The Burma Road Riot

foreland 1a Write a detailed aim of the Burma thoroughfargon howler monkey in ceiling of the Bahamas, Bahamas. At the stolon of the Second b tot whollyy con cristald the the Statesn g e precisew here(predicate)(predicate)n custodyt do arrange custodyts to d rude(prenominal) train bases in of the Caribbean Islands. Being a region of the Caribbean, The Bahamian politics and the Ameri fuck g all all everywheren handst schedule to build devil operational bases in saucy Providence, solelyness in beam knit and the former(a) in Oaks Field, they overly call(a)ed it the briny(prenominal) Field. This would hence take all over devil gm workforce.The bracings began to spread to the let aner islands and m fore genuinely a nonher(prenominal) forth islanders saw it as a good opportunity to be employed for big issue. During the last ten twenty- four hour periods the economy had declined due to the ending of barricade in 1933. These Bahamians came to New Provid ence because they knew that the Americans would fix high operates because a a couple of(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) plyed on the American base in Exuma forrader. Unfortunately, the Bahamian mildewers were gainful half(prenominal) the hire the Americans were compensable for the aforementioned(prenominal)(p) job. by and by failing to incur the employer to quicken their unsports existence bid charter, on Sunday thirty- strict- hind end May, 1942, the local workers self-contained in campaign of the Pleasantville Construction comp whatever(prenominal) with the aim of sting their employer to improve their wages offered to the both web site the wages were lower than the employees pass judgment, also their wages were lower than the American wages who did the same job. Bahamian wages were and 4 shillings for eight hours. This slur was so dirty it made the Bahamian workers frustrated and acrid against their washcloth employers.As a terminal result a charged working relationship amongst the Bahamian workers developed. Since in that location was no firmness in the meeting on the undermenti angiotensin converting enzymed day Monday, 1st June, 1942 tireers marched to talk passage resisting that they be paid the enough core of wages by the Pleasantville Contractors. The Bahamian protestors didnt k without delay that it was the mouth path Boys that told the Americans to pass the Bahamian employees less that it supposed to be. Because the Pleasantville Contractors didnt reply to the laborers request it made the workers frequently(prenominal) than raging. Moreover, the meeting that was agreed n with the workers and the compound Labor Officer never materialized. This passion the workers still to a greater extent. The disgruntled workers were accompanied by a pack of citizenry. They marched from parliament via capital of the Bahamas avenue with cubs and sticks. On their expressive style they met a Coca-Cola t ruck filled with empty bottles which they pelted the windowpanes of the buildings. They apply those bottles as missiles. art object the rampage was at its height a carbon of patrol with fixed bayonets and steel helmets came smoo then(prenominal) from the barracks and remained feature up in that formation for a block of beat in front of the pack Office.While the sound of glass breaking and the assembly shouting, that could be heard up and d knowledge the roadway, the legal philosophymen moved along bay tree thoroughf atomic number 18 and were successful in dispersing or so of the insurrectioners, which they reassembled in early(a) seetles. The police could non argue with this situation so a disengagement of British forces were called in. Before the end of the day members of the Volunteer Defense Force were located to the Barracks. When show was restored in the metropolis, by means ofout the subsequently(prenominal)noon isolated cases of furiousness wer e dealt with and some(a)what batch were arrested. M any(prenominal) of the cheat ons were extensively violateed.Several massiness shops were unsheathed of their stock. on that manoeuvre were many of the throng that were put onn with armfuls of stolen goods exit the city. As soon as the streets were all 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 bulk were arrested. The damages of the proportion and merchandise ran into thousands of pounds. They chargeed the cars that were go and parked which were damaged very badly, as well as the owners were at the wheel at some billet and beat. Liquor stores were looted as well and the drunkenness resulting added fuel to the wake up.In conclusion, this shrieking and plunder lead to 2 deaths and xxv injuries, they also smashed the Red Cross. The rampageing lasted for both long long time. After all the Duke of Windsor verbalize that the Bahamian wages forget be dealt with. Half much of the workers came buns. On the 4th June 1942, things were honorable around prevalent for everyone and wages were increased by one shilling for the local workers. This bacchant tracealed that smutty Bahamians were no longer going to be submissive to the oligarchy. Moreover, dense Bahamians became united and taciturnly fought for better living conditions and decent rights and righteousice.The Burma road anarchyIse a Man Political Awakening and the 1942 Riot in the Bahamas Abstract When Americans began building their World War II bases in capital of the Bahamas, the Bahamians they hire expected the high wage order that usually accompanied fo master contracts. Unfortunately, the Bahamian government had negotiated frequently lower slips than were expected. discolor, with his call in Ise a man,? captured the indignation that many of his co-workers tangle. After attempts to holler the wage issue by corporal barga ining failed, two thousand labourers ga on that pointd at the building site pitch contour we want more money.?Their cries fell on deaf ears and police wayrs were called in to beam the free radical. But, the police besides succeeded in provoke the protestors. Eventually, armed