Dr Rita Pemberton

DURING THE post-Emancipation years, one of the first group of professionals to exit Tobago was the medical practitioners. Since 1834 the island was underserved by Western-trained medical officers. The estates provided the main source of income for doctors who were employed to attend to the enslaved labourers who were ill. This activity provided a valuable source of income to the doctors, whose patients were drawn from several estates.

Sickness was a feature of enslavement because the enslaved workers were overworked and underfed, brutally punished for disobedience, and feigned illness as a resistance strategy. Therefore, the medical service was of importance to plantation operations, which were directed by the shipping schedule.

It was essential for all stages of the production of sugar to be completed in accordance with a rigid schedule so that the sugar was ready for export in time for the arrival of the ships. If for any reason plantation operations were interrupted, the planter was in danger of suffering severe losses and an inability to service his debts.

For this reason it was of important to keep their enslaved workers in good working condition, although, ironically, it was the same working and living conditions which were imposed on the workers that made them prone to illnesses.

Initially, children were seen as a drain on plantation resources because sugar production required strong healthy workers, especially males. Planter attitudes changed when the British government terminated the trade in captive Africans in 1808. Planters then sought to encourage the creation of a locally-born enslaved population by encouraging liaisons between enslaved males and females and offering incentives to pregnant women and new mothers, and providing care for babies on the plantations.

While this development made medical service more important, it occurred at a time when plantation fortunes in Tobago were spiralling downwards.

The intensified movement for the termination of enslavement between 1808 and 1833 when the Emancipation Act was passed in the British parliament and its implementation in 1834, had a significant impact on the presence of Western-trained medical officers on the island.

Their numbers dwindled because of the declining fortunes of Tobago's plantations, whose owners were less able to afford their services. This left room for enhanced opportunities for the traditional medical practitioners upon whom the enslaved had always depended because they were very distrustful of the Western-trained doctors, whose services they could not afford.

These doctors left Tobago for greener pastures, but it was the official view that the services of trained medical officers must be provided on the island. In 1874, two brothers, Dr Richard Anderson and Dr James Anderson, arrived on the island where they served the Windward district. Immediately they became embraced in the island's ruling class structure.

They became lessees of Castara Estate which they bought in 1880. The Ander