Utilization, Misuse, and Development of Human Resources in the Early West Indian Colonies

P.J. Hammel is a professor of Education at the University of
Saskatchewan.

During his professional career, Bacchus was both an educational
administrator and a university lecturer. In fact, it was while he was
guest-lecturing at the University of Chicago on “Education and Social
Change in the Caribbean” that he was motivated to start systematizing
his own practical knowledge of education. He has now accumulated enough
information for a work covering the period 1492 to 1845, for a second
volume covering the years 1846 to 1945, and for a third, 1945 to 1985.
His study covers the areas of Belize, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Bermuda, the
Lesser Antilles, and Guyana.

This volume, covering the earliest period, 1492 to 1845, describes four
major movements in the development of education in the West Indies. The
first, during Spanish rule, was characterized by a process that taught
the colonized to accept the superiority of the conqueror and his
religion. The second, after the introduction of sugar cane cultivation,
slavery, and tremendous prosperity for landowners, was characterized by
an education system aimed at preventing the slaves from receiving formal
instruction, even through Christianity. The third movement occupied the
period just before and just after the abolition of slavery. Education
policies were designed to ensure that the “superior” white continued
to dominate the “lowly” black. The fourth movement occurred during
the period just before 1845; the black children of this period
represented the first generation that had not experienced the
“discipline of slavery”; it was necessary to provide this generation
with some practical training, especially in agriculture, to indoctrinate
them into the idea of estate labor and to develop an attitude of
acceptance of their inevitable lot in life.

A scholarly work, this book includes extensive historical fact and
social description. The author suggests that the book was written for
practicing teachers and other educators in the Caribbean who need an
understanding of the historical and social roots of their educational
systems if they are to improve them. Educational historians and
sociologists will also be interested.