd multiplicity of servants, the hierarchical relaticmabclwecn planter and overseer, the casual sadism ofthe daily round, and the lavish and frquent hospitality torelieve its boredom-which the author describe3 would fitany large plantation in the Caribbean.In 1772 JOHN 0. STEDMAN, half-Dutch, half-English,joiied a relief force wnt out to quell a slave rebellion inSurinam. During his years there he gradually grew momsympathetic to the slaves and the fretd black Like manytravelem to the West In- Stedman was overwhelmed bythe contrast between the lavish beauty of the tropics andthe lmdmew and cruelties of the slaves' existence.A plaatcr in Suriaam, when he livea on his catate (whichis but seldom, aa they mdy prefer the society of Pammarib[the capital]), gcta out of hia hammock with therising sun, vk about six o'clock in the morning, w h hemaka hia appcamm under the piazza of his b, wherehis coffee is ready waiting for him, which he generallytaka with hia pipe, instead of toast and butter; and therehe is attended by half a dozen of the k t young dam,both male and female, of the plantation, to wrve W atthis ~anctum-sanctorurn he is next accosted by hia overseer,who regularly every morning attends at bi.~ levee,and having made his bow at several yards distance, withthe most profound respect informs his Greatness whatwork was d m the day before; what negroes deaertcd,died, fell sick, recovered, were bought or born; and, aboveall things, which of them neglected the& work atkctcdsickness, or had been drunk or absent, &c.; the prisonemare gady present, Mi secured by the mgmdrivcm,and instantly tieduptothc beams of the piazza, or am,without so much rn being heard in Wi own defence;when the flogging hgina, with men, women, or children,Narrative, of a Five Yeart Expedihn, Against the RevdtdNegrw of Surham, in Guiana, on the Wild C m of SouthAwrW from the year 1772 to 1777: Elucidating the History@ That Cowthy, and Deeribing Its Productb~, 2 wb., Lastdo4J. ?o- 1806, pp. 5641.[F!dlt0lBS ti*]

48 A Planter's Daywithout exception. me instruments of torture on theseoccasions are long hempen whips, that cut round at everylash, and crack like pistol-shot; during which they alternatelyrepeat, "Dmkee, maseran (lhnk you, master).Inb-hhesWupandbmwithhisowmr,afEecting not so much as to hear their cries, till they ares&ciently mangled, when they are untied, and orderedto return to their work, without so much as a dressing.This ceremony being over, the dressy negro .(a blacksurgeon) comes to make his report; who beiig dismissedwith a hearty curse, for allowing any slaves to be sick,next makes her appearance a superannuated matron, withall the young negro children of the estate, over whom sheis governess; these, Wig clean washed in the river, claptheir hands, and cheer in chorus, when they are sent awayto breakfast on a large planer of rice and plantains; andthe levee ends with a low bow from the overseer, as it&&w*His worship now sauntem out in his morning dress,which consists of a pair of the hest Holland trowsem,white silk stockings, and red or yellow Morocco slippers;the neck of his shirt open, and nothing over it, a 1-flowing night-gown of the finest India chintz excepted. Onhis head is a cotton night-cap, as thin as a cobweb, andover that an enormous beaver hat, that protects his meagrevisage from the sun, which is already the colour of mahogany,while his whole carcass seldom weighs above eightor ten stone, being generally exhausted by the climateand dissipation. To give a more complete idea of this finegentleman, I . . . present him to the reader with a pipin his mouth, which almost every where accompanies him,and receiving a glass of Madeira wine and water, from afemale quaderoon slave, to refresh him during his walk.Having loitered about his estate, or s omew ridden onhorseback to his fields, to view his increasing stores, berctuma about eight o'clock, when, if he goes abroad, bedreasa, but if not, remains just as he is. Should the firsttake place, having only exchanged his trowsen for a pairof th linen or silk breeches, be dts down, and holdingJohn G. Stedmm 49mto~fwt&the*r,Ueahomwgtob&aa w p ~ ~ o n h i s s ~ ~ p d & w , f i & h e dbuckles, while another drwsa his hair, hia wig, or 8havcab c & a n d a M b f w h h k q d t h e m m@toea. Having now &ftcd, be puts on a tJh coat andwaistcoat, all whim when under an umbrella, d e d bya black boy, he is conducted to his barge, which is in waitingfor him with six or eight oars, well provided with fruit,wine, water, and tobacco, by hia overseer, who no soonerb~him~thanhemumestheco-dwi&all the usual insolence of office. But should thia phce notmean to stir from his estate, he goes to breakfast about teno'clock, for which a table is spread in the large hdl, pvided with a bacon ham, hung-beef, fowls, or pigeombroiled; plantains and sweet cassavas roasted; bread, butter,cheese, &c. with which he drinkn strong beer, and a glasof Madeira, Rhenish, or Mozell wine, while the cringingoverseer sits at the farther end, keeping his proper distance,both being served by the most beautiful slaves that canbe selected;-and this is called breakiag the poor gentleman's fast.After this he takes a book, playa at chess or b~Xards,entertains himael with music, &c. till the heat of the dayforax him to IWWD into his cotton hammock to enpy hismeridian nap, which he could no more dispense with thana Spaniard with his siesta, and in which he rocks to andfro, like a performer on the slack-rope, till he fah asleep,without either bed or covering; and during which time heis famed by a couple of his black attendants, to keep himcool, &c.About three o'clock he awakea by natural instinct, whenhaving washed and perfumed himself, he sits down todinner, attended as at breakfast by his deputy governorand sable pa- where nothing is wanting that the worldcan afF0n-I in a western climate, of meat, fowls, venison,fish, vegetables, fruits, &c. and the most exquisite wincaare often squandered in profusion; after this a cap ofstrong coffee and a liqueur !hi& the repast. At six o'clockk is again waited on by his overseer, attended M in tbe

SOA Planter's Daymorning by negrodrivers and prisoners, when the floggingonce more having continued for some time, and the necessaryorders being given for the next day's work, the aswmblyis &missedy and the evening spent with weakp~n~h, sa~gatec, cards and tobacco.-His worship generallybegins to yawn about ten or eleven o'clock, when hewithdraws, and is undressed by him sooty pages. He thenretires to rest, where he pasas the night in the arms of oneor other of his sable sultanas (for he always keeps amglio) till about six in the morning, when he again repainto his piazza walk, where his pipe and coffee arewaiting for him; and where, with tbe rising sun, he beginshis round of dissipation, like a petty monarch, as capriciousas he is despotic and despicable.Such absolute power indeed cannot fail to be peculiarlydelightful to a man, who, in all probability, was in his omcountry, Europ, a-nothing.But, in this mlony, this is too frequently the case, whereplantations are sold upon credit, and left (by the absentproprietor) to the appraisers, who, by selling cheap, havegenerally an understanding with the buyer.These arc the planters who am the pest of the colon%such as the be gentleman just described* who, while helives at the above rate, pays nobody, under pretence ofbad crops, mortality amongst the slaves, &. but like anupstart rascal massacra the negroca by double labour,nh and pillages the catate of all its productions, whichhe clandestinely sells for ready money, malted a pm, andNUS away. J3tceptio~, however, take place in every circ~1118tanceof Me; and I have known many planters inSurinam as good men as I ever would desk to be acquaintedwith. ..As for the ladies, they indulm themselves just as much,by giving way to their unbounded passions, and especiallyto the most dentleu barbarity. But while I can bear wit---mas to tbe exdted virtuat of such a woman as Mrs.bcth Daaforth, now Mrs. Godefrooy, and a few morewhose characters shine with treble lustre, I shall draw a, veil over all the imperfections, too common to their sex inthis climate. Before I drop this subject, however, I must attest,that hospitality M in no countq' practised with greatercordiality or with less cercmoay, a stranger W g everywhere at home, and flnding his table and his bed at whateverestate n ~ i t or y choice may occasion him to visit.This M the more to be regarded, as no inns are to be metwith in the neighbowbod of any of the Surinam rivers.

Whites in a Slave Society*Mtfdtfric-Louis-glie Moreau de Saint-MtfryThis description of the whites of Saint-Dominkye, originallypublished in 1197, forms part of a *nerd study ofthat colony by a white from another French West Indiancolony. It describes and differentiates among the variousEuropean residents and the nativeborn white8 (Creoles).'Ibis sekction shows how constant association with shvaaffected the white Creole personality, and it complement8Patterson's similar discussion from the slave point of view.M~~IUC-LOUIS~B MOREAU DE SAINT-&Y, ageneration Creole from Mnrtiniqw, was an astute observefand chronicler of evev aspect of West Indian life. Alawyer and judge in the Antilles, he was active in Pa&in both cultural and political allairs and occupied prominentpitiom, both before and after the French Rev0118-tion, as histon- litt&atew, and administrator.Material in brackets was deleted by tbe author from theh t printed edition but restored by the compilen of the1958 edition,In places where men come to dwell together over a longperiod of time, [some special system of associationemerges, witb rules governed by local conventions. h tbeabsence of extraordinary or rare events, the aystem endureswithout sensible change, because the few individualswho come to join the group and thaw who are born intoit adopt its usages; strictly speaking, it is just a family, moreor less numerous.] They seem almost completely amalmated, and members of the society at large aU share similarand easily identifiable traits. But in colonial atablishmentsrecently created by successive cmigratio~~~, the dgm of agenuine ensemble are not to be seen: instead these societi~are shapeless mixtures subject to dive* iduences;and this lack of cohesion is especially marked when a greatcolony is made up of individuda who have come there insearch of a clime distant and wholly d8ercnt from their

54 Whites in a Slave Societyown, because then each person adheres to many usagesof the country he has left behind, only slightly modifiedand adapted to the country he has come into. How muchmore is this the case when, in the newly adopted countrywhere they find themselves thrown together as by chance,the settlers are surrounded by slaves!In line with these facts, which give the customs of theAmerican colonies their particular character, I shall try toelucidate what specifically distinguishes the French settlersof Saint-Domingue.Pirates accustomed to looking for their wants amid theperils of the sea, if necessary at gun point, and Buccaneers,terrors of the forest whose inhabitants they destroyed,could not help but be ferocious and sanguinary in theirbehavior.Yet it was such men, descendants of many nationalities,whom metropolitan Speculators after the French conquestsought to tame and subordinate to their own personal interests.Absurd on the face of it, this plan could only havesucceeded through a leader of the most extraordinaryqualities. The Compagnie des lies de TAm6rique foundsuch a leader.In fact, no one more greatly influenced the customs ofthe fearless conquerors of French Saint-Domingue thand'ogeron, who succeeded in transforming them intofarmers. To instil in them the essential qualities, d'Ogeroninvoked the aid of the seductive sex, who everywheresweeten men and render them more sociable. He sent overto France for interesting girls, mostly timid orphans, totame these proud men who were used to rebellion and totransform them into sensitive husbands and virtuousfathers. In this way, Saint-Domingue acquired a nativepopulation, which began to consider it (St.-D.) their owntrue country.When these first settlers began to liberate themselvesfrom the exploitation of the commercial companies, andwhen the harassment they encountered in selling their tobaccoforced them to substitute other crops for it, theircircumstances became easier. Tranquil and contented,they saw the'u means of subsistence increase. Soon, welloffwithout being opulent, they led a life all the more enviablebecause they had not yet learned to regard luxuriesas necessities. These colonial mores long held sway evenamong the soldiers, who everywhere tend to set themselvesapart from other citizens. But here, any soldier could aspireto become a farmer. Except for the frequent tumoverof governors and the influence of political events ontheir fate, the Islanders had no reason to envy the inhabitantsof the mother country.But this peaceful happiness itself became a cause ofsignificant change. Settlers enriched through well-plannedagriculture now sought other occupations for their children.They had to be sent to France to acquire an dmtionappropriate to their future state. Those who cameback to the island brought with them tastes which couldnot be satisfied there. Sometimes they could not give uppenchants already strongly confirmed, or perhaps theywere ashamed of the simple customs of their parents.Hence, their aversion toward their biiplaa, a kind oflassitude in which they viewed themselves only as transientsin a country where they were sometimes forced to stayfor their entire lives. Hence, their unconcern for the goodand prosperity of a country from which they wished toextract only the means of living far away. Hence, the highprice paid for pleasures which were multiplied merely becausethey failed to bring satisfaction.TO this misfortune, which made most of the Colonistsaliens in the land that gave them birth, still another wasadded. Their taste for dissipation and their extravagantspending, which made them highly visible, created an exaggeratedimpression of the Colony. A country whose productioncould maintain such unrestrained luxury had tobe considered an inexhaustible mine; and the Europeans*lust for gold led them to go and seek their share of theseimmense treasures. That a deadly climate killed most ofthem deterred few, for nothing was seen but the bootybrought back by those who returned.However, the Colony seemed to satisfy much ambition,

56 Whites in a Slave Societyand in 1738 it was entrusted to two administrators whosecollaborative talents made it even more important. Theirhappiest thought was to induce the inhabitants to usethe water, which ran off untapped in the vast plains, toincrease the fertility of the soil. Channels in which ran astream of gold, so to speak, were then opened up everywhere,fructifying valuable crops. Better roads were constructed,and the different parts of the Colony enabled tocommunicate with each other. Under Lamage and Maillart'spaternalistic administration, the population doubled,because the settlers remained in the Colony and Europeanscontinued to be attracted to it.But this new level of civilization, coupled with otherevents, also altered customs during the second colonial era.The loss of some of our colonies during the war of 1756aroused fears for the others, and regimental and othertroops were sent out to assure the maintenance of Frenchdominion. It was thus that Saint-Domingue received manybattalions in 1762. But the defenders of the nation are notthe guardians of its virtues: the mores of Saint-Dominguewere proof of this. Excessive indulgence spread throughoutthe Colony and affected every walk of life, above allwhere women were concerned, and marriages ruled bygold and vanity multiplied at a scandalous rate. Thus, whileexternal enemies caused no loss, the Colony defended itselfless well against the evil example of those who saw toits safety. Since then another war, whose principal causeand seat were in America, has increased the troubles ofSaint-Domingue by multiplying the troops, the sailors, andeven the adventurers whom these agitated times seem tobring out, for the depravity of custom is a real source oftroubles.In the present condition of the French Colony, the whitepopulation is no more than onequarter Creole, that is,born on the Island, and moreover, most of these arewomen. The remainder is made up of Europeans fromdifferent parts of France, mixed with some foreigner* andCreoles from other colonies.We will speak first of the Europeans, since they Were theMtdtric-Louis-Klie Moreau de Saint-Miry 57founders of the Colony. From the beginning, the Frenchthere included a great many folk from Normandy, the firstnavigators of the Windward Islands, whose influence is stillevident in many domestic customs and in many words ofthe Creole patois.CONCERNING THE EUROPEANS WHO INHABITSAINT-DOMINGUEAt the time of their landing, Europeans who come toSaint-Domingue have a rough ordeal to bear in common.When a man has left home in the hope of an envisagedfortune on the American shore, and finds himself isolatedand without resources there, he would like to go back; butit is too late. Everyday needs, hard to satisfy becauseeverything is expensive, are multiplied; the future assumesa hideous guise, the temper turns sour; the burning feverof this torrid climate comes, and death is often the end ofundertakings which are as brief as they are foolish. Butthe Mother Country has its idlers, its daredevils, its credulous,perhaps its dangerous men, who will not be lackingin this land which devours them, and which also beckonsto men of precious skills, unemployed in Europe, whocome from far and wide to practice their activities andtalents in which the New World glories.When the arriving European has a retreat from whichhe can consider the future without worry, he must attendto the dictates of fashion. He does not require heavy fabrics,but rather light ones; he wants fine and therefore veryexpensive linen, whose simplicity he enhances with strikingjewelry. This is the first thing he has to do with his profitsor credits: spend it on proper colonial attire. Not to wearit, is to downgrade oneself or to assume the tone of a cen-DOC in a land whose rule is to listen to none.Another concern, no less important, is to boast aboutone's origin in order to impress. In that way one compen-Wes for reality, and this kind of invention is quite successfullypracticed. At the least, one must keep one's origin8cmt when it is not a noble one, and for some envious

58 Whites in a Slave Societyperson who found it out in the Mother Country to revealthe truth is indeed too much to bear. In Saint-Domingucone dips easily into the habit of believing oneself ennobledby the mere fact of residence on the island. In fact, someEuropeans break off family relationships, avoid everyfamily contact when they are back in France, and takecare to shun places where their humble backgrounds areknown. Finally, they choose an heir in the Colony, toprotect their reputation against the shame which wouldspread if unrefined relatives showed up to collect the inheritance.One of the most dangerous pitfalls for those arriving inSaint-Domingue is the widespread passion for gambling.This is a place where a man builds his own happiness onthe misfortune of others, where he is called generous forknowing how to make an often desperate being contractdebts which are dignified by the sacred name of honor,and where he forgets that he is husband, father, andcitizen.But if one escapes this contagion, it is more difficult toresist the lures of another passion, the germ of which naturetakes pleasure in putting into evcry heart. One doesnot find in Saint-Domingue, as in the great European citi~,the disgusting spectacle of a sex attacked by the onewhich must know how to defend itself in order to embellishits defeat: but ncither is one protected by the publicdecency which preserves morality in places where oneblushes at the depravity of large cities. Migrants are mostlyat the age when desires are ebullient; they have sometimesjust escaped the annoying supervision of their parents and,suddenly on their own, they are exposed to the most dangerousseduction, since its source is in themselves. A provencourage would be needed to escape such a danger, and itis so often said in Saint-Domingue that the climate forbidsany hope of victory, that little effort is made to dispute it.Hence, one indulges one's natural inclinations and, countinglife more in terma of pleasure than of duration, onerapidly reaches the point of selfdestruction.Gluttony is still a common vice in Saint-Domingue. Al-Mfdiric-Louis-& Moreau de Saint-Mfry 59though the tempestuous abandon of old, heralding the lossof reason, has been banned from the table, one alwaysentertains in the Creole fashion, that is, with profusion. Onthe other hand, as the great heat saps vitality, one believesin restoring it with highly seasoned food.In Saint-Domingue everything takes on a character ofopulence, which astounds the Europeans. The crowd ofslaves who await orders or even signals from just one mangive a sense of importance to whoever commands them. Awealthy man owes it to himself to have four times as manyaervants as he needs. Women especially are skilled at surroundingthemselves with a useless coterie, taken fromamong their own sex. And what is hard to reconcile withthe envy that these brown servants sometimes arouse intheir mistresses, is the amount of care the latter take inchoosing pretty ones and in dressing them elegantly: somuch does pride dictate everything! A European's supremepleasure being to be served, he will rent slaves while waitinguntil he can own them.Upon arrival in Saint-Domingue, one feels remote fromalmost everybody there. The only possible conversation isabout one's intentions to leave the place, for the generalmania is to speak of returning or of going to France.Everyone repeats that he is leaving "next year," and conddemhimself only a transient in a land which is so oftenhis last refuge. This unfortunate idea is so embedded thatpeople deny themselves the small comforts that make lifepleasant The inhabitant sees himself as camping on a fortuneof many millions; his residence is that of a tenantwhose lease is about to expire; his luxuries, for he needsmme, consist of domestic servants and of good eating, andone would think that he is living in a rooming house.To this description of customs which can be called general,it is necessary to add one that pertains specifically towhite Creoles. Numerous causes, in particular the action ofthe constantly burning sun, produce modifications in theinhabitants of the torrid zone which make them differentfrom the inhabitants of the temperate zones.

60 Whites in a Slave Society,.CONCERNING THE WHITE CREOLESAmericans who were born in Saint-Domingue and whoare called Creole (a name common to all those born inthe colony) are usually well built and of good height. Theirfeatures are regular, but their faces lack the coloring withwhich nature brightens and embellishes complexions in coldclimates. Their glance is expressive and even indicates akind of pride, which can prejudice one against them at firstright.Free of the torture of swaddling clothes, their limbs seldomshow any deformity. The temperature, again favoringthem, gives them an agility which fits them for all physicalexercise, for which they have as much inclination asaptitude.The rapid development of their physical capacities, thecontinual spectacle of rebirth enriching their countrythrough an ever-active and fertile principle, the constantsight of the element that separates them from the rest ofthe Universe: everything concurs to give the Creoles activeimaginations and quick minds. These favorable gifts wouldensure success in any enterprise, did not this facility itselfbecome an obstacle by producing love of variety, and ifthese gifts, of which nature is so generous in their childhood,did not often change into troubles for them and objectsof astonishment for observers.Various circumstances concur to deprive young Creolesof their early advantage over children of other climes:in the first place, the blind and excessive love of parentswho indulge their children's desires and who believe thatlove precludes the least resistance. There is no fancy thatis not gratified; no whim that is not excused; no fantasythat is not satisfied, but rather it is inspired, finally, noshortcoming that is not left to time to correct-time whichsometimes suffices to make them inwrrigible.11 Everybody knows this anecdote imputed to a Creole childand which characterizes a large number of them.-"MOD vltMfdtric-Louis-Elie Moreau de Saint-Mkv 61Yet happy is the Creole child whom good health protectsfrom an ill-fated occasion of total exposure to the overindulgenceof his parents. For if his life is threatened, ifhis health is precarious, he cannot escape the misfortuneof becoming an object of idolatry. All the vile symptom*of his disease are, in the eyes of his parents, proof of supposeddesires which they believe he lacks the strength toexpress. Then they improvise for him, giving vent to themost extravagant ideas; and if the constitution of the Creolechild, stronger than the obstacles that a slavish devotednesssets against him, surmounts the physical ailment, the perhapsindestructible germs of a moral disease threaten therest of his days.Add to these disadvantages those stemming from thehabit of being surrounded by slaves, and of needing onlyone look to have everything yielded to him. No despot hashad more attentive homage nor more constant adulatorsthan the Creole child. Each slave is subjected to the fluetuations of his temper, and his childish tantrums only toooften trouble domestic tranquillity. for he can commandany injustice his ungovernable will desires.Finally, even in his games, the Creole child is reducedto being only a tyrant. Put among little slaves who are condemnedto obey his slightest whim, or, what is even morerevolting, to suppress all of their own, he will not toleratethe least opposition. What he sees, he wants; what is shownto him, he demands; and if one of his small playmates byill fate resists him, he becomes angry. Everybody hastensto answer his screams, and those of the hapless child designedby color for submission soon make it known thathe has been forced to yield and perhaps punished for disobedienceand his lack of an instinct of servitude.It is nevertheless in these acts of shamefill despotism thatthe well being of some slaves often has its source; -useif the Creole child shows a predilection for certain slaves,they are assured of a better lot In the event the Creolegnon rf.-Gnia point.-A coze (a mon vlt d6."-"Iwant anegg.-There are none.. -If that*# the raw, I want two.

62 Whites in a Slave Societychild adopts another child and they grow up together, thelatter, depending on its sex, will one day become the objector the minister of his master's pleasures. The influence hethen acquires will shield him, and other slaves he wanbto protect, from the injustices of his master.However, these circumstances, which could stifle all thegerms of virtue in the Creole soul, and to which shouldbe added the dangers which accompany the blessings ofwealth, would matter little if a supervised education coun-. tered all these enemies of his well being. Removed fromprivilege and retaining from bia early tendencies only a degreeof energy and high spirits, which attentive and intelligentteachers could transform into virtues, the American,already favored in his physical constitution, would ceaseto be condemned to mediocrity.But it is in precisely this respect that the Creole fate isto be lamented. Consigned in France mainly to the careof those to whom they are foreigners or to profiteers whooften sell them inferior services at a high price, they cannot even hope to profit from the imperfect education offeredby the colleges to which they are sent. Nobody stimulatesthem, nobody encourages them. Unable to desire successfor its own sake, they count in boredom the daysalready spent away from home and with impatience countthose that still remain. Their parents are mentioned onlyto flatter their vanity, which, instead of winniig them approbation,makes them believe that they are always worthyof it The mention only awakens the memory of parentalindulgence, and the comparison of their past circumstanceswith their present state of neglect is certainly not conduciveto inflame them with the desire to study, the rewards ofwhich are in the future.In this way most Creoles, whether in the Colony or inFrance, reach the age when they must make their entranceinto social life. To destroy any hope of their becoming estimable,it is enough to whet their appetites for consumptionand for pleasurea of a kind that sometimes mark the soulmore deeply than any excess, and finally to constrain themon only one point, precisely the one which it would seemshould be free: the choice of a profession. This choice ismade according to pride of the father, even though he istwo thousand league* away.Everything leads us to believe that an education, whosefirst concern should be to understand the young Creoles andtheir inclinations, would foster the aptitudes they exhibitin their early childhood, but which are progressively lostunder a system whose sad uniformity is everywhere apparent.Indeed, some Creoles have fulfilled the expectationsthey aroused, because they have found a profound interestthat becomes a vehicle and a reward for the one who knewhow to inspire it. There are even some who have overcomethe obstacle! ¥urroimdio them. Why, in a country whereexotic growths excite so much interest and care, ia thereonly indifference toward those transplanted there that havealready proved the effects of a beneficial climate, whosefruits would so well reward the labor of any industriousand respectable cultivator!It is because these facts were overlooked, that the Americanshave been reproached with being good at nothing. TObegin with, the point they started from should have beennoted, that is, that in order to learn Sciences and Letters,and consequently to love them, they had to expatriate themselves.It would then have been realized that this requirementin itself placed Creoles in circumstances whose disadvantagesof which could not be compensated by theinfluence of their climate, which critics have preferred toview as promoting their physical aptitudes at the expense oftheir mental. Hence, some learned absurdities which enrichRecherehes sur Us Adlieatnt, and which the Americangenius, Franklin, has forever confounded [for the sole reasonthat he was born in America].The Creole who has never left Sht-Domiqp, wherehe cannot receive any education, and the Creole who corneaback to his native land. after his education has been neglectedin France, are thenceforward totally under the swayof this active and ebullient imagination with which, ax Ihave said, they are endowed by under a burning nm, followingthe dangerous indulgence of their parents and the

64 Whites in a Slave Societyease with which their wishes became laws for their slamWhat dangen for a.time of life when the passions competefor a heart predisposed to feel acutely both their impactand their tunnoillIt is then that the Creole, losing sight of everything thatis not apt to satisfy his passions and disregarding everythingthat does not bear the mark of pleasure, abandons himselfto the whi~lwind that is about to caq him off. Deliriouslyinfatuated with dancing, music [phes, and everything thatbeguiles and feeds his desires], he seems to exist only forvoluptuous pleasures.How difEcult it is for such inclinations not to becomedisast~ous in a place where it is so uncustomary to controlthem! How is it possible to curb a passionate temperamentwhere the only preoccupation of a large number of women,the offsphg of white men and female slaves, is to avengethemselves with the weapons of love for being condemnedto degradation? 'Thus, passions exert all their power in thehearts of most C~eoles, and when at last [the ills they havebegotten or] the feebleness of old age anives, it does notalways extinguish desire, the cruelest of all passions.It can tmly be said that everything concurs to mold thewell-known impetuous, lively, and fickle Creole temper,rendering them so unfit for marriage, in which happinesscan only be fashioned by mutual constancy. Made jealousby their vanity, they are tormented by the fear of unfaithfulness,of which they themselves are the prime examples.Yet, happy is the betrayed wife who, while sdering theinsult of being under suspicion, is not sometimes condemnedto endure before her very eyes the rival who robher of the tokens of love solemnly avowed her.The faults of the Creole, among which must be includeda passion for gambling, are nevertheless redeemed by a hostof estimable qualities. Sincere, affable, generous to the pointof ostentation, confident, courageous, reliable friends andgood fathers, they are exempt from the ches which degradehumanity: the annals of a colony as large as !bin&Domingue provide scarcely any Creole names to inscribeon the list of tximbals. How easy it would be to make theinhabitant8 of this prosperous Colony as meritoriow as mynow cited as inimitable models.One of the principal virtues of the Creole js hpitdity.What I have mid of tbeiu longing to go to Fbnca shouldsu&a to prove that them is little social life in Saint-Domingue, md that thia Went disposition ia certainlynot conducive to making it pleasant. This is reason enoughto welcome, on the estates, travelem who can vary the usualmonotony. In a vast land of great wealth, where there areno pthouses, where a sod number of inns cater onlyto those witbout mlations in the Colony, hospitality takeson the quality of generosity, which h honor to those whopmctice it. Some plantem devote more than 30,000 limto horn carriages, and coachmen for the convenience ofthose who d to go from place to place in the Colony.But why not ddve oneself? It would wtly embanasstbe Empans to reveal the lengths to which the plantmexert themselves, the di!Eculties they incw on thein behalf.Lkspite this unhappy experience, a man acknowledged asthe friend of one lone planter can still undertake a tourof the Colony, and if hia penonal qualities make him likable,he is c e d to take away regrets from all the placeswhere successive introductions would have made him welcome.The mole character is also visible in the way they travel.Little hones of mediocre appearance are made to carrymian chain or cubriokts at speeds of three or even fourleagum an hour. This rate of speed underscores the Odehabit of demanding [energetically] and of being obeyedpromptly. 'The coachman who knows his master's nature[incemntly spun on hii steeds], shams hii impatience, andtakes pdde in not being outdistanced. Homes a10 still anarticle of luxury for the planW, so much so that on theleast pretext a messenger on horseback is dispatched who,by the rapidity of his progms and the screams with whichhe wgea on his sweateemd mount, could be taken fora courier bearing news of an event of interest to the wholeColony.The Creoles of Saint-Dome are lea subject than the

166 Whites in a Slave SocietyEuropeans to the diseases of their climate. But a prematureadolescence, the abuse of pleasures, perhaps thia infection,whose origin is by now the only thing about which Americaand Europe might disagree, often enough aufEce to destroythe most robust constitution. ll~us the moment is sped whenthe Creole needs to make use of the indifTerence with whichhe envisagm the cessation of life, owing to the frequentsight of death [in a land it decimates].But let us leave this dismal picture, to sketch the chamterof the most afEecting portion of the human speciu,CONCERNING WMTB CREOLE WOMENTo delicacy of features, the Creole women of Sainthmingueadd the trim figure and elegant bearing that seemto be the auributea of women in warm countries. Seldomendowed with the harmony and strict regularity which casentiallyconstitute beauty, their faces almost always tendera combination, more seductive and more dScult to describe, which is called character; and if beautiful womencan readily be found in Greece and Georgia, !Mnt-Domingue supplies pretty on=.me great lively eyes of Creole women display a happycontrast of a soft languor and a lively vivacity. Did notthe harsh climate make theu fresh complexion so fleeting,it would be hard to resist a look in which tenderness anda Kid of gaiety mix without blending. Capable of usingwith exquisite taste the subtle resources that dress can offer,without any artificial counterfeits, Creoles helped by the[fresh] charms, know how to keep the ascendency naturehas given them.Clad as lightly as the climate demands, they appear evenmore free in all their movements and most apt to awakenthe thought of sensual delight, all the more seductive owingto the languid character of all their action.The state of idleness in which Creole women are read,the almost constant heat they a&er, the pampering to whichthey are perpetually subjected, the effects of an active imaginationand a precocious development; all produa an e~-Mkdbtic-Louis-Elie Moreau & Saint-M&y 67m e sensitivity in their nervous system. Prom this dtivityiW atem thein indolence, allied with vivacity, in atemperament at bottom somewhat melanchly.However, any single desire su5cea to reimpire them withenergy. Used to making imperious demands, they are angeredby obstacles; and as soon as these disappear, tbeulistlessness reappear& Without seeking to emulate the d+sirable skills it would be so easy for them to acquire, theynevertheless covet them spitefully as soon as anyone elsepossews them. But what distresses them most, ia the preferenceone of them can gab over the other8 th~ough thecharma of appearance. It is even easy to suspect thh antipathy, born of secret rivalry, when one notices how seldomCreole women seek to be together, although they pour outcaresses whenever they meet by chance.Creole women carry to excess theu love for their children.It i~ they especially who inspire them with the mostpeculiar fancies. I have said enough abut how their bbdnessis fatal to these children toward whom they start behavinglike [real] mothers only when they agree to sendthem to Prance, in the hope that they will receive therea liberal education. They are also [very] fond of theu parents,and lavish on them the most awe-t marks of d-fection.bve, this need or rather this tyxnnt of sensitive soda,rcipa over tJme of -1e women. Lovable because oftheir own sensitivity and theu naturd charms, without deceptionor artifice, they follow their inclination which, toperfect the happineas of those who arc its object, shouldperhapa depend more on sense.It must however be added that if love mmetima lead8Creole women astray, thein enduring attachment to theirguilty choice wdd cedeem their fault were it not a permanentoffense to decency.Happy is the Cmole women for whom marriage oathhave been vow of love! Chccisbhg her husband a6 a her,her faitbfulnes, more commonly the fruit of her liatlaaprudence than of vhe, which implies battles and a victory,will enme their joint tcaaquillity. But if tke hwhd ha8

68 Whites in a Slave kietyno other rights than those of duty, let him dread, while d wptically exercising thea rights, to disregard those of hi.yconsort; his example could be followed.It follows from their loving disposition, that the loss ofthe man to whom they were tied leads almost immediatelyto a new engagement. Hence, we can apply to them whatM. Thibault de Chanvallon has said about hole womenof another colony: "There is no widow who, despite heraffection for her children, does not soon erase by a newmamage the name and memory of the man whom sheseemed to love so desperately." Perhaps there is no othercountry where sewnd mamaga are as common as in Saint-Domingue, and women are to be seen there who have hadseven husbands.The Ckeole woman's attachment is mixed with jealousy,and in spite of her indifference toward a husband who ishers by convention alone, she cannot forgive his unfaithfulness.She becomes furiously angry at everything she canpossibly suspect. Jealousy [which afEicts the Universe] haskilled Creole women who could not bear inconstancy in themen they doted upon. They are even capable of priferringthe death of the beloved to his love; so much does this detestablepassion distort everything, even the very sentimentfrom which it springs!Frenetic dancing is so attractive to Creole women thatthey surrender to it entirely, despite the heat and their weakconstitutions. This exercise seems to brighten their existence,and they know only too well what new charms it ad&to an expressive face and to a graceful figure, no that they8cek it ardently. It makes them forget the languidna they8eem to cherish. l%ey can even be heard beaLg time withstrict precision, but without sWess. Fiially, such is thestate of trance into which dancing throw8 them that a foreign spectator would think that this pleasure utterly dominatestheir sods. Moreover, in seeing at a ball that the departureof a few women becomes a signal for the othersto stop dancing, one could imagine that, forming only a singIefamily, they enpy this entertainment only to the extentthey all share it. How lamentable that thh impulse of apparent &&ion requires a new ball to reappear1h l e women love to sing. Their soft voicea arc admirablysuited to light and tender tuna; but the nentimental balladpleasea them most. It8 plaintive tones seem made toencourage beir languid disposition and they accentuatethem with a sincerity that seduces the heart after havingcharmed the ear.Solitude is very pleasing to Creole women, who williiglylive alone, even in the middle of the city. It gives them anexpression of timidity which d m not leave them when inwmpany, where they eabit few charms, unless they havelearned in France to appreciate an amiabiity which theyknow how to render &ecting.Creole women are very temperak. Chocolate, ca~dies,especially wffee with milk: that is their nourisbment. Buta taste that seems stronger than their will still inducea themto refuse healthy foods and to prefer salted meat imprkdfrom Europe, together with the local dishes, prepared ina biie fashion and known by even more V i e names.Fresh water is their usual beverage, but they sometima prefera lemonade made of sugar syrup and lemon juice.Creole women eat hardly at all ddng meals, but innatelywhenever they feel like it, giving way to the mostdepraved appeti-.Protracted sleep, the inactivity in which they live, allmanner of lapses from the regular regime, ill-choaen food,intense passions almost always in play; such am the wamccaof the evils that menace Creole women, and the reasonstheir charms witber so quickly. Radiant like 50wem, theyalso last only 8s long.Another caw of the rapidity with which Creole womenbbbhummpl-andWuWthhthewnicioucustom of m g them before nature has completedtheir growth. Mothera before they have become maturewomen, they give life only by shortening their own.Generally fertile, sustaining pregnancy without disease andchildbii without accident, they deceive themlvea about

70 Whites in a Slave Societythese advantages which are due solely to the wcabasaof their organs.I can almost visualize the astmhhment of learning thatin a country where maternal love is an exalted virtue, ~II.fan&&eata~n&b&ItbodymhhtUthere are few Creole women who attempt to feed their children,very few succeed in fulUng this duty. Weak by am.stitution and because the age of motherhood has been hastened,weak because they destroy their stomachs andbecause the climate and perhaps bereditnry defecta havemade their nervous system very sensitive, Creole woanreduced to wliciting from theii daves the sadice dthek offspring to keep alive the child to whom they [Cmbwomen] could only five life. But Wi children arc breastfedunder their supervision, they contend for cammes fromthe wet nurse who is almost alwap freed as a payment forher good offices; at length the mothers compensate througbtheu can and theu solicitude for their incapacity to supplya need whose neglect is often mercilessly punished in otherclimates.Creole women wive no education in Saint-Domingue,and when they are judged in the light of this observation,it is surprising to find they have such good sense. Tl~eirnative intelligence, free of prejudices, stamps them withstrength of character which, if it help lead them astray inwhatever irrational thing they desire, lends their well-guidedresolves a steadfastness some peevish traducers had maintainedtheir sex was incapable of.One can with assurance ask Creole women for advice,as long as it concerns feeline or scruples. Endowed witha tact often better than our principles, they naturally inclinetowards what is best. Proud, shocked by anything debasing,despising, even more than men, degraded men, UsCreole woman feels keenly insults toward one she low.He must renounce her affection if he is able to SW~UOWan insult; she will never listen to the sighs of a coward,and would rather weep on his grave.It is unfortunately only too easy to prove to them thatone is worthy of them in this respect, Tbe best evid-Mkd&ric-hu&Elie Mmau de Saint-Mkry 71of the dca.rtb of d intercourse in Wt-Domingue is thefalse wme of honor that still domhatca opinion there. Ina land wbee luck raises up so many rivals, it is diiulttomwehplite~eswmmpehphmp*tdom of personal safety. Tie habit of giving orders todam and of 5nding nothing but submission wxaadymakes for rather haughty tempers, and as defenders of theirm homea Colonists seem to be dominated by a prejudice88 old as tbe Colony; it @vea even magistrate8 the appearanceof warfiomCreole women are also naturally affable, generous, cornpmionatetoward eveqthhg that is marked by misfortu~mi sorrow, but they somctinm forget thcac vhaca whenit comes to their dodc slaves.Who would not be revolted at the sight of a re&dwoman, whom the dtal of a lesser misfortune than theone she is about to Wct would cause to shed tears, pmidingover the punishment she has ordered! Nothing qualathe anger of a Creole woman pdshing the dave whomher husband has perhaps f o e to sully the conjugal bed.In her jealous fury she knows only how to devise meansto satisfy her vengeance.These homble scenes which are very rare are becomingatill more so fiom day to day. Maybe even Creole womenwill in time cast off Mi inclination toward harsh domination,to which they became habituated in early childhood.Making it a point to bring up and educate many of them inFrance, the iduence of books which praise domestic virtuesand which they read with emotion will doubtless bringabout this happy revolution. Already Creole women amffadiig pleasure in easing tbe lot of slaves near them; alreadythey are lavishing on all their slaves* children attentionsthat they formerly disdained. There is more than onerespectable Creole woman whose h t concern upon arisingia to go and visit the idrmary on her pqrty, and to seeat the Went8 of the Negrw are allayed and theu pahded. Sometimes their dainty hands even prepare medicationswhile consolations flow from their pemasive lips.charming sex1 !Such is your legacy: sweetness and kind-

72 Whites in a Save Societyna. Nature molded you to temper man's pridep to captivatehim, to make pleasant for him the dream of liie. Donot disdain to reign by the means nature has given you. The!founder of a religion, while painting in strokes of lire aplace of eternal delight, felt that to arouse enthusiasm, youshould be depicted in this sweet and lovely abode, and hehas captivated us with this truly enchanting scene1I do not claim, in this picture of the character of theWhim of Saint-Jhminguep to have put in every characteristic,but only to suggest the main principles on which itis based. In the remainder of Description de la partie franpirethere will be given more than one circumstance bearingon custom and characters of the inhabitants of Saint-Dominguep more than one remarkable exception, more thanone subject of praise or blame, and the attentive Readerwill not always need to have them pointed out, to be struckby them. He must already realize that in a Colony, whereeach man with his own vices and virtues directs him stepstoward the temple of fortune according to his viewsp hisneeds, and the circumstancesp there must be palpable diierences,even absolute unlikenesses [although one single ambitionhere brings together individuals ftom all over theworld].

Freed Blacks and MulattosEdward LongFree colored West Indians, seen here through the eyes ofan eighteenth-century Jamaican white, led lives of continualaggravation, remote in status from both white andslave. This account, written in 1774, is extracted from aclassic study of Jamaica. The free-colored inhabitants areviewed in terms of the problems they posed for the whites,who were at the same time their progenitors, rivals, andlovers. Conceiving these associations dangerous to whitepurity and mastery, the author fulminates against localpractices concerning half-breeds.A Jamaican resident for twelve years. EDWARD LONOserved as judge in the local vice-admiralty court, but illhealthforced him to leave the island before his book waspublished. Despite its racial bias, this account provides aclear picture of social and economic conditions in the island.There were three classes of freed persons here. The lowestcomprehended those who were released from slavery bytheir owner*! manumission, either by will or an instrumentsealed and delivered, and registered either in the toll-bookor the secretary's office. They were allowed no other modeof trial, than the common slaves, that is, "by two justicesand three freeholders"; for they were not supposed to haveacquired any sense of morality by the mere act of manumission;so likewise they were not admitted evidencesagainst white or other free-born persons, in the courts ofjustice, nor to vote at parochial nor general elections.The second class consisted of such as were free-bomThese were allowed a trial by jury, and might give evidencein controversies at law with one another, and incriminal cases; but only in civil cases against white persons,or against freed-persons, particularly endowed with supenorprivileges.The third contained such as, by private acts of assembly,became entitled to the same rights and privileges withother English subjects born of white parcnte, except thatthey might not be of the council nor assembly; nor judgesin any of the courts, nor in the public offices, nor jurymen.History of Jamaica, or, General Survey of the Ancient andModem State of That Island, 3 vote., pp. 320-36. Originallypublished in London by T. Lowndes, 1774; available as CaasLibrary of West Indian Studies No. 12, London, Frank Cass,1970.

76 Freed Blacks and MulattosSome of them are likewise precluded from voting at electionsof assembly-members. There are not any considerablenumbers who have enjoyed the privileges annexed to thislatter class; they have chiefly been granted to such, whowere inheritor of large estates in the island, bequeathedto them by their white ancestor.. The freedom of the two former classes was much enlargedin 1748, when a law passed, allowing the manumitted,as well as free-born, to give evidence against anyfreed-persons enjoying the liberty of white subjects, provided,in respect to the manumitted, they have receivedtheir freedom six months at least antecedent to the time oftheir offering such evidence; and if they should be convictedof wilful and corrupt perjury, they are made liableto the same punishment, as the laws of England inflict onthis offence.Thus it appears, that they hold a limited freedom, similarto that of the Jews; and it has been often suggested byvery sensible men, that it is too circumscribed, more especiallyin reference to those who have large patrimoniesin the island; who, without any probable ill consequence,might be permitted to have a vote in the vestry, and at theelection of members to serve in the assembly; to write asclerks in some of the offices; and hold military commissionsin the Black and Mulatto companies of militia; whichprivileges I will not dispute: but, for many reasons, it werebetter to confer them on particular or select persons, ofgood education and morality, than to extend them by ageneral law to many, who, it must be confessed, are notfitly qualified for this enlargement.The descendants of the Negroe blood, entitled to all therights and liberties of white subjects, in the full extent, aresuch, who are above three steps removed in the lineal digressionfrom the Negroe venter exclusive; that is to say,real quinterons, for all below this degree are reputed bylaw Mulattos.The law requires likewise, in all these cases, the sacramentof baptism, before they can be admitted to theseprivileges. Some few other restrictions are laid on the firstEdward Longand second class. No one of them, except he pouene* 8settlement with ten slaves upon it, may keep any horses,males, mules, asses, and neat cattle, on penalty of forfeiture.This was calculated to put a stop to the practice ofdaughtering the old breed on commons, and putting theirown marks upon the young.But two justices may license any such freed-pcm tokeep such stock, during good behaviour.They who have not a settlement, as just mentioned, mustfurnish themietvea with certilicatea of their freedom, underthe hand and seal of a justice, and wear a blue cross on theright shoulder, on pain of imprisonmen&If convicted of concealing, enticing, entertaining, or¥endin off the island, any fugitive, rebellious, or otheralave, they are to forfeit their freedom, be 8014 andbanished.These are the principal ordinances of the laws affectingthe common freed-persons; whence the policy of the COWtry may be easily measwed. The restraints, so far as theyare laid upon the lowest order just emerged from ¥ervitudeand who have no property of any consequence, wem very-able and proper; but in respect to the few who havereceived a moral and Christian education, and who inheritfortunes coddcrablo enough to make them in&pendent, they may be thought capable of >ome relaxation,without any prejudice to the general welfare of the colony;for it deserves aerious reflection, that most of the ¥uperioorder (for these reasons) prefer living in England, wherethey are respected, at least for their fortunes; and knowthat their children can enjoy of right all thoM privilegeanwhich in Jamaica are withheld from their possession.The slaw that most w d y gain a manumidon hemfrom their owners, are1. Domesticka. in reward for a long and faithful cow80of service.2. Those, who have been permitted to work for themelves,only paying a certain weekly or monthly sum; manyof them find means to save sufficient from their earnings,to purchase their freedom.

78 Freed Blacks and Mulattos3. Those who have effected some essential service to thepublic, such as revealing a conspiracy, or fighting valiantlyagainst rebels and invaders. They have likewise generallybeen requited with an annuity, from the public treasury,for life.Some regulation seems expedient, to give the first mentionedthe means of acquiring their freedom, without thetemptation of converting it into licentiousness.In Antigua, every white person who bestows this boonupon his slave, accompanies it with some further grant,enabling him to enjoy his new station with advantage tohimself and the community. The law there compels allthese freed-men, who have not lands wherewith to form asettlement, to enter themselves into the service of somefamily. In Jamaica, where land is a cheap commodity, thisis not the case. The Negroe receives his manumission, butnot always a provision for his future subsistence; this defeettherefore impels many of them to thefts and otherillegal practices, for a maintenance. A liberty of this speciesis baneful to society; and it seems to be the proper objectof legislature, to make these acts of private bounty subservientto, instead of leaving them subversive of, the publickgood.From five to ten acres of ground might very well bespared upon any planter's estate. Five acres of good soilare abundantly sufficient for one such freed Negroe. It maybe said, that such a condition, tacked to these grants, wouldhinder men from rewarding their faithful slaves with liberty;but, on the other hand, in a publick view, it is betterthat the Negroe should continue an honest and industriousslave, than to be turned into an idle and profligate freeman.All however that is here meant is, that, in imitation of theAntigua law, all those freed-men, who have neither landsto cultivate, nor trade to follow, should be obliged to enrollthemselves in some white family, as domesticks; a listshould annually be taken, and registered, of all the classes,and their occupations annexed to their names.I come now to speak of the Mulattoes and other casts,who (in common parlance) all pass under that appellation.Edward Long 79Upon enquiry of the assembly, in the year 1762, into thedevises made by last wills to Mulatto children, the amountin reality and personalty was found in value between twoand three hundred thousand pound. They included foursugar estates, seven pcnns, thirteen houses bdides otherlands unspecified. After duly weighing the ill consequencesthat might befall the colony, by suffering real estates to passinto such hands, a bill was passed, "ti prevent the inconveniencesarising from exorbitant grants and devises madeby white persons to Negroes and the issue of Negroes, andto restrain and limit such grants and devises"; this bill enacted,that a devise from a white person, to a Negroe orMulatto, of real and personal estate, exceeding in value2000 I. currency, should be void. It has been objected bymany, and with great warmth, to this law, "that it is oppressivein its effect, tending to deprive men of their rightto dispose of their own effects and acquisitions, in the mannermost agreeable to their inclinations". It may not beimproper, therefore, to examine a little into the fair stateof the question. That it is repugnant to the spirit of theEnglish laws, is readily granted, and so is Negroe slavery:the question therefore arising from this comparisonwill be, Is there or not a local necessity for laying manyrestraints in this colony, where slave-holding is legally eatablished,which restraints do not exist, nor are politicallyexpedient, in England, where slavery is not tolerated? It isa first principle, and not to be controverted, in political andcivil as well as in moral government, that if one persondoes any act, which if every other or even many others ofthe same society were to do, must be attended with iajuriousconsequences to that society, such an act cannot inthe nature of things be legal nor warrantable. All societiesof men, wherever constituted, can subsist together only bycertain obligations and restrictions, to which all the individualmembers must necessarily yield obedience for thegeneral good; or they can have no just claim to those rights,and that protection, which are held by all, under this commonsanction.In countries where rational freedom is most enjoyed, as

80 Freed Blacks and Mulattosin England, the laws have affixed certain bounds to men'spassions and inclinations, in numberless examples; so asuccession to estates there is regulated more according tothe rules of policy, and the good of the community, thanto the law of nature, simply considered; therefore, althougha man may be desirous, nay, thinks he has a natural right,to determine who shall enjoy that property from time totime after his death, which he acquired by his industrywhile living, the law of England, abhorring perpetuitiesas hurtful to the society, defeats this purpose, and readilygives its assistance to bar such entails.The right of making devises by will was established insome countries much later than in others. In England, tillmodem times, a man could only dispose of one third of hismoveables from his wife and legitimate children; and, ingeneral, no will was permitted of lands till the reign ofHenry the Eighth, and then only a certain portion; for itwas not till after the Restoration, that the power of devisingreal property became so universal as at present. The antientlaw of the Athenians directed that the state of the deceasedshould always descend to his legitimate children; or,on failure of such lineal descendants, should go to the collateralrelations. In many other parts of Greece they weretotally discountenanced. In Rome they were unknown tillthe laws of the twelve tables were compiled, which firstgave the right of bequeathing; and among the Northernnations, particularly the Germans, testaments were not receivedinto use. By the common law of England, since theconquest, no estate, greater than for term of years, can bedisposed of by testament, except only in Kent and in someantient burghs, and a few particular manors, where theirSaxon immunities by particular indulgence subsisted. Andthough the feudal restraint on alienations by deed vanishedvery early, yet this on wills continued for some centuriesafter, from an apprehension of infirmity and imposition onthe testator in extremis; which made such devises suspicious.Every distinct country has different ceremonies andrequisites to make a will cornpleatly valid; and this varietymay serve to evince, that the right of making wills andEdward Long 8 1disposing of property after death is merely a creature ofthe civil or municipal laws, which have permitted it insome countries, and denied it in others; and even where itis permitted by law, it is subjected to different restrictions,in almost every nation under Heaven. In England, particularly,this diversity is carried to such a length, as if it hadbeen meant to point out the power of the laws in regulatingthe succession to property; and how futile every claim mustbe, that has not its foundation in the positive rules of the8tate.l In the same kingdom, the institution of marriage isregarded as one of the main links of society, because it isfound to be the best support of it A promiscuous intercourseand an uncertain parentage, if they were universal,would soon dissolve the frame of the constitution, fromthe infinity of claims and contested rights of succession: forthis reason, the begetting an illegitimate child is reputeda violation of the social compacts, and the transgressorsare punishable with corporal correction.% The civil codeswere so rigorous, that they even made bastards incapable,in some cases, of a gift from their parents. The detestationin which they have been held by the English laws is veryapparent, and may be inferred from the spirit of their severalmaxims: as, "Hares legitimus est quem nuptia demonstrant&c."a "Cui pater est populus, non habet illepatrem."' "Qui ex dammto coitu nascuntur, inter liberosnon computentur." So they are likewise styled "filii nullius,"6because their real father is supposed to be unartain,or unknown. The lenity however of the English lawat present, is satisfied only with excluding them from inheritance,and with exacting a competent provision fortheir maintenance, that they may not become chargeableupon the publick.1 Blackstone.3 18 Eliz. 7 lac. 1.*A legitimate child is he that is born after wedlock.4The offspring of promiscum conjunctions ha* no father.Marriage ascertains the father.6 Bastards are not endowed with the privilege of children. NOman's children.

