Photo by Tom Hodgkinson//flickr.cc(by-nc-nd)
Emancipation for Barbadian blacks signaled a mere conditional and partial freedom, a position tantamount to re-enslavement. This was primarily because the island’s small size and dense population meant that it was easy for planters to dictate post-emancipation conditions by withholding jobs and housing until their terms were met. Planters devised policies that mocked blacks’ new status as ‘free’, constantly reminding them that they existed solely for the purpose of labour.
These policies were encapsulated in the infamous Masters and Servants Act of 1838, known popularly as the ‘Contract Act’. From this Act emerged the dark and brutal policy of ‘ejectment’. ‘Ejectment’ saw planters hold the threat of homelessness over black heads. Since blacks owned neither homes nor land, many lived in their former masters’ lodgings in exchange for continued work on the plantation– with the caveat that if they ever refused, they would be ‘ejected’.
