White planters rejected free-colored aid even with the colony under siege
Evidence
In his dispatches to Washington, the Acting American Consul, Henry D. Baker, wrote from Port of Spain in December 1919 of the racial concerns he shared with Trinidad’s colonial officials: “[M]ention was made of an interview between the Governor of Trinidad and Tobago and the manager of the General Asphalt Company [where a strike was expected and Baker had in place ‘a trusted coloured employee’] in the course of which the Governor allegedly stated that the Colonial Government had no confidence in the local police force which was predominantly black and advised the asphalt and oil companies to establish a white militia. As if to show that he meant business, the Governor provided 25 rifles and 11 rounds of ammunition for use by the militia. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2352 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
Related
- British colonial authorities armed white militias to suppress Caribbean labor unrest (similarity 0.83)
Broader Connections
- Colonial planters mistrusted their own armed subordinates during native threats
#expands(0.70) - The threat of slave revolt forced whites to grant free-coloreds political rights
#contradicts(0.65) - Colonial officials distrusted the black police force and armed white militias instead
#corroborates(0.55) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2352 - United slave resistance disabled whites’ power to discipline plantations
#complicates(0.45) — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 454