Since at least the 1600s, sailors in the British Navy had been issued a daily ration of alcohol. In the early days this might have included beer and brandy, but by the 1700s it was now exclusively a small amount of rum referred to as a “tot” of rum. On the thirty-first of July 1970 the British Navy issued the rum ration for the final time, ending a tradition that lasted for over 300 years. Known since then as Black Tot Day, it has become an occasion of celebration for rum enthusiasts in Europe and North America. It is celebrated by honoring the drinking traditions of the British Navy, celebrating the legacy of the West India Docks that supplied rum for the Navy, while drinking rum.
In recent years, there has been growing discussion on the legacy of colonialism in the Caribbean Rum Industry, and this has led to Black Tot Day increasingly being seen through a news lens.
From a new Caribbean perspective;
Black Tot Day celebrates Wealth extracted from the Caribbean that was created by an Exploited Workforce.
Black Tot Day pays tribute to the West India Docks which were large warehouses in Britain built by slave owners. These immense warehouses were used to store the wealth taken from the canefields of the Caribbean as part of the British Empire’s strategy to extract as much wealth as possible, ultimately contributing to underdevelopment in the region.
After building their wealth on generations of forced labour, the owners of the West India Docks were further compensated after the Emancipation of Slavery when they were legally obligated to free their slaves.
Black Tot Day Romanticizes an Imperial Military.
The British Navy whose traditions are honored every Black Tot Day used excessive force against the Caribbean, and locked up anti-Imperialist activists in concentration camps for decades.
During the struggle for worker’s rights during the 1930s, the British Navy was routinely deployed against sugarcane workers protesting for better working conditions. Historian Jerome Teelucksingh describes “the menacing presence of British Naval Squadrons” as the lynchpin of “state suppression of the working class” during these anti-colonial struggles. In different eras, and across the British Commonwealth, the Royal Navy has been a military group that was used to oppress workers in the sugarcane industry.
It is insulting and insensitive to romanticize the rum drinking traditions of a group that was violent towards sugarcane workers fighting for better working conditions in the post-emancipation Caribbean
Black Tot Day demonstrates the growing Nonchalance towards Slavery in the Rum Industry.
In 2018, the European owners of two rum companies hosted an event called The Rum Tasting of the Century, where they claimed that rum made in Barbados in 1780 had no connection to slavery. This is akin to denying one of the largest and longest running crimes against humanity. In the time since, both of them have continued to demonstrate a nonchalant attitude towards slavery, and its impact on Caribbean society.
One of them made statements implying that chattel slavery was a mere inconvenience to the enslaved rather than a brutal and cruel system, as well as comments romanticizing underdevelopment in the Caribbean. The other one organized Black Tot Day celebrations in 2020 that honored institutions built on slavery, and concluded with an afterparty mocking Emancipation Day.
These are two prominent figures who own popular brands and hold significant power in the rum industry. Their growing nonchalance towards slavery and its legacy on Caribbean society and the Caribbean rum industry is a dangerous and disturbing trend.
Black Tot Day reveals the Rampant Corruption within the Rum Influencer Community
The leading influencers in the rum industry consists almost entirely of brand ambassadors and bartenders from North America and Europe. Their rise to prominence, and importance in the industry is directly linked to rum companies funding their speaking engagements and events. The most prominent people in the rum industry who speak about issues like inclusion and ethics, have received funding and free rum from the organizers of the Rum Tasting of the Century, and have actively protected them from criticism.
It is impossible for the Caribbean rum industry to move away from colonial nostalgia that white washes the region’s past as long as prominent figures in the rum industry have a vested interest in protecting brands that do this.