REVIEWS

A HISTORY OF THE BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS, 1672-1970

By Isaac Dookhan

and

THE VIRGIN ISLANDS STORY

By Norwell Harrigan and Pearl Varlack

(Caribbean Universities Press in association with Booker Publishing Co., 1975, 255 and 214 pages, respectively)

World War II saw the beginnings of a process which was to lead to national liberation struggles in several forms and the creation of independence or quasi- independence (neocolonialism) of some of the major pieces of metropolitan/ imperial real estate at an international level. These newly independent states have together and separately attempted to make some impact on the world scene and have even entered upon discussions of redressing world imbalances by centrally challenging, in direct ways, the underpining praxis of imperialism globally. They have argued for and with a new understanding of history, thereby attempt- ing to use history in the struggle for liberation of mankind and especially that section which finds itself located in small territories or other territories which are important or viewed to be so, in the quest for resources control and market outlets of a dying imperialism.

Given the number of new nations which have been created in the period, one might uninformedly accept a notion that the process is near completion.

This certainly could only be a relative perspective and equally, a most chal- lengeable one. The pertinence of this observation can be grasped, if one pays due regard, not only to interests of imperialism's derogatory mandarins and their views on the question of size and its relevance in world affairs, particularly in

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bodies like the United Nations, but also, the other directions from which echoes are coming--that still vast number of colonized or oppressed peoples within the vast island chains and at the fringes of oceans around the world. The work of the Fourth Committee of United Nations is a testimony to that fact.

The lack of information within certain circles is limited on these territories and the growing negative conceptualizations in such terms as "fourth world" etc., and their potential contributions to mankind raises the question of the need for serious work, especially of an historical and political economic nature to fill this vacuum. Additionally, there needs to be the caliber of explanation which is essential for a correct perspective on history.

It seems to me, that it is within this framework that one can welcome the works of Professors I. Dookhan, N. Harrigan, and P. Varlack of the College of the Virgin Islands (St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands) on the British Virgin Islands--a small member of the Caribbean family, still a British colonial posses- sion.

Both works are essentially tracing the history of this small territory from its colonial inception, that is, centrally the phase of the European presence in the Caribbean to 1970.

There is very little disagreement about detail or even interpretation. Dookhan approaches his study as a certain kind of historian whose purpose was to "exam- ine the changes which have occurred in the British Virgin Islands from their conquest by the British, and to trace the interaction of their social, economic and political components" (p. x). However, his data seems to have jumped him since "the rise to prominence and eventual collapse of the British Virgin I s l a n d s . . . emerged as the dominant feature of the study." Harrigan and Varlack seem to have had a curious, even though equally laudable aim in mind.

Their motive was to "answer questions that we asked about our country when we were children and that were asked of us when we were teachers, and for which none were available" (p. ix).

Whatever the merits of motive, both works, perhaps in an unintended way, have complemented each other. Dookhan's major chapters rest with his detailed exhaustion of the limited colonial office documents up to 1902. His chapter, post-1902, reflects a kind of updating of the period. The detail is not of the same quality. Of course, this might have reflected his work on an interesting Ph.D thesis, covering the period up to 1902.

Harrigan and Varlack share the same material up to 1902, but they take off more detailed and yet sweepingly up to 1970. They have a particular advantage of living through part of the period of their work within the territory since they are both products of the system who have worked and participated in local affairs at different levels, but particularly in teaching. This has given them the twentieth century advantage, especially in their chapters on education and social affairs. Of course, it has also informed a way of presenting tidbits (pp. 158-160, 46) and assertions (pp. 105, 149, 175, 176), which in the case of the former are not

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always self-explanatory and in the case of the latter do not present an adequate basis of critique, along with a system of avoiding sources of quotations in an unexcuseable way.

Notwithstanding, the common core of agreement in interpretation seems to be as follows:

1. a. The British Virgin Islands grew from a settler type society by people escaping European wars in the Caribbean, attempting to make some kind of a fortune, mainly in agricultural exports---cotton, sugar, etc.-- the typical Caribbean pattern.

b. There developed a plantation society based on slave labor within English mercantilism, whose scale of prosperity was not as high as in other Caribbean sugar colonies, partly because it entered later on in the proc- ess. Prosperity came between the Peace Of Paris 1756-63 and the Treaty of Ameins 1815.

c. That prosperity was extremely short lived but owed as much to the internal organization of the slave mode as external market conditions and crisis in European imperialism as expressed in the Caribbean.

d. That the problems of the changing nature of British capital in particular, resounded in the general crisis of the Caribbean planter class. In the British Virgin Islands this was expressed in terms of lack of credit, collapse of plantation agriculture with abolition and insufficient funds to take the directions of the richer colonies; a series of Acts of G o d - - Hurricanes, etc.

e. The origins of the working class in the British Virgin Islands. f. That there emerged after 1838, predominantly a black small holding class

