The Antique Saints of Trinidad

Few genuine relics remain from Trinidad’s Spanish period. One of them is to be found in the church dedicated to Our Lady of Montserrat. This little wooden figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known as the ‘Black Virgin’, is said to be a copy of a statue of Our Lady in a shrine in Montserrat, Spain.

“In Tortuga, the ‘Black Virgin’ is placed in a side chapel reserved for its veneration,” writes Sister Marie Therese in her excellent book ‘Parish Beat’. “People come from all parts of Trinidad to pray at her feet, beseeching favours. At a date close to September 8th, her feast is celebrated. No one knows, really, when the little wooden figure of the ‘Black Virgin of Montserrat’ was brought to Tortuga, but it is presumed that it came through a Capuchin missionary from Spain.”

It is interesting to note that the earliest missionaries, the Catalan Capuchin priests, first arrived in 1687. The last Aragon Capuchin came in 1758. This serves to give an idea of the age of the ‘Black Virgin of Montserrat’.

Another remarkable figure of veneration is that of La Divina Pastora at Siparia. Sister Marie Therese relates:

“Siparia was one of the missions of the Spanish Capuchins who came from the Santa Maria province of Aragon in 1756 - 1758. Devotion to the divine shepherdess is centuries old, originating in Spain. It is said that in 1703 Our Lady appeared to a Capuchin known as the Venerable Isidore. In this visitation he was instructed to spread devotion to her under the title of ‘Our Lady, Mother of the Good Shepherd’. This devotion was introduced in Venezuela in 1715 and the first church was built in her honour in an Amerindian mission.”

The date of when the devotion to her was introduced to Trinidad is not known. There is, however, a parish record that states that the statue of La Divina Pastora was brought from Venezuela to Siparia by Spanish priest, who said that the statue had saved his life. This record dates from 1871.

The statue may well be over 100 years older than that date. Perhaps it had travelled from Spain to Venezuela in 1715, perhaps it had been taken into safekeeping by the priest in those turbulent years of Venezuela’s post-revolutionary period, when much of the church property was destroyed in the wars.

Santa Rosa de Lima was canonised in 1671. She was born in Peru of Spanish parents and became a nun in the Dominican order. She devoted her life to the sick and the destitute, and is remembered even today by the tribal people of the high Andes.

In 1757, the Capuchins of Aragon founded a mission at Arima and dedicated their work to this first New World saint, Santa Rosa. Some 30 years later, this mission was enlarged to accommodate the tribal people who had been displaced from Tacarigua, Caura and Arouca.

Dating from an early period, a figure said to be that of the saint was brought to the church. It had been discovered by villagers in the high woods, and has been the focus of veneration ever since.

Sister Marie Therese records the words of Fr. Thomas:

“In 1813, the youthful Sir Ralph Woodford attended the Santa Rosa festival. On this joyous occasion, the church is decorated. During the service, a cannon was discharged at intervals. At the end of the mass, ceremonial dances were performed in the church to the accompaniment of the cuatro and the chac-chac. The four leading Caribs of the mission bore the statue in procession, immediately followed by the Carib queen, who was dressed like a bird of paradise.”

According to H.A.A. de Verteuil, the king and the queen of the Caribs in the early 19th century were usually young people. The church was elaborately decorated with produce, and people came from afar to view the ceremonies. An excerpt from a report by Don Domingo de Vara to the Spanish king in 1595:

“The Indians for their labour will gain instruction in the matters of Our Holy Faith and shelter and protection, as though our children, so that they may recognise and appreciate the great work which our Commander does in bringing them to the obedience and protection of His Majesty. From this, those who wish to go will learn that we intend to populate these lands and not to depopulate them; to develop them and not to exploit them; to control them and not to destroy them. Those who do not accept this are warned that they will suffer the anger of God who has clearly shown that those who rob and maltreat the Indians, perish in the land they try to desolate, and their riches, acquired by deceit and tyranny, are lost in the sea and their families perish and are forgotten."

Easter Special: The Missions

It is recorded in the gospel of Mark that Christ said: “Go out to the whole world; proclaim the good news to all creation.”

