The Spanish Dons of La Trinidad

The house was not very large as estate houses go, neither was it very old. It sat in the contented manner that bungalows do on a quarter of an acre of slightly rolling lawn, surrounded by a startling display of tropical blooms whose names I never learned, but whose vivid, indeed spectacular show I surely will always remember.

She said she was having a lazy morning, her basket filled to overflowing with enormous anthuriums. This told me that she had been working in her anthurium garden. "Come," she said, and I followed. Sitting in the long gallery, sipping lime squash, I had to admire Paulina Sorzano. Well into her late 70s, she possessed a lively mind, witty and very clear. She was also quite lovely and womanly, very feminine, stylish in an old-fashioned, "grande dame" sort of way. She being my father's first cousin, I called her Aunty Polly. I was there to get information on the Sorzanos. This is what she told me:

The Sorzano family has had a long connection with Trinidad for about 220-odd years, the earliest holding of the post of Contador de Real Exercito in the administration of Governor Don José Chacon. After the surrender of the island to the British, it became necessary for him to give an account of his administration of that office. He travelled to Spain with Don Chacon, and was one of the officers mentioned in the last paragraph of the dispatch in which the Spanish governor announced the disaster which had befallen him.

During that time, the Sorzanos owned several plantations on the island, and as such, he made up his mind to return and to take the oath of allegiance to his new sovereign and to regard this new British colony as home. With a view to making his family position perfectly clear, he took occasion whilst in Spain to collect all the necessary documents to prove his descent from a long line of distinguished ancestors.

The family of Don Manuel Thomas Sorzano de Tejada is a very ancient one. Its coat of arms was bestowed upon Don Sancho Martinez Sorzano de Tejada by Alfonso III Kind of Asturias,
for his distinguished gallantry at the battle of Albeida  in the year 859 AD, where he and his thirteen sons gained a great victory over the army of Abdullah, the Arab caliph of Cordoba. The thirteen green pennants which support the shield each have a crescent.

Don Manuel became commandant of Arima under Sir Thomas Hislop in 1803, and served the British government as such for several years. He was given a seat at the Board of Council by Sir Ralph Woodford. An old letter describes that when last he saw Don Chacon as being "in the Fort of San Sebastian outside the walls of Cadiz and for the moment unable to leave it". This was a civil way of saying that the unfortunate governor was a prisoner.

Aunt Polly's grandfather, Thomas Sorzano, had placed on loan at the Royal Victoria Institute 1897 exhibition several interesting exhibits, among these were a pair of very handsome pistols with old-fashioned flintlocks, the nominal roll of slave children on the Torrecilla estate, once owned by the family in 1803, an original printed copy of the Cedula of Population of 23rd November, 1783, and is meant to have been a copy brought out by Don Chacon to whom the working of the Cedula was entrusted, an interesting iron-banded wooden chest, said to have been "the chest of fines" in which the moneys paid to the courts were kept, and a very old flintlock musket.

Because our family is connected to the Ganteaumes and the Pantins, who are in turn connected to the Caracciolos, she was also able to tell me something about the latter. Count Giuseppe Joseph Caracciolo, who died in Trinidad in 1819, was a direct descendant of Domenico Caracciolo, Marchese de Brienza. Count Joseph's father was named Literis, and his name is registered in the Libro d'Oro of Naples. He married Mariana de la Porte Strabia. One of their sons, Joseph, Giuseppe, was born in 1779 and at the age of 18 was named sub-lieutenant in the Royal Cavalry. Impatient to earn military fame, he joined the Russian army under the famous General Suwarov, who was then engaged in aiding the Austrians to fight the French under the Generals Massena and McDonald. Giuseppe served for about a year and then returned to Naples. Subsequently finding his safety, perhaps even his life, endangered in consequence of having taken service with the Russians, he determined to emigrate and arrived in Trinidad in 1801. Four years later, he married Marie Josephine Amphoux by whom he became the father of two sons. His eldest son married Henrietta Pantin de Mouilbert, the other, Alfredo, married Barbara Almandoz.

"Which is the oldest Spanish family in Trinidad in the sense of being here the longest?" I asked.

"Oh, the Farfans of course," Auntie Polly answered. The first by that name had come out in 1644. His name was Don Manuel Farfan de los Godos. He founded the Hermanidad del Santisimo  Sacramento at St. Joseph. From him are descended the Farfans of today. For many years, indeed for more than a century, they dominated the Illustrious Cabildo, the government, wielding great power on the island, imprisoning governors, forbidding others to leave. Their power was not altered until the arrival of Don Jose María Chacon, the last Spanish governor. The distinctive epithet "de los Godos" indicates that they belong to one of the Gothic families at the disastrous battle of Guadaletec in 711 AD, where Rodrigo, the last of the Gothic Kings of Spain, was slain by the victorious Saracens.

In 1566, Don Pedro Huarez Farfan emigrated to New Granada, now Venezuela, and his descendants some 90 years later crossed over to Spanish Trinidad. An interesting connection of the Farfans is the Marquis de Creny whose daughter married a Farfan in the latter part of the 18th century. Another old Spanish family of Trinidad is that of Don Jose Mayan, who at the time of the capitulation in 1797 held the important post of Teniente de Justicia, Mayor of St. Joseph, an office that was created when the seat of government was removed to Port of Spain in 1774.

This move away from St. Joseph to Port of Spain was very upsetting to the old Spanish families. The office of Teniente, a kind of lieutenant governorship, was always held in reserve to be awarded in a special circumstance. Don Jose was the son of Don Matias Mayan who emigrated from the province of Galicia, Spain, in the 1750s. He settled at St. Joseph and married Augustina Prieto de Posada, daughter of Don Antonio Prieto de Posada and his wife Donna Josefa Gonzales, on the 7th April 1777. Jose Mayan married Dona Antonia de Salas, by whom he had issue one daughter, Trinidad de los Angeles. In 1797, Trinidad married Don Pablo Giuseppi. All the Giuseppis of Trinidad come from this union, so too the Ciprianis, Fitts, Frasers, and Monagas.

It was in the house of Don Jose Mayan on the Valsayn estate, St. Joseph, that the articles of capitulation were signed under which Don Chacon surrendered the island to the British crown, this on the 18th February, 1797. The old house was long ago knocked down. It stood in an area just behind where WASA now is in St. Joseph.

In 1880, the Royal Princes, the Duke of York and the Duke of Clarence, visited Trinidad in the H.M.S. Bacchante, honouring with their presence an entertainment given for them by Mr. Paul Giuseppi. His ancestor, Don Pablo Giuseppi, was a native of Corsica. He belonged to a family of considerable wealth and importance. In 1791, when the troubled times of the French Revolution were commencing, he was chosen commandant of the national guard of his district. His father, a staunch royalist, did not approve of his giving any countenance to the revolutionary party, and sent him away to Martinique, from which he subsequently emigrated to Trinidad, where he married the only child of Don Jose Mayan, Trinidad de Los Angeles, and became joint owner with her of Valsayn estate.

Another old Spanish family of Trinidad are the Basantas. Aunt Polly related that Don Valentine de Basanta, at the time of the capitulation to the British held the office of First Commissary of Population, to which he had been appointed by the King of Spain in the year 1792. He was also an officer in the Spanish navy like his friend Don Manuel Sorzano. He too owned property, had married in Trinidad, and decided to remain here after the conquest, taking the oath of allegiance to the King of England.

