Women's History Review

ISSN: 0961-2025 (Print) 1747-583X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwhr20

Experiences of women estate workers during the

apprenticeship period in St Vincent, 1834–38: the
transition from slavery to freedom

Sheena Boa

To cite this article: Sheena Boa (2001) Experiences of women estate workers during the
apprenticeship period in St Vincent, 1834–38: the transition from slavery to freedom, Women's
History Review, 10:3, 381-408, DOI: 10.1080/09612020100200291

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09612020100200291

Published online: 19 Dec 2006.

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Women’s History Review, Volume 10, Number 3, 2001

Experiences of Women Estate Workers

during the Apprenticeship Period in
St Vincent, 1834–38: the transition
from slavery to freedom

SHEENA BOA
University of Warwick, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT In 1834, the British Government abolished slavery in the British

Caribbean. In order to appease slave owners, the Government awarded them
£20 million compensation money and initiated an apprenticeship period. The
aim of the apprenticeship period was to provide a transition from slave to
wage labour and tie the ex-slaves to their owners for a further six years. The
apprenticeship period was marred by repressive acts by planters against their
workers. Women were especially singled out for abuse and lost many of the
rights they had gained during slavery. Apprenticeship was eventually
abandoned in 1838. Stories of excessive cruelty convinced the colonial
authorities that the working relationship between apprentices and managers
within the sugar estates had not improved. This article examines the
experiences of women apprentices in St Vincent to highlight the indignities
that they faced. It also explores the actions that some women employed to
improve their working conditions. Previous studies of the Caribbean have
mainly focused on the slavery period or the twentieth century. There has so
far been little attention paid to the lives of African-Caribbean women
immediately after the abolition of slavery. This study helps to explain why so
many women withdrew from estate work as soon as they were fully free and
chose instead to concentrate on growing and marketing provision crops.
During this transitionary period, it became clear to women that working
conditions on the estates would not improve for them. The plantation
managers’ inability to adjust to free labour resulted in a significant withdrawal
of female labourers after 1 August 1838.

381
Sheena Boa
Historians including Barbara Bush, Hilary Beckles, Marietta Morrissey,
Rhoda Reddock and Richard Dunn have emphasised the harsh experiences
of slave women in the British Caribbean. Their research has highlighted the
double burden that slave women bore. Like men, female slaves were treated
as work brutes and worked long hours completing backbreaking labour.
Their health suffered, their fertility was impaired and their life expectancy
was short.[1] In addition, they often faced sexual exploitation. In many of the
islands, the rape of slave women was not considered a criminal offence, and
men with authority over slaves exploited this. Motherhood was also a
burden to many women. Most rural slave women had little control over the
future of their offspring and could be separated from their children once the
children reached their teenage years.[2]
In their attempts to end slavery, abolitionists exposed the harsh
treatment experienced by women. As Clare Midgley has pointed out, women
members of the British anti-slavery societies in particular stressed the
degrading punishments that were inflicted on female slaves. Abolitionists
hinted at the horrors of rape but, in nineteenth-century Britain, could not
discuss this issue publicly. Therefore, the flogging of women became a
central issue, and the refusal of the planter class to abolish this practice
furthered the abolitionists’ cause. Abolitionists condemned the flogging of
females not only because it degraded women, but also because of the effects
that it had on men. Abolitionists claimed that male slaves were unmanned
because they could not protect their wives, and other male spectators were
corrupted by the sight of the victims’ exposed bodies.[3] Colonial authorities
concurred with this and, in 1823, passed the Amelioration of Slavery Act in
the Crown Colonies, which included a clause outlawing the flogging of
women on plantations.[4] However, planters elsewhere were reluctant to
follow this example and claimed that women would be unmanageable
without the threat of the lash. They also asserted that slave women were
equal in strength and ferocity to male slaves. In fact, even in July 1833,
when the abolition of slavery was a certainty, the local legislature in St
Vincent insisted on retaining the flogging of women in its new slave
codes.[5]
Slavery was eventually abolished in the British Caribbean by an
imperial Act passed by the British Parliament in 1833. The Act authorised
the payment of £20 million pounds in ‘compensation money’ to slave
owners. In addition, it introduced an apprenticeship period to replace
slavery from 1 August 1834. The aim of this transitionary period was to
prepare slaves and masters for a free labour society. During apprenticeship,
the ex-slaves were classified as praedial or non-praedial labourers. Praedial
workers, who were primarily agricultural labourers, had to work 40½ hours
per week for their owners on sugar plantations. Field apprentices also
received twenty-six free days each year, when they could sell their labour to

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 SLAVERY TO FREEDOM, ST VINCENT, 1834–38

their owners or work for themselves. They also had additional free days to
work on provision grounds cultivating food crops to eat and sell at the local
markets. The apprenticeship period for praedial slaves was originally
expected to last until August 1840. Non-praedial slaves, who did not work in
the fields, had to work full-time for their owners until August 1838. In
theory, apprentices could also legally buy out their freedom, if they had
enough money. They could either arrange a price privately with their
employer, or, if this was not possible, they could have their value appraised
by a bench of magistrates. Under the Abolition Act, apprentices received the
same food and clothing allowances as slaves, free medical treatment and
accommodation. They were overseen by a group of special magistrates,
employed by the Colonial Office, whose job was to mediate in disputes
between apprentices and their employers. In addition, all children who were
under the age of six on 1 August 1834 were totally free.[6]
The Abolition Act was hastily written and contained many ill-defined
and vague clauses. During the apprenticeship period, legislative bodies in
the Caribbean often exploited the Act’s weaknesses, seeking to retain as
much control over the former slaves as possible. In their studies of the
apprenticeship period, Swithin Wilmot, Richard Fruct, Woodville Marshall
and Thomas Holt have described how these conflicts between planters and
apprentices led to increasing alienation between employers and labourers.
Their studies also discuss how the actions of many planters during
apprenticeship had repercussions after full emancipation. Ex-slaves were
often suspicious and lacked trust in both their employers and the local
magistrates when they were fully free.[7]
This article will investigate how the Abolition Act affected female
apprentices in St Vincent. The imperial Abolition Act was written by middle-
and upper-class British men, who did not comprehend the problems
encountered by women on estates. Although they legislated against female
flogging, they did not protect women in other ways. This inevitably led to
conflict. In most islands of the British West Indies, 1 August 1834 was
commemorated peacefully and this was true of St Vincent, where people
attended churches and returned to work the following Monday. However,
within a two-month period, at least 284 cases involving disputes between
labourers and planters were brought before the three special magistrates of
the island. Women were involved in 134 of these cases. This article will also
assess why, within a short period of time, a power struggle began
throughout the British Caribbean which led to the eventual premature
abandonment of the apprenticeship system in 1838.[8]
St Vincent has been selected as the focus of this study for several
reasons. Its post-emancipation experiences have been largely neglected by
other historians, with the exceptions of Woodville Marshall and Adrian
Fraser. However, these historians have not analysed gender issues in their

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Sheena Boa
studies, and this article attempts to fill that gap. In addition, nineteenth-
century St Vincent had several factors which generate useful comparisons
with the rest of the British Caribbean. As a new colony, it was relatively
underpopulated. Moreover, by the termination of slavery, the economy was
severely depressed. Furthermore, the majority of the estates were owned by
absentee landlords. These conditions all contributed to the harshness of life
in St Vincent for slaves and their descendants. Therefore, the experiences of
apprentices in St Vincent illustrate the weaknesses of the scheme in general
and highlight the lack of protection offered to the ex-slaves throughout the
British Caribbean.[9]
I have consulted missionary reports, private diaries left by stipendiary
magistrates and travel accounts written by abolitionists. However, much of
the information for this article was taken from Colonial Office reports. In
particular, the reports written by the stipendiary magistrates contain much
of the information concerning labourers and their relations with planters.
Perhaps the most prolific writer was Robert Pitman. He was employed from
Britain and worked in several of the districts in St Vincent. Pitman’s reports
were often far more detailed than the other magistrates and often reveal the
tensions that existed between labourers and planters. Unfortunately, his
selection of the events that he recorded and the emphasis that he placed on
certain episodes ensures that many occurrences were either ignored or
misrepresented. Pitman frequently justified his own actions through
castigating the acts of estate workers. This was also true for the other
writers. The majority of surviving records were written by British men and
therefore reflect their ideals and morals. On the whole, the thoughts of the
apprentices went unrecorded. However, they can sometimes be inferred by
the apprentices’ actions. Therefore, the article examines in detail the actions
of apprentices and analyses some of the discourses used by those that
described the events.
I will begin by looking at the methods used by planters and legislators
to control male and female apprentices. I will go on to examine the ways
that women, especially those with children, were particularly punished by
the system, and will then describe some of the tactics used by women and
men to resist apprenticeship. I will argue that, despite severe penalties,
women struggled to maintain autonomy for themselves and their children.

