It is primarily through a knowledge of its history that a society gets a wider and deeper understanding of itself – of the circumstances which created it. For this reason, every now and then, I provide a glimpse of our past. “Knowledge of history is like a second life extended . . . backward.”

Colville Petty

I go backward to the early 1900s when Anguillians flocked to the Dominican Republic and to Curacao and Aruba in search of work.

Firstly, their sojourn to the Dominican Republic where there was a significant demand for labour on the sugar plantations. The demand was brought about when a slump in sugar prices led to a wage-freeze which resulted in the Dominican workers abandoning the plantations. The plantations were left with critical labour shortages which were alleviated by workers mainly from the British West Indies including Anguilla. The workers from these islands were referred to as the Cocolos. The Cocolos replaced the native Dominican workers who opted for better paying jobs in other sectors of the economy.

The plantation owners welcomed the Cocolos because, to quote Ryan McKenzie, “they demanded less in working, housing and sanitary conditions than Dominicans.” He further observed: “That the Cocolos were economically subservient to the industry” thus the main reason why the plantation owners wanted their labour. Other reasons, he said, were the ability of the Cocolos “to speak English and thus communicate with North American plantation managers;” and the fact that they “came from countries whose economies were based on plantation systems.” McKenzie was of the view that “the economic exploitation of the migrant labour force was essential for the success of the industry.”

Conditions in Anguilla in those difficult days were such that its people were glad to go to the Dominican Republic to work despite the low wages. In their view the low wages were better than no wages at all and so they were prepared to do whatever it took to provide for their families. And so they went there in droves for the sugar cane season which ran from January to June each year. S. B. Jones in his Annals of Anguilla wrote: “Emigration of this sort was eminently suited to the home-loving habits of the Anguillians. They were able to cut canes and then when the crop was over to return home. During the intervening period [at home] they prepared their own land for sweet potatoes, peas and corn; they caught fish to supply the household, curing with the salt, so easily procured, the surplus to serve for times of scarcity . . . The cotton crop could be easily taken care of when the men were in Santo Domingo.”

This seasonal exodus of Anguillian men and boys lasted well into the second quarter of the 1900s. In January of each year some three hundred men and boys crowded aboard our schooners, such as the Excelsior H, Betsy R, Warspite, Ismay, Yolanda and Carmella, for the Dominican Republic.

The schooners departed from Road Bay and made their first stop at Marigot, St Martin where they picked up many more men and boys, several of whom were from the neighbouring islands. In just under two days or so they were landed at either San Pedro de Macoris or La Romana in the Dominican Republic. Harold Hodge was nineteen years old in 1931when he, under the care of his brother-in-law, Ebenezer Crawford, went to the Dominican Republic. He travelled on the Ismay which docked at La Romana. He recalled that they were divided in groups of about 20 or 30 and taken by rail cart to different sugar estates.

Harold and Ebenezer were assigned to Concha Primo. They stayed in a two-room wooden house, without electricity and toilet facilities, which they shared with five other workers. The smallness of the house meant that they had to sleep in hammocks (made from sugar bags).

On a typical day they awoke at around 5 o’ clock in the morning, set out for the cane fields and returned at sunset having cut about six tons of cane. They got paid every 15 days at the rate of 18 cents (US) per ton. Harold said “the pay was not bad because food was very cheap: rice 5 cents a pound and meat 5 cents a pound.” By the way, Harold hardly saw his father, John Hodge, who worked as carpenter repairing carts at Estate Consuela a few miles from Concha Primo.

George (Hetty) Rogers also went to the Dominican Republic. He was only eleven years old, and in Standard IV at the East End Elementary School. Actually, most of the boys of the early 1900s had little opportunity to complete their elementary education. Economic hardships forced them to leave school at a very early age. As Jones put it, on landing in the Dominican Republic for the first time the Anguillian “sees the dream of his boyish vision realised – the land where he can earn a little more than bare food and clothing.”

It is difficult to imagine an eleven year-old boy leaving school and going to the Dominican Republic to earn money to help his parents and siblings. But George was one who did it. He went under the care of King Edward Webster, his stepfather. He recalled that day in January 1925 when he packed his clothes in a flour bag and walked to Road Bay where he boarded the Betsy R and ended up in the Dominican Republic a few nights later. George spent several seasons there cutting cane at the rate of about 17 cents (US) per ton. The most he ever brought back home, at any one time, were two blue pants, two blue shirts, a “punyar” (a long knife, which he wore on his side) and about US $10.00. In his own words: “That money was like a grand prize.”

