The Triumph of the Commons in Barbuda

Andrew sits down with the gang to explain the history of resilience and community that helped Barbuda overcome centuries of colonial incompetence.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, welcome to it could happen here podcasts, but things
fallen apart and putting them back together. And this is
another Andrew episode. So hello Ulu, yes, greetings, we have
we have we have Chris, we have James, we have myself,
and we have Andrew. Obviously who I'm going to hand

(00:26):
the reins off too awesome. So hello again to another
episode of me talking about different stuff. Um and quite fittingly,
considering to these the d that Queenlizabeth has passed into

(00:48):
the pits of hell Um, we are we are deeply
as as a citizen under the Commonwealth, we are deeply
saddened by the loss we do. Listen there reached out
to me today and I am okay, guys. Today we
will be discussing a current member of the Commonwealth UM,

(01:14):
one of quite a few twin island nations in the Caribbean,
that being Antigua and Barbuda, and more specifically Barbuda. Barbuda
is an example of African resilience. It's an example of
a society in touch with this environment. It's an example
of the capability of the Commons as an institution, and

(01:39):
it's an example of sticking it to the Crown. To
be quite honest as you nice, I mean, I'm excited
to learn more about that. How how yes, So I
don't think many people know about bob Uda and its history.
I doubt most people could place it on a map.

(02:00):
But it's it. It represents quite the interesting story. So
to begin, I should probably explain what what is a Barbuda.
Bobbuda is an island located in the Eastern Caribbean, forming
part of the sovereign state of Antigua and Barbuda. It's

(02:22):
located north of the island of Antigua and it's part
of the Leeward Islands for the West Indies. It comprises
about sixty two square miles, so it is about sixty
two square miles which is a hundred and sixty kilometers,
and it's one of the flattest islands in the Caribbean.
It's soils are very shallow and in foods. Island is

(02:45):
a very arid island with very little rainfall and very
frequent routs. It's scrub willderness is roamed by day and
pigs and descendants of the animals early European traders and
settlers would have imported. It also has a pre settlement,
ever green woodland that consists of white cedar, turpentine and

(03:09):
white wood, alongside columnar cactus and thorny shrubs and grassy
glades and soils that have been another species that have
grown up in soils that have been degraded by the
clearance of charcoal burning and crazing and just general human activity.

(03:32):
Most bob Udans, I would say, engage in shifting cultivation,
but none of them are full time farmers. The countryside
is mostly uninhabited because the law required that all bob
Udans lived in or near the islands one village, which
is Quadrington, and there, according to twenty eleven census, there

(03:53):
were roughly one thirty four people on the island. Of course,
that has changed in recent times, and we'll get into
that shortly. Barbuda is yet another example of a distinctive
community emerging out of the colonial era that swept through
the Caribbean. I've mentioned the Maroons before, the different marine

(04:18):
communities that have existed on the different Caribbean islands and
in Guyana and Surnam, but I think bob Uda and
their story represents really the diversity of how colonialism manifested
um in the region. Barbula's people have a sense of

(04:40):
identity and attachment to locality that is I think very
distinctive and very unique among people of the Caribbean. Not
to say that the rest of us don't have a
sense of identity or an attachment locality, but their story

(05:02):
and the tradition reaches back over two centuries of near
independence and quite significant levels of autonomy, which was unheard
of in most of the Caribbean due to the legacy
of slavery. Representing a very close knit and traditional community.

