History Class: Sugar Workers Rebel in St Kitts in 1935

Brother Khrystus V. K. Wallace, Aspiring Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis

Extracted from: http://www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk/HART.HTM#s06

On 28 January 1935 cane cutters refused to start reaping the new sugar cane crop on the Shadwell plantation, on the outskirts of Basseterre, the capital of St Kitts. The employers had offered work at 8 pence (16 cents) per ton, a rate which the workers had been forced to accept under protest for reaping the previous years' crop. News of their refusal to work spread quickly to adjoining plantations where workers also refused to start the crop. A new spirit of determination to fight for their rights spread throughout the island as groups of workers went from plantation to plantation on foot. They prevented work from starting or, in the few places where the cutting of canes had commenced, they persuaded the workers to cease work. A general strike of sugar workers very soon developed.

Workers at the island's sugar factory also came out on strike, demanding a wage increase. Their wages had been reduced by one penny in the shilling in 1930 and subsequently by a further one penny. On 29 January some 200 to 300 workers, some armed with sticks, entered the yard at Buckley's plantation. The manager and overseer ordered them to leave but they refused to do so. Stones were thrown and, either before or after the stone throwing - it is not clear when, the manager fired his gun into the crowd injuring several workers. Armed police arrived under the command of a former British Army major, but the workers refused to obey his order to disperse, demanding that the manager be arrested.

At about 6 p.m. a contingent from the local military force arrived at Buckleys. The crowd had by then swollen to four to five hundred. The Riot Act was read and the military fired into the crowd. Two labourers and the factory watchman were killed and eight others were wounded. Next day a British warship arrived and marines were landed. A period of intimidation followed. Thirty-nine strikers were arrested and six were sentenced to terms of imprisonment of from two to five years