Modernising African ancestral lands

The election of these Commissioners was the first legislative attempt to provide a village organisation. In 1851 the Government dealt with the second of the difficulties referred to, the matter of titles, and passed an Ordinance (No. 4 of 1851, amended by No. 1 of 1852) providing for the appointment of Commissioners to divide the lands of villages among, and pass transports to, the individual proprietors. Meantime in 1850, an attempt was made to establish a general administration for sanitary purposes throughout the Colony. By an Ordinance passed in 1850 two Central Boards of Health were established, one for Demerara and Essequebo, and one for Berbice: and Local Boards of Health, composed of the vestries of the Parishes and the medical gentlemen residing therein, in every rural parish of the Colony (the towns of Georgetown and New Amsterdam being separately provided for.) This Ordinance probably never had any effect: it was repealed in 1852 and replaced by a more elaborate measure by which a single Central Board at Georgetown was substituted for the two Boards at Georgetown and New Amsterdam: and the parish vestries were created Local Boards of Health for the rural districts with power to establish general systems of drainage for their districts, and to make and enforce sanitary regulations within villages, power being taken to declare new villages, and so to bring them under the operation of regulations. - The Local Boards of the Sanitary Districts were to be empowered to levy rates so soon as "provision shall have been made by ordinance for the election of the members of the Vestries of the several parishes," up to that date nominated bodies. But no such provision was ever made and no rates were therefore ever struck, with the result that so far as the rural districts, including villages, were concerned, the machinery of administration never came into general operation. 2 In 1856, Ordinance No. 33 was passed by Sir Philip Wodehouse to provide villages with an organisation for the management of their affairs generally. This Ordinance is the germ out of which the existing more elaborate system has grown, and it deserves a. particular description. It began by enabling the Governor and Court of Policy by resolution to bring under its provisions all plantations (and their owners) which having been purchased in common had been divided, or should in future be divided in severality among the proprietors, and it provided means of division for the future. 3 It enacted that for every such plantation there should be an overseer whose salary was to be fixed at a general meeting of shareholders, called together for the purpose by the District Registrar. 4 The salary was subject to approval or alteration by the Governor and Court of Policy. That fixed, a fresh meeting of shareholders was similarly to be called to appoint the overseer and elect two Commissioners, and on failure by the shareholders to appoint and elect, the District Registrar, with the Governor's approval, was to discharge the duty. At the end of the year the overseer and Commissioners were to vacate their offices and a fresh election to be held. Every proprietor was declared to be liable to pay monthly for his share "such sum as shall be sufficient to provide for the payment of the salary of the overseer, for the repair of the road and of bridges, for the drainage and other necessary services of the estate," and provision 2 See Section 21 of Ordinance 1 of 1866, which appears to shew that the Local Sanitary Boards before that date had incurred expenditure (and levied rates ?) 3 Under the provisions of this and similar ordinances the following villages were divided:-In Demerara-Buxton, Plaisance, Victoria, Friendship, Beterverwagting, Den Amstel, Ann's Grove, Two Friends. And in Berbice-Gibraltar and Fyrish. 4 The District Registrar was the collector of Head money, a tax imposed to meet the cost of the damage done by the Portuguese Riots of 1856. After the repeal of this tax, the Commissaries of Taxation were created to take over the duty of tax collection and the Registrar's duty in respect of the supervision of villages was entrusted to them. was made for the assessment on the shareholders of their dues and for the collection and accounting for them. A special assessment might be made in cases of emergency; and a particular section of the ordinance laid down that in the case of work "of which the performance is required of the respective shareholders” the overseer might give notice to the shareholder to do it within 7 days, and in default, have it done and recover the cost from the defaulters. This simple measure is still remembered by some of the older villagers, who quote its principles as suitable to their needs. The causes of its failure were probably two: -the lack of a system of Provincial administration, by means of which the central government could supervise its working and influence the people to co-operate for their own good; and a reluctance on the part of the Government to use compulsion to make the recalcitrant minority, always to be found in every community, discharge their share of the common obligations. The first of these causes still renders village administration difficult and inefficient: the second is passing away. Special laws were passed to provide for the administration of particular villages. The most important of these were Ordinances 10 of 1862 and 1 of 1863, creating Commissioners with Boards of Advice to manager Buxton, Friendship and Beterverwagting and other villages, if any, brought under their operation. The collection of rates, when the practice was first initiated under these Ordinances, led to some sales of villagers' properties, and a good deal of friction ensued between the peasantry and the authorities, which, in the village of Friendship, culminated in a forcible levy by Police supported by a military force. In 1862, a Resolution of the Combined Court, covered by an Ordinance in 1864, placed $60,000 of borrowed money at the disposal of the villages by way of loan. The Ordinance of 1856 remained in operation for 17 years, but for the reason pointed out, it was not very effectual. In February, 1864, the state of the villages was brought prominently before the Court of Policy, and a Committee was appointed by Governor Sir F. Hincks to (among other matters) "inquire into and report upon the condition and deficiencies of existing villages and to consider whether by any improvements in the legal