With this injunction firmly entrenched, Christian missionaries set out to change the world. And in truth, they succeeded. Fanning out from Palestine in the Near East, the ‘good news’ was taken westward by St. James, brother of the Lord, to Spain with another relative, Joseph of Amerithia, reaching the British isles. St. Thomas, also known as Jude, travelled to Central Asia, to Edessa, where it is said that the first church was built, and then to India, where he was martyred. Martyrdom was central to the theme in that time, as Peter, Paul and Stephen so met their deaths along with untold thousands of Christians.

The occupation of Spain by Muslim armies before the end of the first millennium of the Christian era posed a significant threat to the warm heartland of Central Europe. It was more than five hundred years before the Moors could be driven back to Africa across the Straits of Gibraltar.

The zeal of reconquest, inspired by the church triumphant, brought missionaries sailing in the wake of Columbus to the New World. The religious orders, especially the Dominicans, Franciscans and Augustinians, were quick to send ‘labourers to the new fields’. Within 25 years of the establishment of the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo, Trinidad received its first missionaries, Frs. Francisco de Cordova and Juan Garces. Within months, they were martyrs.

It was difficult for the Caribs to tell the difference between the strangers who came with bell, book and candle to pray, and those who arrived with sword and shot to capture and enslave. To them, the strangely-behaved Spaniards must have seemed one and the same.

Some 45 years went to pass before another try was made with the ‘good news’. In the 1560s, the saintly Louis Bertrand O.P. tried in the islands of St. Vincent, Tobago and Trinidad to convert the fierce Carib tribes. He was not successful and was recalled to Spain.

For the island people, the appalling intrusion by these aliens forever disrupted their cultural evolution and their days of great peace living in their ancient forest. Venturing endlessly in great migrations from mainland to island and from island to island, guided by the stars and their hearts’ desire: all this came swiftly to an end with the advent of the Europeans.

Capuchins of the ‘Strict Observance’ came to Trinidad in 1571 with conquistador Don Juan Ponce of Seville. His mission of conquest faltered in the swamps of Mucurapo. The arrows of the Caribs, tipped with poisonous machineel, killed the Spaniards’ precious horses. The smell of human flesh being cooked drove even brave men to flee in fear. They left.

Five years later, two Jesuits, Frs. Llauri de Vergara came, survived, and journeyed up the Orinoco to Santo Tome of Guyana.

In Trinidad, unknown thousands of tribal people were captured into slavery. Hundreds more lost their lives when the Spaniards made them dive for pearls in the Gulf of Paria; many others were killed in the several attempts of ‘pacification’.

Gone forever were the happy years of their own cheerful massacres, conquest of islands and stealing of wives. Already they were fading across the narrow sea to the mainland, whence they had come hundreds of years before - a sad reversal.

But notwithstanding that, they still numbered in their tribes brave ones who looked out from their mountain villages at the small clearings in the forest, where the strangers, dressed in white, worked small fields, prayed and chanted, and in their own fashion attempted to be kind.

One can say that by 1591, the first ecclesiastic foundation was made. Don Antonio de Berrio came to Trinidad and created San José de Oruna (St. Joseph), bringing with him several priests.

On a piece of flat land overlooking the Caroni planes, the great forest was removed, and with mud and the leaves of the carat plant a little ajoupa village was formed. A convent with a church was constructed with a thatch roof, tall forest trees for uprights and vines binding the beams together. De Berrio also built a hospice for the friars, to which he gave the name of his patron San Antonio.

The Capuchins took possession of their convent in 1593. Two years later, San José was overrun by Sir Walter Raleigh. Three or four years later, 2,000 colonists arrived from Spain with ten priests. The Caribs, the weather, the lonely desolation of the longest rainy season they ever experienced, rotted the carat roofs and melted the mission walls. Mildew covered everything. The Europeans began to die. They too left - Trinidad was not easy!

Francisco Leite was born in Cumana, New Granada (now Venezuela) in the 1620s. A pious man, possessed of great kindness, he was also able to speak several native dialects. He formed a plan to pacify the tribal people with kindness, generosity and persuasion. He petitioned the King in Spain for priests, whom he could instruct in the language of the country, and whom he would accompany into the high woods of Trinidad, inhabited by the fiercest tribes.

The missions of the Catalan Capuchin friars were to prove much more successful than past attempts. Ten friars arrived in August of 1687, two came out later.

Brave hearts with the certain knowledge of God on their side, the friars made their way along the footpaths that crossed the island into its interior, sweating in their heavy woollen cassocks, tonsured heads peeling in the hot sun. Their Carib bearers were painted red with roucou against the insects, naked, chatting in their own language, and unpredictably dangerous. It was already common knowledge that Spaniards tasted better than the Dutch or the English!

