Shereen Ali

Do crimes against hu­man­i­ty re­al­ly mat­ter, if they hap­pened 500 years ago?

For 59-year-old Ri­car­do Bharath Her­nan­dez, the an­swer is an un­equiv­o­cal yes.

Her­nan­dez is chief of the San­ta Rosa First Peo­ple's Com­mu­ni­ty, a group formed in 1970 of more than 200 peo­ple who are de­scend­ed from this is­land's first in­hab­i­tants of Amerindi­an de­scent.

The very first "Trinida­di­ans" in­clud­ed Amerindi­ans of the Kali­na, Warao, Kalipuna, Nepuyo, Taino, Aru­a­ca and Carib peo­ples. Some lived here as long as 7,000 years ago. For many cen­turies, these peo­ples evolved their own civil­i­sa­tion. Trinidad's Amerindi­ans were part of a large in­ter-is­land and is­land-to-main­land trade net­work. The Warao of Venezuela, who still ex­ist, used to vis­it Trinidad reg­u­lar­ly for cen­turies, right up un­til 1930, to trade par­rots, hunt­ing dogs and ham­mocks.

Thou­sands of de­scen­dants of these dif­fer­ent peo­ples still ex­ist in Trinidad, Her­nan­dez be­lieves–but they are scat­tered through­out the is­land, and their lin­eage has be­come so changed from cen­turies of mis­ce­gena­tion and cul­tur­al shat­ter­ing that they may not look Amerindi­an, self-iden­ti­fy as Amerindi­an, or even have any clue that Amerindi­an blood runs through their veins.

Her­nan­dez him­self has some East In­di­an and Span­ish her­itage, but iden­ti­fies most close­ly with his Amerindi­an roots.

Her­nan­dez ad­mit­ted he was un­aware of the full mean­ing of his own Amerindi­an her­itage un­til he start­ed on a per­son­al process of self-ed­u­ca­tion and self-dis­cov­ery many years ago, trig­gered by talks with el­ders and meet­ing oth­er in­dige­nous peo­ples.

Do­mini­can fri­ar Bar­tolome de las Casas out­lined some of the more ex­treme bru­tal­i­ties of the ear­ly years of Span­ish coloni­sa­tion in the Caribbean, which in­clud­ed steal­ing Amerindi­ans' food and land, killing the men, en­slav­ing and rap­ing the women, and var­i­ous tor­tures, in­clud­ing slow­ly roast­ing In­di­an lead­ers alive on grid­dles in His­pan­io­la, and slash­ing open the bel­lies of Amerindi­an pris­on­ers, even old men and preg­nant women.

In Cu­ba alone, Las Casas said 7,000 chil­dren were killed in three months. The slaugh­ter across the re­gion was huge.

As Eng­lish bar­ris­ter and not­ed his­to­ri­an Do­minic Sel­wood apt­ly wrote in his Sept 2, 2014 blog in The Tele­graph, called Colum­bus, Greed, Slav­ery and Geno­cide: What Re­al­ly Hap­pened to the Amer­i­can In­di­ans: "It was an or­gy of loot­ing and butch­ery."

Mass death, Amerindi­an slav­ery

Ac­cord­ing to his­to­ri­an An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh, the geno­cide in Trinidad re­al­ly stepped up af­ter 1592, when the Span­ish set up their first town in Trinidad–St Joseph–right on lands be­long­ing to the cacique Goag­onare.

The Span­ish en­comien­da sys­tem sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly bru­talised the In­di­ans by steal­ing their free­dom, forc­ing them to labour on Span­ish plan­ta­tions lo­cat­ed in Ar­icagua (San Juan), Tacarigua and Arau­ca (Arou­ca), and forcibly con­vert­ing them to Chris­tian­i­ty, strip­ping them of much of their cul­ture. Many died along the way.

First Peo­ples in Trinidad were cap­tured to work the co­coa fields in the North­ern Range and the to­bac­co gar­dens in the en­comien­das in the Siparia-Erin area.

