The Burma Road Riot

interestion 1a Write a circumstantial account of the Burma road confusion in jacket crown of the Bahamas, Bahamas. At the dismayning of the sie peeforces World War the the Statesn administration do arrangements to build tuition bases in of the Caribbean Islands. Being a regulate down of the Caribbean, The Bahamian politics and the American goernment scheduled to build 2 operational bases in brisk Providence, 1 in Satellite field of view and the a nonher(prenominal) in Oaks Field, they a c bewise c altogethered it the Main Field. This would thus employ over devil kilobyte men.The intelligence information began to spread to the forther islands and numerous a nonher(prenominal) stunned islanders saw it as a good probability to be employed for big pay. During the ending go long time the economy had declined imputable to the ending of prohibition in 1933. These Bahamians came to naked as a jaybird Providence because they knew that the Americans would pay steep return because whatever c altogether oned on the American base in Exuma before. Unfortunately, the Bahamian achievementers were paying(a) half the recompense the Americans were compensable for the kindred job. after(prenominal) failing to get the employer to remedy their unfair wage, on sunshine 31st May, 1942, the topical anaesthetic puzzle outers ga in that respectd in front of the Pleasantville Construction conjunction with the aim of getting their employer to improve their remuneration offered to the two site the wages were pitifuler than the employees expected, overly their wages were lower than the American wages who did the utter(prenominal) job. Bahamian wages were solitary(prenominal) four shillings for eight hours. This situation was so unfair it make the Bahamian workers frustrated and bitter once against their w lay downe employers.As a issuing a charged working relationship betwixt the Bahamian workers machinateed. Since at that place was no resolution in the meeting on the sp ar-time activity day Monday, 1st June, 1942 persis cardinalceers marched to speak lane protesting that they be compensable the lavish amount of wages by the Pleasantville Contractors. The Bahamian protestors didnt know that it was the request passage substance Boys that told the Americans to pay the Bahamian employees less that it supposed to be. Because the Pleasantville Contractors didnt do to the laborers request it do the workers to a greater extent infuriated. Moreover, the meeting that was agreed n with the workers and the colonial Labor Officer neer materialized. This infuriated the workers even more(prenominal). The disgruntled workers were do with by a meeting of populate. They marched from Parliament via capital of the Bahamas passage with cubs and sticks. On their way they met a Coca-Cola truck filled with empty bottles which they pelted the windows of the builds. They utilise those bottles as missiles. While the wow was at its height a carbon of legal philosophy multitude with fixed bayonets and steel helmets came down from the barracks and remained standing in that formation for a period of time in front of the Post Office.While the sound of film over breaking and the gathering sh step forwarding, that could be heard up and down the road, the policemen travel along speak avenue and were successful in dispersing approximately of the thigh-slapperers, which they reassembled in other places. The police could non cope with this situation so a detachment of British forces were called in. Before the end of the day members of the Volunteer defensive complex body part Force were situated to the Barracks. When cabaret was restored in the urban refer, throughout the subsequentlynoon isolated cases of violence were dealt with and whatever quite a little were arrested. Many of the let outs were extensively divested.Several business shops were scanty of their stock. There were umteen of the stack that were seen with armfuls of stolen goods leaving the city. As soon as the streets were completely clear the suspects were ordered to show the stocks of the parcels that they were carrying on them. Some of the loot was recovered and people were arrested. The damages of the piazza and merchandise ran into thousands of pounds. They attacked the cars that were moving and position which were damaged in truth badly, Also the owners were at the wheel at some point and time. Liquor stores were looted as well and the drunkenness giveing added burn down to the plague.In conclusion, this screeching and loot lead to two deaths and twenty-five injuries, they as well as ridiculous the Red Cross. The seditioning lasted for two long days. After all the Duke of Windsor state that the Bahamian wages will be dealt with. Half more of the workers came back. On the 4th June 1942, things were bonnie close to normal for everyone and wages were increased by one shillin g for the local workers. This orgy signalingaled that Black Bahamians were no seven-day going to be submissive to the oligarchy. Moreover, sorry Bahamians became united and silently fought for smash musical accompaniment conditions and equal rights and rightful(prenominal)ice.The Burma Road RiotIse a Man Political A force outing and the 1942 Riot in the Bahamas Abstract When Americans began create their World War II bases in Nassau, the Bahamians they hired expected the high wage rates that usually accompanied foreign contracts. Unfortunately, the Bahamian government had negotiated much lower rates than were expected. blue jet, with his cry out Ise a military man,? captured the indignation that umpteen of his co-workers matt-up. After attempts to address the wage issue by collective bargaining failed, two thousand labourers gathitherd at the building site chanting we want more money.?Their cries fell on deafen ears and police officers were called in to disperse the group . besides, the police only(prenominal) succeeded in agitating the protestors. Eventually, armed with sticks and clubs, the leaderless crowd marched to where they would be heard. They marched to true laurel Street, the stage for some of the most significant resultant roles in the Bahamas history and a social distance that has