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H © Stephen J. Pavlidis 2010 |
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A Brief History of the Trinidad and Tobago
Centuries before the birth of Christ, the first settlers in Trinidad arrived upon her shores making the island the first of the Caribbean islands to be populated. Springing from the middle Orinoco around 2100 BC, they moved downriver to the Guyanas, and then up the West Indies chain. During the past half-century, fresh finds, techniques of dating artifacts, and some heated debate, have refined our cumulative knowledge of these people into a sketchy history extending as far back as 5,000 BC. In 1971, the remains of Banwari Man were found. Discovered in southern Trinidad, near the town of Banwari Trace, the bones were carbon dated and show that the fellow lived around 5,000 BC.
The most famous of these groups were the Arawaks and Caribs, who crossed the waters in their dugout canoes and established villages on the island as they progressed up the island chain towards the Bahamas. The people of southern Trinidad kept close cultural ties with their cousins in Venezuela and trade with people far south as the Guyana’s, while the people of northern Trinidad and Tobago maintained ties with the peoples of the Windward Islands.
Up until the early 1500’s, more and more Amerindians came to Trinidad, the island they called Ieri, land of the hummingbird. In fact, up until the 19th century Amerindians ventured to Trinidad to trade, walking up the long footpath from the southern shore to the mission at Savanna Grande, which today is called the “Indian Walk” (near Princes Town). By the end of the 15th century, there were some 35,000 people inhabiting the islands ranging from the Kalina in Tobago to the Yao, Nepoio, Shebaio, and Carinepagoto tribes on Trinidad. Perhaps I should explain something here. All these peoples are Arawaks. An Arawak is simply an Amerindian that speaks the Arawakan language and covers many tribes from the Lucayans in the Bahamas, to the Tainos in Puerto Rico, to the Kalina in Tobago, and the Caribs who were to be found on all the islands of the Caribbean. Today, their only pure relatives are the Lokono Arawaks in the Guyanas.
On July 31, 1498, Christopher Columbus “discovered” Trinidad on his third voyage to the New World, saying a prayer as he spied the southern hills of Trinidad in the distance after a long spell at sea with dwindling water rations. Columbus, named the island La Trinite, after the Blessed Trinity to whom he prayed. Columbus traveled along the southern shore anchoring at Moruga, the entire passage there now being shown as The Columbus Channel on some tourist maps (but not on any official charts). Just off the southwestern tip of Trinidad, Columbus was approached by a boatload of Amerindians armed with bows and arrows. Columbus ordered music so his sailors could dance to entertain the visitors. The Indians mistook this for a war dance and let loose with a volley of arrows to which the Spaniards responded in kind causing the Indians to flee. The next day Columbus headed north, never setting foot on the island of Trinidad. Columbus later sailed by Tobago, which he named Assumpcion and Grenada, which he called Concepcion.
Shortly thereafter Spanish slavers arrived searching for divers for the pearl beds off Margarita and Cubagua, and began what is little less than genocide. At first the Indians were skeptical about fighting back, they were unsure if a white man could be killed. A cacique (chief) named Brayoan had an idea. He and his men found a Spaniard passing through their area and offered to escort him and carry him across a river on their shoulders. Once in deep water the Indians they threw the Spaniard into the water and held him under until he drowned, proving that the white man could indeed be killed. Try as they may, the Indians were unsuccessful in their fight for survival and in a few short years the Spaniards decimated the indigenous population until by 1510 there were declared to be no peaceful Indians on the islands. In 1511 the King of Spain forbade slave trading on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, but this was reversed sometime around 1532. Today all that remains of these first inhabitants are bits of their language, the names of various places, rivers, and mountains on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago.
For almost three hundred years after Columbus there were no settlers on the island save the Spaniards who used Trinidad as a base for exploring the upper reaches of the Orinoco River where they believed that El Dorado, a mythical city of gold, could be found. Along with the Spaniards came Capuchin monks who tried to convert the Amerindians that were not enslaved and removed from the islands. As you will soon learn, the Spaniards were attacked time and time again over the years. Once by Sir Walter Raleigh, himself on a quest for El Dorado, who sacked the town of St. Joseph, the old capital of Trinidad that lay 12 miles east of today’s capital, Port of Spain. A later invasion by the Dutch resulted in the Spanish survivors becoming nudists for a while as the invaders took all their possessions, including their clothes.
