Reproducing the British Caribbean: Sex, Gender, and Population Politics after Slavery

Conclusion. Social Welfare Policies and Population Questions in the 1930s

159 c o n c l u s i o n Social Welfare Policies and Population Questions in the 1930s Someone referred to the [Moyne] Commission as a “Confessional,” and that it really proved to be. Not only were these evils known to exist brought to its attention but topics that were considered taboo and non-existent were not only dragged out into the open (some were thrown straight in one’s face) but were given foundation in facts. —Eulalie Domingo, “Middle Class Inertia,” 1938 in an article that appeared in the Jamaican publication Public Opinion, Eulalie Domingo reflected on the ways in which Caribbean men and women used the Moyne Commission, the eponymous British government inquiry held to investigate the causes of the violent protests that roiled much of the British Caribbean between 1934 and 1938. As this Afro-Jamaican woman noted, men and women from throughout the region took advantage of the hearings to describe the many political, economic , and social problems afflicting the colonies in the 1930s and to recommend solutions. The events of the 1930s are rightly seen as part of the lead-up to important developments in the post–World War II era, including the legalization of trade unions, the establishment of more representative political structures, the emergence of political parties, and ultimately, independence for most colonies. As well as addressing labor and political concerns, those who participated in the hearings of the West India Royal Commission (the Moyne Commission) also discussed long-standing social issues, many of which, as Domingo noted, had been considered taboo. As this Conclusion shows, men and women from the Caribbean and Britain used the West India Royal Commission to express conclusion 160 their views about sex, reproduction, and morality. They repeated points that they and their predecessors had made in earlier decades and which have been addressed throughout this book. These exchanges were conducted in the context of growing imperial and colonial concerns about population surplus rather than the population deficit that underlay the introduction of infant welfare institutions in the early twentieth century. Worries about excessive population growth were not entirely new in this part of the world, as earlier discussions in this book about “overpopulated ” Barbados have shown. But what had changed by the 1930s was the scope of these anxieties; by this point, the problem seen as afflicting Barbados appeared to have become a regional malady. The above quotation by Domingo points to another element of continuity, the involvement of men and women from the Caribbean in advancing social welfare issues. They continued to shape imperial views and colonial social policies. In the 1930s, men and women throughout the Caribbean protested low wages, poor working and living conditions, and social and political inequalities in often violent strikes and protests, some of which threatened the political status quo. Places as disparate as Cuba, Belize, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Guadeloupe experienced some degree of unrest in this period , although the intensity varied significantly from place to place. In Cuba, this took the form of a political revolution that overthrew the government .1 In the disturbances in the British Caribbean between 1934 and 1938, governments did not fall, but the violence was real and protests were extensive. Sugar estates in St. Kitts, Barbados, St. Vincent, Jamaica, and Guyana were the scenes of protests and strikes, as were the oil fields of Trinidad and the wharfs of Kingston, Basseterre, and Bridgetown. Workers protested and struck work, joined by many of their rural and urban countrymen and -women. Repressive action by colonial authorities in many cases contributed to the ensuing violence. In the region as a whole, around 50 people were killed and more than 100 were injured, mostly in Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad. More than 1,000 were arrested.2 Historians of the English-speaking Caribbean have identified numerous and interrelated economic, political, and social factors as contributing to these protests. The worldwide economic depression of the early 1930s was an important catalyst. The fall in prices for staple agricultural products and the return of many migrants expelled by neighboring governments themselves grappling with the crisis increased already high conclusion 161 rates of unemployment.3 The introduction of political and labor reforms in the late 1920s and early 1930s was also important. As Nigel Bolland has suggested, they just made West Indians hungry for more. The slow expansion of the franchise led them to press for more improvements...