Punishments and Control during Apprenticeship

Abolitionists were concerned from the inception of apprenticeship that the
horrors of slavery would continue. They were particularly anxious about the
forms of punishment that were employed by magistrates.[10] Many of the
punishments handed out to apprentices were similar to those that they had
received during slavery. Although women could no longer be sentenced to

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 SLAVERY TO FREEDOM, ST VINCENT, 1834–38

flogging by magistrates or planters, there was evidence in some of the

islands that sometimes women continued to be flogged within the houses of
correction. In Jamaica, for example, women continued to be flogged by
workhouse overseers. Furthermore, the infrastructures for punishing
apprentices were the same as those employed during slavery. In St Vincent,
the Kingstown gaol could hold over one hundred people. The cage, where
the treadmill was kept, had space for a further forty people in two cells and
twelve solitary confinement cells. There were also two houses of correction
in the rural towns of Barrouvaille and Colonarie, which both had solitary
confinement cells and room for thirty to forty prisoners in two cells. There
were also temporary cells in Bequia and Calliaqua, and estates also had
prison cells. This suggests that the attitude of the planters was that fear of
punishment was essential for maintaining order on the plantations.[11]
The cage and gaols were scenes of terror and degradation for women.
During the day, apprentices sentenced to hard labour in Kingstown had to
work the treadmill, regardless of their age, sex or level of fitness. Their arms
were strapped to bars above their heads and they were forced to tread on
the revolving steps of the mill or have their legs hit by the steps. Observers
claimed that in some houses of correction in the British Caribbean, the
floors under the treadmills were splattered with blood. Prisoners also
worked in the penal gangs in the fields or on public roads. Furthermore,
prisoners did not receive any clothing. Hard labour in the penal gangs and
treadmills tore the prisoners’ clothing, leaving them effectively half-naked.
Abolitionists Joseph Sturge and Thomas Harvey, who toured the Caribbean
in 1837, were horrified at the sight of women working on the high
treadmills, dressed in little more than rags, because their bodies were
revealed. This was ironic as the treadmill was originally introduced in the
Caribbean to remove women from the horrors of the lash and the degrading
exposure of their bodies.[12]
When they were sentenced, all prisoners’ hair was shaved ‘for the
better promotion of cleanliness’. This action was noted for being particularly
traumatic for women. By mutilating their physical appearance, the
authorities stripped away the women prisoners’ femininity and individuality.
No female officers worked in the gaols and houses of correction.
Consequently, rape was reputedly common within the penal systems
throughout the Caribbean, committed by the guards, drivers and male
prisoners. Men and women were only segregated at night. Prisoners also
frequently had to wear chains and neck collars, both during the day and at
night. Sturge even found evidence that a woman in Jamaica was chained to
a male prisoner, both during the day while they worked in the penal gang
and in the cells at night.[13]
In the rural areas, the most common form of punishment for men and
women was extra labour on the estates during their free time at weekends.

385
Sheena Boa
In the first year of apprenticeship, for example, one magistrate sentenced
268 men and 307 women to extra labour. In addition, thirty-six men and
fifty-five women had sentences of extra labour as well as additional
punishments. Another magistrate sentenced 144 men and 172 women and
nine gangs of labourers to extra labour in the same year.[14]
The frequency of whole gangs being charged with neglect of duty
caused some concern within the Colonial Office. In 1837, a group of women
from the north of St Vincent complained that they had not received any of
their free days. This was because each week the manager sent a gang of
them to the magistrate stating they had not done enough work. The
magistrate, Robert Pitman, responded by sentencing the gang to extra
labour. One of the women further claimed that when they tried to complain,
the magistrate threatened to have them beaten. For the women, the loss of
free time was especially harsh, as this was the only time that they had to
cultivate their provision grounds and prepare their crops for the markets
and for their families’ consumption. As a result of this protest, magistrates
received instructions not to sentence whole gangs to extra labour. In future,
magistrates had to ascertain, using the Scale of Labour, if apprentices had
performed sufficient labour. In addition, in cases of insubordination, the
Lieutenant-Governor suggested that magistrates should only punish the
ringleaders, not the whole labour force. It appeared that plantation
managers had exploited the ease of having gangs punished with extra labour
as a means of extracting additional unpaid labour from their apprentices.[15]
Women were far more frequently sentenced to solitary confinement.
The conditions in the solitary cells within the estates were often extremely
unpleasant. Many were infested by rats and were completely dark, and were
thus especially detrimental to the mental as well as the physical well-being of
the prisoners. In St Vincent, Robert Pitman sentenced twenty-one women
and only five men to full-time solitary confinement in the first year. An
additional sixty-five women and eighteen men had to sleep in the solitary
cells after working on the estates. Lieutenant-Governor Tyler eventually
ordered magistrates in St Vincent not to order solitary confinement
sentences for more than ten days at a time.[16]
Throughout the period of apprenticeship, men continued to receive
corporal punishment. In the first year of apprenticeship, Kingstown
magistrate Thomas St Clair ordered 252 men to be flogged. Pitman ordered
ninety-three floggings on his estates on the windward side of St Vincent.
These floggings often took place in front of the other labourers on the
estates or at the public whipping post. The aim of all these punishments was
to break the apprentices’ rebelliousness through a combination of
humiliation, fear and pain. Punishments also reinforced class and race
hierarchies. Europeans occasionally received prison sentences, but they were

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 SLAVERY TO FREEDOM, ST VINCENT, 1834–38

never sentenced to the horrors of the treadmill, whipping post or penal

gangs, even if they were sentenced for murder.[17]

Women and Apprenticeship

At the time of emancipation, women made up the majority of the field
labourers in St Vincent and many other islands. Therefore, they were more
vulnerable to exploitation by estate managers and overseers. Managers were
reluctant to relinquish the power they had enjoyed during slavery, and they
were particularly loath to lose the power they held over the bodies of
African-Caribbean women. John Colthurst, who was a special magistrate in
Barbados and St Vincent, even implied that many of the abuses committed
by plantation managers against women were a result of the anger that
planters felt because they could no longer rape African-Caribbean women
with impunity. He claimed that planters feared that the end of slavery would
‘interfere with the habitual indulgences of their passions’.[18]
During slavery, a gender stratification had evolved that required
women to perform equal work in the fields alongside men, but made women
inferior in terms of the skills they could acquire. Slave women had no access
to the trades that could class them within the slave elite. In addition, while
encouraged to have children, women had no rights over their children.
Therefore, planters were aware that when the slaves were fully free, men and
women were likely to adopt new customs that would remove many women
from the fields and the overseers’ control. This was further encouraged by
missionaries and abolitionists, who often described the removal of women
from field work into separate domestic spheres as one of the bonuses of
freedom. The planters’ reaction was to exact as much labour as possible
from women in the few remaining years of enforced labour. For example, in
St Vincent, magistrates introduced a Scale of Labour which stipulated the
exact amount of work that apprentices were expected to complete each day.
Since the scale was written in non-gendered terms, planters continued to
require men and women to perform equal amounts of work. This was not
the case in England, where agricultural labour for men and women had
already diversified.[19]
Wilmot’s research into the apprenticeship period in Jamaica has
revealed a catalogue of male aggression towards women. Many petty and
aggravating instances of cruelty and contention between estate managers
and their workers were aimed specifically at making the lives of women as
difficult as possible. This was also the case in other islands. In Barbados, for
example, two plantation managers refused to allow women to retreat to the
bush when they needed to urinate. The women found this very humiliating
and refused to continue working until the managers were replaced.[20]

