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“I am certain that you will take account not only of the legal roadblocks to the African people realizing their ancestral rights, but the struggles they carried out, particularly the ways they fought against the constant drudgery of life surrounded by mud and water; and how they helped to produce the system of village and local government, which made the villages workable again in the 20th century.” This was the entreaty made by Associate Professor Dr. Wazir Mohamed in his presentation to the Land Commission of Inquiry on November 23, 2017. The COI was established by the A Partnership of National Unity and Alliance for Change government. Below, continues Dr. Mohamed’s presentation to the commission:-
The Bigger Picture
In the first case, the earlier land ordinance which was passed in 1836 and expanded in 1839 to limit the sale of Crown lands in parcels of 100 acres at one British pound per acre was enlarged; the purchase price was raised to five dollars in 1851, and in 1861 to ten dollars.24 While the abovementioned law was re-organised in 1851 and 1861 to create impediments and establish roadblocks against the growth of villages outside of the empoldered area; new laws were passed to constrict land ownership in the existing villages.
Laws were passed in the years 1851, 1852 and 1856 which prevented groups of more than 20 persons from joining together to purchase lands, and which required that all lands purchased by more than 10 persons be partitioned.25 Land ordinance number 4 of 1851, number 1 of 1852, and number 33 of 1856 were established with the clear intent of restricting any further communal purchases. These laws prevented the growth of cooperative style entities, the original intent of original purchases in the decade of after emancipation. The workability of these laws was to set in train the process of fragmentation of the villages from which they are yet to recover. Honourable commissioners, I do not think it would be far-fetched if you were to examine the workability of fragmented village land in today’s global economy. I believe this is a discussion we ought to have.
I believe it is within the purview of the commission to speak to intent on the part of the planter state in the erection of these laws. This is necessary because of the restrictions, impediments and burdens placed on the population.26 The first set of laws was prohibitive in the sense that they served to debar the African population from venturing outside the poldered coastal region. These laws almost completely debarred and prohibited any large movement of Africans from the vicinity of the sugar plantations.
Movement from the sugar area could have allowed for the growth of new crops and the establishment of new industries like those the ex- slaves established in Jamaica and other areas in the Windward Caribbean, even before emancipation. Added to this prohibition was the unwritten addendum to these laws which permitted the planters to extend their cultivations beyond the boundary of the crown dam. For the villages which were established between 1838 and 1848, extensions beyond the crown dam was almost prohibited.
The second set of laws extended this prohibition; they went further and debarred the further purchase of land for the erection of villages on the coastal plain itself. These laws represented a dramatic turn of events for the African population after 1850. While these laws did not debar the African population from extending their holdings, they certainly did not permit the villages to expand. In fact the laws were draconian in nature, they prohibited sale of lands on the coast to groups of twenty and more persons. Furthermore they required that all lands, those in the existing villages, and any future purchases be partitioned so long as they were acquired by ten or more persons.
The Result of Partitioning: Bottle necks of fragmentation
Partitioning presented enormous difficulties for the management and maintenance of dams, of drainage and irrigation in this water-logged environment. Because the land varied in fertility and quality, partitioning arrangements were made to ensure that each shareholder of the original purchase received equal amounts of good and bad land. This produced a level of fragmentation in the villages, from which many of them are yet to recover more than one hundred and fifty years after. Because the land varied in fertility and quality, partitioning arrangements were made to ensure that each shareholder of the original purchase received equal amounts of good and bad land.
In each of these villages each shareholder was made to own an average of 1/75, 1/89, 1/90, 1/120, 1/200, 1/300, 1/1000 or what have you of each village depending on the number of original and subsequent purchasers. This is how the Royal Gazette described the divisions in one such village – when the partitioning of the village of Two Friends on the Essequibo Coast took place. The land was distributed to each villager/shareholder as follows: 1/75 of an undivided share of pasture land; one front village lot; one old village lot; four separate pieces of cultivated land, with the latter classified into four types according to quality; one bush lot; one swamp lot, and so on.27 This meant that each shareholder of the village had at least four strips of land at considerable distance from each other, parcels which are miniscule, and which was far away from their dwellings. The same was true for other villages.
Let us take Sandvoort Village in Berbice as another example. In 1859 of the 456 shares identified, 184 were half acre plots, 236 were one acre, and a measly 36 were two acres in size. In the village of Bagotville on the West Bank Demerara the situation was much worse. In this village there were 400 quarter acre, and 37 half acre plots. While the size of the plots presented problems of their own, it was the distance between them, and the issue of water control which presented the biggest hurdles.
Honourable Commissioners, the above figures does not account for the subsequent sub-divisions of property on account of the passing down to children and grandchildren of the original purchasers. It also does not account for sub-division based on sale to those who did not get the opportunity to buy new land as a result of the land laws of 1852 and 1856. This is part of the problem you are expected to address in this inquiry.
As you deliberate you have to pay attention to the drainage and irrigation nightmare presented by village partitioning. Everyone and no one became responsible for drainage and infrastructural works and maintenance. A system which was designed to be managed under central control with precision was turned into a system within which multiple owners and managers were implanted. Each person, with five or six different parcels scattered across the village was responsible for the stretch of drainage and irrigation canal which bordered their share of the property.
Cooperation was to be developed through individual action, not through joint management. This became a nightmare from the standpoint that not everyone was available to farm these plots continuously. Everyone were part-time farmers. Subsistence farming was one means of finding sustenance. It was not the primary means of livelihood, wage work was the primary means of livelihood. With the meager land space farming could not have been contemplated as a permanent means of livelihood. Village life which was sandwiched between wage and subsistence presented enormous difficulties for the drainage and irrigation system to work. It was not long before the entire system broke down.
When this commission was first announced, it was my hope that you would do extensive field and site visits. I am still hoping. Because these problems have historical roots, and a monumental effort must be made to bring resolution. After all, a commission is about righting historical and contemporary wrongs. I would like to invite this commission to walk the backdams. Another issue that you have to tackle is the problem of the second and third depths, the lands behind the villages beyond the crown dams. This became a test case when some Africans seized lands behind Farm Village on the East Bank Essequibo in the mid-1990s – this is famously known as the Rosinante dispute. This commission should familiarize itself with this dispute, its settlement, and the current situation with regards to the lands that were reclaimed as ancestral rights.
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Citations
24 Alan Adamson, “Monoculture and village Decay in British Guiana: 1854-1872,” Journal of social History 111, 4 (1970): 386-405.
25 See Ramsahoye 1966 – Ordinance No. 4, 1851, Ordinance No. 1, 1852, and Ordinance No. 14, 1861.
26 See Alan Adamson, “ Monoculture and village Decay in British Guiana, 1854-1872,” Journal of Social History, 111, 4 (1970)
27 The Royal Gazette, February 11, 1864; Alan Adamson, “Monoculture and village Decay in British Guiana: 1854-1872,” Journal of social History 111, 4 (1970), 386-405.
About the author/presentator
Dr. Wazir Mohamed is an Associate Professor, Sociology, Indiana University East
