May 11, 2015 • 26 mins
Until the 1830s, the dominant industry on St. Kitts was sugar, and the majority of the people living there were enslaved Africans who kept that industry going. When the act that was supposed to free them fell short of doing so, the slaves rebelled.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm trade Bob Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. So I've
been to a lot of museums. A lot of these museums,
(00:22):
to be totally fair, have been in the United States.
And one thing that I found, Holly, I don't know
if this is your experience as well, but unless I'm
in an exhibit but is specifically about slavery or race,
there's a lot of weird sleight of hand that goes
on with slavery. Absolutely, I think some museums don't want
to turn off potential museum goers by engaging in a
really difficult topics. Sometimes. Yeah, so yes, I've been to
(00:46):
exhibits about the American Civil War that really focus on
the battles and make almost no mention of the slaves
that the war was pretty much bought over. Uh, there
are descriptions of the horrors of slavery that are kind
of weird late compartmentalized as this thing that happened in
the past. We were much less enlightened, and it doesn't
(01:07):
really explore how having built a nation on that practice
continues to affect people of every race today. It's it's
kind of odd. And I'm not just talking about the
museums in the United States. Most of the other museums
that I have been to are in the Caribbean, and
they also just deflect the focus away from the roles
(01:27):
that these islands played in slavery and vice versa, and
instead onto things like beautiful shorelines and birds and like shipwrecks.
So this is not the case at the St. Kitts
National Museum and Basstaire Saint Kitts. The National Museum is
in the old Treasury building, which was originally built in
(01:49):
and it's an easy walk from the cruise port, which
is how I got there. With so many other museums,
there's this weird Jedi mind trick about just focusing your
tension somewhere else besides slavery. That is not how they
do it at the St. Kitts National Museum there. It
is more like have a seat. The culture of St.
Kitts comes from two places, the native peoples who used
(02:12):
to live here and are enslaved African ancestors. It's literally
the only time I've been to a museum that was
just like the National Museum, not like a museum that
was devoted specifically, UH, justice slavery or justice civil rights
or just a race. H and had that up front
of an approach about it. So naturally, even though I
(02:34):
was there on vacation, I came away with things to
talk about on the show today. So we are just
going to jump right into that. Uh. St. Kitts, which
is sometimes called St. Christopher, is part of the Leeward Islands,
which is the northwest arm of the Lesser Antilles in
the Caribbean Sea. Exactly which other islands are part of
the Leeward Islands depends a little bit on who is
(02:55):
drawing the map, what time period we're talking about, and
whether they're looking at things from a glawgical or a
cultural and historical perspective. Regardless, St. KITT's nearest neighbor is Nevis,
and St. Kitts and Nevis together are one country as
the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis, and this is
the smallest country in the Western Hemisphere UH and Nevis
(03:15):
has actually tried to separate into its own country a
couple of times, and it's the smaller island of the
two of them. If you're still having a hard time
visualizing exactly where we're talking about. St. Kitts and Nevis
is east of Puerto Rico and north of Venezuela. St.
Kitts has been inhabited almost continually for about five thousand
years that we know of when Christopher Columbus sighted the
(03:38):
island on his second voyage in fourteen three. It's inhabitants
where the carib and the Arawak people's. Unfortunately, we don't
really know much about either of these cultures as they
existed on St. Kitts. They were all killed through violence
or disease or moved to other nearby islands as Europeans
colonized St. Kitts in the sixteen hundreds. This is actually
(04:00):
true of many other populations of the carib and the
Arawak peoples. They did not fare at all well as
Europeans moved in. St. Kitts is a volcanic island, and
that meant that the soil was very good for growing
sugar once the rainforest was cleared away to make way
for the sugar plantations. So by the end of the
seventeenth century, the sugar industry dominated the island and the
(04:23):
overwhelming majority of the people living there were enslaved Africans.
Although both France and Britain colonized Saint Kitts, it eventually
became British territory. And today's story is about what happened
after the British Empire abolished slavery, which is what we're
going to talk about. After a brief break forward from
(04:44):
a sponsor. Slavery was abolished in England in seventeen seventy two,
and the British Parliament passed the Abolition of the Slave
Trade Act in eighteen oh seven. But while that act
abolished the buying and selling of human beings, it didn't
actually do anything about the people who are already enslaved
elsewhere in the Empire. In August of eighteen thirty three,
(05:06):
after decades of activity by Britain's abolitionist movement as well
as by slaves themselves, Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act,
which was which was going to free all slaves in
the British Empire. There were some exceptions though that included,
for example, the territories and possession of the East India Company.
