| Description | Transcription of report on the Estates of Bacolet, Speyside and Trois Rivieres, in the Island of Tobago, addressed to Colonel John Gordon of Cluny by his secretary, John Mackenzie. The report includes detailed geographical, geological and meteorological descriptions of each estate (but concentrating particularly on Bacolet: for the other estates see MS 3600/1/14/1/32); past agricultural improvements and their current state; transport; problems with local wildlife; problems with monoculture; inadequacies of managers; agricultural practices and how they have changed since the end of slavery; recommended methods for draining; comparisons with other islands; possibility of growing cotton or tobacco, and possibly pimento or cocoa; comments on coconuts, arrowroot, 'Tous-le-mois', ginger, indigo, rice, opium, coffee, nutmeg and cinnamon; comments on the available labour and employees of the estates; William Rose's maltreatment of the Creoles; bad influence of the West India Regiment; managers in general bully the workers as if they were still slaves, but they are more easily persuaded than bullied; his own respect for the workers is valued; their faults; how the labour gangs work; tools used; the ruinous state of the works; previous peculation and dishonesty accounts for it; sources of power; 'the rum and the sun convert men's brains here into fossils'; produce and how to dispose of it; taxes; effects of the 1847 hurricane; buildings; wages and working hours and conditions; livestock; misuse of stores; problems of the previous management and its ineptitude; sale of land for the purpose of building a lighthouse; accounts, or lack of them; general state of Tobago; recommendation of labour from Barbados; suggested improvements (for instance, a tramway for sugar cane); processing the sugar cane and comparisons with neighbouring estates; recommendations for bringing the estate into profitability. 6 April 1852 |