82 Freed Blacks and MulattosThe institution of marriage, is doubtless of as much concernin the colony, as it is in the mother country: perhapsmore so; because a life of celibacy is not equally hurtfulin the latter, who may draw recruits to keep up her population,from the neighbouring states of Europe. But the civilpolicy of the two countries, in respect to successions toproperty, differ very materially; so that, if three fourths ofthe nation were slaves, there can be no question but thatthe law of last wills would be modified to a different frame,perhaps carried back again to the antient feudal doctrineof non-alienation, without consent of the lord; which restraintwas suited to the policy of those times, when villeinageprevailed. A man's right of devising his propertyby will ought justly, therefore, from the constitution of ourWest India colonies, to be more circumscribed in them,than is fitting in the mother state. A subject (for example)in Jamaica ought not to bequeath his whole personal estate,which may be very considerable, to a slave; and, if heshould do so, it is easy to conceive that it would be utterlyrepugnant to the civil policy of that island. The Jamaicalaw permits the putative father to leave, what will bethought, a very ample provision, in order to set his bastardforward in the world; and in all cases where the father,having no legitimate kin to whom he may be willing togive his property, where that property is large, and his illegitimatechild may be, by the polish of a good education,and moral principles, found well deserving to possess it;there can be no question, but he might be made legitimateand capable of inheriting, by the power of an act of assembly;since the same thing has been done in similar cases inEngland, by act of the parliament. It is plain, therefore,the policy of the law only tends to obviate the detrimentresulting to the society, from foolish, and indiscriminatedevises; leaving in the breast of the legislature to ratifyothers particularly circumstanced, and which might not beso likely to produce the same inconveniences. It is a questioneasily answered, whether (supposing all natural impedimentsof climate out of the way) it would be more forthe interest of Britain, that Jamaica should be possessedEdward Lans 83and peopled by white inhabitants, or by Negroc* andMulattos? - Let any man turn bis eyes to the SpanishAmerican dominions, and behold what a vicious, bxutal,and degenerate breed of mongrels has been there produced,between Spaniards, Blacks, Indians, and their mixed progeny;and he must be of opinion, that it might bemuch better for Britain, and Jamaica too, if the white menin that colony would abate of their infatuated attachmentsto black women, and, instead of being "grac'd with ayellow offspring not their own,"@ perform the duty incumbenton every good cittizen, by raising in honourable wed'lock a race of unadulterated bei. The trite pretence ofmost men here, for not entering into that state, is "theheavy and intolerable expences it will bring upon them."This, in plain English, is nothing more than expressing theiropinion, that society shall do every thing for them, andthat they ought to do nothing for society; and the folly ofthe means they pursue to attain this selfish, ungrateful purpose,is well exposed, by the profusion and misery intowhich their disorderly connexlons often insensibly plungothem. Can we possibly admit any force in their excuse,when we observe them lavishing their fortune with unboundedliberality upon a common prostitute? when we seeone of these votaries of celibacy grow the abject, passiveslave to all her insults, thefts, and infidelities; and dispenehis estate between her and her brats, whom he blindlyacknowledges for his children, when in truth they are entidedto claim twenty other fathers? It is true, the issue of amarriage may somedmes lie under suspicion, through theloose Carnage of the mother; but on which side does theweight of probability rest, on the virtue of a wife, orthe continence of a prostitute?Very indigent men may indeed, with more colour ofpropriety, urge such an argument in their defence; but theowner of a large fortune possesses what is a visible demonstration,to prove the fallacy of his pretence. Such a man isdoubtleas as able to maintain a wife, as a mistress of all the0 Pitt's Virgil'* ~enfud, vi, 293.IIIII

84 Freed Blacks and Mulattosvices reigning here: none are so flagrant as this of concubinagewith white women, or cohabiting with Negressmand Mulattos, free or slaves. In consequence of this practicewe have not only more spinsters in comparison to thenumber of women among the natives (whose brothemor male relations possess the greatest part of their father'spatrimony) in this small community, than in most otherparts of his majesty's dominions, proportionably inhabited;but also, a vast addition of spurious offsprings of differentcomplexions: in a place where, by custom, so little restraintis laid on the passions, the Europeans, who at homehave always been used to greater purity and strictness ofmanners, are too easily led aside to give a loose to everykind of sensual delight: on this account some black oryellow quasheba is sought for, by whom a tawney breedis produced. Many are the men, of every rank, quality,and degree here, who would much rather riot in thesegoatish embraces, than share the pure and lawful bliss derivedfrom matrimonial, mutual love. Modesty, in this respect,has but very little footing here. He who should presumeto shew any displeasure against such a thing as simplefornication, would for his pains be accounted a simpleblockhead; since not one in twenty can be persuaded, thatthere is either sin or shame in cohabiting with his slave.Of these men, by far the greatest part never marry afterthey have acquired a fortune: but usher into the world atarnished train of beings, among whom, at their decease,they generally divide their substance. It is not a little curious,to consider the strange manner in which some of themare educated. Instead of being taught any mechanic art,whereby they might become useful to the island, and enabledto support themselves, young Fuscus, in whom thefather fondly imagines he sees the reflected dawn of paternalgenius, and Miss Fulviu, who mamma protests has amost delicate ear for music and French, are both of themsent early to England, to cultivate and improve the valuabletalents which nature is supposed to have so wantonlybestowed, and the parents, blind with folly, think they havediscovered. To accomplish this end, no expence nor painsEdward Long 85are spared; the indulgent father, big with expectation of thefuture eclat of his hopeful progeny,. . .didaimThe vulgar tutor, and the rustic school,To which the dull cits sen& his low-born fool.By our wise sire to London are they brought,To learn those arts that high-bred youths are tau&Attended, drest, and train'd, with cost and care.Just like some wealthy duke's apparent-heir.Master is sent to Westminster, or Baton, to be instructedin the elements of learning, among students of the firstrank that wealth and family can give: whilst Miss is placedat Chelsea, or some other famed seminary; where shelearns music, dancing, French, and the whole circle offemale ban ton, proper for the accomplishment of finewomen. After much time and money bestowed on theireducation, and great encomiums, year after year, transmitted(by those whose interest it is to make them) ontheir very uncommon genius and proficiency, at length theyreturn to visit their relations. From this period, much oftheir future misery may be dated. Miss faints at the sight ofher relations, especially when papa tells her that blackQuasheba is her own mother. The young gentleman too,after his introduction, begins to discover that the knowledgehe has gained has only contributed to make him moresusceptible of keen reflections, arising from his unfortunatebirth. He is soon, perhaps, left to herd among his blackkindred, and convene with Qwahee and Minm instead ofhis school-fellows, Sir George. or My Lord, while mademoiselle,instead of modish French, must learn to prattlegibberish with her cousins Mimba and Chloe: for, howeverwell this yellow brood may be received in England, yet hereso great is the distinction kept up between white and mixedcomplexions, that very seldom are they seen together in afamiliar way, though every advantage of dress or fortuneshould centre with the latter. Under this distinction, it isimpossibk but that a well-educated Mulatta must kad avery unpleasant kind of a life here; and justly may apply

86 Freed Blacks and Mulattosto her reputed father what Iphicrates said of his, "Afterall your pains, you have made me no better than a slave;on the other hand, my mother did everything in her powerto render me free." On first arriving here, a civilized Europeanmay be apt to think it impudent and shameful, thateven bachelors should publickly avow their keeping Negroeor Mulatto mistresses; but they are still more shocked atseeing a group of white legitimate, and Mulatto illegitimate,children, all claimed by the same married father,and all bred up together under the same roof.? Habit,however, and the prevailing fashion, reconcile such scenes,and lessen the abhorrence excited by their first impression.To allure men from these illicit connexions, we oughtto remove the principal obstacles which deter them frommarriage. This will be chiefly effected by rendering womenof their own complexion more agreeable companions, morefrugal, trusty, and faithful friends, than can be met withamong the African ladies. Of some probable measures toeffect this desireable purpose, and make the fair nativesof this island more amiable in the eyes of the men, and7 Reason requires, that the master's power should not extendto what does not appertain to his service. Slavery should becalculated for utility, not for pleasure. The laws of chastity arisefrom those of nature, and ought in all nations to be respected.If a law, which preserves the chastity of slaves, be good in thosestates where an arbitrary power bears down all before it, howmuch more so will it be in monarchies1 and how much morestill in republics! The law of the Lombards has a regulationwhich ought to be adopted by all governments. "If a masterdebauches his slave's wife, the slave and his wife shall be free";an admirable expedient, which, without severity, lays a powerfulrestraint on the incontinency of masters. The Romans erred onthis head: they allowed an unlimited scope to the master's lust;and, in some measure, denied their slaves the privilege of marrying.It is true, they were the lowest part of the nation; yet thereshould have been some care taken of their morals, especiallyas, in prohibiting their marriage, they corrupted the morals ofthe citizens.So thinks the inimitable Montesquieu. And how applicablethese sentiments are to the state of things in our island, I leaveto the dispassionate judgement of every man there, whether marriedor single.Edward Long 87more eligible partners in the nuptial state, I have alreadyventured my sentiments. A proper education is the firstgreat point A modest demeanour, a mind divested of falsep1ide.a very moderate zeal for expensive pleasures, a skinin economy, and a conduct which indicates plain tokensof good humour, fidelity, and discretion, can never fail ofmaking converts. Much, indeed, depends on the ladiesthemselves to rescue this truly honourable union from thatfashionable detestation in which it seems to be held: andone would suppose it no very arduous task to make themelvesmore companionable, useful, and esteemable, aswives, than the Negresses and Mulattas are as mistresses:they might, I am well persuaded, prove much honesterfriends. It is true, that, if it should be a man's misfortuneto be coupled with a very profligate and extravagant wife,the difference, in respect to his fortune, is not great,whether plundered by a black or by a white woman. Butguch examples, I may hope, are unfrcquent without thehusband's concurrence; yet, whenever they do happen, themischief they occasion is very extensive, from the approhensionswith which they strike multitudes of single men,the viler part of whom endeavour to increase the numberof unhappy marriages by every base art of seduction; whileothers rejoice to find any such, because they seem to justifytheir preference of celibacy, or concubinage. In regard tothe African mistress, I shall exhibit the following, as no unsuitableportrait. All her kindred, and most commonly hervery paramours, are fastened upon her keeper like so manyleeches; while she, the chief leech, conspires to bleed himusque ad deliqbm. In well-dissembled affection, in hertricks, cajolements, and infidelities, she is far more perfectlyversed, than any adept of the hundreds of Drury. Sherarely wants cunning to dupe the fool that confides in her;for who "shall teach the wily African deceit?" The quin-(essence of her dexterity consists in persuading the manshe detests to believe she is most violently smitten with thebeauty of bis person; in short, over head and ears in lovewith him. To establish this opinion, which vanity seldomfails to embrace, she now and then affects to be jealous,

88 Freed Blacks and Mulattoslaments his ungrateful return for so sincere a passion; and,by this stratagem, she is better able to hide her privateintrigues with her real favourites. I have seen a dear companionof this stamp deploring the loss of her deceasedcull with all the seeming fervency of an honest affection, orrather of outrageous sorrow; beating her head; stampingwith her feet; tears pouring down in torrents; her exclamationsas wild, and gestures as emphatic, as those of anantient Roman orator in all the phrensy of a publick harangue.Unluckily, it soon appeared, that, at this very time,she had rummaged his pockets and escrutoire; and concealedhis watch, rings, and money, in the feather-bedupon which the poor wretch had just breathed his last Andauch is the mirror of almost all these conjunctions of whiteand black! two tinctures which nature has dissociated, likeoil and vinegar. But, as if some good was generally to ariseout of evil, so we find, that these connexions have beenapplauded upon a principle of policy; as if, by formingsuch alliances with the slaves, they might become moreattached to the white people. Perhaps, the fruit of theseunions may, by their consanguinity with a certain numberof the Blacks, support some degree of influence, so far asthat line of kindred extends: yet one would scarcely supposeit to have any remote effect; because they, for theirown parts, despise the Blacks, and aspire to mend theircomplexion still more by intermixture with the Whites. Thechildren of a White and Quateron are called English, andconsider themselves as free from all taint of the Negroerace. To call them by a degree inferior to what they reallyare, would be the highest affront This pride of amendedblood is universal, and becomes the more confirmed, if theyhave received any smattering of education; for then theylook down with the more supercilious contempt upon thosewho have had none. Such, whose mind has been a littlepurged from the grossest ignorance, may wish and endeavourto improve it still more; but no freed or unfreedMulatto ever wished to relapse into the Negroe. The fact is,that the opulent among them withdraw to England; wheretheir influence, if they ever possessed any, ceases to be of1Edward Longany use. The middle class are not much liked by the Negroes,because the latter abhor the idea of being slaves tothe descendants of slaves. And as for the lower rank, theissue of casual fruition, they, for the most part, remain inthe same slavish condition as their mother; they are fellowlabourerswith the Blacks, and are not regarded in the least, as their superiors. As for the first-mentioned, it wouldprobably be no disservice to the island, to regain all thosewho have abandoned it. But, to state the comparison fairly,if their fathers had married, the difference would have beenthis; their white offspring might have remained in the colony,to strengthen and enrich it: the Mulatto offspring desertand impoverish it The lower class of these mixtures,who remain in the island, are a hardy race, capable of undergoingequal fatigue with the Blacks, above whom (inpoint of due policy) they ought to hold some degree ofdistinction. They would then form the centre of connexionbetween the two extremes, producing a regularestablishment of three ranks of men, dependent oneach other, and rising in a proper climax of subordination,in which the Whites would hold the highest place. I canforesee no mischief that can arise from the enfranchise*ment of every Mulatto child. If it be objected, that such aplan may tend to encourage the illicit commerce of whichI have been complaining; I reply, that it will be morelikely to repress it, because, although the planters are atpresent very indifferent about the birth of such childrenupon their estates, knowing that they will either labour forthem like their other slaves, or produce a good price, iftheir fathers should incline to purchase them; yet they willdiscountenance such intercourses as much as lies in theirpower (when it shall no longer be for their interest to con-, nive at them), and use their endeavours to multiply theunmixed breed of their Blacks. Besides, to expect that menwill wholly abstain from this commerce, if it was even liableto the severest penalties of law, would be absurd; for,so long as some men have passions to gratify, they will'seek the indulgence of them by means the most agreeable,and least inconvenient, to themselves. It will be of some

90 Freed Blacks and Mulattosadvantage, as things are circumstanced, to turn unavoidableevils to the benefit of society, as the best reparationthat can be made for this breach of its moral and politicalinstitutions. A wise physician will strive to change an acutedistemper into one less malignant; and his patient compoundsfor a slight chronic indisposition, so he may getrelief from a violent and mortal one. I do not judge solightly of the present state of fornication in the island, asto suppose that it can ever be more flourishing, or that theemancipation of every Mulatto child will prove a means ofaugmenting the annual number. The retrieving them fromprofound ignorance, affording them instruction in Christianmorals, and obliging them to serve a regular apprenticeshipto artificers and tradesmen, would make them orderlysubjects, and faithful defenders of the country. Itmay, with greater weight, be objected, that such a measurewould deprive the planters of a part of their property; andthat the bringing up so many to trades and mechanic artsmight discourage white artificers.The first might be obviated, by paying their owners acertain rate per head, to be determined by the legislature.The second is not insurmountable; for few or none will bemaster-workmen; they will serve as journeymen to whiteartificers; or do little more than they would have done, ifthey had continued in slavery; for it is the custom on mostestates at present to make tradesmen of them. But, if theywere even to set up for themselves, no disadvantage wouldprobably accrue to the publick, but the contrary. Theywould oblige the white artificers to work at more moderaterates; which, though not agreeable perhaps to these artificers,would still leave them an ample gain, and provevery acceptable to the rest of the inhabitants; for to such apitch of extravagance have they raised their charges, thatthey tax their employers just what they think fit; each manof them fixes a rate according to his own fancy, unregulatedby any law; and, should his bill be ever so enormousor unjust, he is in no want of brother tradesmen in thejury-box to confirm and allow it I shall not here presumeto dictate any entire plan for carrying this scheme into1Edward Long 91effect This must be left to the wisdom of the legislature,and be made consistent with the abilities of the treasury.In general only I may suppose, that for every such child,on its attaining the age of three years, a reasonable allowancebe paid to the owner: from that period it becomes thecare of the public, and might be provided for, at a cheaprate, until of an age fit for school; then be instructed inreligion; and at the age of twelve apprenticed for the termof four years; after this, be regimented in his respectivedistrict, perhaps settled near a township; and, when onmilitia or other public duty, paid the aame subsistenceper day, or week, that is now allowed to the Marons[Maroons]. The expediency must be seen of having (as inthe French islands) such a corps of active men, ready toscour the woods upon all occasions; a service, in which theregulars are by no means equal to them. They would likewiseform a proper counter-balance to the Maron Negroes;whose insolence, during formidable insurrections, has beenmost insufferable. The best way of securing the allegianceof these irregular people must be by preserving the treatywith them inviolate: and, at the same time, awing them intothe conservation of it on their part by such a powerfulequipoise, composed of men dissimilar from them in complexionand manners, but equal in hardiness and vigour.The Mulattos are, in general, well-shaped, and thewomen well-featured. They seem to partake more of thewhite than the black. Their hair has a natural curl: in someit resembles the Negroe fleece*, but, in general, it is of atolerable length. The girls arrive very early at the age ofpuberty; and, from the time of their being about twentyfive,they decline very fast, till at length they grow horriblyugly. They are lascivious; yet, considering their want ofinstruction, their behaviour in public is remarkably decent;and they affect a modesty which they do not feel. They arelively and sensible, and pay religious attention to the cleanlinessof their persons: at the same time, they are ridiculouslyvain, haughty, and irascible. They possess, for themost part, a tcnderncaa of disposition, which leads them todo many charitable actions, especially to poor white per-

92 Freed Blacks and Mulattossons, and makes them excellent nurses to the sick. Theyare fond of finery, and lavish almost all the money theyget in ornaments, and the most expensive sorts of linen.Some few of them have intermarried here with those oftheir own complexion; but such matches have generallybeen defective and barren. They seem in this respect to beactually of the mule-kind, and not so capable of producingfrom one another as from a commerce with a distinctWhite or Black. Monsieur Buffon observes, that it is nothingstrange that two individuals should not be able to propagate their species, because nothing more is required thansome slight opposition in their temperaments, or some accidentalfault in the genital organs of either of these twoindividuals: nor is it surprising, that two individuals, ofdifferent species, should produce other individuals, which,being unlike either of their progenitors, bear no resemblanceto any thing fixed, and consequently cannot produceany thing resembling themselves, because all that isrequisite in this production is a certain degree of conformitybetween the form of the body and the genital organsof these different animals. Yet it seems extraordinary, thattwo Mulattos, having intercourse together, should be unableto continue their species, the woman either proving barren,or their offspring, if they have any, not attaining to ma-.turity; when the same man and woman, having commercewith a White or Black, would generate a numerous issue.Some examples may possibly have occurred, where, uponthe intermarriage of two Mulattos, the woman has bornechildren; which children have grown to maturity: but Inever heard of such an instance; and may we not suspectthe lady, in those cases, to have privately intriguedwith another man, a White perhaps? The suspicion is notunwarrantable, if we consider how little their passions areunder the restraint of morality; and that the major part,nay, almost the whole number, with very few exceptions,have been filles de joye before they became wives. As forthose in Jamaica, whom I have particularly alluded to, theymarried young, had received some sort of education, andlived with great repute for their chaste and orderly con-Edward Long 93duct; and with them the experiment is tried with a greatdegree of certainty: they produce no offspring, though inappearance under no natural incapacity of so doing witha different comexion.The subject is really curious, and deserves a further andvery attentive enquiry; because it tends, among otherevidences, to establish an opinion, which several have entertained,that the White and the Negm had not one cornmooorigin. Towards disproving this opinion, it is necessary,that the Mulatto woman should be past all suspicionof intriguing with another, or having communication withany other man than her Mulatto husband; and it then remainsfor further proof, whether the offspring of these twoMulattos, being married to the offspring of two otherMulatto parents, would propagate their species, and so, byan uninterrupted succession, continue the race. For myown part, I think there are extremely potent reasons forbelieving, that the White and the Negroe are two distinctspecies. A certain philosopher of the present age confidentlyavera, that "none but the blind can doubt it" Itis certain, that this idea enables us to account for thosediversities of feature, skin, and intellect, observeable amongmankind; which cannot be accounted for in any other way,without running into a thousand absurdities.

The Free Colored in a Slave Society*C. L. R. JamesThe free colored in another island, Saint-Domingue, areseen here from their own point of view rather than fromthat of the whites. The structure of a society rigidly controlledaccording to shades of color, the constant coercionof the free colored by whites jealous of their prosperity orfearful of their influence with the slaves, the hardshipssuffered by the free colored as revolution neared are allgraphically portrayed in this chapter from the same studyas the first selection on the slaves.c. L. R. JAMBS is identified on page 3.There was another class of free men in San Domingo, thefree Mulattoes and free blacks. Neither legislation, nor thegrowth of race prejudice, could destroy the attraction ofthe black women for the white men of San Domingo. Itwas characteristic of all classes; the rabble on the shorefront,the planter or overseer who chose a slave to pass thenight with him and drove her from his bed to the lash ofthe slave-driver next morning; a Governor of the colony,newly arrived from France, who was disturbed at findinghimself seized with a passion for the handsomest of hisfour black maids.In the early days every Mulatto was free up to the age of24, not by law, but because white men were so few incomparison with the slaves that the masters sought to bindthese intermediates to themselves rather than let them swellthe ranks of their enemies. In those early years race prejudicewas not strong. The Negro Code in 1685 authorisedmarriage between the white and the slave who hadchildren by him, the ceremony freeing herself and herchildren. The Code gave the free Mulattoes and the freeNegroes equal rights with the whites. But as the whitepopulation grew larger, white San Domingo discarded theconvention, and enslaved or sold their numerous childrenThe Black Jacobins, New York, Random Home (aecond edition,revised from the 1938 edition), 1963, pp. 36-44. Reprintedby permission of the author.[Editors' title]

96 The Free Colored in a Slave Societylike any king in the African jungle. All efforts to preventconcubinage failed, and the Mulatto children multiplied, tobe freed or to remain slaves at the caprice of their fathers.Many were freed, becoming artisans and household servants.They began to amass property, and the whites, whiteadding unceasingly to the number of Mulattoes, began torestrict and harass them with malicious legislation. Thewhites threw as much as possible of the burdens of thecountry upon them. On attaining their majority they werecompelled to join the mur6chausste, a police organisationfor arresting fugitive Negroes, protecting travellers on thehigh road, capturing dangerous Negroes, fighting againstthe maroons, all the difficult and dangerous tasks which thelocal whites might command. After three years' service inthe mar~chausste, they had to join the local militia, providetheir own arms, ammunition and accoutrements, and,without pay or allowance of any kind, serve at the discretionof the white commanding officer. Such duties as theforced upkeep of the roads were made to fall on them withextra severity. They were excluded from the naval and militarydepartments, from the practice of law, medicine, anddivinity, and all public offices or places of trust. A whiteman could trespass on a Mulatto's property, seduce hiswife or daughter, insult him in any way he chose, certainthat at any hint of resentment or revenge all the whitesand the Government would rush out ready to lynch. Inlegal actions the decision nearly always went against theMulattoes, and to terrorise them into submission a freeman of colour who struck a white man, whatever his stationin life, was to have his right arm cut off.But by some fortunate chance, the amount of propertythat they could hold was not, as in the English islands,limited. Of fine physique and intelligent, administering theirenterprises themselves without exhausting their fortunes inextravagant trips to Paris, they began to acquire wealthas master-artisans and then as proprietors. As they beganto establish themselves, the jealousy and envy of the whitecolonists were transformed into ferocious hatred and fear.They divided the offspring of white and black and intermediateshades into 128 divisions. The true Mulatto was thechild of the pure black and the pure white. The childof the white and the Mulatto woman was a quarteroa with96 parti white and 32 parts black. But the quarteron couldbe produced by the white and the marabou in the proportionof 88 to 40, or by the white and the sacatra, inthe proportion of 72 to 56 and so on all through the 128varieties. But the sang-me16 with 127 white parts and 1black part was still a man of colour.In a slave society the mere possession of personal freedomis a valuable privilege, and the laws of Greece andRome testify that severe legislation against slaves and freedmenhave nothing to do with the race question. Behind allthis elaborate tom-foolery of quarteron, sacatra and manbou,was the one dominating fact of San Domingo society-fear of the slaves. The mothers of the Mulattoes were inthe slave-gangs, they had half-brothers there, and howevermuch the Mulatto himself might despise this half ofhis origin, be was at home among the slaves and, in additionto his wealth and education, could have an influenceamong them which a white man could never have. Furthermore,apart from physical terror, the slaves were to bekept in subjection by associating inferiority and degradationwith the most obvious distingukhhg mark of the slave-the black skin. Few of the slaves being able to read, thecolonists did not hesitate to say openly: "It is essential tomaintain a great distance between those who obey andthose who command. One of the surest means of doingthis is the perpetuation of the imprint that slavery has oncegiven." No Mulatto, therefore, whatever his number ofwhite parts, was allowed to assume the name of his whitefather.But despite these restrictions the Mulattoes continued tomake progress. By 1755, little more than three generationsafter the Negro Code, they were beginning to fin the colony,and their growing numbers and riches were causing alarmto the whites.

98 The Free Colored in a Slave SocietyThey lived (ran a report)l like their forebears, on thelocal vegetables, drinking no wine, confining themselves tothe local liquors brewed from the sugar cane. Thus theirpersonal consumption contributed nothing to the maintenanceof the important trade with France. Their sober waysof living and their small expenditure enabled them to putaway most of their income every year, they accumulatedimmense capital, and grew more arrogant as their wealthincreased. They bid for all properties on sale in the variousdistricts, and raised prices to such fantastic heights that thewhites who were not wealthy could not buy, or ruinedthemselves by attempting to keep pace with them. Thus,in some districts, the finest properties were in the possessionof the half-castes, and yet they were everywhere the leastready to submit to statute labour and the public dues. Theirplantations were the sanctuary and asylum of the freedmenwho had neither work nor profession and of numerousfugitive slaves who had run away from their gangs. Beingso rich they imitated the style of the whites and sought todrown all traces of their origin. They were trying to gethigh commands in the militia. Those who had abilityenough to make them forget the vice of their origin wereeven seeking places in the judiciary. If this sort of thingwent (HI, they would soon be making marriages with distinguishedfamilies, which would bind these families in alliancewith the slaves in the gangs, whence the mothers ofthese upstarts came.This was no cantankerous croak from a jealous colonistIt was an official memorandum from the bureaucracy tothe Minister. Increasing numbers, increasing wealth weregiving the Mulattoes greater pride and sharpening their resentmentagainst their humiliations. Some of them weresending their children to France to be educated, and inFrance, even a hundred years before the revolution, therewas little colour prejudice. Up to 1716 every Negro slavewho touched French soil was free, and after an interval oflpierre de Vaissiire, Saint-Domingue, 1629-1789 (Paris,1909), p. 222.C. L. R. James 99fifty years another decree in 1762 reaffirmed this. In 1739 aslave served as trumpeter in the royal regiment of Carabineers;young Mulattoes were received in the militarycorps reserved to the young nobility and in the offices ofthe magistracy; they served as pages at court.' Yet thesemen had to go back to San Domingo and submit to the diecriminations and brutality of the San Doming0 whites. Andas the Mulattoes began to press against the barriers, whiteSan Domingo passed a series of laws which for maniacalsavagery are unique in the modem world, and (we wouldhave said up to 1933) not likely to be paralleled again inhistory. The Council of Port-au-Prince, holding up the racequestion as a screen, wanted to exterminate them. Thusthe whites could purge their system of a growing menace,get rid of men from whom they had borrowed money, andseize much fine property. The Council proposed to banishall the half-castes up to the degree of quarteron to themountains ("which they would bring into cultivation"), toforbid the sale of all property on the plains to half-castes,to deny them the right of acquiring any house-property, toforce all those up to the degree of quarteron and all thosewhites who had married people of colour to that degree, tosell all their slaves within a year. "For," said the Council,"these are dangerous people, more friendly to the slaves, towhom they are still attached, than to us who oppress themby the subordination which we demand and the scorn withwhich we treat them. In a revolution, in a moment of tension,they would be the first to break the yoke whichweighed on them, the more because they are richer and arenow accustomed to have white debtors, since when theyno longer have sufficient respect for us." But the colonistscould not carry out these sweeping plans. The Mulattoes,unlike the German Jews, were already too numerous, andthe revolution would have begun there and then.The colonists had to content themselves with throwingon these rivals every humiliation that ingenuity and malicecould devise. Between 1758 and the revolution the pr-2 Lebeau, De la condition des gens de coulew libra sousfancien rfgime (Poitiers, 1903).

1 02 The Free Colored in a Slave Societythe West Indies While whites in Britain dislike thehalf-caste more than the full-blooded Negro, whites in theWest Indies favour the half-caste against the blacks. TTiese,however, are matters of social prestige. But the racial discriminationsin Africa to-day are, as they were in SanDomingo, matters of Government policy, enforced by bulletsand bayonets, and we have lived to see the rulers of aEuropean nation make the Aryan grandmother as preciousfor their fellow-countrymen as the Carib ancestor was to theMulatto. The cause in each case is the aame-the justificationof plunder by any obvious differentiation fromthose holding power. It is as well to remind the reader thata trained observer travelling in the West Indies in 1935says of the wloured men there, "A few at the top, judges,barristers, doctors, whatever their shade of colour, couldhold their own in any circle. A great many more are the intellectualequals or superiors of their own white contemporaries."=Many of the Mulattoes and free blacks were backwardin comparison to the whites but their capacity wasperfectly obvious in San Domingo in the years before1789. It took gunpowder and cold steel to convince the SanDomingo whites. And if, as we have seen, the most intelligentof them did not delude themselves about the materialistorigins of their prejudice against the Mulattoes, we yetwill make a great mistake if we think that they were hypocriteswhen they claimed that a white ddn guaranteed tothe owner superior abilities and entitled him to a monopolyof the best that the colony afforded."Upon the different forms of property, upon the socialconditions of existence as foundation, there is built a saperstructumof diversified and characteristic sentiments,illusions, habits of thought, and outlooks on life in generalThe class as a whole creates and shapes them out of itsmaterial foundation, and out of the corresponding socialrelationships. The individual in whom they arise, throughtradition and education, may fancy them to be the true4StM true, in 1961.W. M. Macmillan, Warning from the West Indies (London,1936). p. 49.C. L. R. Jamesdeterminants, the real origin of his activiti~.~* On thilcommon derivation of prejudice, small whites, big whitesand bureaucracy were united against Mulattoes. It hadbeen so for one hundred and fifty ycara. and therefore itwould always be so. But would it? The higher bureaucrats,cultivated Frenchmen, arrived in the island without prejudice;and looking for mass support used to help the Mulattoesa little. And Mulattoes and big whites had a commonbond-property. Once the revolution was well under waythe big whites would have to choose between their alliesof race and their allies of property. They would not hesitatelong.8 Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brutnuire.

This article by a contemporary Jamaican historian dealsnot with any single group of West Indians, but rather withan issue in West Indian history affecting all of them. Ab-Â¥ente proprietorship became endemic throughout thecolonial West Indies when sugar became the major crop:1 for more than two centuries, a large proportion of WestIndian estates were owned by individuals who did not liveIIthere. The economic and social effects of absenteeism have1 been graphically described in such classics as Pitman's Thei Development of the British West Indies and Ragatz's TheFall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean. Thisselection contends that earlier scholars exaggerated the effectsof absentee ownership but finds the absentee spirit! of crucial significance in any case: whether planters leftthe West Indies or remained there, the local atmospherewas poisoned by the feeling that the islands were not fitplaces to live. As a consequence, the West Indies havebeen continually drained of resources, both physical andhuman.DOUGLAS HALL, Jamaican-bom, took his doctorate at theLondon School of Economics and returned to the Caribbeanto become first a tutor in the Extra-Mural Departmentat the University of the West Indies, then a memberof the History Department, of which he is presently Professorand Head.Absentee-Proprietorship in the BritishWest Indies, to About 1850Douglas HallIn the draft report of the Select Committee on Sugar andCoffee Planting in 1848 the Chairman, Lord George Bentinck,commented on the evidence given before the Committeeby Mr. Edwin Pickwoad, whose family ownedproperty in St. Kilts:Mr. Pickwoad'~ first and great object appeared to be toestablish one of Lord Grey's [the Secretary of State forthe Colonies] great axioms, that a large portion of thedistress of the British Sugar and Coffee Planting Coloniesarises from the want of resident proprietor^.^Lord Grey was not alone in this opinion. There is hardlya commentator or an historian who, in describing the distressesof the West Indian colonies in the nineteenth centuryor earlier,, does not point to absentee-proprietorshipas a major source of trouble. It has been said that by theprevalence of absentee-ownership the colonies weredrained of economic wealth, and denied a gentry whomight have set a high example both in social life and inthe performance of political and administrative duties.Because of absenteeism, it has been claimed, many estateswere left to the management of men who were nearlyJamaican Historical Review, Vol. 4, 1964, pp. 15-34. Usedby permission of the author.1 Select Committee on Sugar and Coffee Planting, 1848. SUPplement (No. 1) to the 8th Report. Draft of Report proposedby Chairman.

106 Absentee-Proprietorship in British West Indiesalways incompetent and often dishonest, the moral toneof colonial society was coloured by the example of inferiorresidents whose lack of right principle was both obviousand irreparable, the public administration lacked integrityand was bedevilled by multiple office-holding, and theprofits of sugar went not to colonial economic developmeat but to the financing of British commercial and industrialgrowth and the conspicuous consumption abroadof the absentee proprietom.~The number and variety of the charges kindle the sparkof curiosity. The profuse, but scattered, information at ourdisposal provides specific illustrations of all the allegedills listed above; and yet, something seems questionable inour traditional belabouring of absenteeism. The verylimited purposes of this paper are to suggest that our gen-2For an overall review of absenteeism see L. J. Ragatz "AbwnteeLandlordism in the British Caribbean, 1750-1833" (AgriculturalHistory, Vol. 5, 1931, pp. 7-24), and, by the lameauthor, The Fall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean,1763-1833 (New York and London, 1928). See also reference*to absenteeism in Edward Long, The History of Jamaica (3vols.; London, 1774); Trelawney Wentworth, The West IndiaSketch Book (2 wk; London, 1834). Vol. 2, pp. 346-55; J.A. Thome and J. H. Kimball, Emancipation in the West Indies(American Anti-Slavery Society, N.Y., 1838), passim; B. M'Mahon,Jamaica Plantership (London, 1839); 1. J. Gurney, A Winterin the West Indies (2nd ed., London, 1840). p. 109; G. Scotland,A Letter Addressed to the Public of Jamaica (SpanishTown. Jamaica, 1847). p. 19; Rev. D. King, State and Prospectsof Jamaica (London, 18501, p. 146; W. 0. Sewell, The Ordealof Free Labour in the British West Indies (London, 1861 ), pp.37-38,236-37; Eric William, ?apffÈfis and Stawy Waiveruityof North Carolina Press, 1944), p. 86; H. V. Wiseman, AShort History of the British West Indies (London: Universityof London Press, 1950), p. 89; W. L. Burn, The British WestIndies (London: Hutchinson's, 1951), p. 63; F. Henriques, Familyand Colour In Jamaica (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode,19531, p. 20; Sir Alan Burns, History of the British West Indies(London: Alien & Unwin, 1954). passim; Philip Curtin, Twolamuicaa (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 19551, p. 15;R. Pares, Merchants and Planters. The Economic History ReviewSupplements, No. 4 (C.U.P. 1960) and his larger earlierwork, A West India Fortune (London: Longmans, Green,1950); and many others.Douglas Halleralisations about absentee-ownership are not always wellfounded,and that when we have come to learn moreabout the subject we may have to shed our remarks ofgenerality and put them in more specific contexts of placeand time.Absentee-proprietorship in the British West Indies began,not with the sugar industry, but with the first Englishcolonizatioos and the establishment of forms of proprictorygovernment* Thus, from the time of the earliest settlementsin the Leeward Islands and in Barbados, thereexisted a distinction between 'colonists' and 'proprietors'.la later years, as other colonies in the West Indies wereacquired by Britain by conquest or by cession, many largetracts of land were granted to people living in Britain whohad been instrumental to the new acquisitions. or whofor some other reason enpyed the favour of the Crownor Parliament' Thus, in a number of specific instance*absentee-proprietorship was created by sovereign fiat, andthe absentee-proprietor decided whether he should movewestwards across the Atlantic, either to take up residenceon his new property or merely to visit it.Another source of absentee-ownership emerged andgrew with the increasing profitability of sugar-productionfrom the second half of the seventeenth centu~.~ Residentcolonists who became wealthy by the production of sugardecided whether they should move eastwards across the8 See J. A. Williamson, The Cmibbee Islaiuls Under the Pro.prktary Patents (Oxford, 1926), and it. Pares, Merchants and- Planters. --- - -, The Economic History Review Supplements, No. 4(C.U.P. 1960).* Bryan Edwards, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 421, wrote indignantly ofSt. Vincent, ceded by the French in 1763: "The first measureof the English government in respect to this islaad, after thepeace of Paris, was to dispose of the lands-I dare not aay tothe best advantagel for no less than 24,000 acre*. being morethan one-fourth part of the whole country, were gratuitouslyusigned over to two individuals (Mr. Swinburne had twentythousand acres. and General Moncton four thousand . . .)".6 This of absentee-ownerahip is the one which has mostengaged the comment of writer. The fact is, however, that itww not the only iznport*nt ¥ource and the ways in whichabaentee-owaenhip occurred affected both the numericfti and thefinancial strength of the ftbienteea.

i _.108 Absentee-Proprietorship in British West IndiaAtlantic to reside in, or merely to visit, the metropolitancountry whence they or their fathers, probably in le& opulentpersonal circumstances, had formerly migrated.A third source of absentee-ownership originated in theinheritance by people resident in Britain of West Indiaproperty. Whether these beneficiaries had been born inBritain or in the West Indies makes no difference. On theinheritance of estates in the colonies they were free tochoose either to remain in Britain or to go and assume, orresume, residence on the estates.Fourthly, in the later eighteenth century when the profitabilityof West India estates generally declined, anothersource of absenteeism became important as creditors inBritain came, however reluctantly, into possession ofunprofitable West India estates on which they had lien.'Most of these creditors were merchants or commissionagents dealing in West India produce, to whom the lessfortunate or less able estate owners, whether resident orabsentee, had become largely indebted.7In all of these ways absentee-ownership in its most obviousform developed as proprietors of more and moreWest India property were, in the eighteenth century, to befound resident in Britain. But the different sources ofabsentee-ownership produced different kinds of absentees,and until further research provides some dependable opinionof the relative importance of the different sources, andof the total numerical strength and the wealth of the absenteesat different times, generalisations will remain opento challenge.Another important distinction, between 'absenteeowners*and 'absenteeism', should also be made. The ratiobetween the number of absent owners and the value ofabsentee-owned property was variable between different6R. Pares, A West-India Fortune (London: Longmans,Green, 1950) Chap. 711, and Eric Williams, Capitalism andSlavery, Chap. 4.7 It is also likely, though I am unable to cite a specific illus-(ration, that there were instances of resident owners, on the vergeof insolvency, going to Britain to try by some means to repairtheir misfortunes and, though continuing in possession of theirestates, remaining in Britain.Douglas Hall 109colonies and over periods of time. When discussing theconsequences of absenteeism it is necessary to distinguishbetween (i) those following the absence from a colony of,a significant number of people, and (ii) those following theabsence of the owners of a significant portion of the realestate and the wealth of the colony. This important differenceis not generally noted in the literature. More oftenthan not, 'absenteeism', 'absentee-proprietorship* and 'absentees'have been indiscriminately censured.Thus it has sometimes been implied that the ills generatedin the West Indies by the absence of proprietors couldhave been remedied by the return of the absentees toresidence on their estates.8 In fact, return was in acmecases impossible and in many instances would have beenof doubtful efficacy.Return was impossible for those absentees who ownedproperty in two or more of the colonies. Obviously,wherever they might have chosen to reside they wouldhave been classed as absentees from some other place.*In other cases, particularly among the Jamaica absenteeswho owned properties far apart in that mountainous island,residence in, say, the parish of St. James would have forall practical purposes of estate-supervision, constituted absenteeismfrom, say, St. Thomas in the East or even fromSt. Catherine.108 For instance, in W. L Burn, Emancipation and Apprenticeshipin the British West Zndies (London: Jonathan Cape, 1937),pp. 28-30.¥Th Codringtons (Barbadoa, Antigua, Barbuda), the Gladtones(British Guiana and Jamaica), the Oolvilles (Jamaica andBritish Guiana) and the Warnera (Antigua and Trinidad in the1830's and previously in St. Kitta and Barbados) are a few example*of this "maltiple-Èlwentee-owner*tup"10 Matthew Lewis in his Journal of a West India Proprietor(London, 1834). p. 161, noted: 'The short time allotted formy stay in the island makes it impossible to attend properlyboth to this estate [Hordley. in St. Thomas-in-the-East] and toCornwall [in St. James] at this first visit, and therefore I detenninedto confine my attention to the negroca on the latterestate till my return to Jamaica." Lewis arrived in Jamaica onJan. 1, 1816 and left on April 1 the game year. He returnedin late January 1818 and left at the beginning of May. He diedon the return voyage to England.

110 Absentee-Proprietorship in British West IndiesMoreover, even if at any given time every absenteeownerhad immediately returned to his property, or to oneof his properties, the numerical flows of individuals intothe various colonies would have differed. Quite clearly thebroad consequences in any colony of any such returnwould have been as much dependent on the number, ason the wealth, of those returning. A return of two largeproprietors might considerably reduce a previously significantabsentee-ownership in a small colony, but couldhardly be counted on to produce large social and administrativereform.The following Table, showing the distribution, by acreages,of estates in the island of St. Vincent in 1801 andin 1827 suggests that generalisations about absenteeownership,even in that aingle island, over a period of 25years are hardly likely to be acceptable.ESTATES IN ST. VINCENT-1801150 acres and under 27151 to 250 acre* 32251 to 450 acres 48451 to 1,000 acid 17over 1,000 1-TOTAL 125Source*: 1801: "An Account of the number of slave* employed andthe quantity of produce grown on the Seven} Eatate* inthe blind of St. Vincent and its dependencies, from 1801. . . to 1824, inclusive." Compiled from the Official Return*.(Gazette Office, Kinfstown, St. Vincent, 1825.)1827: Chsa. Shophard, An Historical Account of the Islandof St. Vincent (London, 1831). Appendix, pp. vi-xxiii.Neither wurce is entirely accurate, but they serve the pros'ant purpose by showing the general change, and by illustratingthe inadequacy of our information, for in neitherthere 8tlY 8ttOlllpt 10 dbhgUbh k t ~ m d b t Uldabsentee-owned estate*.Douglas HallIllIn the redistribution of property which the Table showsthere must, clearly, have been some change in the fortune*of resident and of absentee proprietors as well as in theirnumbers. Moreover, considering the period covered bythe Table, it is reasonable to ask whether, in regard to anysingle colony, much more for the British West Indies as awhole, it is not likely that every war which seriously affectedthe West India colonies and theii trade did not alsoaffect the distribution of wealth among residents and absentees.One further illustration will serve. In Antigua, in 1848,Francis Shand. an absentee-proprietor, West India Merchantand Shipowner in Liverpool, owned nine of thatisland's most productive estates. He also held five otherestates under lease and was the consignee in Britain of theproduce of 32 others. There were then 150 estates inAntigua. Mr. Shand, clearly, was an extremely importantabsentee-owner, but he had not always been an absentee.He had lived in Antigua from 1830 to 1841. Any statementabout the effects of absenteeism in Antigua between1830 and 1848 should surely take into account the movementsof Mr. Shand. It should also take into account thefinancial status of Sir William Codrigton and his father.The older Sir Wiam, in the pre-emancipation days, hadnetted about £20,00 a year from his Antigua and Barbudaestates. The younpr Sir William, never in Antigua,had inherited in 1843, and in 1848 when he was asked"You are a Proprietor in Antigua?" replied, "I am sorryto say I am one of those unfortunate individuals." Hehad reason for his gloom. The annual income was downto about £2,000.1The charges against absentee proprietors have, for themost part, been stated in general terms, levelled not atparticular individuals but at the whole body of absentees.Such wide indictments can be supported only if the wholebody of absentees can be given common definition andfi Select Committee on Sugar and Coffee Planting, 1848.Evidence of Mr. Shad and Sir William rnrfrinotnn.

112 Absentee-Proprietorship in British West Indiescharacteristics. It has already been implied, however, thatthe absentees were a heterogeneous lot: some were WestIndian born, others had made their first appearance elsewhere;some had lived on their estates, others had neverdone so; some were completely ignorant of the details ofsugar-ma@ and the sugar trade, whereas others hadpractical experience of both; some were genteel, otherswere not. Indeed, the only safe generalizations about themare that they were all estate-owners, nearly all of them werewhite, and many of them were, or had at some time been,wealthy.Thus, the general accusatioas are weakened by lack of arecognisable accused person, and are frequently riddledwith contradiction as one view or other of 'the absenteee'prevails. We are told, for instance, that absentees, thoughgreedy for the profits, were indifferent to the welfare oftheir estates;13 but we are also told that absenteeproprietorswere the first to introduce new equipment andnew techniques of production.la It is suggested that theabsentees would, by residence on their estates, have formeda genteel colonial ?lite;14 but it is also emphasized thatmany of the absentee-proprietors in Britain squandered12 L J. Ragatz, The Fall of the Planter Class in the BritishCaribbean, 1763-1833, pp. 54-55.I* Select Committee on Sugar and Coffee Planting, 1848. Evideuceof Benjamin Buck Greene, 619445196. His experience ofSt. Kith leads him to think that reudent proprietors do not managetheir estates as well as absentees & by their attomys.Â¥Ther ia not the same spirit of enterpb? [AM.] They haveneither the capital nor the energy, I think, of the agenta thatare sent out by the absentees . . ." [But compare the view ofMr. Jelly of Westmomland, Jamb, on this point! See footnote301. Mr. Greene went on to say of the absentees livingin Britain, ". . . here we are on the quf vtve, and every improvementthat is made we try to adopt and send it out. They [theresident ownen1 have to wait and see what others are doing,usd their estates generally do not appear to be managed so wellm those that are under the diirectku of active agents."14J. H. Parry and P. M. Sberlock, A Short History of theWest lndies (London: Macmillan. 1956). p. 154.Douglas Hall 113their fortunes in vulgar display.16 The truth is, of course.that any of theae view can be illustrated by reference toparticular absentees at particular times; but none can besustained in reference to absentees as a group over a longperiod of years.Now that some of the major pitfalls of generalizationhave been indicated, the specific charges outlined in theopening paragraphs may be more confidently examined.The argument that absentee-ownership left the colonialestates to the supervision of incompetent resident managersis supported by many reports of the following load:. . . we forthwith began to examine into matters, andin Genu find all things in disorder, the whole works apott of nastiness and in GenU out of repair: the Millhous half legg deep in dung and the posts sunk we judgw*" rottentas it bcing nowhere tite for want of the shinglesbeing new layd, in the boyling how not a copperor a cooler cleaned out and in several places a man mighthave gon over bis shews in Molases a very great wasteof sugar under the Ranges and several pots of sugar bothwhole and peses y* wass ill boyld stood there but noethought or resolution taken what to be done w*" them. . . in short everywhere he [the estate manager] hasbin consem'd you have bin horrably abua'd . . .laBut, quite dearly, reports of this nature deal not withabsentee-ownership as such, but with the indifference or18 Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery, pp. 8-6. See aboW. L Mathieson, British Slavery and its Abolition, 1823-1838(London: Longmans, Oreen, 1926). pp. 56-57, where the authorquote* Edward Long to support an argument that "Proprietonwho had inherited their estate* and lived on them mademuch the beat slavfr-ownen . . .", whereas *omc who bad goneM children to be educated in Britain returned to the WestIndies ". . . only to dissipate their property having gamed no'other acqouition than the art of (wearing, drinking, dressing,-8 and wenching' . . .".16 R. M. Howard (cd.), The Longs of Jamaica and HumptonLodge (2 vols., London, 1923). Vol. 1, p. 46.

114 Absentee-Proprietorship in British West Indiesincompetence of managers in the colonies.l7 Residentowners would probably have been less indifferent, but thereis no reason to suppose that they would all have been lessincompetent, and some of the absentees were almost totallyignorant of the processes of sugar-making.It may be argued that those planters who had becomewealthy enough to leave their estates and establish residencein England must have been good planters ratherthan bad ones. There is probably some truth in this; butit is also arguable in general terms that profitability is areliable indication of good management only when marketconditions are hard and uncompromising. It does not requiresplendid competence to make a profit during a boomin a protected market such as the West Indians had fortheir sugar. The wealthy planters who went to live abroadwere not necessarily good planters. The merchant-creditorswho acquired estates by default and foreclosure, and residentsabroad who became West India proprietors by inheritance,were even less likely to have been so.Not all owners are good managers. That is a truism onwhich the concept and the managerial organization ofcompetitive production and distribution rest; but it is not17 G. Eiir, Jamaica, 1830-1930: A Study in EconomicGrowth (Manchester University Press, 1961). p. 197, makes theinteresting point that absentee-ownership ceased to be a disadvantagein the nineteenth century. Previously, "While productionrelied heavily on manual labour the main requirement ofmanagers was an ability to organize and supervise labour".Later, with increasing mechanization, ". . . trained managerswere needed. The amateur sugar planter~even at his best-nolonger sufficed." Thus, the advantage of resident proprietorshipwas lost as the need grew for highly skilled supervision. I agreewith her emphasis on managerial ability, but, as I indicate lateron, I do not agree that estate-management in the eighteenth centurywas quite as straightforward a business as she suggests. Agood indication of the problems of an estate attorney is givenby Richard B. Sheridan, "Letters from a Sugar Plantation inAntigua, 1739-1758" in Agricultural History. Vol. 31, No. 3,1957, pp. 3-23; and in the same author's "Samuel Martin, InnovatingPlanter of Antigua, 1750-1776" in Agricultural Hislory,Vol. 3, No. 3, 1960, pp. 126-29.Douglas Hall 115always adequately considered in discussions of absenteeproprietorship.It is not enough to point to the inefficienciesof resident estate-managers; it should also be shown thatthe estate-owners themselves would have been less in&-cicnt. Quite dearly, even an inefficient manager might dobetter for an estate than an owner who undertook managementeven more inefficiently.Of more general validity is the proposition that the systemof remuneration, by which the attorneys of absenteeswere paid each year in proportion to the quantity of sugarthey shipped, encouraged agents to force production at theexpcuse of the long-term welfare and productivity of theestate.18 But even here generalization is dangerous forthere were cases in which other systems of remunerationwere used.10 Nor is it true that attorneys were alwayspaid. In Barbados and the Windward Islands their rewardwas sometimes taken in the patronage and influence giventhem by acceptance of an attorneyship.20 Thus it seemsunreasonable to blame absenteeism alone for the prevakneeof a payment by production system. It would probablybe more useful to examine further the view of thecolonies, held both by resident and absentee planters, as18 Select Committee on the Commercial State of the WestIndia Colonies, 1832. Evidence of Peter Rose, planter in Jamaica,1613. "Attorney's charges are a matter of arrangement,generally a commission; some give two and a half per cent, andsome five, and I have known as high as ten per cent." In Jamaica,there was a legally fixed rate of 6%. intended to penalizeabsentee-ownem (but it did not bring them to residence in thecolony). See William Dickson, Mitigation of Slavery (London,1814), p. 226.19 Some absentees, like John Tollemache who owned estatesin Antigua, paid their attorneys regular salaries. (Select Committeeof 1848, Evidence of John Tollemache, M.P. 7815-7818and 7890-7900). Tollemache had found his attorneys benefitingby substantial "hidden perquisites"; but taking of "perkam wouldnot have been limited to attorney who received wlaries ratherthan payment by commission. See also Bryan Edwards, History. . . of the West Indies (1819). Vol. 2, p. 299, where he d-lows a salary of £200 local currency, a year to "Owracer'sor Manager's salary".*¡DickÈo Mitigation of Slavery, p. 226, footnote.

116 Absentee-Proprietorship in British West Indieaplantation colonies which existed in order to be exploited.The costs of exploitation, in land exhaustion and in slavemortality, were high, and wiser planters, whether residentor absentee, realised this and tried to ensure a more carefuluse of their resources even at the sacrifice of somemeasure of immediate gain.21 But few eighteenth centuryplanters were concerned with the possibilities of increasing-yields by the discovery, invention, and employment ofbetter techniques or methods of production. Their effortsin this direction were attenuated by the protection givento British colonial muscovado sugar in the Britishmarket,= by their use of slave-labour,m and by the generalpolitical and economic uncertainty which attended theconditions of sugar production in the eighteenth and earlynineteenth centuries.24 Until the ending of slavery in 1834and the freeing of British trade in sugar in the 1-840's and1850's. West India planters, resident and absentee, wereconvinced that the profitability of their estates was to bemaintained by political means rather than by managerialor technical innovations. Their chief concern was to maintaintheir highly protected position in the British marketand to embarrass the commerce of their foreign rivals. Inthis, the efforts of the absentees, who fonnedpart of the21This was the burden of many of the careful instructionsissued by planters to their estate attorneys or managers. See,for example, John Pinney's strictures on the management of hisNevis estates (R. Pares, A West-India Fortune, Chap. VI).Noel Deerr, History of Sugar, 2 vols. (London, 1949-50),Vol. 2, p. 430. Duties on British Colonial and Foreign producedmuscavado sugar entering Britain (to the nearest penny percwt.).Year Br. Col. Foreign Year Br. Col. Foreign Year Br. Col. Foreign1698 2/lM 7/7d 1759 6/4d 19/5d 1797 17/6d 31/9d1705 3/4d ll/5d 1782 ll/9d 25/lld 1805 27/- W/-1747 4/lOd 15/5d 1787 12/4d 27/24 1830 241- 66/24"Douglas Hall. "Slaves and Slavery in the British Caribbean"in Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 11, No. 4, Dec.1962. pp. 305-18.14 Douglas Hall, "Incalculability as a Feature of Sugar Productionduring the Eighteenth Century", in Social and EconomicStudies, Vol. 10, No. 3, Sept 1961, pp. 340-52.Douglas Hall 117politically powerful West India interest in Britain in theeighteenth century, were invaluable.^ But it is also clearthat if there had been fewer important absentee-ownemtheir Parliamentary influence would have been unalter,and it might sooner have become necessary to look forgreater efficiency in production.Greater efficiency would have been good, but not easyto achieve. Sugar-making contains both a large agriculturaland a large manufacturing enterprise with the vital andurgent link between them of harvesting and immediatelytransporting the sugar-canes from fields to factory. Scientificfanning, greater industrial power, and quicker transportand communication systems were all to come in thenineteenth century. More relevant to the present discussionin the gradual change which, during the eighteenth andfirst half of the nineteenth centuries, came over cgtatemanagement.The early absentees had left their estates under the generalsupervision of local residents who might, or might not,themselves have been planters.** The management of aneighteenth century sugar estate demanded a combimationof skills and aptitudes rarely to be found in any singlemanager. There was need for agricultural knowledge andthe ability to apply it, an acquaintance with the crudechemistry of eighteenth century sugar-making, a familiaritywith the machinery and equipment of the factory, anunderstanding of the care of the livestock used as draughtanimals in fields and factory, some skill in the keeping ofaccounts and an awareness of price and production trendsin the sugar market, and a capacity for right judgement inhuman relations in a slave-society. This last was almostimpossible of achievement." Small wonder, then, that somany resident owners and managers can be shown to haveWL. I. Ragatz, Tk Fall of the Planter Class in the BritishCaribbean, 1763-1833. p. 52; Eric Williams, Capitalism andSlavery, Chap. 4; J. H. Parry and P. M. Sherlock, A Short Etatoryof the West Indies, p. 154.*R. Pares, A West-India Fortune, p. 20."Hall, "Slaves and Slavery in the British Caribbean."

118 Absentee-Proprietorship in British West Indiabeen in some degree incompetent. In measuring them withblame it must be remembered that a main and obviousdifference between them and the absentees was the simplefact that the latter were not resident.As time went on and absentee-ownership generally increased,there began to appear in the colonies a class ofprofessional estate-attorneys or managers,28 some ofwhom were also planters on their own account. Amongthem, there were individuals who, as they gained in knowledgeand experience, became recognised as experts in theirbusiness. By the middle of the nineteenth century therewere estate-attorneys whose services were sought after bythe absentee-owners of West India estates,Z@ and thesemen, jealous of their reputations and justly proud of theiracknowledged expertise, did not look kindly on any assumptionthat the best managerial abilities were to befound in Britain:Whether from ignorance or from sinister motives, suchhave been the misrepresentations made to the parties in'the Mother Country', that in many instances the infatuationof the proprietors prompted them to send out managerswho had never seen a cane in their lives; and onegentleman more planet-struck than this brethren, but whofortunately could afford the experiment, not contented281x1 Jamaica an absentee's (or resident's) agent was calledan attorney, in other islands he was usually called a manager.If an attorney did not reside on an estate of which he was incharge, there was usually a resident overseer (sometimes calleda manager in Jamaica) who supposedly carried out the instruclionsof the attorney who, in turn, carried out the instructionsof the proprietor. Under the overseers there were the bookkeeperswho had nothing to do with the keeping of estate-booksbut were field or factory fore-men."For instance, Mr. John Davy and Dr. Swanston, both inSt. Kith in the 1830's and 1840's (Minutes of Evidence, SelectCommittee. 1848, Questions 16603, 16638-40); Mr. Simon Taylorin Jamaica in the late eighteenth century (Proceedings ofthe Hon. House of Assembly of Jamaica, on the Sugar andSlave-Trade, October, 1792. Printed by Order of the Home, London,1793); and Mr. Jelly of Westmoreland, Jamaica whomcomment8 are quoted below.Douglas Haltwith dismissing an attorney,-who by common consentwas allowed to be one of the best agriculturalists in thecounty of Cornwall,-and that too, on the professed plea,that he doubted whether his attorney would carry outhis insane projects, sent out to his numerous estates acolony consisting of an attorney, overaeera, and bookkeepers,all married men, replete with morality andversed in ethics, but as innocent as the newly born babeof all knowledge pertaining to the cane and its culture.The result might have been foreseen; many of these unluckystrangers lacking all knowledge of the dancers ofa tropical sun, and having no experienced guide to directthem, speedily died. The attorney, a clever and enterprisingman in his way, threw up his commission in disgust,and the upshot of this preposterous experiment was a lossof at least ten thousand pounds to the proprietor.HIt is not easy to follow Mr. Jelly's argument that those whocombine high moral principle with ignorance of canefanningare prone to early death from sunstroke. Nonetheless,in his magnificent opening sentence, his grievanceis well-aired and nicely illustrates the hardening of a professionalopinion among the planting attorneys.There is one other aspect of the management ofabsentee-owned estates which must be mentioned. It hasoften been claimed that professional attorneys undertookthe supervision of far more estates than they could properlymanage. There is much evidence to support this view.*lAgain, however, generalization is dangerous. An attorneywho was responsible for the supervision of two large catatesmight have had a more onerous task than anotherwho was responsible for the management of six small ones.The number of estates in an attorney's charge was onlyone matter among many others such as the size of theestates in question, their distance from each other, thetopography of the area involved, the means of communica-¥¡Thom Jelly, A Brief Enquiry into the Condition of lamaica. . . (London, 1847). p. xi, Preface."This is well illustrated in L J. Ragatz, The Fall of thePlanter Class in the British Caribbean, 1763-1833. pp. 54-55.