(05:27):
In most places, this law was going to free all
enslaved people over the age of six on August first,
eighteen thirty four. Here's how the act starts. Quote, Whereas
diverse persons are holding in slavery within diverse of His
Majesty's colonies, and it is just an expedient that all
such persons should be manumented and set free, and that
(05:50):
a reasonable compensation should be made to the persons hitherto
entitled to the services of such slaves, for the loss
which they will incur by being deprived of their right
to such services. And whereas it is also expedient the
provision should be made for promoting the industry and securing
the good conduct of the persons so to be manumented
for a limited period after such their manumission. And whereas
(06:13):
it is necessary that the laws now in force in
the said several colonies should forthwith be adapted to the
new state and relations of society therein, which will follow
upon such general manumission as aforesaid of the said slaves,
And that, in order to afford the necessary time for
such adaptation of the said laws, a short interval should
(06:35):
elapse before such manumission should take effect. And then it
goes on to outline all of the specific provisions in
the Act and how this is going to happen. So
what the Act basically says is that slaves should be
set free, and that slave owners should be compensated for
the loss of their slaves, and that there should be
(06:55):
some kind of buffer in place that the people who
relied on slave labor didn't imediately lose or have to
start paying their laborers. The rationale behind all this was,
for the most part, the industries that relied on slavery
and we're still using slave labor needed a lot of
labor to continue running. So if suddenly there were no
more slaves, it would be a hindrance on the continuation
(07:18):
of industry. So, in other words, when we say the
word abolished, it really goes in the air quotes there.
Emancipation was not immediate. In most places, slaves had to
continue to work for a set amount of time without
pay before they could be freed. The British West Indies
enslaved people over the age of six were turned into apprentices,
(07:40):
and apprentices would have to work forty five hours per
week for between four and six years to earn their freedom.
That forty five hours a week for between four and
six years was also without pay. Meanwhile, the plantation owners
and the British and the British West Indies and elsewhere
were giving grants from the government as a compensation for
the loss of their slave. The government actually earmarked twenty
(08:02):
million pounds sterling for that purpose. Obviously, there are a
number of problems with the idea of quote freeing slaves
by making them continue to work for free, although this
tactic was really not the least bit unique to the
British Empire. But let's put that aside for just a second,
because there were some other complications going on here as well.
(08:23):
Because they were not going to be paid for their
forty five hours of work per week, apprentices would have
to do extra work to make any money to support
themselves or to try to prepare for a life as
an actual free person. They need to either hire themselves
out as labor, or grow crops to sell on a
personal plot, or make items that could be sold for money,
(08:44):
or some other way of making a living, and their
time to do any of that started after their forty
five hours per week of work ended. At some plantations,
this forty five hour schedule was doled out as nine
hours a day or five days, so that people could
go to the Saturday markets and sell the things that
they'd made or grown in their spare time, and then
(09:07):
be able to go to church on Sunday. But at
other plantations it was to be six seven and a
half hour days, and only Sundays were given off. There
were no provisions for how that six day week would
allow people to get to the market or buyer spell
these things that they needed. There were also no provisions
for the care or education of the children under the
(09:28):
age of sex who were to be freed immediately. And
on top of all of that was this very basic
issue of food. Enslaved people in the British Caribbean Territory
were allotted a certain amount of food. It was effectively rationed,
but even before the abolition of slavery, many planters and
their slave owners had trouble affording the food that they
needed to supply that amount of food. This was also
(09:51):
especially true after the price of sugar plummeted at the
end of the Napoleonic Wars in eighteen fifteen, so there
was some pretty serious doubt that plan station owners would
be willing to or even able to provide enough food
for all of these apprentices, and even if they were
able to do so, those rational amounts really weren't enough
to stay healthy, especially given how much manual labor was
(10:14):
going to be involved for many of these slaves. And
back to that big, ugly truth that we put aside
just a minute ago, Emancipating people by requiring them to
work for free for a bunch more years is not
the same thing as actually emancipating them. And the slaves
living on St. Kits understood that there was this huge,
huge resistance to the idea that they were going to
(10:35):
be quote free but still have to work for the
same people in the same jobs without earning anything. Was
obvious that this whole apprentice situation was bogus, and according
to the accounts of a number of missionaries in St.
Kitts at the time, the slaves were also really pretty
justifiably suspicious of the idea that if they only worked
(10:56):
without pay for several years, they would afterwards be free forever.
In the words of Wesleyan missionary James Cox, quote, all
my attempts to show that the apprenticeship was a part
payment for absolute unconditional freedom were in some cases unsatisfactory.
I am fully persuaded therefore, that that had the term
(11:17):
slavery been retained with the modification of the present system,
it would have been productive of far less confusion. Almost
as soon as word reached the island of exactly when
and how this so called emancipation was going to come,
slave on slaves on St. Kitts started to resist, and
their first tactic was basically to just slow down their production.
(11:39):
That initial slowdown was kind of temporary, though The Lieutenant
Governor of the island, John Nixon, commended the plantation owners
afterward for their quote good management and getting production back
on course quote without coercion. White abolitionists on St. Kitts
started at cating resistance in the hope that true emancipation
(12:02):
might come earlier. There was some precedent here after a
very close vote on the nearby island of Antigua, so
close in fact, that the deciding vote was cast by
the Speaker of the House. All of the slaves there
were freed immediately, but white abolitionists were by far not
the only people encouraging these enslaved people to resist. At
(12:23):
this point, about seven percent of the population on St.
Kitts were white, but eleven percent were cast classified as
free colored. Some of the most prominent of the free
people of color started to vocally advocate for the abolition
of slavery, now not after four or six years of
so called apprenticeship. One of these was Ralph Cleghorn, who
(12:46):
owned a store, and he was so vocal on the
issue that planters actually started forbidding their employees to shop there.
And at some point along the line, people got the
idea that he was going to England to pick up
papers from the kids that we're going to declare all
of the enslaved persons on St. Kitts to be free.