constitution or regulations thereof or in their management they, i.e., the legal constitution and regulations, can be adapted ... ... to improve the condition of the present villages." The Committee in the early part of 1865 visited a number of villages in all parts of the Colony, and in May of that year presented a report, the principal finding of which has been quoted already, and framed thirteen recommendations, which have formed the groundwork for much of the legislation that has since followed. They advised the formation of a Central Board of Management; that provision should be made for inspection by a Government officer; that aid should be provided in the shape of loans; that there should be village Boards of Advice, with overseers to collect rates and transact local business. They also proposed the survey of the villages, and arrangements for giving the several owners good titles. The report resulted in the passing of "An Ordinance," No. 1, of 1866, "to provide for the better management and sanitary superintendence of villages." This law created a Central Board of Villages, to consist of the Governor and members of the Court of Policy and other nominees of the Governor, and conferred on it the powers of sanitary control previously held by the Central Board of Health, but, in respect of the villages, not, it would appear, exercised. The new law vested in the Board power to declare places to be villages and to divide villages into incorporated and unincorporated, and it set over all, of whatever category, a Superintendent or Board of Superintendence, nominated by the Governor; but the elected Commissioners under the Ordinance of 1856 were nor, swept away but might be continued by order of the Board, and in that case the direct supervision of them was withdrawn from the Commissaries in whom it had been vested, and placed in the Central Board or any one or more members thereof. Authority to initiate village works in both incorporated and unincorporated villages rested in the Superintendent or Board. In incorporated villages the cost was recoverable from rates, but in unincorporated villages work might be set out by the overseer and done by the villagers under a threat in case of failure to sell the village as a whole (!), or in the alternative to levy a rate. The result of all the legislation passed up to 1856 had been to create a number of different kinds of local government for the villages. Four-Buxton, Friendship, Beterverwagting and Queenstown-had special constitutions under special laws of their own. Under the new law there were two more kinds of villages, incorporated and unincorporated, with differing forms of government, and under the Ordinance of 1856 there were villages with yet a different kind of constitution; while, side by side with the Central Board of Villages, there still existed the Central Board of Health. The law gave the Central Board of Villages power to borrow on behalf of any village and to recoup itself out of the rates. The Central Board of Villages, constituted as above described, made under the presidency of Sir F. Hincks a determined effort to remedy the evils disclosed by the report of the Commissioners. It created 18 incorporated villages, for each of which it appointed a Board of Superintendence, making use for the most part of the services of the local Clergy and some of the gentry. And it declared almost every property in the Colony, not in European hands, an unincorporated village, entrusting the supervision of them to local Boards of Superintendence, of which there were two or perhaps more to a Parish. Overseers were appointed and rates levied for local improvement in very many villages. Under its borrowing powers, the Board raised and lent considerable sums of money to the villages, very large loans being made to provide the East Coast villages of Buxton, Plaisance, and Beterverwagting, with drainage by steam machinery. 5 This system of management, though no doubt it effected material local improvements, broke down from its own weight. The smaller villages could not bear the cost of overseers, whose salaries swallowed up nearly the whole of the rates. The unpaid Boards of Superintendence failed to recruit suitable volunteer members who would face the petty squabbles and disagreeable details of village politics: the Clergy found themselves involved in chronic disagreement with their parishioners: while not the smallest detail of village administration could be finally settled until submitted to a Board which included all the principal officers of State, from the Governor downwards. In 1871 the failure was apparent. and a further Commission of enquiry was appointed. The report of this Commission, submitted in March, 1872, recommended that Government officers should be appointed to manage the villages, assisted in each case by an elected council of advice, and that proper accounts should be kept and duly audited. The report makes reference to financial mismanagement and disorganisation, and not to the same causes of complaint, -want of drainage, and breakdown of village works,-as the former report, and it may perhaps be assumed that in these last respects there was less to complain of than there had been in 1864. There followed on this report the enactment of the elaborate Ordinance (No. 10 of 1873) - to consolidate and amend the law "relating to villages and to provide for the management, regulation and sanitary superintendence of villages." This Ordinance continued the Central Board of Villages, consisting of the Governor and members of the Court of Policy and any number more Government nominees. Under the Ordinance of 1866, the Government had relied for aid in its village administration on local voluntary effort. The result had been failure and the plan was frankly abandoned. The new Ordinance created a paid Inspector of Villages, and provided for placing the local institutions under the supervision -of the Commissaries of Taxation. It, at the same time, made general the system of public election, by which the inhabitants were themselves to choose Councillors to advise and assist the Commissaries in their duties. Rates were to be levied, and provision was made for estimates, for keeping accounts, and for village works of all kinds. Provision was also continued to enable the Central Board to borrow on behalf of villages. The general extension of the practice of electing Councillors was not at first successful and it was found in practice that villagers frequently would not assemble to elect