387
Sheena Boa
Another example of the planters’ reluctance to adapt to ‘free’ labour
can be seen in the classification of apprentices. In St Vincent, before
apprenticeship began, the appraisal of slaves into the two groups of praedial
and non-praedial workers was performed by Justices of the Peace, who were
primarily planters and slave holders. This led to the abuse of the system.
Colthurst, for example, found one estate in his district where all the slaves
had been appraised as field labourers. By falsely classifying domestic
workers as praedials, managers hoped to gain an extra two years’ labour
from domestic workers as well as increasing the number of field labourers. It
was also a tradition within plantation households to use field labour as a
punishment for domestic workers. As women made up the majority of the
unskilled domestic workforce that characterised plantation households, they
were the apprentices who were most likely to be falsely classified. It is
impossible to ascertain the full extent of this abuse, but cases of women
being falsely classified were also occasionally brought before the Lieutenant-
Governor.[21]
Marshall has pointed out that the allowances that slaves had earned
became termed ‘indulgences’ during the apprenticeship period. They were
used as a bribe for extra work and were withheld as a punishment. It is very
noticeable that many of the allowances removed by managers especially
affected the lives of women, particularly mothers. During slavery, a series of
jobs was created to occupy elderly and weaker slaves and ensure the smooth
running of the plantations. One such job was that of a nurse for babies and
young children on the estate. While mothers worked in the fields, their
children were looked after by these older women. Within the British
Caribbean, these nurseries were often abandoned on the estates when
planters no longer owned the children, and the nurses were ordered to
return to field work. Mothers had to look after their children and work a full
day in the fields. Many women were forced to tie their babies to their backs
while they worked, or leave them in the shade at the edge of the cane fields.
In addition, many women with young children faced punishment for being
late to work because they did not have enough time in the mornings to feed
their children.[22] Women apprentices also complained that they no longer
received adequate time off to breastfeed. Furthermore, in St Vincent,
mothers were expected to work overtime if they took time off to care for a
sick child. In addition, the free children did not receive the food and
clothing allowances given to slave children.[23]
Pregnant women were also singled out for abuse. Estate managers
often expected women to perform strenuous work even when they were
heavily pregnant and did not allow apprentice women the customary lying-in
time that slave women had received. Some women were even denied medical
care during their pregnancies. During slavery, the St Vincent slave codes
stipulated that women with six or more surviving children could ‘sit down’

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 SLAVERY TO FREEDOM, ST VINCENT, 1834–38

as a special reward instead of working in the fields. During apprenticeship,

some managers sent these women back into the fields and forced them to
resume gang labour as the St Vincent Abolition Act did not offer these
mothers special dispensation.[24]
As a result of their deteriorating working conditions, apprentices were
bitterly disappointed with the terms of the apprenticeship. In a report on the
conditions of free children in St Vincent, Robert Pitman, a special
magistrate, claimed that ‘a strong feeling of opposition’ existed between
apprentices and planters during this period. He wrote concerning the
apprentices:
their previous notions of liberty had obtained a hold over their
imaginations of so aggravated a description that they were ... still
smarting under the disappointment they experienced, when they found
their anticipated freedom from all kind of work, converted into a legal
compulsion of labour with the additional malefaction of depending upon
the goodwill of the person in charge of the estate, for the many little
indulgences and privileges which had been guaranteed to them and
their children by the old slave laws.[25]
In fact, there is no evidence that apprentices wanted freedom from all work.
This was a supposition which planters strongly upheld to oppose freedom.
Apprentices who were questioned on their aspirations invariably claimed
that they were willing to work, but expected decent wages and better
treatment than they had experienced as slaves. Pitman may not have
accurately conveyed the apprentices’ aspirations, but he revealed his own
perceptions of the anger felt by apprentices at the loss of their privileges and
particularly the allowances for their children.[26]

Childcare
Jacqueline Jones has highlighted in her study of plantation life in the
American South how slave women differentiated between their work in the
home and their work in the fields. Jones refers to household duties as a
labour of love, while field work was a labour of sorrow.[27] This was also
the case in the Caribbean. Domestic duties, and especially childcare, were
the responsibilities of slave women. During apprenticeship, childcare and the
freedom of children were important issues to both parents and planters.
Many planters resented the lack of control that they now had over
these free children. The work once performed by the ‘piccaninny’ gangs was
now either abandoned or had to be done by adults. In drafting their
Abolition Act, the planter-dominated Assembly in St Vincent had attempted
to increase their powers over children. The Act stated that if a parent could
not care for a child, the child was to be apprenticed until he or she reached
the age of twenty-one. The imperial Act, however, stipulated that only if

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children could not be cared for ‘from any other quarter’ should they be
made into apprentices. In addition, these children should also receive an
education. Therefore, the St Vincent legislators were forced to amend this
clause before the Colonial Office would ratify their Act.[28]
The St Vincent Assembly made other attempts to regain legal control
over children. In 1836, during the debate on the establishment of a free
school in the colony, the Assembly recommended that education should be
made compulsory for children. In addition, they recommended that
schooling should be paid for either by demanding extra work from all
apprentices, or by having all children over the age of seven work four days a
week on the estates, and receive one free day of schooling. In addition, they
claimed that the education of the apprentices’ children should be based on
‘the timely instruction of husbandry’. Lieutenant-Governor Tyler was also
keen to instil in African-Caribbean children ‘early habits of labour and
industry’. He suggested that education should be compulsory and paid for
by parents. He claimed that this would then force many parents into
apprenticing their children to find the school fees. The Colonial Office,
however, did not approve of either of these suggestions. It commissioned a
report into education in Jamaica, by E.J. Latrobe, which revealed the
determination of large numbers of apprentices to gain an education for
themselves and their children. This convinced the Colonial Office that they
did not need to make education compulsory.[29]
In 1837, the Assembly again approached the Lieutenant-Governor
about the free children. In language rich with moral indignation, they
claimed that ‘the neglect by unattending mothers’ had led to a large increase
in infant mortality. During slavery, planters often claimed that African-
Caribbean women were unfit and unfeeling mothers. Planters accused slave
women of extreme cruelty and neglect. For example, Mrs Carmichael, who
owned slaves in St Vincent and Trinidad, wrote, ‘Negro mothers with only
one exception, I have found cruelly harsh to their children, they beat them
unmercifully for perfect trifles’. Tyler also adopted the language and beliefs
of the planter class. So strong was the belief that African-Caribbean women
were bad mothers that he did not even question the statements made by the
Assembly. He instructed the special magistrates to investigate this ‘conduct
so unnatural and reprehensible’, to carry out an investigation into the births
and deaths of children and to teach parents good childcare. He wrote that
parental neglect of children was ‘not only disgraceful to themselves, but also
a crime in the eyes both of God and of Man’.[30]
Robert Pitman responded to Tyler’s request by compiling a detailed
report into childcare in his district. Within the report, he disputed the claims
made by the Assembly. He stated that infant mortality was not a result of
neglect from mothers, but rather due to the conflicts between planters and
apprentices. There had been a widespread outbreak of measles, and many

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 SLAVERY TO FREEDOM, ST VINCENT, 1834–38

mothers did not have their children treated. The women feared that if they
took their children to the estate hospitals or consulted the doctors, the
estates would have a claim on the children’s labour. Consequently, a large
number of children were not treated for the disease and died. On many
estates, parents and managers then negotiated terms to enable children to
receive health care in future. The usual agreement was that each year, one
parent would work six extra days on their estate if they had one child, or
nine days if they had more than one child.[31]
In Pitman’s district, out of twenty estates, labourers on twelve had
arranged to work the extra days. On the other estates, parents had decided
to pay for medical treatment themselves if their children fell ill. On the
whole, it was the mothers who shouldered the main burden of extra work.
Of the twelve estates where arrangements had been made, three reportedly
had agreements with either parent. On the other nine estates, it was the
mothers who had to perform the additional labour. This may have been
because, during slavery, women had received all the allowances for their
children and planters did not acknowledge paternity. However, it is also
possible that the apprentices themselves chose to give women the main
responsibilities to provide materially for their children. Jones has suggested
that in the American South, because men and women were expected to
perform the same labour on estates, they chose to establish disparate roles
in their private lives. In St Vincent, in families where the mothers were
unable to care for their children, either because of ill health, or through
planter interference, children lived with their fathers, other relatives or
godparents. Far from being unfeeling and unnatural parents, Vincentian
mothers experienced additional hardships to care for their children and
protect them against forced labour.[32]
In addition to imposing the problems of childcare and additional
labour on many women, many planters refused to supply free children with
food and clothing. By increasing the workload of mothers, planters hoped to
regain control over the estate children. However, Caribbean mothers refused
to allow their children to be apprenticed onto the estates. Pitman wrote,
‘When they found their ideas respecting their own freedom, thrown to the
ground, they ... clung with tenacity to the right of expressing free will in
respect of their unfettered offspring’.[33] By the end of 1837, only three of
the free children were apprenticed to the estates. These children came from
families where the parents were addicted to alcohol. The determination of
apprentices to relieve their children from estate labour continued after the
abolition of apprenticeship. It was not until after 1844 that significant
numbers of free children began work on the estates.[34]

