Hear ye; hair ye: listen and be enlightened

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 24, 2024

Part I

I wanted to add my two cents to Oke Zachary's comments about educators freeing themselves from mental slavery as it related to the SDA dragging two students from their graduation because they cornrowed their hair (Express, July 14).

Zachary gave us an informative history lesson about the important role that hair plays in the lives of African people. He started with Bob Marley who had one of “the nappiest dreadlocks” and worked his way back to the inception of the cornrow style in 3,500 BCE before going to China "with the staircase braid from 1644 straight to the Caribbean with modern cornrows from the 1970s".

I believe our educators, luminaries in the Ministry of Education, and our teachers union would have responded differently to that "crisis" if they were more aware of our history and some of its tragic mishaps. I was thinking of the 1849 rebellion in this country when the government attempted to shave black women's hair.

It was under a hot noon-day sun on Monday, October 1, 1849, that a large segment of the labouring classes of Port of Spain and the surrounding areas stormed Government House where the Legislative Council was meeting. They demanded to see Lord Harris, the governor, and "Mr Warner", the attorney general of the island. They wanted to sort out the horrendous wrong the government wanted to impose on them.

They were protesting a law passed by government that specified that people who were imprisoned for a debt under $50 would have their heads shaven, wear felon's dress (coarse, osnaburg canvas suits with black hats), and do the menial work of the prison. It was also rumoured that these petty debtors would be required to become the scavengers of Port of Spain, the most menial of menial jobs in Port of Spain.

Angered by the implications of this regulation, the poorer classes (or the "lower orders", as they were described) called a public meeting to discuss the issue. On September 29, notices of this scheduled to take place on October 1 at Mr Dumaine's store on Almond Walk appeared all over the city. The interest in this issue was so strong that the organisers moved the meeting to the Eastern Market between Charlotte and Henry streets where more could be accommodated. Even the butchers called a strike to clear the market for the use of the protesters.

Edmond Saulger Hobson, a highly respected coloured solicitor of Port of Spain, was elected to chair the meeting. The people repudiated the enactment of the Goal Regulation "as tyrannical, unjust, and impolitic for the following reason: Because it visits a mere breach of contract, often times the results of uncontrollable misfortune, with all the pains and penalties of a crime of the deepest dye". They wanted the law repealed.

After the meeting ended, the people left the Eastern Market and drifted towards Brunswick Square, opposite Government House, where the Legislature usually met on the first Monday of the month. Although Hobson asked them to disburse and return to their homes and their businesses, they preferred to stick around and see how things would turn out.

By noon, the crowd had grown. They waited in the Square to hear the governor's response to the resolution. It was an appropriate place for them to congregate. Years earlier, two Amerindian ethnic groups fought a pitched battle there. They called it the Place des Ames.

The crowd consisted mostly of women. Some were even carrying babies in their arms. They were intimately affected by the Gaol Regulations. Unable to learn what had taken place between their delegation and the governor and what was transpiring at the Council debate, about 50 of them entered Government House and occupied the attorney general's office. He was not happy about that.

During his tenure, the governor travelled all over the island on horseback, admiring the local scenery and enjoying native dishes. The weekend before the debate, he went to country to get away from the noise of the city.

On Saturday, September 29, he returned to Port of Spain to be informed that there was great excitement in the town "on account of it being noted that petty debtors should have their heads shaven".

Quickly after receiving this information, a country gentleman informed him that the country workers were threatening to burn the canes on his estates.

Asked why the Gaol Regulations had caused so much dissension, the country gentleman told the governor: "It's on account of the rule which requires that the petty debtors should have their heads shaven, wear a prison dress, and be worked at hard labour." He did not mention that they were also supposed to work as scavengers in the city. The governor didn't know what would ensue.

—Prof Cudjoe's e-mail address is scudjoe@wellesley.edu. He can be reached @ProfessorCudjoe.

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The Slave Master of Trinidad by Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe