Most Selfish Generation

by Jean de Boissière

He wrote in the 1940-50s. A note on the de Boissieres.  They were Huguenot
not Catholic. Founder, Jean Velleton de Boisierre anglicized his name to Joun Boissiere

for-closed on Champs Elysées. His father was one of the 500 during the Directorate in France

They did not marry the other French families and worked very closely with the English. Eric Williams came from the black side of that family.

Some eighty years ago, the leading people of Trinidad the (plantation owners) were hard working industrious folk who exploited the masses shamefully in the interest of what they thought was a sound conception of society. 

Embodied in this conception was a firm belief in the family unit as the very basis of that society. this made one of their first principles the establishment and strengthening of large family groups. Another solid conviction was their faith in religion as a force essential to the past, the present and the future. It was not an empty conviction for they propagandised that faith among the thousands of illiterate who came under their influence.

To these people (the freed Negro slaves and the East Indian indentured labourers who were their workers) they extended a regard for their material as well as their spiritual welfare. In practice, this welfare was administered in a completely despotic but benevolent manner. A gardener got a dollar a week, and if he forgot himself and his place so far as to demand fifty cents more as his just wages, he would be chased from the estate. But if he asked for a spot of land to build his shack, or five dollars to christen a child, he was given it and more with a paternal graciousness that made him feel that he was as much part of  that family unit as its oldest son.
The elder Creoles of three generations back were in most instances conservatively constructive, paternal and kind. That they were unaware of an industrial revolution that was torturing Europe and which would eventually destroy their work and their world, that they accepted the status quo with the same faith that they did their God was not their fault. In their time and place they could not possibly have done otherwise.

If one could accuse them of crime, it could  be only for that of spawning the generation that followed them. No single excuse could be found for these. Their parents graciously cheated the masses in order to create a surplus to send these hopes-of-the-world for an education in a Europe that was perpetually seething with an under-current of industrial and political unrest. For all they saw of this they might as well been blindfolded before they left. But what they did see and learn was the unscrupulous selfishness of the bourgeois class, rampant in the jungle they had made out of European civilization.

When they returned, the adulation and regard with which they were greeted was completely misinterpreted. They looked upon it rather in the way a millionaire's son does on the salutes of the sailors from his father's yacht. The first practical application of the lessons they had learnt was in their treatment of these workers on their plantations.

No more benevolent despotism. The attitude was now that of the European bourgeois to their factory workers. Ruthless individualism replaced the former almost feudal arrangement. It was expressed in such phrases as these: "The gardener get his wages - and his standard of living doesn't justify his getting any more. So why should we give him free lands for a house, when we can get rents from those lands, everything must make a profit. If they don't want to use the estate barracks and want to live above their means - and they always were a lazy, spend-thrift lot anyway - let them rent the land."

To their industrious parents who had worked and cleared the estate of all encumbrances, meanwhile building whole villages for their workers, they would talk in this strain.

"Mother, I don't see why you keep on giving money to these people to christen their children, when you know very well that they are a vicious immoral lot and all of their children are bastards anyway - and the amount of  money you waste giving away rosaries and prayer books, they can well afford to buy themselves. This would make them appreciate them more than when they get them for nothing anyway."

In like manner to this, they undertook to inaugurate and establish the regime of unrestricted capitalism on the plantations of their fathers. Any resistance to them was met with cruel suppression. They did not stop at attacking the workers, they carried the battle for these new principles (or more correctly lack of principles) right into their own families. The survival of the fittest , the  crowning of cunning, and the law of the jungle had to be established here too. Where their parents had assisted members of the family in their moments of distress, they used such moments to take advantage of them Instead of the financially embarrassed member getting help, he would be forced to sell whatever he had left to the stronger relatives at a colossal sacrifice.

One would have thought that this would have brought some qualms of conscience. It did; but gave them little trouble as they had a bourgeois conscience; the most elastic produced yet. They insisted on a strict honesty that left them masters of the embarrassing situations created very dubiously for their opponents. The elastic of their conscience expanded with creating the situation and contracted visibly in handling it.

In morals they insisted on an ultra-puritanical code for their own wives and daughters, while those of their labourers were invariably supposed to submit to the advances made prior to any work or land being given on the estate. While the older generation had occasionally lapsed and produce children with women on the estate which they acknowledged and supported (in some instances even giving them a European education), the new one ignored and abandoned the innumerable bastards they begot as a preliminary to the day's work in the cocoa.

Not satisfied with turning the estate and its workers into a machine from which they could grind money for a self-centered empty life of pleasure, they sought official positions in the government, where their most arduous work was done in jockeying for the highest paid jobs. The first step was to reduce the work of the department to a minimum and then to arrange for the terrifically underpaid subordinates to carry on the work, while they spent their time on the galleries of their clubs, sipping drinks and slaying peoples reputation with an impressive dignity.

There is one classic case worth mentioning of a head of a department who, having arranged his official life in like manner to suit himself (to have told this man that he was a servant of the public and owed them a duty would have been to grossly insult him), he would turn up at his office everyday at 11 o/clock and leave at midday. For over 15 years, he drew about $ 400 per month of the public's money for sitting at a desk for five hours a week. He eventually retired a short while before it was absolutely necessary because as he boasted to his friends, his "conscience hurt him".