The name Basanta occurs in the chronicles of the 14th and 15th centuries as taking part in the wars with Navarre under Pedro the Cruel and in those waged by Ferdinand and Isabella against the Moors. Connected to the Lezama and Garcia families, many descendants still live in Trinidad.

"Did Don Jose Chacon leave any mementoes behind?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, he did. A Mr. Diaz once showed me an embroidered robe, a prayer book, and a group of the Virgin and Child which belonged to his daughter, Maria Chacon. She married M. Henri Joberty and as such the descendants of Chacon still live amongst us."

A little bell tinkled from the dining room of Mausica estate house, calling us to lunch, ending a lovely morning, reminiscing about the old Spanish Dons of Trinidad.

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Colour Prejudice

Just over 120 years ago, the late 1870s, life in Trinidad reflected the ups and downs and overall uncertainties of the colonial experience.

All in all, the island was prosperous. Sugar was making money for those with money. Cocoa was on a sound footing, providing a trickle-down economy whereby many benefited. The indentured Indians laboured in the hope of either repatriation or in resignation to being consigned forever to this island.

Already, the central plains were acquiring the look of India that they would never see again, or which their children would never know. Jhandis fluttered over backyard shrines, dedicated to Lord Shiva as devotees murmured mantras, maintaining a transcendental connection to half-forgotten ashrams on the banks of Gangama; all these frozen in memory, evoked with ganja, specially imported by the British authorities as a solace and as a relatively safe alternative to the demon of rum.

Already there was an organised importation of West Indians negroes, mostly from the island of Barbados, who were more self-possessed than their local equivalents. They provided inexpensive labour and filled the ranks of the nascent civil service. They were also Protestant, which served to swell the numbers of that denomination favoured by the British. In those days, the real politic took place not between rich or poor or even black or white, but between Catholics and Protestants. This really meant between the British establishment, the governor and high officials, business people and professionals, and the local French whites and their coloured adherents. At the end of the day, what mattered was the cost of labour. Indians from India, negroes from the impoverished smaller islands, ensured that the price of raw materials for export was kept as low as possible. colonial rule was simple. The Indians in the cane, the negroes in the slums.

Where the real social action took place was in the murky, slightly out-of-focus interface between the people of African descent, from dark to light complexions, local or from other British territories, who were moving upward by dint of education and that most nebulous criterion of all, respectability. Nice manners, well-made clothes, a good grasp on the distinction between servility and graciousness or perhaps gratefulness—these educated people of colour had their champions who put up a show whenever obvious racial discrimination was dished out. Black editors complained:

"One class is protected blindly, without regard even to decency and propriety; and other classes degraded with a similar disregard to prudence, common sense and even safety ... The authorities show a lamentable want of discretion and judgment by irritating so often, so determinedly, and so unnecessarily, a sensitive race ... The dominant race enjoys to the top of its bent everything it can desire—power, place, emoluments, social position. It lives, it luxuriates, on the fat of the land. Why does it not enjoy itself quietly? And not every now and then insult the Children of the Sun by acts of gross injustice..." (from contemporary newspapers, as quoted in Prof. B. Brereton's "Race Relations").

Some made it as in the case of  a Mr. O'Brien, whose recommendation by his boss went, "he is a coloured man, and it is difficult to find appointments for men of his class," but, "the fact that he is annually chosen as secretary of the [Horse] Race Meeting shows the sort of consideration in which he is held by the community generally".

O'Brien was acceptable to the whites and so could work in the upper middle ranks of the service. It was regarded as scandalous in 1894 when a registrar of the supreme court, Ralph Monier-Williams, wrote a letter to the governor, requesting him to appoint to a clerkship "a person with as little coloured blood as possible and, if practicable, with no coloured blood at all, as these have given considerable trouble in the department within the last two years".

Trinidad, being as it is, the letter became a topic of discussion even before it got to the governor. The "Long Tom Cigar-Smoking Club of Almond Walk", made up of "a collection of rogues, intellectuals, chantwells, mystic-masons, gentlemen of leisure", to name a few, who met every morning to sit outside Mouttet's dry goods store on Almond Walk, now Broadway, to smoke cigars, take coffee and discuss the events of the day, condemned the occurrence. There was talk that he the official in question should be "tarred and feathered".

It was arranged for posters to be put up all over town, asking "what shall we do with Monier-Williams?" A police constable was ordered to protect him. The reaction of the governor was to appoint a "jet-black" man to the post. Many of the commentators of the day felt that Monier-Williams had been set up by the prejudice of people in his department who had attempted to use him to make a point and "to further their own notions about race". At a Long Tom meeting, held one rainy morning in August 1899, the Hon. Maxwell Philip observed "the coloured and black class in the West Indies occupy an intermediate position". "Marginal men" he called the educated, genteel, well-dressed, hopeful applicants to positions they could hardly imagine. They, the club members, knew what he meant. The English thought them treacherous, fickle and unstable, clever, yes, but lacking in moral worth.

Louis Fabien, raising to avoid a leak dripping from the ceiling in the old shop, said, "Insecurity, my dear, is the root of ambivalence on the one hand. We want to be like everybody else." "You mean you want to be accepted at the Union Club?" "Yes, I don't see why not!"

They laughed, knowing full well that the bags of cocoa that filled Jean Mouttet's store rooms, in fact what they were sitting on, belonged to Louis Fabien. Maxwell Philip proposed having a ball, and proceeded to organise it, at which, because of his prestige and wealth, he brought together what was in their opinion the best of the coloureds and the most acceptable of the whites.

They were not many actually "black" people at the ball. It was held at the Princes Building and was considered a success. Isolated as an event, it however caused comment. The "New Era", a newspaper owned by a coloured man, wrote in his editorial, "Europeans arriving in the West Indies believed that the natives were savages and cannibals". Educated non-whites had a strong sense of their moral and intellectual worthiness to move in the "best" circles. They felt that society was divided into "those who justly deem themselves entitled to a social position in the island consistent with their means and general behaviour, and those who believe that they have a prescriptive right to dictate who shall or shall not, be received into the ranks of the colonial society."

In the weeks that followed Philip's ball, two young men entered Monier-Williams' office in the Red House one evening and, to his surprise, emptied a pail of warm tar over his head and then the contents of a large pillow case. It is of interest to note that they were both white...

Some sixty years later, in the 1930s, C.L.R. James wrote, speaking of his own time, "There are the nearly whites hanging on tooth and nail to the fringes of white society and these hate contact with the darker skin far more than some of the broader-minded whites. Then, there are the browns, intermediates, who cannot by any stretch of the imagination pass as white, but who will not go one inch towards mixing with people darker than themselves."

The society tortured itself, "writhing in the confines of the racist ideology of local and metropolitan whites," writes Prof. Bridget Brereton. Quoting historian Donald Wood, she notes, "the whole intricate experience of the Afro-European encounter since the renaissance, the stereotypes formed by slavery, the legacy of the master and slave relationship, the complex of prejudices and judgments which formed the white view of the 'negro character' during slavery a mixture of affection and contempt, patronage and fear was carried into the post-emancipation adjustment."

The people of mixed race, who had risen from poverty or, in some cases, never were there, they bought into the white attitudes while taking on board various European mores, styles and points of view as they could manage. They tried to disassociate themselves from the working class blacks. Writing letters to the press, asking government "to act more stringently against immoral drum dances, for the sake of the respectable coloured sector which, being coloured, was sometimes classed with the scum that took part in the dances".