120 Absentee-Proprietorship in British West Indiestion and transportation, the competence of subordinatemanagers, overseers, book-keepers and skilled workers,the prevailing relations between the 'managerial' personneland the slaves, or after emancipation, the labourers onthe properties, the technical and financial equipment andresources at the disposal of the attorney, and his powerto make decisions affecting the management of the estatesin his care.The separation of function between owner and managerof an estate was not, during our period, clearly markedeither bv convention or by contractThe subject of absenteeism is a question open to discussion,which my limits will not allow me to enter upon.I may, however, take this opportunity to recommend tothe serious attention of the absentee proprietors, the proprietyof vesting the acting resident manager with theplanting power of attorney, as a rule only to be departedfrom under particular circumstances.*2Much of the difficulty of management arose from the factthat owners did not always give their managers sufficientrein in decision-making. In some instances the ownersinterfered in detail, like Lord Howard de Walden who inthe early 1840's sent a booklet of specific instructions to hismanasrs in Jamaica;u but many of them did not interfereso intelligently. Moreover, because of the great timelagdue to slow trans-Atlantic communications, an absentee'sdecisions might be made in ignorance of the currentstate of his property, such decisions as were permitted to anattorney or manager might be made in ignorance of marketconditions in Britain, or conflicting decisions might bemade and acted upon by both parties-each unaware of themeasures taken by the other."1. Maxwell, Remarks on the Present State of Jamaica(London. 1848). P. 15 (footnote).** W. H. de [Howard de Walden], General Instructions forMontpelier and Ellis Caymanas Estates in Jamaica, 1852, (London).IDouglas Hall 121The return of the absentees would have reduced thenumber of conflicting decisions but would have done littleto remedy those other conditions which rendered the managementof West India property difficult. It is not easy toaccept a general proposition that the usumption of colonialresidence and estate-management by the absenteeproprietorswould have resolved the managerial problemsof sugar production.34 Indeed, the whole history of thegrowth of industry and of business administration pointsrather to the advantaga of separation between ownershipand management.It has been alleged that absenteeism deprived the coloniesof a social elite who would have set a guiding examplein colonial private and public morality. This is a good exampleof question-begging. Absenteeism may have deprivedthe colonies of the residence of people who, by reasonof their colour and their wealth, would have formedthe elite; but whether such an elite would have enhancedMThere were resident proprietors. such u Charlea JohnMoulton Barrett in Jamaica in the 1850's who ". . . had noliking for estate work, and taking up his residence on the penproperty of Retreat in St. Ann, lived in retirement most of histime. To his younger brother Septimus, be gave the power ofattorney for his estates". But Septimus' extravagance lost theproperty, C i o n Hill, to the family. See J. Shore and I.Stewart, In Old St. James (London: Bodley Head, 19521, p.80. In a report on a small property in Barbados in 1836, thecomment was made that ‘Th Estate [Goodlanch Plantation!is only now coining into order, this in coosequcnec of Mr. Cal-Iender [the resident owner] having lately given up the managcmentof it to . . . Mr. Roeera who conducts it extremelywell . . ." (Public Record Office,London. C.O. 325/42. Quar-terly Report of the Stipendary Justice for District A. Rural DIVI-¥ion 30th June 1836). In 1848, in his evidence before the SelectCommittee of Parlint, Benjamin Buck Oreene remarked(6197) ". . . we have a correspoodent of our own, who is anative of one of the islands, and I may mention that we havethought it necessary to give information to him as well toothen that we can m longer continue to make advance*, beydthe value of the sugar which he fends ui home, and heit will stop his cultivation. He h a resident proprietor and employ~an agent because he thinks that agent will & better forthe estate than he can himself".

1 22 Absentee-Proprietorship in British West Indiesthe moral tone of colonial high society is quite anothermatter.Moreover, it seems reasonable to distinguish very clearlybetween those people who left the West Indies to reside inBritain, and those established residents in Britain who be*came, in one way or another, colonial absentee-proprietors.For the former there was a choice between residentownershipand absenteeism, for the latter there would havebeen only a choice between absenteeism from Britain orabsenteeism from a colony. By examining the motives ofthe former we may come closer to an understanding of theviews of both descriptions of absentees.Francis Bacon, about the end of the sixteenth century,when the West India islands were attracting those whothought to become rich by setting up a sugar plantation,wrote:He that hath wife and children hath given hostages tofortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises,either of virtue or mischief.*8Those who came to the sugar colonies to attempt a fortuneseemed to prefer to travel light, unencumbered withfamilial obstacles to their enterprises. When a man hadmade his fortune he sought a wife to give him the heirwho would inherit it Whereas the quest for sexual adventurecould be easily satisfied among the slave women andthe poorer whites and free coloureds in a colony, the searchfor a wife generally led back to Britain. When whitenessof skin was one of the determinants of social excellenceit was wiser, for those who wished to reach the top, whetheras residents or abroad, to seek a wife whose complexionwas clearly virgin, and whose pedigree was either rightfullyemblazoned or easily embellished.For the gentleman-owner of a productive and profitableestate, unless his soul was sold to the good tropical earth,Francis Bacon, "Of Marriage and Single life," The Essayaof . . . (London: Nelson).Douglas Hall 123a West India sugar colony in the eighteenth century offeredfew attractions for permanent residence.Above all other motivea behind the eastward voyage ofthe successful planter were the views of the colony as aplace where a man might make his fortune, and of Britainas "home", where that fortune might be most comfortablyand rewardingly spent8"This implies the greatest weakness of the generalizationthat absenteeism drained the cream of society from thecolonies. It was not so much true that absentee-ownerswere residents gone abroad as it was that residents in thecolonies were temporarily, they hoped, absentees fromBritain. In abort, even the resident owners were, in orientationand in attitude, absentees. Their "homew was not inthe West Indies, their degree of identification with coloniallife and society was small and they hoped it would be fleeting.17To say that absenteeism slammed the social creamis simply to put the matter misleadingly. The truth is thatin British West Indian colonial society a nun became amember of the elite only when he qualified as a potentialabsentee. Here is implied a distinction between the 'settler'who went to settle, and the 'adventurer' who went to makehis fortune.There have been attempts to distinguish between the behaviour in the colonies of the earliest 'settlers' and the following'sugar-planters'. There have also been claims thatas absentee-proprietorship grew in the eighteenth centuryso the social behaviour of the remaining residents wasdepraved. Lord Olivier, in his well-known account of Jamaica,quoted from an earlier work:Imperfect as the records of the early years of our historyare, enough remains to show that when the scumBryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commerdal, of theBritish West Indies (5th ad., 5 vols.; London, 1819), VoL I,p. 281: "Europeans who came to this island have seldom anide* of fettling here for life. Their aim is generally to acquirefortunes to enable them to sit down comfortably in their nativecountry; and, in the meanwhile, they consider a family as 8aincmnbrance."Philip Curtin, Two Jamaica!, pp. 15-16, and 54-55.

1 24 Absentee-Proprietorship in British West Indieswhich had floated on the surface of the first tide of conquestand immigration had drifted away, a large bodyof colonists remained, whose ranks were continually augmented,who sought to bring with them all that was preciousin the social life of the country from which theycame, and who would in time have ma& Jamaica whattheir countrymen were making of the New States ofAmerica. This was not to be. Colonists gave place tosugar planters. Sugar planters required slaves, and graduallythe Island became a mighty aggregation of canefields, in which negroes toiled and white men were thetask-rnasters."a8Olivier then added his own comment:I know no more striking illustration of the astonishing' contrast between the true Colonial ideal of what Jamaicamight have been made, and the blighting of that idealby the Island's conversion into a sphere of British capitalistexploitation, than the fact that whereas between1667 and 1732 218 endowments were left in trust bypatriotic Jamaicans for the maintenance of schools andchurches (besides very many settlements by considerateparents for the benefit of their illegitimate families) almostthe whole of such property was embezzled duringthe eighteenth century by its trustees . . .**Gardner's distinction between 'colonists' and 'sugarplanters'carries conviction, even though his previous suggestionof how Jamaica might have developed does not.Olivier's opinion is less acceptable. The majority of the endowmentsto which he referred were paid for out of theprofits of sugar and were themselves products of that 'capitalistexploitationp against which he railed. Jamaica, takenfrom the Spaniards in 1655 was, from 1660 onwards, developedas a sugar-plantation colony.It is also open to question whether Olivier's "patrioticJamaicans' might not be more accurately described as suc-8s W. H. Gardner, History of Jamaica (London, 1874).*QOlivier. Jamaica; the Blessed Island (London: Faber &Faber, 1936). p. 19.Douglas Halt 125cessful proprietor8 in their usual state of absence d'esplit.Edward LOOK, in the 1760's remarked that it was an establishedcustom "for every father here, who ha* acquireda little property, to lend his children, of whatever cornplexionto Britain, for education They go like a bale of drygoods, consigned to some factor, who places them at theachool where he himself was bred, or any other that hisinclination leads him to pref~r."~If propertied men endowed schools in Jamaica and at thesame time sent their children to be placed in schools inBritain, then it is clear that the schools they endowed werenot intended for their own children. This view is supportedby current research;The intentions of the founders were open to interpretation.For the early foundations it could be assumed thatless wealthy white children were supposed to be the benefieiaries;these were 'the poor childrenp or the poor boysand girls* of the various wills. The bequests were similarto those left in England in the eighteenth century tofound charity schools for the poor of the locality on thedeath of the benefactor. The English charity school wasconcerned to give an elementary education of religioincharacter as a preparation for life for working membersof the respectable poor. The prospects were not equivalentfor white children in Jamaica and Barbados, and fewof the white estate employees or tradesmen in the townswould have appreciated such an educational offering fortheir children.41Olivier's 'patriotic Jamaicans', it would appear, were lewconcerned with Jamaica than with acquiring the insigniaof wealthy and benevolent Jbgbhmen. Their foundatiomhad little relevance to the needs of the island in which theywere supposed to be doers of good things, and, it mightbe argued, were intended to increase their qualificationi4oEdward Long, The History of Jamaica. I am grateful tomy colleague Miss Shirley Gordon for giving me this reference.41 From a draft of Miss Shirley Gordon's history of WeltIndian education.

126 Absentee-Proprietorship in British West Indiafor absenteeism rather than to distinguish them as WestIndia proprietors with a social conscience and the meansto ass&& it. Any contention that these people, whetherresident or absentee, could have contributed to the growthof a sane and well-integrated colonial society is highly disputable.Absenteeism did not deprive the colonies of a desirablesocial elite. It simply took from the colonies those peoplein whose view 'colonial elite' was a contradiction in termsand whose means permitted them to be elite rather thancolonial.It has been said in their defence that many of the absenteeschose to leave the colonies because as sensitive andhumane people they could not tolerate the daily rub withslavery.'= A pity then, that their sensitivity did not radiatefrom their hearts to their pockets-but there have beenmany others equally determined to stand by their profitsrather than by their principles.41References to the social and political consequences ofabsenteeism point to the numerical scarcity in the coloniesof people of a certain social class. Directly, therefore, theyare concerned with the numbers of residents rather thanwith the numbers of absentees. The argument, really, is notthat there were so many absentees, but that there were sofew residents having sufficient claim to social eminence, andto political and administrative authority. But scarcity ofresidents of a certain social class may reflect an emigrationof members of that class, a slow rate of population growthamong that class, and an insufficient social mobility to allowthe increase of that class by assimilations of new membersfrom the general population.In the British West Indies all these factors operated tolimit the number of residents who might assume positionsof social, political, and administrative leadership. EdwardLong44 gave estimates of the population of Jamaica asa J. H. Parry and P. M. Sherlock, op. cil., p. 153.48 Eric Williams, op. cit., p. 86.**History of Jamaica, VoL I, pp. 376 ff. But estimates of popillations in the West Indies in the eighteenth century varyDouglas Hall 12718,068 in 1673 (made up of 8,564 whites and 9,504negroes), and 193,614 in 1774. The latter figure was brokendown as follows:WHITES:Settled and residentTransientsSoldier* and seamenAnnuitants and non-resident proprietor* 2,000Total 22,500FREE PEOPLE OTHER THAN WHITES:MaroonsFree Black and Coloured people5003,700Total 4.200SLAVES:MulattoNegroTotalThese figures nicely illustrate the previous points. The numberof absentee proprietors (even if we extend the figureto 10,000 to allow for their families45) was smaller thanthe number of resident settlers, and was about oneseventeenthof the total population. A comparison betweenthe figures for 1673 and 1774 indicates a much morerapid growth of the negro than of the white population.The slower increase of whites reflected the aversion offortune-seekers to the encumbrances of family in plantationcolonies; the more rapid increase of negroes reflectedthe vast expansion of the slave-trade to feed the developingplantations with labour. But above all, the figures forwidely. R. M. Martin, The English Colonies. Vol. 4 (London,1852). p. 93, gives the following figures for Jamaica in 1775:Whites-12,737, Free Coloured People-4,093, and , Slaven-192,787.46 But note that the number of resident whites would not lawincluded thole children and othere temporarily in BritainÃthough not as abientofr-ownera or annuitant!.

128 Absentee-Proprietorship in British West Indies1774 show that of a total population of over 190,000 about170,000 had not the faintest hope of ever being reckonedamong the 61ite or called to the slightest position in the publicservice of the colony.The 500 maroons were concentrated in their own limitedterritory.4* The 3,700 free black and coloured people,though often allowed the freedom of the boudoirs, werenot received in the drawing-rooms of the whites, and until1831 were ineligible for the vote or for the public service.The 167,000 slaves were capital equipment. Surely it is reasonableto say that slavery, and the social and civil disabilitiesof the free black and coloured people, rather thanabsenteeism, were to blame for the small numbers of'qualified' people, and, consequently, for the general socialand political malaise and its more specific features such asmultiple office-holding and lack of integrity in high places.The oligarchic form of the colonial legislatures reflectedthe social and economic organization of slave-worked,sugar-plantation colonies. The smallness of the oligarchieswas a consequence not only of the absence of some whowould have qualified for membership, but, even more, ofthe refusal to recruit new membership locally through fearthat the oligarchy might be broken.Those who were debarred from high society and frompublic office were, however, permitted to enter trade andin that some did exceedingly well." There has never beena complaint that absenteeism deprived the West Indies ofa competent and successful merchant class, even though bythe late eighteenth century many of the absentees weremerchants.Finally, there remains the larger claim that absenteeownershipdrained wealth from the colonies; that the profits49By the Articles of peace with the Maroons, March 1738.See Bryan Edwards, History . . . of the West Indies, Vol. I (Appendix), for a brief account taken from other sources.47 For information about the achievements of the "Free Blackand Coloured People" see: C. H. Wesley, "The Negroes in theWest Indies" in the Journal of Negro History, Vols. XVH(1932). pp. 51-66, and XIX (19341, pp. 137-71; J. A. ThomeUKI H. J. Kimball, Emancipalion in the West Indict.Douglas Hall 129of sugar went not to further economic development in thecolonies, but to investment in the British home economyor to the financing of the conspicuous consumption of theabsentee-proprietors.In this paper consideration is limited to two basic questions:first, was there a drain of wealth from the colonies,and secondly, if there was, to what extent can it beattributed to the prevalence of absentee-ownership? Thereis unquestionable evidence that many absentees did indulgein extravagantly expensive, and sometimes vulgar displayin Britain. There is less agreement about the investment ofthe profits of West Indian sugar in British economicgrowth. Adam Smith contended that the "monopoly ofthe colony traden enriched only the merchants and distractedinvestment in British industry generally and in foreigncornmerce.48 Eric Williams has presented much evidenceto support the contrary view that the profits of sugardid find their way into the financing of the industrial revolutionin Britain.49There seems, consequently, little need here to remarshallthe argument that there was indeed a flow of wealthfrom the colonies to Britain; whether for re-investmentin 'the colony trade', or for investment in British industrialdevelopment, or for conspicuous consumption-which isobviously related to trade and industry which supply thegoods to be conspicuously consumed.All that remains, then, is the need to examine in greaterdetail the possible meaning of a 'drain of wealth', .and todiscover whether, in the period under review, absenteeismcan be blamed for it.The financing and marketing of British West Indiansugar production in the eighteenth and early nineteenthcenturies were complicated businesses. The flows of moneyor bullion between Britain and the colonies, in either direction,were insignificant Within the colonies payments were48 The Wealth of Nations (New York: Carman Edition, RandomHome, 1937), pp. 557-606, on colonies.49 Capitalism and Slavery, Chap. 5, on British industry andthe triangular trade.

130 Absentee-Proprietorship in British West Indiesmade in produce, in the various 'local currencies', cornposedof small quantities of British or foreign coin whichcirculated there,m and in bills of exchange on British merchantor commission houses to which estates consignedtheir produce. Payments in Britain were made out of theproceeds of sales of crops forwarded from the estates totheir consignees there, or in debit accounts with consigned.Consignees in Britain performed a multitude of services forWest Indian planters, both resident and absentee. They received,stored, and sold sugar and other produce; they keptestate accounts; they made payments to the estate's creditorsand to the holders of annuities chargeable on theprofits: they made purchases on behalf of the estate, andto satisfy the personal needs of resident planters and theirfamilies; as we have already seen, they sometimes receivedthe children of resident planters; and they were the bankersof the planters insofar as they held their current credit anddebit balances. In a number of cases these merchants orcommission agents were also absentee-proprietors."The wealth which flowed from the West Indies to Britainwas in the form of produce, not money. It came from theestates of resident and of absentee-proprietors. When itwas sold in Britain some of the proceeds went in paymentof the costs of production and marketing, some went inpayment for exports of all kinds from Britain to the colonies,and some went in payment of planters* debt None ofthis can be said to have constituted a drain on the wealthof the colonies except insofar as the monopoly of the colonytrade' raised the prices of goods, services, and creditto the planters.To the extent that the planters were paying the price of"Sidney Mintz, "Currency Problems in Eighteenth-CenturyJamaica and Gresham's Law", in R. A. Manners, cd. Processand Pattern in Culture (Chicago: Aldinc, 1964).6l For example: the Beckforda, Hibberta, and Pennants of Jamaica;the Codringtons of Barbados and the Leeward Islands;the Kirwans, Dunbare, and Shands of Antigua; the Gladstone!of British Guiana and Jamaica; the Pinneys of Ned; and many0then.Douglas Hall 131dependence on merchants who controlled their trade, therewas a drain; but this was as true for resident as for absenteeproprietors. Moreover, British commercial regulationsand tariffs, until the 1840's, gave high protection inthe British market to British colonial sugars. Thus theestate-owners, whether resident or absentee, enjoyed a degreeof monopoly power in the British market, and wereable to fetch a higher price for their sugars than wouldotherwise have been the case.In the circumstances, the strongest position was held bythose estate-owners who were also engaged in Britain asWest India merchants or commission agents for West Indiaproduce. As proprietors and merchants they could serve theinterests of their different enterprises and elect, as marketconditions varied, to take their profits either as producersor as middlemen. But it was not necessary to be an absenteeto enjoy this advantage. A resident planter or hisfamily might control a merchant-house or commissionagency in Britain, just as an absentee might control propertyin the colonies."Indeed, it is difficult to distinguish between resident andabsentee-owners except on the obvious difference that theformer were, and the latter were not, resident in the colonies.It was upon a similar distinction that Mountifort Longfield,writing in the 1830's primarily on the Irish absenteeproblem, based his view that:If absenteeism be injurious, it must be in one or bothof these respects. Either the absentee proprietor inflictsa positive injury upon his country by living abroad, anddrawing and (pending his revenue there, or he injuresit in another manner negatively, depriving his country"In Antigua, for instance, "At least 52 families had membersaway from the island for protracted period* in the years from1730 to 1775. Included among them were 20 London-West Indiamerchants, 12 member* of parliament, one lord mayor of Loo"don, and nine titled pereons." R. B. Sheridan, "The Rue of aColonial Gentry: Antigua 1730-1775" in The Economic ffbtory Review, Second Series, Vol. Xm, No. 3,1961, p. 346.

132 Absentee-Proprietorship in British West Indiaof those services which he probably would perform ifhe were to reside at home.63As far as the absentee-owners of West Indian propertywere concerned, it has previously been argued that mostof them did not appear to regard the colonies as "home";that the extent to which their absence deprived the coloniesof services of value depended, very largely, on the quantitativeas well as the qualitative aspects of absenteeism atany particular time, and that the colonial elites were deprivedof significant membership as much by internal sorialand demographic factors as by absenteeism. If thosearguments are acceptable, it remains necessary to examinefurther only the "positive injury' of absenteeism as definedabove.In this, however, a now familiar point again recurs. Abnnteeowners did indeed draw and spend their revenuesabroad; but so too did the resident proprietors. The financialand marketing organization of sugar production wassuch that planters' accounts and balances were kept inBritain. Earnings were spent in Britain because the earnerswere either resident in Britain or resident in tropical agriculturalislands, devoted to the production of export staples,and dependent on imports of British goods of all kinds tosupport life and labour on the tropical plantations. Theprofits of sugar, whether resident or absentee-owned, didnot go to the founding of wlonial banks, or to the subscriptionof loans in the colonies for local colonial enterprise,or to any other projects for local development, becauseBritain was the financial capital, the commercialentrepot, and the industrial provider. Any colonial endeavourthat seemed likely to threaten or to weaken Britishmetropolitan interests was discouraged.The whole object of the European nations in acquiringcolonies in the late fifteenth to the late eighteenth centurieswas to increase the wealth of the metropolitan country.68 Mountifort Longfield, Three Lectures on Commerce andOne on Absenteeism, Dublin 1835 (London School of Economicsand Political Science Reprint, 1938).Douglas Hall 133This was to be achieved by the effective occupation of territorieswhich were regarded as being either rich in resourcesof value to the metropolitan country or strategicallyimportant in the military business of protecting empireor denying empire to others.It was tobacco, then sugar and cotton, which made mostof the West India islands desirable to Britain. NeitherCrown nor Parliament had been much excited by the firstsettlements in Barbados and the Leeward Islands, until thefirst settlers began to produce tobacco in exportable quantityto a growing market in England. The subsequent tumto sugar cultivation enhanced the value of the islands, andJamaica, soon after its capture, became 'the darling plantation'of Charles II.Also contributing to their importance was the strategicvalue of islands such as Antigua, from which the Frenchin the Windward Islands could be observed and, at times,harassed; Jamaica, lying almost between Cuba and Hispaniola,and between them and New Granada; and Trinidad,which, though a late eighteenth century British acquisition,had in the past been tempting as a good steppingstone to the Orinoco and "El Dorado".The European view of tropical plantation colonies wasthat possession of them enriched the possessor. They yieldedtropical produce desirable in colder Europe, and, since theywere both tropical and agricultural, they provided marketsfor the products of European agriculture and industry.The European country which possessed the greatest andmost productive of these plantations and bound their wmmerceto its own advantage consequently expected to reapthe benefit of a rich trade and growing markets.Clearly enough, it was the metropolitan view that thecosts of acquiring and defending such plantations wouldbe fully repaid by the wealth that possession of them wouldyield. Absentee-ownership entered not in the slightest degreeinto these reckonings. The device of early proprietaryforms of government was contrived as a means of enablingfirst enterprise, not as a means of draining wealth.The growth of the sugar industry concurred with the de-

134 Absentee-Proprietorship in British West Indiescline of proprietory government and the emergence ofloud local assemblies. The growth of the sugar industrya h awakened the keen interest of Crown and Parliamentin the ways and means of securing to England the wealththat English plantations would yield.Even Adam Smith, whose 'Wealth of Nations' attackedthe economic philosophy of the first British Empire, did notdispute that wealth had accrued from "the monopoly ofthe colony trade*'. He argued rather that the monopoly wasrestrictive, that the wealth had flowed not to Britain but tothose British merchants in the colonial trade, and that theending of the monopoly would yield a greater and a moregeneral economic advantage by removing unwarrantableinducements to colonial commercial enterprise as againstforeign trade and British industrial growth.It is probably true that with or without absenteeownership,wealth would have been drained from the coloniesto Britain. The expectation of such a drain was oneof the motives for the'acquisition of tropical plantations'.In conclusion, there is one small but important pointwhich is sometimes overlooked in the general allegationsagainst absentee-ownership. Wealth can be drained awayonly if there is wealth. The history of the British WestIndies provides no picture of undisturbed prosperity. Therehave been times, for instance in the 1730's. the 1780's andin the post-Napoleonic War and post-emancipation periods,when West Indian property has been deeply depressed, andwhen the profits of sugar have been small for all but a fewof the ablest or most fortunate producers. In such timedthe drain must have dwindled and perhaps dried up altogether,and there were years in which the drain flowed inreverse with absentee e s pfrom other sources in the maintenance of West India propertyuntil the sugar market improv4.M If this be so, a¥me drain', one way or the other, should be determinedonly in account over a specified period of time.MOisela Eir, Jamaica 1830-1930, A Study in EconomicGrowth (Manchester University Press, 1961). pp. 196-97.Douglas Hall 135It may be as well to end with a reminder. The purp~~ ofthis essay has not been to prove either that abKBteeownershipwas a good thing, or a bad thing; or that itdid. or did not, reduce the wealth or prosperity of theseterritories. The purpose has been to plead that broad gen-. eralizations about the consequences of abeentec-ownershipare likely to be indefensible, and that a proper understandingof the importance of absentee-ownership in our bistoryremains to be given by further careful research andassessment.

The Ordeal of Free Labor in theBritish West IndiesWilliam G. SewellThis is the concluding essay of a series of articles cornmissionedfor the New York Times in 1860, arguing thatWest Indian emancipation had been a success. The authorasserts that freedom had benefited planters as well asformer slaves; that production in most territories had increasedrather than declined; and that an enhanced senseof general security augured well for the future of WestIndian society. Seeking to put down slavery in the AmericanSouth, the author painted West Indian emancipationcouleur de rose. He alludes only briefly to the continuingsubordination of the freed slaves to the planters, does notmention the decline of sugar, ignores the circumstancesand effects of indentured immigration, and fails to noticethe increasing acerbities among white, colored, and blackthat were soon to culminate in a bloody upheaval in Jamaica.But he saw, as did few other "objective" observersof the day, that where freedom of enterprise was reallypossible, freedom was not only real but immensely valuable.Born in Quebec in 1829, WILLIAM o. SEWELL studied lawbut gave up his legal practice for journalism, which he followedin New York City until his death in 1862.Bridgetown, Barbados, 1860.I have endeavored, and I hope successfully, to show thateach of the British West India colonies has had its owndistinct and separate history, its own elements of prosperity,its own resources to develop, its own political and socialevils to eradicate, its own policy to pursue, its own destinyto work out. I have endeavored to combat the errorof judging the islands by rules that might apply to a continentaldependency, and of tracing their depression, pastor present, to the same or to a single origin. The fact thatsome islands need immigration, while others do not-thatsome are being colonized with Asiatics, while others arealready densely peopled with Africans-points out the mistakeof supposing their fortunes identical, or their casesexactly parallel. Emancipation, it is true, was granted to allat the same time and on the same conditions; but it wasadmitted to each island under different auspices, andbreathed in each a different atmosphere. In Jamaicawhereslavery was the primary formation upon which thesocial and political structures rested, and the revolutionto be effected was most comprehensive-the change wasresolutely and systematically opposed by a powerfulplantocracy. Freedom, in Jamaica, was met and encounteredat every point, and found, among the governingThe Ordeal of Free Labour in the West Indies, pp. 310-25;originally published in New York, Harper & Bros., 1861. Nowavailable from Frank Cass, London, 1968.

138 Ordeal of Free Labor in British West Indiesclasses, a very limited number of willing workers. In thesmall and comparatively unimportant islahd of Antigua,freedom was received by the monopolists of the day, if notwith cordiality, at least as an innovation which they wereforced to accept, and which merited, under the circumstances,a fair and impartial trial. Emancipation was anisolated experiment in each of the different colonies.Precedents and mlea of action for one were no precedentsor rules of action for another. Here there were obstaclesto overcome and difficulties to surmount which there didnot exist, or existed only in a mitigated form. Each colonywas a field of battle upon which the banners of free laborand slave labor were flung to the winds; and while in some,where resistance was feeble, all trace of the conteat has disappeared,and prosperity has revived, in others, where resistancewas strong and determined, the exhaustion thatfollows a long war and a long reign of oppression weighsheavily upon a dispirited people. Let us not be deceived.Let us not misinterpret the true meaning of Jamaica's desolationat the present time. Let no one be so mad as to believethat it is the work of freedom. Let no one fancy thateven an aristocracy were ruined by the system from whichthey so long and so stubbornly withheld their allegiance.Let no one question the victory, though its choicest fruitsare yet to be reaped; let no one doubt that freedom, whenit overturned a despotism and crushed a monopoly, unshackled,at the same time, the commerce, the industry,and the intelligence of the Islands, and laid the foundationsof permanent prosperity.I have addressed myself exclusively to the argument ofthe planter, for his pretension is, in reality, the only oneto be disputed. It could not have been expected that hewould act otherwise than he did. It was his part to resist.The new system was meant to effect a radical change inplantation management, and it was only natural for theproprietor to look upon any change that he had not provedwith distrust and aversion. His monopolies and his privilegeswere to be swept away, and he could not encouragethe acheme that doomed them to destruction, and openedWilliam G. Sewell 139to wide competition the field of profit he bad hitherto exclusivelyenjoyed. Many of 'the planters went down withthe privileges and the monopolies by which alone theyhad managed to keep afloat; but are the Act of Emancipationand the abolition of a protective tariff to be coodeemedbecause they tore down the veil of fictitious prosperityand exposed a helpless bankruptcy? Are these WestIndia colonies mined in their sugar interest, or any otherinterest, because some five hundred third-rate sugarplantersbad not the stamina, pluck, capital, strength, wit,or what you please, to stand alone when the props of favoritismand partial legislation were removed? If free laborbe tested by any other gauge than that of sugar-production,its success in the West Indies is established beyond all caviland beyond all peradventure. If the people merit any considerationwhatever-if their independence, their comfort,their industry, their education, form any part of a country'sprosperity-then the West Indies are a hundred-fold moreprosperous now than they were in the most flourishingtimes of slavery. If peace be an element of prosperityifit be important to enjoy uninterrupted tranquillity andbe secure from servile war and insurrection-then theWest Indies have now an advantage that they never possessedbefore it was given them by emancipation. If alargely-extended commerce be an indication of prosperity,then all the West Indies, Jamaica alone excepted, haveprogressed under a system of free labor, although thatsystem hitherto has been but imperfectly developed.I have endeavored to convey a correct idea of thedepreciation of commerce and the decline of sugarcultivationin Jamaica; and I have also endeavored to showthat this depreciation is an exception to the present generalprosperity of the British West Indies-that it commencedbefore emancipation was projected, and can betraced directly to other causes than the introduction offreedom. Long before Mr. Canning, in his place in Parliament.became the unwilling organ of the national will,and explained, in terms not to be mistaken, that the demandof the British people for the liberation of the slaves

140 Ordeal of Free Labor in British West Indiacould DO longer be resisted, West India commerce was inthe most alarming state of depression, owing to the heavyoutlay and expenditure that a system of slave labor impwtivdyrequired. Testimony pointing directly and overwbelminglyto this conclusion has been givenÈb plantersthemaelveaÑb men put forward as the spedal championsof the planting interest-and fills a score of ParliamentaryBlue-books. Upon their statements the report of the selectcommittee on the condition of the West India colonic*.printed in 1832, declared that "there was abundant evi-. dence of an existing distress for ten or twelve years previous."That rcport described an impendiug, if not an actualruin that we look for in vain at the present day. Jamaica.in 1860, and die only in the one particular of sugarculdvadon,is the single British island whose industry andenterprise remain, as we are told they formerly were, exhaustedand paralyzed.Let us appeal once more to figures. The colony of BritishGuiana, for four years prior to emancipation, exportedan annual average of 98,000,000 Ibs. of sugar, while, from1856 to 1860, its annual average export rose to 100,600,-000 lbs. The colony of Trinidad, for four years prior toemancipation, annually exported an average of 37,000,000lbs. of sugar, while, from 1856 to 1860, its annual averageexport rose to 62,000,000 lb. The colony of Barbados, f afour years prior to emancipation, annually exported anaverage of 32,800,000 lbs. of sugar, while, from 1856 to1860, its annual average export rose to 78,000,000 Ibs.The colony of Antigua, for four years prior to emancipation,exported an annual average of 19,500,000 lbs. ofaugar, while, from 1856 to 1860, its annual average exportrose to 24,400,000 Ibs. This is a total exhibit of 265,000,-000 Ibs. annually exported now, instead of 187,300,000lbs. before emancipation, or an excess of exports, with freelabor, of seventy-seven million, seven hundred thousandpounds of sugar.In the matter of imports, we find that the colony ofBritish Guiana, between the years 1820 and 1834, importedannually to the value of $3,700,000; that the an-William G. Sewell 141nual imports of Trinidad, during the same period, averagedin value $1,690,000; that the imports of Barbados averagedin value $2,850,000; and those of Antigua $600,000.In the year 1859 the imports of Guiana were valued at$5,660,000: those of Trinidad at $3,000,000, those of Barbadosat $4,660,000; and those of Antigua at $1,280,000.The total exhibit represents an annual import trade, at thepresent time, of the value of $14,600,000, against $8,840,-000 before emancipation. or an excess of imports, undera free system, of the value of five million, &en hundredand sixty thousand dollars.In the exports I have made mention of sugar only; butif all other articles of commerce be included, and a comparisonbe instituted between the import and export tradeof the colonies of Guiana, Trinidad, Barbados, and Antiguaunder slavery, and their trade under freedom, theannual balance in favor of freedom will be found to havereached already FIFTEEN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS at the verylowest estimate.This large increase in the trade of four out of the fiveprincipal West India colonies is sufficient, I think, to demonstrate(were there no other evidence at hand) that freelabor, with which four have prospered, can not alone beheld responsible for the decline of the fifth. The increaseof sugar-production also demonstrates the improved industryof the islands to a very remarkable extent: for itmust be remembered that the agricultural force now engagedin cane-cultivation is scarcely more than half ofwhat it was in times of slavery, when the energies of thewhole population were directed to this single end. Oneof the most natural and legitimate results of emancipationwas to allow every man to do what seemed to him best-toachieve independence if he could-to pursue, in any case,the path of industry most agreeable to his tastes, and mostconducive to his happiness. When we look at the vastpolitical and social structure that has been demolishedthenew and grander edifice that has been erected-theenemies that have been vanquished-the prejudices thathave been uprooted-the education that has been sown

142 Ordeal of Free Labor in British West Indiesbroadcast, the ignorance that has been removed-the industrythat has been trained and fosteredÑw can notpause to criticise defects, for we are amazed at the proofm great a revolution within the brief space of twenty-. five years. ihose who have never lived in a slave countrylittle know how the institution entwines itself round thevitab of society and poisons the sources of political lifaThe physical condition of the slave is lost in the contemplationof a more overwhelming argument. Looking at thequestion from a high national standpoint, it is, comparativelyspeaking, a matter of temporary interest and minorimportance whether the bondsman is treated with kindnessand humanity, as in America. or with short-sighted brutality,as in Cuba. It is the influence of the system uponthe energies and the morality of a people that demandsthe calmest and most earnest consideration of patriots andstatesmen. The present is, perhaps, not so much to becondemned as the future, from which all eyes are studiouslyaverted, is to be dreaded. An act of the British Parliament,and a vote of twenty millions sterling, were sufficientto release 800,000 slam; but DO act of the BritishParliament could thus summarily remove the curse thatslavery had bequeathed to these islands, and had left tofester in their heart's core. Time only could do that: timehas not done it yetI have endeavored to show-and I hope successfullythatthe experiment of free labor in the West Indies hasestablished its superior economy, as well as its possibility.Not a single island fails to demonstrate that the Creoles ofAfrican descent, in all their avocations and in all theiipursuits, work, under a free system, for proper rernunemtion,though their labor is often ignorantly wasted and. .misdirected. That arises from want of education, want oftraining, want of good example. I have not sought tojustify the maudlin sympathy that the mere mention ofthese people seems to excite in certain quarters, nor haveI advocated their interests to the detriment of any otherinterest whatever. I have simply maintained, from evidencebefore me, that the right of one class to enjoy the wagesWilliam G. Sewelf 143and fruits of theii labor, does not and can not injuriouslyaffect the rights of any other class, or damage, as somefoolishly pretend, a country's prosperity. An ethnologicalissue, quite foreign to the subject, has been dragged intothe argument. No one can deny that, up to the presenttime, the African, in intelligence, in industry, and in forceof character, has been. and still is, the inferior of theEuropean; but it is a tremendous mistake to suppose thathis intelligence can ever be quickened, his industry sharpened,or his character strengthened under slavery; and itis worse than a mistake to consign him to slavery for defectsthat slavery itself engendered, or to condemn himbecause the cardinal virtues of civilization did not springinto life upon the instant that the heel of oppression wasremoved. With the destiny of the West Indies the welfareof these people is inseparably bound up, and it is as wrongto overlook their faults as to deny that they have progrossedunder freedom, or to doubt that, by the spread ofeducation and under the dominion of an enlightened goveminent,they will become still more elevated in the scaleof civilization. Those who are not afraid of the confessionwill admit that the West Indian Creole has made a goodfight. The act of emancipation virtually did no more thanplace liberty within his reach. Actual independence hehad to achieve for himself. All untutored and undiplinedas he was, he had to contend against social prejudice,political power, and a gigantic interest, before hecould enjoy the boon that the act nominally conferredu p him. The planter was bred to the belief that hinbusiness could only be conducted with serf labor, and heclung to the fallacy long after serf labor had been legallyabolished. Witness the land tenure which still exists in amitigated form throughout all the West Indies, and requiresthe tenant, on peril of summary ejection, to givehis services exclusively to his landlord. The instinct ofself-interest* faintest desire for independence-wouldprompt any one to reject such a bondage. Yet this rejectionis the sole accusation brought against the negro-thisthe only ground upon which he has been condemned. I

144 Ordeal of Free Labor in British West Indieshave endeavored to point out the two paths that lay opento the West Indian Creole after the abolition of alavery.The one wu to remain an estate serf and make sugar forthe planter; the other was to rent or purchase tend, andwork for estates if he pleased, but be aocially independentof a macter'a control. I endeavored to follow these twoclasses of people in the paths they pursued-the majority,who have become independent, and the minority, who haveremained estate laborera-and I have shown that the conditionof the former & infinitely above the condition ofthe latter. Is this any where denied? Can any one lay thatIt wu not the lawful right of these people thus to seek.¥ad having found, to cherish their independence? Canany one lay that, by doing so, they wronged themselves,the planter*, a the government under which they lived?Can any one lay that they are to blame if, by their suecessfulattempts to elevate themselves above the necessitousand precarious career of labor for daily hire, the agriculturalfield force was weakened, and the production ofNgm dimihhd? Yet tbia is the fairest case that can bemade out for the oligarchies of these West India islands.They have denounced the negro for nil defective industry;but what, we may ask, have they themselves done-in whathave they (riven proof of their nobler civilization andhigher intelligence? Surely a most important duty devolvedupon them. They were the privileged aristocracy,the landed proprieton, the capitalists, the rulers of the colonioÑathey atill are. Their political power was supreme;yet what have they done, not for the permanent prosperityof the inlands-for the question need not be asked-but inbehalf of their own special interests? They arraigned thenegro for deserting their estates and ruining their fortunes,when they themselves were absentees, and were paying thelegitimate profits of their business to agents and overseers.They offered the independent peasant no pecuniary inducement,or its equivalent, to prefer their emice; butthey attempted to obtain his work for less remunerationthan he could earn in any other employment. They nevercared for the comfort or happiness of their tenants, orWilliam G. SeweU 145¥ough to inspire them with confidence and contentment.They made no effort to elevate labor above the degradedlevel at which alavery left it. and they never Èe an exampleto their inferiors of the industry that b till neededin the higher u well as in the lower classei of West Indiansociety. Enterprise never prompted them to encouragethe introduction of labor-saving arts. Yet these weremeasures that demanded the action of an enlightenedLegislature and the consideration of an influential proprietarylong before scarcity of labor became a subject ofcomplaint. Instead of averting the evil they dreaded, theyhastened its consummation, and injured their cause tillmore deeply by the false and evasive plea that the idlenessof the Creole was the cause of a commercial andagricultural depression that they bad brought entirely onthemselves. Is. it any argument against the industry of thelaboring classes of America that a large proportion annuallybecome proprietors, and withdraw from service fordaily hire? Yet this is precisely what the West IndiaCreole has done; this is the charge on which he has beenarraigned-this is the crime for which he has beencondemned.I do not think it can be doubted that a want of conflden-between employer and employed, engendered altogetherby the mistaken policy of the governing classes,contributed largely to the prolonged depression of theWest Indim depression from which most of them, underthe advantages of free labor, have greatly recoveredwithin the last tea years. Many of the old & of eviland complaint have been abolished, some atill live. Absenteeismis prevalent, and hypothecation, in Jamaicamore especially, weighs heavily upon the agricultural interest.But the West Indian planter now generally admitsthe superior advantages of free labor, and is careful toavoid the grosser errors into which his predecessors fell.Landed property is changing hands, and new men anbuilding up, upon a broader and sounder basis than thatof davery, the most important interest of these islands.The stonn of a great adversity ha* passed over. There ia

i146 Ordeal of Free Labor in British West Indiesno longer a truggle to wring from an unwilling plantocracyan admission in favor of freedom. That belongs tothe history of the battle of independence, which, in thesecolonia, was nobly fought and triumphantly won; and if Ihave recalled the contest to mind. it was not to revive oldgrievances, but to illustrate truth, and vindicate the policyof freedom. The mode by which those colonies that needlabor are to be supplied with an intelligent and industrioirpopulation is the practical question of the day. It certainlywould neither be wise nor just to oppose, by legislation orotherwise, the abstraction of labor from estates so rapidlygoing on. Nothing could be adduced to illustrate moreforcibly the progress of the people. The abstraction didnot commence until some years after emancipation~untilthose who had been able to save money began to purchaseland and cultivate for themselves. This is the greatWest Indian problem. It has been so complicated and diitorted that its most familiar acquaintances scarcely knowwhat to believe; but, divested of such foreign incumbrancesas "defects of African character," and other rimilarstuff and nonsense, it is simply a land question, withwhich race and color have nothing whatever to do. Thesame process goes on in the United States, in Canada, inAustralia, and in all new countries where land is cheapand plentiful and the population sparse. The laborer soonbecomes a proprietor; the ranks of the laboring force arerapidly thinned, and the capitalist is compelled to pay high,it may be extravagant wages. In the West Indies the capitalistrefuses to pay high wagea; he thinks that the controlof the labor market is one of his rights. He imagines, andupon what ground I can not comprehend, that fanningin these colonies should yield much larger profits thanfanning any where else. He calls it "planting," and fanciesthat there ought to be a wide social distinction between theman who grows cane or cotton and the man who growpotatoes and parsnip*. God gave the mark! Does any onedream that if West India planten stuck to their businesslike English fanners, and possessed one half of their practicalability and industry, the agricultural and commercialinterests of the islands would have ever suffered fromemancipation? The profits of sugar-cultivation, accordingto the planter's creed, must be large enough to yield theproprietor, though an absentee, a comfortable income,and pay large salaries besides to overseers and attorneys;otherwise estates are abandoned, and the sugar interest is"ruined." These expectations might have been realized inthe days of the old monopoly; they certainly are not realizednow, and never can be realized again, unless theBritish people recede from their principles of free tradeand free labor. If labor in the West Indies is highÑs highthat sometimes the planter can not afford to pay the pricedemanded-he is not worse off than the capitalist in allnew countries. His attempt to keep the people day laborera,and to check the development of a natural law, isfoolish and wicked. There is but one remedy for this abstractionfrom estate-labor, and that remedy is immigration.It must be a constant immigration as long as land ischeap and plentiful, for the immigrants themselves-andnotoriously the Portuguese, whose industry was once thetheme of the planter's praise and exultation-forsake thelaboring ranks, and become proprietors and tradesmen assoon as they are released from their contracts of service.It must be a colonizing immigration, or permanent prosperitycan never be reaped. It must be a free immigration,violating in no poults of theory and in no details of praoticethe grant of liberty conferred by the Act of Emancipationupon these islands and their populations forever.This immigration has been placed within the reach of a0Ithe colonies that required it, though the jealous fears ofthe British people have prompted them to withhold fromthe local governments its entire direction and control. Bythis immigration the planters of Trinidad and Guiana havegreatly profited, while the planten of Jamaica, exceptional ,again, with languishing energies and paralyzed enterprise,have derived no more benefit from the labor they imported'than from the Creole labor they profess to have loot, butwhich, in reality, they recklessly squandered.Truth, we are told, will prevail, and freedom, we know,1'I

148 Ordeal of Free Labor in British West Indies& truth. Howsoever people may differ on questions of politicalliberty, into which inequalities of birth,race, position,and intelligence are permitted to enter, modem civilizationhas recognized and ratified the inalienable right of men tothe wages of their industry, to the happiness they havetoiled for, and to the independence they have earned. Herein the true field of equality, where rank, or race, or intellecthas no chartered precedence. From the day when thisgreat principle was admitted throughout the British WestIndies their true prosperity may be dated. For freedomknows no favoritism; her honors are not crowded upon aprivileged class, her aid is not limited to a particular interest.The act of British emancipation has been widelyabused, but its detractors must live among the people itdisenthralled if they would learn the value at which it canbe estimated. Time, which develops the freedom that actcreated, adds continually to its lustre; and long after England'shighest achievements in arts or in arms shall havebeen forgotten, this grant of liberty shall testify to thegrandeur of her power and to the magnanimity of herpeople. I have not assumed, in aught I have written, thatthe West Indian Creole is yet capable of self-government.I have simply endeavored to show that, under freedom,¥ource of industry and prosperity have been opened that,under slavery, would have remained closed forever. I haveendeavored to show that, for the West Indies, freedomhas been the best policy, though the moralist may condemnan argument that-scts forth another motive for doing rightthan the sake of right itself. If emancipation did no morethan relieve the West Indian slave from the supervision ofa task-master I should have nothing left to say; for I admined,at the outset, that the condition of the laboringclasse* waa but one among many interests whose ruin, ifpersonal liberty could ruin them, would make us disbelievein troth itself. But freedom, when allowed fair play,injured the prosperity of none of these West Indian colaniat.It caved them from a far deeper and more lastingdepression than any they have yet known. It was a boonconferred upon all classes of society: upon planter andWilliam G. Sewell 149upon laborer; upon an interests: upon commerce andagricultureÑupo industry and education-upon moralityand religion. And if a perfect measure of success remainsto be achieved, let not freedom be condemned; for theobstacle! to overcome were great, and the workers werefew and unwilling. Let it be remembered that a generation,born in the night of slavery, has not yet passed away, andthat men who were taught to believe in that idol and it*creations still control the destinies of these distant colonies.Reluctantly they learnt the lesson forced upon them; slowlytheir opposition yielded to the dawning of conviction;but, now that the meridian of truth has been reached, wemay hope that light will dispel all the shadows of slavery,and confound the logic of its champions when they falselyassert that emancipation has mined the British islands.

The Perils of Black Supremacy*James Anthony FroudeVisiting the Wet India la 1888, an eminent British hiÈtori80 drew coociuswm d i i y contrary to those of theprevious ¥election Tbis chapter from Froude's book pre-¥eo a white ncist penpective on the wnscqueoce offreedom and self-government The author's imperialist,chauvbht, and racially biased view were shared by manyeminent EngIbhmm of the en-Thomu Carlyle's "OccasionalDiscoune on the Niftier Question," judging Negroesinherently incapabk of self-rule and hence better off in astate of subjugation, is the best-known example of thegenre. As the number of whites in the islands rapidly dedined,Froude and like-minded Britons feared that localaelf-government might end in black rule after the Haitianmodel.JAMES ANTHONY PKOUDE, Regius Professor of History atOxford, baaed his West Indian conclusions on limited obmtionsand diissions confined mainly to West IndianOfflClaIs. The combination of Fmde's bias and hisprestige made hi* book infamous throughout the Caribbean.As I was stepping into the boat at Port Royal, a pamphletwas thrust into my hand, which I was entreated to readat my leisure. It wa* by ¥om discontented white of theidand40 rare phenomenon, and the sub'$!ct of it was (heprecipitate decline In the value of property there. Thewriter, unlike the planters, insisted that the people weretaxed in proportion to their industry. There wen tax= onmules, on carts, on donkey. all bearing on the amall blackproprietors, whose ability to cultivate was thus checked,and who were thus deliberately encouraged in idleness.He might have added, although he did not, that whileboth in Jamaica and Trinidad everyone. is clamouringagainst the beetroot bounty which artificiauy lowers theprice of sugar, the local councils in these two islands tryto counteract the effect and artificially raise the price ofsugar by an export duty on their own produce-a singularmethod of doing it which, I presume, admits of explanation.My pamphleteer was persuaded that all the world werefools, and that he and his friends were the only wise ones:again a not uncommon occurrence in pamphleteers. Hedemanded the 811ppression of absenteeism; he demandedfree trade. In exchange for the customs duties, which wereto be abolished, he demanded a land tax-the very mentionof which, I had been told by others, drove the black pro-The English in the West Indies: or. The Bow of Ulysses, teadon,Longmans, 1888, pp. 277-87.[Editor* title]

152 The Perils of Black Supremacyprietom whom he wished to benefit into madness. Hewanted Home Rule. He wanted fifty things besides whichI have forgotten, but his grand want of all was a new currency.Mankind, he thought, had been very mad at allperiods of their hiatory. The moat aigdbnt U m oftheir madness had been the selection of gold and silver asthe medium of exchange. The true base of the currencywas the land. The Government of Jamaica was to lend toevery freeholder up to the mortgage value of his land inpaper notea, at 5 per cent intereat, the current rate beingat promt 8 per cent. The notes BO issued, having the landas their security, would be in no danger of depreciation,and they would flow over the sugar estates like an irrigatingstream. On the produce of sugar the fate of the islanddepended.On the produce of sugar? And why not on the produceof a fine race of men? The prospects of Jamaica, theprospect* of all countries, depend not on sugar or on anyform or degree of material wealth, but on the charactersof the men and women whom they are breeding and rearing.Where there m men and women of a noble nature,the rest will go well of itself; where these are not, therewill be no true prosperity though the sugar hogsheads beraised from thousands into millions. The colonies are interestingonly as offering homca where Engliah people canincrease and multiply; English of the old type with Èimplhabits, who do not need imported luxuries. There is roomeven in tbo West India for hu&& of tkmumda of themif they can be contented to lead human live*, and do notgo dmu to make fortunes which they are to carry home, with them. The time may not be far off when men will besick of making fortunes, rick of bring ground to patternin the commonplace mill-wheel of modem society; sick ofa itato of thing* which blights and kills simple and originalfeeling, which makes as think and speak and act underthe tyranny of general opinion, which masquerades asliberty and means only submission to the newpapera. Ican conceive mnne modern men may weary of all thia,and retire from it like the old ascetics, not u they did intoJames Anthony Froude . 153the wilderness, but behind their own walk and hedges,shutting out the world and its noises, to inquire whetherafter all they have really immortal souk, and if they havewhat ought to be done about them. The West India Islands,with their inimitable climate and soil and prickly pearad libitum to make fences with, would be fine placea forBucb recluses. Failing these ideal personages, there is workenough of the common sort to create wholesome prosperity.There are oranges to be grown, and pines andplantains, and coffee and cocoa, and rice and indigo andtobacco, not to speak of the dollars which my Americanfriend found in the bamboos, and of the further dollarswhich other Americans will find in the yet untested qualitiesof thousands of other productions. Here are oppor-(unities for innocent industrious families, where childrencan be brought up to be manly and simple and true andbrave as their fathers woe brought up, as their fathersexpressed it 'in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,'while such neighbourn as their dark brothers-in-law mighthave a chance of a rise in life, in the only sense in whicha 'rise* can be of real benefit to them.We took possession of those islands when they were ofsupreme importance in our great wrestle with Spain andFrance. We were fighting then for the liberties of the humanrace. The Spaniards had destroyed the original Cariband Indian inhabitants. We induced thousands of our ownfellow-countrymen to venture life and fortune in the occupationof our then vital conquests. For two centuries wefurnished them with black servants whom we purchasedon the African coast and carried over and sold there, makingour own profits out of the trade, and the colonistsprospered themselves and poured wealth and strength intothe empire of which they were then an integral part Achange passed over the spirit of the age. Liberty assumeda new drew. We found slavery to be a crime; we releasedour bondmen; we broke their cbaini as we proudly de-

1 54 The Perils of Black Supremacydbed it to ourselves; we compensated the owners, so faras money could compensate, for the entire dislocation ofa state of aociety which we had ourselves created; and wetrusted to the enchantment of liberty to create a better inits place. We had delivered our own soula; we had othercolonies to take our emigrants. Other lands under our opentrade would supply us with the commodities for which wehad hitherto been dependent on the West Indies. Theyceased to be of commercial, they ceased to be of political,moment to us, and we left them to their own resource!.The modem English idea is that everyone must take careof himself. Individuals or aggregates of individuals havethe world before them, to open the oyster or fail to openit according to their capabilities. The State is not to helpthem; the State is not to interfere with them unless forpolitical or party reasons it happens to be convenient Aswe treat ourselves we treat our colonies. Those who havegone thither haw gone of their own free will, and must .take the consequences of their own actions. We allow themno exceptional privileges which we do not claim for ourselves.They must stand, if they are to stand, by their ownstrength. If they cannot atand they must fall. This is ournotion of education in 'manliness,' and for immediate purposesanswer* well enough. Individual enterpk unendowedbut unfettered, built the main butmm of theBritish colonial empire. Australians and New Zealandera. are English and Scotchmen who have settled at the antipodea where there fa more room for them than at home.They are the same people as we are, and they have thelame privileges as we have. They are parts of one andthe same organic body as branches from the original trunk.The branch does not part from the trunk, but it dischargesits own vital functions by its own energy, and we no moredesire to interfere than London desires to interfere withManchater.So it stands with us where the colonists are of our race,, with the lame character and the ¥am object*; and, aa I¥aid the lyitem answers. Under no other relations couldwe continue a united people. But it doe> not answer4James Anthony Froude 155has failed wherever we have tried it-when the majority ofthe inhabitants of countries of which for one or otherreason we have possessed ourselves, and of which wekeep possession, are not united to us by any of these naturalbonds, where they have been annexed by violence orotherwise been forced under our flag. It has failed coospicuouslyin Ireland. We know that it would fail in theEast Indies if we were rash enough to venture the experiment.1About the West Indies we do not care very earnestly.Nothing seriously alarming can happen there. So much,therefore, of the general policy of leaving them to helpthemselves out of their difficulties we have adopted completely.The corollary that they must govern themselvesalso on their own responsibilities we hesitate as yet to admitcompletely; but we do not recognise that any responsibilityfor their failing condition rests on us; and the inclinationcertainly, and perhaps the purpose, is to throw them entirelyupon themselves at the earliest moment. Cuba sendsrepresentatives to the Cortes at Madrid, Martinique andOuadaloupe to the Assembly at Paris. In the English islands,being unwilling to govern without some semblanceof a constitution, we try tentatively varieties of local boardsand local councils, admitting the elective principle but notdaring to trust it fully; creating hybrid constitutions, socontrived as to provoke ill feeling where none would existwithout them, and to make impossible any tolerable governmentwhich could actively benefit the people. We cannotintend that arrangements the effects of which arevisible so plainly in the sinking fortunes of our own kindredthere, are to continue for ever. We suppose that wecannot go back in these cases. It is to be presumed, therefore,that we mean to go forward, and in doing so I ventureto think myself that we shall be doing equal injustice bothto our own race and to the blacks, and we shall bring thebland* into a condition which will be a reproach and

156 The Perils of Black Supremacy¥canda to the empire of which they will remain a dishonouredpart The slave trade was an imperial monopoly,extorted by force, guaranteed by treaties, and our whiteWest Indian interest was built up in connection with andin reliance uwn it We had a rkht to set the davea free-,but the payment of the indemniÈ was no full acquittanceof our obligations for the condition of a society which wehad ourselves created. We have no more right to makethe emancipated slave his master's master in virtue of hisnumben than we have a- right to lay under the heel ofthe Catholics of Ireland the Protestant minority whom weplanted there to assist us in controlling them.It may be said that we have no intention of doing anythingof the kind, that no one at present dreams of givinga full colonial constitution to the West Indian Islands. Theyare allowed such freedom as they are capable of using:they can be allowed more as they are better educated andmore fit for it, &a. &a.One knows all that, and one knows what it is worth inthe half-elected, half-nominated councils. Either the nominatedmember* an introduced merely as a drag upon thewheel, and are instructed to yield in the end to the demandsof the repmentative member*, or they an themselves thereprewntativea of the white minority. If the first, the ma>jority rule already; if the mod, such constitutions arecontrived ingeniously to create the largest amount of irritation,and to make impossible, as long m they last, anyform of effective and useful government. Therefore theycannot last, and are not meant to last A principle onceconceded develops with the same certainty with which awed grow when it is town. In the English world, as it nowstands, there is no middle alternative between selfgovernmentand government by the Crown, and the cameof our reluctance to undertake direct charge of the WestIndia is became roch undertaking carries roponaibility¥lon with it If they an brought so dose to in we shall beobliged to exert omwive*. and to rescue them from a coo'dition which would be a reproach to in.The English of tbow islands are melting away. That isJames Anthony Froude 157a fact to which it is idle to try to shut our eyes. Familieswho have been for generations on the soil are selling theirestates everywhere and are going off. Lands once underhigh cultivation are lapsing into jungle. Professional menof ability and ambition carry their talents to countrieswhere they are more sure of reward. Every year the cen-¥u renews its warning. The rate may vary; sometimes fora year or two there may seem to be a pause in the movement,but it begins again and is always in the same direction.The white is relatively disappearing, the black isgrowing; this is the fact with which we have to deal.We may say if we please, 'Be it so then; we do not wantthose islands; let the blacks have them, poor devils. Theyhave had wrongs enough in this world; let them take theirturn and have a good time now.' This I imagine is theanswer which will rise to the lips of most of us, yet it willbe an answer which will not be for our honour, nor inthe long run for our interest. Our stronger colonies willscarcely attach more value to their connection with us ifthey hear us declare impatiently that because part of ourpossessions have ceased to be of money value to us, wewill not or we cannot take the trouble to provide themwith a decent government, and therefore cast them off.Nor in the long run will it benefit the blacks either. Theislands will not be allowed to run wild again, and if weleave them some one else will take them who will be lesstender of his coloured brother's sensibilities. We maythink that it would not come to that The islands will stillbe ours; the English flag will still float over the forts; thegovernment, whatever it be, will be administered in theQueen's name. Were it worth while, one might draw apicture of the position of an English governor, with a blackparliament and a black ministry, recommending by adviceof his constitutional ministers some measure like the HaytianLand Law.No Englishman, not even a bankrupt peer, would consentto occupy such a position; the blacks themselveswould despise him if he did; and if the governor is to beI

