One of the most poignant memories of a Tobago Christmas I have ever read was written by the tragic poet, Eric M Roach (1915-74) who penned a piece for a sort of anthology of Trinbago, introduced by David Frost. In this recollection of childhood in Mt Pleasant Village in the 1920s, he wrote about the hardships of life, privations felt only in reminiscing for at the time, they were the unanimous circumstances of the working class.
Of Christmas, Roach recalled the slaughtering of a hog by his father and some of the village men, the carcass being scraped clean and the meat quartered amongst them, being carried home wrapped in banana leaves with merry wishes to all. This was their recompense for a season of brute labour in the crop time, clearing land and planting food crops in the communal system of lend-hand.
Tobago’s Christmases, as I have gleaned from various sources, were based on two very distinct lines—the plantocracy and the working classes who were almost entirely descended from the slaves of the island. This social stratification survived well into the 20th century, even after a powerful coloured landowning class came into being with the bankruptcy of the former white estate owners. One remarkable account of a planter’s party in the 1930s was given by Americans Heath and Jefferson Bowman who had rented Terry Hill Great House for a year or so. They had been invited to a ball by an old, established landowning clan: “At Merchiston Estate, in a spot where the bush has grown thick about an avenue of stately palmettos, lies an old grave upon whose slab has been carved the tragic tale of the young heir who rode to Scarborough Town to a dance, caught a chill and died the following night.
“Bacolet Estate House, on the outskirts of Scarborough, resounded to the strains of music. The great main room was decorated with the green shoots of bamboo and the scarlet of hibiscus and poinsettia; balloons hung from the rafters. A few of the guests were already dancing. Officials of the island in evening clothes, and their wives in long, sweeping gowns, were talking with the planters. White-coated black boys and starched maids circulated among them with trays of rum punches and whiskies. Everyone was in a rare good humour because it was Christmas Eve. There was a fir tree in one corner of the room hung with shining ornaments and candles; children’s presents lay beneath the branches of this, the only analogy to the northern holiday these people had once known.
A young man from Merchiston Estate came in, he was greeted and a punch placed in his hand, but he and the young one beneath the slab were separated by almost two centuries.”
For those who laboured on what remained of Tobago’s estates following the island’s economic collapse in 1847, very little changed from the time of slavery when masters with a kindlier disposition would give out a largesse of food and clothing at Christmas time. The Bowmans tried to adopt this tradition as well, since they wrote: “Not bothering to dress, we slipped on robes and began tying up our servants’ gifts. Leotha (maid) was to receive two lengths of bright dress material in her favourite shades of red and blue, old Providence (yardman) a khaki shirt and trousers to replace his ancient rags. Martin (valet) was to receive the best present of all—a handsome wrist watch.” The servants of Terry Hill reciprocated the Bowmans’ generosity with simple gifts of their own such as fruit and flowers.
Tobago also developed a peculiar sharecropping system to ensure the survival of its plantation economy in the 19th century which saw a resilient class of people called the metayer come into being. They provided labour to the estates where they or their parents had once been enslaved in exchange for a percentage of the rum, sugar or molasses produced and often with the privilege of renting provision grounds from the planter. These independent people often celebrated with demijohns of good rum, cooked ground provisions and with possibly a contribution of a pig by the estate proprietor. Scarborough was a sleepy town compared to those in Trinidad which sprang alive with bustling commerce. Along the waterfront and up Main Street around Market Square, there were shops where some of the comforts of the season could be bought, but with a currency shortage on the island, there was little in the way of imported goods within the reach of the agrarian masses.