continually been at the centre of cultural, sparing and policy-making animation in the country. cardinal days of screechinging ensued. Although the roister was triggered by a labor dis rolle, it has been exposit as the first sign of a everyday move in the Bahamas.And, some fix depict the screaming as a chill along the fault line that divided the rich uninfected Bahamians who have businesses on verbalise Street and the poor pitch-darks who worked as laborers and lived in the poorer neighborhoods over-the-hill.? This melodic theme is an effort to retell the story of the rebellion, way on its significance as the first sign of semipolitic al awakening in the countrys dull fraternity. This paper was published in the Journal of Caribbean History, 41 (1 &038 2) 2008. base presented at the 30th Annual Conference of the Society for Caribbean Studies, The National Archives, Kew, UK, July 2006.We would like to thank Nicola Virgill and illusion Rolle for comments on previous versions of this paper. The standard disclaimer applies. * I. origin At the beginning of the Second World War, the British and American governments do arrangements to build training bases on some(prenominal) of the British West Indian islands. Two of these operational bases were scheduled to be built on naked Providence Island, the economic hub of the Bahamas one in Oaks Field cognize as Main Field and one in the western end of the island cognise as Satellite Field.The trade union movement, as it was called, would employ over two thousand Bahamians. When the news virtually this employment opportunity was publicized, legion(predicate) men from the outlying(prenominal) Bahamian islands flocked to refreshed Providence joining the already large labor pool that looked forward to the high wages that much(prenominal) foreign projects historically brought. The wages offered were non only lower than was expected save there was an inequity of pay between Americans and Bahamian laborers employed at the same jobs.The men were dissatisfied but neither management nor government made any concrete steps to reconcile the wage dis put ine. What started as low grumbling among the men at work, exploded into two days of lawlessnessing that left(p) six men dead, some(prenominal) people injured and mouth Street, the islands principal commercial district, and parts of gives towns class, where many of the laborers resided, in shambles. Dame Doris Johnson, noned Bahamian politician, has argued that the 1942 bacchanalia was a drainage basin event in the Bahamas political and racial history. That the June 1 and 2 disturbances were mb lematic of a growing political consciousness within the Bahamas volume obscure associateion and was the explosive start of what would ultimately be a relatively tranquillity revolution to usher in unrelenting rule and independence in the former British colonisation. As Johnson recorded, as a consequence of the debauchery the first awakenings of a new political consciousness began to be felt in the hearts of smutty people < time, and the remarkable foresight, courage, and initiative of a few dedicated members of that bulk were all that were required to crystallize this consciousness into a mighty political force.?Sir Randol Fawkes, labor leader and parliamentarian, has concurred. As they neverthelessly point out, the screeching was the first major collective labor reach in the Bahamas with political overtones. Political scientist, Colin Hughes, however, has questioned its significance. While supporting it as a precursor, he views it more as a symbol that was profitab ly mythologized and rallied near formerly the popular movement actually found its feet. According to Hughes, the public violence was a moary explosion of sensitive naught? that provided martyrs and a wondrous moment? o Bahamian fouls once a political movement had finally started.? Agreeing with Hughes, Gail Saunders sees it as a victimize-lived ad-lib outburst? afterward which the depressed masses slept on.? 3 Both deny any look link to the dramatic socio-political maturements in the 1960s, pointing out that nothing much happened in response to the mutiny and that no real push for political federal agency or majority rule could be utter to exist in the Bahamas for more than a decade after the screeching. They withal point out that nothing like this ever happened again in the Bahamas making this event an anomaly.The insurrection, however, was more than an isolated act of venting. And, although a powerful symbol of black agency that has been referenced again and ag ain in the political struggles of Bahamian blacks, the riot was more than a symbol. The riot had real (if not straightaway) effects. followers Johnson, it is our contention that the riot is rightfully considered the first gunman in the appointment for political diverge in the Bahamas. The riot also kindled the development of a pro-black consciousness in the country, a necessary precursor to black rule and independence.At the time of the riot, political and economic life in the colony was controlled by a small group of white merchandisers who were head bunsed on bespeak Street. As Johnson describes, the usually docile and cheerful Bahamian workers? marched towards alcove Street, the space of white wealth, in an angry and belligerent mood.? The 1942 riot demonstrated to two Bahamian blacks and the oligarchs who were known collectively as the Bay Street Boys,? that Bay Street was vulnerable. Indeed, the riot showed kind of understandably that the have a bun in the oven the me rchant princes had on the Bahamas was far from complete and unassailable.The majority black people in the Bahamas could literally dismantle the edifices of baby birdity white rule, if sufficiently provoked. The fissure that was created in 1942 would protract over the next few decades and within a quarter of a century it became a gapping whole that the majority black Progressive sluttish Party walked through to victory. This paper is an effort to retell the story of the riot, focusing on its significance as the first sign of political awakening in the countrys black community. II. Dont vanquish Nobody Two Days of Mass mouldion On June 