Dr Rita Pemberton

Reflective of planter concerns about how the island's sugar business would be conducted with a freed workforce, a mere seven months after the termination of the apprenticeship system, the Tobago House of Assembly and the Tobago Council met in emergency sessions to deal with what was considered an urgent matter.

Tobago planters, who were vehemently opposed to the termination of the system in 1838, would not conceive of plantations without the support of the controls of enslavement to which they had become wedded. They sought to establish obstacles to prevent the attainment of real freedom in the interest of the continuation of the sugar industry.

The expectation was that the freed Africans would abandon the estates and jeopardise plantation operations and profits. This view was supported by freed African men's removing their wives and children from plantation labour and refusing to comply with planters' requests for labour during the first months of freedom.

Panic buttons went off among the plantation owners, who were overcome with fear. At all costs, such an unthinkable situation had to be prevented, and it was agreed the most effective strategy would be legal restrictions on opportunities for the free labourers to engage in alternatives to estate labour. Their intention was to use the legal system to force workers to remain plantation labourers and, with no other alternative, accept labour on terms dictated by the planters.

As a consequence, at the meetings of the council on March 23 and the assembly on March 26, 1839, the legislation was passed and an Act for the Suppression of Vagrancy and for the punishment of idle and disorderly persons was proclaimed on March 28.

The law made no secret of the intent of the planters: it stated that every able-bodied person should, by his labour or other lawful means, provide support for himself and his dependents. Those who deliberately avoided their responsibilities and caused their charges to become dependent on charity would be punished.

The fact is, the only employment on the island at that time was plantation labour. But the freed Africans resisted continued planter control and sought to reduce their dependence on plantation labour by creating alternative employment for themselves.

This the planters resisted. The law provided a list of 'offensive acts' which were punishable. These were committed by: 'common prostitutes' who wandered on the streets and public places behaving in a riotous and indecent manner; idle and disorderly beggars and those who encouraged children to beg were subject to the full brunt of the law.

The stipendiary magistrates or credible witness (undoubtedly a planter or supporter) were to determine the ability of such people to provide for themselves by honest labour (ie plantation labour), or a confession of the offender himself. Those found guilty were sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour for a maximum of 14 days.

The next category of offenders included fortune-tellers, palmists, those who pr