The Spaniards allotted a number of Amerindians to work on the local plantations where missionaries attempted to convert the Indians to Catholicism. On December 1, 1699, three missionaries were slain by Amerindians at the mission of San Francisco de los Arenales. The “peaceful” Indians also killed the Governor and several soldiers who arrived later to restore order. The bodies of the martyrs were brought to the church in St. Joseph’s and interred under the floor and the Spaniards gathered their forces and set off after the Indians who had committed the deed. The Indians, pursued by the Spanish, fled across the island to the eastern coast where they committed suicide by leaping off a cliff into the huge breakers at Toco at the northeastern tip of Trinidad. The plantation owners realized that the Missions were not working and they were eventually abolished by 1708, although four remained at Savanna Grande (now Princes Town), Guayria (now Naparima), Savanetta, and Montserrate.
The Spaniards were growing tobacco on the island by this time as the drug had become quite popular in Europe although it was not legal at the time. Dutch and English smugglers moved the illicit drug until a Spanish fleet destroyed all foreign ships in the Gulf of Paria in 1610 (Am I the only one that thinks this whole scenario sounds familiar, an illegal smoking drug, illicit trade, Caribbean based?). American tobacco growers began to dominate the tobacco market so the Trinidadian plantation owners began to grow cocoa until a disease wiped out the cocoa farmers in 1725 and a smallpox epidemic further decimated the local population. The remaining Spanish settlers concentrated themselves in St. Joseph until a coup by members of the town council 1745 almost destroyed the settlement. The resident Governor was taken hostage and order was only restored after a Spanish military force from Venezuela arrived. In 1757, the governing body in Trinidad moved from St. Joseph, 12 miles westward to a small fishing village on the coast at Puerto de Espana, Port of Spain where within two decades the town had grown to about 80 houses, one church, and a battery consisting of several cannons.
At this time Trinidad was still trading with other nations, but foreign settlers were not permitted on the island. However, in 1776, Governor Manuel Flaquez sought to attract Roman Catholic immigrants to Trinidad, particularly French planters, and offered land grants and tax incentives. But was it the planters or their African slaves that were really in demand? These laborers had brought so much already to the islands of Barbados and Haiti, and it is believed that Flaquez was a man of foresight and realized what this labor force could do for Trinidad. Soon Frenchmen from Grenada, unhappy with their new British rulers, began to trickle into Trinidad. One of them, Roume de St. Laurent, suggested the Cedula of Population, which proposed that any European white of the Catholic faith, be welcome in Trinidad. In 1783, the King of Spain agreed to the Cedula and between 1783 and 1797, thousands of French settlers and their African slaves arrived in Trinidad and set up vast sugar plantations. Each white settler was granted 130 acres for each member of his family and 65 acres for each slave he brought with him as well as special tax exemptions. There were a few free black settlers who were granted half as much as their white counterparts. The only restrictions were that the settlers had to be Roman Catholic and from a nation on good terms with Spain.
Tobago at this time was going through several changes of leadership of the years, changing Kings some 31 times, and currently being ruled by the French. Tobago was originally settled by the British in 1625 when the first group of settlers were wiped out by the indigenous Kalina Indians. In 1628 the Dutch arrived, but a combined force of Indians and Spaniards from Trinidad arrived in canoes and killed off the Dutch settlers, the only time that Trinidad and Tobago ever went to war with each other. In 1639 the British arrived again, only to be run off again by the Kalina. Charles I gave the island to his godson the Duke of Courland (in Latvia) and another settlement was established at Plymouth in 1642 by the Courlanders. Again the settlers made like a ping-pong ball being chased off by the Indians, returning in 1650, and again in 1654. At this time the Dutch returned and claimed dominion of the island until they were driven off by the British who were in turn driven off by the French who destroyed the settlements and abandoned the island.
In 1674, Tobago was ceded to the Dutch and the ownership of the islands bounced back and forth between the French, Dutch, Latvian, and English for many years. The United States briefly ruled the island for a period in 1778, just before the French regained possession, which for so many years was no more than a base for pirates. In 1783, in a move to thwart the Spanish government in Trinidad, the French got on the bandwagon and offered a similar immigration policy with large cash compensations to attract French set3tlers away from the Spanish colony.
