First Peoples. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nalis.gov.tt/Resources/Subject-Guide/First-Peoples

History of the Arawak Amerindians, Taino religion technology and culture. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://carriacou.biz/arawaks-amerindians/

STATUE DU CHEF HYARIMA. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.petitfute.uk.com/sightseeing-sightseeing/column-statue/statue-du-chef-hyarima/e-638953.html

The Caribbean exploration encounter of Christopher Columbus in the year 1492 gave dawn to the notion of the “New World”. The term originated following the European maritime expeditions, and expansion to the Americas. The ambiguity of the ‘discovery’ by Christopher Columbus is almost as divisive as the term ‘New-world’ and has remained a contentious discourse. 

According to Hulme’s (1986) Colonial encounter’, there was evidence of social organisation amongst the indigenous Taino (Arawak) and native Caribs. Shared cultural practices including agricultural and religious practices shaped the many traditions of the native Amerindians. A close knit communal based society that was able to develop wood shaped tools, thatched huts, made crafts in weaving and drawings on stones, also performed rituals to stone and wood deities. 

The radical account by obsessive Columbus did not only divide the indigenous people of Caribbean, but also sort to wipe away any remaining trace to their civilization (Williams 1979). Contemporary studies suggest that conquest against Native-American Population was driven by the control for expansion and economic empowerment. A conquest of annihilation and destruction of a people’s past, which simply validates Hulme’s (1986) version that the European dominant version on ‘discovery’ had repressed all other accounts.

(b)

Several studies have documented evidence of social organisation amongst the indigenous Taino (Arawak) and native Caribs predating Columbus. Hulmes work ‘Colonial encounter’ expanded on the already existing cultural, agricultural and religious practices that shaped the many traditions of the natives. Communally egalitarian, the natives also developed wood shaped tools, built thatched huts, made crafts in weaving and drawing on stones. 

Given the hegemonic history of European cultural intolerance often emanating from racial differences, they natives were negatively labelled cannibals, primitive and barbaric. According to Lewis (1987), Caribbean was a society founded on gross exploitation, in the name of Christianity, of both Antillean Indian and African Black people. 

There is evidence from archaeological finds of carved artefacts which could only explain the communal livelihood of the indigenous tribes.  According to Ferbel (2002), the ‘Arawaks’ were able to develop permanent villages, and a complex system of government by hierarchies of chiefs. 

Columbus’s voyage did not only spell doom for the indigenous people, it also resulted in a series of misunderstandings as it relates to the accuracy of varying accounts.

HULME, Peter. (1986). Colonial Encounter: Europe and the native Caribbean, 1492-1797 Methuen: London and New York, 1986.

LEWIS, Gordon K. (1987). Main Currents in Caribbean Thought: The Historical Evolution of Caribbean Society in Its Ideological Aspects, 1492-1900. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press.

WILLIAMS, Eric. (1978). From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean, 1492-1969.  London: Andre Deutsch

Evidence of “bonded white labour” may be sparse today, but the thesis of “Bonded white labour” in the Caribbean colonies will not disappear completely. Barbados is an appropriate case study because it was home to the earliest and most sizable population of the indentured white servants in English controlled Caribbean. 

Bonded white labour’ though repressive was not carried out on a racial motive. Studies have shown evidence of ‘Voluntary and Involuntary indentured white servants’ who migrated to the Caribbean just as the dependence on enslaved labour increased. They earned wages and where treated legal rights (Williams 1994).

Chattel Slavery’, is a term often used to describe the type of enslavement practiced in the Caribbean. Chattel came to symbolize the enslaved West African person as property that could be traded in the open slave market. As Chattels, the enslaved persons had no legal rights. They earned no wages from their labour and were subjected to mental and physical abuse.  

(b)

Studies suggest that West Africa have a history of slavery predating the Caribbean slavery. Thornton (1992) asserted that slavery was long an important aspect of the West African societies but also clarified that it functioned differently from the way it functioned in European societies. 

