Tony Deyal | Cane is a slaver – yes, no, or done dead already?

On the 45th anniversary of the passing of Dr. Eric Eustace Williams, prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago

At my age, 80 plus, I still don’t know if sugar cane is a fruit, a grass, a vegetable, a chewing stick, or a soft drink! What makes it worse is that almost as soon as I was born I had to head out to the “CANE” fields, initially to sit down and watch my family, friends and neighbours cutting cane in our area.

While some other women actually had their babies and little kids on their backs while cutting cane, I was a bit too heavy for my “tanty” and was left to sit in the grass making noise, and even eating bits of cane. Later, I found out that “Sugarcane” is the only food where you have to give up all your dignity to get the reward – “chewing from the corner of your mouth like a goat!”

There were others like, “Friend: ‘Do you want some sugarcane?’ Me: ‘No thanks, I already have a dentist appointment I’m trying to avoid.’”; and, “You know it’s real when you’re 30 years old, sitting on the side of the road, covered in sticky juice, chewing a piece of wood just for that one last drop of sweetness.”

Even then, in the entire Caribbean, sugar cane was not just an export but a cultural staple that fuels a special brand of “island” humour like, “A farmer was asked if he was making money from his cane crop. He replied, “Yes, man, I’m making plenty of money. Every day I spend $100 and only make back $50. In a month’s time, I’ll be rich!” Then there were two men arguing about whose cane was sweeter.

One said, “My cane is so sweet that when the wind blows through it, the breeze smells like molasses.” The other replied, “That’s nothing. My cane is so sweet the mosquitoes that bite it get diabetes!” During my days in the cane and going with my father, I liked this one, “A man driving through the cane fields saw a snake crossing the road. He sped up, missed the snake, but ran into a drainage ditch. When asked why he didn’t stop, he said, “I thought the snake was a relative coming to ask for money!”

This is where the phrase “Cane is a slaver” came from the cultivation of sugarcane by the “Brits.” Essentially, they are the citizens and diaspora of the United Kingdom, the British Kingdom, the British Overseas Territories, and the Crown dependencies. It was inseparable from the chattel slavery system in the early days. They were oppressing workers, engaging in brutality and, at the same time, had to deal with a lot of “mortality.” In other words, many died. But, despite all that, the Brits built roads, ports, and administrative buildings, often using forced labour. They implemented British laws, courts, and administrative structures that still persist in many Commonwealth Caribbean nations today. More than anything else, English became a dominant language and the official language in many islands.

The British established a rigid, white-dominated hierarchical society, which laid the foundation for long-term racial and economic inequality. The trade for sugar, molasses, and rum or the “Sugar Revolution” made the Caribbean islands strategic and profitable. When having brought the black folks as slaves, and then fought by the law to pay them, the “Brits” indentured labourers from India, China, Portugal and other places to work in the sugar industry.

Unfortunately, King Sugar died in August 2003 and ended 300 years of large-scale sugar cultivation in Trinidad and Tobago. Dr Eric Williams, our country’s Prime Minister, observed in his book, Capitalism And Slavery, “Strange that an article like sugar so sweet and necessary for human existence should have occasioned such crimes and bloodshed.” Barbados and many other Caribbean countries saw their King Sugar die or declined. Barbados, however, underwent a profound transformation from a monoculture plantation society into a diversified, independent service economy, despite facing intense economic hardships during the transition. Jamaica also suffered and from early the North Atlantic coast of South America, Guyana, declared that “King Sugar is dead” in their agricultural sectors. At that time I was back working in the same area where I was born, Carapichaima, Trinidad. And it took me back once more to my early days. This helped me to understand that I was not just the son of a sugar cane worker. My days out of there and now returning to help the owners, bosses and workers made it clear to me. I was a person and human being and a person willing to help others to help themselves and one another.

What happened was simple and complex at the same time. The English, on realising that they had to pay the “blacks” instead of keeping them as slaves, brought mostly “Indians” from India to take over. This was the Brits way of having them fighting one another. However, in India, the British Indian National Congress (Hindu) and the Khilafat Movement (Indian Muslim) stopped fighting one another and went after the Brits. We could not do that in Trinidad, but I learnt something even better. The cane field had a lot of different workers from many other places and races. There were people who had come to work in the cane fields from several places in the Caribbean, and even from Barbados, to manage the major workers and contributors to the global sugar cane industry, including production, sales, agricultural, and industrial history. Eventually, I kept hoping that all the groups, including the English, would be together in the Caribbean working to make life better for all of us and not just them alone.

From my early days I knew that it was very easy to find friendship and harmony with others. I realised that when we were young we were able to like, love, be friends and even laugh really loud with anyone and everyone. Their families and friends are known as Uncles, Aunties, Brothers, Sisters and “Friends” of all sorts. Together they joined into whatever was happening, night or day. I will never forget my mother, known as “Mom” by everyone in the canefield . Even though she was Indian, there were many other lady-friends of all races, faces and ages. Almost every day they spent a lot of time talking and sharing what they heard from others, especially about who did what to whom, especially someone’s husband, wife or both!

We, the youngsters, from as early as our parents would let us, played with the others, boys and girls alike, regardless of race, colour, creed and class. In fact, many of us were not yet ready for class but still liked to talk as much as the others. In addition to playing a variety of games including the most popular, cricket and football, we went fishing with others, enjoying the fun together and begging to set another chance if we got “out” of if our fish proved sly to be included in Sunday lunch. What it all helped me to understand from those days, and continues even now, is to know that every creed and race has found an equal place with me and others from those days. We still keep in touch (those of us who are still around) and share my columns even. I have tried really hard for my children to ensure that they too are part of their every creed and race, definitely finding an equal place. That way I know and told them all, “God will bless our people and, hopefully, our nations.”

Tony Deyal asked an old sugar man, “What would you say to the young sugars?” The man replied, “In my day, we were all cane. I tried to write a sugar joke, but I couldn’t find the right granule of truth.” Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com