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Sheena Boa
Resistance to Apprenticeship
Apprentices reacted both individually and collectively against planters’
unfair management and some attempted legal means to achieve better
conditions. According to the local Abolition Acts within the Caribbean,
apprentices could lodge an official complaint with their special magistrate.
In Jamaica, this was a risky undertaking. In some districts, the magistrates
were so closely connected to planters, that apprentices were never believed
and were punished severely for attempting to complain. Apprentices,
especially from St Ann, often had to flee to another parish to receive a fair
hearing. In St Vincent, the apprentices had a much more limited choice
because there were never more than six magistrates. This fact is reflected in
the small number of complaints made by apprentices. In the first two
months of apprenticeship, there were 134 complaints against female
apprentices and 150 against males, but only eight against free people. The
punishments for free people were fines ranging from two to eight dollars.
The highest fine was imposed on a free coloured woman.[35]
Apprentices also risked punishment if they could not substantiate their
complaints. For example, one magistrate in St Vincent had apprentices put
into stocks or sentenced to hard labour on the treadmill for what he
described as ‘frivolous’ or ‘absurd’ claims against masters. In the first year of
apprenticeship, he punished four men and five women for making ‘false’
complaints.[36] Furthermore, apprentices found it very difficult to complain
if they were badly treated by a magistrate. In 1837, a group of Vincentian
women complained against Robert Pitman. He had their case heard by his
colleague, John Anderson, who sentenced the women to hard labour. As
Tyler noted when he heard of the case, it was very unfair that Pitman should
select his own judge. Nevertheless, Tyler did not support the women’s
claims. He dismissed the women as troublesome and decided that their
complaints against Pitman were unjustified.[37]
A few individuals chose to escape from apprenticeship by paying for
their freedom. However, this avenue was limited to the few apprentices with
access to quite large sums of money. Apprentices had either to agree a price
with their employers, or they could have a price appraised by the courts.
Between August 1834 and September 1835, only forty-two apprentices were
released. Employers freed nine male and thirteen female apprentices without
payment. The remaining nine males and eleven females were freed in return
for payment. The majority of these people (fifteen) were appraised by a
special magistrate and two Justices of the Peace. The remaining five made
private arrangements with their employers.[38]
The guidelines for appraisals were based on the estimated earning
powers of the apprentices during apprenticeship. However, the sums actually
paid by the apprentices were considerable. In St Vincent, the highest price
for males listed between 1834 and 1835 was just over £175 and for females,

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it was £120. Marshall has estimated that apprentices paid on average one-
third more than they should have. The magistrates determined the appraisal
prices on the evidence of the employers and apprentices rather than any
systematic calculations.[39]
Many planters resisted the apprentices’ attempts to buy their freedom,
and this was reflected in St Vincent’s Abolition Act. For example, the local
Act made it difficult for apprentices to pay their appraisal prices by stating
that apprentices had to pay as soon as the price was set. This clause
contravened the imperial Abolition Act, which allowed apprentices a full
week to pay their appraisal price. However, it was not until April 1838 that
the Assembly amended clause 10.[40]
There is little evidence to explain why apprentices chose to pay large
sums of money when there was such a short time remaining before the total
abolition of slavery. In some cases, the extreme cruelty of the employer was
an obvious reason. However, we can only speculate on the motivations of
others. Marshall has suggested that some apprentices may not have trusted
the white community. They may have taken the opportunity to pay for their
freedom in the expectation that slavery would not be fully abolished. They
may also have feared that slavery would be re-established as it had been in
the French West Indies. Rumours that slavery would be reintroduced
periodically swept through St Kitts, St Lucia and Dominica during the first
decade of freedom, which indicated the lack of confidence that freed people
had in the white authorities.[41]
Other apprentices may have chosen to buy their freedom as a means of
actively resisting the plantocracy. For many, this was their first opportunity
to gain control over their lives. Apprentices who could raise the money to
buy out their freedom were able to join family members who lived in
different areas. Women, in particular, took this opportunity to become
independent of the sugar estates. Stipendiary magistrates and other
observers throughout the British Caribbean often noted that many women
worked as higglers, travelling around the island buying and selling
vegetables and dry goods.[42] Some apprentices chose to change their
employers and became apprentices on other estates in exchange for their
appraisal price. For other apprentices, it may have been a matter of personal
pride. They chose to earn their freedom, rather than receive it as a gift.
According to one St Vincent magistrate, during the last few months of
apprenticeship, many people bought their freedom because they did not
want to be considered a ‘fuss of August nigger’ or one of the ‘Adelaide
vulgar’. These expressions refer to the emancipation date of 1 August, and
the belief held by some apprentices that the royal family, and in particular
Queen Adelaide, was influential in bringing about the abolition of
slavery.[43] They wanted instead to gain for themselves the same status as
the established free coloured community. In her study of the emancipation

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Sheena Boa
of slavery in Cuba, Rebecca Scott speculated that patrocinados, who had a
similar legal status to apprentices, chose to pay for their freedom as a means
of gaining recognition and respect from planters and the rest of the
community.[44]
However, freedom was an option for only a few individuals. There are
no records of the total number of apprentices who gained their freedom in
St Vincent, but in Barbados, which had an initial apprentice population of
over 66,000, magistrates released only sixteen people on the grounds of
cruelty. Only 1178 people were released by their employers. Of these, 749
paid for their freedom and 429 were freed without payment. Females made
up the majority of those who gained early freedom. There were 712 females
and 466 males freed.[45] This was for two main reasons. Firstly, because
more women worked within the households, they were more likely to receive
their freedom as a gift from their employers. Secondly, abolitionists
frequently noted that apprentices were eager to restructure their family lives
and it is possible that families chose to free women so they could
concentrate on domestic work and the families’ provision grounds.[46]
For the majority of apprentices, individual or collective acts of protest
were the only recourses to unfair labour conditions. St Vincent saw a large
number of disputes during the first year of apprentices. In 1835, the special
magistrates listed all the offences and punishments in their districts. These
lists reveal the range of ‘offences’ committed by men and women. They also
show the extent to which individuals and groups of apprentices disputed
authority. On plantations where labour relations were difficult, the lists also
show frequent acts of retaliation committed by managers. However, there
was some disparity in the terms that the magistrates employed. St Clair, for
example, used the terms ‘absent’ and ‘running away’ indiscriminately.
Moreover, he did not state the number of people involved in many of the
gang disputes. It is also impossible to determine if some individuals
repeatedly came before the magistrates. Therefore, we cannot estimate the
number of individuals who were punished. However, the reports illustrate
the frequency with which both men and women resisted apprenticeship.
According to magistrates’ summaries for St Vincent, there was a total of
2764 offences, of which 1287 were committed by women.[47]
The St Vincent magistrates’ reports also reveal the arbitrary use of
punishments and the lack of consistency and consensus among the
magistrates. Some of the punishments were not clearly stated. For example,
St Clair sentenced one woman to hard labour ‘until she changed her mind’,
and he ordered a gang of labourers to perform ten days’ extra labour ‘unless
they agreed to work willingly’. In his diary, John Colthurst appeared to base
his sentences on personal whims, depending on whether he liked the
offenders and how they behaved during the court hearing. John Anderson
noted in his diary his belief that the more apprentices stated their