(05:26):
Probably Runs approach to using and student the resources reflects
that long legacy of isolation, of ecological constraint being on
such a small island, of familial closeness having such a
small population, and of social interdependence. Considering the series of
administrators that they had dealt with and how each of

(05:47):
those administrators neglected or ignored them. Bobby Runs, both whom
and abroad, are still very much attached to their island
because they have long held in common. So we'll be
diving into a brief history of exactly how they reached
this point, what institutions they've developed for common ownership and

(06:12):
communal land use, and how emigration has played a role
in that, and unfortunately, how the combination of Hurricane Irma
and the doctrine and the shock doctrine have contributed to
their current situation. So for more than two hundred years,

(06:44):
from the late seventeenth century, Barbuda was leased by the
crown to one family, the Cardringtons, hence the name of
the village being Cardrington. The originally c was a guy
named Christopher Cardrington. He was the governor of the Lead
World Islands and his ears lived in England, so they

(07:06):
pretty much neglected it after year died. Barbuda would have
supplemented the lucrative sugar states that Cardrickton had an antigua
with timber and ground provisions and fish and livestock and
draft animals. Barbuda, being surrounded by coral reefs, often had

(07:29):
ships wrecked near the island, and so they also salvage
resources from lead ships and so as late as in
the eighteen fifties, the Cardrington's were getting four thousand pounds
a year from Barbuda and stock, and three hundred pounds
a year from salvage in operations on the island. That's
just over sixty three thousand pounds today per year, and

(07:52):
it just demonstrates, of course, and even though they were
more independent than bost other enslaved people US, the island
wasn't as profitable. They were still being exploited. Initially the
island was only worked by a few indentured whites, but
then when enslaved people were brought in from Africa, the

(08:14):
enslaved population began to rise, and they began to establish
that sort of culture and community that we see to
this day. Because they were neglected because the island was
very little inhabited. They housed and they fed themselves through
their own efforts and well basically spared of the rigors

(08:36):
of the plantation regiment because of how unprofitable the island
was because it's soils were so sandy and arid and unfertile.
So between eighteen hundred and eighteen thirty two, being free
in many respects, probably this population was able to rise

(08:57):
from three hundred to five hundred and able to a
cohesive creole community whose solidarity was able to thwart the
efforts of local overseers and absentee proprietors to try to
get them to labor on anti United States or to

(09:17):
get them to be more quote and quote productive um
for their overseers because they had such a several hundred
strong community on that island that had established itself for generations.
No overseer, no manager, could just pull up in there
and just say try and cooce them into doing what

(09:40):
he wanted them to do. This is installed contrast to
a lot of the other Criban islands, where managers and
overseers had a lot more presence and a lot more
power to destroy families, to split up communities, to ferment divisions.
Because the island just they basically neglected it, and in
that neglect, they took advantage of that nicol of the

(10:00):
material conditions that created that neglect to strengthen their community
bonds and to strengthen their autonomy. As emancipation came around,
car Drinton himself even was like, wow, good for them
pretty much because almost all of them, who were, like

(10:20):
to quote him directly, one united family so attached to
bob Udell that force alone or extreme drought can alone
take them from that island. In other words, as an exploit.
As a displaced indigenous African people, they reforged the connection
to the new land. They inhabited and rooted themselves in

(10:41):
that land. The one, one particular tradition they have is
the burial of ones in Biblical Code on the island itself,
and so that has been going on for generations with
a new child is born and the Embiblical code is
buried on the island. And so even Mobudens move abroad,
they still have that strong tie to the island itself.
So after emancipation ruled around in eighteen thirty four, Bobby,

(11:04):
their life didn't change that much. That the transition from
slavery to being free was not as abrupt or as
consequential as it was in other parts of the Cariban.
They didn't become landowners, they didn't necessarily get any political
power automatically because probably there was still being assigned to
crown leases which had certain um agreements and contracts in

(11:29):
place with the crown, that kind of thing. But they
were I mean, they were still being exploited, but things
were a bit easier for them to transition compared to
other places. In eighteen thirty five, agreements had secured Bobby
the unemployment on contracturn Empress enterprises at specific rates of pay,

(11:51):
but after the contract had lapsed, it really really voted
to a sort of relationship of coersion. They wouldn't pay um,
they wouldn't pay them their wages. They would take quote
and quote ricalcu and prob Udans and transport them to
antigue and jails or plantations, and they would continue to

(12:13):
just siphon off of the island. One of the only
exports really on the island at the time was cattle,
mostly for Cardrington's estates and Antigua cattle, sheep and firewood.
And the people themselves were engaged in cultivating provisions yams, potatoes,

(12:33):
corn and supplying their own farming history. They were including
the necessities. So Abudans would continue with their different occupations,
their hunting and they're fishing, their provision intending their cutting
wood and put in charcoal and salvage and wrecks. Sometimes
the would they would be employed by proprietors with governments,

(12:55):
but most times they either disregarded these authorities or acted
and opened the siance and so each ones the state
would often complain about prob Uduans and their disregard for
the crowns property and the estates property. They would often
be accused of coaching Cortinon's cattle, and so they will.

