Alfred Dawes | The forgotten fighters

The Editor,

Sir, we are asking you for a little space in your valuable paper for this humble letter. In this island of ours, no real improvement can be accomplished owing to the selfish action of the fruit merchants. At one time they encouraged us small planters to plant bananas on a large scale, and now, the reaping time comes they are giving us what they like. We suffered from severe drought and could not produce good grades of fruit. But now we are having a splendid season. Our crops are greatly on the improve. Yet at this western end in Green Island, we are getting famine prices. By the apparently concerted action of fruit companies, only one, the Atlantic Company, is now trading here. It pays, as already hinted above, the lowest price imaginable. Besides, it practises an unwarranted rejection of fruits, taking out as it likes and turning back on our hands marketable produce.

Verily, things can’t be allowed to go on in this way. We need another two or more companies in the market. This is the sole, prime cause of our financial troubles - the meagre circulation of cash by fruit purchasers. Our family claims are pressing, together with Government dues. All are dependent on our cultivation and also are taxes. Despondent, we are minded to chuck up planting as by it, we are only chattel, building up or enriching the pockets of fruit companies. Therefore, I now ask this Mr. Editor, to see over this matter and help us to get better prices for our produce. Fancy one getting for large six hands bunch only four shillings half penny. Do Mr. Editor, help us with your powerful voice and pen. Thanking you for this.

I am, etc. Alfred Dawes, Kendal, Green Island, Jan 31, 1925.

Growing up, I always heard that my great-grandfather, for whom I was named, was a strong black man. I hardly knew anything about his life beyond this. It is only now in scanning the Gleaner Archives that I am able to appreciate who he was as a person and the struggles that being poor and black meant in the colony of Jamaica nearly one hundred years ago. Alfred’s name appeared in letters to the editor, reports of meetings, local events, and court reports. He lashed out against an unjust system, as did many unsung heroes of his era. Their shoulders are on which we stand today, with little thought as to their sacrifices that created what we take for granted.

After this letter, the archives revealed that he, along with several farmers, formed the Jamaica Banana Growers Association, travelling islandwide to lobby for improved prices. He was also a member of the People’s Cooperative Bank and Baptist Church. Through his regular letters to The Gleaner, Alfred lobbied for banana growers, the poor in Hanover, storm relief, and although he voiced support for the strikers, urged restraint during the riots of 1938. He publicly appealed to the Legislature for easement in income tax and hire purchase loan terms that had negatively affected his finances as well as those of other struggling Jamaicans. Alfred was only one of numerous intelligent black Jamaicans, who despite their lack of formal education, were instrumental in the success of the struggle for a more egalitarian society and greater political power.

FOUGHT COLONIAL GOVERNMENT

They who fought the colonial government for better representation and organised themselves into unions and collectives in order to make their cries heard, dreamt of the day when they would have a voice. Those who rioted were beaten, imprisoned, and killed so we could enjoy better healthcare, education, wages, and to be treated as equals, dreamt of the day when they would be free from exploitation and oppression. They yearned for universal adult suffrage where any Jamaican, irrespective of landholdings or colour of their skin, could elect representatives who had their interests at heart instead of those of the relics of the plantocracy.

Sixty years ago, we were meant to be masters of our own destiny with independence. Their sacrifices had paid off. The unknown national heroes who marched with Bustamante and Manley in securing our future must have felt a deep satisfaction in their twilight years before they faded from memory. We were now our own rulers. Yet what have we done to honour their sacrifices and memories?

It is fortunate that the men and women who fought for us to build this nation will never feel the disappointment in seeing what their blood sweat and tears produced. One hundred years after Alfred Dawes and his fellow banana growers railed against the exploitation of poor farmers by greedy multinational corporations, his great-grandson writes in the same newspaper, railing against the exploitation of independent Jamaican people by greedy multinational corporations, enabled by our own majority rule government. What has changed except the colour of the enslavers’ skin?

We have surrendered our hard-won political power to those who can buy our elections. We are still chattel, working for meagre wages, enriching the multinationals who continue to pillage our land and people. Without economic independence, all our major industries are foreign owned or controlled: tourism, bauxite, cement, energy, communications, our ports - air and sea. Our political system is corrupt and impotent in addressing the plight of the people even as the ruling class excavates the gulf between themselves and the poor.

The struggles for political independence will have been in vain if we as a people do not end our segregation into exploiters and left-behinders in our quest for economic independence. It is time we become out of many one people.

- Dr Alfred Dawes is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, CEO of Windsor Wellness Centre, and medical spokesman for Lifespan Spring Water. Follow him on Twitter @dr_aldawes. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and adawes@ilapmedical.com.