Between 1783 and 1797 the population of Trinidad grew from 4,500 to over 16,000 people, including slaves, but the Amerindian population declined during the same period from 1,900 to about 1,000. It is estimated that the slaves outnumbered the freemen by a ration of 2 to 1 during these years.
Trinidad had a new governor at this time, Don José Maria Chacon (the national flower, the Chaconia, is named after him), who embraced the new colonization policies of the island. The island itself, though under Spanish rule, became increasingly French in flavor and customs with more and more French settlers taking important administrative posts with only one-third of the governing body, the Cabildo, being Spanish. The predominant language was French on the streets of Port of Spain, and Carnival originated about this time among the planters.
About this time Britain and France were engaged in the Napoleonic Wars which even affected Trinidad, half-a-world away, with British and French warships battling in the Gulf of Paria. In 1796, British Sailors from HMS Alarm, fresh from sinking French privateers in the Gulf, arrived in Port of Spain and became involved in fighting with some of the French inhabitants of the capital city. Governor Chacon petitioned Madrid for reinforcements and while awaiting help was offered assistance by the French emissary, Victor Hughes. Chacon declined saying he that if he were unsuccessful in his conflict with the British, he would rather the colony fall into the hands of the British than into the hands of the French settlers. In September of 1796, five Spanish ships under the command of Admiral Ruiz de Apodaca sailed from Puerto Rico to Trinidad with over 700 soldiers, most of whom immediately were beset with yellow fever. A month later Spain declared war on Britain citing the incident with the HMS Alarm.
On February 16, 1797 18 British ships under the command of Sir Ralph Abercromby and Sir Henry Harvey, sailed into the Gulf of Paria with the intent of capturing Trinidad. Outnumbered by over 2 to 1, Governor Chacon decided not to offer any opposition to the British fleet. However, not wishing to allow his ships to fall into British hands, Chacon ordered Admiral Apodaca to set fire to the Spanish fleet anchored in Chaguaramas Bay and the Governor surrendered the next day. The terms of surrender were very generous. Chacon’s soldiers were allowed to return to Spain, administrative officers were to remain at their posts, and Spanish law was to be maintained. Port of Spain then became the capital of the British colony (and remained the capital until August 31, 1962 when Trinidad and Tobago gained independence), and everybody was required to swear loyalty to the Crown and having done just that, were permitted to keep their property and holdings. Those who still considered themselves as French citizens were given safe conduct off the island to another colony.
Abercromby appointed Thomas Picton as governor and took his fleet and left, beginning Picton’s infamous six-year rule. Intimidation, torture, and executions were the rule of Picton’s term, and the slaves bore the brunt of his terror. Picton’s policies were not inline with British standards as he attempted to foster an illegal trade with Venezuela through Port of Spain. Picton even assisted Venezuelan rebels and eventually the Governor of Cumana placed a bounty on Picton’s head of 20,000 pounds. In return, Picton offered a reward of twenty pounds for the head of the Governor of Cumana. In 1801, the Crown praised Picton’s zeal, but a year later denounced him as an embarrassment for promoting a slave colony (Britain wanted a free white colony). In 1803, Picton was indicted for torturing a young black girl and the office of Governor of Trinidad was up in the air.
At this same time Tobago changed hands for the last time as the British claimed the island and were backed up by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Between the British and French, Tobago became a major exporter of sugar and cotton thanks to slave labor. Up until about 1774, Tobago was plagued with almost annual slave revolts until a savage retaliation quelled any thoughts of revolt for the rest of the century. Tobago’s population at this time was around 15,000, quite populous for such a small nation when you consider that the much larger Trinidad had not that many more settlers. A planned slave revolt in 1801 was exposed and some 200 slaves from 16 different plantations arrested. Within two weeks six rebel leaders were executed (burnt alive), four banished, and the rest flogged and return to their plantations. This quieted slave matters for decades to come.