They attended church every Sunday with an eye to subtle publicity, for they went always to the biggest ones where they would be seen by the most people. But the simple Christina virtues of unheralded charity, kindness and love were completely absent from their makeup.

In their lifetime, they succeeded in deranging the social order created by their forbears so completely, that the former good relations that existed between the classes disappeared and the same social disorder and unrest that haunted Europe permeated the island.

Some of these supreme individualists still exist and linger in the estate houses, the position of government and the benches of the larger churches. They are few now and these ladies and gentlemen of the most incredibly selfish generation will pass away, but it will take more than a little time to heal the wounds they made on the body social that their forefathers brought forth."

Buy "The Book of Trinidad" by clicking here:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

Buy "A Rada Community in Trinidad" by clicking here:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

Cycles of Revolt

Trinidad in the 1840s was going through a state of flux. The time of African slavery had officially ended. About 25,000 former slaves were actually on the move. Some left the country districts and walked for miles through  the bush to get to Port of Spain. Others travelled from one estate to another to get work in better or simply different environments. Some stayed where they were, working as domestics in the houses of Port of Spain.

Fr. Anthony de Verteuil in his chapter "The End of Slavery" from his publication "Seven Slaves and Slavery" gives and excellent perspective of the period before emancipation and following. He notes that in 1777, there were only 225 slaves in Trinidad, scattered around St. Joseph, Maraval and Diego Martin and on the islands in the Bocas. Some lived in the Naparimas, cultivating crops of mostly cotton and coffee.

With the French came the Otaheite sugar cane, and only 20 years later, in 1797, the slave population stood at 10,007. By 1813, it counted in Port of Spain alone 6,170 slaves. In the second decade of the 19th century, it was 23,227.

Estate life during slavery produced craftsmen such as carpenters, tanners, coopers, blacksmiths, boat builders, whalers to name a few.

After emancipation, most of the slaves left the estates and never returned. As such, the economy just about collapsed, and there was also no work for the skilled craftsmen. The French plantocracy was much affected; estates were abandoned; many families migrated to the southern United States.
By the 1840s, there were several experiments with the importation of labour. Some Chinese were tried and also Portuguese. The first influx of "small islanders" took place. The real turn-around came with the arrival of the Indians. José Bodu, social commentator, remarked:

"An event of immense importance in the history of the colony is the arrival of the first batch of East Indian immigrants on board the ship Fatel Razack."

1845 also saw the emergence of the Reform Movements, the repercussions of which are still felt 150 years later. Bodu remarks:

"In 1845, the question of reform began to occupy the minds of the people of Trinidad. Nearly 50 years had elapsed since the capitulation, and although Spanish institutions which then prevailed and which it had been covenanted to respect had been Anglicized, no modicum of direct representation such as obtained in other parts of the Empire had been afforded the colony."

Trinidadians had little, in fact no control over their fate, particularly their economic destiny. This lack of local representation was also the reason for the high maintenance cost of the colony, and was not approved of by all Englishmen. Already in 1822, a Mr. Hume moved to appoint a commission of enquiry to report on the state of Trinidad. Joseph Marryat, Esq., gave the following speech in the House of Commons on July 25th, 1822:

"The amount of the taxes annually raised in Grenada are about £30,000 currency. The amount of law expenses and fees of the Courts of Justice are estimated at £20,000. The annual expense of the Registry of Slaves is £ 200. The expenses attending the apprehension and restitution of a runaway negro seldom or ever exceed £4, and frequently do not amount to half that sum. In Trinidad, 44 runaway negroes were apprehended together about two years ago, [...] which amounted to no less a sum than £5,272; or nearly £120 each, which in many cases exceeded the value of the negroes.

"Large sums are also raised in Trinidad for objects of embellishment, utterly inconsistent with the means of the inhabitants. The Governor [Woodford] ordered the streets to be new paved, and assessed the proprietors of houses £4 6s. 8d. per foot on their frontage to defray the expense of the alteration. [...] Some of them have been actually obliged to mortgage, and others to sell their houses, to liquidate their assessments to the pavement.

"The inequality of the burdens imposed on the inhabitants of Grenada and Trinidad is easily accounted for; Grenada enjoys a British constitution - her laws are framed by representatives chosen from among the people, and who can impose no taxes to which they do not themselves contribute, in common with their fellow subjects. But Trinidad is under an arbitrary government, and her laws are made by a single individual, who has no common interest with those over whom he rules."

