The Social and Economic Role of Cattle in Barbuda

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. American Geographical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Geographical Review. rnT HE similarities of the islands in the Caribbean stem from their shared tropical environments and from their history of colonization, plantations, and slavery. The differences arise from the details of their individual histories and natural features. That two islands as different in soils and topography as Antigua and St. Kitts could both have been dominated by sugar cultivation exemplifies the area's common economic and historical imperatives. But when the resource and subsistence possibilities of individual island societies are considered, individual ecological relationships become significant and substantial differences in history and colonial exploitation emerge.Barbuda is one West Indian island where present-day land use, land tenure, and subsistence economy are clearly the products of a unique history and natural history. Here community and economy differ in important respects from those on islands that had been devoted, as Barbuda had not, to plantation agriculture.One of the remarkable features of the Barbudan adjustment to history and environment is cattle keeping, which is central to Barbudan economy and society. It permits men to earn their livings by traditional productive activities without emigrating, and it preserves an unusual form of land tenure especially suited to environment and land use. Cattle keeping fits economic requirements, ecological conditions, and values while providing cash, prestige, and companionship in cooperative work teams for Barbudan men. The personal relationships that it activates among residents of different households are essential to village solidarity. But even though cattle keeping perpetuates all these Barbudan ways of life, at the same time it establishes a foundation for economic change.Three related processes of the past twenty or so years have reinforced the social and economic functions of Barbudan cattle keeping: diminishing rainfall, declining cultivation, and increasing numbers of feral cattle. Too many animals and too little rain make cultivation unrewarding; the Barbudan need for cash makes it unattractive. Because few paying jobs exist in Barbuda and because the Barbudan system of land tenure debars the sale of land for development, Barbudan men can accumulate cash and prestige without emigrating only by cattle keeping or by lobster diving.1

Renegotiating Barbuda's commons: recent changes in Barbudan open-range cattle herding

“…And they have been largely successful in that effort, with most of the island remaining unfenced and under communal control. As late as the 1980s, several crews of cattle runners hunted and trapped the small, short-horned cattle (Berleant-Schiller 1974, 1977bSluyter 2009). The crews typically numbered four to six men who at any time of year would chase a herd on horseback until a cow or bull tired enough to be cut out and brought down with dogs, by a cattle runner on foot with a lasso, with a flying leap from horseback to wrestle the animal to the ground, similar to the bulldogging event of North American rodeos or with a tail twisting technique similar to the Mexican coleadero and the Venezuelan coleo.…”

“…Political processes, both local and national, also relate to the decline. During the 1970s, determination of calf ownership involved a political process of negotiation among alliances of herd owners and cattle runners (Berleant-Schiller 1977b;Sluyter 2009). During the 1980s, according to one interviewee, the owner of the largest herd began to claim absolutely every unbranded calf.…”

“…Despite that general anonymity, over the past half-century quite a number of geographers as well as a few anthropologists and historians have studied various aspects of Barbudan land and life (Harris 1965;Russell and McIntire 1966;Berleant-Schiller 1974, 1977a, 1977b, 1983, 1984Watters 1980;Tweedy 1981;Clarke 1977, 2007;Nicholson 1991). The focus of recent publications on Barbuda detailing cattle herding follows a rich tradition in geography (Jordan 1993 andSluyter 2009).…”

Hidden Places and Creole Forms: Naming the Barbudan Landscape∗

“…In 1690 only 20 inhabitants were recorded, indentured servants placed there to tend the semiferal livestock that ranged the island (Codrington 1689;Stapleton 1676). Even though the first English settlers could not prosper on the island, their cattle, sheep, goats, and horses flourished and became formative elements in the economy and cultural landscape that later developed (Berleant-Schiller 1977;Harris 1965,111-12). The grazing of European domesticated animals and the accompanying alteration of the plant communities likely exacerbated Barbuda's dry climate and recurrent droughts.…”

Barbuda: A Caribbean Island In Transition

“…David Lowenthal and Colin Clarke () debunked the myth that the island served as a slave‐breeding colony. Riva Berleant‐Schiller () revealed much about its social and economic relations. And David R. Watters () conducted archaeological research on both pre‐historic and historic sites.…”