By: Ravi Dev
The Moyne Commission, which was taking evidence in British Guiana in 1939 following Caribbean labour protests, when five sugar workers were shot and killed at Leonora Estate, made political and social recommendations that were to be implemented after WWII. A Sugar Industry Labour Welfare Fund (SILWF) was established in 1947 by applying a levy on exported sugar, to be used for rehousing sugar workers. It was not mere altruism, since the system of “cut and drop” was changed the following years to “cut and load” –precipitating the 1948 Enmore protests and massacre – because it extracted more money from workers’ wages than the levy.
Extra-Nuclear Housing Areas (ENHA) were to be created by legislation passed in 1947 to accommodate ALL sugar workers and their families WHO WERE STILL LIVING IN BARRACKS OR LOGIES, because their living conditions had shocked the members of the Commission. Latrines, for instance, were over drainage canals, which could contaminate irrigation canals from where the drinking water was sourced.
The number of ranges/logies in the various estates were as follows: Skeldon 49; Port Morant 95; Albion 67; Rose Hall (Canje) 132; Providence (EBB) 2; Blairmont 39; Bath 21; Enmore/Non Pariel 70; Lusignan 101; LBI 71; Ogle 35; Ruimveldt 17; Houston 23; Farm/Diamond 194; Wales 54; Versailles 52; Leonora 80; Uitvlugt 145. Eventually between 1951 and 1964, some 10,785 lots were allocated and the same number of houses built. By 1971 when only 17 logies were standing at Port Morant and 13 at Leonora. the number had reached 12,000: by then it was the largest housing drive in the British Caribbean.
The loans in 1951 were typically for approximately BWI$1200 (US$480) and this was supposed to provide lumber, gutters, carpenters fees, paint, and painters fees for a house approximately 24’x20’ with a 12’x10’ kitchen. The lots were leased and the loans were to be repaid at a rate of $2 weekly, to be deducted from wages.
INSERT: Estate house with grilled windows and door – kitchen at left
For example, the 145 logies of Uitvlugt where I was born were in five sections – Ni**er Yard; Letter “A”; Bound Quarters; New Range and Five Bed. Their relocation started in 1947 in waves with 226 house lots allocated in the cleared land north of the Public Road to the Atlantic Ocean – once the Provision Grounds of the slaves and dubbed “Ocean View” – and the same number of houses were built with the SILWF loans. Simultaneously, another 288 lots were allocated and homes were built in the section between the railway line and south of the Public Road.
Other occupants from the Logies were then relocated to ENHA lots created in successive waves westwards from 1954 through the early 1960s to Zeeburg (94), De Willem (167), E. Meten meer Zorg (151), W. Meten meer Zorg (194); Zeelugt (164) and finally Tuschen (80).
The 145 logies gave rise to 1,364 homes with that many families.