The colonial experience created a definition of self-hate that was remarkable, profoundly segmenting the society. Calypso, ever the mirror of society, went:

"Dan is the devil, the devil is dan,

brown nigger more bad than baccraman

but black is the baddest in the land."

J.J.Thomas, a black educator who expressed strong racial pride, spoke out against the extent to which self-contempt and self-hatred existed in his fellow blacks. He condemned the internalising of European values with regard to their superiority. he wrote, "colour prejudice is a ladder with almost endless rungs. It is a system of social aggression and retaliation."

J.J. Thomas was insightful with regard to his concept of Afro-America. He recognised that there were common links binding all blacks in the New World, realising that it was and is in fact the black presence that defined the New World.

His writing influenced many of his contemporaries. One of them was Edward Blyden, the founder of "African Nationalism" and "Négritude". As Prof. Brereton points out:

"Many Trinidadians saw that race prejudices were not the monopoly of any one group. It was not, said J.J. Thomas, a matter of oppressing whites and oppressed blacks. Race prejudice and discrimination were practiced by all sectors, and the coloured and black middle class was the most shade-conscious of all."

The equation of whiteness with superiority had been thoroughly internalised by many educated coloureds and blacks and the consequences of this indoctrination were easily noticed. There were those self-styled whites who desperately tried to conceal their 'negro blood'. According to the radical coloured activist Edgar Maresse-Smith, Philip Rostant was one of those. He wrote to the press:

"Mr. Rostant, in defiance of his crisped hair and the copper colour of his skin, has elected to be a white man. This would be harmless folly if Mr. Rostant would persuade himself of his bequéism and allow others to think as they please. But he feels that he dupes no-one and therefore falls into convulsions as soon as the word 'African' is pronounced, for fear that a hyphen will be placed between himself and the detestable African race."

Maresse-Smith and Rostant were political enemies, and Dr. Brereton points out, "the accusation may well have been entirely untrue, but the letter describes what was probably a well-known phenomenon."

It is of interest to note that both of these men were ardent nationalists, staunch supporters of greater local representation in elected bodies and justice for the poor. J.J. Thomas pointed out that educated and respectable creoles of all skin tones shared a common love for their country and a common sense of identity. This was a view that was shared by many, as one contributor wrote:

"The descendants of the old French and Spanish families, whether they have preserved their distinctive idiosyncrasies by intermarriages among themselves, or have formed a distinct race by the intermingling of African blood, as well as those who form that portion of intelligent blacks who have of late come to the front, are now known and designated as Creoles. These different sections of the native population are now so well linked to each other by intermarriage and daily intercourse that they form a compact body."

Creole society in the colonial period was dependent on social stratification, both in terms of class and caste. The white upper class excluded those with a "touch of the tar brush", notwithstanding wealth, breeding or the lightness of his or her complexion. They also excluded other Europeans, deemed not socially white, such as the Portuguese or the Syrians for that matter, and many of their own countrymen who did not belong to their social order. On the other hand, the line between the black masses and the non-white middle class was class-consciousness.

A working class, black person from the lower levels of society could, through education and the making of money, move upwards amongst the blacks and coloureds who had acquired respectability, and as such had become teachers, civil servants, or journalists. One could say that there were three significant indications by which a person's class may have been defined. There is by and large a certain yardstick of values in the society in terms of which families may be judged and ranked. In the context of Trinidad, to believe in and subscribe to the idea of superiority in being white, of a command of European culture, and of having a place, real or imagined, in the European ranks of the nobility. Other factors such as land ownership, once having possessed slaves, acceptance as such amongst their peers.

Both the white creoles and the coloured and black educated, land-owning professionals, shared and practiced a broadly similar lifestyle, in that they both modelled themselves on the European upper and middle classes, and subscribed to their cultural and social values. The white creoles with more cash in hand could make a better show of it. For lower-class blacks, the masses, they lived an entirely different life in a world very far removed from their sometimes close neighbours or relatives for that matter.

Thus, the roots of the segmentation of the society were laid. To this day, they run deep, and as such may be manipulated by clever people to support their own ends. One should bear in mind that these prejudices were in the first place artificial and were perpetuated by the colonial power for the purpose of dominating a subject people. "Divide et impere"—divide and rule. We all must now know that those days are past and we must condemn those who would have them return!

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The Story of the Government House

 It will be interesting to record some of the facts regarding the construction of this old building as well as some information concerning it given by the late Mr. Thomas James St. Hill, six months before his death at the age of 90 in the 1930s, who, as a boy, had played around it and had frequent opportunities of roaming about its rooms. 

In describing it he said the house had no pretensions to architectural beauty, but the interior was nicely furnished. The ceiling and sides were of plaster of Paris; the walls were of tapia made from black pick-mock roseau, grown in the forest, split into three, with the pith scooped out and tapia laid between. 

The tapia was covered with white lime plaster, and plaster of Paris was laid over all. There was a chandelier in each of the two large rooms, the drawing room and the ballroom. Stucco work was around the chandeliers, while a gilt frieze ran around the rooms at the top. The doors were of cedar and nicely worked in design; the locks were brass ones about eight or nine inches wide, the staircase was six feet wide, the balustrade of which was of mahogany with turned rails. 

A marble stair ran from the ground floor to the landing, comprising twelve steps of black and white. There was a front gallery twelve feet wide, and, apart from the two large rooms described above the interior, was not otherwise large, so this gallery was often used as a dining verandah for balls and other purposes. The principal doors were of glass; there were no jalousie windows, but glass sashes; the reception room was marble-tiled and the staircase to the west, leading from the dining room to the garden was of red tiles. The upper part that ran to the north was two-storied, otherwise it was a one-storey building.

Mr. St. Hill further stated that this building, which had at one time been used as a Government House, was occupied for a good many years by the Hon. Ashton Warner, Chief Judge of the Colony, until his decease in 1830. Mr. Warner was the last occupier of this building, and from that time it fell into decay and ruin. On being asked why it was never tenanted subsequently, he remarked that it was supposed to be situated in an unhealthy locality, being greatly exposed to the north winds and that someone had died there of a malignant type of fever.

When giving the information recorded above, he also drew the ground plan of the building from memory. These measurements were duly checked by a local architect and found to be correct in every detail. This plan, however, has unfortunately been misplaced by the architect. It would have been interesting to reproduce it along with this photograph and the description of the interior. It would also be of interest to find out from what point this view was originally sketched. Mr. St. Hill further stated that when the Prince's Building was being built in 1861, this old property was demolished in order to obtain bricks to be used in the construction of the new building.

From parliamentary papers relating to the island of Trinidad of 18th February, 1823, we gather that the Belmont lands were leased to the government from January 1803 and that these were the lands "on which the Government House and buildings and the negro houses are erected". And further "at the time of the original contract for lease of land by colonial government there was only a small house 36 ft. x 18 ft. built of American timber, shingled and floored and a small hut covered with straw upon the said lands: the former building was newly shingled and repaired by the government previous to its occupation of the property".

As 'Paradise Estate' was bought by the government in 1825 and the great house thereon used as Government House, we think it could safely be averred that the governors who occupied this house were governors Hislop, Munro and Woodford from 1803—1825.

