Tobago

A historian, whose name I cannot bring to mind, wrote that the Lesser Antilles, that curving island chain facing the rolling Atlantic breakers, are the "orphans of three centuries of sea power".

To get an idea of the development of Tobago is to begin to understand the manner in which it has been adopted and orphaned, abandoned and colonised, annexed and amalgamated over the centuries. David Niddrie, writing on Tobago, remarked:

"Once Columbus had broken his way into the Caribbean Sea, the Lesser Antilles became strategic defense and supply bases, vulnerable to all who sought to displace one naval power by another. From Puerto Rico southward, as far as Trinidad, the Spanish therefore sought to prevent any other maritime nation from settling these islands, so that the treasure galleons might have free passage between El Dorado and Cadiz."

Of all the European sea-going powers, it was only the Portuguese who did not challenge Spain in these waters. The Courlanders, the Dutch, the English, and the French, fiercely fought each other and Spain on an ongoing basis for more than two hundred years from the end of the 15th century on to the end of the 18th. Absurd wars commencing out of petty rivalries between autocratic rulers who were elaborately and intimately related to each other. These wars, starting out as set piece battles, where companies of men were moved about the countryside like tin soldiers on distant European battle fields, found frightful reflections of themselves in the Caribbean on remote islands that were previously known only to the migrating birds and the native Amerindians, engaged in perpetually following the tides' currents and the setting sun in search of unrecorded destinies.

Between the islands of Tobago and Trinidad lies a body of water known as the Galleons Passage, through which the huge lumbering treasure-laden ships, sailing from the silver mines of the Argentine and bound for the mints of Cartagena, passed. As such, Tobago became a key island amongst these contending powers. To the eye of the 17th century marauders, the beauty of Tobago lay along its leeward coast with its well-concealed, deep, safe harbours from which attacks upon Spanish shipping could be launched with impunity. To the cartographers of previous centuries, the Guyana coast was known as the Wild Coast, and although a Spanish possession, as just about everything was in the western hemisphere, it was not really held in strength by Spain. Both the British and the Dutch were attracted to this formidable wilderness. They would sometimes think of Tobago as a base camp for adventures, forays up into the great river systems, often to vanish without a trace.

By the mid-17th century, the French too sought to influence events. Tobago as a consequence was often caught up in these conflicts of interest. Did Columbus discover Tobago? Did he see it at all? This is in serious doubt. It is more than likely that it was stumbled upon by Amerigo Vespucci several years later.

The priest Bartolomeo de las Casas thought that Columbus called it Belaforma. Others said that its first name was Assumption, or Asuncion. But at last, it was called Tobago, after the shape of a tubed instrument called "tavaco" by the naturals, in which they smoked a herb that they called "cohiba" (tobacco). Sir Walter Raleigh may be given the dubious credit of introducing the herb now known as tobacco to the world after his visit to these islands. Today, both the French and the Dutch still spell Tobago, Tavaco.

A favourite of Queen Elizabeth I was the Earl of Leicester, Robert Dudley. He crossed the Atlantic, having in mind to explore the Wild Coast, and visited Tobago using it for "a place of arms". A Spaniard by the name of Juan Rodriguez created a homestead and made an attempt at the cultivation of tobacco for the purpose of export to Europe. This might have taken place around 1614. King James I of the United Kingdom, gave away Tobago several times. First he gave it to James Hay, Earl of Carlisle, in 1625, then, a few years later, he gave it to Philip Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke. Then, at the christening of his godson Jakob, the son of the Duke of Courland (Latvia), he presented it to the boy. This might well be the most controversial birthday present ever given, in that this gift was to bedevil the West Indies and various European nations for centuries!

It must be borne in mind that Tobago was not James' to give away at all. In fact, the Dutch, breaking away from the hegemony of Spanish domination, were to make a concerted effort to make the island their own. They too wanted the island as a base camp for their excursions to the Wild Coast. To the adventurers, sailing slowly with the night breeze beneath a brilliant, star-studded sky, the mountains of Tobago may have appeared intrusive shadows disturbing the gorgeous geometry of the constellations. With the dawn, the pastel skyscape would slowly give away to a view of lush tropical beauty, most attractive for cash crop farming.

Tobago, although small, compared to other islands, has such a variety of natural regions, each well suited to some specific crop. Tobago did not evolve as a monoculture as other islands, such as Barbados, whose economy has been dominated by sugar cane. In Tobago, the Europeans planted sugar cane, cocoa, cotton, indigo, cinnamon, peppers and tobacco. This was a very desirable feature, in that as prices for various commodities altered, with a bit of luck and careful planning, one could always have something to take to the market that would fetch a good price.

White people made money in Tobago. By the 18th century, the island began to be increasingly British, although France still had a hand to play. Notwithstanding, by 1773, there were 84 mills grinding cane, to which some 5,000 acres were devoted. 15,000 acres were under cotton. The cotton producers of Manchester sought the very fine yarn spun from cotton grown by a Mr. Robley of Tobago. Slavery came to Tobago with the Courlanders, who owned a slave-buying station on the west coast of Africa. It came with the Dutch as well. But it was with the English that Africans were to arrive in great numbers. With a high mortality rate, the slaves were replaced with a startling regularity, and quite literally worked to death.

There were revolts where white people were killed and there were of course reprisals. Slaves, however, were expensive, and there is a case recorded where 19 slave insurrectionists, tried and sentenced to be hung, were taken to the fort above Scarborough. Instead of hanging them all, the frugal Tobagonian planters hung one man nineteen times, giving the impression to the crowd of Africans beyond the walls that justice was taking its course!

In the period after emancipation, when the salubrious effects of Christianity, as interpreted by first the Moravians and then the Methodists, tended to whittle away retained African concepts and religious beliefs, Tobago was to receive several hundred freed Africans taken from Portuguese slave ships in the mid-Atlantic. David Niddrie recounts in his book "Tobago":

"One old man, aged 76 years, in the Scarborough market was able to relate his grandparents' account of the arrival of these new Africans who on their first free day, a Sunday, hollowed out the trunk of a silk cotton tree, stretched a hide over it and proceeded to beat out a wild dance rhythm in front of the Methodist church. While within three years those selfsame Africans had taken English and Scottish surnames and were going to church as avowed Christians, they undoubtedly reinforced African customs which were falling into disuse."

When one looks at the list of names of the Europeans who have owned lands in Tobago in the 18th and 19th centuries, it is remarkable that there are no white people there any more with a long and established ancestry. Their names, however, do survive this as the result of the female slaves who shared their beds, their lives and their misfortunes. Several old family names survive from 1764 settlements.

"Those whites who exploited the island in the 19th century had long since bankrupted themselves and disappeared into obscurity, yet many of their names remain with black people," writes Niddrie.

Some families still have stories handed down over the generations. There are even a few mementos that have survived in families. Attached is a photograph of a piece of needle work collected by Tom Cambridge while warden of Tobago, and a reproduction of Betty Creton's will.

Trinidad and the Empire

The Seas around us hold our destiny

From climatic conditions over naval decisions to the petrochemical industry: our fate was always intertwined with the oceans around us.

Who controlled the high seas during the colonial era was always of great significance to us in these islands. When Sir Winston Churchill in 1913 as First Lord of the Admiralty altered the British ocean-going fleet from coal furnaces to oil burners, the economic future of Trinidad was forever altered.

If Admiral Lord Nelson's flotilla had encountered the French battlefleet in an unfortunate manner in the Gulf of Paria in 1805, we may all be French-speaking today. Or, for that matter, had Admiral Apodaca attacked Admiral Sir Henry Harvy's squadron as they sailed through the Dragon's Mouth instead of burning his fleet in Chaguaramas Bay in 1797, Spanish might be spoken here.

The seas around us hold our destiny. A significant period in the history of Trinidad and Tobago occurred at a time when we were hardly mentioned on the maps and charts of the world. Spain and Portugal had been given the New World, the entire western hemisphere, by the pope of the day, oblivious to the fact that it was not his to give away in the first place. This was challenged by the non-Catholic princes of Europe, particularly England. At the source of the circumstances lay the proverbial root of it all: money.

Had circumstances gone in favour of Spain, the direction of history would have changed. In the wake of the discoverers Columbus, Vespucci and others, came the adventurers Cortes, Pizzaro and de Berrio, to name but a few. These were followed by the privateers, bandits and buccaneers, many of whom were English seamen like Morgan, Drake, Hawkins and Raleigh.

Spain was then an underpopulated, comparatively backward European country which had recently driven out its intelligentsia, that is, the Jews and the Arabs. She had become enormously wealthy by her new colonies in the New World. Out of the mines of Peru and Mexico came gold and silver. From the Gulf of Paria came pearls of great worth. Vast areas of the southern continent, as yet without names, yielded emeralds and rubies. The power of the Spanish empire was so fortified by these riches, that King Philip could equip his armies and his navy as no other power had done before.

