The Tank Complex at Bequia’s Spring Plantation: Investigation of a Post-Sugar, Multi- Purpose, Mini-Factory

Margaret Bradford

Abstract: Investigations continue into plantation archaeology on Bequia in St. Vincent and the . Ruins of a tank complex on Spring Plantation may have been a unique, multi- purpose mini-factory for processing arrowroot, indigo and cassava in the period following the decline of sugar production on Bequia.

Resumen: Las investigaciones continúan en arqueología de la plantación en Bequia en St. Vincent y las granadinas. Las ruinas de un complejo del tanque en la plantación del resorte pudieron haber sido una mini-fábrica para procesar el arrurruz, un añil y una mandioca únicos, multiusos en el período que sigue la declinación de la producción de azúcar en Bequia.

Résumé: Les investigations continuent dans l'archéologie de plantation sur Bequia dans la rue Vincent et les grenadines. Les ruines d'un complexe de réservoir sur la plantation de ressort ont pu avoir été une mini-usine pour traiter la marante arundinacée, un indigo et un manioc uniques et universels dans la période suivant le déclin de la production de sucre sur Bequia.

351

Introduction

An investigation was begun in February of 2008 to document and describe a group of historic-period tanks (basins) found on Spring Beach on Bequia. The island of Bequia is part of the country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and is located nine miles south of St. Vincent. This project surveyed, photographed and mapped the tank complex in an attempt to determine its function and understand its place in the agricultural and industrial evolution of Spring Plantation in the nearly three hundred years since its establishment in the 18th century.

Site Information

The tank complex, a source of interest and curiosity among both local people and visitors, is located about 100 feet from the sea on the Windward side of Bequia on property presently owned by the Firefly Hotel (Figure 1). The complex consists of eleven tanks of varying size and shape, which are situated next to a well (Figure 2). Four round tanks, one half-round tank and six rectangular tanks are embedded in a stone structure measuring approximately twenty-six feet by sixteen feet by two feet in height (Figure 3). The round tanks are shaped in width and depth much like the historic “coppers” which were used to boil sugar during the years when Spring Plantation produced sugar. Coppers may have been used as moulds in building the round tanks. The diameter of the adjacent well is about four and a half feet, however, a paved trough surrounding the well brings the total diameter of the well and its trough to about 13 feet. The six rectangular tanks are bathtub-shaped and together with the round tanks form the makeup of the structure, which is surrounded by a paved walkway. Round holes formed in the top surface mortar of the tank structure may have supported poles holding up a roof or sunshade (Figure 4). The half-round tank may have functioned as a temporary repository for waste since its location at the side of the complex would have made it easy to off-load the contents onto a cart. With the lovely view of Spring Bay, shade, fresh water and constant breeze, the location would have provided a very pleasant place to work (Figure 5). Perhaps a clue to the usage of the tanks lies with the layout of the plumbing. Metal, threaded pipes interconnect the six rectangular tanks so that liquid can drain from the outer tanks into the center tanks (Figure 6). However, the circular tanks are not connected by pipe to the rectangular tanks or to the other circular tanks. Their only plumbing is simply a drainpipe from each tank, which empties onto the ground (Figure 7). This suggests that the circular and rectangular tanks may have had different purposes. Both the tanks and the well, which currently contains water, were constructed from similar types of stones and mortar suggesting they were built about the same time. In view of the fact that the well is only two and a half feet from the tanks, whatever was being processed in the tanks probably required access to quantities of fresh water (Figure 8).

Colonial Settlement

Colonial settlement on Bequia began with French people who came from to Bequia after the Carib Wars of 1719 and established small indigo and sugar plantations and lime works (Mitchell 1994:14; Price 1988:7). In 1763, when Bequia was designated British by the , Bequia was surveyed by Captain John Byres and within ten years, British

352

settlement of the island was underway. The 1776 Byres Map, found in the British Museum, shows about 600 acres of Spring Plantation were owned by Robert Henville who, according to the 1776 Report on the Crops of the Grenadines (Anon:1776), produced 64,200 pounds of sugar and some rum that year. Sugar production on Bequia continued to increase during the next fifty years; however, production records from 1827-9 (Shephard 1831: Appendix xxv) demonstrate that of the nine Bequia sugar plantations, only Spring was producing the 200,000 pounds of sugar per year necessary to remain economically viable (Adams 1976).