158 The Perib of Black Supremacyone of their own race and colour, how long could such aconnection endure?No one I presume would advise that the whites of theislands should govern. The relations between the two populatiouare too embittered, and equality once attabHahedby law, the exclusive privilege of colour over colour cannotbe restored. While slavery continued the whites ruled effdvelyand economically; the blacks are now free asthey; there are two classes in the community; their interestsare opposite as they are now understood, and one cannotbe trusted with control over the other. As little can thepresent order of things continue. The West India Islands,once the pride of our empire, the scene of our most brilliantachievements, are passing away out of our hands,the remnant of our own countrymen, weary of an unavailingdruggie, are more and more eager to withdrawfrom it, because they find no sympathy and no encouragementfrom home, and are forbidden to accept help fromAmerica when help is offered them, while under their eye*their quondam slaves are multiplying, thriving, occupying,growing itrong, and every day more couseioua of thechanged order of things. One does not grudge the blademan bin prosperity, his freedom, his opportunitia of advan*himself, one would wish to see him à free andpmqcmm à the fatea and hie own exertion6 can makehim, with more and more means of raising himaelf to thewhite man's level But left to himself, and without teewhite man to lead him. he can never reach it, and if weare not to tow the idanda altogether, or if they are not toremain with in to discredit our capacity to rule them, itb left to us only to take the same corn which we havew h * w m w i t h m h m - m dto govern whitea and blacks alike on the Indian system.The circumstance* are precbely analogous. We have apopulation to deal with. the enonuotM materity of whomare of an inferior race. Inferior, I am obliged to caU them.became as yet, and as a body, they have shown no capacityto rfae above the condition of their ancestor* except underEuropean law, European education, and European ao-James Anthony Fro& 159thority, to keep them from making w on one another.They are docile, good-tempered, excellent and faithful servantewhen they are kindly treated*, but their notions ofright and wrong are scarcely even elementary; their education,such as it may be, is but skin deep, and the oldAfrican superstitions lie undisturbed at the bottom of theirsouls. Give them independence, and in a few generationsthey will peel off such civilisation as they have learnt aseasily and as willingly as their coats and trousers.Govern them as we govern India, with the same conacientiouscare, with the same sense of responsibility, withthe same impartiality, the same disinterested attention tothe well-being of our subjects in its highest and mosthonourable ¥ense and we shall give the world one moreevidence that while Englishmen can cover the waste placesof it with free communities of their own blood, they canexert an influence no less beneficent as the guides andruler8 of those who need their assistance, and whom fateand circumstances have assigned to their care. Ourkindred far away will be more than ever proud to formpart of a nation which has done more for freedom thanany other nation ever did, yet is not a slave to formulas,d can adapt its actions to the demands of each cornmunitywhich belongs to it The most timid among us maytake courage, for it would cat in nothing lave the aacrificcof a few official traditions, and an ahtineace for the futurefrom doubtful uses of colonial patronage. The blacks willbe perfectly happy when they are mtisfied that they havem g to fea~ for their pemom or their propdes. Tothe whites it would be the opening of a new era of hope.Should they be rash enough to murmur, they might thenbe justly left to the coluequence* of their own folly.^

Froudacity Refuted*7. 7. ThomasNo mtatement gave Wot Indian* greater offeue thanFroude'8 aneition that N e w wen unfit to @ovem them-¥dvu Whhin a few month*. a rebuttal by a blade TOnidadiaaexploded Froude'i duOoir self-contradictioo*. latbb nrthor'i view, ndal prejudh in the bland* had no-M y declined dace Emancipation, local white* werereadilydialingadminiitradoawithcolorcUandblackmen,d m ' 8 h d W - a n d -~~J J. THOMAS, a brilliant journalist, teacher, and linguistof African devxat, played a ma~~~rote in Trinidad' intellectualand cuhund life during the 1870~ and 18808 andabowrotediefint¥eriouBctodyo Creole-.Last year had well advanced towards its middle-in factit was already April, 1888-before Mr Froude'i book oftravels in the West Indies became known and generallyaccessible to readers in those Colonies.My perusal of it in Grenada about the period abovementioned disclosed, thinly draped with rhetorical flowers,die dark outlines of a scheme to thwart political aspirationin the Antilles. That project is sought to be realised bydeterring the home authorities from granting an electivelocal legislature, however restricted in character, to anyof the Colonies not yet enjoying such an advantage. Anargument based on the composition of the inhabitants ofthose Colonies is confidently relied upon to confirm theinexorable mood of Downing Street Over-large and everincreasing-soruns the argument-the African element inthe population of the West Indies is, from its past historyand its actual tendencies, a standing menace to the continuanceof civilisation and religion. An immediate catastrophe,social, political, and moral, would most assuredlybe brought about by the granting of full elective rights todependencies thus inhabited Enlightened statesmanshipshould at once perceive the immense benefit that wouldFroudacity; West Indian Fables by lames Anthony Fronde,explained by I. J. Thomas, pp. 51-60. Originally published inLondon, T. F i r Unwin, 1889. Available from New BeaconBooks, London, 1969.* [Editors' title]

162 Proudadty Refutedultimately remit from such retinal of the franchise. Thecardinal recommendation of that refusal is that it wouldavert definitively the political domination of the Blacks,which must inevitably be the outcome of any concession ofthe modicum of right go earnestly desired. The exclusion ofthe Negro vote being inexpedient, if not impossible, the exercbof electoral power by the Blacks must lead to theirreturning candidates of their own race to the local legislatures,and that, too, in numbers preponderating accordingto the majority of the Negro electors. The Negro legislatorthus supreme in the councils of the Colonies wouldstraightway proceed to pass vindictive and retaliatory lawsagainst their white fellow-colonists. For it is only fifty yearssince the White man the Black man stood in thereciprocal relations of master and slave. Whilst those relationasubsisted, the white masters inflicted, and the blackslaves had to endure, the hideous atrocities that are inseparablefrom the system of slavery. Since Emancipation,the enormous strides made in self-advancement by theex-davea have only had the effect of provoking a resentfuluneasiness in the bosoms of the ex-masters. The formerbondsmen, on their ride, and like their brethren of Hayd,are eaten up with implacable, blood-thirsty rancour againsttheir former lords and owners. The annals of Hayti formquite a cabinet of political and social object-lessons which,in the eyes of British statesmen, should be invaluable in¥bowin the true method of dealing with Ethiopia subjectaof the Crown. The Negro race in Hayd, in order toobtain and to guard what it calls its freedom, has outragedevery humane instinct and falsified every benevolent hope.The xlave-ownerx there had not been a whit more cruelthan slave-ownera in the other islands. But, in spite of this,how ferocious, how sanguinary, how relentless againstthem has the vengeance of the Blacks been in their hourof mastery! A century has passed away since then, and,notwithstanding that, the hatred of Whites still rankles intheir wub, and is cherished and yielded to as a nationalcreed and guide of conduct Colonial administrators ofthe mighty British Empire, the lesion which History has1. 1. Thomas 1 63taught and yet continue* to teach you in Hayti as to thebest mode of dealing with your Ethiopia colonists Hexpatent, blood-stained and terrible before you, and shouldbe taken definitively to heart. But if you are willing thatCivilisation and Religion-in short, all the highest developments of individual and social life-çhoul at once beswept away by a desolating vandalism of African birth; ifyou do not recoil from the blood-guiltiness that would(tain your consciences through the massacre of ourfellow-countrymen in the West Indies, on account of theirrace, complexion and enlightenment; finally, if you desirethose modem Hcspcridca to revert into primeval jungle, ,homnt lain wherein the Black*, who. but a abort whitebefore, had been ostensibly civilised, shall be revellers, ashigh-priests and devotees, in orgies of devil-worship, cannibaliam,and obcah-darc to give the franchise to thoseWest Indian Colonies, and then rue the consequences ofyour infatuation! . . .Alas, if the foregoing 8ummary of the ghastly imagining8of Mr Froude woe true, in what a fool's paradise had thewisest and best amongst us been living, moving, and havingour being1 Up to the date of the suggestion by him asabove of the alleged facts and possibilities of West Indianlife, we had believed (even granting the correctness of hisgloomy account of the past and present positions of thetwo races) that to no well-thinking West Indian White,whose ancestor may have, innocently or culpably, participatedin the gains as well as the guilt of slavery, wouldthe remembrance of its palmy days be otherwise than oneof regret We Negroes, on the other hand, after a lapse oftime extending over nearly two generations, could be indebtedonly to precarious tradition or ¥carccl accessibledocuments for any knowledge we might chance upon ofthe Bufferings endured in these Islands of the West by thoseof our race who have gone before us. Death, with undiscriminatinghand, had fathered in the human harvest ofmasters and slaves alike, according to or out of the normallaw of nature, while Time had been letting down on theatage of our existence drop-~ene after drop-scene of year*,

Froudadty Refutedto the number of something like fifty, which had beencurtaining off the tragic incidents of the past from thepeaceful activities of the present. Being thus circumstanced,thought we, what rational dements of mutual hatredshould now continue to exist in the bosoms of the tworaces?With regard to the perpetual reference to Hayti, becauseof our oneness with its inhabitants in origin and complexion.as a criterion for the exact forecast of our future conductunder given circumstances, this appeared to us, lookingat actual facts, perversity gone wild in the manufactureof analogies. The founders of the Black Republic, we hadall along understood, were not in any wme whateverequipped, as Mr Froude assures m they were, when startingon their lelf-fioverning career, with the civil and farteltectualadvantage! that had been transplanted from Europe.On the contrary, we had been taught to regard themas most unfortunate in the circumstances under whkh theym gloriously conquered their merited freedom. We sawthem free, but perfectly illiterate barbarians, impotent tome the intellectual resources of which their valour hadnude them po~euoo, in the lhape of books on the spiritand technical details of a highly developed national existence.We had learnt also, until this new interpreter ofhittory bad contradicted the accepted record, that the continnedfailure of Hayti to realise the dreams of Touasaintwas due to the fatal want of confidence mbrifting betweenthe fairer and darker lections of the inhabitants, whichhad its sinister and disastrous origin in the action of theMulattoes in attempting to secure freedom for themselves,in conjunction with the Whites, at the sacrifice of theirdarker-hued kinamen. Finally, it had been explained to usthat the remembrance of this abnormal treason had beenunderlying and perniciously influencing the whole courseof Haytian national history. All this established knowledgewe are called upon to throw overboard, and accept thebaselea assertions of this conjuror-up of inconceivablefables! He calls upon in to believe that, in spite of beingdee, educated, progressive, and at peace with all men, wef. I. Thomas 165West Indian Black*, wen we ever to become constitutionallydominant in our native islands, would emulate insavagery our Haytian fellow-Blacks who, at the time ofretaliating upon their actual masters, were tortured slaves,bleeding and rendered desperate under the oppreasora' lashÑan all this simply and merely because of the samenessof our ancestry and the colour of our skin! One wouldhave thought that Liberia would have been a fitter standardof comparison in respect of a wloured population startinga national life, really and truly equipped with the requisitesand essentials of civilised existence. But such a referencewould have been fatal to Mr Froude's object: the annalsof Liberia being a persistent refutation of the old proriaveryprophecies which our author ao feelingly rehearaca.Let us revert, however, to Grenada and the newlypublishedBow of Ulysses, which had come into my handsin April, 1888.It seemed to me, on reading that book, and deducingtherefrom the foregoing essential summary, that a criticwould have little more to do, in order to effectually exorcisethis negro-phobic political hobgoblin, than to appeal toimpartial history, as well as to common seme, in its applicationto human nature in general, and to the actualfacts of West Indian life in particular.History, as against the hard and fast White-master andBlack-elave theory so recklessly invented and confidentlybuilt upon by Mr Froude, would show incontc8tably-(a)that for upwards of two hundred years before the NegroEmancipation in 1838, there had never existed in one ofthose then British Colonies, which had been originally diacoveredand settled for Spain by the great Columbus orby his successors, the Conquistadores, say prohibitionwhatsoever, on the ground of race or colour, against theowning of slaves by any free person possessing the necessarymeans, and desirous of doing so; (b) that, as a con-¥equenc of this non-restriction, and from causes notoriouslyhistorical, number of blacks, half-breeds, and othernon-Europeans, besides such of them as had become poosenedof their 'property' by inheritance, availed thedvec

166 Proudacity Refutedof this virtual license, and in courae of time constituted avery considerable proportion of the slave-holding sectionof thoM communities; (c) that these dusky plantatiooownersenjoyed and used in every possible sense the identicalrights and privileges which were enjoyed and used bytheir pure-blooded Caucasian brother-alave-owners. Theabove statements are attested by written documents, oraltradition, and, better till perhapa, by the living presencein those islands of numerous lineal representatives of thoseonce opulent and flourishing non-European planter-&milie&Common acme, here stepping in, must, from the abovedata, deduce some such conclusions as the following. Firstthat. on the hypotheah that the slaves who were freed in1838Ñful fifty years agoÑwer all on an average fifteenyear old, those vengeful ex-slaves of today will be all menof aixty-flvc years of age; and, allowing for the delay ingetting the franchise, somewhat further advanced towardsthe human life-term of threescore and ten years. Again,. in order to organise and carry out any scheme of kgislativeand social retaliation of the kind set forth in the Bowof Ulysses, there must be (which unquestionably there isnot) a considerable, well-educated, and very influentialnumber surviving of those who had actually been in bondage.Moreover, the vengeance of these people (also as-Burning the foregoing non-existent condition) would have,in case of opportunity, to wreak itself far more largely andvigorously upon members of their own race than uponWhites, seeing that the increase of the Blacks, as correctlyrepresented in the Bow of Ulysses, is just as rapid as thediminution of the White population. And therefore, MrFroudet 'Danger-to-the-Whitca* cry in aupport of his andreformmanifesto would not appear, after all, to be quite¥ justifiable as be possibly Quotes.Feeling keenly that something in the shape of the foregoingprogramme might be successfully worked up for apublic defence of the maligned people, I disregarded thebodily and mental obstacles that have beset and cloudedmy career during the last twelve yean, and cheerfully/. 1. Thomas 167undertook the task, stimulated thereto by what I thoughtweighty considerations. I saw that no representative ofHer Majesty's Ethiopic Wet Indian subjects cared to comeforward to perform this work in the more permanent shapethat I felt to be not only desirable but essential for ourself-vindication. I also realised the fact that the Bow ofUlysses was not likely to have the same ephemeral existenceand effect as the newspaper and other periodical discusgionsof its contents, which had poured from the press inGreat Britain, the United States, and very notably, ofcourse, in all the English Colonies of the Western Hemisphere.In the West Indian papen the best writers of ourrace had written masterly refutations, but it was clear howdifficult the task would be in future to procure and referto them whenever occasion should require. Such productions,however, fully satisfied those qualified men of ourpeople, because they were legitimately convinced (even asI myself am convinced) that the political destinies of thepeople of colour could not run one tittle of risk from anythingthat it pleased Mr Fronde to write or say on thesubject But, meditating further on the question, the reficetion forced itself upon me that, beyond the mere politicalpersonages in the circle more directly addressed by MrFroude's volume, there were individuals whose influenceor possible sympathy we could not afford to disregard, orto esteem lightly. So I deemed it right and a patrioticduty to attempt the enterprise myself, in obedience to thoabove stated motives.At this point I must pause to express on behalf of theentire coloured population of the Wet Indies our mostheartfelt acknowledgements to Mr C Salmon for theluminous and effective vindication of us. in his volume onWest Indian Confederation,^ against Mr Fro~dc'8 libeb.The 8ervice thus rendered by Mr Salmon possesses a doublesi@canca and value in my estimation. In the flmt plmas being the work of a European of high position, quitet [Refen to The Caribbean Confederation, oriidnalh pbIfahed by Cusell& Co, Ltd, 1888; fee "Selected Reading*" lathis book.]

168 Froudacity Refutedindependent of us (who testifies concerning Negroes, notthrough having gazed at them from balconies, decks of¥teamere or the seats of moving carriages, but from actualand long penonal intercourse with them, which the internalevidence of his book plainly proves to have been assympathetic as it was familiar), and, secondly, as the workof an individual entirely outside of our race, it has beengratefully accepted by myself a8 an incentive to elf-help,on the same more formal and permanent lines, in a matter80 important to the status which we can justly claim as aprogressive, law-abiding, and self-respecting section of HerMajesty's liege subjects.It behoves me now to say a few words respecting thisbook as a mere literary production.Alexander Pope, who, next to Shakespeare and perhapsButler, was the most copious contributor to the currentstock of English maxims, says:True ease in writing comes from Art, not Chance,As those move easiest who have learnt to dance.tA whole dozen years of bodily sickness and mental tribulationhave not been conducive to that regularity of practicein composition which alone can ensure the true ease*spoken of by the poet; and therefore is it that my styleleaves so much to be desired, and exhibits, perhaps, (tillmore to be pardoned. Happily, a quarrel such as ours withthe author of The English in the West Indies cannot befinally or even approximately settled on the score ofroperior literary competency, whether of aggressor or dcfender.I feel free to ignore whatever verdict might begrounded on a consideration so purely artificial. Thereought to be enough, if not in these pages, at any rate inwhatever else I have heretofore published, that shouldprove me not so hopelessly stupid and wanting in selfrespect,u would be implied by my undertaking a contestin artistic phraac-weaving with one who, even among theforemost of his literary countrymen, is confessedly a masterin that craft. The judges to whom I & submit our caset [From Emly on Critich, Part U.11.1. Thomas 1 69are those Englishmen and others whose conscience blendswith thew judgment, and who determine such questions a*this on their essential rightness which has claim to the fintand decisive consideration. For much that is irregular inthe arrangement and icquence of the subject-matter, someblame fairly attaches to our assailant. The erratic mannerin which he launches his injurious statements against thehapless Blacks, even in the course of passages which nomore led up to them than to any other section of mankind,is a very notable feature of his anti-Negro production.As he frequently repeats, very often with cynicalaggravations, his charges and sinister prophecies againstthe sable objects of his aversion, I could see no other courseopen to me than to take him up on the points whereto Idemurred, exactly how, when, and where I found them.My purpose could not be attained up without directmention of, or reference to, certain public employees inthe Colonies whose official conduct has often been thesubject of criticism in the public press of the West Indies.Though fully aware that such criticism has on many occasionsbeen much more severe than my own strictures,yet, it being possible that some special responsibility mayattach to what I here reproduce in a more permanentshape, I most cheerfully accept, in the interests of publicjustice, any consequence which may resultA remark or two concerning the publication of this rejoinder.It has been hinted to me that the issue of it ha*been too long delayed to secure for it any attention inEngland, owing to the fact that the West Indies are butlittle known, and of tea interest, to the generality of Englishreaders. Whilst admitting, as in duty bound, the pcs'sible correctness of this forecast, and regretting the oftrecurringhindrances which Occasioned such frequentand, sometimes, long suspension of my labour, and noting,too, the additional delay caused through my unacquaintancewith English publishing usages, I must. notwithstanding,plead guilty to a lurking hope that some smallfraction of Mr Froude's readers will yet be found, whoseinterest in the West Indies will be temporarily revived on

170 Proudacity Refutedbehalf of Una essay, owing to it* direct bearing on MrFroude lid his statements relative to these Islands, con*tained In his recent book of travels in them. This I amled to hope will be more particularly the case when it isborne in mind that the rejoinder has been attempted bya member of that very same race which he has, with sucheloquent recklessness of all moral considerations, held upto public contempt and diifavour. In short, I can scarcelypermit myself to believe it possible that concern regardinga popular author, on his being questioned by an adversecritic of however restricted powers, can be so utterly deadwithin a twelvemonth as to be incapable of rekindling.Mr Froude's Oceana. which had been published longbefore its author voyaged to the West Indies, in order totreat the Queen's subjects there in the same more thanquestionable fashion as that in which he had treated thoseof the Southern Hemisphere, had what was in the maina formal rejoinder to its misrepresentations published onlythree months ago in this city. I venture to believe that no¥eriou work in defence of an important cause or communitycan low much, if anything, of its intrinsic valuethrough lome delay in it* issue; especially when written inthe vindication of Truth, whose eternal principles are beyondand above the influence of time and its changes.At any rate, this attempt to answer some of Mr Froude'smain allegations against the people of the West Indiescannot fail to be of grave importance and lively interestto the inhabitants of those Colonies. In this opinion I amhappy in being able to record the full concurrence of anumerous and influential body of my fellow-West Indians,men of various races, but united in detestation of falsehoodand injustice.II THE NATURE OF THESOCIAL ORDER

undergraduate degree at McGill University and receivedhis doctorate at University College, London. He has doneextensive field research in Jamaica, Grenada, and Carriacouand also in Nigeria. Smith has been Research Fellowand Acting Director of the Institute of Soda1 and EconomicResearch at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica,and a professor of anthropology at the University of California,Los Angeles. Currently he is Professor of Anthrooologyat University College, London.This section on the general nature of West Indian ~ocictyopens with a classification of Jamaican social structure.The author of the first selection is well known for his re*flnement of the concept of the plural society, a societaltype first delineated by the economist J. S. Furnivall, emphasizingthe role of control and force as opposed to connnsusas a unifying principle among social groups. Herethe author examines the different forma of basic institu-(ions that characterize Jamaica's three socially significantpopulation "Èections"-essentiall white, brown, and black.M. 0. Smith's extension of pluralism in the West Indiancontext, best exemplified in a symposium on Social andCultural Pluralism in the Caribbean and in his The PluralSociety in the BMA West Idea, initiated a significantdebate about West Indian societies in particular and, byextension, about other postcolonial societies. Not all Caribbeairistoaccept Smith's pluralist viewpoint, but it has bad aaalutary effect in raising fundamental theoretical questionsabout the articulation of socioculturally diverse West Indiangroups, about conflict and conflict resolution, andabout social and political development and change in theregion.M. 0. SMITH, a social anthropologist born in Jamaica,was the recipient of an bland Scholarship; he took an

ie Plural Framework ofJamaican SocietyM. G. SmithContemporary Jamaica is relatively complex and internallydiverse. Although four-fifths of its population are black,and nine-tenths of the remainder are coloured persons ofmixed ancestry, there axe structurally significant groups ofChinese, Syrian, Jewish, Portuguese and British descent,and in several cases these ethnic groups are also differentiatedby spedal statuses, organizations and occupationalinterests.Apart from this racial complexity, Jamaica includes anumber of significantly different ecological areas: the expanelingurban area around Kingston; the sugar belts withtheir large plantations and landless labour force: the ruralhighlands settled by smallholden-, and the tourist coastalong the north ahorc. Community types and organizationin each ecological area tend to be aomewhat distinct SOdo community interests, which now compete for influm~eon the bland government. Of the 1.6 million penom wholive in Jamaica, perhapa one-quarter are to be found inKinaxtoo md the other main towns, and ncariy one-halfbin the hilly interior. The plainsfolk dependent onangar probably exceed 400,000. Rural-urban difference*an Important already and will tend to become more 8thThe rate of population growth b very hifb.Jamaica's racial divenity trikes the vidtor hnmediately;Briti*h Journal of Sociology. VoL XD, No. 3, September 1961,90. 249-62 Also available in The Plural Society In the BritishW d Idea, University of California Prew, 196S.M. G. Smithbut local 'nationalism' has developed a convenient mythologyof 'progress' according to which race differences areheld to be irrelevant in personal relations. While it is difficultto state the precise significance of racial differencein a few words, it can be laid categorically that race andits symbol colour do play a very important part in ¥tructuring relations between individuals within Jamaica, and thestudy of this aspect of local life can throw a great deal oflight on the island-society.1 Nonetheless, race concepts axecultural facts and their significance varies with social conditions.*To understand the local attitude to race, we musttherefore begin with the society and its culture. Accordingly,in the following summary of Jamaican social struchire,I shall avoid direct reference to ecological or racialdifferences as far as possible, while presenting a generalaccount which incorporates this racial complexity fullywithin the frame of social and cultural difference. Thisprocedure permits a shorter description than is otherwisepossible, and reveals the basis of Jamaican thinking aboutrace.The most appropriate approach to the description ofJamaican society is that of institutional analysis. An institutionis a form or system of activities characteristic of agiven population. Institutional activities involve groups,and these groups generally have clearly defined forms ofrelations among their members. Moreover, institutional activitiesand forms of grouping are also sanctioned bynormative beliefs and ideas, and social values are expressedin institutional rules. The basic institutions of a given populationare the core of the people's culture, and dxm lodetyconsists of a system of institutionalized relations, a people*;institutions form the matrix of their social structure. Thusthe description of dal structure consists in the analysisof the institutional system of the population under study.* F. Henriques, Family md Colour in Jamaica (London: Eyre& Spottmwoode, 1953).* M. 0. Smith. A Framework for Caribbean Simile* (lamain:Univenity Collem of the West Indim, Extn-Mural Doputmeat,1953).

176 The Plural Framework of Jamaican SocietyIn the following account of Jamaican locial structure, Ishall therefore describe the institutions of local society andtheir variety of alternative forms, as mtematidy andbriefly as I can. In Jamaica, each institutional sub-system¥uc a* the family or religion is represented by a numberof diverse alternatives. Moreover, each group of institutionalalternatives characterize! a different Moment of thelocal society. Although usually described a* a social class,the population which practises a distinctive set of inntitutiouis beat described as a cultural or social aection. Thethree distinctive institutional systems characteristic of contemporaryJamaica therefore define a society divided intothree d wctions. For initial reference, we may thinkof these lections as die white, the brown and the black.thb being the order of their current and historic*! dominance,and the exact reverse of their relative numerical¥trength Although these colour coefficient! are primarilyheuristic, they indicate the racial majority and cultural ancutryof each section accurately. The white

178 The Plural Framework of Jamaican Society¥land or approves the kinship institutions of the others.In their magico-religious systems, the three social sectiomare similarly differentiated. At one extreme, we findthe agnostic attitudes characteristic of contemporary Britishlodety, and this religious agnosticism is coupled withoperational faith and skill in modem science and administration,the dominant values of this world-view being thoseof materialism. At the other extreme, African-typc ritualforms, such as spirit-possession, sacrifice, obcah or magic,an common, together with a liberal variety of beliefs inmmy, witchcraft, divination, "pints and th& manipulation,and several substitutes for riles de ptasaw?. Amongthe intermediate section, the typical religious form h dcnominationalChristian!ty; and the church creed, ritual,theology, organization and modes of recruiting membergdiffer remarkably from the corresponding revivalist formswhich are current among the lowest section.4 The fundamentalistworld-view of this intermediate section contrastssharply with the moral and cosmological systems of theother two. Basically, these three types of magico-religioussystems are organized about competing principles of actionand explanation. Agnosticism abides by materialist notionsof causality, and is normally coupled with faith in mence.Fundamentalist Christianity believes in an omnipotentChristian God, whose actions are morally p'fect, and whocan be appealed to but not manipulated. Revivalism andother Afro-Chrirtian cults are baaed on a belief in good andbad qMta which can affect the Hviag directly, and whichmay be manipulated for personal evil or good. In the agnmtic view then I no room for revelation. but Çcientifimethod guide* w to valid CODClwdons. In the fundameotalistview, the decisive revelations occurred long ago inPalestine, especially during the life of Christ In Revivalismand other folk cults, revelation occurs pnUythrough dreams, divination, omens, and Cspccially through¥pin possession with its prophecy In tongues'. Agnosticismb an outlook which has no Wtutid ownbtiOQ or4 0. B. Simpam, "Jamaican Rerivxibt Cults." Social and Econom&Stadia, VoL 5, No. 4 (December. 1956).M. G. Smith 179membership. Denominational Christianity normally recruitsmembers by infant baptism. Revivalism and otherAfro-Christian cults do so by adult conversion and baptism.The priesthood and organization of Christian denominationsdiffer in like measure from that of the revivalutgroups.Education also differentiates the three sections sharply;and there is a positive correlation .between the differingsectional experiences of education on the one hand, andtheir differing magico-religious or kinship practices on theother. The small dominant section consists mainly of professionalswith university training, of entrepreneurs and oflanded proprietors, who could easily take such training ifthey wished, or finance it for their dependents independently.Members of the intermediate section normally undergoinstruction in local secondary echools; while membersof the third or lowest section have so far had littlechance of formal education beyond the level of the elementaryschool. However, education and schooling are notco-terminous, and among all sections the informal componentin education varies inversely in its significance withthe amount of schooling received. Thus the peasant's loreof herbal medicines, proverbs, folk stories and the like, hisdul in certain manual operations, and his knowledge ofcultivation techniques have no parallel among the secondaryschool or college graduates. Thus the content as wellas the form of these sectional educational experiences isquite dissimilar.In adult life these differences find expression in differingoccupational and employment patterns. The entrepreneurexercises managerial functions in personal or corporateorganizations. The professional typically finds remunerativelong-term appointment in some large corporation, suchas government, or else conducts his own practice alone orin partnership. The secondary-school graduate whose educationproceeds no further, typically finds clerical employmentin business or government.The great majority of Jamaica's tchool-leavcra comefrom the elementary or primary echooh, where tuition is

180 The Plural Framework of Jamaican Societyprovided bee by government, and where efforta at ensuringattendance sometimes involve compulsion. Most of theseelementary schoolchildren later find manual employmenton the farms in the rural areas or in menial capacities inthe towns. Recent surveys by the Jamaica Social WelfareCommission indicate that a high proportion of those personawho have only had elementary school education areunable to read or write. Another recent survey by Dr. C. A.Maaer points out that less than one-quarter of the childrenattending elementary schools do so for the full eight yearof the course.* A fair proportion of rural and urban childrensimply do not attend school at all. Certain militantcult-groups such as the Ras Tafarites* condemn these ele-. mentary schools as agencies of sectional propaganda, inmuch the same term8 as Dr.Madeline Ken. who found thatthey produced disorganized personalities.7In effect, the technology which adults manipulate variawith their early educational experience. In Jamaica, theseaectid difference of occupation are in part effects of thediffering contab and aigdkma of informal educationin childhood, in part they are due to the historical inequautie*of formal education. The longer a child rtay In schoolreceiving formal education, and the greater the (tress onhis profideocy therein, the shorter and leu dgnificant nilinformal training. The profeuid u normally just as ignorantof the peasant's knowledge and dolb, as is the latterof the fonncr'i qxddity.The economic system places special emphasis on thetechniques and knowledge transmitted by formal education,and the resulting occupational groups enjoy differingrewards of income and status. Proprietors and professionalswho receive the largest incomes also enjoy higher statusthan other occupational groups; uded or semided¥ A. Mowr, A Study of Levels of Living with Special Rtferenceto Jamaica (London: H.M.S.O., 1957).*a. E. Simpson, "Political Cultism in West Kingaton," Sodaland Beanomic Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2 (June 1955). pp. 133-49.1 Madeline Ken, Personality out Confkt In Jamaica (Uverpool:Liverpool University Pre-, 1952).At. G. Smith 181workers who receive very low incomes rank at the bottomof the occupational scales. These local scales of incomeand prestige are correlated with employment patterns;and, at least in recruitment, employment is closely relatedto the system of differential education. Thus the inequalityof educational opportunities in Jamaica is an importantcondition of social and economic differentiation. The localsystem of differential education governs the distribution ofthose skills and aptitudes which are conditions of recruitmeatto occupations of different types. In this way theJamaican educational system bolsters the social structure,and distinguishes three social sections.The relation between the systems of occupational differentiationand education tends to be self-perpetuating, sincethe less-well-paid manual occupations do not allow parentsto pay for their children's education at secondary schools.Moreover, children at elementary schools have not hadadequate educational facilities or sufficient scholarship o pportunities of free secondary education; these conditionshave produced sufficient frustration to discourage manyparents from lending their children to school regularly.Historically, the propertied sections of the Jamaican populationhave monopolized the local franchise on the basisof their educational and property qualifications. They haveused their political influence to secure high governmentgrants per pupil at the secondary schools while keepingexpenditure on elementary education very low. Thus thedifferential allocation of political rights which was basedon educational and economic differences was used by itsbeneficiaries to maximize the sectional differences in educationwhich underlay these economic and political inequalities.Thus the educational system and the sectionalorder were integrated, and the one tended to perpetuatethe other. Moreover, within Jamaica, the division of labourdirectly reflects these differences in the educational careersof the population, and serves to maintain them.The three cultural sections already defined differ also intheir economic institutions. Banking, currency, insurance,export-import commerce, and such large-scale agricultural

182 The Plural Framework of Jamaican Societyundertakings as sugar or banana estates are controlled bythat lection which repmts contemporary Western cultarelocally. Oversea marketing is controlled by overseaagencies, normally those of the metropolitan power. Thefomu of government finance and their development followcurrent metropolitan forma and changes. To a considerabledegree, local branches of foreign economic organization!are managed by expatriates, or by persona of recent expatriateorigin. Jews, Syrians, and Chinese are Jamaica'smost important entrepreneurial groups; but the valuawhich these groups attach to the maintenance of ethnicidentity and cohesion only emphasize the extent to whicheconomic control in Jamaica is separated from the 'native'population, or Creoles as they are called.8If we consider employment, awing, property or marketlog,the differing institutional forms and rote* of the threeJamaican Mctioni an equally clear. The top-ranldnf Â¥eotion consist! of a hard core of employers and own-accountprofessionals, together with superior civil servants, whoseemployment conditions are such that dismissal or demotionare virtually inconceivable. Most membera of the intennediatesection are themselves either employees of'middle-income' status, or small proprietors, businessmen,farmers, contractors or such lesser professionals as teach*en. The majority of this group are also the& employer~,hiring domestic labour and other types of serviceattendants by unwritten contracts and directing them in apersonal fashion which involves heavy reliance on promptdismissal and casual recruitment, but doe* not tend itselfeasily to trade-union action. In the lowest section, the typiÃcal employment rtatu* is a combination of wage and own"account work, and underemployment or unemployment bwidespread. Such institutions as partnership, lendday, andmorning aport. which aerve to redistribute labour on a cooperativedprocal basis, are as distinctive and typical ofthe lower section as are the systems of regular or casualM. 0. Smith 183recruitment for task, job or daywork used by the first andsecond sections respectively.@Saving and credit form differ likewise. In urban areas,the lowest section saves either by means of African-typecredit-thrift associations, such as 'partner* or *susu';10 orindividually by loam to market vendom and other8 who"keep* the money placed in their care while turning it overin trade; or cash is hoarded or put in government postoffice banks. For members of the lowest section credit facilitiesare usually available only from those shops and perionswith whom they have regular busham dealings. In theintermediate section, credit is obtained through lolicitonagainat d t y in propdy or imummh or by bpurchase and other account* with various firms. Amongthe dominant section, credit is (ought overseas or throughlocal branches of banks established overseas, and it b advancedby them typically on mortgage, in the form oftrading materials and stock, or against produce designedfor sale on the world market Savings among the top scctionare mainly invested in stocks, business or land, at theintermediate level the main forms of investment are inhouses purchased for rent; among the third d on, animalsor smauboldjllp prcdolujnate.The three sections differentiated by these economic characteristicsare also distinguished by the forms and roles oftheir economic associations. The dominant section is typicallyorganized in employer association!, chambcra of commerce,certain farmer*' societies and the like. Some of theseassociations have long historic*. The lowest lection b noworganized in trade unions and friendly lodetio, the formerbeing of recent growth. The intermediate section bÃhitherto avoided &licit economic organizations of to own,and hai abo avoided direct participation in the conflict oflabour and capital If mcmbenhip in these unions and i0 M. 0. Smith, Labour Supply in Rural Jamaica (Kingston.Jamaica: Government Printer, 1956).1@W. R. Bascorn, "The Enua: A Credit Institution of tooYomba." Journal of the Royal Anthmpological Society. VoL72 (19521, pp. 63-69.

mdatbm b ~ ~ gmarginal; l y and in thia raped iboqaoimtion rcfkta its intcrmcdii eamomic podtion.major a!onomic interest-group.Property concepts and distribution also dHercntiatethe three sections. Among the economically dominantacction, property haa the typical form of productive enterpb,auch am commercial businesses, firms, factories, a-tatca, or the like. mically also these enterprises are limitedliability companiea, joint-stock or partnership orgadationsbchg in the mprity. and in them tho personalities ofahareholdera 8re sharply distinguished from their in-& the enterprise. Thus, for the dominant don, propatyprhcirmuy anlnotea 8oInc interest or ahare in rn enterprkwith amapodbg rights to a hed portion of the. profits of its operation. Among the intermediate don,property ia mainly held on an individual or family basis, byhbold or under mortgage; and it typically consists inland, homu and own-account enterprises, whether smallbuaincssea or profaaional practices. &ong the lowesttion, the dominant property form ia 'family land*, that ia,land held without proper legal title, and without preciaopersonal distributim of rights, by the memb of a familyand their dependantall At thia kvel also, pemnalty consistamainly of mull stock, too4 clothca and the like, whiletho bmm which thcii men regard M realty have tlmkgalatatua of 'chattels', being often movable amctum, autkwk of temporary ckacter. The property wnccptsof each section are thus quite distinctivep those of the dom-Inant section being dc5ned mainly by companyp amtractand commercial law; whiie those of the intermediate seetim are governed by the law of real property and &bCd the property concepts of the loweat d o n require1lEdhb C18rkep "Lad Tern UKI the Family &I Pour Cantd d a of Jamaica," &cia1 and &onomic StuaYes, VoL 1, No.4 (Aoeuat 1953). pp. 85-119.M. C?. Smith 185mch novel enactments M tbu 1955 F d k for Titla Lawto be ~mmodatcd to the plwailing legal ado.s*a--*dmhmto~kcthg. Jamaican marketa fail into typca: (a) thoM ~ o r ~ & w M c h m m - ~ ~ din which 'the cXwunane or tho 'higgler' (market woman)are the ~ialint trader$;* (b) intra-ialand produco marketingwhich ia oriented to the collection of produce forshipment abroad, ad wholade &opkecping whicb diatribu!caimports; and (c) ovmc~ imporkxport dealin@which are controlled by large merchant houmca that handlo8 variety of commodities trading in either direction andtypically operato 8 mompoliatic aystcm of commbion8gcnci~ There are ah0 8 number of IWXntIy developedamp &wciationa, each exporting a padcuh commodity.. .morgmmon a n d ~ o f t h b ~ o vmat 8re insti-y M aemt from thaw of theintln-sand produce trade in their detail8 of iIlmmK%brokerage, shipping, custom, credit and ammiasionagmcy, and in theu relation to the world market, aa in theI d produce trade from the higglerdominated trado incommunity markets. The spcdist pcmnnd who dominatoeach of thae three Merent marketing 8yatcm!j are alsodrawn from a distinct social section.The legal positions of the merent acction8 are ah0 diffemLJamaican legal forma are typically hitfatiom of thelaw of the metropolitan power. These imitation8 have beenIocaUy admidtercd by Entiah ~ ~ In tkir 1 content .and application Jamaican laws bavo hitherto rdhted theintern of the dominant accdon in amtrolling the nubordinateonce: and even today, when the political baaed ofthin historical order have been partly remwed, local lamrelating to obeah, bastardy, praedid larceny, ganja and thelike are sectional in their dentation, content and ad@tratia Tho partidpath of the intermediate 8cction inlaw-making and adminiatration ia relatively recent, and=Sidney W. Mi&, 'The Jamaican Intend Marketing Pattern,'Sociol and Economic Stud&#, VoL 4, No. 1 (Ahfcb1955). pp 95-103.

186 The Plural Framework of Jamaican Xelytheir typical role is still that of jurors or lawyers. Participationof the lowest section in legal administration habeen limited to subordinate police capacities, while thelocal police and law courts have historically been adteredby members of the dominant minority.Both during and since slavery, the members of the lowestsection of Jamaican society have tried to settle theucommunity disputes by informal arbitration or adjudication,in order to prevent such issues from going to court.Obeah, family land, the village lawyer, the peace-maker orthe revivalist priesthood are among the institutions whichserve these ends. During slavery, informal courts were heldby the slaves under their headmenil8 after slavery, missionariesand other prominent persons acted as arbitratomin community di~putes.1~ ~ven-today court cases involvingmembers of the lowest section only are mainly criminal incharacter, and usually include some verbal or physical vielence. C w brought by members of the intermediatesection against their social inferiors are mainly for misdemeanouror for recovery of debts. The judicial maladministrationof inter-sectional issues was especially important inproducing the Jamaica 'Rebellion' of 1865.16 Even todaythe high cost of legal advice and procedure effectively d&prives the lowest section of justice in civil issues againsttheu superiors. Illiteracy and widespread unfamiliarity withthe details of the law are equally disadvantageous to~them.The dominant section always employs legal aid in its litigation;the lower section can only do so rarely; the middlesection may do so haIf the time.l6 Like almshouses and18 Mm. Cannicbl, Domest& Manners and Social Customof the White, Coloured and Negro Populatiom of tk We# lndies(2 vols.; London: Joho Murray, 1833).14 Philip Curtin, Two Jamaicas: The Role of Idea in a TropicalColony. 183+1865 (Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1955). pp. 32-33, 114-16, 163, 169.16M. G. Smith, "Slavery and Emaocipation io Two Sockties,"Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 3, Nos. 3, 4 (Dcccmber1954). pp. 239-90.16 Peter Evans, "Legal Aid to the Poor," T k Daily Gleaner(Kingston, Jamaica), Nov. 30, 1956, p. 12.M. G. Smith 187approved schools, prisons are primarily populated by thelowest section and are administered by members of theintermediate section under the supervision of the metropolitanpower and its nationals.Government is the institutional subsystem which expressesthe conditions of social stability and change inJamaica most direcuy. Historically, all important governmentalinstitutions-law, the judiciary and magis&acy, themilitia and army, the administration and the legislature,were monopolized by the dominant section at the parochialand island levels, and these rulers were assisted in subordinateexecutive roles by members of the intermediate seetion. The lowat section remained outside the pale of politicallife until 1944. Until then they were denied the chanceto develop theu own political institutions or to imitate anyother models. After emancipation, restrictive propertyfranchises maintained the disenfranchisement of the exslavesection; and with this was associated control of administrationand law by the other two sections. Under thissystem the dominant section directed policy and the intermediatesection executed it, while control of the lowestsection was both the object and condition of many policy .decisions.In the historical development of Jamaican society themajority of its members have had no active role or statusformally assigned to them in any phase of its politid orlegal systems. Under and sine slavery, this massive subordiitesection has only been able to express itselfpolitically by riots, rebellions and the like. The 'disturbances'of 1937-8 which produced Bustamante's charismaticleadership and hothouse unionism were the inevitable result of this political order and wcio-culturd pluralism.These social emptions led to the introduction of adult suffrage,and this has since been followed by the establishmentof the ministerial form of responsible government inthe colony. However, the revocation of the British Guianeseconstitution in 1953 repeats the pattern of constitutionalabrogation so familiar in Caribbean history, andshows that the f ord transfer of power is hedged about by

188 The Plural Framework of Jamaican Societymany resemations and can be reversed by force ifnecessary.One most interesting reservation held that economic independenceis prerequisite for political autonomy, andargues that since only a Federation of the British Caribbeancolonies may develop this economic self-sufliuency, itis a sine qua mn of Caribbean self-government. WithiiJamaica, sectional sentiment has contributed greatly to aeceptance of the federal idea, notwithstanding its contradictionof nationalism and certain other obvious disadvantages.From the popular point of view, perhaps the mostfar-reaching disadvantage is that the federal associationwill reduce the political power of the lowest section withinJamaica. This follows because the island government wiUnow operate under surveillance of the federal legislatureand administration, within limits set by federal policy, andunder a federal constitution which places consemative politicalforces and values in a stronger position than theyhave recently occupied in Jamaica.The question has been asked how the colonial elite canstill maintain control of policy and theu dominant statusin the face of strong desires for rapid change among thenewly enfranchised section. The answers to this questionare many and various; they may do so, firstlys by capitalizingon theii indispensability for the performance of certainklite functions, notablyt of courset those of economic developmentand administration; secondly, by constitutionalrevisions of the type which promote the valuea of conservatismrather than popular movements; thirdly, by federation,which involves simultaneous limitation of local powerand the transfer of control from popular leaders to a fededexecutive which substantially represents the interests ofelite sections throughout the Caribbean; fourthly, by prolongingtheir dependence on the metropolitan power foreconomic aids and therewith the colonial status; or bystressing the need for imperial or federal forces to paranteethe current social structure to encourage oversea investors;or finallys by the technique of buying out the ppularleaders, which is not unknown in Jamaica. The pintIM. G. Smithto notice in all this is that the introduction of liberal fran-'chiaes and constitutions has been followed by an extensionof political action to a federal field, and that these federaldevelopments tend to restore control to those two socialsections which formerly monopolized it. Thus the abruptreversal of the political or& of 1937 may yet prove to bopure illusion; and an effective restoration of this order maynow be under way, with federation as its bath. In such a; case, the federal association would simply reph thei metropolitan link.So far we have discwed only those social fom whichprovide the institutiond core of the society, namelys thesystems of kinship and &ages religions government, lawIand economy, education and occupational diEerentiation.There are also important diEerences between Jamaica's so-; cial sections in language, material culture, spa associatiodpatterns and value systems. In Jamaica a completelinguistic dichotomy does not obtain; but it has been foundthat middle- and 'upper~lass* natives do not know themeaning of 30 per cent of the words c mnt in the Anglicizedfolk dialect.17 It would a h be surprising if thoseJamaicans who habitually speak this folk dialect &oddknow more than 70 per cent of the words commonly usedby thase who do not. Bilingualism in such societies is acharacteristic of cultural hybridism, and such hybrid culturaladjustment is most typical of the intermediate section.Thuss while the small top section speaks and understandsEnglishs but not dialect, and while the large bottom sectiononly speaks and understands dialect fullys the intermediatesection tends to employ either linguistic fom according tothe occasion.Recreational patterns also distinguish the three socialdons. To begin with, recreation is typically an intra-8ectiod activity, and has Merent organizational and aetivity forms in each sections cricket being the outstandingexception to tbis rule. Club taking part in a variety ofapo~t competitions, and organized therefor, are typical of

190 The Plural Framework of Jamaican Wetythe intermediate section and rare among the lowest, whoseusual sport association is the single-purpose cricket cluborgankd on a community basis in rural areas amongpopulations which are not institutionally Merentiated.Competition between clubs of the upper section is notusual, and those which provide sport facilities normallyhold openentry individual tomamen& in gamea such a8golf or tennis, occasionally inviting foreign profesionaki toparticipate. Proprietary clubs organid for gambling,dancing and drinking are typical of the lowest section,while members' clubs are the typical forms of the uppertwo sections. Exclusive top-section clubs also offer facilitienfor the accommodation of members and gtwta, sometimenon a reciprocal exchange bash with certain of the hndonclubs. Club life among the top two sections is heterosexualand may include family units, but in the lowst sectiononly men are memberaIn their recreational activities the three sections dSereven more strikingly than in their organization. Golf, polo,water-skiing and certain other aquatic spom such as yachtingare clearly limited to members of the top section, whodo not take as active a part in athletics, football or cricketas do the other two, especially the intermediate group.Tennis is mmmonly played among the upper and middlesections, together with billiards, bridge and certain otherindoor games which do not, however, include dominoes orthose gambling games typical of the lower section. Boxing,cricket, athletics, bicycling, and to a lesser extent football,are the main outdoor games of the lower section. Suchheterosexud activities as dancing and swimming are amrnonto all groups, though the sex and age participationpatterns, the foms of the activity and the typical situationsin which they occur also vary. It is almost a rule that intersectionalparticipation in such activities as dancing, swimmingand the U o should not take place. This restrictivesectional barrier has a considerable effect on tho membershippattern of clubs in all sections.Informal associations vary similarly among thw socialaectiona. Economic and political associations have alreadyM. G. Smith 191been mentioned. Bcludiig these, the clique is the typicalform of association among the intermediate group, and ismulti-functional in relation to occupation, mating, kinship,business and recreation. Among the small dominant group,relations are both more specilic and more widely distributed,the cocktail party attended by near-strangem and acquaintancesbeing the stock alternative to the intimatedinner party. Among the lower section, cliques and partiesare far less sigdcant than are neighbouchood, kinship,age-peer and workmate relationships.To an outsider, the mmt striking differenm betweenthese sections are those of the material culture. The materialculture of the lowest section is symbolized by achattel-house, few but gaudy clothes and the cutlass for atool. That of the intermediate section may be symbolizedby the concrete bungalow, gadgets such as washingmachinesand refrigeraton, and the motorw or the typewriterfor a tmL The upper section is characterized by'the Great House', of which modern versions are still beingbuilt, though in dilierent style, the team of servants, andthe cheque-book or telephone for a tooL Although theintermediate and higher sections have many elements ofmaterial culture in common, they also Mer significantly,and the differences between the material culture of thesetwo sections and that of the third are even more striking.Techological aims and Merences also correspond withthese dillerences of material culture.The study of value-systems presupposes an adequate 8 ~-mautic analysis and an adequate body of data. Neither ofthese exists for Jamaica; but value, beliefs, ideas, g&and norms are of such fundamental moment in social andcultural organhtion that even in the absence of these investigations,one may tentatively indicate the principdvalue-foci which differentiate the several sections of Jamaicansociety. It has already been shown that the^ donaMer in the modes of action, explanation and pmf whichthey employ. It can also be said that materialism pmvidmthe formative principle or reference point in the valuesystemof the upper section, while social statw &&tea

192 Tk Plural Framework of Jamaican kietythe value-system of the intermediate section, and values ofimmediate physical gratification are central among the thirdsection, spiritual as well as secular values re&&g theseprinciples. This tentative differentiation of the sectionalvalue-systems by their foci has two important implications.Firstly, the moral axioms of one section are not the axiomsof another, so that the same events or patterns are generallyinterpreted and evaluated differently by each of thethree Jamaican social sections. Thus, the va1ue.s and implicationsof wlour are peculiar to the intemediate section,in the same way that the notions and values of spiritpamedon and manipulation arc peculiar to the lowest w-tion. Se~ndly, the co-exisknce of these divergent valuesys&eznswithin a single society involves continuam ideologicalwntlicL me need to exprcas these dilTercnces of valueand morality governs and reflects inter-sedimal relations,and this insistence on the incompatibility of the sectionalmoralities is hcessantly activated by the dijfedng sectionalreactions to common events, especially of course thosewhich involve inter-sectiod relations.It is not merely that the same event has merent meaningsor value for the different sections; these Mering interpretationscompete continuously, and their competitionis inherent in their w-existence, and in the correspondingcultural and social plurality which they express and represent.It follows that interpretations of events by referenceto one or other of these competing moral systems is theprincipal mode of thought which characterizes Jamaicansociety, and also that such sectional moralizations normallyseek to define a negative, extra-sectional and disvalued jmlein contrast to a positive, intra-sectional and esteemed one.Thus Jamaicans moralize incessantly about one another'sactions in order to assert their cultural and social identityby expressing the appropriate sectional morality. For suchself-identification, negation is far more essential and effectivethan is its opposite; hence the characteristic appealof negativism within this society, and its prevalence.This summary describes a society divided into three sectiom,each of which practises a daerent system of institu-M. G. Smith 193tions. The integration of these three sections within thelarger society has never been very high; and for cobionJamaica has depended maMy on those forms of socialwntrol implicit in the economic system and explicit ingovernment. Even so, patterns of @kt-personal relationsdo not always wrrespond with these cultural divisions; andin every cultural section there are some persons who habituallyassociate with others who carry a daerent culturaltradition more reguIarly than with those of their own culturalwmmunity. The fewness of these marginal individualsis no adequate guide to their importance.It may be argued that this account only delineates twoinstitutionally differentiated sections, and that the white andbrown strata described above are really two social classeswhich form a common section, because they have a nunberof htitutions in wmmon. Clearly, the patest culturalgulf within this mciety liea between the two uppersections and the large lower one; but although these twoupper sections do share certaia institutions, each also pmctisesa number of institutions which are quite specific toitself, and since these sectional systems of institutions eachtend to be integrated separately, I have regarded them asquite distinct

The Range and Variation ofCaribbean SocietiesDavid LowenthalThe sociocultural complexity of the Caribbean region isreviewed by an American geographer in terms of the conceptsof pluralism sketched in the preceding selection. Thisarticle provides a comparative view of the range and varietyof societal types. The author examines some of theprincipal approaches to the social scientific study of thesediverse territories and indicates the range of difference insuch variables as territorial and demographic size, metropolitanconnection, political status, national identity, racialcomposition, and language. This survey of societal variationin the Caribbean will help place in perspective thecase studies which follow in this section.DAVID LOWENTHAL was Fulbright Research Fellow at theUniversity College of the West Indiea in 1956-57 and hasdone field work in many parts of the Caribbean. The conceptspresented here are amplified in his West Indian Societies.He was Research Associate at the American GeographicalSociety, and is presently Professor of Geographyat University College, London.Pluralistic circumstances affect Caribbean societies in avariety of ways. No society is altogether plural or evenheterogeneous; if it were, it would not be a society at all,but only an assemblage of functionally unrelated &mmunities.No society entirely lacks institutional diversity; if itdid, it would be so homogeneous that it could not survivein any environment. Between these theoretical extremes,however, there is a continuum of possible socioculturalconfigurations. Some societies exhibit more, or different,. evidences of pluralism than others. Aspects and combinationsof pluralism vary from place to place in intensity, instructure and interrelatedness, in degree of formal institutionalization,in the extent to which they are locally apprehended,in historical stability, and in functional import.In any particular society, for example, one or more determinantsof social stratification, such as color, descent,wealth, occupation, age, or sex, may inhibit freedom ofchoice or expression more or less completely in variousrealms of activity.Elsewhere in this monograph! Smith has set a theoreticalSocial and Cultural Pluralism in the Caribbean, edited byVera Rubin, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences,Vol. 83, pp. 786-95. Copyright, The New York Academy ofSciences, 1960, reprinted by permission of the Academy and theauthor.t [The author refers to M. 0. Smith's article "Social and CulturalPluralism" in Social and Cultural Pluralism in the Caribbean,pp. 763-77.1

196 The Range and Variation of Caribbean Societiesframework; I shall consider how to assess the varieties ofsociocultural diversity that actually do occur within WestIndian societies. I limit myself to the islands because Iknow them best, and because their insularity suggests amanageable scheme for analysis. I use the word "diversitywrather than "pluralism" advisedly. The distinction Smithmakes between heterogeneous and plural is a valid one,but it is difficult to use. At just what point do differencesin ways of life become so incompatible as to make aminority a separate cultural section? How does one decidewhether stylistic similarities conceal fundamental diversities?Are the basic institutions the same in one society asin another, and have they always the same relative importance?How much social mobility, actual or perceived,makes a plural society merely heterogeneous? How largemust an institutionally distinctive minority be to qualifythe whole society as plural rather than merely pluralistic,and does the size of the group effectively measure itssignificance71 It appears to me that nonplural societiesgrade imperceptibly into plural ones. In any case, diversityis a necessary element of pluralism. This paper concernsboth concepts.To compare societies, one must first decide what onemeans by a society. No functional hierarchy of socialgroups properly fits circumstances throughout the West Indies.The role of the family, the estate, the parish, the society,the empire, or indeed of any social or territorialunit, is here crucial, there trivial; its scope or size hereextensive, there narrow. Smith's definition of societies as"territorially distinct units having their own governmentalinstitutions" establishes sufficient and perhaps necessarycriteria, but does not actually identify them; how potentor inclusive need governmental institutions be to qualifya social unit as a society? I shall instead experiment with anarbitrary geographical measure.To my mind, the most apposite realm for societies in the1 A. 1. Hallowell, "The Impact of the American Indian onAmerican Culture," American Anthropologist, Vol. 59, No. 2(April 1957). 201-17.David Lowenthal 197West Indies is the island. There are obvious exceptions:Hispaniola and St. Martin, for example, both divided bysovereignty. However, the island does less violence to socialreality, involves less Procrustean chopping and stretchingthan any other topographic category, because insularity is abasic fact of life. An island is a world, to use Selvon's title.2The network of social relations seldom survives the sea.Polynesians and Melanesians, more at home with theocean, make it a highway instead of a barrier; but forWest Indians (save, perhaps, in French Martinique andGuadeloupe) the island is in most contexts the most compellingareal symbol. A man who says, "I am a Jamaican,"or "I am a Barbadian," is very likely expressing the broadestallegiance he knows.8Each of the smaller islands also has special characteristics,a unique self-image, and a particular view of all theothers. What is more, large and small islands are equallyconscious of their individuality. Jamaican and Montserratianparochialisms are much alike, although one countryhas 1,700,000 people and the other only 14,000. Physicalinsularity intensifies a sense of belonging within each island,whatever its size. To be sure, Jamaicans who live inthe Blue Mountains are unlike inhabitants of the CockpitCountry, and those who dwell in Kingston have little incommon with people on Frome sugar estate at the westernend of the island. However, these differences do not divideJamaica into one hundred separate Montserrats; indeed,not even into two or three.Communities do exist, of course, along with neighborhoodself-consciousness, but these microcosms are hard toidentify; self-sufficient in no respect, they are socially andculturally integrated with island society as a whole.' West2% Selvon, An Island Is a World (London: MacGibbon &Kee, 1955).a D. Lowenthal, "The West Indies Chooses a Capital." GeographicalReview, Vol. 48, No. 3 (1958). pp. 336-64.4 M. G. Smith, "Community Organization in Rural Jamaica,"Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (September 1956).pp. 295-312; R. T. Smith, The Negro Family in British Guiana(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956); C. Wagley, "Recent

198 The Range and Variation of Caribbean SocietiesIndian communities cannot be understood as worlds inthemselves. To be sure, community organization and subregionalties are more important in some islands than inothers, though not necessarily in the largest or most populousof them. Barbados, with 230,000 people, is practicallyone geographical community, despite fairly rigid class barriers,owing to its excellent road network and its historiccultural homogeneity. Dominica, on the other hand, withonly 65,000 people, has considerable village and local selfconsciousnessbecause population centers are isolated bydifficult topography and poor communications and, in part,because of the collapse of the plantation economy thatonce supported island-wide social institutions. In Jamaicaand in Trinidad, physical and social distance notwithstanding,island feeling prevails over local and sectional interests,partly because island radio and newspapers, island governmentand politics, are omnipresent However, these unifyingforces are weaker in an island such aa St Vincent andpractically nonexistent on Bequia, in the Grenadines. Onecan walk around Bequia in a day, but its 4000 inhabitantsinclude 3 mutually exclusive communities. On the otherhand, the web of kinship brings the 8000 people in nearbyCarriacou into a close network of associations.The administrative status of these and other tiny islandsis no gauge to the local state of mind. Many constituentparts of The West Indies federation are themselves islandgroups: Trinidad includes Tobago, St. Kitts includes Nevisand Anguilla, Antigua has Barbuda, St. Vincent andGrenada share the Grenadines, and both Jamaica and thefederation are involved with the Cayman Islands and theTurks and Caicos Islands. Long association or political expediencymight promote unit solidarity, but most of theseunions are fortuitous or recent; a man from Tobago is aptto think of himself as a Tobagonian, not as a Trinidadian.The primary geographical identification is that with theisland, no matter how small or dependent it may be. St.Studies of Caribbean Local Societies," in A. C. Wilgus, cd.. TheCaribbean: Natural Resources (Gainesville, Florida: Universityof Florida Press, 1959).IIDavid Lowenthal 199Kitts and Nevis are only 2 miles apart and are economicallyinterdependent (Nevis grows food for Kittician sugar plantations).but the inhabitants of each island seldom have agood word to say for the other, and both snub Anguillans,who are 60 miles away and a different kind of folk entirely,in their own view and in reality. Grenada and its dependency,Carriacou, likewise have little in common; the differencebetween the hierarchical social structure of theformer and the egalitarianism of the latter ii just one ofmany vital contrasts.' At the same time, Camacou and itsown tiny dependency, Petit Martinique, are quite dissimilar;the Petit Martiniquaise would seldom call himself aCarriacouan any more than he would a Grenadian. Onlythe smallest islands and those used as resorts by the "mainlanders"lack this overriding sense of individuality. Onescholar termed Lesser Antillean feeling "a case of insularpsychology gone mad."*A sense of individuality does not, of itself, suffice tomake an island a society. West Indian islands are not discretesocial organisms; they are both more and less thanthis. There are inter-island family and economic tiesthroughout the eastern Caribbean. Many small-island elitelive elsewhere: Martiniquaise own Guadeloupe sucreries,important Tobagonians reside in Trinidad, and Petit Martiniqueis governed by a Grenadian District Officer whovisits once a week from Carriacou. However. the socialinstitutions of Jamaica (not just its government) are similarlytruncated with respect to Port of Spain and London.Similar qualifications limit most societies. Only the largestnations are entirely self-governing, and even these havemyriad links with other peoples: property owned abroad,social, economic, and religious enclaves and exclaves.The choice of islands as social units is statistically aswell as methodologically convenient There are 51 Carib-6 M. G. Smith, Kinship and Community in Carriacou (NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1962).6R. H. Whitbeck, "The Lesser Antilles-Past and Present,"Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 23(1933). p. 25. -

1 200 The Range and Variation of Caribbean Societiesbean islands of whose essential social integrity I am reasonablycertain: each of them is an "enduring, cooperatingsocial group 00 functioning as to maintain and perpetuare1 it~elf."~ The units range in population from Cuba, with, 6,500,000 people, to Mayreau, one of the St. VincentIGrenadines, with 250. Almost nine tenths of the 18,700,000West Indians live in societies larger than 1,000,000'people. Eight per cent inhabit societies ranging fromI100,000 to 1,000,000, 4 per cent in lodetiea mailer than100,000. Hie picture if quite different when one lakes acial units as the measure. Only 5 societies (one tenth ofthe total) have more than 1,000,000 people;15 others havea'between 100,000 and 1,000,000 each, while 41 societiesare smaller than 100,000. Most of these (53 per cent ofall the social units in the West Indies) have fewer than10,000 people each, even though together these smallislanderscomprise less than 0.5 per cent of the Caribbeanpopulation. Of the islands having populations of less than10,000, two thirds have less than 2500 inhabitants apiece.In other words, more than one half of all West Indiamlive in a society larger than 3,000,000 (Cuba or Haiti); butthe mean population per society is 366,000 (one half againas many as Barbados), while the mode is a society of only7000 persons (about the size of An-).The small size of most West Indian societies has a significantbearing on individual heterogeneity and pluralism.Unless they are completely cut off from the modem world,social groups with fewer than 100,000 people face manyspecial problems: a "colonial" relationship with somelarger territory or, in the case of The West Indies federation,with a federal government; a dearth of trained menand of leaders for external as well as for local governmentalpositions; a lack of cultural focus; and a narrow,conservative outlook and sometimes pathological sensitivityto criticism, exacerbated by small-island feuds and a claustrophobicabsence of privacy. Common metropolitanbonds, like economic interests, and analogous social cleav-1 Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, "Society," def. no. 7(Springfield, Mass.: Mcrriam, 1947).David Lowenthal 201ages result in superficial but trivial similarities. Jealousies,rivalries, fears, and, above all, mutual ignorance, tend tomake each mall island a museum in which archaic distinctionsare carefully preserved. It is precisely because somany of the West Indian islands are isolated and minisculethat they exhibit pluralistic features. Geographical and socioculturalheterogeneity reinforce each other.Colonial status, a frequent feature of pluralism, is likewiselinked both with insularity and with small size. It isno accident that, of the 51 West Indian societies, only the 3most populous are politically independent: that is, ruled bytheir own elites, not by outsiders. The next largest one,Puerto Rico, is semi-autonomous. The remainder are ineffect colonial, whatever their formal status. A high proportionof the smallest territories (those with population8under 40,000) endure double colonialism as dependenciesof dependencies. Indeed, some of the Grenadines are dependenciesof dependencies of dependencies. However,neither government nor size is an infallible indicator ofsociocultural heterogeneity, much less of pluralism.There are, however, several more direct approaches toan appraisal of the range of West Indian societies. Onemethod, inherent in Smith's paperst is holistic and functional:to assess the general condition of each society andrank it according to intensity of pluralism, that is, the degreeof incompatibility or antagonism between the differentcultural sections. This approach demands analysis no1of institutional differentiation but rather of the strains tcwhich it leads: the extent to which government is mainstained by force rather than by consent; the degree to whicithe activities and aims of each cultural section offset onegate those of other sections. What is crucial is the relationship between the cultural sections.Not every disagreement or difference is evidence apluralism, however, nor is discord an infallible yardsticlHorizontal plural societies, in which cultural sections ainot hierarchically arranged, display little strain if theret [M. 0. Smith, "Social and Cultural Pluralism"; See earlbnote.]

