Sustenance and Survival

This article explores women’s engagement with food production and distribution in Tobago from 1840 to 1940. Scholars such as Raymond Smith have suggested that freedom in the British West Indies meant “the withdrawal of female labor from plantation work.” In Tobago, while women fled the estates, they did not abandon working the land. In fact, working the land and selling food was critical to the sustenance and survival of women and their families. Among Afro-Tobagonian women, food became a tool of power and empowerment. Through the production and sale of food, Afro-Tobagonian women asserted control over resources, steered the economic empowerment of their families, and crafted identities as autonomous beings. This article, undergirded by archival documents and oral testimonies, refines our understanding of women’s mobility and labor experiences in Tobago, and by extension, the Caribbean.