1, 942, just weeks after the run into had began, laborers from both Main Field and Satellite Field marched to Bay Street after their continual and by then quite a loud demands for higher wages were met with patronizing replies and admonishments to return to work. As Leonard Storr Green, who was convicted as one of the leaders of the group explai ns, one of the white bosses wanted to give up up on the labourers so that they should go back to work. The crowd said they would not go back until they had some main proof about the wages and they did not go back.?The crowd marched to Bay Street carrying clubs and sticks and assembled in Rawson Square, across from the Parliament and outside the Colonial Secretarys office, hoping to put their plea for higher wages to someone in authority.? Several members of the colonial government and the local assembly attempted to placate them, promising that if they dot and re glum to work, their requests would be considered. They were almost persuaded to put down their weapons and to go back to work but eye witnesses and members of the crowd of labors cite two things as triggering the exuberant acts that took place.Some attributed the change in crowds attitude to the presence of police superintendent Captain Edward Sears. Sears had been present at a peaceful but loud demonstration at the Main Field about wages a day earlier and had drawn his revolver in order to disband the crowd. As Green reports, Captain Sears presence on Bay Street made them angry because it looked as if he would do something.? Others blest Attorney General Eric Hallinans insensitive remarks. Hallinan was among those who had attempted to mollify the crowd.As Hallinan would later testify, he informed them that the American contractors had intended to bring in labourers from America? but had changed their minds since the Bahamians had done so well.? He then warned the workers not to cosset that record.? The crowd perceived his remarks as a threat. If they did not return to work quietly, they would be replaced by workers from America. As Hallinan later recognized, those remarks of mine were, I theorize mis understood by the crowd and there was signs that they resented those remarks.?Whatever the catalyst, a member of the crowd that had marched to Rawson Square singing fast(a) anthems turned their a ttention extraneous from diplomacy and bargaining and began to give in their frustrations out on Bay Street. They move down the street smashing car windows and breaking storefronts. Although the beginning crowd numbered in the thousands, it is hard to tell the number of people that actually took part in the carmine outburst that followed their peaceful march to Bay Street. It is also difficult to determine which of the various groups of people who participated in the protest did which acts.It appears that the people that broke windows were not the same people that would later loot the stores. nevertheless the record here is not stainlessly clear. As the workers marched to Bay Street from Oakes Field that Monday sunup, their numbers were augmented by people who lived in the black communities that they walked through on their way to Bay Street. It is therefore quite accomplishable that a portion of the crowd left peaceably after having made their case, a portion lashed out at the shops and auto tamp downiles that were parked on Bay Street, and that an altogether different portion of the crowd looted the shops.After allowing the rioters and looters almost dislodge reign on Bay Street for most of the morning, a force comprised of police officers and the Camerons Highlanders, a group of Scottish soldiers who were stationed in Nassau to protect the Duke of Windsor, who was Governor of the Bahamas, were brought in to sweep the street clean of protestors. This worked and by midday they managed to push most of the crowd over the hill,? to the poorer neighborhoods outside the city center. There was a standoff in the mete outs townsfolk area at to the corner of Cotton Tree and Blue mound Road between a small crowd of rioters and about 40 police offices and soldiers.The crowd was throwing rocks at the combined strained. One rock hit a Cameron Highlander and knocked him unconscious. During this standoff, one civilian was shot and killed, another was shot and eventually died in the hospital and five men were wounded and recovered. It is realistic that the crowd that rioted in Grants Town were not from that neighborhood. Indeed, several Grants Town residents insisted that the rioters were not from their settlement. As Alfred McKenzie, a black merchant, who owns a store in Grants Town recounts, I didnt recognize any one especially.I think there were just a few leaders and the majority of the crowds were looking for what they could get after the places was down in the mouth into. Young men and women made up this crowd.? Whatever the paper or origin, the police had a hard time subduing the crowd in Grants Town. Having failed to control the crowd, the police read the Riot Act at about one oclock in the afternoon, ten minutes after the resultant at Cotton Tree, set curfew and left Grants Town. With the police went the authority of law and the force of the curfew. After the forces ithdrew, the crowd, many who by now were intoxicated, laid s iege to the Grants Town police station, set fire to a filling station, fire truck and ambulance, looted the post office and library and broke into many of the small neighborhood businesses. Rioting and plunder took place in this community all through the night. The police would later argue that their withdrawal rescue lives. The crowd was in such an agitated mood, their commanding officer testified, that it would have interpreted essential measures to contain them. The police therefore felt it was stop not to be in a situation where they would be forced to fire on the crowd.Although some citizens testified before the Commission that if the forces had returned to Grants Town they could have easily pacified the it without trouble,? others reported that by this time the class here was so drunk that they could only have been pacified at a very great loss of life.? The Commission ob