Trinidad and Tobago

“ A person born outside Trinidad and Tobago after the 30th August, 1962 whose mother was a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago otherwise than by descent at the date of his birth but who did not become a citizen at that date shall be deemed to have become a citizen at that date and shall continue to be a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago under this Constitution. ”

“ We are continually shuffling the cards, in a hope that a better game may be played with them. Tobago is now-annexed to Trinidad. Last year it was a part of Mr. S——'s dominions which he periodically visited. I fell in with him again on his return, and he told us an incident which befell him there, illustrating the unexpected shapes in which the schoolmaster is appearing among the blacks. ”

“ Evil times were come upon them. Two years after, the Indians at Punta Galera (the north-east point of the island) told poor Keymis that they intended to escape to Tobago when they could no longer keep Trinidad, though the Caribs of Dominica were ‘such evil neighbours to it’ that it was quite uninhabited. Their only fear was lest the Spaniards, worse neighbours than even the Caribs, should follow them thither. ”

“ Among colonial possessions England took from France the Mauritius, Tobago, and Saint Lucia, but she returned Martinique and the Isle of Bourbon, and forced Sweden and Portugal to restore Guadeloupe and French Guiana. With regard to Holland, England retained Ceylon and the Cape of Good Hope, but she restored Java, Curaçao, and the other Dutch possessions. In the West Indies also, she retained, as has been said, the former Spanish island of Trinidad. ”

“ The countries to which this section applies are Australia, the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Botswana, Canada, Cyprus, Fiji, the Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Nauru, New Zealand, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tonga, Uganda, United Kingdom and Colonies, Western Samoa and Zambia. ”

“ After the failures on the South American coast, the English grasped these outposts of the tropics and, side by side with the French, were soon firmly established across one of the principal highways of Spanish commerce. In 1623 St. Christopher was temporarily occupied and was actually settled in 1625. The same year (1625) Sir William Courten started the first colony in Barbados. In 1627 Lord Carlisle received a grant which covered the Caribbees, and the following year the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery also obtained rights to Trinidad. Tobago, and Barbados. ”

“ That British rule has been a solid blessing to Trinidad, all honest folk know well. Even in Picton’s time, the population increased, in six years, from 17,700 to 28,400; in 1851 it was 69,600; and it is now far larger.
But Trinidad has gained, by becoming English, more than mere numbers. Had it continued Spanish, it would probably be, like Cuba, a slave-holding and slave-trading island, now wealthy, luxurious, profligate; and Port of Spain would be such another wen upon the face of God’s earth as that magnificent abomination, the city of Havanna. ”

“ I told you, on the way over here, that Trinidad is reckoned one of the most prosperous islands of the West Indies—though it really belongs more to the coast of South America than it does to the Antilles—but, if you stop to think for a moment, you'll see that the prosperity of Trinidad is due to the fact that it has a warm, moist, even climate all the year round. That's fine for cocoa and coco-nuts, but it's not good for humans. The warm moist air of Trinidad is deuced enervating. No, let me go back to Barbados. ”

“ The island of Trinidad claimed by Harden-Hickey must not be confused with the larger Trinidad belonging to Great Britain and lying off Venezuela.
The English Trinidad is a smiling, peaceful spot of great tropical beauty; it is one of the fairest places in the West Indies. At every hour of the year the harbor of Port of Spain holds open its arms to vessels of every draught. A governor in a pith helmet, a cricket club, a bishop in gaiters, and a botanical garden go to make it a prosperous and contented colony. ”

“ I can assure you that the King and all of us in the old country have very much at heart the welfare of Trinidad and all the British West Indies, also of all other British possessions," a statement which cannot be too often repeated in sentiment or exemplified in fact. ”

“ The facts that Trinidad is out of the hurricane track and off the earthquake belt have had a good deal to do with its prosperity, too, you know. My friend Cecil always declares that Trinidad and Jamaica together, the two richest of the West Indian islands, ought to run the whole cluster of Caribbean islands, just as little England runs the whole British Empire. ”