And while this trip really was because he was hoping
(13:08):
to be appointed Provost Marshal of St. Kitts, Uh, the
fact that people thought there was a different purpose to
his visit continued to increase the tensions between the slaves,
the government, and the planters who owned slaves. This also
led to a rumor that the king really had freed
all the slaves, but that the planters of St. Kitts
specifically were just withholding their freedom. In addition to all
(13:31):
of that, there were several prominent slave owners on St.
Kitts who did decide to go ahead and emancipate their
own slaves totally before the law went into effect. All
of these things together really stoked the fires of resistance
among the enslaved population. As the August first, eighteen thirty
four date for emancipation drew closer, it was clear to
(13:53):
everyone involved that the enslaved people of St. Kitts were
not going to peacefully go from being slaves to being
so called apprentices who were then required to work for free.
Perhaps the last straw was when the Lieutenant Governor suggested
that even if they were freed without being apprenticed first,
the former slaves of St. Kitt would still be compelled
to work thanks to other clauses of the law. Let's
(14:17):
talk about exactly what happened when the August first date
arrived after another brief word from a sponsor. So as
the date of emancipation arrived on St. Kitts on the
last day of July, so the last day they were
technically still slaves. The slaves who did field work on
about a dozen of St. Kitts's largest sugar plantations dropped
(14:40):
their tools near the homes of the plantation managers and
then walked away. The ones who worked with livestocks stopped
their duties a couple of days later, on Saturday, August
the second. Although not all the plantations were involved, there
were more than one operations of various sizes on the island.
For the ones that were virtually all of the apprentices
(15:01):
stopped their work, and on many this wasn't just a
work stoppage, it was also a full protest. In the
words of William Wilson, quote on the five or six
largest there is not a single apprentice at work. Grange,
Woodley's and Bordeaux are very obstinate. On these estates there
are nearly eight hundred people, and all in a riotous way.
(15:22):
To again quote Wesleyan missionary James Cox quote, they only
wanted perfect personal liberty and wages, and preposterously hoped that
they may be obtained by passive disobedience and clamor. In
the plantations that no longer had a workforce, planters and
managers tried to figure out what to do. The sugar
(15:43):
harvest was done for the season and it was time
for the fields to be prepared for the next season,
so taking care of the animals was a much bigger concern.
These were working animals, and the sugar industry was going
to suffer if these beasts of burdens starved or died
of thirst. Some planters actually resorted to letting their cattle
graze on sugar plots, but since sugarcane is a perennial grass,
(16:05):
doing this pretty much destroyed that plot for the following
season's harvest. On August four, the governor announced that martial
law was going to be declared if the apprentices did
not return to their posts by the sixth, so two
days later. In the meantime, ring leaders of the strike
were found, and they were publicly lashed as both a
(16:25):
punishment and a threat to the people who had walked
off of the plantations. But for about the next three
weeks most of the striking apprentices did not go back
to work. They hid in the remaining rainforests on the
slopes of Mountain Misery, which is criss crossed by ravines,
and these made for really good hiding places. Some of
(16:46):
them found and joined up with a man known as Marcus,
King of the Woods. He was a slave who had
run away some years before, and who had been living
in the woods for several years before the emancipation began,
he became kind of a folk hero St. Kitts. As
a side note, this is actually not the first time
that Mount Misery, now now known as liam Wiga, was
(17:08):
the site of an uprising. In sixteen thirty nine, slaves
fled there and established a camp from which to conduct
raids on the plantations. The governor of St. Kitts gathered
five hundred armed men and went into the woods to
put down the rebellion. That was an extremely bloody event,
with many of the slaves killed in the fighting and
others drawn and quartered once it was over. It was
(17:30):
also the first documented slave rebellion in the Eastern Caribbean.
So to get back to eighteen thirty four, to try
and get the apprentices back to work, the government brought
in troops, burned the apprentices huts as punishment, lashed people,
and formed a skirmish line to work work their way
through the woods to look for runaways. And it was
(17:52):
really all of those threats combined that encouraged a lot
of those who had joined the strike to eventually go
back at the plantations. Martial law was ended on Monday,
August eighteenth, with an amnesty for anyone who had not
been sentenced for any crime related to the revolt. There
weren't any casualties reported with this revolt, however, sixteen of
(18:16):
the protesters were tried for sedition and mutiny as well
as inciting a rebellion. Five of them were banished to
Bermuda and six of them were lashed. Some of them
were also jailed, and the other five were apparently not punished.
The apprentices of St. Kitts were freed four Reel in
eighteen thirty eight after four years of this working as
(18:38):
apprentices with no pay, and afterwards, for the most part,
the people in St. Kitts kept doing the same work
as they were doing before, but this time four pay
either in money or in kind compensation like housing and food.
The sugar industry continued to be the major industry on
the island until two thousand and five, and at that
(19:00):
point beach sugar grown in Europe had become cheaper than
cane sugar grown in the Caribbean, and increasingly processed foods
were using corn syrups and other sweeteners instead of sugar,
so the sugar industry in St. Kitts by that point
just couldn't make ends. Meat anymore. Although the government of St.
Kitts took a number of steps to try to diversify
(19:21):
its economy in the face of shutting down this major industry,
more than four percent of the population lost their jobs simultaneously.
