History This Week

By Lloyd F Kandasammy

Life at Ogle

Occupying 893 acres, Ogle Sugar Estate was considered by many to be a pioneer of technological innovation in the production of sugar, during the period of British occupation. It was originally owned by the firm of George Little and Company before being acquired by Booker Brothers and ultimately the Guyana Sugar Corporation.

Today the long winding road leading to the Ogle headquarters has changed tremendously, punctuated by grandiose, modern concrete houses. The layout of the head office of this estate reflect very little of the distinct heritage of the estate. It is at the payment of pensions where I encounter a group of former sugar estate workers who eagerly recount, some jovially others not so jovially the life and journey through their words about Ogle estate.

One of the first persons interviewed is Beerat aged eighty one. He recalls that he worked on the estate for some forty years doing a variety of tasks in the course of his long course of service in the industry. He noted that he commenced working at the tender age of thirteen years.

Both of his parents he recounted were employed by the estate so it was only natural that he would become a sugar worker. He revealed that he never attended school and did not know to read or write at that time.

Beerat noted that he was first employed by the estate’s management in the ‘creole gang’, a gang which consisted of both boys and girls whose main task was to throw manure around freshly planted ratoons.

In recounting a day’s work on the estate he noted that he left home at around 4 am and returned at around 10 pm. Lunch was prepared by his mother who also worked on the estate and that he was transported by a ‘horse cab’ for a cent or more depending on what he could afford. Sometimes he noted when lunch was not prepared he like other workers would take the raw food into the fields and that when they were given a break that they would pool together and do a lil cook up.

Beerat recounted the work day as being arduous and that ‘the white man made u respect the cane’. There was no difference he noted in crop season or out of crop season, both were equally hard.  In addition to the regular tasks of working in the fields planting canes, weeding and digging beds Beerat noted that after the end of a regular day he and others would stay back and undertake extra tasks.

These extra tasks would include the cleaning of punts, drains and canals.  There was no extra pay for any of these tasks rather a level rate of $10.00 to $15.00 a rod was given.

He winked his eye and laughed, normally when you collected your pay it was customary to give the overseer a little sum so as to continue receiving a chance or more to have the extra work. This was done by all members in the gang he stated, everybody would put equal shares towards the $2.00 or $3.00 that they would give to the manager to buy a bottle of whisky.

From his account it appears as though the managers and overseers reviewed the days work carefully. He stated that in many cases when the day was completed they could not just leave the estate but rather wait until all works were inspected.

If, upon revision, the work was not satisfactorily completed then one would have to do all the work all over again with no pay. If this was the case he said sometimes they were verbally abused often referred to as ‘bucks’ by the managers.

Beerat noted that the toughest period of work was during the period of strikes, then he recalled, things got bad as racial clashes broke out, things were violent and then if you did not work then no pay was given.

The estate manager’s house was described as being huge. The estate managers were usually bachelors, many of whom had soirees during the weekends when their friends stayed over. It was through housekeeping, laundry and other household tasks for the manager that his wife was able to make extra money. He assertively stated, shaking his head constantly, that back then twenty cents could have purchased a lot of things.

He stated that he had been given a Christian wedding and that in those days when boys were courting then they had to be careful not to go into the girl’s house without permission or they could be put off the estate by the manager.

During the last years of service Beerat stated that he worked in the shovel gang cleaning drains and canals. The low pay offered was now a problem he stated in that his pension was calculated at the last payment he received.

A most interesting interview was one which was undertaken at the pension office for Ogle and La Bonne Intention estate workers with a group of women. This group of women consisted of Indrani age 80, Bibi age 78, Somary age 65, Ali age 82, Somary age 73 and Alinoran age 83.

Passionately and with great excitement the women eagerly gather in a circle joking that the stories which they revealed brought back a lot of memories. These women, with the exception of Somary, who at 65 years was jokingly referred to as the baby of the group, all worked in the sugar fields at Ogle and Industry sugar estates.

In disclosing their information they noted that back then estate work was very hard. They stated that shoes were an ‘expensive thing’ and that very often you had to work barefoot. They laughed repeatedly stating that between the cutlass and the cane leaves they did not know which one gave you more cuts. They indicated that there were no benefits for injuries and that this was only accomplished after the estate workers protested many times.

In recalling the strikes the women noted that the Enmore strike was a hot one. Ali noted that during that strike all estates had policemen armed with big black guns placed on the fields to prevent disturbances.

They laughed, tilting their heads back, almost choking and stated that the police could not bear the heat and ‘that many of them used to faint away because of the heat. They noted that the police would often shade under banana leaves and that the strike action at Enmore did not have much of an effect at the operations at Ogle’.

All of them indicate that they commenced working at the estate at a very early age between twelve to thirteen years. Indrani stated that she was actually twelve years old when she commenced working and that her parents, both of whom were also employed on the estate, falsified her age to allow her to be employed by the manager of Ogle estate.

She noted that like the other young boys and girls she worked in the ‘manure gang’. Generally the women stated that their jobs varied from fetching manure and lime to the fields of freshly planted cane to doing other minor things like fetching water to other employees in the field.

Indrani, was the most vocal of all the women, she noted that she was married through an arrangement at age 16 and that she gave birth to the first of eight children at age 17.

Bibi laughed and stated that she too was married, but earlier, at age 15 to a boy from next door. She noted that the wedding was a night time thing and that her father had worked very hard to get some silver bangles as a dowrie for her. She is also a mother of eight children, the first of whom was born when she was only 16.