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innocence, the more Anderson was convinced of their guilt. This abuse of
power was commonplace throughout the Caribbean. Magistrates were
hampered by a lack of training. Low wages and inadequate funding forced
many to compromise their impartiality, as they had to rely on the hospitality
and generosity of planters during their tours of their districts. In return,
planters expected, and often received, judgements in their favour.[48]
The lists of offences and punishments also highlight the ways in which
apprentices from the towns attempted to resist on a day-to-day basis. In
Kingstown, during the first year of apprenticeship, St Clair tried 116 women
and 158 men. Both men and women were charged with theft and refusal to
pay their wages to their employers. Women were also frequently accused of
absence from work, abuse and insolence. Magistrates rarely charged women
with alcohol abuse and only occasionally with fighting. On the other hand,
men were more often charged with drunkenness, disobedience and
assault.[49]
Violence, public brawls and petty theft were common in the town.
Poverty was also extensive. Urban slave owners often hired out their slaves
as domestics, skilled workers and higglers. Some women were also expected
to work as prostitutes. It was common for slave owners to expect their slaves
to fend for themselves and pay a portion of their wages to their owners.
Observers in the West Indies claimed that during the apprenticeship period,
some employers denied their female apprentices any food and clothing. The
women lived in destitution, and were forced to prostitute themselves or beg
in order to eat.[50]
On the plantations of St Vincent, the most common offences for both
men and women involved the withdrawal of labour. In the first year of
apprenticeship, Pitman tried 305 women and 271 men for neglect of work,
idleness and absence. On the plantations within St Clair’s district, 154
women and 98 men and seventeen whole gangs were sentenced to extra
labour on their estates for similar offences. Women predominated in these
cases because they made up the majority of the field labourers. Many women
also had additional burdens of childcare and other domestic work, which
made it difficult for them to always arrive at work on time. In both the town
and the plantations, women’s protest primarily involved a withdrawal of
work or verbal abuse. Men more frequently used vandalism against property
as a means of expressing their anger. In the first year of apprenticeship,
Pitman tried thirty-seven men and only two women for destruction or
neglect of property or livestock.[51]
The demeanour of the apprentices, and especially the women, also
concerned the planters and magistrates. Apprentices were punished for
arguing, swearing and generally insulting planters. The terms used by the
magistrates to describe these confrontations show the determination of
planters and authorities to enforce class distinctions and maintain their

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beliefs of racial superiority. Apprentices who argued against planters were
accused of ‘insolence’, impudence’ and ‘impertinence’. For example, one
woman was punished for snapping her fingers in the face of the estate
overseer and stating that she did not care for him. Women were always
remarked on for being the most abusive within the plantations. During
slavery, it was usually the women who led the insults against white estate
workers, and, during apprenticeship, this remained the case. Cursing,
chanting and singing, women field labourers infuriated both planters and
magistrates as they demonstrated the strength of their spirit and
courage.[52]

Group Actions
Disputes involving large numbers of apprentices were common from the
inception of the apprenticeship period and women dominated in these
protests. In the first week of apprenticeship in St Vincent, labourers from
Aldelphi estate refused to work and as a result suffered quite brutal
punishments. The men received from thirty to forty-five lashes and several
days’ extra labour on the estates. The women received from four to seven
days’ hard labour on the treadmill, several days extra labour on the estate,
and one woman was sentenced to seven days’ solitary confinement. St Clair
saw this reaction to the terms of apprenticeship as an example of the
apprentices’ ‘spirit of insubordination’. During the first week of
apprenticeship, he was equally harsh to several other gangs of labourers. He
punished thirty-two apprentices on Cane Hall for ‘not working as they
ought’ and forty apprentices on Fountain estate and twenty-one on Belair
for turning out late. In the first year, St Clair punished seventeen gangs for
‘indolent work’, ‘turning out late’ and ‘neglect of duty’. The swift brutality of
his actions echoed the force used by some stipendiary magistrates in
Jamaica during the first year of apprenticeship.[53]
On some estates in St Vincent, there were frequent protests. On Arnos
Vale, a large estate close to Kingstown, fifty-seven men and twenty-five
women, and two gangs of labourers came before the magistrate, St Clair, in
the first year of freedom. Between October 1836 and October 1837,
stipendiary magistrate John Anderson, who replaced St Clair, punished
gangs of labourers three or more times on Arnos Vale, Struam Cottage,
Kingstown Park and Fountain estates. Anderson blamed the unrest on these
estates on their proximity to Kingstown, claiming that town dwellers had an
unruly influence on the apprentices. However, in the first twelve months of
apprenticeship, the overseers on Arnos Vale were twice punished for
assaulting apprentices and a driver was found guilty of dragging and beating
a labourer. The overseer on Cane Hall was also found guilty of seriously
assaulting apprentices. On the second occasion, the victim of his assault was

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a woman. In fact, this man’s reputation was so notorious that Anderson was
eventually ordered not to accept any complaints from him against the Cane
Hall labourers.
It is also noticeable that both St Clair and Anderson were questioned
for their overzealous use of corporal punishments. Each month, Anderson
punished around 100 apprentices. Furthermore, in October 1837, he had
forty-one labourers from Arnos Vale, Struam Cottage and Cane Hall flogged
for insubordination, indolence and neglect of duty. This was far higher than
average. Between August 1835 and May 1836, the average number of
apprentices flogged each month throughout the island was just under fifty-
three.[54] The frequency of punishments on certain estates suggests that
management practices and the magistrates’ biases were responsible for
much of the unrest. In contrast, magistrate Tinling, who worked in the
north-west of the island, rarely punished more than ten people per month in
his district.[55]
A clear example of the effects of management tactics on the working of
apprenticeship was revealed during the most serious labour dispute in St
Vincent. Robert Pitman, the stipendiary magistrate, recorded the details of
this disturbance. Pitman was recruited from Britain. His reports revealed
that he was meticulous in his work, but he also found his position difficult.
Therefore, he sometimes resorted to excessive violence. Within his
description of the protest that took place in his district, he attempted to
justify his own actions and may therefore have exaggerated the actions of
apprentices. However, his report also revealed the important roles that
women adopted to resist unfair management decisions.[56]
The dispute took place in March 1835 and involved apprentices from
three estates in the north-east of the island. During apprenticeship,
labourers had to work for nine hours per day during a twelve-hour period
between six in the morning and six in the evening. Any work that they
performed in addition to this was supposed to be voluntary and paid. The
1835 dispute began during the cropping period when managers on Orange
Hill, Turama and Waterloo estates decided to change the working hours and
methods of payment. Instead of paying labourers for each additional hour
that they worked, managers decided to share among the apprentices one
dollar for each hogshead of sugar they produced.[57] In addition, the
managers then decided to organise shifts so that work was carried out over
a thirteen- to fourteen-hour period beginning at four or five in the morning.
They also ordered the gangs of labourers to work alternately in the mills
and the fields. Apprentices saw this as a step back into slave conditions and
did not wish to work under conditions that the British Government
considered intolerable during slavery. Therefore, a large number of the field
labourers refused to work. Robert Pitman, who was called in to liaise
between managers and apprentices, admitted that he believed that the