The last crop of sugarcane came in on July first,
two thousand and five, and after that point the government
shut down the whole industry. A train that was built
in the nineteen twenties try to bring more efficiency to
(19:42):
sugar production is still there, and now it's a tourist
attraction that actually started two years before the sugar industry
was shut down. Now agriculture, tourism, and manufacturing are the
major industries on St. Kitts. Unemployment as of this recording
on St. Kitts is six point three percent. However, nearly
(20:04):
of the population actually live in poverty. Yeah, I had
trouble finding the exact numbers of how that shutting down
if the sugar industry affected the unemployment rate. I am
under the impression that it basically jumped from five percent
to nine and then over the last decade since then
has dropped back down closer to where it was before.
(20:26):
Uh the sugar industry was shut down. Uh. If you're
ever in St. Kitts, go to the museum. It's pretty awesome.
Do you, my dear, have a bit of listener to
me and we can listen to as well? Why yes,
I do. Uh. This is from a listener who signed
his email as Mr Hernandez, so that's how I'm going
(20:47):
to refer to him as Mr Hernandez and Mr Hernandez
rights Deer, Holly and Tracy, thank you so much for
doing a podcast on Park Mills and special education. It
was awesome. The whole episode hit very close to home
for me. I am a Hispanic man working in special
education for young children with moderate to severe autism and
behavioral issues for a large, low income school district, and
(21:10):
YouTube brought up some points that I just wanted to
talk about for my perspective as an educator. First, I
wanted to thank Tracy's mom for getting into adult special
education teachers and adult education get two little credit for
the vital, impactful work. She must be a great person.
I wanted to write about why I got into special education,
maybe it would inspire other people to get into the field. Originally,
(21:32):
I wanted to be a general and upper grades teacher
because I wanted to change the world, but I got
a chance to work in a classroom for students on
the autism spectrum, and I was hooked. Everything about working
in special education is amazing. We're encouraged to work creatively
with innovative technologies and one on one with their students.
All of my lessons are individualized to meet students needs
(21:52):
so they will have the most success and develop the
independence they deserve. No day is ever the same. I've
had opportunities to work in gen ed classrooms with students
who need help with inclusion, and mild to moderate classrooms
for students who have learning disorders, and classrooms were moderate
to severe students who give personal lot to give personalized
attention to their own emerging voice, and even in a
(22:15):
home care setting for a child who needed help developing
positive behaviors. Each has been rewarding in itself and fascinating.
But I have found by calling in special education for
young children with moderate severe autism, this is because it
focuses on working with helping the children and their families
to plus you see the greatest growth and empowerment in
(22:35):
a very short time. I love my job, but sometimes
I am treated differently because of what I look like.
I'm a big guy six ft three and what my
wife affectionately calls barrel chested. Almost everyone has wide eyed
alarm when I get introduced as someone who works with
small children. Men usually dominate other lines of work, but
(22:55):
this is one job that is, as you pointed out
in the listener mail, overwhelmingly women. I found in my
personal experience there are two main preconceptions that hold back
men entering into preschool and lower grades teaching. One quote,
men aren't nurturing. When I hear this, I feel disappointed
that we have made so many strides strides to equalize
(23:17):
the sexes, but are still hung up on one outdated
cultural norm that men can't be nurturing because that would
imply weakness, as if being patient and protecting someone makes
you weak to men abused. This is terrifying that we
so readily stereotype something so awful, and it's the reason
I know many male educators get quietly encouraged to work
(23:38):
in upper grades or high school where it is less divisive.
Most decided to do just that. Those that are left
are warned ominously that if someone even plot implies something inappropriate,
our careers are over and reputations ruined. I'm sorry I
had to bring into light harsh realities, but it is
something that must be looked at with a critical eyes
so we can better gender equality and help more qualified
(23:59):
people enter into integral parts of education. It would be
a detriment to our society if accomplished people felt unwelcome
to any job based on their race or gender. What
is great is when I see these people get over
their misconceptions. Parents feel relieved when they know more about
me and feel comfortable to collaborate in their child's needs
(24:21):
and how we can address them best. A significant portion
of people with autism or boys and many of them
grow up without fathers. It makes me so proud and
a parent says they're happy their child sees me as
more than a teacher, but a role model. I would
encourage anyone who feels like they, who feels like they
like to see growth and work with people on a
personal level, to pursue a career in special education in
(24:44):
any of its many forms. Each is essential and rewarding.
Thank you again for the informative podcast. Mr Hernandez p s.
You two had more detail on the struggles that led
to I d e a than any special education press
I ever took. How that's that's Tracy's awesome research at works,
so she gets all the kudos on that one. Oh,
(25:06):
thank you and thank you Mr her name is for
writing to us. If you would like to write to us,
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We're also on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash miss
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in History. We have a spreadshirt store at miss in
(25:27):
history dot spreadshirt dot com and that has lots of
t shirts and phonecases and things like that. If you
would like to learn more about what we talked about today,
you can come to our website and the word sugar
in the search bar. That is at how stuff works
dot com. You will find how sugar works. You can
also come to our website, which is miss in history
dot com, and you will find an archive of all
(25:47):
of our episode ever and show notes and blog posts
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that and a whole lot more at how stuff works
dot com or missed in history dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Does it has
to have works? Doffle
Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm trade Bob Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. So I've
been to a lot of museums. A lot of these museums,
(00:22):
to be totally fair, have been in the United States.
