A series of workplace disturbances, strikes, and riots broke out across the British West Indies in the period between 1934 and 1939. These began as the Great Depression wore on and ceased on the eve of World War II. The unrest served to highlight inequalities of wealth, led the British government to attempt a solution to the problem, and in some cases spurred the development of indigenous party politics that would lead to self-government and independence in the postwar period.
Chronology
Various starting points for the cycle of disturbances have been proposed: the February 1934 labour agitation in British Honduras (which ended in a riot in September) the May–July 1934 sugar estate disturbance on Trinidad (which broke out on several estates in the central sugar belt, involving over 15,000 Indo-Trinidadian labourers), and the January 1935 Saint Kitts sugar strike. In any event, after St Kitts (which turned into a general strike of agricultural labourers) came a March strike in Trinidad's oilfields and a hunger march to Port of Spain. In Jamaica labour protests broke out in May on the island's north coast. Rioting among banana workers in the town of Oracabessa was followed by a strike of dockworkers in Falmouth that ended in violence. In September and October there were riots on various sugar estates in British Guiana; there had been strikes the previous September on five sugar estates on the west coast of Demerara. In October rioting also took place on St Vincent in Kingstown and Camden Park.
The year ended with a November strike of coal workers in St Lucia. After a relatively tranquil year in 1936, there was widespread unrest in Trinidad that saw unprecedented cooperation between Indo-Trinidadian and Afro-Trinidadian labourers, in Barbados in June 1937, and Jamaica in May–June 1938. The 1937–38 disturbances were of greater magnitude than the 1934–35 ones, which had been more localized. In Trinidad, for example, the protest began in the oilfields but eventually spread to the sugar belt and the towns. In Barbados the disorder that started in Bridgetown spread to rural areas, leaving between 14 and 22 dead. In Jamaica most areas of the island experienced serious strikes and disturbances. At least two ending points have also been suggested: the Jamaican cane-cutters' strike of 1938 or the major February 1939 strike at the Plantation Leonora in British Guiana, which led to further disturbances.
In 1937, there were numerous deaths as strikes descended into riots, while the sugar workers' and Kingston labourers' strike in Jamaica in 1938 resulted in riots and 46 deaths. At least 429 were injured, with thousands detained and prosecuted.
Women played a crucial role at almost every level of the popular protests. As workers, many women were involved in the planning and execution of the strikes, and they were active in radical organizations such as the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. The Caribbean unrest was not limited to British colonies: massive strikes took place in independent Cuba in 1930, 1933 and 1935, as well as a hunger march by sugar workers on French Martinique in February 1935.
Causes
Each labour rebellion had its own particular circumstances, but a common pattern can be discerned: the underlying causes were economic. With the exception of the mineral-extractive industries - oil in Trinidad and bauxite in British Guiana - the British West Indian economies were largely dependent on a narrow range of agricultural exports. Thus, they were highly vulnerable to reduced demand or a serious downturn in Britain and Europe. The sugar industry, which remained the mainstay of the colonial economies, had long been in a critical state but had revived during World War I as warfare disrupted European sugar beet production. In the postwar years, sugar prices fell sharply as world supply exceeded effective demand. The British government's policy of subsidizing domestic sugar beet production further depressed prices. The prices of other agricultural staples, including cocoa, coconuts, limes and bananas, also slumped to unprofitable levels due to worldwide overproduction. In some cases agricultural commodities suffered from the effects of plant diseases and hurricane damage. The crisis in the colonial economy was exacerbated by the global economic Depression, which further reduced demand for British Caribbean exports in the 1930s.