Decline of the Sugar Industry

After emancipation in 1838, ex-slaves began leaving the estates and with the lifting of preferential duties on West Indian sugar by the British government, Bequia sugar growers could no longer compete. By 1854, production had fallen to just 22% of the 1828 level (St. Vincent Bluebook). Around 1890, some of the smaller Bequia sugar estates such as Belmont, Mount Pleasant, Paget Farm and Diamond became divided by both sale and bequest (Price 1988:13). On the remaining large, intact estates such as Spring, Bequia people may have worked as sharecroppers or wage laborers but there is little documentary evidence of what they were growing. On St. Vincent, mounting financial problems also began affecting the planters and their sugar industry was close to collapse, as well. In response, the Vincentian government, in 1890, began selling five acre lots to peasants and by 1892, arrowroot had replaced sugar as the island’s main export (Grossman 1998). Perhaps arrowroot was also one of the cash crops that replaced or supplemented sugar on Bequia’s Spring Plantation.

Arrowroot

Arrowroot is a powder made from the ground root of an herbaceous perennial plant, marantha arundinacea, which has a long history in the New World archaeological record (Piperno and Holst 1998). It may have been introduced to the islands of the West Indies by prehistoric people migrating from the Orinoco River area (Newsom and Wing 2004:154). Arrowroot thrived on St. Vincent and historically, was grown on the margins of sugar cane estates by small-scale black cultivators (Grossman 1998:100). Their success and prosperity inspired several owners of large estates to begin cultivating it in the 1880’s (Richardson 1997:156-7). Today, it is still produced on St. Vincent and marketed as an infant feeding supplement and thickener for gravies and sauces. Although St. Vincent’s mainland valleys contain several remains of 19th century arrowroot factories, the Spring Plantation tanks provide the first hint of arrowroot production on Bequia. Arrowroot is a creeping rhizome, which grows for 6 – 12 months before the root is usually manually harvested. Deep, well-drained, slightly acidic soils and hot, humid climate such as found on both St. Vincent and Bequia provide the ideal growing conditions (Browne 2004). Since the tubers must be processed within 48 hours or they will rot, mills were situated near the arrowroot fields. To extract the starch, the rhizomes are peeled, washed, cut into small pieces, mashed to a pulp and stirred in clean water. The fibers are wrung out by hand, and the milky liquid sieved, allowed to settle, and then drained. Clean water is again added, mixed, and drained, after which the starch is dried on racks in the sun. The tanks on Spring Beach would have readily lent themselves to arrowroot processing. The round basins could have held the cut pieces as they were mashed with wooden mortars.

353

Water from the well could have been easily added to the basins and the fibers removed, wrung out and discarded. The round shape of the basins would have facilitated the settling of the starch liquid while the drains simplified the removal of the excess liquid. The drying operation probably took place on nearby wooden racks and was assisted by the brisk breeze on the beach. In theory, then, arrowroot processing could account for the use of the round tanks but what about the rectangular tanks?

Indigo

Since the Spring Tanks Complex is located between two other bays where ruins of Colonial indigo factories have been identified (Bradford 2008) (Figure 9), it is reasonable to suspect that indigo might have also been grown at Spring. Although the Spring tanks are smaller and configured somewhat differently from those on the adjacent plantations, all of the tanks are rectangular-shaped, located near a source of fresh water and about 100 feet back from a beach. Making indigo usually required about three tanks. Liquid was drained from the “steeping” tank into the “beating” tank and finally into the “settling” tank where the pricipitate settled. The water was then drawn off, the clay-like blue paste removed, strained through cloth and dried. The two sets of three tanks at Spring would have allowed for continuous processing, a benefit, given the need to quickly begin the 12 hour steeping of the cut indigo plants. Most of the 7100 pounds of indigo imported into England from St. Vincent and the Grenadines between 1774 and 1779 probably came from Bequia (Bradford 2008). It is certainly possible that during this period indigo was being grown and processed at Spring, as well as the other known locations. However, the Spring tanks are in much better condition than the others which may argue for a later date for the Spring facility. Perhaps the tanks were built in the late 1800’s to process both indigo and arrowroot, thus filling the void left by the decline in sugar production about this time.

Oral History

This hypothesis was corroborated in an oral history interview with Mrs. Candy Leslie in February, 2009. She and her husband, Roosevelt Leslie owned Spring Hotel for over 25 years. She reported that Roosevelt Leslie’s father, Mr. Ralph Leslie, lived and worked on Spring plantation most of his life. He was born in 1909. Roosevelt Leslie’s grandfather also worked at Spring so the family association with Spring has lasted over a hundred years. Ralph Leslie said the Spring Beach tanks were used for processing arrowroot, indigo and cassava. The family story is that Mrs. Cecil McIntosh, wife of the owner of Spring Plantation throughout the first half of the 1900’s, paid Ralph Leslie, when he was a little boy, a penny a day to help shovel whatever needed shoveling in and around the tanks. Therefore, the tank complex was operational at least by the early 1900’s. Other long-term Bequia residents familiar with Spring also remember cassava being milled on Spring Beach.