And one thing that I found, Holly, I don't know
if this is your experience as well, but unless I'm
in an exhibit but is specifically about slavery or race,
there's a lot of weird sleight of hand that goes
on with slavery. Absolutely, I think some museums don't want
to turn off potential museum goers by engaging in a
really difficult topics. Sometimes. Yeah, so yes, I've been to
(00:46):
exhibits about the American Civil War that really focus on
the battles and make almost no mention of the slaves
that the war was pretty much bought over. Uh, there
are descriptions of the horrors of slavery that are kind
of weird late compartmentalized as this thing that happened in
the past. We were much less enlightened, and it doesn't
(01:07):
really explore how having built a nation on that practice
continues to affect people of every race today. It's it's
kind of odd. And I'm not just talking about the
museums in the United States. Most of the other museums
that I have been to are in the Caribbean, and
they also just deflect the focus away from the roles
(01:27):
that these islands played in slavery and vice versa, and
instead onto things like beautiful shorelines and birds and like shipwrecks.
So this is not the case at the St. Kitts
National Museum and Basstaire Saint Kitts. The National Museum is
in the old Treasury building, which was originally built in
(01:49):
and it's an easy walk from the cruise port, which
is how I got there. With so many other museums,
there's this weird Jedi mind trick about just focusing your
tension somewhere else besides slavery. That is not how they
do it at the St. Kitts National Museum there. It
is more like have a seat. The culture of St.
Kitts comes from two places, the native peoples who used
(02:12):
to live here and are enslaved African ancestors. It's literally
the only time I've been to a museum that was
just like the National Museum, not like a museum that
was devoted specifically, UH, justice slavery or justice civil rights
or just a race. H and had that up front
of an approach about it. So naturally, even though I
(02:34):
was there on vacation, I came away with things to
talk about on the show today. So we are just
going to jump right into that. Uh. St. Kitts, which
is sometimes called St. Christopher, is part of the Leeward Islands,
which is the northwest arm of the Lesser Antilles in
the Caribbean Sea. Exactly which other islands are part of
the Leeward Islands depends a little bit on who is
(02:55):
drawing the map, what time period we're talking about, and
whether they're looking at things from a glawgical or a
cultural and historical perspective. Regardless, St. KITT's nearest neighbor is Nevis,
and St. Kitts and Nevis together are one country as
the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis, and this is
the smallest country in the Western Hemisphere UH and Nevis
(03:15):
has actually tried to separate into its own country a
couple of times, and it's the smaller island of the
two of them. If you're still having a hard time
visualizing exactly where we're talking about. St. Kitts and Nevis
is east of Puerto Rico and north of Venezuela. St.
Kitts has been inhabited almost continually for about five thousand
years that we know of when Christopher Columbus sighted the
(03:38):
island on his second voyage in fourteen three. It's inhabitants
where the carib and the Arawak people's. Unfortunately, we don't
really know much about either of these cultures as they
existed on St. Kitts. They were all killed through violence
or disease or moved to other nearby islands as Europeans
colonized St. Kitts in the sixteen hundreds. This is actually
(04:00):
true of many other populations of the carib and the
Arawak peoples. They did not fare at all well as
Europeans moved in. St. Kitts is a volcanic island, and
that meant that the soil was very good for growing
sugar once the rainforest was cleared away to make way
for the sugar plantations. So by the end of the
seventeenth century, the sugar industry dominated the island and the
(04:23):
overwhelming majority of the people living there were enslaved Africans.
Although both France and Britain colonized Saint Kitts, it eventually
became British territory. And today's story is about what happened
after the British Empire abolished slavery, which is what we're
going to talk about. After a brief break forward from
(04:44):
a sponsor. Slavery was abolished in England in seventeen seventy two,
and the British Parliament passed the Abolition of the Slave
Trade Act in eighteen oh seven. But while that act
abolished the buying and selling of human beings, it didn't
actually do anything about the people who are already enslaved
elsewhere in the Empire. In August of eighteen thirty three,
(05:06):
after decades of activity by Britain's abolitionist movement as well
as by slaves themselves, Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act,
which was which was going to free all slaves in
the British Empire. There were some exceptions though that included,
for example, the territories and possession of the East India Company.
(05:27):
In most places, this law was going to free all
enslaved people over the age of six on August first,
eighteen thirty four. Here's how the act starts. Quote, Whereas
diverse persons are holding in slavery within diverse of His
Majesty's colonies, and it is just an expedient that all
such persons should be manumented and set free, and that
(05:50):
a reasonable compensation should be made to the persons hitherto
entitled to the services of such slaves, for the loss
which they will incur by being deprived of their right
to such services. And whereas it is also expedient the
provision should be made for promoting the industry and securing
the good conduct of the persons so to be manumented
for a limited period after such their manumission. And whereas
(06:13):
it is necessary that the laws now in force in
the said several colonies should forthwith be adapted to the
new state and relations of society therein, which will follow
upon such general manumission as aforesaid of the said slaves,
And that, in order to afford the necessary time for
such adaptation of the said laws, a short interval should
(06:35):
elapse before such manumission should take effect. And then it
goes on to outline all of the specific provisions in
the Act and how this is going to happen. So
what the Act basically says is that slaves should be
set free, and that slave owners should be compensated for
the loss of their slaves, and that there should be
(06:55):
some kind of buffer in place that the people who
relied on slave labor didn't imediately lose or have to
start paying their laborers. The rationale behind all this was,
for the most part, the industries that relied on slavery
and we're still using slave labor needed a lot of
labor to continue running. So if suddenly there were no
more slaves, it would be a hindrance on the continuation
(07:18):
of industry. So, in other words, when we say the
word abolished, it really goes in the air quotes there.
