The Pitch Lake

asphalt (Geol.). A bituminous deposit formed in oil-bearing strata by the removal, usually through evaporation, of the volatiles. Occurs in the ‘tar pools’ of California and elsewhere and in the ‘pitch lake’ of Trinidad, whence enormous quantities are exported. (The Woodsworth Dictionary of Science and Technology, 1995)

For immigrants and visitors to Trinidad, the Pitch Lake in La Brea always was a source of wonderment. None of them would have known anything similar from their home countries, except for maybe those from alpine regions, who might have compared it to a ‘black glacier’.

Charles Kingsley, the world-famous author who visited Trinidad in 1870, starts his description of the Pitch Lake with a rather non-chalant account of what we dread nowadays as the ultimate ecological disaster: a marine oil-spill.

“The same cause that produced the Pitch Lake has produced the submarine spring of petroleum, off the shore near Point Rouge, where men can at times skim the floating oil off the surface of the sea.”

Asphalt and tar have been in use for centuries to caulk ships. Governor Chacon even shipped quantities of it to Spain in the late 1780s, supposedly for that same purpose. But what else could be done with it? The asphalt the pitch lake oozes up is a mix of mud and tar, full of mineral deposits and vegetable matter. In the 1820s, Governor Ralph Woodford used it to fuel a beacon over the Trinity Cathedral. Some three decades later, in 1850, Lord Dundonald tested the use of pitch as a fuel for the steamers that connected Port-of-Spain with the south of Trinidad - a successful experiment, which however was not put into large-scale practice.

It was around that time as well that asphalt was used as a road surface covering for the first time. Conrad Stollmeyer, a German immigrant with a great entrepreneural spirit, supplied the pitch to cover a track for the mule-trams to facilitate the transport of sugar between San Fernando and Cipero Creek. In the following years, Stollmeyer shipped several hundred tons of asphalt to Europe. In 1859, he started to distill oil for lamps from the asphalt - and to this day, Trinidadians call kerosene ‘pitch-oil’.

During the 1854 cholera epidemic, Stollmeyer brought asphalt to Port-of-Spain in large quantities to be burnt in barrels at every street corner. People of the time believed that the smoke ‘purified the air’, and it was used by the medical authorities as a means to curb cholera. The epidemic claimed nearly a fifth of the urban population, and even Stollmeyer himself almost died from it. Shortly afterwards, he instigated the then Governor, Lord Harris, to levy a tax on rum to raise funds to supply water to Port-of-Spain from the Maraval river, and that was probably his more effective contribution to fighting cholera than burning pitch!

It was not until the 1890s that asphalt came into common use for road surfacing. The first road to be covered were Clarence Street (then the upper part of Frederick Street), Frederick Street and Oxford Street. But as Michael Anthony recounts in his book ‘First in Trinidad’, horses and people were not very enthused about the smooth surfaces, which had been constructed convex for better drainage. It was only in the early 20th century and with the advent of cars that the pitch lake started to provide accepted surfacing for our roads.

Raleigh

All that is Gold doth not glitter

He came to find gold and saw oil: historical ironies of Sir Walter Raleigh

In the 16th century, England expanded into the West Indies. The reasons were purely economical: she had to find a new market for her goods, outside of Europe where there was money. To break Spain’s hegemony in the New World, Englishmen began to wage attacks upon the closely guarded Spanish ships. During this period, ‘might was right’ in the Caribbean, as the courageous privateers and pirates attempted to break the Spanish monopoly in the West.

When Queen Elisabeth decided to take up the cause of the United Provinces of Holland against Philip II of Spain, she knew that the West Indies were the most vulnerable part of his empire. Therefore, in the 1590s, many transatlantic expeditions were ordered by the Queen, and her captains sacked and burnt many fledgling Spanish-American towns: Caracas, Santa María, Río Hacha, Puerto Bello etc.

In 1595, it was San José de Oruna’s (St. Joseph) turn. No other than Sir Walter Raleigh navigated up the river Caroni and destroyed the little capital of Trinidad. Sir Walter, however, was not only Her Majesty’s faithful mariner, but also one of those conquistadors who dreamt of ‘el dorado’, the golden man, the riches of the unknown golden city somewhere in South America, where precious stones and nuggets as big as fists were lying in the streets.

The stories of El Dorado were not the only ones: there were also tales of man-eaters, and of Caribs who ate other Indians and who seized and killed white men in the most cruel ways possible. Stories of anthropohagi, men whose heads grew between their shoulders, of jaguars, of swamps, mosquitoes, the silence and ‘hardships so dire and grave when they are known, appear fables in the telling’ made the rounds. But there was always the lure of gold, and Raleigh was hoping that the Orinoco would turn out to be the waterway to El Dorado.