1846 saw the arrival of Lord Harris, an extremely able and most progressive administrator under whose aegis the difficult question of educating the population was first tackled. The first Portuguese shop was opened in that year by a Señor Esperanza. This marked the commencement of an institution that would continue for generations. Two deaths occurred in 1849 of men who, apart from leaving their mark, also left many descendants who are still with us. In April of that year, the venerable and much respected Mr. Paul Giuseppi passed away, aged 78 years, at his residence "Valsayn" (then an estate house, not a suburb). It was in that same house that the articles of capitulation had been signed almost 50 years ago. A native of the island of Corsica, Mr. Giuseppi held the office of Teniente Justica, Mayor of St. Joseph, during the governorships of both Sir Thomas Hislop and of Sir Ralph Woodford. Passing away that year was also the Hon. Francisco Llanos at the age of 71. Dr. Llanos was a native of Caracas and had come to this island in 1810. A lawyer by profession, he enjoyed a large practice at the bar. He held the office of Defender of the Absent and at various times filled the positions of Assessor to the Court, Intendent and Judge Criminal.

The year 1849 was remarkable for what is known as the 1st October riots. The cause of this lamentable occurrence was an Ordinance to compel civil prisoners in the Royal Gaol to have their heads shaved in the same manner as the criminals. It was sought to pass this Ordinance through the Legislative Council. The public feeling of all classes revolted at the proposed indignity, which would have mainly affected people of some respectability which had nevertheless incurred too many debts. On Saturday, 19th September, placards were visible all over the town, announcing the convening of a public meeting for the morning of Monday, the 1st October. The place selected was a house on Almond Walk (now Broadway), Port of Spain, which was soon found to be too small a location to accommodate the vast number of people who congregated on the occasion.

An adjournment was therefore made to the Eastern Market, where the butchers had struck work in sympathy with the objects of the meeting.

As an outcome of the meeting, a deputation composed of Messrs. Dessources, Radix, Scott, Jean Louis, Edward, Phillip Rostant and Hobos were appointed to wait on the Governor, which they did at the Governor's office in the building that was later known as the Red House.

They were followed by a large crowd that grew increasingly noisy. The Governor agreed to withdraw that part of the Ordinance which had reference to the shaving of the heads of prisoners for debt. Notwithstanding these assurances, the crowd, now numbering some three thousand and comprised of the lower orders, rioted, destroying property and threatening to overrun the Governor's office. Some young men even got into the Council Chamber. One was arrested. When the rioters outside discovered this, they hurled a shower of stones in the buildings. At this point, the military was sent for, comprising the 88th regiment and the 2nd West Indian Regiment. The riot act was read by the Attorney General Charles Warner under a hail of stones, and the order to fire was given. Several people fell. This did not stay the fury of the mob. They continued to attack the soldiers and the police with large stones torn up from the streets. Four six-pounder cannons were landed from H.M.S. Scorpion, and preparations were made to open fire on the unrelenting rioters.

In the meantime, several of the crowd lay dead or dying in the streets and in the square opposite to the government Buildings. It was some time before order could be restored and the ringleaders arrested. They were later brought to trial.

With this incident, the colony had experienced its first civil riot. This was to be followed some 30 years later by the Cannes Brulées riots, which in turn were followed by the Water Riots 24 years later, in 1903. These were followed by the general strike in 1937 and by the Black Power uprising in 1970 and by the Muslimeen insurgents in 1990.

For close to 150 years, six generations of people have taken their lives into their hands to revolt violently against authority in Abercromby Street, Woodford Square, both outside of and in the Red House: Trinidad's cycles of Revolt.

Shouter Baptists

On March 30th, Trinidad and Tobago celebrates Shouter Baptist Day, and we look at the history of this religious group, drawing on information of Rt. Rev. Eudora Thomas book "A History of the Shouter Baptists in Trinidad and Tobago", published by Calaloux Productions, Ithaca, New York, 1987.

The Spiritual Baptists, called "Shouters" in Trinidad and Tobago, had been suppressed by both the colonial and the independent governments for many decades. Nevertheless, the group prevailed and, in spite of being a relatively small minority, has inspired a national holiday since the 1990s.

Like Santeria in Cuba and Brazil, Voudoun in Haiti, and Shango in the British Isles: the Spiritual Baptists are a syncretic African-Christian faith that goes back at least two centuries, to the days of slavery. Being a philosophical belief system, it did not come into being at a specific moment, but evolved over a long period of time. Due to this, and due to the fact that it evolved often "undercover" in the undocumented  slave population makes the exact roots of the Spiritual Baptist shrouded in the mists of history.

The Africans who settled in the Americas and in the Caribbean came from various parts of West and Central Africa, as the map shows. Up to today, we do not describe their origins with their "nationalities" (the present-day borders were drawn by the European colonisers at random, disregarding traditional tribal borders), but with their tribal ethnicity: Yoruba, Ibo, Dahomey, Mandingo, Congo, Rada, to name but a few.

The Yoruba were the largest group to come to the West Indies. It is to them that, according to Thomas, the forms of worship of the Spiritual Baptists are mostly attributed. In the slave society, where the Yoruba mixed with people of other tribal origins, Christian concepts of the dominant European culture were mixed with pan-African customs to create the syncretic forms of religious expression. Thus, the bell-ringing was borrowed from the Europeans, and the chanting from the Africans. Anointing can be found in both the Catholic and African religions.

"Handclapping and chanting, which are manifestations of the Shouters, are a substitute for the drums and shac-shacs of African custom," writes Thomas.