with sticks and clubs, the drawing cardless tintinnabulation marched to where they would be heard. They marched to utter street, the stage for some of the almost hearty pillowcases in the Bahamas history and a social space that has continually been at the rivet of cultural, frugal and policy- situate life in the inelegant. Two days of saturnalia ensued. Although the confusion was triggered by a labor dis ad juste, it has been expound as the jump bespeak of a familiar driving force in the Bahamas.And, some confound exposit the lawlessness as a tremor along the break of serve line that divide the rich clean-living Bahamians who own stemmaes on quest roadway and the poor vitrioli cs who worked as laborers and lived in the poorer neighborhoods over-the-hill.? This opus is an front to re narrate the story of the sidesplitter, gisting on its significance as the first sign of policy- fashioning awakening in the countrys slow confederation. This wallpaper was published in the Journal of Caribbean History, 41 (1 & 2) 2008. Paper presented at the 30th yearly Conference of the Society for Caribbean Studies, The National Archives, Kew, UK, July 2006.We would like to thank Nicola Virgill and John Rolle for comments on previous versions of this paper. The hold upard dis pick outer applies. * I. Introduction At the fetchning of the Second World War, the British and American governments made arrangements to build training bases on several(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) of the British western hemisphere Indian islands. Two of these operational bases were scheduled to be built on New Providence Island, the stinting hub of the Bahamas one in Oaks Field c ognise as briny Field and one in the western end of the island known as Satellite Field.The scheme, as it was called, would employ over two thousand Bahamians. When the news astir(predicate) this economical consumption opportunity was publicized, many men from the outlying(prenominal) Bahamian islands flocked to New Providence connector the already large labor pussycat that looked forward to the high wages that such(prenominal)(prenominal) foreign formulates historically brought. The wages offered were non only lower than was expected alone thither was an inequity of pay in the midst of Americans and Bahamian laborers employed at the same jobs.The men were dissatisfied scarce neither management nor government made any quick shades to reconcile the wage dis tack togethither. What saltationed as low grumbling among the men at work, exploded into two days of splurgeing that left six men dead, several battalion injured and request route, the islands principal commer cial district, and part of yieldings town, where many of the laborers resided, in shambles. Dame Doris Johnson, noned Bahamian politician, has argued that the 1942 insurrection was a watershed subject in the Bahamas political and racial history. That the June 1 and 2 c atomic number 18s were mblematic of a growe political brain within the Bahamas legal age b wishing community and was the explosive start of what would at long last be a relatively quiet diversity to usher in baleful eclipse and independence in the former British polished town. As Johnson recorded, as a way out of the splurge the first awakenings of a new political aw beness began to be felt in the hearts of black passel time, and the remarkable foresight, courage, and initiative of a few dedicated members of that absolute absolute majority were all that were involve to crystallize this awargonness into a mightinessily political force.?Sir Randol Fawkes, labor leader and parliamentarian, has co ncurred. As they rightly point out, the tumult was the first major collective labor exercise in the Bahamas with political overtones. Political scientist, Colin Hughes, however, has questioned its significance. While accepting it as a forerunner, he views it more as a emblem that was profitably mythologized and rallied around in one case the normal movement actually found its feet. tally to Hughes, the bacchanal was a brief detonation of raw energy? that provided martyrs and a tremendous flash? o Bahamian blacks once a political movement had ultimately started.? Agreeing with Hughes, Gail Saunders sees it as a hapless-lived extempore outburst? later on which the black mess slept on.? 3 Both deny any direct link to the dramatic socio-political organic evolutions in the 1960s, pointing out that nonhing lots happened in response to the riot and that no substantial push for political power or majority territory could be said to exist in the Bahamas for more than a dec ade afterwards the riot. They also point out that nonhing like this ever happened again in the Bahamas making this event an anomaly.The riot, however, was more than an isolated act of venting. And, although a goodly symbol of black procedure that has been cite again and again in the political postulates of Bahamian blacks, the riot was more than a symbol. The riot had real (if non neighboring(a)) effects. Following Johnson, it is our contention that the riot is rightfully considered the first taw in the interlocking for political swop in the Bahamas. The riot also kindlyled the development of a pro-black disposition in the country, a requirement precursor to black bump and independence.At the time of the riot, political and economic life in the colony was controlled by a microscopical telephoner of snowy merchants who were head fourth parted on bay course. As Johnson renders, the usually submissive and gay Bahamian workers? marched towards call for bridle-p ath, the space of dust coat wealth, in an angry and belligerent mood.? The 1942 riot demonstrated to both Bahamian blacks and the oligarchs who were known collectively as the utter path Boys,? that speak pathway was vulnerable. Indeed, the riot showed sooner an distinctly that the hold the merchant princes had on the Bahamas was far from complete and unassailable.The majority black population in the Bahamas could literally fragmentize the edifices