Emancipation was not immediate. In most places, slaves had to
continue to work for a set amount of time without
pay before they could be freed. The British West Indies
enslaved people over the age of six were turned into apprentices,
(07:40):
and apprentices would have to work forty five hours per
week for between four and six years to earn their freedom.
That forty five hours a week for between four and
six years was also without pay. Meanwhile, the plantation owners
and the British and the British West Indies and elsewhere
were giving grants from the government as a compensation for
the loss of their slave. The government actually earmarked twenty
(08:02):
million pounds sterling for that purpose. Obviously, there are a
number of problems with the idea of quote freeing slaves
by making them continue to work for free, although this
tactic was really not the least bit unique to the
British Empire. But let's put that aside for just a second,
because there were some other complications going on here as well.
(08:23):
Because they were not going to be paid for their
forty five hours of work per week, apprentices would have
to do extra work to make any money to support
themselves or to try to prepare for a life as
an actual free person. They need to either hire themselves
out as labor, or grow crops to sell on a
personal plot, or make items that could be sold for money,
(08:44):
or some other way of making a living, and their
time to do any of that started after their forty
five hours per week of work ended. At some plantations,
this forty five hour schedule was doled out as nine
hours a day or five days, so that people could
go to the Saturday markets and sell the things that
they'd made or grown in their spare time, and then
(09:07):
be able to go to church on Sunday. But at
other plantations it was to be six seven and a
half hour days, and only Sundays were given off. There
were no provisions for how that six day week would
allow people to get to the market or buyer spell
these things that they needed. There were also no provisions
for the care or education of the children under the
(09:28):
age of sex who were to be freed immediately. And
on top of all of that was this very basic
issue of food. Enslaved people in the British Caribbean Territory
were allotted a certain amount of food. It was effectively rationed,
but even before the abolition of slavery, many planters and
their slave owners had trouble affording the food that they
needed to supply that amount of food. This was also
(09:51):
especially true after the price of sugar plummeted at the
end of the Napoleonic Wars in eighteen fifteen, so there
was some pretty serious doubt that plan station owners would
be willing to or even able to provide enough food
for all of these apprentices, and even if they were
able to do so, those rational amounts really weren't enough
to stay healthy, especially given how much manual labor was
(10:14):
going to be involved for many of these slaves. And
back to that big, ugly truth that we put aside
just a minute ago, Emancipating people by requiring them to
work for free for a bunch more years is not
the same thing as actually emancipating them. And the slaves
living on St. Kits understood that there was this huge,
huge resistance to the idea that they were going to
(10:35):
be quote free but still have to work for the
same people in the same jobs without earning anything. Was
obvious that this whole apprentice situation was bogus, and according
to the accounts of a number of missionaries in St.
Kitts at the time, the slaves were also really pretty
justifiably suspicious of the idea that if they only worked
(10:56):
without pay for several years, they would afterwards be free forever.
In the words of Wesleyan missionary James Cox, quote, all
my attempts to show that the apprenticeship was a part
payment for absolute unconditional freedom were in some cases unsatisfactory.
I am fully persuaded therefore, that that had the term
(11:17):
slavery been retained with the modification of the present system,
it would have been productive of far less confusion. Almost
as soon as word reached the island of exactly when
and how this so called emancipation was going to come,
slave on slaves on St. Kitts started to resist, and
their first tactic was basically to just slow down their production.
(11:39):
That initial slowdown was kind of temporary, though The Lieutenant
Governor of the island, John Nixon, commended the plantation owners
afterward for their quote good management and getting production back
on course quote without coercion. White abolitionists on St. Kitts
started at cating resistance in the hope that true emancipation
(12:02):
might come earlier. There was some precedent here after a
very close vote on the nearby island of Antigua, so
close in fact, that the deciding vote was cast by
the Speaker of the House. All of the slaves there
were freed immediately, but white abolitionists were by far not
the only people encouraging these enslaved people to resist. At
(12:23):
this point, about seven percent of the population on St.
Kitts were white, but eleven percent were cast classified as
free colored. Some of the most prominent of the free
people of color started to vocally advocate for the abolition
of slavery, now not after four or six years of
so called apprenticeship. One of these was Ralph Cleghorn, who
(12:46):
owned a store, and he was so vocal on the
issue that planters actually started forbidding their employees to shop there.
And at some point along the line, people got the
idea that he was going to England to pick up
papers from the kids that we're going to declare all
of the enslaved persons on St. Kitts to be free.
And while this trip really was because he was hoping
(13:08):
to be appointed Provost Marshal of St. Kitts, Uh, the
fact that people thought there was a different purpose to
his visit continued to increase the tensions between the slaves,
the government, and the planters who owned slaves. This also
led to a rumor that the king really had freed
all the slaves, but that the planters of St. Kitts
specifically were just withholding their freedom. In addition to all
(13:31):
of that, there were several prominent slave owners on St.