The friars organised missions at Aricagua (San Juan), Tacarigua, Arouca, along the Royal Road in the north of the island. In October of 1687, a mission was established at Savana Grande (Princes Town) and one on the wooded slopes of Naparima Hill. This they dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Lady, which later became the mother mission in Trinidad. San Fernando was to grow around it. The Catalan Capuchins also established themselves at Savonetta and Montserrat.

In the dry months of 1688 they established a chapel on the banks of the Arena river, which flows into the Tumpuna, in a sandy area halfway between this river and the Tamanaque mountain. It was called San Francisco de los Arenales. Two years later, the friars set up missions at Mayaro, Guayaguayare and Moruga.

The missions soon had little villages like satellites in their company. The thatched church with mud walls, very crude, earthen floor, was decorated with statuettes of saints, brightly painted and imported from Spain. Always facing a little square, the church dominted the huts. Its Latin cross threw a shadow, which moved with the sun across the dirt road.

The missions to the tribal people were essentially agricultural. Vegetables were grown, lifestock kept. The people living in the missions were engaged in weaving and plaiting, making useful things, such as hammocks and sieves, and in cassava growing, which was their staple diet. The forest then was thick with gigantic trees and magnificient orchids. It teemed with bird life that flew in flocks or perched and soared in solitary splendour. There were timid deer and huge morocoys that moved with prehistoric slow motion. Agoutis and armadillos roamed the undergrowth, as did the deadly mapapie.

Days were regulated by prayer and work, which was considered sacred. To what degree discipline was imposed on the Amerindians, no one knows. The bell tolled, the day’s work commenced, and it tolled when it ended.

On 1st December, 1699, three priests were martyred by the tribal people at San Francisco de los Arenales. The martyred were brought to St. Joseph’s church and interred under the floor near to the western door. The Indians subsequently were hunted by the Spaniards, crossed the island to the east coast where they committed mass suicide. Mothers, babes in arms, old folks and young men were drowned by the surging breakers of the Atlantic Ocean.

Churches in Tobago in the 18th and 19th century

compiled by Sister Marie Therèse in ‘Parish Beat’

1781 Anglicans establish mission

1787 The Brethren of the Protestant Episcopal Church, also called the Moravians, found a mission on Riseland estate

1790 A tropical storm sweeps the island and destroys the missions

1818 The Society of Wesleyan Methodists establishes a mission

1845 Moravians return and reopen their mission. Prebyterians who had come to make a try at evangelisation in Tobago leave the island. Methodists arrive and open missions at Mt. St. George and Mason Hall.

1846 Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Barriou, a French Dominican of the Catholic Church in Trinidad, visits Tobago. A record mentions his purchase of land in 1846 and again in 1850 in view of establishing missions in Tobago.

1870 Rev. Fr. André Violette, another Dominican of Trinidad, visits Tobago and ministers to the people. He performs the baptism of one Catherine Creigh on March 5, 1870, the first one recorded in the registers of the Catholic Church in Tobago.

1885 The Dominican Fathers of Port of Spain decide to send visiting priests to Tobago on a regular basis about three or four times a year.

1892 (Catholic) priests build a church in Scarborough. It is blessed and dedicated to St. Joseph on January 31. The same year a chapel dedicated to the Sacred Heart is built by Rev. Fr. Reginald Sarthou O.P. in Delaford. This priest also baptises a person at Patience Hill that year.

1895 Catholic mission opened at Goodwood.

1897 Fr. Reginald acquires one rood and nine perches of land in Goodwood to build a church.

1898 School-chapel blessed on October 10 at Mason Hall and built by Fr. Reginald.

San Fernando

It would appear from very early historical references from the 16th century, that Mariquire Bay under the shelter of Naparima hill was regarded as a safe and healthy place to drop anchor and come ashore. The Aruacs, the missionaries and the Spanish all in turn settled here and, it would appear, thrived.

It was one of the more important centres of the Aruac people in the south of Trinidad. The ridge above the Cipero, cutting and bordering the Paradise Pasture near to where the hospital now stands, is said to be from end to end one large midden, as Amerindian grounds are described.