(13:17):
There was one attempt in particular to seize all their
guns and send them off of the island. And so
when the government did step in and condemned Bobby Duns
for you know, taking cattle when they wanted to take cattle,
Bobby Duns basically pull a reverse card and demanded redress

(13:39):
against interference with their livelihoods. They basically were like, I'll
quote one petition that was written by Bobby Duns in
eighteen We are deprived of the use of our firearms,
where by most of us live in shooting any large fish,
tootle or wild birds. We are told to take out licenses.
Yet if we have seen with a gun, not even shooting,

(14:01):
we're taken before the Mages Street of Antigua and severely
punished punished for it. Our little gardens are gone to waste,
and if such as are still in a little cultivation,
was to be injured by weather, and we, by sickness,
are not able to have the fences repaired directly. It
has taken and Brune say nour intention is willing to
catch the wild beast sub Mr Cardington's. Eventually, I guess

(14:27):
the Cardington's got tired of having to not profit as
well as they could have, of having to deal with
these independent people. Their relinquished on their least. In eighteen
seventy they took all their horses and cattle off the island,
leaving only the day and sheep because he currently round
up day and sheep as effectively at that point, and

(14:49):
they basically they left um. And I was find it
interested when Europeans bring like a bunch of European animals
wherever they go. It's like, let me just go and
set up in a state here in a middle of
no way and introduce a bunch of deer and sheep
and rabbits and stuff. I mean, I think it happened
in Australia as well. They just let a bunch of
rabbitshes school loose just for hunting. It's like, oh, let

(15:10):
me like get a hobby that's not shooting animals. But anyway,
so because Bobby, they was seen as unprofitable. Each lea
see that you know, got their least from the crown,
got it its resources as much as they could and
neglected its inhabitants. William and Robert Dougal of William and

(15:36):
Robert Dougal's probably with the island company never invested the
annual one point five or one hundred pounds required by
their least only seven hundred pounds rather than they promised.
Six thousand worth of stock were introduced with Bailey with
barely a score. Pubulans employed as crazy as and even
though they allegedly attempted to plant certain coffee cooler, cuckoo

(16:01):
another fruits, they neglected that too, and eventually a derelict
Bobido was forfeited to the crown for a non payment
of friend. When a government official visited the island, we
found the day were almost exterminated. The satin wooden log
would be depleted, the cattle were famished, the fences would disrepair.

(16:24):
They had four mens around up about horses, ate, a
cattle and a bunch of cows, and the two products
that existed on the island had long since become filthy
and faiously overgrown not only with bush but dense tickets.
Dr Dougal's gunners also apparently had a really bad sense
of aim, because a lot of defences were just riddled

(16:46):
with bullets, and so because the island and the people
were starved and degraded by the dow calls UM, the
Colonial Office had you know, revoked their lease and basically
excused the few villages were taken some of the cattle
for themselves. Babbulans had also protested the fact that whenever

(17:11):
these leases would put up on their island, they would
always be taking their stock, closing their provision grounds, trying
to evict them basically doing everything they could be hostile
towards people on the island, and so only their own
traditional hunting and farming and and stuff enabled Baby Lands

(17:34):
to survive. Of course, government being the government didn't really
care about the people that much, so even though the
lease holders were gone, didn't really get much out of
it the people that is. So after determination lease, the
Cluonial Government, the Leeward Islands Cluonial Government and Antigua basically