202 The Range and Variation of Caribbean Societieslittle contact between the sections. On the other band, apparent agreement on goals and values in stratified societiesis not necessarily an indication that pluralism, much lesstension, is absent. The fact that each cultural section inBritish West Indian societies parades loyalty to the Crown,avoids manual labor when mble, admires white 8kkand fancies Christian marriage as an ideal does not indicatethat they share a basic way of life or common institutionalsystems, but rather that each strives to advance byemulating the perceived behavior of the ruling section andby discrediting its own circumstances and ways of life.Cultural unity may mask institutional diversity. What ismore, horizontal and vertical pluralism have disparateorigins, careers, and terminations. When differences betweennonstrati5ed sections become intolerable, partition.as in Israel and to some extent in Canada, is a likely result,while stratified societies, such as that of Haiti, are more aptto suffer revolution.When one considers that some West Indian sodetiea(notably Trinidad, British Guiana, Surinam, and St Croix)contain important horizontal as well as vertical sections,and that the character and role of each is constantly shifting,the difficulty of judging the intensity of pluralism becomesevident8 A pragmatic, comparative assessment ofthe incompatibility of sociocultural sections demandsprophecy as well as omniscience.A second approach involves a holistic but synthetic typeof analysis. This is to ascertain the extent of sodoculturalheterogeneity in each society and then compare the soaetieswith each other, starting, perhaps, with pain of apP roximately equal size: Barbados and Guadeloupe, Arubaand Antigua, St Croix and Montserrat, Bonaire andBequia, St. Barth6lemy and Providencia, Union and Saba.This method raises several questions. For one, heterogencityis not pluralism; cultural diversity often coexists with institutionalunity. Nevertheless, without heterogeneity there8 H. C. Brookfield. "Pluralism and Geomphy in ~aUntius."Geographical Studie~, Vol. 5 (1958), pp. 3-19.David Lowenthal 203can hardly be pluralism; they are correlated. To rank societiesaccording to their degree of internal diversity is certainlyrelevant to a study of pluralism.A more serious difficulty is that no one has devised aformula for adding up different sorts of diversity. Howmany points does one allot to this or that amount of ethnicheterogeneity, how many pints to various differences inrural and urban living patterns, how many to propertyand kinship systems? Social and cultural elements canhardly be combined quantitatively for any society, let alonefor more than one. Any general comparison must be essentiallyimpressionistic, as much a work of art as a productof science. This is probably why it is seldom undertaken inthe Caribbean, or elsewhere, except by travelers, novelists,and poets. Social scientists usually find the task temperamentallydisagreeable. Nevertheless, we need more suchstudies by competent observere, especially studies comparingBritish, French, and Dutch dependencies.The third approach is particularistic and synthetic. Thismethod is to examine specific aspects of society and cultureand to study the range and variation of each throughoutthe West Indies. This approach yields no generalizationsabout any particular society as a whole, but it has its uses,nonetheless, and it has the advantage of being possible. Ithas been tried, for various traits, at various levels ofsophistication, and with various degrees of success byProudfoot9 for the British and American dependencies;by Kruijerlo for St. Eustatius, St Maarten, and St.Thomas; by the Keursll for the Netherlands WindwardIslands; by M. Q. Smith= for Grenada and Cankcow9 M. Proudfoot, Britain and the United States in the Caribbean:A Comparative Study In Methods of Development (Loodon:Paber & Paber, 1954).^O. J. Kruijer, "Saint Martia and Saint Eustatuu Negroesas Compared with Those of Saint Thomas: A Study of Personlityand Culture." Wett-lmiische GUIs, VoL 24, No. 4 (1953).PP. - - 225-37.l1 J. Keur and D. Kew, Windward Children (Assen, Netherlands:Van Gorcum, 1960)."Smith, Kinship and Community in Carriacou.

204 The Range and Variation of Caribbean Societiesand by Cumperla for the British Caribbean generally.Two kinds of study are needed: detailed comparisons ofall facets of life in a few societies, and broad surveys ofparticular traits and institutional sub-systems for thewhole area. Class and color configurations; the roles ofminor ethnic groups; metropolitan policies, influences, andimages; ecological and economic patterns; religious, legal,and educational systems; mating and kinship; and otheraspects of culture and society should be separatelyscrutinized for each and compared for all West Indiansocieties.Let us consider color-class stratification. The classicwhite-colored-black system of status ranking," significantin many West Indian societies, is unimportant in others.In Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, whereNegroes are a fairly small minority, the elite is hardly distinguishable,in terms of color, from most of the lowerclass. Many of the smallest West Indian societies are virtuallyhomogeneous with respect to race and color: Carriacou,San Andrk St. Eustatiw, Barbuda, and Mayreaubeii almost entirely Negro communities, and St. Barthelemybeing almost entirely white.Elsewhere the pattern and the significance of colorheterogeneity vary profoundly. Warner views status uysternsbased on color as the most inclusive and rigid form ofsocial stratification, one in which the position of the individualis fixed and determined by birth.16 In few Carib-18 G. Cumper, Social Structure of the British Caribbean (ExcludingJamaica) (Parts 1, 2, 3). (Mona, Jamaica: UniversityCollege of the West Indies, Extra-Mural Department, 1949).14 M. 0. Smith, A Framework for Caribbean Studies (Mona,Jamaica: University College of the West Indies, 1955), pp. 47-50; M. G. Smith, "Ethnic and Cultural Pluralism in the BritishCaribbean," International Institute of Differing Civilizations.Lisbon, 1957; L Braithwaite, "Social Stratification in Trinidad,"Social and Economic Studies. Vol. 2. Nos. 2-3 (October 1953).pp. 5-175.1". L. Warner, "The study of social stratification," inJ. B. Gittier, ed.. Review of Sociology: Analysis of a Decade(New York: Wiley, 1957), pp. 23435.David Lowenthal 205bean societies, however, do color-class differences retainthese castelike attributes; all have some measure of mobilityand assimilation. The white b& of Guadeloupe andMartinique, an endogamous and genealogically selfconsciousgroup, form a closed elite (dosed to metropolitanand other Antillean whites as well as to gens decouleur) at the summit of an otherwise open class structure.Until recently the mulatto elite in Haiti occupied asimilar position. In many of the smaller islands, such asSaba, Bequia, and La D6sirade. black, colored and, whenpresent, white groups tend to form separate communitiesrather than ranked sections within the same community;despite some status difference, each group is essentiallyclassless.14 In still other societies (St. Croix, St Thomas,Aruba) special economic circumstances such as tourism oroil refining, together with continual in- and out-migrationand skewed age and sex distributions, obscure the colorclasspattern and diminish its functional significance.Even where color-class hierarchies clearly operate, it isdifficult to estimate how important they are. Barbados ismost self-conscious about color-class distinctions, but otherBritish Caribbean social hierarchies may well be morerigid. Too little is known of the different character andvarying roles of the elite in, for example, Barbados, wheremany whites are not members of it; in Trinidad, where it isdeeply divided by nationality; and in Grenada and Dominica,where it is becoming predominant1 y light-colored. Weneed comparative studies of the elites of each society interms of their ethnic and social origins, numbers, proportionsto the total population, residential patterns, occupationaland economic roles, uniformity or diversity of circumstances,internal solidarity, extent of identification withthe whole society (greater in Barbados, for example, thanin Trinidad and St. Vincent), affluence relative to others,control of political, educational, and religious institutions,100. Lassem, "La D6sirade, petite isle guadeloup6ennc,"Cahiers &Outre-Mer, Vol. 10, NO. 40 (1957), pp. 325-66.

206 The Range and Variation of Caribbean Societiesand stereotypes and self-images of the rest of the population.We also need comparative studies of peoples partly orwholly outside the stratified social order. The extent towhich East Indians in Trinidad, British Guiana, and Surinamhave been Creolii is debated in this monographstas it probably will be perennially, but few will deny thatthese East Indians constitute a separate cultural section.This in not true of East Indians in other West Indian EOcieties,who are generally addated to, wmethe~ integratedwith, the Creole lower class.lT Is it because theseEast Indians are much smaller minorities (7 per cent inGuadeloupe, less everywhere else)? East Indian minorities(predominantly urban, to be sure) in other parts of theworld maintain separate social organizations.The same is substantially true of other ethnic minoritiesin the West Indies. The Chinese, Portuguese, and Syriancommunities together do not account for 3 per cent of thepopulation of any West Indian territory, but in many ofthem they play significant roles.18 Their virtual monopolyof retail trade in some societies represents, for the Creolemajority, a social truncation as serious, perhaps, as thetruncation of political functions involved in colonial relationships.On the other hand, the presence of certain minoritiesmay serve to ease other status relationships. If Syrianmerchants, for example, are accepted to any extent by theelite, the middle class is also apt to find areas of acceptance;on the other hand, rejection of these "foreign" elementst [Author refers to Social and Cultural Pluralism in the Caribbean;see earlier notes. The debate is between Daniel 3.Crowley and Morton Klass, however, and both articles, "CulturalAssimilation in a Multiracial Society" and "East and WestIndian: Cultural Complexity in Trinidad," are included in tbhbook on pages 277 and 287, respectively.]17G. Lasserre, "Les 'Indiens' de Guadeloupe," Cahien&Outre-Mer, Vol. 6, No. 22 (1953). pp. 128-58.*EM. H. Fried, "The Chinese in the British Caribbean" inM. H. Fried, ed.. Colloquium on Overseas Chines/ (New York:International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations, 1958).pp. 49-58.David Lowenthal 207may promote an awareness of common outlook amongEuropeans and Creoles.l0It is interesting that all these West Indian minorities haveachieved a measure of economic success; however much orlittle they fit into the general social order, they are not atthe bottom of it There are no West Indian counterpartsto the Negroes and Puerto Ricans in northern cities of theUnited States, the eta in Japan, or the Albanians in Belgrade,who perform certain menial tasks that are virtuallybadges of caste. Until recently the few Javanese in Paramaribo,Surinam, were the only garbage collectors andsewer cleaners, but today they abjure such occupations.Convicts used to perform similar services in French Guianauntil the termination of the penal establishment there.Data are needed from each West Indian society aboutall of these minorities and about their relative and absolutenumbers, their economic roles, and the extent to whichthey remain aloof from, or merge into, the general sodalorder.The extent of linguistic differentiation within West Indiansocieties similarly illustrates their diversity. Languageis both a symbol of and an adjunct to status. What proportionin each society speaks the "standard" tongue, andon what occasions? How different is the Creolese variantin pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar? How do varioussections of the population feel and act about the useof patois? There are several fundamentally different situations.=la most societies the patois is a dialect of the languageof the educated, but in Dominica, St. Lucia,Curacao, and Surinam the local patois has no relationwhatever to the official prestige tongue; the two are mutuallyunintelligible. Linguistic differentiation is thus formalized,and the gulf between social classes is greater than in10 1 am indebted to Rhoda Mktraux, Institute for InterculturalStudies, New York, N.Y., for this suggestion.20 R. B. Le Page, #'The Language Problem in the British Caribbean,"Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1955). pp. 40-49; E. Efron, "French and Creole Patois in Haiti," CaribbeanQuarterly, Vol. 3, No. 4 (1954). pp. 199-213.

I208 The Range and Variation of Caribbean Societiessocieties where the patois is a variant of the metropolitanlanguage. The opposite is true where the lingua ftanca derivesfrom a European language that is more widely spokenin the region than the local official language. In the EnglishspeakingNetherlands Windward Islands and, to some =-tent, in San Andre~ and Providencia, linguistic differentiationtends to break down rather than to reinforce socialstratification, because the values associated with the languageof the majority outweigh the prestige associated withmetropolitan Dutch or Spanish.To -- describe - the range and diversity of social institution8and cultural forms is not enough, however; one must alsoaccount for them. How is it that pluralism affects onesociety more than another? How can one explain heterogeneityin one place and homogeneity in another? Whyare certain traits diverse in this place and uniform in thatone? Answers to such questions require comparative analysis,to avoid oversimplified or excessively functional explaoations.Let me -- illustrate with data on the European Guianaii*!Here, I think, comparisons have special validity becausethese territories are contiguous, because their inhabitedareas are remarkably alike physically. and because theirsettlement for a long time followed similar models, particularlyin Surinam and British Guiana, which weredrained and diked for plantation agriculture along thesame lines until the late eighteenth century.Ethnic heterogeneity characterizes both British Guianaand Surinam, principally because many indentured laborerswere brought in after the emancipation of theslaves. One half the population of each territory today isof Asian origin, virtually all Indian in British Guiana.while three tenths is Indian and two tenths Javanese inSurinam. However. Surinamese society is @nerdy lessintegrated. In British Guiana, East Indian ways of lifehave become more and more similar to those of otherrural or urban folk, while in Surinam the Creoles. Hiin-21D. Lowenthal, "Population Contrasts in the Gds"Geographical Review, Vol. 50 (1960). pp. 41-59.David Lowenthaldustanis, and Javanese for the most part have their ownvillages, ianguages, and even customary garb. BritishGuianese East Indiana refer to their compatriots in Surinamas "goodn Indians, that is, closer adherents of oldcountryfashion and ritual (personal communication fromC. Jayawardem). Unlike British Guianese. Surinamers donot hesitate to assert their separate ethnic interests; politicalparties are avowedly divided along racial and religiouslines; there is scarcely any sense of a general Surinamsociety. Occupational and rural-urban ethnic differentiationare also more pronounced in Surinam. Three fourths ofthe Creole population is urban, compared with less thanone half in British Guiana, and most of Surinam's ruralCreoles are concentrated within a few districts.Several factors help to account for these differences. Forone, slavery lasted twenty-five years longer in Surinamthan in British Guiana. In the interim many slaves fledthe cowtry and, when emancipation &ally came, in 1863,the Negroes still left on S u h estates were not willingto wait out an additional decade of indenture. In BritishGuiana, many former slaves pooled their savings to buyup estates and turned to subsistence agriculture; in Surinam,most of them moved off the land.The delay of emancipation also retarded the introductionof indentured workers. East Indians began to enterBritish Guiana as early as 1841. but did not reach SunOamuntil after 1873, and the Javanese came there still later,between 1891 and 1939. Neither group in Surinam hashad as long to become assimihted as have the East Indiansof British Guiana. Moreover, the East Indians of Surinam(known there as Hindustanis) have found acculturationmore difficult for lack of a continuing tie with certainBritish institutions and aspects of culture. Besides, there islittle in common between the Hindustanis and the Javanese.Many of the latter are still first-generation immigrants, forthe most part content with their alien status as Indonesiancitizens, and are regarded as clannish and unenterprisingby Europeans. Creoles, and Hindustanis alike.Dutch colonial policy is partly responsible for the fact

210 The Range and Variation of Caribbean Societiesthat Surinam's rural villages are, by and large, more homogeneousracially than those of British Guiana. Until afterthe Second World War the Surinam government promotedresidential segregation by leasing abandoned estates toethnic groups. This practice is now disavowed, but effortsto promote integration have bad little success, perhaps becausemany people still believe, at heart, that the differentraces simply will not work or live well together.The linguistic situation displays similar segmentation. InBritish Guiana English is both the vernacular and theprestige language of the educated, but in Surinam the commonCreole tongue (Taki-Taki, an amalgam of African,English, and other elements) is utterly unlike the official,upper-class Dutch. Dutch is unimportant elsewhere inAmerica, and Taki-Taki is incomprehensible outside Surinam,so it is little wonder that Javanese and Hindustanisprefer to retain their own, more widely spoken, languages.Even the Creoles are divided, some preferring Dutch, othenpromoting Taki-Taki as their "ownu tongue, that is, asan appurtenance of nationalism. Lacking a viable commonlanguage, Surinam is unlikely to reach a level of socialor cultural integration comparable to that in BritishGuiana, even should Surinamers desire it.These features represent, of course, only one aspectof social organization in the Guianas. Analogous contrastscan be drawn with respect to the varieties of stratificationwithin the Creole groups and the roles of theEuropean and other minorities. Whatever point of departureone selects, society and culture can be understoodbest, as Fumivall remarked of colonial practice, whenstudied both comparatively and hist~rically.~22 J. S. Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice: A ComparativeStudy of Burma and Netherlands India (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1948), pp. 9-10.

Stratification in Trinidad*Lloyd BraithwaiteThis selection, which is part of a longer monograph,"Social Stratification in Trinidad." sketches the complexstatus ranking and other relationships of communities andethnic groups as they were in 1953. The author, himself aTrinidadian, also analyzes the opportunities available forsocial mobility and status acquisition. Whereas M. G, Smithfocuses on disparities of institutional forms in analyzingJamaican society, Braithwaite emphasizes the factors, realand symbolic, which support the general acceptance ofTrinidad's stratification system, the prospects for individualmovement within the system, and the linkages betweenthat system and the metropole. Careful comparison ofM. G. Smith and Lloyd Braithwaite reveals some of thetheoretical and methodological differences between thepluralist and the consensualist approaches to the understandingof West Indian society.LLOYD BRATTHWAITE, a Trinidad-born sociologist trainedin England, has long been connected with the Universityof the West Indies, having served as Director of the Instituteof Social and Economic Research, Head of the Departmentof Sociology, and Dean of the Faculty of SocialScience in ~arnaica. He is currently Pro-Vice-Chancellor ofthe University of the West Indies, Trinidad.THE SYSTEM OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION IN TRINIDADIn order to understand the structure of the island as awhole it is necessary to pay special attention to the systemof social stratification. This is a more complex problemthan appears at first sight, because there are various systemof stratification within the society. Some of these aresystem of strahtion of particular communitka withinthe island, but others are generally accepted for the island,although they do not necessarily coincide with the stratificationsof any other particular community. The divergenceof class judgements as between communities hasnot received the attention that it deserves. In the past mostfield-work studies have been related to the social stratificationof one particular community and have generalizedfrom the local evaluations about the system of socialstratification in the national society. Of particular significancein this respect is the work of the Warner group1Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 2, NOS. 2-3, October 1953,pp. 38-60 (excerpts). Reprinted by permission of the Instituteof Social and Economic Resax&, University of tk West Indies,and the author.[Editors* title]1William Lloyd Warner, cd., Yankee City Series (NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1941-47): Paul S. Lunt, The SocialLife of a Modern Community (1941) and The Status Systernof a Modern Community (1942); Leo Srole, The SocialSystem of American Ethnic Groups (1945); J. 0. Low, The

214 Stratification in Trinidadand other work which it has inspired. In the Introductionto "Democracy in Jonesville", Warner writes: "The life ofthe commmity retlects and symbolize8 the sigdkantprinciple* on which the American social system rests . . . .we can say that Jonesville is in all Americans and allAmericans are in Jonesville, for be that dwelleth in Americadwelleth in Jonesville and Jonesville in him", and "Bysuch a study (of Jonesville) we could ice and understandthe larger design of American life".'Even when Lloyd Warner is dealing not with the specificlocal community but with the whole of the Americanscene, he makes similar assertions. Thus in his "Structureof American Life", he writes: "In my research the localcommunity was made to serve as a microcosmic wholerepresenting the total community", and "careful examinationof the evidence elicited from local studies, when relatedto what is known about ow economic life, gives patinsightand social knowledge about the processes of workthroughout the system".'However, other sociologists have become increasinglyconcerned with the divergence between the national stratificationand the various systems of stratification in the localcommunity, and the way they are all articulated into acoherent system. The late Paul K.. Hatt was one such sociologist.More recently Charles Wagley and his group*in their studies of "Race and Class in Rural Brazilu6social system of the Modern Factory (1947); W. Lloyd Warner,Democracy in Jonesville (New Haven: Yale University Press,1949); Allison Davis, et al., Deep South (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1941); A. B. Hollinashead, Elmtown's Youth:The Impact of Social Classes on Adolescents (New York: Wiley.1949); John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1937).2 Warner, Democracy In Jonesville, p. 15.a Warner, Structure of American Life (Edinburgh: EdinburghUniversity Press, 1952). p. 33.* Charles Wagley. ed.. Race and Class in Rural Brazil (NewYork: International Documents Service. Columbia UniversityPress for UNESCO, 1952).61bid.; see, in particular, the section "From Caste to Class& North Brazil," p. 142, et seq.Lloyd Braithwaite 215have clearly recognized the difference posed by the nationaland local system* of stratification.While it is true that the social structure of any unallcommunity within the larger national society & insome degree the structure of the larger society, this methodof looking at social stratification tends to ignore the problemof the integration of communities, of the fact that interms of the national society all communities do not rankas equal. The problem is not solved by selecting a typicalcommunity for study because the very fact of typicalitytends to ignore the most important problem of all, that is,the stratification between communities and the way inwhich it becomes linked up into a nation-wide system ofstratification. In this linkage the dominance of certain metropolitanand political areas (the political capital) appearsto be of crucial importance although in terms of typicalitythese areas would have to be ignored.In the island society of Trinidad there appears the samephenomenon of the ranking of districts, localities and communities.Port of Spain, the capital city, would immediatelybe placed first. Even the inhabitants of the second largesttown, San Fernando, often speak of going to Port ofSpain as going to "town", thus giving themselves inferior"country" status. In terms of the smaller places likeBlanchisseuse, we shall see that although Blanchisseuse hassubordinates, its place in rank order of importance fromthe stratification point of view would be low down on thelist.The hypothetical ranking of communities in Trinidad isas follows:1. Port of Spain 4. Arirna2. San Fernando 5. Sangre Grande3. St. Augustine 6. Blanchisseuse7. Brasso Seco.We can be sure that the gaps between these are not equidistantand the ordering most generally shared by thepopulation could be represented not unfairly in the accompanyingdiagram (Fig. 1).

Stratification in TrinidadPort of SpainSan FernandoSt. Augustin*ArimoSangro Grind*I. IFig. 1 Ranking of communities in TrinidadHere, as in the phenomenon of ranking individuals andclassifying them according to some scale of superiorityand inferiority, there is room for divergence of opinion.Local patriotism, limitations of contact, ignorance, divergencein the scale of values upon which the judgementsare based-all these may lead to some diversity of outlook.In terms of the island society of Trinidad this divergenceis not great. This is probably due to the small size of theisland, and the fact that there are few difficulties in communication.This has led to nearly all communities acceptingthe dominance of Port of Spain. However, even here,there is a challenge from San Fernando. Arising from thefact that these two major communities dominate severalminor ones there is a tendency to divide the island intoLloyd Braithwaite 217two sections-North and South-between which there if acertain amount of rivalry. This is reflected in the institutionalizationof North-South competitions in athletics,football and cricket This is merely a minor reflection of adivision in the social structure which could possibly havegreater significance. This is shown in the political field inthe sharp divergence between the support obtained by theradical political leader Uriah Butler, and the marches anddemonstrations that he was able to organize from theSouth into the North.In this connection the single, most important thing isthat no matter what divergences of judgement there arepeople must accept in some form or fashion the nationalstratification system, primarily through the acceptance ofthe upper class and the symbolism associated with it. Themanner in which the separate individual* and groups maycome to accept the nation-wide stratification system, mayeither be direct or indirect That is, the individual mayeither himself accept the upper class as an upper class, orhe may merely, in terms of a smaller community, of apartial segment of the society, accept the superiority ofanother social group which is itself thoroughly imbuedwith the values which make for the acceptance of thenational upper class. This linkage may be many chainsremoved and varies in strength.In terms of Trinidad society this acceptance of a commonupper class and its symbolism is made more complicatedby the fact that a large proportion of the upper classof Trinidad society is not Trinidad-born and does not haveits roots in Trinidad life. Many of these individuals areoriented to a social system other than the island society.If all the "Britishers" were concentrated in one region,Port of Spain, the problem of linkage of communitieswould not be so difficult. The fact. however, that there arerelatively self-contained groups of Britishers in St. Augustine,poke a Pierre, and Port of Spain, makes the acceptance,directly or indirectly, of the values of this externalor super-ordinate social system a matter of cardinal concern.Again, the close interlinking of the political and

218 Stratification in Trinidadsocial class system which results from the fact that theisland society is a colony, and part of the larger structureof the British Empire, makes the acceptance of the nuperiorityof the super-ordinate system by all the membersof the society of increased importance. In other words,although we are concerned with the analysis of the socialstructure of Trinidad and not with that of the BritishEmpire as a whole, we have to take account of the way inwhich the British social system and its representatives impingeupon the social stratification system. The relationshipbetween the communities can prhaps be illustrated by adiagram (Fig. 2).We are not dealing here with the social structure of theBritish Empire, the way in which the British social systemlinks up the diverse communities within the Empire andCommonwealth. However, in so far as the manner inwhich the linkage between the British social system and theisland society is characteristic, it should throw revealinglight on that problem. Similarly, the study of the socialstructure on the village level of Blanchisseuse is not merelya study of the social structure of the village, but also of acharacteristic form of linkage by which subordinate communitiesbecome integrated into the larger society.*If the ranking of communities in Trinidad was a clearcutone which served as an absolute guide to status, sothat a person of middle-class status, say in the village ofBlanchisseuse, automatically assumed a similar status onmoving into Port of Spain, Arima or San Fernando, theproblem of the relationship of social stratification on thenational level to the social stratification of communities,would be easy. The function of the ranking of communi-Â¥Fro a theoretical point of view the similarity of the problemswould appear in a different light on different levels. It isalso clear that the discrepancies of judgement between the subordinatemembers of the Colonial Empire with regard to theirrelative importance will be quite great, and the need for insulatingmechanisms. which keen the relationship with the British socialsystem paramount as compared with a spontaneous orderingof relationships between communities, becomes of paramountimportance.

222 Stratification in TrinidadThe existence of a large variety of ethnic groups baaled, not to the development of an eclectic cosmopolitanism,but to a certain separateness of the groups and to a rankingof them in terms of superiority and inferiority, as groups.The main reason for this appears to be that these variousethnic group* entered a society which was already stratifiedvery largely on racial lines; and one in which the biologicaldivision of skin colour played an important part in thedifferentiation of social class, even within the broad boundsdetermined by race. Thus during the 19th century andearly in the 20th century we had a social stratification ofthe island as depicted in Fig. 4. In the upper groupthere was a differentiation on a social class basis; but,as between the white group and the coloured group,the condition resembled much more of a caste situationthan one of class. The barriers to rising were almost completelyprohibitive and in many respects that situation stillobtains. The middle class consisted predominantly of colcuredpeople, that is of light-skinned and brown-skinnedpeople, while the lower class consisted predominantly ofblack.Just as whiteness tended to put the individual automaticallyat the top of the social class scale, so blackness ofskin colour automatically put the individual at the bottomend of the social scale. At the same time there was alimited mobility from the lowest end of the scale fromamong the blacks and the browns into the middle class.Unlike the barriers between the whites and non-whites the"caste" barrier could be circumvented by marriage. Forthe most part, the coloured person could only procure awhite wife by going outside the society and seeking a matewho did not subscribe to the particularistic scale of valuesof Trinidad society. Even this did not, however, serve tomake possible the crossing of class lines. On the other handwithin the middle-class group there was a differentiationbased on skin-colour, but there was no impassable barrieras regards marriage between a light-skinned person and adark-skinned person The light-skinned person, all otherthings being equal, was at the top of the middle-class

220 Stratification in Trinidadties, however, appears to be a most general one and Serve*to place individuals within a broad context before otherqualifying features are examined. Thus the solicitor practisingin the town of Tunapuna, or the doctor practisingin the small town or village of Siparia may, in terms ofthe local community, be of the upper social class. Movinginto Port of Spain his position becomes somewhat lowerin the scale of stratification, according to his professionalskill, skin colour, and the other determinants of socialclass within the Port of Spah community. In term of theisland-wide stratification a doctor will possess relativelyhigh status everywhere; a solicitor less, and an accountantless still, In Fig. 3 community A in the rankiog of wm-LOWER PROFESSIONALSKILLED WORKERUNSKILLED WORKERA.6.C CommunltlÃ- ~tntlfiadon Una In Lwl Communltv- - - Occuptiond Smtlflmion In litend CommunityFig. 3 Stratification and communities in Trinidadmunities holds an inferior position relative to communityB; none the less a certain stratification is island-wide in itsscope and brings in general terms roughly equivalentstatus. Thus, a skilled worker will rank lower in the orderof social class in any community in Trinidad to any doctor,but the doctor starting in community B at the top of thesocial scale is liable to find himself in terms of the societyLloyd Braithwaite 221of Port of Spain on a somewhat lower level. Again, thelabourer or lower-class person will find himself at thebottom of the stratification scale in any community.Conversely, the movement out of community B mayhave the opposite results. Thus, a doctor la the upper classof community B will certainly enjoy upper-class status incommunity A, but a doctor in the middle class of communityB is also sure of enjoying upper-class status incommunity A. Further, the smaller communities frequentlydo not possess a large enough population for such a richdifferentiation of social classes as in Port of Spain. It hasbeen commonly observed in studies of social class thatthe members of the upper class are not aware of the differentiationswhich members of the lower class makeamong themselves, and which the middle class, likewise,make of the lower class. Similarly, the member* of thelower classes tend to group all those above them at a certainremove as members of the "upper class", ignoring thedifferentiations which others more highly placed make.These phenomena are likewise to be observed in the communitiesof Trinidad. There also appears to be a differencein communities in this regard. Some communities arelarge enough for the distinctions to become extremely importantbecause of the distance between the upper and thelower social groups.On the other hand in the really small community &uchas the village of Blanchisseuse, its remoteness from thelarger communitia tends to result in the amalgamation ofheterogeneous elements (from the standpoint of Port ofSpain or San Fernando) into the common category of theupper class.SOCIAL STRATIFICATION AND ETHNIC STRATIFICATIONThe problem of analysing the social stratification inTrinidad becomes more acute when we realize that 10-gether with the ranking of communities we have also toconsider the ranking of the various ethnic groups in theisland.

224 Stratification in Trinidadgroup but there was also a substantial portion of thissection of the coloured population in the lower4ass p oplation, and within the whole range of the middle-classgroup.This form of mobility was of great importance becauseit became closely linked with the other possible meanswhich the social structure permitted within the middle andlower-class groups and between the middle and upper-classgroups. This other form of mobility was the occupationalladder. Thus a light-skinned girl of the lower middleclass would be keen to marry a darker-skinned penon whowas high up on the professional scale-that is, a doctor or alawyer. At the same time a dark-skinned lawyer and doctorwould seek to obtain entree into a higher status group bymarrying a light-skinned person. This seemed to perform adouble social function. It showed a public acceptance ofthe scale of values based upon skin-colour, and secondly,it sought to secure mobility for the kinship unit. Considerationof the fact that their children would be given a betterstart in life, would have "better chances", seems to haveplayed a prominent part in making coloured men seek tomany lighter-skinned women. At the same time, the ladderof occupational mobility was for the most part closed towomen. While, therefore, most women sought or wishedto marry lighter-skinned persoas than themselves, their dependentstatus, particularly in the middle-class group,meant that they frequently compromised and married mendarker than themselves, but who had done well in theoccupational world. The decision as to whether a girlshould "trade caste for class" was frequently a difficultproblem to decide.There is a story told of one dark-skinned professionalman who courted a young lady considerably fairer incomplexion than himself. After a period of time duringwhich the young lady came to the conclusion that she Washardly likely to do better she accepted the proposal ofmarriage. On returning home that day she told her motherthat she had accepted the offer. The mother resigned ber-Â¥el to the aihdon, mying that although die had hopedthat her (laughter would do better than that. there wassome consolation in the fact that she had got a profes*Sienal man. On her other daiufhter returning home andhearing the news that her aster was proposing to many ablack man ahe fell into a fit. She became ao distraught thather mother became convinced of the enonnity of the crimethat her daughter proposed to commit. Faced with thesorrow of her other daughter, she realized the true socialsignificance of the act. Reproachfully, she accused theguilty daughter of wishing to bring sorrow upon the house,and the engagemat was comequently broken off.Tho social structure was clearly founded on anascriptive-particularistic basis. It was based on the omhand on the positive evaluation of the white group and.on the other, on a negative evaluation of the black group.The other groups which catered the system, therefore,sought to differentiate themselves from the black group asmuch as possible, even if acceptance by the white groupappeared to some of these groups as an impossibility, or avery distant possibility. In other words, the fact that theaocial order was based on ascriptive values did not escapethe other groups. Ethnic affiliation and ethnic purity werethe values upon which the sodal stratification system waserected and, therefore, this served as a positive encouragemeatto non-Negro groups to try to retain their ethnicidentity. Of course, there were other important reasonsfor this as well based on cultural differences, e.g., thenationalism of the immigrant. But a contributing force itwas, none the less.To a certain extent these immigrant groups remainedoutside the social system. They were considered for thomost part by the rest of the population to be on the lowestsocial scale. The Portuguese were identified as dirtyshopkeeper who spoke "rash-potash* and could not speakEnglish. The Indians coming in as indentured labourerewere despised and thought of as "coolies". Both in officialcircles and in popular language the term "coolie" for long

226 Stratification in Trinidadremained the means of identifying this particular ethnicgroup.'The Syrians came in for the most part as peddlers ofdry goods moving from house to house, granting credit inreturn for small monthly payments. Their exorbitant pricesand their closeness to the local population, linked to theirforeign culture, and the humble nature of their work,caused them, too, to be considered as almost outside thesystem.Precisely because they did not share the same scale ofvalues, they were able to accumulate wealth with greaterease than the local population who were committed to the"standards of livingn and the symbolism of their respectiveclasses. For these and other reasons there emerged intime a middle-class among these ethnic groups who interms of the values of the society could not be consideredoutside the social system. However, for various reasonsthey continued to retain their ethnic identity although theattempt to shed some of their ethnic characteristics becamemore marked as they became more assimilated. Infact, the general movement seems to be in the direction ofshedding the greater part of their cultural heritage whileseeking to retain their ethnic identity by prohibiting intermarriage-exceptwith the dominant white group.The diagram (Fig. 5) seeks to illustrate bow individualsof the various ethnic groups who were considered "outsidethe systemn moved (in some measure at least bymethods which were lowly valued by those inside the system)into positions higher up on the social ladder. Thismovement tends to produce a certain amount of ambivalenceon the part of the society as a whole towards thesegroups. Because of the previous association of these groups'The term "coolie" as a racial term was naturally resentedby the Indian middle class. Although it has disappeared fromuse in public it is still in use as a derogatory term in private.As late as the 1940's the term was still so much taken forgranted, that a locally educated professional man was heard toremark on reading the news item that "Chinese coolies wererebuilding the Burma Road", that "they seem to have a greatdeal of racial intermixture there"!Lloyd Braithwaite 227MIDDLE CLASSUPPER CLASSAnQ,-S t o c kFig. 5 Mobility of efhnic grwps in Trinidadwith the lowest social status, and because of their ownambivalence implicit in their commitment to the statusstrivingin the social system, the (coloured) middle-classand lower-class groups tend to be very resentful of theprogress of the other ethnic groups.The hostility tends to express itself in judgements of theethnic group based on the lower-class affiliations of themajority of its members. They would rank the ethnicgroups in order of superiority and inferiority in an ordersuch as this:1. White 4. Indian2. Coloured 5. Portuguese3. Black 6. Syrianor would seek to rank the last group as being outside thesystem, as being "not really Trinidadiann.On the other hand the members of the upper locialgroup tend to look upon the upward mobile individualbelonging to an ethnic group in terms of his ethnic umilarityor dissimilarity to the white group, viewing the massof the ethnic group as exceptions. The possibility of mobilityof these groups into the white society is equivalent

228 Stratification in Trinidadin large measure to that of the lighter skinned group whoare able to infiltrate into the upper classes.Thus individuals from the Chinese, the Syrian and theIndian groups are, in that order, breaking into the lowerfringes of white society. In this connection it is interestingto note that the criteria which apparently are used in makinga racial judgement of individuals and of groups arecommon throughout the society. They are the factors ofhigh visibility, "skin wlour" and "hair". The Chinese andthe Syrians are light-skinned and have "good" hair andhence appear to be more acceptable to the white group.Certainly of all the ethnic groups, the Chinese are the oneswho have first "broken into" white society.To the extent that these groups retain their culture theyconstitute a social system within the social system; and theway in which these interlock poses a somewhat difficultproblem in the integration of the social structure. If weplot the highest point reached in the various island communitiesby individuals of the Indian ethnic group, weshall get a dotted line similar to the given one in the diagram(Fig. 6). However, the lines which ensure recognitionand esteem and high social status within the ethnicgroup, do not necessarily serve to bring esteem within thelarger group (although the possibility of exploiting suchprestige for this purpose undoubtedly exists). Similarly,low esteem and status within the ethnic group may be associatedwith high status within the larger society. Specifically,the ascriptive status given by birth into a particularcaste, may result in a "Maharaj" or "Brahmin"possessing high status within the ethnic group, whilethrough his occupational position as a postman be has lowstatus in the larger society. Conversely, a Chamar or lowercaste person at the foot of the social scale in the ethniccommunity might be a doctor enjoying the upper middleclass status in the larger society where his particular casteorigin would be of no concern.In the field of ethnic stratification we see the same phenomenonof discrepancy of judgements between individualsa we get in the ranking of communities, and in the

230 Stratification in Trinidadranking of social class within the communities. Here again,we see that the key to the unity in the diversity of judgementsis the acceptance of the upper class as the upperclass. In this case. however, we have the main commonvalue shared by all the social groups in the society. Inmany respects we cannot look at the ethnic criterion asjust another of the factors which go to make up class becauseof the fact that so many caste elements enter intothe situation. It is, on a superficial view. the most importantsingle element by which individuals come to be"placed" in the social order (Fig. 7).MIDDLE CLASS" / A::..,/\Fig. 7 Differences between national system of stratificationand stratifieation within Indian ethnic group in TrinidadThe particularistic-ascriptive basis of social stratificationas between the white, the coloured and the black groupsbecame finally established during the period of slavery.Under the slave regime the identity of racial and occupationalgroups meant that this stratification had not onlyLloyd Braithwaite 231a social but a legal sanction. The emancipation of theslaves in 1838, was followed by an increasing emphasison achievement values. Hie social order was being transformedin the United Kingdom itself and while under anautocratic regime these values effected only slow infiltrationinto the coloured society, they did, none the less,infiltrate. It is particularly interesting in reading the officialdocuments of the 19th century to see how the changingclimate of opinion in the "mother country" influencedthe views of administrators and &glishmen resident in thecolonies. This orientation towards the United Kingdomscale of values was marked because of the impact of governmentalpolicy in the United Kingdom upon the WestIndies. In the case of Trinidad, there had been the modellegislation of the Crown Colony preceding the emancipationof the slaves; there had been the general question ofthe emancipation of the slaves; the compensation to begiven to the planters therefor; and the problem of apprenticeship.Following this, there was the question of thecontrol of indentured labour, which bad to be viewed inImperial perspective. This factor dominated the island'shistory during the 19th century and was intimately linkedwith the crisis in the sugar industry. The state of the sugarindustry was the cause of various commissions of enquiryduring the century. This concern flowed not only fromthe normal commitment to improve the conditions of theinhabitants of the territory, but from the fact that sugarwas an export crop, and the fate of the industry dependedso very much on the economic policy of the ImperialGovernment.Moreover, the mem existence of the EngIkhmaa withhis particular scale of social values meant that these valueswould tend to spread to the lower elements in the society.It may be true, as one critic has remarked, that the Britishhave given as culture to the colonial people "the cheapest side of commercial cinema and just so much educationas to ensure a cheap supply of clerical labour on the spot."Certainly, in the case of the West Indies there was Averany attempt to establish, as in some of the Spanish areas,

232 Stratification in Trinidadany institutions of higher learning. But education on thelower levels, even if it was to ensure cheap clerical labouron the spot, was supplied. In fact in some respects it canbe claimed that educational policy was more progressivein Trinidad than it was in the United Kingdom. For instanceLord Harris, Governor in the middle of the 19thcentury sought to establish a school in each governmentalWard, the schools to be free but supported by local taxes.In any case, formal education even on the lowest levelsseems to be almost intrinsically linked with a universalisticscale of values. Moreover, while it may be possible to alarge extent to control the reading of a society by controllingits publishing, and its external contacts with othersocieties, it is certainly more difficult to control the readingof one segment of a society, particularly where thereare no language barriers to communication.Many of the 19th century educators in Trinidad wereintellectually committed to the idea of equal opportunityfor all and the boast was made by one that the humblestcitizen of Trinidad could get a post in the Civil Serviceof India by making his way through competitive examination.In the progressive establishment of education therewere several different elements involved-not all absolutely"universalistic-achievement" centred. Thus the provisionof secondary education at first appears to have beenstarted as a means of meeting the needs of the white residentsof the colony. Similarly, the provision of scholarshipsfor professional study at universities in the UnitedKingdom sprang from a desire to give opportunity to childrenof deserving whites in the colonies. Even where colowedpeople were admitted to schools, the stringency withwhich class lines were drawn in the society is indicated bythe fact that when scholarships were first granted for theelementary schools of the colony to the secondary schools,one of the leading newspapers of the island warned ofthe undesirability and danger of having lower-class childrenmixing with children of the middle and the upperclasses.Once the institution of island scholarships for studyLloyd Braithwaite 233abroad and of secondary education had been establishedout of public funds, and continued to exist out of publicsubsidies, it became impossible to deny the right of competitionin the particular context of island society. Thecolonial Government was committed to looking after thewelfare of the inhabitants. Indeed, that was the justificationfor its rule; and hence public funds spent on awardsbased upon competitive m ation could not be used insuch a way as to imply overt discrimination. It was theladder thus established by the educational system that becameone of the most important methods by which membersof the middle and lower classes could improve theirposition on the occupational scale and come to play animportant role in public affairs.The initiative of the Government in the sphere of educationhad other important consequences. The fees chargedin the Government secondary schools were necessarily lowand as the climate of public opinion veered towards anincreasing concern with public provision of educationalfacilities, it became difficult for the Government to raisethe fees in the secondary schools. Government was forcedby its position to run a school of a standard that wouldface up to public criticism both in the colony and in theUnited Kingdom. This meant that the standard of teachinghad to be high. Salaries had to be paid on a scale thatwould attract good teachers (chiefly from the U.K.). Thepattern of low school fees and high standards set by theGovernment institutions had to be taken over by the voliintarybodies running secondary schools if they were toreceive public funds.The impetus to education in the post-emancipation penod,as at present, did not come from the Governmentonly. There was acute religious concern for the "moralsand welfare" of the inhabitants and in the case of theRoman Catholics there was the well-established Catholicdoctrine, that education was in the main an affair of thefamily and the Church, and only indirectly an affair of theState. Hence, schools run by the various religious denominationsbecame common and the system of "dual control"

234 Stratification in Trinidadwas eventually established after stubborn resistance on thepart of religious bodies (the Roman Catholics in particular)to the establishment of a State system of educationin the 187Us.8 The other field in which there were to beestablished on a large scale the values of universalisticachievement was in the public service. Once educationalability was recognized by Government as being worthy ofencouragement it seemed incumbent upon the Governmentto provide opportunities for those for whom theyhad provided the education. Here again, in the publicservice the expenditure of public money could not bemade on caste lines. Appointments had to be made, formallyat least, on the basis of ability. The definition of thequalities necessary for making good civil servants was notoriouslylacking. Intelligence was obviously important, butother factors of personality and character were admittedlyof great relevance. It was through this factor that thediscrimination against the dark-skinned coloured personwas, until yesterday, maintained, since these were mattersfor the most part incapable of objective test Judgementin this respect had to rest on the subjective evaluation ofindividuals in authority, and of committees. However, justas the white reo ole was able to wrest the right to appointmentto certain posts in the Civil Service on the groundsof his ability, so was the light-skinned coloured person able. in his turn to lay his claim, on the basis of ability. In timethe dark-skinned person has made his claim to consideration;and the public service in so far as it has been openedto local control is organized, in principle at any rate, onthe objective bases of ability and, in the lower ranks, seniority.The way in which the individuals with a particularisticscale of values emotionally attached to one ethnicgroup and antagonistic to others came to meet the didplineof the achievement-centred and universalisticallyoriented public service would make an interesting field8For an account of this crisis in education see L. A. G. deVerteuil, Trinidad: Its Geography, Natural Resources, Administration,Present Conditions and Future Prospects (2nd cd.;London: CasseU, 1884).Lloyd Braithwaite 235study. The fact of the interplay of the two factors of "favouritism"and ability has had far-reaching consequence*.Where abilities have been equal the particularistic valuesbecame dominant and because of the acceptance by themass of the people of the ascriptive scale of values basedon skin colour, the struggle for the open ladder has notbeen an easy one within the Civil Service, or in the grantingof scholarships and awards. One result of this was thewidespread belief, still alive, that it is necessary to have apatron (a "godfather" in local terminology) in order toadvance within the Civil Service. Belief in the integrity ofthe Civil Service has always been asserted. If we neglectthe plundering of public funds which occasionally takesplace and is regarded in a somewhat different light by thegeneral public from the appropriation of private funds,we can accept the assertion that the standards of integritywith regard to financial matters (the absence of bribery,etc.) have followed, in the main, the traditions of theBritish public service. But in respect to "nepotism", theuse of an intrinsically irrelevant scale of values in theconferring of appointments and in determining promotions,the problem assumed great proportions because theparticularistic values tended to reinforce one another. Notonly skin colour was used as a criterion, but class originas well. In view of the historical background and the relativelack of mobility, skin colour tended to be closely identifiedwith social class. Into the judgements of social classwent certain other personality characteristics which had agreater relevance to effectiveness of performance. It wastherefore easy for an individual so inclined to rationalizehis prejudice (based on racial or skin colour grounds) byasserting that a dark-skinned person, say, was uncouth orundesirable on other grounds. Partiality was thus difficultto attack until achievement values became so general inthe society that the possibility of "racial" prejudice hidingunder social class discrimination could not find a sympatheticresponse. In this respect the spread of democraticideas and of political reform were of crucial importance in

236 Stratification in Trinidadbreaking down the barriers of social class and producinga more achievement-oriented civil service.The way in which the pressure of opinion influencedpolitical action and in this way helped to democratize attitudesis in no way better illustrated than in the mannerconstitutional advances have taken place in the colony.The result of the fact that the Secretary of State for theColonies was responsible for training people for selfgovernmentmeant that any disturbance of law and orderwhich assumed a general form became his responsibility.In this way his concern was led out from the narrowlypolitical into the more general problems of the welfare ofthe inhabitants of the area. Hence it was that bad conditionsin any area that led to a general upheaval wouldlead to the establishment of some commission of enquiry.Thus it was that after the strikes and riots of 1937 whichoriginated in the oilfield area, the Foster Commission wassent out. Following the spread of these riots and strikes toother areas the West India Commission was appointed.Again, following the strikes and riots of 1946, an experiencedtrade unionist, Mr. F. W. Dalley, was sent out toreport on the allegations of maltreatment of trade unionistsand repressive Government action.All of these Commissions of enquiry were appointed inresponse to criticism coming from within the United Kingdom.When a Royal Commission was appointed, individualsof the competence and integrity that is expected of aRoyal Commission had to be selected. But an examinationof the personnel of these various Commissions seems toshow that people had to be appointed who held the coddenceof British public opinion. They were acceptable topublic opinion in Trinidad because they were people ofestabliied reputations and could view the problems fromoutside since they were not involved in the particular issues.None the less, their orientation was to the larger society,and it was through the crystallization of their criticismsof the social order that the universalistic-achievementscale of values made one of its most important impacts onthe island society.In the face of critical opinion those who had taken uponthemselves the burden of training the subject peoples forself-government took various courses of action in order toremedy the situation. The action taken was usually actionin Imperial perspective, and the general lines followed theprevailing dimate of opinion in the United Kingdom. Forvarious reasons, among which was the fact that the politicalmachinery of government was most easily responsiveto administrative control, recommendatbna for politicalchange were prominent. Hence, under the pressure ofpublic opinion, the most obvious sphere of reform was inconstitution changing. These constitutional changes wereall in the direction of increasing democracy.To the extent that adult suffrage and increased responsibilityof the elected members were accepted in the islandthere arose the problem that, if there was to be any realsurrender of power the Civil Service would have to beWest Indianized l%e demand for promotion within theCivil Service had in large measure been met only on thelower levels because of the lack of any schemes for thetraining of people for the higher positions. However,schemes were "pushed" and financed to a large extent bythe new Colonial Development and Welfare Organizationset up in the West Indies following the recommendationsof the Moyne Commission. Initiative came largely fromthe Secretary of State for the Colonies. Both programmeand performance outstripped any demands made by thearticulate section of Trinidad opinion. Toe process ofWest Indianization proceeded at such a rapid pace, nodoubt, because, due to war conditions and the existenceof full employment in Great Britain in the period immediatelyafter World War II, it became increasingly difficultfor the Colonial Office to fill senior appointments. However,an important point is, that altogether, in recruitingpeople within the service for scholarships and in subsequentpromotion, discrimination became increasingly dimcult.For one thing, the successful candidates had to followcourses attached to the universities, and therefore had

238 Stratification in Trinidadto be of sufficient ability to profit from these courses. Theassessment of their work on an objective basis by peopleaccustomed to such assessmente also ensured the recognitionof achievement. Even where, as in some cases, thetraining received was not attached to the university (suchas the training involved in secondment for work at theColonial Office) the candidates came under the scrutinyof people from outside the island society, who frequentlyhad no experience of colonial society and its particular¥e of prejudices.The overall effect of this achievement in the field ofadministration was reinforced by the general change inclimate of opinion that took place in the island society asa whole. The idea that elections should be held on thebasis of adult suffrage had been current in radical politicalcircles in Trinidad for quite a while. The championshipof the "barefooted man" by Captain Cipriani and the TrinidadLabour Party in the period immediately after the FirstWorld War, meant that in any reform less hention wouldhave to be paid to property qualifications. The generalmass support achieved by the Labour Party and its leaderindicated that the old 19th century conception of propertyqualifications was outmoded. In the terms of the development of the island the future belonged, like the 20th century,to the common man or, in terms of the island society,to the barefoot man. The grant of adult suffrage also ensuredfor the Colonial Office a breathing spell from hostilecriticism, since it gave a great deal of the external appearmceof democracy while the positions of real adminisea-@The problem involved in such assessment should not, however,be overlooked. On the one band where the training wasmerely the admission of colonial candidates to a course of trainingpreviously directed to U.K. Colonial Officers, there tendedto be carried over something of the imperial tradition into thetraining. More important was the fact that frequently universityprofessors, only vaguely aware of the limitations of colonial students,and with hazy notions of the capacity of students of dif-' ferent racial origin, tended to be over-generous in their estima-(ion of West Indian students' abilities. Furthermore, the studyof West Indian conditions had been more or less neglected.Lloyd Braithwaite 239tive authority remained in effective control.10 The symbolicsignificance as well as the practical importance of thevote was not lost. It meant a real gain to the black lowerclass.This movement towards increased democracy helped tospread even further the general ideas of equality then present.It is interesting to note that the House elected on adultsuffrage went on record, in principle, as being in favour offree secondary education for all, and that the number ofscholarships or free entry places to the secondary schoolswas incidentally increased from fifty-two to one hundred.11The long-vexed question of teachers* salaries forthe first time approached something in the nature of asatisfactory settlement and the number of open islandscholarships was increased from three to five.In the more subtle spheres of social life the politicaldemocratization also had its effects. Here we are only concernedto point out its effects on the achievement valuesof the society and in producing within the Civil Service acareer open to talent.10This is, of course, an interpretation bawd on the fact thatthis policy was only one of a number of possible alternatives.On the merits of the case there could be some justification foradvocating a course of development radically different from theone adopted. The explanation cannot be made in terms of "retional" grounds alone.11 "The large increase in free exhibitions and bursaries to secondaryschools meets a long overdue need. The provision ofmaintenance allowances opens the door for the first time to thebest brains from any corner of the colony" (Trinidad, Departmentof Education Report, 1948).