“ The good people of Trinidad have long since agreed to let bygones be bygones; and it speaks well for the common-sense and good feeling of the islanders, as well as for the mildness and justice of British rule, that in two generations such a community as that of modern Trinidad should have formed itself out of materials so discordant. ”

“ Yet, for our purpose, Trinidad may be counted as a South America in miniature.
One notices, in the tangled undergrowth in the forests, in the ever-brilliant foliage of the wooded heights and green valleys, a something that one had not noticed in the other islands. The place is indescribably foreign. It is not like the countries we have already seen, yet it is not unlike them. Trinidad is a West Indian island, but in appearance it more closely resembles the South American mainland than any of its sister-lands in the Caribbean group. ”

“ Already the Coolies have a far larger amount of money in the savings’ banks of the island than the Negroes; and their prosperity can be safely trusted to wise and benevolent laws, enforced by men who can afford to stand above public opinion, as well as above private interest. I speak, of course, only of Trinidad, because only Trinidad I have seen. But what I say I know intimately to be true.
The parade over—and a pleasant sight it was, and one not easily to be forgotten—we were away to see the Salse, or ‘mud-volcano,’ near Monkey Town, in the forest to the south-east. ”

“ The Spanish Government have passed an edict, permitting all foreigners of the Roman Catholic religion to establish themselves in the beautiful and fertile island of Trinidad, where they are to be protected for five years from being pursued for debts incurred in the places they have quitted. ”

“ Since the island of Trinidad has become an English colony, the whole of the eastern extremity of the province of Cumana, especially the coast of Paria, and the gulf of the same name, have changed their appearance. Foreigners have settled there, and have introduced the cultivation of the coffee-tree, the cotton-tree, and the sugar-cane of Otaheite. The population has greatly increased at Carupano, in the beautiful valley of Rio Caribe, at Guira, and at the new town of Punta di Piedra, built opposite Spanish Harbour, in the island of Trinidad. ”

“ There are several fine public parks and drives, and socially Trinidad in the winter season is one of the gayest cities on the Island. It is lighted by gas, and though it has no sewers, its location is such that the rains keep it washed clean. The population is eighteen thousand. In good times Trinidad has shipped to the United States $903,700 worth of sugar, mahogany, coffee, and honey in one year, but times have been poor in recent years, and Trinidad is one of the towns which will feel the reviving effects of the new era of prosperity. ”

“ Long before he reaches these, however, the visitor is sure to be struck by the astonishing variety of types that make up the population. Unlike that of the smaller islands, the development of Trinidad came mainly after African slavery was beginning to be frowned upon, and though the negro element of its population is large, the monotony of flat noses and black skins is broken by an equal number of other racial characteristics. ”

“ It may not perhaps be fair to adduce the prosperity of Barbados, and to compare it with the adversity of Jamaica, seeing that local circumstances were advantageous to Barbados at the times of emancipation and equalization of the sugar duties. Barbados was always able to command a plentiful supply of labour. But it is quite fair to compare Jamaica with Guiana or Trinidad. In both these colonies the negro was as well able to shirk his work as in Jamaica. ”

“ The purple mountains of the island ranges, nearly two thousand feet high, divided the vast expanse of the heavens from the crimson waters of the harbour, lazily lapping the quay-sides of Port of Spain. Trinidad, discovered also by Columbus, is very hot and very prosperous. It belonged to the Spaniards till 1797, since which time it has belonged to us. Cocoa plantations flourish, and the Lake of Pitch is—and, I presume, will be for years to come—a [81] magnificent source of never-failing wealth. From it large quantities of asphaltum are taken and exported. ”

“ They could scarcely believe that the ranges of lofty, cloud-topped mountains, the far-reaching valleys and the interminable shores stretching away in the dim distance were on an island and not a continent. When they mentioned this, Commander Disbrow explained that Trinidad really is a bit of the tip of South America cut off only by the narrow Bocas at the two ends of the Gulf of Paria. ”