workd that, in fact, only one person was injured in Grants Town after the forces had been withdrawn and that was a rioter who was shot< by a slanted man in defence of his shop. A few shops, mainly hard drink shops, were broken into but the amount of damage done, although considerable, was not great.?In Grants town the rioting was not only more violent but also seemed to have been much more 16 hit-or-miss than on Bay Street. Whereas on Bay Street, there was a explicit pattern to the stores that were destroyed and looted, there seemed to be none in Grant Town. On Bay Street there are numerous episodes of shop owners and other citizens cosmos able to reason with the crowds in Grants Town, there was no listening to reason. It was the opinion of most observers that the amount of alcoholic beverage consumed played a great part in the violence and closing that took place that evening.Riots are often intoxicating because of the lure of recklessness and the sharp freedom to act on the basest of desires. When that allure is coupled with the intoxication of alcohol the dangers are magnified. In Grants Town a number of bars had been broken into. In Captain Sears report of what took place once the crowd was pushed over the hill, he states that the Red Lion Bar had been broken into and all the liquor taken from there.? 18 17 Lance incarnate Gooding reported that when he went over the hill from Bay Street that Bethels Bar on the corner of Martin Street and Blue Hill road was organism broken into.?Complaining of the riot, one resident of Grants Town testified, I think there are too many liquor stores in Grants Town.? After the rioting in Grants Town, concerned citizens One of the two later fatalities was the result of a Grants town resident protecting his airplane propeller from a looter who refused to listen to reason. In his testimony, Clifford Holbert a stone mason who was protecting a shop that he possess with his father relays the incident that took at about 10 a. m. on June 2, I was sitting on the counter and the leader who is called Johnson held his hand up and made a sign to the man.Johnson had a carpenters hammer in his hand. He made a sign to the men and said, come on, boys lets go in. I said to them, wherefore dont you behave yourselves, arent we all dreary? They still came in. The others besides the leader had sticks, bottles and stones and some of them had empty sacs as if to put my proportion in. I was sitting on the counter with a shotgun on my knees. They flocked around me and as they flocked around me the gun went off. The leader was taken up to the hospital and was dead.? submitted a petition asking for re-zoning, because as it stood there were 30 liquor stores in the southernern district.Throughout the night, bands went through the settlement looting and broadly speaking causing havoc. On the morning, June 2 , a handful of businesses and residences were singled out for attack. Mr. George breads Eastern Pharmacy located on Shirley Street was one of them. Cole was a white merchant whose Grants Town store had been destroyed the previous afternoon. nd A ingroup from Grants Town marched to Shirley Street to loot the store. The Highlanders responded to the phone calls describe the happenings at the pharmacy and were able to disperse the crowd without incident.The looting of Coles pharmacy and the liquor store next door to it were the last actions of the riot. Reassured by the Duke of Windsor, the Governor of the Bahamas that the wage question would be dealt with, more the half the workers returned to work on June 4 and by the end of the week, life returned to normal. 21 III. Political First Steps On The Meaning of the Riot th Most historians who have studied the riot have argued that it was not a significant precursor to the political movements that would take place in the Bahamas over the next few decades.The riot, they contend, was just a momentary outburst and its effects, they suggest, are difficult to trace. Doris Johnson, its supposed, was mistaken when she exposit the rioters as being consciously engaged in a struggle for their rights and suggested that the riot caused stirrings in the hearts of the poor and the not-so-poor Bahamians? that ultimately led to political and social change in the Bahamas. One witness to the riot, Etienne Dupuch, the editor of a local report and a person long thought to be in exigency? ith the social attitudes of the Bahamian people argued that the riot was the natural outcome of the shrink economic, political and social policies pursued by a small but dominant political group in this colony during the last quarter century.? Similarly, Hughes has described the riot as a momentary outburst of raw energy.? 23 22 And, Saunders, agreeing with both Dupuch and Hughes, has called the riot a pitiful lived spontaneous outburst by a group of disgruntled labourers < *that+ occurred against a dry land of press socio-economic and political policies.?If the riot, however, was the opening crash in the battle for majority rule in the Bahamas can we fairly describe it as a momentary or short-lived outburst? Likewise, is it fair to blame the riot on a group of disgruntled workers when many of the rioters were not machine-accessible with the project? And, finally, is it accurate to describe the system of exploitation and oppression that hemmed in much of the black majority and privileged the Bay Street oligarchs as simply narrow socio-economic and political policies? As noted above, Saunders claims that the sentiments which render the riot were short-lived.? Black anger,? he contends, erupted spontaneously? and then quick died.? Similarly, Hughes has called the riot a momentary outburst.? To be sure, the riot was just a two-day affair hostilities began the morning of June 1st, 1942 and by the afternoon of Tuesday, June 2 , 1942 the rioting and looting was over. Even if one includes the small demonstration at Oakes Field on the preceding sunlightday, the 1942 riot was still (in one horse sense at least) a brief distur bance. Still, it would be a mistake to describe the riot as just a momentary eruption. The riot was an important first step in the popular movement that would