BLACK INTELLECTUALS COME TO POWER YANKEE he Rise of Creole Nationalism =t-*-m«»h and Tobago BLACK INTELLECTUALS COME TO POWER INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE Series Editor: Wendell Bell, Yale University 1. The Democratic Revolution in the West Indies: Studies in Nationalism, Leadership, and the Belief in Progress edited by Wendell Bell 2. The Sociology of Political Independence: A Study of Nationalist Atti- tudes Among West Indian Leaders by Charles C. Moskos, Jr. 3. Black Intellectuals Come to Power: The Rise of Creole Nationalism in Trinidad & Tobago by Ivar Oxaal A 4. Social Change and Images of the Future: Study of the Pursuit of Progress in Jamaica by James A. Mau Black Intellectuals Come Power to The Rise of Creole Nationalism in Trinidad & Tobago by IVAR OXAAL SCHENKMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY, Inc. CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS © Copyright 1968 SCHENKMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC. Cambridge,Massachusetts 02138 PRINTEDIN THE UNITED STATESOFAMERICA All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may notbe reproducedin any form withoutwritten permission ofthe publishers. Library of Congress CatalogCard Number: 67-29328 For Wendy, Who Said 'Go' The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country ... In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter- dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual produc- tion. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National onesidedness and narrowmindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures there arises a world literature. — Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 1848 the whole problem of the Negro in the United States— and every- . . . where else —cannot possibly be viewed except in the light of the whole creaking and groaning world economy. If that problem is solved, and an era of peace and prosperity opens up before mankind, that is, the common man, the Negro's progress will be rapid. But if the world continues to indulge in the conflicts which have marked the twentieth century, the chances are that, in the increasing antagonism and dislocations, the Negro's claims to equality will be contested more fiercely than ever. The current Civil Rights controversy in the United States brings this out quite clearly. —EricWilliams, British Historiansand the WestIndies, 1964 Preface This study is a mere sketch, a synoptic sociological account of an island community up to the time of its attainment of political inde- pendence in 1962. My hope is that it will provide some measure of enlightenment for both the general reader and the professional scholar. I have not attempted to supplant earlier histories and monographs on Trinidad and Tobago; rather, one of my principal aims has been to place some of these earlier studies in a broader social and historical con- text, and to add some findings and chapters of my own concerning the development of this fascinating new nation. This may be viewed by local scholars as a rather audacious enterprise, but I am quite prepared to stand corrected on questions of fact or interpretation. Indeed, if this book can serve as either irritant or stimulant, provoking further research and intellectual controversy, I will consider my labors well repaid. But these essays obviously do not tell the whole story. Readers who wish to probe further into the intricacies of Trinidad should consult the numerous books and documents listed in the footnotes to this volume, most of which should be available in metropolitan libraries. Also, the rising generation of West Indian social scientists are beginning to produce a scattered but growing list of manuscripts and publications. Still unpublished is Selwyn D. Ryan's detailed and solid analysis of Trinidad's political development entitled Decolonization in a Multiracial Society; for the past several years social scientists at the University of the West Indies in Kingston have bravely issued The New World Quarterly. Articles by Lloyd Best, Roy Augier, Archie Singham, and others have provided insightful and critical commentary on post- independence developments in Trinidad and the West Indies as a whole. It is still difficult, however, for scholars who wish to write from a national or regional slant to get their works accepted by metropolitan publishers. Nor, in these small-island nations, are they free from the sometimes arbitrary authority of official society. Of the major West Indian territories only Guyana seems to me today to be relatively spared the McCarthy-like atmosphere which has descended on the region in VII viii Preface the years since the break-up of the West Indies federation. Visiting foreign scholars, secure in the knowledge of jobs to be had elsewhere, may speak their minds more or less openly, but the local man who openly dissents from the prevailing status quo is in a more vulnerable position. As I have tried to show for the Trinidad case, considerable responsi- bility for this state of affairs must be assigned to United States policy in the area. Once the new regime was in office, the intellectual's ques- tion, "Which models of the future are desirable?" became quickly transformed into the politician's question, "Which models of the future are possible?" It is true that the social composition of the nationalist leadership in Trinidad predisposed that country to an accommodative posture, but always working to condition West Indian policies is the reality of the Caribbean as an iVmerican lake. Whether we look at the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Dominican intervention, the activities of the C.I.A. in Guyana, or the protracted quarrel over Chaguaramas in Trinidad, we continually encounter this sense of an overwhelming out- side pressure to conform, and over-conform, to Cold War definitions of the world. These pressures have variously subverted and even cor- rupted the West Indian nationalist movement and will, I fear, ultimately result in further deterioration. Can this strait)acket be removed short of a radical redefinition of America's role toward the world at large? Impossible to answer. Two central problems have concerned me in this study. The first has been simply to try to retell the singular development of the Trinidad society and culture as these pertained to the emergence, and problems, of the nationalist movement. Second, I have tried to suggest the impact — — of a telescoped version of European particularly British ideas and institutions on Trinidad. Social scientists will readily detect the invisible rubrics, theoretical issues, and concepts which have guided this narra- tive, but in a brief work of a quasi-popular nature I have tried to keep the conceptual baggage to a minimum. In looking back over this manuscript, which I began writing in 1961 and had completed — after seventeen months of intermittent residency in Trinidad — by the end of 1964, it strikes me that my own basic atti- tudes toward the island may not always be clear. For one thing, I should have pointed out that unlike Jamaica and some of the other islands, Trinidad is not overrun by tourists. The beaches are public and barely inhabited; the island still affords a sense of individual discovery and remains a rich lode of ethnological diversity. If I have often written in a critical vein it is not because my personal experiences there were unpleasant; quite the reverse, the best days of my life may have been spent there. But I have tried to deal seriously with Trinidad as an