By Tota C. Mangar
THE system of indentureship as experienced by East Indian immigrants in colonial Guyana could be characterised as one of ‘struggle, sacrifice and resistance’. On the estates, the indentured labourers faced the harshness of the labour laws and it was obvious that the powerful plantocracy had effective control of the immigrant labour force. Labour laws were easily varied and very often abused to suit their ‘ whims and fancies’.
Immigrants were faced with meagre wage rates and unrealistic tasks; there was a persistent problem of being penalised in relation to the muster roll which was held every morning. Court trials were, in many instances, farcical; fines and imprisonment were rife and vagrancy laws invariably imposed a serious restriction on their movements.
It was not surprising therefore that, from the late 1860s onwards, the myth of Indian docility was to be seriously challenged. Indentured labourers began to openly defy the system and there was a steady deterioration of industrial relations, increasing working class protests and imperial investigation.
In 1870, a Royal Commission of Inquiry was appointed to examine alleged abuses of the immigration system. It subsequently made a number of recommendations and as a result certain changes were made in the immigration laws. Among these changes were wider powers of the Immigration Agent- General, the formation of immigration districts, each with a resident agent, district medical officers to be paid by government instead of estate authorities, the right of immigrants to give evidence on their own behalf and the Immigration Agent-General becoming an ex-officio member of the Court of Policy.
Thereafter, the reindenture scheme which emerged in the 1850s began to decline and, at the same time, encouragement was given to immigrants to take up small plots of land in lieu of return passages. Such an initiative came from both the government of the colony and the plantocracy to discourage repatriation. It was Potter’s contention that time-expired immigrants increasingly chose to move off the estates. Obviously, it was the high cost of repatriation for those who had completed their periods of industrial resistance and were entitled to a free return passage which led the government and planters to give serious consideration to the establishment of East Indian settlements. By 1869, an estimated 30,000 immigrants were entitled to a free return passage.
BACKGROUND TO HUIST D’ IEREN
It was against the foregoing that some East Indian immigrants moved from the plantations and settled along the public roads in areas adjoining the sugar estates. Their movement was averaging 3,000 yearly and was mostly found in “straggling, unorganised settlements”, along the coastland.
A definite attempt was made in 1871 to settle immigrants when the government purchased Plantation Nooten Zuil, an abandoned 578-acre cattle and provision farm on the East Coast of Demerara. This proposal was to settle time-expired immigrants in lieu of their return passages by offering them half an acre to build a house, one and a half acres for farming and half an acre for common pasturage. This scheme failed largely because of poor drainage and excessive flooding and immigrants felt the site itself was badly chosen. In the end, the government was forced to abandon the project.
It was not until 1880 that another attempt was made towards the establishment of an immigrant village settlement. This time around, government purchased Plantation Huist D’ieren, a partially abandoned estate on the Essequibo Coast, lying just beyond the Iteribisci creek and approximately four miles south of the then administrative headquarters of Suddie. Huist D’ieren is Dutch in origin meaning manor of D’ieren (D’ieren- a village in Holland).
THE SETTLEMENT– EXPERIMENT
Following the purchase of Plantation Huist D’ieren by government, the land was divided into two-acre cultivation plots along with a quarter acre residential lots and then distributed to immigrants in lieu of their return passages. Initially seventy three immigrants took up the offer. In the beginning, the settlement of Huist D’ieren was placed under the direct supervision of Veeraswammy Mudaliar, Chief Interpreter in the Immigration Department. But by 1882, so serious were problems experienced by residents that the settlement had made virtually no progress. Maintenance of sea defences and public roads became too burdensome and backdam kokers and main drainage trenches were all in deplorable conditions.
Henry Turner Irving assumed duty as Governor of the colony of British Guiana in May 1882. Within a few weeks after his arrival, he acquainted himself with several aspects of immigration. He was obviously conscious that East Indian immigration was firmly established and it had become the mainstay of the sugar industry. Hence, he promptly made an innovation to the land settlement scheme. In this regard, he must have been influenced by both the difficulties confronting the settlement of Huist D’ieren and the rising cost of repatriation and his earlier experience as Governor of Trinidad where a significant Indian immigrant population was already in existence.
