Burma Road Riot in the Bahamas

The effects of the war were much more immediate and explosive than anyone in the government anticipated. Within a few weeks of Pearl Harbor, plans had been laid to make New Providence a major air base, for America, and upgrading the airport close to Nassau which Sir Harry Oakes had already donated to the government, and adding a even larger Satellite Field next to Lake Killarney at the western end of the island. The building contract was rewarded by the United States regime to the large Pleasantville Corporation. This brought in modern equipment and advertised for twenty-five hundred local laborers. This construction development assured a relative bonanza for the local jobless, a chance to sell their labor for something like the rates they knew were normal on the mainland – twelve shillings a day. Little did they know, behind their backs, the Bahamian government agreed to peg local wages for unskilled labor at the rates established in 1936: four shillings for an eight hour working day, despite wartime price rises. These rates was applied to semi-skilled as well as unskilled work, and labor gangs were placed under the direction of American or local nonwhite foremen but two white Bahamians, on the mistaken principle that they would know best how to control the black Bahamian workforce.
Organized blue-collared action certainly seemed doubtful. There was much to discuss since Charles Rhodriguez reactivated the unskilled workers’ labor union. They announced that the formation of the Federation of Labor would also represent skilled workers as well. A modestly attended public meeting was held on May, 22 1942, after which the union and federation executives drafted a petition with the help of their attorney, A.F. Adderly, calling for a minimum wage of eight shillings a day. The administration showed little concern, Governor Windsor left for an appointment in Washington May 28th. The following day, the petition was delivered to the labor officer and passed on to the