Ali stated that back then when parents ‘say to do something you could not say no’. She said she was married at night too and that her husband was only 16 at the time. She was, interestingly the same age as her husband at the time of the ceremony but she noted that there was an understanding some two or three years earlier that she was going to have this boy at her husband.

She stated that she gave birth to her first child at 16 years and that she got pregnant often.

Alinoran, stated that she was married much later at age 18 and that her parents had saved a lot. Her father’s gift included a bicycle and a cow along with some silver.  She indicated, whilst holding her stomach area, that she had four children. The other two women also stated that they were married at the very young at age 16 and that they had their first child in the first year of marriage.

In describing life on the estate the women noted that it was very hard. They said that if they did not return to work early after giving birth then they were not paid. Returning to work soon after birth was painful, but they noted that the doctor or nurse would with the manager visit them and give them plenty medicine. Indrani laughs loudly stating that at one point in the estate so many babies were born that the management decided to establish a crèche. She noted that this was where all the children would be put whilst their parents went to work.

She laughs stating that with so many children the money earned was way too small to support the family even when she and her husband worked overtime and pooled their resources. To this statement all of the women readily nodded their heads in approval. They universally agreed that the price for food was somewhat cheap and Indrani elaborated,

She stated that the salary earned by her husband and herself totalled $3.00 per week. To make ends meet, she noted that many times they, the women would catch fish in the estate trenches, but she noted that this was not always encouraged by the estate managers.

All of the women, with the exception of the youngest stated that they resided on the estates in logies. The women generally described this structure as one which was cramped, without privacy as there were many people in one room. They indicated that the room was almost bare of furniture save for a mattress and a hammock or two. The women also indicated that with a growing number of children that they had no privacy for husband and wife affairs.

At Wales and Diamond

The pension offices provided the researcher with one of the best opportunities to meet and converse, over the research period and beyond, with the former estate employees of Plantations Wales and Diamond.

It is here at the pension office that I encounter Jitranie, a pensioner, aged 79, who eagerly discourses on the life of the estate during the colonial era as she awaits the welfare officer instructions to collect her pension. Jitranie’s life on the estate may be quite similar to those of other workers but the peculiarities of the social environment are most interesting,
Jitranie sits in the company of a few other women.  In discussing life on the estate, Jitranie pauses and looks at me the deep wrinkles around her eyes cutting even deeper. During her early years on the estate she reveals that she was employed as part of the creole bucket gang.

She notes that she worked just as hard as the other young men on the estate, their main job was she added, laughing, ‘lik a dung’ a term which she explained meant to carry and throw cow manure.

She indicates that each day they were responsible for carrying buckets of cow manure to the fields and mould the newly planted cane, or to manure the newly dug ‘cane rows’.  Jitranie pauses and describes the manner in which they would have to carry out their work before they were beaten by the driver who administered ‘last man liks’.

Her description of how they were beaten on the calves of their legs if they were late in fetching the manure drew peals of laughter from the other women who sat under the old zinc sheet shed. In addition she said at the end of the day, the creole bucket gang was responsible for picking up mule droppings in the field in buckets and putting it into punts to be transported to the place where it was dried.

At age 14 or age 15 Jitranie said that things changed on the estate that the management at Wales began to use lime instead of cow manure. She said that sometimes they would use black lime but that was not very often.

Jitranie reveals that then they were described by managers as young weeders. For extra monies she notes that she and others would often, after hours clean up the ‘water cane’ that is the cane which fell into the water whilst being transported to the factory. She jokingly remarked that this was done as they stood on the backs of caiman and questions openly how she was never bitten, unlike other workers. The trick is, she stated, they don’t bite you once in the water but is when you come out that is when they become hungry.

She noted that at Christmas at Wales estate, the management gave away ‘saucepans of sugar, cane cutters got the biggest portion, whilst the weeding gang got the second biggest and the creole gang the smallest amount. Work she said started early and they were all overseen by the carrier or driver to who they called ‘the coolie dan’, work at that time she notes was twenty cents per day. She noted that life was a little easier for them at Diamond because her husband’s uncle was a driver and that they were given two rooms, ‘one half got dutty and the other half got wood’. Everyone she continued had a small fowl pen.

She notes that they worked Saturday to Saturday; their only free day was Sunday. It was on that day that everybody would bathe early and the men would sit down on the fowl pen and the small children would clean.  In her spare time, when she was not cleaning Jitranie reveals that she would make sweet meats for her children as well as some for sale in the market.

The former sugar estate employees provided an interesting insight into the workings of the various estates where they worked.  From all accounts the life on the estate was nothing short of hard work, characterized by little or no rights for workers, small salaries and arduous work.

It was interesting to note that many of the employees interviewed considered the management’s actions of checking on them when they were ill to make sure that they were treated quickly by doctors and hospital personnel as a sign of kindness.

Not wanting to take away the humanistic qualities of the managers these actions may well be perceived as one in which the manager was ensuring that his labour was not lost as a result of pretence from the employees.

Additionally it was of immense interest to note the different cultural traditions on the estates and the language used by these employees in their description of the day to day lifestyles.  This project represents a tip of the iceberg as there are many other employees who possess valuable examples of the intangible cultural traditions of the sugar estates.

There is a pressing need for the oral traditions of those within their golden years to be documented before they pass on to the greater world taking with them all their knowledge and immensely valuable history.