Tribal people may have regarded this as a principal port for that part of the island, and it was used by them as the western end of their main trackway across Trinidad to villages on the east coast. The Naparima-Mayaro Road is still referred to as Indian Walk. Sir Robert Dudley, the English explorer, crossed the island using this track in the 16th century.

It is recorded in ancient records that ‘annaparima’ is a word of Aruac stock; the prefix ‘amar’ or ‘abar’ meaning ‘one’. In this language, the number five is ‘abar dakabo’ (my one hand) and ten is ‘biam dakabo’ (my two hands); twenty is ‘abar loko’ (one man or two hands and two feet); ‘parima’ is the Aruac word for hill. Hence, Annaparima signifies one hill.

The second phase of settlement began with the Spanish Capuchin monks in the 1680s, with Fr. Thomas de Barcelona landing at the mouth of the Mariquire river. He created the mission Purissima Concepcion de Naparima, with the villages of eight caciques on the hills nearby.

The actual site of the mission at San Fernando is not recorded, but it is reasonable to suggest that it was placed just to the north of St. Vincent Street, since an old dilapidated church building was known to be there long before the Spaniards founded San Fernando or made any land grants in that area.

The Cedula of Population of 1783 brought French-speaking people and slaves to Trinidad. Many were attracted by the excellence of the soil in the Naparimas.

This expansion in the south caused governor Chacon to establish an administrative centre there in 1786.

The town was named for the Infante, the Prince of Asturias. The crown grant of 1786 to Don Isidore Vialva reserved an area for the founding of the town, amounting to about 10 acres and divided into 78 lots of 50 x 100 ft each. The reserved area was bounded on the north by the hilly lands above St. Vincent Street and on the east by Mon Chagrin Street.

Vialva sold his land to Don Juan Bautista Jaillet who called it ‘Mon Chagrin’ and developed a sugar estate of some 260 acres on it. This estate extended from Vistabella on the north, to Paradise on the south, to Mon Repos to the east and to the town and sea on the west. It virtually surrounded the town.

Among the early inhabitants of San Fernando was Don José Vincent Bontur from San Domingo, who had married Doña Maria de Pazadoas of Trinidad and was the owner of Paradise estate. Don José Rambert of St. Vincent, another early San Fernandian, is remembered to this day in Rambert Village. Don Salvadore Domenici was the owner of Vistabella estate in 1785. Don Juan Bautista Juillet had married Miss Maria Fotheringay. At his death, Mon Chagrin was valued at £2,500.

K.S. Wise, in his ‘Historical Sketches’ (1932), describes the laying out ot the town (abridged):

“In laying out the town the town the usual Spanish custom was followed and a central square formed which was named Plaza de San Carlos (now the ‘Old Cemetery’). On the north was the ancient dilapidated church, presumably the site of the abandoned mission. This church was in 1786 replaced bya new one built at the southeast corner of the plaza (now corner of Penitence and Chacon Streets). The presbytery was on the west side and the ‘Casa Real’ on the north. The principal places of business in 1792 were along St. Vincent Street, and the Mariquire Bay must have been a busy shipping place.”

Wise states further that in 1811, the Naparimas had a population of 192 whites, 297 free coloureds and 3,000 slaves. Under the terms of the Cedula of Population, about 18,000 acres had been granted to the Catholic settlers. About a third of the acreage had been cleared and cultivated, yielding 2,600 tons of sugar, 71,000 gallons of rum, 78,000 gallons of syrup, 41,000 lbs of cotton and 21,000 lbs of coffee.

Seven years later, in 1818, a great fire destroyed most of the town. It was quickly rebuilt and expanded beyond what are now High and Coffee streets. A wharf was constructed by the government in 1820, which was destroyed in 1839 by a storm and rebuilt in 1842. Between 1836 and 1842, the town expanded south up to Harris Promenade (Lord Harris being the governor in the 1840s) and east up to Pointe-a-Pierre Road. In 1846, San Fernando had outgrown its popular name ‘Petit Bourg’ (small village) and the town was granted a municipal constitution.

The Land of Beginnings

A historical review of Trinidad and Tobago in the last 500 years, prepared in commemoration of the ‘Fin de Siècle’ 1999-2000

Amongst the earliest settlers of Trinidad’s of whom we have proof were the Banwari people, who lived in the Oropouche lagoon in south-west Trinidad. These Meso Indians, as archeologists call them, were fishermen, hunters of small game and collectors of wild fruits, vegetables, nuts and shellfish. They built canoes from the giant trees that grew in the ancient forest and had the ability to navigate, enabling them to explore and settle the islands of the Caribbean archipelago.

