British West Indian labour unrest of 1934–1939
Encyclopedia
TheBritish West Indian
labour unrest of 1934–1939 encompassed a series of disturbances, strikes and riots in the United Kingdom
's Caribbean
colonies. These began as the Great Depression
wore on and ceased on the eve of World War II
. The unrest served to highlight inequalities of wealth, led the British government to attempt a solution to the problem, and in some cases spurred the development of indigenous party politics that would lead to self-government and independence in the postwar period.
(which ended in a riot in September) the May–July 1934 sugar estate disturbance on Trinidad
(which broke out on several estates in the central sugar belt, involving over 15,000 Indian estate labourers) and the January 1935 Saint Kitts
sugar strike. In any event, after St Kitts (which turned into a general strike of agricultural labourers) came a March strike in Trinidad's oilfields and a hunger march to Port of Spain
. In Jamaica
labour protests broke out in May on the island's north coast. Rioting among banana workers in the town of Oracabessa was succeeded by a strike of dockworkers in Falmouth
which ended in violence. In September and October there were riots on various sugar estates in British Guiana
; there had been strikes the previous September on five sugar estates on the west coast of Demerara
. In October rioting also took place on St Vincent
in Kingstown
and Camden Park. The year ended with a November strike of coal workers in St Lucia
. After a relatively tranquil year in 1936, there was widespread unrest in Trinidad (extraordinary because blacks and Indians cooperated in working-class activities) and Barbados
in June 1937 and in Jamaica in May–June 1938. The 1937-38 disturbances were of greater magnitude than the 1934-35 ones, which had been more localized. In Trinidad, for example, the protest began in the oilfields but eventually spread to the sugar belt and the towns. In Barbados the disorders which started in Bridgetown
spread to the rural areas. In Jamaica most areas of the island experienced serious strikes and disturbances. At least two ending points have also been suggested: the Jamaican cane-cutters' strike of 1938 or the major February 1939 strike at the Plantation Leonora in British Guiana, which led to further disturbances.
In 1937, there were numerous deaths as strikes descended into riots, while the sugar workers' and Kingston labourers' strike in Jamaica in 1938 resulted in riots and 46 deaths. At least 429 were injured, with thousands detained and prosecuted.
Women played a crucial role at almost every level of the popular protests. As workers, many women were involved in the planning and execution of the strikes, and they were active in radical organizations such as UNIA
. The Caribbean unrest was not limited to British colonies: massive strikes took place in Cuba
in 1930, 1933 and 1935, as well as a hunger march by sugar workers on Martinique
in February 1935.
as warfare disrupted European sugar beet production. In the postwar years, sugar prices fell sharply as world supply exceeded effective demand. The British government's policy of subsidizing domestic sugar beet production further depressed prices. The prices of other agricultural staples, including cocoa, coconuts, limes and bananas, also slumped to unprofitable levels due to worldwide overproduction. In some cases agricultural commodities suffered from the effects of plant diseases and hurricane damage. The crisis in the colonial economy was exacerbated by the global economic Depression which further reduced demand for British Caribbean exports in the 1930s.
The pervasive economic Depression in the colonies had far-reaching consequences for the working classes. Employers in some industries drastically reduced wages. Social conditions deteriorated as unemployment and underemployment increased (which an inadequate social welfare system could not address), factors which were worsened by sharply increased population growth, itself the result of a significant downward trend in the region's mortality rate as health conditions improved. The cost of living also went up: it was a sudden upsurge in 1937-38 that led to strikes in Jamaica. Emigration outlets were closed, which created a frustrating sense of being shut in and of being denied opportunity and choice.
Other general causes were the longstanding grievances of the West Indian peasants against the plantation owners. Historically, the peasants occupied the least fertile lands and were bullied by the owners. They had problems with land title, poor technology, lack of finance and marketing assistance, and poor means of transporting produce from the farm to the market. These and other grievances stimulated peasant participation in the disturbances. Furthermore, there was a rapid growth of working-class consciousness. Labour unions had been well-organised in Guiana and Jamaica since the 1920s. The British Guiana Labour Union dated to 1919, and the Longshoremen Union had a chapter in Jamaica from the early years of the century.