In the West Indies, the Spiritual Baptists were soon ousted by the Europeans. They aren't called Shouters for nothing: were simply too loud! All this chanting, shouting, bell-ringing and hand-clapping infringed on the more delicate European sense of propriety. It definitely smacked of some barbaric African cults. Laws were passed against those disturbances. The Catholic and Protestant churches too were worried about that their efforts to Christianise the African population would be undermined by the Shouters. Way into the 20th century, it was often the leaders of the established churches who opposed the revocation of the ordinances that forbid the Spiritual Baptists in the British West Indies, and not the colonial government.

In Trinidad and Tobago, the "Ordinance to Render Illegal, Indulgence in the Practice of the Body known as the Shouters", was passed on 27 November, 1917. The Anglican church was then between leaders, Bishop John Francis Welch served up to 1916, and Bishop Dr. Arthur Henry Anstey was consecrated in 1918. The Roman Catholic church was headed by Archbishop John Pius Dowling. The governor was Lieut. Col. Sir John Chancellor, after whose wife Lady Chancellor a street was named.

The bill was introduced by the attorney general, Sir Henry Gollam. He acted in accordance with the government's practices in St. Vincent, where the "Shakers" had been banned from worshipping in 1913.

"According to his statement, the Shouters' form of worship, which was introduced to the island from the neighbouring island of St. Vincent, was an 'unmitigated nuisance'," writes Thomas. "A Shouter meeting would make the neighbourhood where it took place unfit for residential occupation." She continues to give names of several leaders of the Shouters who had to suffer for their faith after 1917: Teacher Patrick of Sangre Grande served a three month prison term for conducting baptisms in a river; Leader Roach earned himself the name "Braveboy" for preaching at street corners in spite of rotten eggs being pelted at him; Leader Harold Lackeye was put into prison for six months for preaching but put on bond; Leader Smith of Roxborough was beaten and arrested for conducting a baptism; and Pastor Guiton of Tunapuna was raided several times and had to pay high fines.

On March 30th, 1951, the Ordinance that banned the Shouters was repealed. Pastors Griffith and Balfour were depicted on the front page of the local newspapers. Two months later, on May 22, the ban was also lifted in St. Vincent by the colonial administration. The spokesman in the Legislative Council for them there was Vincentian George McIntosh, whom Thomas quotes:

"In view of the fact that the poorer classes of this Colony are in deplorable, poverty-stricken condition because Government is unable to remedy conditions and ... religion being the only means whereby these depressed people can find comfort in their misery and as the Superintendent of Police and His Honour the Administrator have colluded to deprave these people of their right to religious freedom in the Colony."

During the years of slavery in the Caribbean, African slaves had a need to maintain their spiritual health in order to cope with the terrible conditions they lived in. In the new environment, Europeans tried to Christianise them; many of the Africans also brought their own, powerful belief structure into the equation.

"The religious propagation, with the stunning magical power of the African medicine man, so strongly influenced the African inhabitants that they started to borrow from their own myths and religious practices until they had established a variant form of the faith," writes Thomas.

If the importation of those myths and practices was very strong, they superseded the Christian forms, i.e. in Voudoun or Shango. But the same syncretic borrowing took place in the religious practice that eventually became the Shouters, or Shakers as they were called in St. Vincent, or Tie Heads as they were called in Barbados.

But why did the slaves not accept Christianity? Was it merely a manifestation of their inner opposition against the slave master, in spite of the outward adaptation to the system?

Thomas writes that Christianity was never really fully adopted by certain African tribes because of its monotheism (which, as anthropologists would tell you, was also the problem in ancient and middle-age Europe, hence the translation of various pre-Christian religious concepts and personalities into God's son, Mother of God, patron saints etc.). To those tribes, both Christianity and Islam would have forbidden a part of their world view in that was based on nature and ancestor worship. What happened in the case of the Spiritual Baptists was that they adopted the concept of baptism and the Holy Ghost from the Christian missionaries. Thomas adds: "mourning, talking in tongues, healing preaching, and teaching of the gospel according to the diverse gifts manifested by the Holy Ghost."

From their African ancestors, the Shouters inherited other practices, e.g. the incantation of traditional Christian hymns in a pattern that leads to shouting, or the hand-clapping and "shaking", which imply African participatory patterns. In comparison, physical manifestations during worship are very reduced in European Christian churches. The Vincentian Shakers were banned after an incident where the shaking and vibrations of a group had frightened the governor's horse so much that he fell off!

In Trinidad, the first recorded leaders of a syncretic African-Christian religious cult was Papa Nanee, who has been described earlier in the Digest as the founder of the Rada community in Belmont. He was also a healer, a role which is part and parcel of Black syncretic movements in the New World. The Shouters give their spiritual leaders the title "Teacher" or "Elder". Teacher Farnum was a leader in the late 19th century, who spread the Shouter Baptist faith from her little shack off the Tunapuna road. Other significant leaders were, according to Thomas, Pastor Bowman in Arouca, Pastor William Cox, his wife Irma and his son Douglas, who established a mission in 1904 in Tunapuna, and Pastor Theophilus Ottley, who was believed to have started a church in Laventille.

