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Dr Rita Pemberton

DURING THE post-Emancipation years, one of the first group of professionals to exit Tobago was the medical practitioners. Since 1834 the island was underserved by Western-trained medical officers. The estates provided the main source of income for doctors who were employed to attend to the enslaved labourers who were ill. This activity provided a valuable source of income to the doctors, whose patients were drawn from several estates.
Sickness was a feature of enslavement because the enslaved workers were overworked and underfed, brutally punished for disobedience, and feigned illness as a resistance strategy. Therefore, the medical service was of importance to plantation operations, which were directed by the shipping schedule.
It was essential for all stages of the production of sugar to be completed in accordance with a rigid schedule so that the sugar was ready for export in time for the arrival of the ships. If for any reason plantation operations were interrupted, the planter was in danger of suffering severe losses and an inability to service his debts.
For this reason it was of important to keep their enslaved workers in good working condition, although, ironically, it was the same working and living conditions which were imposed on the workers that made them prone to illnesses.
Initially, children were seen as a drain on plantation resources because sugar production required strong healthy workers, especially males. Planter attitudes changed when the British government terminated the trade in captive Africans in 1808. Planters then sought to encourage the creation of a locally-born enslaved population by encouraging liaisons between enslaved males and females and offering incentives to pregnant women and new mothers, and providing care for babies on the plantations.
While this development made medical service more important, it occurred at a time when plantation fortunes in Tobago were spiralling downwards.
The intensified movement for the termination of enslavement between 1808 and 1833 when the Emancipation Act was passed in the British parliament and its implementation in 1834, had a significant impact on the presence of Western-trained medical officers on the island.
Their numbers dwindled because of the declining fortunes of Tobago’s plantations, whose owners were less able to afford their services. This left room for enhanced opportunities for the traditional medical practitioners upon whom the enslaved had always depended because they were very distrustful of the Western-trained doctors, whose services they could not afford.
These doctors left Tobago for greener pastures, but it was the official view that the services of trained medical officers must be provided on the island. In 1874, two brothers, Dr Richard Anderson and Dr James Anderson, arrived on the island where they served the Windward district. Immediately they became embraced in the island’s ruling class structure.
They became lessees of Castara Estate which they bought in 1880. The Andersons reflected the practice of several officials, estate managers, lessees and skilled whites who sought to make a fortune on the island despite its penurious state.
It is clear that both brothers were motivated to use their medical practice for wealth generation, for within two years of their arrival in Tobago they were well known and greatly despised for the exorbitant fees that they charged an impoverished population for their services.
Such was the opprobrious reputation of these two gentlemen that it was asserted that their high fees constituted one of the causes of the 1876 Belmanna War. Undoubtedly, they were aware of their unpopularity because during the eruption the brothers fled from their home base in Windward Tobago to safety in Scarborough.
Despite their reputation, in 1877 Richard Anderson was appointed as the district medical officer (DMO) for Scarborough and its environs while the reputation of the brothers for gouging intensified with their penchant for taking their clients to court for the most minute of outstanding sums.
In 1883 Richard Anderson took two women to court for outstanding fees which were twice the official rate. Public opposition to the brothers was expressed in three petitions which were submitted to the authorities between 1880 and 1882, appealing for neither brother to be made a DMO because of their high fees and their crudeness. Richard Anderson was relieved of his appointment as DMO, but he continued as Colonial Surgeon with responsibility for the Scarborough Hospital, while maintaining the operation of a thriving private medical practice with his brother.
The Andersons also owned a dry goods merchant house named Goodridge and Good, of which the only chemist shop on the island was a part. The chemist shop enjoyed a monopoly on the importation of medical drugs, which allowed Richard Anderson to provide drugs from his dispensary to the public at government expense. Accused of using his business connections to defraud the government, he was forced to withdraw from Goodridge and Good, which remained the sole supplier of drugs to the government.
Not only were the brothers hated by the public, but officials also found their behaviour intolerable. The 1883 Royal Commission reported that while under the care of Richard Anderson, the Tobago Hospital was the worst in the region, but he sought to exonerate himself by blaming the government. He engaged in a stream of contentious communication with the Colonial Office, which irritated the imperial officers who sought ways to get rid of him.
The opportunity came with the Jane Dryce affair. Pregnant Dryce was experiencing agonising pain in a complicated birth process. Seeking to obtain relief for her daughter, her mother walked over 20 miles to request Dr Anderson to see her daughter, but she was unable to locate any doctor because both DMOs were out of their districts.
The mother returned to plead with Dr Anderson to attend to her daughter, promising to make an initial payment and make the remaining portion of his fees in subsequent periodic payments, but he insisted on full cash payment before he would visit Dryce.
Bereft of medical attention, on December 2, 1885, 19-year-old Dryce died a miserable death, and the people of Tobago, who were astounded at Dr Anderson's heartlessness, called for his dismissal. Anderson’s appointment was immediately terminated. He was given a terminal payment and was provided with no further appointment in the colonial service. The post of Colonial Surgeon in Tobago was abolished in 1886.
Despite coming to an impoverished island and with nothing else but their professional qualifications, the Anderson brothers were able to build a fortune in Tobago as managers, lessees and finally estate owners, their earnings from a lucrative medical practice which fleeced Tobago’s labouring poor, conducted a medical service which allowed them to feed off the government through their positions in the island medical service.
By the time they left Tobago, the brothers were part owners of a steam ship, The Dawn. Though despised by the people and having lost the respect of their fellow officials, the Anderson brothers demonstrated how it was possible for officials, despite their incompetence and unpopularity, to build a fortune in an impoverished colony.
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