Racism in the Bahamas in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

This short paper will explore racism in the Bahamas in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It will show that emancipation was not a boon to race relations on the islands.  The power structures already in place remained in place, and the attitudes which proliferated racist practices and sentiments were equally cemented into the society, impeding and preventing the growth of minorities.  A major facet of this impediment and prevention for the minorities of the Bahamas to be free and to grow was the use of socio-economy to help impede their progress and to keep them de facto oppressed even though legal emancipation and legal abolition of the slave trade had occurred.

The Role of Socio-Economy

In the Bahamas especially, socio-economy was a highly instrumental structure to keep racism in effect.  As Lee relates, the Bay Street elite, “the local mercantile oligarchy… project[ed] a form of political control that reasserted restrictive and politically discriminative measures beyond emancipation and into the mid-twentieth century.”   The formal condemnations from the Colonial office were of little avail when in practice, those who had the immediate and proximate power in the Bahamas were not interested encouraging “change in the relationship of former slave owners and slaves” but rather created their own structure to “allow for further entrenchment of the political and economic power of the master classes.”

Similar observations can be found throughout the British colonies in the surrounding area.  For instance, “even in the Dominican Republic, where slavery had not been of great importance and where most people were racially mixed, whiteness remained the social ideal.”   And just like in the Bahamas and even in the states, liberals and intellectuals from the elite favored, on paper, co-operation and even amalgamation between the races, but always under the leadership of ‘Whites’, and contemptuous attitudes towards the darker-skinned were by no means absent from the national political discourse in the nineteenth century.

In other words, states do not tend to simply “give up” racist structures.  Rather, they pander to racial minorities “on paper” while in practice, through various conventional structures (especially the socio-economic one) they continue to impose the same disparities that slavery produced.  Slavery without slavery, so to speak.

This is certainly what happened in the Bahamas, with Saunders pointing out that “the majority of the people, who were black, remained dominated and socially ignored by the white official and mercantile class.”  And what enabled and perpetuated racism for such a long period even after the emancipation of the slaves and the abolition of the slave trade?  As Lee puts it, Bay Street’s domination operated along the lines of class oppression, [but] it also implicitly operated through color discrimination and oppression.  Despite the absence of structural or legal racism, there was still no legislation in effect to protect the rights of ‘blacks’ or former slaves within Bay Street’s political and economic systems.  Thus, although Bay Street operated with no explicit use of race or color, it was still implicitly rooted in color prejudice.

Class is a very strong and convincing distinguisher, with Saunders also noting that “In New Providence there was a growing colored middle class which was also ignored by the ruling clique, yet which, in turn, looked down on the laboring black classes.”   The middle-class Bahamian blacks, to whatever extent they were aware of their own marginalization at the hands of the ruling whites, still did not themselves refrain from viewing lower-status blacks the same way that the whites were viewing them.

The desperate socio-economic condition for most blacks in the Bahamas actually played a fairly pivotal role in shaping Bahamian culture.  Saunders describes how the economic challenges meant that little time was allowed for recreation, so “the majority of Bahamians combined work and pleasure.  This was particularly evident in the marketplaces… [Which] were viewed as the ‘clubs of the poor’ and were used for meeting friends and being entertained.”   It is somewhat ironic, that under the rule of white socio-economic oligarchs, Bahamian culture begins to distinguish itself through its dynamic and poly-potent use of the commercial environment; it certainly speaks to a richness of spirit.  When a people are oppressed, they drive to find something satisfying is not oppressed.  Just as slave culture in the United States cultivated an environment for cultural iconographs like blues and gospel music, the mercantile oppression in the Bahamas played a role in shaping the market culture of Bahamians.

The Challenges

Understanding the essential role that socio-economy plays in reinforcing de facto racist structures and even in imposing its own unique brand of “slavery” on a particular people, we can turn our attention to how this actually affected the Bahamian people.  It affected them in virtually every imaginable way.  As Craton and Saunders describe, “All Bahamian nonwhites suffered from segregation in housing, education, work, and ordinary social intercourse, backed by a color-conscious legal system.”   This makes clear the prevailing role of socio-economy both as a cause and effect of racism.  It is a relatively all-encompassing phenomenon that can manage to affect every aspect of a person’s social and individual life.

It also reinforces the de facto structure that it represents.  For instance, Saunders contends that “most colored and black children, debarred by racist policies and prohibitive fees, attended government primary schools which were underfinanced, short of supplies, and lacking in trained teachers.”   And of course secondary education was almost a non-option, since it was not “provided by government, and still largely they preserve of the upper class.”   The result is not only that blacks and minorities in the Bahamas had poor educations, which is generally regarded as a predictor for a poor socio-economic status later in life, but the very system which imposed these limitations on them, in so doing, positively segregates and discriminates them from the white class.  Even in instances where a minority somehow managed to gain an upper hand, like Dr. William Pitt (a well-respected black physician who catered to leading-class white patients) who managed to have his daughters admitted to Queen’s College would ultimately feel the backlash of racism, as the other pupils “made it so uncomfortable for [Dr. Pitt’s daughters] that the doctor had to send them away to school.”