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Sheena Boa
demands made by the management were unfair. However, he reported to
Lieutenant-Governor Tyler that he decided to support these demands. As a
result, there was a week-long protest, 128 people were punished and a full-
scale riot occurred when some prisoners were taken to the workhouse. The
protest began on Tuesday 3 March, when Pitman sentenced one man from
Waterloo to two days’ extra labour for refusing to start work at four in the
morning. Pitman then went to Turama to talk to the apprentices. Here, the
women began chanting ‘No! Six to six! Six to six!’ when Pitman ordered
them to start work early. This call was later taken up by the women on the
other two estates. Pitman had eight women put into solitary confinement
and then ordered the gangs to begin work at five each morning. At Orange
Hill, he ordered the labourers to start work at four.
The labourers refused to comply, and, the following Thursday, Pitman
was summoned to punish the gangs who turned out late. Women made up
the majority of those who ignored the new working hours. On Waterloo, he
charged four men and nine women. He sentenced the women to two days’
extra labour, but ordered that the men should immediately receive forty
lashes each with the cat-o’-nine-tails. While the men were being flogged, one
woman, Rebecca, began the chant ‘Six to six!’ as a sign of defiance and
solidarity. Pitman sentenced her to one week on the treadmill in Kingstown.
On Orange Hill, similar scenes occurred. Pitman sentenced six women
to two days’ extra labour and had two men given forty lashes. Here, a
number of women began chanting ‘Six to six!’ and shouting angry abuse at
Pitman while the men were flogged. Pitman ordered that one of the women
should be put in solitary confinement, but later agreed to release her when
her husband promised that she would behave in future. A young man was
also sentenced to hard labour on the treadmill because he threatened the
overseer, who had ordered the young man’s mother to start work in the mill.
Pitman condoned the man who exerted authority over his woman, but
punished the other man for attempting to protect a woman from harsh
treatment.
On Turama, six women and eight men were charged with refusing to
start work on time. Pitman ordered that two of the men and three of the
women should work the treadmill for two weeks and the rest should
perform two extra days’ labour. He had realised the dangers of public
floggings.
The following day, the apprentices on all three estates refused to begin
work before six. Furthermore, on Turama, they refused to work in the mill.
Pitman wrote to the Lieutenant-Governor requesting additional assistance.
He also decided to take those sentenced to the treadmill off the estates. With
the aid of constables and managers from neighbouring estates, Pitman had
the prisoners put onto a cart and led off the estate. However, the other
apprentices from the estates began following the cart and attempted to stop

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it and release the prisoners. Pitman was obviously frightened at the

apprentices’ anger, and, in his report, he described how he rode at the
apprentices to try to disperse them. It is interesting to note that when
Pitman reported on this crowd, his descriptions were not gender-specific. It
is likely that a large number of the people that Pitman rode at were women.
However, Pitman did not want to admit that he attempted to drive his horse
through a crowd which included women and children.
By the time the prisoners arrived at Georgetown, a crowd of over 120
people had gathered outside the police barracks. The police managed to
arrest a further nine people, who were placed in custody in the barracks
cells and in the prisons on nearby estates. During the evening, the crowd
dispersed. The following day, the apprentices on the three estates again
refused to begin work before six. Consequently, Pitman returned on the
following Monday and sentenced them primarily to hard labour in penal
gangs for ten hours a day. The work was to be carried out on the estates,
under the supervision of the troops. Thus, the planters not only won the
extra hours’ labour from their apprentices, but they also no longer had to
pay the apprentices for working overtime.
Pitman was convinced that this disturbance was a well-led conspiracy.
He remitted the sentences of two men who named a man and a woman as
ringleaders. He claimed that the chants of ‘Six to six’ appeared to be
rehearsed and noted that several women spat at and cursed their husbands
who did not join in the protests. He wrote, ‘these poor misguided people
have been misled and the most guilty have, as yet, escaped the operation of
the law’.[58] However, despite this expression of sympathy, Pitman was
merciless in the punishments he inflicted on the apprentices, as Table I
demonstrates. Thirty men were flogged and four women and three men
suffered the treadmill. In addition, seventy women lost their free time, which
would have made it difficult for them to prepare food for their families. Only
twenty-six men had to perform additional labour. Therefore, although the
punishments for many of the men were brutal, more women suffered for a
longer period.
The actions of the protesters on these three estates highlight some of
the causes of tension within the plantation society. Firstly, the managers
decided to change the working hours and forms of payment to suit their
needs and without reference to either their previous agreements with the
apprentices, or the stipulations of the governor. In addition, they had chosen
to institute a method of working that had been contentious during the slave
period. Secondly, the magistrate chose to support the planters’ actions,
despite his view that the hours demanded were excessive. Thirdly, the
apprentices reacted immediately to the events, and the field workers were
largely united in their responses and their expressions of their perceived
rights. Finally, the protest reveals the divisions within the plantation

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workforce. The constables were made up of the skilled apprentices and
drivers. They did not support the protesters but actually assisted in arresting
them. Pitman claimed that these men strongly condemned the conduct of
the apprentices and ‘most particularly that of the women’.[59]
The event also reveals the different roles of men and women on the
estates. The women seemed to initiate and dominate the protest, and they
were the loudest and most abusive. Pitman wrote:
Nothing, at present, can uproot the opinion that I entertain that some
evil disposed person or persons has been busy instilling into the minds
of the apprenticed labourers the lesson of ‘six to six’ which was
thoroughly learned on each estate, and that it was in the first instance
taught to the women.
He further claimed that women were the ‘primary instigators of the plot’.
However, women received less violent punishments, perhaps because Pitman
did not take their threats as seriously as those made by the men.[60]

Punishments Men Women Total

50 lashes 3 3
50 lashes and 2 weeks extra labour with 7 7
solitary confinement
50 lashes and 1 month solitary confinement 2 2
40 lashes 16 16
32 lashes (8 remitted) 1 1
3 lashes (37 remitted) 1 1
1 month solitary confinement 2 2
2 weeks extra labour for one hour a day 12 34 46
and solitary confinement
1 week extra labour for one hour a day and 2 19 21
solitary confinement
2 weeks on the treadmill 2 3 5
1 week on the treadmill 1 1 2
2 days extra labour on the estates 5 17 22
Admonition and discharge 2 3 5
Total 54 79 133

Table I. Punishments inflicted on the apprentices of Orange Hill, Turama and Waterloo,
March 1835. Source: PRO CO 260/53, Governor Smith to Lord Glenelg, no. 32, 7 October
1835, Enclosures, Pitman’s report, 22 August 1835.

It is probable that women were at the forefront of these protests because

they, more than men, found the long working hours difficult to manage.
Observers often remarked on the struggles that many women faced on
estates throughout the British Caribbean because they were the primary
carers of young children and had greater domestic burdens. The women’s
actions can be seen as an example of what Rosalyn Terborg-Penn calls

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‘African feminism’. This refers to the ability of women from the African
diaspora to become self-sufficient and adopt survival strategies in order to
oppose oppressive forces. Terborg-Penn has highlighted how women in the
Caribbean have often assumed leadership roles, formed collective fronts and
developed new economic roles in order to redefine their lives.[61] The
women from Waterloo, Orange Hill and Turama united together and
adopted leadership positions to oppose working conditions that they found
intolerable. However, the women were unsuccessful. The planters received
their demands for long working hours during the cropping period, and the
apprentices lost their chance to earn extra wages.
This protest was not unique. During the apprenticeship period, there
were other sporadic disturbances as apprentices throughout the British
Caribbean protested against their working conditions. Women were
frequently at the forefront of these protests as working conditions worsened
for them. The memory of these protests remained strong after the
termination of the apprenticeship period. Men and women left full-time
estate work in large numbers as soon as they were free. However, women
dominated the early withdrawal of labour. Many became independent
peasant farmers. Other women became higglers and travelled the island
selling a wide range of goods.[62]

Conclusions
Throughout the Caribbean, the apprenticeship period failed in its primary
objective of preparing the ex-slaves and their employers for a free labour
economy. In St Vincent, this was mainly because of the intransigent and
hostile actions of planters. The British Government underestimated the scale
of the planters’ resentment towards abolition. Therefore, they failed to
provide mechanisms to adequately protect apprentices from abuse. In
addition, many of the special magistrates sympathised with the planters and
imposed heavy punishments on apprentices. The use of the whip and the
treadmill, which were heavy reminders of the slavery era, further widened
the divisions between the different classes and races.
It is noticeable that women suffered excessively during the
apprenticeship period. Although they could no longer be whipped by the
drivers and overseers, they continued to be overworked and unduly
punished. The British Government and abolitionists, during their debates on
freedom, remarked that slavery denied women access to traditional roles as
mothers and wives. One of the primary expectations of abolitionists was that
African-Caribbean women should be able to adopt the domestic roles of
middle-class English women.[63] However, despite these aims, the British
Government ignored the plight of women, and in particular mothers, when
they passed the Abolition of Slavery Act. Childcare became an additional