In addition, there was a general increase in nationalist and pro-independence sentiments in the 1930s. The labour unions were organised as general political organisations or broad-based social movements. They campaigned for better wages and working conditions, the transformation of the colonial system and political independence for the colonies. Moreover, West Indians had rising expectations, as many had travelled abroad and experienced living conditions in Britain and the US. They wanted the same high standard of living at home, wished to be accorded respect as trained professionals and desired opportunities for upward mobility. Instead, they remained trapped in the system's political, economic, social, colour and racial hierarchies. Ideologies such as Marxism
and Fabian socialism
gained currency.
, to investigate what had transpired. Its members visited all the British Caribbean territories between November 1938 and February 1939, looking at conditions in housing, agriculture, hospitals, asylums for the mentally ill, leper homes, prisons, factories, docks, schools, orphanages, land settlement, and political and constitutional matters. It heard formal evidence in 26 centres from 370 witnesses or groups of witnesses, and received and considered 789 memoranda of evidence. The investigation was regarded with great seriousness, as seen from the high level of public interest and the numbers, status and range of organisational affiliation of those giving evidence; both the latter and those who had been in active rebellion saw it as a channel for achieving reform. The Moyne Report pinpointed the outdated land-tenure structure and the remnants of the plantation system as the chief culprits in the economic crisis facing the West Indies, and recommended the federation of all the West Indian colonies as "an ideal to which policy should be directed", beginning with the federation of the Windward
(Grenada
, Saint Vincent, Saint Lucia, Dominica
) and Leeward
(Antigua, Saint Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, Montserrat
) Islands. However, it rejected the idea of immediate independence and the introduction of universal adult suffrage, both of which featured among the workers' demands.
The report was issued in 1939 but was not published in full until 1945, lest it provide a propaganda source for the Axis powers. Based on its recommendations, the Colonial Development and Welfare Act became law in July 1940, providing the framework for reform in welfare and development in the entire British Empire. It allowed for £5m to be spent yearly on colonial development and welfare for ten years and £500,000 annually for colonial research indefinitely. A Colonial Development and Welfare Department was established in 1940 and the appropriate staff assembled in the regional territories in 1941. Still, due to wartime exigencies, little was achieved in the region by 1945.
In Jamaica, the settlement of the 1938 unrest laid the foundations for that country's modern party system. Alexander Bustamante
led a strike on the Frome Estate Sugar Plantation after a wage-and-hours dispute. The excitement generated there quickly spread to dockworkers and street cleaners, ultimately producing a general strike suppressed by British forces. Bustamante was jailed for seventeen months, becoming a labour martyr; his cousin Norman Manley
helped settle the strike. Manley quickly became so popular that by September, he had organised the People's National Party
with the support of the Trade Union Congress (later to become the National Workers' Union). Bustamante, once released, began to organise his own party, and in 1943, strongly backed by the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union
(BITU), which he led, founded the Jamaica Labour Party
. The two parties have remained dominant ever since. Other leaders identified with working class aspirations emerged, including Grantley Adams
of Barbados, who served as legal counsel for some of those arrested in 1937; and Albert Gomes
of Trinidad, who became a popular political speaker during this period and was elected to the Port of Spain City Council.
Strong trade unions continued to develop all around the Caribbean. These collected data on working conditions and wage levels, and became mass movements associated with political parties. Besides the BITU, the National Workers Union arose in Jamaica, the Labour Party of St. Kitts
and the St. Kitts-Nevis Trades and Labour Union, and unions and parties in Antigua. All were of the same general view regarding wages and salaries for workers.
British West Indies
The British West Indies was a term used to describe the islands in and around the Caribbean that were part of the British Empire The term was sometimes used to include British Honduras and British Guiana, even though these territories are not geographically part of the Caribbean...
labour unrest of 1934–1939 encompassed a series of disturbances, strikes and riots in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
's Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
colonies. These began as the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
wore on and ceased on the eve of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The unrest served to highlight inequalities of wealth, led the British government to attempt a solution to the problem, and in some cases spurred the development of indigenous party politics that would lead to self-government and independence in the postwar period.
Chronology
Various starting points for the cycle of disturbances have been proposed: the February 1934 labour agitation in British HondurasBritish Honduras
British Honduras was a British colony that is now the independent nation of Belize.First colonised by Spaniards in the 17th century, the territory on the east coast of Central America, south of Mexico, became a British crown colony from 1862 until 1964, when it became self-governing. Belize became...