(17:56):
took over the island and they established the government stock
farm on some cotton plots in nineteen three UM. They
gave some grants to pay for fencing and cutting wood
and cotton experiments and cattle purchases and mule breeding, and
the Bobby runs took the government gres and lands for

(18:17):
their own purposes and basically enclosed a portion of that
land and left it for the government stock and left
the rest of the pasture, the richest parts of the
pasture for their own horses and cattle and donkeys. So
while the government had to deal with like this small

(18:39):
portion of land with like some very weak, insufficient meadow,
the rest of the community was able to flourish with
a nice, rich pasture for their cattle. And still despite that,
the stock farm, the government stock farm, still flourished with
a hundred and sixty one horses, a hundred to eat cattle,

(19:00):
and five mules. And then the cotton surprisingly also became
profitable on the island um I called a crop that
really didn't flourish. They are told during slavery, was now
trying to pick up. In the beginning of the early century.
We began shipping cotton note and employing a bunch of

(19:23):
Bobby Dan's, and now Bobby there was being scheme is
a super profitable place. However, because of that cotton boom,
Bobby Dan's were able to buy passage overseas, they were
able to raise the standard of living, and it ended
up causing a labor shortage that led to conflict. After

(19:49):
a shipwreck off the island. The island manager went to
check out what was going on with the salvage, and
and he caught a bunch of Bubu Dan's salvage in
but salvage and for their own profits instead of his profits.
And so, in retaliation, in retaliation for him trying to

(20:12):
stop them from salvage and for themselves, the Bobby Duns
burnt his boat and his wagon, and so in retaliation
for that, the governor of Antigo started to impose these
previously uninforced rents and cultivated plots, so like he wanted
to charge like five shillings per equal per year, and

(20:34):
he also doubled animal head taxes. And so by introducing
these taxes, introducing these rents, the government's basically trying to
get not just to punish the people for you know,
daring to be free, but also trying to force them
to work on their cotton plantation. Of course, Bob you don's,

(20:57):
having lived so freely for so long, the want to
work on these cotton plantations, especially not after slavery um.
And so the people petitioned the crown against this kind
of semi intentioned suitude that the governor was trying to introduce,

(21:18):
and it seems that Mother Nature was on their side
because they want their case. Due to drought, all the
crops were basically ruined by drought, cutting on cotton profits,
um cutting on cattle profits, cuttling on crops on corn profits.

(21:42):
And all this happened in nineteen six and then in
Barbado was hit by a hurricane more severe than they've
ever seen before. And so that brief period where Barbarido
was seen as striking google for the government came to

(22:03):
an end, and Bob Dan's continued to cling on to
their customary modes subsistence, of self reliance, of survival of
their plots and their livestock and their fishing grounds, of
continuing to be their own masters, because two d and
fifty years of experience had taught them how unreliable and
exploitative all these other alternatives that bosses non natives that

(22:27):
the government was trying to introduce woo to them, and
they learned that only ownership in common would guarantee their
access and guarantee the protection of their island from environmental exploitation.
As as we get to the interesting part, because they

(22:51):
had already long thought to themselves as owners of the
island as possessing the island for themselves, even though on
people it wasn't the key, even though on people they
were being handled between the Crown and the different lease holders,
that the Crown would introduce Barbuda to Barbuda's being so small,

(23:15):
being so homogeneous, having such meager soils, having such strong
and type connections and bonds, they saw it as all
of theirs collectively. It wasn't like and when I say

(23:35):
strong connections, family bonds, I don't mean it in the
sense that some of the other in lands in the Caribbean.
And was sort of puzzled out because in the Caribbean
there are lands that are held by certain families and
it passes down the family and going on for generations.
But it wasn't this idea that all these particular families

(23:57):
owned the land. It was that all of them together
wound the land serious real communal landownership. They'd use the
land for generations, to raise ground provisions, to hunt there

(24:19):
and wild pigs, to keep goats and sheep, to keep cattle,
to cut firewood, to fish and so on. They had
no documents and said that they had these collective rights
in the island, and yet they all insisted with one voice,
the Barbuda was theirs salon. No outsiders could tell them otherwise.