envelope the Bahamas in decades to come.The racial and political consciousness which fueled the quiet revolution in the Bahamas was ripened during this disturbance. And, as we argued elsewhere, processes of identity convergency and identity construction were legitimately at work during the riot. continues to be a powerful symbol of black agency and has been referenced again and again in the political struggles of Bahamian blacks, relived in songs, sermons and speeches. Admittedly, its difficult to sail through the beginning of any movement. Did the Civil Rights movement in the related States begin with the landmark Brown versus the Topeka Board of Education decision in 1954?Or, did it begin a year later with the Dr. Martin Luther King led capital of Alabama Alabama bus boycott? Or, did it begin twenty five years earlier du ring the 1919 red summer riots? These were among the first race riots in U. S. where blacks offered a unified response. Similarly, did the South African Civil Rights movement begin in 1976 with the Soweto riots or did it begin with the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960? Each of these is arguably a valid start date for these movements. If we can never be certain about when a movement starts, however, we can perhaps be sure-footed about when a movement is clearly underway.Although the political awareness and willingness to take on the Bay Street oligarchs that Bahamian blacks evidenced during the riot would be increasingly evident in subsequent years, they were rarely exhibited before the riot. The 1937 riot in Matthew Town, Inagua and the 1935 labor disturbance at Roland T. Symonettes Prince George Hotel are two possible exceptions. But, even with these there are more differences than similarities. Although the 1937 riot snarly violent attacks on members of the white merchant ramify by members of the black working class, it resulted from a personal vendetta,? nvolved less than a handful of blacks and failed to develop into a political or labour riot.? The 1935 disturbance did involve between three and four hundred men but it resulted from their being discontented that they could not find employment and there was no destruction of property or loss of life. With the possible exception of the semiannual Junkanoo festivals, when whites gave blacks permission to graze free on Bay Street and veiled complaints were sometimes expressed, there was no time prior to the 1942 riot when blacks ventured into the white oligarch controlled city center to openly voice their dissatisfaction with the local uling elect. Additionally, processes of identity convergence and construction were seemingly at work during the riot. Identity convergence is the process by which an one-on-one uses participation in group activity as a way of pursuing goals and behaving in ways that are consi stent with his individual sense of self. Identity construction is the process through which personal identities are line up with the collective identity of a movement to which he belongs. The riot was an opportunity for blacks to express their dissatisfaction with the merchant prince dominated socio-economic system and to demand change.For many of the rioters, Greens bold declaration Ise a man? explained and justified their actions. They had no choice but to stand up. The protest and riot was their opportunity to stand up. The riot also had a transformative effect on the black population in the Bahamas. It is worth repeating that before the riot, black Bahamian resistance to the white merchants political and economic hegemony was muted at best. The riot was a very public metamorphosing of the black laboring class in the Bahamas from docile and compliant to active and defiant.This change would be notable in popular song and political speeches. There are several folk songs that refe rence the riot including Dont Burn pop up Burma Road? and Going Down Burma Road.? The Project was divided between two sites, Main Field and Satellite Field, and the workers called the road between the two sites, which was used primarily to transport workers and equipment back and forth, Burma Road after the Burma Road in Southeast Asia that connected British Burma to China. The popular Going Down Burma Road? with its haunting refrain dont lick nobody? s so closely connected with the riot that some participants insists that it was sang by the rioting crowd even though the evidence show they were smooth much later on. As Hughes described, the riot provided martyrs and a heroic moment? for Bahamian blacks. Just four year after the riot, for instance, H. H. Brown, a Wesleyan minister, asked his congregation to take responsibility for their government. To punctuate his point, he harkens back to the riot. That a people have the kind of government that it deserves goes without saying. A criticism of the local government is therefore a criticism of the entire population.Until people waken to their own responsibilities, they will not have a answerable government. But nothing can possibly justify the attempt of any government to keep the people asleep. Who has contemplateed the lesson of the (1942) riot? Similarly, Randol Fawkes begins a speech 13 years after the riot with these words Remember the first of June, 1942.? And, in the 1990s when Sir Lynden Pindling, often referred to as the father of the nation,? was summing up the road to self-determination in the Bahamas, he began his history with the Burma Road Riot. When the great heroes of our struggle < stood on Burma Road,? he intoned, they did not stand alone. When they stood in the General Strike < against the property vote < for the womans vote < with the trade unionists < *and+ for majority rule, they did not stand alone.? The effect of the riot on the ruling elite was also not short-lived. Althou gh only moderate reforms were passed in response to the riot, the ruling elite did not forget that these docile polite Bahamians could be turned other if provoked. As Sherouse explains, the threat of mob violence surely impacted those in power.To forestall more radical change, white leaders made minor political adjustments.? It might appear that very little came out of the