JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Local author examines the history of Toco

by

20120821

To­co, a rur­al vil­lage with an Amerindi­an name, has shot to na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al promi­nence as the home­town of T&T's Olympic gold medal­list Keshorn Wal­cott. Al­ready pop­u­lar as a sea­side es­cape, the dis­trict gained greater promi­nence when Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said its best known land­mark, the To­co Light­house, would be re­named the "Ker­shon Wal­cott To­co Light­house." Lo­cal au­thor and his­to­ri­an Michael An­tho­ny fo­cused on the "pret­ty vil­lage" of To­co in his book Towns and Vil­lages (pub­lished in 2001.) In the fore­word, An­tho­ny said he want­ed to share knowl­edge of T&T with young stu­dents and in­ter­est­ed peo­ple. An ex­cerpt said: "This work was un­der­tak­en out of a cu­ri­ousi­ty to look in­to the back­ground of our set­tle­ments to see how they first ap­peared on the Trinidad map, and to find out what led to their es­tab­lish­ment. "So many peo­ple have asked them­selves 'How is it so many of our vil­lages have Span­ish names, as in the case of San­gre Grande, San Fer­nan­do and Rio Claro; while oth­ers have French names like Care­nage and Pointe-a-Pierre. And oth­ers have Amerindi­an names like Ma­yaro and Ari­ma.'

"In To­ba­go, it is no­ticed Eng­lish-ori­ent­ed names like Scar­bor­ough, Rox­bor­ough and Ply­mouth abound, and not so many of the Span­ish or French. "It is iron­ic since To­ba­go has been a French pos­ses­sion and Trinidad nev­er was. Nei­ther are there many Carib names in To­ba­go al­though the very name of the is­land is of Carib ori­gin." An ex­cerpt on To­co said: "Turn­ing from the mist and spray of Point Galera we see the vil­lage cen­tre which lies about two miles to the west. It was here that an Eng­lish force un­der Sir Hen­ry Colt came ashore in 1631 with­out the knowl­edge of the Span­ish set­tle­ment and tried to found a set­tle­ment. They were ex­pelled by the Dutch who land­ed South of here in 1637, and who formed a close al­liance with the Amerindi­ans in the area." It added: "Not much hap­pened but a lit­tle more than a cen­tu­ry lat­er Ca­puchin monks came on the scene. "They found­ed a mis­sion a lit­tle to the west of where the vil­lage cen­tre is to­day. "The mis­sion was for the con­ver­sion of the Amerindi­ans, a great num­ber of whom seemed to have lived in this area. The mean­ing of To­co is not clear. The area of the mis­sion re­ferred to is known as Mis­sion Vil­lage. "The po­si­tion of that mis­sion was a lit­tle way in­land, on the west of To­co Bay. There was an­oth­er such mis­sion at Cumana."

To­co pro­duced an abun­dance of cot­ton

An­tho­ny said: "These ear­ly French set­tlers (num­ber­ing about 28) could not have found soil suit­able for sug­ar-cane. An in­ven­to­ry of 1797 showed there was just one sug­ar-mill in the dis­trict. There were as many as 59 cot­ton mills. The labour force num­bered 158 slaves and 62 free blacks. Amerindi­ans were list­ed as to­talling 155 at the time. "They turned the vil­lage in­to a de­pot of pro­duce. But it was ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult to get it out of this in­ac­ces­si­ble place. Gov­er­nor Ralph Wooford start­ed the round-is­land steam­er ser­vice in 1818. To­co re­ceived great pri­or­i­ty. "As a re­sult, To­co pros­pered not on­ly be­cause of fre­quent com­mu­ni­ca­tion with To­ba­go, through the steam­er ser­vice." To­co achieved parish sta­tus in 1930. An­tho­ny added: "It was no sur­prise from the Catholic Church. A new church ded­i­cat­ed to Our La­dy of the As­sump­tion was re­built at Mis­sion Vil­lage, just where the Ca­puchins had set up the first church." Sum­ming up sen­ti­ments, An­tho­ny not­ed "One re­mains with the im­pres­sion To­co is still vi­brant and ex­cit­ing."

About Michael An­tho­ny

He was born in Ma­yaro on Feb­ru­ary 10, 1930 and at­tend­ed the Ma­yaro RC School. He of­ten tells, of how the Ma­yaro land­scape, lat­er pro­vid­ed much in­spi­ra­tion for his books. Be­ing born in such a beau­ti­ful place he says has al­ways giv­en him thoughts of be­ing a writer in or­der to de­scribe it. This is a task he feels he is yet to ac­com­plish. Nalis (the Na­tion­al Li­brary of Trinidad and To­ba­go) was kind to him in 2003 to in­stall, un­der their aus­pices, a full col­lec­tion of his work in the Nalis li­brary at Pier­re­ville, Ma­yaro, and they even in­dulged him in 2005 when they pur­chased some of his lat­er pa­pers, be­ing housed at their head­quar­ters li­brary in Port-of-Spain. (Some of his ear­li­er pa­pers had been ac­quired by the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies at St Au­gus­tine in 2003). An­tho­ny has writ­ten books of Fic­tion in­clud­ing The Games Were Com­ing and The Year in San Fer­nan­do Oth­er his­tor­i­cal pieces were Glimpses of Trinidad and To­ba­go, He­roes of the Peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Port-of-Spain in A World at War and A Bet­ter and Brighter Day.

He ded­i­cat­ed Towns and Vil­lages to his grand­son Julien Michael An­tho­ny. An ex­cerpt from an ar­ti­cle (Ju­ly 28, 2000) from ge­neal­o­gist Shamshu Deen said: "He was close­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with the Na­tion­al Cul­tur­al Coun­cil start­ed by the late Prime Min­is­ter, Er­ic Williams in 1971, and su­per­vised by the not­ed Dr JD el­der. And de­spite his tremen­dous suc­cess eg, the Arts Coun­cil of Great Britain 1967 fel­low­ship, and the con­tri­bu­tion giv­en by this sim­ple but gi­ant of a man to T&T, he re­mains com­mit­ted to his coun­try with a pas­sion to serve. "He al­ways has time to glance up from his deep re­search, as he did last week, to as­sist and ad­vise a young re­searcher try­ing to dis­en­tan­gle some in­tri­cate dilem­ma in her UWI the­sis."


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored