Beginning in 1839, two types of villages (the village movement) emerged, the communal (independent) and proprietary (semi-independent) villages. The growth of these two types of villages evolved in the aftermath of the reaction of the former enslaved Africans to the draconian approach of the planter class which wanted to establish labor control through attachment to plantation housing and provision grounds. The ex-slaves not only rejected this approach, but petitioned the Governor (Editorial, The Royal Gazette, May 23, 1840) for the right to obtain leases to huts and provision grounds and some of them went further and pooled their resources to buy land which had become available as plantations were being abandoned.

The proprietary villages were established on the front lands of the plantations, invariably between the sea dam, the public road and the beginning of inland cultivation.⁶ These were founded as a means of continuing their attachments as laborers to particular plantations, while they mediated their independence through ownership of land. Contextually the pieces of land sold to the African population can be considered a negotiated space of freedom and independence (foremost Anthropologist of the Caribbean Peasantries, Sydney Mintz, described this phenomenon, which is endemic to the Caribbean as the space of on-going resistance and accommodation).

These villages served several purposes. First, they answered the demand of the former enslaved who wanted to own the huts and land on which they had lived as enslaved people for several decades. Second, it met their needs for sustenance as laborers on the plantations on which they had established independent residences. Third, they met the need of the planter class who wanted to attract and make secure labor arrangements. Fourth, it broke the character and culture of the earlier arrangement which had tied laborers in a continuous chattel type dispensation and offered relative comfort to both classes on any given plantation. Further, this arrangement allowed the enterprising planter to dispose of already useless land for the purpose of housing the labor needed for the plantation.⁷ This arrangement also brought much needed capital and labor to the plantation.⁸

By 1841 this movement had affected no less than eighteen plantations on the Essequibo and countless more in Demerara and Berbice.⁹ In Demerara proprietary villages were established at Providence, Craig, Supply, Brickery, Toevlugt, La Retraite, San Souci, Studley Park in Canal No. 1, Den Amstel, Good Hope, and Ruby.¹⁰ In Berbice proprietary villages were established at Sisters, Cumberland, Eliza and Mary, and Skeldon.¹¹ On all of these plantations individual titles or deeds to the land were given to those ex-slaves who had purchased these properties.

Like the proprietary villages, the communal villages also began to come on stream in 1839. According to Alan Young (1958: 12) the impetus for these villages arose out of the “desire of the free laborers to turn their knowledge of cane-farming to their own account.” Because cane- farming required more land than the small plots the proprietary arrangement afforded, the free laborers turned to the abandoned plantations. In many parts of the country the African Population pooled their resources and purchased abandoned plantations which had come on the market as a result of the changed approach of some members of the planter class. Like the proprietary villages, these communal purchases were also related to the new position of the planter class to permit the former enslaved to own freeholds on or in the vicinity of existing plantations as a means of attracting their labor power.

The first such purchase of plantation Northbrook on the East Coast Demerara was carried out by eighty three (83) laborers in November 1839 who worked on the neighbouring estates of Douchfour, Ann’s Grove, Hope, Paradise, and Enmore, combined their resources and purchased this property, which was one of the first Cotton plantation to be abandoned. ¹² This was soon followed in 1840 by the purchase of four more abandoned estates by laborers on West Coast Berbice. Plantation Golden Grove was purchased by fourteen (14) laborers, plantation St. John by forty six (46) labourers, plantation Perseverance by one hundred and nine (109) labourers, and plantation Lichfield by one (1) labourer, Cudjoe McPherson. In the case of the former estate of Lichfield, it was subdivided into twelve (12) shares and sold immediately after purchase.¹³

In the aftermath of these purchases, the villages became an important source of inspiration and served as anchors for the aspiration of independence for all other freed peoples who maintained residency on plantations. In the case of the first communal villages established, namely Victoria and Buxton the front lands were converted into homestead plots, while the backlands were being developed as a joint cultivation ground for the enrichment of the original shareholders.¹⁴ In effect joint cultivation represented the beginning of the process of collective farming. Each of these original communal purchases began in earnest to function as separate cooperatives with the possibility of dividends accruing to each shareholder.¹⁵ It is my hope that the honorable commissioners would spend some time to ponder, and to ask the question if what, or what would have been the likely outcome for the African population if joint cultivation was supported by the colonial state.

It is necessary that we recall that the process of collective farming was short-lived as the black working class, who had remained in Estate residency, were defeated in the sugar strike of 1847-48. This resulted in a massive migration from estate residency into the villages, which became overcrowded. The largest villages of Victoria, Buxton, Beterverwagting, and Plaisance bore the brunt