(peasants or independent proprietors) whose mode and items of produc- tion directly excluded them from the world capitalist market system by way of mother/metropolitan contact.

g. That somewhere in the period between 1850-t860, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, emerged as the major trading partner of the British Virgin Islands--a relationship which was to have implications all through the twentieth century. Smuggling as a mode of activity was historically important and had its locus in the politico-economic situation. That the establishment of the local politico-constitutional-juridical proc- ess was first contingent upon the people of the British Virgin Islands paying the 4.5 percent impost on production to the British Crown. That there was a serious reluctance to so do.

b. That the politics of the British Virgin Islands was always relatively turbu- lent. There were constant conflicts between executive and legislative as well as people and state.

c. That the final collapse of the legislative by 1902 was a mix of several factors, among the most important would be (1) the failure of the British

h.

2. a.

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Virgin Islands to sustain its period of progress as a plantation society, (2) migration of whites, (3) the aftermath of the need for imperial rationaliza- tion of its fiscal and administrative structures in the Caribbean in the form of Crown Colony Government, (4) that racist imperialism could not easily permit the emergence of the non-white classes to control gov- ernmental function. Here there emerges minor differences between the authors; Dookhan seems more cautious about the position (p. 143). Har- rigan and Varlack seem to be ambiguous, if not unclear (pp. 104, 112, 160).

In terms of social conditions, it is clear that both authors see that as deter- mined by the economic conditions. Hence the role of the Methodist Church and religion in general assumes most importance.

With minimal disagreements over data or interpretation in the period, before 1900, it is firstly the twentieth century problem which poses the major problem for explanation, and secondly, it is an inadequate theoretical grasp of the subject matter which befuddles their explanation.

The tension rests between explaining the post 1850 period in terms of the economics of production. The twentieth century, by "neglect" of the British, together with the failure to get the economic scene off the ground, but crucially, "neglect" becomes the central explanatory constant.

Part of this problem rests with certain latter day ideological assumptions, together with the major failing of not sufficiently linking the particular existence of the British Virgin Islands, within the framework of understanding of global imperialism and the particular developments taking place on a worldwide scale after 1850-70. The British Virgin Islands assumes a kind of suigeneris position in their writing as if lack of contact with European capitalism "in i tself ' theoret- ically blindfolds the writers from understanding the theoretical effects.

This is nowhere better expressed than in the persistence of the concept of "neglect" and the failure to link this within a correct historical understanding of imperialism as a system and the various expressions of itself and the changing aspects to its existence, together with such conceptual shoddyness as feudalism, etc. (see Harrigan and Varlack's Anegada article, Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1, March 1971).

Even exceptionally critical writers on the Caribbean scene, such as Gordon K. Lewis, tend to fall victim of the same conceptual unclarity in relation to the small territories.

A quick scanning of his work on the smaller territories reveals this problem (see "The Growth of the Modern West Indies," Macgibbon & Kee, 1968).

The problematic of the concept "neglect" may be exploded as follows:

1. It poses a notion of moral responsibility by imperialism in its several stages. This is naive to the extent that imperialism's only responsibility was profit for its shareholders and sovereignity for its national interests.

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2. That precisely the dynamics which produce "neglect" are the shifting global interests of imperialism, but more definitively, the incapacity of any particular piece of territory to produce sufficient surplus that (a) would merit the atten- tion of international traders, hence keep it in the capitalist market system, and (b) produce a system sufficiently internally differentiated, that struggle for control for the means of production and the appropriation of the surplus would have of necessity manifested itself in politics--hence a discussion of political development. Given various modes of production and varying relations of ownership to the means of production internally, with a sufficiency of surplus, classes would have developed and class control--which in essence is the matter of politics--would have emerged during certain periods.

Hence the phenomenon of surplus is critical for any understanding of the politics of colonialism/imperialism. It seems then that once this is grasped, the problem of theory must be grappled with since the question of explaining particu- lar formations at particular stages of development must be conceptualized not only as a process in internal relations but also as constituting a dialectic with imperialism/colonialism and its several expressions--political, social, etc. That crucial "concern" or lack of i t -- ' 'neglect" or whatever---can only be conceived correctly, within a framework of political economy of the global imperialism's market structure and the specific relationships of particular territories to it. Once this is grasped, the theoretical importance of an adequate conceptualization of surplus with respect to development/underdevelopment becomes focal in analy- sis. It is precisely this surplus and its quantum which would determine the form of the stance, several agencies of the imperial metropolis would adopt towards a colony. Surplus becomes the determining framework of interaction. Therefore the problematic for theorizing.

It is precisely from this vantage point that method assumes centrality, e.g., periodizations specifying formation, stages of development, classes or their ab- sence, class control, nationalism and its varied expressions, and, generally, the character of politics--and the seeming albatross of "explanation" can be tackled without either timidity (Dookhan, pp. 220, 234, xi) or near approaching cyni- cism and useful insights (Harrigan and Varlack, pp. 93-112) can illuminate conceptualization.

