Afro-Jamaican traditions and labor organizing on United Fruit Company plantations in Costa Rica, 1910

Journal of Social History, Summer, 1995 by Avi Chomsky

The workers made several appeals to the British Vice Consul, C. G. McGrigor, to intervene and arrange for the men to be transported back to St. Kitts, but as the Times repeatedly pointed out: "What can one expect when he is an employee of the United Fruit Company?"(20) When this route proved fruitless, the workers went over McGrigor's head to the Consul in San Jose and then to the Minister in Panama. The Consul, aware of how discredited McGrigor had become, arrived from San Jose on November 29, and issued a public notice affirming his support for the Company.

You and all British subjects here are under the authority of the PRESIDENT OF COSTA RICA, and the Officials named by him, and I hereby order you to obey such authorities absolutely.

The laws of this Country oblige all men to work; and for those who refuse, the Vagrancy Acts are in force, and such men are liable to be arrested and taken to any part of the Country, and there forced to work.

You are hereby directed to return, as free men, to work at the farms of the United Fruit Company . . .

I advise you to work as free men, and save money, rather than to be forced to work, and have nothing.(21)

Small wonder that the workers often wondered whether the difference between slavery and "free labor" was really so great after all.

The workers then circulated a petition which they sent to the Minister in Panama, protesting the attitude of the local British authorities, but there is no record of any response to this. Despite this lack of support from above, however, the St. Kitts strikers remained firm for three weeks, and generated substantial support among the Jamaican community.

The workers' apparent faith in appeal to ever-higher British authorities has several possible explanations. Scholars sometimes attribute such faith to a kind of false consciousness: the socially weak and disempowered share in a belief system which serves to maintain their low position in the existing hierarchy, thus supporting the interests of the more powerful.(22) In fact the powerful are able to maintain their position partially through their ability to impose their ideology on the rest of society. The Jamaican and St. Kitts workers, however, did not seem to suffer from this sort of false consciousness. They certainly were not disposed to accept British authorities' decisions when these contradicted what the workers believed to be just. The British Consul recognized quite well that his position would not be enough to ensure the goodwill of the workers, and felt obliged to ask for police protection while he was in Limon.(23)

Another possible explanation is workers knew quite well that the British authorities had more interest in maintaining the existing order than in upholding workers' rights, but were consciously manipulating the hypocrisies in the system which claimed to protect them. The workers' challenge to British authorities to uphold their rights could have been strictly instrumental: regardless of their degree of faith in the outcome, it was worth pursuing all possible routes to their goal. More cynical workers may have also felt that a failed attempt to mobilize British authority on their behalf would convince the more credulous of the need for more militant action. The workers could easily have made their appeals to Consul McGrigor in this spirit.