We are glad to be able to place on record these important facts regarding this historic building about which, until now, little has been publicly known. Indeed, there is one common theory about this place that this document explodes and that is that, the building on the Belmont Hill was never a Government House. There is abundant evidence to disprove this. Trinidad is thus greatly indebted to Sir Normal Lamont and the late Mr. T.J. St. Hill.

We are further indebted to Mr. T.I. Potter for the information regarding this property and the section taken at law by claimants to the land, as subjoined:

The old 'Government Cottage' on Belmont Hill.

The history of the old ruins to be seen on the crest of the hill which overlooks the city and the harbour of Port of Spain from what is now called Belmont Pasture is interesting.

The Belmont Estate, which apparently did not comprise much more than the present pasture and the ridge to the north-east of it, although the whole district to the south has taken the name, was a very old occupancy held by a Spaniard whose name is not recorded, because very probably, he was a squatter. In 1780 this man sold his holding to one Riviere, an immigrant to this island from St. Vincent. Riviere, in his turn, sold the occupancy to Don Francis Pasqual de Soler, who conveyed it to Edward Barry (a member of the firm of Barry & Black) on the 16th December, 1784, for the sum of "$900 of eight bits", (whatever that may be).

Edward Barry died some time after the purchase and the representative of his estate leased the lands and buildings, the cultivation (only 'provisions and plantains') having been abandoned, to the governor of the island as a site for a country residence, at a yearly rental of $1,200, and gave him a preferential option of purchasing the property at a fair valuation whenever the heirs of Barry could give a legal title to the lands. The residence was erected the same year, and Governor Hislop was the first tenant of it.

In the year 1811, the heirs of Barry got into financial difficulties, and Messrs. Park and Heywood took the Belmont property in execution. The court ordered an appraisement to be made, and the governor, Major General Monro, was notified of it. He objected to the inclusion of the governor's residence in the appraisement, and it appears that nothing was done until the 30th April, 1814, when notice of the order for appraisement was served on the new governor, Sir Ralph Woodford, who at once referred the matter to the attorney-general (Henry Fuller) in order that the interest of the crown in the property might be represented in the suit. On the 24th May, 1814, he directed the attorney-general to limit his objection to the valuation of the buildings.

The title of Belmont Estate was then raised, and the matter came into the court of first instance before the chief judge (John T. Bigge), who, after hearing the arguments of the attorney-general and the representatives of the heirs of Barry, dismissed the claim of the crown, and held that this title of the heirs of Barry to Belmont Estate was good, and he warranted it.

The attorney-general appealed against this decision to the court of civil appeal, which, at that time, was the court of intendant as regards matters relating to lands of the colony. This court had very large powers there.

The governor was the president of this court, and he had as his legal assistant a judge of the colony, who was called the 'assessor'.

After hearing both sides, the president reversed the decision of the chief justice, and decreed that the act of a servant cannot forfeit the right of the lord paramount, that no grant had been issued to any one, of the lands forming the Belmont Estate, and that there was no prescription against the crown in the colony, therefore His Majesty had never been divested of the ownership of the lands which formed Belmont Estate; but that the heirs of Barry could sue for compensation under a recent British proclamation dealing with crown lands and lands occupied in the island, which gave compensation in land to occupiers, in certain cases, where lands were resumed from them for public purposes; and that the rent received by the heirs of Barry would be taken into account in considering the question of compensation.

The representative of the heirs of Barry applied for leave to appeal to the Privy Council, which was granted, and the vexed question was submitted for final decision to that tribunal.

The case of the claim of the crown to the lands of Belmont, and the alleged arbitrary action of Sir Ralph Woodford in the matter formed one of the many grievances of the Committee of Landholders of Trinidad, headed by the late Joseph Marryat, M.P., in their petition in 1816 to the Secretary of State against what they considered to be the aggressive and tyrannical administration of the government of the colony by that governor.

Belmont Estate eventually became crown land, and the 'Government Cottage' was occupied by the governors of the colony until the 'Great House' of the 'Paradise Estate,' (which property had been purchased from the Peschier family and was converted into the Botanical Gardens and Queen's Park) was fixed up as a govenor's residence. It was then apparently abandoned and fell into decay. It is today the site of the Hilton Hotel.

A Ride on the Bus

A hundred or more people rushed to get the bus. It is supposed to carry 28 and no more according to law, but nobody on that bus seems to have much regard for the law.

The seats go to the victors in the battle of the doorway; though a couple have, as usual, cheated and scrambled through the window. Then the aisle fills up, while those seated have to keep ducking their heads lest they get decapitated by the bags and boxes being slung about as if it were an empty warehouse instead of a public conveyance full of seated passengers.

At last, there are 35 people in the bus and it is a physical impossibility for anyone else to get in without bursting the steep side of the body. Then the conductor arrives on the scene with a palet in his mouth, to announce that the bus they are in is no longer going. All out! And take the bus behind. Irate, having fought and won a battle to be robbed as easily of the fruits of victory, the passengers abuse the government, the railway, the driver, the conductor and then each other and each other's parents.

Now the scramble to get out instead of getting in takes place. While this is going on, the seats and windows get damaged and the passengers emerge to find their clothes torn. The other bus is already nearly full, so only ten out of the thirty-five get a passage to their home, thirty miles away.

At last, the bus starts. In the aisle, there is a woman who has settled herself on the floor, clucking like a hen as she does so. She gradually diverts herself of clothing as if she were home and prepared for bed; first comes off the stocking and shoe. Then she loosens her bodice and pulls her skirt up around her waist.

As she makes herself "comfortable", she naturally encroaches upon the space occupied by her tightly packed fellow passengers. When they try to assert their rights to the few inches they are sitting, lying or standing on, she rises, clucking furiously. She looks so formidable that everyone is silenced and she subdues, bristling her feathers as she does so.

She is the terror of the trip, that is, until two urchins get in and take up position on either side of her. They lean on her, press on her head and step on her outstretched nude legs. When she starts to cackle, they giggle and pay her no mind. At last, she can bear it no longer, rises with a titanic effort and throws them off, exclaiming, "Crise! You all want to stifle me!"

As the bus approaches within five miles of her destination, she starts to re-dress and make her toilet for arrival. Her stockings are pulled on and then begins the hunt between everybody's legs for the missing shoe that has got shoved around in the mêlées until it has found itself behind the tool box next to the chauffeur's seat. She makes such a noise and accuses so many people of stealing her almost heel-less shoe that everyone joins the search until it is recovered. The chauffeur, who eventually picks it up and returns it to her, gets roundly abused for his pains. But he is the only person in the bus that is her match. In fact, he surpasses her. In the city's tramcar is written: "It is forbidden for the chauffeur to talk to the passengers while the bus is in motion", for from the time the bus has left its starting place, the chauffeur has harangued the bus. Not for a moment has he let up from telling us about his private life, how he'd been to jail and how he liked it there.

At one part of his story, he was describing how he beat a fellow. To lend emphasis to the tale, he would let go the wheel and turn around to describe to the passengers with his hands how he did it. In the middle of one of his gestures, a jitney swung around a corner unexpectedly, and the chauffeur just missed having to describe to the court how it happened, with or without gesture.

Gradually, the passengers thinned out somewhat, as each village passed claimed a few, until there is actually a seat vacant. But to the amazement of the uninitiated, women waiting at the roadside are ignored when they frantically signal the bus. The chauffeur explains to his audience: "She alright, oui, let she get the next one."