(24:40):
And furthermore, they had proven again and again and again
that outside proprietors were powerless in the face of their
attempts to run the island for themselves, because they would
continue to graze their cattle wherever they wanted to is
the cattle. They'll continued to fish wherever they wanted to fish,

(25:02):
salvage whatever they wanted to salvage, cultivate wherever they wanted
to cultivate. Who's gonna stop them, You know, clearly nobody.
They couldn't even get outside, It couldn't even get like
a rent out of prob you done so. In nineteen twenty,

(25:25):
Barbudans had gotten legal entitlement roughly half of the island,
and by three they controlled futually all of its resources,
basically the facto. Unfortunately, against their will. Honestly, Antigua and

(25:45):
Barbuda were joined together by putting administrators, and so Antigua
and Barbuda is the country that exist city. But one
of the primary concerns of Brobudans were that they were able,
were that they be able to maintain soul ownership, soul control,
soul compunal control over the lands of Barbuda. Land ownership

(26:11):
has been an issue that bobby udn't have had with
Antigua for a very very long time now, for decades now,
and really all bob Udan's want is to maintain their
common ownership for themselves alone, and so they have maintained
that through the Barbudaan Council defending the land and declaring

(26:33):
that no land in Barbuda can be sold or developed
without the permission of the Bubbudan Council, and so down.
To explain basically how common land use boots in Barbuda,

(26:57):
there are two distinctive and useful move of land use
shifting cultivation for provision grounds and open range pastured for livestock.
Because the soil is so weak, shifting cultivation is a necessity,
and so after one or two years of planting exhausted soil,
they move their fencing, they move their grounds of between

(27:21):
half an acre to two or three acres, and plants
they are sweet potatoes, yarms, me is beans, pigeon ps, squash, peanuts, etcetera. Elsewhere,
So the old land could you know, regenerate, but this
constant cultivation is something that occurs. The grants really no

(27:44):
permanent rights any one individual. You do have use rights,
it's the principle of use of fruct over the areare cultivating,
but you don't have permanent ownership over that piece of
land that you're cultivating. And they have that system in
place because they recognize living on the island for the

(28:07):
generations that bob ut As ecology is extremely fragile, extremely
limited UM. Its resources are limited, and so they have
to safeguard there um their sustenance for generations to come. Yeah,
it's fascinating, Actually it's really I didn't know anything about that. Yeah, yeah,

(28:31):
it really is. Similarly with them with the slash and
boom cultivation, they also had the management of open range
livestock being very much unrestricted. UM. They're actually feral cattle
that exists on the island in addition to the more

(28:51):
teamed and pen animals UM. And so how they basically
they allow all the animals, you know, mixed and mingo
of different families of different individuals would have their specific
cattle or horses or sheep or whatever a marked or
branded but for the most part they they've maintained this

(29:12):
sort of open range husbandry because it helps to sustain
their unity. It helps to maintain their strengthen their social
bonds and their community solidarity, to basically ensure that everyone
has taken care of in a place that is so
scant resources. Lastly, through one of the ways that they

(29:38):
maintain in the balance of the island is through it's
through emigration. The population has basically stayed at that level
because they've stayed within the limits of the resources they
have on the island, and so young Baby don't have
had to leave um the island um while still maintaining

(30:04):
their communal use rights to the land. And then eventually
they would make remittances of money or resources and periodic
returns that would help to introduce you know, healthcare resources
and housing resources and education resources to the island. Just

(30:25):
another day, like completely isolated from the outside world, living
in this sort of bubble. They do still have that
exchange going on. Most of the immigrants live in three
primary communities seeing John's Antigua of course, seeing as it's
the neighbor um. A lot of them are in New
York City. I mean a lot of Korean people in
general in New York City, but Bob Dun's are in

(30:48):
New York City, and all of them also live in
Britain in Leicester as part of the West Indian exodus
that took place all the way back in the late
nineteen fifties. Yeah, so sort of wrap things up here. Um.