Kitts who did decide to go ahead and emancipate their
own slaves totally before the law went into effect. All
of these things together really stoked the fires of resistance
among the enslaved population. As the August first, eighteen thirty
four date for emancipation drew closer, it was clear to
(13:53):
everyone involved that the enslaved people of St. Kitts were
not going to peacefully go from being slaves to being
so called apprentices who were then required to work for free.
Perhaps the last straw was when the Lieutenant Governor suggested
that even if they were freed without being apprenticed first,
the former slaves of St. Kitt would still be compelled
to work thanks to other clauses of the law. Let's
(14:17):
talk about exactly what happened when the August first date
arrived after another brief word from a sponsor. So as
the date of emancipation arrived on St. Kitts on the
last day of July, so the last day they were
technically still slaves. The slaves who did field work on
about a dozen of St. Kitts's largest sugar plantations dropped
(14:40):
their tools near the homes of the plantation managers and
then walked away. The ones who worked with livestocks stopped
their duties a couple of days later, on Saturday, August
the second. Although not all the plantations were involved, there
were more than one operations of various sizes on the island.
For the ones that were virtually all of the apprentices
(15:01):
stopped their work, and on many this wasn't just a
work stoppage, it was also a full protest. In the
words of William Wilson, quote on the five or six
largest there is not a single apprentice at work. Grange,
Woodley's and Bordeaux are very obstinate. On these estates there
are nearly eight hundred people, and all in a riotous way.
(15:22):
To again quote Wesleyan missionary James Cox quote, they only
wanted perfect personal liberty and wages, and preposterously hoped that
they may be obtained by passive disobedience and clamor. In
the plantations that no longer had a workforce, planters and
managers tried to figure out what to do. The sugar
(15:43):
harvest was done for the season and it was time
for the fields to be prepared for the next season,
so taking care of the animals was a much bigger concern.
These were working animals, and the sugar industry was going
to suffer if these beasts of burdens starved or died
of thirst. Some planters actually resorted to letting their cattle
graze on sugar plots, but since sugarcane is a perennial grass,
(16:05):
doing this pretty much destroyed that plot for the following
season's harvest. On August four, the governor announced that martial
law was going to be declared if the apprentices did
not return to their posts by the sixth, so two
days later. In the meantime, ring leaders of the strike
were found, and they were publicly lashed as both a
(16:25):
punishment and a threat to the people who had walked
off of the plantations. But for about the next three
weeks most of the striking apprentices did not go back
to work. They hid in the remaining rainforests on the
slopes of Mountain Misery, which is criss crossed by ravines,
and these made for really good hiding places. Some of
(16:46):
them found and joined up with a man known as Marcus,
King of the Woods. He was a slave who had
run away some years before, and who had been living
in the woods for several years before the emancipation began,
he became kind of a folk hero St. Kitts. As
a side note, this is actually not the first time
that Mount Misery, now now known as liam Wiga, was
(17:08):
the site of an uprising. In sixteen thirty nine, slaves
fled there and established a camp from which to conduct
raids on the plantations. The governor of St. Kitts gathered
five hundred armed men and went into the woods to
put down the rebellion. That was an extremely bloody event,
with many of the slaves killed in the fighting and
others drawn and quartered once it was over. It was
(17:30):
also the first documented slave rebellion in the Eastern Caribbean.
So to get back to eighteen thirty four, to try
and get the apprentices back to work, the government brought
in troops, burned the apprentices huts as punishment, lashed people,
and formed a skirmish line to work work their way
through the woods to look for runaways. And it was
(17:52):
really all of those threats combined that encouraged a lot
of those who had joined the strike to eventually go
back at the plantations. Martial law was ended on Monday,
August eighteenth, with an amnesty for anyone who had not
been sentenced for any crime related to the revolt. There
weren't any casualties reported with this revolt, however, sixteen of
(18:16):
the protesters were tried for sedition and mutiny as well
as inciting a rebellion. Five of them were banished to
Bermuda and six of them were lashed. Some of them
were also jailed, and the other five were apparently not punished.
The apprentices of St. Kitts were freed four Reel in
eighteen thirty eight after four years of this working as
(18:38):
apprentices with no pay, and afterwards, for the most part,
the people in St. Kitts kept doing the same work
as they were doing before, but this time four pay
either in money or in kind compensation like housing and food.
The sugar industry continued to be the major industry on
the island until two thousand and five, and at that
(19:00):
point beach sugar grown in Europe had become cheaper than
cane sugar grown in the Caribbean, and increasingly processed foods
were using corn syrups and other sweeteners instead of sugar,
so the sugar industry in St. Kitts by that point
just couldn't make ends. Meat anymore. Although the government of St.
Kitts took a number of steps to try to diversify
(19:21):
its economy in the face of shutting down this major industry,
more than four percent of the population lost their jobs simultaneously.