“ In Trinidad, there are upwards of fifteen thousand free people of color; there is not a single pauper amongst them; they live independently and comfortably, and nearly half of the property of the island is said to be in their hands. ”

“ At present, there is hardly an Indian of certainly pure blood in the island, and that only in the northern mountains.
Trinidad ought to have been, at least for those who were not Indians, a happy place from the seventeenth almost to the nineteenth century, if it be true that happy is the people who have no history. Certain Dutchmen, whether men of war or pirates is not known, attacked it some time toward the end of the seventeenth century, and, trying to imitate Raleigh, were well beaten in the jungles between the Caroni and San Josef. ”

“ Nowhere in Port of Spain will you see such human beings as in certain streets of London, Liverpool, and Glasgow. Every one plainly can live and thrive if they choose; and very pleasant it is to know that.” And wonderfully well does that mixed and happy-go-lucky population assimilate. Trinidad belongs to Great Britain; but there are more negroes, half-breeds, Hindoos, and Chinese there than Britons by ten times ten; and the language of the island is mainly French, not English or Spanish. ”

“ Even as observed from the steamer's deck, the mountains and forests of Trinidad have an aspect very different from those of the other Antilles. The heights are less lofty,—less jagged and abrupt,—with rounded summits; the peaks of Martinique or Dominica rise fully two thousand feet higher. The land itself is a totally different formation,—anciently being a portion of the continent; and its flora and fauna are of South America.
... There comes a great cool whiff of wind,—another and another;—then a mighty breath begins to blow steadily upon us,—the breath of the Orinoco.... ”

“ Consequently, in Trinidad there are many political agitators.
Visitors will land from their mail steamer at Port of Spain and find themselves in a foreign-looking British West Indian capital, in an atmosphere of tramways, telephones, suffocating heat, negroes, and spasmodic bustle and noise. It is a town containing buildings reminiscent of its Spanish, French, and British periods of Government. Houses in all the styles of each nationality will be found on every side. ”

“ Humming-birds flit in and out among its masses of red and purple bougainvillea. The trade wind, which seldom reaches Port of Spain, sweeps down through a break in the brownish-green hills which hem the former capital in; if it is uncomfortably hot at noonday, it is because all Trinidad is aware of its proximity to the equator. ”

“ But in Trinidad and Guiana they have no House of Commons, with Mr. Speaker, three readings, motions for adjournment, and unlimited powers of speech. In those colonies the governments—acting with such assistance as was necessary—have succeeded in getting foreign labour. In Jamaica they have as yet but succeeded in talking about it. In Guiana and Trinidad they make much sugar, and boast loudly of making more. In Jamaica they make but very little, and have not self-confidence enough left with them to make any boast whatsoever. ”

“ That while this distress has been felt to a much less extent in some of the smaller and more populous islands, it has been so great in the larger colonies of Jamaica, British Guiana, and Trinidad, as to have caused many estates, hitherto prosperous and productive, to be cultivated for the last two or three years at considerable loss, and others to be abandoned. ”

“ I was told that the keener-witted Trinidad blacks are watching as eagerly as we do the development of the Irish problem. They see the identity of the situation. They see that if the Radical view prevails, and in every country the majority are to rule, Trinidad will be theirs and the government of the English will be at an end. I, for myself, look upon Trinidad and the West Indies generally as an opportunity for the further extension of the influence of the English race in their special capacity of leaders and governors of men. ”

“ Take any of the other languages and you have the same result; for your Trinidadian understands when he wants to, but woe betide you when you ask a question and want to know the answer. The native in Trinidad is bright and quick; he is not like his big lazy lout of a brother down in our Southland. He is a mix-up of many people, intelligent and active, and his language tells what a conglomerate he is, and what a happy-go-lucky life he leads. ”