West Indian color hierarchy made the merchant-planter class refuse mixing with black soldiers

Evidence

In Trinidad the press used the term “better class” to describe the whites and the lighter-complexioned mulattos who constituted the merchant and planter class. In Barbados the term used was “the best class.” When enlistment of recruits started in 1915 the “better class” young men throughout the British West Indies refused to join, except as officers, in the same contingents as the black soldiers. Arthur An-drew Cipriani, a Corsican creole who was leading the campaign for recruits complained that “our better class young men are shirking” from joining the public contingents “because of the lamentable question of colour which lies at the bottom of everything in these parts.” … Some “better class” soldiers came to London and joined British regiments, the majority joined with “better class” soldiers in the other colonies to form the Merchants’ and Planters’ Contingent. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1185

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in class stratification within colonial populations and echoes the color-class hierarchy themes from the Black radical tradition arc.