The Politics of Representation and Petitions: Farmers, Land, and the Jamaican Agricultural Society, 1895–1929

Abstract:Throughout the early decades of the twentieth century, the economic interests of middle, small, and tenant farmers coincided at locally organized occasions. This led to the idea that the island's agricultural and economic prosperity depended on the successful development of small landed peasant cultivators and not on the prevalence of large plantations. By using case studies from the banana industry and the parish of Clarendon, the importance of the Jamaica Agricultural Society's branch societies, in articulating the diverse interests of tenants, small farmers, and middle farmers, is highlighted.