In 1987, Rev. Thomas wrote:

"The Shouter Baptists celebrate their Day of Emancipation for religious observances, and efforts should be made to commemorate this day during their lifetime."

This year, it will be the 50th anniversary of their Day of Emancipation, and Eudora Thomas' wish has been granted on a national basis.

Today, in world where car engines and blaring television sets seem to be the soundtrack of our lives, it seems strange that the Shouter Baptists had been banned for 34 years on grounds of the noise level they create during worship. When we put up our feet on Friday coming, let us think a minute about the reasons for their coming into existence as a church with distinct religious practices, and let us give acquiescence to the fact that their movement is, in fact, one that finds parallels everywhere in the New World.

Frank Messervy

The unrelenting hail of shot, shell and fire stopped with the dawn. The rain that had been falling for the previous six weeks continued coursing, a weird syncopation of dropping sounds, a drip-splash-drop-drop-drip symphony that managed oriental quarter-tones, a lunatic cacophony through which the drifting mist made not merely the landscape, but the immediate surroundings take on the quality of Chinese mist paintings of the type seen on screens in restaurants.

It was typical of the Japanese to fill the night with terror and death, only to fall silent with the dawn leaving the enemy exhausted, shell-shocked and desperate with the certain knowledge that the ring had grown tighter. The fourth army corpse lay entrapped in the maze of mountain gorges, precipices, spectacular but unseen waterfalls in probably the world's thickest primeval tropical jungle, where only dynamite may be brought in to blast away gigantic trees so as to clear the way for lieutenant General Frank Messervy to remove his entrapped army from the heartland of Burma during the devastating days of the last war. he did. And with the 7th Indian Division and the reconstructed 4th Army Corps, he drove the Japanese Army through the Burmese mountains to take Rangoon.

That itself is a tale worth telling. For the last three hours, the Japanese Imperial Commander for Malaya, Sumatra, Java, Borneo and the Dutch East Indies, General Seishiro Itagaki, had been standing at attention with his ceremonial sword held out at arm's length, with his entire officer corps lined up behind him. His army of 100,000 men were drawn up without arms in parade in the open field adjacent to the city of Rangoon, now reduced to ashes. General Frank Messervy entered the open field accompanied by the pipes and drums of the Argyle & Sutherland Highlanders (Princess Louise's), and the entire 4th Army Corps for the purpose of taking the surrender. Detachment after detachment formed up and with the entire corps at present arms, General Itagaki handed his sword to Frank Messervy. It was just over 550 years old and had been made by Kanemoto, the most famous sword smith of his day.

Years later, I went to visit Sir Frank Messervy in his thatch-covered, large cottage not too far from London. Tall and gangly, and an older man by now, Frank recalled:

"In all my life, I have never seen a man so overwhelmed by emotion as was Itagaki when he handed his sword to me. He went ashen gray, just like a corpse, and the pupils of his eyes dwindled until there were no pupils at all. I know, because I looked straight and hard into his eyes as he surrendered his sword. It was as though he was surrendering his soul to me, and I though he would drop dead at my feet."

The said sword had killed many people in its time. When the heir of the house came of age, he would go into the family village where the tenants were kneeling on either side of the path. To prove his manhood, he would take a right-hand swipe and a left and so on, severing heads on his way.

Why this story? General Sir Frank Messervy, K.C.S.I., K.B.E., C.B., D.S.O, was the son of Myra de Boissière who married an Englishman by the name of Walter Messervy, who had come out to Trinidad to work in the Colonial Bank, later Barclays Bank, eventually becoming its manager. Myra was the daughter of Poleska de Boissière, who then lived with her husband, Dr. de Boissière, in Champs Elysées, which is now the Country Club. Frank in fact might have been born at Bagshot House, which went to the Bank when his original owner, Valleton de Boissière, got into financial difficulties.

After Myra and Walter had had several other children, and Walter was posted to Jamaica to work in the bank, Frank had the good fortune of being "adopted" by wealthy, childless relatives of his father. They educated him at Eaton and made him their heir. From them, Frank inherited the Twining tea estates in Sri Lanka. He had an exceptionally brilliant military career. Graduating from Sandhurst in 1913, from where he was posted as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Indian Army, joining the 9th Hodsonshorse in 1914. During the First World War he served in France, Palestine, Syria and Kurdistan. His experience in this war was, as for most of the soldiers, a horrible one. After the Treaty of Versailles, Frank came back to his home country for prolonged visits, staying with his beloved grandmother in Champs Elysées. His uncle Arneaud was Lieut.-Col., the  most senior officer serving on the western front in the war, spent much time with him as well.

Back to England, where Frank passed the staff college course at Chamberley in 1926, going on to become a brevet major in 1929 and a brevet lieutenant-colonel in 1933. During the Second World War, he first served in Eritrea and then in North Africa. Captured by the Germans, he escaped. He rose rapidly in rank, ending the war as  Lieutenant General. Appointed G.O.C. in C. and Governor of Malaysia. He later became C. in C. of the army of independent Pakistan, and served there at the time when India achieved her independence.

Messervy was deputy chief scout to Lord Rowallan.

