“We were going to Cuba, and Mr. Laquis’ father said: ‘No,
you are going to Trinidad. English law.’ So, he write a letter to Mr. Ayoub
Sabga, saying, ‘Mr. Sabga, this family coming, we know them, I want you to look
after them! I was having my first boy on the travel, on the ship, when we were
in the Madeira water. I was 16. We come to Marseilles but I couldn’t have time
to have the baby over there, so he was born on the ship. In Trinidad, ship stay
far away in deep water, so you had a boat to bring us on the land. So they came
to meet us, Mr. Abdou Sabga, and Ayoub Sabga. Only seven days I have the baby!
They wanted me to go down a big ladder, and when Ayoub Sabga come, he said:
‘What is that?’ My husband said: ‘My wife had a baby.’ So Ayoub Sabga said:
‘Well, this will be my godchild.’”
Rahmé Hajal’s memories, so similar to the memories of
virtually all the Arabs who came to these islands at the beginning of the twentieth
century, contains a story of choice. To leave the ancestral village in Syria or
to stay. To go to America, and the entire continent was America, was to take a
monumental leap into the unknown. It also contains the essence of the
community’s success in Trinidad and Tobago, the help and support that were so
readily given to the immigrants by those who had come before. Yet, these
survivors of another crossing, notwithstanding the drawbacks of language and
poverty, loneliness and alienation, and against the backdrop of the worldwide
recession that was crippling growth and progress at the end of the Great War,
were able to survive, put down roots and prosper in a strange land.
They came mostly from the mountain villages and hamlets of
south-western Syria, from Anaz, Ish Shooha, Bsas, Shmeisi and the valley of the
Christians. They were all Christian: Greek Orthodox from Syria, and Lebanese
Christians belonging mostly to the
Maronite Catholic Church.
Rose Abraham remembers that she was born in Lebanon, “. . .
near to where the big ruins are. I
went to a school called St. Joseph de l’Apparition. My parents ran a silk
factory.” They were forced to leave because of the introduction of artificial
silk. Anthony Sabga recalls, “I
came to Port of Spain at a critical time in the life of any child. I was seven
years old . . . Because of the language barrier, I faltered in school and never
caught up.” Yet today Anthony Sabga, now at the great age of ninety-two, is one
of the Caribbean’s foremost industrialists.
One of the earliest immigrants to Trinidad was Elias Ibrahim
Galy. His family lived in the town of Macheta Azar, Tel Kalah, in Syria. Galy was born in 1889. At the age of
21, he left his elder brother, his three sisters and his parents and came to
Trinidad. He came from an environment where trade and commerce had flourished
for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
Trading ran in his veins. Elias Galy and his friend Elias Abraham Aboud
were bound for the French islands, this because they had a little French. They,
however, overslept, Albert Hadeed believes that they had been seasick, and were
not discovered until the ship had arrived in Port of Spain. Coming ashore, they
wandered into the city and discovered that many of its merchants spoke French
and that the coffee was delicious. They missed the boat’s departure, stayed on
and became peddlers. The French merchant who had first befriended them gave
them matches to sell, cards of pins, coloured thread and buttons. They
travelled across the country to small towns with strange names like Tunapuna,
Arouca, Chaguanas, Arima. When their goods were not sold out on the market
days, they slept in railway stations or beneath awnings and the following day
went from house to house. These were men without wives. But, not for long.
For some it began with wedding bells, congratulations and
sweets and delicacies, “I was a Maronite. My husband was Orthodox, and I
married in the Orthodox church. We became Catholic here. . .” Rose Abraham
relates. In the sepia-toned photographs you can still see them as they were:
beautiful Syrian and Lebanese women, almost child brides, young teenagers,
barely acquainted with life and with their husbands. Many families had to
endure years of separation before they became reunited. For all it was work. As
the men took to the countryside, riding the trains to the distant villages the
women sewed. They made children’s clothes and men’s shirts to be sold by their
husbands. They lived a communal life, sharing what they had and nursing each
other’s children.
At first, they lived in the oldest parts of the city. It was
an attractive Caribbean town. Still a British colony, Trinidad, because of its
history, possessed a cosmopolitan population. In the noisy, bustling market one
could hear French, English, Spanish, even German and of course, the local
French Patois. All around were Indians, whose ancestors or they themselves had
come as indentured workers, Chinese, some still wearing pigtails, Portuguese
hucksters and the local Africans dressed in gorgeous prints.
Chickens, vultures, dogs and goats competed in the noise of
the raucous West Indian capital, which was not unlike the bazaars and
marketplaces of the Middle East. Trams, hackneys, carriages and cabs filled the
streets crowded with pedestrians, bicycle riders and the first motorcars. It
was a prosperous island actually—its economy, based on the export of sugar and
cocoa, coffee and citrus, would soon be augmented by the discovery of oil in
considerable quantity.
For the Arabs, not yet a community, it was Yussef and Rahme
Sabga who helped a great many of the newly arrived to start in Port of Spain.
Often, Yussef would put up the bond required by the immigration authorities for
a newcomer, and the Sabga house on Charlotte Street was a welcome first haven
for a great many Arabs whose descendants became Trinidadians and Tobagonians. Rahme
Sabga is believed to be the first Arab woman peddler in Trinidad. Today she is
commemorated on a one dollar postage stamp of the independent Republic of
Trinidad and Tobago.
In the 1950s, the women of Trinidad and Tobago’s Arab
community organised themselves into a charitable organisation, calling it the
‘Mediterranean Star’ (later to be renamed ‘Syrian Lebanese Women’s Association
of Trinidad and Tobago’). Within the framework of this association, which
celebrates its 64th anniversary in 2015, the women of the Arab community have
rendered help and support to the underprivileged, the disabled and the
destitute. They have organised highly successful fund-raisers for local
charities as well as acted as a preservation agent for Middle Eastern cultural
expressions such as Arabic food, music, dancing and the retention of family
traditions.
Today, the Arab community’s contribution to the building of
modern Trinidad and Tobago may be seen in the businesses created by them. These
comprise the dry-goods stores started by their parents and grandparents and
include the industries owned and operated by them. Amongst these are breweries,
brick factories, newspapers, radio and television stations and some of the
finest restaurants in this part of the world. They have actively taken part in
the politics of their adopted home and have contributed, at times startlingly,
to its eclectic culture.
The Syrian and Lebanese community was the last ethnic group
to have come to Trinidad in the 20th century. The people from the Middle East
had the challenge to integrate into Trinidad’s society when the island’s status
as British Crown Colony was slowly coming to an end. From this community came
outstanding businessmen and women, legal and medical professionals, artists and
many, many other professionals—one might say they, the Arab community, have
successfully taken part in the forming of our nation!
Sources:
Gerard Besson, “The Syrians and The Lebanese of Trinidad,”
The Book of Trinidad. (Port-of-Spain: Paria Publishing Company, 1992)
Alice Besson and Gerard Besson, The Voyage of the Mediterranean
Star: The Syrian Lebanese Women’s Association of Trinidad & Tobago. (St.
Clair: SLWA, 2001)
Interviews with Anthony Sabga, and conversations with Albert
Hadeed and Joe Sabga.