401
Sheena Boa
burden as women lost both the facilities of the nursery and the food and
clothing allowances they had received as slaves. Many mothers also lost the
rights to reduced working hours that had been given to slave women.
However, despite all the restrictions imposed on them, the mothers of young
children gained a major victory over the planter class. Nearly every one of
them retained control over their children’s future by refusing to allow their
children to become apprentices on the estates. This ensured that, when
apprenticeship ended in 1838, nearly all African-Caribbean labourers were
free from any form of indenture and could dictate their choices of work and
residency.
Women’s resistance to the working conditions imposed on them
followed the patterns of protest adopted by slaves. They used both collective
and individual methods to attempt to achieve their goals. Like slave women
before them, a few women were able to use legal means to achieve freedom.
However, the majority used a combination of non-compliance at work,
negotiations, maroonage and strikes to protest against their situations and
attempt to alleviate their conditions. As Beckles and Bush have pointed out
in their studies of slave women, these acts of defiance revealed that women
were central to plantation protests.[64]
The actions of women apprentices also revealed their own expectations
of how they wanted their lives to change when they were fully free. They did
not fully embrace the domestic sphere advocated by abolitionists and
missionaries, but adapted it to suit their own visions. Their resistance
against the apprenticeship system was aimed at ending long working hours
and gaining more free time to pursue domestic and entrepreneurial tasks. As
well as fighting for control over their children, women also struggled to gain
economic independence. Women who gained freedom before the termination
of apprenticeship left estate work, but they remained economically active.
They became full-time market sellers or higglers. Those that remained on the
estates attempted to improve their working conditions. When apprenticeship
finally ended, large numbers of women quit estate work as soon as possible
to work on provision grounds, or requested part-time hours to enable them
to combine childcare with financial autonomy. These hardworking and
independent women were the forerunners of those that Olive Senior has
referred to as Working Miracles.[65]

Notes
[1] See, for example, Barbara Bush (1990) Slave Women in the Caribbean,
pp. 36-46 (London: James Currey); Hilary Beckles (1989) Natural Rebels: a
social history of enslaved black women in Barbados, pp. 29-50 (London:
Zed Books); Marietta Morrissey (1989) Slave Women in the New World:
gender stratification in the Caribbean, pp. 16-37 (Lawrence: Kansas
University Press); Rhoda Reddock (1985) Women and Slavery in the

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Caribbean: a feminist perspective’, Latin American Perspectives, 12,

pp. 63-66; Richard Dunn (1993) Sugar Production and Slave Women in
Jamaica, in Ira Berlin (Ed.) Cultivation and Culture: labor and the shaping
of slave life in the Americas, pp. 65-72 (Charlottesville: University of
Virginia Press).
[2] Bush, Slave Women, pp. 30, 120-137. In his diary, Thomas Thistlewood
listed all his sexual encounters with slave women. Many of these acts were
forced on the women. Douglas Hall (1989) In Miserable Servitude: Thomas
Thistlewood in Jamaica, 1750-86, pp. 20, 29, 32, 33, 37, 72, 74, 84, 87
(London: Macmillan).
[3] Clare Midgley (1993) Free Men and Protected Women: gender and anti-
slavery ideology, unpublished paper presented to the Anglo-American
Conference, Institute of Historical Research, London (not paginated); Clare
Midgley (1992) Women against Slavery: the British campaigns, 1750-1870,
p. 99 (London: Routledge). See also, Dianne Paton (1996) Decency,
Dependency and the Lash: gender and the British debate over slave
emancipation, 1830-1834, Slavery and Abolition, 17, pp. 170-173.
[4] Within the British Crown Colonies, which included Trinidad and British
Guyana, laws were formulated by the Colonial Office’s representative, the
governor, rather than local legislators.
[5] Reddock, ‘Women and Slavery’ p. 73; Lucille Mathurin (1986) Women Field
Workers in Jamaica during Slavery, p. 9: The Elsa Goveia Memorial
Lecture, 14 May 1986 (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press); PRO
CO 260/42, Brisbane to Bathurst, 21 October 1825; PRO CO 260/43,
Brisbane to Bathurst, 28 September 1826; PRO CO 260/51, Smith to
Stanley, no. 4, 1 July 1833.
[6] Thomas Holt has described the apprenticeship period as a ‘half-way
covenant’. For details of the system and an analysis of its weaknesses, see
Thomas Holt (1992) The Problem of Freedom: race, labor and politics in
Jamaica and Britain, 1832-1938, pp. 49, 56-57 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press).
[7] Swithin Wilmot (1984) ‘Not Full Free’: the ex-slaves and the apprenticeship
system in Jamaica, 1834-38, Jamaica Journal, 17, pp. 2-10; Richard Frucht
(1975) Emancipation and Revolt in the West Indies: St. Kitts, 1834, Science
and Society, 39, pp. 199-214; Woodville Marshall (1985) Apprenticeship and
Labour Relations in Four Windward Islands, in David Richardson (Ed.)
Abolition and its Aftermath: the historical context, 1790-1916, pp. 203-224
(London: Frank Cass); Holt, The Problem of Freedom, chs 2 and 3.
[8] British Parliamentary Papers, 1835 (278-11), L, p. 153; PRO CO 260/52,
Tyler to Spring Rice, no. 17, 1 November 1834.
[9] See, for example, Woodville Marshall (1964) The Social and Economic
Development of the Windward Islands, 1838-1865, PhD thesis, University of
Cambridge; and Adrian Fraser (1980) Development of a Peasantry in St.
Vincent, 1846-1912, M.Phil thesis, University of the West Indies.

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[10] The stipendiary magistrates were recruited either locally or from Britain. In
St Vincent, the original three magistrates came from Britain. However, they
were joined by local appointments later in the period.
[11] PRO CO 260/55, MacGregor to Glenelg, no. 91, 5 May 1837.
[12] Joseph Sturge & Thomas Harvey (1968 reprint edition) The West Indies in
1837, p. 139 (London: Frank Cass; first published 1838); James Thome &
J. Horace Kimball (1969 reprint edition) Emancipation in the West Indies,
p. 105 (New York: Aran Press; first published 1838); Holt, The Problem of
Freedom, p. 106.
[13] Woodville Marshall (Ed.) (1977) The Colthurst Journal: Journal of a Special
Magistrate in the Islands of Barbados and St. Vincent, July
1835-September 1838, p. 29 (New York: KTO Press); PRO CO 260/56,
MacGregor to Glenelg, no. 18, 29 January 1838.
[14] PRO CO 260/53, Smith to Glenelg, no. 30, 30 September 1835.
[15] St Vincent Archives, 91002 3/2, Tyler to Pitman 30 October 1837; 91002
29/4, Tyler to MacGregor, 24 October 1837, Tyler to Special Magistrates, 3
November 1837.
[16] PRO CO 260/53, Smith to Glenelg, no. 30, 30 September 1835.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Marshall, The Colthurst Journal, p. 158.
[19] Sturge & Harvey, The West Indies, p. 120; Thome & Kimball, Emancipation
in the West Indies, p. 49; Holt, The Problem of Freedom, p. 78; Marshall,
The Colthurst Journal, p. 143.
[20] Wilmot, ‘“Not Full Free”’, pp. 8-9; Marshall, The Colthurst Journal, pp. 96,
107.
[21] Marshall, The Colthurst Journal, p. 147. The Returns of Slaves for 1834 in
PRO T 71/500 also show that on some estates, planters falsely classified
their ex-slaves. On Grand Sable, for example, the household slaves are listed
as domestic and labourer.
[22] Marshall, ‘Apprenticeship and Labour Relations’, p. 209; PRO CO 260/55,
MacGregor to Glenelg, no. 268, 21 November 1837; A.C. Carmichael (reprint
edition, 1969) The Domestic Manners and Social Conditions of the White,
Coloured and Negro Populations of the West Indies, p. 186 (New York:
Negro University Press; first published 1833); British Parliamentary
Papers, 1836 (560) XVI, p. 62.
[23] ] PRO CO 260/55, MacGregor to Glenelg, no. 268, 21 November 1837.
[24] Ibid.; PRO CO 260/55, MacGregor to Glenelg, no. 196, 31 August 1837;
Thome & Kimball, Emancipation in the West Indies, p. 106. The St Vincent
Abolition of Slavery Act implemented the imperial Abolition Act.
[25] PRO CO 260/55, MacGregor to Glenelg, no. 70, 5 April 1837, Pitman’s
report, 21 November 1836. This report was in response to questions made
by Tyler concerning the conditions of the free children.