In his military career, Messervy was known as the "spearhead general". He went into battle with his men, and did not stay behind to direct battle strategies over a map. In most pictures, he is dirty, unshaven, and probably missed his lunch. A deeply religious man, in the last years of his life, he went regularly to Lourdes, where he acted as stretcher-bearer for sick pilgrims. He died in 1974 - a Trinidadian at heart and in genes, decorated with the highest military honours of the British Empire, celebrated in many international publications, a brave hero who our soldiers can be proud of.

Electric City Part 3

As the end of the 19th century neared, the social fabric of Trinidad began to show a move towards modernity. This was demonstrated in several ways, for example, a notice was published in the newspapers on the 25th January, 1895, that "all transvestite dressing was prohibited". This was, of course, directed at masqueraders, but it also reflected what the "better-thinking people" had taken up arms about.

The city's streets had also been given a thorough face lift. Asphalt was used for the very first time in 1890. Mr. Tanner, the town superintendent, put a paving on Clarence Street (upper Frederick Street) and Oxford Street. He carefully made them convex for the rainwater to run off. This, however, upset a lot of people, especially people with horse-drawn buggies and caps. It would appear that the paving caused horses to slip and fall, and buggies to tip over? Sounds familiar for those who try to drive up Cascade main road after the recent paving exercise without sacrificing their car axles in foot-deep crevices on the either side of the road?

Be that as it may, Tobago had recently (1889) been joined to Trinidad in a somewhat arbitrary manner. In so doing, the colony of Trinidad and Tobago had come into being. Already, there was the telephone which was regarded as plain miraculous. The island's economy was sound - at least for those with access to it. The middle classes were buttressed to a degree, with an access to funds derived from small and medium cocoa estates. Repeatability was the order of the day, and in looking at old photographs, what strikes on first is that everybody is wearing a hat! All men wore suits and ladies' dresses were at ankle length. It was still a charcoal-burning society. Everybody cooked on coal pots, and although there was pipe-borne water for many, very few possessed indoor toilets called W.C., water closets.

Into this scene, the marvel of electricity was introduced by the young American entrepreneur, Edgar Tripp. In 1892, Tripp leased a parcel of land from the Port of Spain Borough Council. What he had in mind was the setting up of an electricity plant. The land he leased was the southernmost end of the old Ariapita Estate. The area was known as Shine's Pasture and already produced a type of energy and generated fuel: grass. As a grass market, it supplied fodder to the city's hundreds of horses. For $100 a year, paid to the Council, Edgar Tripp set about setting up his plant. The Council was in support of his plan to light the town, as an ordinance had been put into place since 1887 to facilitate this event. There was, however, one problem. It had to do with the removal of the city's rubbish dump. In typical style, which has not changed much over the years, there was much wrangling and elaborate bureaucracy. Tripp was made of other stuff and commenced planting poles in Port of Spain and stringing up wires over the existing telephone lines. The limited liability company he formed was called "The Electric Light and Power Company". He registered it at the Red House, which was not red yet, on 5th July, 1894. His board of directors were William Gordon Gordon, chairman, W.S. Robertson, Eugene Cipriani and Lucien Ambard. Tripp was the company's secretary.

The contract with the Borough Council was signed by George Grant, who was not a member of the board, but who was soon to go into business with William Gordon Gordon and form the firm Gordon Grant & Co. Ltd. The contract stipulated that by the end of August 1894, the town was to be lit up by electric power.

The officials of the telephone company began to be alarmed by the work being done by Tripp's workmen. They took objection to the electric wires being strung above their own. They felt that if the wires were to come into contact, a fire would be started which could damage their telephone exchange.

Council member Mzumbo Lazare felt that electric wires should be run underground, but his suggestion, a good one, had come too late in the day. The electric engines arrived at the docks, accompanied by Mr. Kuhn, an engineer. There also were dynamos. No one had ever seen a dynamo; it was a very modern term. Part of the installations was also a huge boiler with a tall smoke stack. To facilitate the stringing of the wires, the city's trees had to be trimmed. T

here were questions asked in the Legislative Council: "Is the government satisfied that all precautions have been taken against the risk of accident to life in the erection of overhead wires in the streets of Port of Spain?" This was raised by Conrad Stollmeyer, chairman of the Commercial Telephone Company. Walsh Wrtightson, the newly arrived director of Public Works, put everyone at ease by saying that overhead wires were not at all a problem, inasmuch as they existed all over the world.

Edgar Tripp had done his work remarkably well, and was, in fact, ahead of schedule by a week. Great excitement swept the town on Tuesday 25 February, 1895. As the sun set, instead of the dim kerosene lamps that had previously lit the town, the much brighter electric light appeared. "There was a great deal of enthusiasm shown by the crowds on the streets when the lights shone forth and great crowds collected under each lamp and discussed the characteristics of this new agency by which night is to be made more like day." 

Edgar Tripp had turned night into day. The wife of the governor, Lady Napier Broome, took a cricket team visiting from England on a tour of the town, especially kept alight on her bequest. Tripp rode through the town on his buggy, inspecting the new facilities wherever he went. He was received with much applause.