Raleigh weighed anchor in England on 6th February 1595 and arrived at Icacos in Trinidad on 22nd March. Just several weeks before, another English conquistador, the young Sir Robert Dudley, had visited our shores, and who, after consulting with the Aruacs (who reaffirmed the Orinoco as the right way to El Dorado, possibly to get rid of Dudley as quickly as possible) sailed on towards Tobago. Raleigh, however, was to see the real gold of Trinidad, but since it did not glitter but was a dull black, he did not recognise it. He spent five days surveying the island and discovered the magnificent pitch lake, never knowing that this was the real wealth of the future. He did, however, use the pitch to caulk his ships after the long voyage across the Atlantic, and remarked that it was finer than that of Norway. Sailing from the Gulf of Paria, he beheld the Marcasite cliffs. Taking their glitter for gold he sent a boat ashore. But alas - it turned out to be ‘fool’s gold’ as they called it. “All that glitters is not gold!” sighed the conquistador, coining the phrase for centuries after.

Trinidad’s Governor Don Antonio de Berrio was suspicious of his visitor. He sent soldiers to check Raleigh out, and the Englishman greeted them with the utmost courtesy on board his ship. Then, on 7th April, Raleigh gave the signal to murder the nine Spanish soldiers on his flagship. The following day he and 100 English soldiers sailed up the Caroni and took the town of San José. After taking the governor and his administration as prisoners, the English plundered and burnt down the little town, which consisted of tapia and thatch.

Some three weeks later, Sir Walter led his expedition up the Orinoco river. De Berrio - himself a conquistador who was dreaming of ‘el dorado’ - had tried to dissuade him from his venture, but Raleigh persisted. He still thought the riches of South America were to be found in El Dorado, and knew nothing of the vast deposits of oil and gas in these latitudes. And even if he had known, it would more likely than not have been of no particular interest to him. The invention of the fuel-driven engine was still in the far future days.

In Trinidad, the pitch lake quietly bubbled away for many years, while Sir Raleigh had to return to England without recognizing what ‘El Dorado’ really looked like. He never found his City of Gold, and was finally executed due to the fact that he had spent too much of the British Crown’s money on his voyages.

Hummingbird

Hummingbird gone or how the Pitch Lake came to be

from the diary of Valentine Rostant, approx. 1854

Down beside the loathly Pitch Lake

In the stately Morichal

Sat an ancient Spanish Indian

Peering through the columns tall.

Watching vainly for the flashing

Of the jewelled Colibri

Listening vainly for the humming

Round the honey-blossomed tree.

“Few,” he sighed, “they come, and fewer,

To the Cocorite bowers;

Murdered madly through the forests,

Which of yore were theirs - and ours.”

By there come a local hunter,

Lithe and lusty, sleek and strong,

Rolling round his sparkling eyeballs,

As he loped and lounged along.

Rusty firelock on his shoulder;

Rusty cutlass on his thigh;

Never jollier British subject

Rollicked underneath the sky.

British law to give him safety,

British fleets to guard his shore,

And a square of British freehold

He had all we have, and more.

Healthy, happy, silly, kindly,

Neither care nor toil had he,

Save to work an hour at sunrise,

And then hunt the Colibri.

Round the palm-stems, round the creepers,

Flashed a feathered jewel past;

Ruby-chested, topaz-throated,

Plucked the Cocorite bast.

Up then went the rusty muzzle,

“Dat de tent I shot today.”

But out sprang the Indian shouting

Balked the hunter of his prey.

“Eh! you Señor Trinidada,

What dis new ondacent plan?

Spoil a genl’man’s chance ob shootin’?

I as good as any man.”

Stately, courteous, stood the Indian;

Pointed through the palmtree shade;

“Does the hunting gentleman then

Know how yon Pitch Lake was made?

Once that loathly Pitch Lake yonder

Was a garden bright and fair;

And the Chaymas off the mainland

Built their palm ajoupas there.

How they ghrove, and how they fattened,

Hale and happy, safe and strong;

Passed the lifelong days in feasting,

Passed the days in dance and song.

Till they cruel grew, and wanton;

Till they killed the Colibris.

Then outspoke the Great Good Spirit

Who can see through all the trees.

Said: ‘And what have I not sent you,

Wanton Chaymas, many a year?

Lappe, agouti, cachicamo,

Quenk and Guazu-pita deer.

Sent rich plantains, food of angels,

Rich pineapple, food of kings;

Grudged you none of all my treasures

Save these lovely useless things.’

But the Chaymas’ ears were deafened,

Blind their eyes and could not see

how a blissful Indian’s spirit

Lived in every Colibri.

Till one evening roared the earthquake;

Monkeys howled and parrots screamed;

And the Indians at morning,

Gathered here as men who dreamed.

Sunk were gardens, sunk ajoupas,

Hut and hammock, man and hound;

And above the Chaymas village’

Boiled with pitch the cursed ground.

Full, and too full, safe and too safe -

Hunter man, take care, take care.

He that wantons with God’s bounties

Of God’s wrath had best beware.

For the saucy, reckless, heartless,

Evil days are sure in store,

You may see the Trini sinking

As the Chayma sank of yore.”

Loudly laughed that stalwart hunter -

“Eh! shat silly jumby talk,

Nyam am nyam, an money money,

Birds am birds like park am park;

And dere’s twenty tousand birdskins,

Ordered jes now from New Yark!”