Dear Editor,
There is an interesting historical backdrop to the present discussion and debate in the press on the treatment of Guyanese in Barbados. It comes from the pen of the late Walter Rodney. In a little known piece, ‘Barbadian Immigration into British Guiana 1863-1924,’ delivered at a conference of Caribbean historians in 1977, Rodney provides a sympathetic but scholarly analysis of Barbadian arrival, treatment and contribution in British Guiana in the period. The thirty-one page document addresses various aspects of the Barbadian immigration experience and should be of great interest to readers. At the outset, for one thing, he provides a clear indication of the phases in Barbados immigration:
“There were in effect three distinct periods of recorded Barbados immigration into British Guiana: namely 1835-1846, 1863-1886 and 1920-1928. These can be juxtaposed with Indian immigration which was virtually continuous between 1845 and 1917.”
In another section Rodney observes of the early Barbadian immigration:
“On arrival, Barbadians were treated with indifference by the Immigration Department. The standard practice for Indian immigrants was that they were afforded food, shelter and medical attention during the interim period before they moved onto their assigned estates. These facilities were not extended to Barbadians during the 1860s and 1870s. In seeking to remedy this state of affairs, the Immigration Department was concerned that a policy of self-neglect might well be self-defeating.”
He also refers to the contract issue at the time:
“Barbadians are frequently introduced without contracts of service and thereby fall outside of the purview of a department which was concerned primarily with indentured immigrants… lack of contracts also meant that Barbadians were not repatriated at government expense and under official scrutiny, so the data deficiencies are marked with regard to the movements of those who returned home. Some fresh Barbadian arrivals were also overlooked, especially over any span of years when the movement was neither substantial nor continuous… Immigration into British Guiana has been comprehensively and reliably tabulated by many scholars. Their figures indicate that the Barbadian component was numerically more significant than that from China or from the Portuguese dependencies of Madeira and the Azores, even though it was seldom that Barbados immigration could rival in importance that from India.”
Rodney spent a great deal of time on the key subject of labour and employment of Barbadians. This extract is typical:
“Planters expressed differing views on the efficacy of Barbadian labour and the wisdom of spending public funds as well as their own resources to promote this aspect of immigration. Foremost amongst the reservations held against Barbadians was the complaint that they arrived without contract and they did not necessarily work on the sugar estates… the charge that they refrained from working on the estates was clearly exaggerated. Barbadian immigration continued for as long as it did because it served the purposes of the sugar estates… Barbadian labour had certain qualitative advantages: it was seasoned agricultural labour, specifically experienced in the cultivation of sugar cane. As such, Barbadians were preferred to Portuguese immigrants who often arrived without an agricultural background; and West Indian sugar workers were also more valuable than Indians who were strangers to the sugar industry.”
Rodney also addresses the reaction of other working groups at the point in time to Barbadian immigration:
“The Royal Gazette reported in February 1868 that Creoles on the lower East Coast Demerara were threatening Barbadians ‘because the latter work more and at a lower rate than they do.’ Interestingly enough, even Indians felt that their opposition on the estates was undermined by Barbadians, and this grievance contributed to a series of disturbances in West Demerara in 1873.”
What we witness in these extracts are the human and practical aspects of immigration. Given the current conditions faced by Guyanese in Barbados, is this Rodney piece on Barbados immigration into British Guiana a piece of historical irony?
Yours faithfully,
Nigel Westmaas