Government House was, of course, electrified and so too the Queen's Park hotel in which Edgar Tripp had a major interest. Times had really changed.

Well, next time you put on your computer to surf the internet, fully aware that you are part of the future, spare a thought for the young American who first put power into place to take you there.

Lessons in history

Without really understanding what it implies, people with sage expressions arranged on their faces say something like: "How can you known where you're going if you don't know where you've come from?" The listener, aware that he is being straightened out with the warm iron of good intention, also arranges his physiognomy in a manner compatible to the conversation, and awaits his turn to be profound.

Lessons in history should be, in truth, much more than platitudes. We make everything in our own image. What is different is often hard to understand and might even be dangerous. Only as we grow in maturity and understanding do we discover that differences can be used creatively and that they are exciting and enriching.

This is why Trinidad and Tobago, in fact the Caribbean on the whole, is so full of challenge, and so full of creative energy. There is a chance here and now to create a new kind of society. These islands can be to the world of today what the Aegean was to the world of Homer, Echnaton or St. Paul: a place where many ideas and cultures are fused together, a place where philosophy, science and the arts grow and flower, a world which knows that unity is not the same thing as uniformity.

West Indian history shows what happens to a society that promotes division and hatred, that puts a premium on prejudice and discrimination. Turn for a moment to the history of the French islands, and consider the manner in which history arranged itself with regard to the "mulattoes", people of colour with both European and African ancestors, of Martinique, Grenada and Haiti for example.

In these islands, there was at first no prejudice against European men living with Carib or African women. Indeed, this was a general practice. In theory, the children of those unions were free, but in fact the boys did not become free until they were 20, and the girls until they were 15. Many of the people of colour married French men and women. The crafts and trades were open to them, with the exception of the trade of goldsmith, and by the time of the French Revolution in 1789 thery were in that trade also. They could own property - as in Spanish Trinidad -, though in Martinique there were restrictions. Over the decades, free people of colour increased in number and grew prosperous.

The French government was alarmed at this. It feared that the growth of the free coloureds would endanger white supremacy. Institutionalised segregation was organised for the setting-up of divisions between Europeans, mixed people, and Africans on the basis of skin colour. Part of an official report read:

"These people are beginning to fill the colony and it is a scandal to see them increasing in number, mixing with the whites, overtaking them in opulence and riches, they give refuge to vagabonds and fugitives."

The work of division went from generation to generation. Some restrictions read like those which the Nazis imposed on the Jews in the 1930s. The colour of a man's grandmother became important. African blood kept some out of the judiciary, out of the militia, out of public service. A white man who had a coloured wife would be kept out of those professions.

In Haiti, d'Auberteuil, the Governor, rejected the princile that either the sons or the grandsons of emancipated slaves should be considered worthy of being free men. Special laws were passed to prevent the coloured mistresses of Europeans from inheriting property willed to them. There were regulations on clothes that might appear too luxurious, against using wheeled transport, and on holding dances.

In Haiti in 1792, the world exploded. Coloureds and the slaves rose against the French in a storm of violence. But the lessons of Haiti were not learnt in the British islands, because the same society that existed in French slave islands existed in Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad: one where human rights were denied to a vast percentage of the population.

In Trinidad, a significant individual, a man of colour, Dr. Jean Baptiste Philippe, made a herculean effort to maintain the rights and privileges of his people. In Grenada, Fedon staged a bloody revolution. Toussaint L'Ouverture, the hero of the Haitian revolution, died in a French jail and the coloured creole Simon Bolivar liberated the South and Central Americas. We have travelled far since then, but in these days, when we face the challenge of maintaining our independence, we need to remember that these old prejudices die hard - they in fact tend to reverse themselves.

On Saturday night before Carnival, I found myself sitting opposite to a black woman at a dinner party, whose anti-white-Creole, anti-Indian views were the very same as expressed by white people I knew when I was a boy growing up. I was intrigued. Not knowing history very well, she was afraid of the future in much the same way as the whites were 200 years ago!

We can give a positive meaning to being independent as a people, if we can commit ourselves to the idea that all human beings are created equal. Already, as a nation, we have exploded the myth of racial superiority. Already, we are progressing to a higher level of human relationships that many countries do not know - in spite of some counterproductive leaders such as certain calypsonians or politicians. For many, the terms tolerance and acceptance don't even apply, as they imply that something or somebody needs to be tolerated or aceepted.

We have to understand that we are each a part of the whole, of each other. In the same way as two centuries ago, prejudices often arise out of economic insecurities. In this time of opportunity and challenge in our national life, let us learn the lessons of history, in that economic stability comes about when, and only when, the majority of us are neither afraid of the past, nor of the future. We have come too far not to have it our own way!

100 Years of Salvation Army in Trinidad and Tobago

Poverty is hell. Indifference to it is a crime against humanity. William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, understood this. Born in Nottingham in 1829, Booth knew as well the Dickensian squalor of Britain's inner cities.

Triggered by the rapid growth of industrialisation, tens of thousands flocked to the factories, the mines and the tenements, overloading the already centuries old support systems that were hardly existent in any event. The rigid class system served only to condemn the poor even more irrevocably to their station where they lived in humiliation and degradation.

