Adjustments to Emancipation: Economic Situation After Emancipation

ADJUSTMENTS TO EMANCIPATION, 1838-1876
Economic situation after Emancipation

The Post-Emancipation period resulted in most of the ex-slaves leaving the
estates. Many of them set themselves up as peasant (small) farmers. This
resulted in a massive labour shortage which threatened to cause the sugar
industry to collapse.
The sugar industry was already in a poor state because of (1) shortage of
labour and (2) beet sugar competition. To avoid total decline, planters tried
to introduce immigration in the form of bringing in labourers from Europe,
other Caribbean islands, Asia and other areas. They also tried to introduce
technology in order to reduce the cost of sugar production. However, all of
these efforts could not stop the changes from sugar monoculture (planting
of one crop which was sugarcane) to agricultural diversification (planting
of many crops). As a result of this, many crops were produced after
emancipation e.g. banana, cocoa and arrowroot.
Agricultural diversification also occurred because ex-slaves grew crops other
than sugarcane. These peasant farmers grew not only food crops for eating
but cash crops to sell. Peasant farming began by ex-slaves but was boosted
by the East Indians who came through immigration to work on plantations.

Therefore the emancipation of slaves and their exodus or mass departure
from the plantations led to

(1) the development of peasant farming and

(2)Immigration.
n.b. The exodus from the plantations was greatest in Jamaica,
Trinidad and British Guiana where large areas of unoccupied land
were available.

Labour Problems in the Post-Emancipation period

Before emancipation, all territories in the British West Indies could be
classified as the same because they were all plantation economies based on
slave labour. After emancipation, island separateness developed as each
island began to take different turns to develop. In other words, islands
developed at different rates. Larger islands had greater labour problems
because they had more land and larger numbers of ex-slaves but few of
them were willing to work on plantations after emancipation.
Let’s compare Trinidad and Jamaica after emancipation. Trinidad was
considered a medium-sized territory with a large population of freed persons or ex-slaves,

Jamaica was considered a large island with an even larger
population of freed persons. The difference is that Trinidad had a similar
labour problem and saw immigration as the solution to this labour shortage.
Jamaica had a lot more problems and therefore an even a larger labour
problem, but the government at the time did not want to introduce
immigration to solve this problem.

Attitudes to Labour in the English-speaking Caribbean after 1838

The newly emancipated people also had some adjusting to do:
1. They had to find their own food, clothing and shelter. They could either
make arrangements with their former owner or establish independent
settlements. Where possible, they much preferred the latter.
2. They had to learn and exercise the rules governing the bargaining of labour.
3. They had to address the issue of education, health as well as their legal
and political rights. Needless to say the colonial authorities were not in a
hurry to include them in the political process or to change the laws to reflect
their new status. As Governor Harris of Trinidad noted: ‘’A race has been
freed but a society has not been formed.’’
4. The planters shifted the burden of taxation to the newly emancipated
people.

Attitudes of the planters or plantation owners
After emancipation, the main concern of the white planters was to ensure
that they had labour for their plantations. However, some planters had
abandoned their estates because they watched the exodus of ex-slaves and
were afraid of having to pay high wages to labourers. Most planters tried to
convince ex-slaves to stay and work for pay by saying that they would
provide good working and living conditions on their plantations as well as high wages but this was far from the truth.

Many planters also tried to prevent freedmen from getting land so that they would not be able to make
living planting crops and so they would therefore be forced to return to
plantations to work. They did this by making the land too expensive or the
ex-slaves to buy.