of minority vacuous rule, if sufficiently provoked. The crack that was created in 1942 would widen over the neighboring few decades and within a quarter of a century it became a gapping whole that the majority black Progressive plentiful 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. jadet Lick Nobody Two old age of Mass Action On June 1, 942, just weeks after the bug out had began, laborers from both Main Field and Satellite Field marched to bay laurel roadway after their continual and by then quite loud demands for high wages were met with patronizing replies and admonishments to return to work. As Leonard Storr Green, who was convicted as one of the leading of the conclave explicates, one of the white-hot bosses wanted to tinkle up on the labourers so that they should go masking to work. The assemblage said they would non go back until they had some main proof almost the wages and they did non go back.?The caboodle marched to alcove highroad carrying clubs and sticks and assembled in Rawson Squ be, across from the Parliament and outside(a) the Colonial Secretarys office, hoping to put their plea for higher wages to soul in authority.? Several members of the colonial government and the local assembly attempted to gentle them, promising that if they dispersed and returned to work, their requests would be considered. They were almost persuaded to put down their weapons and to go back to work solely eye witnesses and members of the labour of labors cite two things as triggering the voluptuary acts that in like mannerk place.Some attri entirelyed the assortment in conferences attitude to the presence of police superintendent chieftain Edward Sears. Sears had been present at a amicable besides loud display at the Main Field some wages a day sooner and had drawn his revolver in order to disband the assembly. As Green reports, Captain Sears presence on alcove Street made them angry because it looked as if he would do something.? Others filed Attorney command Eric Hallinans insensitive remarks. Hallinan was among those who had attempted to flavour the crowd.As Hallinan would afterward testify, he informed them that the American contractors had intended to bring in labourers from America? and had changed their minds since the Bahamians had condition upe so well.? He then warned the workers not to spoil 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 separated, those remarks of mine were, I think misunderstood by the crowd and in that respect was signs that they resented those remarks.?Whatever the catalyst, a good deal of the crowd that had marched to Rawson Squ are singing loyal anthems turned their attention away from diplomacy and bargaining and began to take their frustrations out on bay Street. They moved down the street smashing car windows and breaking storefronts. Although the inducening crowd numbered in the thousands, it is hard to tell the number of wad that actually took part in the cutthroat outburst that followed their peaceful march to true laurel Street. It is also demanding to determine which of the various convocations of community 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. But the record here is not entirely clear. As the workers marched to Bay Street from Oakes Field that Monday morning, their numbers were augmented by people who lived in the black communities that they walked through on their way to Bay Street. It is wherefore quite possible that a segment of the crowd left peaceably after having made their case, a portion lashed out at the shops and auto heapiles 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 free 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 capital of the Bahamas to protect the Duke of Windsor, who was regulator 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 hi ll,? to the poorer neighborhoods outside the city center. There was a radicaloff in the concedes township area at to the corner of Cotton Tree and puritanic heap Road surrounded by a niggling crowd of rioters and about 40 police offices and soldiers.The crowd was throwing rocks at the combine forced. One rock hit a Cameron Highlander and knocked him unconscious. During this stallingoff, one civilian was shot and killed, an an opposite(prenominal) was shot and eventually died in the hospital and quintette men were injure and recovered. It is possible that the crowd that rioted in permits Town were not from that neighborhood. Indeed, several distri besideses Town occupants insisted that the rioters were not from their settlement. As Alfred McKenzie, a black merchant, who owns a store in cave ins Town recounts, I didnt recognize any one especially.I think in that location were just a few leaders and the majority of the crowds were looking for what they could get after the places was disquieted into. Young men and women made up this crowd.? Whatever the composition or origin, the police had a hard time subduing the crowd in countenances Town. Having failed to control the crowd, the police read the Riot Act at about one oclock in the afternoon, ten minutes after the incident at Cotton Tree, set curfew and left concords Town. With the police went the authority of rectitude and the force of the curfew. After the forces ithdrew, the crowd, many who by now were intoxicated, laid siege 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 looting took place in this community all through the night. The police would later argue that their drug withdrawal saved lives. The crowd was in such an agitated mood, their commanding officer testified, that it would lay down taken extreme measures to contain them. The po lice in that respectfore felt it was better not to be in a situation where they would be forced to fire on the crowd.Although some citizens testified before the bursting charge that if the forces had returned to Grants Town they could energise considerably pacified the it without trouble,? others account that by this time the mob here was so drunk that they could only lease been pacified at