‘When Sugar & Bananas Were The Main Exports for Jamaica’

The degree of wealth which one family possessed depended on the size of property they owned.

There was no difference in the conditions of the banana plantation workers to that of the sugar cane plantation workers, but working among the cane fields especially at the time of harvest was much more difficult.

Here the men had to move yard by yard, working from various corners of the plantation, as they cut the cane with their long machetes, converging in the middle.  The carriers of the sugar cane were mostly women and sometimes teenage children,  everyone in the family was made to work at harvest time.

Education was not compulsory and the masters of the plantation would enter the huts or small houses to check every available hand was at work.  The cane would be gathered and tied in bundles, where they would be taken to the nearest point of transportation to be collected by drays, or cow-carts and delivered to the sugar refinery.

On our plantation we produced our own sugar, this was done by crushing the sugar cane between two large steel rollers, using a horse or mule tied to the end of a pole as it walked around a circle, while a young lad fed the cane into the machine.

The juice of the sugar cane was then taken to the boiler house where there were always two or four copper boilers in operation.  Firstly the juice would be boiled into molasses and wet sugar.  The sugar would then be poured in liquid form into 5 gallon kerosene tins for the purpose of marketing, but the poorer grade sugar was poured into bamboo joints of different sizes, and issued to the workers of the plantation according to the size of the family.

There were other plantations designed for the home market, such as the yam, cocoa, cassava, badu, and bread fruit.

Let me try to explain what happens when an acre of land is about to be prepared for planting.  The master of the house would call in his most trusted servant the house nigger, and tell him which area of land should be prepared.  The house nigger would then gather around him his sons and nephews to round up the field niggers.  This was always done on a Sunday evening after the master or mistress of the house returned from their Sunday worship, by 6.am on Monday morning everyone should be on the appropriate area required and work would begin.

One would hear the singing of hymns, folk songs, and calypso’s echoing across the valley as the preparation of the soil commenced.  At around 10am the master and mistress would arrive on the scene with a group of women following closely, with baskets on their heads carrying root crops and plain flour, some would be carrying kerosene tins containing water, one would be leading a pig or a goat.

After putting down their burden they would begin to gather large stones and dry wood, while the pig or goat was being slaughtered.  The stones would be laid out in sets of three on which the kerosene tins stood at least eight inches away from the ground above the fire, and the cooking would begin.

Affo yam, yellow yam, green banana, and Johnny Cake were their staple diet.  Sometimes these Johnny Cakes were made of flour and cornmeal.

We often hear Harry Belafonte singing Matilda, and Brown Skinned Gal and many other tunes which to me when I hear them now bring back sad and unpleasant memories of my childhood, but at the same time gave me the resolve to continue the struggle for our dignity and respect.

Ninety percent of the properties were owned by Europeans, such as the United Fruit Company, Roxborough Plantations and others too numerous to mention at this stage.