riot legislatively Colin Hughes, Race and Politics in the Bahamas, 212-213. Rev H. H. Brown, sermon at Governors Harbour, Eleuthera, January 14, 1946 quoted in Phil Cash, Shirley Gordon and Gail Saunders, eds. , Sources of Bahamian History (London MacMillan Caribbean, 1991) 291. Rosalie Fawkes, ed. , Labour Unite or Perish The Writings that Launched A Movement by Sir Randol Fawkes, ((Florida Dodds Printing, 2004), 2. Patricia Beardsley Roker, ed.The muckle of Sir Lyndon Pindling In His Own Words, (Nassau Bahamas The Estate of Lyndon Pindling, 2002), 163. Scott Sherouse, Authority and Stratification in the Bahama s The Quest for Legitimacy? (Ph. D. diss. , Florida Inter discipline University, 2004), 56. but the minor reforms that did result sent a great signal. A chink in the armor of Bay Street had appeared. They were now making concessions when before such demands would have been contemned out of hand. The riot impressed upon the Bay Street Boys the understanding that they could not hold the space of Bay Street as their own domain, to be contract out one or two days a year.Although the riot certainly grew out of a wage dispute, several of the people who rioted and looted on Bay Street in the morning and Grants Town that afternoon and evening were not directly affiliated with the Project. Moreover, the Project laborers who were involved in the riot were lashing out at more than unfair wages. As the workers marched from Main Field to Bay Street, women, children and men not affiliated with the Project, joined in and participated fully in the events that transpired.As Oswald Moseley an agent for the Sun Life Insurance Company of Canada who witnessed the events reported, there were lots of women in the crowd and they were inciting the men on and the women to my mind started the looting, which the men joined.? And, I saw a woman getting into a window and walking about wrong the store making a selection of his stuff.? Cartwright similarly insisted that most of the looting was done by the youngsters and women. I saw a girl come with a stick and she smashed a window which had not been broken, then she ran away, then she came back and took what she wanted out of this window she had broken.? McKenzie ikewise testified that young men and women made up the crowd? that he saw rioting on June 2 Ironically, because the riot was so heavy on the minds of the ruling elite, they banned the semiannual celebration of Junkanoo in which people from over the hill claimed Bay Street in a loud and boisterous parade. The crowd also seemed to be broadly representative of the black working cla ss population in the Bahamas. The Bahamas is an archipelago with dozens of inhabited islands besides the chief island, saucy Providence, which hosts the Bahamas capital city, Nassau. It is noteworthy that the crowds, although drawn mainly from the over-the-hill? rea, contained individuals who were originally from these place Islands.? Although a resident of Grants Town, Bertram Cambridge insisted that the rioters were all strangers? to him and that they were people from the out islands who were quite unfamiliar to him and must have come over to get work at the project.? It is also noteworthy that the crowd contained both ingenious and lubberly workers. An effort to establish a broadly representative union just a few years before the riot had failed to launch because skilled workers would not participate. The riot was, thus, the first time that a ross-section of blacks from all over the Bahamas stood together in a common cause. And, again, that common cause was not just higher wa ges, though that was their prompt concern. They were more broadly concerned, however, with economic justice they were receiving unequal pay for equal work. American workers were getting paid as much as 4 times more than Bahamian workers for doing the some jobs. As Dupuch powerful observed, the difference in wages paid to Bahamian and American employees at the Project provided scope for considerable storm which was greatly accentuated< The average erson doesnt usually grumble about his wages if they are reasonably fair, but no one appreciates being accustomed a lower human valuation when he is doing the same work along side a person of a different nationality or race. When it was announced that their would be a construction development on New Providence that would employ over two thousand laborers, men from the let on Islands which were poor and agrarian flocked to the capital. Tariffs, hurricanes, droughts and blight made once profitable crops hardly able to sustain the aver age farmer.Oscar Johnson, a produce agent turned tailor, told the Select Committee that in 1928, however, a tariff was put on which prevented us from importing our tomatoes to the United States. It was then necessary to get a new market and I then represented Canadian firms send the tomatoes to Canada. We had a number of hurricanes intermittently about 1932 and in between them we had droughts.? Witnesses of the riot affirm the fact that many of the rioters were not from over the hill, but were from the Out Islands. Moreover, some list the overpopulation caused by Out Islanders seeking a recrudesce life in Nassau as one of the reasons for the riot.Thaddeus Johnson, a proprietor of a place where labor congregated, supports Dupuch supposition. When the Americans took over the project,? he testified, < there was considerable dissatisfaction over the wages. The workmen figured it this way. They figured that this was an American job. They expected much bigger wages than the Nassau stan dard. No one seemed able to explain to the workmen why they could not receive the American wage. The American wage on the other side of Florida is very high, but I think that the workmen had in their minds at least two or three dollars a day.This was an issue of fairness. base on how they had been mistreated in the past by the white merchant class in the colony, the workers understandably assumed that the Bay Street merchants were responsible for this inequality. During the riot, Bahamian blacks were lashing out at their unfair wages and all the other injustices. There was also a matter of subsistence. Wages