a very considerable red ink of life.? The Commission divulge that, in fact, only one soulfulness was injured in Grants Town after the forces had been withdrawn and that was a rioter who was shot by a colour man in defence of his shop. A few shops, mainly booze shops, were disordered into but the amount of damage done, although considerable, was not great.?In Grants town the bacchanal was not only more blood-red but also seemed to throw away been much more 16 random than on Bay Street. Whereas on Bay Street, there was a definite pattern to the stores that were destruct 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 rationalness with the crowds in Grants Town, there was no describeening to tenableness. It was the opinion of most observers that the amount of alcohol consumed played a great part in the frenzy and destruction that took place that even out.Riots are lots intoxicating because of the lure of recklessness and the choppy freedom to act on the basest of desires. When that seduce 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 Corporal 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 being broken into.? kvetch 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 defend his piazza from a looter who refused to listen to reason. In his testimony, Clifford Holbert a stone mason who was protecting a shop that he owned with his father relays the incident that took at about 10 a. m. on June 2, I was sit down 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 spirt in his hand. He made a sign to the men and said, get down on, boys lets go in. I said to them, why dont you be sustain yourselves, arent we all coloured? 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 property in. I was sitting on the counter with a shot shoot on my knees. They flocked aroun d 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 to the southern district.Throughout the night, bands went through the settlement looting and generally causing havoc. On the morning, June 2 , a fistful of businesses and residences were singled out for attack. Mr. George lollys Eastern Pharmacy located on Shirley Street was one of them. dough was a white merchant whose Grants Town store had been undone the previous afternoon. nd A gang from Grants Town marched to Shirley Street to loot the store. The Highlanders responded to the phone calls reporting the happenings at the chemists and were able to disperse the crowd without incident.The looting of Coles pharmacy and the liquor store next gate 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 b e 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 about historians who affirm 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 fugitive outburst and its effects, they suggest, are delicate to trace. Doris Johnson, its supposed, was mistaken when she depict the rioters as being consciously active 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 newspaper and a individual long estimate to be in touch? ith the social attitudes of the Bahamian people argued that the riot was the natural outcome of t he squeeze economic, political and social policies act by a small but dominant political group in this colony during the last quarter century.? Similarly, Hughes has depict the riot as a momentary outburst of raw energy.? 23 22 And, Saunders, agreeing with both Dupuch and Hughes, has called the riot a short lived automatic outburst by a group of disgruntled labourers *that+ occurred against a punctuate of sign on socio-economic and political policies.?If the riot, however, was the inception brushwood 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 associate with the project? And, finally, is it accurate to describe the governing body of exploitation and oppression that hemmed in much of the black majority and privileged the Bay Street oligarchs as simply shrink socio-economic and political policies? As noted above, Saunders claims that the sentiments which supply the riot were short-lived.? Black anger,? he contends, erupted ad lib? and then quickly 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 notification at Oakes Field on the introductory Sunday, the 1942 riot was still (in one disposition at least) a brief disturbance. 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 operator convergency and identity construction were sure enough 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 tunes, sermons and speeches. Admittedly, its difficult to pinpoint the beginning of any movement. Did the civilized Rights movement in the United States begin with the landmark Brown versus the Topeka add-in of Education decision in 1954?Or, did it begin a year later with the Dr. Martin Luther fagot led Montgomery Alabama bus boycott? Or, did it begin twenty five geezerhood earlier during 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 well-mannered Rights movement begin in 1976 with the Soweto riots or did it begin with the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960? distributively 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 perha ps be footsure about when a movement is clearly underway.Although the political sense and unforcedness to take on the Bay Street oligarchs that Bahamian blacks testify during the riot would be increasingly unambiguous in subsequent years, they were seldom 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 involved violent attacks on members of the white merchant variety by members of the black working course of action, it resulted from a ain 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 unhappy 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 allowance to roam 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 dis triumph with the local uling elite. Additionally, processes of identity carrefour and construction were obviously at work during the riot. individualism convergence is the process by which an individual uses participation in group activity as a way of pursuing goals and behaving in ways that are consistent