Trinidad and Tobago

I suppose most people don’t know, or don’t remember anymore, that I did a music degree, in addition to my BA, followed by my current studies for an MA (or two) in English. Back when I was studying music to my heart’s content, I was part of the conservatorium’s choir. Yes, there were the usual numbers—Mozart’s Requiem, of course, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. And, oddly, The Geographical Fugue. I loved this piece—it was a spoken work, and I still remember it. I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t Sprechstimme, but just spoken with varied dynamics, but it was one of the most fun pieces I’ve ever performed in. In four voices (you know, fugue-like) each choir section enters, and the rhythms of the piece all build from the rhythms of places and geographical features. The opening? A great roar of “TRINIDAD!”

And so, when I was looking at my list of independence days, I suddenly thought “TRINIDAD!” when I saw that, yes, 31 August is Independence Day in Trinidad and Tobago—Trinidad and Tobago being the two main islands of the nation. Tobago is really very small compared with Trinidad, but it’s important to not leave it out. We like inclusion.

Trinidad and Tobago? Well, they bring us both calypso and the limbo. Also—Trinidad? The earliest settled part of the Caribbean. As in, people arrived at least 7000 years ago. Tobago got its name because it’s shaped like a cigar—or that’s what the people naming it thought. The name Trinidad was given by Columbus—in a sacred mood he named it after the Holy Trinity.

Almost 100 years after the island was “discovered” by the European world, Sir Walter Raleigh went there. While this is significant because he attacked San José, I really just mentioned it because Raleigh is such a great character. I’d be pretty pleased if he’d dropped in on Australia. I’d imagine him laying his cloak on the ground on some dusty bush track.

So, the island was really in the control of the Spanish, with the Frenchman Roume de St. Laurent showing up and getting a Cédula de Población from Charles III of Spain, and free lands were being granted to any Catholics willing to swear allegiance to the Spanish king. A bunch of people showed up. In 1802 Trinidad went to the British, and a whole lot more settlers came from England. It did get passed around a bit still, though—even Courlanders from what is now Latvia took over for a while. (Latvians in the Caribbean? I had no idea.)

After declaring independence from the United Kingsom in 1962, the country became a republic in 1976. Income for Trinis? Well, it started off as sugar, moved to cacao—and these days its oil.

On the downside? Well, Trinidad still enables the use of the Cat o’nine tails when disciplining prisoners—though it hasn’t been brought out in the past few years since the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered the government to pay a prisoner $50,000.

Derek Walcott, though born in St Lucia, has ties to Trinidad, and of course there’s V. S. Naipaul—definitely a famous son. And a poem? How about “In Our Time” by Harold M. Telemaque. Thanks to The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse.


In Our Time

In our land,
Poppies do not spring
From atoms of young blood,

So gaudily where men have died:
In our land,
Stiletto cane blades
Sink into our hearts,
And drink our blood.

In our land,
Sin is not deep.
And bends before the truth,
Asking repentantly for pardon:
In our Land,
The ugly stain
That blotted Eden garden
Is sunk deep only.

In our land,
Storms do not strike
For territory’s fences,
Elbow room, nor breathing spaces:
In our land,
The hurricane
Of clashes break our ranks
For tint of eye.

In our land,
We do not breed
That taloned king, the eagle,
Nor make emblazonry of lions:
In our land,
The black birds
And the chickens of our mountains
Speak our dreams.

—Harold M. Telemaque
from The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse