DR RITA PEMBERTON
During the early 20th century, the desire to escape from estate labour stimulated some individuals in Tobago to gravitate to alternative economic activities, particularly in the realm of business.
One service for which there was a glaring need was the supply of items in demand by members of the village communities. Some enterprising individuals became involved in the retail business as shopkeepers.
As a result, a number of small shops emerged on the island, but by the 1930s and 40s, some of them had expanded into larger operations. Size notwithstanding, these shops became important service providers to the communities in the villages in which they were located, and every village had at least one shop. These institutions provide evidence of population occupation and social practices in Tobago.
The emergence of the village shops ousted the estate shops which had dominated the island during the post-Emancipation era. Since the era of enslavement, the importation of essential items was conducted through the individual estates. This practice continued after Emancipation, and by virtue of planter connections with the mercantile fraternity, through their estate shops, planters continued to enjoy a monopoly on the supply of essential items to the population.
These shops sold poor-quality items, some unfit for human consumption, at inflated prices. The estate shops served as agencies of continued planter exploitation and control of workers during the era of freedom. They provided basic items which were readily available to workers on credit, for which they paid in service to the estate.
As a result, the workers were perpetually in debt and therefore bound to estate labour. While planters made profits from the sale of their high-priced goods, they also benefited, at the expense of their workers, from the practice of undervaluing the worth of their labour against the prices of their shop items. These shops served to assuage the abrasive impact of the estate shops, and with that, planter control of the freed African population in Tobago.
In addition to providing alternative employment, the village shops made a larger range of better-quality items available to the population at better prices than the estate shops. Shops were allowed by the regulations to be open for business from 6.30 am until 7 pm from Monday-Wednesday and on Friday. Thursday opening hours were 6.30 am- 1.00 pm and Saturday 6.30 am- 8 pm. Extended opening hours were permitted, up to 8 pm, on the day before a weekday public holiday. Proprietors were required to post opening hours on a blackboard which was placed at the front of the shop. The bye-laws permitted proprietors to facilitate sales, outside of opening hours to bereaved families when there was a death in the village.
Officers visited the shops periodically to conduct quality tests on the items that were offered for sale. Under the colony's Regulations for Weights and Measures, scales and weights were requir