Most of the clear­ing of land in the present East-West cor­ri­dor and the up­lands of Na­pari­ma and Oropouche was done by Amerindi­an labour, state the San­ta Rosa First Peo­ple's Com­mu­ni­ty, the group which the T&T Gov­ern­ment to­day recog­nis­es as the le­git­i­mate rep­re­sen­ta­tive of T&T's re­main­ing in­dige­nous peo­ple.

The East-West cor­ri­dor it­self was once an an­cient Amerindi­an path­way con­nect­ing the orig­i­nal Nepuyo vil­lages of Ar­icagua, Tacarigua, Arau­ca, and Cau­ra.

In 1786, states Bisses­sars­ingh, re­main­ing Amerindi­ans at Ar­icagua and Tacarigua were moved to Ari­ma, with a small­er num­ber be­ing moved to present-day Princes Town. He re­ferred to their ut­ter "de­spair and de­feat" in his re­cent ar­ti­cle Strong Case for Repa­ra­tion, in which he traces in de­tail what hap­pened to the First Peo­ples in Trinidad, and ad­vances a case for prop­er­ty rights for the Ari­ma de­scen­dants.

Learn­ing about his her­itage

"I was born and grew up in the area that was con­sid­ered to be the last home of the Amerindi­ans, in Cal­vary in Ari­ma," shared Chief Her­nan­dez on Mon­day, speak­ing at the Her­itage Vil­lage in the Ari­ma Velo­drome–part of the First Peo­ple's Her­itage Week of events from Oc­to­ber 10 to 18.

"As a child, I grew up with my grand­moth­er, Olive Ec­cles (nee Her­nan­dez), and my aunts and great-aunts, and even had the great good for­tune of know­ing my great-grand­moth­er and great-grand­fa­ther...My grand­moth­er talked to me re­li­gious­ly about the Amerindi­ans, about the dif­fer­ent tribes and their his­to­ry...Many of the el­ders have passed, but I learned from them."

"I de­vel­oped an at­tach­ment to the San­ta Rosa fes­ti­val. Why? Be­cause it brought to­geth­er fam­i­ly. There was a com­mu­ni­ty spir­it, a to­geth­er­ness, a shar­ing. That at­tract­ed me, and grew stronger as I went on."

The San­ta Rosa Fes­ti­val is a cel­e­bra­tion with­in the Catholic Church that harks back to Ari­ma's days as an Amerindi­an Mis­sion vil­lage.

Her­nan­dez ex­plained how he saw the fes­ti­val de­clin­ing as el­ders of Amerindi­an roots died, ties to the land and agri­cul­ture fad­ed, and younger ones left to make a dif­fer­ent kind of liv­ing.

So at the age of 16, he de­cid­ed to help keep the fes­ti­val alive. He helped start month­ly meet­ings to keep every­one con­nect­ed, and al­though he left for a while to work in the US, he re­turned every year to help or­gan­ise the fes­ti­val.

"I am mixed, but I knew I had strong Amerindi­an roots...At the time I didn't know the de­tails of the her­itage –the cul­ture and rights..." But though con­nect­ing with oth­ers, he learned, and ed­u­cat­ed him­self about his own peo­ple's his­to­ry.

Time for mean­ing­ful recog­ni­tion

Her­nan­dez has been a con­sis­tent ad­vo­cate for more mean­ing­ful recog­ni­tion of First Peo­ples rights here.

He ac­knowl­edges First Peo­ples were recog­nised by Cab­i­net in 1990; at that time a small sub­ven­tion of $30,000 was grant­ed an­nu­al­ly to the San­ta Rosa First Peo­ple's Com­mu­ni­ty. Lat­er, in 1993 the com­mu­ni­ty re­ceived a Cha­co­nia Sil­ver Na­tion­al Award for work in cul­ture and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice.

"These things will not em­pow­er you as a peo­ple to sur­vive. It is to­ken recog­ni­tion. It does not do any­thing to up­lift and em­pow­er the com­mu­ni­ty to move from one stage to the next."

Land rights in lim­bo

"I strong­ly be­lieve that many gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials do not know the his­to­ry of the First Peo­ples, and es­pe­cial­ly, the is­sue of land rights when it comes to the First Peo­ples of Ari­ma. They don't know. It is on­ly now, some of them are be­com­ing aware, be­cause we are dis­cussing it.