This was well appreciated in the ruling circles of England. Recently Protestant under Henry VIII, Spain, a powerful Catholic neighbour, posed a threat to the island nation. So long as Spain controlled the wealth of the New World, she could launch and equip battlefleets against England.

To get a piece of the treasure from Americas, England therefore had to arrest it at its source or capture it from the Spanish ships on the high seas. England's economy in those years, the 1580s, was agricultural. She had to strengthen her finances. The virgin Queen Elizabeth I accordingly sanctioned a quantity of unofficial expeditions against Spanish interest in the west. This brought Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh into the Gulf of Paria. Raleigh burnt down Port of Spain, captured Trinidad's capital, St. Joseph, kidnapped the Spanish governor and took him up the Orinoco river in search of El Dorado and the City of Gold.

Sir Henry Morgan raided out of Jamaica the Spanish-held coastlines of Mexico. British privateers would lie in hiding in Tobago's Pirates Bay, so as to spot Spanish treasure fleets making for the Galleons Passage, the narrows between Trinidad and Tobago in order to capture treasure beyond their wildest fantasies.

Avoiding open war, these raids continued. However, they made no lasting impact on Spain. It was only John Hawkins who rebuilt the British navy and put into place the sound foundation that would make it master of the open sea in the coming 17th century.

Sir Winston Churchill, writing in his "History of the English-Speaking Peoples", remarks:

"The Spaniards had long contemplated an enterprise against England."

They knew that England stood in the way of their reconquest of the Netherlands. Spain commenced the building and the assembling of a fleet. These preparations were delayed for a year by Drake's famous raid on Cadiz in 1587. He wrote that he had "singed the King of Spain's beard". In May of the following year, the armada was ready. 136 ships were assembled, carrying 2,500 guns and more than 30,000 men; 20,000 of them soldiers. There were 20 galleons, 44 were merchantmen and 8 were Neapolitan galleys. These were the main ships.

The Spanish armada set out to sail up the channel with a view to land on the south coast of England. They were under the command of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia. Hawkins' redesign of Britain's fighting ships was about to be tested. In fact, the best that they could put against the Spaniards was a fleet of 34 ships of the line plus another 150 privately owned vessels.

The British stationed small squadrons all along the southern coast. In the meantime, an Atlantic storm that had been broiling for several days swept the Spanish fleet, dismantling two 1,000 ton ships.  The storm in passing through the channel, forced the British to put out to sea.

If the Spanish Duke had attacked the English vessels to leeward of his ships as they struggled to clear the land, he would have caught them at a disadvantage, but instead, he followed his orders and sailed up the channel. The English, however, just managed to get their fleet to the windward of the Spaniards and for nine days hung on to the Armada as it ran before a gusty westerly while pounding away with their long-range guns at the lumbering galleons.

On July 23, the wind dropped and both fleets lay drifting off Portland Bill. The Spaniards attempted a counter-attack with the Neapolitan galleys rowed by hundreds of slaves. Sir Francis Drake took advantage of light wind and swept in upon the main body, forcing them to give way "until they flocked together like sheep".

During the following night, the English launched ships full of dynamite to drift in the direction of the enemy, then set them alight, abandoning them as quickly as possible. Massive explosions shook the very air. The Spanish captains cut the cables that held their ships at anchor and made for the open sea. There were many collisions in the dark.

Over the following several hours, both winds and tide worked against them. Finally, the Spanish turned to face their pursuers. A long and desperate fight raged for eight hours. Ships lashed together as men fought it out hand to hand, sword to sword, musket to musket. Breaking free, their main van sailed northward with one thought in mind: home. This time, the westerly winds helped although they were wrecks. Then a shift came. They were forced to make for Ireland for fresh water - they had already cast their horses and mules overboard.

The English had not lost a single ship. A handful of men had given their lives. The Spaniards had lost half their fleet. The British struck a gold medal upon which was inscribed: "God blew and they were scattered". This victory over Spain was the shining achievement of the Elizabethan age. England had emerged as a first class sea power. She had resisted the might of the greatest empire since Roman times.

This, in fact, was a turning point in the history of the world. There were still many battles to fight against Spain, France and later against Germany, and many tribes and nations to conquer and overthrow to make the British Empire. But in the final analysis, it was England that won the wars.