In 1834, the abolition of slavery brought new problems to the plantation owners. As freed slaves moved off the plantations a new labor force was required. The plantation owners were recompensed for their property losses, and slaves were apprenticed to their former owners for periods of 2-4 years. Slaves protested in Port of Spain and the militia moved in to calm things down, at least until 1837 when some 40 rebels, mutineer members of the First West Indian Regiment, lost their lives, their leaders summarily executed in St. Joseph’s. By the time the former slave’s apprenticeship periods ended early in 1838, the plantation owners required a new labor force. The plantation owners, seeking to maintain a dependable workforce, offered former slaves housing and wages, but most of the slaves left. Many settled in and around the towns and began eking out a living as best they could. Others squatted illegally on lands they could not afford to purchase. The Crown, refusing to distribute Crown Land to those who were landless, could do nothing to prevent squatting. In 1846 the Sugar Duties Act allowed cheaper foreign sugar into Crown lands which naturally enraged the sugar planters in Trinidad and Tobago. The sugar economy fell in the islands, many sugar plantations were abandoned (and many new cocoa plantations sprang up), but most survived and recovery was only going to come with a dependable work force. At this time some 3,000 Africans from Sierra Leone arrived in Trinidad, but they eventually abandoned their duties on the sugar plantations. Portuguese from Madeira and Chinese arrived and set up shops on the island. One day in May of 1845, the Fatel Rozack docked at Port of Spain with the answer to the plantation owner’s woes, 225 immigrants from Calcutta.
India at this time was a British colony with a large destitute population who were used to a tropical climate and agriculture. Unfortunately, the first immigrants soon left the plantations in Trinidad and the answer became apparent; an indentureship contract, just another form of slavery some would later claim. In 1848, the Crown agreed to sponsor the immigration of indentured laborers from India, an act that would have an impact on the economy as well as the future of Trinidad and her culture. By 1851 a steady flow of Indians entered Trinidad and continued until 1917 when the Indian government stopped the practice. But by then some 144,000 Indians had arrived in Trinidad, many quarantined on Nelson Island (in the Five Islands area on just south of Carenage), Trinidad’s version of New York’s Ellis Island.
The indentureship agreement bound the workers to the plantation owner for a period of three years followed by a two-year “industrial residence” period during which the worker was permitted to re-indenture to any plantation or find another occupation provided they pay a special “occupation tax”. After five years the worker was given what was known as “free paper”, but if they wanted free passage back to India had to remain in the colony for another five years. After 1895, indentured workers were required to pay a portion of their return passage. As one would imagine, thousands of East Indian workers stayed in Trinidad after their contracts were fulfilled, their descendants making up approximately 40% of Trinidad’s current population.
At this time Tobago was going through some extremely hard times as the island found itself bankrupt as of Emancipation Day. Wages were too low to attract laborers from Barbados, convicts, freed slaves from the Americans, and Africans from Sierra Leone. If that were not enough Mother Nature gave a helping hand by devastating the island’s crops in 1847. Tobago was becoming increasingly unattractive to planters as well as workers. An then somebody came up with what’s known as the Mertaire System, whereby workers took no pay, instead sharing in the profits of the crop with the land owner. This oral arrangement worked find until the 1870’s when the sugar industry declined and planters reneged on their agreements leading to riots by workers. The Belmanna riots, named after a Corporal who was sent to arrest the riot’s leaders, convinced the planters that the Metaire System was not working. Tobagans realized that British rule was preferred to the self-governing, almost feudal system that was currently in effect so in 1877 Tobago became a British Crown Colony. Twenty years later Tobago became a “ward” of Trinidad and united the two islands forever. Soon sugar would fall by the wayside as the prime element in the Trinidadian economy, to be replaced by oil.
The fist oil well in Trinidad was drilled at La Brea in 1857, but it was over half-a-century later when the first oil refinery was constructed at Point-a-Pierre at the beginning of the first World War. Trinidadian soldiers volunteered for active duty and at first were refused until King George intervened. They formed a West Indian contingent that was not a part of the real British Army and received lower pay for simply being black. At this time only whites were eligible for commissions as officers. Though generally kept from combat with Europeans, some units saw action in Egypt against the Turks. After countless instances of racism from their military peers, the disgruntled Trinidadians returned home after the war.