A Dominant Minority: The WhiteCreoles of ~artiniqueEdith ~ovats-~eaud0uxThe present situation of West Indian whites-always a crudallyimportant segment of the Antillean social order-isvirtually unknown. This lacuna is partly a consequence ofthe fact that social scientists have tended to shun the studyof elites and dominant minorities. The following selectionprovides an insight into the most entrenched and sociallyviable white population in the non-Hispanic Caribbean,the b6k6s of Martinique. These hitherto unpublished pagesdetail the organization of, and internal distinctions among,this long-resident elite. The white position in Jamaican andTrinidadian society, touched on previously in this sectionby M. G. Smith and Lloyd Braithwaite, sbould be comparedwith this vivid analysis of whites in Martinique.EDITH KOVATS-BEAUDOUX. a resident of France, was bornin Hungary, received her undergraduate degree from theUniversity of Montreal, and did her Martiniquan field workunder the auspices of the Department of Anthropology ofthe University of Montreal. Her doctorate is from theFaculty of Letters and Human Scieaces at the Universit6de Paris.DEFINITION AND CLASSIFICATION OP THE GROUPWhite Creoles are individuals born in Martinique, of theCaucasian race, whose families have lived on the islandfor many generations. This is the standard definition givenby the group itself, whose individual members might placemore or less emphasis on how long the family has beenestablished on the island. In principle, one is a Creole ifh i s ~ & b m a @ f i d , d ~ @ m m efamilies in Martinique for two or three generations are stillconsidered "newcomers." Almost completely French inorigin, the Creoles nevertheless also include a few famine*originally from other European countries cuch as' Oermanyor Portugal. In the preceding chapter [of Kovata'thesis], it was seen that the peopling of the island cameabout gradually and that certain families emigrated at differentperiods. Moreover, entire families were destroyed inthe catastrophe of 1902 [the eruption of Mont Pelke]. Innumerous genealogies, therefore, we find family namesthat are no longer represented in Martinique. In addition,other family names have become practically extinct, forthey are borne today only by females.We have counted 150 Creole family names on the is-Une minoriti dominante: les blancs crfoles de & Martinique,Doctoral thesis. University of Paris, 1969, excerpts, pp. 67-148.Translated by Marquita Riel wad Penelope M. Collins. Copyright@ 1973 Lambros Cornitas and David LowenthaL Printedwith permission of the author.

242 A Dominant Minorityland, but since each line furnishes a varying number ofbranches, this number has little significance. Thus we findsome family names (or patronyms) represented by onlyone or two nuclear families, whereas others are carried bymore than 100 individuals, split into many branches ofdifferent social standing. We have observed, for example,that sixteen patronymic families account for 50 percentof the Creole population of the island. Of these 150 patronymicfamilies, twenty-eight arrived before 1713 and represent39 percent of the total Creole population; thirtysevenarrived between 1713 and 1784 and make up 22percent of the population The families that arrived duringthe nineteenth century are 35 percent of the population;first or second generation families make up 4 percent.According to our figures, the Creole population of theisland (including students temporarily resident in Franceor abroad) totals 2,339, distributed as follows:Under 25 1,212 (643 boys, 569 girls)25-50 758 (396 men, 362 women)Over 50 369 (173 men. 196 women).By residence, this population is distributed as follows:Fort-&-France 1,309Rural counties 913Students in France 117. .At the same time, in every generation, many Creole8emigrate, mainly to France and Guadeloupe but also toFrench Guiana, Puerto Rico, the United States, and Canada.The approximate number of emigrants from the presentgeneration (parents and grandparents) is 1,560, towhich might be added an equal number of children. Butin this study, we are considering only those Creoles wholive in Martinique.We have divided the working population into occupationalcategories, a task complicated by the fact that an individualmay be active in more than one sector at thesame time. Therefore our figures can be only approxi-{nations :Edith Kovats-BeaudouxPrimary sector142 (agriculture)Secondary sector73 (industry)Tertiary sector374 (service)Professions, religious orders,retired, and not defined 47.From the point of view of social rank, the figures are asfollows:Employers and proprietors 153Senior and junior executives 217Employees 88.It is noteworthy that white informants who were askedto estimate the number of individuals in their own groupgave widely differing answers, ranging from 2,000 to5,000, with the figure most frequently submitted being3,500. Thus Creoles noticeably overestimate their numericalimportance, thereby revealing their sense of their ownworth and of their role in society.Their definition of themselves and their very slow acceptanceof new immigrants, which contrasts with processesobserved in other countries of the New World,l areperhaps a result of their insular position. Confined forgenerations to a tiny island, often quite cut off from theexternal world, even from France, living in virtual iaolation.fightiag the economic demands of France and thepower of its representatives, and observing suspiciouslythe rise of the colored bourgeoisie, the white Creoles have,in effect, found it easy to develop an autarchic way of lifeas well as a strong feeling of identification with their owngroup. The small size of the island fosters dose contactsbetween individuals and facilitates strong social control;isolation checks rapid progress and makes the preservationof traditional values easier. These are ecological fac-1 Exception* must be noted, however. Hence in Brazil, wheremixed marriage* are numerous, there ia a similar structure:families that go back 400 years, even if they are bankrupt, con-st~tute the social elite of the awntry; they tend toward cndogaa~yand avoid foreign whites' mixing with them through marriage.

244 A Dominant Minoritytors of prime importance to the life of the group, and theirinfluence can be seen at all levels. Creoles view themselves,with some ethnocentricity, as the descendants of slaveholdingplanters and rank themselves above others on theground that these ancestors were masters and soldiers offortune. They have a sense of belonging to an exclusivecaste that has always had economic control of the island:'It is we who have created this country, who have made itwhat it is. Even now, it is we who make the wheels of industryturn, who cultivate the land, even if it is often notvery profitable. The Blacks do not want land, they onlythink about being officials. If we were to leave the island,there would be anarchy, and from an economic point ofview, a half-century setback." This feeling, manifesteddespite the heterogeneous social origins of the Bbkds[white Creoles], determines certain attitudes, to be discussedlater, toward other social groups.The Creoles' view of themselves as occupying a placeapart from others is illustrated by the way they describethe Martiniquan social structure. All our informants' answerson this point have been almost identical. The principalcriterion of social differentiation is race, which dividesthis society in two: on the one hand, there are thewhites; on the other, the mulattoes and blacks. These aretwo very distinct groups that do not mix except in businessrelationships or sometimes in relationships of camaraderie,among men only. These categories are furthersubdivided by criteria of wealth. The society can thus bedivided into the following classes; first, the Creoles; second,a colored uaristoeracy," composed of wealthy and/oreducated mulattoes who socialize only among themselves;third, a lower middle class in comfortable circumstances;and last, the mass of the population, urban and agriculturallaborers. Most informants stress the fact that whileCreoles still constitute a group apart, this distinction wasstill more rigorously maintained ten or twenty years ago.They say that nowadays Grands Muldtres [the coloredaristocracy] frequently socialize with Creole families andEdith Kovats-Beaudoux 245are even invited to their funerals.% Very few of thosequeried thought to mention the Metropolitans- [residentsborn in maidand France], numbering several thousand.The Creoles are generally little interested in them. but itwas called to our attention that high ranking Metropolitandignitaries readily socialize with the Creole elite of the island.The foreigner arriving in Martiniquo is immediatelystruck by the almost impenetrable unity of the Creolegroup and also by the fact that one can either remain indefinitelyand completely outside of it or, on the otherhand, become completely enmeshed in it. A Metropolitanwoman, the wife of a Creole, told us: "It is quite dear,they always say, 'We Bkkkf\ they are as one."However, this group is far from being homogeneous,except in tern of race, which is the essential ~~for belonging to it. An internal hierarchy has existed sincethe start of colonization. . . . Three principal subgroup*are generally distinguished, together with a fourth marginalsubgroup.The Grands Bbkds. The upper class consists of thosefamilies whose members are commonly called Gnu Bbkisand who as a rule possess both wealth and name. Theyare masters of the island, being descendants, for the mostpart, of old established families who generation after snerationhave been able not only to maintain their wealthbut even to increase it. Numerically this class is now quitesmall, constituting only about 10 percent of the Creolepopulation. According to our informants, it consist* ofabout fifteen families; but if the two criteria of wealth andname were followed rigorously, it would apply to ten familiesat the most. These families pass for a homogeneousgroup, a closed society, and socialize only among them-Â¥elves In fact, for a number of reasons, the reality is morecomplex.2 In this regard, one mulatto commented: "Ya, we are sometimesinvited to funerals, but never to baptism or to weddinfs."

246 A Dominant MinoritySome of these families are numerically among the largest,and they therefore include various branches which,bearing the same patronym, should all be able to considerthemselves members of the upper or ruling class. But althoughwealth is hard to evaluate precisely, it is clear thatdifferent branches of the same family are often in differentfinancial circumstances. The "poor" branches, while enjoyingthe prestige of the patronym and the general respectaccorded it, are not admitted to the ruling class but arerelegated to a lower rank. Their members are receivedin the usual fashion by the rest of the family but, sincethey are not really on an equal footing, a certain uneasinesspersists. And if the difference in wealth is too great,they are at times even excluded. Other families of the rulingclass-those not bearing the same patronym-have littleto do with them. Different financial circumstances thuscreate barriers between members of the same extendedfamily; some belong entirely to high society while othersare relegated to the middle class. Since the prestige of anuclear family is closely linked with the frequency andmanner of its entertaining, as well as with its general lifestyle, the members of the poorer branches cannot keep upwith their more fortunate cousins.Therefore, despite the enduring luster attached to apatronym, inequalities of wealth separate families bearingthe same name, however prestigious it may be. Thus a subgroupis not a homogeneous entity but rather a frameworkfor classifying together a number of families while ignoringthe differences among them. This method of categorizationis tantamount to saying: "The Godards are a greatfamily, they bear one of the best names, they own a factoryand many hectares of land"; but not including in this statementthe nuclear family of Lionel Godard, which wouldbe considered a "minor branch."Within the ruling class in the strict sense of the termthere is a remnant of the old rivalry between city andcountry dwellers. The former, big merchants and exporters,especially those who live in the residential sectionof Didier [the most exclusive suburb of Fort-de-France,Edith Kovats-Beaudoux 247the capital], tend to form an exclusive community. Consciousof their progressive role as the island's economicleaders, they consider themselves more sophisticated anddynamic. It is noteworthy that our informants, when askedto describe the internal structure of the Creole group, alwaysplaced urban dwellers before landowners in theelite class, afErming that the landowners had lostimportance. Landowners and factory owners, when questioned,maintained the opposite, claiming for themselvesa kind of privilege of nobility or seniority based on theiroccupations. But can we, therefore, really speak of a riftbetween urban and rural? Given the present socioeconomicconditions this distinction seems quite arbitrary, forif there are feelings of rivalry or superiority, they arebased on rather superficial points of form and prestige.Urban dwellers reproach country dwellers for living inisolation, for being at times a bit uncouth, but the latterrite in their own favor the nobility of the land. In fact,the large landowners enjoy great prestige because theyrepresent tradition, a bygone way of life, reflected in theirmanner of entertaining. But this tradition is now breakingdown, especially since the difficult period that the sugarindustry has undergone. Notwithstanding the differencesnoted, there is no great distinction between urban andrural, at least as far as the upper class is concerned. Moreover,from an economic point of view, agricultural andcommercial activities are closely related and interdependent;while at the same time, we find hardly any families.except at the lower level, which can be considered eitherentirely urban or entirely rural. Rather the family wilhave some members occupying key administrative podtiomon the land, othem in tJm city managing tMr d i mcommerd undertakhg8, and even, in certain nomerepresentatives in France. In any case, town and countryelements remain in constant contactThere are two other categories of upper-class families,occupying a lower rank because they do not possess bothname and wealth. Some are of very good name. oftendescending from old, illustrious, and formerly important

248 A Dominant Minorityand wealthy families; but having grown progressivelypoorer, they now possess only average means. Among ourlist of patronyms, eighteen can be placed in this category,although, here again, some branches are wealthier thanothers. With regard to these families, the same phenomenonis occurring in Martinique as in France, where anold family, although relatively impoverished, still remain*esteemed; socially if not economically, its members stillbelong to the upper class. Conscious of their past, andalso sometimes of the fact that they live on their capital,they tend to think that they represent and must defendtraditional values; hence the rigidity of their moral andracial attitudes. On the other band. there are familieswehave counted eight-who, although not bearing a"great" name, are classified among the elite mainly becauseof their wealth. Without going so far as to use theterm nouveaux riches, our informants nevertheless pointedout that the wealth of these families was relatively recentand was acquired primarily in commerce and in the bananaindustry. For some time perceptibly excluded, thesefamilies have now been accepted into high social circles,owing to the increased importance of economic criteria.By the same token, the prestige of their names has beenenhanced.It is obviously within this subgroup [Grands BMs]that one finds the leaders of Creole society and, at leastfrom an economic point of view, of Martinique. Someindividuals still hold several offices simultaneously-for example,key posts in agriculture, commerce, and bankingalthoughthey were more numerous and powerful in thepast. For instance, the most important member of a familyrather recently established, which has become very wealthyin two generations, simultaneously owns and rents estatesspecializing in banana cultivation, sugarcane, and stockfanning; he is also an importer and a wholesale merchantof fertilizers and chemicals, an exporter of bananas, preaidentof the administrative council of a local bank.vice-president of SICABAM [the banana producers' association],and vice-president of the organization of rum ex-Edith Kovats-Beaudoux 249porters. These men also travel the most; they go to Franceor elsewhere many times a year, primarily on businesstrips. Finally, this upper class, although not homogeneous,is for many reasons highly conscious of its status, quiteexclusive, and distrustful of anyoneÑCreol or foreignerwhotries to enter its rank*.B^kfs Moyens. The second large subgroup is that ofthe W s Mayens, composed of the less wealthy branchesof families of the preceding subgroup and of respectablefamilies whose name and wealth do not. however, havethe prestige of the Grands Btkts. Of our list of patronyma,about thirty have been classified in this category. But hereagain, the situation is not uniform, some fadies beingslightly superior to others either in name or in wealth.Incomes are middling, ranging from about 1,800 to 3,600francs per month, although the group includes better-offfamilies with incomes up to 5,000 francs per month.This subgroup manifests no distinction between city andcountry. Some of the urban dwellers own businesses andare self-employed, but most of them constitute the administrativecadres in the enterprises owned by the GrowlsBikis. Many in this subgroup are landowners, but theypossess neither large estates nor factories. Some cultivatecane or bananas, practice stock farming, or operate smalldistilleries. Others have managerial positions in the faetoriesor on the plantations of Grands Bfkfs, . living . onthe estates with their families. In the past, -VOposts were much sought by those who were not themselveslandowners, for the administrator actmllythe estate and kept a good part of the profits, the owneroften being absorbed in the management of another estate.The most beautiful houses to be seen in Martinique werein many cases those of estate a-n. This situationhas since changed; the owner now runs hia own estateand employs members of his family, his heirs, in the administrativepositions.This large subgroup is the one to which the fewest stereotypesare attached. Intermediate between tho Grands

250 A Dominant Minorityand Petits BMs, it nonetheless sharply keeps its distancefrom the Petits. Those interviewed also held a markedlydualistic view of Creole society, distinguishing the Petitson the one hand and lumping together all the rest on theother. Although the Bkkks Moyens recognize the existenceof a ruling minority, they emphasize the fact that it is onlywealth that separates them from it, since they share thesame value system. Some are a little bitter about the exclusivityof high society and about the meager extent oftheir contact with it. They are aware that they are relatedto these privileged families but complain that these tiesare worthless: "We see them, so to speak, only at weddings,funerals, and of course, at election meetings sincewe are all of the same party."This subgroup thus occupies a middle position and, likeall middle classes, it is the most difficult to delineate becauseit is the most fluid, the least defined in its oridn~,and has the most permeable boundaries. Its members arethe most apt to change levels in the hierarchy, given anopportunity for social mobility. There is no doubt aboutthe existence of the class itself, but the identity of its individualmembers is subject to frequent change.Petits Blancs. The third subgroup is known as the PetitsBlancs. It is composed of about thirty families of modestname and small income but, here again, financial differencesappear. Some urban families lead meager lives, eitherrunning small businesses or, more often, living on smallsalaries from enterprises belonging to other Creoles. Butthe true Petits Blancs, the most numerous and the poorest,are usually to be found in the country. This type of family,referred to in English as "poor white." occurs in everyplantation society of the Western Hemisphere. These peaple,with families usually exceeding four children, oftenlive in less than moderate circumstances, but they do notgive the impresiy of misery or of physical degradation,as, for example, do some whites on the islands of St.Barthklemy or Reunion.In Martinique, the Petits Blancs are called Bekes enEdith Kovats-Beaudoux 25 1bas feuille and those of the countryside, Bikts Goyavesor Bitacos. The latter sometimes own a few hectares ofland, and they manage to increase their means of subsistenceby growing vegetables and raising a few animalsfor domestic consumption. Most are employed by otherwhites, sometimes as managers, but more often as foremen,mechanics, cashiers, and the like. Generally paidfrom 800 to 1,200 francs a month, they are housed bytheir employers. Lacking the means to become independentor, in most cases, to gain an education, they are wonengrossed by the need to earn a living. Thus, in manyfamilies, the job of foreman is handed down from fatherto son. In short, their situation is unfortunate; lacking thepower to assert their rights, they are often exploited. Theyparticipate in no trade union activities, and when theyventure to do so, they are to all purposes rejected by thewhite community. They probably sder more as a consequenceof their social position than the colored foremenor managers, since they are highly conscious of theirstatus: they feel at the same time excluded from the circleof higher-level Creoles and despised by the colored whohave achieved a better economic position. Their pridewounded, most of them direct their bitterness toward otherCreoles: "We are white like them, yet they never inviteus, our young people never mix with their children. Whenwe meet in the street, they barely say 'Good day.' Whatblights everything here is the question of money; becausethey have more, they think that they are superior to usand no longer recognize us; often they even pretend notto know about the family ties that exist between us." Thepoorer, who feel more isolated, mix a great deal with theMetropolitans, for example, with the policemen who livein town, and the men are in frquent contact with theblacks. However, interracial relationships are forbidden towhite women, who are very "protected." Above all theyvalue their white status, since at their social level theylack economic superiority. Consequently, they prefer to beclosely dependent on their employers, whose prestige theyhope will reflect on them. Obligated to the wealthiest

252 A Dominant Minoritywhites and asserting their membership in the Creole group,they are thus the real allies of their employers, whoseinterests they defend and whose political tendencies theyespouse in order to safeguard their own status as Creoleswithin the larger society.How do the members of other subgroups view the PetitsBlancs? First, they define the Bitacos as poor rural familiesdistinguished by their "rusticpp traits. In the past, whenfrom time to time they came to town, they were conspicuousin dress, somewhat old-fashioned and uncouth.Nowadays, differences in attire tend to disappear, butsince the Petits Blancs always live among themselves inthe countryside, they are "ill-bred," they lack "style." Inaddition, they are accused of vulgarity in manner of expressionand style of life, of being dull and clumsy, andof speaking Creole more often than French. At this pointof the inventory, our informant generally adds that, tobe sure, there are Bitacos among the rich families of thecountryside but "it is not the same," because the latterare "saved by their name," and even though their appearance and language are somewhat loutish, they are not,for all that, Petits Bikfs Goyaves. The latter have indeedan attitude all their own: they have an inferiority complexvis-1-vis other Creoles because they are poor and cannotentertain them. This is why they prefer not to associatewith them at all but to live among themselves. Furthermore,they are not educated-but, at this point, our informantnotes that, of course, as long as there were noscholarships for whites, they could not afford higher educationand that this situation is now getting better. It isalso mentioned that they do not really have the ambitionor the will to improve their condition, that they tend toreason more like employees than like employers. Finally,it is held against them that they mix freely with the blacks.if not by marriage, at least by association, so much sothat they might be considered closer to the blacks thanto the Creoles and that therefore they have a very limitedview of the world.Stereotypes about this subgroup are thus numerous andEdith Kovots-Beoudoux 253persistent. Most higher-ranking Creoles acknowledge thatthis group includes some very decent white families whichcannot be held responsible for styles of life and ways ofthinking that, in the final analysis, depend on lack of 5-nancial opportunity. Others, however, appear more sevenin their judgments. For example, one of our informants, athirty-year-old descendant of a grancte famille, who managesvarious estates in the north of the island, spoke abouta neighboring lower-class family as follows: "They workfor my father. When their daughter got married, theyinvited me; I honored them with my presence, but I do notusually socialize with them. Besides, I wonder if they arequite white." This young man may be an extreme case, butthe fact remains that one does not readily socialize withBitacos, and, if one sees them occasionally, one does notbecome intimate with them. Furthermore, it is signihntthat informants from other subgroups, questioned aboutmarriages, could give exhaustive and precise informationon spouses and numbers of children. They could go backtwo or three generations and even calculate the amountof wealth involved. (This extensive knowledge is understandable,given the small size of the island and the closerelationships maintained among families.) But wheneverit was a question of Petits Blancs families, we were ableto obtain very little information, if any. A frequent reactionwas: "He is a White, but I do not know him at all.He lives in the neighborhood of Trinit6. He must be asmall businessman and he has many children, but this isall I know." Others had not even heard of such and sucha family. Another quite typical response concerns a cashierin a factory bearing the same patronym as the informant:"Why, I did not even know that fellow existed."Such recurrent lacunae in a society where everybodyknows everybody else-"besides, we are all a bit relatedncannotbe due solely to chance.Not Quite White. Finally, the last, highly marginal çubgroup comprises some fourteen patronyms belonging tofamilies "miscegenaled or not quite white, but who want

254 A Dominant Minorityto pass for white." This is a rather fine distinction, for themembers of these families are phenotypically exactly likethe Bekes, and only a good genealogical knowledge warrantsassertions of the difference. In effect, miscegenation(dsdliance), that is, the entrance of a colored elementinto the family, is often a unique case harking back severalgenerations, leaving no apparent trace. Nevertheless,the distinction endures: they are not white, and althoughthe wealthier among them are tolerated from an economicpoint of view, the Bikis prefer to exclude them socially.Two comments should be added about these families.First, is it certain that they are not "quite white"? Creolesthemselves do not always hold the same opinion about agiven family. When we compiled the list of patronyms,some families were considered white by some Creoles butnot by others. Our count includes as white families recognizedas such by most Creoles. But we have also includedfamilies who, though not reputed to be white, almost certainlyare, according to an informant long interested inthe history of Martinique and the compiler of a collectionof genealogies. Indeed, some of the recently establishedfamilies are little known to a majority of Creoles, whoregard them with some suspicion. All that is needed tospread rumors about the "purity" of a recently establishedfamily is for one member of an old family to express adoubt. Doubt is similarly expressed about the purity of verypoor families whose members are in occupations consideredunworthy. Additionally, this category includes a familythat is actually white but whose ancestors were theillegitimate children of a parish priest. Are the bearersof this patronym excluded and not considered white bymost Creoles because of ignorance or because of the infringementon traditional morality? Another case came toour attention in questioning the wife of a Creole belongingto the first subgroup [Grands Bikks]. She mentionedthat her sister (who is married to her husband's brother)was worried about her son wanting to marry Miss X, givingthe name of a white family related to many other highlyrespected families. Our surprise elicited this explanation:Edith Kovats-Beaudoux 255"But this family is not quite white, there has been comething. .." It is thus quite difficult to obtain a t e informationin this regard. Nevertheless it n possible thatthe isolated nature of Martiniquan life and the dose tie*among many Creole families have favored a relatively extensiveknowledge of genealogy, which can be used toexclude the lesser-known families. It is also possible thatrivalries or resentments are the original icurces of suchdisparagements.The second comment arises out of a discussion we hadwith a Creole who is also a specialist on the history of theisland and of various white families. He has compiled thecomplete genealogy of his own family (which is part of theG r d Bikks subgroup) as well as of all related familhAmong the latter, he mentioned an ancestor married to awoman "who was not white." Hence this family, of ancientstock and related to numerous Creole families, and unanimouslyconsidered white, would not in actuality be "quite"white. But, added our interlocutor, "it is not known andI will not reveal it, because then, their whole system wouldfall apart." This clearly indicates the frailty of that systemand the arbitrary nature of many distinctions.The white Creole group is thus far from homogeneous,and a considerable distance often separates the variousstrata. Stereotypes still stronger and more persistent thanthe actual divergences between subgroups further contributeto fragment the small Creole group. This group isdivided in the usual fashion according to economic criteria,but other finer distinctions, perceptible only in thelocal context, such as name, seniority, and good manners,play an important role in the making of the social hierarchy.The past still continues to weigh heavily on thisgroup.FAMILY AND HOUSEHOLDBefore examining how this protective structure and itsmechanisms are expressed in h choice of a spouse and

256 A Dominant Minoritywhat collective attitudes that choice reflects, let us analyzebriefly the family and household.Among white Creoles, the family (the patronym) immediatelyidentifies the individual, who unless he becomesa "leaderS*-quite a rare occurrence-notonly depends onhis family but is immersed in it to the detriment of his individualidentity. . . . Many informants told us that thefamily formed a kind of clan; the more distinctive oneshave their own customs, jokes, indeed, their own language,to such an extent that a stranger in the circle-a newspouse, for example-feels left out and must spend a considerabletime adapting to ways of living that could almostbe called a subculture. Families willingly ascribe to themselvessuch flattering traits as intelligence or originality,and this quality will be considered as their general definingtrait. The child is first raised in the cult of the name,then in that of the social group to which it belongs.Family identity is one of the dominant bases of the rigidsocial mores on which this society depends. The extendedfamily coincides with the circle of friends. When we askedour informants which people they saw most often andwith the most pleasure, an overwhelming majority specifiedrelatives from all generations and related branchesof the family. Many receptions are given solely for membersof the extended family, and holidays as well as vacationsare spent together. We have noted the case of a groupof related families, one of which possesses a small islandoff the Martiniquan coast. The island is covered with cottagesbelonging to these related families, and in the summer,they spend time together there.Two or three times a year, during holidays, the variousbranches of a family meet in the home of the eldest memberon the paternal side; however, the meeting can takeplace in the home of a member of the maternal side, ifthis part of the family is obviously more important or isreputed to be especially hospitable or powerful. At othertimes, members of the same family often meet in smallergatherings; men for example go fishing with cousins,women visit an aunt or a sister-in-law during an afternoon.Edith Kovats-Bedoux 257They frequently invite one another to meals. An interestingcase in point is afforded by the Creoles who live in thevillages: several of the men go to Fortde-Francc a fewtimes a week on business; almost everyone, includingwives on shopping tours, makes the trip at least once aweek, usually on Thursday. Thus hundreds of rural Creolesare apt to be in town on the same day. Yet at meal timethey cannot be found in restaurants; they are all invited tolunch by family members.The Creole family, as an entity, offers great security tomen and women of all ages. The individual is aware thathe is surrounded by people who know him, who have affectionfor him; he has reliable allies and does not feelisolated. The boy who looks for work, the woman who bocomesa widow, each knows to whom to turn. Most of ourinformants, when asked why they like to live in Martiniqueor if they would consider living elsewhere, anphasiithis familial aspect of their lives. At this point, moreover,the term familk is extended to apply to the whole Creolegroup, which is often considered one large family, thoughthis is far from objective truth. In reality, the fact thatthey bear a well-known name, familiar not only to thewhites but also to a good number of colored people, givesthe Creole the feeling that, come what may, he will notbe alone. Numerous informants, even young ones, assertedthat what they would fear most, if they had to settle elsewhere,was solitude-struggling alone to overcome competitionand to make their way: "In a big country, there isan attitude of almoet automatic, frantic selMmss-a strugglefor life that is not to be found in the colonies, whereWhites have always helped one another. Here one findsa generosity, a kindness, which does not exist in countrieslike France." Another facet of this feeling M revealed bya young Creole from a well-known family but who ishimself of modest means and without a diploma. He isemployed in a garage belonging to an upper-class family:"I would not like to go elsewhere, because with my levelof education I could not find the equivalent type of work;and even if I found it, I would be a 'nobody'l I could

258 A Dominant Minoritysocialize only with other petty employees, whereas hereI will always be a Godard."Each family takes such pride in its name that even theadoption of children is criticized. We know of a youngcouple who had adopted two children; the "patriarch,"head of the clan, was so displeased that he did not wantthem to bear his name. Each family is above all concernedwith protecting its name and reputation. If a member behavescontrary to the norms, the family will gather togetherto discuss the situation and take preventive measures.For example, in the case of a boy who mixes toomuch with colored girls, members of the family will warnhim, fearing that be may get attached to one and want tolegitimize the liaison; if be persists, he will be sent to theMetropole. Similarly, a girl's brothers will look after her,indeed, supervise her social life, check her companions'identities, and make sure that her behavior in society doesnot arouse scandal. A somewhat more margid exampleis that of a young Bikt from a pande familk who becameinvolved in illicit political activities in France. Onlearning of this, his family made him return to Martinique,and he thereby avoided prosecution. Familial solidaritythus clearly emerges when a member of the group deviatesfrom the norm or when he needs help. If a person drinksexcessively or if he goes bankrupt, he will be kept homeor his debts will be paid, because he must not harm thereputation of the family. If a young cousin or a nephewneeds a job, one will be found for him-probably in afamily enterprise-even if his hiring necessitates the dismissalof a colored employee. But, if the job is sought bya relative from a poor branch of the family, the feelingof solidarity takes on a strong color of necessity and 0x10"resigns oneself" to helping.Familial solidarity is not absolute, however, since factorsthat can divide a family do exist. Economic rivalries canprovoke permanent estrangements- topic we will returnto later. Moreover, as we have seen, a rich branch of afamily practically never socializes with those of very modestlank. Creoles are ashamed of their poor relations, some-Edith Kovats-Beaudoux 259times to the point of denying any close kinship ties. Finally,the extreme case is that involving mixed marriage:a Creole who marries a colored person can be repudiatedby his family, which very often will not even know whatkind of work be does or bow many children be has.Insofar as the name or the reputation of a family playan important rote in determining the social status of itsmembers, they understandably tend to avoid any incidentsthat might damage that reputation. Should the occasionarise, the ensuing sanctions are approved and implementedby the whole Creole group. Since the latter is but the sumtotal of a small number of families closely connected bykinship and marriage, the Creole group makes every cffortto safeguard its integrity before the outside world. If,despite everything, an individual rejects the principle*which have been inculcated in him, his whole subgroup,if not the entire Creole population, feels attacked andbetrayed.MARRIAGE AND CHOICE OF SPOUSEBoth the theoretical and practical importance of marriagefor such a group as the white Creoles is quite obvious.This institution is the backbone of the group, whichis organized entirely around it, and the choice of a spousebecomes a vital operation with weighty consequences forthe collective future. Numerous marriages between Mkfsand colored people would soon end in the dismantling ofthe group as a racial entity. Similarly, frequent unionswith Metropolitans or foreigners would result, notablythrough the mechanism of inheritance, in a perceptibledispersion of wealth toward the outside world and simultaneouslyin an increasing control of Btkt assets byforeign elements. Marriage, at the level of the choice of aspouse, constitutes one of the mechanisms that guards thesetwo potential points of disintegration. In our opinion, it isthe most important mechanism, lying at the center of thedynamics of the group.

260 A Dominant MinorityWithout having carried out an exhaustive statisticalanalysis, by sex, of the choice of marriage partners, butkeeping in mind a number of economic and social criteria,our census allowed us to obtain a satisfactory approximationand to observe some marked regularities. Includingall marriages contracted by Creoles of the grandparentaland parental generations, we obtain the following results.Marriages of men with:Creole women 498Metropolitan women 81Foreign women 27Colored women 21Marriages of women with:Creole men 498Metropolitan men 105Foreign men 23Colored men 9On the other hand, excluding persons who married andlive abroad and couples who have emigrated after theirmarriage, that is, counting only married Creoles living inMartinique, the proportion of foreign spouses is very small:sixty-two men have non-native wives-forty-four fromMetropolitan France, eight foreigners (German, American,Chadian, etc.), five Trinidadh~, four Guadeloupeans,and one St. Lucian. All ten women from the threeCaribbean islands are white descendants of French familieslong established there. As for Creole women, thirtyonehave non-Martiniquan husbands: twenty-six are Metropolitans,two are Guadeloupeans, and three areforeigners. These few observations suffice to draw the followingconclusions: first, the Creole group exhibits astrong tendency toward endogamy, especially if we consideronly the couples living in Martinique. Moreover, ofthose who marry nomatives, many emigrate, particularlythe women. Fimally, marriages between Creoles and coloredpeople do occur, but their number remains extremelyEdith Kmats-Beaudoux 261low. Interestingly, the Creole men who marry coloredwomen belong to no particular subgroup, but are diitributedamong the different social strata. On the other hand,we have found no case of a Creole woman belonging to agrande famille who has married a colored man, and toour knowledge there is only one example of hypergamy,wherein a woman brought whiteness as a dowry in returnfor her colored husband's wealth.We discussed the choice of a marriage partner with ourinformants: first, in order to bring out stereotypes, weasked them to define a beau &age (a good marriage),a term often heard in Martinique; then, we asked whichcriteria played the greatest role in choosing a spouse; last,referring to a term often used by Creoles, we asked whata me'salliance is. Our informants gave us almost identicalanswers. The expression beau mariage, besides evokingthe splendor of the ceremony and reception, has manymeanings: it applies either to a marriage between twowealthy people or to any marriage with someone from avery superior socioeconomic level-one might say, "He(she) has made a beau mariage"; it is also used whenboth partner belong to esteemed families and appear wellsuited, likely to create a harmonious household. As forthe choice of a spouse, many criteria come into play, themost important being racial, exclusion applying to mulattoes,blacks, "coolies" [East Indians], and also Syrians.Then account is taken of the social class, standard ofliving (wealth), name, and upbringing of the future mate,be he or she Creole or alien to the island. Nationality andreligion are only secondary factors: parents quite definitelyprefer their child to marry a Creole and a Catholic, but,should such not be the case, they will not oppose the union,provided that the future mate is white and of acceptablesocial rank. The term misalliance then appliesto marriages that contravene the group's principal criteriaof selection. In principle, this term is used only in the caseof a Creole marrying a colored person (mixed marriage),but it is used frequently in a wider sense when an individualmarries someone of a much lower social level.

262 A Dominant MinorityRacial criteria. To view the institution of marriage fromthe perspective of race seems easy at first. We have alreadyseen that the primary qdcation for belonging to theCreole group is to be white. We have also seen how strictthe social control and the norms are on that matter, withevery legal union of a white and a colored person beingpenalized, even by expulsion from the group. The child'swhole social upbringing tends to reinforce this rule in hismind and to impress upon him the inviolability of thesystem. As a result, many young people do not even dreamof the possibility of marrying a colored person, and others,having thought of it, pronounce categorically against it:"I would never many a Black girl, and I would not wantmy sister to marry a Black man," said a young BU, adding,"I know them too well." Creoles of all age* manifesta negative opinion of mixed marriages, although there areindividual nuances in the way they express this. An extremecase is represented by a planter who said to us: "Instock rearing, you crossbreed only to obtain animals for theslaughterhouse." On the other hand, a young B6k6 told us:"Of course, I would like to marry a Creole girl, but if Ihad to envisage another choice, I would rather marry arespectable Mulatto girl from here than the daughter of aFrench concierge." Many informants asserted that theywere opposed to mixed marriages, not because of racismbut because such unions are a priori doomed to failure;the differences of mental habit between the two spouses istoo great to overcome, and the social pressures on suchcouples eventually crush them: "They will no longer bewelcomed socially by either the Whites or the Blacks, theywill become embittered." As for the white woman whomarries a black man, the comments stress the overbearingand unfaithful character of "the blacks": "A Metropolitanwoman might conceivably many a Black man, becauseshe does not know what she is getting into, but we, whoknow them, know that they cannot make a White womanhappy." It is quite evident that Creoles seek to rationalizetheir attitude toward mixed marriages, but in finding themotive for their opposition in the social pressure exertedEdith Kovats-Beaudoux 263against such couples, they are at one and the same timevictims of, and active participants in, this social pressure.When asked if they would entertain at home a friendmarried to a colored woman, they all answered that theywould certainly not receive the wife and that, on secondthought, they would not receive the friend either, because"it would get around and we would be held in low esteem;besides, the friend himself would probably prefer not tocome, because .k would feel ill at ease." Thus members ofthe group not only feel obliged to dissociate tbemselvcafrom the excluded individual for fear of being in turn exeluded,but in addition, they project their disapprobationon him in believing-or pretending to believe-that he onhis part fed* shame. A young Bikt, who has himselfcontracted a m^salliance. described at length hh family'!opposition, his own stubbornness, the step taken by hufather to have his Creole employer fire him: "I have beenmarried for five years, but it's only since last year that I'vebeen seeing my parents again. On the other band, theyhave never wanted to see either my wife or my childrenOnly my sister comes to visit us. All the B6k6s, my friendsand others, have completely rejected me. They pretendthat I am bitter, unhappy, and that this is the reason whyI am interested in syndicalism. They do not want to orcannot accept that I love my wife, that I am happy, andthat I am involved with trade unionism because I am awareof the conditions in which most Blacks are living. Forthe Whites, I am a traitor, and I have turned against them."This obsession against marrying anyone who might have"black blood* is one reason a Creole knows-or claimsto know-the genealogical tree of almost every family; thename of the family thus becomes a guarantee of purity.So many precautions, such clearly defined norms, suchharsh punishments should make mixed marriages rare exceptions.Yet we have found about thirty cases of themoccurring today on the island, distributed among the threemain subgroups previously cited, and including comeCreole women. Fewer white women than white men areinvolved in mixed marriages, partly because the offense b

264 A Dominant Minorityconsidered more serious when committed by a woman.Moreover, everything in a white girl's upbringing andsocial life keeps her at a distance from the black man andmakes her feel distaste for him, whereas the Creole youthis in frequent contact with colored women. It should beemphasized, however, that mdsalliance cannot be quantified-it is above all a qualitative matter. Indeed, the case willdepend on whether a Creole marries a person of mixedblood or someone classified only as "not quite white." Thelatter is as discreditable as the former, but the degradationaffects only the guilty party and his future descendants,not the rest of his family, which keeps itself in good standingwith the clan by repudiating the "misallied" or, if itcontinues to see him or her, by refusing to entertain thespouse. Moreover, if the "misallied" Creole occupies a higheconomic position, he keeps his Bkkd relationships morereadily than if he is of modest means and thereby at theirmercy.Mixed marriage is thus more frequent than Creoles aregenerally willing to admit. It is considered a blemish, andthe parents of the "misallied" will often feel embarrassedwith other Bkkks. Many informants, not wanting to talkabout these mixed marriages, denied that they even existed.Creoles consider the maintenance of the white race and itspurity their sacred duty, and every mixed marriage is considereda stain.Marriage outside the group. Granted that the choice of aspouse in principle excludes colored elements, to what extentdo marriages occur at random among the white population?Some informants said that there were no rules andthat one could marry anyone, provided, of course, thathe or she was white. But it must be noted that traditionalnorms excluded a priori any element alien to the group,even though white. We have seen that even today the vastmajority of marriages occur within the Creole group itself.Few men from metropolitan France have settledpermanently in Martinique after a marriage there. Thosewho do usually look after enterprises owned by their wives9Edith Kovats-Beaudoux 265families. The children for the most part are well integratedinto the Creole milieu, although it will be mentioned inspeaking that one of their parents is not a Creole. As forthe alien spouse, he will be accepted to the extent that beadheres to the values of the group and submits to its socialnorms. The acceptance of outsiders, mostly French (youngMetropolitans of both sexes are being invited with greaterfrequency to parties at Creoles* homes), and the growingnumber of young Btkis studying in France tend to favorthe increase of auch marriages. This phenomenon is relalivelyrecent and prompted a Guadeloupean woman tosay: "The Btkts have become less racist; they manyMetropolitans." Still, one does not many any Metropolitan:a marriage with a person from the "common people"is not well thought of and can border on mtsailiance. Butif the inquiry into the family of the future spouse turnsout satisfactorily, consent will be given.Marriage within the group. Since most marriages areendogamous,* what then are the criteria of selectionwithin the group? It is often said of a family that "it isallied to another, itself allied to a third, which in turn isallied to the first." In other words', there are marriagecircles, and informants can identify many of them withoutdifficulty. Also, there are many cases of marriage betweenfirst or second cousina. Such cases occur far too frequentlyfor them to be considered coincidental. A womantrying to explain the relatively large number of marriagesbetween cousins told us that until quite recently, girls wereclosely supervised and kept busy, alone or among others,with reading, embroidering, and the like. They were marriedat a very young age and often to a cousin, for thecircle of their male friends did not extend beyond thefamily, and they were only rarely allowed to meet strangers.. . . In this context it is noteworthy that our informant's¥N study baa been made of the rate of consanguinity inthe Creole group; many informants assured us that it does notexceed that of a small French provincial town. Wo think thatit would probably be higher.

266 A Dominant Minorityparents, themselves cousins and products of many generationsof marriages between cousins, warned her againstconsanguinea1 marriage, although the only men she metduring her entire girlhood were cousins (moreover, she isstill unmarried). Today the circle of friends has extendedbeyond the family, and the young enjoy more freedom,although holidays and vacations are still customarily spentamong kin. However, the number of consanguinea1 marriagesis decreasing, owing to an awareness of the problemsthey engender as well as to the greater mobility of youngpeople. Changes in the social ranking of some familiesalso lengthen the list of possible mates for a young Bekt.The marriage circles we have been able to identify, togetherwith an inventory of the patronyres in each houseboldbased on our own census, reveal certain regularities.*4 We have classified each spouse from our census accordicgto patronym in one of three subgroups (upper brands], middle[moyens], lower [petits]), and we have calculated theproportion of marriages by sex and by subgroup*:(a) Men: First subgroup56.7% have married women of their own sub~~p35.1% have married women of the second subgroup8.2% have married women of the third subgroupSecond subgroup38.3% have married women of the first subgroup48.2% have married women of their own subgroup13.5% have married women of the third subgroupThird subgroup7.4% have married women of the first subgroup24.2% have married women of the second subgroup68.4% have married women of their own subgroup(b) Women: First subgroup65.6% have married men in their own ~ubgroup32.1% have married men in the second subgroup2.3% have married men in the third subfloupSecond subgroup43.0% have married men in the first subgroup45.1% have married men in their subgroup11.9% have married men in the third subgroupIIEdith Kovats-Beaudoux 267There is an almost total cleavage between the "greatfamilies" and the "lesser ones," each marrying mostlyamong themselves. While the "middle familie*" also oftenmarry among themselves, they also marry more readilyinto the other two subgroups. It seems that in the past, agreat number of marriages of convenience took place,especially with regard to land-ownership, but unions ofthis type are now disappearing. Nevertheless, name andwealth, the principal criteria for determining the socialstatus of a person or a family, continue to play predominantroles in the selection of a mate. Thus a family with aprestigious name but with dimhid& wealth will maxryinto a nouveau riche middle-class family whose name isthereby enhanced. As for the Petits Blancs, there is adistinction between those families that one never meets(ipso facto, marriage is totally excluded) and those thatare judged "visitable" but "not marriageable," even thoughthey may possess moderate wealth, since their name doe*not carry enough prestige.Imbalance between mates can also arise from upbringing,but this is a matter of individual circumstance. In thisconnection, we were told of one husband of a social rankinferior to that of his wife, who was called a "white Negro"because he was interested in football, cockfights, and thelike. This marriage was considered a clear dsalliance;the wife hardly saw her family any more, and eventuallyshe got a divorce. "You see," we were told, "it is better tomany someone of your own background; then there is abetter chance of understanding each other."Although in recent years the criteria of acceptance have1 become more flexible, the selection of a spouse is still---- -Third subgroupII! 62.6% have married men in their own subgroup.However, it is necessary to recall the numerical disproportions15.0% have married men in the first subgroup22.4% have married men in the second subgrouplargest families are considered "upper class" (yandesfamilks). . . .

270 A Dominant MinorityCreole endogamy fills another important function withregard not only to the colored people but also to anyforeign group; this function is essentially economic. Up tonow, property has not passed through marriage and inheritanceinto the bands of colored people; endogamy thusprevents the partitioning of the estates and at the sametime fixes the framework of the Martiniquan social structure,in which racial characteristics and socioeconomicpositions largely coincide. But it does still more: if theeconomic aspect of endogamy is useful to MartiniquanCreole society internally, it takes on a wider and deepersignificance in the exclusion of other whites, be they Metropolitansor foreigners. Indeed, the Creoles cannot justifytheir objection to marrying members of other white groupson racial grounds. Surely, such marriages do occur-theyhave always occurred, especially with Metropolitans-butin limited numbers, and they are always surrounded by anegative social atmosphere. To explain this, one can citeinsularity, the relative isolation in which Bdkds have alwayslived, the fact that the non-Martiniquan is regarded as aforeigner, "the other," who immediately arouses suspicionor feeling of xenophobia. But when "the other" is whiteand in most cases French, these explanations seem inadequate.Rather, the foreigner is feared as a usurper, whomight seize part of the group's wealth, or as a competitorin a small territory where the number of properties, factones,and important businesses is strictly limited. A currentlyobserved fact supports this hypothesis: when Metropolitaninterests seek to buy and gain possession ofMartiniquan property, Creole families come to each other'sassistance and take all possible measures to ward off sucha possibility. And if marriage with a Metropolitan is envisaged,the Creole family first ascertains the economic andsocial position of the future spouse's family.The preceding considerations do not, however, explainwhy the Petits Blancs families are also endogamous, asmuch as if not more so than the other white families. Theexplanation is probably to be found in the poverty andisolation of these rural families, which mitigate againStEdith Kovatf-Beaudoux 271contacts with outsiders. Most of these families do not havethe means to send their children abroad to study and moreoverdo not live in permanent contact with urban dwellenlike the Metropolitans.Up to this point, we have emphasized the analysis ofnorms, though noting that they were not always obeyed byall individuals in the group. According to our informants,however, these norms have themselves been evolving for adozen years; they have come to delimit a more extensivefield of socially acceptable relationships. The criteria forthe selection of a spouse have accordingly become les*nid We will try briefly to ipedfy what these changes anand what has caused them.Our informants emphasized the increasing number ofmarriages with white non-Creoles, Metropolitans or others,and the greater tolerance accorded these marriages. As wehave seen, this phenomenon can be related to the numberof young Creoles who leave to study in France and spendmany years there, thus stepping out of the narrow circleof relationships to which they were limited on the island.They consequently fashion a frame of reference that is lessexclusive and less rigid; they marry more easily outsidetheir own group; in many cases, they also settle down inthe Metropole. The last feature seems to make the evolvingmovement closer to emigration than to exogamy strictlydefined. Let us repeat that the number of Metropolitanspouses living in Martinique remains relatively low, whichexplains why Bdkd households living on the island stillIexhibit a high rate of endogamy. As for exogamous mar-] riage combined with emigration, the proportion of youngCreole girls who take this path (in this connection, somesay that "girls from here suffocate and want to flee the1 island") is higher than that of bow, who spend moreyears outside the island and come back more willingly toi marry here. la any case, the young Btki living in1 France feels himself to be Martiniquan and expard, andI

268 A Dominant Minoritylargely confined to the circle of friends, that is to say, tothe social subgroup to which one belongs. Theoretically,and many examples support this, the criterion of racealone increasingly governs marriages, but the vast majoritystill occur between persons of the same or adjacent sociallevels.Social significance of marriage. We will consider marriagefrom two points of view: first, its external function,that is, whether or not it links the Creoles with other groupsin the society; second, its internal function, that is, itsstructural role within the Beke group.In so far as marriage reconstitutes and extends the whiteCreole family in an ideally endless chain, every foreignelement is traditionally excluded, and endogamy within thegroup (and within the subgroup when it is a privilegedclass) is its preferred form. We know that the rules ofmarriage have a two-fold aspect: they forbid marriagewith some individuals or groups, and they approve it, evenprescribe it, with others. Among the BMs, we find in therules of marriage a preference for endogamy, accompaniedby negative attitudes-their intensity varies witheach group-toward exogamy.The most peremptory negative view concerns interracialmarriages, which are socially prohibited. This attitude isunderstandable if one takes into account the underlyingideology shared by all Creoles: maintenance of the "purityof the race" is practically considered a sacred duty. Wagleyand Harris, in an analysis devoted to minorities in theNew World, show how "the relations between minorityand majority and the internal structure of these groupscorrespond in several important respects to the relationsand structures which characteristically exist between completelyautonomous societies. These features are ethnocentrismand endogamy."6 Ethnocentrism manifests itselfin the fact that each group tends to value its own charac-5 Charles Wagley and Marvin Harris, Minorities in the NewWorld: Six Case Studies (New York: Columbia UniversityPress. 1958). p. 258.Edith hats-Beuudoux 269(eristics from a triple point of view: racial, WCM, andideological. Endogamy reflects this ethoocentrism and, asthe groups in question occupy different sodoeconomic positions,it perpetuates inequalities.* These tendencies are allthe more prominent in Martinique, the differentgroups belong to different races. Ethnocentrism being accentuatedby racial prejudice toward the blacks, it b tramlatedinto strict social rules whose purpose is to prohibitmarriages between whites and mn-whites. It is necessaryto emphasize, however, that the prohibitions apply onlyto legal unions, which alone can modify the group fromwithin. Consensual unions, although not encouraged, arecommonplace and acceptable (for men of the white race),since they do not constitute a threat to the homogeneityor standing of the group. When legal unions are contractedin violation of the rules, the group systematically eliminatesthe reluctant households in order to protect and maintainits homogeneity. This extremely rigid racial barrier has ledsome authors to speak of "caste," since it is impossible fora person with "black blood" to pass into the white group,Iand, inversely, a m6salliance involves an element of stainfor the whites. Thus, analyzing the Creole reaction towardthe "misallied" individual. Leiria writes: "They areunwilling to accept this marriage and behave as if thewhite spouse had passed out of the superior caste to whichIhe belonged by birth into the inferior caste of his part-Iner."T This person will become a Btkt sad badire or a1 Btkt dissident. However, we do not agree that the term1 "casten applies here; we think that Lei uses it in a sense'Iclose to the subjective meaning given to it by the Btkisthemselves. Blacks and whites do have some contact; intimaterelationships are not prohibited by law, as in South1 Africa, for example; interracial marriages can be legallyI contracted. Rather, the case here is that of one racialgroup protecting itself from another that it consider inferiorand dread* at the ume time.Vbid., pp. 258-61.1 1 Michel Leiris, Contacts de civilisations en Martinique et aGuadeloupe (Paris: UNESCO, 1955). p. 127.

274 A Dominant MinorityAmong the Creole group, rules [of behavior] are notonly clearly defined and explicit, they are also very constricting.This rigor is doubtless attributable to the particularcharacter of the group, a minority bent on defendingits distinctive but precarious qualities, that is, its very existence.The closer and more intense the relationships amongmembers of a group arc, the more rigid the communitybecomes and the more threatening and treasonable is aperson's refusal to obey the norm. He who denies his originsand "goes over to the other side" constitutes a moreserious danger than any pressure from the outside. Theperson who has broken away from his society to integrateinto another one will criticize his original background allthe more freely, for he is intimate with the value systemhe is attacking and thinks he can judge its merits. Thuswhile the group is confident that external pressures can becoped with by the maintenance of cohesion, it fears aboveall disintegration from within. It is for this reason that astrict social control aims to insure respect for the normsand to penalize the deviants.The Creole group tolerates very few deviations. Onecategory of persons is somewhat marginal, but as long asthey do not overstep the permitted limits, they remain anintegral part of the group. This category brings togetherthose whom the Bekis call "originals," meaning Creoleswho take liberties with established forms of thou&t andaction. They are said to have a turn of mind that is moreindividualistic than social and to have a great desire forfreedom. This description can be applied either to a person(a "woman of action," a girl considered a little t~independent, a man who socializes too much with coloredpeople) or to an entire family-as for example, "TheGodards are all 'originals.'" If the family is wealthy, thisbehavior will be more easily tolerated. As long as thosewho stray from the norms do not really pose a threat tothe group, they will not be rejected.But, as we have seen, anyone who negates the values ofthe group through a public and effectively implementedcontestation of the norms (marriage with a colored per-IEdith Kovats-Beaudoux 275son. trade union activities, and so forth) or who deniesthe internal hierarchy of the group is immediately rejected,indeed, excluded. This defense system commends itseIf tothe community as effectual and reassuring, since the expelledindividual can no longer do it harm. at least notfrom within. Anything he says or does will no longer matterto the group nor will it reflect upon it; all will be as ifhe no longer existed. Since the Island is very small andsince the Creoles living in France are not isolated either("everything is known quickly"), social control is rigorous.No member of the group is shielded from the eyes andcritical evaluations of others. As best as possible, one willtry to put the deviit back on the right path, first by reasoning,then by applying pressures, and finally by takingpreventive actions. Many suffer from the strictness of thenorms; most nevertheless do submit.