The next one, as everyone knows, is four hours away. But the real explanation comes when on approaching the terminus at the other end, the chauffeur starts stopping every few hundred yards to pick up one or two men, who, from their conversation, are obviously friends. Together they sit and stand in the front of the bus, smoking away with their friend, the chauffeur, while the passengers behind look cynically at the sign right over the chauffeur's head, which warns that smoking, except on the rear seat, is strictly forbidden.

At last, the bus arrives at the last stop. The conductor, who has no further business, as the chauffeur is supposed to collect the tickets, now stands astride the doorway, making it difficult for passengers to leave. The passengers themselves have by now become so much a part of the environment created by the chauffeur and his conductor that they fight one another to get out of the bus, into the village, which is devoid of anything except for a few stray pouches slinking around the empty butcher's stall. The bus then turns around and begins another of its reluctant efforts to transport people.

Cocoa - a New World Product

The impact of the New World on the old is hard to grasp in these times of globalisation, but may be glimpsed in the appreciation of the sweet potato as being highly praised. It was precious a delicacy that when Falstaff in Shakespeare's play thinks of the wonderful treat that he will give to the ladies of Windsor, he cries "Let the sky rain potatoes" and he meant sweet potatoes, the rare delicacy from the Americas.

Historians and social scientists often talk of the debt of the New World to the Old; of the crops that were brought in to supplement the cassava and the maize of the Amerindians: rice, oranges, lemons, bananas, the grapefruit and the sugar cane. But the New World also gave many new things to Europe. New words entered European literature, such as tobacco, potato, maize, hammock, savannah, cannibal, hurricane, pirogue, manatee, tomato, quinine, alpaca, guano and cocoa.

The metals that come from Mexico and Peru were the cause of a price revolution that took place in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, and you will find countless references in English literature of the period to the silver, gold and jewels of the Americas. During this period, several references were made to gold, the bright red gold of the Guianas, and to the jewels and birds, the strange foods and fruit of the New World.

Some years ago, I went to Gran Couva to visit Mr. Louis de Verteuil, who had been in his time one of the great cocoa planters of Trinidad. Acres upon acres of cocoa trees surrounded the estate house, shaded by enormous immortelles, blazing a remarkable vermillion. He sat in his gallery, a wide-brimmed straw hat slightly tilted over his forehead. At first, I thought he was asleep. but as it turned out, he was listening to his cocoa growing. Later on, he told me about the "golden bean". He said that it was one of the really great gifts to the world. Europe, he said, knew nothing of the cocoa until the early years of the 16th century. Perhaps its first home was in the basins of the Orinoco and Amazon, but by the time that Columbus came to the Caribbean, it was known in Mexico and other parts of America. The tribes of Mexico thought that it was of divine origin, a plant from heaven. They used the beans as money, so that a province might pay some of its tribute to the chief in cocoa beans, and a man might pay ten beans for a rabbit and 100 beans for a slave.

He said that in South America long ago, in the time of Christopher Columbus and Herman Cortes, cocoa was prepared by boiling it with a mixture of ground corn and flavouring it with red pepper. The Emperor Montezuma is said to have been very fond of this drink and when his palace was taken, the Spaniards found vast amounts of cocoa.

The Spaniards, however, did not take to drinking cocoa until some nuns in Guanaco began to prepare it with sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. Louis de Verteuil said that by the beginning of the 17th century, chocolate was a popular drink with the Europeans. Chocolate houses were opened in Oxford and London, one of the most famous being White's Chocolate House, which became a famous London club.

You would have found some of these early recipes a little too rich, and certainly costly. One recipe called for 100 cocoa beans, two heads of chili, a handful of anise or vanilla, a dozen almonds and some hazelnuts, some cinnamon, half a pound of sugar and a little annatto (ruccou) for colouring.

Most of the cocoa for Europe at first came from Venezuela, but slowly Trinidad gained some of the trade. cocoa seems to have been grown in the island quite early, for the Spaniards reported finding it in 1617, but it does not seem to have been cultivated on any scale before the end of the 17th century.

By 1710, however, it was the staple crop of the island.  Cocoa groves began to spread through the fertile Santa Cruz valley and in the Maraval valley, and money began to flow into Trinidad. Up to that time, this island had no staple crop. It had been a stopping place for foreign traders and pirates, raiding the coast of the mainland to the south. It had been a base for adventurers like Don Antonio de Berrio and Sir Walter Raleigh, who used it as a forward camp for exploring the Orinoco in and attempt to find El Dorado. Now, the golden bean gave Trinidad a crop that was valuable.

Barbados had its sugarcane, Trinidad had its cocoa, and we were told that cocoa grown in Trinidad was of a much better quality than the cocoa grown in Caracas and other parts of the mainland. It fetched a good price. Settlers began to move into the island and the Catholic missions did much to pacify the cannibals so as to encourage the industry. But as soon as man begins to grow any crop on a large scale, he provides some pest or disease with opportunity. In 1727, a "blast" hit the cocoa industry in Trinidad and wiped it out. The cocoa planters were ruined. Those who could manage to do so moved to the mainland. The Amerindians who had been growing cocoa under the guidance of the missions went back to their subsistence crops of cassava and maize—the result was that in 1735, the total population of Trinidad exclusive of the Amerindians stood at 162.

What was the disease? One can only guess. We are told that "the trees were apparently healthy and vigorous, flowering abundantly, giving fruits". None of them came to maturity, as young pods dried up before the full fruits. Different reasons were given for the outbreak of the disease. One planter said it was caused by the north wind. Another thought that it was due to the long spell of dry weather, another that it was caused by the appearance of a comet. One of the priests, Father Gumilla, was quite sure that it was an act of God, a punishment sent on the planters who had not paid their church dues.

Some thirty years later, a new variety of cocoa was brought into Trinidad, the "forastero". However, the cocoa industry did not really begin to flourish again until the Spanish government published its famous cedula of 1783, offering very generous terms to those who would like to come to Trinidad to settle, providing they were Catholic and took an oath of loyalty to the King of Spain.
This opened the door to significant development and later prosperity. Cocoa became, especially from the 1860s, a source of wealth for Trinidadians of all classes, conditions and colours. From small farmers to very large estates, the demand for Trinidad-grown cocoa created a trickle-down of wealth. Everyone got something. Money from the cocoa economy allowed middle and lower class people to provide an education for their children, enabling a generation to become teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers and surveyors, and as such leave behind the prison of poverty and ignorance.

The cocoa economy provided disposable income which benefited the traders and commission agents who imported goods. This in turn provided employment to thousands of sales people, clerks and book keepers. It stimulated shipping, banking and insurance, and jobs in the growing government bureaucracy of this, the most prosperous island of the Lesser Antilles. Those were the good old days!

West Indian Immigration

No other island in the West Indies has experienced such an ongoing immigration as Trinidad has. In 1826, just before the emancipation of the slaves, the population stood at 23,123 slaves, 8,404 Free Blacks, 2,005 Whites and 655 Amerindians.

After emancipation in 1838, West Indians, mostly of pure African descent, began to come to Trinidad from the neighbouring islands.

Encouraged by the planter interest facilitated by the British Administration, motivated by the freedom to travel and in pursuit of better opportunities, West Indians came from all the islands in the Caribbean. This immigration was so intense that it was remarked that the Trinidad Creoles were being overwhelmed by the other West Indians.