Their history is a book now forever closed. Their legacy, however, consists of middens, mounds containing sherds of broken pottery, shells, bones and clay figurines, and of course many place names. Erin, Piarco, Mayaro, Cumana, Moruga, Ortiore, Oropouche, Guayaguayare, Ariapita, Couva: many of these names represent Amerindian names of plants, trees and animals. Mucurapo means ‘place of the silk cotton tree’, Chaguaramas is the name for the palmiste palm, and Tunapuna means ‘on the river’.

Whereas other Caribbean islands were inhabited by only one or two Amerindian tribes, Trinidad was settled by many, due to its close proximity to the South American mainland. When Columbus discovered Trinidad in 1498, he encountered several tribes, who spoke a variety of languages, some known today as Arawak and Cariban. Early records show that at that time, Trinidad was inhabited by 40,000 Amerindians. On the south coast Shebaio and Aruac (Lokono) had settled. The Nepoio lived on the south east and east coast of Trinidad. The Yao settled along the south west coast, and the Carinepagoto occupied the north west of Trinidad. In central Trinidad, the Tamanaque must have had their villages. The Quaqua, the Salive, the Chaguane, the Pariagoto and the Chaima complete the number of eleven tribes of which the names survived.

Besides those, several other tribes must have lived in Trinidad, but their names are not preserved. It is likely, for instance, that Cariban-speaking groups occupied most of Trinidad circa A.D. 1500, since also Tobago was inhabited by the Cariban-speaking Kalina in the early seventeenth century.

The Trinidad Amerindians were entirely naked except for girdles and headbands of multi-coloured cotton cloth. Bodies were painted red with roukou and feathers were used for decoration. Tribal headmen wore a golden crown and golden eagle-shaped ornaments on their breasts.

The tribes in Trinidad engaged in trade with those on the continents via the Gulf of Paria and the waterways: stone for making axes and other implements were obtained from Paria and the Guianas. Golden objects and other products of South America were bartered with the Orinoco Indians for pearls, salt and probably tobacco.

The Amerindians practised shifting cultivation. Fields were burned in the dry season and planted at the beginning of the wet season. When the soil was depleted after a couple of harvests, they were abandoned. The crops consisted in cotton, cassava, tobacco, maize, beans, squashes and peppers. Generally, their diet was very rich in protein, legumes and fish.

Society was loosely organised. Their villages with their bell-shaped houses moved frequently. The village headman was an elder kinsman and most of the people of the village were related to him. Religion was characterized by a universal belief in spritis of nature; deities were not worshiped. Medicine men served as curers and advisors due to their ability to contact spirits. Villages often formed alliances against villages of other tribes. Men fought with darts, sling stones and bows and arrows. They also practised ritual cannibalism.

When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the outgoing 15th century, the days of the Amerindians were numbered. Their culture was destroyed by the Catholic missionaries of the Cisterciensan and Capuchin orders, who set up missions along the east and south coasts of Trinidad, and by the more modern and brutal European civilisation which brought many deseases that decimated the natives. A lot of the Amerindians were massacred by the colonizers, who were much better armed. Those who survived had to adapt to the Cross, the Book and to labouring for somebody else. Their villages and extended families disintegrated within a few generations. Many re-crossed the Gulf of Paria to the mainland.

But their legacy is still with us today, even as we drive through the countryside. Many of the major streets in Trinidad are built on Amerindian footpaths, such as the Eastern Main Road all the way to Mayaro, the Royal Road, the Mayaro-Rio Claro Road, and even the road to Maracas. ‘Indian Walk’ in southern Trinidad is reminiscent of the Amerindians who came to Trinidad from Venezuela, landed with their canoes on the south coast, and walked with all their goods to peddle them in the little markets of Mission Village.

Missions of the Catalan Capuchin Priests (established between 1687 and 1708)

- San Jose de Oruna (St. Joseph)

- Arouca

- Arena

- Montserrat

- Savonetta

- Naparima

- Savana Grande

- Moruga

- Guyaguayare

- Mayaro

Missions of the Aragon Capuchin Priests (established between 1758 and 1837)

- Port-of-Spain

- Arouca

- Arima

- Salibia

- Toco

- Cumana

- Matura

- Siparia