Over the years many oil wells were drilled in the southern areas of Trinidad at Guayaguayare, Palo Seco, Erin, Siparia, Tabaquite, and Rousillac. One of the pioneers of the oil industry was a Brit named Randolph Rust who immigrated to Trinidad in 1881. There is a small bay named after him on the island of Chacachacare. Even with the burgeoning oil industry, the post war years brought hardship and high inflation to Trinidad. A dockworker’s strike in 1919 almost turned into a national movement for higher wages. And as one would expect, the depression years affected Trinidad as well as unemployment rose and those that did have jobs, found shrinking wages and greater workloads. The oil industry was growing but workers were striking for more money and riots seemed to be the order of the day with both strikers and policemen dying as protests turned fatal.
The advent of World War II brought the Americans to the island nation. In 1940, Great Britain leased to the United States several Crown Lands including the western coast of Trinidad at Chaguaramas for a period of 99 years. In return the Crown received 50 antiquated warships as part of FDR’s Lend-Lease program.
Trinidad was a hub of Allied and Axis activity due to its strategic location. Over 80 ships were sunk by German U-boats in the waters surrounding Trinidad. Two German U-boats entered Port of Spain and sunk two ships at King’s Wharf. Another U-boat entered Chaguaramas Bay and shelled the surrounding shoreline. This activity caused the placement of a steel submarine net stretching from Chacachacare westward north of Patos Island almost to the Venezuela shoreline.
During the war years, the United States stationed over 50,000 troops on Trinidad and within 8 years they were for the most part....gone...leaving a skeleton crew at the Chaguaramas Naval Base. These years created a boom in employment on Trinidad as thousands of people found well-paying positions in an economic balloon that was to burst shortly after the war’s end. But is was not just the labor force that benefited, land and home owners received inflated rents and hotels, restaurants, garages, taxi drivers, and bars also did a thriving business. All across the island roads and bridges were constructed, large areas of land leveled, and ugly spots transformed into scenes of beauty. In the medical field, Trinidad gained much from American health authorities whose talents, expertise, and knowledge were years in advance of the existing conditions in the prevention, treatment, and cure of disease, as well as hospital administration and supervision.
One benefit turned out to be a double-edged sword. Trinidad gained from the influx of large numbers of workers from Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, and St. Vincent, who came to Trinidad seeking employment on the American military bases. However, when the military left mounting unemployment plagued the islanders that remained, the majority of whom decided to take up permanent residence in Trinidad. Another sad by product was the racial prejudice the Americans brought with them. In 1945, Life magazine reported instances where U.S. military personnel would keep a brown paper bag at the door of their parties. Those that were lighter than the bag were considered “white” and allowed to enter.
But the economic boom was just an upside to a social downside, the family life suffered and few gains were made in education and agriculture during these years, nothing lasting. But one of the greatest gifts the American gave to Trinidad and her people would soon make her people, culture, and musicians, world famous.
The Americans left untold numbers of oil drums behind. Some inventive musicians in the Port of Spain area formed these oil drums into musical instruments that are now symbolic with almost all Caribbean music and it’s own form known as Pan. Pan music also helped to transform Carnival into a world class event instead of a local festival, today Carnival is known as possibly the greatest party in the world.
On July 4, 1973, Trinidad signed the Treaty of Chaguaramas establishing the Caribbean Community and Common Market, CARICOM. The treaty was signed in Chaguaramas at an old military barracks that the Trinis rebuilt in six weeks. That barracks was again restored in 1999 and today is known as the Chaguaramas Hotel and Convention Center. For the CARICOM signing, works of local artists were used to decorate the building and some are still present on the site.
The founding members of CARICOM were Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. Over the years Belize, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Montserrat, Antigua, St. Kitts, Nevis, and Anguilla joined in. The Bahamas signed on also, but is not a member of the Common Market. The BVI and the Turks and Caicos are Associate Members and Haiti is a Provisional Member.
On August 1, 1976, Trinidad and Tobago became an independent republic and the 70’s saw an economic boom in Trinidad with rising oil prices the world over. The 1980’s however turned out just the opposite as oil prices fell worldwide.
Today Trinidad and Tobago are seeing an increase in the tourism industry that along with the strong petroleum industry offers a bright future to the dual-island nation.