272 A Dominant Minoritytends to socialize with his compatriotes. Furthermore, heis never completely cut off from the island, to which hereturns every summer, readily resuming his traditionalway of life. At the end of each summer there is an outbreakof new engagements. But, among these new youngcouples the relationships between man and wife tend tobe modified, departing from the Creole tradition and drawingcloser to Metropolitan models. The young Creole wifewill no longer be only the mother of children, but alsothe companion of her husband. As for the strictly exogamousmarriages, there has been no radical change but onlythe beginning of a noticeable evolution. . . .A second evolutionary current involves the choice of aspouse within the Beki group itself. Here again we witnessmore marriages between subgroups. This liberalizationcould be explained by the impoverishment of some grandesfamilies and by the increasing importance of money,which makes it possible to forgive a family for being onlymiddle class. But the root cause seems to be the strongerexternal pressures now being exerted on the Creoles: demographicpressure by the colored population, social andeconomic pressures that bring into question the traditionalstructure in Martinique. These facts force the Creoles intocompromise solutions. The group's very survival threatened,it has had to establish a hierarchy of values and ofvulnerable points to be defended. Priority seems to havebeen given to the desire to maintain racial purity, even tothe point of disrupting the internal stratification of thegroup. Thus, a new attitude is emerging with the aim ofavoiding marriages with colored people. At a certain levelin the scale of choices, it is preferable to marry "anybody"in the Bfkf group, even, if worst comes to wont, a "poorwhite."These two new currents are capable of bringing about acomplete change in white Creole society. And if externalpressures continue to intensify these currents, they maywell come to threaten the very existence of the group.Edith Kovats-Beaudoux 273IDEOLOGY AND SOCIAL CONTROLThe white Creoles of Martinique have up to now sueceeded in overcoming political, social, and economic crises,because they are an organized group. However, that doesnot mean that the group is homogeneous, as is sometimestoo readily assumed. And we have tried to show to whatextent it is segmented and which internal tensions threatenits stability. But it never falls into anarchy, because it hasunderstood that survival depends on its solidarity vis-a-visthe outside world. Therefore there is a value system, ethnocentricperforce, which gives the diverse elements of thegroup a sense of identity sufficient for the survival of thecollectivity. The identification is all the stronger for beinglinked with a feeling of pride in the group's past and inits role in the history of the island. Deep down, the Creolethinks of himself as The White Man, the one who hasalways been in charge. Even the economically disadvantagedCreole feels he is bound up with the group, not onlybecause his belonging is a personal warranty on which hisstatus depends, but also because he is conscious of the"hereditary" distance that separates him from the rest ofthe Martiniquan population. Whatever his social status, theCreole, in order to maintain his privileged position or tomark the distance that isolates him from the colored population,sees himself obliged to perpetuate the existence ofthe group; this becomes his first duty. The interest of thecommunity outweighs and conditions the interest of theindividual.We have tried to specify how this ideology is expressed! in social life, how the elements of cohesion-"racialpurity," the maintenance of economic structures, and thesafeguarding of group unity-prevail over internal tensions.Furthermore, the Creoles are also concerned with prcserv-, ing the reputation of the group: a Creole never criticizesIIAanother Creole in front of a foreigner; on the contrary, heis ready to defend him despite personal rivalries that maydivide them.Â

278 Cultural Assimilation in a Multiracial Societythe past. Except for a very few groups, the West Indianswho are not yet mixed will be mixed in a few generations.The last handful of pure Caribs are dying, while theirdaughters "make babies for" Dominican Creoles. Everyyear a few more Windward Island whites emigrate permanentlyto Canada or Britain or marry their coloredmistresses, so that the once-large local white populations ofDominica, Montserrat, Carriacou, or Grenada are dwindling.Although overlooked by the 1946 Census: the socalledBlacks include a large number of people moreprecisely described as Coloured, if the presence of at leastone known non-African ancestor is the criterion. In thesame census, the Chinese in Trinidad were already nearlyhalf mixed. and this figure is undoubtedly far too low foranyone who knows the population of the north coast,where every family is reputed to have "one Chinee chile."East Indians, too, have more racial mixture than theysometimes care to admit, as well as ancestry from differentcastes and areas in India, which in traditional terms isalmost as objectionable as race mixing. Most, but certainlynot all, offspring of Indians and non-Indians in Trinidadare classed with the Creoles. On the other hand, bothCreoles and Indians seem uncertain as to how to classifythe many unmixed Indians who are leaders in typicallyCreole activities such as steel bands, acting, dancing, andcarnival masquing.However, cultural assimilation can take place even withoutrace mixture, as in the American melting pot, whereall but a few ethnic groups seem to be melting into threelumps based on religious affiliation.In the United States much of the assimilation has beenwnscious on the part of emigrating Europeans desirousof adapting as quickly and as completely as possible totheir new culture. In the contemporary Caribbean, consciousassimilation can be found among culturally Europeanizedupper-class local people who, in the throes ofracial or other nationalisms, have decided to cast their lot.1 West Irution Census, 1946: Part H, Windward Islands (King-(ton, Jamaica: Government Printer, 1950), pp. 24-25.Daniel I. Crowley 279especially politically, with the local lower classes. Theylearn the local dialect, salt it well with Creolisms, cooklocal dishes, espouse local beliefs and prejudices, "jumpup" in carnival, and play at being "real Creoles."Unconscious assimilation is a much more subtle processand, like culture itself, not often perceived by its practitioners.Through this process West Indian-born whitesare no longer Englishmen or Frenchmen and can neverfully belong to their ancestral cultures. The same processworks for the Chinese, Syrians, Portuguese, and othergroups who preserve some aspects of their ancestral traditionsin their homes, but otherwise belong to the localculture more than they realize.The only group in the West Indies for which a case ofcultural isolation can be made is the East Indian, particularlyin Trinidad Elsewhere their numbers are so smallthat almost complete Crcolization has taken place, as inSt. Lucia, St Vincent, and Grenada, or East Indian custommay be preserved only within the family circle, as inJamaica. In Trinidad, however, the nearly 300,000 EastIndiana make up one third of the population. Currentpolitics in the island, although complex, is divided moreand more sharply between Creole and East Indian. Diet,dress, and especially family patterns and economic attitudesare clearly distinguished by members of the two groups.Unquestionably, both Creoles and East Induns think theyare culturally different; neither group intends to assimilatewith the other, but what are the facts of their actual relationship?Like the other groups, the Indians were forced to leavebehind much of their culture when they emigrated. Hindu"indenturesw broke a basic law of their religion by "crossingwater." The great majority of the East Indians werelow caste or casteless, poor, uneducated, rural, and drawnfrom far-flung and culturally diverse areas of the subcontinent.Undoubtedly, some upper-caste Hindus, even Brahmins,came as indentures, and a few of these knew thewritten language and some of the religious and seculartraditions. In spite of half-hearted attempts to keep

Cultural Assimilation in aMultiracial SodetyDaniel J. CrowleyWe turn now to another dimension of West Indian societyÑth position of East Indians and their relations withCreoles. The next three articles deal with the East Indiansof Trinidad and Guyana, the two West Indian nations withthe largest population concentrations of the descendants ofindentured laborers from the Indian subcontinent Followingthe emancipation of the slaves in the British Caribbeanin 1834, planters fearing labor shortages made concertedefforts to recruit other workers from various partsof the world, most successfully from India. After nearly acentury, the East Indians have become a potent social andpolitical force in the Caribbean. Their place in West Indiansocieties, the extent of their assimilation into Creole culture,and their political power are examined in these selections.The following article by Crowley cites evidence to showthat East Indians have been culturally assimilated intoTrinidad's "permissiveu Creole society, sharing culturaltraits and aspirations with other Trinidadians.DANIEL J. CROWLEY was born in the United States andreceived a doctorate in anthropology at Northwestern University.He has had research experience in Trinidad, St.Lucia, and the Bahamas. He is presently Professor ofAnthropology at the University of Califo- Davis.When numbers of people from one culture move to another,they cannot help but alter their original culture.Even the most prolonged and powerful attempts to preserveintact a racial or cultural group in a new milieuhave ended in failure. Since culture is both conservativeand ever changing, we preseme bits and pieces of ourancestral cultures, but combine and recombine them withthe forms and values of the one or more cultures in whichwe participate in the course of a lifetime.Since the time of Columbus, West Indian societies havebeen both biologically and culturally mixed. Europeaninstitutions adapted to new local circumstances by provindaiswere soon being used by Africans and their Creolechildren, who gave them a content never found in Europe.As other peoples from Asia, Europe, and Africa arrived,old traditions merged and new ones developed, and theCreole cultures of the islands are the result These arelocal variants of Western, culture, but with considerableretention of non-Western forms, attitudes, and values.Racial purity is an infinitely more personal concept thancultural integrity, but every West Indian street corner atteststo the fact that, for this area at least, it is a thing ofSocial and Cultural Pluralism in the Caribbean, edited byVera Rubin, Annals of The New York Academy of Sciences,Vol. 83, pp. 850-54. Copyright, The New York Academy ofSciences, 1960, reprinted by permission of the Academy and theauthor.

282 Cultural Assimilation in a Multiracial Societybetter-educated and more prestigeful Christian clergy and,most important of all, the younger people began to leavethe land and parental domination, especially in choosingmarriage partners, for the greater freedom, better pay,and higher prestige of town life. Local Indian nationalismwas thus born in reaction to the extreme degree of assimilationthat had already taken place. The usual devices ofcultural separateness were then introduced: Hindu andMoslem schools where Hindi is taught, a study programin India for young pandits and other promising scholars,bigger and better mosques and shivalas (Siva temples) inmore prestigeful locations, and the building up of socialpressure against further Creolization and conversion.However, in the words of Kumari Santosh Cbopra, thePunjabi headmistress of Gandhi Memorial High Schoolin Penal, "This latter-day 'revival' of Indian culture is notIndian at all." In the typical comptitive Creole way. EastIndians are using Indian culture and often mythical castefor " e g stylew and as a club with which to beat contemptuousCreoles.Except for the recent racially oriented political developments,the Hindu and Moslem schooIs seem to be the mosteffective means of creating and/or preserving a TrinidadEast Indian subculture. However, it is difficult to findteachers, and they are among the most Europeanized ofall Trinidadians. In the Moslem schools, teachers flatly refusedto adopt the wearing of the orhni (head veil) in spiteof the ins'itence of the religious leaders. Many of theseschools are staffed by Christian East Indiana and even byCreoles and, of course, the great majority of East Indianchildren continue to attend Christian denominationalschools with their Creole age peers. Conversely, someCreoles attend Hindu and Moslem schools, learn Hindiand, in a few cases, are converted to Hinduism or Islam.Wadi is still a home language for some families and areligious language for a much larger number but, beinglargely unwritten, it has become virtually unintelligible toa non-Trinidadian Hindi speaker, since it has acquiredvocabulary and pronunciation from English, Creole, andDaniel J. CrowleySpanish. A course in Hindi offered by the Extra-MuralDepartment of the University College of the West Indiesbad scores of students at the first meeting, but only a handfillcompleted the six-week course. Since practically all ofthe East Indiana already speak English, Hindi seems tohave little chance in the future except in rote prayers,sermons, and rituals.Informed Trinidad East Indiana are likely to admit allof these facts and to have little hope for the saccesa oftheir goals. Students of the Indian community such asM. Klass. M. Freilich, and A. Nieboff also make no claimof a present or future subculture in Trinidad that is likeany in India, but both scholars and East Indiana seem tofeel that in economic and family matters there remains aclear line between Indian and Creole. Indians are said tobe willing to save and plan and work toward a distantgoal, while Creoles are supposed to spend their moneyin constant "ffite" and not to give a thought to the morrow.Anyone who has met with a carnival band on AshWednesday moming to plan next year"8 masque knowthat Creoles can and do plan ahead for distant goals,though their prestige forms may be different from thoseof some East Indians! The attitude of Creole families towardeducation and their willingness to make heroic aacrifleesfor their children can be validated in the lives ofmost prominent Creoles, although these characteristic8 mayactually be more closely connected with middle-class statusor the desire for it than with ethnic origin. Profligate, nundrinkingIndians, or thrifty, abstemious Creoles are deflnitelynot unknown in any Trinidad community but, sincethey do not serve the stereotype, they tend to be dismissedaa atypical Indians geem to talk more about laving money,even when their actual performance is not unlike that ofCreoles of their same class, and the Creoles,traditionallyaverae to "money-grubbing" business careers, see thegrowing economic power of upward-mobile Indian businessmen,with its concomitant political power, as a threatto their own sodal hierarchy* which is baled on the CivilService.

280 Cultural Assimilation in a Multiracial Societyfamilies and friends together, the barracks and, later, therural villages were mixed in caste, class, religion, and language,so that East Indian cultural variations becamegeneralized. Although neither group liked it, Creoles andEast Indians were compelled to associate with each otherin the fields, in the market and shops, and in village lifeand, because of the scarcity of Indian women, many mentook Creole mates. By converting to Christianity, low castecould be left behind and opportunities for mobility in*creased. Some Bast Indians soon became wealthy but,instead of reorganizing their lives and surroundings onIndian principles, they seem to have become thoroughlyEuropeanized, although some did return to India to visit.The less successful East Indians, or those less interestedin adapting to the standards of the rest of the island wmmunity,became small landowners or day laborers in thesugar fields. They often work side by side with "smallislandwCreoles, speak English or Creole with them, anddrink and gamble together. Doubtless there are tensionsand divisions between these two racial groups, but untilrecently these divergences were hardly more serious thancleavages within each group on the basis of religion, class,caste, and color.According to one estimate (Arthur Niehoff, personalcommunication) one fifth of the Trinidad East Indianalive in St. George County, in and around Port of Spain,while many others live in the string of contiguous villagesrunning east to Arima or in the populous San Fernandoarea. Even when these people work land they go in andout of town almost daily and, in my opinion, are best wnsideredsuburban. Even in the Caroni and Oropouche enclaves,where nearly all the people are East Indian agriculturalists,the amount of daily contact with the townsis tremendous. Schools, libraries, the motion pictures (bothWestern and Indian), sports such as cricket or the races,newspapers, and the omnipresent radio are all sources ofunconscious assimilation While in town, East Indian mensee the newest in clothes, cars, and gadgetry, watch theshipping and tourist activities of the port, and meet theDaniel 1. Crowley 281demimonde on Green Comer, the Broadway of Port ofSpain. Even in homes where they are relatively secluded,women must go out to market and to shop, to visit relatives,to attend socioreligious events, and to visit the doctorand the dressmaker. The East Indian community has neverseriously attempted self-segregation from the Creole worldaround it, and most East Indians interact daily with theirCreole neighbors.There are East Indians in all soda] classes. Those at thetop are culturally indistinguishable from white, colored,or black urban locals of the same class, except where Hhduismor Islam requires some variations in dietary patterns.These people are more Europeanized than Creole,like their non-Indian compatriots of the same class. Towardthe middle of the social scale, urban and suburbanIndians again tend to be quite similar to their neighbors.In communities such as Tunapuna. St. James, and SanFernando they share most of each other's popular culture,and have similar attitudes toward government, education,leisure, and the acquisition of wealth. Dietary patterns arefrequently interchanged, a* people of different originsshare each other's foods at homes or at fetes. The Creolekiosk at a bazaar held on Government House lawn inSeptember 1953 served pel- as the typically Creole dish,though it is East Indian in both name and origin. TheEast Indian kiosk served rod (wheat pancake) made inthe "oil-bake" manner preferred by Creoles, rather thanthe sada roti of traditional Indian homes. Neither exampleof assimilation was conscious, and doubtless considerableembarrassment, even disbelief, would have resulted hadthese facts been mentioned.Since World War 11, Trinidad Creole and East Indianinte11ectuals have been inspired by the SUCCeSS of India,Ghana, and other formerly colonial areas, and have developedgreater race pride and political consciousness. The, Indians grew concerned over the rapid attenuation of theirancestral culture. Hindi was dying with the last of theindentures, children attended Christian schools, few of thepandits could explain or defend Hinduism against the

East and West Indian: CulturalComplexity in Trinidad1Morton KlassThe role of East Indiana and of East Indian culture inTrinidad is viewed here in a diametrically opposite fashion.On the basis of field research in a Hindu village in theCaroni area, another American anthropologist argues theessential separateness of East Indians and their lack ofintegration into, and assimilation with, the Creole Trinidadiansetting. This position is more fully expounded inthe author's East Indians in Trinidad: A Study of CulturalPersistence. These two divergent conclusions about theEast Indian place in the sociocultural order reflect localanxieties and conjectures on a subject of critical socialand political importance, given the rapid growth of theEast Indian population, for the future of Trinidad.MORTON KLASS received his doctorate in anthropologyfrom Columbia University. Trinidad was the locale of hisfirst extensive field research, later followed by studies inIndia. He now holds the rank of Professor of Anthropologyat Barnard College, Columbia University.No one disputes the fact that the island of Trinidad exhibitsa marked degree of ethnic heterogeneity. Confusionand disagreement set in as soon as one attempts to go beyondthat statement. What, for example, are the natureand number of significant groups and subgroups to bedistinguished? For census purposes the government ofTrinidad and Tobago recognizes six racial categories2Braithwaite also lists six groups, but he calls them ethnic,and the two lists are not identical.* Crowley proposes thirteen"racial and national groups" for Trinidad.'Social and Cultural Pluralism in the Caribbean, edited byVera Rubin, Annals of The New York Academy of Sciences,Vol. 83, pp. 855-61. Copyright, The New York Academy ofSciences, 1960, reprinted by permission of the Academy and theauthor.1 The data in this paper on present-day East Indian life inTrinidad derive from a one-year study conducted on that islandduring the period 1957-58. This study was financed by a fellow-Â¥hi from the Social Science Research Council, New York, N.Y,to 'which I extend my sincere thanks. I am also grateful to theResearch Institute for the Study of Man, New York, N.Y, forthe fellowship awarded me under its research and training programduring the summer of 1957.2Trinidad, Central Statistical Office, Annual Statistical Digest(Port of Spain, Trinidad: Government Printing Office, 1956).* L Braithwaite, "Social Stratification in Trinidad," Sodof an$Economic Studies. Vol. 2, Noa. 2-3 (October 1953). p. 50.4 D. Crowtey, "Plural and Differential Acculturation in Trinidad,"American Anthropologist, VoL 59, No. 5 (October 1957).Pp. 817-19.

284 Cultural Assimilation in a Multiracial SocietyIn family structure the ideal pattern for East Indians isan early, family-arranged, monogamous marriage but, likeso many ideal patterns both in the Caribbean and elsewhere,it is often honored in the breach. "Under-thebamboo"Indian marriages are similar in function to Creoleconsensual unions, and Hindu widows, forbidden by theirreligion to remarry, merely take a new mate in the Creolemanner. Many Indian youths recognize early marriage asan effective means of parental domination, "to keep mein the rice field," and fiercely resist it Girls, disliking thearranged union, sometimes give their husbands reason towish for the reintroduction of purdah (seclusion). Bothsexes show the strain of trying to approximate an idealIndian value system in a real Creole world by a suiciderate phenomenally high in contrast to that of the Creoles.In the higher classes, where social pressures are more effective,Indian women are more likely to be monogamous,although the men are expected to experiment more widely,often with Creole girls. While more Indian men may bemore faithful more often to their wives than some Creolemen, their behavior is so similar that the habits of both inthis respect are not readily distinguishable.If the data have been correctly interpreted, both racialand cultural assimilation have proceeded far in Trinidad,although admittedly with a wider range of variations thanin some other societies. The somewhat similar institutionsof slavery and indenture produced parallel results, so thatthe East Indians have no more valid claim on an Indianculture in Trinidad than Negroes have on a fully Africanculture there. Most of Indian culture in Trinidad has beenso drastically reinterpreted that even the most nationalisticallyminded East Indian is culturally a Creole, as he realizesif he has an opportunity to visit India. Real differencesexist between the lives of some Indians and some Creoles,but these differences can be explained as readily in termsof class and of rural-urban variations as in terms of ancestralcultures.Even the most assimilationistic Creoles do not expect theIndians to give up their attempts at racial endogamy andDaniel I. Crowley 285do not want them to abandon Hinduism or Islam, whichprovide so many popular magic practitioner* for the Creoleworld. East Indians understandably want to better theirposition in the Trinidadian 80cial structure and are usingeffective, typically Western techniques of capital accumulation,education, and the espousal of middle-class momto gain these common goals just as are the upward-mobileCreoles. The permissive Creole culture has already madea place for Indian fetes, foods, magic practices, and thousandsof East Indians. The intelligent self-interest thatWest Indians of all ethnic origins have displayed in thepast may still stave off serious disintegration while the necessarycompromises are evolved.

288 Cultural Complexity in TrinidadThese differences reflect the use of local standards ofevaluation and the apparent absence of any consistent setof criteria deriving from current anthropological or sociologicaltheory. How else may one explain the use of acategory~call it ethnic, racial, or national-such as "Syrian,"under which heading are subsumed both Polish Jewsand Lebanese Christians? Furthermore, before any attemptis made at a fine categoxization of the island's population,it would certainly seem advisable to explore the nature ofTrinidad's sociocultural complexity. In an effort to determinewhether Trinidad contains one society with one cultureor some form of sociocultural pluralism, primary attentionwill be given in this paper to social structure, tounderlying values, and to the effect of rapid change overa short period.In 1946 about 61 per cent of the population of Trinidadwas composed of individuals of African or partly Africanancestry. This entire group will be referred to hereafter asWest Indians, although attention will be given when necessaryto significantly different subgroups. Again in 1946,over 35 per cent of Trinidad's population was cornposedof the descendants of immigrants from India. This entiregroup, which also has its subgroups, will be referred to asEast Indians. Little attention will be given here to the remainingelements in the Trinidad population; together theyaccounted for less than 4 per cent of the 1946 total.Crowley" has used the term "Creole" to designate theculture of Trinidad. The West Indian segment of the ppulationunquestionably participates in this culture, butwhether the same thing may be said of the East Indiansegment is a matter of disputo. It becomes accessary, themfore, to understand mmething of the nature of this Creoleculture. The following analysis derives from the writingsof Braithwaite, Crowley, and others, as well as from myown observations in Trinidad.In almost all aspects of the Creole culture high value isattached to that which is considered to be of Buropean* lbid.. p. 824 and elsewhere.Morton Klass28sor predominantly European derivation, and a correspondinglylow value is placed on that which is considered tobe of African origin. This phenomenon may be observedmost clearly in an examination of standard* of physicalattractiveness and in tbe relationship noted between phygicalappearance and stratification. This does not mean. bowever,that a simple value continuum exists, with "purewEuropean at one end and "pure" African at the other.There is a developing feeling, affecting all aspects of WestIndian life, that the highest value should be given to thatwhich is essentially European but exhibits also some additionalquality that is West Indian or Creole or Trinidadian.Braithwaite writes:By "good hair" is not meant the aesthetically pleasing;or rather the aesthetically pleasing is identified as the"straight hair" of the European, and only something whichapproximates to this can be classified as good. SimilarlyEuropean features and the absence of thick lips are consideredgood. And the judgment of "good-looking for ablack man" expresses both the sentiment that the blackman cannot in general be good-looking and that evenwithin the category of black men there is a necessary differentiationbetween those who possess and those who donot possess European-like features.*One may observe, however, that the white Europeanis in the process of being replaced as the symbol of physicalattractiveness by the light-colored, West Indian-bornCreole. It is no longer assumed by the majority of the island'spopulation, for example, that the annual beautycontest winner, the Carnival Queen, need necessarily bewhite. However, it is likely to be a long time before

290 Cultural Complexity in Trinidadnomic mobility in much easier today than in former years,and there is much more interpersonal association and evenintermarriage between members of the three subgroupsof West Indian society. The castelike appearance of Trinidadsociety derived from the presence of a color-classhierarchy and, although modified, this is still very muchin evidence. The upper class is still predominantly white,the middle class predominantly colored, and the lowerclass predominantly black.7This prestige continuum from high-value European tolow-value African, with a special value placed on thatwhich is Creole, is reflected in other aspects of West Indianlife. Thus, Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism enjoythe highest prestige, while religious sects consideredto have large African elements in theu composition findtheu following only within the lowest socioeconomic sectionof the p0pulation.S It is interesting that Carnival, thefestival observed by many Roman Catholics in the periodimmediately preceding Lent, became associated with thelower class in the late nineteenth century, but recentlyhas become respectable once more. Powrie writes: "Themiddle class are at last inclined to take pride in somethingwhich is Trinidadian."*In recent years considerable attention has been givento the prevalence of nonlegal or "keepern unions amongthe West Indian lower class. There is a pattern of freechoice of mates and a tacitly permitted premarital sexualexperimentation that often results in the birth of a childto a girl still living with her parents. It must be emphasizedthat this is not a pattern of promiscuity. After a period ofexperimentation, a choice is made, and a couple will setup house together. The emphasis in the literature on illegitimacyand on matrifocality or mother-dominated fami-7Zbid.. DR. 46-48. 60-63. and elsewhere.8lbid.; pp. 130-31.0 B. E. Powrie, "The Changing Attitude of the Coloured MiddieClass toward Carnival." Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 4, NO&3-4 (March-June 1956). pp. 224-34. See also A. Pearec, "Carnivalin Nineteenth Century Trinidad," loc. cit., p. 192.Morton Klass 291lies tends to obscure the fact that such unions are reasonablystable and about as unlikely to break up as are anyother forma of marital union It would appear, ¥implythat in the West Indian lower class, family formation isnot necessarily regarded as a major life crisis. Whateverthe reasons, be they historical, social, and/or economic,the setting up of a marital union in this group does notrequire the ceremonial rite de passage of a marriage ceremony.In the rural West Indian community, death is themost important life crisis, involving community partidpationin an extended ceremony requiring financial assistance.1"The common-law union, according to Braithwaite, israrely encountered in the Trinidad middle class, for it is"a direct violation of the middle-class code."11 However.while church marriage is the approved form of matingfor upper- and middle-class West Indians and for sociallymobile members of the lower class, there are indication*of a developing admiration for what is considered to bea peculiarly West Indian propensity for the affairs&amour. This was the subject of a recent paper by Crowley,12and Braithwaite devotes attention to the sharpchange in middle-class attitudes toward sex and rnarriage.18To sum up, the West Indian Creole culture is a variantof European culture, and prestige is accorded to that whichis considered to be of European origin. Highest prestige,however, is of late given to traits that are primarily ofEuropean origin but exhibit a West Indian quality andmay therefore be termed Creole. Thin appears to reflectan emergent West Indian nationalism, and it might beargued that commercial and political interests consciowfoster some of these tendencies. Nevertheless, it is signifi-10M. 1. Hemkovits and F. & Herskovita, Trinidad(New York: Knopf, 19471, pp. 134-66.11 Braithwaite, op. eft., p. 108.l*D. Crowky, "Polygyny and Clan in the West Indies,paper read at the Annual Meeting of tbo Andan hthmpological Association, Washington, D.C, 1958.18 Braithwaitc, op. eft., pp. 109-1 1.

292 Cultural Complexity in Trinidadcant that the majority of West Indians respond eagerly tothe suggestion that a Creole society (that is, an integratedand a&shdated one) with a Creole culture (that is, a WestIndian variant of European) is developing in Trinidad.A very high value is placed on assimilation. The favoritedescription of Trinidad is a cosmopolitan melting potwithin which many ethnic strains are blending, contributingthe best elements of their various heritages to whatmight be termed the culture-trait pool shared by the totalsociety, which is expected to remain distinctively WestIndian and Trinidadian.14This consummation is so devoutly desired by West Indiansthat they frequently appear unaware of differentattitudes among other elements of the population. Thisshould not be taken to mean that all who are not WestIndians oppose assimilation, but it should be obvious thatsuch different groups as foreign-born whites, Trinidad-bornwhites, Chinese, and Portuguese must all respond very differentlyto the pressure for Creolization.Within the East Indian group there are individuals whoaccept the values, and consider themselves part, of theWest Indian society and its culture. Such Creolized EastIndians are usually Christians, although the group doescontain a few Moslems and a very few Hindus.16 Nevertheless,as Crowley notes, barely 15 per cent of the EastIndian population may be considered Christian.1' Furthermore,=?the greatest amount of acculturation has takenplace among the urbanized East Indians, but from thecensus reports we may see that the overwhelming majorityof Moslem and Hindu East Indians resided outside of theurban and even suburban areas.18 My own field w~rk,~14 D. Crowlcy, "Plural and Differential Acculturation in Trin-Mad," pp. 823-24.161btA. p. 819.l@lbld., p. 817.17 Ibid., pp. 818-19.18 Trinidad, Statistical Digest, p. 13.ISM. Klass, Cultural Persistence in a Trinidad East IndianCommunity, Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, NewYork, 1959.Morton Klass 293from which the following statements derive, was done ina village in County Caroni, populated almot exdu*ivelyby Hindu East Indian cane laborers.Among rural Hindu East Indians the Creolized individualis rare to the point of nonexistence; trait* and value*deriving from India take precedence over those derivingfrom the non-Indian environment. It is necessary to note,however, that these people are for the most part East Indianaof the West Indies; few still live who were born inIndia. Knowledge of what is Indian, therefore, doe* notderive from first-hand experience. Second, acculturationhas taken place, and there is a value attached to being"modem"; however, to an East Indian, being modern doe*not always mean being West Indian.Skin color plays almost no part in the East Indian groupa* internal stratification. The primary determinant of statusamong rural Hindus is caste membership. Education, occupation,and wealth are also important, but they all tendto cluster along with high-caste membership. Fairness ofskin is one element in individual physical attractiveness,but a dark-skinned Brahman is socially superior to, andmaritally more desirable than, a light-skinned Cbamar, allelse being equal. Individuals of low-caste origin who aoquire wealth will often pretend to membership in one ofthe higher castes. The widespread East Indian tendency todeprecate caste obscures but does not change the fact ofits importance in social stratification. In the rural village,leadership, wcaIth, and higbastc membembip go haadin hand, and an examination of the caste affiliations ofHindu members, of whatever party, of the Trinidad LegillativeCouncil reveals that almost all are of the two higheatcastes. Brahman and ~shatriykThe rural East Indian might travel to Port of Spain toobserve the Carnival festivities, but be would rarely participatein them. His own religious activities occupy muchof his time, for the Trinidad Hindu is involved in a yearlycycle of public festivals and private prayers. The averageWest Indian knows nothing of this, and is rarely evenaware that, every year, tern of busand8 of Trinidad

294 Cultural Complexity in TrinidadHindus journey to the beaches of the island for a day ofceremonial bathing and picnicking. In Trinidad Hinduism,certain religious practices are rated as superior or inferior.Among the criteria are the caste of the officiating priest,the use of alcohol, the question of animal sacrifice, andcertain other points of ritual. The problem of Europeanversus African origins is, of course, completely irrelevanthere. Ceremonies rated as superior are almost invariablysponsored by high-caste families (or socially mobile ones),with Brahman priests officiating.While "modernn East Indian young people insist upon"free choice" in marriage, this means something very differentfrom Trinidad West Indian free choice. The overwhelmingmajority of rural East Indian maniagea are arrangedby the respective fathers while the boy and girtare in their teens. The fathers make sure that the marriageis kin-and-village exogamous and caste endogamous. Atsome point in the proceedings, however, the two youngpeople are allowed to meet each other, if only for a shortwhile, and on the basis of this interview either may vetothe match.Marriage is the most important life crisis for the EastIndians. It involves community participation and often r equires financial assistance. The East Indian bride must beginher married life as an alien in her husband's father'shousehold and village, for marriage* are normally virilocalas well as village exogamous. Her experiences, obviously,will be very different from those of her West Indian counterpart.Indeed, in family structure and life cycle thereare few points of similarity between East and West Indian.To sum up, Indian forms and values underlie TrinidadEast Indian culture. Modifications have occurred, but theydo not necessarily make the East Indian any more of aWest Indian. The West Indian may be said to be strivingto become more European, or at least more Creole, andless African. The East Indian might like his circumstancesto be bettered, but he has no desire to be anything elseand least of all a West Indian.Since Trinidad unquestionably exhibits only one socio-Morton Klau 295economic system, within which both groups participate,it may be said to have most of the important chactceof a plural society as they are given by Furnivall. Here, asin his examplea, "Merent sections of the community [arc]living side by side, but separately, within the same politicalunit."^o However, Trinidad tociety exhibits at least oneadditional characteristic not provided for in Fumivall'sscheme. It would seem likely, from Furnivall's dcscriptiongalthat members of the culturally distinct groups makingup the population! of Burma or Java are aware of,and appear to accept, the pluralistic nature of their respectivegodeb. In Trinidad, on the other hand, thuwould be true only of the East Indian. From the TrinidadWestIndian~tofview,theislandcon~an~tially hoinogeneoul ¥odety if it did not it inould and soonwould.Crowley writes: "A Trhdadh f& noin being a British citizen, a Negro in appearance, a Spaniardin name, a Roman Catholic at church, an obeah(magic) practitioner in private, a Hindu at lunch, a Chi- 'nese at dinner, a Portuguaic at work, and a Colored at toopolls.-To the West. Indian, moreover, this process of assimilationand integration, what Crowley has termed pluralacculturation, is worthy of unquestioned approbation. Themerger of different ethnic strains and the emergence ofone Creole physical type are also viewed as highly dairable.Braithwaite notes: "people will proudly proclaimthat they have 'English', 'Spanish', 'French', blood in theirveins. They can even be heard boasting that they are a'mix-up.*"aIt is the universal Trinidad West Indian contention thatwithin twenty to fifty years the East Indian ethnic groupJ. & FurnivaU, Colonial Policy and Practice (Cambridge:Cambridge! University Press. 1948). p. 304.21 Ibid., pp. 303-12.22 D. Crowley, "Plural and Differential Accultuntion in Trin-Idad," p. 823.Braithwaito, op. cU., p. 102.

296 Cultural Complexity in Trinidadwill have merged indistinguishably into the West IndianCreole society.This view is subscribed to by only a very small segmentof the East Indian population; for the most part only bythose who have become Creolized to the extent of havingmarried out of their ethnic group. Even for most Moslemand Christian East Indians the idea of the East Indiangroup losing its ethnic identity and disappearing into theWest Indian population is not acceptable. An East Indianwho changes his religion is still considered an East Indianby the members of his ethnic group. Among the Hindus,a child of parents of two different castes will be acceptedas a member of his father's caste, but a child of an EastIndian and any non-Indian is called a doogla (bastard)and is considered to have no caste at all.Thus integration and assimilation, whether cultural orbiological, are processes the East Indian tends both to fearand to resist. Although it is customary for East Indians todeny the importance of caste in their social structure, it isvery much present, and the values underlying the Indiancaste system may well affect present East Indian attitudestoward asshilation. It might even be said that, from theEast Indian point of view, Trinidad appears to be composedof permanently separate endogamous groups. Thesemay be ranked relative to one another, and the East Indian'sabiding interest in the rise of his entire ethnic groupwell may be compared with attitudes in India toward castemobility.24The conflict in attitude and viewpoint between the Eastand West Indians of Trinidad has recently found expresuonin politics. Two parties dominate the Trinidad politicalscene. Although both deny racial orientation, one isfor all practical purposes a West Indian party and theother an East Indian party. West Indians, unable to ignorethis manifestation of the conflict, frequently are heard toB. S. Cohn, "The Changing Statua of a Depressed Caste,"in M. Marriott, ed.. Village India: Studies in the Little Commwnity. American Anthropological Association Memoir No. 83,1955. pp. 53-77.Morton Klass 297;omplain that the conflict between the two ethnic group*came into existence with the arrival of party politics. Theysee the development as a highly unfortunate one, but hopethat the emergence of an East Indian party is a temporaryphenomenon and that, when East Indians have becomeWest Indians, in time and through education ethnicallyoriented parties will have no reason to exist. East Indiana,on the other hand, appear to see the emergence of suchparties as natural and inevitable. They believe that in timethey will elect their own leaden to office, and the primaryconcern of any political leader, many of them seem tofeel, is the well-being of his particular ethnic group.A partial explanation for the divergent views as to thenature of present Trinidadian society may be found in anexamination of the rapid changes that have taken placeover a comparatively short period of time. From the firstarrival of indentured laborers from India in 1845 untilfifteen to twenty years ago, the East Indians constituteda cultural enclave within the Trinidad sodoeconodsystem. The group had clustered within the lowest economicstratum of the society, that of the rural agriculturallaborer. Even the limited amount of education availableto the group could be had only in schools run by Prcsbyterianm i s s i o ~ . and ' ~ economic adv-twaspossible for an individual only if he were willing to leavebis ethnic group and accept the conditions of life in theChristian West Indian dety. Despite these cirm-.while there was considerable acculturation, the majorityof East Indians resisted significant ("'realization.Today, there is a Hindu East Indian middle class andeven an upper class. There are wealthy East Indian budnessmen,educated professionals, and powerful politicians.25The term "cultural enclave" is used here to contrast thephenomenon described in this paper with that of aubcultua By"subcultudà I understand an offshoot of a ynt culture thatis distinct but not separate from it, although it may become ç0Using the terms in this manner. New Englandem exhibit a çubculture of the total culture of the United States, but the Navajorepresent a cultural enclave.

298 Cultural Complexity in TrinidadAn East Indian youth today may acquire an education andrise both socially and economically without ever venturingoutside his ethnic group or questioning its values. Therecent independence of India and Pakistan has &ectedboth Hindu and Moslem East Indians. There is both apride in origin that was lacking before and a strong religioculturalrevival.If East Indians have successfully resisted Creolizationthus far, is it likely to occur now that the ethnic grouphas changed from a cultural enclave to what is effectivelya parallel sociocultural system within the total Trinidadiansociety? Moreover, it is well known among TrinidadianEast Indians that within about twenty years they will formthe largest single ethnic group on the island. What willhappen then if there is at that time no change in eitherthe East Indian desire for a separate and equal statuswithin the Trinidad society, or in the West Indian desirefor complete integration?

This selection deals with structural aspects of the EastIndian-Creole issue within a "plural SOC1ety" framework.We are given a view of the ordering as well as of the dynamicaof the Guyanese social order on the eve of nationalindependence. Drawing from the literature on pluralism,the author conceptually diatinguiahea the local and nationalinstitutions that facilitate the functioning of the social system.'The identilication of"maximal," and"brokern institutions makea possible the examhwion ofprocesses of change and political maneuvering in a pluralsetting. In addition to its intrinsic theoretical importance,this selection provides an overview of the only CommonwealthCaribbean SOC1ety with an East Indian majority.LEO A. DESPSSS, an American, received his doctorate inanthropology from Ohio State University and is currentlyProfessor of Anthropology at Case Western Reserve University.Cultural Pluralism and NationalistPolitics in British GuianaLeo A. DespresTUB STRUCTURAL DE&fENSIONS OF PLURALISM 'la developing an analytical framework for the malyasof social and cultural pluralism, it has been auggectod thatthe definition of the plural society must take into accounttwo related sets of facts. First, it must take into accountthe extent to which particular groups display different s ptern of culture as evidenced by the activities their membersengage in. Second, it must also take into account thelevel at which aocial activities serve to maintain culturaldifferentiation as the basis for 800ocultural integration.The criteria used to determine the degree of cultural differentiationbetween group are structural. It has been 8ssumedthat the institutional structures which serve to replate the activities of individuals in ~ pare expressive s ofthe cultural values charaderiatic of the group in question.From this assumption, it follows that different inatitutiodstructw m e to &tit@& merent culturea and socialunits.1In extending this analytical framework further, a d bCultural Pluralism and Nationalist Politics in British Guiana,copyright @ 1967 by Rand McNalfi & Cornpany, Chicaw, PP.270-85. Reprinted by permission of the publisher and thethor1 Thia conceptualization is. implicit in Parsons* discussion ofinstitutional structures. See Talcott Parsons, 'The Position ofSociological Theory," American Sociological Review, VOL 13(1948), pp. 155-64, particularly pp. 159^0.

302 Cultural Pluralism and Nationalist Politicstinction was drawn between two general typea of institutionalstructures: (1) those that function with respectto the organinition of social activities within local communities(local institutions); and (2) those that functionto link the activities of individuals and groups to the widersphere of societal activity (broker institutions). Local andbroker institutional structures provide the coordinates fordetermining the degree of cultural differentiation betweengroups as well as the level of sociocultural integration thatexists among groups which participate in a common culturaltradition.To the extent that local institutional structures are validonly for particular groups, the groups in question participatein different cultural systems. Such groups constituteminimal or local cultural sections. On the other hand,when broker institutional structures serve to integrate nationallylocal groups which are culturally similar, suchgroups constitute maximal or national cultural sections.The plural society has been defined as one that containsmaximal or national cultural sections.As defined, the plural model establishes an order oflogical priority. In other words, maximal cultural sectionspmuppose the existence of mhimal cultural sections. Ifminimal cultural sections am not found to exist in anempirical setting, then the plural model has little heuristicvalue for the analysis of the society under investigation.Thus, this analysis of Guianese society began with a comparativestudy of local institutional activities among Africansand East Indians, the largest and most politicallysignificant groups in the population.To recapitulate, it was found that Africans and EastIndians form. separate and comparatively different kindsof social communities. Even though many of them maylive together in disproportionate numbers in particularvillages or on plantations, their social worlds remainrelatively autonomous. Their kinship networks are not homologous,and this, among other considerations, makes intermarriagesomewhat difficult. They do not participate inthe same religious traditions. They recreate separately orLeo A. Dupra 303in competition with one another. Generally (peaking, theydo not form voluntary groups with one another unleupressured to do so by external governmental agencies. Inthe village, Africans and Indians attend the same ¥cboo1but the school b usually Chistian, and Indians resent thinimposition. More importantly, Africans and Indians valuelocal economic resources differently. They display differentpatterns of economic and social mobility. And theyhave markedly different orientations toward authority. Inshort, at the communal level of aociocultd integration,there are no social structures which serve to bring Africansand East Indians together in the expression of a commonsystem of cultural values.To follow the order of logical priority set forth in thedefinition of the plural model, the second phase of theanalysis concerned itself with a comparative study ofbroker institutional activities. With respect to these insti-tutional structures, the analysis revealed that the forces I ' I 1of unification and acculturation are at work in Guianesesociety. Educational institutions are one case in point Theorganization of educational inatituti~ns is partially CODtrolledby the government and relatively uniform in termsof educatid contenk H ~M, tho an-t of Oheducationis distinctly British in origin, and Christian &nominational bodies exeroSe considerable control over thevast majority of the schools. As a consequence, educationalinstitution! have been able to modify East Indian value*and thereby mediate the relationship between African*and East Indiana, particularly in certain intellectual circles.Nevertheless, because of the system of dual control of theschools, educational institutions have not been able to generatea new national culture equally acceptabk to bothgroups.Commercial and industrial organizations represent anotherimportant source of unification. Almost all of thelarge commercial and industrial firms in Guiana employEast Indiana as well as Africam. l%us, these orgdmthmrepresent integrated pluralitib. However, when one condderathe corporate rtructures of most of these organiza-'//,III

Cultural Plwalh and Nationalist Politicstions, it is evident that East Indiana and Africans tend to beallocated to different occupational statuses on the bashof aacriptive criteria. These practices am also changing,but the changes that am taking place are too recent to havegenerated new values capable of integrating the groupin question.Market institutions represent still another importantsource of unification in Guianesc society. The price mechanism,for example, is a common structud denominatorfor the exprdon of economic values. Obviously, this facilitatescertain kin& of transactions between the membersof different cultural groups. At the same time, however,it should be noted that the price mechanism is also a meansby which the cultural values of different groups can be^expressed as well as reinforced. In addition, the colonialcharacter of Guiana's market economy imparts to it certainmulticentric features, The agricultural and industrialsectors of the economy comprise relatively independentspheres of market activity, and East Indians are sign&cantly more interested in and dependent upon the agriculturalsector than are the Africans. Thus, market institutionsmay mediate certain types of relarionships betweenthe two group, but they have not, aa yet, contributedsignificantly to their mitication.Apart from these tendencia toward uni6cation, A£ricans and East Indiana continue to form separate and relativelywell-integrated nmimal cultural sections. TIM brokerinstitutional structura that function to maintain culturaldifferentiation as the basis for social integration inclu&the communications media, tra& unions and labor org-tions,agencies of the public service, religious andethnic associations, and political parties. The communicationsmedia are owned primarily by European interesta,but they are sta!ied mostly by Africans. W e Africansand Indhm belong to trade unions in ovenvklmiag numbers,they belong to merent unions operating in merentsectors of the economy. Also, until very recently, the publicaervicea have displayed a racial imbalamx strongly inbo A. Dexpru. .305favor of the Mricans.a Religi~~~ and ethnicare exclusive in their membership and con&ibW d@-Cmtly to the integration of similar minimal cultural 8cctiomAnd, hdly, sba the Burnham-Ja&W split, @tidpartia have catered pbdy to tb htcrdn of dmsections.In conclusion, tba patterns of ~~that exist among the a t n-na of the G Wpopulation cormpond almost completely with the airwtural dimensions of the plural model aa de5d in thinbook. This correspondence applies to 8tnactural forma fuwell as to the cultural values which the60 f m upre=.Thus, Africans comprise minimal cultural aediom Tbrelationships that exist within hxe local p u p in term8of family and kinship networks, children's pmpt~,--religiouspractices, dational tiea, and the like, extend outwardto include relation&@ between individ~d~ fromahilar group. These external tia are supported and reinforcedby hstitutiod s- that bind A6icaU8 togetherin terms of theii w, digk e d d ati04 inter&~, mobiity pa- and orgddOdmembership. Such institutional stmdum~ not only intograteAfricans 88 a national commdty, but timy also functionto express the values that pd& tbis canmewith a sense of cultural identity.A hihr pattern of sochd~alintegration cxiat~ withm m t o t b a M h h m W p p u p ~ e s a t Wcenter of Indian mcioculd integration. Its 8-e hreinforced by digious beliefa, traditional madage fonna,economic functions and, to a degree, vestige3 of caste.Relatives am bound together in ever widening. ..&ea ofchmmhbg 8tragth. Tho practice of village exogamycreatea ailid tiea between one Indian commht~ and another.'Iksc circles of relationship are further atendedby ceremonial responsibilitia and -Up lies. At theperiphery of them circles, broker institutim m e to relateIndians to one another in terms of digi~ and ethnicSB. A. N, c.0- 4*Rachl &- in Public s"dm a dSea& Forces,'* Race, VoL 3 (1966), pp. 235-53.

Cultud Pluraliun and Nationalbt Politiaassociatio~, trade union membership, economic intereata,and the like. Ultimately, this pattern of mciocultural integrationinvolves a value system which provides EastIndiana with a cultural identity as a national community.As has been &own, British Guiana is a plural society.From the point of view of system analysis, the interdependentunits of Guianesc society tend to comprise culturallydifferentiated groups rather than socially dilferentiatedpersons. lb integration of the system results primarilyfrom the complementary participation of these group in aunitary politid economy. lie btitutio& stnuturea thatmake up the political economy were created and &tained by British colonial power. Until recent times, thesestructures have pxskted with a minimum of change. Inview of h considerations, what are the stmctural implicationsof pluralism for the process of socioculturalcbange? Two points need to be emphasized with respectto thin question. One has to do with the functional autonomyof cultural aection~. The other has to do with the8hucture of intersectional relations which results fromfunctional autonomy.C~ltwaI sections display the characteristics of isomericSFkms. That is to say, they are composed of similar orghtionalelemtnts, but these elements differ in theirproperties because they are structured differently. Consider,for example, the dBerences in social stratification &tweenvillage Indian9 and AfriCan.9.Within the Indian village, the allocation of status andprestige is heavily weighted in favor of rice den orIdownem; then shopkeepers; followed by pandita;catah types of salaried persons such as kachem, smallhopkqern and landowners; agriculturd workers and fishemen;artisans; and unskilled workers. The prestige attachedto these staw. including the pmtige attached tostatus of pandit, is primarily a function of the economic~ ~ nthat obtain t i between ~ them. Thua, a teacher hLeo A. Despru 307m r e p m h e a n d M n m a & m w aunall -keeper because he haa a largex and more dhble- o f m . A - w b h m W b m r ep m t i g e ~ a ~ r ~ U W F o r t h ea teacher baa hs prestige and influence than a rice miUer,a large landowner, or a mweadd shopkeeper.By way of contrast, among Africa& the emphasis inplaced on educational differentiah, age and esmence, andpersonaIity traits such as a willingness to reader mice toothers. Thus, in the African village, the allocation of 8tatmand pratige favors bead teachen; older heads who am&nay, reliable, and willing to help o ~ younger ~ ;teachers; church workem; civil sexvane and good providers,rcgade8lJ of how * may earn w iDanna.~ ~ o ~ @ I M ~*h@davillambUthep*esawwt o ~ s w m a ~ w a i n s ~ ~ m d ythe stratibtion system of each vilas. Tbh ditTmn~ instructure, in turn, rem% the cultural value9 of eachP~P.=In summary, the functional autonomy of minimal cul-tural sectiom derives from thei~ home& character. Thereare at least three ways in which this is evidenL Firat, thecultural sections to which -cans and Indiana belong donot reticulate^, Le., the structures that are functional in he-can tiedon do not interpenetrate those which amfunctional in the Indim don. %COJX% indiddud Afrimor East Indians cannot easily move from one culturald o n to anothe~ unless (a) the bdividd ch~w biacultural values, or (b) the cultural section into which thehdividud moves undergoes s t r u change. ~ For example,an East hdim r i farm= ~ ~ cannot a m hbstatus mong Afrhm by opening a hop in an Africanvillage. Sily, an African teacher cannot enhance hbstatus by being reassigned to a school in an Indian ammunity.'Ihird, Merent cultural aectiona can (and d y

Cultural Pluralism and National& EWiudo) respond difIcrcdy and independenuy to the p-for change. For example, Indians and Africnna haw zespondedd&rmUy to the pres8uru for change &reaeratedby the cooperative movement.From a stmchnd pint of view, the difIercnce betweenthe IIlhhfd and the IlUXhlddon M p-ya difference in scale. Thus, maximal cultural sections alsotend to display the chawteristica of isomeric systemti. I"&is particularly evident with respect to the dBercmtial adaptation of Afriau and East I n b to G W s colonialeconomy.For example, as rice farmers and sugar workers, EastIndians comprise a nml proletarian clasa Africans wholive in rural areas do not belong to thin dam in large nunbers,because they arc either part of the urban unemployedor they are elderly pemna engaged in s-tence agriculture.Indians do not move out of the rural areas in largenumbem When they do move into the urban sectors, however,it is usually as shopkeepers and businessmen. Thosewho become teachers generally remain in rural schools.Africans, on the other hand, move out of the rural areasin large numbers, but they rarely move out as businessmenand shopkeepem For the most part, Africans who moveto urban arem do so as mine workers, civil servants, teachem,clerks, artisam, dock worken, or domestia. Thus,Africans make up the vast majority of the urban probmat.To continue this analysis further, until very recent timathe sources of power in Guianese society have bemi lodgedin the colonial establishment and thaw groups which implementthe decisiom of the =tabbent. As a group,the rural proletariat in more removed from theae~ sources ofporn than the urban proletariat. It follow8 from this thatAfricans tend to occupy a higher position in the power8tmctu.m of colonial society than Indians. In addition,the traditional patterns of SO&I mobility charaueristic ofthese cultural sections tend to reinforce the status differentialexisting between them. Thus, similar social positiomwithin merent cultural sections are not functionallyLeo A. Despruq ~ v h b d t h e ~ W w ~ & * Wcultural acdion doa not comapond to the p d b thato n e m p k h h & Q m a w h h ~ ~ ~om-u@ainb&Qmawhkk&btin~afunction of the podtion his cultural adon occuph inthe power 8- of dlC &ty.In view of t&se comidfxatio~ what in the &at offunctional autonomy on the structure of intersectional relatiom?Let us &st e d its && on hteraectional m-UonsinthecmofMculWacdiomThe functional autonomy of minimal cultural BC&OMhas a direct && upon tba stxuctum of intedd datiomwithin the m community. spefacauy, fllndodautonomy ten& to conhe in- mlatiom bctwa~ a n d W w t o m l e ~ w W ~ M d ywgmental, no&ectivc, and instrumental. Sice competidveadvantage in an important feature of 8UCh u-role patterns, interpersonal redations tend to b atrwhmdin an order of superordination and subordination. Accordingly,the dimension of power in d d to almost all intermxtionalrelations. Thus, changes within mhhd culdWCti0XU which may && the 8tIUw of in-4relations invariably raise issw of power between AfbMand m t Indians withill l d wuings.By way of illustrating the above point, consider the con-8truction of a new hdth center by the governmai Widthe govemnent locate the Wtyin a pd~mbdyhicanvillage such as Am's Grove, or will it be c o wa short distance away in the Indian village of Uonbmk?~ o d k p W i n ~ p o f t h e f d t y , ~ W o rM &St bdh? -ly, where d the l l 8dlOOl ~ blOC&d? a, wh M to b Itlad6 Ch8hYtlan of the edonddevelopment committee? Who d procca applications forloam at the district o h of the cooperative saving8 andh dw? m&Ilately, dCCiSi0lNl && tb COIllpetitiveadvantage that individual.9 have with rap& to intmwtionalrelatiom. Although the government may notumsider theac decisiom to be, political, they are politidhmthephtofviewofdlC~and~whm

310 Cdtwnl Pluralism and Nationalist Politiaaffected by them. As a result, in Guiancse society, anychange promulgated by an agency of the governmentwhich afFects intersectional relations between minimal 4-tural sections will have political comequencea within thelocal setting. What, thens is the situation with respect tomaximal cultural sections?It has been shown that the functional autonomy of maximalcultural sections largely derives from the dBerentialstatus hat Africans and Indians have as a result of theiradaptation to the institutions of colonial society. Fkcawof this diierential statuss the prestige and Muence attachedto the social position that an individual occupiesares in part, a function of the status attached to the culturdsection with which the individual is identSd Thussit is extremely diflkult for individual Indians or Africans toimprove their life chances without changing their culturalidentities or, alternativelys without seeking to improve themtus and power of theiu respective cultural sections. Thestructud implications of this fact may be viewed momconcretely in terms of a few illustrations.For examples in spite of their prestige and influencewithin their cultural sections large Indian landowners, ricemillem, and busines!unen have not been able to exerciseas much dhct control over the Guianesc economy as afew very high-level public servants of African descent.Similarlys in .spite of their growing numberss Indianschoolteachers have not been able to exercise as much inffuenceover educational institutions as African schoolteachers.Also* educated Indians have had considerably 1-access than educated Africans to those departments of thepublic service in which Mcans exercise a controlling influence.Or, to cite still another example, Indiandominatedlabor unions have not been able to c~nunand wage forWu members comparable to the wages that have beenachieved for African workers by many African-dominatedlabor unions. In other wordss the opportunities availableto individual Indians and Africans reflect the differentialstatus which theiu respective cultural groups OCCUPY in tbpower structure of Guianesc society.In view of these considerations, three points need to beemp- with respect to intemedonal relations betweenmaximal cultural sections. First, at the national level*intersectional relations tend to involve t r d n s betweenorganized groups rather than individuah A case in pointwould be the transactions between Indian- d Africandominatedlabor unions within the British Guk.18 TradeaUnion Council. §econd the functional autonomy ofmaximal cultural sections ten& to confine theae intergrouptransactions to a struggle for competitive advantage in thenational power structure. Tbb M most clearly evident interns of the competition for power between such groupsas the k t Indian Association and the bp? of Colowed.Peoples. Ands thirds any sociocultural change tha& can affectthe structure of intersectional relations betweenmaximal cultural sections will raise issues of national powerbetween A£rican and Eht Indians. The instance8 of thhare almost too numerous to recount but, to cite one example,all of Guiana's economic development programs haveraised issues of national power between Africans and EastIndians.To conclude, both minimal and ma~im8l cult~al settionsdisplay the characteristics of isomeric systems. Theyare composed of simiiar organbtional eleaxnts, but theseelements Wer in theiu propcrtia because h y arc stmeturd accordiq to merent cultural valuea As a comequenceof thew Weren- cultural &OM tend t~ cornprisefunctiody autonomous units in the overall structureof Guianese society. The functional autonomy of theseunitss in tm, has certain implications for the struchm ofintersectional rela!ions both nationidly and within localcommunitiw.At the level of 104 comu~tims the f ~ctiod auto*omy of cultural sections reduces in&qmnd relatibetweenAfricans and Indians to the dimension of power.Similarlys at the national level, the functional autonomy ofcultural sections tends to confine intergroup relati- betweenA€rica and Indians' to a comptition for nationalpower. It follows from the structure of interpmod re-

312 Cultural Pluralism and Nationalist Politicy-latiom that any sociocultural changes capable of alteringthe order of subordination and superordination betweenindividual Africans and Indians will have political comequenceawithin the local settings in which the changeacur. It follows from the structure of intergroup relatiomthat any sociacultural changea capable of alte~g the PO.sition of Africans and Indiana in the national power structurewill have consequcncea for the political order ofGuianese saciety. In other words, the conditions of p l disrn in Guianesc society am such that the process of sociaculturalchange is intrinsically a political pmcess at alllevels of the social order.PLURALISM AND NATIONALIST POLlllCSIt haa been shown how the integration of Ouia~~ese societyis based upon a system of social relations betweencultural units of unequal 8ta&us and power. This .systemderives its kaditional force from the differential adaptationof Africans and East Indians to the institutiom of BritishcoIonialism. 'b core structure of this system is essentiallypolitical. Intersectional relatiom not only reflect the powerstructure of the political order under which they are subsumed#but they a h serve to express the maintenance orchange of that political order.Herein lies the source of instability which the forces ofnationalism are capable of aggravating. The cultural unitsthat make up the Guianese social system enjoy a relativelyhigh degree of functional autonomy. In order for theseunits to maintain theu respective pattern of socioculturalintegration, it is n v that the social system continueto provide for their functional autonomy. Under presentcircumstancess the functional autonomy of these units ismaintained by the Werentid status they occupy in thepower structure of the society. ?his power structures inturns is reinforced by the political order under which it iasubsumed It is precisely the political order of Guianesesociety that the forcea of nationalism seek to change. Thus,in =king to implement changes in the political order, theforces of narionalismmustincvitably pow athrcattothafunctional autonomy of cultural sections and create a problemof tension mamgacnt bemeen tbe group that tbc8esections mpraent.4 A question to which thb sMy h& addmseditself is whether or not the nationalist movementcan prevent tke tensions from abbathg in codidand disrupting he social order. The finding3 with respectto thh question may be amomkd rn follomFirst, in ita early stam of &vdopmcn& the nathaWmovement d u l l y integrated African and E W Indianinteilcctualn aa nwnbm of a new nathdbt elite. Tholeadership which the mmben of this elite enpyd waslargely sectional. Moreover; hey d3Tcred among themselveson issues of political Wlo,g~. However, they ahada commitmat to the goal of national -&IMX. m yalso &and a codmnt to the potitb-dd Wption of Guiancse society. In view of these commitmen&therefore, ideological ~SSWS d the adti- of p1-did not pccacnt an o b ~ W to the m v ~ t ' further s tbvelopment.Neve&csas the nationfit movement muld not blpgenerating tedm betwm cdh~al acetiom d&g thi8early period. l%em tensions became increasinglyapparent after l95Os when the Peoples Progressive Partywas organized in preparation for comtitutiod chaos.They were most apparent in the case of the Pomg~wand other Europeans who opposed the movement in favorof the status quo. They were evident also with respect tocertain group of Africans and East Indiana who favoredindependence but who were f d that sectional inte~atsmight be compromised in the process of achieving it.The tensions existing between Africans and Indians dming this early phase of the movement's development did notprmt the new nationalist elite with an insurmountabl84 For a discu&on of fmchnal autonomy and tension managementin social systems, IJCC Alvin W. Gouldncr, ''RedpmitYand Autonomy h~ Functional Theory," in LkweUp G~ku, cd*Symposium on Sociologkal Theoty (Evanston, Il.: RDW. Pe*wns 1959)# pp. 241-70.

