Great House Rules

by Hilary Beckles

"When Emancipation came in 1838, Blacks in Barbados im︠agined that the terms of their everyday lives would undergo radical change. Instead, an unrelenting 'landless freedom' would be violently imposed upon a community whose conditions of life and work remained largely unchanged, on plantations that produced more sugar with less labour for below subsistence wages." "It was the rule of the Great House that subverted the promise of Emancipation. This is the story of the post-Emancipation betrayal of 83,000 Blacks in Barbados; it is also a narration of how these Blacks prepared for persistent resistance and civil war as the only means to effectively break the rule of the Great House and established preconditions for genuine Emancipation. The battles over progress were fought on the plantations, in the streets, in the courts, in the Legislative Councils and wherever Blacks recognised sites to effect change. This chain of organised rebellion was linked to produce the 1876 rebellion." "Agains