Myth becoming history
Myth is often an unavoidable,
some may even say an integral part of history. In an attempt to create precedent and
to come to terms with what has happened, people at times create myths as a witness of
the past and, if there is nothing available to inform their thinking otherwise, myth becomes
history and then fact.
“That is the remains of the
hanging tree,” said the custodian of Woodford Square. “They cut it down, but
people come all the time and pick up pieces, the woodchips.” The great stump of
the samaan was cut almost to the level of the walkway in the middle of the
Square. It was another one of those historical mistakes - a case of a myth
becoming historical fact!
In truth, it was Sir Ralph Woodford,
Govenor from 1813 to 1829, who laid out Brunswick Square - later call Woodford
after him - with exotic trees imported from various places as was the custom in
England at the time. That particular samaan had come all the way from South America along with several others and would have been a very small sapling at
Woodford’s time, becoming the magnificent giant 150 years later in the 20th century. In
any event, there were no public executions in Trinidad in the Woodford years.
For that sort of display one would have to go back several decades to Govenor
Picton’s time.
Another case of myth becoming
history concerns the brick stone and iron structure on South Quay opposite to
the old Railway Station (City Gate). To the utter amusement of the older heads of Port-of
Spain a few years ago, this vault or safe, was declared a slave cell. Candlelight
vigils began to take place there, processions of hundreds of people assembled in
the vacant lot around this forlorn, abandoned structure.
This vault was never a cell for
slaves. It was part of a building constructed in the 1870s on reclaimed land,
some 30 years after the emancipation of the enslaved by a Portuguese family for the
purpose of keeping their money and other valuables. After the demolition of the
building, the vault proved to be indestructible and remained there for several years.
Yet another claim at identifying
another ‘slave site’ was launched some years ago by a clergyman. This time it
was King George V park in St. Clair, where it was said the bodies of hundreds
of slaves of the St. Clair estate were buried. Again this is not the case. As
the original plan of the estate would show, the estate cemetery was not too far
from the house where a dozen or so slaves had been interred along with various
members of the Grey family, proprietors of the St. Clair estate.
But the most suprising of all the
recent cases of myth progressing into history was the one concerning the
mythical sea creature that once formed a part of the weather vane atop the rotunda
of the Red House. In fact, this was a matter concerning the politicizing of
superstition, in truth the institutionalizing of superstition. The so called ‘Dragon
on the Red House’ was said to have placed there by a political party that having lost an election was out of power and the newly elected government was seeking to denigrate them. In fact it had been there since 1907 when the building was rebuilt after
the fire of 1903. As a sea creature, it matched the Marine Venus in the nearby
Woodford Square fountain, and kept verey good company with Port of Spain’s Marine Square and of course the nearby
Dragon’s Mouth. By no stretch of imagination was this unfortunate beast put
there in recent years. In fact, as a historical monument, it should be replaced!
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