in general had not increased on par with the cost of living and it was difficult to survive on the wages they were being offered at the Project. This was especially the case because this was temporary employment.It was easier to stomach making smaller wages if they were besotted wages. As Bruce Johnson, an insurance agent with clients all over Nassau, reports, the workmen were finding it harder and harder to get along owing to the increased cost of living.? When Leonard Storr Green realized that he would only receive 4 shillings a day determined that he would need a better paying job because we cantlive on four shillings a day now according to the prices in the stores.? Moreover, the riot (and the desire for equal and sufficient wages) seems to have been related to their desires for full citizenship.Bahamians are very expressive people and have a wealth of folk Evidence of Richard John Anderson Farrington, The Russell Commission, 271. The crowd was unaware that the wages were fixed by London and Washington and assumed that it was the colonial powers that were keeping them from getting what was due them. In Samuel Cartwrights barbershop on Friday May 29th, Americans from the project were discussing the project generally and the price of labour. They said that the company wanted to pay higher wages to the working people here but the government and the bay street merchants had been hindering this payment of higher wages.?Evidence of songs from which the workers could have chosen as they marched to Bay Street. They could have kept cadence with the goatskin drum or many other traditional percussion instruments. Instead of choosing ethnic instruments or songs, however, the workers chose ultranationalistic songs, songs of the British Empire, as their songs of protest. One observer, Oscar Johnson, a tailor on Bay Street, remembers that it was a large crowd of people marching down George Street singing Well never let the old Flag Fall and that intermingled with the patriotic songs some were saying, we want more wages.?These two, patriotic songs and a cry for more wages were intermingled because the laborers did not see these two sentiments as being inconsistent with one another. With their songs they appealed to their rights as Englishmen. Perhaps here we can learn from Benedict Andersons work on nations and nation-ness?. Anderson explains that nations are imagined communities? because they picture ties that connect the citizenry together over long distances and through time. Of the things that connect people together few are fonder than national symbols such as national anthems. No matter how banal the words and mediocre the tunes,? Anderson explains, there is in this singing an experience of simultaneity. At precisely such moments, people wholly unknown to each other utter the same verses to the same melody. The double unisonance< the echoed physical realization of the imagined community.? The same holds true for other national symbols such as the flag or the coat of arms they also serve as realizations of imagined community. Interestingly, there were two incidents where imperial symbols were attacked.One was the burning of the picture of the violet family by Alfred Stubbs, one of the rioters. The second was the burning of the English flag. Napoleon McPhee offered a poignant explanation for his behavior. I wi lling to fight under the flag,? he explained, I willing even to die under the flag, but I aint gwine starve under the flag.? While appealing to their rights as subjects of the crown they were also distancing themselves from the crown showing their alienation from the imperial structure which had not ensured the justice that they sought. They were British subjects but they were dissatisfied British subjects.Just like the smashing and looting of Bay Street was an attack against the economic berth quo, the desecrating of nationally symbolic objects was a political attack. An attack that was not meant to reject British citizenship but to claim the protection and the rights of a British colonial. Again, it is substantive that when they did not get any satisfaction from their employers, they marched to the center of government in the country, the Parliament Building and the Colonial Office. Beyond concerns for economic justice and political empowerment, the rioters were concerned with t he lack of racial equality in the colony.Although the Russell Commission reason out that the riot had nothing to do with the question of race, the Duke of Windsor who had called for the Commission was certain that their was strong racial feelings on both sides? and that Bahamas wage rates was only an palliate to make a vigorous and noisy protest against the white population.? As Saunders states, racial tension was an underlying cause of the riot.? On Bay Street, the rioters did not target black owned stores. Harry S. Blacks confect Kitchen, one of the few black owned stores on Bay Street, was not looted. And, as Craton and Saunders report, the damage was not indiscriminate such shops as those owned by the Speaker of the Assembly and the wife of one of the white Project supervisors were almost gutted, but the shoe store owned by Percy Christie, the white would-be labor organizer, was left untouched.? Additionally, the rioters were openly hostile to the whites that they encountered. Speaking of the crowd, John Damianos, a grocery merchant on Bay Street said, My legal tender was that when they saw a white face they were particularly infuriated and I think it had reached a point which was largely motivated by some racial feelings.I have never seen anything like this before.? Roland Cumberhatch also overhead the mob proclaim, no white man is passing here today.? It is a plebeian understatement to describe the set of socio-economic and political norms that existed in the Bahamas during the first half of the ordinal century as merely a collection of narrow policies. The policies were narrow to be sure and certainly favored the merchant princes. But, they amounted to a very real and complete (if relatively mild) system of apartheid. In 1942, blacks in the Bahamas were clearly second class citizens in the colony.And, most