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[26] For the opinions of apprentices, see Thome & Kimball, Emancipation in the
West Indies, pp. 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 31, 99, 100-101, 103.
[27] Jacqueline Jones (1985) Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: black women,
work and the family from slavery to the present, pp. 16-18 (New York:
Basic Books).
[28] British Parliamentary Papers, 1835 (280-11), L, p. 163.
[29] PRO CO 260/54, Smith to Glenelg, no. 17, 1 June 1836.
[30] Carmichael, Domestic Manners, p. 269.
[31] Pitman’s report, dated 21 November 1836, was enclosed in PRO CO 260/55,
MacGregor to Glenelg, no. 70, 5 April 1837.
[32] Ibid.; Jones, Labor of Love, p. 29.
[33] PRO CO 260/55, MacGregor to Glenelg, no. 70, 5 April 1837, Pitman’s
report.
[34] PRO CO 260/56, MacGregor to Glenelg, no. 58, 10 April 1838.
[35] W.L. Burn (1937) Emancipation and Apprenticeship in the West Indies,
p. 258 (London: Jonathon Cape); PRO CO 260/52, Tyler to Spring Rice, no.
17, 1 November 1834. The term ‘free coloured’ was used during slavery and
apprenticeship to refer to a free person of mixed parentage.
[36] PRO CO 260/53, Smith to Glenelg, no. 30, 30 September 1835.
[37] St Vincent Archives, 91002, 3/2, Tyler to Pitman, 30 October 1837.
[38] PRO CO 260/53, Smith to Glenelg, no. 30, 30 September 1835. There are
no figures for later in the apprenticeship period, but magistrate reports
frequently mentioned that individuals continued to buy their freedom.
[39] Marshall, ‘Apprenticeship and Labour Relations’, p. 244. This was also the
case in Jamaica. See Wilmot, ‘“Not Full Free”’, pp. 8-9.
[40] PRO CO 260/56, MacGregor to Glenelg, no. 86, 19 April 1838.
[41] Marshall, ‘Apprenticeship and Labour Relations’, p. 214.
[42] See, for example, the stipendiary magistrates’ reports in PRO CO 260/55,
MacGregor to Glenelg, no. 211, 22 September 1837; no. 246, 25 October
1837; no. 268, 21 November 1837.
[43] Marshall, ‘Apprenticeship and Labour Relations’, p. 214; PRO CO 260/55,
MacGregor to Glenelg, no. 196, 31 August 1837.
[44] Rebecca Scott (1985) Slave Emancipation in Cuba: the transition to free
labor, 1850-1899, p. 155 (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
[45] William Green (1976) British Slave Emancipation: the sugar colonies and
the great experiment, 1830-1865, p. 134 (Oxford: Clarendon Press);
Kathleen Butler (1995) The Economics of Emancipation: Jamaica and
Barbados, 1823-1843, p. 33 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press).
[46] Stipendiary magistrates and abolitionists remarked on the determination of
apprentices to enable women to escape from field labour. See, for example,
PRO CO 260/55, MacGregor to Glenelg, no. 211, 22 June 1837; Thome &

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Kimball, Emancipation in the West Indies, pp. 49, 63; Sturge & Harvey,
The West Indies in 1837, p. 77.
[47] PRO CO 260/53, Smith to Glenelg, no. 30, 30 September 1835.
[48] Ibid.; Marshall, The Colthurst Journal, p. 244; Wilmot, ‘“Not Full Free”’ p. 8;
University of Aberdeen Special Collections, John Anderson’s Journal (1837),
pp. 28-29.
[49] PRO CO 260/53, Smith to Glenelg, no. 30, 30 September 1835, St Clair’s
report.
[50] Thome & Kimball, Emancipation in the West Indies, p. 106; Marshall, The
Colthurst Journal, p. 143.
[51] PRO CO 260/53, Smith to Glenelg, no. 30, 30 September 1835. John
Colthurst claimed that he did not punish mothers who turned up late for
work, or who could not keep pace with male workers. Marshall, The
Colthurst Journal, p. 143. Thome & Kimball also remarked on the problems
that women had combining work with the care of their children. See Thome
& Kimball, Emancipation in the West Indies, p. 91.
[52] PRO CO 260/53, Smith to Glenelg, no. 30, 30 September 1835; Barbara
Bush-Slimani (1993) Field Labour, Women, Childbirth and Resistance in
British Caribbean Society, History Workshop Journal, 36, p. 85; Holt, The
Problem of Freedom, pp. 64-65.
[53] PRO CO 260/53, Smith to Glenelg, no. 30, 30 September 1835; Wilmot
‘“Not Full Free”’, pp. 3-5. For an analysis of early protest actions by
apprentices in other Caribbean islands, see Gad Heuman (1998) Riots and
Resistance in the Caribbean at the Moment of Freedom, paper presented to
the Association of Caribbean Historians Conference, Surinam.
[54] PRO CO 260/53, Smith to Glenelg, no. 30, 30 September 1835; PRO CO
260/55 MacGregor to Glenelg, no. 211, 22 September 1837; PRO CO
260/56, MacGregor to Glenelg, no. 119, 30 March 1838; Marshall, The
Colthurst Journal, p. 244.
[55] PRO CO 260/55, MacGregor to Glenelg, no. 211, 22 September 1837.
[56] All the following details of the 1835 dispute can be found in PRO CO
260/53, Smith to Glenelg, no. 32, 7 October 1835, Pitman’s letter to Tyler,
22 August 1835.
[57] One dollar was worth 4s 2d sterling.
[58] PRO CO 260/53, Smith to Glenelg, no. 32, 7 October 1835, Pitman’s letter
to Tyler, 22 August 1835.
[59] Ibid.
[60] Ibid.
[61] Rosalyn Terborg-Penn (1995) Through an African-Feminist Theoretical Lens,
in Verene Shepherd, Bridget Brereton & Barbara Bailey (Eds) Engendering
History: Caribbean women in historical perspective, pp. 4-8 (London:
James Currey).

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[62] See Mimi Sheller (1998) Quasheba, Mother Queen: black women’s public
leadership and political protest in postemancipation Jamaica, 1834-1865,
Slavery and Abolition, 19, pp. 90-117; and Swithin Wilmott, ‘Females of
Abandoned Character? Women and Protest in Jamaica, 1838-65’, in
Shepherd, Brereton & Bailey (Eds) Engendering History, pp. 279-295.
[63] See Catherine Hall (1993) White Visions, Black Lives: the free villages of
Jamaica, History Workshop Journal, 36, pp. 108-110.
[64] Beckles, Natural Rebels, pp. 152-172; Bush, Slave Women, pp. 52-82.
[65] See Sheena Boa (1998) Colour, Class and Gender in St. Vincent, 1834-1884,
PhD thesis, University of Warwick, for an examination of women’s working
life after emancipation. Olive Senior (1991) Working Miracles: women’s
lives in the English speaking Caribbean (London: James Currey) gives
details of the working lives of women in the modern Caribbean.

SHEENA BOA teaches Caribbean and North American history part-time in

the Department of History at the University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL,
United Kingdom (s.boa@warwick.ac.uk). She holds a PhD in history from
the University of Warwick. She is currently researching childhood
experiences in the nineteenth-century Caribbean.

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Sheena Boa

CALL FOR PAPERS

TENDER MERCIES AND BENEVOLENT

ASPIRATIONS:
women and philanthropy in the
19th and 20th centuries
University of Wolverhampton
Saturday 10 November 2001

Papers are invited for this one-day interdisciplinary

conference, organised by the Women’s History Network
(Midland Region), to mark women’s special contribution to
philanthropy in modern history. Papers with an
international perspective would be welcome.

Themes to consider include: Religion and philanthropy; Cross-class

female networks; Philanthropy and feminism; Social control and
respectability; Missionary activity at home and abroad; Contributions
of individuals/biography; Iconography; Literacy perspectives of
benevolence; Medical charities; Philanthropic organisations and
relation themes

Those wishing to give papers are invited to submit a 250-word

abstract by 1st July 2001 to Dr Lori Williamson,
School of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences,
University of Wolverhampton, Caste View, Dudley DY1 3HR,
United Kingdom (in6734@wlv.ac.uk).

408