According to Prof. Bridget Brereton, the figures for immigration from the British West Indian islands between 1871 and 1911 were, at a conservative estimate, 65,000, about an average of 1,625 a year. Barbadians looking for a way to acquire plots of land, which for blacks was difficult, came here. This was facilitated by the 1873 Barbados Act which made provisions for assisting immigration.

Planter oppression was greater on that island and wages very low. As such, in this period, a vast majority of West Indian immigrants were from Barbados. This movement slowed somewhat between 1846 and 1861, but after 1864 many came to Trinidad so as to enjoy the prosperity that was happening here. Some 14,000 were living in Trinidad in 1897.

The vast majority of immigrants who came were working-class black people. This movement was just a part of a wider movement taking place during the latter half of the 19th century. Capital was moved out of the older West Indian colonies to the newer "unsaturated" territories.

It was necessary for the Secretary of State for the colonies to solve the overpopulation of some of the islands. Trinidad possessed a large land mass and a small population. These new arrivals did not necessarily go into the recently abandoned cane fields. They were escaping exactly such a fate in their own home islands. They did not want to make contracts with the planters. Instead they got their jobs in the many public works projects taking place all over the island, such as roads and railways.

It was estimated that 3,000 West Indian immigrants, most of them male, had arrived in Trinidad in 1873. Many of these were masons, brick layers, carpenters and other skilled labourers. The public works department had 400 West Indians working on the railways.

Urban institutions grew as a result of the prosperous state of the economy, driven by sugar cane, cocoa and coffee and supported by a growing commercial sector. Families, local whites, expatriates and well-off black people could afford to have a yard boy, a coachman, a cook, a maid or two, a nanny or two, a large house on upper Richmond Street or Victoria Square and could have as many as five domestics working on a regular basis. In some cases, dependents such as former servants, even former slaves, were part of the extended household. Some of these older folks could wield a strong influence, particularly in French Creole households, where in some cases the relationships may have been of long, sentimental or even familial standing.

Many West Indians went into the public institutions in Trinidad. They became wardens and nurses in the hospital, in the jail or in the asylum, work for they were by far the best suited for this work, as they came from small communities and were often kinder and just more understanding than Trinidadians. Many went into the police service which recruited from one generation to the next. They hardly ever bought estates and did not become agriculturists, although some bought land around Arima and Sangre Grande and grew cocoa.

There were a few small business proprietors. They settled in "large numbers in the long and almost continuous village" between St. Joseph and Arima where they raised large families and worked as artisans, mechanics, shoemakers and tailors. They were found to be, especially the Barbadians, able, peaceful and hardworking. They wrested most of the small industries from the more easy-going Trinidadian Creoles.

Barbadians were thought to be energetic, more so than the local Creoles. But like most immigrants they just had to work harder. Coming from Protestant islands, Barbados, St. Vincent, Antigua for example, they spoke English as opposed to those who came from Catholic islands like Grenada, St. Lucia, Dominica, who spoke Patios. British administrators in the civil service found them easy to deal with. As Dr. Brereton notes:

"This command of English made it easier for them to move into strategic jobs in the civil service as skilled workers, mechanics, craftsmen, policemen, teachers, minor civil servants and they, after forming a potentially mobile upper working class, became ambitious for their sons to rise to middle class status through the schools. The civil service became their most steady employer."

As the bureaucracy necessary to operate this prosperous island grew at a pace, it could afford an increasingly elaborate bureaucracy.  People who were now 'Trinis' depended on this bureaucracy as a secure life-time employer. The civil service in Trinidad became, by the 1950s, almost entirely made up of black people. This was not a result of an accident of history, but it was literally a policy of the colonial administration, and it was carried forward in a mindless manner. It served to segment the society and to create a dependency on the state by a very large segment of the population from one generation to the next, thus hampering entrepreneurial experiences in families and preventing personal growth and development in individuals.

On the other hand, undoubtedly the hard work, sacrifice and ambition of parents, grand parents and great-great grand parents had paid off in that remarkable individuals were produced. One thinks of Malcolm Nurse, called George Padmore, one of the founders of the international movement known as "Negritude" personalities like H.O.B. Wooding, and of Henry Sylvester, founder of the Pan African Movement. They were all sons and grandsons of Barbadian immigrants.

The adjustment to life in Trinidad was difficult for the immigrant. For those who, through luck, hard work, thrift and education found a footing here, there was the long road to self improvement. For those who fell between the cracks, life played out producing among the newcomers "swarms" of criminals, paupers and prostitutes. As one police inspector noted:

"The 1870s were notorious for crimes of wife beating, child beating, cutting and wounding. These were ascribed to Barbadian influence."

Studies also show that West Indian immigrants contributed an abnormally high proportion of convicts and hospital patients. The Colonial Hospital records for 1889 show 5,714 admissions, natives from India accounted 1,542, Trinidad Creoles 1, 680, Barbadians alone numbered 1,023 and from the other islands 744. Prof. Brereton notes that a

"Select committee of the Legislative Council considered the question of pauper and criminal immigration in 1893. It produced figures to show that while the proportion of natives of Trinidad to West Indians living in the island was 100:30 in 1891, the proportion in jail during 1888 - 92 was 100:109 and the proportion in hospitals and asylums was 100:94. It concluded that immigration from the West Indies 'embraces a most abnormal proportion of the worthless and vicious classes, of which these communities are riding themselves off the expense of Trinidad'."

The urban working class of Port of Spain grew at a pace in the 1880s to the 1900s, as the small islanders poured into the city's outer areas that had been forested just a few years before. The old city, dating back from Spanish times, deteriorated into horrendous yards. Areas such as Belmont, Laventille and East Dry River, which had been settled in the years after 1838 by coloured middle-class people, ex-slaves and their children, who were in the process of developing a low-keyed urbanization, were flooded by the small islanders, and many religious and cultural tensions arose. Calypsonians sang:

"Small islanders go back where you come from."

Increasingly, Trinidadians lost their 19th century "Creole soul" and acquired a Caribbean reality. The upshot of all this meant cheap labour for the moneyed interest of the colony and sewed the seeds of political avarice. The situation was investigated by the Surgeon General who revealed that small barrack rooms were being tenanted by dozens of persons. Some rooms on Prince Street and elsewhere were occupied by up to twenty adults. Such overcrowding brought hellish tensions, violence and antisocial behavior. The real problems were health, the spread of epidemics, death and mass human misery. The Surgeon General wrote:

"In epidemic times people become suddenly aware of the unpleasant fact that crowded away in the heart of large cities are hordes of destitute and suffering creatures more or less ill-fed, their diseases unattended to and their abodes the scene of squalor and every unwholesomeness."

It was unthinkable that it all could become worse but it did, in the period between the wars in the 1920s and 30s. Poverty was to hit a new low in Trinidad. The strikes and riots of this time came out of this neglect. With the advent of the second World War and the economy engendered by the arrival of the American forces, "money in the land" served to alleviate a desperate time. The 1940s and 50s saw a mass emigration of Trinidadians to London at first, than to New York, Toronto and other parts, very much in the same manner that the colonial administration allowed masses of people into Trinidad to drive down the cost of labour. In the main, the people who left Trinidad for greener pastures were urban middle class people with secondary and tertiary education. In turn, the politicians who took the country to independence encouraged immigrants from other islands to come, this time to maintain voter turnout affected by this Post War brain drain. A second wave of West Indian immigration took place, and again our culture altered as opposed to those who came in were rural, primary school educated and once more settled in the depressed areas that for runners had known. certainly, avarice drove the pursuit of cheap labour by the British colonial administration plus their need to alleviate overpopulated islands, as such Trinidad was a viable option. But in terms of local politicians, the question remains if the motive wasn't political avarice - a common cause of things in the history of the world.