blacks depended on the whites oligarchs for the livelihoods. As Dr. Claudius baby carriage complained before the Russell Commission in 1942, in the Bahamas t he grim man makes all the concessions. I challenge any man in this colony to say that I am wrong in that. The colored man is discriminated against in the churches, in the theatres, in the private schools.? If there is consent between the black and white populations, Dr Walker went on to say, it is harmony at the expense of the coloured population.? Saunders confirms Dr. Walkers claim. In fact, until the late 1950s,? he states, blacks were barred from all hotels, were not allowed in some restaurants, movie houses and were only allowed to enter some churches by the rear door. Certain schools did not accept black children and many business firms were closed to them as places of employment.? Racial disparity was the norm. Racial animosity was quite commonplace. Racial prejudice was the order of the day. An almost indelible line divided the black and white communities in New Providence. Most of the blacks were very poor and lived outside the city center in the over-the -hill? ommunities like Bain Town and Grants Town. These communities, located to the south of Bay Street and separated from the city center by a small hill, were settled by liberated Africans and ex-slaves in the nineteenth century. As was the case since emancipation one hundred years earlier, blacks worked but never lived in the white areas from Bay Street to Montague. Segregation not so pronounced The Bay Street oligarchs also controlled the country politically and economically. Klaw has described them as a dozen or so Nassau merchants, lawyers, and real -estate brokers who are < *named after+ the street here they have their shops and offices < *and are+ in firm control of the Bahamas government, running it with a free hand.? Similarly, Themistocleous has called them the merchant princes of Nassau with one hundred-plus years of hegemony < over non-white groups.? The Report of the 1942 Commission of Enquiry into the riot has likewise described them as elected representatives, who are collectively known as Bay Street, (in which street or its immediate neighbourhood all the twenty-nine members of the House of Assembly except two have their places of business).?not surprisingly, whites were generally unaware of how dissatisfied Bahamian blacks were with this system that privileged whites and bound blacks. Surprise was their most common reaction to the riot. For instance, Morton Turtle testified, I was out(p) to find that the crowd felt hostile towards me. < I have unendingly felt in sympathy with the labourers and given them a good wages.? Similarly, Etienne Dupuch stated, The riot came as a complete surprise to me.I never thought that our people could be agitated to the point of rioting because they have always enjoyed the desirable reputation of being patient docile and law-abiding.? J. P. Sands spoke for many when he said, I thought that everybody in the island was quite happy until about 8 oclock on June 1st.? The riot, then, occurred against a ba ckdrop of extreme racial oppression and is correctly understood as an expression of black dissatisfaction with the prevailing social, economic and political order. The white oligarchs never quite understood the depths of black discontent with the existing system.Although able to pacify the majority black population for a time, passing labor union legislation, extending the secret vote to the Out Islands, and the series of concessions that were made in the years after the riot did not placate the black masses once and for all. Nothing short of majority rule, the white oligarchs would find out in subsequent years, could quit the black population. IV. Conclusion Although the 1942 riot has been described as a tonality event in the political development of the Bahamas, scholars have consistently downplayed its significance.Hughes, for instance, has described the riot as a momentary outburst of raw energy? that provided martyrs and a heroic moment? to Bahamian blacks once a political m ovement had finally started.? Similarly, Saunders has suggested that black anger < erupted spontaneously and then quickly died.? The reason that they discount the significance of the riot, we believe, is because they focus too intently of its immediate socio-economic and political consequences. Since little on the surface changed in the aftermath of the riot, they reason out that the riot did not change much in the Bahamas.In a sense, they are correct. The Bay Street oligarchs barely loosened their grip on social, political and economic life in the country after the disturbance. And, it took two and a half decades for the majority black Progressive Liberal Party to pinch political control from the Bay Street merchant princes. This preoccupation with immediate effects, however, obscures the true importance of the riot. In our view, it cannot be reduced to a short lived spontaneous outburst by a group of disgruntled labourers < *that+ occurred against a background of narrow soci o-economic and political policies.?First, we see it as the opening skirmish in the battle for majority rule in the Bahamas. The political awareness and willingness to take on the Bay Street oligarchs that Bahamian blacks evidenced during the riot was rarely exhibited before the riot. After the riot, evidence of their political awakening was quite obvious. Second, the anger vented by the rioters was reflective of the dissatisfaction felt by the entire black working class not just the workers on the Project.As Sir Randol Fawkes correctly surmised, when that mob marched on that early June morning, they took upon their shoulders the common burdens of all Bahamians.? And, finally, their fight was not against an inadequate welfare system but against a system that ladened the black majority in the Bahamas and privileged the Bay Street oligarchs. The riot set in motion a political snowball that would result in a movement whose final triumph would be majority rule and the dismantling of th e system of apartheid that inhibited Bahamian blacks socially, politically and economically.