The Emancipation Game

1. The Emancipation Game Choices and opportunities

2. Welcome to the Emancipation Game

3. Instructions • You must make choices in this game. • With each choice you will discover something about the lives of freed peoples after the end of slavery and the changes in their lives. • Decide what you want to do and see what your options are. • Begin game or skip the game and just get the info you need starting with the table of contents

4. What did you do as an enslaved person? • Fieldwork • Domestic work • Skilled slave in the factory • Skilled slave e.g. workman, seamstress Or choose an occupation for freedom

5. Choose an occupation • I like it on the estate I want to work for wages here • I want my own plot of land to grow food • I don’t like the countryside and I don’t want to be in agriculture. I’ll try my luck in the town. • I am a skilled sugar factory worker

6. Choose an occupation • I am a domestic worker • I have a trade (skill).

7. fieldworker Like most freed people, agriculture is what you know best. You’re very skilled at that. Now go on to decide what you want to do for a living now.

8. Domestic work Well, you need to seek work with a person of means who can pay you, if you want to continue in this line of work. Decide if you will stay in the countryside or try your luck in the town.

9. Skilled slave in the factory • Well as long as sugar is doing fine you have a decent well paying job on the estate. The factory needs you! • Continue 

10. Skilled slave in the factory • You are comfortable and you can afford to educate your children. • A lot of people want your job. Too bad for them! • Where do you live?

11. Choose the territory you live in: • Grenada other Windward • Trinidad or Guyana • Barbados or other Leeward • Jamaica

12. Skilled factory worker Grenada and Windwards • Sorry! A lot of estates closed after emancipation. • You either find other work • Or you migrate to where your skills are needed.

13. Skilled Trinidad and Guyana • There’s good paying work for people like you. • Welcome! Choose another occupation

14. Skilled Barbados and Leewards • A good skilled factory worker like you is always needed. • But you hear wages are higher elsewhere. • You stay. • You leave.

15. Skilled worker who stays Well, you’re not doing too badly. At least your wages are higher than field workers and you can afford to send your children to school. Wives of factory workers did not have to work.

16. Skilled Jamaica • Some estates have closed, but there’s still factory work for good, experienced workers like yourself. • You stay in the factory. • Or you find another kind of work.

17. Other work skilled Jamaica • You have courage, since what you know best is the factory. • continue

18. Other work skilled Jamaica • But you’re intelligent and ambitious. • You use your savings to open a small business buying and selling dry goods (haberdashery) Choose another occupation

19. Skilled worker—where do you live? • Town • Countryside

20. Town The people with special skills can do well in town. You’re ambitious. You don’t want to work for ex-masters. You want to run your own establishment. With the money you will save from your wages you plan to buy a small shop. Good luck!

21. Skilled countryside As a skilled worker, with a craft, you can do well in any territory. Most people like you live in the towns. But you’ll do well.

22. Countryside The main work here is in farming. You can get domestic work but in some islands a lot of white people are moving away, now that slavery’s ended. You decide to move to the town.

23. Choose the territory you live in: • Grenada other Windward • Trinidad or Guyana • Barbados or other Leeward • Jamaica Choose another occupation

24. Grenada: town. • Grenada has a small town, where mostly skilled people can make a decent living. • You decide to follow your fellow Grenadians and migrate. Choose another occupation

25. Barbados and Leewards • The towns are small... Some people make a good living there, if they have a skill. • Towns are overcrowded. • You stay • You decide to migrate. Choose another occupation

26. Jamaica towns • Jamaica has big towns and they are growing! • You think you made a good move! • Did you?

27. Migration • A lot of people from Barbados, Grenada and other Windward islands ended up in Guyana and Trinidad. • It made sense... 

28. In Trinidad and Guyana • Wages on the estates here are highest in the Caribbean! • There is also land to settle on (especially in Trinidad) • You could also move to the towns and try your luck there.

29. Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana • Many people are squatting on land, growing crops for themselves or to sell in the market. • There is enough land to do this. • Some even become cane farmers, selling to the factories. • Peasants everywhere made a big contribution. Table of contents

30. Peasants Congrats! As a peasant, you are more independent and can feed your family. You don’t depend on the estate for wages... Except sometimes when wages are high, if you want some extra money.

31. In the countryside you are most likely to find an occupation in agriculture. Here are your choices. • I like it on the estate I want to work for wages here • See more choices before deciding

32. Occupations: countryside • I want my own plot of land to grow food • More choices

33. Occupations: countryside • I don’t mind working on the estates when wages are high but I want a plot of land to fall back on • Go back if you want the first choice • Continue for more choices

34. Choices countryside • I don’t like the countryside and I don’t want to be in agriculture. I’ll try my luck in the town.

35. Estate labour: where do you live? • Barbados and the Leewards • Grenada and the Windwards • Trinidad and Guyana • Jamaica.

36. Barbados and Leewards • Wages are low! • There are just too many workers and too little land. • You must make a decision...  Choose another occupation

37. Barbados and Leewards • You stay • You hear about higher wages elsewhere and migrate. Choose another occupation

38. Stay • You stay and life is tough most of the time. Other people leaving helps though and wages sometimes become decent. • You like your island too much to leave. Choose another occupation

39. Estate Labour Grenada • Wages are sometimes high. • You stay • You hear of higher wages elsewhere. Choose another occupation

40. Estate labour Jamaica • According to where you are wages are not bad. But... 

41. Estate labour Jamaica • Planters keep trying to keep it down. • They want to charge you rent for your own homes (on the estate). Imagine! 

42. Estate labour Jamaica • Jamaican planters are trying to treat you like a slave and force you to work on their estate...just because you live there. 

43. Estate labour Jamaica • You want your freedom to choose. • You leave the estate and move to a free village. Choose another occupation

44. Own land: where do you live? • Grenada and Windwards • Jamaica • Trinidad and Guyana • Barbados and Leewards.

45. As you can see Grenada (like the other Windwards) is very mountainous. But there’s good fertile land to be had. You can find a plot somewhere on a hill and plant your garden. It’s a good place to be a peasant farmer. Grenada and Windward Islands

46. Own land Jamaica • There’s land to be bought... • ...or squatted on 

47. Own land Jamaica • On the fringes of estates, sold by planters • In places not suited to sugar • Abandoned estates... • You become a peasant farmer.

48. Own Land Trinidad and Guyana. • You only have to choose where you want to go, especially in Trinidad. 

49. Own Land Trinidad and Guyana. • In Guyana, it is a little harder along the coast but there is the interior. • But you can become a peasant.

50. Own Land Barbados and Leewards • Land is scarce and the prices are high. • Your main option to get land is to migrate. Choose another occupation