314 Cultural Pluralism and Nationalist Politiaproblem. A8 a group, it was comprehensive in its membership.It also was sufficiently committed to independenceand national politico-cultural integration to meet the thrustof such ¥ectiona organizations as the League of ColouredPeoples and the East Indian Association. Thus, the newnationalist elite succeeded in achieving adequate politicalintegration between Africans and Indians to provide theP.P.P. with a relatively impressive victory in the 1953elections. Obviously, this display of unity did not removeall or even most of the tensions existing between culturalsections as a result of the impending changes in the Guiancsepolitical order. However, it did demonstrate the abilityon the part of nationalist leaders to manage these tensionsorganizationally during the process of change.Second, the disintegration of Guiana's comprehensivenationalist movement cannot be attributed exclusively tothe particularistic forces of pluralism. Since this conclusionfollows as much from the logic of the analysis as it doesfrom the data presented, it needs to be elaborated upon insome detail.As has been shown, the structure of Guianese society issuch that the process of sociocIlltural change is intrinsicallya political process at all levels of the social order. It followsfrom this that any change capable of altering the structureof the society carries with it the potential of stimulating theforces of pluralism, thereby creating a problem of tensionmanagement. Whether or not a particular change will createa serious problem of tension management dependsupon (1) the degree to which it poses a threat to the functionalautonomy of cultural sections and (2) the extent towhich organizational control is exercised with respect toits introduction in order to mbimize the te~on it generates.In any event, these conditions are inherent in thestructure of Guianese society, and they created organizationalproblems for the nationalist movement However, theexistence of these conditions does not explain why themovement failed to solve the organizational problems relatedto them.The analytical situation, then, is as follows: Given theLeo A. Derpresfact that GuianaB8 nationali~t kadm both &nid andmade a c o b OrgMiZarioMl &orlto wpe with thafor- of pluralism which the movement had 8bulaWhow is it that these force* prevailed? In other words, whydid the movement disintegrate? To answer thu question,one cannot invoke a constant (e.g., the plural structure ofGuianew society) to explain 8 variable (e.g., the success orfailure of the nationalist movement to dve the organizationalproblems that confronted it).Aft we have wen. duintegration resulted from 8 criticalconjuncture of several facton, all of which made it increasinglydifficult for nationalist leaders to control organhtbnallythe foras of pluralism. Them factor ineludedthe ideological factionalism that erupted to thesurface within the People* Progredve Party, the orgadzation of a couservative opposition to the movement, andthe internal pressures that were generated by external internationaldevelopments.It is difficult, if not impossible, to weigh these factorand to assign the decisive role of precipitant to any particularone of them. We know what happened to Guiana.8nationalist movement, but we can only speculate (in whatmight have happened had one thing or another been differeatHowever, the fact that numeroul conditions wereequally neceuary for disintegration to occur is, as MaoIver might suggest, no ground for denying the diltmctiverole of the precipitant' Therefore, to #peculate on theconjunction of these crucial ingredients, it would appearthat, more than any other complex of factors, internationaldevelopments precipitated the disintegration of Guiana'scomprehensive nationalist movementIn other words, between 1952 and 1955, Guiana's comprehensivenationalist movement fell victim to the cold war.The ideological factionalism which ultimately resulted inthe Burnham-Jagan split was directly stimulated by the effortsthat were made, chiefly by the United States and theAmerican labor movement, to alienate from hemispheric6 R. M. MacIver, Social Causation (Boston: Ginn, 1942). pp.172-84.

,they316 Cul.tural Pluralism and Nationalist Politic!nationalist movements those nationalists who displayed apropensity for Marxist-Lenhi~t tbhkbg. l'heae &or@ wemnot made openly, and they were not carried out by Americangovernmental intervention or through the usual &annelsof international diplomacy. Rather, they were madecovertly and carried out by the exercise of American powerand influence within the context of the international labormovement This influence and power were so pervasivethat some local unions, the British Guiana Mine Workersfor example, could hardly negotiate a contract without first&eking the advice of American labor diplomats.The splits in the Caribbean labor movement that resultedfrom the struggles of the cold war may not havealtered the political climate in Jamaica, Trinhad, or Barbadosto any significant degree, but the opposite was thecase in Guian~ In Guiana, the position that the Marxistsoccupied within the nationalist movement was largely afunction of a balance of power that existed between themand the non-Marxists. This balance of power, in turn, wasbased upon the relationship which members of bothgroups enjoyed with respect to cultural sections, Guianeselabor unions, and political allies in the Caribbean. As longas this balance of power was maintained, the nationalistmovement existed in a state of dynamic equilibrium. However.the divisions in the Caribbean labor movement alteredthis balance of political forces.Specifically, the splits which occurred in the Caribbeanlabor movement made ideological issuea much more criticalto Guianese nationalists than organizational question!relating to political tensions between Africans and Indian*or such other matters as economic development and con*stitutional advancement. This provided the conservative oppositionwith its major source of political leverage, thebue of c o ~bseq~tly, ~ the60 qlits ~ served toalienate the Jaganites, an important faction of the nationalistelite, from the Guianese labor movement. In addition,interjected into Guianese politics the West IndianFederation issue with all of its racial overtones. Ultimately,these developments provoked the disagreements that cul-Leo A. Desprel 317minakd in the Jagan-Burnham qli& In dkt, tbia fragmentedthe movement's comprehensive leadership and tmverely impaired its orpniational capacity to deal with thforces of pluralism.Finally, the destructive forces of pluralism in Ouianesesociety were not unleashed by the nationalist movementitself but by the competition for leadership that eruptedwhen the movement fragmented into political faction*.Once this internal power struggle emerged, its subsequentcourse of development was largely predetermined. For example,as long as the colonial establishment retained uldmatepower for itself, even though it gave evidence of onlymarking time, the competition for leadership between nationalistelites had to proceed according to the con~titutionaland other rules which the establishment imposed. Asa result, the only effective orghtional adjustments thatthese elites could make were neocolonial in *.* That isto say, in order to mobilize mass support s m y , theywould have to employ organizational stratemes which accommodatedthemselves to the realities of the existingstructure of colonial power.As has been pointed out, Guiana's colonial power atrueturewas based upon a system of social relation* betweencultural sections of unequal status. It follows born the natureof such a system that the major sources of poweravailable to natiodbt leaders for erg-4are the culturally differentiated groups of which the s ptern in comprised. In the event of any internal power Ètmggle which precludes revolutionary change, and thereforethe destruction of the existing power structure, it ià inevitablethat cultural dons will become or@doWaligned in competitive opposition. This fact wu fully reme@I refer to this as a typical neocolonial adjustment becauseit ia predicated upon the propositfon, larecly imposed by cd~nialpower, that the statui quo contains numeroul element* worthpresernnf. Important among tbeie elements are the exstructureof power, economic institutions, and a "rich" diversityof cultures. See Kwame Nknunah, Neo-Colonialism: The LastStage of Imperialism (New York: International Publiihen,1965).

Cultural Pluralism and Nationalist Politianized by Jagan, Burnham, and other Guiane~~ mtiodi~t~.In what has been suggested as a type of neocolonial adjustment,these leaders adopted organizational strategiesdesigned to make existing sociocultural patterns functionalwith respect to the internal struggle for constitutionalpower. Given a neocolonial setzing in which cultural sec*HODS are politically juxtaposed in a struggle for nationalpower, is violent conflict probable? In general, the answeris yes.Any change resulting from a direct power struggle betweencultural sections will not only reinforce their fun*tional autonomy, but it will also tend to alter their respec.tive positions in the power structure. Therefore, it needsto be emphasized that the political opposition of such unit8will increase the problem of tension management directlyin proportion to the rate and degree of socioculturalchange. If such changes are extensive and occur so rapidlythat compensatory mechanhms cannot be put into motion,the tensions generated between cultural sections are likelyto increase to the point of explosion. However, whether ornot these tensions will eventuate in violent conflict, particularlyviolent conflict of an organized nature, will defendlargely upon the dedsions that nationalist leaders takewith respect to them. If nationalist leaders believe that theirparticular objectives can be furthered by exploiting thesetensions, violent conflict will develop.Hie above points may be illustrated in the case of BritiihGuiana. When the nationalist movement disintegrated,both Jagan and Burnham were more or leu compelled toaccept a neocolonial adjustment to the process of socioculturalchange. 'Ih political organimth of cultural seetions followed upon these developments. However, the subsequentelection of a lagan government in 1957, and againin 1961, brought about a relatively rapid change in thestatus of Indians in the power structure of Ouiaoese society.This change not only contributed to the political integrationof Africans, but it also generated explosivetensions between Africans and Indians at all levels of thesocial order.Leo A. DespruIt was these tensions that were organizationally exploitedin 1962, when the opposition made an effort to force theresignation of the Jagan government by promoting a genendstrike among government workers. Conflict resulted,and it was primarily confined to outbreaks of violence bctweenJhst Indiana and Afrhm. A very similar situationdeveloped in 1963, and again in 1964, when lagan madethe organizational decision to promote strikes on the sugarestates following his rebuff at the constitutional talks. Inthis instance, the decision on the part of the Colonial Officeto impose a system of proportional representation not onlythreatened the Jagan government but also threatened thegains which Bast Indians felt they had achieved under theJagan governmentFollowing the election of the Burnham government in1964, the tensions existing between East Indians and Afdcanswere hastily reduced, or at least temporarily controlled,by the use of certain compensatory mechanisms.For one thing, British troops were kept on the scene forthe purpose of maintaining law and order. In addition,several influential members of the Peoplec P~o&v~Party continued to be detained and prevented from en*gaging in political activities. Also, Burnham made overturesto East Indians by such devices as implementing astudy ostensibly designed to correct racial imbalances inthe public services. And, finally, the United States andGreat Britain provided Guiana with a massive injection offunds to help Burnham restore the economy and placateEast Indians by undertaking various kinds of developmentprojects in rural areas.Whether or not these and War compensatorygnechanism can reduce the tensions existing between 4-tural sections to a level below which they are no longerexplosive cannot be known for certain. However, to summarize,we can be artain of several things. Firrt,we canbe sure that, as long as Guianese society remains pluraLgodo~ultural changes will generate tensions between culturalsections. Second, we can be sure that, as l q as thesecultural sections are politically juxtaposed, the tensions ex-

320 Cultural Pluraliun and Nationalist Politic*isting between them will be extremely difficult to manage.Third, violent conflict will result from the politicaljuxtapositioa of cultural lections whenever nationalist leadensee fit to exploit the tensions existing between them.And, finally, we can be relatively certain that these generalizationswill obtain aa long as Ouianese nationalist elitesaccommodate themselves to vestiges of the colonial powerstructure.SELECTED READINGSGENERAL REFERENCESBENNETT, J. m y , JR., Bondsmen and Bishops: Slaveryand Apprenticeship on the Codrington Plantations ofBarbados. 1710-1838 (University of California Publica-tions in History, VoL 62). Berkeley, University of CallforniaPress, 1958.11BRATHWAITB, EDWARD, The Development of Creole Societyin Jamaica, London, Oxford University Press, 1971. 1BURN, w. I., Emancipation and Apprenticeship in the Brit-ish West lndies. London, Jonathan Cap, 1937.BURNS, ALAN, History of the British West Indies, London,Alien and Unwin, 1954, New York, Bama and NOW2nd. ed. rev., 1965.CLEMENTI, CECIL, The Chinese in British Guiana, BritishG-. Argosy Press, 1915.COMITAS, LAMBROS, Caribbeaiw 1900-1965: A TopicalBibliography, Seattle, University of Washington Resa forthe Research Institute for the Study of Man. 1968.CRANE, JULIA 0.. Educated to Emigrate: The Social Organizationof Saba. Assen, Netherlands, Van Go-, 1971.CURTIN, PHILIP D., The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census,Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1969.-, Two Jamaicas: The Role of Ideas in a Tropical Colony,1830-1865, Cambridge, Harvard Univdty PrcsÈ1955.DESPKES, LEO A., Cultural Pluralism and Nationalist Politicsin British Guiana. Chicago, Rand McNaUy, 1967.EQUIANO. OLAUDAH, &&no's Travels [1789], LoodoQ.Heinemann, 1967.IIIi

322 Selected Readings .FROUDE, JAMBS ANTHONY, The English in the West Indies:or, The Bow of Ulysses, London, Longmana, 1888.GASTON-MAETIN, Histoire de reschvage dans Us coloniesfranfaises, Paris, Presses Universitairea de France, 1948.OISLER. ANTOINB, L'escbage aux Antilles francaka(XVHe-XIX' sUcle) : contribution au probl2mde l'esclavage, Fribourg, Pditious Universitaires, 1965.GOSLINOA. CORNELIS CH., The Dutch in the Caribbean andon the Wild Coast, 1580-1680. Gainesville, Universityof Florida Press, 1971.OOVEIA. ELSA v., Slave Society in the British Leeward Islandsat the End of the Eighteenth Century, New Haven,Yale University Press, 1965.-, A Study on the Historiography of the British WestIndies to the End of the Nineteenth Century, Mexico,D.F., Pan-American Institute of Geography and History,1956.- The West Indian Slave Laws of the 18th Century(in Chapters in Caribbean History, No. 2), Barbados,Caribbean Universities Press, 1970.HALL, DOUGLAS. Five of the Leewards 1834-1870: TheMajor Problems of the Post-Emancipation Period inAntigua, Barbuda. Montserrat, Nevis and St. Kitts, Barbados,Caribbean Universities Press; London, Gin%1971.-, Free Jamaica 1838-1865: An Economic History,New Haven, Yale University Press. 1959.HERSKOVITS, MELVILLE J., The Myth of the Negro Past119411, Boston, Beacon Press, 1958.mss, PHILIP HANSON, Netherlands America: The DutchTerritories in the West, London, Robert Hale, 1943.HOETINK, HARMANNUS, Het patroon van de oude Curqaosesamenleving: een sociologische studie, Assen, Van Gorcum,1958.-, The Two Variants in Can'bbean Race Relations. London.Oxford University Press for the Institute of RaceRelations, 1967.BOETINK, EMWANNUS, editor, Encyclopedic van de NederlandseAntiilen. Amsterdam. Elsevier, 1969.JAMBS, C. L. R., The Bkk Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouvert~eand the Sun Davnfngo Revolution 119381, New York,Random House, Vintage Books, 1963.KAXNCR, FRANCES P., The Sephardks of Curasao: A Studyof Socto-cultural Patterns in Flux, Asaen, Netherlands,Van Gorcum, 1%9; New York, Huamdtb Press, 1971.mas, MORTON, East Indians in Trinidad: A Study of CulturalPersistence. New York, Columbia University Press.1961.KLEKK, J. c. u. DB, De Immigratio der Bindostanen inSuriname, Amsterdam, Urbi et Orb4 1953.LASS- GUY, La Guadeloupe: ttude gtographk~, Bordeaux,Union Francais6 dbpression, 1961.LEWIS, OOBOON K., The Growth of the Modem West Zndies,New York, Monthly Review Pttst, 1968.LEWIS, M. a, Journal of a West India Proprietor, 1815-17, Boston, Houghton Mifflin. 1929.LEYBUKN, JAMES o., The Haitian People, rev. ed.,NewHaven, Yale Univdty Press, 1966.UER, R. A. J. VAN, Samenieving in ten grensgebied: een socloathistorischestudie van de maatschoppij In Suriname,The Hague, M. Nijhoff, 1949.UGON, RICHARD, A True and Exact History of the Islandof Barbadoes . . . [1657, 16731 (Casa Ubm of WestIndian Studies, No. 11). London. Frank Caaa. 1970.LONG, EDWARD, History of Jamaica, or, General Survey ofthe Ancient and Modem State of That Island [I77413 vols. (Cam Library of West Indian Studies, No. 12).London, Prank Casa. 1970: Portland, Ore., International*Scholarly Book Service, 1970.LOWENTBAL, DAVID. Wen Indian Societies, London andNew York, Oxford University Press, for the Institute ofRace Relations and the American Geographical Society,1972.MALBIWT, ANNEMAME DB WAAL, The Javanese of Surinam:Segment of a Plural Sodet~, Aasen, Netherlands, VanGorcum, 1963.UAUK. YOOENDRA K., Em Indians In Trinidad: A Studyin Minority Politics, London, Oxford Univdty Picasfor the Institute of Race Relations. 1971.MATHIESON, WILLIAM LAW, British Slave Emaidpation,1838-1849 [1932], New York, Octagon Boob. 1967.mmuuu, OOBDOU c, The H & r d Geography oj St. Kit&and Nevis, the West Indies. Mexico, D.F., Pan-American Institute of Geography and History, 1958.

324 Selected ReadingsMETCALF, GEORGE, Royal Government and Political Conftictin Jamaica, 17294783. London, Longmans for theRoyal Commonwealth Society, 1965.MITCHELL, HAROLD PATON, Caribbean Patterns: A Politicaland Economic Study of the Contemporary Caribbean,Edinburgh, Chambers, 1967.MOREAU DB SAINT-M~Y, M~O~~~UC-LOUIS-~~LIE,Descriptiontopographique, physique, civile, politique et historiquede la partie fra~aise de I'lsle Saint-Domi'ngue[1797], 3 vols., Paris, Soci6t6 de 1'Histoire des ColoniesFranqtka et Librairie Larose, 1958.MURRAY, D. J., The West Indies and the Development ofColonial Government, 1801-1834, Oxford, ClarendonPress, 1965; New York, Oxford University Press, 1965.NATH, DWARKA, A History of Indians in British Guiana,London, Nelson, 1950. 2nd rev. ed., London, publishedby the author, 30 Crowther Road, South Norwood, London,S.E.25, 1971.OLIVIER, SYDNEY, White Capital and Coloured Labour,London, Independent Labour Party, 1910; Westport,Conn., Negro Univenuici Prcaa, reprint of 1910 cdition,nd.FAKES, RICHARD, Merchants and Planters, Supplement 4 ofEconomic History Review. 1960.-, A West-indk Fortwe, London, Longmans, 1950;Hamden, Conn., Archon Books, Shoe String Press, 1968.PARRY, J. H., and SHEW& PHILIP M., A Short Historyof The West Indies, London, Macmillan, 1956; 3rd rev.cd., 1971.PARSONS, JAMES J., San Adds and Provukncia: English-Speaking Islands in the Western Caribbean (Universityof California Publications in Geography, Vol. 12, No.11, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1956.PATTERSON, H. ORLANDO, The Sociology of Slavery, London,MacGibon and Kee, 1967; Rutherford, N.J., FairleighDickinson University Press, 1970.PITMAN, FRANK WESLEY, The Development of the BritishWest Indies, 1700-1763 [19171, Hamden, Conn.,A~hon Books, Shoe String Press, 1967.MOATZ, LOWELL JOSEPH, The Fall of the Planter Class inthe British Caribbean, 1763-1833: A Study in Social andSelected Readings 325Economic History [1928], New York, Octagon Book*,1963.RAGA% LOWELL JOSEPH, comp., A Guide for the Studyof British Caribbean History, 1763-1834, Including theAbolition and Emancipation Movements, Washington,D.C. Government Printing Office. 1932.KBVBRT, EUQ~E. La Martinique: etude atopaphique,Paria, Nouvellea editions Latines, 1949.RUBIN, VERA. ed., Social and Cultural Pluralism in theCaribbean, Annals of the New York Academy of Sdences.Vol. 83, Article 5, New York, 1960.SAUEK, CARL ORTWIN, The Early Spanish Main, Berkeley,University of California Press, 1966.SCHOMBUROK, ROBERT H., The History of Barbados . . .[I8481 (Cass Library of West Indian Studio, NO. 19).London, Prank Cam, 1971.SCHWAITZ, BARTON M., cd., Caste in Overseas Indian Corninanities,San Frandsco, Chandler, 1967.SEWELL, WILLIAM GRANT, The Ordeal of Free Labour tothe West Indies [1861], London, Frank Cain. 1968.SMITH, n. a. The Plural Sockty in the British West Indies,-Berkeley, Univcrrity of California PICM, 1965., Stratification in Grenada, Berkeley, Unive- ofCalifornia Pren, 1965.STEDMAN, JOHN a, Narrative, of a Five Year

326 Selected Reading*WEST, ROBERT COOPER, and AUGELLI, J. P., Middle AmericaIts Lands and Peoples, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.,Prentice-Hall, 1966.WILLIAMS, ERIC, British Historians and the West Indies,London, Andm Deutsch, 1964.- Capitalism and Slavery, Chapel Hill, University ofNorth Carolina Press, 1944; New York, 0. P. Putnam'e,1966.-, From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean,1492-1969. London, Andre Deutsch, 1970: NewYork, Harper and Row, 1971.WOOD, DONALD, Trinidad in Transition: The Years afterSlavery, London, Oxford University Press for the Instituteof Race Relations, 1968.WEST INDIAN PERIODICALSAnnales des Antilles. Soci6t6 d'Histoire dc la Martiniquo,Fortde-France. Occasional.Caribbean Review. Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. Quarterly.Caribbean Studies. Institute of Caribbean Studies, Universityof Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. Quarterly.Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society.Bridgetown, Barbados. Irregular.Journal of Caribbean History. Caribbean Universities Press,Barbados. About two per year.Nieuwe West-Indische Gifts. The Hague, Netherlands.Three per year.Soci'al and Economic Studies. University of the West Indies,Institute of Social and Economic Research. Kingston,Jamaica. Quarterly.INDEXAfrica, xii^-dv, 4-19 poaim,20, 2145 pas~IM, 96. 101,153-54, 176, 178-79, 183,277 (fee also African*[Afro-Americans, Afro-Weat Indians]); ~~on (ocaal ttructure and sodetyin the West Indies, 20,2145 passim, 74-75 ff.,176, 178-79, 183 (see alsospecific aspects, people,places); and slave trade and&very in the West Indies,xiii-xiv, 4-19, 21 ff., 52,53 ff.; socialization and permnalityof the slave in theWest Indies and, 21-45Africans (Afro-Americans,Afro-West Indians), xiiixiv,2, 4-19. 20, 21-45, 96,101, 153-54, 176, 178-79,183, 277 (see also specificislands, people, places) ; anddkld fddhthl in 8multiracial society (Creolesand East Indians in Trinidad),277-85 passim; andcultural complexity in Tnnidad,286, 287-98; and culturalplwaliam and nation-Â¥lis politics in British Guiana,300, 301-20; anddpatkm and free bbor in the British Wet Indies,136, 137-49: andemancipation and d-g~venUnent, 150, 151-59,160, 161-69: and the freecolored in a dare society(Saint-Domingue). 94, 95-103; freed blade* and mulattoain Jamaica and, 74,75-93; influence of Africaon, 20, 21-45 passim, 176,178-79, 183 (fee also specificaspects, people,places); and plural frameworkof Jamaican eocicty,174-93; and slavery andslave society in Jamaica, 20,2145; and riavery andslave society in Saint-Doming~e, 4-19, 5% 53-72; and riavery and damsociety in Surinam, 46, 47-51: and whites in a dave~k& language, 30Albanian*, in Belgrade, 207Allport, Gordon W., 43-44nAmerica, American* (US.).See United States of America(Am-)

American West Indies, 203.See also United State* ofAmerica (Americana)Amerindians, xiii, 2, 153. Seealso Caribs;specific people,placesAnderson, I., 44 nAnglicanism, 290Anguilla, Anguillans, 198,199, 200, 202. See also St.KittaAntigua, Antiguana, 78;absentee-proprietorship toabout 1850 in, 109% Ill,114n, 11511, 130n. 13111;emancipation and free laborin, 138, 140-41Arima, Trinidad, 215-16.218,280hba, class-color ftratificadonin, 202, 205Aryans, 102Alia, Asiatics, xiii-xiv, 137,277. See also specific peepie, place*Athenians. See Greece, ancientAuberteuil, Hilliard dm, 15Australia, Australians, 146,154Bacon, Francis, 122Bahamas, the, 276Baptiste, Pierre, 17Barbados, Barbadians, 22,197,198, 200, 316; absenteeproprietorshipto about1850 in, 107, 109 n, 115,121% 125, 13011, 133;class-color stratification in,205; emancipation and freelabor in. 137, 140-41; davcryin, 22; society and socialstructure in, 197, 198, 200,202, 205Barbuda, 198, 204; absentee-Indexproprietorship to about1850 in, 109 n, 111Barclay, Alexander, 34Barrett, Charles John Moulton,121 nBarrett, Septimus, 121 nBascom, W. R, 183Beckford, William, 28, 29, 39Beckfords, the (of Jamaica),130 n. See also Beckford,WilliamBelgrade, Albanians in, 207Bentinck, George, Lord, 105Bcquia, 198, 202; social structurein, 202, 205Bickell, R, 38 nBlacks. See Africans (Afro-Americans, Afro-West Indians);Negroes; specific aspects,islands, people, placesBlanchisseuse, Trinidad, 215-16, 218-19, 221Blue Mountailla, J d a . 197Bonaire, 202Braithwaite, Lloyd, 212, 213-39. 240, 288, 295; on socialstratification in Trinidad(1953), 213-39, 288, 289-9 1BI- Caparo, Trinidad, 216Brasso Seco, Trinidad,215-16Brazil, 243 nBridgetown, Barbados, 137Britain, the British. SeeUnited Kingdom (the British)British Caribbean. See BritishWest Indies; specific islands,people, placesBritish Guiana: absenteeproprietorshipto about1850 in, 109 n, 130 n; EastIndian Association, 311,312; East Indians and Creolesand cultural pluralismand nationalist politics in,300, 301-20; emancipationIndexBritiih Guiana (cdd)¥a face labor in, 140-41,147; labor movement in,311, 315-17, 319; Leagueof Coloured Peoples. 311,31% Mine Workers, 316;natioah (nationalistmovement) in, 312-20;Peoples Progrc~ive Party.313, 314, 315, 319; dstructure (social mathtion) in, 202, 206, 208-10,300, 301-20; statuses andprestige in, 304, 306-7 ff.:Trades Union Council, 311British West India, xui-xv5,96, 150, 151-59, 160, 161-70 (see also specific islands,peopk, places); absenteeproprietorship(plantationcolonialism) to about--1850in, 104, 105-35; class-colorstratification in. 172. 174-93, 204-10, 212, 213-39passim, 276, 277ff. (wealso specific islands, people,places); cultllraltion in a multiracial societyin (Trinidad), 277-85; culturalcomplexity in (Wdad),286, 287-98; emancipation'and free labor in(1861), 136, 137-49; freedblacks and mulatto* in (Jamaica,1774). 74, 75-93;labor movement in (BritishGuiana), 311, 315-17, 319;language and social struetore in. 207-8, 210 (seealso specific islands, languagy.pmpb, pl-1; v-tiomlist movement in (BntishGuiana), 312-20; perilsof black supremacy in(1888). 150. 151-59; pluralframework of society in,172, 174-93, 276, 277-85(see also roedflc upecte,people, place*); range andvariation of Caribbean M-cietim in, 194, 195-210;&very and (lave çociet in,xifl-riv, 4-19, 21 ff., 52,53ff. (see also specific 'wlands, people, place*); relÈtion of East Indians to Creolmin, 276, 2770.. 286,287-98, 300, 301-20 (seealso specific islands, people,places); response to theoryof perils of black supremacyand self-government in(1889). 160, 161-70; .socialsmtification in (Trinidad),212, 213-39; white Creole*aa a doIninant minority inMartinique (1969). 240,241-75: white* and pluralfIamCwork of Jamuican *dety, 32-36, 174-93 paf-Jim; whiten and codal stratificationin (Trinidad), 213-39 passimBCOO~~CI~, H. C., 202 nBuffon, Georgea-Louu LBclerc,Comic de, 92Burma, 295Burn, W. L., 106 nBurnham, L. S. F. 305, 315,317, 318-19Burns, Alan, 106 nButler, Uriah, 217Canada, 146, 202, 242, 278Canning, George, 139-40.Cap Francois (Cap Haiben),Haiti, 17, 100Caribbean Commonwealth.See British Wet Indie*:specific island*, people,placesCaribs, 101, 102, 153, 278Carlyle, Thoma*, 39 n, IS0chmkbl, Mn^ 186n

Caroni, Trinidad, 229, 280,286, 293Carriacou, 173, 198. 199, 203,204. 278Cassidy, Frederic 0, 30, 37 nC a d (whites) in WestIndies. See specific islands,people, placesCayman Islands, 198Central Africa, slave tradeand, 4-7. See also AfricaChapuzet dc Gukrin, Sieur do,100-1Chapuzeta, the (of Haiti),100-1Charles II, 133Chinese, xiv, xvi; and culturalassimilation in Trinidad,278, 279, 292, 295; and socialstructure and strati6~tion in the British West ladies,xiv, xvi, 174, 185,206,226 n, 228. 278Chop, Kumari Santosh, 282Christianity, Christians, 90,178-79 (see also specificdenominations, people,places); cultural assimilalionin Trinidad and, 280,281-82, 288, 292, 297; culturalpluralism and nationalistpolitic! in British Gui-¥n and, 303; and &very,7. 24ChriStophe, Henri, 16-17Cipriani, A. A.. 238Clarke. Edith, 177 n, 184 nCockpit CQUII~~, Jamaica, 197Codrington, William, 111Codrington, William, Jr.. 111-gtom. the (of Barbadm),10911, 111, 13011ah% B. S., 296 nCollins. B. A. N.. 305 nColonial Development andWelfare Organization, 237-38IndexColutnbw, ~ p h e r , 2,165, 277Colvilles, the (of Jamaica andBritish Guiair), 109 nCommonwealth Caribbean.See British West Indies;specific islands, people,placesCompagnie des lies dePAmtrique, 54 ft.Cooper, T., 38Cornwall County, Jamaica,119Coromantee slaves, 31Creole patois, 17, 51, 207-8.210Creoles (Creole West Indians),xv-xvii, 19, 21-45,182, 276 (see also sp&people, places); and culturalassidation in a multiracialsociety, 276, 277-85; and cultural complexityin a multiracial society,286, 287-98; and culturalpluralism and nationalistpolitics in British Guiana,300, 305-20; as a dominantwhite minority in Marti-nique, 240, 241-75; andEast Indians in British Guiana,xvii, 300, 301-20; andEast Indians in Trinidad,xvii, 206, 276, 277-85, 286,287-98 passim; and emancipationand free labor(1861), 14247; languageand social structure and, 17,51, 207-8, 210; slavery and#lave society and personalityof, 20, 21-45, 52, 53-72; and slavery and societyin Jamaica, 21-45; and socialstructure and stratificationin the West Indies,206-7, 208-10, 240, 241-75, 276, 277 f., 287 ft. (seeIndexCreole* (confd)also specific ulands, people,places)Crowky, Daniel J., 206. 276,277-85. 287, 288, 291, 292,295; on cultural asshilationin a multiracial society(East Indians and Creolesin Trinidad, 1960). 277-85Cuba, Cubans, 133, 142. 155,200; and clasa-color stratification,204Cugoano, Ottobah, 25 nCumper, George E., 204CuBdaU, F., 44 nCuracao, 207Curepe, Trinidad, 229Curtin, Philip, 10611, 123 0,186 nDavis, Alison, 214 nDavy, John, 118 nDeem, Noel, 116 nDc la Beche, Henry Tbonux,34 nDenmark, xiiiDespres, Leo A., 300, 301-20;on cultural pluralism andnationalist politics in BriMGuiana, 300, 301-20Dc Walden, Howard, 120Didier (suburb of Fort-&France, Martinique), 246-47DoUard, John, 214 nDominica: dwindling whitepopulation in, 278; lanimagein, 207; social 8-tore in, 198, 207, 278Dominican Republic, classcolorstratification in, 204Etonian, Edward, 25 n- Dunbars. the (of Antigua),130 nDutch. - the. See Netherlands(the Dutch) ; NetherlandsAntilles;specific islandsDu Tertre, Father JeaorBaptuto, 15East Idha, xiv, xvi# mii(tee also specific islands,people, places); and Creolesin British Ouiana, xvii,300,301-20; and Creoles inMartinique, 261: and Creolesin Trinidad, xvii, 206,276, 277-85, 286, 287-98;and cultural aoaimilatiAn ina multiracial society (Trinidad),xvii, 276.277-85; andcultural complexity (Trinidad),286, 287-98; and culturalpluralism and nationalistpolitics in BritishGuiana, 300, 301-20; andsocial and ethnic strarification.206. 208-10. 225%276, 277-85East Indies. 155. 158Edwards, 23, 28, 39,107 n, 115 n, 123 n, 128 nEisner, Gisela, 114 n, 134 n"El Dorado," 133Elkins, Stanley, 24, 36England (the English). SetUnited(the British)Equiano, Olaudah, 24-27Europe, European*, xi& xivxv,2. 82, 84, 143, 158-59,207. 208 (we also #pacificcountries, people, place*):and abacntee-proprielonhipin the British Wet lodie*to about 1850. 105-35 DO*.Jim; and cultural Mumfflationin a multiracial dety(Trinidad), 277, 278, 280,281, 288-89, 290, 291,292,294; and cultural pluralismin British Guiana, 304; andemancipation and free !Èbor in the British Weç In-

Europe (confd)dies, 143; and freedom andself-government in theBritish West India, 164,165, 167-68; and pluralframework of Jamaican society,176; and slavery inthe West Indies, 2, 4-19,46, 47-51, 52, 53-72 (teealso specific countries, islands,people, places); andslave society in Saint-Dominguc, 52, 53-72; andslave society in Surinam,46, 47-51; and social stratificationin the British WestIndies, 207, 208. 210 (seealso specific islands, people,places)Evans, Peter, 186 nFalconbridge, Alexander, 26,27 nFederation. See West Indie*FederationFordc, DaryU, 32Fortde-France, Martinique,242, 246, 257Foster Commission, 236France (the French), xiii, xiv,xv, 8. 84, 85. 133, 153, 279,299 (see also French Antitles;specific islands, people,places); and the freecolored in a slave society(Saint-Dominguc), 95, 96,100-1, 103; and slavery andslave society in Saint-Domingue, 8-19, 52, 53-72, 95, 96, 98-99. 100-1,103; and social stratificationin Martiuique, 241,242, 245. 247Franklin, Benjamin, 63Freilich, Morris, 283French Antilles. 52. 91, 197,203. See also France (theIndexFrench); qcdc idan&people, placesFrench Guiana, 207, 242French language, 84, 85. Seealso Creole patoisFried, M. H., 206 nFrome sugar estate (Jamaica).197Froude, James Anthony, 150,151-59; on the peril* ofblack supremacy in theBritish West Indies (1888).151-59; response to, 160,161-70Fumivall, J. S, 172, 210%295Gardner, W. H., 124Germany, Germans, 80, 241,260Ghana. 281Gladstones, the (of BritishGuiana), 109 n, 13011Ward, Lionel, 246Wards, the (of Martinique),246, 258, 274Godefrooy, Elizabeth Danforth.50Gold Coast, 30, 31Gordon, Shirley, 125Gouldner, Alvin W., 313 nGreat Britain (the British).See United Kingdom (theBritish)Greece, ancient, 80, 97Greene, Benjamin Buck, 112,121 nGrenada, 161, 165. 173, 198,199, 203; class-color stratificationin, 205; cultural assimilation in, 278, 279Grenadines, the, 198, 200,201. See also specific islandsGrey, Lord, 105Guadeloupe, 155, 197, 199,202, 242, 260, 265; class-IndexGuadeloupe (contV)color stratification in. 205,206, 242, 260, 265Guianas, European (tee a hBritish GuiW, FrenchGuiana, Guyana, Guyanese):social stratificationin. 208-10Guinea, and African (lavetrade, 18, 29-30Gurncy, J. J., 106 nGuyana, Guyanew, xvi, xvii,276, 300. See also BritishGuiaua; French GubxwGuianas, EuropeanHaiti, Haitians, 2, 1617, 150,200, 202 (see also Saint-Domingue); freedom andself-government in, 162-65Hall, Douglas, 104, onabsentee-proprietorship inthe British West Indie* toabout 1850. 105-35HaUowell, A. I., 196nHarris, George Franch Robert.Lord, 232Harris, Marvin, 268Hatt, Paul K., 214Henriquea, F., 106 n, 175 nHerskovits, F. S., 291 nHerakovits, M. J., 32 n, 291 nHibberts, the (of Jamaica),130 nHindm (Hinduim, Hindustani~),208-9, 281-85,292-98 (use also East Indians,specific people,places) ; Hindi lanii!uageand, 281-83; in Surinam,208-9; in Trinidad, 279 it.,281-85. 286, 292-98Hispaniola, 2, 133, 197. Seaalso Spe~ific islands, peopleplacesHolluui. See Netherianda (theIboÈ the, 23, 24-25India, 159, 232, 276: cadesystem in, 296; and culturalassimilation and complexityof Bait Indian* in Trinidad,280, 281, 282, 283, 284,288, 293, 296, 298Indians. See AmerindunrCaribs; East Indian*', qdcific island*, people, place*Institute of Social and EconomicRefearch, Universityof the Wet Indiea, 173,212Ireland (the Irish), 131-32,155. 156Islam, 281, 282, 285. See alsoMoslems (Mudinu)Israel, 202Ivory Coast, 19Jagan, Cheddi, 305, 315, 317,318-19Jmaica, JamaiL-=, xVu# 20,21-45, 104, 112% 151,152,172, 186, 187, 189, 197,198, 212, 240, 279;absentee-propnetonhip toabout 1850 in, 109 XI, 112 0,115 n. 1180, 119, 120. 121,124-27, 130n. 133, 134;and British d ¥yrte.21% camomic orofsociety in, 181ff.; educationand occup~tional differentiationin, 179-82:emancipation and tree laborin, 1374, 147; family organizationand kinship institutionsand magireligioussystem in, 176-79; freed blacks and mulattosin (1774). 74. 75-93:labor movement and nol*

Jamaica (cont'd)cal climate in, 316; law andsocial structure in, 185-87;material culture and socialstructure in, 191; perilsof freedom and selfgovernmentin, 151. 152;plural framework of society(racial diversity and social8ttucture) in, 172, 174-93,198, 199, 27% political systemand social structure in,187-89; Quasiwe (slavepersonality pattern) in, 36-45; Rebellion (1865) in,186 m~eational patternsand social structure in, 189-90; slavery and slave IX+ciakation and personalityin, 20, 21-45; !kid Welfare~auniasion, 18@vdwaystema and social~ C ~ L Kin, C 191-92Jamaican Journal, 38c. L R, 3, 4; on thefree colored in a slave IX+ciety (!hint-Domingue), Np95-103; on slava and slavel-yin saint-Do&guo, 4-191-a,ew, xvi, ISp 76 in Jamaica,174* 18% in Wdad, 288anc, John, 40ellyp J.# 27, 30ent, Englandp 80enp Madelinep 180eur, D., 203eur, J., 203baU, I. H.# 106 n, 128 nKing, D., 106 nKingston, Jamaica, 36, 174,197Ki&ana, the (of Antigua)p130nMass, Mortonp 206, 283p 286#287-9% on East and WestIndian cultural complexityin Trinidad, 287-98KovatsBcaudoux, Edith,241-75; on a dominant minority,the white Creoles ofMartiniquc, 241-75Kruijcrp G. JSp 203P w (Tlkkkid), 238La D6siradc. island of, 205Lain& R. D., 41 nLarnage, charlea BnuliCr*Marquh &, 56Lassem, G., 205 XI, 206 nLa Capp 100. See a h CapFrawis (cap Haitim),HaitiLeeward Islands, - absenteeproprietomhip in, 107*13011. 133Lea, Michcl, 269LC Page, R. B., 189 np 207Lesliep Charleap 22 XI, 2%3OP31Lesser Antilles, 199. See a&ospecific islandsp ppk.P-Lewis, M. GeP 23-24,27 n, 33#34-35, 38# 40p 109 nLeys, Dr. Norman, 13 nLiberia, 165L.i1nb6~ Sit-Domhguep 18bndon, xivp 199. See &ounited Khg&rn (the Brit-*)LO-, Jldw~d, 22-23, 31, 33#37, 4SP 74, 7s-93# 106n.113% 125, 126-27; onfreed black and mulatto8Long, F!dd (confd)in Jamah (1774Ip 7dP 75-93b~~&ld, M-tifoG 131-32buhW.Kh1~0fFran~e.8em DomhiqueLowp J. 0.. 213-14nbwenthal, David, IMP 195-21~ontbe~~eanddMacIvcr, R M., 315Mackandal (Maroonand snint-mmingw rcbollion,18-19MvMabon, Emjamin, 33#106 nMacmillau, W. M., 102 nMcNeillp Hectorp 3SP 39Madden, R R, 38* 4041Madrid, 155Maiht, Sin Piemp 56Malowt. F i e Victorp 12Maroons: in Jamaica, 9lP 127#128; in Sabt-Domhg~~ 1UP96Martin, R. M., 24.25 n, 127 nMahique* xvii, ISp 5zp 155.197, 199, 205; chs-color8tramcation inp xvii, 15,205, 240, 241-75; podthof white Chela (bdkks) aaa &&ant minority in,XV& 241-75Man, Karl, 103 nMamhm-Leniaiam, nationaliatmovement in' British Quia~and, 316Marhiwn, W. L" 113 nMathkin, 0.. 39Maxwell, J., 120 nMayreaa, 2WP 204Me- 197Herton, R. Ic., 43M6tmq Rhoda, 207 nMhtG Sidney w., 1mn,185 nMontcsqoicn, Charla & semndat, Baron &, 86 nMat Pel&, Marrhiqw, 241Montscnnt, 197* 202, 278Moreton, J. BSp 36Moaer, C. A, 180Mrnh~ (Mh), 282-83(see & m, spdtkP-Ph pb); adturalusimilation and cornIndiana inpkxity of k tThkkl, 292, 296-98Mom ~~ 237Nation, The, 3New codep 8-10. 9SP 97Negl-Om. xiii-xvii, 4 a 21a(see also Mricam [Afm-AnCricaIIs, Afro-was xlbdim]; spdfic &dividuab,W&P PPI~P P ~ I ;absente-pmprietonhp inthe Britdl weat India toabut 1850 and, 127-35;African slave trade and, 4-19, 2OP 21-45 passim; umditiomof slavay and, 4-19, 20, 21-45 (see a h apecficpeople, ph); andconacquenca of freedomand elf-government, 150,151-59, 160. 161-7@ d~~ll'lllX1 & 8multiracial d t y (Trinidad),277-85 parsim; a dcultural complexity in Itin-&d, 286, 287-98; demancipation and ~ IW labor(1860). 136, 1374% dthe free colored in a lawsociety (!bint-D~rningue)~94# 95-103; and freed

Negroes (cont'd)blacks and mWtoa (lamaica),74, 75-93; andplural framework of Jam&cau society, 174-93 passim;Iange and variation in caribbeanwcictica and, 194.195-21% d ~ V W andmulthcial uockty in theWest Indied, xjii-xvii, 4-19#20, 2145, 46, 47-51; dslavery ad personality patterns(Jdca), 32 ff .; mdsocial and ethuic stratilica~tion in the Weat India,204-10, 213-39, 241-75( ~ aeb 8pecilk Lib&,people, pl-4Netbsrlanda (the Dutch), xi&46, 47-51. See ah NetbcrlandsAntilles; spcci6c is-lands, P-Ph pl=sNetherlamb Antilles, 203,208#209-10 (see also apcci6c islands,people, ph); slaveryand slave society in(Suham), 46, 47-51Ncvis, 198-99 (see also St.Kim); hntcc-pmprktorshipto about 1850 in,116~1, 13011New Grenada, 133New World, 2, 243# 268 (seea h 8 ~ ~ c Q u n -tried* individuals, idulds,wpb, PI-); slavery andslave socieiy in, 24ff., 36,57New Yo* xivNew York Times, 136New zealand, Now zealanden,154Niihoff, Arthur, 28OS 283Nigeria, 173# 219Nigw River, 4Nkrumah, Kwame, 3170Normandy# France, 57ogeron, Bcrtrand d*# 54Olivicr, !jydncy, 123-26Wrof St. J-xiiiOrinoco Rivers 133Ompouche, TrhLW, 280Pakistan, 298Pluaauuii* SuriMm, 47,207Parea, Rs 10611, 108 n, 11611Park, NV. 12, 96, 155. SeeaLS0 France (the Frcn&)Paw, J. H., 11211, 11711,126 nParsons, Talwtt, 301 nPatterson, Orlado, 20, 21-45#52; on the wxialbtion andpersonality of tho slave (18-maica)# 2145Penal, 'Ithidad, 282Pennants, the (of Jamaica),130 nPeople'a National Movement(Trinidad), 3peoples Progressive Party(P.P.P.), British Guian%313, 314, 3lSs 319Petit Martiniqw, 199Phillippo, J. M-, 41Pichvoad, EkhVill# 105Pinmy, Johns 116 n, 130 npheya, the (of Nevia),13011. See a b P~cY,JohnPitman, Frank w., lo4Polyncsii 197Pope, Alexander, 168Port-a-Prina, Haiti, 99Port of Spain, Trinidad, 199.280, 281, 293; d andethnic slratilication in, 199.215-21s 229, 280, 281, 293Port Royal, Jamaica, 151Portugals 241. See also Portuguae,in west IndiaPortueuwos in Wut bdim,dvs xvi, 147, 241; and cultural*~~oxI, 279, W2,295; in 1- 17+ inMartiniqw, 241; and mcial~ i n t h e W ~ hdica, 5% xvi, 174,206,225,227# 279, W2, 29% in lYhidad,22Ss 227# 279# W2#295Powries Barbara E., 290P.P.P. See Peoples PmgndmParty (P.P.P.)D Britinh GI&ana~~~~mProudfoot, Malcolm, 203PIU~~&IK&, 202, 208Puelio Ria, Pu&o Ricalla,201, 24% calor stfati-&ation Md, 2o4# 207-# 36-45,84,8$ dyahof slave pamdity (J*alab) and, 364% lev&and fundom ofD 4 14*, 20% da=a3lor atd&cation in: 205s hgu8tine# TIinbM 215-16st. BaIthtkmy, 202,204st. Cmk. 202; classcolor-4m

338scotland, 0.. lo6 nSclvon, Samuel, 197 nSewell, William G., 106%136, 13749; on tb ordealof free labor in tb BritishWCU bdi~(1861). 137-49shnnd, l+mciS, 111shanda, th (Of Antigua). 111,13011Skridm, Richard B., 114%131 nShcrlock, P. M., Inn, 117%126 nSimpson, 0. R, 178 n, 180ns i a wiw, mSmith, Adam, 129, 134Smith, M. 0.. 172-73, 174-93, 195-96. 197 n, 19911,201, 203, Wn, 212, 240,307 n; on the plural *work of Jamaka &ty,174-93&uth Africn, 269spain (the spdsh). 2,101, 153, 155, 165, 295.See ako Spmbh America(Spnniub wa hdka); u pdie idan&, people, placesSpEmiSh America (SpmishWeat bdk), 83, 124,231-32. lb &O (tbSPdsh); weci6c idm4WP~. p h-Smle, Leo, 213 nS m 3Oh G., 46, 47-51;on plantation &very intwit~m (1772-771, 47-51Stewart, John, 27, 37, 40t3whn-4 202,209; language and socialandtion in, 207-8, 21R slaveryand plantation life in(1772-n), 47-51; d t y(nocia1 stratification) in,202, 24%. 207-10*&4 diiSyrinM, in weat IlldiM, xiv,174, 182, 206, 226, 227,228; and cultural as8Wbti011 in ~WUI, 279, 288;h J- 174, 18% d~ID-- i n ~ w174. 182, 206, 226,~Tuki-Takf (!bhaama Ch~blauww), 210TayIor, Simon, 118 nThibault dc Chmvallon, Joan-BapIis*Mathieu, 68llmma~, J. I., 160, 161-70'Ibome, J. A, 106 % 128 nTobago, 198, 199. See a bTrinidad,Trinidadians;Trinidad and TobagoTollemache, John, 115 nTorday, Ejnil, 4nToussaint L'Ouw PiemD?mi.aiqne.. 2 I!. 17, 164l'kinhw 'mlum w133, 151, 160. 198, 199,230-31, 240, 260, 276, Wl(see a h Tobap,and Tobago); abnprop~tmhipto about 1850in, lWn, 133; and Britishsocial ayatem, 218-19, 229,231 ff.; Carnival and =idstmtiiication in, 289, 290,293; Civil Service and straGsation in, 232-3% c bwlor stratilication (socidstructure and atti-) iu,xviii, 198, 202, 205: 206,212; c u l ~ fanhwion(JWthdh8 ~d b b )in, 276, 277-85; culludcomplexity (East JndWd hh) in, 286, 287-98; education and socialatratikation in, 231-3%Union (Gramdiw), 202United Kingdom (the British),xi& xiv, N, 3, Sff., 154,178, 217, 218, 230, 279,295,303,306,312 (see aLwBritish West In&, apccifkpeople, pIace8): anda ~ ~ p m h ptile BriW west India toabout 1850, 105-35; and~w~ and perh offreedom and self-go=mentin tb British West India150. 151-59, 160,161-~ ~ p69 txtssirn; and ~ d epluralism and natI0nahtpolitics in BriW G u ~303, 306, 312, 31% F-erco-n, 236; and frudbh& and mulattos in Jamaica,75-93 passim, 96;Mope Commission, 237;and plantation colonialismand emancipation and fre.51aborinthCBri~W~~dim, ?36, 1374% *kfACQfrIm~ on sum andCoffee Planthg (lW8).105. 111, 112n. 115n.118% 12111; and slavery(slaw aockty) in JamkWagley, Charla% 19748%214-15, 268Warner; w- Lloyd, 204,213-14warnem, tba (of AxltigM adTrinidad), lo9

340Weddcrbura"101m"31 DWoatwortb,.1'IeIaWDeY.1060WClIIc)'.Co H., 128DWest .Af:rb, Weat Afrkaua,:&iii.32. 9ft. Africa; ....c:iticpeople. pIaceIWest IDdicIFederatioo.316­17 (a_ • British Westloctics;speclfIc islaIlda.pe0­ple, placca). range and variatioDof Caribbean IOCietieIin. 194, 195-210West lDdies Royal Comm.ilJ.. stratificatioDin. 208sion, 236W"'tSCII1lUl, H. V•• 106.Whitbeck, R. a, 199 D . WriahC, Rk:Iwd, 43 DWI,UiDs,Mary, 341DdaWiDiama.Brie. 106Do 108Do113Do126, l29WDlialD'Oll, J. A., 1078Wim.....WilIoD, laue, 26Frant;oia Alexandre,Buoa de"13Do IS,100.WIDdward IaIaDdI"57, 203.~toabout 18.50 in. 11.5, 133;emipadoa of whiteI from,278; Wtauaaoand IOCialANCHOlt. BOOKSA.aICAN AND A.aO-AMRaICAN .TUDIS.Al'UCl AND 'I'D VICTOaIANI-RoaaId BDWDIOIIMd JobD au­Ia,sbor.with Alb DaoJ, A04.lI'IIIC&H UlLIOIONt AMDl'IPtOIOl'IIY-John S.Mbfd, A7S4.tolWNIT 'I8B WOItD: Ar.tiIIIdeIof White SOUdIAfrlca-Dou,sIuBJ'OWD" A671ug ... :'M&M::IIIlIlLATIONSTOOAY-EarI Raab, eeL.A318AND WB ... NOr MVED: A HiIfary of tbo Mowmeat • People-Debbie LoWa.A7.55.ua4UOW OF GOD-C2liaua N.bebe,A698JIUClt AWAONINO 1MCAPlTAL8I' A¥.I1.IlIC4-RDbert L .Allen,A7j,BISTOl1Y:A ReappraiIal-Meivin Drimmel'.cd.. A08CASTS4ND CLAS81MA SOtl'l'BEUf TOWN-101m DoJ1ard.ASljDBMQCIlACY \IllIUlUS BWi'1RB: Tbc Jamaica Rioa of 116.5IUIdtboGovernor Eyre Coatrovel'llY-.Bemard Semmel, A703DJPPIIUNT DIWloOfEIl-WilliamMelvinKelley, A678DOWNIlI!COMD AVBHUB-&.etieI MpbaJlIele,A792J!MANCIPA11ONPJU:lCLA¥ATIOM-Iohn Hope Frant1iD,A4.591lQUAUl'Y BY STA1VT.B: Tbo bvolutioD in (1vil .......... 1IoaoeBerger. M91now IW:B lUOT TO SlT-IM-.Atthur L Waskow,MS7GOD'S JUTS OIl wooo-OuamaDe &embolIC, intro. by A. Adu Boabeo.A729BISTOaYOIl BAST4ND CBNTaAL APIUCA-Basil Davidson, A677A BISTOaY OIl WllST AI"aICA-BaailDavidson, with F. L Buah IIDdthe advieoofJ. F. AdoAJaYi.MSOm.uut8011 TBB DIUWI-Li11iao Smith, A339MAN OPTBB I'lIOI'Ul-ChinuaAcbebe.M94MOVEWBNT .ANDUVOLlJ11ON: A Conversation 00 Americana.&calism-Petor L ~ IIDdllicbard J. NeubauI, A726MY N.oUoII! IS AnW.-KcorapeDe KaoeitsiJc. lalro. by GweodolyllBrooks, A019MY PIlOPLB IS TBB 1lNBKY: AD ADtobiograpbical PoIamJc-WDI.iamStringfellow. A489NATIONS BY DJlS1ON: Institution BuiJdinain Africa.-Amold 1livtlD,ed., A629TBB NA11JU 01' pu.TUD1C8-GordonW. Allport, abridged. A14!»11IB :NIlGIIO ANI) TBB 'MIlIIICAN LAIIC:a MOVEWBNT-Juliul JacoIlma,ed., A49SNEWCO~ Handlin.A283POrmes 01' SCHOOLDISJlOI!IIAATION-Robert L Crain.A66S1lAC8ANDJ!U11ONAUl'Y IN ,MP-DN UI'B-Osca.rHandlin, AlI0I.&LITUlS OP 11IB UJlIIAN CI USJlOO"-o. Alcxa.... Moorcl, Jr ..A568"."" ...._I"h .. A. WilliAm •. A710

APUCAN AND .. PRO-AMaRICAN ITUDISI (COIII'd)'I1ICIINIaAN8 OP 1BB lW:IJ!D: A RaDaeof Poetricl from Africa,.America,Asia.and Oceauia Jerome Rotbcnbcq, cd..A06'J1JBUIlBAN ooliO'LB1t-Robert C. Wcawr, MOlW.ALI: 1BB WBITB LINB: Profileof Urban Education-Elizabeth M.Eddy, PhD., A570WBITB WAN. LIS11l.NI-RichardWriabt, A414WHO NIIIlD8 TBB NIIQIlO7-sidoey Willhdm. iDtro. by Stauab10DLyod. A789