As early as May 1882, the Governor suggested that instead of issuing grants of land to immigrants and confining them to land settlement schemes, it would be more satisfactory to provide them with the opportunity to purchase land in localities best suited by their individual tastes. He was of the view that a more effective system was for government to “foster spontaneous settlement by rendering available for it the abandoned estates as no artificial means are required to stimulate the settlement of the Indian population”. According to him, settlement brought about in this manner would be more likely to succeed than those established through grants of land in lieu of return passages. Moreover, it was his view that someone establishing himself and his family on a homestead of his own would hardly attempt to claim his right to a return passage.
The administrator very realistically argued that the government should embark on effecting crucial infrastructural works, including roads, dams, bridges and sea defences before offering lots for sale and he was confident costs incurred would be recovered. It would seem that governor Irving had made a careful study of the immigrant psyche at that point in time.
Consequently, grants of land in communication of return passages ceased and in its place came the sale of lots. In the case of Huist D’ieren, the original system was scrapped and infrastructural works were carried out. The land was then divided into two-acre cultivation lots and a quarter acre residential lots and these were advertised for sale. Immigrants were afforded the opportunity of purchasing by way of a system similar to that of hire purchase of today. The initial payment was $10.00 and this was followed by five annual installments of $10.00 each.
The immediate response was satisfactory as 62 immigrants took up lots. Governor Irving was hailed for his vision and innovation. The purchase development seemed to suggest that Irving’s experimentation might lead to a rapid transformation in creating “an ethnically separate peasantry’’. But in reality there was a drastic reduction in the sale of land. Only six cultivation and six house or residential lots were purchased that year. A number of problems continued to beset the settlement. Among them were encroachments from the sea, flooding from backland water, inadequate drainage and periodic failure of crops, especially rice.
Moreover, many opted to leave the area and to purchase lands on the nearby islands of Tiger Island and Wakenaam where the price was much cheaper. The temptation to settle on these Essequibo islands at that point in time was obviously great. There were no roads to maintain, and as was previously pointed out by the Immigration Agent- General,’ the natural highway, the river, offering every facility for transport of crops’. It is perhaps worthwhile to note that, at an early stage of this experiment, one immigrant had his interest divided. He was simultaneously settling at Huist D’ieren and farming on one of the islands.
Interestingly, similar steps were also taken for the sale of abandoned estates at Cotton Tree, West Coast Berbice; Mahaicony and elsewhere during the remainder of Irving’s tenure in the colony.
CONCLUSION
Overall, the Governor must have been disappointed at the degree of progress of the Huist Dieren Experiment. His idealisation and approach failed to make the huge anticipated impact. This is borne out in the fact that a mere 116 residential and 136 cultivation lots were sold during 1883 to1887. Such a happening was certainly not the response which the Governor had expected when he initiated the Huist D’ieren Experiment.
However, one ought to acknowledge the long-term impact of Irving’s novel scheme in inducing immigrants to settle permanently in the colony. The 1880s and 1890s witnessed a gradual movement from the estates as immigrants began to buy, rent or even squat on land along the coastal plain. For example, by 1891, approximately 32,000 immigrants had settled outside the sugar estates. This process was accelerated from around the turn of the century because of a liberalisation of crown lands policy regulations and moreso the continuing sugar depression which forced estate wages down. Within a few decades after Irving’s departure from the then British Guiana, several predominantly East Indian immigrant settlements were to emerge in the rural districts and these became inextricably linked with the emerging rice industry. These settlements included Helena, Mahaica, Whim and Bush Lot on the Corentyne Coast, Marias Pleasure, Wakenaam and Anna Regina on the Essequibo Coast.
It is important to note that nearly a century after the experimentation of 1882, there was a complete reversal in trend where the neighbouring island of Tiger Island or Hamburg is concerned. The 1960s, 1970s and 1880s witnessed a distinct shift of population from the island to the very Huist D’ ieren. The former experienced periodic flooding and land exhaustion due to the effects of sea water. On the other hand, over the years, Huist D’ieren had witnessed gradual improvements in the areas of sea defence, drainage and irrigation, roads and progress in rice cultivation, cattle rearing and in a number of basic amenities.
The village of Huist D’ieren is now a densely populated and well established rural community in Guyana. As part of the regional local government structure, it finds itself within the Good Hope– Pomona Neighbourhood Democratic Council in Region Two. It boasts primary and nursery schools, stores and grocery shops, a health centre, a Presbyterian Church, a mandir and a mosque, among its service centres. Huist D’ieren is indeed a pioneer in the field of immigrant land settlement schemes. It paved the way for the further diversification of Guyana’s economy in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its free immigrants and their descendants have contributed and continue to contribute to all facets of society, be it economic, religious, cultural, social and political life.