(31:11):
Their communities and their solidarity have allowed them to cope
with a harsh environment and to successfully navigate a succession
of misinformed aloof sometimes actually hostile and mostly incompetent proprietors,
managers and administrators. Being so unified and holding themselves in solidarity,

(31:33):
they have managed to maintain their traditional resource ownership, their
communal land tenure, and their fragile ecology completely and totally,
um rejecting the assocutions that the economist carried hard and
made about the tragedy of the commons, it has not

(31:56):
been a tragedy for what you've done. It has been
a triumph until recently. Unfortunately, in September seventeen, Hurricane Irma
damaged and destroyed of the island's buildings and infrastructure, and
as a result, all of the island's inhabitants had to

(32:19):
evacuate Antigo, leaving Barbuda empty for the first time in
hundreds of years. Wow, I mean two years later. By February,
most of the residents have returned to the island. However,
the Prime Minister of Antigo, Gaston Alfonso Brown, he's been

(32:41):
leading since UM, has been making moves essentially to privatize Barbuda.
His background before entering politics was being a banker and
a businessman, and he seems to be employing the shock

(33:04):
doctor and tactic of using environmental catastrophe and social displacement
two accelerate capitalism. Essentially, after you know, hurricaneum I swept
through Um and posted residents became homeless, communication systems came
went went down Um and taking Bobula God relief pounds

(33:32):
of relief for Barbuda. Um. That's not very much, not
very much at all, Um, but it would take over
a hundred million dollars to rebuild the homes. In the
infrastructure in barbdell Um, the old critical infrastructure that existed,

(33:55):
the food supply, the medicine, the shelter, electricity, water communications,
waste management and as one person said, UM did are
active anti in Barbula's National Office of the Disaster Services
film O Melon he said, in my twenty five years
of disaster management, I've never seen something like this. It

(34:17):
is optimistic to think anything like this be rebuilt in
six months. They have to rebuild entirely all of their
public utilities. UM. And so essentially what Prime Minister Gaston
or Funds who Brown is trying to do is revoke

(34:40):
communal land ownership, allow the residents to buy some land
and use the rest to basically introduce UM resorts and
who Tells and other to risk attractions to help fund

(35:01):
the rebuilding efforts. But of course we know the way
that money is actually going to go. And that's as
far as I know about the situation. UM. Unfortunately don't
have any connections in Antiguan Barbuda yet UM, but unfortunately

(35:22):
that is what it's been going on in another example
basically of disaster capitalism trying to cease and accumulates through
violence and for exploitation as usual. I hope that you know,

(35:43):
we've seen and been inspired by Barbuda's efforts, and I
hope that probably don't able to continue to prove themselves
resilient in the face of this disaster. That's fascinating. And
do you know, like I'm interested in these diasporic communities,
like you said, there's one in Leicester and stuff. It's like,

(36:06):
do they still have like a very strong community coherence
like when they when they go elsewhere and to like
like you said, they tend to gather in like certain spots.
Be interested in like how those folks I guess dealt
with a very different life in like New York or
Leicester or wherever. Right. Well, Um, like the Caribbean people

(36:30):
who have emigrated, we do tend to concentrating suitain places
where we already have family connections. Um. I think most
Scribbean people have at least a relative living abroad. Yeah,
an uncle, a great uncle, second cousin, the cousin whatever. Um,

(36:54):
And so it sort of builds from there. And so
you try and piece that you create, like a piece
of home, and sort of settle and concentrate in those
areas and live in those areas and support each other
in those areas. Yeah, and that I would say helps
with the adjustment. Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Um.

(37:17):
So you can find me on YouTube dot com slash Andreism,
on pat dot com slash Saying True, and on Twitter
dot com slash and discore scene true. If you are Bob,
you done, Please don't as day to reach out to me.
I would love to learn more about the situation going
on and wish all all the best solidarity. It Could

(37:43):
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