(which ended in a riot in September) the May–July 1934 sugar estate disturbance on Trinidad
Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...
(which broke out on several estates in the central sugar belt, involving over 15,000 Indian estate labourers) and the January 1935 Saint Kitts
Saint Kitts
Saint Kitts Saint Kitts Saint Kitts (also known more formally as Saint Christopher Island (Saint-Christophe in French) is an island in the West Indies. The west side of the island borders the Caribbean Sea, and the eastern coast faces the Atlantic Ocean...
sugar strike. In any event, after St Kitts (which turned into a general strike of agricultural labourers) came a March strike in Trinidad's oilfields and a hunger march to Port of Spain
Port of Spain
Port of Spain, also written as Port-of-Spain, is the capital of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and the country's third-largest municipality, after San Fernando and Chaguanas. The city has a municipal population of 49,031 , a metropolitan population of 128,026 and a transient daily population...
. In Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
labour protests broke out in May on the island's north coast. Rioting among banana workers in the town of Oracabessa was succeeded by a strike of dockworkers in Falmouth
Falmouth, Jamaica
Falmouth is the chief town and capital of the parish of Trelawny in Jamaica. It is situated on Jamaica's north coast 18 miles east of Montego Bay. It is noted for being one of the Caribbean’s best-preserved Georgian towns....
which ended in violence. In September and October there were riots on various sugar estates in British Guiana
British Guiana
British Guiana was the name of the British colony on the northern coast of South America, now the independent nation of Guyana.The area was originally settled by the Dutch at the start of the 17th century as the colonies of Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice...
; there had been strikes the previous September on five sugar estates on the west coast of Demerara
Demerara
Demerara was a region in South America in what is now Guyana that was colonised by the Dutch in 1611. The British invaded and captured the area in 1796...
. In October rioting also took place on St Vincent
Saint Vincent (island)
Saint Vincent is a volcanic island in the Caribbean. It is the largest island of the chain called Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It is located in the Caribbean Sea, between Saint Lucia and Grenada. It is composed of partially submerged volcanic mountains...
in Kingstown
Kingstown
Kingstown is the chief port of Saint Vincent, and the capital of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. With a population of 25,418 Kingstown is a centre for the island's agricultural industry and a port of entry for tourists...
and Camden Park. The year ended with a November strike of coal workers in St Lucia
Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia is an island country in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. Part of the Lesser Antilles, it is located north/northeast of the island of Saint Vincent, northwest of Barbados and south of Martinique. It covers a land area of 620 km2 and has an...
. After a relatively tranquil year in 1936, there was widespread unrest in Trinidad (extraordinary because blacks and Indians cooperated in working-class activities) and Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
in June 1937 and in Jamaica in May–June 1938. The 1937-38 disturbances were of greater magnitude than the 1934-35 ones, which had been more localized. In Trinidad, for example, the protest began in the oilfields but eventually spread to the sugar belt and the towns. In Barbados the disorders which started in Bridgetown
Bridgetown
The city of Bridgetown , metropolitan pop 96,578 , is the capital and largest city of the nation of Barbados. Formerly, the Town of Saint Michael, the Greater Bridgetown area is located within the parish of Saint Michael...
spread to the rural areas. In Jamaica most areas of the island experienced serious strikes and disturbances. At least two ending points have also been suggested: the Jamaican cane-cutters' strike of 1938 or the major February 1939 strike at the Plantation Leonora in British Guiana, which led to further disturbances.
In 1937, there were numerous deaths as strikes descended into riots, while the sugar workers' and Kingston labourers' strike in Jamaica in 1938 resulted in riots and 46 deaths. At least 429 were injured, with thousands detained and prosecuted.
Women played a crucial role at almost every level of the popular protests. As workers, many women were involved in the planning and execution of the strikes, and they were active in radical organizations such as UNIA
Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League
The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League is a black nationalist fraternal organization founded by Marcus Garvey. The organization enjoyed its greatest strength in the 1990s, prior to Garvey's deportation from the United States of America, after which its...
. The Caribbean unrest was not limited to British colonies: massive strikes took place in Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
in 1930, 1933 and 1935, as well as a hunger march by sugar workers on Martinique
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
in February 1935.