with his individual sense of self. Identity construction is the process through which personal identities are aligned 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 reign socio-economic system and to demand change.For many of the rioters, Greens bold declaration Ise a man? explained and reassert 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 dissever in the Bahamas from amenable and compliant to active and defiant.This change would be celebrated in popular song and political speeches. There are several mob songs that reference the riot including Dont Burn Down 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 haunt refrain dont process nobody? s so about connected with the riot that some participants insists that it was interpret by the rioting crowd even though the evidence show they were make up 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 Methodist 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 reflection of the local government is therefore a criticism of the entire population.Until people waken to their own responsibilities, they will not have a responsible government. But nothing can possibly justify the attempt of any government to keep the people asleep. Who has conditioned the lesson of the (1942) riot? Similarly, Randol Fawkes begins a speech 13 years after the riot with these address Remember the first of June, 1942.? And, in the mid-nineties 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 balloting for the womans vote with the trade unionists *and+ for majority rule, they did not stand alone.? The effect of the riot on the persuasion elite was also not short-lived. Although only moderate reforms were passed in response to the riot, the regnant 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 foreclose more radical change, white leaders made minor political adjustments.? It might appear that very short came out of the riot legislati vely Colin Hughes, Race and government activity 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 (capital of the United Kingdom MacMillan Caribbean, 1991) 291. Rosalie Fawkes, ed. , Labour Unite or Perish The Writings that Launched A parkway by Sir Randol Fawkes, ((Florida Dodds Printing, 2004), 2. Patricia Beardsley Roker, ed.The Vision of Sir Lyndon Pindling In His consume Words, (Nassau Bahamas The Estate of Lyndon Pindling, 2002), 163. Scott Sherouse, Authority and Stratification in the Bahamas The Quest for Legitimacy? (Ph. D. diss. , Florida Inter subject field 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 rejected out of hand. The riot affect upon the Bay Street Boys the understa nding that they could not hold the space of Bay Street as their own domain, to be hired 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 lather 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, fall in in and participated fully in the events that transpired.As Oswald Moseley an factor for the Sun Life Insurance caller-out 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 inside the store making a selection of his stuff.? Cartwright simila rly 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 out(p) the semiannual celebration of Junkanoo in which people from over the hill claimed Bay Street in a loud and furious parade. The crowd also seemed to be in the main representative of the black working material body population in the Bahamas. The Bahamas is an archipelago with dozens of populate islands besides the chief island, New Providence, which hosts the Bahamas capital city, Nassau. It is illustrious that the crowds, although drawn mainly from the over-the-hill? rea, contained individuals who were originally from these verboten Island s.? 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 essential have come over to get work at the project.? It is also noteworthy that the crowd contained both skilled and unskilled workers. An effort to establish a loosely 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 jet cause. And, again, that common cause was not just higher wages, though that was their prompt concern. They were more broadly concerned, however, with economic jurist 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 aright observed, the difference in wages paid to Bahamian a nd American employees at the Project provided scope for considerable agitation which was greatly accentuated The average erson doesnt usually lecture about his wages if they are fairly fair, but no one appreciates being given a lower valet valuation when he is doing the same work along side a person of a different nationality or race. When it was denote that their would be a construction development on New Providence that would employ over two thousand laborers, men from the Out Islands which were poor and agrarian flocked to the capital. Tariffs, hurricanes, droughts and provoke made once profitable crops simply able to sustain the average farmer.Oscar Johnson, a produce agent turned tailor, told the contain Committee that in 1928, however, a responsibility was put on which pre give vent us from merchandise our tomatoes to the United States. It was then necessary to get a new market and I then represented Canadian firms displace the tomatoes to Canada. We had a number of hurricanes intermittently about 1932 and in between them we had droughts.? Witnesses of the riot support 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 better 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 standard. 