Cassava

Although cassava (farine) processing doesn’t require large quantities of water, perhaps people came together at Spring in the vicinity of the tanks to process it on a cooperative basis.

354

Cassava is one of the major West Indian dietary carbohydrates and cassava processing is still done by small groups at various small mills on Bequia. Traditionally, Bequia women gather in the fields to pull the roots, which are dried in the sun for a few days then scraped to remove loose soil and the outer skin. Small groups of women then come together to grind the cassava at the manually operated mills such as the one at Gelizeau on the western end of Bequia. After the ground pulp is wrung in sacks to extract the poisonous liquid, the baking takes place in large copper pots. This process removes the remaining toxicity and produces a fine flour-like product known as farine.

Conclusion

In summary, after the collapse of the sugar industry in the nineteenth century, Spring Plantation may have experienced a shift in the production of cash crops from sugar to indigo and arrowroot. In the absence of documentary confirmation, archaeological survey and oral history are the prime sources of evidence for this. Because of their unique shapes and plumbing configuration, the circular and rectangular tanks probably processed different crops, possibly indigo and arrowroot. Although cassava was raised as a subsistence crop, the milling operation, with its proximity to the Spring Tanks Complex, may have also contributed to the tank complex’s function as a multi-purpose, mini-factory. The next step in the documentation of this complex will be to more completely clear the bush overburden from the tanks and search for the telltale blue stain on the mortar in the rectangular tanks, which would confirm the production of indigo. More oral histories will be collected in the continuing exploration of the agricultural and industrial evolution of Spring Plantation in the last three hundred years and its place in the broader context of Bequia, St. Vincent and the entire region.

355

Bibliography

Adams, J. E. 1976 “Environmental and Cultural Factors in the Decline of Agriculture in a Small West Indian Island”, Centre Essay Series, No. 7, December 1976. Center for Latin America, University of Wisconsin.

Anon (1776) The State of Carriacou and the other Grenadine Islands, Oxford, Rhodes House Library

Bradford, Margaret (In Press) 2008 “Blues from Bequia” in Proceedings of the XXII International Congress for Archaeology, Jamaica.

Browne, Glenroy 2004 “St. Vincent Arrowroot” in Ins and Outs of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, pp. 36-7. Barbados.

Byres, John 1776 Plan of the Island of Bequia laid down by actual survey under the direction of The Commissioners for the sale of lands in the Ceded Islands. British Museum.

Grossman, Lawrence S. 1998 The Political Ecology of Bananas: Contract Farming, Peasants and Agrarian Change in the Eastern Caribbean. University of North Carolina Press.

Mitchell, Pat 1994 Bequia Sweet, Sweet. Macmillan Caribbean. London.

Newsom, Lee A. and Elizabeth S. Wing 2004 On Land and Sea: Native American Uses of Biological Resources in the West Indies. University of Alabama Press.

Piperno, D. R. and I. Holst (1998) Journal of Archy Science, Vol 25 Issue 8. “The Presence of Starch Grains on Prehistoric Stone Tools form the Humid Neotropics: Indications of Early Tuber use and Agriculture in Panama”.

Price, Neil 1988 Behind the Planter’s Back: Lower Class Response to Marginality in Bequia Island. Macmillan Caribbean. London.

Richardson, Bonham C. 1997 Economy and Environment in the Caribbean: Barbados and the Windwards in the Late 1800’s. University Press of Florida.

356

Shephard, Charles 1831 (1997) An Historical Account of the Island of . Frank Cass. London.

357

Figure 1 Red Rectangle Shows Location of Spring Tanks Complex (North is Up)

Figure 2 Top View of Tanks and Well

Well

N N

358

Figure 3 Overview of Tanks (North is Left)

Figure 4 Supports for Roof

359

Figure 5 Arrow Indicates Location of Tank Complex on Spring Bay

Figure 6 Plumbing Interconnections of Rectangular Tanks (View from the West Side, North is Left)

Figure 7 Red Circles Indicate Pipe Outlets (View from the East Side, North is Right)

360

Figure 8 Proximity of Well to Tanks

Figure 9 Location of Bequia Indigo Factories

361