Causes
Each labour rebellion had its own particular circumstances, but a common pattern can be discerned: the underlying causes were economic. With the exception of the mineral-extractive industries - oil in Trinidad and bauxite in British Guiana - the British West Indian economies were largely dependent on a narrow range of agricultural exports. Thus, they were highly vulnerable to reduced demand or a serious downturn in Britain and Europe. The sugar industry, which remained the mainstay of the colonial economies, had long been in a critical state but had revived during World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
as warfare disrupted European sugar beet production. In the postwar years, sugar prices fell sharply as world supply exceeded effective demand. The British government's policy of subsidizing domestic sugar beet production further depressed prices. The prices of other agricultural staples, including cocoa, coconuts, limes and bananas, also slumped to unprofitable levels due to worldwide overproduction. In some cases agricultural commodities suffered from the effects of plant diseases and hurricane damage. The crisis in the colonial economy was exacerbated by the global economic Depression which further reduced demand for British Caribbean exports in the 1930s.
The pervasive economic Depression in the colonies had far-reaching consequences for the working classes. Employers in some industries drastically reduced wages. Social conditions deteriorated as unemployment and underemployment increased (which an inadequate social welfare system could not address), factors which were worsened by sharply increased population growth, itself the result of a significant downward trend in the region's mortality rate as health conditions improved. The cost of living also went up: it was a sudden upsurge in 1937-38 that led to strikes in Jamaica. Emigration outlets were closed, which created a frustrating sense of being shut in and of being denied opportunity and choice.
Other general causes were the longstanding grievances of the West Indian peasants against the plantation owners. Historically, the peasants occupied the least fertile lands and were bullied by the owners. They had problems with land title, poor technology, lack of finance and marketing assistance, and poor means of transporting produce from the farm to the market. These and other grievances stimulated peasant participation in the disturbances. Furthermore, there was a rapid growth of working-class consciousness. Labour unions had been well-organised in Guiana and Jamaica since the 1920s. The British Guiana Labour Union dated to 1919, and the Longshoremen Union had a chapter in Jamaica from the early years of the century.
In addition, there was a general increase in nationalist and pro-independence sentiments in the 1930s. The labour unions were organised as general political organisations or broad-based social movements. They campaigned for better wages and working conditions, the transformation of the colonial system and political independence for the colonies. Moreover, West Indians had rising expectations, as many had travelled abroad and experienced living conditions in Britain and the US. They wanted the same high standard of living at home, wished to be accorded respect as trained professionals and desired opportunities for upward mobility. Instead, they remained trapped in the system's political, economic, social, colour and racial hierarchies. Ideologies such as Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
and Fabian socialism
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...
gained currency.
Consequences
As a result of the disturbances, the British government created the Moyne Commission, headed by Lord MoyneWalter Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne
Walter Edward Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne DSO & Bar PC was a Anglo-Irish politician and businessman. He served as the British minister of state in the Middle East until November 1944, when he was assassinated by the militant Jewish Zionist group Lehi...
, to investigate what had transpired. Its members visited all the British Caribbean territories between November 1938 and February 1939, looking at conditions in housing, agriculture, hospitals, asylums for the mentally ill, leper homes, prisons, factories, docks, schools, orphanages, land settlement, and political and constitutional matters. It heard formal evidence in 26 centres from 370 witnesses or groups of witnesses, and received and considered 789 memoranda of evidence. The investigation was regarded with great seriousness, as seen from the high level of public interest and the numbers, status and range of organisational affiliation of those giving evidence; both the latter and those who had been in active rebellion saw it as a channel for achieving reform. The Moyne Report pinpointed the outdated land-tenure structure and the remnants of the plantation system as the chief culprits in the economic crisis facing the West Indies, and recommended the federation of all the West Indian colonies as "an ideal to which policy should be directed", beginning with the federation of the Windward
Windward Islands
The Windward Islands are the southern islands of the Lesser Antilles, within the West Indies.-Name and geography:The Windward Islands are called such because they were more windward to sailing ships arriving in the New World than the Leeward Islands, given that the prevailing trade winds in the...
(Grenada
Grenada
Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...
, Saint Vincent, Saint Lucia, Dominica
Dominica
Dominica , officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island nation in the Lesser Antilles region of the Caribbean Sea, south-southeast of Guadeloupe and northwest of Martinique. Its size is and the highest point in the country is Morne Diablotins, which has an elevation of . The Commonwealth...
