This day in Bajan history: 1937 People’s Uprising sweeps Bridgetown, rural areas
It was 83 years ago on that fateful Monday,
July 26, 1937 when black Barbadians living under colonial British rule began
their first of four days of rioting in the People’s Uprising.
Tension gripped the country as Barbadians watched the colonial government deport Clement Payne back to neighbouring Trinidad that day; the white leadership felt he was one of a handful of men who advocated for poor, disenfranchised Bajans.
On the news that Payne was being shipped
away from Bridgetown, black Barbadians, gathered in massive crowds saw their
emotions shift from disbelief to rage as pent-up frustrations boiled over.
Like many colonies in the West Indies, 1937
Barbados was greatly divided by race as whites and their descendants held
nearly all economic and political power. Native black Barbadians, who made up
the bulk of the flourishing agricultural sector, had very little to show in
education and social welfare. Many laboured for hours and lived in squalor.
Leading up to his infamous deportation,
Payne was seen as a man of the people and encouraged Bajans to form trade
unions, while pushing for sweeping labour reform.
The white elites, seeing Payne as a socio-political
lightning rod, moved to silence him by way of exile—they were right, and the
tactic backfired disastrously.
Bajans, oppressed for decades, responded
with violence throughout the capital Bridgetown; shop windows were smashed,
cars and street lights toppled.
The 1937 rebellion then spread rapidly
outside Bridgetown to the island’s rural districts.
In the rural areas, village shops were
targeted while others spared; provision fields and the stockpiling of food and
other goods were raided; and telephone lines were severed to hinder
communications.
In the four days of riots that gripped Barbados,
14 people died and 47 others seriously wounded as the British colonialists
moved with brutal force to end the rebellion.
According to the , it took the combined effort of the Royal Barbados Police Force, the Barbados Volunteer Force, as well as marines and sailors from HMS Apollo, to quell the uprising.Barbados Museum & Historical Society
The unrest served to highlight inequalities
of wealth and opportunity in Barbados, and the British government, reeling from
World War II, failed miserably to find a solution to the problem.
Contrastingly, the rebellion spurred the development of indigenous party politics, bringing Barbados closer to self-governance and independence.
Clement Payne would never live to see the scope of the change he birthed in his adopted island home but was later declared a national hero.
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