The extent to which Trinidad was an immigrant society during the 19th century during the 19th century is seen by the following:

In 1861 the population was 84,438. In 1891 it was 200,028. Almost all as the result of immigration. the majority of immigrants came from the West Indian islands mostly British, India and Venezuela. In 1861 natives of India numbered 13, 488 and in 1891 numbered 45,028. From the British West Indies in 1861 there were 11,716 and in 1891 there were 33,180. From Africa, never knowing slavery, came freed Africans numbering 6,035.

A religious census in 1891 showed Roman Catholics to number 73,733. Hindu, Muslim, Confucian, Buddhist to be 64,413. Anglicans to number 46,920  and Wesleyans 6,312.

In 1881, there were 31,858 persons living in the city of Port of Spain with 2,706 living in Laventille. In 1891 "Greater Port of Spain" had an estimated population of about 50,000, that is about a quarter of the whole island.

The Red House

It was a hot night in the dry season of 1808. Mosquitoes seemed to be attacking the little town of Port of Spain by the millions, swarming out from the nearby swamplands. It was one of those nights when the noise from the streets was especially annoying. Tossing and turning in the bed, sweating; why isn't there the habitual cool breeze?

Suddenly, a piercing scream disrupts the uneasy slumber. Governor Thomas Hislop sits bolt upright in his soldier cot. The blanket slips to the floor. The scream, and the stinging smell that gets the adrenaline pumping instantly: smoke. Now, he hears the crackling. Yes, fire, and a big one at that.

The fire that had Governor Hislop startled from his sleep destroyed a large part of Port of Spain. The small town had grown tremendously in the last twenty years, since thousands of French immigrants and their African slaves flocked to the island to establish plantations and businesses here.

The prevalent building style of the city was wood and shingles, a bad choice of materials as this night of flames and smoke was to prove. Hislop had to deal with hundreds of homeless people from one day to the next. Valuable historical records from Spanish times were destroyed. To deal with the chaos and to prevent such a disaster in the future, Hislop's administration passed legislation with regard to building regulations, stipulating that the re-building of the destroyed parts of town and any other new construction had to be made with brick and stone.

A wise decision, which was put into action by Hislop himself and his successors Munro, Woodford, Grant, Hill, Gregor and McLeod. The latter, Sir Henry McLeod, laid on February 15, 1844 the foundation stone for a new government building on the west side of Brunswick Square (now Woodford Square). This was to be the first building on the site where the Red House now stands - let us call it the "first Red House", even though it was not then known by that name.

The architect of the first Red House was Richard Bridgens, known to us also by his drawing of Trinidadian people, i.e. Amerindians, the "Negro Figuranti" and scenes of Tobago. He was then appointed as the Superintendent of Public Works, a sector of the public administration that had been very busy since the 1810s and 1820s, when Governor Woodford did some major structural changes in the town.

The builders of that first Red House were G. de la Sauvagère and A. A. Pierre. The final building was somewhat smaller than the second (present-day) Red House. Somewhat artless, it was comprised of two blocks, connected by an archway through which coaches could pass from Abercromby Street into Prince Street (now Sackville Street). In those days, it was exclusively pedestrians, people on horseback, and carts and buggies that populated the streets, and a detour around the Red House would have been inconvenient for those muscle-powered means of transport. Also, in case of fire or public turmoil, the part of town behind the Red House had to be easily accessible for fire fighters or for the police.

The first Red House was opened in 1848 by then Governor Lord Harris, an enlightened man who contributed much to the development of the island, in particular to learning and education, founding a library and the first public school system that included Indian and black children in the countryside. The building was then not quite completed, but the inauguration ceremony in the Trinity Cathedral took place anyway.

Fifty years later, it was still not completed, for reasons unbeknownst to the author. Olga Mavrogordato in her book "Voices in the Street" quotes the Port of Spain Gazette of 1892:

"Nothing further had been done to complete the buildings since their erection some fifty years ago. The only attempt to relieve the monotony of the whole is to be seen in the arching of the carriageway through the courtyard which is a perfect skeleton and, like the ruins of Pompeii, is more suggestive of what the buildings must have been than of what they were intended to be."

The Director of Public Works in the 1890s, J.E. Tanner, apparently took those comments to heart, and together with the increasing need for a proper public records office, £15,000 was allotted over the next years to carry out extensions and alterations. The first Red House started to look a little more stately.

In 1897, the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated all over the British Empire. Trinidad, too, spruced up, and the first Red House was painted red. This was when it got its name - not officially, but by Trinidadians, who henceforth referred to it by that name. The name stuck, and so did the red colour, at least up to the year 2001 when this article was written.

Five years later, on the 23rd March 1903, the first Red House was destroyed. Its windows were smashed by stones, the plaster of the walls damaged here and there by bullets, and then the whole thing went up in flames: an enraged mob vented its anger on the government's property. This incident is known today as the "Water Riots", since it started with the discussion of the increase of water rates by the Legislative Council, and ended with panic, death and destruction on the side of the protesters outside. The governor then was Sir A.C. Maloney. Again, for us interested in history, valuable records were destroyed, making it at times impossible to retrace the facts of times past.

In 1904, re-building began. It was a time of construction on the whole. Cocoa had brought a lot of cash into the economy, and the administration and some private individuals invested in beautiful buildings that are today Trinidad's heritage treasure: the Magnificent Seven were also erected in 1904.

The second Red House is the one we know today. Designed and built by German architect D.M. Hahn, who was Chief Draughtsman of Public Works, it cost an estimated sum of £47,485. It was much more splendid and elaborate than the first Red House, with beautiful gesso work in the Legislative Council Chamber (now the Parliament Chamber) and in the Justice Hall, which is depicted in its old, undecorated form in the first house on the cover of the Digest. The gessowork and the panels were in fact made in England, shipped to Trinidad in parts, and installed by Italian craftsmen who also worked in the halls of for example Whitehall.

The carriageway between the two wings of the Red House was closed by Hahn for vehicular traffic, but remained open to pedestrians, and had a beautiful fountain in the centre under the rotunda. The square opposite to it was renamed Woodford Square during World War I, when Germany and its city of Braunschweig (Brunswick) had become enemies of the British Empire and no major landmark was to be named for them. Similarly, Hanover Street (named for the German House of Hanover, whence Queen Victoria's husband hailed) became the extension of Abercromby Street.

Inspite of all these name changes, the Red House remained the Red House and is now officially referred to under this name.

The History of the Flag and other National Emblems of Trinidad and Tobago

Dr. Eric Williams said in his ‘Broadcast to the Nation’ on Independence Day, August 31, 1962:

“Our National Flag belongs to all our citizens. Our National Coat of Arms, with our National Birds inscribed therein, is the sacred trust of all our citizens. ... Let us always be able to say, with the Psalmist: ‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity’.”