William Booth became a Christian in his youth and spent what little time he had from his job at a pawn shop helping the poor, the sick, the hopeless. He encouraged the destitute to look to God for solace in the churches. He was indeed convincing. The poor, however, soon rediscovered what they have always known: there was no real place for them amongst the sweet-smelling, elegantly dressed Sunday church goers. William founded the East London Christian Mission. It worked, but hardly. William, his son Bromwell and their friend George Railton, dedicated to their cause, were eventually inspired by the concept of "The Christian Mission is a Volunteer Army".

At the time, Victorian England, Imperial England, was defined by its armies that had carved out for her a huge and far-flung empire. This army was largely comprised of volunteers. This inspired William Booth and his small circle of helpers. It also drew some mockery - being called a "Volunteer Army" to help the poor! In a moment of inspiration, Booth crossed out the word "Volunteer" and wrote "Salvation" instead. Thus, the Salvation Army was born.

The rapid development of the first Salvationists was in truth aided by the adoption of a quasi-military structure. An army in the service of God, dedicated to help those in need, had declared war against poverty and hopelessness. Booth's work drew opposition and sometimes even brutal persecution. Those with vested interest in living off the misery of the poor - the barkeepers and the brothel masters for example - were angered when their former customers were converted to William Booth's army. A Methodist, he was eventually ordained a minister, with a difference: his was a open air church; he took his ministry to the streets of London and to the country roads. Space does not permit as to describe the now forgotten story of the hell seen by Booth, his wife and family, and their small circle of supporters. To say the least, it was bloody and terrifying. "The Army" produced in those days several martyrs. Notwithstanding, the idea of an army fighting sin caught on and spread across the Empire, in fact the world.

General William Booth dispatched Brigadier Thomas Gale to the colony of Trinidad and Tobago, where crime and poverty held a large section of the population in an awful grip. A veteran of the Jamaican wars against ignorance and indigence, Gale arrived in Trinidad in July 1901, ready to open fire. Realising that this would be an uphill battle, he called for reserves, these arriving under the command of Captain Luther Atkins. "By September of that year, the newly invaded island had several promising converts" writes Doreen Hobbs in her little Book "Jewels of the Caribbean". There was real resistance to the work.

One young volunteer, Lieutenant Lilian Bailey, was knocked down and had to be hospitalised!

The Port of Spain Central Corps became to be known as "Number 1". A member, Brother Whistle, was over 100 years old in 1917, and could remember the days of slavery. The first person to wear the Salvation Army's uniform was the wife of Corps Treasurer Abraham Busby. In 1903, the sailors' home on Queen Street was opened, and seamen, shore labourers and sailors enjoyed its hospitality. "In one year alone, 7,581 meals were supplied and 10,807 men slept at the home," writes Hobbs. In 1913, Trinidad's Governor, Sir George Le Hunte, visited the sailors' home, and must have been duly impressed: in a successive session of the Legislative Council, £520 were granted to the Salvation Army towards a new home for soldiers and sailors.

In the legendary escape from Devil's Island in French Guiana in 1930, 200 men were taken into the care of the Salvation Army and nursed back to strength. But it was not the end of their journey: they were just placed in groups on safer vessels, and with 10 days' rations on board were tugged back out into international waters and left to their own devices to find refuge somewhere else! One of the fugitives was René Belbenoît, who in his much-acclaimed books about Devil's Island "Dry Guillotine" and "Hell on Trial" wrote about his Salvation Army experience in Trinidad.

In 1908, a central hall was opened in Port of Spain by the then Governor, the Hon. Adam Smith. Number 3 in Belmont also got accommodations. Number 2 Corps was located in Tragarete Road. Colour Sergeant Goring distinguished himself as an enthusiastic leader of the open-air brigade in those early years. Other significant names of the first decade of the 20th century at Tragarete Road were Corps Secretary H.O. Thomas and Corps Treasurer Henry Lewis. It was only half a century later, in 1955, that Tragarete Road received a new hall and quarters.

Another long-standing local officer of "Number 1" was Corps Sergeant-Major Ralph Hoyte, who had come from Barbados. He got married to Martha Gibbs and raised five children in the Salvation Army ethos.

In 1907, the Tunapuna Corps was launched. General Frederick Coutts cut the ribbon personally 59 years later, in 1966, and Brigadier Edna Burgess opened the Army hall in Tunapuna.

The early years of the Salvation Army in Tobago were first recorded in 1909, but it is possible that a Corps was established there before that year. But it was not until 30 years later, in 1939, that the Tobago representative on the Legislative Council, the Hon. George de Nobriga, opened a brand new hall for the Corps in Scarborough. "Now, as the steamer from Trinidad drops anchor in Scarborough Bay, one of the first sights that meets the eye is a pleasing two-store y building right on the sea-front bearing the Salvation Army sign." (The War Cry, June 1939, as quoted by Hobbs). Serving in the Salvation Army in Tobago in the formative years were Brigadier Edward J. Bax, Lieut.-Colonel Gordon Simpson, Captain Shepherd, Captain Skeete and Lieutenant Davis, to name but a few.