) and Leeward
Leeward Islands
The Leeward Islands are a group of islands in the West Indies. They are the northern islands of the Lesser Antilles chain. As a group they start east of Puerto Rico and reach southward to Dominica. They are situated where the northeastern Caribbean Sea meets the western Atlantic Ocean...
(Antigua, Saint Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, Montserrat
Montserrat
Montserrat is a British overseas territory located in the Leeward Islands, part of the chain of islands called the Lesser Antilles in the West Indies. This island measures approximately long and wide, giving of coastline...
) Islands. However, it rejected the idea of immediate independence and the introduction of universal adult suffrage, both of which featured among the workers' demands.
The report was issued in 1939 but was not published in full until 1945, lest it provide a propaganda source for the Axis powers. Based on its recommendations, the Colonial Development and Welfare Act became law in July 1940, providing the framework for reform in welfare and development in the entire British Empire. It allowed for £5m to be spent yearly on colonial development and welfare for ten years and £500,000 annually for colonial research indefinitely. A Colonial Development and Welfare Department was established in 1940 and the appropriate staff assembled in the regional territories in 1941. Still, due to wartime exigencies, little was achieved in the region by 1945.
In Jamaica, the settlement of the 1938 unrest laid the foundations for that country's modern party system. Alexander Bustamante
Alexander Bustamante
Sir William Alexander Clarke Bustamante GBE, National Hero of Jamaica was a Jamaican politician and labour leader....
led a strike on the Frome Estate Sugar Plantation after a wage-and-hours dispute. The excitement generated there quickly spread to dockworkers and street cleaners, ultimately producing a general strike suppressed by British forces. Bustamante was jailed for seventeen months, becoming a labour martyr; his cousin Norman Manley
Norman Manley
Norman Washington Manley MM QC National Hero of Jamaica , was a Jamaican statesman. A Rhodes Scholar, Manley became one of Jamaica's leading lawyers in the 1920s...
helped settle the strike. Manley quickly became so popular that by September, he had organised the People's National Party
People's National Party
The People's National Party is a social democratic and social liberal Jamaican political party, founded by Norman Manley in 1938. It is the oldest political party in the Anglophone Caribbean and one of the main two political parties in Jamaica. Out of the two major parties, it is considered more...
with the support of the Trade Union Congress (later to become the National Workers' Union). Bustamante, once released, began to organise his own party, and in 1943, strongly backed by the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union
Bustamante Industrial Trade Union
The Bustamante Industrial Trade Union is a trade union center in Jamaica established by Sir Alexander Bustamante. It is affiliated to the global union federation - International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Association....
(BITU), which he led, founded the Jamaica Labour Party
Jamaica Labour Party
The Jamaica Labour Party is one of the two major political parties in Jamaica, the other being the People's National Party. Despite its name, the JLP is a centre-right, conservative party.-Background:...
. The two parties have remained dominant ever since. Other leaders identified with working class aspirations emerged, including Grantley Adams
Grantley Herbert Adams
Sir Grantley Herbert Adams, CMG, QC was a Barbadian and British West Indian politician.Grantley Herbert Adams was born at Colliston, Government Hill, St. Michael on April 28, 1898. He was the third child of seven born to Fitzherbert Adams and the former Rosa Frances Turney. Grantley was educated...
of Barbados, who served as legal counsel for some of those arrested in 1937; and Albert Gomes
Albert Gomes
Albert Maria Gomes , a Trinidad and Tobago unionist, politician, and writer of Portuguese descent, was the first Chief Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. He was the founder of the Political Progress Groups and later led the Party of Political Progress Groups...
of Trinidad, who became a popular political speaker during this period and was elected to the Port of Spain City Council.
Strong trade unions continued to develop all around the Caribbean. These collected data on working conditions and wage levels, and became mass movements associated with political parties. Besides the BITU, the National Workers Union arose in Jamaica, the Labour Party of St. Kitts
Saint Kitts and Nevis Labour Party
The Saint Kitts and Nevis Labour Party is a centre-left political party in Saint Kitts and Nevis. It is currently the ruling party in the country after winnign six of the eleven seats in the 2010 general election.-History:...
and the St. Kitts-Nevis Trades and Labour Union, and unions and parties in Antigua. All were of the same general view regarding wages and salaries for workers.