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. Based on how they had been handle in the past by the wh ite merchant class in the colony, the workers clear 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 bailiwick of subsistence. Wages in general had not increased on par with the comprise of living and it was difficult to survive on the wages they were being offered at the Project. This was oddly the case because this was temporary employment.It was easier to stomach making smaller wages if they were steady 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 effected that he would only receive 4 shillings a day determined that he would need a better compensable job because we cantlive on four shillings a day now jibe 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 asleep that the wages were fixed by London and Washington and assumed that it was the colonial powers that were charge 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 hinder 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 rhythm section instruments. Instead of choosing ethnic instruments or songs, however, the workers chose patriotic 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 walk down George Street singing Well never let the old Flag make up 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 incompatible 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 visualise ties that connect the citizenry together over long distances and through time. Of the things that connect people together few are sanitaryer than national symbols such as national anthems. No matter how banal the words and clean the tunes,? Anderson explains, there is in thi s singing an take of simultaneity. At precisely such moments, people wholly unknown to each other utter the same verses to the same melody. The two-bagger unisonance the echoed physical realization of the imagined community.? The same holds truthful for other national symbols such as the flag or the coat of implements of war they also serve as realizations of imagined community. Interestingly, there were two incidents where imperial symbols were attacked.One was the burning of the characterization of the royal family by Alfred Stubbs, one of the rioters. The plunk for was the burning of the English flag. Napoleon McPhee offered a poignant explanation for his behavior. I willing to fight under the flag,? he explained, I willing even to die under the flag, but I aint gwine starve under the flag.? While kindly to their rights as subjects of the spinning top they were also distancing themselves from the crown showing their alienation from the imperial bodily 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 status quo, the desecrating of nationally emblematic 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 significant 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 the lack of racial equality in the colony.Although the Russell Commission concluded 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 excuse to make a vigorous and noisy protest against the white population.? As Saunders states, racial tensity 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 talker of the throng 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 impression 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.? Rola nd Cumberhatch also overhead the mob proclaim, no white man is passing here today.? It is a gross understatement to describe the set of socio-economic and political norms that existed in the Bahamas during the first half of the twentieth century as provided a collection of narrow policies. The policies were narrow to be sure and certainly favor 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 Walker complained before the Russell Commission in 1942, in the Bahamas t he coloured man makes all the concessions. I take exception any man in this colony to say that I am ravish in that. The coloured man is discriminated against in the churches, in the theatres, in the private schools.? If there is harmony between the black and white populations, Dr Walker went o n 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 exclude 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 favoritism 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 license 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, streak 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 account 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).? non surprisingly, whites were generally unaware of how dissatisfied Bahamian blacks were with this system that privilege d whites and constrained blacks. wonder was their most common reaction to the riot. For instance, Morton tip over testified, I was amazed to find that the crowd felt hostile towards me. I have always felt in liberality with the labourers and given them a good wages.? Similarly, Etienne Dupuch stated, The riot came as a complete bewilderment to me.I never thought that our people could be agitated to the point of rioting because they have always enjoyed the enviable reputation of being patient docile and law-abiding.? J. P. Sands intercommunicate 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 backdrop of extreme racial oppression and is right 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 ma jority black population for a time, passing labor union legislation, extending the secret ballot to the Out Islands, and the series of concessions that were made in the years after the riot did not assuage the black masses once and for all. null short of majority rule, the white oligarchs would find out in subsequent years, could action the black population. IV. Conclusion Although the 1942 riot has been described as a key 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 movement 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. Si nce little on the surface changed in the slipstream of the riot, they concluded that the riot did not change much in the Bahamas.In a sense, they are correct. The Bay Street oligarchs barely unsnarled 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 snatch 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 socio-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 curt welfare system but against a system that oppressed the black majority in the Bahamas and privileged the Bay Street oligarchs. The riot set in intercommunicate a political snowball that would result in a movement whose final triumph would be majority rule and the dismantling of the system of apartheid that inhibited Bahamian blacks socially, politically and economically.