The analysis given by Thornton hinted on the recognitions of kinship and autonomy defined within the context of worker and master subordination which characterizes the West African Slavery. The value of the enslaved person was understood beyond capital terms as such that the enslaved persons not just traded commodities, but were also skilled in their respective fields.

Campbell (2002) emphasized on the trade by barter within the economic structure of the West African Slave system, which explained the civility of their practice. On the contrary, he stressed that Chattel slaves were basically ‘property’ and lacked any recognition as a people.

Caribbean Chattel Slavery was characterized with brutal and inhumane abuse. There were no specific laws to govern the enslaved persons whose basic rights were equally stripped. As chattels, the enslaved only served as property to be bought and sold and owned by a master. 

(c) 

The dichotomy between skin colours characterized Caribbean slavery. Whiteness is presumed to be representative of beauty and graciousness, and in contrast, Blackness signifies ugliness and incivility. Guasco (2014) underlined racial differences and intolerance as a major attribute for employing coercive and violent mechanisms of control beyond the law.

The Chattel slaves were well discriminated under enslavement because their white masters had created a well articulated language of racial inferiority designed for non-whites and non-Christians.  

The type of racial slavery renowned in the Caribbean was the predictable outcome of a broadly shared economical, religious and cultural identity of the Europeans. These Europeans were attributed as civil, Christians and free people, while the people of colour’, were dubbed as black, uncivil and suitable as slaves.

GUASCO, M. (2014). Slaves and Englishmen: Human Bondage in the Early Modern Atlantic World.(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press)

THORNTON, J. (1992). African and Africans in the making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1680. Cambridge University Press.

 

WILLIAMS, E. (1994). Capitalism and Slavery; The University of North Carolina Press.

Though slavery in the Anglophone Caribbean was legislated to have ended in 1834, the freedom was merely a proclamation. The freed slaves were obligated to serve a period of apprenticeship to their former masters. Holt (1992) described the continued compulsory labour and called it a    ‘half-way covenant’. 

There was difficulty in comprehending the laws of Apprenticeship, which often resulted to resistance. The issue of compulsory labour was yet another area of contention between the apprentices and their masters. By way of status classification of ‘praedial and non praedial’, the   legislative system developed the tenure of apprenticeship.

Under the Apprenticeship laws of the British, there was a movement of librated Africans from other islands such as Cuba to Trinidad in 1835. Lai (1993) related the high number of African population in Trinidad and other surrounding islands to subsequent migrations during the period of Apprenticeship.

Another fundamental phase in the Caribbean came with the growing resistance of Apprenticeship, which eventually ended in 1838 and caved way for indentured migration.  As stated by Carter (2003),’ the term ‘indenture’ refers to written contract entered by a person to work for another for a given period of time. 

The indenture system, although based on a contractual agreement between employer and labourers, differed from other forms of contractual labour that existed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The social realities as dictated by the indenture contract were all aimed at profit maximization.

It was such that, when indentured labourers were presented with what appeared to be, the ability to negotiate their existing indenture, that negotiation was also an economic exchange that benefited planters.

Although, legally planters were able to exert control over indentured labourers using their political and economic rule; planters also manipulated the indenture contract in order to exert continued control and these objectives were not achieved in a stress free environment.

HOLT, T.C (1992). The Problem of Freedom: Race, Labour and Politics in Jamaica and Britain, 1832‐1938 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press).

LAI, L.W (1993). New in/out migration, indenture and their consequences: 19th and 20th centuries. (Parts 1 and 2) In look Lai, W 1993.  Indentured Labour, Caribbean Sugar: Chinese and Indian Migrants to the British West-Indies 1838-1918. USA, John Hopkins University Press.

Surtees, J. (2015, February 16). Trinidad's forgotten architectural gems. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2015/feb/16/trinidad-port-of-spain-architecture-tour

Senah, E. K. (n.d.). Prince Kofi Nti of Asante and Trinidad. Retrieved from https://www.graphic.com.gh/features/features/prince-kofi-nti-of-asante-and-trinidad.html