If the foregoing might be agreed upon, then an alternate approach can be envisaged which may fill a gap in the theoretical lacuna of Caribbean studies, especially on small territories. To this extent, it seems to me that aspects of raw empiricism and perspective confusion can be avoided or circumvented since there is little disagreement upon the "facts" in the two books, given paucity of research at this stage. Their major problem is not even "interpretation" but rather "explanation." Embedded in their data are loose formulations and under- standings that if pushed would produce a model about which one could attempt to theorize in the period after 1860 or probably between 1860 to the 1960s 2

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(Dookhan, Intro., pp. 65, 126, 132, 142, 159; Harrigan and Varlack, pp. 55, 64-71, 68, 74, 120-127, 163, 178).

It seems to me that for the small territories generally, but the British Virgin Islands, to which I have paid detailed and specific attention, the postslavery crisis--including the general problem of the West Indies planter class, the rise of indenture, development of peasantry, metayage, etc.--becomes more critical in terms of general discussions and understandings of the colonial framework. That is, whereas, many of the Caribbean societies were able to regear at different levels to re-enter the capitalist market system by way of change in ownership and different and sometimes altered relations to the means of production, these small societies not only suffered a production crisis in the simple sense, but also, their politico-constructional-juridicial relations as well as the character and directions of their economic relations were radically altered. They embarked or were pushed on to a process of subcolonization.

Subcolonization can be characterized by some general tendencies: (1) Exclu- sion or very weak links with mother/metropolitan-colonial direct control. (2) Creation of alternate links with nearby colony of some metropolitan power in a satellite relationship. (3) This process is partly determined by the outgrowth of the development of other productive forms. The shift towards direct commodity production for firstly use value-producer consumption, with excess exchanged in neighboring local area market is the predominant concern of production and direction of trade. (4) Own account small-scale agricultural production becomes the dominant form, together with petty merchant/commercial trading operations. (5) Migrant labor becomes the main form of wage labor, following capitalist projects to neighboring countries. Repatriated earnings are a central source of cash for domestic/familial maintenance. This sale of labor power operates on several levels but primarily low-paid working-class occupations. (6) Critical exclusion from direct trading within the mainstream of the capitalist market system, based upon the territory's incapacity to produce sufficient surplus to deal adequately in such a matrix. (7) Result in the society exhibiting particular forms of underdevelopment. It approaches at several levels a condition which might well be characterized as super-underdevelopment. (8) These are manifested at the political-constitutional-juridical level by constitutional downgrading within the imperial/colonial h ie rarchy) In fact, such forms as amalgamation/ subordination to other larger units become typical. (9) Their class structures become involuntary and characterized by low-class articulation. (10) Politics, except for low-level colonial/administrative control, revolves around specific crisis in the economic situation and/or with general refractions within the region. (11) And finally, it would seem to me that social conditions would be the most elastic region and clearly these would be determined by the amount of repatriated earnings, the degree of household savings, and other refractions of class devel- opment, since given minimum metropolitan concerns, infrastructural spending by metropolitan interests tends to be determined in most cases, by actualities and possibilities of surplus extraction.

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Subcolonization then may be viewed as a particular stage in underdevelop-

ment of small territories at the periphery of the capitalist market system in a certain phase or stage of its own development.

This formation may be a transition stage but particular events may alter its character to another form. However, the concrete case is always a matter for

theoretical investigation.

Mitchell Codrington Queens College, C .U.N.Y.

N O T E S

1. Certainly, it cannot be construed as nitpicking to ask for theoretical clarity on the differences between the concepts of economic growth and economic development, since, for example, one author argues for the strong association of the lack of these factors in political development (Dookhan pp. 18, 218). It seems to me that there is hardly ever a serious notion of economic development from a national point of view under colonialism/ imperialism. There may very well be economic growth. Economic growth may or may not lead to class struggle, or national political struggles, but then the nature and articulation of the struggle would have to be important for political development. What is certain is that economic growth under colonialism/imperialism does lead to underdevelopment from the national point of view or what Rysmanu calls "perverse development." The relationship between this phenomenon and political development is best witnessed in the aftermath of the flag-raising independence ceremonies, hence often-times the need for radical recon- struction of certain forms of ideological direction, as an aspect of political development, if they were not present before the event.

2. The discussions on different models in the Caribbean has been uneven. See: Beckford, Best, R. Sanchez y Guerra, etc., on Plantation Society; M.G. Smith, R.T. Smith, Lloyd Brathwaite, on Plural Society debate; R. Farley, Woodville Marshall, D.G. Hall, Eisner, etc., on The Peasantry; Edward Brathwaite on 'Creole Society'; and H.D. Patterson on 'Slave Society.'

3. Whereas typically colonial relationships tend to be two-tiered metropolis-colony, subcolonial tend to be three-tiered, i.e., metropolis-colony-subcolony by way of specific constitutional-juridical downgrading mechanisms.