"They may feel: this is just an­oth­er group look­ing for hand­outs. But in­dige­nous peo­ple have a unique, in­her­ent right to the land. All peo­ples need the land for sur­vival, re­gard­less of if you are in­dige­nous or not, but in­dige­nous peo­ples have a unique right–all peo­ples met us here first."

Her­nan­dez ex­plained that he is not talk­ing about giv­ing in­di­vid­ual plots of land to peo­ple of Amerindi­an her­itage; he is talk­ing about hav­ing a per­ma­nent, sin­gle land area of rea­son­able size to be owned col­lec­tive­ly, to build a sus­tain­able vil­lage. The vil­lage would have a cas­sa­va pro­cess­ing plant, a mu­se­um, a herbar­i­um, and would op­er­ate eco-tours in the for­est.

First Peo­ples could de­vel­op their arts, crafts, and mu­sic there. There could be a guest house for vis­i­tors.

"These ac­tiv­i­ties would al­low our peo­ple to be self-sus­tain­ing," stressed Her­nan­dez.

"Un­der the last gov­ern­ment, five acres were giv­en," said Her­nan­dez. "Then when the new Gov­ern­ment came in, they re­scind­ed that, and gave the San­ta Rosa First Peo­ples Com­mu­ni­ty 25 acres to build a mod­el Amerindi­an Vil­lage.

"But be­cause the land is in a for­est re­serve area, there are many le­gal­i­ties and com­pli­ca­tions that have pre­vent­ed us from start­ing to do any­thing. They say they can 'de-re­serve' it for use by the com­mu­ni­ty...Will it be leased? Will it be a grant? Will it be al­lo­cat­ed for use? We don't know...A Cab­i­net com­mit­tee will study it, un­der the Na­tion­al Di­ver­si­ty min­istry, and make rec­om­men­da­tions to Cab­i­net.

"We would like a larg­er por­tion of land to be al­lo­cat­ed to the First Peo­ples," said Her­nan­dez.

"Un­der the Pan­day ad­min­is­tra­tion, we asked for 200 acres. Some felt it was ask­ing for too much; we wouldn't get it. But they do not un­der­stand. They feel that you are ask­ing for 200 acres of land to bull­doze it! And that you re­al­ly do not have the ca­pac­i­ty to work it, so you are mad. That is how some look at it.

"But the for­est plays an in­te­gral part in the in­dige­nous cul­ture. So most of this land would be kept in its pris­tine state. We need the for­est for har­vest ma­te­ri­als for craft, for hous­ing, for med­i­cines, for farm­ing. Just a small per­cent­age would be for build­ings.

?

A his­to­ry of land theft

"The Amerindi­an peo­ple were brought to Ari­ma in the es­tab­lish­ment of the Mis­sion in 1759, which was ne­glect­ed for 30 years, then en­larged in 1785...The Amerindi­ans in Ari­ma num­bered more than 600 at that time; and they were grant­ed, col­lec­tive­ly, 1,000 acres of land. The land was held in trust by the Church for the Amerindi­ans–there were no in­di­vid­ual deeds...Then an­oth­er gov­er­nor came and added 320 acres of land to that orig­i­nal 1,000. So in all, the Amerindi­ans of Ari­ma owned 1,320 acres.

"And un­der the British, all the lands were tak­en and sold, be­cause they asked the Amerindi­ans for a deed. In Christ's name, where would they have got­ten a deed? Who would have giv­en them a deed?...And that is how the Amerindi­ans lost their land. All 1,320 acres were tak­en away from them. It was es­sen­tial­ly theft.

"I am be­ing re­al­is­tic and prac­ti­cal. I am not ask­ing the Gov­ern­ment to­day to give us back 1,320 acres. But to give us back just 25 acres is an in­sult. It is ridicu­lous."

"First Peo­ples were the foun­da­tion of this coun­try. It is im­por­tant we know that. Civil­i­sa­tion did not start with Colum­bus."