The last crop of sugarcane came in on July first,
two thousand and five, and after that point the government
shut down the whole industry. A train that was built
in the nineteen twenties try to bring more efficiency to
(19:42):
sugar production is still there, and now it's a tourist
attraction that actually started two years before the sugar industry
was shut down. Now agriculture, tourism, and manufacturing are the
major industries on St. Kitts. Unemployment as of this recording
on St. Kitts is six point three percent. However, nearly
(20:04):
of the population actually live in poverty. Yeah, I had
trouble finding the exact numbers of how that shutting down
if the sugar industry affected the unemployment rate. I am
under the impression that it basically jumped from five percent
to nine and then over the last decade since then
has dropped back down closer to where it was before.
(20:26):
Uh the sugar industry was shut down. Uh. If you're
ever in St. Kitts, go to the museum. It's pretty awesome.
Do you, my dear, have a bit of listener to
me and we can listen to as well? Why yes,
I do. Uh. This is from a listener who signed
his email as Mr Hernandez, so that's how I'm going
(20:47):
to refer to him as Mr Hernandez and Mr Hernandez
rights Deer, Holly and Tracy, thank you so much for
doing a podcast on Park Mills and special education. It
was awesome. The whole episode hit very close to home
for me. I am a Hispanic man working in special
education for young children with moderate to severe autism and
behavioral issues for a large, low income school district, and
(21:10):
YouTube brought up some points that I just wanted to
talk about for my perspective as an educator. First, I
wanted to thank Tracy's mom for getting into adult special
education teachers and adult education get two little credit for
the vital, impactful work. She must be a great person.
I wanted to write about why I got into special education,
maybe it would inspire other people to get into the field. Originally,
(21:32):
I wanted to be a general and upper grades teacher
because I wanted to change the world, but I got
a chance to work in a classroom for students on
the autism spectrum, and I was hooked. Everything about working
in special education is amazing. We're encouraged to work creatively
with innovative technologies and one on one with their students.
All of my lessons are individualized to meet students needs
(21:52):
so they will have the most success and develop the
independence they deserve. No day is ever the same. I've
had opportunities to work in gen ed classrooms with students
who need help with inclusion, and mild to moderate classrooms
for students who have learning disorders, and classrooms were moderate
to severe students who give personal lot to give personalized
attention to their own emerging voice, and even in a
(22:15):
home care setting for a child who needed help developing
positive behaviors. Each has been rewarding in itself and fascinating.
But I have found by calling in special education for
young children with moderate severe autism, this is because it
focuses on working with helping the children and their families
to plus you see the greatest growth and empowerment in
(22:35):
a very short time. I love my job, but sometimes
I am treated differently because of what I look like.
I'm a big guy six ft three and what my
wife affectionately calls barrel chested. Almost everyone has wide eyed
alarm when I get introduced as someone who works with
small children. Men usually dominate other lines of work, but
(22:55):
this is one job that is, as you pointed out
in the listener mail, overwhelmingly women. I found in my
personal experience there are two main preconceptions that hold back
men entering into preschool and lower grades teaching. One quote,
men aren't nurturing. When I hear this, I feel disappointed
that we have made so many strides strides to equalize
(23:17):
the sexes, but are still hung up on one outdated
cultural norm that men can't be nurturing because that would
imply weakness, as if being patient and protecting someone makes
you weak to men abused. This is terrifying that we
so readily stereotype something so awful, and it's the reason
I know many male educators get quietly encouraged to work
(23:38):
in upper grades or high school where it is less divisive.
Most decided to do just that. Those that are left
are warned ominously that if someone even plot implies something inappropriate,
our careers are over and reputations ruined. I'm sorry I
had to bring into light harsh realities, but it is
something that must be looked at with a critical eyes
so we can better gender equality and help more qualified
(23:59):
people enter into integral parts of education. It would be
a detriment to our society if accomplished people felt unwelcome
to any job based on their race or gender. What
is great is when I see these people get over
their misconceptions. Parents feel relieved when they know more about
me and feel comfortable to collaborate in their child's needs
(24:21):
and how we can address them best. A significant portion
of people with autism or boys and many of them
grow up without fathers. It makes me so proud and
a parent says they're happy their child sees me as
more than a teacher, but a role model. I would
encourage anyone who feels like they, who feels like they
like to see growth and work with people on a
personal level, to pursue a career in special education in
(24:44):
any of its many forms. Each is essential and rewarding.
Thank you again for the informative podcast. Mr Hernandez p s.
You two had more detail on the struggles that led
to I d e a than any special education press
I ever took. How that's that's Tracy's awesome research at works,
so she gets all the kudos on that one. Oh,
(25:06):
thank you and thank you Mr her name is for
writing to us. If you would like to write to us,
we are at history podcast at how stuff works dot com.
We're also on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash miss
in history and our Twitter at ms in history. Our
tumbler is missed in History dot tumbler dot com, and
are also on Pinterest at pinterest dot com slash miss
in History. We have a spreadshirt store at miss in
(25:27):
history dot spreadshirt dot com and that has lots of
t shirts and phonecases and things like that. If you
would like to learn more about what we talked about today,
you can come to our website and the word sugar
in the search bar. That is at how stuff works
dot com. You will find how sugar works. You can
also come to our website, which is miss in history
dot com, and you will find an archive of all
(25:47):
of our episode ever and show notes and blog posts
and cool stuff like that. So you can do all
that and a whole lot more at how stuff works
dot com or missed in history dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Does it has
to have works? Doffle
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Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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