Williams’ appeal for unity is by no means new in the cosmopolitan society of Trinidad. More than 200 years ago, long before the first arrival of Indian, Chinese, Portuguese or Arab immigrants, even before the British settled here, Sir Ralph Abercromby, who took Trinidad from the Spanish crown, gave the island of Trinidad its ‘Old Motto’, a verse from the Latin Aeneid of Virgil, Book IV, line 112: ‘Miscerique probat populos et foedera jungi.’

(He approved of the mingling of peoples and their being joined together by treaties.)

[After the famous Roman poet Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro, 70 - 19 B.C.), who wrote: 'Miscerive probet populos, aut foedera iungi’.]

The concept that a group of people uses a flag, a song and maybe a verse as a symbol for pride, patriotism, reverence and a sense of belonging can be seen in the widest sense as a western concept. It goes back to army warfare, when the legionaries or soldiers had to be able to identify who is where and where is who by coloured pieces of material affixed to long sticks - the idea of a ‘flag’ was born. The ‘Coat of Arms’ was another highly visible identity mark for men who were covered from head to foot in protective metal. Friend or foe looked very similar in armour, yet were identifiable by their coat of arms on their shield. Little by little, as regions were welded together by generations of warfaring tribes and family feuds, those flags and coats of arms became symbols for all the inhabitants of that region.

The original Amerindian inhabitants of the Americas had no idea of flags or coats of arms, at least not in the European sense. They would paint symbols on their skin, and worship certain totems as symbolic for their tribes. When the Europeans - in Trinidad’s case, the Spanish, in Tobago’s case, the Dutch - came to these shores, one of the first things they did was to unfold the standard of their respective royal house. In the case of Spain, this procedure was enhanced by the firm planting of yet another symbol on the beach of Erin Point: a wooden cross, in the name of His Most Catholic Majesties, King Ferdinand and his wife Ysabel of Spain. It must have seemed a strange spectacle to the Amerindians who witnessed it, but being master embroiders themselves, they must have surely appreciated the fine workmanship in the Royal Standard of Spain that Columbus brought: the gold castle of Castille and the lion rampant, appliquéed on red and silver. With the cross, the Amerindians had probably no relationship whatsoever, having never seen it before. With the ‘requerimiento’, Columbus declared their land as Catholic, Papal and a grant to his King.

Columbus himself was made governor of Trinidad, and indeed, admiral of the whole Caribbean. Thus, he also unfurled his own flag in Trinidad, a green cross on white ground with the letters ‘F’ and ‘Y’  (for Ferdinand and Ysabel). Columbus was thus the first governor of Trinidad and Tobago, which the discoverer saw from far away on the horizon and named ‘Bellaforma’. Columbus had a coat of arms as well, which was bestowed on him after his first voyage in 1493. It comprised the golden castle of Castile and the lion rampant of the Spanish standard, with some gold islands, waves of the sea and his own arms. Later on he altered the coat of arms slightly, and the image reproduced here goes back to Oviedo, Historia de las Indias, 1535.

Columbus might have been the first governor, but the first resident governor to come here was Don Antonio Sedeño in 1530. He settled in Cumucarape (today Mucurapo) and doubtlessly flew the Spanish standard over his ajoupa. Some 60 years later, in 1592, Domingo de Vera founded San José de Oruna (St. Joseph) as the first capital, and the flag of Spain again was hoisted there. It was the time of the conquistadors, and Governor Antonio de Berrio, who followed his agent de Vera to San José, intended to use it as a safe haven for the exploratory trips into the South American mainland in search of El Dorado. In 1595, San José was ‘conquered’ by a British conquistador, Sir Walter Raleigh, but Trinidad did not (yet) become a British possession. The Spanish flag remained on the staff, fluttering a bit sadly above the smoking cinders of San José de Oruna in Raleigh’s wake. Somehow, its pride was a bit tarnished, since Dutch and English flags were unfurled in small enclaves in the south, Punta de Galera and Moruga. In the 1650s, Governor López de Escobar put an end to those ‘alien’ settlements.

Not so in Tobago, which changed hands frequently. Dutch, French and English flags succeeded each other. In 1628, Jan de Moor started the first settlement where Plymouth now is, called it ‘New Walcheren’ and, if he was so inclined, would have hoisted the Dutch flag. In the following centuries, the Dutch flag would have given way to the English, Spanish and French flags, and intermittently even the Courland standard - crayfish on scarlet ground - would have graced the island.

Around the turn of the 19th century, both Trinidad and Tobago finally remained in British hands. From 1606 - 1800, the British flew the ‘Grand Union Flag’ wherever they went, which was amended slightly in 1801 and remained so until today.

It was not until 1959, more than half a century after the annexation of Tobago with Trinidad,  that the twin-island Crown Colony received its first distinctive flag. The Colony Flag had the Union Flag on the top left corner and the Armorial Ensigns (with the aforementioned Latin motto) on blue ground.  The days of the British Empire were slowly coming to an end, and the day of the inauguration of the Cabinet system in Trinidad, the 10th July 1959, the Colony Flag was hoisted. Interestingly, the Armorial Ensigns had been given to Trinidad and Tobago only a year earlier, on the 13th October, 1958. It shows a seascape with a mountain in the middle, a jetty and ships on the water, flying the Colony Flag.

The design of the Armorial Ensign of 1958 was based on the Great Seal of the colony of 1803, which looks just like it and bears on its circumference the words: ‘Sigillum Insulae Nostrae Trinitatis’ (Seal of Our Island of Trinidad). On the reverse the seal reads: Georgius Tertius Dei Gratia, - Britanniarum Rex, Fidei Defensor’ (George III by God’s Grace, King of Britannia, Defender of the Faith’).

Tobago’s Great Seal dates from at least 1815, also from the reign of George III. It shows on one side four ships, three at anchor and one sailing. A coconut palm is on the left, hills, buildings and more palmtrees are in the background. A sun with rays and a face smiles above all. The motto is: ‘Pulchrior evenit’ (‘It emerges more beautiful’). The Flag Badge of Tobago is similar, with one ship, a hill and a palmtree in the foreground. Interestingly, albeit the fact that after Tobago’s unification with Trinidad in 1889 the common governor of both islands flew the Trinidad Flag Badge emblazoned on the Union Flag as his standard, the Tobago Flag Badge was impressed upon currency notes of the government of Trinidad and Tobago until many decades later.

On June 8, 1962, it was announced in London that Trinidad and Tobago would be granted independence on the 31st August of that same year. Feverishly, a new flag needed to be designed. A committee was appointed to choose a design and a new motto, and in no time - on 26th June, to be precise - the committee submitted a design, which the Cabinet approved.

Since then, the official flag of Trinidad and Tobago is on a red field, a bend dexter sable bordered silver’. And while there may be as many symbolic meanings of this design as there are people in T&T, the official one of 1962 reads:

“The Black represents for us the dedication of the people joined together by one strong bond. It is the colour of strength, of unity of purpose, and of the wealth of the land. Red is the colour most expressive of our country. It represents the vitality of the land and its peoples, it is the warmth and energy of the sun, the courage and friendliness of the people. White is the sea by which these lands are bound, the cradle of our heritage, the purity of our aspirations and the equality of all men under the sun.”

(Source: ‘Our Flag’ - Independence Publication - Gov. of Trinidad and Tobago, 1962)