Another challenge faced was that of employment.  Employment opportunities often exacerbated the situation.  As Saunders relates,  “the elite… were mainly merchants, senior civil servants and lawyers who were usually members of the legislature and also controlled the economy” but of course they did not provide opportunities to Bahamian monitories, except inasmuch as “whites entertained occasionally by hosting dinner parties with the help of black servants” and in regard to elite women who “imposed their opinion on the society that Africans and their descendants were racially inferior” and who “therefore had no social contact with colored middle class women or blacks except in the mistress and servant relationship.”   And of course, this became so normalized that “most colored’s knew and accepted their place and socialized within their own small circle.”

A few notes about Bahamian women would fit well here.  For women, the racism was worse because they were a double-minority.  They already had to face all the challenges that any other minority had to face against the white rulers, but they also had to face the challenges of cultural roles.  Some of those have been mentioned above, as how ruling women looked very poorly upon black women and were quite transparent in their opinions about them.  But Bahamian women certainly had a difficult time in their own right, since “housework and child rearing occupied most of their time” and “did not generally participate in sporting activities because they had little leisure time and there were no facilities open to them [until the late 1920s].”

One might also point out the disappointment that blacks and other minorities felt in being treated this way.  Not only those who were second generation or later, having experienced the emancipation and then experienced the underwhelming results of it.  But also, the Bahamas were a destination for many who were escaping from slavery and racism elsewhere.  Winsboro and Knetsch relate that “[escaped slaves] sought freedom through less well known and poorly documented ventures, such as those fugitives who risked their lives sailing to the British-controlled Bahama Islands” and who upon arriving, found that “Anglo-American entanglements over slavery and the slave trade presented still further challenges to securing permanent freedom in the islands.”   To draw another analogy from the American experience, it sounds reminiscent to those slaves who escaped the south to head north, only to find that no one wanted to hire them, or pay them, or sell to them, etc.  Certainly, a disheartening experience, especially for those who had already gone to such great lengths to attempt to secure their own freedom against legal injustices.

What Next?

The late nineteenth and early twentieth century were a difficult time for Bahamians.  In a similar analog or parallel to the American experience, they were promised freedom, and they “got it”, but it was not at all what was expected.  The legal mechanisms guaranteeing freedom actually secured very little.  The socio-economic structures simply stepped in where legalized slavery left off, and ensured that the white class remained the dominant, ruling structure in the Bahamas.  Disenfranchised in housing, education, employment, etc., Bahamian minorities were left with very little in the way of opportunities to try to elevate themselves and work for social progress.

Imperialism is very challenging and difficult to overcome.  Colonizers do not think of themselves as colonizers.  They think of their own country, their own class, their own race, and they are interested in benefiting those things, not in optimizing anyone else’s experience.  For instance, even in the early nineteen-hundreds the Bahamas was the subject of yet another attempt to colonize, with Thomas Macaulay (Canada) trying to incorporate them, thinking that “the annexation of the Bahamas would encourage other colonies in the British West Indies to become Canadian provinces.”   The Bahamas, to Macaulay, weren’t even an end in themselves; they were simply a means to the further expansion of his country’s empire.  Such systems and attempts rarely work well for the conquered.

It is important for decision makers and lawmakers, policy developers, etc. to be altruistic and to sincerely will the benefit of those in their care.  As Etienne Dupuch asked rhetorically about Bahamian racism, “[Who among you] … is prepared publicly to declare that a whole group of people should continue to live a life of daily and constant humiliation because it might mean the loss of some material gain?”   But even further than that, it is pivotal that disenfranchised groups, to progress and secure their own identity, be committed to doing so.  As Russell suggests, “If we are to construct a functional narrative about race, we need new tools, new symbols, and a new language. We need the tools of sensitivity, compassion, and commitment to each other.”   Otherwise whatever steps are made risk being made not in freedom but with “the master’s tools.”  It’s important for a culture to completely divorce itself from its oppressors if it hopes to rise and distinguish itself as a free people.

Bibliography

Craton, Michael and Saunders, Gail. A History of the Bahamian People: From the Ending of Slavery to the Twentieth Century (vol. 2). 1998. University of Georgia Press: USA.

Laurence, K.O. (ed). General History of the Caribbean (vol. 4). 2011. Unesco Publishing: Paris, France.

Lee, Maria A. “Black Bahamas: Political Constructions of Bahamian National Identity.” Department of History, University of Richmond, 2012. Retrieved from scholarship.richmond.edu 

Russel, Keith A. “Race in the Bahamas: A Dysfunctional Narrative.” The College of the Bahamas Research Journal, 2009, vol. 15, pp. 1-7. Retrieved from researchjournal.cob.ed.bs

Saunders, Gail. Bahamian Society after Emancipation. Ian Randle Publishing: USA.

Smith, Andrew. "Thomas Bassett Macaulay and the Bahamas: Racism, Business and Canadian Sub-imperialism." Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History, 2009, vol. 37, no. 1. Retrieved from EbscoHost.

“The Tribune and the End of Discrimination—An Historical Appreciation.” Tribune 242, 2016. Retrieved from http://www.tribune242.com/news/2016/jan/22/tribune-and-end-discrimination-historical-apprecia/

Winsboro, Irvin D.S. and Knetsch, Joe. “Florida Slaves, the ‘Saltwater Railroad’ to the Bahamas, and Anglo-American Diplomacy.” Journal of Southern History, 2013, vol. 79 no. 1 pp. 51-78. Retrieved from EbscoHost.