Harold Hodge, who spent only one season in the Dominican Republic, faired better. He landed at Road Bay with US $15.00 which he claimed was “oceans of money in those days.” His homeward journey was aboard the Ismay which, he said, was one of the smallest of the boats but also one of the fastest. He recalled that the several days of sailing had caused many of them to get seasick and that one man died. Harold remembered that the body was thrown overboard after Orlando Lake, the boat’s owner, had read a prayer. Regrettably, several of our men did not return, from the Dominican Republic, alive.

In a society robbed of its men-folk, for the first half of each year, the home-coming was indeed a grand occasion – a time for rejoicing. It was so important an event in the lives of the Anguillian people that the schools were virtually empty when the schooners arrived. An entry in the Log Book of the East End School, dated 10th June 1927, noted that the low attendance was “attributable to the influx of the Santo Domingo folks.”

The folks were returning with hard-earned savings to help their families. Despite the low wages which they were paid, conditions in Anguilla would certainly have been worse were it not for the employment opportunities provided by the cane fields of the Dominican Republic. The contribution which the Dominican Republic made to the development of the Anguillian people was best summed up in the words of some of the men who worked there: “Macoris! Macoris! God bless Macoris!” Its cane fields were one of Anguilla’s breadbaskets which enabled many of its people to live marginally above subsistence level. Having said that, a fact which we must not miss is Anguillian labour contributed significantly to the development of the economy of the Dominican Republic so that its people too could have a higher standard of living. When the native Dominicans refused to cut the cane the Cocolos from Anguilla helped to get the job done.

Now to the days of Curacao and Aruba. At the same time that some of our people were going to the Dominican Republic others were finding employment in the Dutch Antilles. The establishment, in the first quarter of the 1900s, of oil refineries in Curacao and Aruba, to process oil from Venezuela, led to an increasing demand for labour which could not be satisfied by the Dutch Antilles’ labour market. The demand was met by an influx of workers from throughout the length and breadth of the Caribbean.

As a consequence Curacao’s population grew from less than 43,000 in 1915 to over 91,000 in 1938, while Aruba’s increased from 8,000 to over 40,000. Some 60 percent of the oil workers came from outside the Dutch Antilles. A few hundred Anguillians were among them. Some, like Emile Gumbs (now Sir Emile), travelled by plane. It was in August 1946 when he went to St Martin, on the Majestic, a fishing boat, and then caught a KLM flight to Aruba. Others went by boat. In 1949 the Liberator ran aground, near Bonaire, on her maiden trip but there was no loss of life. Veronica Gumbs (the wife of Rev John A. Gumbs) was among the survivors.

The Anguillians who journeyed to those islands worked as welders, plumbers and labourers and also as deckhands aboard the oil tankers. Sir Emile recalls working as a deckhand on the Yamanota, Guarico and Misoa all owned by Lago Oil and Transport Company. Lago was a household word in Anguilla up to the 1940s and 50s.

Anguilla benefited much from the oil-refining boom in Curacao and Aruba. There was a marked improvement in the standard of living of its people including better quality housing. Wooden houses were replaced by those made from concrete. Further, many of Anguilla’s business establishments had their beginnings with capital which their owners acquired in Curacao and Aruba. For example, Wacco’s Caracasbaai Grocery & Store, in Stoney Ground, was started with money that he earned in Curacao where he spent some 14 years. Curacao was so much a part of him that his grocery carries a name from there.

By the late 1950s and early 60s, employment opportunities in Curacao and Aruba began to dry up with the commencement of the modernisation of the oil refineries. The modernisation involved the automation of many of the refineries’ systems and processes. As a consequence many Anguillians were laid off and returned home. But many did not stay home for long. Some went to the USA and the US Virgin Islands. The majority went to Britain.

Anguillians were nomads for many generations and their driving force was desire to find work to create a better life for themselves and their families. The type of work did not matter. So long as it enabled them to provide food, clothing and shelter for their families that was all that mattered. And they had no qualms going overseas and enduring much hardship in pursuit of those objectives.

Anguillians of yesteryear were a people hardened by hurricanes, droughts, famine and brine – hardened by difficult living and working conditions at home and abroad. For the most part, they survived on little. And no matter how little the little – how meagre their earnings – they saved some, at the expense of much personal sacrifice, for the betterment of their families.

Through sweat, tears and sacrifice the nomads of yesteryear kept Anguilla and its people alive. Their experiences hold important lessons for present and future generations.

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