Bigging up our Ancestors who gained their freedom in 1838!

In last week’s column I stated that in any forward movement our people must not be left behind. They must be more than hewers of wood and drawers of water. As we attempt to attract foreign investment to this country, we boast about the number of jobs that will be created.

But to a large extent these jobs are menial ones! As we try or at least speak about developing our country we must never forget that the country is about people. We have in recent times been trying to develop our tourism industry and are putting emphasis on attracting foreign investment in doing so. One would have hoped that we would have looked at the kind of skills needed both in constructing and in operating whatever industries we hope to build in the process. In the hotel industry the skilled jobs are still held by foreigners. Our people remain the cleaners, waiters, and bar tenders. The excuse is that we do not have the skilled workers needed, so construction workers come from the Dominican Republic and other areas. Do we know how many skilled workers we would need in, say, the next five years? If we are aware of this, should we not offer scholarships and emphasize the relevant subjects in the curriculum of our Community College and in the secondary schools. Our students are moving into the same areas of study. Are we not by now overpopulated with lawyers? We still rely heavily on Cuba, India, the Philippines, and other countries for our medical personnel.

It appears that some of our graduates opt to work elsewhere, but even when they return do so for a short period of time. There are obviously many reasons for this, but among them is the fact that we do not appreciate our own. They are often taken very much for granted and get to understand very much the type of system and society that stifle them. The services sector has in the richer countries become the commanding heights of their economies at the expense of manufacturing and agriculture. When we think of banking, education, accounting, insurance, transportation, tourism, communications, we must realise that the services sector is just as important to us. We are however very poor at delivering services especially to our ordinary folks. Even then our own people get short changed. Take the example of the road from Cane Garden to Kingstown via Long Wall. For a long time, there were complaints about this road but quite often the argument was that buses transporting tourists were using the roads regularly and something needed to be done. One assumes that if tourists were not using that road everything would have been okay. This country is ours and our satisfaction should be out front. In satisfying our people our visitors would also be satisfied. Services from the banks, telephone companies and other sectors serving people leave much to be desired.

I am on to all of this because we are a few days away from the 185th anniversary of the celebration of slave emancipation. I use 1838 as the date that should guide us. In 1834 2,959 children under the age of six years were freed as were 1189 who were aged or incapacitated. Eighteen thousand, one hundred and two (18102) of our enslaved ancestors remained tied to the estates as apprentices. Apprenticeship ended in 1838 because of their continued struggles. They began the process despite the obstacles placed before them, of building a new society. True enough they were enslaved for only 75 years, thanks to the defiance of the Kalinago and Garifuna peoples. But they were denied an education and had difficulty gaining access to land. They struggled to get their children an education which had been denied them. That’s where we started in 1838. By 1861 there were about 122 villages established on lands which they rented or bought from the estates, in the process overcoming the barriers placed to prevent their occupation of lands off the estates. One of the earliest villages was Victoria Village established in 1844, which had by 1861 a population of 610. Our villagers sold provisions at the local market and to Trinidad and Barbados by the 1840s. Arrowroot was also a major cash crop for them in the 1840s and ‘50s, when St. Vincent was exporting over a million pounds.

That’s how they started after 1838 and we owe a great deal to their efforts!

• Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian