The Jamaican Higglers: Prosperity against the odds - Part 2

Arnold Bertram, Gleaner Writer

Even before Kingston was created in 1702, family units of enslaved Africans were producing enough to feed themselves, as well as a surplus on their 'polinks', as their provision grounds on estate lands were called. The surplus was sold by their womenfolk - the higglers - who established Jamaica's first internal marketing system.

The major contributing factor to both the growth of the emerging peasantry and the marketing activity of the higglers was the package of incentives offered by estate owners for the enslaved to produce their own food, which showed a remarkable and enlightened self-interest. The provision grounds were granted, not rented. The enslaved were relieved of estate labour on Sundays and alternate Saturdays to do their own planting and reaping. They were allowed to sell the surplus and retain all the proceeds, and finally, they were granted the privilege of bequeathing these provision grounds to their children.

As the planter/historian Brian Edwards deduced, "The Negro who has acquired by his own labour a property in his master's land has much to lose, and is ... less inclined to desert his work. He earns a little money by which he is enabled to indulge himself in fine clothes on holidays and gratify his palate with salted meats and other provisions that otherwise he could not obtain; and the proprietor is eased, in a great measure, of the expense of feeding him."

Even without the benefit of a study by a trained economist, I have no doubt that the savings which accrued to the planter class as a result of the enslaved feeding themselves made the critical difference in the profitability of the sugar plantations.

Commercial Legacy of Port Royal

Of the early markets that were established, it was those located at Port Royal which most prefigured the commercial development of Kingston. Port Royal was established in 1656 and quickly developed as the chief Jamaican port for the transatlantic slave trade, as well as the centre for the contraband trade with Spain. Its location in the heart of the Spanish colonial empire made it an ideal base from which to launch the expeditions of plunder carried out by privateers with official sanction. The most spectacular of these expeditions were those commissioned by the governor, Sir Thomas Modyford, and undertaken by Henry Morgan between 1668 and 1670. The raid on Portobello alone produced plunder worth £75,000, more than seven times the annual value of the island's sugar exports.

By 1670, Port Royal had been transformed from a barren, sandy pit comprising some 60 acres of land, to a flourishing town which ranked with Santo Domingo, Havana, and Panama City as one of the richest towns in the Caribbean and the Americas.

Morgan became a hero. The administration showered him with extensive land grants and the King of England made him a knight and "presented him with a snuff box bearing the royal effigy surrounded with diamonds and appointed him Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica." (Arciniegas)

Jewish traders and African-Jamaican higglers

The range of commercial activities, both legal and illegal, created not only a domestic market for food, but for the variety of provisions required for outfitting the privateers as well as Spanish vessels. The Jewish traders were the first to exploit these commercial possibilities and the African-Jamaican higglers followed their lead by quickly establishing a market for food provisions. Edward Long, writing in the 1660s, describes "a prodigious number of little settlements grouped together in all the environs of ... the maritime ports not far from Port Royal Harbour, which were then full of people all subsisting well by their traffic with that town".

In 1692, Port Royal was destroyed by an earthquake and about one-half of the inhabitants perished. All hopes of restoring Port Royal to its original status were laid to rest after a major fire in 1703 wiped out what was left of the town.

The Growth of Kingston

It was to the new city of Kingston, which was created to replace Port Royal as the commercial capital of the island, that both Jewish traders and African-Jamaican higglers transferred their activities.

In 1702, the area which became Kingston was a swamp from which the 240-acre city was designed. By 1775, "The port of Kingston conducted an extensive trade with Europe, Africa, North America and other colonies in the Caribbean region ... . In 1775, 639 vessels, manned by nearly 7,500 seamen were employed in the trade of the island. Of this total, 233 ships were engaged in trade with the British Isles, 299 with North America, 77 with Africa, and 30 with other Caribbean territories. An additional 45 small crafts were engaged in trade between Kingston and the island's out ports." (Governor Sir Basil Keith)

Competition for market share

It is estimated that during slavery, coloured and black slave owners owned some 70,000 slaves, or just over 20 per cent of the enslaved population. In Kingston they owned an even larger percentage. The slave-registration records for 1817 also showed that female slaves and female slave holders formed the majority of the urban population. "Of the 17,798 slaves in Kingston, 9,685 were female and ... female slave holders owned a total of 5,900 slaves."

For the women of Kingston, both slave owners and the enslaved, higglering was the dominant economic activity. Some "66 per cent of all urban slaves worked as domestics in Kingston and that many of these female slaves seemed to have been involved almost exclusively in the higglering or vending of some product, while others were employed in hawking wares about the streets of the towns for their masters, but more particularly for their mistresses' benefits." (Barry Higman)

One of the first "Negro" markets in the city was located near the bottom of King Street. The planter/historian, Edward Long, writing in 1774, described this market as "plentifully supplied with butcher's meat, poultry, fish, fruits, and vegetables of all sorts ... likewise strawberries ... grapes and melons in the utmost perfection; mulberries, figs and apples exceedingly good ... in short, the most luxurious epicure cannot fail of meeting here with sufficient in quantity, variety and excellence for the gratification of his appetite the whole year round".

Even more interesting than the range of commodities is the distance from which the higglers came, mostly on foot, transporting "beef ... from the pastures of Pedro's in St Ann; the mutton from the Salt-pan lands in St Catherine".

The Reverend R. Bickell provides a graphic description of the cosmopolitan nature of the Sunday market that was in operation on the day of his arrival in August 1819.

"It was on a Sunday and I had to pass by the Negro market, where several thousands of human beings, of various nations and colours but principally Negroes, instead of worshipping their maker on His holy day, were busily employed in all kinds of trafick in the open streets. Here were Jews with shops and standings as at a fair selling old and new clothes, trinkets and small wares ... . There were some low Frenchmen and Spaniards and people of colour in petty shops and with stalls; some selling their bad rum, gin, tobacco; others, salt provisions and small articles of dress; and many of them bartering with the slave or purchasing his surplus provisions to retail again; poor free people and servants also from parts of the city."

The Kingston higglers quickly developed a reputation for aggressive vending. A report in The Royal Gazette of July 4, 1818, states that "on Sunday morning as a number of country Negroes were proceeding to the city from the Windward parishes, with asses, laden with provisions, they were met by a multitude of higglers who forcibly threw several of them down and took the provisions they wanted leaving in return what money they deemed adequate". (Lorna Simmonds)

In both Kingston and Spanish Town, the higglers competed as aggressively with the institutional trading community as they do today. A press report from Spanish Town complained that "the streets of the town are greatly infested with a set of hawkers and peddlers from Kingston to the great injury of the trading part of the community and in the very eye of the police". In Kingston, the authorities instructed the police to strictly enforce all ordinances related to higglering.

An Assessment

It is clear that before Emancipation, the enslaved Africans had established the agricultural practices from which the Jamaican peasantry emerged, as well as the internal marketing system through which the higglers became the most important suppliers of agricultural commodities in the island.

Both the entrepreneurial ability as well as the industry of the enslaved African-Jamaicans are reflected in Long's observation that as early as 1774, operating against the most formidable odds, they were able "to accumulate some 20 per cent of the £50,000 circulating in the island at that time", and the more industrious among them had saved as much as £200 at the time of their death, which they often bequeathed or used to buy their freedom.

The related economic activities generated by the internal market system also "increased the slaves' buying power and led in turn to increases in the numbers of local merchants, retailers, moneylenders, etc, who became dependent on the slaves' surpluses and buying needs for their share of profits from the economy; that the free people in the towns gradually grew reliant upon the slaves marketing activities for their daily needs; and that long before Emancipation came, the markets and all of the related institutions which maintained them had become core features of Jamaican society and economy". (Mintz & Hall)

By the end of the 18th century, Jamaica became Britain's wealthiest colony. History has traditionally credited only the owners of the estates, plantations, and pens, along with the major traders, with the creation of this wealth. It is about time that we recognise the extraordinary role played by African-Jamaican higglers in the economic transformation of Kingston.

Arnold Bertram is a historian and writer. Comments may be sent to: redev.atb@gmail.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.